Jerome Preisler - Net Force--Attack Protocol

Bryan nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. They probably have the chops. But cloud hacks are complicated. And they thought they’d be on a plane before anybody caught on to them. With Sacramento a disaster area.”

Hudson’s face was getting excited again. Michaels had noticed he often thought with enthusiasm.

“We can subpoena that data from the smart-therm company, right?” he asked. “There could be all kinds of info about the hackers’ web-browsing patterns and log-ins.”

Atta boy. Michaels smoothed his graying red beard. The session had gone well. So well, he had briefly stopped thinking about Romania.

He noticed Natasha and her trainees heading toward the door with their evidence, the connected sex toy included, and then watched them make their way over the lawn to the triage unit. They would be able to off-load data from the digital equipment, mirror the drowned phones, capture and preserve the hackers’ digital footprint right here at the crime scene. If SEEKER’s mobile technology had been available back in 2021, the trial of the hackers wouldn’t have ended with a hung jury and five state-supported cyberterrorists walking free.

Michaels watched them enter the triage. He would head over there to observe them for a short while, then call an end to the session and check in with Morse on Scalpel.

He was stepping outside when the call came in. The beep tone sounded not through his ear but a cranial microphone.

“Professor Michaels, please excuse the interruption.” Eve sounded like Audrey Hepburn very much by design; he had created the AI’s voice with an audio sample from Breakfast at Tiffany’s . “Eagle is on the line.”

Annemarie , Michaels thought. It had to be urgent for POTUS to call now.

He stopped alongside the cop posted at the door. The cop didn’t see him. He was invisible. A digital phantom.

“Pull me from the session,” he told the AI. “But keep it running.”

“One moment. Extraction in four, three, two...”

The Fair Oaks cottage, lawn, law enforcement and forensic personnel, evidence trolleys, police cruisers, crime-scene van, and even the SEEKER vehicle itself all vanished at once. So did two of the three trainees—Sherron was back home in Oregon for Thanksgiving weekend, and Way with his family in Rhode Island. They had participated in the training session as virtual avatars, using beta versions of his portable, untethered HIVE, or Highly Integrated Virtual Environment, headsets. The California cops and techs, on the other hand, were computer-controlled agents. Interactive characters created for the IR training scenario. Digital puppets.

“Establishing a secure channel to Eagle,” Eve said. “Stand by.”

Michaels kept his headset on for its audio feed. Across the theater-style aisle to his right, Bryan, Natasha, and Jase Hudson were physically present with him in HIVE 1, a large circular space in his Columbia University lab complex. Also wearing the stand-alone headsets, they were still immersed in the simulation. The full-surround LED wall panels that normally created the virtual environment were dark.

“Alex?” Fucillo said. “Are you with me?”

“Yes,” he said. Both of them avoiding pleasantries. “What’s happening?”

“I have some news out of Romania.”

“Janus or up-country?”

“Both,” Fucillo said. “I hope you’re sitting down. We need to put our heads together and make some decisions. Because none of what I’m about to tell you is good.”

Michaels nodded to himself in confirmation.

He hadn’t thought it would be.

East Harlem

Adrian Soto wore three impressive career hats. He was CEO of Cognizant Systems, the innovative telecommunications firm he’d co-founded after multiple tours with the U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Command; this was how he earned his very substantial living. Soto’s second prominent hat was that of Cybersecurity Director for Net Force, a presidential appointment he had been honored to accept as his patriotic duty. But his most cherished hat was worn as founder and chairman of the Unity Project, a charitable organization he had launched in memory of his late fiancée, Malika, with a mission statement of bringing together people of different cultural backgrounds for shared socioeconomic goals, promoting cultural understanding and community growth though personal service.

Unity was his passion . His personal inspiration. His reason for carrying on after tribal hatreds took Malika from him in Iraq.

Tonight, the night before Thanksgiving, was one of Soto’s favorite nights of the year at Unity. He had been fully briefed about Operation Scalpel, but was directing his thoughts toward the foundation, where they would be most useful. With his different and varied hats came the ability to compartmentalize. He was good at shifting priorities around in his mind to get things done.

It was around seven o’clock when his driver swung out of Third Avenue traffic and dropped him off in front of Unity’s street-level headquarters. He got out and crossed the sidewalk, a little hop in his step. He could see staffers and volunteers through the storefront windows, decorating and preparing for the annual all-you-can-eat holiday dinner the foundation hosted for struggling local families. They would serve hundreds of portions of roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, casseroles, and dessert. There would be bus rides to the festivities, prize drawings, a free photo booth, and a DJ. And there would be plenty of boxed leftovers.

Soto walked through the door. The usual reception room furniture had been cleared and several of his people were fussing with warming trays and Sterno at the serving counters. Others were laying out tablecloths, paper plates, and plastic utensils at the cafeteria tables. Gayle Robbins, his assistant director, was on a ladder hanging a huge honeycomb paper turkey from the ceiling. Slender, brown-eyed, brown-skinned, with tightly curled dark hair, she glanced down at him.

“Reporting for duty?” she said. “Step right up.”

He gave her a combined nod and smile, gestured at the hanging turkey.

“My,” he said, “that’s a big bird.”

“Wait till you see the real ones,” she said.

“Do we know what time they’re coming?”

“Truck’s supposed to arrive at six o’clock sharp tomorrow morning,” she said. “I plan to sleep here.”

“Probably a few of us will have to,” Soto said. Attendance had almost doubled in the past few years as the neighborhood’s economy took one serious hit after another. He guessed they would have a thousand pounds of turkey and fixings, a hundred pumpkin pies...

The phone shivered in his pants pocket. It was a Cognizant dual cell/satphone, but only the satellite mode was set for silent vibrate. That meant the call was official business.

He reached for it and checked the caller ID.

Eagle.

The movable compartments in his brain shifted.

“Everything all right?” Gayle said.

Soto kept his eyes on the display.

“I hope so,” he said, and excused himself.

“Madam President.” Soto hurried to the back of the reception area. “Bear with me, please... I have to go where I can speak freely.”

His office was a small, square room off in a corner. It had few furnishings. A U-shaped wooden desk, chairs, some standing file cabinets. The desk was clear except for a computer screen and picture frame. The picture was of Malika.

He sat down with his coat still on.

“I apologize,” he said. “I was in a busy room.”

“Understood,” she said. “We should get right down to it. Alex Michaels is on the line with us. He’ll fill you in.”

Which told Soto the call had to be about Scalpel.