Dead Wrong

by Richard Phillips

  “Isn’t it obvious? I was too close, and he didn’t want to risk killing himself with shrapnel.”

  “But you went down and The Ripper didn’t.”

  “The flash bang went off right behind me, and you can bet he had hearing protection. Now are you done jerking my chain, or do you really want to piss me off?”

  Dolf started to raise a hand, but Altmann put a hand out to stop him.

  Janet eased the grip of her left hand on her belt knife, her eyes locking with the albino’s. “Down, boy.”

  Altmann interceded. “Back off! Both of you.”

  Dolf turned toward his boss. “What do you want me to do with our men?”

  “Tell Renaldo to get some vans up here to shuttle them down to the barracks. The other guards will just have to make room. But I want them ready to go as soon as The Ripper is located.”

  Dolf nodded and glanced down at Janet, the beginning of a snarl curling his lip. Then he turned and walked rapidly out through the gate.

  Janet returned her gaze to Altmann. “When you find Gregory, I want to go with the assault team.”

  Altmann shook his head. “Not this time. You had your chance at The Ripper, and you missed. You’re getting close to breaking Inti, and that’s the priority. Right now, I want you to show me exactly what happened here. After that, we’ll go to work on Inti.”

  For the next hour, Janet led Altmann through the compound, starting with the cliff where Jack had climbed up and eventually rappelled back down. Altmann emptied the backpack Jack had left, noting the extra rappelling harness and glove he’d left by the rope. Clearly, he’d been expecting Tupac to accompany him back down that rope.

  From there, she showed Altmann each place where Jack had gone as he worked his way into the house and then toward the stairwell. The study surprised her, but not as much as it appeared to surprise and trouble Altmann. Although Janet hadn’t noticed it earlier, Jack had clearly entered the study, taken a skinny binder from the bookshelf, removed the pages within, and left the empty binder lying on the reading table.

  “Why wasn’t I told about this?” Altmann asked.

  “I didn’t know The Ripper came in here. When I saw him, he was in the hall near the stairwell. He must have already left the study. What did he take?”

  Altmann picked up the binder and closed it, sticking it back into the empty slot on the bookshelf. Janet noticed that the spine had no label.

  “Just some historical notes. Nothing of value.”

  But when Janet looked in the godfather’s face, it told an entirely different story.

  CHAPTER 59

  Dr. Bones McCoy hadn’t slept or bathed in two days. When she got like this, everybody steered well clear of her private lab. The no-bathing thing probably had a lot to do with that. For the first time since she’d started working with the QB4096, it seemed stumped.

  The quantum computer was by far the most advanced of its new breed, performing the same computation in a huge number of simultaneous variations, with thousands of entangled qubits operating in an unimaginably large number of simultaneous states. Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman once said that if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics. Bones had never deluded herself that she understood how the quantum computer her work had helped to make possible did what it did.

  But as amazing as QB4096 was, it was also unimaginably stupid. In essence, it was the idiot savant of computers, capable of instantly solving problems that ordinary computers could never solve, yet struggling with tasks ordinary computers accomplished with ease. That was why the NSA had devoted one of their most advanced traditional super-computers to the task of serving as the system’s front end. It was this machine that provided the advanced user interface Bones used to enter instructions and to receive results. It was this machine that figured out which parts of the problem to handle itself and which parts to pass along to the QB4096.

  Because of this essential symbiotic relationship, Bones had come to think of the connected machines as one entity, which she called Cubee.

  Even though Bones had originally only allocated a fraction of its processing power to the problem, the machine should have arrived at all possible solutions to the Incan Sun Staff’s golden orb in a matter of seconds. But as time passed and little progress was made, Admiral Riles had ordered Bones to increase the priority given to this task until she had finally stopped Cubee from working on anything else. Incredibly, after three days of complete focus on the orb, Cubee had only now begun to make progress.

