Changing of the Guard

4

Samuel Cox sat staring at his desk, as if the solution to his problem might be found between the computer and the hard-copy outbox.

His first reaction to the phone call had been close to panic. Not because he was worried about anybody overhearing it — Vrach’s voice was disguised, distorted far beyond vox-pattern recognition. The call was also scrambled, using state-of-the-art equipment. The NSA itself would bang their heads against the code if they tried to break it. After all, they had devised the scrambler, and they said their code was practically unbreakable.

No, it wasn’t that he was worried about being overheard. But the words that the Doctor had spoken so matter-of-factly? They had chilled Cox right to the bone.

The Turks had given Net Force a computer disk to decode. Thus far, the organization had been successful in finding at least some of the information hidden on the disk. They had uncovered a list of agents who had worked for the former Soviet Union in the Middle East forty years ago.

Cox had merely shrugged at that part of the news. It meant nothing to him.

Ah, the Doctor had said, but there could be more, much more — including a list of Soviet spies elsewhere in the world.

When Cox heard that, he felt his belly go cold. That meant something to him.

Where else in the world? he had asked.

The irritatingly calm Doctor had spoken of it as he might the weather or a football score: Among others, he said, the United States. We think. We cannot be sure. No one seems to know how the information came to be in the hands of the Iranians, or how the Turks got it from them.

At that, the cold in Cox’s belly had turned into a lump of dry ice.

He could almost hear the Russian’s pragmatic shrug over the no-pix connection. There is nothing to be done. Either they will decode it or they will not. We will deny all, of course, but done is done. You should know. Perhaps you might consider buying an island in some friendly country, and moving your money there.

Cox disconnected without another word and sagged back in his chair.

So much for being a valuable, protected asset. The Russians would be sorry to lose him, but they weren’t going to help him, Cox was sure of that.

Was he to be outed as a former spy? His good works since those foolish days would be ruined; he would be made into a villain, maybe even put in prison. It would kill his family. His wife would probably have a stroke. His children and grandchildren would be shamed. His friends would be astonished. But even if he held the government at bay and beat the charge, the taint would never leave him. Sam Cox? The billionaire? A Russian spy, did you hear? Hard to believe somebody with all that wealth and power could be so stupid, isn’t it?

He stared at the desk and shook his head. He was a powerful man. He had access to a giant fortune, he had the ears of presidents and kings. That was a long way to fall. A terrifyingly long way.

It couldn’t happen. Couldn’t. He would not allow it!

But — what could he do about it? They hadn’t uncovered anything yet, so he had some time, but how to stop it?

It was unlikely in the extreme that he could just send somebody into Net Force HQ in Quantico to steal the incriminating information. All men had their price, but finding out what it was could be tricky. For some, it was easy, money would do it. For others, it might be something complex, not easily determined. Attempt to corrupt the wrong person, the almost-mythical honest man, and that would point a nasty finger at you in a hurry. Why was somebody offering a low-level government employee ten or twenty million dollars to give up a computer disk? What could possibly be on it that was worth that much? Who could afford to make such an offer?

No, that could be a bad misstep.

He frowned. Perhaps they might not be able to break the remaining code. Perhaps the disk would lie in the Net Force vaults for fifty years or a hundred, long after Cox had gone to his reward, and he would be beyond caring.

He shook his head. He could not stake his future, his past, his life and legacy on that. If they had broken part of it, they could uncover the rest. He had to stop that, no matter what the cost.

Think, Sam, think!

But the desk offered no solutions, and his worry stood there grinning at him. Gotcha! it seemed to say. Gotcha!

He sighed. This was not his forte. He had people who knew how to manage such things. He touched the intercom control.

“Have Eduard drop by, would you?”

“Yes, sir,” his secretary said.

Natadze would have some ideas. He always did.

Jay was, he had to admit, stumped. Worse, he was a little worried that brute force, his method of last resort, wasn’t going to work, either. He wasn’t ready to try it quite yet, but he was approaching that point, and if it didn’t work, then what?

He had tried fifty variations, coming at the code from every direction he could think of, and nothing else had clicked.

“Hey, Smokin’ Jay.”

He blinked and looked at the door. “Toni! How are you?”

Toni Fiorella Michaels stepped into his office. “Doing great. How about you?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, frowning. He gestured at his desk. “Home is fine. Saji’s fine. But here…”

Toni smiled. “Hasn’t it always been that way? And won’t it always be?”

Jay shook his head. “Thanks. Just what I need to hear. You and the boss about ready to push off?”

“Yep. Got the van mostly packed, and we’re on the road first thing in the morning.”

“It’s a long way to Colorado.”

“You’re welcome to drop by anytime,” she said. “You should be able to hook a ride on some Net Force or military jet going that way pretty much anytime you want.”

