Probe

by Douglas E Roff

  “OK, and I assume you are aware that we need you to complete your work before we can do ours. Once we decrypt, what’s produced may be a modern language, but so far what we’re getting looks like phonetic Aramaic. At least from the Collective perspective anyway.”

  “Who else is there?”

  “Alana didn’t mention what she dug up?”

  Adam and the group turned to Alana, everyone staring.

  “Don’t look at me like that! You’re creeping me out.”

  Everyone laughed. “Sorry,” Adam said. “We might be just a little too ‘overintense’ this morning. Anxious you know; getting close. Excitable, and yes, a little creepy. Boo!”

  Marcus interjected. “Let me explain. Alana did some snooping around in, well, wherever she snoops around. We don’t exactly know what she found by tracking the fleeing Lab refugees, but we do know she dug up a whole bunch of information in their emails, all connecting to a private server. This led us into a system, not sure where it’s located, which could be the Black Shirts Central Lab or some smaller satellite Black Shirt Lab. Per Alana, security may have been lax and a bit panicky when the Gens blew out of town for safety and used access codes to systems they shouldn’t have used on those servers and systems. Or, again as Alana surmises, they just never considered that anyone would be looking.”

  Alana said in a rather flat tone, “My money is on the latter.”

  “So?” Adam said.

  “So, the decryption of the Black Shirt data was pretty simple. More like a Mob letter substitution code. In any event, we ran the data through my database of decryption codes that you built for me, Adam. We woke up one morning and there it was. All decrypted, all organized and all in the King’s English.”

  Richard said, “Well, at least that strange dialect that you Yanks use anyway.” Tawney leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  Misti said, “The suspense is killing me. What did you find.?”

  Marcus spoke, “Everything. And I do mean everything. All their projects, testing, results, and the status of their readiness. You really need to see it.”

  “Send it to the DL Main, staging one. Email me the link.”

  Marcus cleared his throat. “And Alana?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d say you did good, but you did way better than that. When you guys read what she found, she’ll be in for a raise. A big old, big ass raise.”

  Alana smile. “No raise. No bonus. I get Adam alone – for, let’s say … two solid weeks. All mine.”

  Misti and Noki looked at each other like sisters and simultaneously said, “Done.”

  Chapter 23

  In the weeks following the Incident, there was chaos in the Gens world, which was being closely monitored by Adam and Alana. The surviving Gens leadership had relocated to North Carolina and settled in. The move to the Manor having been accomplished, the Barrows Bay crowd did their best to settle in and recreate “home” just outside of London.

  When Adam arrived at their new adjoining offices in the Manor Tech Centre, he could already see her hard at work in her office. He knocked gingerly on her closed door, not wishing to disturb her. They normally stopped working when they were both in residence to have breakfast or coffee and discuss tasks for the upcoming day. This morning she seemed to be deeply engaged in some task, so when she didn’t respond or turn around to motion him inside, he went to his adjacent office and settled in with his cup of morning coffee. Today was a tasty Ecuadorian dark roast.

  He was working on some new software for his Mom, who was now deeply involved in developing major advances in the nanotechnology they had first used to penetrate the security at the BioGen Lab in Princeton. Since that facility was now a pile of rubble, cordoned off by long strands of yellow police crime scene tape, there was no longer any new data coming in from the spyware planted there.

  However, there was still data streaming in from cell phones used by personnel at that Lab, something Alana thought could simply not be possible. The entire staff should now all be dead, and their cell phones destroyed and useless.

  But, there it was. Cell phones still on and moving about the country. These phones were no longer in New Jersey but were in at least four new locations. Before she took this strange info to Adam, she wanted to get a better handle on what might be going on.

  The print and TV media had reported no survivors and had also mentioned that no corporate spokesmen had yet come forward to discuss the tragedy. The secretive Swiss parent company, BioGen International, PLC, had thus far provided no response to the supposed terrorist bombing of their six American Labs. Senior international management was on its way to New Jersey to assist in the investigation, which had begun with the local authorities, but had now been transferred to the FBI.

  TV talking heads and terrorism experts claimed that the bombings had all the earmarks of Al Qaeda, ISIS and a hundred other terrorist groups. This was supposedly in retaliation for something the Swiss firm had done but nobody was willing to say what that was. As usual, they had no idea who was behind the bombing and would have to wait for someone to claim responsibility.

  That claim came a week later in the form of a small splinter groups of religious fanatics, but the authorities were convinced this was nothing more than an opportunistic claim of responsibility to gain some press. The organization, calling itself the Somali Liberation Front, was only active in Somalia, had almost no money, few followers and next to no ability to project a threat beyond the borders of the only territory it controlled: a small town in the middle of Nowhere, Somalia.

  That cell phones were turned on, and many more than a few, meant some individuals had escaped the attacks. Alana wondered how many. She googled official reports online and found the numbers reported in the press by the police. Close to three thousand five hundred bodies had been recovered.

