Which was why this weekend away was so important to them all.
A hand shoved aside the shower curtain and a phone appeared.
“It’s for you.”
He tossed his head back, slicking his hair with two hands then wiping his face as he took the phone, mouthing ‘who is it?’ to his wife, who shook her head, signaling she was pissed with her ‘talk to the hand’ pose.
Uh oh.
“This is Rick.”
“Lieutenant Messina, this is an emergency activation. You are to report to your duty station within sixty minutes. This is a mandatory call-up, and is not an exercise. Understood?”
“Umm, yes. What’s this about?”
“You’ll be briefed when you arrive. Can you confirm you’ll be on station within sixty minutes?”
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
The call ended with a dial tone. He looked out into the bathroom to find it deserted. Bending over he placed the phone on the floor then finished rinsing, climbing out and toweling off quickly as he headed into the bedroom to find his wife furiously brushing her hair.
“You can’t go, can you,” she said, her tone indicating she already knew the answer.
“It’s a call-up. I have to go.”
“You should never have joined!”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes I do!”
“You know why I joined. I have a duty to give back, even if in just some small way.”
“We have kids—”
“Who might be saved one day by a guardsman, just like I was.”
Messina flashed back to that night as a child when Hurricane Andrew was hammering the coastline of Florida and his parents had foolishly decided to tough it out. They had paid with their lives, and if it weren’t for some young corporal in the National Guard who had spotted him clinging to a piece of their destroyed house, he would be dead. Instead, he had been pulled out of the water and hoisted into a helicopter.
He had sworn he would join, to pay it forward, but had come up with excuse after excuse. The first excuse was college, then new wife, then starting a career, then children, then saving for a house, then nothing—just apathy. When Katrina had hit New Orleans, and he watched the devastation unfold on CNN, he turned to Angela and said, “I’m signing up. Tomorrow.”
And she had supported him at the time, knowing it was something he had always wanted. Unfortunately the next day his grandfather had died, and all thoughts of the National Guard drifted away until Hurricane Sandy hit.
He signed up the next day.
It had only been a little bit over a year since he joined. He had done his duty, losing minimal time from the family, and never had it interfered with any of their plans.
Until today.
He came up behind Angela and put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them gently.
“I’m sorry, babe, you know I didn’t want this to happen.”
Her shoulders slumped and she leaned back against him, her anger deflated.
“I know, it’s just we were all so looking forward to this. We haven’t gone camping all year.”
He turned her around to face him, sitting on the bed and pulling her toward him. He looked up at her and smiled.
“Why don’t you guys go on your own?” he said. “This thing might only last a day, then I’ll come join you.”
“We can’t go without you!”
“Why not? You know what you’re doing, probably better than me—”
“That’s for sure.”
“—and the kids know what they’re doing. The three of you go, and I’ll join you when I’m done.”
Angela brightened at the suggestion, wrapping her arms around him and pushing him back on the bed, straddling him.
“You better get there quick, mister, before I meet somebody else.”
He felt her hips grind and a stirring that if he wasn’t careful might lead to something else. She planted a kiss on him that stoked the fire down below that even if he wanted to he couldn’t resist. He flipped her over, glancing to make sure the bedroom door was closed.
“We have to be fast.”
“I can be fast,” she said in a hoarse whisper as she pulled her panties off.
“I mean lightning fast.”
“Like when we first met?”
He feigned a hurt expression.
“Hey, you said it didn’t matter.”
She grabbed his neck and pulled him tight against her.
“And I meant it. Now shut up and make love to me, soldier.”
Messina followed her orders, glancing at the alarm clock on the nightstand, doing the math in his head to figure out if there was any chance he’d actually make it on time.
No problem.
Alex West Residence, Black Forest, Germany
Kane read the flash message that had just come in over his secure phone, maintaining control of his facial muscles despite the urge for eyebrows to pop and a jaw to drop. Instead he returned the phone to his pocket and looked back at the two elderly men sitting in front of him.
“How about we start with exactly what Crimson Rush is?” he asked the room.
“Well, first how about I explain what it isn’t,” began Zorkin.
“Isn’t?”
“Isn’t,” repeated Zorkin. “What it isn’t is a weapon.”
“Huh?” This time eyebrows and jaw muscles lost control. “Then what the hell are we running all over the place for?” exclaimed Kane.
“You misunderstand. Crimson Rush isn’t a weapon. It’s a battle plan that uses a specific type of weapon.”
Kane’s lips pursed as he sucked in a deep breath.
A battle plan?
He liked the sound of that even less.
“Explain.”
“In the sixties our scientists figured out how to shrink a nuclear weapon down to the size of a large crate. This miniaturization continued and by the early eighties the RA-155 was created. It was a fully functional nuclear bomb that weighed about thirty kilos—”
“That’s less than seventy pounds for us Yanks,” interjected West.
