America jg-9

by Stephen Coonts

  Her colleagues here at Hudson Security Services were also experts, expert hackers, as she was when she was young. Her hacking had got her thrown out of her first college. She didn't get caught again but learned everything the universities could teach about the new science of computer systems.

  Out of college she began consulting, applying her expertise for a fee. Soon she was swamped and began recruiting other hackers, people like herself who came to her attention when their hacking feats landed them in the news or in jail. When the furor died down or they were finally released from prison, she was there with a job offer that topped all others.

  Of course, her company had been strictly legit for years and, as far as her employees knew, with the sole exception of Zip Vance, still was. The expertise of the hackers revealed the vulnerabilities of government and industry information systems, and she was in the perfect position to sell her services reducing those vulnerabilities. "Expensive and darn well worth it," was the phrase she used in her presentations to win contracts. So she had grown her business and her reputation, made millions, paid huge salaries.. and one fine day discovered that it wasn't enough.

  Tonight she left her monitor and walked through the loft, remembering. She checked the elevator; the last person to leave, Zipper, had left it in the down position. She pushed the button to bring it up, waited as it rose clanking and groaning, and when it reached the top floor, threw the switch to disable it.

  There was a trapdoor under one of the tables, and coiled beside it, thirty feet of knotted rope. That was the only emergency exit in case of fire. Still, in her mind the risk of unauthorized entry was potentially more devastating.

  She had earned a hundred million from the Europeans for putting the SuperAegis satellite in the water. If EuroSpace could ultimately recover it, the corporation would owe her another hundred million. Her deal with Jouany was more complex, with incentives based on the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro. She thought again about the possibility Jouany would refuse to pay. Obviously, if he stiffed her she couldn't sue to collect. What she could do was prove to the world that he had been in a deal to devastate the American economy. A revelation like that would ruin him.

  No doubt Jouany had thought of that. His best move to counter that possibility was to destroy this computer center. Which would work if this were the only computer center she had.

  Tomorrow she would go to the backup location and have Zipper send her the updated critical files. She would back them up and hide the disks.

  Oh, the irony. The CIA had named Kolnikov and his crew the Blackbeard team. Kolnikov! Now Jouany and Willi Schlegel, those two were pirates Two of the blackest scoundrels God ever made, and both wore business suits, pontificated to the press, made flashy charitable donations, and took their wives to the opera.

  And she was going to take huge piles of money from them!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jake Grafton walked from the Pentagon to the SuperAegis liaison spaces on the eighth floor of a Crystal City office tower. He paid little attention to traffic or anything else — he had too much on his mind. Tom Krautkramer, the FBI agent, was waiting in his office with Toad Tarkington.

  "I've been talking to General Alt, Admiral Stalnaker, and Vice-Admiral Navarre," he said. "I thought I might as well drop by and fill you in on what we have." Krautkramer looked as if he hadn't gotten any sleep last night.

  "We've got a number of leads to check. We are working with the phone company to get the long-distance records for the telephones where these people stayed, we're talking to neighbors, going over the apartments with forensic teams, basically pulling out all the stops."

  "Cut to the chase. What have you got right now?"

  "A civilian technician who worked on the holographic simulator is missing, guy named Leon Rothberg. His supervisor says Rothberg has been asking for lots of unpaid time off — apparently his private life is a mess. The supervisor said that sometimes bill collectors call wanting to talk to him. Anyway, his landlord says he hasn't been around for several days." He produced a photo and passed it to Jake, who glanced at it and handed it back. "He may be one of the two men who wasn't on the Blackbeard team."

  "This guy know the America's system?"

  "According to his supervisor, Rothberg was a computer Ph.D. candidate who dropped out of MIT before turning in his dissertation. We're checking that out. The supervisor says he is a certified genius who knows every line of software code in America."

  "Bullshit," said Jake Grafton.

  "I'm quoting the supervisor," Krautkramer replied.