  Alana then looked up the personnel records for all six American Labs of BioGen and calculated that there were a little over five thousand employees. By looking at stats kept by HR, Alana could calculate the average number of employees absent in any given month due to illness or otherwise. That was fewer than one absentee per day, a phenomenally low number. BioGen employees were healthy and showed up like clockwork at the Labs; just a handful were ever gone travelling on BioGen business, but even that amounted to maybe a dozen employee days per month.

  How odd.

  About a thirty percent of the workforce had all failed to show up for work and all on the same day. The day of the attack. Presumably they were now missing. What could account for the fortuitous survival of approximately fifteen hundred Gens employees?

  Alana could only think of few reasons. One, someone from Barrows Bay or London had warned the Gens. If so, why only some and not the rest? Two, the Gens had somehow found out about Adam and had hacked his phone and computer. Turnabout was fair play, but why not evacuate the entire employee populations, instead of just some. Three, the Gens knew that retaliation was likely, guessed at what it might be, and some had been warned ahead of time. If that were the case, had there been a motivation to allow the event to happen? But, if so, why?

  None of the options made any sense, since any foreknowledge would surely have been acted upon more thoroughly. After all, three thousand five hundred were dead and all six facilities destroyed. Whatever work had been carried on there was probably finished now also. It would take time to rebuild and re-staff, assuming such was even possible.

  Alana had hacked into their systems well in advance of the attack and had spoiled, altered, and degraded most of their research. Even if the data was stored offsite or in the Cloud, it could probably never be used and certainly never be restored. The virus planted had infected all systems, data, and software. Anything downloaded or copied would likewise have been infected. No antivirus software could prevent the data corruption; the antivirus software hadn’t yet been developed to combat this nasty little bug. Alana had seen to that.

  When she w
as more certain of the facts, she knocked on Adam’s door.

  “We need to talk,” she said.

  Adam swiveled around hoping to see her smiling freckled face, piercing emerald green eyes and a halo of flowing red hair. Except that Alana wasn’t smiling.

  “Oh, shit. Am I in trouble for something? What did I do this time?”

  “Nothing this time, mister. You’re personally golden at the moment. But hold that thought, just in case. I’ll let you make it up to me for whatever you think you may have done wrong. A little later, of course; I have some thoughts on just how you can atone.”

  “OK. If not me, then what’s up?”

  ***

  Alana filled Adam in on the high points of what she had found and her surmise as to what may have happened. She explained that none of her surmise really made any sense, absent further critical information.

  Alana said, “We’re missing something. Just can’t think of what it is.”

  “I think your overall assessment that some of these employees were forewarned must be correct. But was it based on actual knowledge or a just a lucky guess?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think either option one or two are true. For the very reasons that you give. But number three has legs. The heads up could’ve gone out the night before, sent by whoever perpetrated the act in London for the Gens Collective, knowing that, after the Grand Canyon episode, the retaliation would be swift and harsh. But they wouldn’t know which Lab we would attack, if any, so they took precautions and evacuated all their people from all the Labs. If that’s true, does that mean that Paulo has been telling us the truth all along; a Gens did it, just not his people?”

  “I guess we’ll never know,” said Alana. “Not thinking they’re going to confide in us all about their internal problems. No now anyway.”

  “Don’t be so sure. They might if their problem is big enough and out of their control. If some element within the Gens Collective pulled all this off, they may need us. Wouldn’t that be interesting.”

  “Maybe. What do we do? Ring them up?”

  “Actually, why not? Let’s call now.”

  Chapter 24

  Adam didn’t totally think through all the ramifications of a call like the one contemplated and probably should’ve included others in the decision. But he rejected Alana’s wise counsel on the matter and emailed Paulo, telling him to be prepared for a call in a half an hour.

  Alana had long ago found all the cell phone numbers for all the top Gens folk in all the Labs. Those that were still on included Paulo and Enzo Fortizi as well as some guy named Demitri Asinamayov, all now relocated to a facility near Wilmington, North Carolina. Charles Hanley, BioGen CFO, was in mid-town Manhattan, as was his brother Frank Hanley. Just about all other management was dead or now removed to other parts of the country.

  Paulo probably thought he was safe and in hiding; that was not, however, the case. If the Gens who scattered after the retaliatory attack thought they were safe and secure, they too were wrong. Alana had found them and had given those exact GPS coordinates to Adam also. Might be important later, assuming they could extract truthful and accurate information from Paulo. What his motivation would be to do that, she had no idea.

  Adam dialed Paulo’s cell phone. Paulo answered immediately, his caller ID showing the call to be from Alan in Tucson.

  “How are you today, Paulo? I see online that the weather in Wilmington is a balmy 76 degrees, with a slight chance of rain this evening.”

  “You have a lot of nerve calling me here. How did you get this number?”

