Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

A few more strategic puffs and the Civic was effectively hotboxed, the smell suffusing his hair and his clothes. He twisted the vape pen open as Joey had instructed him and clicked an interior switch, the inner core illuminating with indicator lights. He rotated it closed once more and slipped it into his front pocket.

As Joey had promised, the vape pen wasn’t what it looked like. It sent out wireless malware that targeted embedded devices—like printers and monitors—connected to the highly secured, air-gapped computers he really wanted to get into. It compromised those devices and acted as a hub linking them so they could speak to one another around an entire office over the Bluetooth connection nobody knew they had. The malware broadcast through the vape pen used Van Eck phreaking through a wide-band antenna, an ultraprecise oscilloscope, and an amplifier to measure the electromagnetic emissions of the embedded devices’ video signals. Then it correlated those minute readings to the data being worked on to siphon out the passwords and security keys. Those were sent back to the vape pen, which in turn transmitted them to Joey. He just had to get the pen within twenty meters of the nearest embedded device.

Next he freed the long-range laser listening device from his bag, the same one he’d used to spy on Joey at the restaurant. He got out of the Honda, the intake of fresh air making him cough, and sat on the hood facing the compound three stories below. Leaning forward, he saw that the Humvees held position by the guard station, exhaust spiraling from their tailpipes.

At this point he was on borrowed time and had to move quickly. As he aimed the microphone on the buildings below, he let his Steiner binocs pick across the windows.

A jumble of voices came off the different panes.

“—supply chain clusterfuck getting in the way of our agile combat-support capabilities—”

“—issue for the VA. You’re gonna have to contact your wife’s doctor to—”

“—rather eat MREs than this shit. Smell this? You think that smells like beef stew?”

He zeroed in on the center building. Shaped like a hockey puck or—more aptly—a UFO. Dark windows along the curved exterior and not a lot of them. He could pick up only a few faint vibrations from the glass:

“—better encryption—”

“—in-flight repair—”

“—improved guidance algorithm for automated collision avoidance—”

That was the place.

He zipped up an air-force-blue Windbreaker over his shirt, dumped the surveillance device beneath the tarp of a pickup parked beside him, and checked his false fingerprints. He crossed to the north-facing edge of the structure, stepped over the rail, swung himself out and down to the concrete ledge of the next level. A tricky bit of parkour that hurt his ankles and knees, but it wasn’t backbreaking.

Repeat to the second floor. And then the first.

He wound up winded on the packed sand behind the structure. Out of sight of the guard station and the waiting Humvees, positioned to face the stairs and bank of elevators. Peering around the corner, he waited until the foot traffic thickened along the path ahead. Then he swift-walked out to join it, circumventing the guard station, not daring to look behind him.

Walking rapidly now, the afternoon heat raising sweat across the small of his back. He neared the disk of the center building. Unlabeled like the others, the front doors a wall of tinted glass, black as obsidian.

He slowed his walk, timing his approach with a cluster of engineer types nearing the building, sipping coffee from plastic cups. In succession they held their electronic access cards to the panel, the doors unclicking electronically as they filed in.

Evan queued up behind them, tapping his hand to the sensor as if presenting a card, and caught the handle before the door resealed.

He entered.

A loud hum hit him immediately, the sound of a concealed server farm working overtime. The front lobby space was bathed in warmth from various vents suctioning air from a vast sunken area that constituted the building’s inner core. A row of curved interior windows looked down and in, but Evan wasn’t close enough to see what lay below.

He passed through a security metal detector, tossing his keys and the vape pen into a plastic dish. The MP running security pulled him aside and wanded him from head to toe, checking every last zipper and metal eyelet on his boots. Joey had warned him to forgo the digital contact lenses for precisely this reason; they would have alerted beneath the metal detector.

The MP handed him back the dish with a smirk—smoking devices were clearly not in vogue at Creech North—and waved him through.

As Evan moved toward the rounded bank of windows, a giant lab three stories below drew gradually into view. The scope of the space was breathtaking—part factory floor, part Hieronymus Bosch painting. Uniformed airmen and white-coated scientists scurried insectlike between computer stations and lab benches. Robotic entrails and dissected drone parts lay scattered across virtually every surface. Banks of monitors blinking with code, UAVs hovering above test-launching pads, airmen in Operational Camouflage Pattern uniforms huddled around diagrams, in heated discussions with bespectacled engineers.

Signs indicated that the elevator bank waited to the left, but as Evan arced around the curve, he saw with dismay that two armed MPs were inspecting credentials before letting anyone on. Even worse, the lift wasn’t summoned by button; it required an electronic access card for entry.

There was no way for Evan to even board the elevator, let alone get the vape pen within twenty meters of the data stations below.

That’s when he sensed a flare of movement overhead and heard the three-note bugle of his Laser Warning Receiver playing Taps .

He’d been lit up.

52Dogpile

Overhead a diminutive quadcopter drone zipped around, holding its laser on Evan. He could only hope that it was unarmed, strictly for interior surveillance.

No time to delay.

He’d be in custody within seconds.

Already the MPs from the security checkpoint had alerted to him.

Evan ripped off his Windbreaker, releasing a miasma of marijuana fumes, and cast it aside. He shouted, “Drones can’t hear the cries of children on the ground!”

The MPs started for him, and he freed the vape pen from his pocket and sprinted away. The air felt heavy, the heat drafted up from the lab floor venting along the elevated corridor.

Down below, the commotion went unnoticed, but people in the corridor froze all around him. A number of passing airmen keyed to him, going on point.

Evan feinted left, sprinting around an MP, and hurdled another coming in for a tackle. Suddenly a dozen people were in play, a wall of blue berets and camouflage, the noose closing fast.

He curled his hand around the vape pen, vectoring hard for the outer wall, aiming at one of the heating vents. Someone struck him from the side, and he rolled away like a running back evading a tackle. His momentum spun him 180 degrees, his forearm slamming into the concrete. His other hand, clenching the vape pen, swung around to absorb the impact, and he opened his fist just before it hit the vent. His palm slapped the metal rectangle, the slats digging into his skin. The vape pen rolled between his flesh and the metal, horizontally positioned but not popping through.

Someone rammed into his back, dragging him toward the floor.

He fought back, holding himself against the wall, his hand sliding down along the vent. The vape pen clanked unseen across each slat, and finally Evan felt the pressure in his palm release, the pen squeaking through. He heard it tick against the inside of the ducting as it plummeted downward, and then he was on the floor, buried beneath the dogpile.