Extinction (3 page)

“I appreciate your help, General. So what did Layla do?”

Yin frowned. “The question is, what
hasn’t
she done? Over the past year hackers have compromised the Pentagon’s networks a dozen times, and your daughter appears to be involved in nearly every incident.”

Shit.
Jim had been afraid of this. He’d warned Layla two years ago, but of course she hadn’t listened. She was a computer prodigy, brilliant but reckless. She’d started writing her own software at the age of twelve, and by her sixteenth birthday she was hacking into her high school’s network and downloading her teachers’ personnel files. All of Jim’s lectures and punishments had no effect whatsoever, but by the time she started college she seemed to be over the worst of it. She had a stellar freshman year at MIT, acing all her courses. But her grades slipped during her sophomore year, and then she announced she was dropping out. She said she was going to do volunteer work for InfoLeaks, the Web site infamous for publishing classified military documents. Jim was devastated. Of all the thousands of things Layla could’ve done with her life, she’d chosen the one that would hurt him the most.

He clenched his hands to stop them from shaking. “So you have evidence that she hacked into the networks?”

Yin nodded. “We traced the attacks to code names and IP addresses she’s used in the past. We compiled all the evidence and handed it off to the FBI, and they’ve already issued a warrant for her arrest. They’ve narrowed her whereabouts to the New York City area and begun searching for her there.”

Jim turned away from Yin so the general couldn’t see his face. This was his nightmare come true. “So why are you here?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. “Just to give me a heads-up?”

“No, I want to help. The Pentagon recognizes the extraordinary sacrifices you’ve made, so my superiors have authorized me to make a proposal. If you contact your daughter and convince her to surrender, we’ll withdraw the most serious charge against her. She’ll still go to prison, but the sentence will be lighter. One or two years instead of five to ten.”

Jim shook his head. He and his daughter had once been inseparable. She was only seven when her mother and brother died, and in the years afterward Jim had devoted his life to her. He’d showered her with love and attention, maybe too much. But now he couldn’t do anything for her. Not even the simplest thing. “I can’t contact her,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to reach her.”

Yin looked askance. “You don’t have a phone number?”

He shook his head again. “She thought if she gave me her number, I’d use it to track her down.”

“What about friends, acquaintances? Is there anyone she keeps in touch with?”

“No, she cut off everyone. Layla’s a determined girl. When she does something, she does it thoroughly.”

“Well, when was the last time you spoke with her?”

“About a year ago. She called me from a blocked number. The conversation didn’t go well.”

“What did you discuss?”

Jim stared at the general. He wanted to say,
None of your fucking business,
but he thought better of it. “I’d rather not go into the details.”

Yin pressed his lips together. He looked displeased. “Your daughter’s hacking efforts were focused on Defense Department networks that hold information about our remote surveillance programs. She was apparently seeking documents on the unmanned drones operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Did she ever discuss this topic with you?”

What the hell’s going on?
It sounded like Yin was seeking more evidence against Layla rather than trying to make things easier for her. “First of all, we never discussed anything like that. And second, why are you bringing this up?”

“She also seems very interested in China. We believe she’s been investigating the recent arrests of several Chinese dissidents involved in the pro-democracy movement. Did she ever talk about that?”

Jim pushed back his chair and stood up. He was cutting the visit short. He didn’t trust this guy. “Look, I can’t help you. You better go.”

Yin stood up, too. “You’re being evasive, Colonel Pierce. But I’m not surprised. I had a feeling you’d make this difficult.” Moving swiftly, he reached into the jacket of his uniform and pulled out a pistol, a 9mm semiautomatic with a silencer attached to its muzzle. Then, before Jim could brace himself, Yin pointed the gun and fired.

Jim felt the shock of the impact. It spun him clockwise, but he managed to stay on his feet. He waited for the burst of pain, but he felt nothing. His right arm had gone numb. Yin had shot him in the prosthesis, just above the elbow. The bullet had severed the wires in the Terminator arm, which hung limply from his shoulder.

The man grinned, clearly pleased with his marksmanship. “Sorry, but I’m not taking any chances. I heard you put weapons in those arms of yours.”

Jim slowed his breathing and focused on Yin. The man obviously wasn’t a brigadier general. He wasn’t American either. He’d discarded the Midwestern accent and now he was stretching out his
r
’s—hearrrrd, yourrrs—in a way that sounded familiar.

“Who the hell are you?” Jim asked.

