Lockout

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Beltway Plaza Mall, Greenbelt, Maryland (8:00 p.m. EST / 0100 Zulu)

“I’ve got you in sight, Jen. Take the first parking place and lock it up.”

She had to admit, Will Bronson’s voice was reassuring, not that she had the slightest idea what was happening, or whether she was falling into a trap like some silly little girl with daddy issues doomed by her own search for paternal protection. She had promised herself that she would never, ever be that girl.

“Okay.” She punched off the phone, slid the car into an empty space, and got out, locking it with her remote and then standing there feeling very off balance. She could see no cars with drivers looking for her. Where was he?

Will Bronson’s deep voice reached her ears from inches behind.

“This way, Jenny.”

She yelped and whirled around, wide-eyed.

“Oh my God!”

“What?”

“Don’t EVER sneak up on me like that!”

“Sorry,” he said, taking her arm and moving them toward an entrance to the mall.

“There are about twenty-one different movies playing tonight,” he said somewhat breezily, “…but I thought we’d eat first. What would you like?”

“Seriously?”

His head was on a swivel, looking in all directions as they crossed the lane to the entrance, and she was certain he wasn’t just scanning for traffic.

He held the door open, smiling as she moved inside.

“I thought we’d duck into one of the restaurants in here,” he continued, “…or if all you want is McDonald’s, we can do that as well.”

Jenny took his arm and stopped him, turning him around to face her.

“Really? This is a flash date?”

A virtual anthology of reactions played subtly across his face, the dominant one a shadow of sadness as he shook his head no and replied yes.

“Of course it is. I have friends who own this mall, so there’s a private entrance into my favorite place. Come on.” She followed him at an accelerated pace down the half-empty corridor, keeping pace in her high heels to an unlabeled side door which he held for her, slipping in behind as it closed.

Before them was a loading dock and a black SUV waiting with engine running and no one else in sight. Will opened the right side door and Jenny climbed inside, and just as quickly they were moving out of the loading dock into the night.

“Okay… I owe you some explanations.”

She turned to face him, eyes wide. “Ya think? Your favorite restaurant? This is the strangest pickup I’ve ever had!”

“Jenny… please. Another place, another time, I’d give anything to just take you out. Right now we have a mutual problem.”

Dammit! she thought, tears welling up for about a half dozen reasons as she struggled to hold them back. “Okay… Will… if that’s your real name…”

“It is. Will Bronson. And I am with DIA, just as I told you.”

“So, what haven’t you told me?”

“The signal we were chasing together all afternoon?”

“Yes?”

“It came from NSA’s building.”

She was nodding, and it was his turn to look puzzled. “I know.”

“You do?”

“I figured it out just before you called. I traced the coordinates but didn’t put them on a map until I was in the car. I saw that report, too, that the airliner’s pilots can’t control the direction of the aircraft. But… how did you know?”

“Later. Jenny, there’s more, and this is shaping up to be a very big problem. The White House is alerted, my people at DOD are on high alert, and to find that the initiating signal came from our own NSA is what sent me out the door.”

She stared in his eyes closely, uncomfortably for a few seconds. She’d always been told that trying to read the soul of a trained agent by looking in his eyes was a fool’s errand, but she had to try.

“You’re not sure who to trust either?”

He was nodding. “DIA is a bit of a schizoid agency. Our overlords wear uniforms with high rank, we’re controlled by the civilian side, and I’ve seen us sent on useless errands before to keep us busy while the brass does whatever the brass wants to do.”

“In other words, this could be a clandestine military operation not even you guys know about, and an illegal one at that?”

“I don’t know, but I’m worried, and you and your boss are targets if so.”

“Whoa. You mean… we’re in physical danger? From our own government?”

“I doubt… physical… but clearly professional danger.”

“And, you’re the one who’s going to keep me safe, right?” she shot him a slightly incredulous look.

“I’m damn well sure going to try.”

“Why?”

Seeing such a confident man suddenly flustered, even for a second, was startling. He recovered as quickly.

“Two reasons. I like your insight, and this is a puzzle one does not solve alone. Second, if you’re a damsel in distress, it’s my nature.”

“Thank you, Lancelot.” It was only half sarcastic, and clearly he took it right.

“M’Lady.”

“So, shall we share everything we know?”

“Yes. That’s the first reason I wanted to snag you out of the ether.”

“Okay. I’m etherless. You first.”

“The code you were chasing is a registered military code.”

“What? What do you mean, registered? It didn’t come up on any database.”

“It wouldn’t. There is a top secret-crypto level list of codes and algorithms used by deep secret units and projects, but we register them in case something like this happens.”

“Something like what?”

“In case a very bright and beautiful NSA analyst finds one and calls DIA in. You remember asking if this was us?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s how we answer the question before we go ballistic, or trigger anything ballistic or aerodynamic. That list lets us know we have met the enemy, and we is they, to quote Pogo.”

“Who’s Pogo?”

“Long story. A cartoon possum philosopher from years back. Point is, the list tells us whatever we found comes from our side.”

“So it’s—and thanks for the bright and beautiful compliment—it’s…”

“You’re welcome, and you are!” he smiled.

“I’m what?”

“Foxy… beautiful… alluring… bright and beautiful.”

“Mr. Bronson, are you flirting with me?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated, suppressing the smile she wanted to flash. “Okay.”

“It is?”

“Hey, flattery works. So the code is ours? It’s military? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I didn’t run that check until I got back to Boling.”

“Is that why you left so suddenly?”

