Fire With Fire-eARC

by Charles E Gannon

  Downing shook his head. “’Fraid not. There’s a long list of possible suspects, but we have no way of knowing which one—or several—might be responsible. On the Tyne, the only lead was the second engineer, and his identity, and prior assignment at Epsilon Indi, were fabrications. The assassins at Alexandria either escaped or were vaporized by personal failsafe devices—”

  “By what?”

  “The five strikers we neutralized on adjacent rooftops were burned beyond analysis. Our after-action forensics indicate that each one was equipped with a biomonitor deadman switch rigged to a medley of thermite and white phosphorous charges. If the heart stops—poof: the body and most of the equipment are vaporized by warheads that explode and then burn at twenty-two hundred to twenty-eight hundred degrees Celsius.”

  Caine stared at the tabletop. “Wonderful.”

  “Almost as wonderful as the cleanup you and I had to perform less than an hour ago. But here, we had to abandon and burn the evidence ourselves because we have only limited influence over the local authorities.”

  Nolan shrugged. “I don’t think we’d have learned much from the bodies, anyway.”

  Caine looked hard at Corcoran. “Why not?”

  “Because they were amateurs, local freelancers. They came after you without any backup plan, their equipment was second-rate, and they were already here.”

  “Waiting for me?”

  “No: if our adversaries had had any lead time, if they knew you’d be arriving here, they’d have shipped in an A-team. Real professionals. They’d have done the job right: sure, clean, and with absolute plausible deniability. This bunch—they were local muscle, quickly rustled together with phone calls and a few hundred thousand euros, because someone saw you in this area and got the word back to whoever wants you dead. Our opponents probably had only an hour or two to set something up—and by ambushing you with amateurs and failing, they’ve revealed that they don’t yet have an A-team on site. Meaning that they won’t get another shot at you, because by this time tomorrow, you will have told the last of your secrets. After that, there will be no reason left to kill you. Now: will you sit and join us?”

  Caine felt the instinct to remain standing: sitting implied a trust, or acceptance, that he did not feel. But to remain standing was to signal hostility. No middle course. So he sat.

  Downing hunched forward. “So—what’s the news from Day One, Nolan?”

  “Bottom line: there’s general agreement to create a global confederation. When the five blocs were presented with irrefutable evidence of exosapience, there was a unanimous decision to create a central organization with practical political, economic, and military authority.”

  Caine cleared his throat; Nolan paused, nodded. “Just cut in whenever you want. No Robert’s Rules, here.”

  “What you’re talking about—sounds to me like it makes the U.N. redundant.”

  Downing nodded. “Hardly a surprise: the U.N. was never able to put into practice more than a handful of the edicts that it promulgated or the ideals that it espoused. It’s little more than a symbolic memorial.”

  “Whereas now the big powers really want to work together?”

  Nolan waved away that notion. “Oh, ‘want’ has never achieved anything. But the threat of exosapience means that they need to work together. Of course, that didn’t keep some of the bigger bulls from locking horns for a while.”

  Downing looked up from scribbling on his dataslate. “Beijing and Moscow?”

  Nolan nodded. “The predictable axes were ground.”

  “But they’re going to play nice?”

  “So they say.”

  Caine frowned. “This all sounds surprisingly civilized.”

  “We knew that there would be a baseline of sanity from some of the blocs. Of course, there were still a few cranky gadflies in the ointment—even from the EU.”

  Downing grunted. “Oh? Who?”

  “Well…Gaspard.”

  “But of course. Parisian diplomat of the old school. Wanker.”

  “C’mon, Rich, cut him some slack. He’s fighting to maintain some shred of France’s past preeminence—”

  Downing tapped his pencil. “Well, he—and the rest of his ilk—will just have to bloody well get used to the fact that France hasn’t been an empire since Napoleon left Moscow.”

  “That’s a hard thing for a country to accept.”

