The Siren Project (4 page)

Mitch’s attention switched slowly from the
window to Christa, who made no attempt to initiate conversation. “How long have
you worked for . . .” Mitch motioned to the surrounding building, “. . .whatever
the hell this is?”

Christa sipped her coffee. “A long time.”

Gunter looked doubtful. “Not that long. You
are young.”

Christa smiled. “I’ve been here ten years.”

Mitch’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t be more
than twenty five. Ten years would mean you were fifteen? No agency recruits
them that young.”

Christa smiled. “No agency you’ve heard of.
And I was fourteen thank you very much.”

“Yeah right, Uncle Sam taps a fourteen year
old school girl on the shoulder and says, your country needs you, sign here. And
by the way, get a note from your mama so you can skip school this week.”

“I thought I was taking part in a local
university research project. I did well at the tests, so they sent me to
Washington, where I did more tests. Eventually I ended up here.”

“Which university?” Mouse asked.

“It doesn’t matter, the university had no
idea what the tests meant, or why they were being offered.”

Mitch finished his sandwich. “Okay
Princess, so you’re a genius, a former child prodigy. I still don’t know what
I’m supposed to do with you? Gunter handles detection and surveillance, Mouse
is a walking micro chip, I handle security and field work. But what do you do? What
job should I put you down for?”

“I’m good at crossword puzzles, cards,
backgammon, and I make great coffee.” She sighed, feigning sadness, “But I’m
sorry to say I don’t have a genius level IQ, although, I am top one percent. Sorry
to disappoint you, but it wasn’t that kind of experiment.”

Mitch drained his cup, and handed it to
her. “I better put you to work then. I take it white, no sugar and not too
strong.”

She went to the boiling silver urn and
filled Mitch’s cup, then shoveled in five sugars and only a drop of milk. She
placed the cup dutifully in front of him, then waited expectantly as he sipped
it.

He looked at the dark liquid dubiously. “It
needs more milk.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said, pretending
to make a mental note.

He took a sip, then made a sour face. Before
he could comment, Knightly approached and handed him a fax. “This is
confirmation that our down payment was deposited in your Cayman Islands bank
account a few hours ago. Now unfortunately, we must evacuate this facility.”

“Okay by me,” Mitch said. “The coffee’s
lousy here anyway.”

“I’ve just been advised,” Knightly
hesitated, glancing at Christa, “That the Deputy Director of our organization
is . . . dead.” Mitch noted how Christa tensed, as if physically struck by the
words. “We must assume this facility’s security has been penetrated. There’s a
vehicle waiting for the four of you downstairs. Once you relocate, Christa will
know how to contact me. Mitchell, your mission starts now. Find Dr Steinus, and
watch your back.”

Knightly passed Christa a briefcase, then
led them down to the underground car park. An attendant showed them to a four
door sedan, handing Mitch the keys. He passed them on to Gunter, who had long
been their wheel man.

“Good luck,” Knightly called, as he climbed
into another car, which sped off toward the main gate followed by two buses
full of the facility’s staff. Several more cars followed the buses.

“Hurry,” Christa urged. “They’re going to
sanitize the base.”

Mitch glanced at her curiously, then nodded
to Gunter. “Step on it.”

Gunter kicked the engine to life, then sped
after the small convoy. Seconds before they reached the main gate, a massive
explosion shattered the air behind them. Mitch spun around to see the five story
glass and steel office building engulfed in flames.

“The way I see it,” Mitch said, turning
thoughtfully to Christa, “Is, in spite of all the brain power you people have,
you’re cold sweat scared of something.”

Christa said nothing.

“So one of your top people ... dies? Whatever
happened to him, you’re so frightened your security is breached, you blast your
headquarters off the face of the earth. Extreme, but effective. Must be a nasty
enemy.”

“I hope,” she replied slowly, “For your
sake, you never find out how nasty.”

Gunter glanced at Mitch. “We need weapons.”

“Yeah, and fast.” Silently Mitch cursed
himself for not having Knightly return their guns. As they closed on the tail
of the convoy of cars and buses heading south, Mitch suddenly felt very
vulnerable. “We’re sitting ducks out here. Turn off onto the first road that
looks like it goes some place. I want to put distance between us and that
convoy.”

“Ya, me too,” Gunter agreed.

Mitch turned back to Christa. “Do you have
some place we should go?”

“No, you choose. There is nothing linking
you to us, Gus was very careful about that. Any place I know is at risk.”

“Hey guys, we’re riding in one of their
cars,” Mouse said nervously. “That links us with them!”

Christa’s face showed surprise.

“He is right,” Gunter said.

Mitch pointed to a side road that wound
back toward the mountains. “There. That looks good.”

Gunter turned onto the side road, quickly
losing sight of the convoy. “Where to?”

“Pasadena.”

“What’s in Pasadena?” Christa asked.

“Absolutely nothing. We’ll dump the car
there, strip its plates, and burn it. I’m not leaving anything behind, not even
DNA traces.”

“Then what?”

“We go surfing.”

Christa watched the surf pounding on
the beach from a cushioned deck chair, shortly after dawn. Mitch’s beach house
in Malibu was built on pylons driven deep into the sand. The wood of the rear
deck had faded from the sun, the stairs leading down to the sand were missing a
railing, but the white walls behind her gleamed with fresh paint. She watched
several joggers, tanned and relaxed, make the long haul along the beach, just
above the surf line. It all left her with a sense of unreality, so different
from the life she'd known.

