“Okay, people,” he announced to the onlookers while pointing back at the monitors. “The problem is that way. Back to your stations and let’s walk through the telemetry.”
“Shall we, Dr. Taylor?” Hastings said as he started for the door that led to the stairs going up to the private offices on the third floor.
“Just three things, General,” she said while donning her riding jacket before pocketing her mini tablet computer and her smartphone.
Hastings stopped in mid-stride and turned to face her, dropping his gaze at the skull and bike patches on her jacket. “Only three, Doctor?” he finally said.
“First, don’t touch me again,” she said, running a hand through her short hair. “Second, don’t touch me again. And third, don’t ever, ever fucking touch me again.”
The general took a deep breath, freckles dancing on his pulsating high cheekbones while he stared down at her before exhaling heavily. “Fine, Doctor. Now, shall we?”
Hastings led the way with a reluctant Angela in tow, followed by the ever-present Riggs. The general used the VIP master key card that Pete had given him the night before to get through the thick door, leaving behind the controlled chaos inside Mission Control. The trio proceeded in silence up the concrete steps under the grayish glow of fluorescents, reaching the third-floor landing, where he used the key again to gain access to a square foyer lined with offices, including Pete’s, Angela’s, Jack’s, and also the visiting VIP office, which Hastings had the honor of occupying since last night.
The general tapped his key against the reader by the door, disengaging the magnetic locks, and went straight for the chair behind the empty desk by the large windows offering an unimpressive view of the parking lot. Large framed and signed prints from old shuttle missions covered the other walls. He pointed to the chair across from him.
Angela took her seat and looked over her right shoulder at Riggs standing at attention behind her, eyes straight ahead.
“Where did you find this guy, anyway?” she said. “Steroids-R-Us?”
“So, Dr. Taylor,” Hastings began without making eye contact, crossing his legs and glancing at his wristwatch. “Tell me why you chose to commit an act of computer terrorism against the United States of America.”
Angela just glared at him.
“See, Doctor,” Hastings continued, still not looking her in the eye but at the tips of his manicured fingers. “Last time I checked, treason carries an automatic death sentence.”
Angela also crossed her legs and began to play with her black fingernails, which she was proud to notice didn’t look nearly as manicured as his. “General, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Hastings kept his gaze down as he said, “You reprogrammed the descent algorithm against my direct order. That is treason.”
The hacker in Angela couldn’t think of a way that even the Alamo gurus could have traced the change back to her, so she decided to stand her ground. “I still have no clue what you’re talking about, but tell me, why the interest in Alpha-B, General?”
Hastings’s eyes finally gravitated to her. “That is classified.”
Not for long, she thought, glad that she had loaded up those viruses into their tablets.
“I not only have top secret security clearance, General, but I’m also read-in for Project Phoenix. There is nothing you can’t share with me about this program,” she replied, referring to the sensitive compartmented information clearance—commonly referred to simply as “read-in”—she held as lead scientist in the OSS project.
“Well, you may be read-in for Phoenix, but you’re not cleared for this, Doctor. And since this is the United States military, I don’t need to explain anything to a civilian employee. You work for me and you didn’t do what you were clearly directed to do.”
“This is a highly scientific program, General. In fact, it is probably the most scientific program of our times, and in the scientific world, data trumps everything, even the opinions of people with higher pay grades than mine,” she replied. “From my data-driven point of view, Alpha-B would have placed Jack at least two miles off the planned target, and dangerously close to the outside of the safety pipe. Not only would he have missed the target, but he could have struck a bird or another foreign object. I just don’t get why you would insist on a descent profile that would had added unnecessary risk to the mission.”
“If your Alpha-G profile was so data-driven, Doctor, then tell me, why did the mission fail?”
Angela frowned. “I don’t know yet, but I do know it had nothing to do with Alpha-G. It was still the best descent profile.”
“So you do acknowledge changing it without my authorization.”
“No, I’m trying to tell you that what happened had nothing to do with Alpha-G or Alpha-B, or any of the other descent profile options for this jump. The telemetry strongly suggests that this was not a descent-profile-triggered event, and we need to figure out what happened. My husband vanished into thin air. There was no reentry burn-up. The OSS didn’t fail. We need time to dig through the telemetry and piece together what happened, where he went.”
Hastings shook his head. “Where he went? Doctor, I hate to break this to you, but your husband’s gone.” He made a fist before stretching his fingers. “Poof! Gone. Dead. And you are responsible. You’re not going to get out of this one so easily. You disobeyed a direct order in a military mission, resulting in disaster. You committed treason, Dr. Taylor, and I will see that you pay for it. And you’re not even a first-time offender. With your prior, you’re definitely getting the death penalty.”
“What prior?”
“Really, Doctor?” Hastings grinned while slowly shaking his head. “Does the name Anonymous ring a bell?”
She glared at him for a moment.
