The Sword of Cyrus: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 4)

by JC Ryan

  “I’m sorry, Alica, I don’t know what to say for myself.” His entire body was tense with frustration that the call had interrupted what surely would have been the declaration of their attraction to each other.

  “It’s all right,” she said, her head lowered. “It’s just…”

  “Just what, my dear?” Did he dare hope she wanted him? That such a beautiful woman would, when his wife didn’t, caused his chest to tighten.

  In a barely discernible voice, she muttered, “Just that, I think I have a crush on you.”

  Karsten could hardly believe the way his heart jumped in his chest at her admission. He gave not a moment’s thought to his wife when he asked Alica to join him for dinner that night at a hotel between Boulder and Denver.

  “You won’t be missed at home?” she inquired. Inside, she was triumphant. She still had it! Karsten would never know what hit him, until it was too late.

  “I will find a reason to be late,” he whispered, brushing a kiss over her dark curls again.

  “Then I would love to,” she whispered back, a promise in her eyes that sent thrills of excitement through him.

  Photos of the tryst wouldn’t reach Karsten until there had been enough occasions to seriously concern his wife, but Alica’s company was well worth his infidelity. Never had he known a woman so exciting, so inventive, and so giving in bed. He felt like a teenager again, all raging hormones, with a belief in his immortality. In the back of his mind, he kept suppressed the feeling that another shoe would drop. Things like this didn’t happen to middle-aged corporate types. Alica was too beautiful - she could be a model, or an actress. What she saw in him was a mystery, until it wasn’t.

  They’d been carrying on their affair for a few weeks, spending every moment they could together, when the photos came. Karsten stared at them in dismay. Alica and him with their heads together and holding hands at the luxurious Meritage restaurant. Alica in a very revealing bikini, with him at her side, as they relaxed in a poolside cabana at the Omni. Most disastrous of all, Alica and him in bed, their positions completely compromising. How in the world had the photographer captured that one? Had he actually been on the balcony of their hotel room, while they were oblivious to his presence?

  His first thought was chivalrous. How could he have allowed her to be exposed like this? The note in the package disabused him of any illusions that she wasn’t involved in the blackmail, however. The note instructed him to turn over any information she asked for, unless he wanted the photos to go to his wife. Then he knew he’d been played.

  The saddest part of that, to him, was the knowledge that he was head over heels in love with her, and that he would gladly betray not only his wife but also his employer and his own moral center if only she would continue to see him. Now he knew the depths of his depravity. He would turn over dangerous secrets to someone who would undoubtedly give them to a terrorist organization, and he’d keep doing it as long as she allowed him access to her body. How pathetic, how morally bankrupt, was that?

  Without thought to his marriage or his job, both of which he could well lose over his actions, he called Alica into his office. Rising to meet her, he took her into his arms and kissed her with abandon. When he came up for air, he asked, “What information do you want?”

