Albatross (26 page)

“Is that why you have this group monitoring the Merrimack Valley?” Davis asked.

Davis waited for Cratty’s typical retort, which always sounded like the woman was a sensei, but she was surprised when she noticed Cratty’s attention drawn to one of the monitors that had brought up a transmission that had been immediately forwarded to the operations center.

For just a moment, there was one transmission on one of the screens. Davis saw it and couldn’t help but think it was a clear message sent specifically to the operations center: “I remember everything on May 2, 2011. Operation center, Foreign Intelligence Agency, all present foreign operations are compromised. Cyber-attack imminent.”

On the smaller monitors, there was the telltale sign of viral infection—a lock out, frozen screens, pixilation, and then a fade to black. The difference was the speed of this attack, which seemed instantaneous.

Davis’s attention went right to the large floor-to-ceiling monitor that was beginning to pixelate and break up. Davis was surprised at the speed of this attack. Cratty watched the middle monitor go completely dark as the two flanking monitors also began to fade out. Immediately, there was a sea of exhales, sharp intakes of air, and a bunch of expletives from analysts and operators. Cratty was the first to respond.

“Shut down! Everyone, kill the juice to your computer now!”

Davis knew why Cratty was responding so quickly. What had crippled the FBI’s office in Boston was now targeting their operations. And because this was happening in the middle of four real-time operations, whoever was responsible would be held for treason.
Bastards,
she thought to herself.
People could get killed.

Some staff did shut their computers in time; more did not. Now it was a matter of watching frozen screens, and then they saw e-mails, files, and programs begin to vanish from their computers’ hard drives.

Standing in the dark with the sound of air-conditioning and breathing, Cratty looked over her silent operations center. Davis waited for Cratty to invoke the emergency protocol.

“All right. Alpha Team, prepare to redeploy to Hascom Air Base. We are heading to the bunker.”

While neither manager was in uniform, they presented as if they were in a fire zone and under attack by soldiers with guns, rifles, and grenades. In Davis’s mind, that was an accurate description. To Cratty’s credit, she did exude confidence and command to the less senior staff and those who were visibly shaken, which included nearly all the civilians who had been trained to do their jobs but who had not been tested under fire. Davis began to think that maybe she and Cratty were made from the same cloth; their reaction to the cyber-attack was to strike back.
Brothers in arms
, Davis thought to herself.

After she turned to Davis, Cratty officially issued the order to effectively abandoned their posts and regroup at the fallback positions. There were always plans and protocols; people always drew comfort from that. Davis was struck by Cratty’s relatively low tone but firm order. “Davis, I need you to remove all critical operational files and data and to reestablish contact with all foreign and domestic operations. I need you to immediately dispatch to the auxiliary control room and keep things going until the bunker is up and running. There is a window of sixty minutes.”

“Yes, sir!” was Davis’s response. Davis knew Cratty’s shift to military orders and protocols was done to demonstrate to the staff of civilians that they were all one team and that as a team, they would prevail. They were all at war.

As Cratty’s second in command herded the staff out into the exterior offices and prepared them all for transport, Cratty and Davis walked to the manager’s office, which surveyed the entire operations center. Once alone, Davis and Cratty spoke freely.

“This just pisses me off,” Davis said as she readjusted her necklace so that it stayed under her blouse.

“Tell me about it. Who the hell did this?” Cratty asked.

“I don’t know, but I’ll get the axillary control going to cover the other missions,” Davis responded.

“Good. That will give me time to find the assholes who did this,” was Cratty’s unusually blunt response.

Davis took a moment to consider Cratty as she was pulling documents together. Davis never thought she would ever hear Cratty swear.
Wow … she’s really pissed,
Davis thought as a small smile formed.
Maybe I could get to like her.

As if to confirm Davis’s thoughts, Cratty looked up and saw Davis looking at her.

“What?” Cratty said with more than subtle annoyance expressed in her tone and expression.

“Nothing, Cratty. I just agree with you. Find them and kill.”

“Yeah—” Cratty said as she shifted focus from collecting documents to the wall.

“This is bad,” Cratty said as she unlocked the wall safe to extract four two-inch-thick operations and code books. In addition to this highly classified data, there were three external hard drives, each with three terabytes of data of covert missions and operations that had occurred over half a decade. Cratty was listing off the inventory so Davis would have everything she needed to cover the operations.

Davis was listening, but she was mostly focusing on unlocking her assigned bin and taking out her military-issue, .45-caliber handgun with additional magazines and a retractable baton. As Cratty loaded the black backpack with the critical information, she also removed the key for the magnetic lock to the auxiliary control room from the safe and handed it to Davis. Davis was intimately aware of the rational of having an off-site base of operations as you reestablished the secondary command center. The auxiliary control room was an abridged operations center that could also be kept hidden in plain view and not connected electronically to the main operations center. Davis knew that this separation would keep the location safe from attacks, and it was small enough that it could be protected by a small detail. It could also be operated by one person. Four managers, two assistant managers, and the director knew about the location, its purpose, and the contents of this room, which kept things safe and classified. Davis’s mission was simple: take the car and the prescribed route to the location, provide the security detail with the day’s code to gain entrance to the room, and set up operations within sixty minutes. Because all members of this elite group had practiced this run and alternative routes once a week and at varying times of the day every week on the job, Davis could honestly state that she could get the base up and running in forty minutes.

