The Athena Project

by Brad Thor

  The brightly painted wooden doors, which looked like any others along the Grand Canal, hid two sheets of titanium, three inches thick, descending several feet below the water level. The titanium doors came to rest upon a wall of metal bars that went all the way down and were bolted to the bedrock beneath the canal bottom.

  Under the murky water, Cooper and Casey unloaded their gear. When they were ready, Casey said over the radio, “I’m going to wrap the bars.”

  “Roger that,” replied Rhodes, who was concealed in the window of an apartment across the canal. She adjusted her face against the cheek pad of her rifle and prepared to take Bianchi’s guards if they noticed what was going on below them.

  Gripping the bars, Casey inched herself up as close to the surface as she dared. Though it was evening and the water cloudy, there was still a lot of ambient light spilling onto the surface. If she was seen, that would be the end of the entire operation.

  Identifying the bars that they’d be working on, she wrapped them as tightly as she could with Ti wire to keep them from spreading.

  Using the bars to guide herself back to the bottom, she wrapped the two bars again with wire halfway down.

  Rejoining Cooper, she said, “Bars are wrapped. Let’s spread ’em.”

  Cooper positioned a small, submersible hydraulic jack with titanium tubular extension poles between the two bars and went to work, silently creating an opening big enough for them to swim through.

  They checked in repeatedly with Rhodes to make sure no one up on the dock had any idea what was going on. Each time, Rhodes replied, “You’re still good to go.”

  After the bars had been spread far enough apart, Casey rose halfway to the surface to make sure that there was no sign of the breach. So far, so good. The wire had held.

  As Cooper packed the jack back into her scooter, Casey unloaded two waterproof dry bags from hers. When they were ready, they swam through the opening, with Casey in the lead.

  They quietly broke the surface of the water inside the boat garage, they came up only to eye level and took a long scan of the dimly lit room to make sure no one else was there. From what they could tell, they were alone and unnoticed.

  Suspended above them, in order to keep its hull clean, was Bianchi’s twenty-nine-foot 1965 Riva Super Aquarama runabout.

  Casey flashed Cooper the thumbs-up and they swam to a corroded ladder at the front of the slip.

  Cooper climbed out first. After removing her mask and peeling back her hood, she took off her rebreather, reached down, and accepted the two dry bags from Casey. Quickly, the two women undressed.

  They wore next to nothing beneath their dry suits. Unzipping the larger of the two bags, Casey pulled out Cooper’s cocktail dress and handed it to her, along with a pair of heels, jewelry, and makeup. They were followed by an inside-the-thigh garter holster, and a 9 mm Taurus “Slim” pistol.

  Casey fished out her dress, heels, makeup, weapon, and holster and starting getting dressed as well.

  “I hope you’re right about this guy wanting to show off his boat,” said Cooper.

  Casey stepped into her dress. “You know what they say. The only difference between men and boys . . .”

  “I know. The size of their toys.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll want to show us his toy.”

  Cooper smiled. “But what if he doesn’t?”

  Casey turned her back so her teammate could zip her up. “Then we’ll improvise. We’ll tell him we want to go skinny dipping.”

  “In Venetian canal water?”

  “Lex, you worry too much. Trust me, if we do this right, he’ll follow us anywhere.”

  “And if we don’t, this guy is going to do everything he can to make sure we don’t leave this building alive.”

  Casey shook her head. “Won’t happen.”

  Cooper was easily the most serious member of the team. She was a planner and didn’t care much for improvisation. “Have you always been this sure of yourself?” she asked.

  Handing her one of the miniature earpieces, Casey replied, “No, but I am this sure about men. Are you ready to go?”

  “I’m guessing you don’t have a hair dryer in that bag, do you?”

  “No hair dryer,” said Casey as she filled the larger bag with their dive equipment, weighted it down with a couple of items from the garage, dropped it into the water, and watched it sink out of view. “Dry suits may keep you bone dry, but the hoods are hell on your hair. Just run your fingers through it. You’ll be fine.”

  “Easy for you to say,” responded Cooper as Casey searched for a place to hide the smaller dry bag. “You always look great.” In addition to being the most serious member of the team, Alex Cooper seemed to be the most critical of her own good looks.

  The tarp for the Riva had been set in the corner of the garage, and Casey decided to hide the bag underneath. It contained everything the two women would need for their exfiltration: two masks, two waterproof, red-lens flashlights, and small “spare air” supplemental oxygen bottles with built-in mouthpieces for each of them. There were also restraints and a “spare air” bottle for Bianchi.

  The plan was to get him back to this point, get him restrained, and get him into the water as quickly as possible. Once they had him below the surface, they would retrieve the rest of their gear, fire up their scooters, and get out of there as quickly as possible.

  Casey pushed her tiny earpiece transmitter into her ear. It was about the size of a pencil eraser, and once it was in place it was virtually impossible to detect.

