Erebus

by R K MacPherson

  Castillo scoffed. “Being a Muslim isn’t illegal.”

  “I’m not implying otherwise, but someone who uses the ayatollah’s name as an alias is probably a devout Muslim. This would back that up.” Boscardin sounded defensive. His emotions clouded his interpretation of data.

  “No pictures, I take it?”

  “This place is wired for everything, but it all points outside. I’ve got Quentin going over footage of vehicles coming and going. Maybe we can ID the people who work here.” Boscardin took a deep breath, then said, “I think we stumbled upon a terror cell.”

  Not even close. Castillo trusted her instincts. Things fell into place about the Bandari family and why they’d proven so difficult to deal with.

  “Clear out,” She ordered. “Leave it pristine. Maintain surveillance and wait for further instructions. If Riordan returns, do not engage. Hold for now.”

  “But, we can easily take him out!” Boscardin protested. “We wait in here and shoot anyone who comes through the doors.”

  “Think about it for half a second! You’ve stumbled onto a safe house. Resume surveillance and wait for further instructions. Contact me if someone returns.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Boscardin bit out and hung up.

  Castillo appreciated the eagerness to avenge his colleagues, but that wasn’t the mission. Her remaining agents wouldn’t be enough to contain the situation if foreign services were involved.

  She rolled off the couch and stretched, then stripped off her shirt. She reached into her bag and pulled out a fresh blouse and unrolled it. Her phone rang, and she smiled as she lifted it to her face.

  “Good morning, Mama!” Carmen greeted her with a beautiful smile.

  “Hola, mija!” Just hearing her daughter’s voice lifted her spirit.

  “Where are you?”

  Castillo glanced around. “I’m in Los Angeles.”

  “Is it nice? Are you having fun?”

  “I’m afraid not. This hasn’t been a very good trip.” Castillo walked over to the metal locker and retrieved a Kevlar vest, then slipped it over her head.

  “When will you join us?”

  Castillo tucked the shirt in, pulling it tight against her vest. “I’m not sure. I think I’ll be done in a day or two. What’s it like where you are?”

  “It’s okay. Kinda boring. Antonio loves it because there are cool planes all over. Some of them land close to us, but we can’t see them. The guards won’t let us leave the camp.” Carmen let out a heavy breath. “There are a couple of kids here, but they’re really young. Too young for me.”

  At ten years old, Carmen had perfected the weary sigh.

  “Watch out for your brother. Where’s your dad?”

  Carmen sneezed. “He’s shaving.”

  “Tell him to shave his mustache. I don’t want to kiss his whiskers.”

  Mother and daughter giggled.

  “Mija, I’ve got to go, okay. Work, you know.”

  “Are you going to catch bad guys?”

  Castillo smiled. “I certainly hope so,” she said as she clipped the holster to her belt, then slid her sidearm into it and snapped it tight. “Wish me luck, baby.”

  Ninety minutes later, Castillo and her last agent, Tommy Onizuka, joined Boscardin and Quentin. Riordan hadn’t returned yet and her personnel hadn’t spotted anyone else going in and out. Records didn’t reveal anything unusual about the import warehouse. Aside from the phone call from Vandeleur’s phone, there was no reason at all that to think anything was amiss.

  “Screw it, let’s go in.” Castillo gave the order.

  From the back, Boscardin and Quentin infiltrated while she waited with Onizuka at the front.

  “Think we’ll find anything?” Onizuka asked as he swayed from heel to heel.

  Castillo’s eyebrows shrugged.

  “I hope we find something.” Onizuka glanced around the alley. “There’s another camera on the next building, but it’s watching us.”

  “There’s two,” Castillo corrected him. “Second one’s on the power pole at the corner. Has a better view of the south wall.”

  A clunk came from the door, then Quentin opened it and admitted them.

  “Boscardin’s checking upstairs,” he said.

  “Tommy, check any offices. Look for other addresses. See if we can find where Riordan might be hiding,” Castillo said. “Quentin, inventory what’s here. I don’t need amounts, but I want to know what this place stores. They’ve got it rigged to blow, so be careful.”

