George could not think of anything wilder than a rhinoceros mating at that moment, so he wrote a check for $30,000.
“Thank you. The next outburst like that will get you a douce less, okay?”
“What’s a douce less?” he asked sotto voce of an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair beside him.
“Two years less a day, asshole,” said Lee Penn-Garrett. “And that beak on the bench will do it, too. You’d best shut up and listen.”
“No,” said Dana angrily. “He is not retarded and that was an awful thing to say.” The teenage years that haunted her resurfaced. She intuitively knew that Turbee’s high school years had been like hers. Painful and lonely. She saw a kindred spirit. “Mr. Turbee, do you know the difference between a truth and a lie?”
“Yes, ma’am, an algorithm that gives a null result when it should be a one is a lie, whereas the contrary would be true.”
“I’ve never heard that before. That sounds a little strange, son,” said the judge. “Will you swear to only tell the truth and nothing but the truth in this courtroom today?”
“Yes, sir.”
Judge Mordecai gave the nod to Dana. Her mind was racing. This person was here for a reason. She started with the basics.
“Where do you reside?”
“In Washington, DC.”
“What is your education?”
“I have a bachelor’s—honors—in mathematics and software engineering from Georgetown. I have a master’s in mathematics from MIT. I have a PhD in mathematics from Harvard. I have a second PhD from Stanford. That one was in deep neural net learning algorithms. We were teaching computers to think.”
“Oh,” said Dana.
“Oh,” said Sheff.
“I see,” said Judge Mordecai slowly, watching Turbee a little more closely. “You can get computers to think?”
“We’re not there yet. But we can now use massively parallel perceptronic networks to simulate the architecture of deep neural learning . . .”
“Would you be able to help lawyers to learn?”
“That would be too multilayered for today’s processing abilities. But one day.”
“Uh-oh” whispered McSheffrey to Archambault.
“How old are you?” asked Dana.
“Twenty-five, ma’am.”
“How old were you when you were awarded your PhD?”
“Twenty, sir. For my first one.”
George passed Dana a note. “Ask him about his medals” was scrawled on it.
“Do you have any, uh, medals, Mr. Turbee?”
Turbee looked down, again turning red. “A few, ma’am.”
“Who from and what for?”
“I was given the Presidential Medal of Honor from the president of Israel. The agency that I worked for had uncovered a terrorist plot to blow up a huge area in Tel Aviv. I was given the medal but it really belonged to everyone at the agency. Really.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. I was given the Netherlands Medal for International Peace Operations. There was a terrorist plot to bomb Amsterdam and we found out about it. Again, it was given to me but it really belonged to the agency.” “Oh,” said Judge Mordecai.
“Do you work?”
“Work?”
“Yes, Mr. Turbee, do you have a job?” Dana had no clue where this was going, and the witness seemed to have difficulty with basic questions. The looking at the floor thing was not going to impress the jury.
“I work for a small intelligence agency in Washington called TTIC, short for Terrorist Threat Integration Center.”
“And what specifically do you do there?”
“I cannot answer fully because of confidentiality issues.”
“Okay, generally, what do you do?”
“Using the internet, and literally millions of databases that we have access to, and the resources of the NSA, which are huge, and all of the other agencies in the American intelligence community, we can identify terrorist threats as they are developing, and usually we can notify the FBI or the CIA and the threats are neutralized before they are fully emergent.” Turbee spoke in an even monotone.
“Were you involved in the Colorado River attack?”
“Was I involved in the attack? No ma’am. I don’t blow things up.” More snickers.
“Were you attempting to neutralize that threat before it materialized?”
“Not quite, ma’am. Our agency was attempting that. I played a role. We were onto them, but behind them by about two minutes.” He shook his head and disconsolately looked at the floor and repeated himself. “By two minutes.” He involuntarily reached for the water glass, misjudged the distance, and knocked it to the floor, which, around the edge of the witness box, was solid oak. It smashed into multiple shards, and water flew everywhere. George was impressed. The water glass had lasted a full ten minutes. Judge Mordecai wondered if Dana and Turbee were related.
