by Leslie Jones
B careful.
Bank on it, little bird.
“Fill us in. What developments?” Tag asked.
As they drove, he filled them in on the infected server, the suspected espionage, and the rogue router. When he finished, his friends stayed dead quiet. Unexpectedly, Alex began to crack up. In fact, he laughed so hard he convulsed and the car swerved. He corrected his course, but continued to snicker. It pulled a reluctant smile from Mace.
“What the fuck’s so funny, dickhead?” Tag asked. “This is serious shit.”
Alex guffawed. “Do you remember why we came to Massachusetts in the first place? Anyone? To find a nuke. Remember that?”
Mace cast him an exasperated look. “So what?”
“Nothing. If looking for a nuclear bomb leads to spying, FBI cover-ups, stolen millions and a pissed-off mob boss, hell, I’m all in. It’s just another Tuesday, right?”
“I guess you’ve got a point. This got complicated fast.”
“She’ll be fine,” Tag said, reading his expression. “She’s smart. She’ll be careful.”
“Yeah.”
All too soon, they pulled into a split-level clapboard and red brick house in the Boston suburb of Melrose. The bay window at the bottom didn’t offset the plain white boards or insipid blue shutters. An American flag hung tiredly atop the garage. The houses to either side were much larger, nicer, and separated from them by mature trees, which would at least give them some privacy from nosy neighbors.
Alex parked on the street since four cars already choked the drive. Jace opened the front door before they even reached it, glancing up and down the street as he gestured them inside.
“You made good time,” he said. “We’re still setting up.”
“What is this place?” Alex asked.
“Former FBI safe house. Our base of operations until we recover Fatianova Uvarov.” He shut the door behind them and locked it.
Mace looked around. The house had an open floor plan; instead of doors, simple arches separated one area from another. From the front door, he had a clear view up the stairs in front of him, into the living room on his left, and the kitchen and dining rooms straight ahead.
“Your gear’s stowed in the third bedroom upstairs,” Jace said, jerking a thumb at the stairs. “The one with the black-and-white bedspread. We’re all tripled up, so don’t expect any privacy till this thing’s done.”
“Hope you packed a toothbrush, Mace,” Alex said. “Your morning breath could be weaponized.”
“Ha fucking ha. So can your farts.”
The suburban house swarmed with warm bodies, between his own teammates, the FBI and DHS agents manning a line of computers on the dining room table, and the FBI SWAT agents cleaning weapons in the living room.
Shouting from a smaller room off the living room piqued his curiosity; he walked past the impressive array of artillery lying on the coffee table, floor, and across the two armless upholstered chairs, nodding a greeting to the agents.
“Welcome to the circus,” one said, sliding a bore brush through the barrel of a disassembled M4 Carbine. “Ready for some fun?”
“Always.” He took the step down that put him inside the TV room. Gavin Selle, Gabe, and Scott “Sandman” Griffin sat practically on top of one another on a couch. Gavin had a controller in his hands, gyrating it madly in a flat semicircle.
“Slow down! You’re spilling it,” Gabe said. He reached for the controller, which Gavin held out of reach. “You gotta get a good rhythm down.”
The Sandman kicked Gavin’s leg. “Let me. I watched my mother do it all the time.”
“Hand it over, loser.” Gabe lunged for the controller, using his body weight to pin Gavin in place and snatching it from his hands. The other two let out howls of protest. “Let an expert do it.”
Mace glanced at the TV, then did a double take. A cartoon girl with huge manga eyes and a pink chef’s hat clapped her hands to her face, round mouth opened in horror. The word FAILED was plastered across her yellow apron.
“What in God’s name are you knuckleheads doing?”
Gabe pressed one of the triggers to restart . . . something. The cartoon girl’s mouth tipped up in a beatific smile as she gave a thumbs-up. “You can do it!” she encouraged him.
“Making cupcakes,” Gabe said. “Gavin keeps spilling the batter.”
Mace stared at the TV, where Gabe carefully cracked three eggs and added them to a bowl. “Cupcakes.”
