Protocol One_A Thriller

by Nathan Goodman

“Yeah, I mean, think about it. I’ve been doing this for twenty-three years, and I tell you, the start of a case still gets to me. It’s like the beginning of a relationship with a woman, you know? Everything is new, so much to discover.”

  “You mean the sex is great at the beginning of a relationship.”

  Agent Stone looked at him. “No, that’s not what I mean. Not that what you said isn’t true. But no, I’m talking about the energy, the excitement.”

  “Yeah, the sex. I know.”

  Stone laughed. “How old are you, Fry? Twenty-nine? Thirty?”

  “Twenty-nine. Why?”

  “You young guys. Wait till you get to be my age. Now don’t get me wrong. A fifty-one-year-old thinks about sex, but . . . how do I put this? At this age, we find it easier to concentrate on the case we’re working instead of on our balls.”

  It was Fry’s turn to laugh. “You are the simplest SOB I’ve ever met.”

  “Well, laugh it up. I still like the beginning of a case. You never know where it might lead.”

  As the van driver turned south on Fifth Avenue to follow the blip on the map—a beacon signal emanating from the tiny tracking device Agent Stone had placed on Jana Baker’s business jacket—Agent Fry said, “That reminds me. Since I was just assigned this surveillance an hour ago, I haven’t even seen a picture of the target. What’s she look like?”

  Stone ran his hand across the front of his scalp where fewer hairs remained than in his younger days. He said, “You just want to know if she’s hot.”

  “Well?”

  “Man, eight million residents in the city, and what? At least half of them have to be female. And you have your sights set on the one woman we’re supposed to recruit to work as an undercover informant?”

  “You going to tell me?”

  Stone exhaled. “Yes, she’s attractive. You happy now?”

  “Ah, come on, Agent Stone. You’re thinking the same thing as me.”

  “Fry, she’s less than half my age. She’s a twenty-two-year-old, just out of college. I’m more than old enough to be her father. So no, I’m not thinking the same as you.”

  “You know I’m just messing with you, right?” Fry said.

  “Just so you know, if you want a career here, you can’t get attracted to anyone in the scope of the investigation. It clouds your judgment, distracts you.”

  Fry shook his head. “They were right.”

  “Who was right?” Stone said.

  “They told me this was how you were. They said you’d picked up the nickname of ‘Pops’ by the other agents. Said you’re always fathering the younger guys.”

  “Pops, huh? Yeah, I’ve heard that one myself. So let that be a lesson to you, sonny. You young whippersnappers need to listen to the advice of us old-timers.”

  “So what’s your advice to me on this case?”

  “Keep your hands off of our material witness.”

  5

  Cautious Exhilaration

  Jana’s mouth hung open as the man disappeared out the door.

  “What in the hell was that about?” she said as questions swirled in her mind. Who is that guy? And how does he know so much about me? And I’m not supposed to mention this conversation to anyone? How could I not?

  The man knew specific details about Jana and her background. Who knows things like that? And who approaches someone then randomly spouts off their life history? Someone who has been looking into your background, Jana thought.

  Still, as she exited the door of Dean and Deluca and flagged down a cab, she couldn’t help but notice a tinge of excitement building inside. And he said not to mention it to anyone at Petrolsoft specifically.

  Several minutes later, her cab pulled up to Petrolsoft’s main entrance just as a text message buzzed on her phone. The incoming number was listed as Blocked. Jana got out of the car and began weaving in and out of people on the sidewalk, but when she read the message, her mouth again fell open.

  Hope you enjoy your coffee.

  Lunch—12:30—Shanghai Mung Bistro,

  W. 32nd St., An Asian place about

  1.5 blocks from your office.

  It’s crowded, but you’ll find me.

  Come alone.

  “Who is this guy?” she said as she came to an abrupt stop. A man walking down the sidewalk sidestepped her and glared. She was talking to herself and she knew it. “What are you looking at?”

