The Trojan Horse (21 page)

But no one knew how the aliens would react…

A thought appeared in his mind.  It was a thoroughly nasty thought, one his father would probably have understood and approved.  But then, his father had friends who believed that Saudi Arabia and Iran were funding left-wing organisations that were undermining American freedoms and intending to replace the Constitution with Islamic Law.  It was a crazy idea, yet it might just work…and if they were lucky, it would take some of the pressure off the United States.  And it might just force the aliens to show their hand.

“I’m going to need you to be on detached duty for a while,” he said.  His father’s growing resistance organisation would need technical help.  Besides, he would have felt happier if Gillian was out of Washington.  The noose was growing tighter and he had an uncomfortable feeling that the shit was about to hit the fan.  How could the people outside, thronging the streets of Washington, be unaware of the looming catastrophe?  “Your superiors have already okayed it.  You’ll be working with an underground unit without links to Fort Meade.”

Gillian blinked at him.  “Why me?”

Toby considered several answers, and then settled upon the truth.  “Because I trust you,” he said.  “Because you already know what is at stake.  Because you’re the one who developed these bug-detectors and we need you on site so we can ensure that we’re clean.”

“All right,” Gillian said, reluctantly.  “And what will you be doing in the meantime?”

“You don’t want to know,” Toby said.  He’d have to have a meeting with the CIA and NSA – and then probably a discussion with an ally in the United States Special Operations Command.  At least there were so many units being moved around the globe right now; no one would even notice if one happened to be diverted.  And he had just the right unit in mind.  “Trust me; you
really
don’t want to know.”

“You can take me out to dinner tonight, then,” Gillian said.  “I’ll have to get my files organised for the move, and then pick up a few hundred spare parts for this monster.”  She tapped the detector with a long finger.  “I think it will work fine in the field, but I’m not sure just
how
well it will work, if you take my meaning.”

Toby nodded.  His father had been fond of complaining about expensive gadgets that worked perfectly in the lab and failed constantly in the field.  The United States had had thousands of companies intent on getting military contracts, each one armed with thousands of lobbyists intent on convincing Congressmen that their device would change the shape of modern warfare – and, just incidentally, ensure higher levels of employment in the Congressman’s home district.  It wouldn’t be the first time Congress had insisted that the military bought something that was of little use in the field.  If nothing else, the military cutbacks would force those firms to switch to non-military production in a hurry.  Their lobbyists would soon be out of work.

“You’ll be on hand to fix it,” he said.  He’d miss her, he knew.  Sharing the occasional dinner with her kept him going at times.  There were still times when he wondered if he could take their relationship to the next level.  But that would have to wait until afterwards – if there was an afterwards.  “Remember; paper letters only, written in code…”

“Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” Gillian said, tartly.  Toby flushed as she grinned at him.  She knew more about codes and security than he’d ever learned, or would ever learn.  Gillian might never have been out in the field in her life, but it hadn’t stopped her rising in the NSA.  Sheer competence alone had forced her forward.  “I know basic security precautions…”

There was a knock on the sealed door.  Toby cursed as he opened the door and saw an NSA officer, holding a secure phone in one hand.  “Mr Sanderson, sir, there’s been an emergency alert from the White House.  You’re to make your whereabouts known to the Secret Service at once!”

Toby shared a long look with Gillian.  Had the aliens decided to stop playing games and launch the invasion, or had something else happened? 

“I understand,” he said.  His secure phone had been left outside, but it would be easy to fetch it and place a call.  “I’m on my way.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Washington DC

USA, Day 35

The Secret Service spared no expense.  A helicopter picked him off the roof of the NSA building and carried Toby over towards the White House.  Toby could see armed Marines patrolling the grounds, with Secret Servicemen staying well back and policemen working frantically to get the mob of protesters at the gates moved back for their own safety.  As soon as the helicopter touched down, a mob of security officers surrounded him, checked his identity and then pulled him into the White House and down the steps to the bunker.  The President was heavily protected at all times, but this was something greater.  Toby had been a child the last time anyone had carried out an attack in Washington, when an airliner had been flown into the Pentagon.  It had been chaotic back then too.

“It’s bad news,” the President said.  He looked stunned, as if someone had hit him neatly between the eyes.  It was hardly the most reassuring look for the most powerful man in the world, but then…all of the politicians who might be good in a crisis tended to be driving out of the running before they could even stand for President.  And then those who survived often found that they were not up to handing crisis after crisis.  “Air Force One has gone down in midair.”