He nodded. “We’ll still miss you,” he said.

“Yeah, I know. We’ll miss you, too. But things change when you have a child to look out for, Jay. With my silat, I always felt as if I could handle myself in most situations when push came to shove, but after that situation at the house, with Tyrone and that psychotic, I realized I couldn’t stay in this business. You don’t call trouble to your family.”

“I hear you.”

“So, how’s the new guy?”

Jay shrugged. “Okay, I guess. You ever met him?”

“No.”

“I don’t think he likes me.”

“You’ll dazzle him, once he gets to know you.”

“Maybe. Guy is richer than Fort Knox, he invented all kinds of computer stuff I grew up using, and is pretty much the smartest person in any room he walks into — and knows it. I don’t think he will dazzle easily.”

She smiled. “What are you working on?”

He returned her grin. “Can I tell you? Are you still cleared?”

She looked at her watch. “If you hurry. My resignation starts officially in about twenty minutes.”

Jay explained about the Turks and the Iranian disk.

“I’m still hacking at the rest of it,” he finished. “I’ve got the Middle Eastern part down, and some of the South African parts, but what I think will probably turn out to be North and South America is still closed. It’s like the guy who wrote the code had a personality change and went off in an entirely different direction. I can’t get a pattern.”

“Maybe the NSA crackers might help?”

“I’d cut out my tongue before I asked them, especially after that thing with the California druggie. They don’t much like us anyhow. They’d love to show us up, and frankly, I don’t think they’ve got the chops. But just our asking for help would have them grinning from ear to ear, even if they couldn’t break it.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“I have the CIA, the regular feebs, and the Turkish ambassador all looking over my shoulder. Plus the new boss, of course.” He shrugged and gave her a weak grin. “The usual.”

She grinned back. “I have to run,” she said. “I just wanted to come by and say good-bye in person. Stand up.”

He frowned. “You’re not going to hit me, are you?”

She laughed again, and when he stood, moved in and hugged him.

“You’re a good man, Jay. Give my love to Saji.”

Then she was gone, and Jay felt a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. He never used to feel that when he moved around, or when other people did. His life had been in hardware and software, and people came and went, no problem — he was happier in VR than in the real world. This time, however, he really was going to miss Toni and Alex. They were his friends, and he didn’t have so many he could afford to lose any. He would have to make an effort to keep in touch. VR, RW trips, com, whatever it took. He really would.

“Anything else I can do for you, sir?”

Kent looked at Julio Fernandez. They were in his temporary office, just off the corridor. “No, Lieutenant,” he said, “that will be all, unless you have something I need to know?”

Fernandez smiled. “Well, sir, as it happens, I do have something. I expect General Howard would ordinarily go for it, but he’s told me he won’t step on your prerogatives for long-term acquisitions.”

Kent stared at him.

“I have to show it to you, Colonel. It doesn’t tell all that well. We need to go to the motor pool.”

Kent glanced at his watch. “All right. Lead on.”

“Why am I looking at a recreational vehicle, Lieutenant?” Kent asked.

Fernandez smiled. “Not exactly your typical RV, sir, though this is a Class-C motor home chassis — a Class-A looks like a Greyhound bus; the C’s have that cab over-section shading the truck-style front end.” He nodded at the vehicle. “But we aren’t talking about something a rock star would tour in, or that Winnebago you’d take the wife and kids out in for a weekend to Diamond Lake. If you’ll follow me, sir.”

Fernandez approached the vehicle, which appeared to be white fiberglass, with vaguely aerodynamic-looking decals on the sides in pale tans and blues. The coach entrance door was aft on the starboard side, behind the back wheels.

The lieutenant pressed his thumb against a reader and the door’s lock snicked open. Two steps led into the vehicle.

Inside there was enough headroom for a six-footer in boots to stand straight.

“Head is to the left, behind this door,” Fernandez said. He reached for the knob, and Kent moved deeper into the vehicle to give him room to swing the portal open. The door looked like oak to Kent.

In the head was a marine-style toilet, sink, mirror, cabinets, and a shower stall. Small, but useable.

“Enough water to take a dozen military showers, to cook with, and drink, all without refilling the tank, though it will run off shore water — you just plug in a hose outside and turn the spigot on. Same for power — upgraded to fifty amps from the normal thirty-five. Drains for gray- and black-water outside, of course.”

Behind Kent was a small galley, stove, sink, a microwave oven, and across from that a refrigerator/freezer. So far, much like any other RV. But past that, it got unusual.

“This is your basic Born Free twenty-four-foot rear-bath coach,” Fernandez said. “But instead of a fold-out sleeper couch over here, we have a bank of computers, GPS, Doppler radar, FLIR, laser bouncers, and com-gear, all with hardened electronics.”