“—and could be carried in a backpack or suitcase.”
“I’ve heard of those,” said Kane. “I thought it was bunk.”
“That’s what you were meant to believe. A disinformation campaign was begun and your side was made to think it was simply a false flag put out to catch moles inside the Soviet Union. Your side responded with a message through private channels that if the weapon were real, and were to be found on US or NATO soil, detonated or otherwise, it would be considered an act of war and would demand a nuclear response.”
Kane looked at West for confirmation, and the man nodded, a frown creasing his clouded face, as if old memories were flooding back.
“I’m sensing a ‘but’,” said Kane.
“There always is it seems. In the early eighties things were pretty turbulent in the Soviet Union, and the upper echelons were beginning to realize that we would inevitably lose the war due to simple economics. Some in the Kremlin wanted to prevent this at all costs, therefore they developed the RA-155 program, and once it was ready, immediately deployed it, and didn’t stop deploying it until the warning from your government.”
“How many were deployed?”
“That I don’t know. In all the years I have been searching I have never been able to find details on deployment, except to say that over one thousand of these low yield weapons were manufactured.”
Kane leaned forward in his chair, his heart skipping a beat.
“Just how powerful are these things?”
“Not very when compared to a conventional warhead. They were mostly half a kiloton to two kilotons. Enough to completely contaminate about ten square kilometers. Anybody in the blast radius would be instantly killed just as in a regular nuclear detonation. About half of the population would die immediately or soon thereafter out to about a kilometer in all directions. Then the radiation would spread out to about ten square ki
lometers, and then be carried with the prevailing winds, contaminating anything in its path.”
“So if this were set off in a city…” Kane began.
“Thousands would die immediately, tens of thousands within days, and many more over the coming years. Not to mention birth defects, cancer, and a whole host of problems for decades to come.”
“And that’s just one bomb,” said West, rubbing his forehead.
“And you said there were a thousand of these made.”
“Yes, but about half at least weren’t deployed.”
“How do you know that?” asked West.
“They’re stored in two secret warehouses, ready for use if needed.”
West put his tea aside as he leaned forward.
“You’re kidding me! You mean they’re not on the record?”
Zorkin shook his head.
“No, if they were, then we’d have to account for all of them, and that’s not possible. It would have led to an international incident that might have completely derailed peace talks.”
“Because we could never have peace and nuclear disarmament when possibly hundreds of Soviet nuclear devices were already pre-positioned at their targets,” said Kane, almost breathlessly, his head slowly shaking back and forth in shock. “This is incredible! It completely changes the balance of power!”
Zorkin nodded.
“I agree. Which is why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” asked Kane.
“We’re the only ones who know Crimson Rush is real,” said West, “and we’re offering our help.”
Kane turned to Zorkin.
“RA-155 is the weapon, but what is Crimson Rush. You said it was a battle plan?”
“Yes. The idea was to pre-position as many of these weapons as possible at key locations such as military bases, power stations, government buildings—essentially anywhere there was a strategic asset that might aid in the war effort. The intention was that on the eve of war, we would begin massive exercises in the North Atlantic and Pacific, as well as air and land exercises in Eastern Europe near the borders. The majority of the suitcase bombs would be detonated all at once just as a coordinated attack into Western Europe would begin. Your forces would be unable to respond, your communications and supply lines destroyed, along with a significant portion of your land and air forces. We would conquer Europe within a few weeks, all the while threatening further nuclear devastation on America should she respond. We would detonate another suitcase bomb or two just to prove we could still do it.”
West squeezed the bridge of his nose.
“So we would refuse to use nukes, the supply chain from North America would be broken, and Europe would fall.”
“And the United States would be significantly weakened, and no longer a threat. And with all of Europe’s resources and industrial capacity, we could quickly move to isolate and eventually take the US mainland.”
Kane doubted that last part, a couple of hundred million guns in the hands of civilians ready to thwart any invasion, but the fall of Europe could absolutely have happened.
“Okay, that’s history,” he said. “What we know now is that the codes have been sold to parties unknown, and that they intend to detonate the weapons. To what end, we don’t know. What we need to know is where they are, and how to deactivate them, or, who has the codes, and how do we stop them before they’re used.”
“All good questions and all without answers at the moment,” agreed West. “Or more accurately, all without answers now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I stole all of the information with respect to technical details and deployment locations over thirty years ago. That intel disappeared.”
“How?”
“We were betrayed is the most likely explanation.”
Kane looked at Zorkin then back at West.
“By who?”
“By the French.”
Goddamned French!
“How?”
“I passed the intel on to one of their agents as I was about to be picked up. She successfully delivered it to one of their drop locations, and as far as we know, it was picked up and delivered to France. From there we have no idea where it went, and any inquiries made were met with denials.”
