Trident Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller)

by Thomas Waite

  Not surprisingly, China and Japan led the way, but Beijing’s metadata flows far outstripped Tokyo’s. In fact, Lana would have characterized China as having a consuming interest. It made her wonder what the Chinese, archrivals of Russia, knew or suspected. And it killed her to think the Chinese might already know more than the U.S. did.

  Tokyo’s lesser level of interest prevailed throughout Europe where metadata rose and fell largely along academic lines, with departments of physics, computer science, and, to a slightly lesser degree, math, displaying the most activity.

  She saved Russia and its former republics for last. The latter yielded little, with the exception of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a hotbed of pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists. She would keep it in mind as she moved on to her major interest, Moscow.

  Russia’s capital was a veritable beehive with metadata levels linked to the Ahearn murders topping Beijing’s. More notable to Lana was the recent intense interest, as in the last twelve hours.

  She forced herself to remain steady, though, because dry wells with metadata were as common as the grimier efforts in the world’s oil fields. But you still have to drill, she told herself.

  Especially with billions of lives potentially on the line.

  She began with Russia’s energy sector, finding metadata way beyond the norm between Moscow and almost all of Russia’s nuclear generating stations. Which made no immediate sense with most of the plants in no danger of flooding from an attack on WAIS. But it would make sense if a comment from Clarence Besserman after last night’s meeting were about to bear fruit.

  With his shirt fully untucked by that point, and even his bow tie drooping, Besserman had said that if he were looking for connections between the Ahearn murders and the threats to the WAIS—the issue Lana had brought up only minutes before—he would keep in mind that proponents of AAC advocated building those facilities near plants producing renewable energy. The reason was simple: until the AAC process was refined further, it would use a lot of energy to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

  “See, there’s no point,” he’d added, “in pursuing AAC with dirty fuel. You’d end up pumping as much, if not more, CO2 into the atmosphere than you’d take out.”

  Fingers flying, Lana now checked Russian hydropower, centered in Siberia and the eastern end of the country. Quantitative analysis of that metadata demonstrated even stronger linkage between Russia’s foremost renewable energy sector and the Ahearn murders. Lana didn’t need to make a similar check of wind and solar production in Russia because, for all intents and purposes, they didn’t exist, providing less than 1 percent of the nation’s energy needs. But hydro? A fat 16 percent.

  Normally, she would have started diving into the metadata, unveiling the full content, but these were not normal times. She’d found connections, but not enough, not yet.

  Pressing on, her link analysis also showed massive metadata flows from the country’s largest hydroelectric plants and the Russian secret police, FSB, in Lubyanka Square, which had its own distinct flows to and from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

  By comparison, she found only marginal levels of activity from, or directed to, the country’s scores of fossil-fuel-fired plants. The significant metadata load emanated from those non-CO2-producing facilities, which made sense, given the reality of AAC energy consumption.

  Pushing herself even further, she worked the link analysis once again and watched a tangle of metadata take a neat and familiar shape right before her eyes.

  Would you look at that? A nearly perfect equilateral triangle showed scores of unmistakable links between Russia’s renewable energy sector, its secret police, and the Ahearn murders.

  With the ice sheet added, the triangle morphed—even as she watched—into the four points of a square.

  Focusing even more closely on Moscow, she saw a fierce flurry of activity based, of all places, in an apartment building in the city’s downtown.

  What the hell is going on in there?

  She forced aside any considerations of that for now because what struck her most pointedly in the last few seconds was that the FSB was positively data-drunk with the WAIS.

  Excavating deeper, she found no previous history of such metadata flows between those four points of interest.

  Nice work, Jeff. She would call Jensen later to let him know their efforts appeared to be panning out.

  But that would be the beginning and end of the good news. The metadata square made it appear that Russians were coordinating an effort that would have them bomb the WAIS, raise sea levels, take control of Arctic gas and oil reserves, and control the world’s thermostat with AAC, which would be fueled by their ample reserves of hydro- and nuclear power.

  Those reserves would be worth countless trillions of dollars once the means of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere was in place. And with so many other oil-producing nations reeling from the shock of a sudden rise in sea levels, most of the planet would be forced, by necessity, to become Russia’s customers simply to survive.

  But what galled Lana almost as much as that scheme was the ongoing attempt by the perpetrators to create plausible deniability. Maybe that was the reason for all metadata arising from a Moscow apartment building.

  She checked her watch. Three hours had flown by. But three very productive hours. She wanted to look into what the devil was going on with that apartment building but drilling deeper there would have to wait. Her head felt like it was about to explode. She needed to get away from her computer. Not only to clear her thoughts but to see her daughter. But not without a quick text to Jensen letting him know their work had paid off, and another one to Holmes saying they needed to talk as soon as he was vertical.

  It was still early enough to beat rush-hour traffic, the millions who would be rising and driving, oblivious to the demons that were about to haunt their lives.

  She found Tanesa’s house quickly, a tidy single-story home across the Potomac. Tanesa’s mother, Esme, met Lana at the door. She welcomed her like an old friend. They’d met ever so briefly at last night’s choir performance at the National Cathedral. Lana apologized for arriving at such an early hour.