  They tested the signal strength between them, and then outside to Rhodes and Ericsson. Satisfied that everything was ready, Casey smoothed over her rather revealing cocktail dress and said, “Okay ladies, it’s showtime.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Smiling, their arms interlinked, Gretchen and Alex walked into Nino Bianchi’s extravagant party.

  The only thing that outshone the richly decorated palazzo was the richly decorated guests. Fit and tanned, they wore bespoke tuxedos, designer dresses, and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry. Neither Casey nor Cooper had ever seen this many good-looking people in one room before. It looked like a casting call for some high-end European soap opera.

  “Let’s get something to drink,” said Casey as she steered her teammate toward a white-jacketed server carrying a silver tray with long-stemmed champagne flutes.

  Drinks in hand, they wandered the ground-floor reception area, admiring Bianchi’s collection of Renaissance art. He had a lot of obvious security at the party.

  “Where do you think he is?” asked Cooper.

  Casey continued to admire the art. “Don’t worry. He’ll find us.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Casey smiled. “You worry too much, Lex.”

  “I’m a pragmatist.”

  Casey laughed and took a sip of her champagne. “I’ve got another word for it, but as long as you keep smiling and pretend you’re having a good time, I don’t care what you call it.”

  “So I’m a planner,” replied Cooper, making sure she kept smiling. “I like when things go according to plan.”

  “And how’s that been working out for you?”

  “Are you making this personal?”

  Casey winked at her. “Don’t you go losing that smile on me.”

  “I’m not like Jules and Megan. I don’t just walk into a bar and five minutes later walk out with some guy.”

  “We can hear you, you know,” said Ericsson over their earpieces.

  “Yeah,” added Rhodes. “And what do you mean by walk out with some guy?”

  “Let’s keep the net clear,” ordered Casey, before turning her attention back to Cooper. “All I can say, Alex, is that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

  “That’s pithy. Did you come up with that one yourself?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I just think that if you loosened up a bit, smiled a bit more, you’d find more men being drawn
to you.”

  “There are plenty of men drawn to me,” Cooper responded.

  “What is it now? Six months since you were last on a date?”

  “We’ve been downrange for a lot of that time.”

  Pointing at a statue and broadening her smile, Casey said, “Not for all of it.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t exactly want to swap dating advice with you, chief.”

  Casey rolled her eyes. “You, too? Why does everyone think I’m sleeping with him?”

  It was Cooper’s turn to laugh, and this time it was genuine. “You can’t hide what’s going on between you two.”

  “There’s nothing to hide, because there’s nothing going on,” Casey insisted.

  Cooper held up her hand. “Hey, I didn’t ask, so don’t feel like you’ve gotta tell. Okay?”

  “Rob Hutton is our superior officer. I am not sleeping with him. Besides, the man’s married. What kind of woman do you think I am?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Casey shook her head. “You’re amazing. All of you. A man and a woman can’t be friends?”

  “Nope.”

  Casey rolled her eyes again. “There’s nothing going on between us.”

  Cooper stared at her for several moments. Finally, she stated, “You’re such a liar.”

  Casey’s cheeks flushed.

  “See. You’re turning red,” Cooper said with a smile. “There is something going on between you two.”

  “I’m turning red out of frustration. How’s a girl supposed to defend herself against an accusation like that?”

  “Just tell me it’s not true.”

  “I did,” insisted Casey.

  “Tell me again.”

  “Fine. It’s not true.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Casey shook her head but never lost her smile.

  “My face is starting to hurt,” said Cooper. “Can we drop the fake smiles for a few minutes?”

  “Nope. You catch more flies with honey.”

  “You really believe men care either way?”

  “They care,” said Casey. “Believe me. It’s like turning on a magnet. If you’re smiling and having a good time, men find you much more approachable. But if you stand around looking like a you-know-what, all you’re going to attract are jerks.”

  Cooper was silent for a moment.

  Casey looked at her. “Don’t tell me that’s some serious revelation for you?”

  Cooper brushed it off. “I knew that.”

  It was once again Casey’s turn to laugh. “Now who’s lying?”

  Before Cooper could respond, she caught a glimpse of someone off to her right. “Contact. Three o’clock.”

  Casey stole a casual glance in Bianchi’s direction. He was working the room, meeting and greeting his guests. At the moment he was talking to an aristocratic-looking older couple.

  “What should we do?” asked Cooper.

  “Nothing,” replied Casey. “Just stand here, look pretty, and smile. And it wouldn’t hurt if you turned a little bit more to the side so he can see your tits.”

  Cooper’s eyes widened in surprise.

  Casey put on her biggest, brightest smile and said, “I had no idea what a basket case you were until now. Can you at least pretend you know how to be sexy?”

  “I don’t need to pretend. I’m just not as overt.”

  “Which is why you haven’t been on a date in six months,” chimed in Ericsson.

  “And can’t get a guy out of a bar in five hours, much less five minutes,” added Rhodes.

  “Quiet,” ordered Casey. “He’s spotted us.”

  CHAPTER 5

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Is this your first time in the tank?” asked Jack Walsh as they approached the outer door of the Pentagon’s ultrasecure conference room.