  "Sorry." Jake felt like a jerk. Krautkramer was probably as tired as he was.

  "One of the missing Americans is a petty officer named Callahan. The general opinion of the others is that he is dead, but no one knows for a fact. Callahan could be alive and well and on that ship. He was a reactor specialist."

  "The man who prevented the SCRAM."

  "Perhaps," Krautkramer admitted. "It is possible. Callahan is or was in the midst of a nasty divorce and had a pregnant girlfriend. He was an above-average petty officer, but he may have been tempted. Or he may have been as honest as the day is long and killed by the hijackers because he didn't jump fast enough. We don't know."

  "Okay."

  "The leader of the Blackbeard team was Vladimir Kolnikov. Here is a copy of his file." The FBI special agent passed a red folder to Jake, who glanced through it. Most of this stuff he had already seen. "We're doing our best here and in Paris," Krautkramer continued, "to come up with more information on this guy, who his friends are, where and how he lived, what he drinks, what he reads, essentially the works. It's going to take a few days."

  "Who knew him best in Connecticut?"

  "The simulator training officer. He spent up to eight hours a day with him for several weeks."

  "Let's fly him to Washington. I want to learn everything he knows about Kolnikov. Toad, see what you can do." Yes, sir.

  "When you get more, Mr. Krautkramer, day or night, call me. Commander Tarkington will give you some phone numbers."

  When the FBI man was gone, Jake said to Toad, "Okay. How is it going in the office today?"

  "If anyone here knew that the submarine was going to be stolen,

  I didn't get a hint of it," Toad said gloomily. "They've talked of nothing else today. The general assumption is that the sub will attack the Goddard launch platform with a Tomahawk."

  "Ilin and the other spies?"

  "The only time they've been outside is to go to lunch in the Crystal City mall. We went as a group. I stuck with Ilin like chewing gum on his shoe. He was not out of my sight. I even went to the men's room with him. We talked about submarines, baseball and football, politics, economics, the euro…" Toad shrugged.

  "Any chance Ilin did a drop?" In other words, was Ilin given enough rope to leave something — anything — somewhere for a Russian courier to retrieve?

  "The FBI had three agents watching us every second. They even bused the table after we left. I don't see how he could have. They had a video camera and directional mike aimed at us every minute. I felt like I was surrounded by the Secret Service, but they were so unobtrusive I don't think anyone else noticed."

  "Bet they all did," Jake muttered and glanced at the stuff in his in-basket. "And tonight?"

  "A covert surveillance team for each of them. The agent I talked to said there are fifty people involved. No one will tail these people, yet they will be under surveillance every minute. They've bugged their hotel rooms and installed video cameras in the lobbies, hallways, stairwells, and bars. The FBI has been damned busy. I don't know what priority you asked for, Admiral, but you got the highest one they have."

  After the war room session that evening, the foreign liaison people would undoubtedly go straight to their embassies to report to their governments. And yet, why was Ilin wearing a mike in his belt? He could go to his embassy and talk face-to-face with his colleagues any time he wished. Was he dirty?

  Waiti
ng for Flap Le Beau to call was difficult. Jake thumbed unenthusiastically through the paper in his in-basket. He signed several letters that Toad placed before him, then stared out the window at the jets coming and going at Reagan National Airport. He was lost in thought when the intercom buzzed. The secretary said, "General Le Beau, sir."

  "The White House bought it," Flap said. "The Joint Chiefs will be there. We'll get a complete briefing on the efforts being made to find America. If anyone asks a question that I think is out of line or not germane, I'll stop the show."

  "Thank you, sir."

  When Jake hung up, Toad dashed through the door. "Bring in the spies," the admiral told him.

  He greeted them by name: Jadot, the Frenchman; Mayer, the German; and, of course, Barrington-Lee, English as strong tea. All of them had spent a large portion of their careers in military intelligence, as they freely admitted.

