Darkanin waved a dismissive hand. “Mafia amateurs who spend their days threatening their local bakers into protection money will be very unhappy if they attempt to hurt me. You know that.”
“The Russians threaten their biggest petrol manufacturers. They poison those who don’t cooperate.”
The Chinese hacker barked a short laugh and turned to his neighbor, speaking in rapid-fire Chinese.
“What’s he saying?”
Yang flicked a glance to the side and then returned his attention to Darkanin. “He says he hacked the water system’s dashboard. He still can’t alter the coding without more work, but he’s one step closer.”
“The protection at the facility is tough to crack?”
Yang nodded. “Incredibly so. But he just said that he’d found and exploited a small gap that must have been a coding error.”
“How long has he been working on this?”
Yang shrugged. “Two, maybe three days. Not long.”
“Once I get the password, how long will it take to hack into the mainframe?”
Yang frowned. “I’ve told you many times that there is no guarantee. Hacking into a small industrial water system is nothing like hacking into the United States’ military drone program. Surely you understand this.”
“I understand that I have paid you and them”—Darkanin swept a hand to indicate all the hackers in the room—“a lot of money to be successful. Not to offer excuses.”
“And I have offered none. We’ve already hacked into the hangar inventory list and altered it. That was an easy day’s work, but none of the computers on that network fly the drones. Just bring me the password so that we can begin. And if you’re worried, come look here.” Yang walked over to another hacker’s screen and pointed. On it was a grainy movie unfolding from a great height.
“What is that?” Darkanin asked. The image showed a rocky, forbidding mountain landscape that swept by under the fast-moving camera. In the distance Darkanin saw a shepherd wearing a turban and driving a small herd of goats down a narrow, rocky trail.
“It’s a live-streaming shot of a Predator drone flight over Afghanistan.”
“What do you mean live-streaming?”
“Just what I said. My friend here has been able to hack into the video feed from several of the United States’ drones. What you are seeing is a live feed that’s being returned to the main command center in Nevada.”
“I thought the Pentagon closed that vulnerability in the drone communication systems.”
Yang nodded. “They thought they did, but we’ve been able to restore it. That flight is happening now.”
“How long did it take to do that and at what cost?”
Yang asked the hacker a question and he responded in Chinese.
“It took a couple of hours and the purchase of a thirty-dollar software program. But the video isn’t the really interesting part. We’ve been able to infect the drone software system with a key-stroke recording virus. We’re one step closer to being able to hack into the main command center. With the password that you obtain for us, we think we can close the loop.”
“And then?”
“And then, even if they change the passwords, the keystroke virus will record the change.”
“What if they find and destroy the virus?”
Yang shook his head. “It’s self-replicating. It will be very, very difficult to annihilate. Once we have control of the drones, we turn them back to destroy their own.”
“That’s only the first step. You know that, right?” Darkanin said.
Yang nodded. “I know, but it will be a highly satisfying one all the same.”
Darkanin’s phone began buzzing in his pocket. He waved off Yang and headed to a corner of the room to take the call.
“Where are you?” the caller said without preamble.
“Shanghai. In the collection crew’s offices.”
“Excellent. Then you can give them the good news. Our friend finally coughed up the first password.”
11
Randi Russell stood in a fabulous ballroom in the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, wearing a red cocktail dress, high heels, and a gun strapped to her thigh. She sipped from a glass of champagne while she smiled at the conversation of the group of people surrounding her. None knew that she was CIA, there to gather any intelligence that she could and to protect the attending U.S. ambassador to Turkey. All thought she was a member of a diplomatic mission bent on enhancing trade between the United States and Turkey. The exclusive guest list for the reception included over one hundred real members of various trade commissions and an additional twenty high-ranking diplomats from a group of surrounding countries, as well as their staff and spouses. Russell estimated that at least thirty of the attendees were spies from their home countries.
They’d been screened on entrance. Russell had taped her weapon to the inside of a metal vase in the back of a cooperating flower vendor’s truck. She’d retrieved it from the back kitchen where the vendor had lined up the vases before their final distribution into the main rooms. The vendor himself had suggested the maneuver when she had rendezvoused with him an hour before the event.
“The kitchen staff will be intent on cooking and preparing the meal, waiters will be running in and out, and I and others will be rushing to place our final arrangements. No one will spend a lot of time looking at you, even in that dress,” he said with a wry smile.
“Can’t you palm the weapon and simply hand it to me outside the ballroom?” Russell had asked, but the man shook his head.
“I can’t be seen helping a U.S. spy in such a manner. Should anyone discover the weapon before you retrieve it I will deny any knowledge. You understand?”
Now she stood in the ballroom under the glittering chandelier and cataloged as many of the attendees as she could recognize. The U.S. ambassador to her left was telling a witty, self-deprecating story about his initial posting in Turkey. Near forty, Ambassador Eric Wyler was a clean-cut, pleasant-looking man with an impeccable education and almost eighteen years in diplomatic service. Erudite, well mannered, and divorced, he was considered a good catch by most of the single females in Ankara’s expatriate community as well as a few Turkish women bent upon expanding their personal influence and leaving Turkey. At the moment Wyler was expending his considerable charm on Russell.
