Counterplay

by Richard Aaron

  “That’s the long version. It’s obvious that ‘they’ are everybody.” Zak turned around and looked at Kumar, scrunched up in the Mercedes’ back seat, his knees close to his chin, with his arms circling his ankles. “You’re a rock star, Kumar. Everybody wants you.”

  Kumar didn’t bother looking up and maintained his silence.

  The tranquility did not last. There was a blinding flash of light, followed by a thunderous explosion a few hundred feet ahead of them.

  “What the—”

  “Rich, that was a Hellfire missile. I recognize the sound. Has to be the Americans.”

  “How did they find us so fast?”

  “We’re fucking idiots,” Zak exclaimed. “This is a brand-new car. It’s got GPS and a lot of other gizmos. They must have known we took the Mercedes. Simple matter to track it. We’ve got to bail.”

  There was another explosion several hundred feet behind them. “Zak, if those are Hellfires and they are locking onto the Mercedes GPS, how the hell are they missing? When they lock onto a target like that, they are accurate to within feet.”

  “Richard, stop the car and get out. The next one will—”

  A third Hellfire missile landed some ten car-lengths away. The rear wheels of the Mercedes were lifted ten feet off the ground and the rear window was shattered by the impact. Fortunately they were in a Mercedes, which was solidly built. Airbags deployed all around the passenger compartment, and the three, while rattled, remained uninjured.

  “Bail, Richard. Get out!” yelled Zak the instant the Mercedes’s rear wheels touched the pavement. “The next one will get us.” Both front doors and the passenger side rear door of the Mercedes flew open, and three bodies rolled out. “Into the ditch, guys,” yelled Zak. “Get down!”

  A fourth Hellfire missile struck the Mercedes dead center, and the vehicle exploded in a mass of flame and shrapnel. The blast wave rolled over them, but the three, tightly pressed into a muddy ditch that ran parallel to the freeway, were uninjured.

  Traffic in both directions of the freeway had come to a halt, and numerous people were running toward the flaming wreck to see if any assistance could be rendered.

  “Over there,” said Richard, pointing. “There’s a Toyota Camry, sitting on the pavement, engine idling. The owner’s got to be one of the people standing around the wreck. Let’s make a break for it, and steal it. We can trade with other vehicles later on but at least we will get out of here. The cops will be here any minute and we don’t want to be anywhere near here.”

  “Good idea, Rich. Let’s go. Kumar, you too. You’re with us.”

  The three of them walked along the edge of the onlookers standing around the burning Mercedes, jumped into the Toyota Camry, drove it along the shoulder past the stationary vehicles, and rapidly accelerated to sixty miles an hour when the traffic cleared. They drove for fifteen minutes until they reached a small commercial area adjacent to the N55 motorway. “There,” Zak said, pointing to an old flatbed truck. “Stone Age—probably doesn’t even have a speedometer. Easy to hot-wire.” They parked the Toyota, and Richard and Zak had the ancient Fiat truck hot-wired within seconds.

  The three were on their way, heading generally south toward Karachi, having reached a maximum speed of forty-five. The engine was belching blue diesel smoke and poorly bolted parts holding the various components of the ancient truck together rattled nonstop.

  “Something’s not right back there,” Richard said.

  “Damn right, genius. When your own country is shooting missiles at you, yeah, something is definitely not right.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Zak. Those were Hellfires. Probably shot by a drone. Those missiles do not miss. You can fire a Hellfire through the eye of a needle these days. They are accurate to a millimeter. Yet two of them missed us by several hundred feet. The third by a few car lengths. That just doesn’t happen. That’s twice we should have been dead. There’s another dimension to this.”

  Before Zak could respond, they heard the distant but approaching sound of multiple sirens.

  14

  The calm of the TTIC control room shattered into cacophonous shards as the two side doors were kicked open and Daniel Alexander III strode into the room supported by eight large, heavily armed Marines.

  “What the . . .” began George Lexia, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

  “Liam Rhodes, you are under arrest—” Dan Alexander began.