41
The crowded boardroom emptied, leaving just the president, Dan Alexander, and Tyra. The president was edgy and agitated. “If Yousseff is fingered in the Colorado attack, we lose Afghanistan. Now you tell me that crazy trial in Vancouver is threatening to do exactly that. Not only do we lose a tremendous geopolitical advantage, but, but—”
“I know, sir,” Tyra said, putting the bottom of her left foot on top of his right shoe and wiggling it a bit. “I know. Personally we lose everything. You, and me, and CJ, and Dan. Everything that we have achieved will be gone.”
“Gone.”
“And we’ll end up in the slammer.”
“No, we won’t, Tyra. I’ll pardon all of us before that happens. I am the president, remember?”
“How can I help, sir?” Dan asked.
“Those two rascals, Turbee and George. They are from your agency. Surely you can go there, to that damned trial, and get them back here. Stop them and slam them into the Supermax.”
“Sir, it will be my personal pleasure. I will repatriate the little bastards.”
“Thanks, Dan,” replied the president. “Go now. Get to Vancouver before everything goes into the toilet. Now, dismissed.”
After Dan had left, the president turned to Tyra. “This is not a risk-free game. That trial up north threatens to unhinge everything.” “I’m not sure if Dan can stop things,” said Tyra.
“That’s why I want you up there. Dan Alexander and the lawyers can only do so much. And that judge is completely crazy. We can have the best legal arguments drafted, and he’ll reject a motion just because he’s unhappy with his prostate that particular day. I need you as backup.”
“What are your instructions, sir? What do you need?”
“I’m not that worried about that Turbee kid. He’ll be demolished in cross. Dan can give those prosecutors a goldmine of information. And if we need to, we can spend millions to get the spin machinery up and running. We can paint him as a dangerous guy bordering on criminally insane, someone who breaks into computers all over the world for the hell of it. Even if the jury believes him, the American public won’t, once we’re through with him.”
“It’s Kumar Hanaman, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Tyra, it is. If Yousseff was the CEO, Kumar was the COO. His machines made the attack work. He knows every detail of the plan. He can connect Yousseff to the plan, and if he does, we’re done. Now there is a distinct possibility that he, too, is in Vancouver, given the direction that the Allegro Star was going.”
“Do you want him terminated?”
“Yes, Tyra, I do.”
“Sir, you know the procedure. Wet work on foreign soil requires instructions in writing. I need a presidential order.”
“You’ve got it. Now if you can’t terminate Kumar, at least get the trial delayed. All we need is a couple of days. We can put enough pressure on Canada to turn him over. There are a thousand ways to delay a trial, Tyra. You can off that pesky lawyer, Wittenberg, if you want. That would guarantee a continuance.”
“No worries, sir. After some of the s
tuff we’ve done, none of this is particularly complicated.”
“Take a separate plane from Dan and his lawyers and the State Department guys. Get a team of wet work specialists from the CIA. Take whatever weapons you need and put them in diplomatic bags. Use our consulate in Vancouver as your base of operations. They have plenty of backup firepower there if you need it.”
“You want me to go now, sir?”
“Yes I do, Tyra. If the Allegro Star was headed west, we must assume Kumar was dropped off somewhere in BC. They’re drug smugglers and they used that mine that Leon Lestage owned as a point of entry into the US. That means they’ve got to know every last nook and cranny of the shoreline that can be used as a point of entry into BC. They’ve found some slippery way in and Kumar is probably in Vancouver. The only reason he’s there is because he’s had some ridiculous attack of conscience and wants to tell the world what he knows. That just simply can’t happen. Let Dan and his lawyers do what they do. You do what you do, okay?”
“You can count on me, Matt. You always can.” She kept her foot on his.
Later that day, on an unmarked Cessna Citation X, traveling from Washington, DC, to Vancouver, BC, Tyra showed her two senior operators the presidential order.