  The woman who had placed him in a position of extreme danger said, as if she’d been making a grocery list instead of returning his kisses passionately only a moment before, “Everything.”

  ~~~

  By the end of February, the stream of information coming from the Rossler Foundation nanotechnology program was offering abundant ideas to the Sword of Cyrus scientists in Esfahan. Dalir and two of the other members of the Sword of Cyrus traveled there to meet with the lead scientists and receive a progress report.

  “Welcome, aqa, and thank you for honoring us with your presence,” began the spokesperson for the scientists.

  “Thank you, Ostad Sassan. We are glad to be here. What can you tell me of your discoveries?” Dalir stood tensely, hoping he would hear something that would accelerate his plans for the destruction of the West.

  “We have considered your requirements, Aqa Jahandar, and there are several items that we believe we can manufacture immediately. These items would fulfill the requirement to be small and easy to transport. They would also wreak terror on a scale we have not thought possible, because they would be undetectable, yet cause death in those individuals you would target. Nanopoisons would fit this description. Nanobots that could enter a person’s body through a natural orifice and cause havoc with organs would also. However, neither of these options would fulfill your third requirement, that is, neither would be a weapon of mass destruction. They would be deployed against an individual, or at most a roomful of individuals. Are we correct in believing that what you want would be deployed against a major part of a city?” Although the scientist spoke dispassionately, he was secretly horrified at the thought. Nevertheless, as he had when his wife and children were used against him, he kept his own opinions to himself. Nothing would do except to please this man, who had his life and those of his family in an iron fist.

  “Yes, many cities. A coordinated attack of weapons of mass destruction, yet undetectable, unlike a missile strike. Can you make something like that?” Dalir had no need of caution in his demands. Everyone in this facility and in the residential compound was at his mercy; none would dare work against him.

  “We believe we will be able to, as long as the information continues to come to us. We have hints of items that would do it, but we don’t yet have all of the specifications. Here’s what we envision.” Turning to a laptop set up in the conference room, Sassan queued up a presentation. The first image was of an ordinary can of Coke.

  “We believe we will shortly have enough information to build a nanonuclear weapon no larger than this. We have discussed how to get these objects to the desired destinations, and have come up with a list of requirements that we’d like you to approve, or add to if necessary.”

  “Excellent, better than we could have imagined! You can really pack so much destructive power into such a small object?” Dalir marveled at the idea, but doubted such a small thing could do what he envisioned. However, if they could make something so small into a bomb that would cause much destruction, perhaps something only a little larger would be easy to manufacture as well.

  “We think so. There are hints that it can be done. As yet, we don’t have all the information, but we are encouraged by what we do have. May I continue?” Sassan stroked his beard nervously.

  “Of course.”

  “Naturally, we don’t expect to be able to assemble something, even this small, here and get it through security clearances when crossing borders. But, we plan to design items that will attract no notice, such as buttons, or threads that can be worked into the design of an item of clothing. Once all of the components are in one place, they will be assembled into the weapon, a process even a child could do with proper instruction.”

  “And how will it be deployed?” Jahandar’s eyes glittered. How many of these tiny weapons would it take to destroy half the world?

  “Again, because it is so small, it can be deployed by small drones. They won’t have a long range, so they, too will have to be assembled near where they are to be used. Do you know which city you will attack yet, Aqa Jahandar?”

  “That remains to be worked out. I will let you know how many of these nanonuclear weapons we’ll need. Keep me informed regarding your progress.” Even to someone whose very existence was in his hands, Dalir would not yet reveal the extent of his ambition. That information, for now, was for the Sword of Cyrus only.

  “Yes, sir.

  Dalir and his Sword of Cyrus lieutenants returned to Tehran very satisfied with the progress. None of them had expected to be even this far along so quickly. It was necessary now to begin to make a specific plan. Oleg Zlatovski was sent for and consulted as to the weakest governments and security systems in the West. Oleg
was happy to supply the information, as well as to begin building a human network in the places where Dalir showed the most interest. Assuming there was anything left of the world after the Sword of Cyrus struck, such a network could come in handy for certain activities Oleg was beginning to consider in his own right.

  A room was set aside for planning an attack that would occur at an unknown time on an unknown date in the future. All they had now was a huge world map with dozens of pins in a few different colors. Each color represented a type of target, red for primary, with Washington DC full of red pins. Orange for secondary, and yellow for possible targets. They’d hit those if there were enough personnel and materiel. The reds and oranges represented the major capitals of the West. Destroying those cities would effectively destroy any ability to resist when the Sword of Cyrus declared their dominion over the remainder of the planet.

  Déjà poo

  Late March 2020, Boulder

  Raj left Roy’s office in a state of excitement akin to a little boy at Christmas time. In his cupped hands, he cradled a tiny object that Roy had given him. Finally! His own Spyfly! He could hardly wait to show it to his wife, Sushma. After that, he would find a way to slip it into some top-secret conferences, meetings he just knew the government was still holding to keep the appropriate committees up to speed on aliens, Area 51, and the conspiracy to hide the knowledge from the American people for more than seventy years.

  Before that, he was planning to tinker with the video to make it record longer without sacrificing quality. Roy may have been satisfied with it the way it was, but Raj had more sophisticated needs for it. To test it, Raj sent the fly into a room full of translators, who, to his gratification, didn’t even notice it. He was waiting for a chance to talk with Sinclair about a new routine he had written to speed up the transliteration process that the employees were now doing by hand. While leaning casually against the wall, he sent his fly to land on a few computers, on the walls, and even on the ceiling.

  He kept it away from people’s bodies, fearful that if they noticed it they would try to swat it away or even smash it. One significant difference between this little device and a real fly was that it made virtually no noise as it flew. Unlike the buzzing of a real insect, this little guy was virtually silent. Raj almost wished Roy had named it the ‘stealth fly’, but Spyfly was almost as good. Sometimes Raj still indulged his inner child.