  “A lot of hostility coming from a man who put a death warrant out on me and who is planning genocide for billions of humans on this planet. I’d also caution you, Paulo, that I warned you about trying to kill me, which you ignored. Gave you one free pass, a mulligan. Then you tried to kill someone else close to me. If you aren’t responsible for these attacks, then I’m virtually certain you know who is. So, what’s your story today, Paulo? Accident, ‘it’s not my fault’, or ‘other’.”

  “I didn’t try to kill you or anyone else. You must believe me. I am not responsible for those attacks.”

  “For attempted genocide, yes. But for the other stuff, no. What is the color of the sky in your world, Paulo?”

  “Look, believe me or not as you like. All we want to do is coexist in peace with your kind. The threat of extinction comes from you in the first instance. If our kind is revealed to your kind, the hunt will be on. This you know.”

  “This I don’t know and if that’s what all this is about you’re a bigger idiot than I already think you are. You were contemplating genocide on an assumption and a faulty one at that? For being that stupid, you deserve to be dead.”

  “You have a way about you, Alan. A way that will eventually get you killed one day.”

  “Maybe so, but it sure as shit won’t be you doing the killing. I could bomb you out of existence as we speak if I so wished. But I called you instead to talk. I have some rather disturbing news and I wonder if you have the same.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “It would appear that the number of people dead from my little attack was significantly below the numbers we think were normally at those Labs. We checked. Somewhere around fifteen hundred of your folks didn’t show up for work in the six Labs. We presume they scattered for their own good. We know where some of them are. Do you?”

  There was silence on the other end of the call. Paulo was thinking.

  “Let me check and get back to you.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll call you in two hours. Then we can talk. Think it over Paulo; I can kill you any time I want. And Paulo?”

  “What?”

  “Try to trace this call and I will assume your worst intentions. You won’t find me anyway, but I’ll find you. But first I will personally kill your wife and children and send their ashes to you in a paper bag. If they mean anything to you at all, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Leave them out of this. They’ve done nothing to you.”

  “They’re Gens and my mortal enemies. I’m betting your wife would kill me in an instant and throw my bones to your kids for supper. You have two hours.”

  ***

  Demitri asked, “Should I try a trace?”

  “No chance Demitri. I’m sure we’d be dead before the trace is complete. We had fifteen hundred at Princeton. Go find out how many bodies were recovered by the authorities.”

  ***

  “Eleven hundred,” said Demitri, forty minutes later. That leaves four hundred missing, including Frank and Charles Hanley. Most of the scientists and many of the researchers and technicians, including our software techs, are likewise missing. Worse yet some number of our Captains and more than a few of our Trackers in residence are also missing. I can have a full list of cell phones with GPS chips for you in an hour. Not sure that will be exhaustive, but it will narrow down the list.”

  “Get on it then. I need that ahead of the call from Alan.”

  “What about the Hanley’s? Want me to contact them?”

  “You know where they are?”

  “Yes. A condo in mid-town Manhattan. One of ours, I think. I can send a team.”

  “Get them here right away. Send a team to collect them, then get them a charter on Long Island. I want them here like yesterday.”

  ***

  The phone rang exactly two hours after the earlier call terminated. Adam was a stickler for punctuality, a habit ingrained in him by his Dad and Mom.

  “So, Paulo, what’s the news?”

  “Why don’t you tell me? You seem to have all the answers.”

  “Drop the attitude, Paulo. That exercise wasn’t for me; it was for you. Confirmed my suspicions, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, it did. Now what?”

  “Well, a very close, personal friend of mine suggested that the only way to find out what happened to your missing folk and ha
ve any chance to set this right, would be to call you. We need to know why the fortunate few got out and what you know about it. But she didn’t think you’d cooperate. I told her I disagreed. Not sold on your competence, Paulo, but I’ll wager you’re no fool. So why did your folk disappear? The truth would be nice. Next time you dissemble or lie, we’re done, and the systematic destruction of your species will begin. As I’m sure you can appreciate, you’re not holding many good cards.”

  Adam was bluffing, of course, but recent events made his bluff seem more credible.

  The silence was deafening. Paulo thought, but he came up with no better ideas then as he had in the two hours before. Finally, he decided it was time to tell Alan some parts of the truth.

  “Our people are divided as you know, and those responsible for our present misery are a faction called the Black Shirts, headed by a renegade leader named Saldana Ri. I’ve already told you a little about them. It was very likely her group that orchestrated the attempt on the young woman in London using another group associated with us. They didn’t know it was Saldana manipulating them.”

  He paused.

  “I am not saying that the emails you have in your possession were not sent or that the funds that were transferred were not transferred. What I am saying is that I didn’t authorize it and had nothing to do with it. Having said that, it looks as though the people responsible for the communications and transfers work for me but are loyal to the Black Shirts. We don’t know the nature and extent of the treason, at least not yet. We had long thought that the Black Shirt Movement was small and irrelevant. In this, we were wrong.”