Albatross (19 page)

All these memories of the past four years flooded Burns head as he stood over a generator and started putting the rest of his satchel of tools away. When he turned, he noticed that Samantha had suddenly closed the gap between them and kissed him on his forehead. With both hands holding his cheeks, she said, “I need the laptop now. I have to threaten our government.”

Oh, yeah … today is May 2. My God! How long was I out for?
he thought.

He smiled and produced a USB flash drive. “And you will need this,” he added.

Samantha had changed yet again. While she had retained her scarlet red hair, she now had her new jacket matching her slacks with the town insignia and the bright safety lettering “Reading Cadet Academy” on the breast plate and back. While she had a tactical belt that could accommodate a gun, the holster was not attached, leaving more room for an additional police scanner, a very powerful two-way radio, flashlights, and a bright yellow scanner that was actually a trigger for an explosive. As they walked out of the woods, they realized that it would have appeared strange if anyone saw two law enforcement officers holding hands. Samantha broke first and took Burns’s car, which held the official government plates and the laptop she needed for the next phase of the operation. Burns resisted the urge to go over the triggering device of the explosives, which was firmly attached the car’s gas tank. As Burns entered the ambulance’s driver’s side, Samantha looked back and asked, “The explosives are not activated yet, right?”

Burns was relieved she had asked. He reminded her that she would have to turn the device on once in place. Then she could trigger the explosion with the yellow scanner. She smiled. David smiled, too. She was about to leave when Burns reminded her of something.

“Did you text your sister?” Burns asked.

“Already done,” Samantha said as she took out her smart phone and showed Burns the text: “Alpha and Bravo rendezvous complete. Package exchanged. Alpha is on to prime objective and Bravo to launch point two—out.”

Burns smiled, and Samantha drove away.

Burns noticed the time. It was about 8:05 a.m. now, and Samantha’s objective would be open at 8:30 a.m. Burns had to get to the police department’s parking lot. Burns returned to his vehicle and pulled out a map. He looked at his watch again and made a mental calculation of when Becky had to leave to get to her next assignment. Things were speeding up now.

Chapter 12

Becky was now showered
and changed into another set of running clothes that looked more disheveled than the one she wore before. She had to look harried and not even dressed for work; she would have to look like a part-time secretary whose child care had fallen apart just when her boss had needed her the most. She was having second thoughts about the plan. “I’m not a spy,” she said to herself.

At 8:04 a.m., she received another text, and her response was brief: “Message received. Prepping for launch at primary location; ETA is 10:00 a.m. Charlie out.”

Becky looked carefully at the text and then tried to distract herself so as to avoid negative thinking. Her run was great. She was appreciative that the office had a shower. She felt exhilarated and almost invincible. The donut she and Emma had eaten added to the sugar rush. Emma was now playing with her makeup set and a remote-controlled toy truck. She was happy.

Okay. Now back to what I have to do next,
she refocused. Becky started to pace as she went step-by-step over her next move. The plan was to show up at the police station with Emma, plead with the front office to give her boss the medication and file he wanted, have them tell her it was the wrong file, and then beg to use a police computer. That meant she needed to look nonthreatening and mommy-like, which could have simply been over her head.
I can do that
, she thought. Initially, that meant she would have to wear no makeup, mixed-match, frumpy clothes and keep her hair long but slightly tangled. At the last moment, it made more sense for her to put on running clothes and have Emma in the jogger. This way she could run to her destination. Running helped her relax when she was stressed.
Again, all easy
, Becky sarcastically thought.

Becky knew that her job was very tricky. She would be with police who were vigilant with all the events occurring around them. In her mind though, she thought David’s job was really nerve-racking—keeping the police at bay with his interview and therefore distracted from efforts just outside their own doorstep.
I don’t know how he’s doing it
, she wondered. Still, for her, she figured the hard part would be for her to put the flash drive with the virus/worm/jammer in the back of a desktop tower or some place that it would not be seen. The not-so-difficult part was to send an e-mail with the critical wording to alert Homeland Security, which in turn would send it to the target destination—the Department of Defense Foreign Intelligence Agency’s operation center. The timing here was critical. She knew she needed to be at the police department no later than 10:00 a.m. so she could get her part of the job done.

Becky took a moment to stretch her arms and legs while in a fresh set of running clothes. She then went to her bag and pulled out her antianxiety medication. She was not a fan of medication in general. Her running and exercise helped her with a lot of her stress and anxiety. But the medication helped her with her anxious thoughts and the corresponding obsessive behaviors. She was thankful that David had suggested that she just try it.
I shouldn’t have waited so long,
she thought often.

After she got herself together, she would have to collect her props, get Emma, and make the short drive over to the small mini-mall near the station. She would then have to run with Emma in the jogger again, do her best frantic act, and then run back to the office. Leaving the car in place was critical for “extraction,” as Burns had put it. Leaving the car around the corner would help David escape. This would be her second run of the day, but it would be the shortest—1.3 miles would take her about fifteen minutes at the most.
I won’t have time for a shower
, she thought.

