His thoughts strayed to Professor Steiner. So far the ex-Director General had evaded the efforts of the Committee to locate him. Well, as far as Joiner knew, he had. He’d put his feelers out and found that the Pacific fleet had been tasked with his retrieval. Or should that be assassination? As soon as they find him he’ll be gunned down on sight, or interrogated and then killed when all information has been extracted on the hacker’s whereabouts.
B.I.C. – the man was relentless in his pursuit of the truth. It was something Joiner could relate to, but that’s as far as his empathy extended. B.I.C.’s activities had been the cause of great consternation in the intelligence community for as long as he could remember. The man was a censor’s worst nightmare, which meant he was Joiner’s worst nightmare. The Committee is right; the two of them together pose the greatest of threats to their plans. But would Steiner really jeopardise his life’s work, the entire human race, to gain some sense of justice or recompense for past grievances? Joiner put himself in his position. No, there is no way the professor would aid the hacker, he decided, no way in hell.
Joiner’s mind returned to the Committee. How will they react? I’m one of their most important assets, they can’t operate without me, at least not to the extent they require. Or have I, like Steiner, reached the end of my usefulness? Has my sell by date expired? If it has, I need to adapt to the changing landscape of power and that means one of three things: redefining my use to the Committee, ascending to the Committee, or perhaps the most difficult of all, destroying the Committee. How does one go about killing a hidden, multi-headed beast that operates in all corners of the globe?
A knock on the door interrupted his musings. Perhaps I’m just about to find out, he thought, his anticipation rising.
‘Yes?’ he said.
The familiar figure of Agent Myers entered the SED’s command suite. The clean-cut CIA operative looked drawn, almost haggard, as though he’d aged ten years since their last encounter.
‘How was the surface?’ Joiner said.
‘Cold and dark.’
‘You’re up to speed on events?’
‘Debden debriefed me.’
‘Good. I take it you have news?’
Myers looked around the room with anxious eyes. ‘Is this office secure?’
Joiner nodded. ‘I had a team do a full work up. Nothing said goes beyond these walls.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Myers said, ‘I’ve found out many things … a great many disturbing things.’
♦
Joiner pressed a button on the desk and the walls and windows to the SED office turned opaque. He leant forward and interlaced his fingers. Myers was not one to make overblown statements and Joiner all but twitched in lust for the knowledge that was about to be disclosed.
He eyed his agent over the tops of his glasses, savouring the expectation like a fine wine. More moments passed before he succumbed to his craving. ‘Proceed,’ he said with a flick of a finger.
Myers remained standing and dropped a thick file on the table with a thump. Flopping it open, he slid out some grainy photographs.
‘These were taken from a Japanese spy satellite prior to the destruction of all four space stations. They show two Sabre transportation ships leaving for Earth moments before the explosion. Both craft are GMRC.’
‘Then it’s as we thought,’ Joiner said.
Myers didn’t reply, instead he placed a data device on the desk’s induction panel and video footage appeared on the wallscreen. ‘This stream was recorded by another satellite operated by the Russian military.’
Joiner watched the four space stations slowly rotating through the vacuum of space before a cluster of explosions lit up the ISS. His eyes widened as a chain reaction ripped apart the massive crafts in a choreography of perfect destruction.
After the carnage had ended, Myers paused the image. ‘Since this catastrophe happened you’ll know that the chaos within the GMRC’s Space Programme, NASA and the other civilian space agencies is through the roof. Questions, accusations and conspiracy theories are spreading like wildfire. Multiple investigations have been launched, morale is rock bottom, and international tensions are strained to breaking point.’
Joiner knew very well about the fallout from the disaster. The Directorate had called an emergency meeting, which he’d attended by video link. What he wanted to know were the real whys and wherefores, not the well-rehearsed cover up interwoven with truth and mayhem.
Myers gestured at the screen. ‘When I saw this feed, I made it my priority to find out who was on those two GMRC ships. Who knew what was to come? I managed to acquire the records from an internal contractor who logs the manifests for GMRC secure operations.
‘A number of names gave me cause for concern.’ Myers moved to the display and accessed a file with a tap of a finger, and a cluster of staff profiles appeared. ‘These high ranking officials all have positions within the GMRC’s Space Programme. On further investigation each and every one of these people has worked in close partnership with one man – a select member of the GMRC Directorate and your close associate.’
‘Dagmar Sørensen,’ Joiner said.
Myers nodded and touched the screen to bring up the profile of the GMRC’s sallow-faced Research and Development Director. He then discarded all the other profiles except one, which he expanded to twice the size. ‘Ms Sylvia Lindegaard,’ Myers said, ‘was the lead GMRC delegate assigned to the United States Space Station, USSS Archimedes. As far as I can tell, she was responsible for all GMRC integration on Archimedes and liaised extensively with NASA, the U.S. military and the GMRC’s R&D Division.’
‘Do we have access to those communications?’ Joiner said.
Myers shook his head. ‘I was unable to breach their server security. Like us, they hold all records on stand-alone systems. Maybe if I was utilising our division’s resources we could mount an operation to gain access without being detected, but even so it would take a lot of time and manpower and there would be no way to hide that kind of activity from prying eyes.’
