Sabotage (20 page)

He abandoned the idea, remembering he'd been tied to a chair.

He replayed those frenzied minutes in his head, from the moment he'd woken up in a stupor to the moment he'd barreled out the door. The wind had seized him and battered him, had flung him like debris. He'd lost all orientation. He remembered a second of peace before tumbling into the water. He'd surfaced in time to see the enormous splash. Had he forgotten anything else?

It struck him.

The hatch had been open.

Someone else must have been there. Not the pilot, but a third passenger.

He had never opened the hatch. Someone else must have done it and parachuted out. For all he knew, the “pilot” had been dead the entire flight, or no pilot at all. Someone else had navigated the plane while a dead man sat there. This would pin disaster on accident.

Unless the pilot had opened the door midflight, then returned to the cockpit to his death by heart attack or poison … but why would the pilot have opened the hatch, only to remain inside?

Someone else must have opened it. The same sadist who'd cut a rut in his arm.

He remembered the three words written in his own blood. The memory chilled him.

Someone with a warped sense of history.

A noise stirred him from his speculation. Something was moving through the water. Hopeful, he stood for a better view, dancing on the raft to keep his balance. He blinked. Was it real? He pinched himself again, wondering if madness had finally got the better of him. What he was seeing had more definition than any hallucination. They were phantom shapes at first, bearing a faint resemblance to skewers. The image cleared. He realized the shapes were bowsprits cutting a path through the fog. There were several of them, vessels approaching from the northeast on a direct route toward his raft. He tottered backward in astonishment.

“Here I am!” he rasped, words scratching their way out of a throat that felt like parchment.

He tore off his shirt and waved it.

“Please help me!”

He feared the ships would disappear at any moment, melting away like everything else, pointing the way to greater dementia. But he wasn't about to let a new hope slip his grasp.

“Ahoy! Lost sailor ahead!”
Flyer, rather,
he thought. “Ahoy!”

The ships maintained course. He continued flapping his shirt around, spouting feeble calls. As of yet he had discerned no human forms onboard the vessels. Not until the ships steered closer.

The flotilla had five long, narrow craft. Double-masted with triangular rigs, the ships maintained a swift slice through the water.

“Keep coming!” he shouted. “You see me.”

He saw cargo boxes piled near the sterns, and studied the ships harder.

Corsairs?

He felt a twinge of dread. Corsairs had a history riddled with violence dating back centuries to the Middle Ages, and even the Crusades. Pirates sailed corsairs, relying on the maneuverable designs for speedy assaults and quick getaways. Shallow drafts helped traverse shoal waters. Bladelike bowsprits sparred with the breeze and pierced any wave that challenged the forepeak.

The ships came within a hundred-foot range. Clare slid his shirt back on and kneeled on the floor of the raft. The center corsair pointed right at him.

He paddled, trying to move himself out of the ship's line of passage, but his attempt was in vain; he was no match for its speed. The flagship closed in at fifty feet, then thirty. He paddled furiously, shouting for attention. The corsair would soon destroy his raft.

He eyed the flagship's bowsprit and considered grabbing hold. No, he was too weak.

“Please, look out…”

He could almost kiss the bow of the oncoming vessel. It plowed forward, the shaft only seconds from impaling him. He braced for impact, vaulting over the edge of his raft with what little strength remained. The corsair rammed his float and punctured a hole. The raft deflated and sagged, filling with water.

“I'm right here!” Clare shouted. “Starboard side!”

He thrashed his arms, not merely treading water but kicking up buckets. The ship didn't stop. He sensed his only chance of survival slipping away. Searching for handholds, he clawed at the hull as it sailed on. A coiled rope, partially frayed, unraveled out of nowhere and splashed next to him. He grabbed hold and wrapped several loops around his wrists. His frail fingers could hardly maintain a grip. The rope began to slide away.