Becky walked over to look out from the building’s window, which had a grand view of the interstate highway right at the junction of the off-ramp exit. With her binoculars, it was easy to see the end of the off-ramp, which led to either the police station where David was being interviewed or the private bank where the “treasure,” as Burns had put it, was housed. Becky had a hard time understanding what Burns was saying at times. He had an entire language that was not familiar to her. It was similar to how she didn’t understand some legal terms and meanings until she became a paralegal. Regardless, she did respect the fact that Burns didn’t “dumb things down” and expected her to figure them out. As a result, Becky knew that this intelligence that Burns needed was in a secured room above the bank that had a vault. At some critical point, she would have to be right where she was standing now to inform Alpha and Bravo teams to either head to the private bank for plan B or more likely enact plan A. Becky was far more nervous and as a result the more conservative one. She thought plan B was the more likely of the two. Burns did know the players though and was betting on his former boss’s ego and an impulsive push for glory to win at all cost.
Some guy named Daniels
, she thought. In any event, she hoped Burns was right. Plan A was more thoroughly planned like a surgery; plan B was more a smash-and-grab. Because she was in a corner office, the backside of the office had a very pleasant view of the sleepy town of North Reading. There was a runners’ trail that went by the center of town and cut all the way to the bank parking lot of the team’s office. This window had a fixed telescope looking at a designated point in the middle of budding green trees. As she peered through the telescope, Becky could see a lot of movement at the police department where David was being held. With all the activity going on in the area and the adjacent towns, it looked like there were more police personnel leaving the police station than coming and remaining. Becky sighed and looked away, turning her attention back to the windows overlooking the interstate again.

Right below the bank of windows were three laptop computers, which were presently streaming news reports of a series of “serious events” and possibly “coordinated attacks” and “questions of national security.” As these various reports were announced with local news carriers, there were now national reports showing a series images. Becky felt guilty as she saw aerial images of a truck with white smoke coming out of barrels in the middle of a parking lot. Another image showed a smoldering building still being doused with water, while across the street, a hospital was being evacuated as the bomb squad team was going in. Yet another image showed the local police giving little information of a local “gang” shooting involving federal agents and organized crime in North Reading. All the newscasters were drawing conclusions that all these events had two things in common: these events had occurred within fifteen miles of each other in the Merrimack Valley, and there was Muslim or Arabic writing making reference to today’s date.

As these images floated in, Becky pulled herself away from the news reports and went to the desktop computer that was connected to a bank of custom-configured servers. Seeing all the chaos that she and her friends had created was just too much to watch. Becky distracted herself again as she looked at the large computer servers. She knew that these servers were powerful, to say the least. While the laptops were also custom-configured with an inordinate amount of RAM, the server provided each laptop with an obscured IP address and their own unique websites. The desktop was only used sparingly and had no one’s fingerprints except maybe Burns’s. His fingerprints would be connected to unleashing a virulent worm that would not only impair the most recently updated antivirus software of any computers on government sites, federal and national law enforcement and intelligence communities in particular, but it would simultaneously attack all virus protection services for the general public. This would affect anyone who was downloading virus definitions to protect their computers. Becky had to admit that Burns’s cyber-attack was brilliantly evil. In reality, these virus updates would do the opposite and infect the consumers’ computer by first changing their passwords and locking them out with a password of thirty-eight random characters. Then the computer screen would either freeze or pixelate to black as all the files—documents, e-mails, photos, music, anything saved in a hard drive—would all be erased permanently. Just a computer nightmare. Burns’s connection to his old Chinese field operatives and what he could get his hands on within the US borders was simply scary. All this would trigger a heightened state of alert—cyber-attacks in conjunction with the seemingly physical attacks. This would push all federal agencies to implement their emergency protocols. Burns was counting that these protocols, specifically the one that the Department of Defense would implement.

Early on, Becky had some misgivings about the cyber-attack though. David did too. He asked the question that she was having a hard time articulating. She respected his use of language.

“What if this virus compromises some critical systems like someone’s life support or an elevator?” he had asked when Burns had laid out details of the whole plan.

Becky saw that Burns became suddenly quiet, and her sister averted her eyes. Those nonverbal behaviors spoke volumes to her. Burns and Samantha had already talked about this possibility and were not sure, Becky concluded. It was always easy for Becky to read Samantha. Burns had also become more readable as the years had passed. Becky could tell that they both were close now. Each seemed to have an unspoken communication between them and seemed to be on the same page more often than not. Becky noticed this shift after Samantha was sick. Becky felt guilty she couldn’t help her sister then. Much to her surprise, Burns called David to ask how he could take care of her.
Pretty nurturing behavior for a spy
, Becky thought back then. After that and several weeks later, Samantha seemed not only protective of Burns but happy. Becky had never seen her that way before. While initially jealous that she had been emotionally replaced by Burns, she was happier that her sister had finally seemed to find some she cared about and who cared about her.

“I am pretty sure it will only affect e-mails, digital video, phones, and other systems related to communication. I don’t think it will affect other systems. Critical systems typically are separate from those systems,” Burns summarized.

At the time, Becky focused on the phrases Burns seldom used, such as “I’m pretty sure” and “I think.” These words were not in his vernacular. That was Burns’s way of saying he really wasn’t sure. It was more a hope than a fact.

Becky was surprised that Burns seemed disturbed that he could not be sure that no one would be hurt by their actions. That was a relief to Becky.
At least it’s not the plan to deliberately hurt people … but what if we do, what then?
she asked herself.