Disappointed, Joiner gestured for him to continue.
‘Going on from this,’ Myers said, ‘I also have first-hand accounts that a month prior to the incident large quantities of explosive were sourced by a department within the R&D Division, a department that works exclusively with the Space Programme. The purpose for the acquisition was unknown, but extrapolating data from the footage you’ve just seen, the explosive force matches the quantities sourced.’
‘Confirming the sabotage came from within the GMRC itself,’ Joiner said.
Myers expression remained grim.
Joiner pondered the implications before something Myers had said filtered down through his thoughts. ‘First hand accounts?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Myers said, ‘I covered my tracks well; none of the GMRC intelligence community picked up on my work, including deep cover operatives and covert artificial intelligence. I ran a full diagnostic of our database to confirm – we’re in the clear. If there’s a leak, they’ll have no idea what we’re investigating.’
While he was pleased Myers had evaded the vast GMRC surveillance machine that Joiner himself directed, it was disturbing he was able to do so with such efficiency, and Myers must have picked up on his disquiet.
‘You wanted off the books, no traces.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Joiner waved a dismissive hand. Myers knew what he was doing; it made a change for things to go right for once. Joiner couldn’t afford the Committee further ammunition, especially considering his imminent evaluation.
‘Due to Sørensen’s name cropping up,’ Myers continued, ‘I used this information to deepen my parallel investigation into Project Ares.’
Joiner sat up straighter. He’d still to reveal to anyone what he’d uncovered on the Committee’s censored videos of Sarah Morgan. As far as he knew, only S.I.L.V.E.R., the Committee themselves and those working inside Sanctuary’s secret R&D laboratories knew that the pendant activated An
akim technology, and Joiner wanted to keep it that way – the fewer people who knew the better. And if that included Myers, so be it. Some things were best left unsaid.
The CIA operative accessed another folder on-screen and a familiar logo appeared.
‘As we know,’ Myers said, ‘Ares was officially designated as an R&D Division black project. Subsequent briefings indicated it was primarily a navigational system with real world applications for underground transport and military operations, although various other uses had been mooted. My initial attempts in finding out the real purpose of Ares met with strong resistance and all outside agencies failed to provide me with the lead I desired; all, that is, except one. During my time in Europe I was able to activate an old source who works within the German Federal Intelligence Service, the BND. It seems they’d stumbled on a series of backdoor protocols inside the Internet’s darker recesses which led to a complex web of computer programs created by an unlicensed artificial intelligence.’
Joiner frowned. If years of intelligence gathering had taught him anything, it was that accepting happenstance at face value was one of the biggest mistakes you could make. ‘Stumbled on?’ he said, his tone querulous.
Myers held up a hand. ‘My thoughts exactly, and when I found out where these programs took me – which I’ll get to shortly – I went back and looked into how they’d found them in the first place. It seems the coding structure that had alerted the computer technician to them matched a system he’d been working on some weeks before. As he works on all manner of projects without knowing their true purpose he was unaware of the significance of his find. In fact, at the time he never made a direct connection, he just knew he’d seen something familiar and thought it worth further investigation. When I got the BND agent to follow the chain of data back to its origin it turned out that the technician had been tasked with analysing an incident with which we are familiar. An infiltration into EUSB Deutschland using a digital signature you yourself have been chasing on a large scale op during my absence.’
Joiner’s eyes narrowed. ‘B.I.C.’
‘Yes, the hacker Bic, or Da Muss Ich as he is known in parts of Europe, was the operator of the A.I. that had weaved this web of programs. A web that, on inspection, led to a host of files that the Germans couldn’t make head nor tail of. They did manage, however, to decrypt certain portions of them, the odd word or phrase here and there, parts of a diagram, sections of schematics. All worthless as far as they were concerned, except that one of the phrases they deciphered was—’
‘Project Ares,’ Joiner said, shocked. ‘Why haven’t the Germans reported it to the GMRC? Why isn’t it in our system?’
‘They didn’t know what they had.’
‘But they do now.’
Myers shook his head. ‘My source won’t be telling anyone about anything. I’ve left no loose ends’
‘Good,’ Joiner said in distraction, ‘very good.’ He pondered the news he’d just been told. ‘How the hell has the hacker found out about Ares?’
‘This is where things get strange. I’m not sure he’s found anything out about it at all. In fact, I’m sure he hasn’t; only that it’s something he’s interested in.’
Joiner arched a brow.
‘Quite,’ Myers said. ‘That he knows about it at all is worrying, but it appears the hacker is interested in quite a lot more than just Ares. After gaining entry to these files I managed to procure anonymous access to a GMRC mainframe in order to process what the Germans couldn’t.’ Myers turned back to the screen and opened another file. ‘It turns out the hacker has created a vast network of computers using our own software against us.’
‘Forget the technicalities,’ Joiner said, growing agitated, ‘get to the point.’
‘Do you remember when the hacker broke into our servers some years back?’
‘How could I not?’