  “You kidding? I’m on my second cup of coffee. You want some?”

  “I’d love to but I am buried by work.”

  “I’ll go get your girl.”

  Esme led Lana into the living room, then disappeared down a short hallway. Minutes later she emerged with Emma in tow.

  Lana’s daughter rushed up and hugged her tightly.

  What a difference a year makes, Lana thought, hugging her back. Ninth grade had been a misery for Emma, and for her, too.

  “Please thank Tanesa for me,” Lana said to Esme. “And thank you, too, for having Emma.”

  “It was a pleasure, I assure you.”

  On the way home, Emma said, “It’s bad this time, isn’t it, Mom?”

  “We’ll see.” Lana answered as vaguely as she could in good conscience, squeezing Emma’s hand. Her daughter looked well rested. She was glad to see that, but certainly not about what her findings at Fort Meade portended.

  As she drove toward Bethesda, her thoughts were drawn less to the metadata square she’d uncovered and more to that Moscow apartment building.

  A lone wolf. A common intelligence term for a terrorist operating with strict independence. The words came to her as if on their own.

  But in the heart of Moscow? Surrounded by all that interest in every aspect of this case?

  That could not be a coincidence. But she had to allow that it was remotely possible. What she had not found was evidence indicating Russia’s traditional use of “patriotic hackers.” Indeed, the FSB appeared to not only be involved, but a vital link. And that strongly suggested official jurisdiction, even as the Russians denied every charge.

  Which only made the possible lone wolf in that apartmen
t more mystifying.

  “Mom, you missed it!” Emma said.

  “Missed what?” Lana thought of the Russians: what had she missed?

  “Our turnoff.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Lana had to get her mind back on the road. And then she had to get it back on that apartment building in Moscow as fast as possible.

  What’s going on in there? she asked herself again.

  It was time to drill into the metadata. Time to see the content.

  CHAPTER 10

  GALINA THOUGHT SHE’D COLLAPSE from exhaustion by the time she carried Alexandra up the steps to their second-floor walkup. She wished she could have spared the six-year-old from being carted around all day, but she couldn’t leave her with anyone. Alexandra was so anxious that she could not bear to be separated from her mother, even for a short time. Six, seven times a day, she asked, “Mommy, am I going to die?”

  “No, you’re not going to die. I promise. Mommy would never let that happen to you.” Words spoken from the heart, yet so painfully empty of real meaning.

  Now Alexandra asked again, clutching her bunny blanket close to her neck on the couch where Galina had just laid her down.

  “No, I promise,” Galina said, then checked her messages and heard the oncologist’s receptionist confirming Alexandra for tomorrow morning. “Payment in full is expected before the appointment,” the woman added at the end.

  Why would she say that?

  It was as though she knew Galina didn’t have her money yet.

  The pediatric oncologist was in such demand—with cancer rates sky-high in Russia—that he had his choice of patients, so he chose to take the ones wealthy enough to “augment” his income. That was how his assistant had put it, as though a fancy word would somehow make the payment less of a sleazy bribe.

  Galina was prepared to pay under the table, happy to pay for the best medical care—and had certainly earned more than enough money to handle the extra bills that were never expressly invoiced—but Oleg had dribbled out only enough rubles for living expenses. He was controlling her—as he always had. And it infuriated her. He never would have dared to try it with the rest of his “team,” those killers who worked for him in America, or the one who had basically hacked his way aboard the U.S.S. Delphin.

  Galina had made headway tracking down the submarine hacker. Not who he was exactly, but his trail in cyberspace. She was now certain that he acted out of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. She’d seen video of the dead American sailors, sickened by knowing that she was an unwitting player in a larger plot that linked her to the monster who’d killed them. What also weighed on her conscience was that she now understood without question that turning over the information about AAC to Oleg had led to two gruesome murders in the States.

  Oleg had made the whole project sound like a great environmental dream—hack the AAC and save the planet. Save the children. Save all the animals.

  But instead it was just kill, kill, kill.

  When she did identify the sub hacker—and she thought she could—she knew precisely whom she would pass it on to. She’d have her choices because there would be plenty of buyers for that information. Two could play the game of betrayal, and she’d pit her skills against Oleg’s.

  And your life, she realized at once. And Alexandra’s.

  She sat back, recognizing the gravity of that step, and all the chess pieces that would have to be moved—if she were to forge ahead.

  Think about it. Think hard.

  Alexandra looked like she was settling down. Time to get back on the tail of the sub hacker. But first she ran to the bathroom and dampened a washcloth. Then she hurried back to Alexandra and placed it on the girl’s brow, rubbing gently. Not to cool her off because of a fever or one of her pounding headaches, but to wipe away any trace of Oleg’s touch. Galina’s skin had almost crawled off her body when he reached into the elevator and rubbed her daughter’s precious forehead. It was like he was cursing her.

  Condemning her.

  Fears that made her realize you didn’t need to believe in the devil to understand evil.

