Lockout

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Silver Springs, Maryland (8:45 p.m. EST / 0145 Zulu)

Jenny Reynolds sighed. Her laptop was fighting back, and she was getting seriously pissed.

She sat back for a second, rubbing her eyes before casting them around the surprisingly spacious apartment. She’d only imagined what a clandestine “safe house” would be like, but never had she actually been in one.

Jenny glanced at her watch, reading nearly 9:00 p.m. The Pangia flight would be over Tel Aviv in less than two hours now, and Will had apparently pried enough information out of his unsuspecting confederates at the Pentagon to confirm that nothing aboard had changed: The pilots were still unable to control the jet, and the rising level of alarm from Washington to Tehran was becoming deeply worrisome. Worse, Will had had the temerity to lay the singular hope of deliverance on her shoulders.

“I’m just guessing, Will. Let’s get real here. Even if I can figure out how to reverse whatever that original order was, that might not be enough to solve it. They could be taking telemetry orders from some live control room now and impervious to anything I send. Besides, this server is blocking me at every turn, and even if I write the right code, I don’t know how the hell we’re going to get it broadcast on the right channels in time.”

“Just do your best.”

“I am, but at precisely what point are we going to let someone else but us know what we suspect?”

“One more hour. Nothing bad’s going to happen to them for another hour. After that, it could be very bad.”

She’d stood then, moving to him as he stood by the door and taking him by the arm, locking eyes.

“I need a commitment, Will! Got it? If I can’t make it work by one more hour from now, we need to call a rainmaker. So who would that be?”

His eyes broke the lock and looked away, toward the window, then toward the door.

“No!” she snapped. “Stop that! Look at me, dammit!”

Will Bronson turned his gaze back to her, looking startled. “Okay, okay. Calm down.”

“Do you even have a plan?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of? What do you… what do you mean sort of, for Chrissake?”

“Look, Jen, I’m not sure who we’re battling here.”

She cocked her head slightly as if seeing him for the first time. “Really?”

She sat studying him, realizing he was perspiring ever so slightly and looking far more uncertain that she’d recognized before.

“You know what I think?” she asked suddenly. “I think there’s a deeper subtext here, dude. I think what you’re trying hard not to say is that you’re not sure whether you’re protecting your bosses at the Pentagon and trying to undo what they’ve done in time, or whether we’re fighting some renegade group in the government, or maybe even some crazy individual? Am I right?”

He tried to pull away from her, but she tightened her grip. His voice was rising, betraying angry frustration.

“Okay, I don’t know. That’s the point. That’s why I came to find you tonight because I am worried who’s behind this and if it is our side and we’re messing with that flight for some legitimate reason, and I go and breach security to tell the world…”

“Goodbye career,” she finished the sentence for him.

“Yeah, and maybe worse. You, too.”

“All right, now I need YOU to focus. You just used the phrase ‘for some legitimate reason.’ Is there any legitimate, reasonable, conceivable justification for putting those people in peril, if this is something our side did?”

Will looked down in thought for a small eternity before sighing and nodding, then changing the gesture to an emphatic head shake. “No.”

“Then I need that commitment. One hour more. If I can’t be sure we’ve freed them… and it’s only a bizarre Hail Mary pass we’re talking about… if I’m not sure, who you gonna call?”

He turned toward her slightly, fully engaging, which was a good sign, she figured.

“Jenny, there is no one I can be sure of in a situation like this. No one. Not even my team, who are hunkered down waiting for me to tell them something good. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? In the entirety of the government of the United States of America, since the enabling signal came from our own National Security Agency, I can think of no one completely safe who could take action in time. Hell, it may already be too late to take any action in time, but you’ve got to try.”

She leaped to her feet again. “Oh, really? Tell me again why I’ve got to solve this? My government seems to have gone crazy and is trying to kill a planeload of people and maybe start a nuclear confrontation and I’m responsible how?

“Sit, please,” he commanded suddenly, the earlier composure returning if not the air of confidence. Something hard in his voice led her to choke off an objection and comply.

Will Bronson picked up another lightweight chair and plopped it down in front of her backwards. He sat on it, leaning his chin on the back, staring at her.

“What?”

No response, and she was getting steamed.

“WHAT, damn you?”

“You really want me to tell you why… how you’re responsible?”

“Is there an echo in here? Yes! That’s what I asked.”

“You wrote the code.”

She stared at him in disbelieving silence.

“I… what?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you, but you wrote the code they used to start this mess.”

“Like hell I did! I’ve been trying to decipher… what are you saying?

“The registration of codes I told you about? I wasn’t lying when I told you I was denied access to who registered it. But there is a track to whoever created a unique code or variant. Do you recognize the digital signature Three-Three-Six-Nine-Alpha?”

Jenny looked at him speechless for a few seconds, her mind running back to previous assignments over the years, some of which had required a personal code, which in her case had always been 3369A.

“That’s… my digital signature, but I swear to you I’ve never seen that transmitted code before. And I wouldn’t have anything to do with…”

“You signed it.”

“No, someone used my coded signature! I’ve spent the whole day trying to figure out the logic in that codec. If I’d written it…” She stopped, her face suddenly looking pasty.

“What?”

“Oh crap!”

“What Jenny?”

“I didn’t think about…”

“Please, tell me.”

Her hand was in front of her mouth, her eyes drifting away for a few seconds before she looked back at him.

“Jesus God, Will! That’s the key! Someone scrambled a very old code of mine, and I’ve been irritated all day because it had some familiar overtones but I couldn’t tell why. I didn’t write this version, but they used one of my encoding sequences and then scrambled the hell out of it.” She turned a shade whiter as she met Will’s gaze, understanding.

“This means NSA is involved!”

“Maybe. Could be. Highly possible,”

“But if I know the core philosophy of the code, maybe I CAN decipher it!”

She started to turn back to the computer and stopped herself, a dark cloud crossing her face as the final tumblers fell into place. She hadn’t been just the helpful girl from NSA. She had been the target all along.

“I see now. NSA. You thought I was the bad guy, didn’t you?” she said softly, watching him as he stood and put the chair aside.

“Jen…”

“No, level with me. This whole thing was because of my digital signature and the signal coming from NSA, right? So what were you going to do to me if I didn’t produce the code? Seduce me? Torture me? Kill me?”

“What?”

“This is one of your safe houses and I’m sure you could kill someone in here quite handily and some… some team would come flying in to dispose of the body and the evidence.”

“Jenny, calm down. That’s not what I or the DIA do. That’s Hollywood.”

“Oh really? The DIA doesn’t do covert ops? You’re known for covert ops!”

“That’s not me.”

“How were you planning to make me talk, huh?” Her eyes were narrowing as she warmed to her anger. Here she’d thought he respected her and enjoyed working with her and—

“JENNY!”

“What?”

“What would you have thought in my shoes?”

“I…”

“We have a major emergency and little time. Thank God we were wrong about you. I get it. Now let’s work like hell, okay?”

She looked at him carefully, the steam dissipating, and nodded.

“Okay.”

“We’re essentially alone on this. Just like I said.”

“Okay.”

“And, I would never kill you or torture you!”

“You left one out,” she said, turning back to the laptop.

“Did I?” he said, feigning ignorance.

“Get me coffee, Will Bronson. You can seduce me later.”