Gavin snorted in disgust, using two hands to shove the Sandman. The other man barely shifted. “Only because you friggin’ kept kicking me. Keep your goddamned feet on your own side of the cushions.”
Gabe leaned forward, making the same back-and-forth semicircle Gavin had. On the screen, a floating spoon spun in a bowl, creating a smooth yellow batter.
“Even better than Mama!” crowed the cartoon girl, hearts shining in her eyes.
“Ha!” He sat back, tossing the controller into Gavin’s lap. “Owned, you sons of bitches.”
Mace walked to the TV, where the empty video game case finally solved the mystery. “Cooking Mama. You’re playing Cooking Mama?”
“Hey, you’re blocking the TV.” Gavin made a shooing gesture. “Outta my line of sight. I’m going to decorate the shit out of these cupcakes.”
Shaking his head, Mace wandered into the kitchen, joining Jace, Ken Acolatse, and Alex. Ken stirred a pot of delicious-smelling—and real—sauce.
“Spaghetti in twenty,” he said. “Fifteen people will be hard to keep fed. We’ll need to rotate kitchen duty.”
“I counted twenty,” Mace said. “Five SWAT, the DHS guy, four special agents, and us.”
“SWAT’s staying, but none of the other agents are,” Jace said. “They’re getting us intel.”
The kitchen table was full, so Mace leaned against the refrigerator. All of the Delta Force operators knew how to cook; some were just better than others. He himself couldn’t handle much more than the basics. However, he could concoct a kick-ass field stew made from nothing but edible and medicinal plants he found in whatever environment his team operated. Usually they tasted better with some rabbit or snake added.
“What do we have so far?” he asked.
Alex tipped his chair back on two legs and set a size twelve shoe on the table, crossing his other ankle over his knee. “This woman, Fatianova Uvarov—say that three times fast—is a no-shit nuclear physicist. Wicked smart. She works at the Kuznetsov Institute of Applied Nuclear Physics in Moscow, as the head of the team developing predictive analysis for core meltdowns.”
Jace reached over and shoved Alex’s foot off the table. “We’re practicing our big boy manners today, young Padawan. People eat off this table.”
The chair hit all four legs with a bang. Alex scrambled to uncross his legs. Completely unfazed, he continued talking. “What that means is that they plan for different reactor accident scenarios where the nuclear core overheats or is damaged. Like Three Mile Island is about to blow again. How much radiation will be released, how far will it travel, and how badly will people be affected?”
“Okay, so she presumably has the knowledge to handle nuclear material. Do we know if she had access to nukes?” Mace asked.
“Stephanie believes she did, and I concur. Signals Intelligence tracked communications between her and another scientist by the name of Fyodor Petrov,” Jace said. “They’ve been calling and texting regularly for the past eight months. He lives in Smolensk, Russia. Fatianova traveled there about five months ago, then went back again last month.”
“What did they talk about?” Mace asked.
“It was all coded,” Jace said. “SIGINT didn’t prioritize it at the time, so we don’t know. But—and this is a big but—turns out there’s a nuclear graveyard outside of Lyubinsk, an hour by car from Moscow.”
Alex stretched and stood, walking to the stove and grabbing the stirring spoon. “The FBI thinks that’s where the mini-nuke came from.”
Ke
n stopped measuring out pasta. “That spoon hits your lips, you hit the floor.”
Alex grumbled, but set the spoon aside. He turned, resting his backside against the counter. “I’m starving. I haven’t eaten in a week. Longer. I’m about to pass out from malnourishment.”
“Quit yer whining,” Ken said. “You ate lunch, same as the rest of us.”
“I’m not sure Lazy Larry’s Burgers qualifies as food.”
Mace ignored them, moving away from the refrigerator to allow Ken to grab two potholders from atop it. “What makes the FBI think the nuke came from this graveyard? Russia has, what, thirty? Forty of them?”
“A couple of things,” Jace said. “Fatianova lives in Moscow, so it’s close. Also, Stephanie dug up a news story in the Moscow Times about a couple bodies turning up dead on the installation last month. No one is admitting anything was stolen, though.”
