The Kasari Nexus (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 1)

by Richard Phillips

The mention of the incident that had almost killed him made Jamal’s blood run cold.

  “How did you hack my computer?”

  “It’s been ten years since you left the NSA. We’ve gotten better.”

  The woman’s words weren’t meant to be a jibe, but they irked Jamal all the same. Nobody was better than him. But there she was, staring back at him through his own webcam, giving the lie to that thought.

  Jamal swallowed hard and asked the question his mind wanted to avoid.

  “What’s this nonsense about the AI?”

  “Dr. Jennings tells me that there are only four surviving people from the NSA group who had knowledge of the AI’s existence: Levi Elias, Denise Jennings, Caroline Brown, and you. Levi Elias has been missing for two days and tonight Denise received a credible warning that an intelligence service is actively hunting all four of you.”

  “You know how crazy that sounds?”

  “I haven’t been able to reach Caroline Brown.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Look, I’m just passing along the information I have. What you do with it is up to you.”

  Jamal hesitated. “Both instances of the Virtual Jamal AI were destroyed before I left the NSA. All the data was wiped.”

  “Apparently someone believes differently.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. One version of the AI was running on a computer that burned up in the fire at Grange Castle. The other was inside the NSA. As far as I know, the only people who had access to it were Admiral Riles, Dr. Kurtz, and Dr. Jennings. Riles and Kurtz died years ago.”

  “Odd, isn’t it? The official story was that Admiral Riles killed Dr. Kurtz and then committed suicide, right inside his quarters on Fort Meade. The FBI found the bodies while executing a search warrant.”

  “So?”

  “So what if the official story is wrong? If someone murdered Riles and Kurtz, that person may have been looking for something.”

  Jamal laughed, hoping it didn’t sound as nervous as this conversation was making him feel.

  “Now you’re guessing.”

  “Just trying to put the pieces together. It’s what I do.”

  “And the NSA is on board with you calling me?”

  “This is unofficial, just me talking to someone about a personal concern.”

  “But,” Jamal said, “you know the information about the Virtual Jamal AI was classified top secret. Hardly a topic for unofficial conversation.”

  “I haven’t revealed any information about it that you don’t already know.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “Dr. Jennings and I just want you to be careful.”

  Before he could respond, the chat window disappeared.

  Picking up his cell phone, he selected the top entry in his favorites list. Caroline Brown, whom he’d nicknamed “Goth Girl” when they’d been competitors for the top spot among the NSA’s cyber-warriors, had been his closest friend for a decade. For a while they’d been more than friends, but that hadn’t worked out. Still, their friendship remained.

  Despite what he’d just told Eileen Wu, Jamal knew that Caroline was a night owl. The fact that she hadn’t answered her phone wasn’t surprising, considering it would have come from an unknown caller. But as his phone call went to voice mail, Jamal felt uneasiness worm its way into his head. He tried again . . . same thing. Damn it!

  Grabbing his heavy coat against the chill of the January night, Jamal headed for the door, hoping that all he would be doing when he pounded on her apartment door was interrupting some hot sex. He clung to that hope throughout his ride to her Upper East Side apartment.

  Eileen had just finished her second cup of coffee when the doorbell rang. A glance at her cell phone confirmed what she thought. It was too damn early on a snowy Annapolis Saturday morning for someone to be ringing her doorbell. Not wanting the bell to ring again, she walked to the door and opened it to a scene from a storybook.

  A dapper-looking young black man, seemingly transported from the early twentieth century, stood in three inches of snow on her doorstep, fedora in hand. In two seconds she recognized Jamal Glover. She would have smiled at him, but the haunted look in his eyes stopped her.

  “Jamal. Please come in.”

  “Thank you,” he said, knocking the snow from his spats before stepping inside.

  Eileen closed the door and turned to take his long overcoat.

  “What’s happened?”

  He took a deep breath. “Caroline Brown was murdered last night. After your call, I went to her apartment and found her.”

  “Oh my God!”