Toby stared at him.  Air Force One – actually, there were several planes decked out as Air Force One, but only one holding the title and callsign at any given time – was normally the President’s exclusive transport.  But the President had had to send the Vice President to Japan to reassure the Japanese about America's commitment to certain treaties and, just to ensure that they took him seriously, he’d ordered him to fly on Air Force One.  And now something had happened to his flight…he’d been over the Pacific Ocean, if memory served, escorted by a flight of Tomcats from a carrier heading home to the United States.

“My God,” he said, finally.  Why…who…if the President was the world’s number one target for terrorist activity, the Vice President certainly ranked as number five or six.  His security was almost as good as the President’s security; there was literally no more secure aircraft than Air Force One.  And the Japanese wouldn’t have played fast and loose with American security, not like some Middle Eastern nations he could name.  It was already shaping up into a horrific nightmare.  Fingers would be pointed everywhere…

He thought rapidly.  Who benefited?  Islamic terrorists would definitely be the prime suspects, but very few of the groups that had managed to remain active after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq would have the capability to mount such a successful strike.  Most of them had started to concentrate on soft targets, mainly outside the United States.  No halfway sane terrorist wanted to give the United States an excuse to wage war on their host countries.  And then there were the aliens…

On the face of it, the aliens didn’t benefit at all.  The Vice President had been, like so many others in government, a compromise candidate.  He’d brought valuable support to the President’s administration, but few other qualities of value.  On the other hand, he had been a good sounding board for some of the President’s qualities and he balanced the ticket nicely against Jeannette McGreevy…

Toby would have sworn aloud if he’d been alone.  Jeannette McGreevy, the Secretary of State, the woman who was using the aliens to build an impregnable power base for herself…and a woman who stood alarmingly close to the Presidency.  After the Vice President, the Line of Succession ran through The Speaker of the House of Representatives and The President Pro-Tempore of the Senate before reaching the Secretary of State, but neither of them could be expected to serve as Vice President, if only because they had few backers.  McGreevy was almost the only choice for Vice President, yet she couldn’t be trusted.  And the President didn’t know it…

He looked down at the President, who seemed tired and worn.  Somewhere on his person, or scattered around the room, was an alien bug, a surveillance device so tiny as to be literally invisible to the naked eye.  He couldn’t reach out to the President, or tell him about the resistance…or, for that matter, convince him to invoke presidential authority to help the resistance.  If he did, the aliens would know…and then what would they do?

***

“We flew SAR aircraft out of
Diego Garcia to link up with helicopters from the
Truman
,” Major Dalton said.  He sounded nervous.  Briefing the President was never easy at the best of times.  Toby could hardly blame him.  Washington sometimes operated on the ‘shoot the messenger’ theory of government.  “They found nothing, apart from trace debris.  The aircraft literally disintegrated in midair.”

The President seemed more composed now, but Toby suspected that it was partly an act.  “What happened?”

“We have gun camera footage from one of the drones overseeing the flight,” Dalton said.  Air Force One never flew alone, no matter what the movies claimed; there had been a powerful fighter escort from the carrier accompanying the flight.  Terrorists might not fly in fighter jets, but one of the more persistent nightmares was a rogue state launching an attempt to shoot Air Force One down.  But they should have been safe over the Pacific Ocean...  “The footage suggests, after a preliminary look, that there was a bomb on the flight, which detonated with impressive force.  They would all have been dead in the first few seconds after detonation.”

Toby frowned, inwardly.  No one should have been able to slip a bomb onto the aircraft.  The USAF only put the most reliable flight crew on Air Force One, and the ground crew were all specially trained and vetted.  There might have been a lone Japanese terrorist who’d somehow managed to get onto the base housing Air Force One while the Vice President was in Japan, but Toby couldn't see how he would have been able to conceal a bomb onboard.  The security sweeps should have picked up anything before the Vice President got anywhere near the plane.  No one – no one human – would have been able to plant  a bomb on Air Force One.

He would have expected the aliens to simply shoot the aircraft down from orbit, but he had to admit that this was more subtle.  A laser-type directed energy weapon could have only one possible source, an alien starship.  It would have been an open act of war.  This way, there would be considerable doubt over who had carried out the bombings, rendering it impossible to extract revenge.  The aliens had carried out a neat strike and there was no way to prove what they’d done.

“We’re currently organising a sweep to pick up what remains of the wreckage, but the surrounding environment will make that difficult,” Dalton continued.  “Once recovered, the wreckage will be flown to the nearest base for analysis, while the FBI conducts interviews of personnel who could have conceivably planted a bomb on the craft.  We’ll vet everyone who might have had any access at all, Mr President.  We
will
find the people responsible.”

The President’s eyes crossed the room to the CIA Director.  “Who,” he said, coldly, “was responsible for this?”

