Volcano (21 page)

Very few people knew about the timing specification first
hand. The
switch-over
operation had been so highly
classified, in fact, Mark could probably count the people who knew about it on
two hands. There was the Director, of course, and his second in command, Albert
Kane.
Each of the directorate chiefs and only Mark, as a
division chief, because Albert, in confidence had let him know.
But, if
someone as normally tight-lipped as Albert had revealed the secret to Mark,
then it was conceivable one of the other nine...

“Mark?”
Ana asked from the desk.

Mark looked down and saw that he’d been following a
well-worn path in the carpet, unconsciously retracing his father-in-law’s steps.
“It’s plausible,” he said, meeting Ana’s eyes. “If somebody was very, very good
and someone knew when to do it.”

Ana got to her feet.
“So, let’s
assume they were good. Very, very good, as you say, and they got into the
system, planted a virus-”

Mark shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think they were
putting anything in.”

“What?”
Ana asked.

“I think they were taking something out.”

“Out?”

“Taking a blueprint,
Ana
,” Mark
said, starting to pace again. “Making a little carbon copy, if you will, of our
internal code- for future reference.”

“You’re saying somebody took a snapshot of how the DOS
system operates, then replicated that for their own seedy purposes? But how
would that be accomplished?”

“Remove one supposedly benign bite or chip and replace it
with another.”

“
Remove
part of the DOS operating system? Don’t you
think someone would have noticed? Things would have gone haywire!”

“A benign part,
Ana
, something that
didn’t do much but filter information.” Mark raised his brow. “Any glitches
after Y2K would have been attributed to the change over. And then, once they
had a part of our system...”

It was too simple, too simple to believe. They’d done it
with biogenetics, why not artificial intelligence?

“
And, what pray tell,” Ana asked, “would they have
done
with this stolen part?
Cloned it?”

But when Mark didn’t answer, Ana’s jaw dropped open. “A
secure computer system?”

“It would have taken time and some pretty sophisticated
engineering. Somebody with big-time computer know-how, for sure.”

“Like the Chinese...” Ana said, walking to the window.
“Mark,”
Ana
said, bringing a hand to her chin. “Can
you tell me about Sun-tzu?”

“What?” Mark asked, walking over to join her.

“Sun-tzu. It’s what I heard the younger Oriental call the
other.”

Yes, Ana had mentioned that during her earlier debriefing
and Mark had suspected its significance even then. Sun-tzu had been a great
Chinese chronicler of war. In fact, his well-known treatise,
The Art of War
,
was revered by scholars still, and was required reading in most military
intelligence classes.

“The use of spies,” Mark told her, “that’s the part of
Sun-tzu’s original treatise that was-” Mark caught himself, realizing how much
Ana still didn’t know. Her father had not yet taken time to fill her in on
Volcano, or about his own involvement in the now- convoluted plot.

And, given the precarious state of things between him and
his wife, Mark didn’t exactly feel like being the one to spill those beans now.

“Part of the original treatise, that what?”
Ana pressed.

“That somehow seems to be in use now.”

“You mean,” Ana asked, turning to him, “the perpetrators of
this scare have somehow incorporated the use of this old Chinese prototype for
waging war?”

“Yes,” Mark answered flatly, hating to hide half the truth.
In his line of work, he’d done it so
regularly,
Mark
knew he shouldn’t be bothered by keeping something from Ana now. But he was.

“So, why then would the old man tell me
not
to call
him Sun-tzu? Because he didn’t want me to guess at that all too-obvious
connection?”
 
Ana paused,
as her eyes narrowed in thought.
“But he must have known I’d guess.
That’s what his question about my being a student meant!”

“What question?” Mark asked. She hadn’t said anything about
that conversation.
Dammit, when was Ana going to learn that every single
word was important.
Sometimes, critical.

“So what does it mean?” she asked, countering his question
with a question, but not answering his. “The fact that he looked at me and
shouted ‘don’t ever address me by that name!’”

“Maybe because he wasn’t,” Mark answered going back to the
old operative rule that sometimes the most obvious was the answer.

