by JC Ryan
Raj had just made the arrangements for complete surveillance on Alica when Luke walked in. He’d been almost home, nearly forty-five minutes away from the office, when Raj had summoned him back. Realizing the time, he’d completed his trip. Sally wasn’t happy that he was going back, but because he’d taken the time to come and give her a kiss and hug, she was willing to make sandwiches and a thermos of coffee for him to take back with him while he took a quick shower and changed clothes. Raj exclaimed in pleasure when he saw that Luke had thoughtfully brought something to sustain them for a while. It was going to be a long night.
~~~
The two men worked quietly together, reading Alica’s messages from the company email in the clear, and then running them through the same skip sequences that had revealed secret messages among the other Middle Eastern employees. They had discovered that Alica, too, had been hired through the auspices of the Iranian delegation to the Board. By now it looked like the entire thing had been a ploy to get spies into the Foundation. Luke would like to get his hands on that good-looking devil Reza Mokri, the Iranian member of the Board. He had gone home for a business meeting of some kind. Probably spilling everything he knew to al Qaeda or the leftovers of ISIS or some other satanic outfit.
Alica’s company email was clean, nothing to worry about. No secret messages that they could discern, no love letters to Karsten, nothing at all out of the ordinary. Raj insisted that Luke watch the video footage, so he could be sure Raj wasn’t crazy. Ironically, Luke already knew Raj was crazy, just not in the way Raj thought. But he had to admit the guy’s paranoia and better, his underground network of conspiracy nuts, came in handy. More than once. Luke smiled when the thought came up - what would it take to convince him and his group to work for the CIA? Nah, I have a better chance of getting pregnant.
It was nearly midnight and Raj had gone in search of something sweet from a vending machine to go with his fourth cup of coffee when Prairie Dog’s message came through. Raj performed the protocols and found the message. They were in! Personal email accounts, user names, passwords, and this time even Facebook accounts and passwords along with a couple of mobile phones belonging to Alica. By morning, they’d have what they were looking for, Raj was confident.
When Daniel arrived the next morning, he was shocked to see a haggard Raj and barely less haggard Luke waiting for him.
“It’s bad, Daniel,” Raj blurted. Daniel looked to Luke for confirmation and slumped when he saw Luke nod.
“Okay. Come on in. Do I need to call in the rest for this?” Daniel signaled his assistant. “Do you guys want coffee? You look like you need it?”
“I’m coffee’d out,” said Luke. “But I could use some breakfast.” Daniel nodded. To his assistant, he said, “Traci, do you mind running out for refreshments for a breakfast meeting? Sorry to ask you.” He handed her a couple of twenties. “See if you can find something halfway healthy. These guys look like they’ve been eating donuts all night.”
Entering his office to find Raj and Luke already seated, Daniel sent texts to the others to come to his office. “Karsten?” he questioned. Raj nodded.
Raj spoke first. “Karsten has a dirty little secret.” That told Daniel most of what he needed to know.
“Oh, my God,” he said. “He knows the full picture of everything we’ve dug up in the nanotechnology material.” Luke and Raj both nodded this time.
In due course, the others arrived, including a puzzled Roy. Traci brought in the breakfast, most of which would remain untouched. Speaking in turns, Raj and Luke explained what they’d been doing all night, and why. Raj apologized to Roy when it came to what they’d learned about him - that he was completely innocent of any wrongdoing. He shrugged.
“I guess I’m flattered that anyone could think I might have an exciting life,” he grinned. When no one laughed, he shrunk back into his seat. He wasn’t sure why he was even here. Best to listen and learn, he guessed.
“So what exactly do they have, and who’s they?” Daniel asked.
