Mike grinned as she raised her small Glock, aimed at the drone, stopped dead. “Look, there’s a bird, it’s heading right for the drone.”
“Doesn’t matter. Fire, Mike, bring it down.” But before she could get off the shot, the bird dove at the drone. At the last second, it pulled up. It flared its wings to slow, legs underneath it, talons out, and snatched the drone from the air with its feet. Its wings flapped once, hard, and soared away with the drone held tight.
Mike pulled up short. “Holy crap, did you see that? That bird saved that frigging drone.”
Nicholas pulled up beside her, watching the falcon wing away. “The question is, if it was one of ours, why didn’t it destroy the drone. Why did it fly away with it?”
The bird and the drone were out of sight.
Mike said, “Because it’s not ours. Bird and machine belong to the same people.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A typical unmanned aircraft is made of light composite materials to reduce weight and increase maneuverability. This composite material strength allows military drones to cruise at extremely high altitudes. Drones are equipped with different state-of-the-art technology such as infra-red cameras (military UAV), GPS, and laser[s] (military UAV). Drones can be controlled by remote control system or a ground cockpit.
—Dronezon.com
MI5 Headquarters, Home Office
Thames House
12 Millbank
Westminster, London
Nicholas said, as they rode the elevator up, “MI5 is manic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many agents running around. At least we got an elevator for just the two of us. I can’t wait to get my hands on a keyboard and find out exactly what, and how, this hack was performed. I plan to write a new encryption for our phones that will keep us safe.” He tapped his temple. “Wait—I do believe a possible solution has presented itself to my brain.”
She poked his arm. “I knew it, modern technology is no match for you. Maybe you should go into business like Ardelean did with Radulov. Make millions off your code. Mama needs a new pair of shoes, or you could buy me a BMW, like yours.”
“Not new shoes for you, new boots. I don’t want to take Ardelean’s path—sorry, Mike, not enough excitement in the business world, no knockout arguments with you, no hand-to-hand fights with bad guys. I wonder how long Griffith will take to copy the hard drives?”
“Okay, new boots, and yeah, I’d give it up, too, for knockdown drag-out arguments with you. Griffith won’t take long, not since she has a crush on you.”
“Agent Caine, are you jealous?”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on, focus. I’m still wondering about that falcon yanking the drone out of the air and disappearing with it.”
“There you go, just like a woman, always changing the subject. You’re definitely jealous. Want to get revved up? Want to fight about it? Those new boots, maybe for Christmas?”
She laughed, and he couldn’t help himself, he gave her a quick kiss as the elevator doors opened to three interested faces.
Adam was waiting for them when they arrived on the fifth floor, in Harry Drummond’s outer office. “Hey, it’s good to see you guys. I’m all up and running, and, man, do we have a problem. I need another hour at least, but I’m close to finding the hole. I’m trying to establish a clear and safe channel that we can use to talk to Gray in New York. Oh, by the way, he and Zachery and Lia and Savich are all on board. They know what’s happening and they’ve started taking measures on their end to secure comms. I think there is an errant piece of code in both FBI-N.Y. and FBI-D.C. servers, but I don’t see it’s been activated, yet, which is a nice favor. We can do an end around the software, establish a clear channel, and wait to see if it’s opened.
“But here, in MI5, it’s activated, and everything’s wide-open. Information that’s supposed to be internal is feeding out through a pipeline to whoever built this hack. I gotta say, it’s pretty cool.” He looked at Mike. “Well, um, no, not cool at all.”
“Can you secure the British Security Services?”
“I’m working on it, Nicholas. Once I have the channel between New York and us secured, then I can turn to the MI5 and MI6 systems. This is going to be huge, like Duqu, and Duqu 2.0 that unraveled Kaspersky, though I think this breach of Radulov is going to be even worse.”
Mike asked, “What’s Duqu? What’s Kaspersky?”
Adam said, “Sorry, Duqu is the code name in the hacker community for a quiet and powerful threat hack that attacked the NSA, as well as some other organizations last year. Major cyberwarfare. Who needs nukes when you can simply open the door and steal all the secrets without anyone realizing it until years later?”
“And we’re on the front lines of our own Duqu?”
“We are. Kaspersky is a Radulov competitor. They had something similar happen last year. And this looks like another big one. Hey, what happened to the defense secretary? Was it another drone attack? More frog poison? I thought I heard there might have been another attack, but I’ve been focused on all of this. Everything okay? Look at this code, Nicholas.”
Mike touched Adam on the arm. “Adam, you didn’t take a single breath, didn’t have a single comma. How much caffeine have you had today?”
“I don’t know, about a case of Red Bull and a few pots of coffee.”
“Well, take a breath.”
He pulled in a deep breath, shut his eyes, and blew it out, putting his hands together in prayer. “Ohmmmmmm. Happy, Mom?”
She rubbed her knuckles against his head. “You amaze me.”
Adam gave her a huge smile. “I’m okay, I promise. I always tank up when I have a big project. Seriously, was there another attack on you guys?”
His eyes were red and glassy from lack of sleep and too much caffeine, but he looked as excited as she’d ever seen him. The crash would come, she knew. She’d seen Nicholas jazzed up the same way, seen him crash.
Nicholas raised his head from an examination of the code Adam had handed him. “Yes, but they missed, and then a falcon came out of nowhere and flew off with the drone.”
“Wicked.”
Nicholas laughed. “That’s what I thought, too. Adam, you go back to the secure comms issue with Gray, then work on the breach. We have a meeting with Roman Ardelean soon. I’m going to brief my father on what we saw at Alexander’s crime scene. Work fast, okay? If you find something, come get me right away.”
“You got it. Tell your dad someone’s been taking a look through the files here, okay? It’s a big hole.”
“I will. Thanks, Adam.”
They watched him go, then Nicholas knocked on his father’s inner office door. “I want my father to know where we stand on everything before Ardelean arrives.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Nicholas was briefing his father, Mike listening with half an ear, when a cryptic text came to her phone from DI Griffith.
Confirmation on what you found, coated with E. HDs on their way.
The drone needle was coated with epibatidine. The victim’s computer hard drives were coming.
Three in three days confirmed. And Nicholas could have easily been the fourth. Whoever they were dealing with wasn’t messing around. So who was next? Or would they try for Nicholas again?
Surely, the White House would cancel the president’s trip once they relayed this information to Savich and Zachery.
She was about to tell Nicholas when Ian appeared in the door.
“Sir? Mr. Ardelean is here to see you.”
Harry stood, nodded to both Nicholas and Mike. “We will finish this when you’re through meeting with Ardelean. Ian, please show Mr. Ardelean in.”
Nicholas looked down and read the text on her mobile from Griffith.
“Want me to go call her?”