On deck, a pair of hands reeled in the catch. Clare didn't let go. A powerful arm reached over the side of the ship and hoisted him out of the water by the collar. He collapsed, coughing and spewing seawater over the deck.

Finally able to breathe, he took a moment to find his bearings.

He glanced upward at a hulking mass crowned in red hair. The site of a familiar emblem caused him to blink twice, but he didn't cower, even as his ribs caved under the weight of a heavy boot. A host of men surrounded him.

“It's him,” the leader said. “Put him in the brig.”

 

EIGHTEEN

Welcome to Glitnir Defense,
read the topmost sign over the elevator of the building's lobby, and below it,
Justice from a Forge
. As he stepped inside, Dan Chatham dabbed the sweat on his forehead with a sleeve. His spine had the unnatural stiffness of someone who usually slumped when no one was watching.

“Everything okay, Mr. Chatham?” asked the receptionist as she scanned his ID card.

“Dandy,” he said, looking past her.

The main office looked like the sales and trade floor of an investment bank. Scores of desks were lined in rows, each one equipped with a quintuple monitor set. Engineers operated satellite stations of clustered computers. Switching between keyboards and separate touch-screens, their fingers were never still.

Eyes followed Chatham as he crossed the floor and entered his office. He usually drew attention. He was a portly fellow, but not obese, and walked with a slight waddle that suggested he was heavier than the reading on his scale. Today his presence had a silencing effect on his Glitnir subordinates—all but one.

“Mr. Chatham.”

The voice belonged to Kathryn Dirgo, the operations director. The sound of her deliberate, brusque strides had announced her approach. People well knew that tempo. Authoritative by design, her executive wool suit of slate blue, worn with a gray blouse, captured the rank and dignity of a general's uniform. She wore it with grace, but not with a feminine grace. She was a petite woman in her late thirties, and neither attractive nor unappealing. By virtue of professional decorum, she remained outwardly sexless. Her cropped hair masculinized a set of features that might have otherwise turned heads.

She had spent several years as a Marine captain in a St. Louis facility for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. She had joined Glitnir Defense during its establishment and become operations director after six years. Among the things Dirgo didn't tolerate was incompetence. When Chatham wasn't in, she ran the floor with clean efficiency, her tactics scarcely short of the jackboot. She delivered results. When he was present, she maintained a thin veneer of subservience. No one took issue with her leadership style. It was effective. She was appreciated among those who reported to her, not for her congeniality, but for the productive, meritocratic atmosphere she fostered and for the initiative she inspired.

“Morning, Kate,” said the president. “How's the dame of steel?”

If there was a wince, it didn't show. She was used to Chatham's chauvinism.

“We have a problem.”

“Oh?”

“We've lost control of it.”

“Control of what?”

“Baldr.”

The president stopped and turned around to face Dirgo. Personnel on the floor looked on, watching his reactions.

“What do you mean, you've lost control of it?”

“Exactly that—and that's
we
, not
me
. Hours ago the satellite deviated from its normal trajectory. We don't know why.”

“Have you tried compensating?”

“Naturally.”

“And?”

“So far, nothing has worked to realign the satellite with its intended orbital path.”

“Where is it now?”

“Somewhere over the North Atlantic.”

“What do you mean, somewhere? Speak precisely, Kate.”

“Simultaneously with the satellite's orbital deviation, we lost contact with the navigation system.”

“Jesus.”

The color left his cheeks. He slid his hand into his pocket to hide a tremor.

Dirgo said, “I've contacted our programming engineers. They'll be here soon.”

“Have you called anyone else?”

“Malcolm's nuclear consultant in Saint Petersburg.”

“Avdeenko?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“I couldn't get through.”

“Why not?”

“No answer.”

“Which numbers did you try?”

“Both his home number and his university office. His phone's been ringing off the hook.”

“Why hasn't he answered calls from Glitnir? Is he traveling?”

“No explanation.”

Chatham wiped his brow. “Someone get me a cup of ice water.”

