by David Capps
“I was thinking that myself,” Honi said. “The top slot in each country isn’t connected to anything above it on the phone plot.”
“They have to be taking orders from someone, but it’s not by phone. Can we overlay computer connections, FAX and e-mail on this chart?”
“It’s already in there,” Brett said. “Honi had me include those two days ago. Why?”
“One hundred ninety-six people have been selected to rule countries all over the globe. And they don’t answer to anybody? I’m not buying it. They’re communicating all of the time, but how? It’s not by phone, FAX, or computer. How are they communicating?”
“Radio?” Brett asked.
Honi shook her head. “Echelon covers all of that. If it’s electronic, we receive it. It’s already in the database.”
“Receiving a radio broadcast is one thing,” Stafford said. “Understanding what is being sent is a completely different issue.”
Jake looked at his new encrypted phone. “Echelon receives encrypted phone transmissions, doesn’t it?
“Yes,” Honi replied.
“But people still can’t hear what’s being said, right?”
“Right.”
“So how do encrypted phones work?”
“They frequency hop,” Brett replied. “The voice component is broken up into small segments of digital information and a number is added to the end of the segment. That information is transmitted in a short, compressed burst. The number on the end gives the receiving unit the jump to the next frequency, which is randomly selected. The receiving phone turns the voice information back into sound and changes frequency for the next packet of information.”
“Wouldn’t any encrypted phone be able to receive the voice information?” Jake asked.
“Not with the encrypted component. Once the voice information is in digital form it is run through an encryption algorithm, which changes the information. Only phones with the proper encryption algorithm can decode the data into voice, and more importantly, the jump to the next frequency.”
“So shouldn’t we be looking for higher levels of technology with the Phoenix Organization? I mean, they have flying saucers, for crying out loud! What else are we missing?”
Everyone stood in depressed silence.
“Look. I’ve talked with the President and General Davies. They are prepared to bring the full force and might of the US military to bear any place on the planet within a matter of hours. But right now, we can’t even tell them which country is the source. We have to do better, people, there’s too much at stake.”
Jake stalked off into a corner of area 4.
Honi quietly approached him. “I know you’re frustrated. We all are. For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. This is coming from another country, or at least another part of the world. Right now the highest level of the Phoenix Organization is in Argentina. I think we should go there and see what we can find.”
Jake looked around the room. “What about what we’re doing here?”
“I have a hundred NSA analysts poring over every phone conversation connected to the Phoenix Organization. Every day, we’re identifying new code words that these people are using to disguise what they are saying. We’re figuring it all out.”
“We still have no idea how the top layer of the Phoenix Organization is communicating. We have to find that before we can find them.”
“Then I suggest we go to Buenos Aires and see what we can find. That will at least put us closer to the core of the Phoenix Organization, and that should help. Brett is really good. He can run things here without us.”
Jake looked around the room once again.
“Okay. We go to Argentina.”
CHAPTER 17
The capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, population fifteen and a half million, is the most visited city in all of South America. The geographic local was originally named for the “good winds” that brought the early Spanish explorers safely to land at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata River.
Jake, Honi, Stafford and Ken arrived at Ministro Pistarini International Airport late in the evening, and made their way to the hotel by subway. They checked in, ate and got some much-needed sleep.
The next morning they arrived at an FBI safe house. Local Agent-In-Charge Clayton was there alone. Twenty-five new field agents trickled in over the next six hours. Once everyone was present, Jake began his instructions.
“This is exclusively a surveillance operation, which means you mingle, blend in, sit, walk and observe. You will ask no questions regarding any local activity, residents or other visitors. Your role here is “ghost.” You are to remain invisible. You will listen and observe only. We will supply you with GPS locations and contact times. The suspects will be using cell phones, some in enclosed spaces, and some out in the open. We need as many people identified as possible, so take covert photos and we will run them through facial recognition programs. Do not involve any local people or government resources. Some of the people you will be surveilling are going to be government employees, many of those will be upper echelon officials. It is absolutely critical that we do not spook any of the people we are watching. We are going to be here for the next two weeks, so vary your appearance, clothing and routines.”
Jake handed out assignments based on phone locations that were out in the open. Phones located inside private offices identified the people quickly. The ones used in the open were more of a mystery.
Over the next three days more FBI agents arrived. In addition, Honi had several NSA analysts brought in to help handle the technical load of information flowing in. More members of the Phoenix Organization were being identified. What the analysts discovered was that the code word associations were consistent around the globe, so more and more of the recorded conversations were making sense. A real picture of the Phoenix Organization’s activities was emerging, with the obvious exception of the top layer of control. Over the next eleven days not a single piece of information led them any closer to the top level of the Organization.
