by Glen Robins
The young blonde lady, Carmen, working at the console to his right, swiveled around to face Lukas. “I’ll work on locking down the phone.” She swiveled back and let her fingers fly on the keyboard.
“Thank you, Carmen,” said Lukas. Pointing with the tip of his cane to the guy in the middle, Lukas said, “Kevin, can you track down Rob’s rental car?”
“No problem.”
“Great. Let me know as soon as you know anything.”
“Will do.”
“Second issue,” Lukas said, looking directly at the third member of the team, the one seated closest to him. “We need to get someone in here who can help Collin land a small plane. Whoever it is needs to be familiar with the Cessna 206. Marty, you on it?”
“Yep. Should be a breeze.” The clicking of his keyboard had already begun.
“They’ve got to have clearance. Preferably someone within the agency.”
“I figured as much. I’ve already got a list of seven people,” Marty said, not looking up from his monitor.
“Bring him in here ASAP. Collin is approaching the airfield—about twenty minutes out.”
“You got it. Doesn’t have to be a ‘him,’ though, does it?”
“I really don’t care, so long as they have the clearance and capability.” Pacing slowly in front of the room, Lukas sighed and nodded his head. “We can do this, folks. Two years of work hinges on our efforts over the next few hours. We drop the ball now, Penh gets away. Not only will my friends likely be eliminated, millions of people around the world will be crushed financially when Penh and his hackers crash the economy and everyone’s life savings and investments implode. This will be ten times worse than any stock market crash or financial crisis we’ve ever experienced. Let’s not let that happen. Please, let’s win this one.”
All three turned toward Lukas. Each nodded in silent agreement, then returned to their work. Lukas shuffled rigidly back to his seat and began tapping keys. Marty angled toward him with a phone in one hand and two fingers held up on the other. He mouthed the words, “Two minutes.”
Lukas waited, then picked up the phone. He had heard Collin’s desperate message and had decided to have something in place before calling back. “Collin, yes, buddy, good to hear your voice, too.” After listening to Collin for a moment, he calmly said, “I know. Don’t worry. You’re going to be all right. I’ve got someone here who will help you land.” He listened again. “I can’t say we have any doctors there, but each of our operatives in the field has been trained in emergency medical procedures. I’m sure they can help him.” Lukas winced as he shifted his weight and brought his legs under the desk in front of him. “Listen, Collin, the only thing you need to worry about right now is landing that plane. We’ll have you on the ground in less than twenty minutes. That’s top priority. Your pilot will be fine and so will you.”
The door opened behind him and Lukas turned to see a woman he guessed to be in her mid-forties walk into the room. She held in one hand a security card, which he surmised she had used to enter the room. In the other hand, a thick ring-bound manual with the picture of a fixed wing aircraft on the front.
“Collin, I need to put you on hold for just a moment. Yeah, I know. I’m not leaving. I just need to get our aviation consultant, who is right next to me, involved in the conversation. Hold on.” Lukas pushed his chair back and stood as gracefully as he could without his cane. Instead, he used the desk for the extra support he needed.
The woman was tall and dressed in a smart-looking dark pant suit with pointy-toe pumps. The red blouse beneath the dark blazer, which may have been navy or black—he couldn’t tell in this light—brought out the serious expression on her otherwise nice-looking face. She stuffed the security card in a pocket and held out her right hand, “Miriam Hastings. Pleasure to work with you. What have we got here?”
Lukas shook her hand. “Yes, hi. We have a first-time pilot twenty minutes out from a dirt airfield in southern Mexico where he needs to land. He’s nervous, but a quick study. Have a seat,” Lukas said, waving a hand toward the desk next to him. “His name is Collin and he’s flying low to avoid detection. His pilot has succumbed, he believes, to heat exhaustion, so he’s on his own.”
“The 206 has air conditioning—”
“It’s gone out, he tells us. And they have drunk all the water they had,” Lukas added.
“Not ideal conditions,” she said, turning her mouth downward. “But, if he’s a quick learner, like you say, we can work with it. I hope.”
Lukas motioned to a headset and the computer console in front of her. She slid into the seat and donned the headphones, unfazed by what the headset might do to her neatly styled hair. “Collin, this is Miriam Hastings,” she said, her voice brimming with calm and confidence. “I’m a pilot and a flight instructor. I’m going to help you land that plane safely. Can you hear me all right?”
Chapter Ten
In the air above southeastern Mexico
June 17, 1:27 p.m. Local Time; 11:27 a.m. Pacific Time
“Hello, Miriam. I’m really glad you’re here,” said Collin in response to Miriam Hastings’s no-nonsense greeting. Collin had mustered his poise and projected his confidence as best he could. “I’m not a hundred percent sure how to land this thing, although the pilot here talked me through our last landing. So at least I’ve seen it done a few times. I’m hoping you can help me.”
“Tell me, Collin, how much experience do you have flying in small aircraft?”
“None, until a few weeks ago. Since I’ve spent most of the last two or three days in this plane with this pilot, so it’s not completely foreign to me anymore. But, I have to admit, I wasn’t always paying attention to what he was doing.”