“Kumar Hanaman and Hamilton Turbee are terrorists who are seeking to destabilize our strategic position in Afghanistan in the middle of a war.
They must not be permitted to testify in the Leon Lestage trial. They must be terminated with extreme prejudice. Should this prove impossible, the trial of Mr. Lestage must not be permitted to proceed. You are to do whatever is necessary to see that this trial does not go forward. You will be protected in these actions by the president of the United States. If Zak Goldberg, Richard Lawrence, or George Lexia interfere, they are to be terminated. Lestage’s lawyer, Dana Wittenberg, should be terminated. Those are the orders, gentlemen. When this job is done, you will be taken out of the country and back to Washington.”
Ron was the older of the two. “I don’t get this. I knew Zak. He died. I remember the announcement. He was undercover in Afghanistan and he was captured, tortured, and killed. The guy was an awesome warrior. A hero. And I knew Lawrence. He’s probably mainlining heroin in some DC slum. He got booted out of the Navy for a drug and alcohol issues. Then he got booted out of the CIA for pretty much the same reason. The guy is not a threat for anyone. What the hell is going on here?”
Tyra spoke softly, almost hissing. “Orders are orders, Ron. These come from the chief.”
Ron ignored the response. “And,” he continued, “I don’t like the last bit. Dana Wittenberg is a Canadian citizen. She’s in the middle of running that Leon Lestage trial. This could turn into one hell of an international incident and I don’t care what the president says, we will all have targets on our backs.”
“We’re the little people, Ron,” replied Tyra. “We need to terminate these individuals. These are orders from our commander in chief. We do what we need to do. Then we flee the country. We are servants of the state and the state will look after us.”
Ron regarded Tyra closely. “They say you’ve got a smart head on you. You should know that the state looks after itself first, and if we are to be sacrificed for the greater good, the state would not hesitate.” Tyra glared at him but did not respond.
42
Jimmy had rolled himself a gigantic joint of BC’s finest bud and poured a large crystal glass of Dom Perignon. He’d put the Allegro Star on autopilot, and it was traveling at a steady fifty knots west toward Singapore. Now that Kumar and the two Americans had been dropped off in Vancouver Harbor, he could relax. The risk of interdiction was low, and the fee for the dangerous trip was spectacular. Kumar had provided him with access particulars to an account at the Union Bank of Switzerland with, Kumar had said, a balance of slightly more than five million euros. This was enough to perpetuate his grand lifestyle for another year or two. With the funds being at UBS, there were no messy laundering issues. Perhaps he would buy a waterfront estate in southern France, or a penthouse in one of Vancouver’s stunning forty-floor glass-and-steel high-rises. Perhaps he would trade his yacht, anchored in Miami, a measly fifty-footer, for something a little more upscale, maybe a sixty-footer. Seventy even.
He was pleasantly floating in an endorphin-induced chain of free-associated pleasures when a loud, intermittent beeping intruded his world. Instantly snapped to sobriety, he looked at the monitors in front of him. A torpedo was heading toward him at over two hundred knots. Endorphins turned to cortisol in seconds. He manually took over the controls, slammed the steering hard to starboard, and increased the speed of the Allegro Star to its maximum of sixty-eight knots. The torpedo followed the maneuver and the distance between them closed to five hundred yards. He jinked hard to port, but the torpedo stayed on his tail. He dove underwater to a depth of fifty feet; so did the torpedo.
It was a hopeless battle for Jimmy. The torpedo was a Lockheed Martin MK 48 Mod 7, which had been equipped with an extraordinary amount of computing power. Once it had locked onto its target, there was no escaping it, short of outrunning it, which was not feasible. The torpedo carried a 650-pound high-explosive warhead, and had been fired by the USS Texas, an Ohio-class supersubmarine that had been lurking some 200 miles southwest of the Allegro Star. She had been dispatched by the US Seventh Fleet when the order, relayed from the president to the secretary of defense to the secretary of the Navy to the chief of Naval operations to the admiralty of the fleet stationed in Yokosuka, Japan, to the captain of the USS Texas. It had taken less than an hour for the command to domino its way through the American military org chart and six more hours for the USS Texas to come within range of the Allegro Star.
