Breakpoint (9 page)

“Phishing, Googleplex, Infocon Alpha.” Susan shook her head. “I feel like I fell down a rabbit hole.”

Margaret Myers stopped and looked at Susan and Soxster. “Maybe we have. Maybe we all have. Curiouser and curiouser.”

1926 EST
Room 1211, the Charles Hotel
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Susan Connor and James Foley had rooms on the same floor of the Charles Hotel, looking out toward the courtyard and the river beyond. In between their two rooms was a third, staffed by two Air Force communications specialists assigned to the Intelligence Analysis Center. The two sergeants had converted the hotel room into a field communications and support site for the two IAC officers. The sergeants had been receiving and sorting intelligence reports from IAC headquarters back in Foggy Bottom. A small satellite dish sat on an end table, pointing up into the southern sky.

“His office said he would come on the secure vid at 1930 hours, miss, which is in about two minutes,” the senior sergeant told Susan.

“Thanks, Walid,” Susan replied, putting on her headset and sitting down in front of the twenty-eight-inch computer screen. Jimmy followed, sitting next to her. The sergeant flipped on a white-noise machine that created a sonic field projecting at the window and the entry door. If anyone was attempting to listen, they would hear only jumbled sounds of Susan and Jimmy. The voice coming from IAC headquarters would be heard only on the headsets, which decrypted the incoming signal and encrypted what was said on this end before it was transmitted to Washington.

Rusty MacIntyre appeared on the screen, somewhat blurred as he moved quickly into the room. He wore no headset. His office on Navy Hill was in a secure building above the Kennedy Center and the Potomac. The image sharpened as MacIntyre sat in front of his screen. Susan could tell from the puffiness under his eyes that her boss had not been getting much sleep. “Good to see you guys, Susan, Jimmy. I just got back from the daily coordination meeting on the investigations. We look good, thanks to you. Really nice work so far. What you found out about the Chinese using the internet to open the gas valve at the MIT computer science center was great. NSA is still trying to figure out exactly what terminal they used at Dilan University, but we may have to put a CIA asset on the ground to find out. For now, NSA's thinking is that the university computer is just a relay anyway to the real origination point, probably in the People's Liberation Army's Information Warfare Brigade at Wuhan. That's their best cyberwarrior group.”

Susan didn't respond, and there was a moment of silence on the line. “Sir, what about the other high-tech facilities that were hit before the MIT center? Should we go to them, too, and see if there is a connection?” Jimmy asked.

“No, Jim, no need. I convinced the FBI that we found a pattern that they had missed. They now have hundreds of special agents going to those other sites to see if they are connected to this Cybomb case.” Rusty was clearly enthusiastic. “They even had to admit that the Russian mob guys you found in Lynn were connected to Cybomb. It's pretty clear now that they were involved, at least with the trucks that were used to blow up the East Coast beachheads.”

“We came to the same conclusion,” Susan interjected. “The Russian mob's involvement does not mean that it's Russia. These guys are just guns for hire.”

“Thinking is here, Susan, that the Chinese may have hired the mob, maybe using a false-flag operation, a front, to do the dirty work and cover their own tracks.” MacIntyre continued, “Anyway, the Bureau has a BOLO out on the guy who your man in Lynn coughed up, Dimitri Yellin. He's the boss of the Ukrainian mob in the New York–New Jersey area, but he has been pretty scarce this afternoon since the Bureau started looking for him. Maybe tipped off by local cops who saw the bulletin.”

“If he was tipped off, sir, it was by somebody in the FBI, not local cops, not NYPD,” Jimmy shot back.

“No offense intended, Jimmy,” Rusty laughed. “Just a matter of time 'til he shows up. And then we get to ask him who hired him to blow up the beachheads.”

Susan, her fingers twisting her lower lip, looked up at the screen. “Anything more on the pancake house bombing? Has everyone accepted that it was targeted to kill the heads of DARPA, NIH, and NSF?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Seems like half the world knew about these monthly Billion-Dollar Breakfasts,” Rusty said, flipping through his notes. “But Defense Intelligence now says that the Hunan Kitchen restaurant a block away is probably a Chinese intelligence front. They've asked the Bureau to see if there is a connection.

“The bomber was vaporized. Video-surveillance cameras in the area worked well. They're running images of people seen in the Metro station and on the sidewalk above just before the blast. One possible lead is a guy with a backpack who looks a lot like an Iraqi Revenge Movement terrorist,” Rusty said, and leaned back in his chair. “I hope we're not going to get another round of them attacking in the U.S.”

“Okay, well, we have some ideas about how to follow up what we have learned up here. I think now that whoever is doing this knows more about the state of our technology research than we do. A lot of science is speeding ahead at a breakneck pace, but much of it is hidden to avoid political problems with the radical right,” Susan offered. “So we're going to go looking for it before it gets attacked. Might mean going to the West Coast first, to a computer center that might be a target. Should take about three days.”

On the screen Rusty looked tired and, unusually for him, he didn't seem to be listening closely. “Whatever you guys think. So far you're the only ones producing any solid leads and I can tell you from Sol Rubenstein that the President has been seized with this, he's doing nothing else. If it is China, we are going to have to respond, and God knows how they'll react to our response. Could get into a tit-for-tat cycle that keeps escalating. Ugly. And destroys the economy worse than this current flap with the international stock markets being disconnected. The real fear at the White House is not only that this shit'll keep happening, but that it'll make us look like fools because we can't stop it and can't even prove who's doing it. Sol's got a meeting with the Principals coming up tonight.”

“Rusty, has the media connected the pancake house explosion with the beachhead bombings and the satellites' disappearing?” Susan asked.