  Leslie Paxton straightened her jacket and took a deep breath. “Yup. My first time in front of the Joint Chiefs as well.”

  “If it helps put you at ease, you’ll only be meeting with the chairman and his assistant, the director of the Joint Staff.”

  “For my first national security emergency, I was expecting a larger audience.”

  “Don’t worry about the size of the audience,” said Walsh. “Just answer their questions as best you can. I’ll handle everything else.”

  Leslie was the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known by its acronym, DARPA, a research agency under the Department of Defense. She had worked as a senior scientist at NASA and as vice president for technology and advanced development at the Loral Corporation before being tapped for her current position. She was a tall, thin woman with long blond hair and a genius intellect.

  Her agency’s focus was on generating revolutionary capabilities in order to surprise America’s enemies and to prevent them from surprising the United States. Whether it was artificial intelligence or space-based predator-style drones, DARPA was referred to at DoD as the “technological engine” that drove its radical innovation.

  It was a small organization that eschewed hierarchy and government bureaucracy and prided itself on flexibility. Its eclectic staff was made up of the best researchers, thinkers, and scientists from government, universities, private industry, and even the public at large. Disciplines were just as wide-ranging, focusing on both theoretical and experimental strength.

  Very little of DARPA’s research was ever performed in government labs—that was for only the most sensitive and promising activities. Most researchers worked in private or in university laboratories, which was why DARPA liked to characterize itself as “one hundred geniuses connected by a travel agent.”

  The driving concept at DARPA was to harness the best talent, but not to isolate it. Ideas needed to flow quickly and unimpeded to allow for rapid decision making and to spur innovation.

  While a key group of scientists were permanent employees meant to ensure continuity, the majority of DARPA staff was hired for four- to six-year rotations and told to be bold and not fear failure. DARPA didn’t just want outside-the-box thinking, it wanted thinking where you couldn’t even see the box. That could happen only by constantly bringing in fresh ideas and perspectives, a core strength that allowed DARPA to build incredible teams of researchers.

  DARPA was about anticipating a scientific advancement and reverse-engineering it, even if such advancement hadn’t been fully realized yet. They also took older experimentation or scientific concepts that had never come to fruition and went at them from completely new angles.

  While some projects lasted only the length of a four- to six-year team rotation, more time-intensive projects saw their teams allowed to continue beyond that time frame so as to ensure successful collaboration.

  In order to keep itself lean and mean, DARPA often outsourced things it required to different branches of the Department of Defense and the military. Regardless of where DARPA got its personnel, the number-one job of the agency’s director was to hire the brightest minds with the biggest ideas and give them everything they needed to be successful. Leslie Paxton, like her predecessors, understood that radical innovation could come about only from radical, high-risk investments in her people.

  Jack Walsh was the Joint Chiefs’ director for intelligence. It was he who had summoned Paxton to the Pentagon from DARPA headquarters this afternoon. His office had been in a flurry of activity. In fact, as Leslie had walked in, the fifty-two-year-old rear admiral had been in the process of throwing a staffer his car keys, saying, “Take mine and double-park it right on their front steps if you have to. I want those records immediately. If anyone gives you any problems, you call my cell phone directly.”

  Walsh was a charming, no-BS guy. Intelligence was a people business and he excelled at it. He disliked bureaucracy but could navigate it like no one else in the military. He was as adept at cutting through red tape as he was at circumventing it when a situation called for it. Some of the country’s most innovative intelligence rev
olutions had sprung from the mind of Admiral Jack Walsh. He was the kind of person people went to bed at night praying was working around the clock to keep them safe. And with two grown children and a failed marriage behind him, Walsh had all the time in the world to focus on keeping America safe.

  No matter how many people were in the room, Walsh always made Leslie feel that she was the most important. For a man possessed of such people skills, Paxton found it hard to understand why he had never remarried. In the old-boy network of the Pentagon, he’d always treated her as an equal. He even made it a point to reach out to her and solicit her feedback on different things he was working on, something others in the DoD weren’t as apt to do. He was just an incredibly good guy. And while Paxton respected the professional boundaries of their relationship, if he had ever asked her to dinner, or even to lunch, for that matter, she would have said yes in a heartbeat.

  But he hadn’t asked her to come to the Pentagon for a social call. He had asked her to come to assist him in making a presentation to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in response to a developing national security emergency.

  They’d spent the better part of the morning and into the afternoon working on what they would do and what they would say. When the time neared for their meeting, she still didn’t feel fully prepared.

  “You’re going to do great,” said Jack. “Don’t worry. The chairman is a nice guy; very affable. His assistant can be a real pain in the ass, but he’s also a good guy. He’s pretty direct, so don’t let that intimidate you. It’s just his style. Answer his questions as succinctly as you can and you’ll be fine. Are you ready? Do you need a minute to collect your thoughts?”

  Leslie straightened to her full height and shook her head. “The longer we wait the worse this is going to get.”

  “I agree,” said Walsh as he reached down and opened the door. “Here we go.”