“I don’t think you should be talking about this, Rob.”
“Why not? I’ve got nothing to lose anymore. Did you ever feel like that?”
She just stared at him.
“Do you know why it was possible for the Krasnaya mafiya—the Russian mafia—to spring up, fully formed, organized, and financed so soon after the fall of the USSR? Didn’t you ever wonder where those guys came from?”
Philips considered it and realized she hadn’t.
“The intelligence sector. The KGB. Those guys were spread around the world. They had covert communications, bank accounts, and knowledge to move and launder money. They had useful skills like eavesdropping, weapons, assassination, and they had incentive—lots of enemies.
“After the Cold War, some of our own guys didn’t come home either. They helped to keep in place the system built overseas to hold back communism, and it became the system we’re all a part of now.”
“Are you referring to a conspiracy to betray the United States?”
Rob shook his head. “Betraying America doesn’t require a conspiracy. That’s what Sobol figured out. It’s why he was able to hack into it. The free market is just a system of positive and negative reinforcement with a few interchangeable fixers to maintain it. The sole purpose of that system is to maximize profit. For whom the returns are made is irrelevant. Those who make the profits might turn around and become great philanthropists—who knows? Who cares? Because there’s always another set of investors who want in. Who want to work the split-second fluctuations of the markets to get very rich, very fast. They might not ever know what’s done in their name. That was the secret Sobol knew. And what he did was create a new system that leveraged a broader human will. That’s what freaks these guys out. The Daemon is the first true threat they’ve faced.”
“But what they do overseas has no legal authority here in the States.”
He stared at her for a moment—then laughed. “International trade agreements are equivalent to constitutional amendments. They’re the ‘supreme law of the land’ according to article four, paragraph two. That means we must meet foreign trade obligations or face reforms—and I’ve seen firsthand what those reforms do. They create a have and have-not society. The rich are bunkering down. It’s not a conspiracy, just a reaction to a process set in motion. You don’t even have to know what the goal is. That’s why systems work—because they don’t rely on individuals.”
They sat for a few moments in silence, listening to the drone of the plane’s engines.
“If this is what you believe, why are you on this flight?”
He shrugged. “Eventually, you come to realize it’s inevitable. What’s about to happen can’t be stopped.”
Philips stepped from the jet into withering humidity and a merciless prairie sun. She looked across a stretch of sun-bleached tarmac—fear turning her feet to lead.
Two dozen heavily armed soldiers in MTV body armor patterned in universal camouflage, Kevlar helmets, and ballistic goggles stood in ranks, cradling M4A1 rifles with full SOPMOD hardware. They just stared, face-forward, without acknowledging her existence.
Philips walked toward the reception committee.
At first she couldn’t tell what division or corps the soldiers belonged to, but as she came within thirty feet she could make out a nondescript logo above their breast pockets—where an American GI’s last name would normally go. It read simply: “KMSI.” She knew it well; Korr Military Solutions, Inc.—the private military arm of its parent, Korr Security International.
She glanced around the airfield. A modern control tower with a rotating radar dish stood above an American flag drooping lazily in the torpid heat. Beyond stood hangars and row after row of gleaming aircraft—Bombardiers, Gulfstream Vs, a mammoth Boeing Business Jet. A couple billion dollars in private aircraft. In the distance, she could see squads of soldiers marching double-time toward distant hangars from the belly of an unmarked C-17 cargo aircraft. Hundreds of soldiers were in her field of view. A corporate army. What the hell was this place?
Suddenly a nearby non-com shouted in a hoarse voice, “Pochodem vchod! Zrýchlené vpred!” and the soldiers responded in unison with a guttural “Hah!” and began to march off double-time.
Philips watched as the troops moved in formation across the tarmac, toward a distant, taxiing transport plane. For a moment she wasn’t sure what to do next.