A pair of captain’s chairs sat in front of the electronic array.

“Over here, this little board pulls out to form a table, thus.” Fernandez lifted, pulled, then lowered it, and a tabletop jutted from the wall. “Suitable for having lunch or doing map work, or playing games on your laptop.”

Kent nodded.

“Up over the cab, we pull down this platform, like so, and there is sleeping space for two operators — three if they like each other real well. Even comes with a ladder.

“There’s a big Onan generator installed, and if you aren’t plugged into shore power, this switch right here over the driver’s seat will crank it up. It is sufficiently large to run all the electronics for as long as you have fuel, which in this case means the vehicle’s fifty-five gallon gas tank. This is a Ford chassis and engine, your basic six-point-eight-liter V-ten engine, which, with its special beefed-up suspension and shocks, will give you approximately three thousand pounds of useable payload. That will include, with the installed equipment, three operators and their gear, and full fuel and water tanks, it will get nine or ten miles a gallon of unleaded if your driver doesn’t have a heavy foot, and climb anything you can take a sedan up. Cruises at seventy all day long.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes, sir. And it gets more so. The thing is built like a Swiss watch. You can stay out in the woods, if you have sufficient supplies, a couple-three months. The air conditioner is enough to cool the electronic equipment to safe operating range in ninety-five-degree heat, the furnace will maintain warmth in subfreezing weather. It’s a little tight, but there’s not an inch of wasted space in it.”

Julio led Kent to the driver’s compartment. “Here’s the real fun part. That bank of switches, there? Watch.” He lifted the switch covers and pressed three buttons. There came a hum of power, and as Kent watched, a pair of dark gray plates folded in from above and below over the windshield, coming to a sharp angle in front of the glass.

“Stealth gear,” Fernandez said. “Extrudable spun-carbon fiber sheets and plates that give you some nice radar-shielding angles. You get an exploratory ping on your detector, you turn toward the source, hit the buttons, and you turn invisible, more or less.”

“Very interesting,” Kent said.

“Yes, sir. What with domestic and international terrorists getting more and more sophisticated with their own surveillance gear, this vehicle is the perfect Command-and-Control Center for mounting operations in a hurry at a far remove.”

“I assume this hardware is not cheap,” Kent observed.

“No, sir, but it is reasonable. If we supply the electronics, the maker will build it to our specifications, and our cost is less than a hundred thousand per unit, delivered.”

Kent raised an eyebrow. “Really? That seems very reasonable.”

“Yes, sir. Company is in Iowa, American to the core, good Christian family-value kind of place. Sure, if we let it to the lowest bidder, we might get units cheaper somewhere, but they won’t be made as well. See those ridges, there, there, and back there? Those are steel roll bars. This is the safest RV you can ride in. In the forty-odd years the company has been making them, they’ve never had a single fatality in an accident. Not one.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Yes, sir, I thought so.”

“And you are telling me this because you think we should have some of these vehicles.”

“Yes, sir. They are portable. Stash five or six around the country, we’d have one a few hours away from any situation we’d need covered. They run about eleven or twelve thousand pounds in this configuration, so if we borrowed a big transport plane from somebody, we could haul one to any air base in the world where we could land one of the big honkers, like a C5A.”

“I can’t see one of these on the back roads of Afghanistan or Iraq,” Kent said. His voice was dry.

“We’re not supposed to go to those places anyway, sir; it’s against our charter. But from the outside, this could belong to Ma and Pa Retiree out to see America, and even without the stealth gear, it would give us advanced operations capabilities in places we couldn’t sneak into otherwise. Nothing like a fleet of camouflaged military trucks full of guys in uniform rolling down a desert highway in Utah or the woods of Idaho to draw attention.”

Kent considered it. “Do we have room in our budget for this?”

“Yes, sir. With a little creative swapping, I believe we can manage five units, maybe six, no problem.”

Kent gave him a tight nod. He knew all about wheeler-dealers. If Fernandez could horse trade as well as he talked — and John had always said that he could — it was a done deal. “And you say that General Howard wants this to be my decision?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, Lieutenant. Make it happen.”

“Yes, sir!”

“What are you grinning at, Lieutenant?”

“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“You’ve been with John Howard since he was a shavetail, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can’t imagine he kept you shut up. Fire away.”

“I was just thinking how reasonable the Colonel is, for a, uh…”

“—a jarhead?”

“Yes, sir. My thought exactly.”

“We might have a reputation for respecting history and tradition, Lieutenant, but we aren’t stupid. We would rather have our people in top-of-the-line gear when we can get it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go do your deal, Lieutenant.”

“Sir.” Fernandez gave him a crisp salute. Kent just shook his head.