  Jana walked through the massive set of black glass double doors, the entrance to Petrolsoft’s corporate headquarters, and shouldered her way into an overcrowded elevator. Jammed in the throngs of humanity on their way to work in one of the world’s most lucrative software companies, Jana felt small.

  Her common sense told her to stay away from the stranger. But there was something about him, something in the look of his eyes that she couldn’t quite place. The eyes were soft, disarming; the kind of eyes you’d see when you looked at your father. Based on what he’d said, the details he knew about her, she should be afraid. But she wasn’t; she had a feeling of exhilaration. And she had to admit, her curiosity had been piqued.

  She knew she’d walk to the next block at lunchtime to come face-to-face with the man. Besides, he was right. A public place. Every restaurant on West Thirty-Second would be packed at that hour. What could go wrong?

  Being new to Manhattan had its disadvantages though. For one thing, Jana knew virtually no one. She’d only been here three weeks and her microscopic studio apartment still had boxes stacked against one wall. The exhilaration she felt upon meeting the stranger was one thing, but in the crush of people in the elevator, she felt very alone. The feeling was familiar to her.

  When Jana was just two years old, her father had passed away. She had no recollection of being told that he was gone, but what she did have was tiny fragments of memories of him. A little flash here, a flicker of a face there. To Jana, thinking about her father was like watching an old newsreel whose image quality was so low, only fragments survived. There was one memory though, that stuck in her mind. It must have been not long before he died and Jana was standing on the living room couch, looking out the large bay windows onto the front lawn of their North Carolina home. These were the only solid images of her father she could muster.

  He was outside, snow up over his ankles, and he bent down to form a snowball. Two-year-old Jana giggled endlessly as he threw snowballs at the window. She laughed so hard she flopped onto the couch over and over, only to stand back up again.

  As the elevator doors opened for the fourth time on its way to the sixty-third and uppermost floor, several people exited and one man got on. For just a moment she thought she smelled her father’s aftershave.

  6

  Office of the CEO

  Petrolsoft Headquarters. Office of the CEO.

  “Sit down, Jeffrey. We need to talk about the plan. How far along are you?”

  “Relax, cousin. Everything is on schedule. We’ve been diversifying our banking and investments over the last six months in order to keep a low profile. Don’t want to attract the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission, if you know what I mean. But I need help. Transferring this much money between so many banks is getting to be a problem. I don’t have that kind of time.”

  “We’ll work on that. But the SEC is the least of our worries. We just need to stay below the radar of the NSA and their damn eavesdropping. Continue.”

  “I’ve been very careful. We have relocated the bulk of our liquid assets to banks in Milan, Rome, London, Geneva, and the Cayman Islands.”

  “And what did the analysts at Goldman Sachs have to say about that on the last quarterly conference call?”

  “Nothing really. He just wanted to know why. I told him we have always had an interest in diversification. You know, spread your assets across the global banking system—a bet that insulates us from a recession in the US.”

  Rune smiled. “And they bought that crap?”

  “Well, sure. Have I ever let you down?
”

  “And how about the other half of the plan? Has the virus been embedded into our next software release?”

  “Of course. I told you, I’m on top of it. The virus is planted in the next build. Helix version 6.7.8001 just finished quality assurance testing. It goes out to our controlled release customers first. Two weeks later, we deploy it to our software-as-a-service cloud hosting environments, and that’s when it will filter down to the rest of our customers. The virus will infect their systems and we’ll then be ready to execute.”

  Rune leaned across his desk toward his cousin, Jeffrey Dima, and said, “And you’re sure the virus code is not going to be detected by our own software development staff?”

  “Positive. It’s highly obfuscated. Not even the development engineers have any idea it’s there.”

  “I’ll grant you this. You are good, Jeffrey. You are good.”

  “I know,” he said through a laugh. “Hey, how’s that intern? You bagged her yet?”

  “I told you to leave it alone. We are too far into the plan to get distracted by a pretty face.”

