John Nance - Lockout

“You mean, the White House?”

“Well, probably one or two steps lower. Four star general or secretary of defense levels. I asked my boss to get permission, and he refused. It spooked him. He told me to forget about it and go do something else. That’s when I left.”

“But, Will, jeez. This is saying that the United States has frozen the controls of a commercial airliner and I assume put everyone in peril.”

“They may have, but it gets worse, Jen.”

“Try me.”

He outlined the significance of an uninventoried cargo pod and the fact that fifteen minutes before he’d called, evidence emerged that Tehran had become aware of most of the story.

“Moishe Lavi’s still got too many confederates in Israel. We can’t be sure there’s not just enough nuclear material in that cargo pod to spur the Iranians to act.”

She sat back, studying his face again. “Wait… Lavi may be behind an attempt to frighten the Iranians, but you’re saying the signal that froze the aircraft’s controls came from us.”

“Yes.”

“Could someone on our side be setting up a war, then? In conjunction with Moishe Lavi?”

He snorted and looked forward, shaking his head before looking back. “If this is a purposeful act, and why wouldn’t it be with the intensity of the signal distribution you ferreted out, what would someone be trying to accomplish? Killing Lavi? They could do that with a sniper at Kennedy on arrival. Hell, half of Mossad wants him dead, the other half was nominating him as the Messiah. No, there has to be a point to it.”

“Will, first of all, how could mere radio signals lock up a civilian jetliner? Could someone have hacked into the computers?”

“We don’t know. I don’t know. The jet came out of Tel Aviv… maybe someone installed some strange equipment on the ground there or monkeyed with the computers or computer memory. Just… proceed from that assumption, that whatever has locked up their controls was triggered by those radio bursts and was purposeful.”

“You think someone in the military is sitting in a little cubicle somewhere programming that flight? Like a drone?”

“Maybe. Although they haven’t changed heading or climbed or descended yet, so I’m not sure there’s active control going on. But someone did this.”

“Would it benefit anyone on our side to start a nuclear war with Iran?”

“It might. It would be a surrogate war, Jen. The Israelis would fight it for us, and they wouldn’t let Iran clear leather, so to speak. The very second the mullahs light off a missile, they’ll be toast.”

“The glow-in-the-dark kind?” she asked quietly.

“Yep. Then all hell breaks loose, the Islamic world goes completely barking mad, Russia and China get involved in diplomatic opportunism, and it’s always possible the mullahs still get a death shot off at Israel. Have you been there, by the way?”

She nodded.

“It’s tiny. It wouldn’t take many split atoms to reprise the Holocaust.”

“Dear God. What can we do? Can we go pick up Seth and keep him safe and get his ideas?”

Will shook his head. “I’m not sure your man Seth isn’t part of this, whatever ‘this’ is.”

The answer seemed otherworldly, forcing a frightening image of Seth as something other than her trusted boss and confederate.

“Then… who do we tell, Will?”

“Until we know for sure what we’re dealing with, no one’s going to be spring-loaded to believe either or both of us. Even the CIA, who is nipping at DIA’s heels right now trying to find out what we know, hasn’t figured it out. Or at least that’s where I think they are. But, see, if this is something our military or any segment of it is doing, it’s a very deep, very dark secret, and we’ve already unraveled enough of it to be a very large threat.”

“And we can’t tell anyone? Not even the president?”

“Tell him what? That’s the problem. All we know for sure is where the transmission came from.”

‘But, that at least is a fact!”

“Yes, as is the fact that the code was registered. But what if some faction at the White House is also involved?”

She searched his face for a few seconds, feeling very helpless.

“You’re scaring me, Will. Seriously.”

“I’m not far behind. If I get us on a secure computer net, can you help find some answers?”

“Aha! I can see your thinking now. Jenny’s a cryptologist so she can naturally hack into any information.”

“I can hope, can’t I? What I was wondering was whether you might be able to decrypt the instructional code that the Pangia flight apparently uploaded.”

“I’d need a key of some sort. I tried every way from Sunday.”

“I may have one.”

“Where? How?”

“Just… trust me. If I can get you a key to the code, or any part of it…”

“Then maybe I can. But why?”

“Well…”

“Oh! Jeez! You want me to countermand whatever orders that transmission contained!”

“Precisely. I don’t know if it would work, but…”

She sighed deeply. “Yeah. Got it. But Will, I think you’re expecting too much of me. You’re not sitting next to Garcia from Criminal Minds !”

“I love her!”

She’s not real, Will. No one can dance over keys and pull up information that easily.”

“I know.”

“But… if we can find a way into any net, and if you can provide a key, I can sure as hell try.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say, and that’s also where we’re heading.”

“Where is ‘where’?”

“A safe house with a net portal.”

She turned a bit more toward him, looking puzzled.

“You really do use safe houses?”

“Yes.”

“Which… would mean you’re into covert ops.”

“Yes.”

“Which means I’m dancing with a real live James Bond.”

That sad look crossed his face again. “I wish.”

“What? That you were Bond?”

“No. That we were dancing.”

The “Kirya” IDF military complex, Tel Aviv, Israel (2:00 a.m. local / 0100 Zulu)

With a heavy sigh, the interim prime minister of Israel settled his overweight frame into a chair at the head of a large conference table in the military command complex known fondly as “the hole.” Having the title “prime minister” inserted before his name was still a shock to Gershorn Zamir’s own sensibilities, but he was slowly warming to it. The greater problem of what to do about the previous PM and his terrifying determination to start a nuclear war had propelled Gershorn from his home across town to a meeting he really didn’t want, but couldn’t avoid. And the news that Lavi was aboard the American airliner hurtling back toward Israel and essentially out of control was alarming everyone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please proceed,” he said in Hebrew, keeping the informal arc of ministerial conduct intact, as far as he could imitate it.

Lieutenant General Yossi Alon, chief of the general staff, ran through everything they knew, outlining the various responses they were preparing based on what Pangia Flight 10 might or might not do when, and if, it appeared overhead Tel Aviv in less than three hours.

And suddenly it was quiet with all eyes on him.

Gershorn Zamir leaned forward, nodding at the general. “Thank you, Yossi. Very well, I have a few questions. If the crew cannot regain control and they overfly us and turn towards Iran, as you’ve warned is possible, what then? Let’s say they head straight for Tehran, the mullahs are watching, and regardless of what Washington tries to tell them, they get ready to launch their one or two nuclear warheads. You said the Airbus hasn’t enough fuel to make it all the way to Tehran, so they would flame out and crash barely over the border, and no longer be a threat to Tehran. But would the bastards use this situation as an excuse to launch on us?”