by James Hunt
Alexander led her into a side room, where a smaller group of individuals with laptops, headphones, and printers sifted through thousands of documents, emails, websites, and articles on anything and everything that could lead them to the source of the entity that had caused the global catastrophe that she was left to deal with. They walked past the team and into a smaller conference room that was empty and separated from the rest of the room. Alexander closed the door behind him and handed her the transcript that the staffer had intercepted. She read the document slowly, carefully, forcing her eyes to go over every word, phrase, and sentence twice. “Bring me the staffer who found this.”
Alexander opened the door, and a flurry of typing filled the small room. “Finn, in here, now.” A few seconds later, a tall, lanky man with pasty white skin and greasy hair stepped into the room. When he saw that it was the chancellor he was meeting, he did his best to comb the matted mess that was his hair and attempted to tuck in his shirt. “Chancellor,” he said, bowing his head.
“Where did you get this?” Andrea asked.
“I’ve been watching any back-channel communication lines, usually reserved for computer hackers using a different layer of the Internet than most ordinary individuals. I found a chat room where a guy was bragging about the fact that he managed to get his hands on some piece of information between China and Russia.”
“And that’s when he gave you this?” Andrea asked.
“Well, he didn’t just give it to me—he posted it in the room. I ran an encryption program on it and found that the correspondence had IP addresses in Moscow and Beijing.”
Andrea lowered the piece of paper onto the desk. “Jesus.” If this was true, if everything the boy was telling her was not some calculated piece of fiction, then she needed to act quickly. “Finn, I want you leading your own team, looking for any other particular rooms in this seedy underground you’ve stumbled upon.”
“Would I be able to choose my own people, Chancellor?”
“Yes, bring on whoever you need to get the job done. I want to know what else is out there and who’s saying what.” Finn nodded and left immediately. Andrea turned to Alexander. “I need to speak with the Americans about this immediately to see what they know.”
***
Rick Demps watched the two faces on the dual monitors in front of him with hidden satisfaction. He wanted neither to appear too eager or too desperate, but the fact that he’d managed to get both of them on the call together was quite a feat.
“Gentlemen, I’m giving you the opportunity to retake control of the world,” Rick said. “It’s just waiting for you to pick it up and run with it.”
“Your price is very steep, Mr. Demps. And even in the current climate, it is still a risk. How long do you think before the Americans find out? Hm?” the Russian president asked.
“That’s why time is of the essence,” Rick answered.
“Your arrogance is a great risk to you. What is stopping us from locating you and taking control of your weapon by force?” the Chinese president asked.
“Right now, each of your respective intelligence agencies is attempting to break into our server firewall.” Heath entered the room and handed Rick a small piece of scrap paper. “My associate has just informed me that your security efforts have failed.” He dropped the paper, and it floated to his desk. Heath stood behind and to the right of Rick with his arms folded behind his back, staring at the two leaders on the screens. “I have better equipment, better men, and better facilities than either of you do. I’m a very rich man, and that wealth has afforded me nothing but the best.”
“Lower your utility rates to thirty-five percent,” the Chinese president said.
“I’ll lower them to forty-five, as long as my company is the main provider of energy for whatever lands you conquer.”
The Chinese and Russian presidents were silent for a long time before the two of them gave each other a curt nod. Rick clapped his hands together, allowing the first smile of the interaction. “Excellent! Once we have confirmed your deposits, we’ll begin rebooting each of your grids. And may I recommend you have your soldiers in place before that happens? The quicker both of you strike, the likelier you are to achieve success. We’ll be in touch, gentlemen.”
The screens went blank, and the lights came back on in his office. He turned to Heath, who had retained his stoic presence. “Where are we at with GSF?”
“The techs have already begun the process of assimilating the information from the hard drives. Most of it was wiped, but we did manage to recover quite a few files on both Europe and Asia.”
“Anything we can use to help us in our current deal?”
“Nothing of that significance, but we did manage to track a few of the organization’s safe houses.”
“Let’s pay them a visit.”
***
The air strip at the Minot, North Dakota, Air Force Base was packed with a line of cargo planes that stretched around the entire length of the taxiway. The massive engines whined as soldiers loaded into the steel bellies. Sarah sat with Bryce on the edge of the tarmac while Mack spoke to one of the commanders, hammering out the details of their flight.
Bryce fiddled with his fingertips, his knee bouncing nervously. She pushed his shoulder, and he nearly fell over. “What’s the matter with you?”
“We don’t have anything,” Bryce answered.
“What are you talking about?”
The buttons on Bryce’s pants scraped against the asphalt as he shifted his body to face her. “HQ is completely destroyed, we don’t have access to the satellite, and we’re hitching a ride with the U.S. military to Alaska.”
“Is it the fear-of-flying thing? ’Cause I can tell you those cargo planes are much safer than any commercial flight, and look”—Sarah reached around, stuffed her hand into her pack, pulled out a paper bag, and smiled—“I got you a barf bag.”
“Sarah,” Bryce said, lowering the barf bag, “I wasn’t able to wipe all the files before we lost connection with the satellite link.”