“No. It was finding Lavi aboard that flight that triggered the recall.”

“Who?”

“That’s right… you probably don’t know.” He explained the presence of the former Israeli prime minister and the implications. “As soon as news broke of Lavi’s presence, my boss wanted me back to deal with the implications. He had no idea that what we were working on together at NSA might be related. I checked the secure database when I got back, and bingo. But, Jen, that’s why I’m worried. It’s on the registry, but even my boss couldn’t crack through the security level to find out which project or agency registered it. That level of security is about as high as it gets.”

“You mean, the White House?”

“Well, probably one or two steps lower. Four star general or secretary of defense levels. I asked my boss to get permission, and he refused. It spooked him. He told me to forget about it and go do something else. That’s when I left.”

“But, Will, jeez. This is saying that the United States has frozen the controls of a commercial airliner and I assume put everyone in peril.”

“They may have, but it gets worse, Jen.”

“Try me.”

He outlined the significance of an uninventoried cargo pod and the fact that fifteen minutes before he’d called, evidence emerged that Tehran had become aware of most of the story.

“Moishe Lavi’s still got too many confederates in Israel. We can’t be sure there’s not just enough nuclear material in that cargo pod to spur the Iranians to act.”

She sat back, studying his face again. “Wait… Lavi may be behind an attempt to frighten the Iranians, but you’re saying the signal that froze the aircraft’s controls came from us.”

“Yes.”

“Could someone on our side be setting up a war, then? In conjunction with Moishe Lavi?”

He snorted and looked forward, shaking his head before looking back. “If this is a purposeful act, and why wouldn’t it be with the intensity of the signal distribution you ferreted out, what would someone be trying to accomplish? Killing Lavi? They could do that with a sniper at Kennedy on arrival. Hell, half of Mossad wants him dead, the other half was nominating him as the Messiah. No, there has to be a point to it.”

“Will, first of all, how could mere radio signals lock up a civilian jetliner? Could someone have hacked into the computers?”

“We don’t know. I don’t know. The jet came out of Tel Aviv… maybe someone installed some strange equipment on the ground there or monkeyed with the computers or computer memory. Just… proceed from that assumption, that whatever has locked up their controls was triggered by those radio bursts and was purposeful.”

“You think someone in the military is sitting in a little cubicle somewhere programming that flight? Like a drone?”

“Maybe. Although they haven’t changed heading or climbed or descended yet, so I’m not sure there’s active control going on. But someone did this.”

“Would it benefit anyone on our side to start a nuclear war with Iran?”

“It might. It would be a surrogate war, Jen. The Israelis would fight it for us, and they wouldn’t let Iran clear leather, so to speak. The very second the mullahs light off a missile, they’ll be toast.”

“The glow-in-the-dark kind?” she asked quietly.

“Yep. Then all hell breaks loose, the Islamic world goes completely barking mad, Russia and China get involved in diplomatic opportunism, and it’s always possible the mullahs still get a death shot off at Israel. Have you been there, by the way?”

She nodded.

“It’s tiny. It wouldn’t take many split atoms to reprise the Holocaust.”

“Dear God. What can we do? Can we go pick up Seth and keep him safe and get his ideas?”

Will shook his head. “I’m not sure your man Seth isn’t part of this, whatever ‘this’ is.”

The answer seemed otherworldly, forcing a frightening image of Seth as something other than her trusted boss and confederate.

“Then… who do we tell, Will?”

“Until we know for sure what we’re dealing with, no one’s going to be spring-loaded to believe either or both of us. Even the CIA, who is nipping at DIA’s heels right now trying to find out what we know, hasn’t figured it out. Or at least that’s where I think they are. But, see, if this is something our military or any segment of it is doing, it’s a very deep, very dark secret, and we’ve already unraveled enough of it to be a very large threat.”

“And we can’t tell anyone? Not even the president?”

“Tell him what? That’s the problem. All we know for sure is where the transmission came from.”

‘But, that at least is a fact!”

“Yes, as is the fact that the code was registered. But what if some faction at the White House is also involved?”

She searched his face for a few seconds, feeling very helpless.

“You’re scaring me, Will. Seriously.”

“I’m not far behind. If I get us on a secure computer net, can you help find some answers?”

“Aha! I can see your thinking now. Jenny’s a cryptologist so she can naturally hack into any information.”

“I can hope, can’t I? What I was wondering was whether you might be able to decrypt the instructional code that the Pangia flight apparently uploaded.”

“I’d need a key of some sort. I tried every way from Sunday.”

“I may have one.”

“Where? How?”

“Just… trust me. If I can get you a key to the code, or any part of it…”

“Then maybe I can. But why?”

“Well…”

“Oh! Jeez! You want me to countermand whatever orders that transmission contained!”

“Precisely. I don’t know if it would work, but…”

She sighed deeply. “Yeah. Got it. But Will, I think you’re expecting too much of me. You’re not sitting next to Garcia from Criminal Minds!”

“I love her!”

She’s not real, Will. No one can dance over keys and pull up information that easily.”

“I know.”

“But… if we can find a way into any net, and if you can provide a key, I can sure as hell try.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say, and that’s also where we’re heading.”

“Where is ‘where’?”

“A safe house with a net portal.”

She turned a bit more toward him, looking puzzled.

“You really do use safe houses?”

“Yes.”

“Which… would mean you’re into covert ops.”

“Yes.”

“Which means I’m dancing with a real live James Bond.”

That sad look crossed his face again. “I wish.”

“What? That you were Bond?”

“No. That we were dancing.”