  That progress had started when Bones had combined the 3D model of the silver staff with the 3D model of the orb. But the real breakthrough hadn’t happened until she’d noticed an oddity in the original pictures of the golden orb. All of them had been taken with a high-definition camera that clearly showed the fine details of the intricate symbols on each ring as well as views of the internal clockwork mechanisms through the small gaps between the rings.

  The symbols neither began nor ended on any ring, but extended onto the adjacent rings. And as any ring turned, the symbols combined with adjacent ones to form a different shape. Although that made the problem more difficult, such a mechanical device should have yielded a nearly instantaneous solution to Cubee. The fact that it hadn’t was what had robbed Bones of sleep. She couldn’t get it out of her head, and she didn’t want to.

  That was when a new idea had occurred to her. What if the problem wasn’t with Cubee’s processing power, but with the original 3D model of the golden orb? Other NSA computing systems had built that model from the photographs. But what if the model those other systems had produced wasn’t good enough?

  The key lay in the pictures themselves. The person who had taken them had done a very thorough job. The orb had been set atop a cushion, and a series of photographs had been taken from all sides of the object, including a set taken from above the orb. Then the orb had been turned upside down and the process repeated.

  Anyone else but Bones might have missed it. It was, after all, the tiniest of variations, but when the orb had been turned over, a couple of the rings had rotated slightly from their previous alignment. That small outer change had produced a startling internal reconfiguration. It was as if Bones had suddenly stepped from a dark cave into the bright light of day.

  Unlike a Rubik’s Cube or Rubik’s Sphere, it wasn’t the externally visible symbols that gave the orb its complexity. It was the way the internal mechanisms arranged themselves at each movement of the rings. That internal state changed depending on the ring turned, the direction it was turned, the number of consecutive times it was turned, and a number of other factors she had yet to understand. And each movement not only changed the arrangement of the symbols on the sphere but the appearance of the symbols themselves.

  This was no simple problem of correctly aligning the varied symbols. The order of the alignment was critical to the resultant configuration of the internal clockwork mechanisms, and that affected how the orb connected to the tiny gears on the top end of the silver staff. Together they formed not just a complex mathematical formula represented by the external symbols, but a mechanical device designed to do something, possibly even several somethings, depending on the code and the way it was dialed in.

  If she only had the completed staff, she could hook it up to a robotic device under Cubee’s control, and the solution would come easily. But she didn’t have the actual artifact. She only had an imperfect 3D model, and that wasn’t going to get the job done.

  So Bones had ordered Cubee to cease work on the current problem and had instead fed in the raw digital images from the original photographs, instructing Cubee to analyze them and construct its own 3D model that extrapolated the actions and construction of the internal mechanisms. That completed model was what Cubee was now using as it attempted to solve the alignment sequences.

  From the data Cubee was giving her, Bones could see that it had identified four possible paths to different solutions. And
although Cubee had not yet arrived at a complete solution for any of the complex algorithms, they each got progressively more complicated.

  Based on Cubee’s nonlinear rate of progression, Bones figured that she should have the answers no later than tomorrow. In the meantime, the body odor in her private lab wasn’t likely to get a whole lot better.

  CHAPTER 60

  Colonel Chumo Garcia studied the contents of the encrypted folder he’d just downloaded onto his computer. As good as the Cuban Directorate General of Intelligence was, the Russian FSB was better. Chumo liked the old KGB name and had never really gotten used to the new one. After all, it was essentially the same organization with many of the old familiar faces.

  The FSB file on Janet Mueller was simultaneously more and less extensive than he had hoped. Her early life details were well documented and matched the information in the packet that General Montoya had said originated with the Golden Dawn. Middle-class German upbringing and subsequent Nazi radicalization while at the Technical University of Dortmund, where she obtained a degree in computer science. With dual German–American citizenship she had moved to Greece and had essentially dropped off the grid, with only vague references to her affiliation to Ammon Gianakos and the Golden Dawn.

  Although the Golden Dawn file credited her with a number of assassinations, the FSB could find no specific evidence linking her to those hits. That could be because this woman was too good to be caught, or there might be another reason. Without exception, Chumo doubted any information obtained from Nazis. Neo or old-school, they were all the same.