  After talking with Sinclair, Raj hurried to his office, his fly hovering just over his shoulder. Once there, he downloaded the video feed. The first thing he noticed was that he and Roy needed to find a way to pause the video while the fly was in transition. The swooping feeling he got from watching those sections of the feed wasn’t pleasant, but it shouldn’t be hard to fix that. The pictures from the wall were good, but he hadn’t made the fly crawl far enough up the wall. It seemed there was an art to controlling the little fellow. The longest section of feed came from the vantage-point of the ceiling, and showed a surprisingly clear picture of most of the room. Raj watched as it scanned back and forth, sweeping the room from side to side and advancing the picture from the back to the front of the room.

  A movement that seemed out of place caught his eye. Raj reversed the feed several seconds, and then advanced it one frame at a time. There. What was that guy doing? This could be fun checking this out a bit closer. Raj saved the file, noting the timestamp on the unusual movement, and loaded it into some video-enhancing software that he’d acquired at Luke’s request.

  Advancing the playback to the correct time, he stopped it and fiddled with the image until he could see the object in the guy’s hand. Was it a cell phone? Maybe it was just some guy voice-texting his girlfriend, or taking a selfie. But he had the phone very close to his face. He advanced the file at normal speed, still running it through the image-enhancing software since he was already set up to do that. This time, he caught the flicker as soon as the person’s hand moved to his pocket. It was a different person, also taking a selfie with the phone close to his face. Advancing frame by frame, Raj watched as this guy brought his phone up to eye level and moved his finger almost imperceptibly. He was taking a picture of his screen, not his face!

  Raj sat back and thought about it for a while. Then he ran the video back to the first incident. The camera had caught the precise angle of the phone in that guy’s hand, and yes, Raj could see the finger come down. It was the same move. Both of those guys had taken pictures, but of what? The only clue he had was that the phone in the first picture was clearly pointed at the guy’s computer screen. There was only one thing to do. Clearing the fly’s memory now that he had the first video saved on his desktop computer, he sent the fly back to the translation department, letting it crawl around on the ceiling to get a vantage point for each section of the room. By the end of the day, he had plenty of evidence of people taking pictures of their screens, but of what on their screens he wasn’t sure. Nevertheless, it was unusual enough and worrisome enough to take it to Daniel.

  Daniel was getting ready to leave for the day when Raj appeared in his doorway.

  “Boss, I’ve got something here that worries me. Would you take a look?” Raj went on to explain what he had found and how he’d found it. As soon as Daniel saw the evidence for himself, he called Luke, hoping against hope that he hadn’t already left for the day. When Luke picked up, Daniel sighed in relief.

  “Luke, Raj has brought me something that you need to see. Can you hold up a minute and see it tonight?” His voice was tightly controlled, suppressing that old gut feeling of disaster, despite the low-key actions on the video.

  “Sure, no problem. Sally’s going to be late, too. She and Emma took little Nick for a photo shoot in his Easter outfit. They want the pictures to make greeting cards or something. Those women can think up more stuff to do than you can shake a stick at.”

  Despite his worry, Daniel had to laugh. He knew his mother-in-law and Luke’s wife were spending their golden years in pursuits they’d never had time for when they were younger. He couldn’t imagine Sarah doing that though, as busy as she was with Foundation business. Unless she decided to bake him into an early grave. She did love to bake!

  “Come on up, Luke. Raj and I will wait for you.”

  Half an hour later, Luke was swearing a blue streak. He’d noticed something that neither of the other two saw. The people taking pictures of their computer screens were all Middle Eastern and all of them were new recruits!

  “Raj, do you have anything that can synch these feeds up to what’s on the computer screens when the pictures are taken?” Luke ran the video back again, stopping at each movement to look at the face and try to place the employee’s name.

  Raj hesitated, reluctant to reveal that he’d been too complacent in using his tools. “Not for today’s work. We have that capability, to watch what comes across the screens, with a timestamp. But we haven’t had occasion to use it.” He looked away from Luke.

  Luke understood Raj’s feelings, but didn’t address them. What was done was done, it only remained to salvage what he could. “Can you set it up for tomorrow? Sorry to ask you to pull overtime.”

  Raj was happy to be able to make up for his oversight. He’d make it right with Sushma, but he had to do everything he could to fix this. “No problem. I’ll see if Cyndi can stay late also, if she hasn’t gone already. Then what, just have my fly take video all day and hope to see this again?”

  “Yours, Daniel’s, mine. As many as we can get. We need to see if it’s only the newer employees or if anyone else is doing it, and we need to know what’s in those pictures.” Luke’s expression was grim. He glanced at Daniel, whose tension was making the room crackle.

  “You got it. I’ll see if I can remote the feeds back to my office, too, so we won’t miss anything.” Raj thought there was a provision for that, but he’d have to ask Roy how to do it. It was shaping up to be a long evening, and if he wanted help, he needed to make some calls right now.

  He found Cyndi still in
her office and willing to help. Roy was almost always in his lab, building something new or tinkering with a gadget he’d already built. Tonight was no exception. Taking his own, Daniel’s and Luke’s Spyflies with him, Raj met Cyndi outside Roy’s office.

  “Stay here for a minute Cyn. He might have a panic attack if you go in. Let me get some answers, and then I’ll let you know what’s going on and what I need help with. Okay?”

  “Sure, no problem. Can I call Robert and let him know I’ll be late?” If Cyndi wondered about the panic attack remark, she didn’t show it. Probably because many of the single women in the RF had been gossiping about the good-looking but painfully shy scientist.

  “I don’t see any problem with that. But don’t let him come back. We need to keep this under our hats for a bit.” Raj had his hand on the doorknob, ready to enter Roy’s lab.

  “Under our…? Oh, you mean on the down-low,” Cyndi said, snickering.

  “Whatever,” Raj muttered. Whenever Cyndi updated his slang, he felt old.

  Roy was excited that his gadget was already finding a practical use. He showed Raj how to set up the fly and the remote to get live feed wirelessly streamed to his computer and save it there. Already he was working on a second-generation fly that would broadcast in color, but the black-and-white images from the first-generation models were clear enough to identify faces. He didn’t ask what was going on, figuring that if it was any of his business, Raj would have told him.

  It was around midnight when a weary Cyndi and Raj made their separate ways home, dreading the six a.m. wake up call that would get them back to the office before anyone from the earliest flextime shift got there. They had a long day ahead of them, with some employees coming in as early as seven and others coming in later and not leaving until seven in the evening. Working eight hours flextime between seven and seven was a perk of the company that made the Rossler Foundation a popular employer.