Direct Action - 03 (30 page)

“You know it.”

“That's so gangster,” Adam blurted.

Deckard took a drag on his cigarette.

“So they tell me that you three were in Tahrir Square.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said. “Had the best seat in the house from a nearby rooftop. Revolution in real time.”

“I was the guy that had to go in and recover your toy for you.”

“The Nexus Interceptor,” Luke said.

“That is what that black box is called?”

“It's just a nickname we gave it. That bad boy is state of the art.”

“What exactly does it do?”

“It is a hacking bypass tool. You know if you want to break into secure computer systems you can hack in through cyberspace, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well this allows you to sneak in through the back door. It creates a temporary power shortage in the targeted system, which creates an opening for you to then insinuate yourself into various networks.”

“Why not just hack in the old fashion way from back in the United States?”

“The thing with social media networks is that when you post messages they have a geographical locator with them so the network you are posting from knows where you are physically located. This means that you have to have an actual presence in the vicinity of the network you are trying to spoof.”

“And once you spoofed it what did you do?”

“Well, for instance you can then walk right into user accounts for e-mail and social media. That is what we were doing. So then we just start making posts as if we are those users.”

“Egypt has been run by one dictator after the next,” Aaron informed Deckard. “The people have been suffering under oppression at least since Sadat was assassinated. We came here to help them out.”

“What do you mean? Help them how?”

“Human rights is a mainstay in American foreign policy,” Luke said. “But America propped up Hosni Mubarak for decades. He was a dictator and the people were suffering. All of us agreed that he had to go and we could help change conditions.”

“All of us being the three of you?”

“We were just facilitators. People were already flooding into the streets in droves.”

“Pent up anger from years under the thumb of Mubarak,” Adam said.

“Wait a second, what did you actually do with that device?”

“We used it as a bypass to gain control of thousands of Facebook and Twitter Accounts,” Aaron said.

“Then used them to broadcast the message of revolution,” Luke said.

“A mass blast that got the ball rolling,” Adam finished.

“You three lit the fuse on Egypt's Arab Spring?”

“The fuse had been lit decades ago. Like Luke said, we were just facilitators.”

“Holy shit,” Deckard said as he leaned back against the railing on the side of the ship. “Don't you realize that someone back in America flipped Mubarak's switch from green to red?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hold on a second.” Deckard was getting pissed and was starting to break role at this point. “Who put you up to this?”

“What do you mean?” Luke asked.

“Who gave you that bypass device?”

“This NGO down in Virginia.”

Deckard rubbed his forehead with both hands.

“Yeah,” Aaron broke in. “They are called Global Freedom and Prosperity. They visit our college sometimes, really cool people. They really care about helping to get college students out into the world to help promote freedom. They offer workshops, training, and stuff like that.”

“You know, like political advocacy type stuff,” Adam said.

“Political advocacy type stuff,” Deckard repeated ominously.

“What did you mean someone flipped Mubarak from green to red?”

Deckard took another drag on his cigarette and flicked it over the side of the ship.

“Nevermind.”

“No man, what were you going to say?”

“You guys don't get it?”

“What?”

“Mubarak didn't simply fall. The United States government would not let their strongman fall if they didn't want him to. A policy decision was made in the halls of power in D.C. They decided it was time for him to go. Not you, not some grassroots revolution. An NGO in Virginia? Are you guys kidding me?”

“It isn't like you think,” Adam said flippantly. “That is not how GFP works; they are out to promote democracy. America was in bed with Mubarak so why would they want him out of office?”

“Good question,” Deckard answered. “Maybe it plays into Syria.”

“And why would they care about Syria?”

“Because that plays into Iran.”

Deckard turned and walked away, leaving the young men in stunned silence.

Meanwhile, the world continued coming apart at the seams.

21

“It's a no-go.”

“What do you mean,
it's a no-go
?”

Deckard could feel blood throbbing in his temples.

“I can't do it.”

He reached out and grabbed Aghassi by the arm.

“The hell you can't. We were in Egypt for a day and then it took four days to get back. I've seen you do the impossible with shorter timelines.”

“This is different,” Aghassi said. “They are different.”

“You're literally killing me here.”

Aghassi saw the look in his friend's eyes and knew he meant it. Despite trying to play it off the last time they met at the Chinese restaurant, Deckard was getting frayed around the edges. On top of the normal combat stress, he was working as a singleton. Piled on top was that, he was constantly undercover, even among his teammates. He was always on the job and could never let his guard down, not even for a second.

“I worked out the guard cycle at Bill's place, bypassed the three security systems he had, picked the lock, made entry into the house and poked around. His office is upstairs. I slipped a fiber optic camera under the door and spotted something.”

“Spotted what?”

“A killswitch. If I trip the killswitch it will probably wipe all the drives and set off an alarm. Not only would we lose the data and compromise this entire mission, but it could put you under suspicion as well. The killswitch is rigged up to a motion and heat sensor. I couldn't even get into the same room as Bill's computer set up.”