“You can imagine my chagrin when I discovered that the term actually meant ‘to steal’ in Turkish,” he said as he leaned toward her with a smile.
Russell smiled back. She liked Wyler and he had spent the past month going out of his way to make her feel welcome. He had no idea that she was CIA. This latest field posting was one of the easier of her career, but she still found herself scanning the room for threats. While there had been the usual chatter about an attack, her home office had been unable to pinpoint the source or verify it. Yet during this party something felt off and while she couldn’t put her finger on it, she could sense it. Years of listening to her intuition resulted in her heightened attention to everyone and everything that transpired around her.
“Would you care to dance?” Wyler asked her. Russell nodded and Wyler pulled her close as a waltz began to play. His hand holding hers was warm and she caught a slight whiff of his cologne, which smelled like expensive soap with a touch of neroli and citrus. Russell wasn’t surprised to find that he was an excellent dancer. She followed along with him as he propelled her across the floor, keeping close enough to move fluidly, but not so close that he would feel the gun’s holster at her thigh. He smiled down at her and she smiled back.
“Why do I always feel as though you’re never really fully present and always on edge?” he asked. His gaze never left hers.
She lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“It’s as if you’re continually coiled for something to happen.”
She broke contact and looked to the side as they circled, unnerved by the depth of his perceptiveness. Russell always prided herself on her ability to
focus on a matter, whether it was analyzing a stream of cryptic coded messages in an enemy’s transmission or targeting an attacker in a gunfight, but as they danced she was unable to keep her mind on her mission. She searched for a way to break the awareness that had suddenly arisen between them.
“I’m pretty high-energy,” she said. “Always was.” She hoped that he’d accept the answer and change the subject.
He shook his head. “It’s not that. There’s something more. To me it seems as though you watch others with an analyst’s eye. Almost clinical and definitely intense.”
“You’re spending a lot of time watching me, then?” she said, keeping her voice light and friendly.
“I notice you in any room that you appear,” he said as he stared down at her.
The song finished and he stopped moving. The tension between them rose and they remained in the middle of the dance floor, still wrapped in each other’s arms. He kept his eyes on her.
“Are you always so intent on watching others?” Russell asked. His look became guarded and the current running between them shifted and cooled. He took what seemed to Russell to be a reluctant step back, and she was both relieved and disappointed to have to relinquish her place next to him.
“I’ve been posted in some of the most dangerous areas of the world, so I’ve learned to be wary.” A safe answer, she thought, because it didn’t acknowledge what she thought were his true feelings. Russell wanted to tell him that she understood that all too well and wished he would be more specific about the danger.
“Anything here in Ankara that worries you?” she asked. The business-like question broke any last vestiges of the emotion that had run between them just a few minutes before. He took her arm to lead her back into the crowd.
“Absolutely. I’ve been on edge since I denounced the Syrians for using chemical weapons on the Turkish border. It’s never safe to call them out, and their close proximity to Turkey leaves me vulnerable.” He waved over a waiter carrying a silver tray holding glasses of champagne. “Drink?” Russell nodded and he handed her one before taking one himself.
“Do you think they’ll retaliate?”
He seemed to ponder the question while he sipped. “I hope not. I know of a Russian businessman who was found dead in his car just two months after he refused to sell a second round of arms to Syria. He said they hadn’t paid him for the first. I believe that they killed him. Or had him killed.”
“But killing a businessman, horrible as that is, isn’t in the same category as killing an ambassador of one of the most powerful countries in the world. I can’t imagine that they would take such a risk. The blowback would be swift and decisive.”
He stared at his champagne glass as he swirled the liquid around. After a few seconds he shook himself and looked up at her.
“I hope you’re right. And if you aren’t and the Syrians give it a shot I can only pray that Washington would send its finest to protect me.”
They already have, Russell thought.
She put the glass to her lips and took a sip just as the far wall exploded inward.
Shards of glass and jagged pieces of wood flew in all directions. Russell ducked her head before a piece of glass could embed into her cheek, but it hit her scalp behind her ear and pierced the skin to the bone. A second explosion from another part of the estate made the walls shake. Screams filled the air and the partygoers stampeded to the double-door exit opposite the demolished wall.
Wyler clutched her arm and started in the same direction, but Russell shook off his grasp, hauled her gun out from the holder, and grabbed his sleeve.
“Not that way. Toward the explosion.” She waved in the direction of the ruined wall.
Wyler glanced at the gun, and a look of comprehension crossed his face.
“You’re CIA,” he said. A massive, billowing cloud of smoke engulfed them and both he and Russell started coughing. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Cover your nose.” Russell waved it away and fought against the tide of pushing, panicked people. She and Wyler were the only two heading back toward the explosion’s source.
“Why that way? There could be another bomb,” Wyler said, close to her ear. The staccato sound of gunshots joined in the cacophony of screaming people.
