Дэвид Балдаччи - King and Maxwell

“Shit,” Sean muttered. He’d been spotted. That did not bode well for anyone he cared about, particularly Tyler and Kathy.

He got on the phone and called Michelle. He talked as he drove, filling her in.

“I never saw the guy until the last second. It was my screwup.”

She said, “I distracted you with my call.”

“I can chew gum and talk at the same time,” he snapped. “At least I used to be able to,” he added darkly.

“Should we tell Wingo?”

“No, he’s already close to going off the deep end. This will send him there for certain.”

“So what now?”

“I’ll meet you at Edgar’s. Hopefully, he can flesh out some of the computer files for us so we can get a direct line on these bastards before it’s too late.”

An hour later Sean pulled to a stop in front of Edgar’s farmhouse. The skies had partially cleared and the sun was doing its best to poke through the clusters of gray clouds. He noted that Michelle’s rental vehicle was already there. He would have expected no less with the way she drove. He touched the hood of her car as he passed. It wasn’t even warm. She’d been here awhile, probably smoked her wheels the whole way. And never gotten a ticket. He shook his head and kept going.

He knocked and then walked into the house.

Michelle was hunched over Edgar’s shoulder as he was gazing at his multiple screens on his plywood desk.

Edgar said, “She wasn’t house-sitting. She was breaking and entering. That’s a felony.”

“Yeah, I told her the same thing. Is the coffee fresh?” asked Sean, eyeing the cup in Michelle’s hand. “My brain is mud.”

Edgar gave him a significant look. Sean started to say something but then obviously decided not to even bother.

Michelle said, “He has a Keurig. Take your pick.”

Sean left the room, made his cup of coffee, rejoined them, and perched on the edge of Edgar’s desk.

“So what do we have?”

“A lot of files to go through,” replied Michelle.

“What about the other stuff?” asked Sean. “The IP trail on the email from the blogger’s source?”

“I’ve broken through three of five barriers,” answered Edgar.

“Hey, that’s great.”

Edgar said, “The remaining two are proving hard to crack. The person knows what he’s doing.”

Sean’s excited look faded. “Well, if you can’t crack it, I don’t think anyone can, Edgar.”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t. I just said they were proving difficult.”

Michelle cradled her cup of coffee and pointed at the screen. “But there might be something here.”

Sean squinted at the screen. “What am I looking at?”

“On the surface it’s an invoice for jet fuel,” said Edgar.

“But looks can be deceiving,” added Michelle.

“What do you mean?”

In response Edgar hit a few keys. The page they were looking at turned into a jumble of symbols that made no sense at all.

“I’ve seen that before,” said Sean. “When my computer goes haywire and turns my document to gibberish.”

“It’s simply a failure of the computer to read the document coding properly,” explained Edgar. “And that can happen for any number of reasons, including damage to the file or a problem with your processor. And if you know what you’re doing you can disable your computer’s ability to read the code properly. That’s what I just did. But it’s also something else.”

“What?”

“A code,” said Michelle.

“You mean they hide the code in the gibberish?” said Sean.

“ Gold in the trash is a phrase we use in the cyber security field,” noted Edgar. “It’s actually pretty cool because everyone’s had that happen to them. It’s just a software glitch. You don’t think it’s anything more than that.”

“But you obviously saw there was more to it,” said Michelle.

“Well, with the Wall, you pretty much see everything,” said Edgar modestly.

“So what does this code say?” asked Sean.

“It’s a communication to an unknown party, but one I strongly suspect is the same one on the IP trail from the blogger because the exact same barriers have been set up to block access to the source at the other end.”

“But what does it say?” persisted Sean.

“It’s a series of numbers,” he replied.

“Numbers meaning what?”

“If I had to guess, it’s satellite coordinates because I’ve seen them before,” said Edgar. “I haven’t fully deciphered the message, so I don’t know the location of the satellite yet if that’s what it is.”

Sean looked upward. “A bird in the sky? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Eyes in the heavens,” said Michelle. She looked thoughtful as she took a sip of coffee. “How much does a sky bird cost?”

“It could be a lot,” said Edgar. “You have to build it first and that’s not cheap. Then you have to get it up there, and that’s not cheap either. Most people with such a need just rent space on an existing platform.”

“You can do that?” said Michelle. “Rent space on a satellite just like you would an apartment?”

Edgar nodded as he kept clicking keys. “Done all the time. There are businesses devoted to it. Some of the satellites the government uses are rented from commercial companies.”

“The government?” said Sean. “But how do you maintain security?”

“There are a number of ways. Sometimes you rent the whole satellite.”

“Must really be big bucks involved,” said Sean.

“Like a billion euros?” replied Michelle.

That comment drew a sharp glance from him. “Is that what you’re thinking? Someone bought a satellite? Why?”

Michelle took another sip of coffee. “I don’t know. But if sats are expensive, a billion euros would certainly come in handy.”

“Yes they would,” added Edgar.

Sean said, “Edgar, what would it cost to buy or rent a satellite?”

Edgar used his left hand to start clicking keys on another keyboard, with the results popping up on another screen. All the while his right hand clicked away on the first keyboard. His gaze darted between the two screens.

“A lot depends on the size and reach of the satellite,” explained Edgar. “Building one can cost from half a billion up to two billion. They can be as small as half a ton all the way up to the size of a truck weighing a couple of tons. But there are other varieties. I call them burners.”

“Why is that?” asked Michelle.

“You can build them on the cheap, say a million bucks or less, get them up to position on a rented rocket along with other payload. You lease the platform out to as many paying customers as you can get, sometimes for a few hundred bucks a week to get your investment back plus a decent profit, and a couple of years later the bird drifts back to earth and burns up in the atmosphere. Hence the term burner .”

“But these cheaper satellites, they wouldn’t have the reach of the more expensive ones.”

“Of course not. Even in space you get what you pay for. Gravity not included.” Edgar smiled and looked at Sean. “That was a joke.”

“Yeah, I got it. So how many satellites are in the sky?”

Edgar clicked more keys. “Over a thousand. Most are owned and operated by the U.S., Russia, and China divided among civil, commercial, government, and military applications. But lots of countries own all or pieces of satellites. Most commercial satellites are in what is called geosynchronous orbit, as opposed to low-earth orbit where governments have the most platforms.”

“And satellites are used principally for…?” asked Michelle.

“Communications,” answered Edgar promptly. “Moving information around the world at speed. Phone service, navigation, computer networks, whatever. The Wall depends on them, which means so do I.”