  “Have you lost your mind?” said George. “Arresting Liam? He’s the deputy director here.”

  “George,” Dan ordered, “zip it if you two know what’s good for you.”

  “Like hell will I zip it,” George responded. “What could Liam possibly have done? He is totally straight.”

  “I said zip it,” Dan said. “But if you want to know, sure, treason. Logan Act violations. Obstruction of justice. Falsifying documents. Running a rogue military operation specifically not authorized by the White House. You want more?”

  “You have lost your mind, Dan?” George responded. “You need to change antidepressants, get some therapy. Not good for the director of TTIC to become delusional.”

  Liam stood up. “George, I’m going with them. My lawyers will be on this. Don’t get into this or he will drag you away, too.”

  “See, George,” Dan said triumphantly. “That’s why he’s the deputy director, and you’re a nobody. Cuff him up, boys,” he added, nodding to the sergeant.

  “Do you have to make such a production of it, Dan?” George said. “Handcuffs? Like Liam’s going to take out eight Marines with his bare hands?”

  “Just following standard procedure,” Dan replied smugly as one of the Marines cuffed Liam’s hands together.

  “This is going to be a career-ender for you, Dan,” George said. “I’ve never seen anything so moronic in my life.”

  “Sure. Fine. You want to come with us, too? We’ve got an extra set of bracelets.”

  George did not respond. As Liam was being marched out of the control room, Dan paused and looked at Turbee. “You know, you little weirdo, we have some problems with you, too.” Turbee said nothing, but turned a lighter shade of pale, stood up, and faced Dan, stretching out his arms in front of him, palms together, assuming that he, too, was going to be dragged away. The agony of his previous incarceration was still with him, and any attempt at flight would result in a few more broken ribs.

  “That’s the spirit, Turbee,” Dan said with a malevolent grin. “Not just yet. But we do have a problem with you. You and George. You keep messing with those conspiracy websites and you will be joining Liam.”

  “I can’t wait to hear what you’re going to cook up next, Alexander,” George replied. “But screw you.”

  “George, you need to read the Calvin Jones report. The inquiry into the Colorado River attack. The administration spent more than a hundred million dollars to put all of that together, and they came up with a very clear finding as to who the culprits were. And it’s not Yousseff Said al-Sabhan or Kumar Hanaman. It’s Leon Lestage and a bunch of drug dealer terrorists from Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

  “Yes, Dan,” said George. “I’ve read that piece of crap. How come none of us testified? We all know what really happened.”

  “A lot of conspiracy websites have been popping up,” Dan said, ignoring George’s comment, “and they have your fingerprints on them. You know, the crazy, off-the-wall nutjob stuff. The alternate facts stuff. Now we all believe in the First Amendment, but not when it’s our own people who are spreading garbage out everywhere. That’s a bad thing. And if we can prove it’s you two, you’re going into the slammer.”

  “So? What’s your point?” George’s jaw was out and his neck muscles were flexing. He had a fearsome temper and what was euphemistically referred to as a self-control issue. He had been in many boardroom fights in Silicon Valley—not the paper kind, with lawyers and venture capitalists, but the back-alley kind, with bare knuckles.

  “You and the little weirdo,”
Dan said, tilting his head in Turbee’s direction, “you two have put up a lot of those sites, haven’t you?” “You can never prove—” began George.

  “Leave that damn conspiracy crap alone,” Dan thundered. “There has been a full inquiry into what happened on the Colorado River, and the conclusions have been widely circulated. Do not use our systems to put out some views that you may happen to have. You had better put a lid on things, or you will end up in Leavenworth or the Supermax.”

  “You wouldn’t dare. You couldn’t.”

  “George, when it comes to how the world works, you are positively a buffoon.” With that, Dan and the eight Marines unceremoniously marched Liam Rhodes, TTIC’s brilliant deputy director, out of the control room and into a waiting van.

  “That does it, George,” said Turbee after the control room settled down. “He’s been doing this for a year. It hurts us. As people. As an organization.

  And he almost got me killed. And he’s making a joke of it.”