But the soldier’s departure revealed a square-jawed man in a sweat-soaked shirt and a photographer’s vest moving briskly toward her. A KMSI photo ID badge wagged on his lapel as he walked, and he was completely absorbed in flipping through papers in a dispatch case. He finally looked up to reveal mirrored sunglasses and smiled broadly. “Dr. Philips, Clint Boynton, Sky Ranch Services.” He offered his hand.
Philips just glared at him. “What is this place, Boynton?”
He started flipping through folders in the dispatch case again. “I’ve got that here.”
“I don’t think you have to look in there to tell me where we are.”
“An undisclosed location.” He pulled a thick Mylar envelope from the case. It was stamped “Top Secret” in four places. He handed it to her. “The decision to bring you here was made at the highest level.”
“The White House is involved?”
Boynton laughed, then apparently realized Philips was serious.
She took the envelope from him and felt the weight of it. There was a thick report inside. In her experience a document this heavy meant somebody had just spent several hundred million dollars.
Boynton pointed. “I’m told you’ll find answers to your questions in there. There’s a cover letter.”
She sighed and ripped the seal on the envelope, pulling out the contents. There was a thick bound report inside entitled “Project Exorcist,” with an attached letter, addressed to her. It was on Pentagon stationery. “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” As she had been told, she was being loaned out to Weyburn Labs—for Operation Exorcist. She maintained a poker face.
“I’ve been instructed to—”
Philips just interrupted him with one upheld hand, then started flipping through the fifty-page bound report at great speed.
“Doctor?”
Philips ignored him and continued flipping pages. In half a minute she’d reached the last page. She looked up again. “Very, very interesting …”
Boynton pointed at it in disbelief. “You just read that?”
“Only the useful parts. Some of the estimates are overly optimistic, but still …”
Boynton snapped his dispatch case shut. “In any event, you’re now part of the Weyburn Labs team.” He looked at his watch.
“We’ve got a forty-mile drive ahead of us, Doctor, and time is tight.”
“We’re going to this Sky Ranch?”
“You’re already on the ranch, and we won’t be leaving it.” He raised his arm and curled the four fingers of his hand.
Several vehicles emerged from a nearby hangar: a rose-colored Mercedes Maybach limousine followed by a couple of Chevy Suburbans with blacked-out windows.
The Maybach rolled to a stop in front of Philips and Boynton. The passenger door bore a family crest, as though it was some Renaissance coach and four horses. The crest was a riot of cattle, rifles, and oil derricks.
She’d seen it once in a library book when she was a child. Great American Families. “The Aubrey coat of arms.”
Boynton smiled. “I’m impressed, Doctor. The Aubreys no longer own an interest in the property, but the holding company still uses their coat of arms as a logo.”
Philips nodded. “They owned the largest contiguous parcel of private land in the United States. 784,393 acres. Larger than the state of Rhode Island.”
Boynton grinned. “If we play Trivial Pursuit, can I be on your team? In all fairness, it’s more like two million—not that anyone would know.” He motioned for her to approach the waiting limousine.
“Why such a large pie
ce of land?”
“Privacy. We’re seventy-five miles from the nearest town. The outer perimeter is ten miles from where you’re standing and ringed with the latest seismic sensors and cameras. The sky is swept by radar, and we’ve got a battalion of crack troops in garrison—including an artillery section. The Daemon would have difficulty sneaking up on us out here.”
Philips nodded.
Soldiers wielding what looked to be metal detection or radio frequency wands emerged from the Suburban and approached Philips. Other soldiers moved to take her luggage.
“What’s this?”
“Necessary, I’m afraid. No outside electronic devices or weapons of any kind are permitted on the ranch. The Daemon is cunning and the secrecy of this operation is vital. Your understanding is greatly appreciated.”
She had left her phone and laptop back in Maryland, but they riffled through her purse and carry-on bag with gusto.
They also started scanning her body.
In moments, they detected her watch and the silver amulet on a chain around her neck. They scanned both closely then nodded to Boynton that they were okay.