  “Rot. Look at England: we’ve faced facts and moved on.”

  Nolan’s left eyebrow arched. “Oh? Really?” Downing’s mouth was open to begin a rebuttal, but Nolan held up his hand. “For now, let’s just get through the day’s news. Which boils down to this: the Confederation government will be a council of five blocs, two voting members per bloc, and one proconsul with a two-year term.”

  Downing tapped his stylus on his slate. “Military authority?”

  “Separate forces and R&D within each bloc. However, each bloc structures its forces and production to meet the defense responsibilities assigned to it by the Confederation Council.”

  Downing seemed pensive. “And—what about intelligence operations?”

  “The same model; separate national agencies, coordinated at the bloc level. Each bloc then contributes some assets to a centralized Confederation bureau.”

  “With which IRIS can augment its own data gathering and spread its influence.”

  Caine looked from Downing to Nolan and back to Downing: the same shrewd, satisfied smile on both faces. “You’re not going to tell them about IRIS? I mean, isn’t this the logical moment?”

  Downing studied his fingers. “No: revealing IRIS now would destroy this infant Confederation in its crib.”

  “Why?”

  “For twenty years, strings have been pulled, policies have been massaged—almost exclusively by agents of the Commonwealth bloc—to bring delegates of the world’s most powerful nations to this very place. If they were to learn that they are here because they have been played like puppets, they would utterly renounce this summit. But if we wait until the Confederation is a fait accompli, then we’ll be able to stand down safely and quietly.”

  Caine shook his head. “I wonder how many times a misguided international involvement has been prolonged with that kind of rhetoric: ‘We will leave once the situation has been stabilized.’”

  Nolan shrugged. “Historical precedent is on your side, so I won’t argue. I can only say that the alternative seems worse to me.”

  Caine silently conceded that Nolan also had a good—maybe superior—point. “So, what now?”

  Nolan produced a bottle from the credenza, glanced at Richard. “Metaxa?”

  “A double, if you please.”

  Nolan turned to Caine. “Want to join us? Just our little evening ritual.”

  “Thanks, I’ll pass. I’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  Nolan nodded. “We all do. But I could use some exercise to clear my head: want to take a walk up to the temple before dinner?”

  Already halfway out, Caine turned. Not really. But he said: “Sure. I’ll come along.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  MENTOR

  On his way out the door, Caine added, “Find me when you’re done here.”

  “I will.” Nolan pushed a glass of Metaxa toward Richard.

  Caine nodded, closed the door behind him.

  Nolan picked up his glass. “Do you think he suspects?”

  “That we used him as bait? Not yet—maybe never, given how close we came to cocking up the whole op.”

  “What the hell happened out there?”

  “Damned if I know—but for some reason, he and Opal stopped in the only blind spot on that side of the mountain.”

  “Thank God the overwatch team adapted quickly.”

  Downing nodded. “Your son trained them well.”

  “And he’s been kept in the dark about us tapping his former team for this op?”

  “Trevor doesn’t know a thing. But how long that will last is hard to say.”<
br />
  Nolan sighed. “I know: SEALS are rough, tough commandos, but they gossip like wrinkled church ladies among themselves. Still, they did a good job.”

  “No slight intended, but we may owe more to good luck. Things could have worked out very differently. Almost did.”

  “Well, we still drew the opposition out, forced them to make their move in a time and a place of our choosing, and trumped their hand. And we manufactured the bonding crisis that the psych folks insist will bring Caine and Opal together quickly and surely.”

  “Yes—but we created more of a crisis than we could handle. I still say it was unreasonably risky, Nolan.” Downing would have preferred the word “reckless.” “Today’s operation came too bloody close to destroying the very asset it was designed to protect.”

