The Siren Project (45 page)

“I have access, but haven't sent any
commands to the satellite yet,” Mouse replied as he turned down the volume on
the world’s private conversations. “I’m just listening in, but I can take it any
time, then I'll be able to bounce down onto the Sincom One receiver.”

“How long before the NSA know what you’re
doing?”

“There’s got to be a way of hiding my
signal in background traffic, but I haven’t figured out how to do that. If we
had a couple of weeks, I could go in and out without leaving fingerprints–”

“Not an option.”

“So I have to hit it with a hammer, take it
out of their system. Which means as soon as I grab it, everything goes dead
quiet on the NSA side, except for station keeping. I can’t risk interrupting that,
or the satellite would drift out of position. I’ve got a program ready to
change the access code every sixty seconds. That'll stop them regaining control,
but they'll know it's been hijacked within a couple of minutes. If they have a
back door, they'll sneak back in and lock me out, but my code changer will let
me regain control a minute later. Then I’ll know where the back door is, and
lock them out.”

“Can you keep control of it long enough to
get us inside the base?”

Mouse looked uncertain. “Maybe. Keeping the
satellite is only half the game. I’ve still got to get into Sincom One’s
system. I won't know how hard that is, until I kick open the door. I’m hoping
the hand shaking codes we took from that satellite truck in New York still
work, and I can walk straight in, otherwise things could get real complicated.”

Mitch placed a two way radio on the console
for Mouse. “If everything goes our way, how much time do you need?”

“All I can get.”

“Okay, get started. It’s going to take us
most of the day to get near the base. The first thing to do is disable their
outer surveillance system, whatever they have in the desert, but without them
knowing you’ve blinded them.”

“That’s the trick isn’t it.”

“I don’t know how long the radio will last
out there, but we’ll stay in touch as long as we can. Once we get in close,
those directed energy defenses will fry the radio, then you’ll know we’ve
reached the outer defenses. Plan on us penetrating the perimeter fences a hour
after sundown, from the south east.”

“Got it, south east. Report in every
fifteen minutes, on the quarter hour. If you miss one, I’ll know you’re there.”

They synchronized watches. “Now show me
what you can do.”

“Someone in NSA headquarters is about to
have a very bad day.” Mouse grinned mischievously as he launched his capture
program. He indicated the two right most television screens, both of which
displayed the same satellite status data. “That screen is our feed, the far
right is the NSA feed.” As he spoke, the far right screen blinked to white
noise. “Alarm bells just started ringing all over Fort Meade.”

Mouse transmitted orders to the satellite
and held his breath as the screen flickered and a logon display appeared with
the title:

STRATEGIC INSURGENCY COMMAND

STATION ONE

AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY

He typed in the access code, then a moment
later the screen changed with a list of systems, each one requiring another
authorization code. “Uh-oh.”

“That’s not what I want to hear.”

“It’s heavily compartmentalized. I'll have
to crack security on each system individually, which means I’ll have to be
selective.” Mouse glanced up, a determined look on his face. “If there’s a way
in, I’ll find it.”

Mitch looked uncertainly at the security
lock out Mouse had to crack. “Promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“When you’re finished, you’ll give the
satellite back to the NSA.”

“Ahh, that’s such a waste. They’ve got
plenty of satellites, and I can think of much more interesting things to do
with it than they can.” Mouse sighed reluctantly. “But . . . if you insist.”

“I do,” Mitch said as he clambered out of
the satellite truck.

Gunter waited on horseback, holding the
reins for both Mitch’s mount and the pack horse that would carry Gunter’s
equipment going in and Christa coming out. Mitch pulled himself up into the
saddle, then pressed the transmit button on the two way radio. “Mouse, you
reading me?”

“Loud and clear.”

Mitch slid the radio into a saddle bag,
checked his compass, sighting west of the Eagletail Mountain ridge. He
estimated the distance to the peak, and knew it would take the rest of the day
to get there on horseback. The first heat shimmers rippled off the burning
desert ahead, forewarning of the blistering heat to come.

“We have a long way to go,” Gunter said, “And
she doesn't have much time.”

“We're no good to her dead,” Mitch said,
knowing they could get there faster if they drove to the fence, but the road
would be watched. Going in on horseback was something they wouldn't expect. “Doesn’t
mean we can’t ride these damn horses hard!” He said, spurring his horse forward,
toward the rocky peaks in the distance.

They had a long, hot ride through the
desert ahead of them, but it was what they'd discover that night that filled
Mitch with dread.

Mitch barely noticed the heat and dust
rise around them as the sun climbed into the sky to its full power. Gunter had
to force him to periodically walk the horses, otherwise he would have ridden
his mount into the ground. Every fifteen minutes, they checked in with Mouse,
who was making no progress against the complex Sincom security shield. They
climbed into the desolate foothills of the Eagletail Mountains, once seeing a
black Apache helicopter in the distance flying nape of the earth, but it had
been heading away to the west and never saw them. He guessed it was conducting
a reconnaissance of the approaches to the outer perimeter, confirming his
decision to avoid the road. A couple of hours later, Gunter saw a rising dust
trail far off toward the horizon, a vehicle speeding south over a desert track.
Mitch wondered if it was Ackerman returning from the base after having
delivered Christa into their hands.

At two fifteen, Mitch made his regular
contact with Mouse. “Any luck?”

Mouse’s voice was upbeat for the first time
since they'd set out. “I’ve identified the core encryption algorithms, but it's
slow going. It's fifty-fifty whether I'll be online by the time you reach the
fence.”

Half an hour later, they stumbled across a
narrow track, barely wide enough for a horse to walk. “Looks like an old Indian
trail,” Mitch guessed.

