Orbital Disruption Page 12

  “I’m afraid not,” Dr. Patel replied. “He’s sedated right now and needs to rest. You should be able to speak to him in the morning, though.”

  “Ok, I understand,” Tony nodded.

  “And what about the guard?” Jessica asked.

  “One of New York’s finest is posted at his door,” the doctor reassured her. “He is quite safe here.”

  Tony and Jessica nodded. Ricky stood up.

  The doctor left and Ricky turned to Tony and Jessica.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Do you have somewhere safe you can go, Ricky?” Jessica asked.

  “Sure, I have a cousin in Queens. I can stay with him.”

  “Ok, that’s probably the safest thing now,” she replied. “Tony and I need to get down to Washington DC but we may need someone here. The police will have the office closed off for a while as a crime scene but once they’re gone, we may need you back in there.”

  “In the meantime, lay low, ok?” Tony added.

  “Are we in trouble?” Ricky asked quietly.

  Tony looked and Jessica and then back at Ricky.

  “Well, yes and no,” he said after a moment. “We’re in some trouble but there’s a much bigger danger out there. So we focus on the big problem first.”

  “Ok, got it,” Ricky replied. “I’ll stay in Queens tonight and check on Mike in the morning. You two get down to DC and stop those ExLax assholes.”

  “Will do,” Tony answered and gave Ricky a fist bump.

  Jessica gave Ricky quick hug and added, “Thank you, Ricky.”

  As soon as Ricky left Jessica picked up her phone. “I need to get back to my hotel and then on the next train to DC.”

  After a brief pause her phone answered, “A car will meet you at the main entrance on Winthrop street in five minutes to take you back to your hotel. I have two tickets on the 3:25 a.m. Northeast Regional train. You’ll arrive in Washington DC at 7:00 am.”

  Jessica turned to Tony.

  “Let’s go.”

  They didn’t talk in the car or on the train. Jessica was responding to an endless stream of messages on her phone, frequently cursing under her breath and Tony was still processing the events of a few hours before.

  After exiting Union Station they started walking north on First Street. They continued in silence in the early morning light until shortly after crossing H Street. Tony cleared his throat.

  “So, what now?”

  Jessica put her phone into her purse.

  “First, we go back to my place. I need to get cleaned up before the meetings start.”

  Jessica took Tony’s hand as they walked.

  “You’re going to stay with me for now. I’m honestly not sure what the next steps are but you should be safe there and I will probably need you to come in later in the day.”

  She looked over at Tony, still dressed in a suit.

  “There’s a one-hour dry cleaning place next to my building. You might want to get your suit cleaned while you’re waiting.”

  “Is a clean suit what you’re worried about right now?” Tony asked.

  “No, but everything else is going to be a shitshow for a while. And you’re neck deep in it. A clean suit might help. This is DC, darling. Appearances matter.”

  “Noted.”

  Jessica stopped walking. She was still holding Tony’s hand and pulled him toward her. The sun was up but they stood in the shadow of a high retaining wall. There was traffic but it wasn’t heavy yet. Nobody else was on the sidewalk.

  “Listen, whatever happens, I want you to know something. I might be an absolute idiot, but I’ve put my career on the line for you. I can’t tell you everything yet, but I think that Excelsior is planning something truly evil and you and your friends might be the only ones who can stop them.”

  Tony remained silent. A truck rumbled past but Tony’s eyes didn’t leave Jessica’s.

  Jessica took a deep breath. “And I love you. I need you to know that.”

  Tony answered by placing his free hand on Jessica’s shoulder and leaning in to kiss her. He lingered and Jessica kissed him back. She released his other hand, dropped her purse on the ground and put both arms on his back, drawing into his embrace.

  They remained this way for what seemed to Tony like a long time. The world had gone crazy but this felt right.

  “Hey, get a fucking room!” a guy with a beard and an ironic t-shirt shouted from the bike lane as he passed.

  Jessica stepped back from his kiss. Tony felt as if he were waking from a dream.

  She bent down, picked up her purse and then looked up at Tony.

  “Come on, let’s get going. This isn’t a good day to be late.”

  Caroline O’Rourke, Director of STETSON, looked over her desk at Jessica. Jessica sat in one of the two guest chairs. The other was empty.

  “You know, when Marie gave her presentation a few days ago, I thought ‘damn, this is fucked up’. Like Hollywood action movie scale fucked up.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jessica replied. “It is.”

  “And then when this Edward Morton guy gets blown up by a car bomb in Sunnyvale fucking California, I think, damn!”

  Jessica just nodded.

  “And then yesterday I get an email from you disclosing that you’re romantically involved with one of the founders of a firm that is suspect in Morton’s death.”

  Jessica looked down at her hands, folded in her lap and said nothing.

  “I was thinking, wow, can things get any more fucked up?”

  Caroline sighed before continuing.

  “Apparently they can. Because last night a senior executive from Excelsior who also happens to have ties to Russian organized crime broke into Jovian’s office and shot one of their employees! And then you showed up and shot her!”

  Jessica looked up again.

  “Yes, ma’am. She’d already shot Mike and she was about to shoot again.”