Toby winced.  The CIA Director had almost certainly come to the same conclusion as himself, but they didn't dare say it out loud, not when the aliens might hear.  No, they
would
hear.  Gillian’s device might not be ready for mass-production yet, but the NSA had deployed a series of increasingly sophisticated detectors in the White House and they’d located at least nine active bugs.  There could be dozens more that weren't transmitting to anyone. 

And McGreevy, who was almost certainly a traitor, was sitting at the other side of the room.

“Well, we’re only just looking at communications intercepts and human intelligence sources, but the general conclusion is that the attack was carried out by Islamic terrorists,” the CIA Director said, finally.  “Three of the crewmen assigned to Air Force One were Muslim; all three of them went down with the plane.  There has been a considerable upswing in chatter between known terrorist cells over the past two weeks and it is quite possible that one of them has made the shift from plotting to action.”

“A very clever strike,” the President observed, bitterly.  “How did this happen?”

There was an uncomfortable pause.  “Well, Mr. President,” the CIA Director said, finally, “there are always problems with ensuring that the security barriers surrounding any target are impregnable.  We are not allowed to discriminate against anyone just on suspicion, or because they practice a religion that includes terrorists who want to kill us all as brutally as they can.  At times, people slip through the holes and managed to get into a position they can use to hurt us badly.”

“So these terrorists managed to join the USAF and operate undetected for years before they struck,” the President said.  He sounded angry; Toby didn't blame him.  The cock-and-bull story they’d given him made the USAF’s security division look very bad.  And no matter what happened, chances were that three innocent crewmen were going to be posthumously declared the worst terrorists since the men who’d struck at America on 9/11.  The lives of their families would be blighted by the investigators, trying to prove a link between their dead relatives and international terrorism.  And it was quite possible that the aliens had turned someone on the plane into an unwitting traitor.  “Why now?”

“The Middle East has been going through a series of political earthquakes,” the CIA Director said.  “The price of oil has fallen dramatically ever since we started to turn to fusion power.  We may not have made a complete shift just yet, but perceptions are important – and perceptions say that there won’t be more than two years before demand for oil falls sharply.  And then the money runs out.”

Toby nodded.  The latest alien miracle introduced by the Welcome Foundation was a set of batteries that could store vast amounts of power almost endlessly, turning the long-held dream of electric cars into a reality.  All one had to do was plug the battery into the mains socket – power supplied by fusion, of course – and the car would be ready to drive within hours.  The designers had pulled an engine out of a popular car, replaced it with a battery, and let the results speak for themselves.  There were already ecological pressure groups getting organised to demand that all newly-produced cars were powered by fusion power, rather than gas. 

“I think we will be looking at far more terrorism in the near future,” the CIA Director said.  “Whatever they say openly, far too many Arab governments – Saudi and Iran in particular – back the terrorists.  If they can force the Galactic Federation to abandon Earth, they could reclaim their former prominence as oil suppliers to the world.”

“So they’ll keep attacking the Federation,” the President said.  “We may need to increase security at their bases...”

“I think there is another problem,” McGreevy said, sharply.  “How do we know that this was an Islamic strike at all?”

“We don’t,” the CIA Director admitted.  “However, the Islamic terrorists have been threatening the Galactic Federation...”

“And so they struck at the Vice President,” McGreevy said.  “I’m not sure I follow their logic.  They want to hurt the Galactic Federation so they kill the Vice President of America?  Where’s the logic in that?”

“Terrorists,” the CIA Director said, carefully, “tend to look for spectacular strikes.  Destroying an aircraft in flight is irritating, but largely harmless in any long-term sense.  Assassinating the Vice President, however, gives the impression that they can strike anywhere – and if the Vice President isn't safe, no one is safe.”

“The fact remains that this serves no logical purpose,” McGreevy said.  Her eyes fixed on the FBI Director’s face.  “I think we should be looking closer to home.  Is it not a fact that we have been seeing an increased number of threats against federal agents from home-grown right-wing militia groups?”

Toby kept his face impassive, but he was starting to see her line of logic.  They’d lost Blake Coleman...and the only reason the FBI hadn't descended on Coleman’s family to discover what he’d been doing had been that the body hadn't been recovered.  And no one human could have removed the body before the police arrived.  If the aliens had worked out who’d intercepted their team of assassins, they might be trying to put the blame for the Vice President’s assassination on Toby’s father, ensuring that two of their enemies wound up fighting each other.

The FBI Director sighed.  He knew little about the alien threat.  “The FBI has been monitoring the militia movement ever since it became an issue,” he said.  “We have placed agents and informants within most of the militia movements – and, quite frankly, most of them pose more threat to themselves than to others.  Despite their often fiery speeches, the most serious criminal offense they do is hording illegal weapons – some of which are often illegal based on technicalities.”