“That’s all right. We’ll get you through this, Collin,” said Miriam in a smooth and even tone. “First things first, then. Do you know what the yoke is?”
“Yep. I’m holding it right now. I know it controls the attitude of the plane, including changing direction and pitch.”
“Very good. How about the throttle? Do you know where it is?”
“Yes, I do. It’s the knob to my left with the red handle.”
“Correct. How about the knob next to it? What color is it?”
“It’s blue and it’s for the flaps.”
“You’ve picked up quite a bit during your time on board. I’m impressed.” Miriam continued in similar fashion through the mission-critical indicators, gauges, knobs, and switches. Most of which were on the pilot’s side of the cockpit. However, Collin demonstrated that he knew where they were and that he was able to reach them when needed.
Collin added, “I also figured out a few things about the navigation system while I was waiting for this call, so I think I’m heading in the right direction according to the GPS screen in front of me.”
“That’s good,” said Miriam. “Can you tell me your heading.”
Collin squinted at the screen and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Yeah, I’m heading north, bearing 356.7 degrees.”
“Can you tell me your exact location right now? Read me the latitude and longitude. Should be at the bottom of your screen.”
Collin rattled off the numbers, with the degrees north and west and confirmed his airspeed, altitude, and fuel levels. He could hear typing in the background and was sure she was plugging in the coordinates on a mapping program to get a visual. Miriam assured him that he was doing a fine job and that if he listened closely he would be on the ground safely in less than twenty minutes.
Miriam’s calm, steady voice added to Collin’s confidence. She made flying a plane feel like doing yoga for the first time. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but with some guidance and encouragement, it wasn’t all that bad. They practiced descending, ascending, banking from side to side, as well as reducing power on the throttle and increasing it. Miriam talked him through the various steps of the approach and landing until Collin could repeat them back to her and indicated he knew where each of the controls
was and how to use them. After a few repetitions, Miriam announced, “I think you’ve got it. You’re ready to land this thing.”
“You sound a lot more sure than I feel,” Collin said, shaking his head as he searched the dotted land spread out before him. “So far, keeping this thing in the air seems a lot easier than putting it on the ground.”
Collin looked over at the pilot slumped against the door. His eyes were closed, mouth open. Collin placed a finger on the carotid artery in his neck to make sure he still had a pulse. He did and it was racing. That can’t be good, he thought.
“What can’t be good?” Miriam repeated.
Collin became aware that his thought had exited his mouth. “The pilot—he doesn’t look good and his pulse is really fast.”
“I appreciate your concern, but don’t worry about him right now. You have a very important job to do, for your sake and his. You copy?” She was kind, but stern, trying to keep his concentration in the right place, as well as his confidence.
“Yeah, I copy,” said Collin, straightening in his seat and scanning the instrument panel.
“You need to focus on the task at hand. If you listen to my instructions and follow them, you and your friend will be on the ground safely in a few minutes. He’ll get the medical attention he needs, but first, we have a job to do. Have you visually located the landing strip yet? It should be coming up soon.”
“I can’t see anything down there—just a mix of crop fields, dirt, rocks, and a few houses scattered around.”
“You’re not high enough to have a long-range view, but it’s only about four miles farther north.”
“So past that hill in front of—”
That’s when he heard it, although the sound took a moment to register. Then it happened again. The sound of metal striking metal. A pinging or popping, and something that sounded a lot like a ricochet. Looking out the window to his right, Collin saw how close to the hilltop he was. Although his altimeter still showed that he was at an altitude of 875 feet, he realized that it measured his height above sea level. This hill must have been several hundred feet in elevation because he could see people and vehicles moving in animated agitation below him. He could see flashes of light.
Collin’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. His grip on the yoke tightened so much his knuckles went white. Instinctively, he pulled up on the controls, causing the plane to climb higher. At the same time, he realized he was losing airspeed.
“What are those noises I’m hearing, Collin?”
His voice started to work again. “Um, Miriam, I have a problem! Someone’s shooting at me.”
****
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
June 18, 2:27 a.m. Local Time; June 17, 11:27 a.m. Pacific Time
Pho Nam Penh entered and the mood in the room instantly changed. Tension sizzled in the air. Each of the seven men in that cramped and dingy room sat up straighter, leaned forward more, and typed faster. Everyone avoided eye contact with him.
“Updates?” he barked.
The foreman stood and bowed slightly. “Nothing yet, sir. It appears Mr. Cook’s cell phone is still switched off. It may have been damaged in the water. We have no way of knowing.”
“No outbound calls?”
“No, sir. Not that we can see.”
“He is indeed trying to stay off the grid. His NSA buddy must have established an alternate channel.”
“That would be quite simple to do, sir.”
“What about the clone of his laptop? What have we learned from it?” Penh snapped his fingers as he abruptly changed the subject.