  Jamal wiped at his eyes with his right hand. “She was my friend.”

  She gestured toward the leather chair across from the couch. “Please sit down. Can I get you anything?”

  “No.”

  As Eileen moved to sit on the couch, a pajama-clad Denise Jennings entered the room. When she saw Jamal, a look of dread tugged her lips into a tight line.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Caroline,” Eileen said. “She was killed last night.”

  Denise sank down on the couch beside Eileen, her voice almost a whisper. “Oh no.”

  “They tortured her, cut her face off.” Jamal’s expression had become a frozen mask. “I knew I should’ve called 911. But that would have led her killers right to me. So I left everything behind, hopped on the 3:00 A.M. train to D.C., and then caught a cab here.”

  “How did you find my house?”

  Jamal just stared at Eileen.

  “Right,” she said. “Stupid question.”

  Beside her Denise began to shake. “You know they’ll come for us next. We can’t hide here forever.”

  “And we don’t even know what they’re after,” said Jamal.

  “I might.” Denise drew up her legs, hugged her knees to her chest, and began slowly rocking back and forth on the couch. “The NSA forensics team recovered a smashed data drive from the Grange compound. Dr. Kurtz examined it and said it was beyond recovery. I always assumed it was properly disposed of.”

  She paused, looking first at Jamal and then at Eileen.

  “But what if it wasn’t?”

  Eileen jumped to her feet. “Didn’t Mrs. Riles have a house here in Annapolis?”

  “Still does,” said Denise.

  “Get dressed. I think we need to pay her a visit before someone else beats us to it.”

  Eileen pulled her collar up, slammed the car door, and led Jamal and Denise through the swirling snow. She’d taken a few minutes on the way over to do some research before they pulled up to the quaint old house in western Annapolis. Mary Beth Kincaid had met Jonathan Riles while he was a midshipman at the Naval Academy and they’d fallen madly in love, getting married immediately after graduation. Her father had been a navy captain and she’d married another one. After Admiral Riles’s reported suicide, she had moved back to her old family home. This house looked like something an old sea dog would be comfortable in.

  Walking up the three freshly shoveled steps, Eileen stepped onto the open front porch and raised the brass knocker. The sound of a piano drifted out, but stopped when Eileen gave three sharp raps. A gray-haired woman cracked open the door. Her cheeks looked tugged down by the weight of the world, yet her pale blue eyes held a spark of curiosity.

  “Mrs. Riles?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Dr. Eileen Wu of the NSA.” She gestured at her two companions. “This is Jamal Glover and this is Dr. Denise Jennings, both of whom worked for your husband.”

  Mrs. Riles studied them for several seconds. Then, with a questioning look, she opened the door further.

  “Please come in and hang up your coats. May I pour you some tea?”

  “I’d love some,” Eileen said, and the others nodded.

  As Mrs. Riles walked to the kitchen, Eileen hung up her coat and moved to the mantle, studying the photos in their frames, neatly arranged from left to right in c
hronological order. Mary and Jonathan, arm in arm at a Naval Academy formal, cutting their wedding cake, a kiss at a promotion party, the two of them standing on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan, and finally the photo from the admiral’s change of command ceremony.

  The tinkle of fine china caused her to turn to see Mrs. Riles setting a tray of cups and saucers and a teapot on the coffee table. As the others gathered on the couch, the old woman poured the tea and then set the pot down. Taking up her cup, she dropped in two lumps of sugar and walked to the mantle.

  “We were a lovely couple, wouldn’t you say?”

  Eileen and the other two murmured their agreement.

  Mrs. Riles smiled, then moved to a chair, sat down, and took a sip from her cup. When she raised her eyes, Eileen was surprised to see them glistening with moisture.

  “From your introduction, I take it this concerns my Jonny.”

  Eileen took a sip of the hot tea, letting it linger on her tongue for a moment as she set her cup down on the table.

  “Yes, but it also concerns you.”