“It appears that Alica has been blackmailing Karsten for weeks,” Luke answered. “I’ll spare you the videos, but I’d say the man is headed for a divorce. What’s worse is that the recipients, someone in the Middle East, probably in Iran, are apparently working on some pretty scary nanotech stuff. We need Roy to interpret it for us, and tell us how far they’ve gotten. What we have picked up is they’ve tested a way to deploy a nanopoison, which worked better than they planned and wiped out more than 20,000 people in a village in Africa. There’s also some stuff about a nanonuclear bomb, if that makes any sense?” He paused and looked at Roy, whose eyes had widened.
“Yeah, unfortunately they can do that with the information they have,” Roy answered.
“Stealth technology that seems to have a nanotech connection, and some other stuff we didn’t have the background to understand. We do know that Alica was trying to coerce Karsten into supplying information about triggers for the nanonukes. We can’t tell you other important stuff, like how far the development of all this stuff has gone, the names of the leaders, how they plan to deploy bombs or where their targets are. We need some help, and we need it fast, in case they’re already in attack planning mode. We were lucky to find out when we did.” Luke wound up his report with Raj’s nod of agreement.
“I’ll call the President right away,” said Daniel. “I trust there’s no objection to turning this whole mess over to government to investigate? After all they were the ones asking us to allow these people in here in the first place.” Heads shook all around the room. They knew they were outgunned with the size of the spy network they’d already uncovered. It was time to send for the professionals.
“Luke, will you stay, please? I may need your knowledge of who to ask for. Everyone else, I don’t need to tell you that this is top-secret. All the players are still employed here. We need to keep it that way to trap the folks on the other end of the information flow.”
Raj spoke up. “I have an idea about that. Some of those messages from the translators are going through our servers, and we have access to the email accounts they’re using off-campus. Why don’t Roy and I plant some disinformation?” He shot a questioning glance at Roy as he spoke. Roy’s eyes sparkled. This ought to be fun!
Daniel glanced at Luke for his opinion. Luke shrugged his shoulders. “As long as it doesn’t clue them that we’re onto them, it’s probably a good idea. No practical jokes,” he admonished Raj. Raj nodded.
Mr. President
Mid-May, 2020
Before Daniel could gather his thoughts, Luke spoke first.
“Daniel, I think we have to consider that our phones may not be secure. I understand the urgency, but I don’t want these guys to know we’ve been tipped off until we have more intel. Can you hold off on your call to the president until I can get hold of Lewis and make sure you won’t be overheard? It could take a day or two.”
Daniel looked up from the page with the message he was reading again, something to do with laser technology. Why are they interested in that? “Hmm? Oh, sorry, Luke, I was distracted. You want me to hold off on calling the president? Is that wise?”
“Maybe not,” Luke said, fingering his chin. “But, neither is tipping off the bad guys. Look, I’ll get it done as soon as I can. It may be as simple as going out to buy you a throwaway cell and getting you out of here to make the call. Let me check with Sam Lewis.”
“Oh, sure.” Daniel’s expression was haunted.
“It won’t take long, I promise,” Luke said, worrying about Daniel’s state of mind. How long could a man be under the strain Daniel had been under before he broke?
A few hours later, Luke was back, with a small electronic device he installed inside the battery compartment of Daniel’s wireless phone handset, inserting the batteries into the device.
Daniel watched Luke’s expert handling of his phone. “What’s that?”
“Scrambler. Actually, it scrambles the analog input and sends the
scrambled digital signal to the phone the president will be using to take your call. And then it unscrambles the signal from his end. The bad guys may be able to listen in, but they won’t be able to understand.” Luke finished his task and looked at Daniel expectantly, nodding when he heard the question he expected.
“Where’d you get that?”
“You do remember your father-in-law is a defense contractor, right?” Luke grinned. It was all the answer Daniel would get, but it was enough. Daniel sometimes wished he still had the ‘cone of silence’ device that had served him well when he and Sarah were dodging the Orion Society. That seemed like a lifetime ago, though it was less than a decade. Unfortunately, the device was obsolete, the design compromised not long after they used it. Nothing had replaced it yet, though he had Raj looking through the library to see if the 10th Cyclers had anything like it.
