Firewall (The Firewall Spies Book 1)

by Andrew Watts

  “I told you what happened, though.”

  “Yeah, I know. But house guests and desperate ex-boyfriends start to stink after a while.”

  “But . . .”

  “Dude. You gotta find something for yourself. Something exciting that can take your mind off her.”

  Colt finished his beer. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “So, what jobs excite you the most?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I was thinking about law enforcement or something like that. Maybe apply to the FBI. That’d be pretty cool. That would be kind of like the military, right? But none of these shitty deployments.”

  Mick nodded. “That would be cool. You know, I just ran into an old buddy at a government job fair who was hiring. Looking for the kind of guys with Top Secret clearances. You have your TSC, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were near the top of your class in college, right? You’ve had significant experience in foreign countries. You speak any foreign languages?”

  “Poorly.”

  His friend laughed. “Seriously. Let me send your resume to my friend. He’s looking for a specific type of person. I’ve seen you in action. You’re smart, good with people, and can think on your feet. I think you might be a good fit.”

  Colt narrowed his eyes. “Who does your friend recruit for?”

  “The CIA.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ed.”

  Part II

  “. . . spies will never leave Silicon Valley. As the region’s global clout grows, so will its magnet-like attraction for the world’s spooks. As one former US intelligence official put it, spies are pulled toward the Bay Area ‘like moths to the light.’ And the region will help define the struggle for global preeminence—especially between the United States and China—for decades to come.”

  * * *

  – Zach Dorfman, writing for Politico, 2018

  8

  Present Day

  Colt sat in the business-class window seat of a Boeing 767, sipping a ginger ale as the aircraft taxied toward the runway. Bouncing his knee, he thought about Ava, and his task at hand.

  He wondered what he would find in the elite world of Silicon Valley executives and power brokers. He thought about how he would handle spending time near Ava again. He was going to have to lie to her. Even more daunting, it was possible he might need to recruit her as an informant. That prospect made Colt ponder the fate of his last agent. How would Colt react if Ava’s life was on the line? What had happened to Marisha?

  The aircraft took off down the runway, and Colt felt the familiar flutter in his chest as he began heading west at hundreds of miles per hour.

  Colt’s flight landed in San Francisco. He was met in the baggage area by a driver wearing a tie and holding a sign with Colt’s last name. The driver led him to a clean Mercedes sedan and dropped him off at The Four Seasons Hotel. Colt tried to pay for the ride but was rebuked.

  “Courtesy of Pax AI, sir.”

  The hotel receptionist gave him a similar greeting, informing him that his room had been upgraded courtesy of his host. Pax AI was trying to butter him up prior to his multiweek inspection, he knew. Many of the companies Colt evaluated provided similar attention. He had seen it all. In some countries, cash bribes or late-night visits from escorts were not uncommon. Colt’s reputation as a man of integrity was sterling, however, and his New York firm paid top dollar to keep it that way. The CIA also monitored his finances . . . and probably his “social” activity.

  Colt thanked the receptionist and headed up to his room. It was spacious and opulent and had a great view of the city. But he didn’t spend time on the view. Within minutes he was out the door, conducting a surveillance detection route he’d planned the previous night. Certain he was in the clear, he headed to the address Wilcox had sent him, south of the Market District.

  The safehouse was a single-story auto repair shop with a closed sign in the window. The outer walls were brick, painted periwinkle blue. The windows were protected by wrought iron bars, and a smattering of graffiti garnished the chained front entrance. Entering through a side door in the alley next to the shop, Colt counted three security cameras. Wilcox had informed him the only personnel with knowledge of the safehouse were members of the National Technology Counterintelligence Unit. And the only personnel allowed in right now were Special Agent Rinaldi, Wilcox, and two others he was about to meet.