“Wasn’t Sun-tzu?”
Ana asked, puzzled.
“But, of course he wasn’t. From what you’ve said, Sun-tzu must have been dead
for more than--”

“Wasn’t who he wanted you to think he was,” Mark answered,
instantly accepting the twisted logic.

Ana was less convinced. “He tells me
don’t call me this
because he wants to assure me he’s not?”

Mark smiled. “Exactly.”

Ana huffed a breath. “What about Al Fahd?” she asked, patently
unable to admit she couldn’t see the Sun-tzu picture as clearly as Mark could.
But Mark knew he was right. Sun-tzu’s involvement was deeper somehow than it
seemed. And for his own reasons, Sun-tzu had wanted
Ana
to know that.

“He has the money and the manpower,” Mark answered, in
reference to Ana’s question about Al Fahd. “People trained to do just the sorts
of grisly things that have been done.”

“But who at the DOS could have tipped off the Chinese and
the Arabs?”

Mark met her penetrating black stare. “I think we’d better
go and ask your father.”

Al Fahd pressed Joe’s index finger back toward his wrist
until the bone snapped. “Now that-” the Arab said, as Joe grimaced and
swallowed his pain, “was the clean part.”

Sun-tzu gave a noncommittal shrug. “The blood would have
been messy.”

“Ah,” Al Fahd said, gripping onto Joe’s middle finger with a
vengeance, “but so much easier on my poor calloused hands.”

Al Fahd laughed as Joe struggled to remain fixed on the
door. He’d picked one spot, one spot in particular where there was a slight
difference in the varnish of the wood. All Joe’s focus and energy went into
that spot and veered away from the pain as another bone cracked in his hand.

“Ready, McFadden?” Al Fahd asked, releasing his grip and
rudely tilting Joe’s chin.

Joe bore a hole through the Arab’s skull with his eyes.
“I’ve always been ready...”

Al Fahd dropped Joe’s chin and shared a look with Sun-tzu
before collecting his knife and wielding it close to McFadden’s jugular. “You
playing smart with me, McFadden?”

Joe lost his focus as renegade shards of pain splintered his
right hand. “No, Al Hakeem,” he said, drawing air through his teeth. “Quite the
contrary. I can see now what a fool I’ve been.”
 

Al Fahd lowered the knife,
then
burst into raucous laughter. He held up a two-fingered salute to the guards at
the door and burst into hilarity again. “Two fingers!” He chortled and shook
his head at Sun-tzu, before turning back to Joe. “You Americans are so easy!”

Sun-tzu cracked a slow, sinister grin. “This is going to be
a piece of cake.” He looked at Al Fahd as Joe McFadden sat silently cradling
his right hand in the other on his lap. “I think we can be assured of the
American’s cooperation.”

Al Fahd furrowed his brow and pulled another cigar from his
pocket. “I’m not so certain. Perhaps a short trip to the warehouse as a
guarantee
?
”

Sun-tzu sat motionless in his chair. “I have my guarantee.”

“Say what you mean,” Al Fahd hissed, unwrapping the
cellophane.

“How fast...” Sun-tzu smiled. “...
do
you think we could get this boy to cry
uncle?”

Al Fahd studied his lighted match a moment before bringing
it to his cigar. “You’re a master,” the Arab finally said, breaking into a
sickly smile.

Sun-tzu nodded and looked at McFadden. “A life for a life,
Mr. McFadden. Yours in exchange for the head of one Tom Mooney.”

Joe felt his stomach revolt. Mooney? The third?
No way
.
There was no fricking way.

“The only trouble,” Al Fahd said, his head encircled by a
giant puff of smoke, “is that our friend here has already proven his ineptness
at murder.”

“We have ways to ensure his compliance,” Sun-tzu said. “In
fact, once we’ve filled Mr. McFadden in on all of his uncle’s unscrupulous
acts, I don’t think he’ll be any trouble at all.”

Al Fahd studied the ceiling and blew another puff of smoke.
“It would be a blessing to have Mooney out of the way. Then you and I could
handle things directly. No middle man.”

“No election,” Sun-tzu countered.

Al Fahd roared with capricious delight. “Who in the world
elects
a dictator?”

“Precisely,” Sun-tzu said with a nod of his head.

