Extinction Machine

Chapter Fourteen

VanMeer Castle

Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Sunday, October 20, 6:10 a.m.

Mr. Bones opened the wings of his Ghost Box and engaged the encryption. When it finished running through a system check, he waved to Howard, who was pouring cups of coffee into a pair of tall ceramic mugs. Howard’s mug had Doctor Doom on it, Mr. Bones had Lex Luthor. They had matching workout shirts. Christmas was weird last year.

“She on the line?” asked Howard. He hooked a wheeled chair with one bare foot and pulled it over to the desk. They were no longer in the kitchen. The incident in Washington had sent them running for Howard’s big office, where they each made a series of phone calls to try and get the latest information. In almost every case the people they called had no idea that anything was happening in Washington. Only the vice president, Bill Collins, knew anything, but the extent of his knowledge was the same as what they knew. It was maddening.

Now they settled down to call Yuina Hoshino, the third of the three governors who ran Majestic Three. Hoshino was a naturalized American whose family had moved from Japan when she was one. Like her parents, she was a physicist. Unlike them, she was a laconic and introverted hermit who seldom spoke to anyone except her lab staff and the other governors. She was not a mouse, as Mr. Bones viewed it, but more like a burrowing tick—relentless, solitary, and bloodthirsty.

The space between the wings of the Ghost Box glowed and Yuina Hoshino’s head and shoulders appeared. She had straight black hair streaked with gray, glasses hanging around her neck on a chain, and a face that might have been pretty had she spent any time at all in sunlight and fresh air rather than inside a lab. At sixty-one she was five years younger than Shelton and looked ten years older.

“What do we know?” asked Hoshino in a voice that was creaky with disuse.

“Only what we’ve told you,” answered Mr. Bones.

“What’s the problem with our intelligence sources? Are we out of the loop?”

“No,” said Mr. Bones, “that’s all there is. Linden Brierly arrived to take charge. Ghost Box has taps on all cellular and landline calls, we’re inside the Secret Service intranet, and we have bugs on every important wall. If there was more to know, we’d know it.”

Hoshino frowned. “That’s disturbing. This is not a good time for mysteries. The air show is so close…”

The Third Annual American Advanced Aeronautics Convention—informally known as “the air show”—was held at a fairground in Ohio. It was the highlight of the year for all defense contractors invested in fixed-wing aircraft, and particularly those who were rolling out new prototypes like old money families trotting out this season’s debutantes. M3 planned to steal the show with the Specter 101. The air show was not open to the public, of course, but everyone even tangentially associated with the DoD, Homeland, and the crucial arms sales to foreign markets would be there. It was the best opportunity to impress the brass and the congressional bean counters, and it was equally fine for showing up the competition.

Last week the security systems at the Ohio fairground were hit by the cyber-attacks, so Howard offered to host it at VanMeer Castle, where he had his own private airfield and grounds well screened by mountains and trees. Howard offered to augment security with a hundred operatives from Blue Diamond Security, a company in which he owned a sizable interest. The other exhibitors were reluctant at first, but the promise of security by the fierce Blue Diamond private contractors helped smooth things out. That, and there was a lot of sympathy for Howard after the tragic events at Wolf Trap.

“This won’t stop the air show,” assured Howard.

Hoshino snorted. “Of course it will. I’m surprised the show hasn’t already been canceled. And, frankly, Howard, it surprises me that you even want the show to go on. After Wolf Trap and the others events, it’s clear that whoever’s behind these cyber-attacks wants that show stopped and they want Shelton Aeronautics crippled.”

Howard hoisted a suitably morose expression into place. “My security people tell me that the new upgrades will assure a safe event.”

“Maybe,” grudged Hoshino, “but even the air show is secondary to this thing in Washington. And … let’s face it, gentlemen, we’ve all known that this could happen.”

“What exactly is it you think has happened?” asked Mr. Bones.

“Isn’t it obvious? Someone else has developed a working device before us.”

“Who?”

“It could be anyone,” said Hoshino. “It could be the Chinese. They’ve acquired most of the D-type components that were on the black market recently, and they’ve had an army of agents out there looking for more.”

“No,” said Howard. “If they had a complete device we’d know it by now.”

“Maybe we do know,” said Hoshino. “Maybe that’s what we’re seeing now. This could be their opening move.”

Howard constructed a brooding and contemplative face. “If they had a device,” he said dubiously, “they’d have to test it first before they did anything like this.”

“If you ever bothered to read my reports,” said Hoshino, “you’d see that there’s some indication of that. Sightings are up all over the world.”

“Oh, hell,” barked Howard, “we’re seeding most of that crap into the press. And a lot of it’s faked by morons hoping to get onto one of those stupid specials. They spray a Frisbee with silver paint and get one of their a*shole friends to throw it over the house so they can take a picture of it with a cell phone.”

