Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (12 page)

The freight train blasted into them and carried the car and their battered bodies a mile before it could stop.

Arlington, Virginia

Panic spread in the secret FBI cyber installation across the Potomac River from the nation's capital. A decade ago, the nation's telephones, power grids, and emergency 911 number and fire dispatches had been separate systems, individual, unique. They could be hacked, but only with great difficulty, and certainly the hacker could not get from one system to another, except under very unusual circumstances.

But deregulation had changed all that. Today hundreds of new energy firms existed, as well as online power traders, and everything was linked through the multitude of telephone companies, whose interconnections also had resulted from deregulation. This vast number of electronically joined entities looked a lot like the Internet, which meant the best hackers could use one system as a door to another.

Defeated by the power and speed of the hacker, the FBI experts watched helplessly as switches flipped and the violent mischief continued. The velocity at which firewalls were breached and codes blown shocked them. But the worst aspect of the nightmare was how quickly the hacker could adjust his access code.

In fact, it seemed almost as if their counterattack caused his code to evolve. The more they fought him and his computer, the smarter his computer became. They had never seen anything like it. It was impossiblehellip;horrifying. A machine that could learn and evolve far faster than a human thought.

Denver, Colorado

In her penthouse atop the opulent twenty-story Aspen Towers apartment building, Carolyn Helms, founder and CEO of Saddle Leather Cosmetics for Western Men, was entertaining her business associates at an intimate birthday dinnerher forty-second. It was a joyous occasion. She had made them a lot of money, and they were a great team, anticipating an even more exciting and lucrative future.

Just as her longtime close friend and executive vice president George Harvey toasted her for the third time, she gasped, clutched her heart, and collapsed. George fell to his knees to check her vital signs. Her treasurer, Hetty Sykes, called 911. George began CPR.

The paramedic rescue team of the Denver Fire Department arrived within four minutes. But as they rushed into the building, the lights went off and the elevators froze. The building was in complete darkness. In fact, from what they could tell, the whole city was. They searched for the stairs. As soon as they found them, they began the long run up twenty stories to the penthouse.

By the time they arrived, Carolyn Helms was dead.

Arlington, Virginia

Phones rang in the secret Virginia headquarters of the cyber crime squad.

Los Angeles: “What in hell happened?”

Chicago: “Can you fix it? Are we next?”

Detroit: “Who's behind it? Find out pronto, you hear? You'd better not let this happen in our court!”

One of the FBI team shouted to the room: “The main attack came through a server in Santa Clara, California. I'm tracking back!”

Bitterroot Mountains on the Border Between Montana and Idaho

A Cessna carrying a party of hunters home with their meat and trophies landed neatly between the double row of blue lights that marked the rural strip. The Cessna turned and taxied toward a lighted Quonset hut, where hot coffee and bourbon were waiting. Inside the little plane, the hunters were cracking jokes and recounting the successes of their trip when suddenly the pilot swore.

“What in hell?”

Everywhere they could see, all electric lights had disappearedthe runway, the little terminal, the Quonset hut, the shops and garages. Suddenly there was a noise, hard to distinguish over the sound of their own plane's engine. Then they saw it: A landing Piper Cub, owned by a bush pilot, had veered off course in the darkness. The Cessna pilot pulled hard on his stick, but the Piper was going so fast there was no escape.

At impact, the Piper burst into flames and ignited the Cessna. No one survived.

Arlington, Virginia

A dozen FBI computer forensics specialists were analyzing the initial attack against Cal-ISO, looking for signs of the hacker. The cyber sleuths scanned their screens as their state-of-the-art software analyzed for footprints and fingerprintsthe trail of hits and misses all hackers left behind. There were none.

As they labored, power returned inexplicably, without warning. The FBI team watched their screens with disbelief as the Western states' massive complex of power plants and transmission lines throbbed back to life. Relief spread through the room.

Then the chief of the cyber team swore at the top of his lungs. “He's breaking into a telecommunications satellite system!”