  Colt was greeted by Rinaldi, who opened the side door and showed him the entrance procedure: a numbered code, and approval by someone inside. Only Rinaldi and Wilcox could enter by themselves. The special agent then showed Colt into the field operations area inside the building. The place was kept tidy. Sparse furniture. A stocked fridge, a stove, and a microwave. A few back rooms, one a bathroom and one that stored some IT servers. The main room had several computers with government classified stickers on them, and some electronics equipment he didn’t recognize. The small safehouse gave him the impression that the NTCU team both lived and worked here.

  A woman who looked to be in her late fifties sat at a foldout table in the center of the room, scribbling on a notepad. She wore reading glasses and a light sweater. She had black skin and close-cropped gray hair, and when she looked up, Colt saw eyes that captured everything. She placed her pen down and stood.

  “You must be Colt.” The woman stuck out her hand. Her grip was firm, and she looked him right in the eye as they shook. “I’m Jennifer Sims.”

  Agent Rinaldi said, “Special Agent Sims works with me. FBI counterintelligence. She’s been at the Bureau long enough that I need to remind her to stop referring to the Russians as Soviets.”

  Sims cast him a look. “Was that a shot at my age?”

  “Only complimenting your experience, Ms. Sims.”

  “Hmph,” she said, then turned back to Colt. “Sometimes I need to remind Special Agent Rinaldi that he’s no spring chicken himself.”

  Rinaldi shook his head, looking at Colt with a half-smile. “You see what I’m dealing with? In all seriousness, Jennifer is a true pro and we’re lucky to have her.”

  Sims seemed satisfied with the compliment.

  Colt looked between the two of them and did his best to sound respectful. “Good to meet you. I’ll do my best to soak up everything I can.”

  Rinaldi said, “Take a seat and we’ll give you the lay of the land. You already know Wilcox. He’s in the server room in the back, making a call. Only room out of earshot, unfortunately. He’ll join us when he’s off the phone.” Rinaldi looked up at one of the security cameras. “Oh, and I see we have our junior CIA officer here.”

  Colt detected frustration in Rinaldi’s voice as he looked up at the screen.

  “Be nice,” said Sims. “She’ll get there.”

  Colt realized he knew her face. “Is that Heather Weng?”

  “It is,” Rinaldi said, pressing the button that unlocked the outer door.

  A moment later a woman in her thirties appeared in the room wearing jeans and a backpack. She gave a wide smile when she saw Colt.

  “Well, well . . . Colt McShane lives.” Weng punched him lightly in the arm. “So much for failing out of The Farm.”

  Colt shook her extended hand, smiling. “Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s good to see you again.”

  She smirked. “It’s not personal, just business, right? But I’ll still treat you as an inferior washout, if that’s cool?”

  “If that makes you feel better,” Colt said, a thin smile on his lips. He remembered Heather Weng’s spicy sense of humor. Weng had been in Colt’s class at the junior officer training program when they had entered the CIA. On a military base near Williamsburg, Virginia, the training course was like boot camp for spies.

  Their time at The Farm was years ago. Colt didn’t remember their conversations, but he remembered his impression of her. She was a cool chick. Smart, no-nonsense, and incredibly competent. He had instantly liked her.

  Whe
n Colt was selected for the non-official-cover program, his classmates were told he had washed out of the junior officer training course. Most of them went on to become operations officers in the CIA’s clandestine service.

  Rinaldi said, “I’m very happy you have a new friend, Heather. Maybe he can help you finish your intelligence assessment reports on time?”

  “Almost finished with the Hawkinson one.”

  Rinaldi scoffed and said, “See, Jennifer? Millennials. Even their spies are lazy.”

  Weng turned to Colt. “Rinaldi acts like a superior and condescending G-man, but don’t let him fool you. He’s really a teddy bear who loves working with the Agency.”

  Sims chuckled.

  Rinaldi rolled his eyes, then connected his laptop to a monitor on the table. “Let’s get this briefing underway.”

  An image of Kozlov appeared on the monitor, and the trio’s banter gave way to an atmosphere of quiet professionalism.