“Before we talk, you’re going to take the arm off. I still don’t like it.”

“I can’t take it off. You busted it.”

“You’re lying. If you don’t take it off in the next ten seconds I’ll shoot your left arm in the same place.” Yin shifted his aim, moving the muzzle to the left. “As you may have noticed, I’m an excellent shot.”

Reluctantly Jim detached the prosthesis. He considered throwing it at the guy, but Yin was too quick. Keeping his gun aimed at Jim’s chest, he backed up to the section of the workbench that held the stacks of circuit boards and the vise. “Now drop the arm and walk toward the bench. Very slowly.”

Jim tossed the prosthetic arm aside but immediately started looking for another weapon. He saw a ball-peen hammer on the workbench, about four feet to the right of where Yin stood. It was a smallish hammer, a one-pound tool that Jim used to test the sturdiness of the electrical connections in his prostheses, but it was better than nothing. As he stepped toward the bench, he tensed his left arm, getting ready to dive for the tool. But before he could make his move, Yin leaped forward. The guy was fast. He grabbed the hammer and swung it at the right side of Jim’s head. Off balance, Jim couldn’t raise his left arm in time to block the blow. The hardened steel slammed against his skull. He fell to his knees and blacked out.

When he came to, he was lying full-length on the workbench, parallel to the wall. He lifted his head, which hurt like hell, and saw Yin binding his legs to the bench with copper wire. Jim tried to get up, but he couldn’t move. His left arm was clamped in the vise at the bench’s edge.

After Yin secured his legs, he stepped toward the vise and grasped the long handle of its screw. “Now let’s try again,” he said. “Where is your daughter?”

“Fuck, I was telling the truth! I don’t know where she is!”

“Please don’t waste my time. I know about your work with Arvin Conway. So don’t try telling me that you’re not involved.” Yin shook his head, then turned the screw. The steel jaws of the vise squeezed Jim’s forearm.

The pain was horrendous. It took all of Jim’s will to stop himself from screaming. “Christ! Why do you want Layla? What’s she done to you?”

“Your daughter stole some documents from us. I suppose she got tired of breaking into the Pentagon’s networks and decided to try ours for a change. That was a mistake on her part.” He turned the screw again.

Jim groaned and his eyes watered. Yin let go of the screw and leaned over the bench, propping his elbow on Jim’s chest. “We’re very serious about the security of our networks. Especially the one your daughter tampered with.”

Jim turned away from the bastard. Gritting his teeth, he looked past Yin’s face and concentrated on fighting the pain. But as he did so, he noticed something unusual. When he looked down the length of the bench, past Yin and past his own shoes, he saw something moving. It was the hand of the prototype arm he’d built for Steve Dugan. The prosthesis lay on the other end of the bench, ten feet behind Yin, but its hand was opening and closing as Jim writhed in agony.

Holy shit
. He was connected to the prototype. He was wirelessly sending it commands. When the gunshot blasted the electronics in Jim’s Terminator arm, the neural control unit on his shoulder had automatically searched for another prosthesis it could link to. Jim should’ve realized this would happen. He’d designed it that way.

He started yelling as loudly as he could. Yin smiled, obviously enjoying himself, but Jim wasn’t yelling from the pain. He was trying to drown out the noise of the prototype arm, which he was maneuvering behind Yin’s back. He sent a command that turned the wrist joint and pressed the adhesive fingertips to the bench’s surface. Then he bent the elbow, which dragged the upper part of the arm across the wood. Next, he lifted the hand and stretched it toward his supine body, moving it to within five feet of his shoes. Then he pressed the fingers to the bench again and dragged the prosthesis a little closer.

Meanwhile, Yin reached for the tool rack on the wall behind the bench and took down one of the high-speed drills. “It’s time to get serious, Colonel Pierce. If you don’t cooperate now, I’ll start drilling holes in your remaining arm. Three holes for every question you don’t answer. Does that sound fair?”

“Okay, okay! I’ll tell you what you want.”

“Good, let’s make this quick.” Yin selected a quarter-inch bit and inserted it into the drill. “How did your daughter infiltrate Supreme Harmony? Who helped her download those documents from the network?”

“She didn’t need any help. She’s a hacker. She can break into anything.”

Yin looked at him for a few seconds, frowning. Then he sighed. “I warned you. This is going to hurt.” He flicked the drill’s power switch.