“Not yet, not really, but they will pretty soon. So far the media is saying that the Cybomb case, even including the three missing satellites over the Pacific, hasn't involved many fatalities, which is true as far as we know,” MacIntyre noted. “And that's why some people think it's a pretty low-risk way for China to send us a message.”

“But eight people died at the pancake house, including three of our leading scientists, and another fourteen died in connection with all the lab fires Jimmy found,” Susan countered.

“If they're all connected,” Rusty said, again looking at his notes from the interagency-coordination meeting. “One other thing that came up, and keep this close hold. Without those three commercial satellites over the Pacific, the Commander-in-Chief Pacific says he would be, quote, unable to perform key warfighting missions adequately, unquote. One assumes the Chinese know that about us too. Anyway…I have to go meet Sol after his session in the bunker. Keep me posted.” The image faded on the screen, replaced by the Intelligence Analysis Center logo, spinning on a blue background.

Jimmy quickly shot Susan a look. “We're going to the West Coast?”

“Silicon Valley,” Susan said. “Near the Googleplex. One of the Globegrid supercomputers that has not yet been blown up.”

Jimmy stood up. “Sunny California sounds like a good idea about now.” He looked across the brick courtyard toward the cold river. “But tonight, let's go downstairs, there's something I want to show you. I got some tickets that weren't easy to land.”

“What? I've got reading to do that Margaret gave me,” Susan protested. “And you keep trying to butter me up by cooking for me and now buying me tickets to…to what?”

“McCoy Tyner is playing downstairs at the Regatta Club tonight,” Foley said, flashing two tickets to the jazz club. “I've always wanted to see him. And I don't want to go alone.”

“Who?”

“McCoy Tyner. He's almost seventy-five, but he's the greatest living jazz pianist. He did all the original work with Coltrane. Jesus, Susan, isn't jazz the Afro-American classical music?”

Susan stared at him. “If we are all supposed to be stereotypes, why aren't you going to hear some bagpiper?”

“Touché. You'll like it, though, and we both need to relax a little. You never think of the answer when you're trying too hard. We need perspective—and a Balvenie?” Jimmy smiled.

“You'll do fine alone at a bar,” Susan said, her resolve weakening. “Somehow I bet you never had a problem with that.”

Foley shook his head in disagreement, “It's not like that. I'm married and, yes, happily. But when I'm alone at bars, traveling on work and whatnot, well, sometimes I do fall into old habits, and then I have to stop when I realize what's about to happen. It confuses the woman and it leaves me, well, wishing I hadn't started.”

“So you want me there so you don't get tempted? Gee, thanks for the compliment.”

Jimmy ran his hand through his hair. “No, no, it's not like that. It's just you said you had a guy, and I thought since neither one of us is on the market, we could just relax and talk about something other than work, listen to some great American music, have a drink, and unwind.” The irresistible little-boy smile appeared.

Susan sighed in resignation. “Well, since you already bought the tickets…”

1930 EST
The West Wing, the White House

“I liked it better when your office was aboveground, Wallace,” Sol Rubenstein complained to the National Security Advisor. “This feels like some post-Armageddon redoubt where the survivors wait for the nuclear winter to end before they can reemerge onto the surface of the earth.” Two Navy stewards carried in pizza and colas. “Strangelovian.”

“You watch too many movies, Sol.” Wallace Reynolds chuckled, “I'm not so sure the Director of National Intelligence should have so much time on his hands that he can see as many movies as you do.” Reynolds passed the peppers to Secretary of State Brenda Neyers. “Besides, it's more important that the National Security Advisor survive any attack on the White House than that I get to see the sun.”

It was the National Security Advisor's turn to host the weekly after-work dinner with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of National Intelligence. They met in his office in the new National Security Council (NSC) staff center, fifty feet below the West Wing and the Eisenhower Office Building, inside the White House compound. There the Situation Room staff monitored world developments, interagency working groups met in person and on secure video conferences, and the NSC staff prepared presidential decisions and monitored their implementation.

“Movies are my escape from you three,” Rubenstein admitted as he lifted anchovies off his slice. “And they give me insight into what people are thinking. You should try it, Brenda, sneak into the back of a cinema after the lights go down. Try the multiplex in Georgetown. It's showing a Schwarzenegger festival this week. Your protective detail will love it.”

“Just my kind of stuff, Solly, the Guvenator as a robot. I saw enough of that in reality as a congresswoman from California,” Secretary Neyers replied, and poured her Coke.

“Let's get started. Bill, what's the latest on the Chinese military alert?” Reynolds asked, turning to Secretary of Defense William Chesterfield.

“Seems like it might just be a drill, an exercise, now, but Pacific Command got pretty worked up during the day today. Most of the Chinese fleet put to sea and their strategic missile forces were communicating a lot, but we think now it was just a test to see how quickly they could respond to an alert message.”

Chesterfield flipped through briefing notes that his staff at the Pentagon had prepared for him. “Probably long planned and not connected with the disappearance of our satellites and the internet beachhead attacks. By the way, it turns out the economic effect of the satellite losses is less than we thought because there was excess capacity, some of it Chinese. But, your question, the Chinese exercise coming right now could be a coincidence.”

“Coincidence, Bill? I don't trust coincidences in this business.” The National Security Advisor squinted as he looked across the table at the Secretary of Defense. “What do your guys say, Sol?”

“Coincidences happen, and we do have to be careful not to shape all the events we see through the prism of what is on our agenda. Nonetheless, the coincidence here could be that the Chinese had plans for a no-notice alert to their military and decided to run the test now to signal us,” Rubenstein replied. “Or it's not about us. It's just more of the saber rattling against Taiwan in the lead-up to their new parliament coming into session.”

“Signal us what? The signal doesn't work if we don't get it. I may just be a dumb former congresswoman, but I, for one, don't get it,” Brenda Neyers shot back.