Quantum

by Tom Grace

  ‘Do you still have access?’

  ‘Some. I’m restricted to areas specifically related to my project and have no outside access at all.’

  ‘We won’t need it. Are you logged in to the network?’

  ‘Da.’

  ‘Good, then I’ll go to work.’

  Using a mix of mouse clicks and keyed-in commands, Kilkenny opened up a window on the laptop’s color active-matrix screen. The faint sound of a telephone being dialed pulsed out of the laptop’s speakers before Kilkenny turned off the sound.

  ‘What was that?’ Avvakum asked.

  ‘Nothing much, just a little communications program.’

  In silence, the laptop completed dialing the preprogrammed sequence that Kilkenny had requested, initiating a satellite phone call from its internal modem to the network switchboard at MARC in Ann Arbor.

  The MARC network answered, and the two machines electronically shook hands – exchanged communications protocols – verifying that they could trade information without difficulty. Once the two machines synchronized themselves, the window filled with the MARC network logo and requested Kilkenny’s user name and password. He typed in both and logged on to the MARC network.

  A message appeared across the top of the window.

  NOLAN, YOU READY TO GO TO WORK?

  Kilkenny smiled. YOU BET, he typed in reply.

  Kilkenny knew that on the other side of the world, Grin had the Spyder primed and ready to attack Orlov’s computer network. The window went blank. Kilkenny minimized it, making all but a small icon disappear from the screen. Now that the Spyder controlled the connection between the two computers, there was no reason to waste time displaying what it was doing.

  ‘Well, now that our computers are all talking to one another, I guess we could try and decode some more of Johann Wolff’s notebooks.’

  From a new window, Kilkenny tapped into Avvakum’s computer and downloaded one of the scanned image files from Wolff’s notebooks that had been stolen five days earlier. He brought up the decoding program and selected the image file for processing.

  ‘That’s all there is to it; you just pick the encrypted file and tell my program to translate it.’

  Avvakum watched eagerly as the computer slowly, character by character, transformed the blocks of unintelligible characters back into the thoughts of the long-dead physicist.

  Kilkenny sat back in his chair. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Back in Orlov’s office, when you read the pages I’d already decoded, what did you find?’

  ‘You haven’t read them?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Not really. I don’t speak much German, and even less quantum physics. I assume you’re fluent in both.’

  Avvakum smiled and turned her head, embarrassed by the compliment and the attention.

  ‘The work of your colleague, Ted Sandstrom, is brilliant. He has made remarkable strides with his experiments, and his discovery may well change how many things are done. From what little I’ve seen of the work of Johann Wolff, I believe he was developing theories that promise to open a new way of thinking about the physical universe.’

  59

  JULY 31

  Ann Arbor, Michigan

  ‘All right, we’re in!’ Grin announced as the Spyder took control of VIO FinProm’s computer network.

  Inside the MARC Computer Center, Mosley walked out of Grin’s office, which was serving as his local base of operations, and over to the semicircular console where Grin sat surrounded by keyboards and computer screens.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Mosley asked.

  ‘Nolan just opened the door into Orlov’s network. Our Spyder has latched on and taken control of network security. Right about now, it should begin issuing a series of new user log-ins and passwords to some friends of mine who are going to help us out today. These new log-ins will have unlimited access and control over pieces of Orlov’s computer networks. Every other user’s privileges on those networks will be knocked down to read-only status.’

  The window displaying the Spyder’s actions showed a series of new user identities being created and E-mail messages being sent by the owners of those new identities. One of the monitors on Grin’s console announced, ‘You’ve got mail.’

  Grin opened the message and scribbled down his new user name and password. He then switched to a different window on the screen and keyed the information in to a waiting log-in prompt.

  ‘Cal, I’m in FinProm’s accounting system.’

  The third monitor on Grin’s console began filling with text as his closest friends in the hacker community began to report in. Grin turned to study his cohorts’ progress.

  ‘Jazz is in Orlov’s petrochemical company, and Hemmy says he’s digging into the television stuff. Way to go! Dredd, my man, has VIO shipping by the short and curlies. Oh my – Surfgrape, I bow before your greatness.’

