Thunderbolt: an NTSB / military technothriller (Miranda Chase Book 2)

by M. L. Buchman

  Congress had saved the plane.

  And now, if the plan had worked, popular opinion was supposed to damn them for it.

  But Miranda Chase had uncovered sabotage as the cause of the losses before anyone outside the military had even heard about the A-10 “failures” that were supposed to break the plane’s popularity.

  She sighed.

  Definitely time to close off this effort.

  The Wizard twins would find that damned hacker and shut them down. But would it be soon enough?

  Everyone rose to their feet, and Clarissa scrambled to hers. She should have been paying closer attention.

  President Cole stepped over to shake Miranda’s hand. “Thank you for your fine work on this.”

  “My team did a lot of it, sir.”

  “Yes. Of course. Well, now that that’s done, we can—”

  “We don’t know if it’s done, Mr. President,” Chase cut him off. “We need to move to the simulator and make sure nothing more happens while Director Reese’s people are working on it.”

  “The hole is closed,” Clarissa protested.

  “And are we sure there isn’t another?” Chase looked up at her, though her eyes seemed to be focused over Clarissa’s left shoulder somewhere.

  “My people are very good.”

  “I don’t see how that’s relevant. The saboteur is also very good or they wouldn’t have had such a high success rate. What is relevant is that we don’t definitively know.”

  Clarissa became aware of the others watching her. The CIA fulfilled a vital role and her people wouldn’t fail.

  But she gave the woman a nod that perhaps she was right. There was a hideous thought—conceding anything to Miranda Chase was just so wrong.

  But what if her people weren’t good enough?

  77

  A high-priority alarm went off on Daemon’s alert system.

  The pipeline through the CIA firewall into Eglin had just been closed.

  The program that had closed it had come from inside the CIA. Her alarm had also done a screen-and-camera grab from the computer that had issued the command.

  They’d closed her hole in, but her alarm code had already been inside Eglin and sent the message back out with perfect ease.

  And there they were.

  Wizard Boy and Witchy Lady finally had a face.

  Weren’t they just too cute for words, sitting side by side like that.

  With a face and location, it only took moments before she had far more on them.

  They’d gotten in her way for the last time.

  Fixing them once and for all was going to be so much fun.

  Another ping, this time from someone who had direct access to her, and those were few and far between. Well, as direct as anyone ever was allowed—a three-server bounce with two heavy firewalls.

  From Haggador II. He’d come in around the block she’d thrown up before, which was kinda sweet. He was much more a gamer than a hacker, so it must have been hard for him. It meant he cared.

  She opened the message.

  “Want to come play?” His big avatar was bare-chested and sweaty.

  “Busy now.” Rather than her fierce Harpy, she sent back her semi-cat sylphlike avatar clothed only in soft fur, every sexy curve almost showing. It had taken a lot of work to make the fur flow naturally, sometimes stirred by a passing breeze.

  “Ever in LA? Want to come play for real?” This time rather than his avatar, he sent an actual photo.

  The same face as the avatar—hers wasn’t. But it was a good face. And while his bare chest wasn’t over-muscled Viking warrior, it was very, very acceptable.

  “Maybe soon,” she sent back a faked nudie of Taylor Swift…because Taylor’s body seriously rocked. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  And maybe she would.

  Before playing with Haggador II, she needed to cut a new path into Eglin’s supercomputer.

  But first…

  78

  Harry groaned.

  “Food. Must have food.”

  “And distance,” Heidi agreed.

  Time to clear their heads. Get out of the secure conference room in the goddamn CIA building’s basement for half an hour, stoke up and chill for a bit. They’d have to be sharp to take on Daemon.

  “Rocco’s?”

  Harry shook his head. It was the closest pizza place to the CIA’s Langley headquarters—making it like spook central even if the pizza was first rate.

  “Amoo’s?”

  He nodded. The kebabs were excellent and it was away from Langley’s main restaurant cluster without being too far away. They had some serious work to do, so he didn’t want to go far. To save time, Heidi called in their order to get it cooking. They always got the Combination III—Koobideh ground beef, Barg tenderloin beef, and saffron chicken with black cherry rice.

  Heidi had been a New York City gal, and hadn’t owned a car. His old second-generation Toyota Prius from Seattle had made her laugh at its practicality, but not once had she complained that it wasn’t some hot Beamer or sports car. Nor had she argued when he bought this fourth-gen one new last year. She had a key…that she mostly used for opening the rear hatch. She rarely drove.

  He rolled out the north gate and looped onto the George Washington Parkway.

  At the speed limit—yes, he was that square—he eased his foot on the gas, but the car kept accelerating. Foot off the pedal. Harry even hooked a foot behind it to pull up, but it wasn’t stuck.

  “What are you doing, Harry?” Heidi braced herself. She was never really comfortable in a car.

  “It isn’t me.” As if to prove his point, the wheel jerked in his hands and he jumped into the other lane despite trying to hold it in place.

  “If it isn’t you…” Heidi didn’t finish the sentence. Instead she looked around them. Then up through the moonroof.