Paris, France Wednesday, May 7

A harsh buzzing shattered Smith's instantly forgotten dream. He grabbed his Sig Sauer from under his pillow and sat up, alert, in a pitch-black room filled with alien odors and misplaced shadows. There was a faint spattering of rain outside. Gray light showed around the drapes. Where was he? And then he realized the buzz came from his cell phone, which rested on his bedside table. Of course, he was in his hotel room, not far from the boulevard Saint-Germain.

“Damnation.” He snatched up the phone. Only one person would call at this hour. “I thought you told me to get some sleep,” he complained.

“Covert-One never sleeps, and we operate on D.C. time. It's barely the shank of the evening here,” Fred Klein told him airily. As he continued, his tone grew grave: “I've got unfortunate news. It looks as if Diego Garcia wasn't an atmospheric glitch or any other malfunction. We've been hit again.”

Smith forgot his rude awakening. “When?”

“It's still going on.” He told Smith everything that had happened since Cal-ISO went offline. “Six kids are dead in Nevada. A train hit their car because the crossing signal was out. I've got a stack of notices here of civilians who were hurt and killed because of the blackout. There'll be more.”

Smith thought. “Has the FBI traced the attack back?”

“Couldn't. The hacker's defenses were so swift it seemed as if his computer was learning and evolving.”

Jon's chest tightened. “A molecular computer. Can't be anything else. And they've got someone who can operate it. Check whether any computer hackers are missing. Get the other agencies on it.”

“Already have.”

“What about Chambord and his daughter? Do you have anything for me?”

“In my hand. His bio, but it doesn't seem useful.”

“Maybe you've missed something. Give me the highlights.”

“Very well. He was born in Paris. His father was a French paratroop officer, killed during the siege at Dien Bien Phu. His mother was Algerian and raised him alone. He showed a genius for math and chemistry early, went through all the best French schools on scholarships, did his doctoral work at Cal Tech, postdoc at Stanford under their leading geneticist, and post-post doc at the Pasteur Institute. After that, he held professional positions in Tokyo, Prague, Morocco, and Cairo, and then returned about ten years ago to the Pasteur. As for his personal life, his mother raised him as a Muslim, but he showed little interest in religion as an adult. Hobbies were sailing, single-malt Scotch whiskies, hiking in the countryside, and gambling, mainly roulette and poker. Not much of Islam in there. That help?”

Smith paused, thinking. “So Chambord was a risk-taker, but not extreme. He liked his little relaxations, and he didn't mind change. In fact, it sounds as if he could be restless. Certainly he wasn't bogged down by a need for stability or continuity, unlike a lot of scientists. He trusted his own judgment, too, and could make big leaps. Just the characteristics one wants in fine theoretical and research scientists. We already knew he didn't especially follow rules and procedures. It all fits. So what about the daughter? Is she the same type?”

“An only child, close to her father, especially since her mother's death. Science scholarships exactly like her father, but not with his early brilliance. When she was about twenty, she was bitten by the acting bug. She studied in Paris, London, and New York, and then worked in provincial French towns until she finally made a splash in live theater in Paris. I'd say her personality's a lot like Chambord himself. Unmarried, apparently never even been engaged. She's been quoted as saying, 'I'm too single-minded about my work to settle down with anyone outside the business, and actors are wrapped up in themselves and unstable, just as I probably am.' That's Chambord all over againmodest, realistic. She's had plenty of admirers and boyfriends. You know the drill.”

Smith smiled in the dark room at Klein's primness. It was one of the odd quirks about the lifelong clandestine operative. Klein had seen or done just about everything anyone could, was nonjudgmental, but drew the line at discussing anything remotely graphic about people's sexual behavior, despite being quite ready to send a Juliet agent to seduce a target, if that's what had to be done to get what was needed.

Smith told him, “That fits my assessment of her, too. What it doesn't fit is her kidnapping. I've been thinking about her being able to operate a prototype DNA computer. If she's been out of science for years and hasn't seen much of her father in months, then why did they want her?”

“I'm not cer” Klein's voice abruptly vanished, cut off in mid-word.

The silence in Smith's ear was profound. A void that almost reverberated. “Chief?” Smith was puzzled. “Chief? Hello! Fred, can you hear me?”