Al Fahd’s wicked laughter bounced off the sterile walls of
the small room. “From covert influence to
direct
control. I like
it.”
 
He grinned. “And agree. But,”
he said, “
we
get someone else to handle Mooney.”

Suddenly the pain in his broken hand had nothing on the
pressure pummeling Joe’s brain. From the forgoing conversation, it was evident
his uncle
had
been involved with these nefarious two. Just how and why,
Joe couldn’t fathom. Unless his uncle had been working under cover.
No, it
didn’t make sense!
 
For whom?
But, if his uncle had all along been involved,
then it was his uncle who’d help set up Ana, had ordered him brought here.

Joe stared at Al Fahd in disbelief as the Arab closed in
like a tiger. “You
will
do us the favor of removing your uncle?”

“Over my dead body,” Joe said.

Al Fahd shot a look at Sun-tzu. “You go with him. See that
it gets done.”

Mark looked up across Albert’s broad wooden desk, his eyes
wide with desperation. “We’re in a time crunch here, sir!
 
Don’t you see from what
Ana
and I have been...”

Albert slowly removed his glasses and looked first at Mark,
then at his daughter. “You’ve done good work, the two of you. Admirable work.
And I’m damn sure you’re right about the
Y2K
backlash theory. But Mark
is absolutely correct. If this is some kind of anniversary bash that’s cooking,
we need to get cracking. We’ve less than thirty-six hours to decipher their
plan.”

Ana checked her watch. “Thirty-two, father. And what we’ve
got to narrow down first is the hit area.”

“Absolutely,” Mark added. “And, from what McFadden told
Ana
,
he was apparently pretty well convinced this was
a direct US hit.”

“Washington, then,” Albert said, rubbing his chin.

“Or New York,” Ana chimed in. “Atlanta, Philadelphia, any
East Coast city that’s planning some sort of party.”
 

“After any initial attacks all places west of that would
have forewarning, be able to prepare-”

Albert raised a patient hand. “Don’t think we need to go
spreading our resources that thin.”

Mark raised his eyebrows.

But
Ana
, who’d seen that look on
Albert’s face before, just glared at her father. “And what, exactly, do you
mean by that?”

Albert settled tired hazel eyes back on his daughter. “Like
Mark said, once there’s been an initial explosion, hit, disaster of any
proportion, police and top security will be alerted nation-wide. So, what we’re
looking for, I suspect, is a
one-hit wonder
. The fete to top all fetes-
the one most desirable event on earth at which to wreak havoc.”

“The Old Post Office?” Ana asked, catching her breath on the
implication. The Old Post Office in Washington hosted the grandest gala New
Year’s celebration in the District. It was a coup to get invited, with only top
dignitaries and politicians normally warranting the privilege. And who
generally put in a stellar public appearance at the largest party for the
greatest nation on earth? None other than --

“The Commander in Chief!” Mark shouted, ramming a fist into
Albert’s desk.
“Damn,”
he said, recoiling his fist the instant he noted
Ana’s disapproving eyes upon it. “It’s so damn obvious, we should have seen it
in a heartbeat!”

“I think you
did
see it,” Albert assured him. “Or, at
least sense the magnitude of the situation in your gut. None of us can work the
puzzle precisely, Mark, until we’ve all the pieces in our hand.”

Mark glanced quickly at Ana. “Exactly what I was thinking,
sir. In fact, there are those of us in this room who could benefit from more
information.”

Albert shot to his feet. “Jesus H. Christ!
 
Information is right!
 
Here I am rambling on about scenarios
when, according to what you’ve just uncovered, the
god-damned
mainframe needs shutting down post haste!

“Really am getting much to old for this job,” Albert
grumbled as he tore from the room. “Too damn old...”

“Sir!” Mark called, clipping after him, “what about the Post
Office? The President, sir!”

“Mark’s right,” Ana shouted, “somebody’s got to notify-”

Albert whirled on his heels. “This is a god-damned DOS
problem and the DOS is going to god-damned fix it!
 
Do you hear
?!
”

Ana swallowed hard, not believing what she was hearing. “But
Dad, you can’t mean-”