by Leslie Wolfe
The screen shifted back to the news anchor.
“A strong message that left many wondering if it could be interpreted as a declaration of war by Russian President Abramovich.”
The screen shifted again to show the evening’s next news title.
...57
...Tuesday, July 19, 6:38AM Local Time (UTC+8:00 hours)
...Taiwan Taoyuan Airport—International Arrivals
...Taipei, Taiwan
Alex dragged her wheelie luggage on the endless corridors of the international airport, surprised to see how little it differed from any modern, high-traffic American airport. If it weren’t for the Chinese lettering on every sign and every advertisement, it was hard to imagine she had flown around the world to Taiwan.
It felt good to stretch her legs after the long flight. She had flown nonstop from Los Angeles for fourteen hours, and despite flying Delta Business Elite and having her own personal private space where she could lie horizontally and rest or sit comfortably and work on her laptop, she hadn’t slept or gotten much work done. She kept going over the details of her planned visit and spent generous amounts of time thinking, speculating, and analyzing the very limited data she had to work with. She knew the hardware and software specifications by heart. How the devices should look, how many, how they should work, when they were scheduled to be ready and delivered, how quality control would happen, and so on. But that was all she knew.
All resemblance with an airport from back home stopped abruptly when she exited the terminal. A wave of impossibly humid and hot air hit her as soon as the sliding doors of the terminal opened. She felt sweat beads form instantly on her face, at the roots of her hair, and on her back. She struggled to breathe for a minute or so until she adjusted. Damn, this place is hot, she thought.
She walked out of the terminal with her wheelie, laptop bag on it, and suitcase now in tow. A cab pulled up, and she climbed in, holding onto her heavy laptop bag and letting the driver deal with the rest of her luggage. She gave him the hotel address, and they started driving on a highway at first, then on narrow streets filled with motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians. Everything was in Chinese. Every storefront in the low-rise buildings, every sign, every street name. This is gonna be tough, she thought. When the cab turned a corner, she saw a Starbucks coffee shop and sighed with relief. There was at least one familiar place she could go.
The Okura Prestige Taipei hotel was impressive. Situated at the heart of Taipei, on the busy Nanjing Road East, the hotel was another one of the surprising places that could easily be taken for a five-star hotel on American soil. She entered, relieved to be breathing conditioned air again, and got checked in fast by a beautiful young receptionist. The hotel was a pleasure to explore. Marble floors featuring intricate designs, vaulted ceilings illuminated by exquisite crystal chandeliers shining thousands of miniature bulbs, thick carpeting in the dining areas, and a croissant smell to die for in the breakfast restaurant.
Finally in her room, Alex started her stay by running the bug sweeper across every corner, discreetly, just like Sam had taught her. The room was clean. Relieved, she kicked off her shoes and went for the shower, promising herself a croissant breakfast immediately afterward.
She had a day to explore the city a little and get over the jet lag. The next morning she would head to the manufacturing plant and start her investigation. She could hardly wait, feeling the intense time pressure. They had less than four months left until Election Day and less than six weeks until everything had to be ready for deployment, both hardware and software.
But no matter how she tried to rationalize it, she couldn’t head straight to the plant today. No other regular business traveler in her place did that, jumping straight to work after a fourteen-hour flight, so she couldn’t do that either. If she did, she’d raise the suspicions of anyone who paid any attention. She was forced to sacrifice yet another precious day to keep her cover intact. She just hoped she’d finally be able to find some answers. Soon.
...58
...Friday, July 22, 10:26AM Local Time (UTC+2:00 hours)
...Letiště Praha-Kbely Airport Tarmac, Prague East
...Prague, The Czech Republic
Karmal Shah loved flying his new plane, but too much of anything can become a bit of a pain before you know it. He opted to stretch his legs on the tarmac and maybe get a coffee from somewhere, while waiting for the Piaggio to be refueled and loaded. His pilot would stay with the plane, making sure everything was in order for their scheduled departure to the United States.
He stood from the pilot seat with a groan. His back was killing him. A little overweight and carrying a potbelly that he blamed not only on his age but also on the constant temptations offered by Overnight Delight’s product stock, his back hurt quite often. He looked outside the window and noticed the tanker was approaching, right on schedule. It might have been difficult to get this small converted air base to accept him and his plane, but it was totally worth it. The place was quiet, there was hardly any activity, and the staff was complacent, leaving him alone and undisturbed, just the way he liked it.
He made his way toward the plane’s door, careful not to trip on the cases they had picked up in Somalia, his departure point for this trip. The back of the plane had been configured for cargo, and neatly laid out cases of merchandise were hooked to the sides of the plane, immobilized in place.
He unlocked and pushed the plane’s door open.
“Good morning, sir,” a young man holding a clipboard greeted him.
Shah frowned.
“Good morning. What can I do for you?”
“My name is Jaroslav Zelezny, Air Traffic Control. I am asking your permission to inspect the cargo.”
The man’s English was grammatically correct, yet his heavy accent made it hard to follow. Why was ATC looking at his cargo? If anyone would look, it would be Customs.