  ‘What did Surfgrape do?’

  ‘Surfgrape, bless her heart, has just broken into Orlov’s Swiss bank accounts and is downloading his transaction history for the past decade. She’s freezing accounts as she finds them. VIO FinProm is in a world of hurt.’

  ‘It still scares me that there are people who can do this.’

  ‘Yeah, but aren’t you glad me and my crew are on your side? Fly, my pretties, fly!’ Grin shouted excitedly as updates on the electronic assault on Orlov’s business empire scrolled in.

  60

  JULY 31

  Saginaw Bay, Michigan

  Dawson pored over the collection of maps and satellite photos that were strewn across the chart table of the Sharon S. Notations made in water-based marker indicated the positions of his men near the remote hunting cabin.

  Angel had reported ‘feet dry’ twenty minutes earlier, transitioning from the water phase of the mission to land. Their stealthy approach from the bay up the Rifle River had apparently gone undetected by the Tangos.

  Once they’d reached the shore, the SEALs had disconnected their masks from the Draeger rebreathers. A rotary valve closed off the dual hoses, preventing any contamination of the rebreather’s CO2 scrubber. Angel approached the cabin in water that varied from knee to waist deep. From their last report, Angel was in position along the levee east of the cabin.

  Dawson’s satellite phone, which lay near the corner of the chart table, emitted a soft, pulsating sound.

  ‘Dawson,’ he answered.

  ‘Admiral, it’s Grin. Nolan is on-line.’

  ‘Good. Everything going okay?’

  ‘Yeah, the connection is clean, and we’ve got access to all the goodies. Does it look like they’re going to release Kelsey and Elli?’

  ‘No,’ Dawson replied with near absolute certainty.

  Grin said nothing for a moment, finding himself at a loss for words. ‘Good luck, Admiral.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Dawson replied sympathetically before ending the call.

  Dawson gazed down at the charts. The cabin was situated near the shore of the bay on an elevated patch of ground surrounded by an earthen levee. Water from the river flooded the surrounding area, creating lightly wooded wetlands ideal for hunting migrating ducks and geese.

  God, the two-man sniper team, had worked their way on foot to the cabin from the adjacent Ogemaw State Forest. A knoll, approximately two thousand yards from the cabin across a wide expanse of cattails and marsh grass, provided the snipers with an unobstructed view of the northern and western sides of the rustic, one-story building.

  ‘Heaven to God,’ Dawson called out.

  ‘This is God. I read you, Heaven.’

  ‘Say status of Halos.’

  ‘Halos are unchanged. Repeat, Halos are unchanged.’

  From God’s vantage point on the knoll, the snipers had a clear view of Kelsey and Elli. Both women were in the northwestern corner bedroom, and should any move be made against them, God was in a position to put an immediate stop to it. The ‘unchanged’ status of the hostages m
eant that no move had been made to harm or release the women. Enough time had passed, in Dawson’s opinion, to determine that the hostages were not going to be released.

  ‘Say status of Tangos, God.’

  ‘Count is five – three plus two,’ the sniper answered, identifying a total of five men; three inside with the hostages, and two outside on patrol.

  ‘I read you, God,’ Dawson replied. ‘Heaven to Angel.’

  ‘Angel here,’ Edwards answered. ‘I read you, Heaven.’

  ‘Halos are unchanged. Confirmed Tango count is five. Tangos are three and two. You have a green light, Angel.’

  ‘Green light acknowledged, Heaven. Angel out.’

  Dawson looked up from the charts and out the bridge windscreen. Through the thick, moisture-laden air, the shore was a distant green-brown haze. Somewhere in that haze, his men were moving.

  61

  JULY 31

  Pine River, Michigan

  A few days ago, I was in the arms of a beautiful woman in Moscow, Dima thought as he spat on the ground near the cabin. Now, I’m in a godforsaken swamp.