Jimmy had some electronic countermeasures available to him, and discharged aluminum chaff into the water, but the MK 48 was brainy enough to know the difference. It took the torpedo less than a minute to find its mark, and the Allegro Star and its happily stoned passenger were obliterated in a cloud of smoke, DNA, and metal shards. Such is the power of the US presidency.
43
It had been a wickedly unkind night. The hotel room was heavily populated by cockroaches. Zak made it his mission to stomp them to bug splats whenever he saw one. They took turns sleeping on the bed, although no one wanted to as the mattress was infested with bed bugs, and no one could sleep in any event because of the constant blare of sirens outside, the slamming of hotel-room doors, endless arguments, and the grating sounds of violence and cheap sex. The Four Seasons it was not.
Richard had managed to find a nearby McDonald’s and brought a load of egg McMuffins and black coffee back to the room, where he found Zak engrossed in a local television program.
“What’s the deal, Zak?” Richard asked.
“Turbee’s in town,” Zak replied. “I think George is, too.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve found a local channel that’s covering the Lestage trial. They just announced that the defense put an American computer expert on the stand. I’m sure they mentioned Turbee’s name.”
“You sure, Zak?”
“No, but we should reconnoiter.”
“Zak, I’ll go check it out. After that incident in the alley yesterday, you need to stay here. You need to be cool.”
There was considerable argument over that, but Zak, in a moment of accurate introspection, grudgingly admitted that this was not something he would have done before his capture and torture in the dungeons of Inzar Ghar.
Richard headed to the courthouse alone. One somewhat scruffy, tall stranger, wandering through the courthouse foyer might attract some attention, but not as much as three. There was also the problem of video surveillance, which was a staple at any courthouse in the western hemisphere, especially with a trial as high-profile as Leon Lestage’s. Local law enforcement and the sheriff’s department—which was in charge of security at the courthouse—wouldn’t recognize him. But if any of the video feed were intercepted by CSIS, the Canadian intellige
nce agency, or even by the NSA or the NRO, the likelihood of detection increased dramatically. Richard had not forgotten the words of Michael Buckingham at the American embassy in Islamabad.
It was a rogue mission. Kumar was a dangerous commodity, in that he knew the inside details of the Colorado River attack. For whatever reason, elements within the American executive structure wanted him silenced, and the geopolitical consequences of this not happening were profound.
Richard had not shaved since their harrowing escape from Karachi and had found a set of sunglasses at a local kiosk, but he knew that with the sophistication of image recognition software, he probably wouldn’t get very far. The important factor was not to look up. He finished the disguise by buying a Vancouver Canucks hockey cap, headgear not out of place in the bustling Canadian city.
He didn’t take a cab, knowing that all cabs, for security reasons, were equipped with video recording equipment. Asking the odd passerby for directions, he covered the twenty blocks from skid row to the courthouse in under an hour.
Entering the enormous glass-covered public foyer, he noted a large cluster of people gathered around a video screen. It was an overflow crowd of several hundred people, a crowd that, over the many days of trial, was growing daily. Turbee was on the stand.
44
Turbee had been testifying for a few minutes and was beginning to settle down. He was over his initial jitters and was starting to sound more controlled and professional. Dana was still completely in the dark, randomly throwing out questions in the hope that one or two would stick. “Were you involved in trying to determine who was responsible for the attack on the dams of the Colorado River?”
“I played a bit of a role, yes,” Turbee said. “I examined the computers of the four members of the Los Angeles cell that had assisted in the execution of the attack.”
“What did you find?”
“Well, a lot of the evidence consisted of encrypted emails between these people. I used the power of TTIC’s computers to de-encrypt the messages. Those messages definitely showed that these four were involved. They also showed your client, Mr. Lestage, was involved.”
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