Cratty handed the backpack and key to Davis. Davis was wearing a long coat to better conceal her weapons and stay blended in to a civilian background.

For maybe the first time in three years of working together, Cratty extended her hand to shake Davis’s hand. Davis took it and was pleasantly surprised that it was much stronger than she had expected.

“Good luck,” Cratty said.

“Will do,” Davis responded.

Davis had to admit that she never thought she would like Cratty. With the exception of Cratty’s mother’s illness, Davis felt there was little in common between them. Also, Cratty was just too “girly” for Davis. But Davis had to admit that Cratty acted the way she might have if she was in command and there was a breach of this magnitude. Whoever breached the operation center was a danger to national security. Davis found another thing she had in common with Cratty—she took national security pretty personally as Davis did.

Davis was walking out the door when she turned back to say something to Cratty. Davis saw that Cratty was retrieving her own semiautomatic weapon and slapping a clip of ammunition in place.

“Cratty?”

“What?” Cratty asked with less annoyance than before.

“Find these fuckers, will ya?” Davis called back.

“Didn’t we just go over this?” Cratty asked.

Davis was not surprised when Cratty didn’t wait for a response; Davis could tell she was looking for her other clip.

Davis couldn’t help but smile broadly as she headed toward the garage.
I really hope she finds those bastards,
she thought to herself.

Chapter 16

Burns had parked the
ambulance toward the back of the private bank. He had parked the ambulance in what Samantha referred to as “launch mode,” which meant it was facing out, ready for someone to put it in drive and hit the road. As casually as he could, Burns started walking toward the back entrance. His scalp and hands were itching again, but he was sure it was just nerves this time. Based on the floor plans and David’s surveillance tapes, Burns knew exactly how many stairs he had to climb to the second floor, where the security camera filmed, where the front desk was situated, and where the first guard would be standing. He also knew the entrance to the auxiliary control room and the most likely place the other guard would be stationed. Burns was now using a paramedic backpack to keep both of his hands free. When Burns was halfway up the flight of stairs, he held his Taser in his left hand and a stun gun in his right. Crossing the distance to the guard sitting down would be easy, but simultaneously shooting a Taser ten to fifteen feet at a target with accuracy while being up close and personal with another guard getting up would be tricky. As it was a private bank in a public setting, it was not unusual for these guards to interface with the public, even though they were upstairs and away from most people. Today would be a little different. From their perspective, they would probably be wondering why there was an additional guard or law enforcement support there when they had not requested one. Burns was sure that they’d wonder why this man had a paramedic bag on his back. And that was exactly what happened. As Burns rounded the corner with the exact steps measured out, he saw the first guard behind the desk clearly reaching over to either pick something up or tie his shoe. The second guard directly behind him had his arms folded across his chest, presenting Burns with a more compact target. The standing guard was struck first with the Taser shot, which flew right over the first guard’s head. It hit its target, shocking the large man and sending him into convulsions as the voltage ran through his body. The seated guard witnessed this and then turned around, his semiautomatic weapon drawn from his holster, but it was too late. He was now convulsing from the shock from a stun gun. In less than ten seconds, both guards were down. Because the operations center would be off-line, the feed from the security cameras would have to be viewed manual from the bank. This meant that a live response and a strike team would not be sent. The only person he expected to show up next would be the designated operator of the control room. He had maybe ten to fifteen minutes to stage the area so that it looked like he was assisting a downed guard and hopefully get the jump on the assigned field agent. Just as Burns was getting the paramedic bag unpacked so that the scene would have that “crisis look,” he heard Becky’s voice over the radio say, “Tiny to Falcon. Scarlett is in place, and I have eyes on target car. It is heading to the right of the exit. Repeat right. Plan B.”

It had taken years to find the operations center. It had taken four months to find the cars transporting the managers to the auxiliary control room. Finally, the end was coming.

“ETA?” Burns asked.

“At that speed, five minutes.”

“Okay, Tiny. Do you have eyes on Scarlett?”

It was a long minute, and Burns worked through it, securing and hiding one guard behind a small leather couch.

“Yes. Eyes are on Scarlett,” Becky replied.

“As soon as she is halfway there, blow the generator and set everything at the PD in motion. Pack the gear and go to rally point delta. Falcon out.”

Burns was beginning to sweat now. He looked around and saw that the guards had the same shirts, insignias, and badges. That gave Burns another idea to improve on the original plan to pretend to be an assisting first responder. He hoped it would work. Burns moved ahead with his new idea, but he wished he could make sure that Samantha was all right. He knew she would be fine, but he was just anxious about her well-being. Burns unexpectedly smiled to himself as he tried his new shirt.
I just want to be with her soon
, he thought.

As Samantha parked her car, she bent over to tie her shoe. In reality, she tripped the receiver for the high-yield explosives near the gas tank toward the back of the car. She made sure not to park too close to other cars parked in the “police only” parking lot. This was easy to do because the station really did seem sparse with everyone out on the streets. The civilian parking lot, on the other hand, was jammed up beyond capacity. Everyone wanted to get information about what was going on in their community. The sounds of sirens, fighter jets, and helicopters were also in the air. As she walked with purpose toward the front doors, the doors of the police station suddenly opened, and they were held open by officers to let the civilians out of the building.

One of the officers looked over and called her over. “Cadet! Either hold this door open or get in there and help evacuate the building.”