  Late Saturday night, he and another ex-soldier named Ilya had been flown halfway around the world to Canada, then driven across the Blue Water Bridge into Michigan. Now he was on patrol in a swamp while recovering from the combined effects of jet lag and a hangover.

  Dima swatted another of the interminable parade of mosquitoes that had tormented him throughout the past day. As he rubbed the spot on his neck where the ferocious insect had bitten him, he noticed a flash of light from across the open marsh. He studied the small hill where he’d seen the bright flare of reflected sunlight, then there was another flash.

  Dima crouched low alongside the levee. He’d seen light flares like that in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and they’d always been man-made.

  ‘Josef,’ he called into his lip mike.

  ‘Da,’ the Georgian answered.

  ‘It’s Dima. I saw a reflection flash on a nearby hillock, northwest of camp. Request permission to investigate.’

  ‘Granted. Hold position until I get someone out to replace you on patrol.’

  Josef knew that the reflection Dima had seen was probably nothing, but to ignore even the most mundane observation on a mission like this invited disaster.

  ‘Ilya, take Dima’s post on patrol.’

  Ilya got up from the ancient couch, slung a submachine gun over his shoulder, and walked out the cabin’s front door. When he neared the northwestern corner, Dima threw a short wave at him and crawled over the levee.

  ‘Hey, Gorski,’ Ahsan said quietly, ‘I think someone might have spotted that scope of yours.’

  From beneath the lightweight camouflage tarp that concealed his prone body, Gorski pulled his face away from the telescopic sight on his sniper rifle and surveyed the area in front of him. As a two-man unit, he and Ahsan were collectively known as God because they could strike down like a bolt of lightning out of the sky.

  ‘I see him, about ten o’clock,’ Gorski replied, the long barrel of his custom-built.50-caliber rifle defining twelve o’clock relative to their position on the knoll.

  ‘Yep, he called out a replacement, then moved into that patch of woods. I’ll keep an eye on him; just wanted to give you a heads-up.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ Gorski replied to his protector.

  From the knoll, Gorski lined up a shot through the front window of the room where the two hostages were being kept. He rechecked the settings on his scope, making certain he had the distance and wind adjustments dialed in to his satisfaction.

  Gorski’s earpiece crackled. ‘Angel to God, we’re moving.’

  ‘I read you, Angel,’ Gorski replied.

  Gorski pulled back on the set trigger until it clicked into place. This step expended most of the energy required to fire the weapon, thus removing the slight tug induced by a cold trigger pull. At this distance, even the smallest shudder of Gorski’s rifle could easily throw a shot wide of the mark. If need be, death was now just a few ounces of pressure on the hair trigger away.

  Using hand gestures, Edwards put Angel into action. The squad broke up into two fire teams – the first composed of Edwards, Rodriguez, Hepburn, and Gilgallon, and the second made up of Gates, Detmer, and Darvas.

  As Edwards’s team clambered over the earthen levee and began moving toward the cabin, Gates took aim on the Tango patrolling near his team’s position. Two shots flashed in rapid succession from Gates’s venerable, government-issued 1911 Colt.45; a double tap of 230-grain ball ammo drilled a hole the size of a half-dollar in the Tango’s forehead. The man’s head snapped backward from the impact; the rest of his body followed, and he landed with a muffled thump on the ground.

  A burst of automatic-weapons fire shattered the glass of a window in one of the cabin’s back rooms. Detmer answered with a fusillade from his.50-caliber machine gun that splintered the aging clapboard siding and removed both sashes of the double-hung window.

  Protected by Detmer’s punishing cover fire, Edwards’s team reached the cabin’s back door. Rodriguez kicked it in with such force that the lockset ripped free of the wooden stile.

  Edwards tossed a flash-bang grenade through the cabin door. The SEALs shielded their eyes as the grenade exploded inside with a nonlethal combination of a blinding flash of light and a sonic assault that knocked most victims senseless. The SEALs then poured into the smoke-filled cabin, each man training both his attention and the barrel of his weapon on a pie-shaped wedge of space that expanded in front of him. The overlapping wedges were each man’s field of fire, and each was responsible for what happened in his lethal zone.