‘It seems he’d penetrated far deeper than we thought. So deep, in fact, when it came to cleaning house to prevent another such incident from occurring we failed to ensure we’d eradicated the infestation.’
Joiner stared at Myers in disbelief. ‘You’re telling me the hacker still has access to our servers?’
‘It appears so. To what extent it’s hard to tell without overhauling the entire system.’
Joiner closed his eyes as he tried to calm himself. If the Committee finds out about this I might as well tie a noose around my neck now. He leant back in his chair and fixed Myers with a penetrating gaze. ‘What has he found? What does he know?’
‘It’s difficult to say—’
Joiner banged the table. ‘Then guess!’
The CIA agent gave a startled blink at his director’s ferocity. ‘So far his activities seem limited to random communications and non-critical services,’ Myers said, ‘nothing that could really be used to expose the GMRC’s Subterranean Programme, or any other of its classified divisions.’
‘So he’s found nothing?’ Joiner said, his voice scathing.
‘No, not nothing – in fact he’s found something that helped me in my search for answers.’ Myers gave the screen a double tap and a massive organisational chart appeared. ‘This,’ he said, gesturing at the graphic, ‘is a representation of peer-to-peer networks of every mid-level to senior employee in the GMRC.’
Joiner glared at the mass of meaningless interconnecting lines.
‘It might not look much,’ Myer said, ‘but,’ – he touched the screen again to turn large portions of the lines into various colours, and then once more to isolate red, green and blue networks – ‘these three colours represent a series of hidden coded messages and money transfers within the GMRC. From what I’ve been able to work out so far, it appears the hacker has located three distinct organisations operating within the GMRC without its knowledge.’
‘Sovereign spies, corporate espionage,’ Joiner said, unimpressed, ‘this isn’t news.’
Myers shook his head. ‘No, it’s more than that. The sheer scale of it is unprecedented. Whoever these groups are, they have their own agendas we know nothing about.’
Joiner had a good idea who they were and one had to be the Committee, perhaps not directly, but those that worked for them, those that would do anything for money and the lure of power.
‘Using these networks and official GMRC databanks,’ Myers continued, ‘I was able to confirm Sylvia Lindegaard as a prominent player in at least one of these secret organisations. I was also able to track her movements in great detail. It seems Ms. Lindegaard has been far busier than just obliterating the space stations and intercept missions. Over the years she has been directly or indirectly connected with at least a quarter of all the major failures in the GMRC’s Space Programme. Coincidence? I think not. With more time I believe I could connect her with many more.’
Joiner folded his arms. ‘You’re saying this Lindegaard could be responsible for sabotaging every mission designed to save the surface of this planet? One person?’
‘Maybe not all, and no, not just her, but whoever she works for. Whoever she gets her orders from. They want to the see the surface burn; they want the world as we know it to end. While we’ve been busy fighting this hacker and everyone else, we missed the enemy within. We’ve been deceived from the start,’ Myers said in despair, ‘and now it’s too late.’
Chapter Twenty
So, the truth is out, Joiner thought, staring at the photos on his desk. Someone, probably the Committee, has arranged the mass extinction of every living thing on the surface of the planet, along with the destruction of humanity’s greatest civilisations, or at the very least they’ve helped it on its way with a hefty shove. The notion was sickening, but it didn’t change his current predicament, nor would it change the fate of those left to die on the surface. He’d always accepted the billions of deaths as necessary – and perhaps unavoidable – collateral damage. What was done was done, he needed to move on and that meant securing his position with the Committee. He needed something for leverage. What he nee
ded was more information.
‘Shall I continue?’ Agent Myers said, breaking the silence.
Joiner removed his glasses to polish the lenses. When he’d gathered his thoughts he gestured for his subordinate to proceed.
‘Due to the secrecy surrounding the R&D Division,’ Myers said, ‘I realised if we ever wanted to find anything out quickly, I had to use a more direct method of data acquisition. After I’d got to grips with the hacker’s activities I was able to use the networks he’d found to narrow my search for those people who actually worked on Project Ares. And what I came up with,’ – Myers turned back to the wallscreen and opened up a large window – ‘was this.’
A black and white picture appeared on the display. A chair had been placed in front of the infra-red camera and the muffled sound of a voice grew steadily louder.
Still off camera, someone gasped for air as if something had been removed from their mouth. ‘What is the meaning of this!’ said a man with a Russian accent. ‘Do you know who I am?! I’m a senior scientist with the GMRC. You have no idea who you’re dealing with!’
Two large men in masks dragged a struggling figure before the camera and strapped him to the chair.
The man’s wide eyes searched the dark as he sought his captors. ‘What do you want with me!’ he said as the men left. ‘People will be looking for me; you won’t like it when they find you!’
A bright lamp blazed to life and the camera switched to a normal image. The man, now surrounded by shadow, blinked at the blinding light that was focused on his face. When he regained his senses he squinted into the dark behind the light, seeking, and failing, to locate whoever held him prisoner.
‘Who are you?’ he said, his voice shaking with poorly disguised fear. He turned his head as if hearing something to his right. ‘What do you want from me?’
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 11