  The two agents hurried off, so Castillo looked for the camera feeds. A small room off the main office housed the security station, with eight monitors showing live feeds and a larger monitor showing the street in front of the warehouse.

  “Nice set up, Bandari,” Castillo admitted. The equipment was state of the art, at least as far as the civilian sector went. Still, it wasn’t far behind her own gear. Fasil Bandari knew a thing or two about proper security.

  As Boscardin had reported, nothing recorded movement inside the warehouse, but the entire exterior was under constant surveillance. Castillo went back in time, to the two-hour window when Mosley and the others were murdered.

  A white Ford Transit van pulled in early that morning. The poor image quality meant Castillo couldn’t make out either of the passengers’ faces, but she could read the plate number. She scribbled it down, then scanned through the footage at high speed. The dark streets outside gave way to bright alleys and roads as the sun rose. The van appeared again, at 10:04 a.m., driving out of the warehouse and turning left. She noticed that it sported a different license plate this time and wrote down the new number.

  “Quentin,” she bellowed. “Get in here!”

  A minute later, Quentin’s footfalls echoed across the warehouse as he jogged into the office. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Open DELPHI. Feed these two license plates in and search for a late-model Ford Transit van, white.”

  Her junior officer nodded and got to work while Castillo watched the van leave on the other feeds, hoping to catch a glimpse of the occupants. She saw the driver in profile, his face obscured in most views by a ballcap. Still, her gut said she was on the right track and she stood up, smirking.

  “Gotcha, Riordan.”

  Sixteen

  DASH SLUNG A new messenger bag over his shoulders walked through the front door of the Olympus Initiative. Dressed in biker spandex, hoodie, sunglasses, and a cap, he looked like an ordinary courier. Ahead of him, wearing a very fashionable suit, Yifei pestered the receptionist to let her speak to Rockwell, the PR mouthpiece.

  “Jam Zebra messenger.” Dash held up a department store rewards card. “Got an urgent delivery for Dr. Irving.”

  “One moment, please,” the receptionist held up a hand and turned back to Yifei.

  Dash rolled his eyes, grateful no one could see past the purple mirrored lenses.

  “Look, I’m doing a follow-up for LA Eye magazine and need to speak with Mr. Rockwell. I promise you, he wants to talk to me,” Yifei said, imperious even at five feet tall. “Please get him down here.”

  The receptionist’s phone rang, and he tapped his headset. “Front desk,” he said. A moment later, his eyes turned to Dash and he nodded. “Of course. I’ll send them up.”

  “Was that for me?” Dash asked.

  “Take the elevator up. Dr. Irving will meet you on the third floor.”

  Dash gave him a two-fingered salute. “Thanks.”

  He fast-walked to the elevator and slipped in just before the doors closed. He pressed the third floor, then reached into the kangaroo pocket and retrieved a Bluetooth headset. He dialed the first contact in his cellular phone, then slipped the phone into pocket on his thigh.

  “You’re in.” Fasil wasn’t asking.

  “Yup. Where are you?”

  “Sweating to death in a supply closet. I’ve placed cameras on each of the floors near the elevators and the stairs. Almost no activity on the third floor.”

 
Dash frowned. “No one’s home?”

  “Oh, people are home, but haven’t left their offices.”

  “I remember the NASA-JPL office is in the southeast corner. Can you see it?”

  Fasil grunted. “That would be the door with the armed guard.”

  “Seriously?”

  The elevator doors opened with a chime. Dash stepped out and checked the corridor.

  “You’re clear for now. Just don’t go around the left corner.”

  Dash checked the wall directory and found Irving’s office number. His eyes scanned for trouble as he hurried down the hallway, but no one stopped him. He knocked on the door twice, then opened it to reveal the unoccupied office.

  “Got it.” Dash shut the door. “Can you see me?”

  “I can see the door. No one else present.”

  Dash checked the computer, but Irving had secured it. He pulled a flash drive from his bag, then plugged it into the system and rebooted it. “How long does this thing take?”