  “Oh come on, we’re ahead of schedule. By the time we execute this thing, the international trading markets won’t even know what happened. And you and I will be rich beyond our imaginations.” Jeffrey turned and began to grin, then yelled over his shoulder. “Miss Baker? Can you come in here a minute?”

  “Yes, sir,” came Jana’s reply from her desk outside the CEO’s office.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Rune said as he scowled at Jeffrey.

  “Oh, relax.”

  “Yes, sir?” Jana said as she walked through the door and up to Rune’s desk.

  Rune looked flustered but was quick to think on his feet. “Have you finished the research on all the hedge funds we discussed?”

  “Almost done now, sir. But are you sure the only ones you needed financials on were those with the bulk of their investments in the oil and gas industry? You don’t want to look at others with more diversified portfolios?”

  Jeffrey stared at Jana from behind and his eyes traced down the back of her body.

  “Yes, Miss Baker,” Rune said. “That will be all. Thank you.”

  “And you want me to open accounts at all of the hedge funds, sir? You don’t want to review the list first?”

  “No, I don’t need to review it. I’ve seen over the past weeks just how thorough your work is. Just open the accounts and when Jeffrey asks, you can get the information to him.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jana was out the door but turned around and leaned back into the office. She couldn’t help but notice Jeffrey’s eyes had followed her and were now locked onto her chest. When he finally made eye contact, he turned his attention to the laptop in his hands, where he slid his right forefinger across a small fingerprint scanner. As his identity was verified, the laptop monitor blinked to life.

  What a slimeball, she thought.

  “Oh, sir,” Jana said. “I’m about to head down for lunch.”

  “That’s fine,” Rune replied. “Just close the door behind you.”

  After Jana was gone, Jeffrey smiled. “Hey Rune, what color do you think her panties are?”

  This time, Rune stood and his fists formed on the surface of the mahogany desk. “For the last time, drop it. I’m not going to tell you again.”

  “You’ve changed, cousin. When we were kids in our homeland, you were nothing like this.”

  “Yes, I was like this. You were just too busy trying to separate virgins from the clothing they were wearing to notice. This company is my world now. I have loyalty to our homeland and our cause, certainly, but don’t cross me on this.”

  Jeffrey stood to leave. “You have lost touch with the old ways, and it’s made you soft. You may be CEO of this company, but I am the one in contact with our friends in Aleppo.”

  Rune launched from his chair as a vein on his temple pulsed. He pushed Jeffrey against the wall. “Soft? Soft you say? What the hell do you think we’re doing here? We’re about to pull off what will be looked at in future years as the start of everything. We’re about to crush the national economy of the United States. Our people, the funding we’re going to have our hands on? We’ll be able to finance any attack we want. This is an attack against the beast, and I intend to inflict as much damage as possible.”

  Jeffrey pushed him back. “The damage we’re about to inflict? What a load of crap. This is not the way of the jihadist. This is the way of the coward. The jihadist takes human life, and as much of it as possible.”

  “You don’t like our plan? And I suppose you would say that to the face of Abu Adim Al-Jawary? And where did you think we were going to obtain funding to pay for all those bigger, full-scale attacks he and bin Laden have planned? Huh? Where did you think they were going to get the funds to purchase a nuclear weapon in the first place? It takes money, Jeffrey, lots of money.” He turned and walked to his desk. “And I, for one, intend to do what I set out to do. You can either get with the program, or . . .” Rune trailed off.

  “Or what? Don’t threaten me, cousin. I’m in this too deeply. And I’m the only one Al-Jawary will communicate with, not you. You need me and you know it.”

  7

  To Convince a Witness

  Shanghai Mung Asian Bistro, W. Thirty-Second Street, New York. About one and a half blocks from Petrolsoft HQ.