  All except the Russian, Janos Ilin, tall, reserved, taciturn. He was a bureaucrat, according to his cover story, even though he made no pretense of knowing anything about missiles or defense systems. Jadot had asked him which directorate he worked for and had received a blank stare to reward his curiosity.

  When everyone was seated, Jake brought them up to date on the stolen submarine. For the first time he told them the identities and nationalities of the thieves and the fact that they were being trained to operate a submarine with a minimum manning level.

  "Trained by whom?" asked Barrington-Lee.

  "The United States Navy."

  "Guess you Yanks are really getting serious about shrinking your navy," Barrington-Lee commented when he realized Jake was not going to give an explanation for the team's training. "And then the blighters swiped your submarine. First you lose the killer satellite, now this. The press will eat you alive."

  "Typical British understatement," Toad Tarkington remarked.

  "So difficult to find honest people these days," Helmut Mayer said with a straight face.

  "Certainly it is," agreed Maurice Jadot, who flashed a quick grin at Jake. "I am still waiting to meet my first one."

  Jake continued with the briefing, detailing the salient facts as he had learned them that day. Jadot asked about Americas weapons load out. "A dozen Tomahawks and six torpedoes."

  "What kind of warheads, please?" asked Mayer.

  "All conventional. That is all I can tell you at this time."

  Hyphen knew a thing or two about Tomahawk, which was a mainstay of the Royal Navy. "Certainly these people can't properly target this weapon, can they? Do the mission profiles and all that?"

  "It would be extremely difficult. One suspects that they couldn't do it without help."

  "Do they have help?"

  "They might. Several Americans are missing and may be on the boat with these people. One of them is a simulator instructor, a software engineer, highly knowledgeable about the ship's systems. On the other hand, he might not be there. We just don't know yet."

  "This missing engineer — does he know enough to program and fire the weapons?"

  "According to the FBI, yes."

  "It gets worser and worser," was Hyphen's benediction.

  They sat silently for several seconds, thinking about that, trying to control their faces. Actually they did a good job of it — they were ready for the poker tables of Vegas, Jake thought ruefully.

  Finally one of them, Mayer, asked the obvious question: "What is the United States doing to find this submarine?"

  "Everything we can," Jake replied. "A briefing is scheduled for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon war room two hours from now. We are invited. I am sure all of you will be making reports to your governments about this matter, but I ask you to inform them firmly that the United States government does not want the information you learn here disclosed to the press."

  "Speaking for myself, I can give you no guarantees on what my minister will choose to do," Barrington-Lee said. The others nodded their concurrence.

  "I understand the realities of the situation," Jake replied. "All I ask is that you inform your governments of our wishes. The U.S. wants to keep a lid on the identities of the hijackers for a few more days."

  On their way to the Pentagon, Toad Tarkington walked alongside the admiral. He spoke softly so that only his boss could hear. "It's the Frenchies. I got this feeling."

  "Right."

  "Everyone talks about the French, but no one does anything about them. After all, those people eat snails."

  "A black mark against the whole race, I'll admit."

  "Just wait. You'll see I'm right."

  "There's been a change of plans," Kolnikov told his crew. He spoke loudly, so everyone could hear. With the exception of Heydrich, they were crowded into America's control room and surrounding spaces. Kolnikov didn't want to use the ship's loudspeaker system for fear that the sound would be picked up by the American SOSUS system, a fear ingrained in him from his days at sea in the Soviet, then Russian, Navy.

  "We are going to fire three Tomahawks tonight, probably three tomorrow night, then three the following night. After that we are going to lay low for a while, as planned."

  The men were surly. They were submerged in a stolen American submarine, surrounded by technology they didn't understand, with the entire American navy hunting for them. And Kolnikov had shot Steinhoff and locked up Heydrich. Why they didn't know. They were frightened and Kolnikov could see it in their faces.