  Caroline sighed.

  “You did the right thing, Jessica. I’m not going to lie - this whole thing is a clusterfuck and you’ve made some questionable choices. But you made the right call to try to take down Anna Ivanov. You probably saved several lives.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Stop it with the ‘ma’am’ bullshit, ok? On this team we cut the crap and use first names. At least when we’re not being hauled in front of a Senate subcommittee.”

  “Thank you, Caroline.”

  Caroline looked at Jessica and shook her head.

  “Don’t thank me yet. But for now, let’s get back to the issue at hand. What’s your current assessment?”

  Jessica took a deep breath.

  “Based on the murder of Edward Morton, the attack on Jovian by Ms. Ivanov, and how the Jovian team responded I believe that at least some of Excelsior’s management is involved in a plot that is connected to what Dr. Renault, I mean, Marie uncovered.”

  “And the Jovian guys are just innocent bystanders?”

  “No. I don’t know all the details but they were up to something out in the belt. If I had to guess they were responsible for Excelsior’s loss of an asteroid several weeks ago.”

  “Sabotage?” Caroline asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Yes, something like that,” Jessica confirmed. “There’s some very bad blood between those two firms. I wouldn’t rule out a revenge motive.”

  “I see.”

  “But I am quite confident that the Jovian team isn’t involved in what Marie uncovered and I’m sure they didn’t murder Eddie,” Jessica concluded.

  “Is that your brain speaking or other parts?”

  “I’m confident in my analysis, Caroline.” Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I am romantically involved with Tony but it would make no sense, objectively, for Jovian to kill Eddie. He was a personal friend of several team members. And it would make no sense at all for Anna to try to kill the Jovian guys if they were on the same side. The asteroid that Excelsior lost is too small to cause the disaster t
hat Marie’s AI is predicting. And it won’t make its first close approach for another year at least. Marie’s event is coming much sooner.”

  Jessica took a breath and continued.

  “You’re right, this is a total clusterfuck. But I’m certain the Jovian team aren’t murderers and there’s no way they could be planning to drop a rock in the Atlantic and kill thousands. That’s just not possible.”

  “Ok, so then who’s behind this?”

  “My money would be on Ruben St. James and Excelsior but I admit I don’t understand everything yet.”

  Caroline placed her hands on her desk and looked at Jessica, unblinking. Jessica felt the intensity and had to resist the urge to look down.

  “I believe you’re right, Jessica. You’re free to proceed as you see fit. Reach out if need resources. But you need to be careful - you’re already looking at a disciplinary review when this is over. So don’t fuck this up any more than it is.”

  Jessica nodded.

  “Now I need to call our friends at the FBI and then prepare to brief the National Security Council. I need you to go find that damn asteroid, stop the bad guys, and save the world.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jessica replied.

  Caroline signalled the end of the meeting by opening her laptop and Jessica stood to leave.

  “Oh, and Jessica?”

  Jessica stopped and turned back to Caroline. Caroline was already typing on her keyboard but she looked up

  “Next time, shoot to kill.”

  Jessica nodded and left the room.

  Twenty

  “Yebat!” Sergey Ivanov muttered as he peeled Anna’s blood-soaked shirt from her skin. A small ragged hole wept blood from the front of his sister’s lower left abdomen and a second hole matched it a few inches away on her lower back.

  Anna grimaced as Sergey squeezed a sports drink bottle filled with an antiseptic solution onto both wounds to clean them. Bright pink fluid spattered onto Anna’s tight lycra pants, the wooden chair she was sitting on and the pale yellow linoleum floor. Anna tried to distract herself from the pain by looking around the room but there wasn’t much to see. The safe house Sergey had brought them to was a modest walk-up just off of Bedford Avenue in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn. Cheap carpet in the living room, vinyl flooring in the kitchen, peeling paint on the cabinets, fluorescent lights. Anna winced as Sergey dabbed a cotton swab into the bullet wound.

  Sergey looked up and said, “You’re damn lucky. Clean entrance and exit through subcutaneous fat. Lots of bruising but no organs damaged. Didn’t even hit your abdominal muscles. No need to visit a hospital.”

  “Yeah, lucky me,” Anna grunted. Still, she understood the consequences of a more serious injury. She was in no position to check herself into an ER.

  Sergey blotted excess blood and disinfectant solution with sterile gauze pads, then taped clean pads over the wound. He stood up, walked across the narrow kitchen and opened a cabinet. He pulled out several small boxes and read their labels before finding the one he was looking for. He then filled a plastic cup with water and returned to Anna.

  “Here’s a 10-day course of Cipro. Take one pill every 12 hours. That should prevent infection.”

  Anna nodded and accepted the antibiotic pills and water. She opened the box, popped one pill from the blister pack, tossed it into her mouth and followed it by draining the glass of water.

  “Thank you, Sergey. I’m glad I can count on you.”

  Sergey nodded but didn’t say anything. Instead he unrolled several sheets of paper towel from a dispenser mounted under a cabinet and started to clean the floor.

  “Just one more thing,” Anna said, standing.

  Sergey looked up.