“Were they identified?”
“Yeah. They’re just petty thieves. It’s not a huge stretch to think Fatianova and Fyodor hatched this plan themselves, then eliminated the witnesses.”
“So Fatianova somehow steals a suitcase nuke, smuggles it into the States, and is now auctioning it off? Is that about right?”
Ken used the mitts to pull a pan of meatballs from the oven. The rich scent made Mace’s stomach rumble. “I think it’s probably a lot more complicated than that.”
“So last I heard, the only contact we had for her was an Outlook.com account. Where did all this new intel come from?”
Ken added the meatballs to the sauce while the pasta simmered. “The Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Field Office filed a warrant to get Microsoft to turn over their IP logs to the FBI. Then they hand-walked it over to the Outlook.com data center and stood on someone’s desk until they got the files. That started a roll of information, most of which only came through in the past ninety minutes.”
“Well, I can add a few details. Not about Fatianova, but about the bidders. I’m expecting some information from our friendly neighborhood mob boss.”
Jace laughed. “Seriously? How’d you swing that?”
“Lark did. Assuming the FBI grants Viktor Sokolov immunity, he’ll give us the location of the auction, and whatever he knows about the other bidders.”
The other operators stared at him in incredulity.
“This is the same guy who threatened to kill her, right?” Jace asked.
“Yeah.”
“Remind me never to underestimate her.”
Chapter 34
Tuesday, February 21. 10:00 a.m.
FBI Field Office. Boston, Massachusetts.
From her workstation inside the SCIF, Lark fidgeted with her bracelet as she watched Doug talk with someone at the Department of Justice. She really needed to get back to her laptop to meet ChaosCowboy. Could she safely leave the SCIF?
“What’s up?” Jocelyn asked.
“I’m not sure, but I have to go take care of something. Will you stay to see if Doug needs me for anything?”
“After this, everyone will know your name.”
“I’m nothing special,” Lark said, touching her throat in surprise at Jocelyn’s sour tone. “Just another cog in the wheel.”
Jocelyn shook her head, resentment flashing through her eyes. “Lark, you’re working directly with the SAIC. The fucking Special Agent in Charge. In ten years, I’ve never done that. You, on the other hand, have in the space of four months worked on projects involving spying, nuclear bombs, and the theft of millions of dollars in mob money. Your career’s made.”
Lark cringed a little. “I didn’t ask for any of this, I swear.”
“I know. If anything, that makes it worse. Look,” she said, “I came to the FBI the same way you did. I’m no rocket scientist, but I’m damned good at my job. Thanks to Melvin, I’ve never been recognized for any of it. If I’d been assigned the malware project, maybe I’d finally have gotten some acknowledgment. Maybe even a little appreciation.”
Lark sat still as a stone, stunned. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t. You’re like a cross between Miss Mary Sunshine and a foulmouthed trucker. You see the good in everyone and everything. You always have, even when your life was damned near intolerable.”
Lark tried to swallow the lump in her throat, chagrined and confused. “What do you even know about my life? You hint about things all the time you can’t know anything about. What’s with that?”
Jocelyn drummed her fingers against the desk, then pushed her chair back so she was even with Lark. “Because I do know, that’s why.”
“You looked in my file?” Indignation flared inside her. “What the fuck, Joss?”
The older woman sighed, flipping her waterfall of hair behind her shoulders with a practiced flick. “No. I didn’t need to. I do know you, no matter what you may think. Look, right now you’re supposed to meet someone in the darknet, right?”
Lark’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know that?”
“Lark, when I say I came to the FBI the same way you did, I mean exactly that. You got an immunity deal for putting your skills to use for the government. So did I.”
“I had no idea,” Lark said, biting her lip. “You were a white hat hacker, too?”
Jocelyn crossed her arms, shoulders so tight Lark thought they might shatter any minute. “More or less. I learned from Zane Quimby, if you want to know the truth. He taught me the ins and outs of systems exploitation.”
Lark didn’t know what to say. “Um, I bet he was a great teacher. He has mad skills.”