  "Our primary mission has not changed," Vladimir Kolnikov said now, keeping his voice as matter-of-fact as possible. "All of you will still be paid the agreed amount. However, since we are launching nine Tomahawks, you will each be paid an additional one hundred thousand dollars American per weapon as compensation for the additional risk."

  "What are the targets?" One of the East Germans asked that question.

  "You are from?"

  "Berlin."

  "The targets are not in Berlin."

  A chuckle swept the crowded compartment. The promise of more money was working on their misgivings. All of them could multiply by nine.

  "What about Heydrich? Why is he locked up?"

  "I do not trust him."

  No one said anything to that. They looked at each other, at the overhead, at the large computer displays, the windows on the sea. Finally Boldt asked, "How long are you going to keep him locked up?"

  "Until he learns to behave himself."

  "I think you should tell us more," Steeckt said flatly. "You are asking us to risk our lives on faith and a bald, unsupported promise to be paid later. That isn't much."

  "Precisely how much is your life worth, Steeckt? What were you going back to when this little adventure was suggested?"

  "You should level with us," the East German insisted.

  "What you do not know you cannot tell later. You will be paid. You have my guarantee. If you get money, do you care where it's been, eh? As long as it spends."

  That remark seemed to break the tension. Some of them chuckled.

  "Steinhoff died about an hour ago." Gordin spoke flatly, without inflection, as if he were reporting a temperature or depth reading.

  "He pulled a pistol on me," Kolnikov explained. "I had to shoot him. Shipmates must trust each other and defer to their captain, who looks out for all of them. Steinhoff failed to do that. He thought his primary loyalty was to Heydrich, a great mistake, and made it him or me. Perhaps he thought Turchak could sail the sub without me." And Turchak could, probably. "Perhaps he realized how easy this submarine is to operate and thought he could handle it himself." That ridiculous remark drew several smiles. Kolnikov continued: "Perhaps Steinhoff hadn't thought that far ahead. Whatever. He made a very stupid mistake and paid the price."

  "What shall we do with his corpse, Captain?"

  "Wrap it in a sheet and put it in the cold-storage locker. We will dispose of it when the time comes. Not now."

  When they had filed back to their stations, Turchak whispered to Kolnikov, "They are scared. They don't know w
hat to think."

  "In this day and age, who does?"

  "Will they obey, do you think?"

  "If the Americans leave us alone, we will be okay."

  Yes, as long as everything went all right, they would be fine.

  As he waited at Dulles Airport for his flight to London to board, Tommy Carmellini reread a copy of the letter of resignation from the CIA that he had submitted that afternoon. He went in to see his boss after he drafted his composition.

  "I gather that your meeting with Watring went badly."

  "He's a shit. What can I tell you?"

  The supervisor frowned. His name was Pulzelli, and he was a bureaucrat to his fingertips. "I find the use of foul language at the office offensive," he intoned primly.

  "Yes, sir," said Tommy Carmellini. After all, Pulzelli had rec-

  ommended him for a performance bonus. "It just slipped out. Somehow that word seemed a perfect fit."

  "He didn't think you were entitled to compensation for the invention?"

  "He says the patent office screwed up and I'm a crook. Wouldn't approve it."

  Pulzelli had sighed. He knew who and what Watring was and had made the recommendation on Carmellini's behalf anyway, which would no doubt cost him some grief in the near future. Carmellini felt sorry for the man.

  "I've decided to resign," Carmellini said, handing Pulzelli his essay. As Pulzelli read it, Carmellini said, "I've given the standard two weeks' notice. It's time to get on with my life. I've done my time with the government. I want out."

  "Do you have any plans?"

  "I was thinking of the British crown jewels and maybe the czar's jewels in the Kremlin museum."

  Although Pulzelli didn't often allow himself to smile, a hint of amusement crept across his features.

  "I know what you're thinking," Carmellini said breezily. "You think I should start in the minor leagues, which is probably true. Perhaps I'll do some jewelry stores and museums as a warm-up."