  Where things got interesting in the FSB file had to do with last year’s Russian mafia attack on the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Although all the perpetrators of that terrorist action had eventually been killed, one of the sets of fingerprints recovered from the Baikonur control room in Building 92A-50 had turned out to be a match for Janet Mueller’s prints in the packet Chumo had forwarded.

  Interestingly enough, Janet Mueller’s prints had been found close to a set of partial prints that had been traced to a dead CIA agent by the name of Jack Gregory. Although interesting, it was irrelevant to the background information General Montoya had requested. But one thing Colonel Chumo Garcia was famous for was his thorough attention to detail.

  It was extraneous information, but it wouldn’t hurt the quality of his report to include it. Having considered both sides of the argument, Chumo made his decision. What the hell? He’d let General Montoya cull it if he wanted.

  CHAPTER 61

  “Sir, we’ve intercepted a message from the DGI to General Esteban Montoya,” said Levi Elias. “It concerns Janet.”

  Admiral Riles lifted his eyes to see Levi Elias standing in his door, once again having bypassed the NSA director’s irritated admin. Riles waved her back to her desk.

  “Come on in, Levi, and shut the door behind you.”

  Levi complied and then walked across the room to lay a small stack of printed pages on his desk. Riles liked it. Even though Levi had, no doubt, also pushed the files to him electronically, sometimes it was still easier to look at the hard copy.

  As Riles studied the contents of the DGI report, spreading the pages out before him, he let Levi look on in silence. His top analyst knew him well enough that he didn’t try to point out key information before Riles had formed his own impression of the material.

  When Riles raised his eyes from the report, he worked to keep the concern from his voice.

  “The Baikonur fingerprints could be a problem. Especially Gregory’s.”

  “Yes, sir. Altmann’s not stupid.”

  “But Montoya is. What are the odds that he forwards that part of the report?”

  Levi shrugged. “He’s lazy. He’ll forward the whole thing. We need to get word to Janet.”

  Admiral Riles rose from his chair and walked to look out the window at the sunny winter day that failed to effectively pass much of its light through the NSA’s dark glass.

  “No. That’s a one-time-use contact method, and we’ll need it once Bones breaks the code. Janet’s going to have to deal with this on the fly.”

  Riles saw the worry lines form on Levi’s forehead. “Too many cracks are starting to appear in her cover.”

  True enough. But Riles didn’t have any feasible alternative. “She’s the best. I trust her to handle it.”

  A deep sadness settled in Levi’s brown eyes. Then, as if shrugging off a heavy burden, he straightened, nodded, and walked out of the office.

  Riles felt Levi’s discarded burden settle on his own shoulders as he reseated himself in his chair. There was no doubt that Levi had good reason to worry. The weight of this entire operation hung from one end of a tightrope walker’s balance pole, and the walker was Janet Price. With that weight getting heavier by the day, it was only a matter of time until it pulled her into the abyss.

  Riles just hoped that day was not today.

  CHAPTER 62

  The old VW Rabbit was a diesel-burning, oil-belching piece of crap, but there were moments when car thieves couldn’t be choosy. For Jack, this was one of those moments. On the plus side, it generated its own smoke screen. When he stopped at an intersection and then accelerated across, the car behind him disappeared in a black cloud thick enough to coat its windshield with soot.

  Over the last couple of hours, the car wasn’t the only thing Jack had stolen. He’d appropriated a long brown overcoat and a wide-brimmed floppy hat from a horse barn on the south edge of Cochabamba. That barn had also yielded a can of boot polish that Jack had used to stain his exposed skin dark brown. He’d passed through two checkpoints, but the police had barely glanced at him before waving him on.

  The one-room cabin Jack had rented for a month had been advertised as a hiker’s base camp. With a woodburning stove and an outhouse, it had all the comforts of home. Running water of the hand-pump variety emptied into a washbasin that doubled as a sink. Sitting back in the woods at the end of a two-mile stretch of dirt road, privacy wouldn’t be an issue.