By then, Jake was growing absolutely furious over the lack of progress in identifying that illusive top level. “No!” he screamed. He picked up a chair and threw it across the room. “I am not letting you, a bunch of homicidal psychopaths, destroy the world! I’m not! If it’s the last thing I do, I will find a way to stop you!”
Honi slowly walked over to him. “Why don’t we take a walk and get some fresh air. You could use a change of scenery. You’ve been cooped up in here working twenty hours a day since we got here. And maybe what we need is a new perspective.”
He didn’t say anything, just grabbed his jacket and stalked out the door. They strolled slowly toward the center of the city, among the largely European-style buildings. It was winter in the southern hemisphere, but Buenos Aires is at about the same latitude south as Florida is north, making the daytime temperature around sixty degrees. Neither Jake nor Honi said anything for the first few blocks.
“We still don’t know who’s in charge of the Phoenix Organization, how they are communicating, or where the satellite control station is located,” Jake said, finally. “I’m just afraid we aren’t going to figure it all out in time.”
“And seven billion people are going to die?” Honi asked.
“Yeah.”
“So let’s focus on what we do know for a moment. We’ve got approximately 96% of the people in the Phoenix Organization identified. We could take down the highest level of people we do know about, and interrogate them. Maybe we can find out from them who is on the top level. Some of the people we grab might also know where the satellite control center is located.”
“Too many maybes,” he replied. “What happens if we do that and nobody knows where the satellite control center is? What then?”
They entered the Plaza de Mayo in the center of the city.
“I know it’s not ideal,” Honi said. “But what we have now isn’t enough. Taking those people down would at least give us more than
we have right now.”
They strolled to the left around a raised platform with a tall obelisk in the center. The Casa Rosada Presidential Palace stood majestically across the street.
“It’s a huge risk,” Jake said. “If we do that, there’s no turning back. We’re stuck with whatever consequences come from that point on.”
“That’s true.”
“Sometimes, like now, I wish I’d never seen that countdown watch. Then I wouldn’t feel like everybody in the whole world was depending on me to save them.”
“Honestly. I can’t think of anyone better than you to save them.”
They crossed the street that ran in front of the Presidential Palace. Jake looked at the street sign: Balcarce. The palace was to the southeast of them. Jake stood on the corner of the street and looked at the palace, the rose-colored Spanish architecture standing proudly in the center of the city. The old style of the building contrasted sharply with the modern antennas that bristled from the northwest corner of the third-story section.
“What is that?” Jake asked.
“What are you looking at?”
“That weird design on the corner of the north wall. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“The squiggly thing?”
“Yeah. It’s got like four arms that keep breaking up into smaller and smaller shapes, like smaller squares within even smaller squares, but not squares. The lines are all single extensions of the same line, folded into smaller boxes.”
Honi took her phone out and photographed the object. A few quick touches and it was on its way to Brett. Thirty seconds later her phone buzzed. She looked at the text.
“It’s an antenna. Brett called it a fractal antenna, some kind of broadband thing.”
“Broadband? That means it covers a wide range of channels, or frequencies, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. According to Brett, it can receive a large number of frequencies at the same time.”
Honi pulled her phone and called Brett. “That photo I sent you? Distance to the antenna is about one hundred feet. Can you determine the size and frequency response of the antenna?” She listened. “Thanks, Brett.” She disconnected.
“How wide is the frequency band for our encrypted phones?” Jake asked.
Honi punched in a text to Brett and waited for the reply. When it came back she looked at Jake. “We’re using about five percent of the frequency band that the fractal antenna uses.”
“So the frequencies that can be used for encrypted communications are twenty times larger?”
“Apparently. Instead of jumping around among one hundred different frequencies, that system would jump through two thousand, making it impossible to break the encryption.”
“Would Echelon pick up the frequencies?”
“Yes. But making sense of the frequencies and any potential message would be impossible.”
“We have to get back,” Jake said. He hailed a cab and they returned to the command center. Jake phoned Stafford and updated him on the way back.
Stafford met them at the door. “I took the liberty of having FBI agents look for fractal antennas on all of the buildings where we have future supreme leaders staying—should have some results back soon.”
Jake’s phone rang. It was Briggs. “Yeah, boss.” He looked at Honi. “Thanks.” He disconnected. “Identical antenna on the Treasury building, located right outside Secretary Halleran’s office.”
Photos began arriving on the computer system. One after another, the buildings in every country where a future supreme leader was located came back with the same fractal antenna on an outside wall.
Honi’s phone rang again. “It’s Brett,” she said. She answered and listened. “Frequencies are active,” she said. “Sounds like a hiss on every channel. It’s an encrypted communication system.”
“The top layer of the Phoenix Organization,” Jake said.
“Yes,” Stafford replied. “But who is the top person or group?”
“At this point, who it is can wait. Wherever the Phoenix Organization’s master communications center is, that’s where we will find the satellite control system.”