“We’re a small air base; sometimes we do it all,” the man responded with a crooked, almost embarrassed smile, as if reading his mind. “May I come aboard?”
Shah clenched his jaws, his right hand instinctively reaching for the gun he was carrying at his back, tucked in his belt.
“All right,” Shah invited him coldly, stepping aside to make room. The man climbed up almost happily, or so it seemed. At least he was easy going, not your typical customs officer.
“I need to check your cargo against the cargo manifest you filed with your flight plan. What are you bringing in today? Are you unloading any cargo here today?”
“Yes, I am dropping a case of sesame oil, that one,” Shah said, pointing at the case closest to the plane’s door. The ATC man approached the case and lifted the lid. Neatly packaged bottles, surrounded by straw to prevent breakage during transport. He picked up one of the thin bottles and held it in the light.
“Interesting,” he said. “Is this good?”
“It is. It’s healthy too.”
The man put the bottle back in its case and moved on, touching the wall as he walked toward the front of the plane.
“Are you picking anything up today?” He checked his paperwork.
“Yes, I am loading four cases of caviar and three cases of oysters,” Shah replied. He was starting to lose his patience.
The man kept walking slowly toward the front of the plane, carefully looking at everything. He reached the two cases nearest to the cockpit and stopped. Shah’s right hand went behind his back, grabbing the handle of his pistol.
“What do you have here?”
“More oil, I am afraid,” he said. “There are many rich people who will pay a fortune for these oils,” he continued. He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill the guy. It would be one hell of a mess to clean up, from all perspectives. Maybe he wanted money, a bribe or something.
The man reached and touched the lid of the case next to him. Shah pulled his gun from his belt and brought his arm alongside his body, ready to fire.
“Nice,” the man said, touching the case lid
without opening it. “And in here?” He stepped toward the cockpit. “Any cargo in here?”
“Of course not,” Shah replied.
The man checked out the cockpit thoroughly. Shah’s pilot was still in his seat, flipping switches and preparing the Piaggio for the next leg of the trip. He turned and smiled at the ATC man.
“Would you like to sit in the pilot seat for a moment?”
The man’s face lit up. Shah sighed, tucking the semi-automatic SIG Pro in his belt. This plane of his turned more heads than a Paris Pigalle hooker at the prime of her career. His pilot deserved a bonus. The ATC man thoroughly enjoyed a few minutes of examining the plane’s glass cockpit, controls, and chatting with the pilot. The cargo wasn’t brought up again. Then he stood up and left, excited and thankful, not looking once in the direction of any crate as he made his way out of the plane.
...59
...Friday, July 22, 8:17AM Local Time (UTC+8:00 hours)
...Taiwan Electronics Manufacturing Co.
...Taipei, Taiwan
On her third day visiting the manufacturing plant in Taiwan, Alex saw no difference from the other two days she had spent there looking for any clue, any indication about what the election day attack was planned to be. At the end of two long and frustrating days, she literally had nothing.
Initially, she had been discrete and extremely cautious in her investigation, not wanting to potentially alert the UNSUB to her real agenda. But everywhere she looked, across thousands of square feet of workstations staffed by people wearing white coveralls, facial masks, and hairnets, the story was the same. The workers continued their work undisturbed by her presence, rarely acknowledging her or looking up from the work in front of them. Whenever they looked at her they smiled, a smile only visible in their eyes, as white masks covered their mouths and noses. The sterile and antistatic environment was maintained to the highest standards, not allowing a speck of dust or a single personal item to make it near the production line. Even Alex had to wear white coveralls to enter the assembly floor and special shoes that prevented static electricity from accumulating as she walked. A static discharge, no matter how small, could fry the exposed circuitry of open voting tablets, rendering them useless.
Even the plant managers, just as disciplined as the workers and just as polite, showed no concern for her being there. Smiling and accommodating, they took care of everything she asked for immediately, with the only roadblock being the language barrier. Yes, English was not very common on this factory floor, and when someone did speak a little English, it was broken and very hard to follow and understand. Of course, everyone spoke Chinese, but that didn’t help Alex much.
The day before, she had collected a few pads to test for explosives. She had swiped a few open tablets, even swiped discreetly over a counter and across a production line. Then she swiped the conveyor belt toward the end of the packaging process line. Back at her hotel, she tested all the swabs to find that none carried even the tiniest amount of trace chemicals indicative of the presence of explosives. This was a dead end.
People’s calm reactions were also an indication of a dead end. No matter how hard she pushed it, she wasn’t able to generate one reaction of fear or anger in any of the plant managers. She made them uncomfortable; they seemed confused as to what she was expecting of them and a little flustered, but that was all.
She decided to take it one step further and be bolder, grabbing partially assembled devices from assembly consoles and walking away with them. The workers, unperturbed, just jotted something down on a notepad and picked the next tablet in line, starting the assembly process again. It was obvious these people had nothing to hide.