  Jana rung her hands for the third time on the short elevator ride down to the lobby. What in the hell am I doing? She thought to herself. I mean, this guy could be a psycho. But no, she rationalized, psychos don’t walk up to you like that. This is something else, something bigger. She was beginning to talk to herself on the short walk. “I’m going to peek my head in there and see if I spot him. Then I’ll decide.”

  To Jana the walk to the restaurant felt like it took forever. As one foot stepped in front of the other, she felt like the sidewalk was moving backwards, as if she was moving in slow motion. Her nerves were getting the better of her.

  The street was bustling. By this time of day all the delivery trucks had cleared, but cars jammed the one-way street and a few honked their horns. The sidewalk was clogged with humanity moving in both directions and Jana felt claustrophobic.

  When she got to the restaurant, she peered into the large front window, but the reflection was so strong the only thing she could see was herself. The front door burst open and four Chinese businessmen walked out, the aroma of fresh-sautéed Kung Pau chicken followed them. She leaned into the door and scanned the crowded tables. Most were full and several people stood to the side, waiting to be seated. But as the door swung closed, it almost hit her in the head.

  Oh, this is crazy, she thought as the grip on her purse tightened. What was I thinking? But no sooner had she turned to walk away did the man lean his way through the door. He had shed his business jacket and his tie was loosened. He raised a white paper napkin to wipe the glistening perspiration off his forehead and said, “You’ve got to try the Kung Pau. Spicy as hell.”

  She clutched her purse tighter but was again disarmed by the familiar look of sedate calmness in his eyes.

  Jana hesitated.

  “Really, it’s a full restaurant,” he said with a smile. “You’re perfectly safe. Come on.” He pushed the door open wider.

  She followed him inside, shuffling sideways through the tight rows of tables. It wasn’t until he went to sit down that Jana noticed a holstered firearm tucked against the back of his right hip. “Have a seat,” he motioned. “Are you up for the challenge?”

  For the first time, Jana spoke. “What challenge?”

  “The Kung Pau. It’s a killer.”

  Jana glanced at his half-eaten plate of food.

  A woman dressed in traditional Chinese waitress attire leaned in. “Are you ready, ma’am? What can I get you?” she said with a pad and pen in hand.

  “Ah, I’ll have the Kung Pau, and a glass of sweet tea, please.”

  “Ma’am?”

  The man smiled as
he stabbed another piece of chicken with his fork. “I don’t think the sweetened brewed tea you grew up with on your grandfather’s farm is something the New York crowd knows much about.”

  “Hot tea is fine,” Jana said to the waitress, who disappeared toward the kitchen as quickly as she had arrived. “Who are you, and why do you know so much about me?”

  “Sorry for all the secrecy.” He held out his hand. “Special Agent Chuck Stone, FBI.”

  “FBI? What does the FBI want with me?” Jana thought further. “Can I see your credentials, please?”

  He held out an aged leather wallet that enclosed his badge and identification. “You said something about not mentioning our meeting with my employer.”

  “Let me get right to the point, Miss Baker. We’ve done a thorough background check on you. Sorry. We do that kind of thing before we approach someone.”

  Again, thought Jana, it’s the eyes. And something about when he smiles. The way the skin crinkles around the eyes. He reminds me of . . .

  “And why did you do that?” she said as she grabbed his wrist, the act blocking his fork’s path to his mouth.

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch breakfast. We run backgrounds on people before we approach them to ask for their help in a case.”

  “What kind of case?”

  “Miss Baker, before I go any further, you have to understand, I brought you here because it would be nearly impossible for us to be eavesdropped on. This place is packed with the local Asian community. This conversation, the one you and I are having? It can never make it back to your employer.”

  “Why not?”

  He scanned the other diners and spoke just loud enough to be heard over the bustling conversations. “Because it would be a felony for you to act in a manner that would jeopardize a federal investigation.”

  “You’re investigating Petrolsoft? My employer isn’t a criminal organization, Agent Stone. What is it you think they have done?”

  “Well, nothing yet. But it’s who your boss is talking to that has us concerned.”