But there was no dial tone, no buzz, no interruption signal. Smith took the cell phone from his ear and examined it. The battery was live. The charge was full. He turned it off, turned it on, and dialed Klein's private number at Covert-One in Washington, D.C.

Silence. Again, there was no dial tone. No static. Nothing. What had happened? Covert-One had innumerable backup systems for power failures, enemy interference, satellite blackout, sunspot interference. For everything and anything. Plus, the connection was routed through the top-secret U.S. Army communications system run out of Fort Meade, Maryland. Still, there was nothing but silence.

When he tried other numbers and continued to be unable to get through, he powered up his laptop and composed an innocent-sounding e-mail: “Weather abruptly changing. Thunder and lightning so loud you can't hear yourself speak. How are conditions there?”

As soon as he sent it off, he pulled back the drapes and opened the shutters. Immediately, the fresh scent of the rain-washed city filled the room, while pale, predawn light formed a backdrop for the dramatic skyline. He wanted to stay and enjoy the view, the sense of newness, but too much was preying on his mind. He pulled on his bathrobe, dropped the Sig Sauer into the pocket, and returned to the computer, where he sat again at the desk. An error message stared at him from his screen. The server was down.

Shaking his head, worried, he dialed his cell phone again. Silence. He sat back, his anxious gaze moving around the room and then back to his laptop's screen.

Diego Garcia's communications.

The Western power grid.

Now the U.S. military's ultrasecret, ultrasecure wireless communications.

All had failed. Why? The first salvos from whoever had Chambord's DNA computer? Tests to make certain it worked, and that they, whoever “they” were, could control the machine? Or perhaps, if the world was lucky, this shutdown was caused by an exceptionally good hacker on an ordinary silicon computer.

Yeah. He really believed that.

If those who had the DNA computer were suspicious of him, then they might be able to track him here through his cell phone conversation with Fred Klein.

He jumped up, dressed, and threw clothes into his overnight bag. He repacked his laptop, bolstered his Sig Sauer, and, grabbing his luggage, he left. As he trotted down the stairs, he watched and listened, but there was no sign anyone else in the hotel was awake so early. He sped past the deserted front desk and slipped out the door. Paris was beginning to awaken. He moved quickly along the narrow side street. He scanned every doorway, studied the dark windows that watched him like the hundred eyes of a Greek monster, and finally blended into the growing traffic and few pedestrians on the boulevard Saint-Germain.

Eventually he was able to hail a sleepy taxi driver who delivered him to the Gare du Nord rail station, where he checked his suitcase and laptop. Still watching all around, he took a different taxi to the Pompidou Hospital to visit Marty. As soon as the wireless communications were up and running again, he knew Fred Klein would be in touch.

In her usual battered flat shoes and dowdy clothes, the dark-haired woman walked timidly along the exotic Paris street, redolent in the early morning with the odors of North Africa and the Middle East.

As she peered up, Mauritania stepped from his building's vestibule. The diminutive terrorist was dressed in a loose raincoat and light corduroy trousers, looking like any Parisian workman. He glanced at her, and in that glance was the eagle eye of two decades of on-the-run experience. It missed little. Since her clothes were properly faded and cared-for, the flat shoes patched by a cheap repair shop, and the battered handbag that of a woman three times her age, as would be expected in a young but frightened soul, Mauritania was reassured. In his usually cautious way, he rounded several corners and doubled back, but the woman never appeared again. Satisfied, he entered the meacute;tro.

The woman had followed Mauritania through the first few turns, until his maneuvers convinced her he would be gone long enough for her purposes. She hurried back to his building, where the windows remained unlighted and showed no sign of activity. She picked the front-door lock, climbed the stairs to the third-floor apartment where Mauritania was staying, and picked that lock as well.

She stepped into what first appeared to be a tent in the wilds of Arabia or the heart of the Sahara. The rugs seemed to shift under her feet as if resting on sand. Carpets on the walls and ceiling closed claustrophobically in on her, and the rugs over the windows explained the dark windows at all times of the day and night. Amazed, she remained unmoving for some time, taking it all in, until she finally shook her head and went to work. Listening to be certain she was alone, she methodically searched every square inch of the rooms.