“We had all the support agents working on that, Bryce, not just you.”
“You and I both know that they’re examining our servers and hard drives, trying to get whatever piece of data they can about us. Safe houses, agent profiles, mission documents. Our field agents are out there, waiting for some type of word from us, and if Demps figures out where any of them are, the—”
“Bryce,” Sarah said, grabbing his hand, “we’ll get everyone back online.” He nodded, and Sarah picked up the barf bag and set it in his lap. “Just in case.”
Mack walked over with the commander, and Sarah and Bryce rose to their feet.
“Sarah, Bryce, this is Commander Fryson,” Mack said. “He and I went to basic together.”
“A long time ago,” Fryson said, shaking both Sarah’s and Bryce’s hands. “Glad to have you on board.”
“We appreciate the ride,” Bryce said.
“So, Commander, I bet you have some very interesting stories about Mack from his wild younger days. You know, back when he had hair and he wasn’t so angry, and he probably got busted for some type of ridiculous prank.”
Fryson laughed. “I probably have one or two stories along those lines.”
“This is going to be a long flight,” Mack said.
Chapter 7
The tires of the massive four-wheel-drive vehicle crushed the freshly layered snow underneath, leaving a wake of tracks through the surrounding forest. The camouflaged army Humvee was a loaner from Commander Fryson once they had landed in Anchorage. The flight over had been an interesting one, with Sarah and Bryce learning more about Mack as a younger man, but what was even more interesting was the number of soldiers that had landed with them.
The only resource the Alaskan wilderness provided at the moment was the oil pipeline, but there wasn’t any way they’d be able to station soldiers along the entire thing. They were here on different orders, ones the commander refused to tell her.
“How far back did you put this thing?” Bryce asked.
“Pretty far,” Mack answered, their heads bobbing back and forth on their necks from the rough Alaskan terrain. “I wanted to make sure it didn’t run the risk of someone finding it by accident. No one goes in these parts, not even hunters.”
“Well, you did a hell of a job, boss,” Sarah said.
“There,” Mack said, pointing into the distance, and Sarah could see the faint outline of a geometrical square stuck in the middle of the forest’s unrestricted shapes.
They pulled up and stepped out into the cold, the water vapors from their breath forming small, misty clouds. All three of them were bundled up in winter gear. Sarah checked the temperature gauge on the dashboard before shutting the door. “Well, it’s a crisp one degree outside. But the good news is it only feels like ten degrees.”
“I can’t feel my face,” Bryce said.
“Grab the gear out of the back, and keep your eyes peeled,” Mack said. “God knows we haven’t been on our A game lately.”
Sarah helped Bryce lug the computers through the knee-deep snow. Luckily, her boots had built-in heaters, which cut through the snow drifts like a hot knife through butter. They had to dig out the front door in order to get inside, and an equally cold burst of air greeted their entrance.
“I wouldn’t suppose you had whoever built this install some heaters in it, would you?” Sarah asked, setting the cases of equipment down and helping Bryce with his.
“Once we get the servers up and running, this place will warm up real quick,” Bryce answered then turned to Mack. “How are we powering this thing?”
“You remember that solar cell project we had a hand in researching a while back that was a massive failure?” Mack asked.
“Yeah,” Bryce answered.
“It wasn’t a failure.” A small lever sat on the side wall, and when Mack flipped it up, the servers booted up, and a few overhanging lights turned on. “This facility is completely off grid and one hundred percent solar powered.”
“Going green,” Sarah said. “Very liberal of you, sir. I’m impressed.”
“We worked on that project for almost eighteen months!” Bryce said, rushing over to the servers and examining their start-up sequences. He popped his head between two of the machines and then back over to Mack. “Which polymer was it? Wait! No, let me guess.” Bryce put his finger to his mouth, marching back and forth, muttering to himself. Sarah picked up a computer mouse and flung it at his shoulder.
“Hey! The sooner we get the satellite link up, the sooner we can get out of this icebox.” Sarah said. “It’s so cold, my nipples are poking through my Kevlar.”
Bryce sulked back over to cases of equipment but then pointed to Mack. “I want to finish that polymer cell conversation.” He popped the latches and hooked up the servers to the computers he had brought.
Aside from the servers themselves and the front door, there wasn’t anything else in the building. No windows. No paint. Just computers and concrete. Sarah stood next to Mack, looking around at the dull surroundings. “Now, I know I’m not the most fashion-savvy person who’s ever walked the earth, but I think a few splashes of color could really lighten the place up.”
“We have a mole,” Mack said.
Sarah had been in the espionage world as a field agent for more than six years. During those six years, she’d heard a lot of different tones from her boss. He’d yelled at her, screamed at her, threatened her, even tried to kill her once—although, to be fair, she had deserved it. But in all of those conversations—which were more him just yelling at her until she managed to sneak away—Mack had never had the tone in his voice that she’d heard him use just now. It wasn’t one of anger, or fear, but one of defeat. The wind had been knocked out of him, and he looked like a man who already had one foot in the grave. “What are you talking about?”