Angela had been raised by her father, Miguel “Mickey” Valle, a hardcore motorcycle mechanic and first-generation Cuban American, after her mother died during child labor. But disaster struck again when she was fourteen. Mickey Valle had lost his battle with lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking, and shortly afterward Angela had gone rogue, joining Anonymous, a group of hackers dating back to 2003, where she quickly became one of their best “Black Hat Hackers.” Within a year, Angela made the mistake of hacking into the FBI for bragging rights, got caught, and was offered a deal: work for the Bureau at an undisclosed cybercrime facility in Orlando for room and board until finishing high school, or go to a Florida juvenile detention facility.
Some choice, she thought, remembering how she had reluctantly gone for the former, becoming a “Gray Hat Hacker” for Uncle Sam, helping the Bureau fight cybercrime during nights and weekends while finishing high school, and returning to her dad’s old bike shop on the day of her high school graduation. Her dad’s partner and his fellow mechanics, who had taken over the business and had pretty much adopted her, pooled their funds to send her to FIT in nearby Melbourne, where she got her degree in computer engineering before her grades earned her a scholarship to MIT.
“I was fourteen, General, and I paid for it. In return, my record got cleared, purged. And the FBI assured me that event would be locked away forever.”
“Do you think I don’t have access to everything? Besides, you know what they say, Doctor?”
Angela didn’t reply. She was angry at herself for letting this asshole get to her.
Hastings continued. “Once a hacker, always a hacker. You can’t help it. It’s who you are. You committed a criminal act at fourteen and you have now graduated to high treason at forty. I’m taking you down.”
“In that case, General, I know my rights. I want my lawyer.”
“Terrorists have no rights,” he retorted. “You sabotaged a military mission. Plain and simple. You destroyed highly classified and valuable American military technology, setting us back years—not to mention the murder of a highly skilled and unique military contractor.”
“Is that what you’re calling Jack now? Last night he was a dog on a leas
h.”
“I should have Riggs shoot you right now for gross insubordination, and I would be well within my rights as leader of this Pentagon-sanctioned military operation.”
“Then do it, General,” she said, calling his bluff. “Have your oversized eunuch put a bullet in my brain.”
Hastings slowly leaned forward, looked over Angela’s head, and nodded slightly.
She surprised herself at how at ease she felt when hearing Riggs draw his weapon and press the barrel against the back of her head. Perhaps that was one of the benefits of growing up among rough bikers at her father’s shop and the local bars.
Angela and Hastings locked eyes.
“Nice knowing you, General,” she said in a steady voice that also surprised her. “And best of luck finding your fucking suit or designing the orbital version,” she added without breaking her stare, referring to the next generation suit that Angela was starting to design to jump from the International Space Station. “Most of the key details of building it are locked in the little brain that you’re about to splatter all over this office.”
For the second time since Jack vanished, Hastings blinked, leaned back, and waved a hand at Riggs, who put the gun away.
“Now, General, do you have any important questions for me, or can I get back to trying to figure out what happened to my husband?”
Hastings rubbed his eyes and exhaled heavily. “Doctor, I don’t seem to be getting through to you. There are very, very technically valid reasons that I couldn’t share with you—and still can’t—that justified the change in descent profiles. The mere fact that I was sent down here the evening before the launch with a pair of federal scientists should have been enough to accept the change. But instead of getting with the program, you chose to sabotage a military operation and caused this mess.”
Hastings stood and added, “I’m going to consult with my guys and then I’ll be back, and I can promise you that our next chat won’t be nearly as pleasant.” He looked at Riggs. “Keep one of your men outside this door. No one comes in or out without my permission.”
“Yes, sir,” Riggs replied, following Hastings out the door and locking it from the outside with the card.
Alone, Angela took a deep breath while staring at the gray metal door, wondering how the hell things had gone so bad so fast.
Jack, where are you? she pondered, going through what little information she had, trying to find an explanation for his disappearance right in clear sight of a high-resolution camera.
And what’s Hastings’s problem anyway? Treason for changing the descent profile back to the original plan, which was backed by carefully collected and analyzed data?
It didn’t make sense. Hastings and his Los Alamos friends hadn’t provided her with any technical explanation for the change. She did what she did because all of her data told her this was the safest descent profile for this version of the OSS. Alpha-G was the smoothest of reentries, one that guaranteed Jack would remain within reasonable velocities and in the middle of the planned pipe down to the target area northeast of Orlando. Alpha-B would have kept him supersonic for longer, putting the OSS through more stress than she would had liked, and Jack would have missed the target by nearly two miles.
On top of all that, Hastings’s approach was in direct conflict with NASA’s crawl-walk-run philosophy.
Alpha-G was a “crawl” in the learning process. Alpha-B certainly fell deep in the “walk” territory.
And again, with no technical explanation.
But something had gone terribly wrong, and the reality of the situation started to inject doubt in her self-confidence, making her question her actions. What if she really had screwed up? What if Hastings and his experts knew something she didn’t and had valid technical reasons to back up their request for a different descent profile—reasons they just simply couldn’t share with her due to valid security reasons?