  Jack parked the car inside the open barn that butted up against the house. From a minimalist construction point of view, the placement made sense, using the house’s western wall twice. The roof lines didn’t match, but Jack didn’t think the homeowner’s association was going to file a complaint.

  As the morning sunshine had given way to a steady rain, Jack was glad the cabin’s lone door opened from inside the small barn into the house. He guessed the builder couldn’t imagine a day’s work that didn’t begin and end inside this barn.

  Jack stepped inside, shed the overcoat, and surveyed his humble abode. A square wood table with two wooden chairs had an LED hurricane lamp and a battery-powered radio sitting in the center. In the far corner Jack had stacked two weeks of supplies along with an air mattress, sleeping bag, three changes of clothes, and a kitbag of tactical gear, weapons, and ammunition.

  The stack of dry firewood by the woodstove would suffice for heating the beans and rice that would be his staples while he was here. As for cooking utensils, he had a metal pot and military mess kit. He didn’t plan on staying that long, and for the most part, a can of cold pork and beans would do.

  Jack wanted to drop off the grid, and this was about as far off the grid as it got.

  For the first time since he’d rolled it up and stuffed it inside his tactical utility vest, Jack removed the journal, fascinated by the repulsion he felt at touching it, and placed it atop the table, next to the LED lantern. He almost expected the unlit lantern to suddenly flicker and the radio to turn itself on and start randomly changing stations. It had been that kind of night and morning.

  Jack looked at the stove and then over at his sleeping bag atop the inflated air mattress. Was he more hungry or tired? He decided it was a toss-up and chose food. It wouldn’t take that long, and who knew the next time he might get a meal. Besides, maybe a full stomach would help him sleep. In that area he could use all the help he could get.

  The wood had been cut to stove
length. Jack opened the iron door and mixed some charcoal lighter with the old ashes to form a paste, before loading the stove with wood. Striking a match, he tossed it onto the lighter paste. Seeing the flame spread beneath the wood, he closed and secured the door.

  Outside, the rain was falling harder, the gusting wind pelting fat drops against the lone window and pinging the wood stove’s metal chimney. The hiss and crackle from the stove as the flames bit into the dry wood made Jack drowsy, and he started to question his decision to eat first. Instead of giving in to fatigue, he set his pan on the stovetop, used a tiny military can opener to remove the top of the can, and dumped the pork and beans into the pot.

  By the time the stove got hot enough to bring the liquid in the pan to a boil, Jack had shed the vest and T-shirt to stand bare-chested before the stove, letting the warmth splash against his bare skin. It was something he’d noticed many times, that the direct heat of a fire felt different on the lines of scar tissue that crisscrossed his chest and back than it did on the skin between those scars. His uninjured skin was much more sensitive to the heat than the nerve-damaged scar tissue. The net effect was that he felt both warm and cold at the same time, as if an ice spider had spun its cold web across his hot body.

  Jack walked to his pack, grabbed the metal shower mirror, and set it by the sink. For some strange reason, he didn’t want to go to sleep without shaving. He’d stained his arms, neck, and face brown with shoe polish, and that didn’t bother him. But for some reason, he wasn’t willing to eat and then crawl into his sleeping bag unshaven.

  How screwed up was that?

  Chop Chop Square. That was what the other international kids call Riyadh’s central square. Sitting in the front row of chairs, my mother on my right, my brother Robert on my left, I know why I’ve been given the closest seat. This is my punishment.

  As khaki-clad police look on, two men wearing traditional white Saudi robes stand on either side of a blindfolded, kneeling man whose hands have been bound to his ankles. The Saudi on the left pulls a great curved sword from beneath his robes as the other Saudi prods the condemned man’s back with the tip of a knife. The kneeling man’s involuntary response arches his back and extends his neck. With a quick up-and-down chopping motion that, to my eight-year-old eyes, seems to happen in slow motion, the long blade rises and descends. Horror floods my soul.