“So, I can call Harper now?” Daniel asked
“Sit tight. Lewis is on his way to brief President Harper that you need to speak with him urgently. He’ll call you as soon as he can.”
“Oh, okay. Good. That’s better. What did you tell Director Lewis?” Daniel wouldn’t ask if that call had been secure. Knowing Luke, there was no question.
“That we’d had a serious security breach. Man, I hated telling him that! Figured I’d never live it down.”
“How did that happen, Luke? I know you took all the precautions available.” Daniel had been wanting to ask this of Luke for several days, but hadn’t found a way to bring it up that didn’t sound like an accusation.
“I’ve been wondering that myself. My only thought is that these agents must never have had ties to organizations we know about. They’ve got to be rookies, recently trained. One of them would have slipped up sooner or later.” Luke couldn’t meet Daniel’s eyes. He knew he’d done everything in his power, but still, it had happened on his watch. Maybe it was time to retire.
Daniel interrupted that train of thought. “Tell me again how we got talked into letting the Middle East into our inner circle?”
Luke chuckled humorlessly. “Hmm, as I recall, Lewis and I talked to the president about a message we’d received from a friend and Harper leaned on you.”
“It’s on him, then,” Daniel said, only half-joking. Just then, his phone rang. He raised his eyebrows at Luke.
“Go ahead. You’ll hear whoever it is in the clear. It won’t interfere with your regular calls.”
Daniel answered the phone, listened a moment, and glanced at Luke, nodding.
“Yes, I’ll hold.” To Luke, he said, “It’s Harper.”
Luke stood to go, but Daniel held up his hand. He wanted Luke available in case new security measures came up.
“Hello, Mr. President. Thank you for calling so quickly.”
“Daniel, why is it I never hear from you unless you’ve gotten into some sort of trouble, and why do you always call me Mr. President when that happens?” Harper’s jovial opener hit Daniel square in the guilt center of his heart.
“Nigel. Now, you know that isn’t true. I called you to invite you to the celebration we had when we brought on three new board members, remember? That was just a few months ago.”
“Okay, I never hear from you unless it’s business. But, I understand. As soon as I’m done in this place, I’m going to take a long vacation, and your beautiful Colorado is the first place I’m coming.”
“You’ll be very welcome, Nigel. We’ve been waiting a long time to take you and Esther skiing.” Daniel waited for his cue, knowing from the tone of the conversation that the president couldn’t be rushed today.
“All right, what’s this I hear about a security breach? Don’t tell me we missed some of the Orion Society when we rounded them up.”
“No, not them. It seems our new friends in the Middle East brought a few spies with them. Our translation department is riddled with them.” Daniel had begun pacing, with Luke tracking him from his seat in front of Daniel’s desk.
“No kidding! Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised, in a way. On the other hand, don’t you have Luke Clarke heading up your security?”
Daniel glanced at Luke, who could only hear one side of the conversation. “We do. He’s at a loss to explain, too. He took every precaution.”
“I’m sure he did. Just goes to show how slippery those guys are. What have they been up to?”
“Looks like they could have everything we know about nanotechnology, including how to make some nasty little nuclear surprises. We’re still tracking it down. We could use some help.”
“Oh, good Lord. Not nukes again! Little surprises, you say?”
“As I understand it, Nigel, these things could be as small and innocuous as a can of Coke. Our resident expert tells me that they may be able to level a city block or more. But they won’t have any radiation or fallout. That’s a mercy, at least,” he added, with something like gallows humor.
“Yeah right, tell me about it” Harper answered, with equal satire. “So, what do you know so far?”
“We’ve analyzed what they likely have, and what they may be planning to do with it. I think it’s very likely that as soon as they have the technology perfected, they’ll deploy it either here or in Israel. I’d say it’s a matter of national security and warrants pulling out the stops to intercept any further communications and plan for a counterstrike. We’d like the appropriate government agency to take over the investigation.” Daniel paused to let the request sink in.