  When she didn’t look back down, Harry risked a glance himself. A small drone was keeping pace with them from above. Its high buzz was just audible.

  “We’ve been hacked.”

  He punched the Start/Stop button, but it wasn’t working.

  Shifting the car to Neutral did nothing.

  Daemon—because it had to be the Daemon—kept accelerating and weaving them from one lane to another. The other traffic on the George Washington Parkway was starting to blow their horns as they veered and swerved through the late evening traffic.

  “The Route 123 interchange,” Heidi warned him.

  Less than half a mile ahead.

  It would be easy for Daemon to ram them into a bridge abutment. All the airbags in the world wouldn’t save them from a ninety-mile-an-hour head-on with a concrete wall.

  If Daemon just wanted to mess them up, there had already been plenty of opportunities to slam them into a guard rail or another vehicle.

  No. Daemon wanted their destruction.

  Harry drove this road every day. It was far too easy to picture the heavy supports for the Route 123 bridge over the Parkway.

  Again he tugged on the wheel. He could redirect them for an instant, but Daemon jerked them back into the other lane just to prove his helplessness.

  It wouldn’t be enough.

  Then he remembered something he’d read in the manual, because he was one of those weirdos who actually read manuals.

  “Give me your key! Quickly!”

  As Heidi dug through her purse, he tried to roll down the window.

  Nothing.

  Open the moonroof?

  Still no luck.

  The door wouldn’t unlock at speed.

  Daemon had trapped them in a box.

  He reached down for the small hammer he’d shoved along the left side of his seat.

  A lot of drivers around Seattle’s Puget Sound had them because there was a lot of water to fall into, off bridges and ferries. In the handle was a seatbelt cutter, but the hammer had a special steel tip for smashing car windows.

  “Here,” Heidi shoved her key into his hand.
r />   He let go of the steering wheel, since there was no point in fighting Daemon, and fished out his own key fob.

  Harry slammed the small hammer at the glass as hard as he could without any room to swing.

  The carbon steel tip did exactly as advertised and shattered the window. So easily that he lost his grip and it flew out the window.

  “Harry….” Heidi was pressed back hard in her seat staring at the upcoming bridge.

  He tossed the two key fobs out the missing window.

  As the keys fell behind, the car shut off.

  That’s what he’d remembered from the manual. Toyota had learned that it was too easy to spoof a key fob sitting on a shelf by the front door to start a nearby car. Most keyless cars could then be driven away; they’d run until the engine was stopped or they ran out of gas.

  So they’d made a change.

  The new Prius stopped running the moment both key fobs were too far away.

  He grabbed the wheel and braked hard.

  No power assist, but also free from Daemon’s control.

  The car was dead.

  He steered for the shoulder and eased it to a stop under the bridge.

  Heidi inspected the massive bridge support just inches outside the passenger window.

  Harry looked ahead and spotted the drone that had been transmitting Daemon’s hacking signal.

  For five long seconds it hovered under the bridge with its camera aimed at them.

  Then, in what he hoped was a fit of pure fury, the drone slammed sideways into the next pillar down and shattered into hundreds of pieces.

  “I thought Reese was wrong,” Heidi said softly, still watching the pillar. Better blocking her door than having their car wrapped around it.

  “About what?” Harry’s hands would shake if he took them off the wheel, so he just kept them there.

  “Daemon has to go down really, really hard.”

  79

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Why else would Jeremy have suggested it?” Miranda asked Drake.

  And like he so often did, he had no answer to her own question so she didn’t see any point in answering his.

  She absolutely was not sure about this. But Jeremy had proved himself time and time again. It was hard for her, but she decided to trust him.

  Clarissa Reese had gone back to see how her people were doing. She’d also promised to look into the lost CIA drones. Her phone had pinged as they were leaving the White House and Miranda managed to see the message. The CIA had just lost a small drone somewhere in DC.

  Miranda knew what had happened to the MQ-9 Reapers, but the RQ-170 Sentinel’s fate was still in question. She’d be surprised if they ever heard anything about it.

  This loss didn’t appear to be tied to any attacks, so perhaps it was another problem, in which case it didn’t concern her.

  Or the hacker disposing of the evidence?

  Yes, that must be it.

  Miranda felt much better now. She always felt out of balance around unresolved issues.

  Sergeant Lamont was driving the three of them—Drake, Lizzy, and herself—to the original SIMNET site in the Pentagon.

  Which had been Jeremy’s idea.

  Perhaps between them at Eglin and herself in Washington, they’d be able to enter the simulation if necessary and quickly determine what was simulated and what was real world. If the hacker attacked on schedule, they’d be ready to help.

  If the CIA had stopped them, all the better.

  To prepare herself, Miranda built up the simulator’s history in her mind, layer by layer. Just like nested spheres so that she could think about it in the present without having to think about all its past each time she tried.

  DARPA had developed the first battle simulator in 1987.

  By 1990, they were networking hundreds of simulators together. “Battle Labs” were soon formed at several major forts.