Turning to the vise, he looked down at Jim’s left arm. At the same instant Jim maneuvered his prosthetic hand next to his own feet and grabbed the toe of his right shoe. He stretched the arm once more, and the mechanical fingers scrabbled up his right leg, dragging the rest of the prosthesis along. Fortunately, the whirring of the drill was loud enough to cover the noise. As Yin selected a spot on Jim’s forearm and lowered the drill, the fingers reached Jim’s right hip. He grasped it firmly and swung the upper part of the arm toward his shoulder.

At the last moment Yin saw something out of the corner of his eye. He swiveled his head and stared in bewilderment as the prosthesis locked onto Jim’s shoulder. Then Jim pivoted his torso and punched Yin’s chest, extending the knife from his hand at the same time. He aimed for the heart, just as they’d taught him in Ranger school. The blade sank home and Jim gave it a twist.

Yin dropped the drill and clasped both his hands around the prosthesis, but his skewered heart had already stopped pumping. He died before he could comprehend what had happened to him. Jim retracted the blade and the man fell to the floor with the look of bewilderment still on his face.

Breathing hard, Jim used the prosthesis to release his left arm from the vise. Then he untied the wires binding his legs and took out his cell phone to call the police. But before dialing 911 he sat on the edge of the workbench for several seconds, rubbing his left arm and staring at the corpse. Judging from Yin’s accent and skills, Jim could guess who the man worked for. He was an agent for the Guoanbu, China’s Ministry of State Security. Back when Jim worked for the NSA, the Guoanbu was one of his chief adversaries, a ruthlessly efficient intelligence agency that divided its time between spying on the United States and terrorizing dissidents in China. And now it was pursuing his daughter.

TWO

Layla Pierce was dancing at an outdoor concert in the SummerStage amphitheater in Central Park. It was a steamy July evening in New York City and the place was packed. The band was apparently quite popular, although Layla had never heard of them before. Someone had told her the band’s name a few minutes ago, but she’d forgotten it already. She was stoned, so she was having a little trouble with her short-term memory.

Whatever the name, she liked their music. A pair of guitar lines tangoed with each other, repeating the same steps with growing volume and fury. Layla danced with the guitars, trying to match their undulations within her cramped niche in the crowd. Luckily, she was small—five foot even, a hundred and two pounds—so she didn’t need a lot of space. She wore her usual clothes, black pants and a black T-shirt. Her hair was black, too, dyed black and cut short. Her body was boyish—skinny and flat-chested—making her look more like a teenager than a woman of twenty-two. All in all, she was no Miss America, and yet several men and a few women in the crowd tried to dance with her. They smiled and sidled closer and mirrored her movements, but Layla just closed her eyes and turned away. She wasn’t interested in either boys or girls tonight. She was dancing with the guitars.

She knew no one there. Although she’d lived in New York for the past six months, she hadn’t made many friends. The problem was, she didn’t have a real job, or a real home either. Every month or so she moved from one apartment to another, taking nothing with her but a change of clothes and her MacBook Pro. She was one of the most experienced hackers working for InfoLeaks, but the Web site couldn’t afford to pay her, so she lived off the charity of the volunteers who supported the site. They let her sleep on their couches and share their organic food, at least until the novelty wore off. Most of them wanted to talk politics and get her involved in their boycotts and petition drives, but Layla had no interest in that stuff. Her only interest was hacking. She had a weird obsessive hatred of secrecy, and she got an equally weird thrill from breaking into networks and learning things she wasn’t supposed to know.

Layla had started hacking in high school, but it was just a hobby until two years ago. During her sophomore year at MIT she helped InfoLeaks unscramble an encrypted video that showed an American helicopter strafing a crowd of Afghans. She found this assignment more interesting than any of her computer-science courses, so she dropped out of college and joined the InfoLeaks underground. Since then she’d hacked into dozens of networks and downloaded thousands of classified files. She’d targeted the Pentagon, the State Department, the Saudi monarchy, and the Russian Federal Security Service. Her latest job was breaking into a Chinese government network rumored to hold files about the mistreatment of political dissidents. An anonymous source, code-named Dragon Fire, had opened a digital backdoor that gave her access to the network, allowing her to download a batch of encrypted documents. She’d started decrypting them several days ago and finally finished this afternoon, but because the documents were in Mandarin she still didn’t know what they said. So she’d forwarded the files to InfoLeaks, which would find Mandarin-speaking volunteers to translate them.