“What is the counter-measure? The next op they take me on is it. You go in there, get the data, and we call in the boys when we arrive back here in Mauritius.”

“Listen Deck, I have to tell you. Someone with a security system this sophisticated is going to have PGP encryption on his drive at a minimum. I can mirror the drive and take it out with me but even if we had ten Cray super-computers decrypting it, they wouldn't be successful until our grand kids are applying for Medicare.”

“Fuck me.”

“I'll keep trying, but this might be a dead end.”

“Then what?”

Aghassi shook his head.

“This might come down to old fashion human intelligence.”

“One of them is already suspicious of me,” Deckard told him. “Rick. He saw me taking photos of the device on the way out. Bill blew it off though.”

“What device?”

Deckard showed him the pictures on his cell phone of the device he had recovered in Egypt. Aghassi flipped through them on Deckard's phone while getting a brief rundown on how it worked and why it had been in Egypt.

“Looks like a high energy radio frequency device. Where is it now? If you can get it to me, this could be our big break. We can use it to tap into their network.”

“Too late. When our ship dropped us off in Djibouti there were a couple suits waiting on us. One took control of the three college kids to put on an airplane back home. Another took possession of the device.”

“We're up shit creek.”

“That isn't exactly comforting.”

“Look, we've got one platoon from Samruk International in Madagascar. They hit the ground about twelve hours ago and are staging out of a hangar. They are arranging for contingency transportation to Mauritius by air and sea right now.”

“Who is there?”

“Sergeant Major Korgan and Frank running things. About forty shooters total. We'll be able to call on them when we need them.”

“When the time comes I'm not going to have days to wait on their ship or hours to wait for their plane,” Deckard said. “It is anyone's guess who will still be standing when the smoke clears.”

22

Deckard relaxed and let the current carry him.

Exhaling, bubbles escaped from around the air regulator he held in his mouth. The kelp was swept back, nearly horizontal with the sandy bottom in the strong current. His muscles were relaxed as he hung suspended in the clear blue water. Above him, ripples of yellow sunlight glimmered and cast shadows in the shallow water.

He swam underwater through the channel between two small islands. As the ocean forced itself through the channel, it created an extremely swift current. At times it was like being in a liquid treadmill as Deckard kicked with his fins but made no forward progress. Having SCUBA dived all the way upstream to the edge of the islands, he now relaxed and let the current carry him back.

The water between the two islands was shallow, maybe twenty five feet deep but with visibility that went out one hundred feet in any given direction. Now he was slowly sinking towards the bottom. Just beneath him, sand and shattered sea shells were blown with the current like tumbleweed in the desert. He inhaled, filling his lungs with oxygen. The added buoyancy was just enough for him to pop back up and rise above the sandy surface.

Small fish darted around looking for food but there was little to be found. They were fighting the current as Deckard had been, but were somewhat better suited for it.

The ocean blasted him back in the direction he had come, a half hour of swimming upstream was now a four-minute trip downstream as the horizons stayed neutral and the ocean bottom raced by below him.

Finally, he was alone.

Ten minutes later, he surfaced above the choppy waves. The wind was coming in strong, so Deckard kept his regulator in his mouth as he bobbed on the surface and kicked his way to the shore. Once he could touch the bottom, he took off his fins and snorkel, then walked in to the beach.

“How was the dive?” Nadeesha asked as she sat up and cupped her hands over her eyes to protect them from the sun.

“Good. Strong current down there today,” Deckard answered as he set down his oxygen tank and began stripping out of his wetsuit.

Nadeesha, meanwhile, was completely naked as she had been sunning herself on the beach. The catamaran they had rented was rocking in the ocean one hundred meters out where they had anchored it. Gabriel Island was uninhabited, and being about eight miles off the coast of Mauritius, it seemed they had the entire island to themselves.

Deckard set his dive gear aside and sat down as the wind blew her hair in his face. Looking at her naked body, she was already the darkest shade of bronze imaginable.

“I don't know why you feel the need to tan, Nadeesha,” he said.

“Call me Nadi. All my friends do.”

“The guys on the team don't call you Nadi.”

“They are not my friends.”

“But I am?”

Her wide smile contrasted her dark complexion with her white teeth.

“Better than that,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her. Nadi held him close, pressing her breasts into Deckard's bare chest. They kissed deeply, forgetting completely where or when they were.

When he pulled away, Nadi bit her upper lip.

“I think you're a little excited.”

“Just a little.”

She laughed at that.

“I wanted to ask you,” Deckard began. “Southern India?”

“No,” she laughed again. “Sri Lanka.”

“I was afraid I would make a real ass out of myself and you would say Kansas City.”

“No, I grew up in Sri Lanka. My dad owned the largest bottled water import business on the island. That, and his political connections with the Sri Lankan government, helped us immigrate to the US when I was a teenager. Eventually we got dual citizenship.”