“He’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know,” Jocelyn said, staring down at her clasped hands. “And I, in turn, showed newbies around the computer underground.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Joss.”
Jocelyn took a deep breath. “They caught me, arrested me, ten years ago. Instead of prosecuting me, though, they made me the same offer they made you. Go legit, or go to jail. You remember when. After we hacked the Greensboro nuclear plant.”
“What?” Lark shook her head to dispel the weird buzzing in her ears. She knew Jocelyn was speaking English, but she couldn’t seem to absorb her meaning.
“Why don’t we skip the darknet chat and just talk here.”
Lark felt a jolt of unreality. “What are you saying?”
Jocelyn cast her an impatient look. “You know what I’m saying.”
“No.” Lark jumped from the chair and began to pace in a tight circle. “No. I know ChaosCowboy. I’ve known him since I was fourteen years old. He’s the reason I know anything about anything. He saved my sanity.”
“I saved you.”
“You can’t be him. You just can’t.”
“Why?” Jocelyn pushed herself to her feet and blocked Lark’s attempts to stomp around. For a moment, the two women just stared at one another. “I was swimming in the darknet while you were still running away from home in Nantucket.”
Lark’s hands came up in a subconscious effort to ward Jocelyn off. “I was eight. I told ChaosCowboy that story.”
Jocelyn gave a jerky nod, sudden moisture in her eyes making them glisten. “You hid from the search parties for three days, but you got so hungry you broke into the caretaker’s cottage for food. He caught you half-buried in his refrigerator and called your parents.”
“Oh, my God,” Lark said, her brain finally knitting the pieces together. “Oh, my good fucking God. You’re really him.”
Jocelyn opened her arms, and Lark dove into them, clutching her friend around the waist as Jocelyn squeezed her around the shoulders.
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you in person, after all these years.” Emotion clogged Lark’s throat. ChaosCowboy had been more than her mentor and friend. He’d—she’d—been her lifeline in an otherwise excruciating existence. She owed Jocelyn more than she could ever give in return.
“What the hell are you two d
oing? Do you really think that’s appropriate behavior for this office?”
Melvin.
Pinheaded blowhard. Lark clamped her lips closed before the words escaped as she pulled away from Jocelyn. Both turned to their boss.
“I don’t think hugging is against any policy,” Jocelyn said coolly. “What can we do for you, Melvin?”
He planted his feet wide, arms crossed over his bulky chest, chin thrust forward. Ignoring Jocelyn, he pinned Lark with a scowl. “I hear you cracked the malware, even though I doubt you really figured out anything at all. So you’ve got time to do some real work. I’ve got identity fraud cases backing up on my desk. Report to my office to pick up the files.”
“But I’m still working with Doug on the joint task force.” She tried to stem her burst of animosity. Melvin was, after all, her boss. He could recommend she be fired. She loved her job, despite the fact that her boss’s face would be next to jerk in the dictionary.
“Doug doesn’t need you full time, and you work for me.”
Lark rolled her eyes. On the other hand, enough was enough. Being fired was better than putting up with his bullying one more second. “Come on, Melvin, I’m not in the mood. We all work for Doug.”
Jocelyn stepped forward, standing toe-to-toe with Melvin. “Are you sure you want to have this conversation right now?”
He tried to stare her down, but Jocelyn met him glare for glare. And then the unbelievable happened—Melvin backed down, both literally and figuratively, taking a step back from her and glancing away. “I have a meeting in five minutes. I don’t have the time for this.”
He turned on his heel and marched away, tension radiating from his body. The two women looked at once another.
“What the hell just happened?” Lark asked.
Jocelyn dropped into a chair. “Let’s talk about the hacking code you sent me in the darknet.”
“The one Elliott gave me on the thumb drive. Did you find something in it that could tell you exactly who framed me?” Lark craned her neck to watch Melvin’s retreating form, still astonished by his reaction.
Jocelyn looked pointedly toward him. “Yes. The theft was carried out by a supposed FBI employee named Leonard Rose. We both know that’s bogus.”