  “Do you have a burner phone I can use? I need to send a text.”

  Ruben St. James sat in his office and tried to concentrate on the screen in front of him but his eyes kept drifting to the windows. It was long past sunset. In the foreground there were a few lights on in the parking lot outside Excelsior’s office. As always, he couldn’t help but notice that the lot was almost empty now. Not many people had his drive and determination. In the distance, the shallow waters of the bay reflected a few lights from Newark and the Dumbarton Bridge. A steady parade of lights moved slowly across the sky from right to left - aircraft on approach to SFO.

  A sharp buzz pulled Ruben’s attention back from the view outside. He reached across his desk to his phone and unlocked it. There was a single message from a number he didn’t recognize.

  ciao! it’s been 2 days and I called 6 times but no answer. i miss u, baby!

  Ruben cursed under his breath and took his wallet out of his pocket. He recognized that the greeting ‘ciao’ was Anna’s code signifier. Most of the message was meaningless drivel but the numbers were significant. Anna had insisted on using codes like this for certain communications. Ruben found it cumbersome to memorize the codes the way Anna did but he understood the need for absolute discretion. After some fumbling he found the small piece of paper.

  1 = Mission accomplished

  2 = Mission failed

  3 = Mission in progress

  4 = Mission aborted

  5 = Situation changed, need direction

  6 = Identity compromised

  7 = Need immediate assistance

  Ruben contemplated Anna’s failure for only a few seconds before he flipped the paper over and read the list of potential response codes:

  Don’t call me = Abort mission, return.

  Who is this? = Abort mission, go silent, await further contact.

  Wrong number = Continue mission.

  Piss off = Make contact immediately.

  Ruben carefully typed his reply.

  I think you have the wrong number.

  He hit send, sighed, and set the phone down. He pulled his keyboard toward himself and logged in to one of Excelsior’s servers. He entered his password again in order to enter ‘superuser’ mode. He opened a text editor and wrote out a short sequence of commands in the domain-specific language used to control the small computers that ran Excelsior’s spacecraft. Ruben double-checked the commands and then saved the file. The syntax was sensitive but he was confident that he’d made no mistakes. He then typed the coordinates for a section of the sky a fraction of a degree away from where his firm’s communications were normally aimed. He held his breath and pressed ‘enter’. A few moments later he exhaled as the last command finished.

  Compressed payload from 755 to 196 bytes.

  Waiting for next frame...

  Appended to checksum.

  Queued for transmission.

  Transmitting...

  Transmission Complete.

  Ruben deleted the file he’d created and logged out. He paused for a moment to look around his office then out the window again at the bay. How many years had it been since he moved into this office? How long had he had the same view?

  No matter, it was done.

  He had known this day might come. It wasn’t entirely inevitable but it had always been a distinct possibility. Recent events had made it more likely and he had prepared accordingly. There really wasn’t much left to do. Like Newton’s first law, his plans were now in motion and absent some outside force, they would stay in motion. And he had just taken steps to ensure that no outside force could intervene.

  Ruben made a short phone call to his pilot. Some unexpected business had come up and he needed to depart as soon as possible. Yes, he knew what time it was and the fines that Palo Alto airport would impose. As if that mattered.

  Next, he sent a short email to the Excelsior senior management team about a remarkable business opportunity in Asia that had suddenly presented itself. He couldn’t reveal more but hinted at a big contract with a state-owned firm in China. Possibly an investment. He might need to be gone for several days but he had full confidence in their ability to run the firm in his absence.

  Finally, he started a program that would securely erase the hard dr
ive of his desktop computer, overwriting it with layer upon layer of random ones and zeroes. He was confident that he’d left no traces of his real intentions but he also knew the value in being thorough. He pulled a post-it note from a drawer in his desk, wrote “hard drive broken - please fix” on it and stuck it to the keyboard.

  Ruben smiled, turned off his monitor, slipped on his jacket, picked up his briefcase and left his office for the last time.

  “I thought you said the job was a failure.”

  Sergey walked into the kitchen from the living room. Anna sat at the table, her pistol disassembled in front of her and an oiled cloth in her hand. The burner phone sat on the other side of the table next to two boxes of ammunition. Early morning sunlight was streaming in from the windows over the sink.

  “It was,” Anna nodded but continued to clean her gun. “I only managed to shoot one of them before that suka got me.”

  “So why are you up so early?”

  “Client says continue the mission anyway,” Anna answered.

  “Last night you said the targets got a look at you.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sergey raised an eyebrow. “And you’re still doing it?”

  Anna set the cloth down on the table and looked up at Sergey.

  “Do you remember way back when we were kids? When we first got into this business?”

  “We’ve always been in this business.”

  Anna smiled a little. Sergey looked older now but he was still her little brother. Having him around always made her feel better.

  “I mean, when we first started doing jobs like this. Real jobs.”

  Sergey shrugged.

  “We said that we’d keep doing it until we got a big job,” Anna continued. “Big enough to retire on. Big enough to do something else.”

  Anna gestured at the disassembled handgun on the table.

  “Something other than this.”

  “You think this is the big one?” Sergey asked.