She gave the factory floor one last look, filled with disbelief and admiration at the same time. Countless rows of people working quietly in perfect discipline and alignment, moving in harmony and following tight procedures, their synchronized performance yielding hundreds of evoting tablets per hour. It was her first opportunity to observe closely the famous Asian worker discipline and manufacturing principles that had made Japan a famous leader in the field several decades ago.
That observation aside, she decided to cut her Taiwan visit short. There was nothing more she could do here, and her gut told her the action, the real threat was at the other vendor’s location in New Delhi.
Alex thanked the floor manager profusely, bowed a little to show her respect as she had observed others do, and left the plant carrying four assembled tablets. Making a stop at a DHL service location after making sure no one was following her, she shipped two of the units to Tom’s address, expedited air.
Back in her hotel room, she screened the room for bugs one last time, then pulled out her encrypted sat phone and called Tom.
“Alex, good to hear from you,” Tom greeted her, recognizing her number. “What’s up?”
“Well, nothing. I mean literally absolutely nothing. This place is squeaky clean, so I’ll book myself on the next flight to New Delhi and leave ASAP. Oh, and I sent you two devices; you should get them in a couple of days. They’re completed devices, picked at random from the packaging line. I swabbed them and everything else at the plant for that matter, and they’re clear.”
“Got it. We’ll do a more thorough inspection once we get them over here. “
“Some things for the lab to consider. We didn’t think of biological threats embedded in the devices, and we didn’t think of toxic chemicals, slowly released as the devices warm up due to prolonged use.”
There was a second silence at the end of the line. Then Tom’s voice said gravely, “I understand.”
“There’s another possible theory,” Alex continued. “Even if the plant is clean, there could be something planned to happen to the physical devices while in transit to get on the ship. These days, entire manufacturing processes take place on ships, en route to the continental United States. Please arrange 100 percent unit testing to be conducted at the receiving warehouse in Utah, and have the staff there on high alert.”
“That’s a good idea,” Tom acknowledged. “What else?”
“That’s it; that’s all I got. I’m booking my flight now. Hopefully, I’ll be in Delhi by tomorrow morning. That’s where my gut tells me I should be. Please let Robert know. He should tell them to expect me on Monday first thing.”
“Keep us posted with every step, Alex, and be very careful.”
“I will, I promise,” Alex said, then hung up. She had every intention to keep that promise.
...60
...Friday, July 22, 10:01PM EDT (UTC-4:00 hours)
...Evening News at Ten
...Nationally Syndicated
Phil Fournier cleared his throat quietly before announcing.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. In a highly anticipated decision today, the proposed amendment to the e-vote reform, known as the secrecy amendment, was passed into law. The amendment, proposed by several members of the Senate concerned with preserving the constitutional right to voter secrecy as part of e-vote reform, is eliminating the scanning of the voter registration cards by the electronic voting machines. This single component of the upcoming electronic vote reform has caused numerous concerns to be voiced and an overall increase in people’s distrust in our government, as shown by polls and interviews.
“The amendment passed today is aiming to restore voters’ confidence that their constitutional rights will be respected in the same degree or higher with the evoting system as they have been with the traditional, paper-based voting process.”
The screen showed a clip demonstrating how electronic voting worked.
“Upon arrival at the voting precincts, voters will present their registration cards at the front desk, where support personnel will check the validity of their registration cards and check the voters’ names off a list. No personal information will be extracted from the voter registration card, and the cards will not be scanned or processed in any other way. This part of the voting process will remain entirely uncha
nged from previous years. Once the voter has been validated at the front desk, he or she will be invited to proceed to a booth, where they will be using the new evoting devices to cast their ballots.
After entering the private booth, they will touch the screen to start, then be walked through a series of screens, one for each ballot. The voters will be prompted to select their preferred option for each question by touching it. The voter’s option will then be highlighted in green, and another screen will prompt the voter to confirm the entry. After receiving the confirmation by another tap on the screen, where it says ‘Confirm,’ the voter will be taken to the next ballot, until the entire set is completed and the process is concluded.”
The image refocused on Phil Fournier’s in-studio desk.
“As you can see, with the new amendment there will be absolutely no possibility to correlate the voting data captured by the evoting devices with the voter registration cards, as it was feared in the initial process. The passing of the secrecy amendment into law today was cheered enthusiastically by demonstrators, rallied in support in front of the Capitol. This measure will restore the badly bruised voter confidence, leading to higher participation rates during the November elections.
“From Flash Elections reporting for the Evening News at Ten, this is Phil Fournier.”
...61
...Saturday, July 23, 1:07PM Local Time (UTC+5:30 hours)
...Indira Gandhi International Airport
...New Delhi, India
Alex dragged her wheelie over the gap between the aircraft’s door and the jetway, feeling a sudden burst of incredibly hot air as she crossed between the two climate-controlled spaces. Happy to be finally leaving the aircraft where she had spent the past eleven hours, she didn’t pay much attention to that sensation of intense, scorching humid heat, blaming it on the brisk air conditioning she had enjoyed throughout her flight.