“You’re up early,” Mitch’s voice cut
through her reverie.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She glanced up to see him
with a bowl of cereal, eating while standing. “Not used to the sound of the
waves.”

“Takes some getting used to. I slept like a
log. Always do.”

“You live well here,” she said, glancing up
at the two story beach house behind them.

“This place is my one indulgence. It’s the
only thing I have here of any value, everything else is offshore.”

Christa scowled. “In case you have to make
a fast get away?”

“Something like that.”

“Could you walk away from it that easily?”

“If I had to? In a heartbeat. No ties. Attached
to nothing, that’s how I like it.”

She watched a surfer ride a wave, then pull
out just before he reached the shore. “We left so quickly, I didn’t have time
to pack. I’ll need money, for clothes and stuff.”

He realized she was still wearing the same
clothes she'd worn the previous day. “You need to go to the bank?”

“No. Banks are off limits, too easy to
trace. You must give me some money.”

Mitch looked at her, not believing his
ears. “I must what?”

“The organization always provided me with
everything I needed. Now I’m with you, you must do the same. I thought you
understood that.”

Mitch laughed. “Listen Princess, I’m not
your rich uncle, your sugar daddy, or your butler. I don’t have to do any damn
thing I don’t want to do. I certainly don’t have to give you a dime.”

“I can’t wear these clothes all the time.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to go running
back to Uncle Gus, so he can buy you whatever crap your heart desires.”

“I’m not going back, I’m assigned to this
mission. If you need confirmation, we’ll contact Gus and he’ll confirm your
obligations.”

“I’ll feed you, and let you sleep in the
spare room, but don’t expect anything else.”

“Then I’ll borrow your clothes.”

“Not a chance!”

She looked at what she was wearing. “Do you
expect me to wear the same clothes, day after day?”

“Princess, you can wear a gorilla suit for
all I care.”

“Would you stop calling me that. I have a
name.”

“Sure, Princess.” Mitch said, putting his
empty bowl down on the table, and stretching.

“Are you always this disagreeable?”

“Always. It’s like this, I don’t need you,
so any time you feel the need to get some new clothes, you can run back to
Uncle Gus. I’ll even pay for the cab.”

“I wouldn’t have thought, from the looks of
this house, you’d be so cheap.”

“You’d be surprised how cheap I am.”

Before she could press him further, the
door bell rang. He left her on the wooden deck and went to let in Mouse and Gunter.
They carried cardboard boxes which they stacked in the living room, then
hurried back out to Mouse’s van for more. Within a few minutes, there were a
dozen boxes loaded in the living room, some full of diagrams, maps, magazines
and books, some with electronic components, computer hardware and dozens of
software disks, all hurriedly gathered from their homes overnight.

Neither Gunter or Mouse lived quite as well
as Mitch, not because they didn’t share equally in the profits, simply because
they had different tastes. Gunter, more reserved, was a shrewd investor playing
the stock market the way others played slot machines, while Mouse preferred the
latest high tech gadgets, especially cutting edge classified technology that
cost a fortune on the black market. Some of those pieces of equipment now
appeared in Mitch’s living room, which was rapidly transformed into their
command center. Mouse connected his micro computer network to cyberspace and Gunter
swept the house with a sophisticated sensor, ensuring there were no listening
devices. As he went, he placed ultra sonic noise makers at each window,
blocking eavesdropping from outside.

“I thought you said this place was safe?”
Christa said.

“We don’t take chances,” Mitch replied. “From
now on, the shutters are up. No one is snooping us, without us knowing about
it.”

She looked unconvinced. “Don’t place too
much faith in these technological toys, Mitch, we had as good or better, and it
wasn’t enough.”

“In that case, Princess, we’re screwed,
because this is as good as it gets.”

Mitch watched Gunter finish his sweep,
wondering what else they could do.

* * * *

“Do you have any idea how many secure
systems there are in the Pentagon?” Mouse leant back in his chair without
taking his eyes off the computer screen. “Unless we track down the research
program Steinus worked on, I have no hope of identifying which system to crack.
There are just too many of them.”

Mitch glanced at the computer screen. “Where
are you?”

“Inside one of the Defense Department’s IT
sub contractors. I haven’t even tried sneaking into the Defense Department yet,
that’ll take some planning. Since the Chinese started hacking US defense
technology, it's gotten harder to break in.”

Mitch rubbed the back of his neck
thoughtfully. “I suppose you’ve done the payroll thing?”

“Number two on the list, right after I ran
a search for his social security number. No social security number, and no
checks clearing through the Defense Department’s bank made out to Steinus,
spelt ten different ways.” Mouse shrugged. “It was hardly worth the computer
time. Finding him that way would have been a no brainer. These guys are smarter
than that.”

Mitch glanced over to Christa, “You got any
ideas, Princess?”

She was at the dining table watching Gunter
assemble one of the tiny motion detectors he was placing around Mitch’s house. “Call
Gus. Abandoning the center cut short the briefings he was planning for you. He
might have something else we can go on.”

“How do we contact him?”

Christa opened the briefcase Knightly had
given her and produced a small black box. “I have a telephone number memorized,
and he has a scrambler keyed to this one.” She placed the scrambler on the
table for them all to see.

Mouse glanced at it and whistled
appreciatively. “Oh my God! One gigabit encryption! Didn’t think anyone but the
NSA had these babies. And they say they don’t exist!” Mouse picked it up and
examined it lovingly. “Man, do you have any idea what two of these would be
worth?”

“No, I don't,” Christa said dryly, prying
it out of his hands, and placing it back on the table.