  Sims said, “From what Kozlov told us before he was killed, someone is removing Pax AI’s most advanced IP from the high-security data servers on the fourth floor of their headquarters. And whoever had that capability was likely on a small list of people with the company’s highest security clearance. Pax AI employees who were cleared both to the fourth floor and to their Mountain Research Facility.”

  Weng turned to Colt. “Their headquarters building is located a few miles away from here in San Francisco. There are four floors, each with progressively more security as you go up. The top level is restricted to only a handful of their top scientists and executives. The projects stored there are what every intelligence organization and competitor business on the planet is trying to get eyes on.”

  Colt nodded. He knew some of this already, but it didn’t hurt to hear everything they had to say.

  “Do you have a list of suspects? People you think might be our mole?”

  Sims said, “We do. But until we get you inside Pax AI, it’s only an educated guess.”

  Colt said, “But just to be clear, you now have multiple access points to the company, right? The FBI is investigating Kozlov’s death, and government research agencies are involved in projects at their Mountain Research Facility?”

  “We are not revealing the fourth-floor leak to anyone at Pax AI,” Wilcox said, entering from the back room. “Excuse my tardiness, ladies and gentlemen.” He looked at Colt. “Welcome back to the West Coast.”

  Colt nodded.

  Wilcox took a seat. “Special Agent Rinaldi and I have decided we do not want to disrupt the normal patterns of life at Pax AI. While the FBI has interviewed their personnel about the events surrounding Kozlov’s death, Pax AI employees shall not be treated like suspects. At least not publicly.”

  “You don’t want to spook anyone,” Colt said.

  “Precisely. It is very likely that multiple intelligence services are attempting to embed themselves in the company. If Trinity—or any group covertly operating inside Pax AI—discovers we are onto them, it will inhibit our ability to catch them in the act.”

  Rinaldi said, “Let’s go over the key players. Colt, based on what Kozlov told us, these are the people we think were most likely to have been removing data from the Pax AI fourth floor.” The screen changed to an image of a man in a white research coat.

  Sims said, “This is Luke Pace. Their chief scientist.”

  Rinaldi said, “He and Kozlov worked closely together, and they were on the same shift at the Mountain Research Facility. Both had access to the fourth-floor projects and the Mountain Research projects. Only a dozen others had that type of security clearance.”

  Colt raised his eyebrows. “Only a dozen? Companies like this normally have large teams working on top projects.”

  Weng clicked her pen. “Pax AI’s top projects are extremely secretive. A lot of the development programs at top tech companies have security measures that rival the intelligence community.” She paused. “Stop me if you already know all this.”

  Colt nodded politely, “I’m familiar. Much of my work involves such corporations.”

  “Not like Pax AI,” said Wilcox. “They’re on another level.”

  Colt said, “I’ve only read a little about The Facility. That’s what they call it, right?”

  Weng nodded. “The Pax AI Mountain Research Facility is where they conduct their shielded AI experimentation.”

  “Shielded?” Colt asked.

  Weng continued, “A remote research center in the forest about an hour’s helicopter ride to the northeast. Researchers have to live and work there in multiweek shifts. No outside contact when they’re running their experiments. They seal off any electronic signals going in or out of the facility. Both for safety and security reasons.”

  Colt said, “Sounds like overkill.”

  Rinaldi nodded. “Think of the R&D at Pax AI like Skunkworks during the Cold War. The programs they are developing . . . it’s cutting-edge stuff. Pax AI is consistently ahead of the pack.”

  “How are they doing that?”

  Rinaldi said, “Honestly, no one knows. But they’ve consistently beat competition to the punch in reaching new milestones in artificial general intelligence, AI-neural interfaces, and quantum technology.”

  Weng leaned forward in her seat. “I mean . . . we know how they’re staying ahead, right? It’s Jeff Kim. Their CEO is the thread that connects all these things. He’s a mathematical genius, and he’s got a particular knack for everything AI.”