  “Look, Rich, after Alexandria, we have to accept that conventional notions of security are damn near useless. Whoever’s after Caine has proven that they can hit a stationary target using methods we don’t even understand. So I stand by my decision: drawing them out for a preemptive counterstrike was actually less risky than digging in and hunkering down. And now, Riordan’s worries are over. Our local security is good, EU forces are pouring into the area in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting, and our opponents know they’ve lost the element of surprise. We’re out of the woods.”

  A nice theory. Downing sipped the Metaxa. Let’s hope it’s accurate. “Even if they were amateurs, it would have been damned helpful to get some identities.”

  “Yeah, as is anything that might show us who’s after Riordan. Speaking of which, any word of the forensics analysis on Alexandria?”

  Downing nodded. “The final after-action report came in this morning’s pouch. The analysts are now speculating that Riordan may not have been the only target; they may have been after all the coldsleepers.”

  “What has the analysts thinking that?”

  “Well, the power outage killed almost all the sleepers within minutes: with both the main current and the backup generator out, those early cryocells had only five minutes of emergency battery power.”

  “You said the power outage killed almost all the sleepers?

  “Yes: three others were in modern cryopods, so their systems defaulted to long-duration self-power when the generator went offline.”

  “So they’re alive?”

  “No, they’re dead too.”

  “How?”

  “The intruders shot them.”

  Nolan’s glass froze in the transit from tabletop to mouth. “Say again?”

  Downing nodded. “You heard me correctly: the intruders shot them.”

  Nolan returned the glass to the table. “Not good.”

  “No, no good at all. That’s why the analysts are rethinking why the attackers were there in the first place, and the rationale behind their tactics. Did they cut power to make it easier to infiltrate and secure local tactical control…?”

  “Or was it to kill off all the sleepers?” Nolan finished for him. “Christ, Rich, you were dead right when you suggested we replace the original sleepers with death-row inmates. If we hadn’t, we’d have another forty or fifty innocent corpses on our hands.”

  “Sixty-three.”

  “Okay, you can rub it in: you’re entitled.” Nolan bolted back most of his Metaxa. “When the intruders killed the other sleepers, did they bother to open the cryocell lids and check for identities?”

  “No. So the enemy strikers could not have learned that we switched the occupants. Which brings up yet another related issue: when should we inform the penal authorities?”

  “About the untimely demise of sixty-three of its sociopaths and axe murderers? Not until after we know who hit the facility and why. And how.”

  “Yes. About the ‘how’: the final assessment on the site’s power loss indicates there was no sabotage: no sign of explosives, wire cutters, or computer hacking. As a matter of fact, there’s no sign of physical intrusion at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is no sign that the control for the building’s generator was ever opened. Indeed, they never even entered the generator room.”

  “Then how the hell—?”

  “As best we can tell, the power was cut by an intensive but very narrowly localized EM pulse that shorted out the internal regulators. At least, that’s what it looks like.”

  “How localized an EM pulse are we talking about?”

  Downing double-checked his notes. “Essentially pinpoint: half a cubic meter, at most.”

  “Rich, that’s impossible.”

  “I did not say the report establishes that it was an EM pulse—just that it looked like one. But just because we aren’t aware of anyone with the ability to create that kind of focused EM pulse—through very thick reinforced concrete, no less—it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is impossible. However, our analysts in Newport insist that it would be a large device, and would require a tremendous burst of power—enough to show up on the spectral imaging sensors that are dedicated to orbital overwatch of the DC metro area.”

  “Which showed nothing.”

  Downing nodded. “And given the thoroughness of the after-action sweeps, we can rule out a buried device.”

  “So we’ve got a locked-room mystery.”

  “Seems so, Holmes.”

  “Ha ha, Watson. And still nothing on the intel leak that gave the attackers the location of Riordan, or the sleepers—or whatever the hell they were after?”

  “No—and we’ve exhausted our investigatory options.”

  “So, someone was able to obtain access to our various computer systems without leaving any traces of doing so.”

  “Precisely. That is why I’ve suspended all our operations, other than those here in Greece.”

  “Could that have been part of their plan?”