“The level of encryption is beyond anything we’ve seen before, sir,” the foreman said, taking his seat and tapping on his keyboard. “We have been able to get past the second level of firewalls. It appears there are multiple partitions. Whoever did this possesses a rare talent,” said the man, almost admiringly. When he saw the look on Penh’s face, he cleared his throat and tried to sound matter-of-fact. “The data you desire is not on this drive. It is located in a separate drive, but it appears to be on the same computer, not on a remote server. Someone worked very hard to hide information.”
“His friends in the NSA, no doubt,” Penh said with a huff. “Keep at it. There must be something useful on that drive.”
“Well, sir. We have found photographs of various places in Europe and of several banks in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, and Panama. There are also journal entries, but there is no significant information in those entries.”
“That leaves us only one choice. We must get that computer.” Penh slammed an open palm on the rickety table, causing all in the room to tense further.
“Yes, sir,” stammered the foreman. “The tracker on that laptop shows him approaching southern Mexico.”
“Then get my plane ready. I’m going over there early. Keep me informed as to its movements. We may need to get a team in there to intercept Mr. Cook when he next lands for fuel. If he wants to keep his friend alive, he’ll surrender that computer, as well as the money.”
Penh had informed everyone in the room of the stakes. Failure meant pain and suffering. It also meant disgrace and humiliation. The only guarantee that their families would escape barbarous cruelty and slow deaths was triumph and success, not just over Collin Cook, but in completing Penh’s grand scheme of forcing the Western financial system with its multi-billionaire pigs to its knees.
When the dust settled from his planned cyberattack, power would be returned to the powerless. A much-needed rebalancing of wealth and influence would devastate the greedy and empower the hungry. Transforming the world economy would be much easier than he had ever supposed, thanks to the trillions of dollars of deficit spending the US government had racked up in recent years. Once the US dollar was devalued through systematic manipulation of currency exchanges, the US Treasury would be unable to pay its foreign creditors. The flow of money within the world’s largest economy would cease because credit would be frozen. Goods and services would no longer move because the money to pay for them would be locked up in a perpetual computer-generated jail. Within days, the balance of power in the world would shift forever.
Penh was poised, as were his accomplices. They had begun to gather at what would soon be the new financial power seat of the Western Hemisphere: Mexico City. The end was near, but he had to conquer the demon known as Collin Cook first before his victory would be complete. With the $30 million from Cook’s locked account in Panama City, he could make the final payment required to the start the culminating sequence. Plus, he knew these men would never fully respect him if he was unable to defeat someone as lowly as Collin Cook.
What was even more tantalizing was the access to top-secret information. Knowing Cook’s laptop had been provided by his NSA contact, Penh knew there would be a back door to the NSA’s computer network and the knowledge hidden therein. That knowledge would bring additional power. It lay frustratingly hidden just beyond his reach, locked behind security protocols on Collin’s laptop. The protections were more intricate and complex than anything he or his team had ever seen. But the rewards for their efforts would be immeasurable. Breaking into an NSA laptop could yield classified treasures beyond his imagination. Having this access would likely tip the scales faster and more completely than any other tactic at Penh’s disposal. The thought made him giddy. The lack of progress made him angry.
****
Interstate 5 southbound between Orange County and La Jolla, California
June 17, 11:28 a.m. Pacific Time
Progress was frustratingly slow, both on the freeway and with the investigation. The traffic on Interstate 5 heading south out of Los Angeles had been miserable, even though it was only early afternoon. Southern California freeways were teeming with tourists, beachgoers, shoppers, and everyday people trying to get from one place to another any time of day. His traffic app on his phone showed an accident a few miles ahead, which was clogging up the interstate as if it was rush hour. Reggie Crabtree, tho
ugh he lived in the Bay Area and had dealt with some of the most congested roads in the state, pounded on the steering wheel and exclaimed, “Why must we go so slow, people? Just move it. Come on.”
Spinner McCoy smirked and tapped the screen of his phone. He had just finished leaving another voice message, bringing his total for the drive to thirteen. He was getting nowhere fast, just like their late model Taurus stuck behind the Camry ahead of them and boxed in on both sides by lines of cars moving along somewhere between zero and ten miles per hour. “Frustrating, isn’t it? I think our timing just sucks.”
Reggie scowled as he looked at his partner. “That’s not helping.”
“I know, but we have to realize what we’re up against. We just need a little help from someone in the know.”
“I’m going to try my friend in Naval Intelligence and see what he might know about any of this,” said Reggie.
“Is this the guy that pissed you off?”
“Yeah. I haven’t talked to him since that incident, but it’s not like we talked that often before it, either. I don’t know what to expect, but I guess I have to be ready to swallow my pride, if that’s what it takes,” said Reggie, wagging this head.
“There are worse things, you know.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, maybe like not having a friend that could possibly provide valuable information to help our investigation, for starters.”
“You’re no help.” Reggie pulled his phone from the holder on his belt and unlocked the screen with his thumbprint. Another press of the button and a polite computer voice asked how she could help. “Look up Tom Sanders.”
The voice said, “I found the number for Tom Sanders. Do you want to call Tom Sanders?”