  “Two minutes start to finish,” Fasil grunted.

  Hacking into specific computers on distant networks wasn’t as easy as Hollywood made it look. Each networked device had a unique ID, but most internal networks use the same IP address scheme, which is always different from the address accessible via the internet. Social engineering, extracting information out of people, can help make the task easier, but most people aren’t up to the task of cracking through network security and finding a specific device and breaking through its protections.

  If you have physical access to the device itself, however, it’s a trivial task to bypass computer security.

  Dash let the cracker do its work and went through Irving’s desk. He didn’t have a lot of paperwork in the drawers or filing cabinets. An employee handbook, a legal pad, and a hanging folder labeled REIMBURSEMENTS were all he found in the cabinet. Curious, Dash peered through the folder, but it looked like a bunch of travel receipts.

  “Orlando, Houston, and Honolulu,” Dash murmured. “Twelve trips in the last eight months.”

  “That’s a lot of travel.”

  Dash nodded. “Orlando and Houston could be NASA visits, but he went to Hawaii six times recently.”

  “Maybe he’s a surfer.”

  The computer dinged as it restarted. Dash hurried around and jerked the drive out. “Okay, it’s done. What password do I enter?”

  “Anything, nothing—whatever you wish. It’s blanked so it won’t alarm the user,” Fasil replied.

  “Okay.”

  Dash opened Irving’s documents folder. Most of the files had innocuous names. Irving’s computer stored the usual mix of spreadsheets, documents, and presentations. One subdirectory caught his eye—EREBUS.

  “Does this mean anything to you? Erebus?” He asked.

  “Wait one.”

  The EREBUS directory held quite a few presentation files, as well as numerous spreadsheets. Dash scanned the titles for anything interesting.

  “Greek god of darkness, a moth, an old ship, but nothing current,” Fasil said. “Why?”

  “Sounded unusual. Irving’s got quite a few—holy shit! Orion!” Dash’s jaw dropped, and he double-clicked on the presentation.

  “What is it?”

  “Project ORION is some sort of old NASA plan to send ships into space using nuclear explosions.”

  Fasil snorted. “Ridiculous.”

  “Due to the threat posed by 1111 AR99 Erebus...” Dash pulled out his phone and snapped pictures of the screen. “This presentation is talking about Enterprise, the ship Rasul worked on. They retrofitted it with an Orion engine.”

  Lamenting the loss of his IRIS glasses, Dash snapped pictures as fast as he could, advancing through the slideshow.

  Dash narrated for his father. “Work started about a year ago...they also did the same thing to the USS Kennedy...some diagrams of the refit work. Other ships, too.”

  “Does any of explain why they’re after you?”

  “No. I want to know what 1111 AR99 Erebus is. That’s the threat these ships are supposed to deal with.”

  Dash reached the end of the presentation and searched for new files, using Orion, Erebus, and 1111 AR99 Erebus as his guide.

  “Someone’s coming,” Fasil murmured. “Male. Not security.”

  His heart seized for a moment. Dash’s eyes flickered around the room. He couldn’t hide under the table and the room had only one exit.

  “Okay, he’s passed by.”

  Dash let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He stuck a different memory stick into the computer and copied the entire EREBUS directory to it.

  “I want to check out the NASA room,” Dash whispered.

  The faint tap of keys over the earpiece.

  “The armed guard is still there. What’s your plan?”

  “It’s in the corner, right? Any chance I can get close without him spotting me.”

  Fasil grumbled something, then said, “None at all. He’s got eyes on both corridors.”

  “If he’s guarding the room, I bet it’s empty.”

  The computer finished copying files to the memory stick. Dash jerked it out and logged off the system.

  “So, you distract him, and I’ll slip in while he’s dealing with you.”

  Fasil hesitated. “No one will have your back once he grabs me. What’s your exit strategy?”

  Dash’s stomach fluttered. “One thing at a time, okay?”

  A long silence.

  “Breaking contact. Find what you need, inshallah.”