  Mrs. Riles made no response so Eileen continued, laying out everything she knew and suspected. And as the story unfolded, Denise and Jamal chimed in. All the while, Mary Beth Riles sipped her tea and listened, her expression intense but unreadable.

  When their tale was finished, Mrs. Riles set her teacup down and looked at Eileen, her eyes flashing with anger.

  “So you believe these people are trying to find a memory stick my Jonny was hiding?”

  “Not exactly a memory stick,” said Denise. “It would have been part of a data drive that the men who killed him didn’t recognize when they searched his things.”

  Mrs. Riles surprised Eileen again by smiling. “Or they didn’t know that we stored some of our personal things in this house instead of our quarters at Fort Meade.”

  She rose to her feet. “Come with me.”

  Eileen followed the old woman up two flights of stairs and into a cluttered attic with a steeply pitched A-frame roof. A small window on one end of the room allowed a weak shaft of light in, illuminating a small patch on the old wood floor.

  Mrs. Riles reached up and pulled a string, switching on an ancient lightbulb that cast harsh shadows across the room. Eileen shivered, seeing her breath condense into steamy puffs. Walking to the wall opposite the window, the woman moved three large boxes, shooing away their offers of help. She straightened and turned back toward her guests, the smile back on her face.

  “Seven years ago, another person came to me looking for answers. Freddy Hagerman.”

  Eileen felt her jaw drop. “Senator Hagerman?”

  “Back then he was just a reporter. He’s the only other person I ever showed this to.”

  She pressed her hand against a board in the wall and Eileen heard a click. Then a portion of the wooden planking swung out to reveal a closet-sized space, and as Mrs. Riles handed her a flashlight she’d taken from one of the boxes, Eileen felt her heart thump in anticipation.

  For an hour, the four of them sifted through the contents of boxes, looking for any trinket that might have once been part of the Grange holographic data drive. When it became clear that what they were looking for just wasn’t among this stockpile of Admiral Riles’s things, the disappointment Eileen felt was palpable.

  “Damn.”

  Mrs. Riles straightened, pressing a hand into the small of her back. “Well, I’m sorry. If Jonny was hiding something, this is where he would have put it.”

  “And this is everything?” Eileen asked, shining the flashlight into the corners where the sloping rafters met the floor.

  Suddenly Mrs. Riles’s eyes widened. “Wait. I almost forgot. I gave Freddy Hagerman a box of Jonny’s things. Mostly notes that Freddy used in the exposé that won him his second Pulitzer and cleared Jack Gregory. I told him to take it and go save our saviors. But there were a few of Jonny’s knickknacks in there too.”

  Eileen’s head hurt. The bad situation in which she had voluntarily involved herself had just gotten worse. A lot worse. Instead of three people’s lives depending on her, she now had to add a U.S. senator to that list, which would be fine if she could go to the authorities. The problem was that she didn’t know whom she could trust. There were strong indications that people at the highest levels of government, even at the UFNS, were involved. And it seemed very possible that Admiral Riles had been killed by someone with a similar agenda.

  A glance at Denise’s petrified face told her that she was having similar thoughts. Only Jamal Glover seemed to be handling this with cool contemplation. Or maybe it was just his outfit that gave him the cool look. Right now Eileen didn’t trust herself enough to make that judgment.

  She returned her gaze to Mrs. Riles. “We have to get you out of here.”

  The woman laughed. “Child, this is my home. I’m not going anywhere. Besides, I’ve got a licensed handgun and I know how to use it.”

  Jamal intervened. “Believe me, Mrs. Riles. These people don’t just want to kill you. They will cut you until you tell them everything you know, including that bit about Senator Hagerman.”

  “And now,” said Mrs. Riles, “it’s time for you to go.”

  “Please come with us,” said Eileen. “Just until we get this figured out.”

  “If I die here in my home, I’ll go joyfully to join my Jonny. And if it comes down to that, I won’t give them a chance to torture me.”

  Looking at the determination in the old woman’s eyes, Eileen felt sick to her stomach. One more thing that was beyond her control.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Don’t be.” Mrs. Riles turned and walked out of her secret closet. “And now, I’ll show you to the door.”