He registered an uncomfortable invasion of personal space as Dirgo edged closer and nearly scraped the overhang of his stomach. When his secretary brought him a drink, he used the opportunity to take a step backward.

Dirgo said confrontationally, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

Her voice filled a room that had come to a hush. “What are we going to do?”

“What we always do. Call Malcolm.”

“You don't think we've tried that?” Dirgo snapped. “I called his Stanford office. No answer. Voicemail. No response. No one in his department knows his whereabouts. One of his teaching assistants, Walter Rosekind, wrote back and said he'd claimed to have gone on a research excursion. Of course, he told no one where he was going and left no forwarding or contact information. I had people call San Francisco Airport this morning to see if our plane there took off. Guess what? It did.”

“With Malcolm in it.”

“Who else?”

“Did they have access to any flight logs? Could they tell where he was going?”

“No access.”

“That's impossible.”

“Air traffic staff report the log was erased an hour after it was entered.”

“Logs don't just get erased, Kate.”

“This one did.”

“Who'd you speak with?”

“Two tower controllers, as well as the traffic management coordinator.”

“Did they explain the data omission?”

“If they did, I'd have said so. This is Malcolm we're talking about. If he's intent on covering his tracks, he'll find a way.”

“I want you to keep investigating. Find out where he was going.”

“I think we have a bigger problem on our hands.”

“You said you couldn't reach Avdeenko, and our programming engineers couldn't figure it out. Who else can we count on?”

“I said our programming engineers will be here soon. They haven't tried. They may uncover something useful.”

Chatham knew it wouldn't make a difference. Calling in more engineers was a waste, but saying so wouldn't gain anything. To placate Dirgo, he knew he had to create the image of a clockwork solution. Damn it, why was he always pleasing her? She reported to
him
.

He stood on a chair. The legs buckled under his weight.

“All right, everyone,” he announced, clapping his hands. “You've all heard what's going on. Our latest launch seems to have a will of its own. Baldr's navigation system's gone haywire. She's hovering a little south of the Arctic Circle.” A collective murmur filled the room. Chatham raised a hand, and the buzz died. He continued. “As you well know, Baldr is our most prized piece of weaponry to date. It belongs in the hands of the Defense Department. We're going to give it to them.”

Dirgo's expression added,
come hell or high water.
It wasn't a smile or even the hint of one, but a contented look that crossed her face as he spoke—perhaps the satisfaction of seeing proper urgency conveyed.

“There's no time for sermons about teamwork,” Chatham continued. “Just do what needs to be done. Do it well, and fast. As of now, your prior assignments take the back burner till we resolve this. These are your new tasks. People in customer engineering, make phone calls to determine Malcolm's whereabouts. He's the best man to help us. Radio and transmit-station personnel, your new assignment is to search for glitches in our navigational uplink program. Sift through lines of code if you must till you learn whether the problem's on the ground or in the sky. People in the applied mathematics department, figure out how much power was required to alter course to Baldr's current location. Everyone else—”

Chatham's secretary tapped his shoulder.

“Sir, it's for you.”

“Who is it?”

“He didn't give a name.”

Staring at the phone in her hands, he began to feel nauseated. “Tell whoever it is I need a name.”

“Sir…”

“What?”

“He seemed adamant.”

“Do you expect me to talk to a no-name caller?”

“I … I really think you'd better answer.”

Chatham grabbed the phone from her hands and barked into it, “Hello?”

A familiar baritone drawl greeted him. “Turn on the speakerphone. Do it, Dan.”

Reluctantly he did as instructed.

Chatham glared at his secretary and mouthed the words,
Trace the call.

The secretary shook her head. “The caller's using VoIP,” she whispered—that was, Voice over Internet Protocol. “But it's IP-spoofed. The information packets are falsified and shifting rapidly. The call appears to originate from Colorado … now Bolivia … now Hong Kong. It's going to keep shifting.”