  “Leave the jackass be, Turb,” said George. “Don’t rise to his game.”

  “A year, George. A whole year he’s been slandering us, hurting our reputation, damaging our name in the White House and everywhere else. Now he’s dragging Liam away, and Liam is totally loyal. Nothing in those websites is false. Why he keeps backing that CJ report is beyond me. How anyone can buy into that stuff is beyond me. We tracked the terrorist attack from beginning to end. We know Yousseff directed the whole thing. We know the guy Richard and Zak nabbed, Kumar, Kumar Hanaman, engineered those submarines and the focused charged device. Why has this become such a big deal with them?”

  “It’s politics, Turb,” George said. “Yousseff has opened up Afghanistan to American interests. They do not want him to be the bad guy.”

  “I don’t care. Dan needs a tune-up.” Turbee sat down at one of the keyboards in his work area and quickly started flipping through screens and databases. “Here it is,” he said. George was amazed. In under a minute, Turbee had stepped inside the database of one of the most digitally fortified institutions on the planet—American Express.

  George smiled. “Okay, little buddy. What else can you do?” As it turned out, Turbee could do a lot.

  15

  After day three it became apparent to all that Dana Wittenberg was stumbling badly. She knew the law and she knew the facts but she did not know trench warfare. She was so caked with fear that she could barely turn a page without feeling another wave of adrenalin and anxiety coursing through her. As she struggled through her cross-examination of Corporal Gray, she was met with objections at every turn. Each objection felt like a bullet carving through her flesh: “Objection, asked and answered.” “Objection, relevance.” “Objection, solicitor-client privilege.” There were even objections she had never heard of before: “Objection, the rule of Ziemer v. Wheeler.” “Objection, the exception in Clements v. Clements.”

  Each time Judge Mordecai turned to Dana with a remark like, “What about it, Wittenberg?” or “That seems kind of obvious, Wittenberg,” Dana could only lamely mumble something about rephrasing the question and then move on to something else altogether. Leon began to work with various prisoners who had schooled themselves in the law underlying the seeking of adjournments and mistrials—the sophistication of legal knowledge behind bars is significant.

  Dana was working in a small witness room adjacent to Courtroom 401. It was 8:00 a.m. on day five and the complex was deserted, but for a night watchman whom Dana had befriended. The “Lord Shatterer of Deathrot” chyron again began to flash across the screen of one of her computers. In a flash of frustration and anger she typed a response: “What do you want?”

  A few seconds later a reply flashed across the screen: “Your client might actually be innocent. Call me.”

  A telephone number followed. Dana reflected on the situation for a few minutes. She had been deserted by her law firm, had the misfortune of drawing one of the meanest judges in the stable, had a drug dealing client whom she despised, and was facing four arrogant, over-caffeinated prosecutors. She had little to lose. She took out her phone and dialed the number.

  A soft voice answered. “Hi, this is Turbee.” The response had the intonation of a question rather than a salutation.

  Dana wasted no time. “This is Dana Wittenberg. Are you the Lord Deathrot that’s hacked into my computer?”

  There was a lengthy silence, then a quiet response. “Yes, but I was trying to help.”

  “Well what do you know about this case anyway?”

  “Dana, I am a member of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC. I know about the terrorist attack, and your client’s involvement in it. He might actually be innocent.”

  “Why would you stick your neck out to help me?”

  “Dana, I have my reasons, but I might be able to help you out.”

  What followed was a somewhat disjointed story of how the terrorist attack on the Colorado River had unfolded. She soon realized that what Turbee had was inside information. Dana began to take notes, asking the occasional question.

  After an hour the noise level outside the witness room began to rise, and she knew that people were beginning to arrive for court that day. She had to end the call.

  “Are you watching the trial in real time?” she asked.

  “A lot of it I am,” Turbee replied.

  “You can continue to feed me questions if you like,” she said. “But I need to go. Court will be starting up in a couple of minutes and I need to get ready.”

  With that she hung up. A quiver of excitement coursed through her.