“Perhaps the French agent lied to you? Didn’t make the drop?”
“No, she made the drop,” replied Zorkin. “I saw her do it.”
“As did I,” added West.
Kane looked at Zorkin.
“So I guess you were the one about to pick him up?”
Zorkin nodded.
“But when he explained to me what Crimson Rush was I realized it had to be stopped, and that the best way to stop it was to let the intel fall into enemy hands. Unfortunately it either never made it out of the USSR, or the French decided to keep it for themselves.”
“Which with the way politics were back then, I could absolutely see,” said West. “You could never really trust the French.”
“Still can’t,” muttered Kane. “Any ideas how we can find this intel?”
“I suggest we call in an expert,” said Zorkin.
West’s eyes opened slightly wider.
“And just who would you suggest?”
“An old friend,” said Zorkin, rising and going to the front door. He opened it and waved, both Kane and West exchanging confused glances as a car door opened then closed, footsteps crossing the bed of needles then the wood porch.
A woman’s steps.
Kane saw her first, a rather striking elderly woman, perhaps a few years younger than her counterparts, but with a dignity that no young woman could pull off. He glanced at West to get a sense of whether or not he knew who this woman was, but there was no doubt. West’s eyes were glass, his smile broad as his lips trembled. He pushed himself from his chair and nearly stumbled toward the woman, his hands outstretched.
Hers rose to meet his, and as their fingers intertwined, his voice finally trembled the words he was so desperate to say.
“Adelle! I thought I’d never see you again!”
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Chris Leroux pushed back from his keyboard, frustrated. He had hit a dead end in trying to trace the transmission sent by Islamov. They all had, the murky underworld of malware having lost the message in the ether, a disproportionate number of techs having been assigned the task of finding the receiver.
All to no avail so far.
The proverbial haystack wasn’t actually a good comparison anymore. It was searching for a specific needle in a stack of needles. No one profile stood out from any other, meaning there was no way to distinguish, and with tens of thousands of infected machines, it would take an army to round up their owners for questioning to see who had actually opened the file that was transmitted.
Ding!
He had an idea.
His fingers began to fly over the keyboard, launching his scripting software and within minutes he began designing his own chunk of malware to piggy back on the one hiding their receiver. As the script quickly grew, he remembered how much he loved to code, something he didn’t get much of an opportunity to do anymore now that he was a full-fledged senior analyst. He felt exhilarated with the idea of actually doing something rather than just reading or creating searches. This was real, actual spy work that would be unleashed on the world, that could do some good.
Which meant he better get it approved before he launched it.
A throat cleared at his cubicle entrance and his head spun to see Sherrie standing there, a smile on her face.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to see that smile on your face grow so wide it was making me jealous.”
He wiped the smile off his face, but it quickly reappeared, he too excited to keep it hidden.
Sherrie sat down and looked at the screen.
“Whatcha doin’?”
“Writing some code.”
“That will do?”
> He leaned forward, lowering his voice.
“I had an idea,” he began.
“Of course you did,” said Sherrie with a smile. “You’re the smartest guy here.”
“You’re biased,” he replied, then continued. “We’ve been trying to trace the data packet to its intended target, but there’s no way, there’s just too many people who received the packet due to the malware installed on their computers.”
“This is the Chechen transmission?”
Leroux nodded.
“Sorry, yeah, I guess I’ve just been so tied up in this I assumed you knew.”
“Go on.”
“Sorry, so anyway, I just realized that there’s no way to figure out who the transmission went to since it went to tens of thousands of people if not more. But, only the person who knew the transmission was being sent would know to open the data packet when it landed on their machine as part of the malware’s normal update cycle.”
Sherrie’s eyes opened wide as she realized what Leroux was saying.
“You mean tens of thousands had it downloaded, but only the guy who knew it would be arriving would open it.”
“Exactly.”
“And can you find out who opened the file?”
“I think so. I’m going to push an update to the malware software, and every infected machine that is logged onto the Internet, or that eventually logs on, will automatically download the update. The update will check to see if the machine has opened the data packet that was transmitted, then send the IP address back to me. Assuming the receiver hasn’t disconnected from the Internet or removed the malware from their machine, we just might find them.”
Sherrie rose from her chair and placed a kiss on his forehead.
“My genius!” she whispered, then stood up straight. “I’ll leave you to finish your work. I’m about to get a briefing on Crimson Rush.” She pointed at the keyboard. “If the rumors are true, we’re probably a prime target, so you better hurry.”
Leroux nodded and watched her sway out of his office, then returned to his keyboard. He resumed coding then suddenly stopped as her words sank in.
Cold Warriors (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #3) Page 14