Callsign: King - Blackout

24

King wrenched his head sideways and let the Spetsnaz drive the point of the blade down. The knife pierced through the air where his face had been an instant earlier and punched deep into the fiberglass deck. Almost simultaneously, the Russian’s finger depressed the release stud on the hilt.

The knife handle went cold in King’s grasp as the compressed carbon dioxide charge expanded inside the tube, but because the blade wasn’t going anywhere, the blast instead blew the hilt, along with the four hands gripping it, straight up like a piston into the Russian’s face.

Even as the Spetsnaz winced from the impact, King released his grip on the hilt and fumbled for the heavy object that had pounded him earlier-the Russian’s gun. His fingers found the cool metal frame and recognized it instantly-an Israeli-produced Uzi 9-millimeter machine pistol, outfitted with a noise suppressor. His hand curled around the grip, depressing the safety mechanism, and in a single decisive motion, he jabbed the extended barrel up into the Russian’s abdomen and pulled the trigger.

Hot brass cascaded from the ejection port, but there was hardly any noise or recoil as the magazine emptied into the Russian’s torso. King felt the man lurch as the rounds punched through him, but even before the bolt blew back on the last chamber, the Russian slumped atop him, dead or very nearly so.

King heaved the corpse away, his hands now slick with the man’s blood. His eyes caught the glow of a cell phone, its light illuminating Brown’s face. The gambler seemed oblivious to everything else, his attention consumed by whatever was being displayed on the screen. King snatched the device from the other man’s grasp. It was the quantum phone. The small screen showed just two words:

Operation complete.

He grabbed Brown’s shirtfront with his free hand and pulled the man close. “What did you just do?”

The gambler’s defiant smile was particularly creepy in the phone’s glow. “Locked in my bet. Nothing you can do about it now.”

“We’ll see about that,” King growled. He punched Brown squarely on the chin, the slim phone in his hand adding just a little bit of heft to the blow, and the man slumped unconscious onto the deck.

King dropped the quantum phone into his pocket, then bent over Brown and rifled through the man’s clothes to find the Chess Team phone. He was dismayed to see that it was also radiating light; somehow, Brown had activated it. He swiped his thumb over the screen and spoke the voice command that would put him in touch with Deep Blue back at headquarters.

As he waited for the call to connect, he retrieved the Uzi from the fallen commando. A quick search yielded half a dozen magazines of 9 mm rounds for the gun, a satchel full of improvised explosives-flashbangs and claymores, along with loose packets of plastique and blasting caps, and another ballistic knife. He then hauled Brown’s unresisting form into the Zodiac he’d originally commandeered and climbed in after, shoving off from the damaged boat. He didn’t see the third boat anywhere, but the apparent absence of the remaining members of the Spetsnaz team did not fill him with confidence. They were out there somewhere. It was only a matter of time before they realized what he had done. As he aimed the prow of the inflatable craft toward the nearest land-Ile de la Cite-he heard a familiar voice in his ear.

“King!” Deep Blue sounded more frantic than King could recall ever hearing. “What’s happening? Wait…”

King could just make out the words that followed over the whine of the outboard. “Aleman. Abort. I’ve got King on the line.”

Abort? What’s going on?

The voice returned to full strength. “All right, King. Report. And make it quick. We’ve got a shitstorm brewing here.”

King did not immediately answer. He thought about the quantum phone…about how his own phone had been active when he’d taken it from Brown… “I think maybe your problems are related to mine,” he said finally.

He hastily recounted what had happened on the riverboat. Aleman joined the conversation, peppering him with questions he couldn’t answer when the subject of the quantum computer devices were brought up. He didn’t go into detail about the game he had played, and ultimately lost, with Brown, but instead focused on Pradesh.

“Shiva?” Aleman said, using Pradesh’s hacker alias. “That explains what happened here. In fact, it’s the only explanation.”

The tech expert quickly related the details of the cyber-attack, which had inexplicably ended only a few seconds before King had called, and just before he’d pulled the pin on a handful of incendiary grenades that would have reduced the Chess Team mainframe to a puddle of molten goo. The virtual damage was already done; there was now nothing to be gained by physically destroying the mainframe.

“With a quantum computer at his disposal, Shiva could break into any computer, anywhere. Government computers, banks…he’d control everything.”

“I’m not sure that’s Brown’s plan,” King countered. “Think about what we already know. Brown tried to develop an alternative energy source with Bluelight. Then he hosts a conference about the future of energy. And now we know he hired one of the architects of the Stuxnet computer virus to help him design the ultimate computer. What does that add up to?”

There was silence on the line, so King laid out his conclusion. “I think Brown wants control of the power grid. I think he plans to use the quantum computer to put Stuxnet into the computers controlling the grid.

“He was very insistent about making sure that the quantum computers went to ten men, all of them operations managers at big power stations. The power grid is designed so that if one station goes down, the demand can be met by others, but if you could knock out several of them simultaneously, the whole system would crash. I think Brown plans to use that threat to hold the world’s electrical supply hostage.” A light bulb flashed on in his head. “Or maybe he wants to destroy the grid so he can step forward with Bluelight, a power supply that doesn’t require the grid.”

“There’s a problem with that,” Aleman said. “Stuxnet is sophisticated, but it capitalizes on what are called ‘day-zero’ vulnerabilities. In other words, it exploits weaknesses that are built into the original programming language.”

“Then he’s using a different virus,” King said.

“You’re missing the point. Someone like Shiva wouldn’t need a quantum computer to pull off what you’re suggesting. Heaven knows, the power grid is vulnerable enough as it is.”

That stopped King. “You’re saying it would be like trying to drive a nail with a sledge-hammer?”

“More like with a jackhammer. There’s something more going on here.”

“I’ve got one of the quantum phones with me. Maybe we can use it to reverse engineer their system and find a back door. And I’ve got Brown.” King glanced over at the form of his nemesis. Willingly or not, the gambler was going to answer all their questions.

Suddenly a squeal of static filled his ear and he jerked the phone away as if it had stung him. The screen now read:

Connection lost

He waited a moment to see if the problem would resolve itself but there was no change. On an impulse, he took out the quantum phone but its display was dark.

He returned both phones to his pocket and focused on the immediate task of piloting the boat. The wheels of Brown’s plan were now turning, he was sure of that, but where they were rolling was anyone’s guess and time was running out.