“That’s why. They’re waiting outside and picking us off as we leave,” Russell said. She pulled Wyler with her to a location against the wall and fifteen feet from the gaping hole. It continued to belch smoke as the night breeze blew through the opening. Flames licked upward, igniting the floor-to-ceiling curtains, and the breeze only fed the fire.
Through the haze Russell saw the envoy to Russia herding the Russian ambassador and his wife toward them. The envoy also held a gun, and Russell made a note of his face. He looked at her, then the gun in her hand, and one eyebrow crooked up. He came to stand next to her, his back against the wall.
“They’re covering the front,” he said in English. Another round of gunfire and the stampeding crowd attempted a shift. At least the ones in the front did, because they now understood that there was a gunfight on the other side of the door. But the ones in the back either didn’t hear the shots or didn’t grasp their significance, because they continued to push outward. The opposing forces ensured that no one would get in or out of the ballroom. The curtain’s flames burned higher. Russell strained to see through the blast hole to the outside, but the smoke obscured everything.
“Can you see anything on this end?” the Russian asked her.
“No. We’re going to have to give it a shot, because that curtain fire is going to spread and if we don’t die from a bullet we’ll die from smoke inhalation.”
The Russian nodded. “Agreed.”
“Help me break some windows.” Russell handed her gun to Wyler. “Can you shoot?”
He nodded. “But not well. You keep it. I’ll break the windows.” He reached over and picked up a chair from a nearby table. The Russian ambassador followed suit, and they both headed to a nearby French window and began hammering at it.
Russell edged closer to the blast hole, keeping her back to the wall. The Russian spy joined her. Her eyes stung from the smoke and her lungs felt thick. She saw that Wyler and the Russian had successfully broken the panes of glass and were smashing the muntin bars that held each small section. At least they could use the new opening as an exit if necessary. Some in the crowd came to the same conclusion and soon Wyler and the Russian disappeared from view as the panicked people surged their way and encircled them. Russell was relieved when she saw Wyler climb through the window and run deep into the yard. A second group of men started pounding on another French window eight feet from the first.
“I haven’t heard any more shots, have you?” Russell said.
The Russian shook his head. “None.”
“Then I’m going through. You joining me?”
He nodded. “I’m Vladenko.”
“I’m Jane. Ready?”
He nodded. Russell positioned herself so that she was opposite the blast hole and prepared to jump over the jagged lower section. She took two steps and leapt, ducking her head and closing her eyes against the flames and heat from the now fully engulfed drapery on her left.
12
Russell sensed rather than saw Vladenko following behind her. She landed on the grass outside and immediately lowered to a crouch. After a quick glance she saw that she was alone, and she rose, kicked off her shoes, and ran across the lawn to the first set of trees fifty feet away. She leaned against one of the trees and inhaled the fresh air. Vladenko joined her a second later.
“You see anything?” he asked.
“No. I don’t hear anything, either. Let’s make our way around to the front. If we stay far enough away we can keep to the trees.”
She darted from trunk to trunk. The crisp night air braced her and the moon illuminated the grassy open pockets between the trees. As she ran she felt the wet dew on her bare feet and the soft, manicured grass u
nderneath. She reached the far corner of the building and moved cautiously around until she had a parallel view of the front entrance.
Light posts illuminated the area. A horseshoe drive passed under a portico where the valet service operated. Several black cars were parallel-parked in the center of the horseshoe and one idled on the drive itself. The idling car’s driver’s-side door hung open and the overhead light glowed. The chauffeur was slumped onto the passenger seat. All around his car were bodies: some on the asphalt drive, some on the gravel horseshoe section amid the parked cars, and others farther away, as if they had tried to run but had been gunned down. People from inside the ballroom stumbled out the doors. One woman took a look around and covered her eyes. The man next to her made an incoherent sound and held his palm to his head in a stricken gesture.
“You see anyone with a gun still alive?” Russell said.
“No. Let’s go take a look.”
Russell stood and jogged toward the destruction. As she neared she could see the actual chain of events as they played out, starting with the farthest man and continuing to the one nearest the entrance. Vladenko walked at her side. Russell pointed at the body of a man in a suit slumped near the wheel well of a black car with a sticker on the back indicating it was from the Russian embassy. It appeared as though the man had tried to take cover there. Next to him was another, also slumped against the car.
Vladenko gasped. “Those are two bodyguards for the ambassador.” He knelt down and checked the nearer man’s pulse before moving to the next. Two more men, both lying on the ground with gaping chest wounds, were in view of each other and both had weapons next to them on the ground. Russell checked those two and then moved around the area checking the rest. In the distance she heard the sound of sirens.
“Took them long enough,” she said as she rose from checking the last man.
The flow of fleeing people had slowed. Once they emerged from the house most began to run and kept going until they were out of sight. Two small groups hovered, but far away from the scene of the carnage. Vladenko stepped up next to her and Wyler came at a run from the side yard. He stopped to stare at the bodies around them.