“Go on,” Harper said.
“If you’ll send the teams, we’ll cooperate in every way we can, turn over what we’ve discovered so far. If and when it’s appropriate to arrest the perps, that’s all on your guys.”
“If? You mean you haven’t had them arrested?”
“All we’ve got is a case of industrial espionage. We’re leaving them alone, hoping they’ll lead us to whoever is on the other side. We expect your agencies’ investigation to turn it into something else and warrant those arrests.”
“All right, Daniel. I know better than to second-guess you. I’ll get Lewis started on it right away. Just tell me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“When is this going to end? That library of yours has caused more trouble than I ever could have imagined.”
“If I knew the answer to that, I’d tell you. All I can say is it’s done a shit-load of good, too. I don’t see how we could shut down our research, under those circumstances. And I have to add that I am not sure any of the problems we had before and now would have been prevented if the Library was managed by government ” Daniel knew full-well that the continued existence of the Rossler Foundation in the United States depended on the goodwill of the US government. He also knew that most Western governments were now thankful that they had gone back to the US to set it up. The Foundation attracted more than its share of trouble, for sure.
“Hard to argue with that,” Harper answered.
~~~
Mid-May 2020, Boulder
Director Lewis graced the investigative team with his own presence after normal surveillance methods turned up no trace of the intended recipients of the information flow. After a week, he arrived in Boulder and gathered his investigators, their counterparts in the FBI and NSA, and Luke Clarke.
“Are we agreed we’ve turned up nothing useful, and that we now need to stop the information from getting out, no matter what?” Lewis looked around the room to see nods of agreement. “All right, then, let’s talk about the way to take the suspects down without too much publicity. Luke? Any ideas?”
“I’d say the best way is to take out the translators as they get to work. Intercept them on their way into the building, and you’ll have some time to interrogate them before anyone but their co-workers know they’re missing. After you round them up, we’ll spread the word quietly that they were detained, so as to avoid a panic.” Luke was perched on an uncomfortable chair, his elbows supporting his upper body by leaning on his knees, with his hands claspe
d between them. It was his favorite thinking pose.
“Karsten Adler and Alica Cindric are special cases. I suggest we arrest them with as much drama as we can, just for their eyes, and immediately separate them for interrogation. My guess is that one will roll over on the other pretty quickly.”
Luke was convinced that Karsten was merely the tool, but he wanted to know how Alica had gotten her hooks into him. Before the videos, that is. How had she been able to seduce a man with a spotless record? Although, the videos did provide a clue to that. What man could resist that kind of action? Luke shuddered. He loved his wife, but what would he have done in Karsten’s shoes?
“What about Reza Mokri?” asked Lewis, bringing Luke back to the discussion at hand.
“We don’t have anything on him,” Luke said. “But, I can’t imagine that it wasn’t a coordinated effort. The majority of the implicated translators are Iranian. Cindric’s Croatian, but we’ve discovered her deceased husband worked in Iran before his death. We don’t have an opinion on the other Middle Eastern Board members. My gut says they’re not in the know, but that doesn’t mean they can be trusted.”
“Okay, we’ll pick ‘em all up. All at once is best. As soon as any of them get wind of what’s going down, the rest of them are likely to scatter. We’re talking about what, a dozen translators, the woman, the program manager and the three Board members?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“How many men do you have who can help us spot the ones we want?”
“Not that many. Just the front door security guard and me. I guess Sinclair O’Reilly can help with the translators, and of course the Rosslers know the rest by sight,” Luke answered, ticking off names on his fingers. “JR can help you with Adler and Cindric. Oh, and Raj knows the translators. He was the one who caught them taking photos of their screens. So, my guard, Sinclair and Raj in the translation department, and I’ll ask Daniel to call the Board members in for a special meeting.”