  The main room was clear. Edwards motioned for Gilgallon and Hepburn to check the rooms on one side while he and Rodriguez cleared the room on the other.

  Josef had just zipped up his pants after relieving himself when he heard Misha firing from the rear bedroom and the back door crashing open.

  ‘Fuck!’ Josef cursed, realizing that they were under attack.

  He pulled the 9-mm pistol out of his shoulder holster and began counting slowly, waiting for the inevitable explosion of a concussion grenade – a device he had used many times to immobilize people he’d been sent to capture rather than kill. Three slow seconds passed, then the wood-frame cabin shuddered from the grenade’s sonic assault.

  The noise was still echoing off the plaster walls when Josef bolted from the bathroom, across the short hall, and into the far bedroom, where the hostages were being kept. Both women were still tied to their chairs, frightened but apparently unaffected by the deafening blast. Josef swept the room, looking for any armed targets; it was clear. Then, without hesitation, he raised his pistol and took aim at Elli.

  Gorski saw the bedroom door fly open as a swarthy black-haired Tango entered the room where the Halos were being kept. With his pistol held chest high in a two-handed grip, the man swept the room from left to right. Then he turned his pistol toward the Halos. Gorski gently squeezed the hair trigger. With a satisfying crack, the.50-caliber round erupted from the barrel in a blast of expanding superheated gas.

  Most of what had been Josef’s head splattered against the long wall of the room in thousands of tiny bits of bone fragments and gore. The pistol, which he had aimed directly at Elli’s face at point-blank range, jerked upward as Gorski’s round slammed home.

  The bullet intended to end Elli’s life lightly grazed the top of her head, scorching a narrow groove in the thin layer of skin on her skull. Elli fell back when Josef’s pistol fired; the chair she was lashed to tipped against the twin bed. Josef’s nearly headless body collapsed sideways as if flung toward the doorway by an unseen hand.

  ‘Elli!’ Kelsey screamed as the elderly woman slumped in the inclined chair. Blood seeped out of her wound, drenching her gray-white hair with a bright crimson sheen.

  Rodriguez caught a blur of motion in the hallway; someone had run from a room on one side of the hall to the room on the opposite side, where the hostag
es were. He held up his hand to let Edwards know that he’d seen at least one Tango. With Rodriguez providing cover, Edwards moved down the hall, positioning himself to cover Rodriguez as the point man leapfrogged past him toward the bedroom door.

  Edwards heard a thundering crack inside the room, then a bloody spray exploded out of the open doorway.

  ‘God, was that you?’ Edwards asked into his lip mike.

  ‘Roger, Angel. Tango with Halos is down,’ Gorski responded as he slid back the bolt and chambered another round.

  The Tango who’d taken over perimeter patrol from his comrade was now running back to the cabin. Gorski lined up the crosshairs on the back of the man’s head and fired. The view through the scope briefly went out of focus as a cloud of hot gas from the barrel floated across Gorski’s line of sight. In the distance, he saw the Tango crumple to the ground, dead.

  ‘Tango in front of cabin is down,’ Gorski announced with the emotional detachment of a surgeon excising a tumor.

  Rodriguez and Edwards filled the bedroom doorway, each quickly surveying the room. Edwards sidestepped with his back to the wall, moving toward the corner of the room, where he’d have a clear view of the concealed side of the bed.

  ‘Clear,’ Edwards shouted from the corner.

  Rodriguez holstered his weapon, stepped over the dead Tango, and moved to Elli. He placed two fingers on the side of her neck.

  ‘She’s alive,’ he told the other man.

  ‘One Tango down. One Halo wounded,’ Edwards announced.

  ‘One Tango down back here. All clear,’ Hepburn called back. ‘Corpsman is on the way.’

  Rodriguez was cutting Elli’s bonds when Gilgallon entered the room. The two SEALs carefully lifted Elli off the chair and laid her unconscious form on the twin bed. Using his k-bar knife, Edwards freed Kelsey.