35 |
35 |Operations Center 3, CIA Headquarters Langley, Virginia
Leroux entered the op center, tense, hating what he was about to do—order a halt to their efforts to locate the two missing professors.
“Hey, boss, found them.”
Leroux suppressed a grin, but a smile still escaped as he walked toward Randy Child’s workstation. “Good work.”
Child spun, his arm in the air, then stopped, the arm coming down dramatically, a finger extended toward Sonya Tong. “Not me. The credit goes to the lovely lady in green and black.”
Tong gave him a look. “It’s teal.” She gestured toward the screen. “I was able to trace the ownership, and we’ve got an unsecured camera on a neighbor’s house. The car is in the driveway.”
Leroux suddenly didn’t feel as guilty. “Okay, excellent work people.” He bowed slightly to Tong. “Sonya.” She smiled, looking away. “But we’ve got new orders. Package up everything you found and send it to Special Agent Kane, along with the non-classified stuff to Agent Reading. They’ll have to run with it from here. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Tong attacked her keyboard as the rest of the room turned their attention to their boss.
“I just got out of a briefing. An unknown individual or group has just delivered a video message to the White House. They’re claiming they have just blown up one of the transatlantic data cables, and are threatening to detonate one every two hours, unless we pay them one billion dollars in less than”—he checked his watch—“ninety minutes. Then the price doubles each time.”
Child swung in his chair. “I’ve reconfirmed that the TAT-14 cable is down.”
“Any idea where?”
“Yeah, less than a mile off the coast of France.”
“Good, that matches my suspicions, so hopefully the assho—sorry, gentleman—who thought I was an idiot, is answering his door tonight, because I’m having UberEats deliver him some crow.”
Child raised a hand and Leroux high-fived him without missing a beat.
“All the intel we have has been sent to your terminals. Start going through it. I want to know if there’s anything in the video that might identify who actually sent it, where it was recorded, where it was sent from. Check satellite imagery to see if we can spot anything suspicious around the data cables, specifically around the one we know has been severed. Let’s do our thing, people, and solve this before anyone else does. Just imagine the Christmas bonus this year for saving the world once again.”
Laughter spread through the room as everyone knew there were no bonuses, and they were underpaid compared to the private sector. But that didn’t matter here. Everyone loved their job, and most would do it no matter what the pay was. Those who cared about such things either never took a government position, or left within a few years once they realized the opportunities here weren’t money, but power. His boss had said something in today’s briefing that had stunned him, and terrified him.
One day he’s probably going to be sitting in this seat.
Did Morrison actually think that one day he’d be the Chief? He still hated being an Analyst Supervisor.
But did he?
He looked around the room, everyone’s head down, doing their jobs, executing the orders he had just given. Nobody questioned him now. He had proven himself despite being younger than many of them. He no longer dreaded entering an operations center or a team meeting.
Holy shit! You’re actually enjoying this!
He sat at his terminal at the center of the room, a slight smile on his face. It was the first time he had realized the fear was not only gone, but that he was comfortable in this position he had been thrust into, kicking and screaming, by Morrison.
But Chief?
Never. But then again, in another twenty years, who knew?
Ugh! Twenty years! I’ll be an old man.
He’d be approaching fifty. It was something he couldn’t even imagine.
“Looks like the message was received through a Russian civilian communications satellite before it hit our terrestrial network.”
Leroux looked at Child. “Can you trace it past that?”
“I’m trying, but it gets trickier with each jump.”
Leroux rose. “Show me where the satellite was positioned when the call went through it.”
A map appeared on the display, the satellite shown with a cone of coverage projected on the surface of the globe. “It’s geostationary. This one covers the northern hemisphere, mostly the North Atlantic, Arctic, Siberia. Top of the globe stuff.”
Leroux grunted. “Civilian my ass. Anything unusual from the Russians within the coverage area?”
Tong turned toward him. “Do you really think the Russians could be behind this? This could be considered an act of war.”
Leroux shook his head. “I doubt the Kremlin is involved, but that country is so corrupt, nothing would surprise me.”
Child grunted.
“What?”
“Well, the Russians are up to all kinds of things, but they’re all pretty normal, except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ve got a Russian Ilyushin Il-80 over the North Atlantic that’s been flagged.”
Leroux’s eyes narrowed. “What’s so unusual about that?”
“It’s apparently just flying in a big circle, and has already been refueled at least once. A P-3 Orion noticed it, so they’ve been monitoring from a distance. Some F-15s were sent in to provide support just in case the Russians decide to play any games.”
Leroux’s gut told him this was important. He had no proof, but he never ignored his gut, and neither did his bosses. It was what had him in the big seat now. “Can we get eyes on it?”
Child nodded, shots from the F-15s and the Orion appearing.
Leroux watched for a moment. “Have they been challenged?”
“They were asked if they needed assistance, and were told no, and to back off. That’s it. Wait.”
Leroux tore his eyes away from the footage. “What?”
Child was listening to something, a finger poised in the air. “Okay, another aircraft is entering the area. It’s a Russian Ilyushin Il-78.”
Leroux’s eyes narrowed. “Refueling aircraft? Again?”
“That’s what’s being reported.”
Leroux shook his head. “Why the hell would they have a plane circling over the Atlantic, long enough that they’d need to refuel it multiple times?”
Child shrugged. “Got me, boss. Could this have something to do with it?”
Leroux shook his head. “I still can’t believe the Russians would do this, but those are definitely Russian military”—he gestured toward the screen—“or at least that one is. We’ll soon see if the other is.”
“Just a sec.” Another feed appeared, one of the aircraft having broken off to cover the new arrival. “Looks Rooskie to me.”
“Okay, pull the tail numbers, find out what we know about these aircraft. Are they legit? Where are they based? Everything.”