“And the control for the nuclear bomb,” Honi said.
“Hang on a second,” Jake said. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “In Senator Thornton’s office, I don’t remember seeing a special piece of equipment for the fractal antenna. It had to be connected to something, right?”
“Yes,” Stafford replied.
“Could it have been connected to Thornton’s computer?”
Stafford pulled his phone and called Dave Smith. “Was Thornton’s computer connected to anything in his office?” He listened. “Computer was connected to a USB cable that fed into the wall,” he told Jake.
“Do Thornton’s people know the computer’s missing?” Jake asked.
Stafford relayed the question and listened. “Maybe not. Dave’s guys swapped out the computer. It had the USB cable plugged in, but the computer was closed. If they simply put the computer into the office safe, they may not know it’s a different computer.”
“Tell Dave we need Thornton’s computer delivered to Brett in B6 area 4 of the NSA building, and see if he and his unit can get the fractal antenna off the outside of Thornton’s building without raising suspicion. That needs to go to Brett, too.”
“What are you thinking?” Honi asked.
“Thornton didn’t have a special device or a phone connected to the fractal antenna, he had his computer connected to it. His computer has to have a special board installed so he can communicate over the fractal encrypted network. If we have the computer and the antenna, we can tap into the network. The computer should have the encryption built in.”
Honi continued her conversation with Brett. “Where are the transmitting antennas?” She covered her phone with her hand. “He’s checking. This could take a while.” She waited. “There’s how many?” She covered her phone again. “Brett says according to Echelon, there are over two hundred active antennas located all over the globe. Now what?”
“Relay stations,” Stafford said. “They receive a signal on one frequency and retransmit it on another. Or, in this case, they receive on one set of frequencies and retransmit on another set.”
“So how do we find the original transmitting antenna?” Honi asked.
“Simple. Repeaters have more than one antenna—the original should have only one.”
Honi uncovered her phone. “Brett, we need National Reconnaissance Office photos of every antenna in that system, ASAP.” She disconnected. “How long is it going to take for our surveillance satellites to cover all of the antenna locations?”
Stafford lowered his head in thought, and then he looked up. “It could take half a day to cover the entire planet. It’s orbital physics. It’s not like driving a car. When the orbit takes the satellite over the target, we get the photo, not before.”
“What if we focus on just South America?” Honi asked.
“We still have to wait for a satellite to be in position, by that time, it’ll be dark here. No sunlight, no photo.”
“That can still work,” Jake said.
A computer chirped. “First NRO satellite photo coming in now,” Stafford said.
They clustered around the display. “It has five antennas,” Ken said. “I thought we were looking for two?”
“No, no,” Stafford said. “Look at the arrangement. Four antennas, same size as on the buildings, but these are pointing north, south, east and west. Those are all transmitting antennas. But see this one?” Stafford pointed to the screen. “That one is receiving the signal. It’s bigger because it is operating at a lower frequency. That makes sense. Lower frequencies follow the curvature of the earth, higher frequencies don’t. So to cover great distances, you need a lower frequency.”
“And a bigger antenna,” Honi said.
“Exactly. The receiving antenna should point directly toward the antenna transmitting the original signal. If we ca
n measure the true angle on the antenna, we can plot where the original source is located.”
Another chirp from the computer and the second NRO photo began arriving. “Now, all we have to do is triangulate the two antennas to find the source,” Stafford pulled up a picture of the world on another computer and placed the two antennas on the global map. He read the angles off the photos Brett was sending them, and created lines running in those directions. “And they cross…”
“In the Pacific Ocean,” Honi said flatly. She leaned in to see the screen more clearly. “There isn’t even an island there.”
“Could be a ship.”
“Okay. I’ll give you that.” She pulled her phone, called Brett and gave him the new coordinates, and disconnected. “We’ll know in a couple of hours.”
One by one the NRO photos arrived. Stafford faithfully plotted the direction for the receiving antenna and entered it on the globe on his computer screen.
Honi’s phone buzzed. She looked at it. “Here’s your ship.” She handed her phone to him. He looked at the screen, expanded the image, and then expanded it again. He handed it back without saying a word.
“So what was on the image?” Jake asked.
“Water.”
“No ship?”
“Not even a raft. Obviously, the antennas were pointing at different transmitters. We’re going to need all of them, not just the ones in South America.”
Four hours later, Stafford called them over to see the new photo.
“This one’s different. Look, four large antennas and one small one.”
“Is that the same size as the building antennas?” Jake asked.
“No. It’s smaller.”
“So higher frequency?”
“Yep,” Stafford said. “With this frequency range, you’re looking at line of sight. The transmitter has to be on top of a mountain, or at least a high plateau.”
“But where?”
“We’ll know when we get more photos,” Stafford replied.
Jake turned and walked away. He stopped and turned around, returning to Stafford.