  The call ended, and Dash stowed his earpiece, then hurried to the door, pressing his ear against it. Outside, he heard distant voices alternating, then one grew stronger, then strident.

  “Sir! You’re not allowed in this area. Sir! SIR!”

  Dash slipped into the hall and crept around the corner. Not seeing the guard, he hurried down the corridor towards the growing argument. Fasil yelled at the guard in Farsi, the guard barked out orders in English.

  “Don’t get killed, old man,” he murmured as he opened the door to the NASA-JPL office and stepped inside.

  It wasn’t a liaison office.

  Dash gasped as he saw an entire wall of monitors, each showing a different scene. Some displayed flight paths, much like an airliner would. He recognized Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral on one screen. Several others showed sights around the world. Baikonur, Vandenberg Air Force Base, the SpaceX spaceport—

  “Launch facilities.”

  The story about global rocket launches dominated the news and internet, but no concrete details or coherent story had emerged. Speculation ran wild, but no government agencies, foreign or domestic, said anything other than “No comment.”

  “What’s going on here?” Dash asked the empty room, whose layout differed from the building diagrams. In the hall, three more doors lined the corridor, but there weren’t any other exits from the room. Even the windows were gone.

  Dash didn’t waste time. Glancing at the desks, he looked for name plates or some indication of authority. Finding none, he picked the center one, popped the cracker memory stick into the computer and rebooted it. While it worked, he grabbed his phone and took pictures of everything on the walls and whiteboards.

  All the filing cabinets were unlocked. Dash peeked over their contents, looking at folder names for anything interesting or obvious, but nothing stood out on most of them.

  Most.

  “Operation LONGHAUL,” Dash whispered. “Sounds military.”

  He flipped open the folder and set it on the desk. Inside were dozens of sheets of paper and several smaller Manila folders. “Manifests, Olympus Initiative, Logistics. What’s all this?”

  The door clicked as it opened. Dash dropped behind the desk, cursing his luck.

  “In here?” A man’s voice spoke.

  Dash didn’t make out the reply, but assumed it was security. He pulled the hood up, then opened his phone’s camera and eased it over the edge of the desk.

 
Two security guards stood, both looking bored, as someone in the hall talked in low tones. Neither faced his direction, so Dash pulled the LONGHAUL folder off the desktop and slipped it into his bag. If he had to run, he wanted to keep the data.

  “Yes, sir. Got it.” The shorter guard nodded. The taller guard belatedly joined in.

  The door shut with a click and the two guards let out sighs.

  “Are you serious? They don’t need us in here. The eggheads are gone already.”

  “Shit, I know that. Rockwell’s probably just looking out for his ass.” The short guard shrugged. “Hey, think any of these get the game? I think the Dodgers are going to cream the Mariners.”

  “Right. After the pounding the Tigers gave them? Nine runs? I’m not holding my breath.” The two guards moved to the desks, looking around.

  Dash’s muscles tensed as he prepared to bolt. Surprise was his only asset. He didn’t have a weapon, not even pepper spray. The two guards looked like civilians, not former military or police, but he couldn’t afford to underestimate them.

  Strike fast, strike hard, and proceed to your objective.

  Fasil’s words echoed in Dash’s mind.

  The two men stepped in front of him. Both stood still for a long moment, staring in bewilderment.

  Dash struck. Leaping into the air, he snap-kicked the taller guard in the chin. The jaw snapped shut with a crack and the security officer dropped to the ground. The second guard reached for his radio and his baton at the same time, but Dash’s palm crashed into his nose with a crunch. Dash followed with a flurry of strikes, none knockout blows, but they overwhelmed his opponent’s response instincts and left him vulnerable. His feet under him again, Dash stepped in with a palm strike to the solar plexus, then pivoted to drive his other hand under the guard’s jaw. Dazed, the guard flicked his baton open just as Dash’s foot buried itself in his groin.

  A strangled yelp escaped from the sentry’s mouth as he dropped his weapon and collapsed on the floor. Dash snatched their radios and slid them out of reach, then handcuffed the two men together.