Wormhole (40 page)

“I guess I have the honor,” James Nobles said. “As I said on the phone, we’ve had reports of multiple explosions at Fort Meade as well as gunfire near the NSA headquarters building. I have the NSA director on the line, but before you put him on, Mr. President, I think you should see this.”

The national security advisor leaned forward and touched a button on the remote control panel, turning one of the flat-panel displays to CNN.

“...As we continue to follow the situation underway at Fort Meade, Maryland, we continue to receive reports of explosions and gunfire coming from the base. As we’ve been reporting for the last several minutes, this station received a call from a person claiming to be a member of the Al Qaeda cell conducting the attack. If you’ve just tuned in, I want you to listen to this recording of the call...”

Several moments of dead air, which lasted just long enough to increase President Jackson’s sense of foreboding, were suddenly broken by a man’s heavily accented voice.

“Be silent, infidel. My name is Fariq Abdullah Muhammad. At this very moment, Allah has launched an attack on your National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, where our brothers are being held in a secret US prison. If you listen closely you may hear the explosions as I speak.”

The man paused as the sound of three distant explosions sounded in the background.

“It has begun.
Allahu Akbar
.”

James Nobles clicked a button and the video froze.

“They’ve been recycling this recording every couple of minutes.”

President Jackson nodded, then pressed a button on the speakerphone. “General Wilson, this is President Jackson. Can you hear me OK?”

There was a two-second pause, followed by an encryption hiss as Balls Wilson’s voice came over the speaker.

“Loud and clear, Mr. President. Sorry for the comm link delay, but we’re having to talk over a secure satcom link.”

The president tried and failed to keep the irritation out of his voice. “And why is that?”

“Someone’s taken out our external phone lines. Killed base military police radio comms as well. We’ve also got some sort of problem inside the Ice House.”

“So who’s behind it?”

“The consensus view says Al Qaeda. I’m not buying it.”

“Have you seen the news?”

“I’ve seen it.”

“Seems cut-and-dried to me.”

“Too cut-and-dried, Mr. President. Levi doesn’t think it’s Al Qaeda either. No chatter match.”

Cory Mayfield cut in. “Bullshit, Mr. President. Sometimes things are exactly what they seem.”

“And sometimes they aren’t.” General Wilson’s voice acquired a cutting edge.

“So what’s your situation right now?” President Jackson interrupted. Christ. Did every president have to endure such constant bickering among his advisors?

“Mass confusion. I just got back to the NSA and the building is secure. Our perimeter defense force is in place and ready to repel an attack. But the military police are having problems. I haven’t been able to raise the MP station and apparently they can’t communicate with any of their patrols. We’ve had multiple explosions around the base, so you can imagine what the night shift patrols are doing, trying to get to the places where the bombs went off. We’ve also lost communications with the Ice House facility.”

“Response teams?”

“They’ve got their own, just like we do here at NSA headquarters. They should be able to deal with any internal threat.”

“Everything you’ve said points to an Al Qaeda operation,” Cory Mayfield interrupted.

“Like I said, I’m not buying it.”

President Jackson held up his hand, cutting off Director Mayfield’s response. “General Wilson, I respect your opinion, but I have to act based on what I consider the most likely scenario. Since we haven’t been able to contact Colonel Abrams, the base commander, I’ve given the go for a Delta response.”

“Mr. President, local civilian police can get here faster.”

“I’m not putting civilian police up against a trained Al Qaeda assault force. I’ve made my decision.”

“Yes sir.”

President Jackson broke the connection and turned to his chief of staff. “Carol, get my press secretary in here. I’m going to have to make a statement in the next hour or so.”

“I called her fifteen minutes ago. Gretchen’s on her way, along with the rest of your national security staff.”

“That’s good.” The president didn’t intend to say what he was thinking, as if by refusing to give his thoughts voice he might avert what they foretold. But somehow, the words found their way out of his mouth. “Looks like another all-nighter.”

The door opened as Mark reached for the handle, Heather’s smile breaking the ice that had enclosed his soul. Her gaze lingered for a moment on his full beard; then, as Heather’s gaze settled on Jennifer’s limp body in his arms, the smile faded.

“Set her on the couch,” Heather said, motioning toward what appeared to be a small break area beside a sink and coffeepot.

As he gently released his twin’s body, Heather bent over her, lifting one of Jennifer’s eyelids, then the other. “Damn it.”

Mark nodded. “They’ve messed her up bad.”

Standing up, Heather threw her arms around Mark’s neck and hugged him tight. For a full ten seconds Mark held her close as his heart hammered the walls of his chest.

As Heather pushed back, she pointed to the duty belts, service holsters, and spare clips on the table by the bank of monitors. “You take one, and I’ll take the other.”

“What’s the plan?”

“I’ve got the security teams, except for two wounded guys down on sublevel four, pulled back to defend the building from outside attacks. Now that you’re here, I’ll open the doors that will let the rest of the Arab prisoners up stairwell one. That should give the response teams plenty to think about.”

She slid into the seat in front of the laptop, motioning Mark into the seat in front of the microphone that was hardwired to the third and fourth sublevels. “As soon as I open the right doors, get your best Arab terrorist voice ready.”

Mark nodded in understanding and waited.

Heather nodded. “OK.”