A soldier now strapped a small gray plastic bracelet around her wrist. He fastened it into place with a rivet gun and ran tests on it with an electronic device.
Philips looked at it. “You’re strapping a transponder on me?”
A soldier snapped a digital photograph of her.
Boynton held up his hands reassuringly. “RFID tag for tracking purposes. Don’t try to remove it.” He pointed to the one on his own wrist. “It’s your identity while on the ranch. It’ll send an alert if it’s tampered with. Sensors at the entrances to most buildings will go into alarm if you enter without one. Likewise if you enter restricted areas. And alarms are responded to with lethal force. These RFID tags let the troops know that you’re friendly, and we’ve got quite a few snipers out there—so please wear it at all times.”
Boynton opened the door to the first limousine and gestured for Philips to get inside.
She lingered at the open car door. “Why is the airfield so far from the house?”
“The FAA restricted the airspace within a twenty-mile radius of the mansion.”
Philips nodded. “I guess after 9/11 you can’t be too careful.”
Boynton looked confused.
“Planes as weapons.”
Boynton thought for a moment, then nodded. “Oh, right.” He gestured again for Philips to get inside the car. “If you please …”
She got inside.
The drive to the main house was a blur of grass and scrublands. For all the signs warning of cattle and the dozens of cattle guards they rumbled over, Philips never saw one. Instead she saw military units and anti-aircraft missile batteries.
Even though she remembered every word of what she’d read of the Aubreys, she was still stunned at the sight of their mansion. After World War II they’d purchased an English manor house from one of the grand estates of central England—one that had gone bankrupt as the British Empire started to collapse. They’d had the house dismantled stone by stone and reassembled here in south Texas. A hundred-room neoclassical mansion done in solid granite blocks, replete with acres of ornamental gardens and statuary.
It was as if Philips had just rolled up to Castle Howard in Regency-period England. The cobblestone courtyard in front circled around a massive Italian fountain, blasting water thirty feet in the air from a dozen cherubic lips—with a muscular stallion rearing up over it all. It looked as though the Aubreys had sacked Europe. For all Philips knew, they had.
Linked to the back of the house by a covered causeway was what looked to be a sizable modern conference facility, done in smoked glass and granite.
The Maybach stopped under the shadow of twin marble staircases rolling out from the massive front door of the house. Philips stepped from the limousine as a valet in a red livery coat held the door for her.
Boynton had exited the Suburban and walked past them. “This way, Doctor.”
Philips followed Boynton through a maze of ornately furnished hallways dotted with armed guards. With every room they entered, she heard a beep as radio frequency sensors along the doorways logged her movements.
They passed people in impeccable suits and diverse military uniforms walking in groups of two or three, all hurrying off somewhere.
“So you have more than KMSI troops on this project?”
Boynton nodded absently. “We’ve had to gather several dozen corporate military providers to deliver the needed manpower. Not to mention the expertise.”
Philips followed Boynton into the center of an echoing ballroom and was dumbstruck at its size. It was dotted with sets of ornate furniture on islands of carpet and bustled with activity. People of various ethnic extractions, either military or smartly attired civilians, moved in and out, talking in hushed tones in English, Mandarin, Arab, Tagalog, Russian, and several other languages she didn’t recognize. The ceiling was easily forty feet high. Philips craned her neck to look up at the murals. She had visited Versailles once, before joining the NSA, but the Sun King’s palace exuded a neutered magnificence. This palace was still alive with authority.
“Doctor.”
Philips turned to see Boynton gesturing to a rich damask divan. She hadn’t noticed him moving on without her. She caught up.
“Please have a seat. You’ll be called soon.” He nodded toward a distant buffet table with uniformed staff. “Feel free to have a bite. I hear the quail is excellent. Hunted locally.”
“Thank you, no.”
