Don Pendleton - Incendiary Dispatch

Thomas Jackson Hawkins knew quite a bit about electronic communications—military, civilian and industrial. He watched intently as Tokaido played with some communications schematics out of Alaska, using computer models of communications infrastructure to replicate the simultaneous detonation of hundreds of bombs around the world—a type of communication whose failure could lead to the partial misfires that had occurred in Alaska.

“What about the lab in Georgia where Rafe got burned?” Hermann Schwarz was asking. “Gary, they were specializing in incendiary research.”

“I’ve looked at the reports. I don’t know what the hell that was all about. It was damned suspicious, for sure. But what were they trying to accomplish by bringing in foreign-made military research and prototype? I couldn’t figure it out.”

“What about the prototype devices they supplied the military?” Schwarz asked. “Any good?”

“No. They were shoddy,” Manning said.

“But could their prototypes do that?” Schwarz persisted, nodding at the screen where the Alaskan pipeline continued to open again every few minutes.

Manning shrugged. “I doubt it.”

“Would you like to see one of the devices from the Solon lab in Georgia?” Kurtzman asked.

Gary Manning blinked. “You have one?”

Kurtzman grimaced. “Don’t worry. It’s not live.”

Carmen Delahunt was already slipping out of the room and was back in a moment with a plastic crate. She opened it and removed several items packed in gray foam: a wallet and a cell phone, both removed by Carl Lyons from the intruder at the lab. There was also a small, engineered device composed of three plastic discs held together by three plastic screws. Delahunt handed it to Manning, along with a printout of the functional characteristics of the device.

“One of the prototype samples from the lab.”

Of the dozen people in the War Room, not one took notice when the time code on the various computer screens changed to 8:00 p.m.

Manning sneered at the prototype. “This?”

“Looks like a Big Mac without the all-beef patties,” Schwarz muttered.

“It is not more sophisticated than it looks,” Price said.

Manning spun the screw, examined the interior. “Nonmetallic. Cavity for ignitables. So what? How much taxpayer cash did this cost us?”

“Could it have been used for the attacks we just saw?”

“No,” Manning said. “It’s too small and it won’t create a directed ignition. You’d need specially shaped charges of thermite or something to make those holes.”

“You sound pretty sure,” Brognola interjected.

“I know it would make things simpler if we could target your lab in Georgia right now, but it’s not adding up,” Manning said. “Maybe this was a diversionary tactic. They wanted to create the prototype to show just how inept they were when it came to engineering weaponized incendiaries. That would explain why they would trying to submit something like this as an advanced prototype.” Manning was arguing with the schematics sheet in front of him. “Yeah. They must have known this was crap when they sent it into the DOD. They did it on purpose.”

“Everything about that situation was damned odd,” Lyons growled. “I bet it was those hamburger incendiaries that they had rigged to go off on us. They were throwing shit in all directions.”

Manning shrugged. “You load it up with thermite, it would be a great arson tool,” he said, sliding the clattering plastic piece across the conference table. “For getting through the A53 carbon steel they use for structural steel pipes—no way. Not the precision punctures we just saw happen in Alaska.”

“We’re getting bloody nowhere,” David McCarter grumbled. He got up, paced behind the table and sucked on his Egyptian Coca-Cola until the plastic bottle collapsed with a fingernails-on-chalkboard crackling noise, then stopped when he was the center of attention of every person in the War Room.

Except for Akira Tokaido and T. J. Hawkins, who were jabbering quietly together and poking at the tablet screen. There was a dull but tangible frustration in the room.

Despite the vast inventory of attacks that had just occurred, no action plan presented itself. This was not a group of people accustomed to doing nothing.

Still, not one of them noticed when the time code on the computer screens turned from 8:02 p.m. to 8:03 p.m.

The phone that Carl Lyons had lifted from the attacker in the lab in Georgia began to ring.

Everybody in the room looked at it.

T. J. Hawkins said something under his breath.

Akira Tokaido’s hand froze over the tablet.

There was a beep from a computer. Then the peal of an electronics alarm. And then another. The phone rang again.

“More attacks?” Kurtzman exclaimed.

“Shit!” Akira Tokaido said. “Coming through the fucking phones!” He sprawled over the conference table, grabbed the phone from Solon Labs and leaped behind one of the nearby terminals. The phone rang again. He snatched at a USB cable and jabbed it into the phone.

Kurtzman wheeled into position behind a computer of his own. Brognola, having vanished offscreen, saw none of the action.

“You getting this?” the big Fed’s voice demanded. “We’ve got railroad and bridge alerts! Are you getting this?”

“Incoming calls setting off the devices,” T. J. Hawkins explained as the cybernetics crew seated themselves at any terminal that happened to be available. “Akira and I were discussing that possibility just before the phone went off.”

“Tracking the incoming call,” Tokaido said, his voice on edge.

“What good will that do?” Manning asked Schwarz. “The calls won’t all be coming from the same number.”

“They’re originating somewhere,” Schwarz said.

The phone was still ringing.

“Tell me you got something, Barb!” Brognola barked from far away in D.C.

“Got it!” Tokaido said. “Tracking back!”

“How far can you get, Akira?” Price asked with an unreal calm.

“I don’t know!”

“Bear?” Price urged.

“We’re moving!” Kurtzman said. “We’re getting through!”

“Through to what?” Brognola asked.

Barbara Price shook her head at him. She wasn’t going to ask for an explanation right now.

“Got the bastard!” Tokaido said.

“Seeing it,” responded the low, calm rumble of Huntington Wethers. “Identifying that picocell as a nanoGSM. Sending you the serial number.”

“I’m accessing the OMC-R,” Tokaido said.

Hawkins, standing at Tokaido’s shoulder, made a face at Schwarz. “He can access the Operations and Management Center-Radio?” he whispered.

“I’m in,” Tokaido crowed. His fingers stabbed at the keys. He spoke angrily at the LCD screen. “You are not getting past me again.”

His fingers stopped. He sat there staring at the screen. Kurtzman pushed back from his monitor.

“Okay, it’s off,” Kurtzman said. “He turned it off. Akira, you did it. It’s off.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Holy shit. That was fast-ass hackwork, my friend,” Hawkins said, clapping Tokaido on the shoulder.

“Yeah.” Tokaido didn’t seem to share Hawkins’s enthusiasm. He began typing again furiously. “Gonna cover my tracks.”

“We know where the picocell is, right?” Schwarz demanded.

“I can give you a street address,” Wethers confirmed. “In Barcelona.”

“Let’s go get that damned box!” Hawkins said.

“Will it do us any good?” Price asked.

“It just might,” Kurtzman said. “The picocell, the base station controller—the radio operations and maintenance hardware give us a way into the system.”

“Sounds like a weak link. As soon as they know it’s compromised they’ll stop using it. Or incinerate it,” Price suggested.