John Nance - Lockout

He turned toward her slightly, fully engaging, which was a good sign, she figured.

“Jenny, there is no one I can be sure of in a situation like this. No one. Not even my team, who are hunkered down waiting for me to tell them something good. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? In the entirety of the government of the United States of America, since the enabling signal came from our own National Security Agency, I can think of no one completely safe who could take action in time. Hell, it may already be too late to take any action in time, but you’ve got to try.”

She leaped to her feet again. “Oh, really? Tell me again why I’ve got to solve this? My government seems to have gone crazy and is trying to kill a planeload of people and maybe start a nuclear confrontation and I’m responsible how ?

“Sit, please,” he commanded suddenly, the earlier composure returning if not the air of confidence. Something hard in his voice led her to choke off an objection and comply.

Will Bronson picked up another lightweight chair and plopped it down in front of her backwards. He sat on it, leaning his chin on the back, staring at her.

“What?”

No response, and she was getting steamed.

“WHAT, damn you?”

“You really want me to tell you why… how you’re responsible?”

“Is there an echo in here? Yes! That’s what I asked.”

“You wrote the code.”

She stared at him in disbelieving silence.

“I… what?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you, but you wrote the code they used to start this mess.”

“Like hell I did! I’ve been trying to decipher… what are you saying?

“The registration of codes I told you about? I wasn’t lying when I told you I was denied access to who registered it. But there is a track to whoever created a unique code or variant. Do you recognize the digital signature Three-Three-Six-Nine-Alpha?”

Jenny looked at him speechless for a few seconds, her mind running back to previous assignments over the years, some of which had required a personal code, which in her case had always been 3369A.

“That’s… my digital signature, but I swear to you I’ve never seen that transmitted code before. And I wouldn’t have anything to do with…”

“You signed it.”

“No, someone used my coded signature! I’ve spent the whole day trying to figure out the logic in that codec. If I’d written it…” She stopped, her face suddenly looking pasty.

“What?”

“Oh crap!”

“ What Jenny?”

“I didn’t think about…”

“Please, tell me.”

Her hand was in front of her mouth, her eyes drifting away for a few seconds before she looked back at him.

“Jesus God, Will! That’s the key! Someone scrambled a very old code of mine, and I’ve been irritated all day because it had some familiar overtones but I couldn’t tell why. I didn’t write this version, but they used one of my encoding sequences and then scrambled the hell out of it.” She turned a shade whiter as she met Will’s gaze, understanding.

“This means NSA is involved!”

“Maybe. Could be. Highly possible,”

“But if I know the core philosophy of the code, maybe I CAN decipher it!”

She started to turn back to the computer and stopped herself, a dark cloud crossing her face as the final tumblers fell into place. She hadn’t been just the helpful girl from NSA. She had been the target all along.

“I see now. NSA. You thought I was the bad guy, didn’t you?” she said softly, watching him as he stood and put the chair aside.

“Jen…”

“No, level with me. This whole thing was because of my digital signature and the signal coming from NSA, right? So what were you going to do to me if I didn’t produce the code? Seduce me? Torture me? Kill me?”

“ What ?”

“This is one of your safe houses and I’m sure you could kill someone in here quite handily and some… some team would come flying in to dispose of the body and the evidence.”

“Jenny, calm down. That’s not what I or the DIA do. That’s Hollywood.”

“Oh really? The DIA doesn’t do covert ops? You’re known for covert ops!”

“That’s not me.”

“How were you planning to make me talk, huh?” Her eyes were narrowing as she warmed to her anger. Here she’d thought he respected her and enjoyed working with her and—

“JENNY!”

“What?”

“What would you have thought in my shoes?”

“I…”

“We have a major emergency and little time. Thank God we were wrong about you. I get it. Now let’s work like hell, okay?”

She looked at him carefully, the steam dissipating, and nodded.

“Okay.”

“We’re essentially alone on this. Just like I said.”

“Okay.”

“And, I would never kill you or torture you!”

“You left one out,” she said, turning back to the laptop.

“Did I?” he said, feigning ignorance.

“Get me coffee, Will Bronson. You can seduce me later.”

The White House (8:50 p.m. EST / 0150 Zulu)

CIA Deputy Director Walter Randolph had made the round-trip from the White House to Langley and back reluctantly, but meeting with his team was vital and there was simply no way of assuring an unmonitored electronic conversation in or around the Situation Room. He looked up from his briefing papers now as his driver was waived through the West Wing gate, spotting the director of Central Intelligence who was waiting. James Bergen climbed into the rear seat as Walter leaned forward to engage the driver.

“Ralph? Just drive around for about fifteen minutes, okay? Then back here.”

The guards waved the car back through the gates as Bergen sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I hate days like this and just hanging around waiting for POTUS.”

“I know. Feels a bit subservient.”

“We serve at the pleasure of the president, Walter, my boy. At least I do. Okay, what have we got?”

“A growing international confrontation that could either dissipate like the morning fog or end up in a nuclear exchange. How’s that for extremes?”

“Details, Walt.”

“We have confirmation now that Tehran is fully aware of Moishe Lavi’s presence on the Pangia flight, because they have formally notified all adjacent air traffic authorities that any flight with Lavi aboard is prohibited from entry into Iranian airspace. They’ve assembled what passes for their air force general staff, and they’ve even sent a direct nastygram to Pangia headquarters to make sure Pangia knows their jet with Lavi aboard will be, as they put it, ‘refused admission to Iranian airspace,’ meaning they reserve the right to shoot them down.”

“Okay. We expected all that. What else?”

“Well, we’ve also discovered an interesting little tidbit that is probably quite seismic: The Airbus that Pangia is flying doesn’t belong to them, and the airline apparently didn’t know it.”

“Excuse me?”

Randolph explained Pangia’s shock at being informed they were flying the wrong Airbus A330 and how they had pulled it out of the desert and hurried it into service.

“The storage company in Mojave, California, made the mistake, Jim. We sent two of our people up there in the past hour. The employee responsible for sending the wrong airplane to the airline is a Carl Kanowsky, and Mr. Kanowsky has suddenly disappeared, and it turns out the name is probably an alias. Our team suspects that all the information the man gave the employer to get hired about six months ago when those white tails arrived will turn out to be false. And, the jet Pangia Airways thought they were flying, the one which should still be there in Mojave?”