  “To compel the Institute to initiate a precautionary shutdown?” Downing shrugged. “I doubt it. Everything we’ve seen so far suggests their information on us is far from complete. In fact, it’s quite sketchy. Consider: they know that the sleepers are in Alexandria, but they don’t know the originals have been moved. They know the one-half cubic meter of space at which to aim a focused EMP pulse, but they have to go on a room-to-room search for Riordan. If they really had a solid conduit into our information pipeline, they would have had much better tactical intelligence.”

  Nolan nodded. “And if I were them, I’d want to achieve my objective without leaving any locked-room mysteries.”

  “Why?”

  “Because now we know we’re up against something we don’t understand. Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about that right now—not until Parthenon is over.”

  “So, how long do we suspend our other operations?”

  “Let’s decide that after tomorrow morning’s preliminary meeting.”

  “Excuse me: what meeting is that?”

  “Just before you returned, the Indonesians called. They are in Athens and they want an early morning confab out here.”

  “Wonderful way to start the day. One final question: the planning for Riordan’s Trojan Horse invasion defense tactic—do we keep working on it?”

  Nolan nodded. “We’ve got to—even if only to continue gathering personnel and prepositioning hidden caches of munitions and other supplies.”

  “Very well. And what case code do we assign to the operation?”

  Nolan stared then smiled. “Case Timber Pony.”

  “How droll. Goes with the theme, I suppose. Do we need codes for anyone other than Odysseus and Calypso?”

  “Yes.” He aimed a finger at Downing. “‘M’ for Mentor.”

  “‘M?’ You’re giving that label to me, a British overseer of spies? That’s either a very bad joke or you have a very poor knowledge of tawdry spy fiction.”

  “Neither: it’s just a code from The Odyssey—and it fits.”

  “Very well. Any others?”

  “Yes. Whoever—or whatever—is responsible for our close
d-room mysteries will be—”

  “‘Circe’?”

  “See? You’re getting the hang of this.” Corcoran tossed back the last of his Metaxa. “And now I will walk off my daily indulgence. Could you get a security detail to cover my sunset stroll to the temple with Riordan?”

  Downing reached for the handset of the secure land line. “I’ll get you two.”

  CIRCE

  He leaned his brow against the binoculars: two dim figures moved slowly up the drive toward the fading silhouette of the Temple of Poseidon. He leaned back, checked his watch, jotted down the time on the notepad.

  He turned to face the plate that was perched on the edge of the laundry table. Dominating the center of the unadorned white porcelain dish was a barely diminished cube of feta, surrounded by a litter of olive pits and a dusting of crumbs. He reached over the spoor of his dinner, closed his fingers gently around the orange resting at the center of the table. He lifted it slowly, studying it. He bobbed his hand once, as if feeling the heft of it, then brought it closer, up to his nose. He sniffed, tentatively at first, then sniffed again. He exhaled, then breathed in deeply through his nose: as he did, he smiled. He turned the orange round in his hand, rubbing his finger over its surface, inspecting both its stem and base briefly before cradling it upright in his left hand. With the precise and focused intent of a surgeon, using the two-centimeter-long fingernail of his right middle finger, he made three quick, successive sweeps around the stem. He studied the incisions carefully: then, using a neatly trimmed right index finger, he pried away the top of the orange, which—already having been mostly sheared from the rest of the skin—came off easily. He held the fruit to his nose once more, breathed in deeply, smiled again, put it down next to his dinner plate.

  He turned and leaned toward the binoculars, rotated them to the right. The two figures were already at the end of the headland, walking across the ruin’s flat central expanse. One silhouette—lean, long-legged—seemed to be wandering a bit. The other silhouette—perhaps two centimeters taller and more thickly built—moved with unswerving surety to the center of the ocean-facing row of columns. That silhouette stepped down the stairs leading toward the overlook and came to a halt, staring out to sea; the other silhouette hopped down to join him.