“The radio tubes,” Mack answered. “Only someone who had inside information could have known that. I bet if we checked the other bodies that tried taking you out at the apartment, we’d find radio tubes in them too. It was a setup. They knew we’d take one of them back to question him.”
“Mack,” Sarah said, forcing him to look at her, “that can’t be possible.”
“It is possible,” Mack said, gesturing around to their current location. “Look at what I was able to do without anyone knowing. And Demps seemed to be able to break into HQ a little too easily.”
“Yeah, but what you did was a good thing,” Sarah said. “What you’re suggesting is evil and wrong and... and... why are you telling me this? What if I’m the mole?”
“You’re not the mole.”
Sarah looked at him indignantly. “And why the hell couldn’t I be the mole? If there was anyone who had the profile of a mole, it would be me. Insubordinate, risk taker, struggles with emotional attachment—”
“It’s not you, Sarah. You don’t have it in you to betray the GSF. You love it too much.” Mack took a breath, and the chilled air still held enough vapor to produce another misty puff. He turned to Sarah and grabbed hold of her shoulders, looking her square in the eye. “I told you because I trust you. And because I know you won’t show any bias toward me in suspecting that I could be the mole.”
“Well, this is a bitch,” Sarah said. “For the record, I don’t like this.”
“I know.”
“Uh, guys?” Bryce asked. “Did you happen to bring the small, red box I left at the post when we first arrived?”
“What’d you go and lose now, Milks?” Sarah asked. Bryce was surrounded by his pieces of technology and wires and computer chips with lights blinking and sounds pinging. It was enough noise to make Sarah want to kick everything down to let out all the frustration coursing through her veins.
“It was only about yay big,” he said, measuring his hand about a foot off the ground. “I can’t get the satellite link mobile until I have it.”
Sarah zipped up her jacket, made her way to the door, and opened it, sending a chill through the room. “If my nipples freeze and fall off from the cold while I’m out there I’m going to shoot one of you in the ass.”
***
The small town of Platinum, Alaska, had nothing more than a main road and an airport. Everything else that surrounded it was frigid tundra. The influx of U.S. troops had increased the town’s occupancy tenfold.
A light snow fell as Sarah pulled into the now-bustling town. People, houses, cars, all painted with a light coat of white dots clustering together in an attempt to completely take over whatever host it landed on. Sarah parked the Humvee next to the command post where they had waited after the flight.
Two guards stood outside and blocked her from entering. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the commander’s reviewing some sensitive information. I’m going to have to ask you to get back in the vehicle and wait there.”
“It’ll just take a minute.” Sarah did a sidestep, and again the guard blocked her, mimicking her motions.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. No one is allowed inside. No exceptions.”
“What’s with the ‘ma’am’? Do I look like a ma’am? Do I have a crocheted sweater around my shoulders, hunched over on a walker, looking for a warm fire to rub my bunions by?”
The soldier looked to his partner, his slack-jawed face the only response he was able to muster. Sarah gave another sidestep then faked right, but the guard was fast enough to follow, giving the feel of an awkward dance-off that neither of them wanted to be in. “All right, enough of this shit.” Sarah snatched the soldier’s wrist and twisted it hard left, bringing the soldier to his knees. Before his partner could put his hands on her, Sarah spun around and brought her heel to the inside of his knee, causing the soldier to join his partner on the ground.
With the doorway clear, she jumped inside and slammed the door behind her before the soldiers could get off the ground. When she turned around, there were a number of snow-topped heads staring at her as she held her body against the doo
r, holding off the two soldiers who were trying to break in at bay. “I know what you’re thinking and, no, I did not permanently hurt the two men outside. At least not physically. Emotionally maybe.”
The door finally gave way and shoved Sarah forward as the two guards barreled inside. They immediately went to grab her when Commander Fryson jumped in. “Enough! We don’t need any casualties before this thing starts. She can stay.”
“Yes, sir.” The two soldiers exited the building, giving Sarah a glare that had a hint of “fuck you” behind it. Sarah caught a glimpse of the map in the middle of the table where the officers had gathered as she picked up the small red case Bryce needed. She recognized the Alaskan coastline and could see figurines that looked like warships in the Bering Sea.
“Do you have what you need, Sarah?” Commander Fryson asked.
“Russians,” Sarah said.
“I’m sorry?”
Sarah invited herself over to the map, looking down at the outlines of war below. “The imported soldiers, the added artillery. You guys think Russia’s going to make a move. Ballsy.”
Sirens wailed outside, turning every head in the room to the door. The two guards from earlier burst in. “Sir, we have contact on the shoreline!” The room erupted into a massive scramble, with Fryson grabbing hold of Sarah’s shoulder.
“Get to Mack. Tell him what’s going on.” Before Sarah could object, she was thrust outside into the ordered chaos of war.
Hundreds of soldiers ran past her, creating twice as many footprints in the falling snow, which had picked up. The light drizzle had turned into a steady haze of white, swallowing anything and everything in its path. She looked over to the Humvee, knowing full well that she’d get bogged down in the trails on the way back, even if she left now. She brought her hand underneath her jacket and pulled out one of her pistols. “Well, might as well be useful.”