Chapter 101
Operative Cove Headquarters
London Financial District
Day 11
Thursday, July 17, 4:00 p.m.
Jack stood by the window, his gaze fixed on the traffic below as Calla dropped a microchip on the desk. His brows were pressed in deep thought. They’d returned from Monaco just the night before.
Jack turned and moved to where she stood.
“The chip won’t tell us anything?” Calla said.
Jack moved his eyes from the table and not saying a word inspected the cars and pedestrians several floors below. Something about the chip bothered him, or was it being in this room. This was Vortigern’s old office. The operative had betrayed Calla and he couldn’t understand why he’d done so.
Vortigern appeared to want the same thing as her, to make sure the work of the operatives continued. He was the head operative when she’d found out about them in a secret hideout in Africa seven months ago.
The concept of coves, the secret hideouts operatives used, was still a mystery to Jack. They tested many technologies far greater than most humans and in so far as he was aware that was the purpose of the coves, to provide scientific and technological advancement where human knowledge stopped.
Jack and Nash were the only non-operatives to set foot in coves and that had been on her command as the new head operative.
Jack took her hand. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Will the mysterious Merovec ever appear and what about Taiven? You said he came to see you in Venice?”
“That’s right.”
“What more surprises are there, Cal? I’m worried about you.”
As head operative, and his best friend, did she really know the full extent of her capabilities? Jack rubbed his palms on his forehead. He stared again at the muted traffic, muted by the dense windows. He took a deep breath and set a hand on the briefcase lock. “This lock has a riddle embedded in the chip, what you called the motherboard.”
“A riddle lock?” Calla said.
“Yes.”
“Only three such chips exist and they were all inserted in cases like these.”
“Who made them?” Nash said stepping into the room.
“Me.”
Jack knew Calla wasn’t expecting that response. But he’d been through all the data. “The case can only be opened by answering a puzzle set by the case owner.”
Nash’s scratched his jaw. “Let me guess, that case isn’t Alex Sisley’s. Alex was only ever good at one thing. Hacking and data theft. She stole that case. She couldn’t open it.”
“Nash, who is this Alex exactly?” Jack said.
“She worked in my team at the NSA a year ago. She’s extremely capable at hacking, physics and mathematics, essentially engineering nuclear weapons and programs for defense agencies with close work at the NSA. She and I and one other agent were part of a classified league of the NSA. The KJ-20 Ops.”
Jack knew Nash had more to tell.
“You saying we need Alex’s or someone’s imagination to open this?” Calla said.
“Yes,” Jack interjected. “If we try to open this motherboard, it may set something off. That’s the way I designed them. No one wanted to get a case that could be opened with a technology on the open market. I believe one or two of them may have been used to launch rockets and hide money transactions, which is what I think this one does.”
“Who would she have stolen this from?”
“The Blackhorse headquarters,” Nash said. “She always went to the top. This case has their secrets and she knew it.”
“She was stealing it for herself, or someone else?” Calla said.
Jack drew away slightly from them. “My anonymous buyers wanted a case they alone could control. I designed the case locks to respond to a set of commands, or riddles that the owner could author. Thought I was very clever by making them unbreakable, even by me. Essentially, I created a lock no one could hack, not even myself.”
Nash moved to the window. “Even if you recoded them, we won’t know what we are setting off.”
“Correct.”
“What do we do?” Calla said.
Nash ran a hand through his hair. “This case belongs to whomever Alex is working for. She isn’t strong enough to do this on her own. That always puzzled me about her, because she’s very smart. What was the retail value you placed on these cases?”
“Twenty million dollars each.”
Nash smirked. “You made sixty million on three steel cases? I’m in the wrong business.”
Jack patted him on the shoulder “I don’t think so, man, I know the missions you take. You command a much higher price than I do.” His smirk turned into a frown. “You think Alex is behind the Maltese hack and all those auctions from start to finish?”
“Don’t know,” Nash said. “But she’s definitely part of a larger scheme.”
“She’s not,” Calla said in an emotionless voice.
“How do you know?” Jack said.
“Quite simply because I don’t think the person running the black net would be doing their own dirty work. Whomever they are, Alex is just the messenger. We have her case and Alex will want it back and she’ll be in trouble if it isn’t hers. What we need to do is open it before she does.” Calla squinted. “I bet the list or its location can be found on this chip. Why else would Alex guard it with her life.”
“We still need to open it.” Calla churned a thought for a moment. “Jack, you sold three cases. How did you sell them?”
“Online?”
“Really, Jack?” Nash sent him a snide smirk. “Haven’t I taught you anything?”
“It’s not what you think. Once they were ready I created an app and sent the encrypted link to a list of buyers posted on government lists. They then had to speak their riddle into a voice-capturing panel and the riddle and its answer were encrypted and locked on the control panel of the case. The case can only be opened by their voice and uses a special voice recognition software. I have had orders for four more.”
Calla swirled a finger through her ponytail. “How did they first contract you for the cases?”
“I run one of the coolest tech enterprises on the web. By recommendation only. Must have come from a previous buyer.”
“Spoken like a true entrepreneur,” Calla said. “Do you at least remember in what locations these cases were sold?”
“I actually did more than that. I bugged each case. I know exactly where they are always. It was my curiosity I wanted to know whether I had tech that I could really market. Here let me see.” He pulled out his tablet. “Why would knowing where the others are help us open this?”
“Because like minds like to travel in packs. Chances are all these buyers are of a similar caliber to want that kind of technology and may know each other. After all, there are only so many billionaires on the planet.”
“I have the locations here. San San, Portland, Jamaica. Failaka Island, Kuwait,” Jack said finding her disgruntled expression amusing.
“Did you say Failaka?” Nash asked blankly. “I think I know who that buyer is.”