Boynton raced off, checking his watch, and Philips sat on the sofa. Her eyes swept the walls, taking in the dozens of massive paintings. They seemed like a cross between royal portraits and roadside billboards, depicting eighteenth-century battles from the Continent, landscapes, and portraits of nineteenth-century railroad barons leaning on walking sticks. Their gold-leaf frames were so ornate they looked like collections of medieval weaponry, dipped in gold paint and glued together.
Philips glanced around at the knots of people talking softly and in earnest. Military officers nodded and pointed at satellite photographs—all in the open. What was this place? It was the NSA without internal security and with a decorating budget gone out of control.
Philips leaned back and recalled the details she’d just read of Operation Exorcist. The complete, simultaneous extermination of the Daemon from critical data centers throughout the world. A Daemon-blocker patch, capable of interdicting the self-destruct signal on infected networks. An ambitious plan, but notably not one that destroyed the Daemon—one that simply blocked the Daemon from destroying selected targets.
The question was how she’d be able to use their resources to carry out her own plan: to destroy the Daemon.
Philips was dozing an hour later when a booming voice nearby suddenly shook her awake. A tall, loose-jowled Texan in his sixties wearing a bespoke suit was slapping a nearby Chinese statesman on the back and speaking with a powerful Southern drawl. “How ya’ll settlin’ in? They treatin’ ya a’right, Genr’l Zhang?” He smiled broadly and broke into Mandarin. “Ni hao ma? Wo feichang gaoxing you jihui gen nin hezuo.” He smiled and shook the man’s hand.
The Armani-suited “general” nodded back grimly and exchanged a firm handshake just a shade removed from an arm-wrestling match.
“Mr. Johnston, health to your family.”
Philips caught Johnston’s eye. “Excuse me, Genr’l.” He strode toward Philips, turning his powerful voice on her. “Dr. Philips. Why don’t you come on in here for a chat?” He grabbed a uniformed servant by the arm, but kept his eyes on Philips. “You want something? Coffee? Tea?”
“Nothing for me. Excuse me, have we been introduced?”
“Damn me, we haven’t.” He extended his hand and nearly crushed hers with it. “Aldous Morris Johnston; I’m fortunate to be senior legal counsel for several companies backing Operation Exorcist.” He turned to the servant. “Get us a pot of coffee an
d some finger sandwiches in here.”
“Sir, no offense intended, but time is wasting. The news I saw coming in was quite dire. When can I meet with the Weyburn Labs team?”
“Doctor, that’s what we’re here to talk about.” A nearby door opened, and several suited men could be seen rushing about inside. A security man in a navy blazer and gray slacks held the door. An earphone wire ran down into his collar.
Johnston was leading Philips along. “Now that you’re part of the team, we want to get your input on the overall direction of the effort.”
They moved into a sitting room warmly furnished with more human-scale sofas and chairs and wall-to-wall carpet. The security man closed the door and stood, hands clasped in front of him. Paperwork was everywhere on the coffee tables, and several suited men were tapping furiously on laptop keyboards. A bank of towering windows filled the far wall and bathed the room in diffuse light. The frames were arched into gothic points but the glass was smoked—keeping out much of the daytime heat. Beyond the windows lay vast grasslands dotted with horses.
“It’s something, isn’t it? Our group owns it all as far as the eye can see.”
Philips nodded at the view. “Including the sky, apparently.”
He didn’t seem to notice. “It’s a rare joy on horseback—especially at dawn.”
Johnston patted a large upholstered chair. Philips bristled at this potential display of social rank and sexism combined—but realized she was being childish and sat where invited. Johnston sat on the arm of a nearby sofa. Someone shoved a bone china cup and saucer into her hand, and a servant in a dinner jacket and white gloves poured steaming coffee from a silver pot.
Johnston gestured toward three other men sitting nearby—lots of symmetrically graying temples and impeccable tailoring on display. “Dr. Philips, this is Greg Lawson, Adam Elsberg, Martin Sylpannic.”
They nodded in turn as people came and went from various doors in the background.
“Are you gentlemen with Weyburn Labs?”
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