  For the Army, the Close Combat Tactical Trainer and Combined Aircrew Mission Task Trainer had replaced SIMNET before 9/11. It had drastically improved their individual and battlefield tactics for their tanks, armored vehicles, and helicopters.

  Soon the Air Force had joined in with massive thousand-station installations and America began to learn through simulated battles just what was possible.

  With the integration of information from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts into the various branches’ Directorates of Simulation, the learning had accelerated.

  And apparently, so had the risks.

  None of the major installations had ended up near Washington, DC, but there was a small training center in the basement of the Pentagon. Left over from the SIMNET days, it was kept upgraded so that commanders could interactively participate in the sim warfare. There were also a few stations set up for pilots on assignment to the Pentagon so that they could keep their skills at least moderately current.

  Miranda checked her watch as they pulled into the Pentagon’s garage.

  Twenty-seven minutes.

  80

  Miranda pulled on the headset as she sat in the simulator.

  The chair was too high but she didn’t want to look like she didn’t know what she was doing by searching for an adjuster.

  Drake and Lizzy had pulled up office chairs close by, though thankfully out of her line of sight.

  The head of the Pentagon’s simulation department had done a poor job of hiding his displeasure at having a civilian in his facility—no matter that a four-star general had escorted her in here.

  But when she tried to rest her hands on the controls, everything was wrong.

  Finally there was a huff of exasperation from the department head. He stepped up and adjusted about six things faster than she could follow. It still wasn’t right, but at least her feet were on the floor and her hands rested easily on the controls.

  The big screen in front of her showed nothing but the night sky.

  She slipped on the headset.

  “Are you there, Jeremy?” Miranda barely whispered because of everyone watching. She didn’t like being watched.

  “Right here, Miranda.”

  “What am I doing here?”

  “You’re the pilot.”

  “Of what? I’m not military. The only jet I know how to fly is my Sabrejet.” If only she could be aloft and gone.

  Away from all these people.

  But her jet had been sabotaged. Though Drake had promised that it was being well taken care of.

  She’d wanted to go see it. Sit in its familiar old seat for a while. But sadly that wasn’t going to happen. There just wasn’t time.

  “Okay,” Jeremy spoke and she could hear keys rattling over the headset. “What’s your station number?”

  She found it and read it back to him.

  More key rattles, then her Sabrejet’s cockpit flashed up on her screens.

  “The only real difference is that you tap the screen to change the status of a button. If you’re fighting in sim, your actions will appear to be an F-35 Lightning II. If real world, well, we’ll see what happens.”

  She took off down a late-night runway marked in a long line of lights. In moments she was aloft. The simulation did indeed handle like her Sabrejet. The main revelation was the canopy of the simulator was almost daylight bright. The night vision capability of the F-35 was truly a revelation. No wonder the pilot’s helmets cost half a million each. They were amazing.

  “How were you able to do this?”

  “It’s not just me. I’ve got a couple of Air Force programmers here with me. But Dad works at Microsoft. He’s been the head programmer for Flight Simulator since forever. And that’s the core of the Air Force’s simulators. I learned how to program watching Dad write this code. Mom is on Halo. So gaming, flying, computers, battle scenarios—they all kind of came together when I started studying systems. And about the hundredth time I crashed an SR-71 Blackbird, I started reading NTSB reports. That’s when I found yours and just got totally hooked. I— Ow! Cut
that out, Holly.”

  Miranda finally understood why Jeremy was always so jittery around Holly. She perpetrated physical mayhem to get Jeremy to even pause for a breath.

  “It’s okay, Jeremy. Tell Holly, I give you full permission to talk to me as much as you need to.”

  “Are you sure, boss?” Holly came online for the first time.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Good luck with that, Miranda. Jeremy, at least try to behave.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Miranda continued to familiarize herself with the simulated F-35 masquerading as a Sabrejet.

  “Jeremy, let me see the real thing.”

  Suddenly everything changed. The steam gauge cockpit with all of its familiar dials and manual controls disappeared. In its place were LED readouts surrounded by control buttons all around the edges. Small diagrams showed her the changes to the controls. They were different, but not incomprehensibly so.

  And the jet was fantastically responsive. She also knew enough to suspect that a professional F-35 pilot was riding the controls with her down in Eglin, smoothing out her rough edges, taking care of the engines, and other such issues.

  “Who is flying with me?”

  “Lt. Colonel Kiley is linked to your flight. There are also a few others along. Do you want to speak to them?”

  81

  “This is Kiley. I know it’s late and some of you have already done multiple flights today.”

  Billy “Poet” Blake didn’t know why Lt. Colonel Kiley was wasting his breath. He was so jazzed to be here at Eglin he might never sleep again.

  Three major simulated flights in a single day? This was his kind of kickass.

  “Tonight’s flight lead is not, I repeat not an Air Force officer.”

  Billy leaned back out of the simulator enough to look at Toucan.

  They traded shrugs. Something weird going on. Of course it had been a pretty damn weird day, so that wasn’t news.

  Another, deeper voice came on the air. “However, you should treat everything she says as gospel. I’m not in your direct chain of command, but consider this to be a direct order from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Drake Nason.”