  “There,” she whispered to Alexandra, who looked ready to rest. “Get to sleep, little love of my life.”

  Words that pierced her own heart. She used to call Oleg the “big love of her life” to distinguish between her man and child, the way her heart had gone out so fully to both. She needn’t make that distinction anymore.

  Twilight was peeking around the blinds as she sat on the couch next to Alexandra, still moving the cloth gently against her daughter’s forehead. She kept the blinds drawn all the time now, worrying constantly about surveillance, the FSB breaking in and sending her to Siberia, then dumping Alexandra in a medical ward with the children of other parents who couldn’t afford to “augment” their doctors’ incomes.

  Alexandra reached up, stilling her hand. “Is there something wrong, Mommy? Do I have a black spot from him?”

  “No, don’t be silly,” Galina said as gaily as she could, but she knew she sounded grim as a grindstone. She laid the face cloth on her lap and kissed Alexandra’s cheek. “Sleep, the big-big love of my life.”

  She started toward her home office as a series of knocks pounded the door, startling her and Alexandra, too, who now sat up, holding the bunny blanket so tightly her knuckles were white.

  Galina hurried to the door and stared through the peephole. “Who is it?” she demanded, knowing the dire answer even as she spoke.

  “Police. Open up.”

  Oh, God, what’s he doing to us? Galina had no doubt that Oleg was behind the two policemen at the door, even if he wasn’t in the hall.

  She drew open the locks. A hulking man stared at her. He bore a neck tattoo of crossed axes that signified veterans who had been part of a secret military unit notorious for its atrocities in Chechnya. The other cop could have been a clerk in a supermarket. Tattoo spoke up: “You must come with us.”

  “Why? What have I done?”

  “What have you done?” He leaned down. She barely came to his chest. “Did you kill him?”

  “Kill who?” What is he talking about? “I’ve never killed anyone.” As she said it, her deep-seated guilt about the Ahearns made her feel like a liar. She worried that she sounded like one, too.

  He seized her arm. “You will identify a body first, and then we will see if you killed him.”

  “Wait. I can’t. My daughter. She’s sick.”

  The other policeman patted his burly colleague on the back, then looked at Galina. “You may bring your girl.”

  That only panicked Galina more. Adrenaline flooded through her. She wanted to run away with Alexandra—as far as she could.

  The businesslike policeman smiled and shook his head. Almost kindly. But Galina knew better.

  “She has leukemia,” Galina said softly. “Can we do this tomorrow when I can get someone to stay with her?”

  Tattoo shook his head and forced a smile, as if mimicking his partner. “We can get a special nurse to take care of her.”

  “You don’t want a special nurse,” the other policeman said. “You want to bring her.”

  Alexandra began to cry when Galina, more weary than ever from the burdens of her never-ending day, gathered her daughter into her arms once more. Galina would have wept, too, if she hadn’t been more worried about the evidence on the computers in her apartment that could incriminate her in even more grievous crimes than the murder of some man.

  Who? Oleg?

  No, Oleg would never be the murdered. Oleg was the murderer.

  Awkwardly, she locked up with Alexandra’s arms around her neck, face nestled against her chest. For all the good the locks would do.

  If they want in, they’ll get in.

  The two officers put her in the backseat of a black SUV with metal mesh separating her and Alexandra from t
he two of them.

  Alexandra was weepy, so Galina kept telling her that everything would be fine. But Galina didn’t believe a word of the comforts she tried so hard to give, and doubted her daughter did, either.

  Tattoo looked back at her in the rearview mirror. “Why are you so sure everything is going to be all right?” He turned to stare at Alexandra. “She’s not too young to know that life can be cruel.”

  No doubt he was an expert in that regard. Galina didn’t reply.

  Night was falling in full. Not a great time to go to the Moscow morgue, but that was where the two cops brought them, pulling up in front.

  “Door to dead service,” Tattoo said.

  “Put your arms around Mommy’s neck,” Galina told Alexandra. “Can you do that?”

  Her child, still weeping quietly, complied.

  Tattoo opened her door and Galina slipped out of the car. The hem of her yellow skirt rose as she slid off the seat. The nice cop, who had come around to the curb, looked away. Tattoo stared so hard she thought he’d demand a replay.

  They really are good cop, bad cop.

  She followed them into the building, then walked down a marbled flight of stairs to the morgue proper. Galina thought of the thousands—no, tens of thousands—who had taken those same steps. But horrible as their journeys had been, they were the lucky ones. So many millions had disappeared into mass graves. Nobody had ever found them. Even the existence of their bodies—their locations and identities—were lost to history and the long blank stare of Stalin and his henchmen.

  So she felt a dread that had been known to scores of others as a large room spread out before her downstairs, an open space bordered by offices on both sides. The reek of chemicals soured her every breath.

  She had no inkling as to why they wanted her there, except that it had to be connected to Oleg. Everything in her world was now connected to him.

  But a murder in Moscow?

  Would they have a body waiting for her on a gurney, or in one of those drawers they pull out? Like in the movies where you’re supposed to look at it and say, “That’s him.”