Mark’s Arabic flowed from his lips with a distinct Saudi Arabian accent. “My brothers. We are here to free you. In his greatness, Allah has opened a way. Break contact with the infidels you now fight and move down the corridor to your rear. You will find the stairwell open all the way to the top. From there you must fight your way to freedom.
Allahu Akbar
!”

Turning his attention to the monitors, Mark noted the speed with which the Arab fighters reacted to the command, leaving the two wounded security guards lying among the bodies of their fallen comrades in the disabled elevator. In less than thirty seconds, sixteen terrorists had entered the stairwell and begun racing up the stairs toward the ground floor. With a clank, heavy steel bolts engaged, locking the door shut behind them.

“Time to go,” said Heather, rising to her feet and strapping the remaining duty belt and holster around her waist, pausing to tuck in the excess.

Odd as it seemed, Mark found the image of the gun belt wrapped around Heather’s slender body, wearing only a blue hospital gown, remarkably appealing. “Stairwell two?”

“No. We’re going to have to climb the elevator shaft.” Her eyes moved to Jen. “Can you carry her on a cable climb?”

“If we strap her to my back. No problem.”

Heather knelt down, stripping the dead guards’ shirts and belts as Mark lifted his sister. Following her to the elevator shaft, Mark saw that the door stood open onto the empty shaft. Shifting Jennifer onto his back and wrapping her arms around his neck, he let Heather strap Jen’s hands together with a bloody shirt. Then, hooking both belts together, Heather fastened them around Mark’s and Jennifer’s bodies.

She paused for a moment to inspect her work, then turned and leaped into the shaft, caught the thick cable, and began rapidly climbing. Mark followed, the added weight jolting his frame hard enough that he wondered if the cloth ties would handle the strain. They held and he began steadily pulling himself hand over hand up the shaft.

“You good?” Heather asked from above.

“Right behind you. All the way to the top.”

“We’re making a short stopover on sublevel one.”

“Why is that?”

“I found our laptops.”

Heather passed the open elevator door on sublevel two, continuing her steady climb until she hung suspended three feet above the opening into sublevel one. Swinging her body, she launched herself into space, landing in a forward roll that brought her back to her feet in the wet corridor as cold water rained down on her from above. As she’d seen on the security cameras, sublevel one had been completely evacuated once the fire alarms and waterworks had started.

Nevertheless, she pulled the Berretta from the holster and chambered a round. Moving forward in a shooter’s crouch, she began clearing rooms left and right as she moved past them. To her rear, she heard Mark land and slide. Then he was beside her, moving with his own gun drawn, Jennifer dangling awkwardly from his back.

Unlike on the lower sublevels, laboratories and offices filled this floor, a facility designed to provide close-in, real-time technical support to some of the best interrogation teams in the business. This was where equipment captured with the prisoners held below came to be analyzed and dissected, providing a rapid turnaround totally focused on providing corroboration or leverage on the former owners. A single cell phone often yielded information that skilled interrogators wielded on their subjects like Chinese water torture.

Heather paused outside of the lab she had targeted, took a deep breath, and held it. Opening the door, she stepped inside, grabbed the nearest chair, and used it to wedge the door wide open, letting the halon gas pour out into the hallway. The gas itself wasn’t harmful, but it displaced the breathable nitrogen-oxygen mix that fires and people lived on. Without waiting for the gas to drain out into the hallway, Heather stepped into the room and turned on the lights, leaving Mark standing guard with Jennifer outside.

The lab was a large room, sixty feet by forty-eight, with raised flooring to accommodate the wiring that ran beneath it. Rows of workbenches divided the room into four sections. On the third of these, Heather found what she was searching for. Both laptops had been stripped, the motherboards and computing components plugged into other systems capable of recording all electrical activity in the circuits. Heather ignored them, selecting instead the two specially modified USB dongles. Removing these from their mounts, Heather dropped them in a small plastic Ziploc bag she retrieved from the supplies strewn across the workbench, and made her way back toward the door.

Pausing momentarily to grab a white lab coat from a hanger by the lab entrance, she slipped out of the wet hospital gown, fastened the coat around her with the gun belt, and stepped back into
the corridor. She’d been in the lab for just over three minutes, and she felt certain that she could have held her breath another seven. Still, it felt good to replace the old lungful with a fresh breath.

Partially revived by the cold downpour, Jennifer was moving on Mark’s back, in weak protest against the trusses that bound her to her brother. The sound of distant gunfire echoed from above.

“Got ’em?” Mark asked.

“What we need.”

“So now it’s up and out.”

“The shaft comes out in an elevator alcove about fifty feet from the main entrance. Right now there’s a serious fight going on up there; we should be able to get to the parking garage exit with minimal resistance.”

“Minimal?”

“Three to five guards. Eighty-seven percent probability based on my last look at the video.”

“Let’s do it.”

Heather led the way back to the shaft at a jog. Her last step propelled her out onto the cable. The gunfire was louder now, interspersed with yells and screams of pain. She slowed her ascent as she approached the open door to the main elevator alcove. A black-clad guard crouched facing away, firing down the hall toward the entrance. Heather shot him in the back of the head.

Leaping into the alcove, she grabbed him by his heels and pulled him farther back into the alcove as Mark landed behind her.