  Rinaldi said, “The point is, Pax AI is the crown jewel in a technological arms race that the entire world is invested in. Where foreign spy services once trolled Washington and London, now they are casing agents on the streets of San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver. China and Russia, mostly, but others too.” Rinaldi paused, seeing Colt nodding. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you aren’t exactly new to this.”

  Colt waved his hand. “No, it’s all right. Broadly I’m familiar. But I haven’t spent much time in San Francisco, or any with Pax AI until recently. It would be great to get a lay of the land.”

  Weng said, “You and I can grab lunch after this, and I’ll show you some of the fishing ponds.”

  “Fishing ponds?” Colt replied.

  Sims said, “Where the Russian and Chinese agents recruit people. This area is flush with so many potential agents coming in and out that we joke it’s like they’re keeping the place stocked with fish.”

  Rinaldi pointed to the screen at the head of the table. “Let’s continue. Gerry Nader, the chief technology officer.”

  The image changed to a man in a business suit.

  “He also has access to the Pax AI fourth floor and The Facility. He turned down offers two to three times his current salary from much bigger companies because he wanted to work there. Nader rose through the ranks of Silicon Valley, hopping from company to company. There’s a lot of speculation that he’s gunning for Jeff Kim’s CEO spot.”

  Colt said, “Do we think either Pace or Nader have connections to this Trinity organization?”

  The two FBI agents shifted in their seats at the word “Trinity.” Weng looked at them.

  Rinaldi said, “You are assuming that Trinity exists . . .”

  “You don’t think it does?” Colt asked.

  Rinaldi looked at Sims, who said, “I’ve been working in the FBI’s counterintelligence division for a long time. We’ve been hearing rumors about this Trinity network for years. But it’s like Bigfoot and UFOs.”

  “It’s all over the internet. Whether it’s rubbish or not, Trinity’s following is very real. And growing. There are social media groups full of people worshiping it like some sort of cult,” Colt huffed, shaking his head.

  Sims said, “The evidence suggests Trinity is nothing but a conspiracy. But . . .”

  She looked at Rinaldi, who tapped on his keyboard. The screen changed to a view of city buildings. “Seattle FBI captured an image fragment of the shooter. Take a look.”

  Colt didn’t recognize the buildi
ng, but a map next to the image showed the location as just across from Kozlov’s hotel.

  The image zoomed in to a masked man lying in the prone position on a long wooden table. He was fifteen to twenty feet deep inside the room, which concealed him from anything but a direct line of sight. The man wore all black and was looking through the scope of a high-powered rifle. Even with the spotty image quality, Colt could see the weapon was enormous.

  “Fifty-caliber?”

  “Yes,” said Rinaldi. “ATF just got back the forensics. Subsonic round, with a suppressor. There was construction going on in the building where the shot was taken, which likely helped to mask the sound.”

  Another man stood behind the shooter, elbows out, looking through his own scope.

  “How’d you get the photo?”

  “This was taken from a cellphone. Someone in Kozlov’s hotel took a picture while looking outside their window. They happened to get a still frame just before the shot was fired. So far this is the only image of the shooter.”

  “Is that a tattoo?” Colt pointed at the screen. The sniper’s forearm was exposed from the wrist to the elbow, revealing an ink pattern.

  Rinaldi said, “Good eye. We think it’s this.” The screen changed to show an up-close tattoo of a burning cross wrapped in barbed wire. Rinaldi translated the Cyrillic lettering on the cross. “It reads, ‘Faith in God, not in communism.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Weng said.

  Colt said, “It’s a Russian gang tattoo, I believe.”

  Rinaldi and Sims looked impressed.

  Sims nodded. “He’s right. This guy’s probably been in a Russian prison. Which doesn’t mean he’s working for the Russians. Could be just a hired gun. But our investigators have spent days studying every security camera and cellphone data point surrounding this location, and this is the only evidence that’s turned up.”