“Some of it,” agreed Hoshino. “Not all.”

“What are you saying?” asked Mr. Bones.

“I’m saying that there’s something up there and it’s not us,” said Hoshino. “It could very well be the Chinese. Maybe they’ve finished testing their device and this abduction is the opening move in something bigger.”

Mr. Bones grunted. “Maybe … but having a device and being willing to use it in such an outrageous way is a big jump. Attacking us like this?”

“It might not be the opening salvo of a war,” said Hoshino. “It could be an attempt to send a message.”

“You mean a threat?” asked Howard.

“Of a kind,” she conceded. “Something that only certain people would be able to recognize for what it is. People like us.”

“Are you saying they’re behind the sabotage of our computer systems, too?” asked Howard.

“We’re not the only ones being attacked,” said Hoshino.

“That’s not the point. Someone is waging a war … but I don’t buy China for any of this. Maybe the attack on us, if they had the tools, which they don’t, but not taking the president. That’s just too risky for them. They’d have to know that if we got wind of who was behind something like this, even if the president is returned unharmed, we’d retaliate. China’s tough, but they’re not as tough as the press paints them. They’re not ready for a nuclear exchange or even an air war. The Seventh Fleet would love any opportunity to prove that they aren’t patrolling those waters for show.”

“What about the Russians?” asked Hoshino. “They’re working on something—”

“They were working on something,” corrected Mr. Bones, “until Pietrovich woke up dead.”

“Wait … what? Pietrovich is dead? When did that happen?” demanded Hoshino.

Mr. Bones cleared his throat. “End of September.”

“Why wasn’t I told?”

Another pause. “Guess it was an oversight. Sorry, Yuina. Didn’t mean to cut you out of the loop.”

“Loop?” Yuina Hoshino turned to Howard. “Did you know about this?”

“Well, yes,” he said blandly. “I’m shocked Bones didn’t tell you.”

“Sorry we didn’t tell you,” said Howard. “It was one of Erasmus Tull’s quiet little magic tricks.”

“Tull?” said Hoshino with distaste. “I thought he retired.”

Howard snorted. “He’s only as retired as we want him to be.”

“And you didn’t think it was important to tell me any of this?”

“I said I was sorry, but it’s done and Pietrovich is in the ground. What matters is that it closed down a line of research that could have hurt us. If you want me to go whip myself later, Yuina, then fine. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea f*ck me culpa. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s yesterday’s box score and we have something a lot more important right here, right now.”

“Fine, fine,” said Hoshino in a totally artificial tone of concession, “let me know next time. Especially if you’re going to activate an agent like Tull. He was erratic at the best of times.”

“They’re all erratic,” said Howard. “Bunch of test-tube freaks.”

“They’re our children,” chided Hoshino.

“The f*ck they are. They’re meat by-products. And, even though I use Tull because he gets the job done, that cat gives me the creeps. All of them do, so let’s not romanticize them, okay? There’s not going to be a Hallmark Christmas special at the end of this. Either they serve their purpose or we put a shiny new bullet into each of them. End of story.”

Mr. Bones cleared his throat to clear the air. “If it’s not the Russians and it’s not the Chinese, what are the chances that the North Koreans rebuilt their lab?”

“‘Rebuilt’?” repeated Howard. “Rebuilt what? That lab is a hole in the goddamn ocean. No, the Koreans only ever had two genuine D-type components, and they lost those when the lab blew. And maybe—maybe—they’ve acquired one or two more parts since then, but that’s a long way from having a device. Besides, if it was them, and they could take the president out of the White House, then we’d have found his body hanging from a tree in the Rose Garden. I’m not saying they’d sign their handiwork, but they wouldn’t risk holding him hostage or waste time with a catch-and-release.”

“They might,” said Hoshino. “If they were able to take him, imagine what kind of threat they could make. Instead of the usual saber rattling with their missile program, they would be able to whisper right into the president’s ear: ‘Look what we can do!’ Think about it. Think about how that would impact every decision the president made.”

“Maybe, but I don’t buy it.”

“Who does that leave? Brazil? Israel?” asked Mr. Bones. “Do we start looking at our allies now? We knew that there was always a possibility they’d turn on us if they got a working device, but I can’t see it this soon. It’s way ahead of any projection.”

“Actually,” said Hoshino slowly, “I think you’re wrong about that. There is one more possibility we’re overlooking. It skews everything, but the more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to believe that all of this fits one of our earliest projections.”

“Which one?” demanded Howard Shelton.

Yuina Hoshino looked from one to the other.

“The Truman Projection,” she said.

The silence was as fragile as spun glass and it lasted a long time.

“Oh my God,” said Mr. Bones.