Did I blow this?
Did I just kill my husband?
She bit her lower lip as she stood and crossed her arms, staring at the walls, feeling trapped, and not looking forward to the next round with Hastings, especially if he was right.
I need to get out of here.
I need time to think.
Slowly, Angela’s gaze shifted to the large windows behind the desk.
2
LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
—Albert Einstein
She crawled out of the third-story window, grateful that it faced the rear of the building, opposite from the press and the public anxiously waiting behind the barricades out front.
The sun was low over the horizon, casting long shadows against the redbrick structure. It would be dark soon.
One hand on the windowsill, she reached for the round copper drainpipe running down from the roof, and tugged it, testing its anchor to the brick structure.
Hoping for the best, Angela let go of her grip around the window and brought her second hand over while swinging her body off the ledge, her face now an inch from the green patina layering the aging copper pipe, the soles of her motorcycle boots pressing against the rough surface of the bricks, creating enough friction, just like Jack had shown her during their rock-climbing trips.
Slowly, with caution, she brought one hand beneath the other and began her descent, taking only thirty seconds to reach the bushes below, jumping the final few feet, landing in a half crouch amid waist-high shrubbery and instantly breaking into a run for the rear parking lot connecting the building to Flight Control Road.
The sun’s waning light gleamed over the blacktop as she pushed her legs to go faster, waiting for the shouts she expected from the building behind her at any moment.
But none of Hastings’s men came after her as she reached the bike parking area in the front of the lot and hopped on her vintage black 1979 Triumph Bonneville T140 motorcycle. When it came to bikes, Angie was a purist, not only restoring “Bonnie” herself, but she had picked the 1979 model because it was the last one before Triumph added an electronic starter.
If you can’t kick-start a bike, you shouldn’t ride, she thought, reaching behind her, and grabbing her open-face black helmet, which had a pair of clear riding goggles snugged around the top. She strapped it on before kick-starting the British-made bike, which roared to life as its two cylinders fired in perfect synchronization.
Gotta get away.
Buy time to think this through.
The thoughts flashing in her mind matched the intensity of the rumbling bike as she put the Bonneville in gear with the toe of her boot and released the clutch while twisting the throttle.
She rode around the back of the building, past the line of dark SUVs—Chevrolet Suburbans—monopolizing the VIP section of the rear lot, adjacent to the dozens of vans from the media and the press. Three of Hastings’s eunuchs stood by one of the dark vehicles but didn’t look in her direction.
Accelerating toward the Samuel Phillips Parkway on the eastern border of the Cape, Angela glanced at her rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of one of the drivers reaching for his cell phone, answering it, and immediately becoming agitated.
Crap.
She lost sight of them as she rode past the security checkpoint, waving at the guards, who waved back as they let her through, the adrenaline racing through her system, heightening her senses.
The Triumph roared toward the parkway, away from the sea of reporters waiting to get word on the jump. An even larger crowd awaited Jack’s descent northeast of Orlando.
What a mess, she thought as she worked the gears, formulating her next move, her scientific mind scrubbing her options, zeroing in on her best choice.
She needed information and she knew how to get it.
The cybersword cuts both ways.
Angela accelerated, lowering the goggles as she entered the parkway and headed south, away from the place she had called home for too many years—a place she inten
ded to return to after she figured out what the hell had happened to her husband.
She checked her mirrors.
Clear. No dark Suburbans in pursuit.
Yet.
Soon everyone would be looking for her. She needed a place to hide, and fast.
Her home was out of the question. She might have gotten away but knew Hastings’s posse would be on her trail soon, and based on his reaction, Angela wouldn’t be surprised if she saw her picture on the evening news. It was obvious to her that the good general would likely do everything within his power—which she guessed was quite extensive—to bring her into custody.
But for what?
The wind in her face and the sun in her eyes, Angela accelerated to the one place she felt she might be temporarily safe while her mind continued to—
Her phone started to vibrate in the breast pocket of her leather jacket.
The phone!
Damn!
She grabbed it. It was Pete.
Angela frowned and thought about pitching it over the bridge going across the upcoming Intercoastal Waterway, the body of water separating the Cape and Cocoa Beach from the mainland, but quickly decided against it. Knowing that Hastings could use the phone to track her could be useful later on.
She powered it completely off and shoved it back in her jacket.
Sorry, Pete, and fuck you, Grumpy.
She glanced at the fuel gauge. Half a tank. Enough to get her a hundred miles away from the nasty general.
Why was he so angry at a change in a descent profile that anyone with a brain could quickly deduct had nothing to do with Jack’s disappearance?
Unless …
Angela realized she was speeding. Switching to the right lane, she slowed down while settling in between an eighteen wheeler and a UPS delivery truck. The last thing she needed was to get pulled over. In this day and age, it would only take a minute for Hastings to send out a nationwide alert to every law enforcement agency.
The Fall Page 4