  Levi Elias blinked eyes so swollen that he couldn’t really tell when they closed or opened. He wasn’t completely blind. A thin slit of vision made its way into his left eye, just enough to see his torturers. He’d fought the good fight, but now he was done. Everything he knew he’d already told them.

  Surely Daniil Alkaev knew that. What he and Galina were doing now was solely for sport. Levi didn’t know how many days he’d been locked in this tiny basement that smelled like shit, piss, and blood. Probably less than a week, although it felt like an eternity.

  Hell, he thought. Just let me die.

  He thought it, but he didn’t ask it. He’d already done that until his throat was raw. Or perhaps his screaming had done that.

  Levi tilted his head down to look at the bloody bandages that wrapped his hands. He was down to one appendage now, the right middle finger. Nice of them to leave that one until the end. It gave him one last thing to look forward to. Looking up, he saw Galina grin, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  She stepped forward, pressed a gun to his forehead, and said, “Thank you, Mr. Elias. Your help was very much appreciated.”

  Then, instead of pulling the trigger, her left hand held up a photograph of a woman bound to a chair, her face a bloody ruin. She’d been skinned alive. If it hadn’t been for the neck tattoo, he couldn’t possibly have recognized Caroline Brown.

  With the last of his strength Levi looked up into those laughing blue eyes, waggled his one finger, and said it. One last “Screw you!” to die for.

  The tap-tap of sleet rattled the windows at 11:13 on Saturday night. Jamal Glover sat next to Eileen Wu at her dining-room table, both of them having completed a clean Linux install on a couple of brand-new burner laptops. They had also installed a complete set of their favorite hacking tools. Then they had wiped all digital traces of their trip to the Riles’s home from the databases where such information was stored.

  With Dr. Jennings peering nervously over his shoulder, Jamal cracked his knuckles and got started, his heart rate elevated with anticipation. While Eileen hacked her way into Freddy Hagerman’s Internet-connected devices, Jamal made sure that any traces of those intrusions were scrubbed.

  Immediately he noticed that Freddy’s devices were rife wit
h spyware and other sorts of malware. No problem. He emasculated each of them and then nodded at Eileen.

  “The way is clear.”

  When Eileen went to work, Jamal had to admit that she might be almost as good as he was. She worked with speed and efficiency, accomplishing the hacks in a logical order that quickly located Freddy within his Watergate East apartment. She turned on the television, enabling its camera while keeping the screen dark.

  The senator, wearing a thick black bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, sat in a leather reading chair with a snifter of amber alcohol held loosely in his right hand. His left hand stroked his tightly trimmed beard, the very image of relaxed contemplation. It reminded Jamal of images he’d seen of Winston Churchill, minus the cigar.

  “Okay, Denise,” Eileen said. “We’re ready.”

  Denise moved to a chair on Eileen’s right as Eileen turned the laptop so that its rearward-facing camera caught them both in its view.

  The older woman took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  Eileen entered a command on the keyboard and nodded. “You’re on.”

  A marathon meeting with Safe Earth delegates from all fifty-nine states had left Freddy fried. The young party that had split Republicans and Democrats was still the third largest, but in the next election Freddy expected to pass the Republicans to take second place. That assumed that Earth hadn’t been handed over to the aliens by then.

  The television came on as he took a sip of Scotch, startling him so that he spilled some on his shirt.

  “Shit!”

  He set the drink down and started to wipe away the dampness when he noticed that this wasn’t a scheduled TV program. Instead he found himself staring at two people who appeared to be watching him, one of whom seemed vaguely familiar.

  “Good evening, Freddy,” she said. “I hope you remember me.”

  The voice clicked the memory into place. A sticky note on his car dashboard . . . a clandestine meeting inside the Library of Congress . . . the NSA computer scientist. His heart thumped in his chest.

  “Dr. Jennings?”

  The gray-haired woman inclined her head ever so slightly.