  Later that day Dana was winding down on her cross-examination of one of the lead RCMP investigators. Corporal Gray had been on the stand for more than three days, and Dana had not made a dent in her evidence or credibility. Gray smiled and played the jury perfectly and handled all questions not objected to with deft skill and experience. The more Dana asked, the worse it became. Thoughts of med school were again playing in her mind when her third computer began to act up again. The little troglodyte, Lord Shatterer of Deathrot, reappeared. This time a suggested question appeared below the caricature.

  “Ask her if she knows what TTIC is,” came scrolling across the screen.

  Dana shrugged. At this point she had nothing to lose. Turbee did seem to know what he was talking about. “Could you tell the court what TTIC is, please?” she asked.

  “Objection, relevance.”

  “Tell the judge relevance is coming,” said the next screen message.

  Dana remembered the formula from law school. “If the court will grant me a little indulgence, I will show relevance,” she said.

  “Well, just get to it,” said the judge.

  “It stands for the Terrorist Threat Integration Center,” Corporal Gray responded.

  Dana looked at the computer screen. The next question appeared to make sense.

  “Could you tell the court about TTIC’s involvement in this case?” she asked.

  Sheff objected on relevance, but was overruled. Judge Mordecai was curious.

  “They were the American intelligence agency that was tracking the route of the stolen Semtex that ultimately was used in the Colorado terrorist attack,” she said.

  Now where? Dana thought. Here she was, on a murder conspiracy case where 20,000 people died, with an international television audience watching, and she didn’t have a clue where she was going or what to ask next. She looked at her screen, waiting for the next question, but none was forthcoming. Dana, of course, had no way of knowing that on the other side of the continent, in the dazzling high-tech TTIC control room, Turbee, who was watching the trial on one screen and was leading Dana along on another, had just spilled a cup of coffee over his keyboard, shorting out some of the microcircuitry. He grabbed a handful of tissues and attempted to mop up the resultant swamp.

  Turbee typed in another question. In Vancouver, the consequences of the spill manifested itself inside the courtroom. Dana was “umming” an
d clearing her throat and flipping through her notes, notes that had nothing to do with the present issue, trying desperately to look fully in control of everything. There was a blinking cursor below the Martian but not much else.

  “Ms. Wittenberg, we’re all waiting,” said Judge Mordecai impatiently. “You’re so far out from what’s relevant you might as well be in a different courtroom, and you’re now ‘umming’ us all to death. Please move along.”

  “Come back home, Little Puppy,” whispered McGhee, just loud enough for everyone at the counsel table to hear. There were the usual snickers from the prosecution side of the table. Dana took her third computer and shook it, hoping somehow to nudge the electrons in cyberspace to hurry up. Magically, the next question appeared, sort of.

  “Did TTIC h# any c ncer 3ns ab&$t the reliabi*(y of the em# lam ssag4e h#rd driv(( belo*ing t in&viduals who were vo&ved the a ack?”

  There were now two problems. Dana had to figure out what the question was, and Turbee, being a mathematician, knew nothing about the laws of evidence in Canada.

  “Well, Ms. Wittenberg?” Mordecai’s voice was up a few notes and a few decibels.

  “Okay, I’ve got it,” said Dana, still flipping through her notes and trying to look professional. “Did TTIC have cancer . . .” She stopped there, trying to figure out the rest.

  “Cancer?” thundered the judge. “A spy agency having cancer? Have you fallen off the ledge of sanity, Ms. Wittenberg? Are you bucking for a mistrial? Again?” Most everyone in the courtroom began to laugh. Again. The four prosecutors guffawed. Archambault leaned over and said in a stage whisper that pretty much everyone heard, “Are you sure you didn’t mean leprosy, Little Puppy?”

  More laughs. Meanwhile, in the TTIC control room, Turbee had unplugged the defective keyboard and plugged in a new one. He retyped the question. Much to Dana’s relief, a sensible question appeared on the screen. Without pausing to think, as that would have been futile at this point, Dana read out the question: “Did TTIC have concerns about the reliability of the emails and text messages found on the hard drives of the computers of the individuals who were involved in the Colorado attack?”