Dan Brown - Deception Point

Gabrielle slipped behind the senator’s desk and sat down. She took a deep breath, looking at his computer. If the senator is accepting SFF bribes, any evidence would be in here.

Sexton’s computer screensaver was an ongoing slideshow of the White House and its grounds created for him by one of his gung-ho staffers who was big into visualization and positive thinking. Around the images crawled a ticker-tape banner that read: President of the United States Sedgewick Sexton... President of the United States Sedgewick Sexton... President of the...

Gabrielle jostled the mouse, and a security dialogue box came up.

ENTER PASSWORD:

She expected this. It would not be a problem. Last week, Gabrielle had entered Sexton’s office just as the senator was sitting down and logging onto his computer. She saw him type three short keystrokes in rapid succession.

“That’s a password?” she challenged from the doorway as she walked in.

Sexton glanced up. “What?”

“And here I thought you were concerned about security,” Gabrielle scolded good-naturedly. “Your password’s only three keys? I thought the tech guys told us all to use at least six.”

“The tech guys are teenagers. They should try remembering six random letters when they’re over forty. Besides, the door has an alarm. Nobody can get in.”

Gabrielle walked toward him, smiling. “What if someone slipped in while you’re in the loo?”

“And tried every combination of passwords?” He gave a skeptical laugh. “I’m slow in the bathroom, but not that slow.”

“Dinner at Davide says I can guess your password in ten seconds.”

Sexton looked intrigued and amused. “You can’t afford Davide, Gabrielle.”

“So you’re saying you’re chicken?”

Sexton appeared almost sorry for her as he accepted the challenge. “Ten seconds?” He logged off and motioned for Gabrielle to sit down and give it a try. “You know I only order the saltimbocca at Davide. And that ain’t cheap.”

She shrugged as she sat down. “It’s your money.”

ENTER PASSWORD:

“Ten seconds,” Sexton reminded.

Gabrielle had to laugh. She would need only two. Even from the doorway she could see that Sexton had entered his three-key password in very rapid succession using only his index finger. Obviously all the same key. Not wise. She could also see that his hand had been positioned over the far left side of his keyboard—cutting the possible alphabet down to only about nine letters. Choosing the letter was simple; Sexton had always loved the triple alliteration of his title. Senator Sedgewick Sexton.

Never underestimate the ego of a politician.

She typed SSS, and the screensaver evaporated.

Sexton’s jaw hit the floor.

That had been last week. Now, as Gabrielle faced his computer again, she was certain Sexton would not have taken time yet to figure out how to set up a different password. Why would he? He trusts me implicitly.

She typed in SSS.

Gabrielle stared in shock.

Apparently she had overestimated her senator’s level of trust.

The attack came without warning. Low out of the southwest sky above the Goya , the lethal silhouette of a gunship helicopter bore down like a giant wasp. Rachel had no doubt what it was, or why it was here.

Through the darkness, a staccato burst from the nose of the chopper sent a torrent of bullets chewing across the Goya ’s fiberglass deck, slashing a line across the stern. Rachel dove for cover too late and felt the searing slash of a bullet graze her arm. She hit the ground hard, then rolled, scrambling to get behind the bulbous transparent dome of the Triton submersible.

A thundering of rotors exploded overhead as the chopper swooped past the ship. The noise evaporated with an eerie hiss as the chopper rocketed out over the ocean and began a wide bank for a second pass.

Lying trembling on the deck, Rachel held her arm and looked back at Tolland and Corky. Apparently having lunged to cover behind a storage structure, the two men were now staggering to their feet, their eyes scanning the skies in terror. Rachel pulled herself to her knees. The entire world suddenly seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Crouched behind the transparent curvature of the Triton sub, Rachel looked in panic toward their only means of escape—the Coast Guard helicopter. Xavia was already climbing into the chopper’s cabin, frantically waving for everyone to get aboard. Rachel could see the pilot lunging into the cockpit, wildly throwing switches and levers. The blades began to turn... ever so slowly.

Too slowly.

Hurry!

Rachel felt herself standing now, preparing to run, wondering if she could make it across the deck before the attackers made another pass. Behind her, she heard Corky and Tolland dashing toward her and the waiting helicopter. Yes! Hurry!

Then she saw it.

A hundred yards out, up in the sky, materializing out of empty darkness, a pencil-thin beam of red light slanted across the night, searching the Goya ’s deck. Then, finding its mark, the beam came to a stop on the side of the waiting Coast Guard chopper.

The image took only an instant to register. In that horrific moment, Rachel felt all the action on the deck of the Goya blur into a collage of shapes and sounds. Tolland and Corky dashing toward her—Xavia motioning wildly in the helicopter—the stark red laser slicing across the night sky.

It was too late.

Rachel spun back toward Corky and Tolland, who were running full speed now toward the helicopter. She lunged outward into their path, arms outstretched trying to stop them. The collision felt like a train wreck as the three of them crashed to the deck in a tangle of arms and legs.

In the distance, a flash of white light appeared. Rachel watched in disbelief and horror as a perfectly straight line of exhaust fire followed the path of the laser beam directly toward the helicopter.

When the Hellfire missile slammed into the fuselage, the helicopter exploded apart like a toy. The concussion wave of heat and noise thundered across the deck as flaming shrapnel rained down. The helicopter’s flaming skeleton lurched backward on its shattered tail, teetered a moment, and then fell off the back of the ship, crashing into the ocean in a hissing cloud of steam.

Rachel closed her eyes, unable to breathe. She could hear the flaming wreckage gurgling and sputtering as it sank, being dragged away from the Goya by the heavy currents. In the chaos, Michael Tolland’s voice was yelling. Rachel felt his powerful hands trying to pull her to her feet. But she could not move.

The Coast Guard pilot and Xavia are dead.

We’re next.

The weather on the Milne Ice Shelf had settled, and the habisphere was quiet. Even so, NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom had not even tried to sleep. He had spent the hours alone, pacing the dome, staring into the extraction pit, running his hands over the grooves in the giant charred rock.

Finally, he’d made up his mind.

Now he sat at the videophone in the habisphere’s PSC tank and looked into the weary eyes of the President of the United States. Zach Herney was wearing a bathrobe and did not look at all amused. Ekstrom knew he would be significantly less amused when he learned what Ekstrom had to tell him.

When Ekstrom finished talking, Herney had an uncomfortable look on his face—as if he thought he must still be too asleep to have understood correctly.

“Hold on,” Herney said. “We must have a bad connection. Did you just tell me that NASA intercepted this meteorite’s coordinates from an emergency radio transmission—and then pretended that PODS found the meteorite?”