“It has not been used for a long time,”
Gunter said, turning his horse onto it.

It led north, under a cliff face that rose beside
them. They followed it in single file, the rough hewn path providing a more even
footing for the horses than the open terrain, allowing them to increase the
pace. Mitch tried to recall the location of the rock formations overlooking the
base he'd seen from the glider, to gauge the distance, but everything looked
different from ground level, except for the high peak in the distance. At three
thirty, when Mitch checked in with Mouse, the radio signal was almost drowned
out by static.

Gunter dismounted, pulled the old Geiger
counter from the third horse’s pack and tested for radiation. It clicked
slowly. “Just background radiation,” he said as he climbed back into the
saddle, keeping the Geiger counter with him.

The trail led into a narrow gully, then
back into the shade of the overhanging cliff which gave them some relief from
the oppressive heat. As they climbed toward a low ridge, the only sounds they
heard were the horse’s hooves clattering on rock and the slow click of the
Geiger counter. Just before they reached the crest of the hill, the Geiger
counter sparked from a short circuit and fell silent.

They stopped while Gunter tested the
controls, then shook his head. “It is dead,” he declared, throwing it aside.

Mitch tried the radio, but it too was
silent. He dismounted, took his binoculars from his saddlebag and climbed the
rocky slope of the ridge to their right, followed by Gunter. On hands and
knees, they crawled the final few feet to the crest, then Mitch used the
binoculars to study the desert beyond. Cactus, bleached rocky soil and
scattered boulders lay beyond the ridge, and a mile further on was the silver
line of a chain link fence crowned by several strands of barbed wire. Widely
spaced along the fence were square signs, too small to read from that distance.

Mitch passed the binoculars to Gunter. “Looks
like the same fence we ran into on the road two days ago.”

Gunter studied the terrain between the
fence and their position on the ridge. “There must be something in our line of
sight.”

Mitch waited several minutes, curbing his
impatience, but eventually Gunter lowered the binoculars, defeated. “Whatever
it is, they have it well hidden.”

They edged back away from the ridge top,
careful not to reveal themselves to any would be observer, then returned to the
horses and continued along the Indian trail under the cliff. The sun was
beginning to fall in the western sky, and the shade of the overhang was lost,
but the sun’s severity had begun to decline. Mitch found himself wishing for
sunset and a cool evening breeze as they rounded an outcrop to find themselves
standing before the chain link fence. It ended right against the cliff face,
reaching back over the hills to their left and out of sight.

They halted while they studied every rock
and shadow from a distance.

“I see no security camera,” Gunter
reported.

“Doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

They nudged their horses forward to the
fence and dismounted. Once again Mitch took the binoculars and cautiously
climbed a nearby hill to gain a view of the open desert beyond. He crawled to
the crest on his stomach, then studied both sides of the fence below. A few
hundred yards away, a small cluster of boulders with a rock overhang that cast
a deep shadow caught his eye. It could have been a naturally forming pillbox,
but he detected a slow rhythmic movement in the shadows of the boulders and
something else he couldn’t quite figure out.

When Gunter crawled up beside him, Mitch
handed him the binoculars and indicated the spot. “What do you make of that?”

Gunter studied the shadow amidst the cluster
of boulders, taking his time before responding. “I see movement . . . and that
shadow is not real. It is non-reflective, black glass. Too black for a shadow
this time of day.”

“That’s it!” Mitch whispered, realizing
what had confused him. “It’s too dark”

“The movement is sweeping the desert. It
may be the cause of our electrical failure.”

“I don’t remember seeing boulders like that
where our car broke down, but I bet if we went back there now, knowing what to
look for, we’d find them.”

“We should take it with us on the way out,
as evidence, and to reverse engineer it.”

“Not this trip, G. When we get out, we get
out fast. Besides, I can’t see them leaving an energy weapon out here in the
desert where anyone can steal it. We’d need explosives and cutting tools to get
at it. That black glass will be bullet proof. Hell, the whole thing could be
rigged to blow up in our faces.”

They returned to the horses in the gully,
where Gunter studied the chain link fence, link by link, while Mitch fetched the
bolt cutters. “It does not appear to be booby trapped, or electrified. We can
cut it.”

“We’re still at the deception level of
their defenses,” Mitch said. “Having a smart fence out here would give the game
away.”

“Any sensors would be damaged by the energy
weapon, unless insulated, but that would make them bulky, and difficult to
conceal.”

Satisfied it was safe, Mitch cut an opening
large enough for the horses, then pulled the wire back so Gunter could walk the
animals through. Mitch stepped through, then tied severed links together with
small pieces of wire. If the helicopter flew overhead, it may not notice the
fence had been cut, especially once night fell.

“How far to the base?” Gunter asked as he
remounted his horse.

“Another five miles.” Mitch checked the
position of the sun, calculating how long before sundown and adding an hour. “We
can still make it in time, if we hurry.”

Gullies and hills shielded them from the
open desert for an hour, as they made their way along the Indian trail at the
foot of the cliff. It eventually petered out amongst the rocks, forcing them to
find their own way through rough country, twice being forced to walk the horses
down steep descents, always choosing the most concealed way, even when it was
more treacherous than an easier, more visible route. Overhead, the sky began to
turn orange as the sun neared the horizon and the temperature at last cooled. Leaving
the horses tethered behind a rock formation, they moved forward to the last
cover before a stretch of open desert that led to the double perimeter fences,
corner towers, and low modern buildings of Sincom One. The base was well
hidden, nestled between high rock walls and desolate ridges that concealed it
on all sides.