Pillars of light and fir.., p.92
PILLARS OF LIGHT AND FIRE: THE COMPLETE SERIES, page 92
Morgan gave John a peck on the cheek. “Good to see you again, John.”
“Wish I could say the same, Morgan.” John frowned. “Are you all right?” He touched a hand to her elbow. “A lot has happened—”
“I’m fine. I’d rather focus on the now.”
“It can’t be a coincidence.”
“I was thinking the same thing, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions just yet.”
John nodded and turned to the agent next to him. “This is Special Agent Rex Anguish. I’ve known him for a while. He’ll be working your son’s case.”
Agent Anguish shook Morgan’s hand. He was younger than Atherton and average looking, though his eyes were dark and observant. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. The director has told me all about you. I have a few questions if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. Could we see the scene?”
“It’s still being processed, though we really have little to go on.”
“Nothing on closed-circuit television?”
“No, something has taken out all electronics within a quarter mile, I’m afraid. That’s the most troubling aspect. Some older CCTV systems still use tape recordings, and we’re investigating those. They might have footage just prior to losing power.”
“Do you suspect a cyberattack?”
Anguish shrugged, his expression closed. “I don’t like to speculate without data.”
“Our grid drones record footage if they lock onto the nearest tracking signal of a Chevalier.”
Anguish’s eyebrows rose. “Moirai recently informed me of that. We’re processing your drone over at Langley.”
“It’s usually encrypted, but we can bring up the data. We would have to get to the Citadel.”
“That would be helpful. I’ll make a call.”
“I know it’s unlikely that we’ll get the drone back in any reasonable amount of time, but we would like to conduct our own investigation for safety concerns. We need to know if the system landed safely or if the device malfunctioned.”
Anguish made a note of that in a small black notebook he scribbled on in neat handwriting.
Morgan frowned at the feeling of helplessness. One thing the Chevaliers were not was an intelligence-gathering network. Their charter and specialty lay in police and military actions. Morgan didn’t want to get into realms they had no business bothering with. For the United States and the developed countries, this fit more or less with their operational paradigm. For less developed countries, this was problematic, as their information gathering was not advanced and subject to internal corruption. In those instances, the Chevaliers built some of their own intelligence networks or negotiated their charters to allocate for such work. Those charters were more expensive for the country involved.
She turned to Lucien. “Do you have any grid-drone footage from our systems?”
“What we’ve recovered. The drone itself is inoperative. We’ll provide the FBI with the complete data stream at the Citadel.” Lucien handed her the tablet, and she scrubbed through the footage, letting Atherton and Anguish watch over her shoulder. Morgan had seen the footage already, so she knew it was useless. The drone had captured little, and what had been important had been wiped before it could send the data stream back to Chevalier servers. She saw the three SUVs turn toward the hangar and out of view of the camera. The grid drone’s observation ability was secondary to its primary mission to remain tethered to the triad they assigned it to. There were no other vehicles present besides the three vehicles that accompanied her son, then the footage went grainy where the drone stopped transmitting.
Anguish scratched his cheek. “Your drones are susceptible to being shot down?”
“In war zones, we have a layered drone deployment, but here we fly grid drones per FAA regulations,” Morgan replied. “They are out of the range of most projectiles and interference, and illuminating them with lasers doesn’t do much. But this drone went offline, which is rare,” Morgan said, holding back that the grid drone in Kiev had suffered the same fate. “My R & D team thinks it may be an electromagnetic pulse.”
“An EMP,” Anguish repeated. “I thought only nuclear weapons could cause electromagnetic pulses strong enough to fry electronics.”
“Solar flares could do it,” Atherton said. “But there’s research into making EMPs a viable battlefield weapon. If everyone has smart weapons, a device that makes everything dumb resets the playing field. That’s why Moirai is involved, besides its being a Chevalier incident on US soil.”
“Do you think this is homegrown?” Morgan asked.
“I don’t know if this is a DARPA product, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve released something on home soil,” Atherton said, implying the Chevalier technology itself had once been a DARPA project.
“Touché.” Morgan nodded. “Can we get to the Citadel? I must speak with the R & D team and take care of some fallout from Kiev.” She wanted a report from Sheath and to check on the additional information Lucien had for them.
“If you don’t mind a few more questions?” Anguish said, his notebook ready.
“Would it help to have someone assist you with whatever you need in your investigation?”
“That would be invaluable.”
Morgan motioned for Haut to step forward. “Chevalier Gail Haut is a former FBI agent and should be familiar with your protocols and requests. She’s at your disposal.”
“The director has mentioned her. Ma’am.”
Chevalier Haut shook Anguish’s hand. “Sir.”
“If I’m not a suspect, can we answer these questions at my car? It looks like it will rain.” Morgan had a sinking feeling in her stomach. Would she see her son again? She had to focus on the task at hand.
* * *
MARYLAND CITY, MD—
The Citadel was unimposing. After the Bridges and without a public understanding of what the Longinus satellite did, the Chevalier Corporation had moved to the northeastern edge of the District. After Tripoli, they had again removed any chance that Class A weapons could destroy the capital and had the Citadel built farther away in Maryland City. It suited Morgan as it placed it slightly closer to New York and the UN while keeping it close enough for US decision makers to feel secure that they had an arsenal nearby. The NSA was not entirely comfortable with having them so close, but they’d grown used to their presence.
The Citadel anchored a single-story-campus training facility and was flanked by two wings containing manufacturing and medical help for the Chevaliers. They constructed Chevalier suits, gauntlets, drones, and all ancillary gear at the Citadel. The Citadel itself was a ten-story building that sat in a corner of the manufacturing building like a silvery guard tower. The lower floors held the reception and briefing areas, while the midlevel floors held the R & D arm of the Chevalier Corporation. The sublevel and top-level floors contained some critical components that few outside of the Chevalier Corps had access to. The roof of the Citadel had a helicopter pad used for emergency medical services or rapid transit to the nearest airport—usually this meant BWI, but that airport had suffered severe damage from the EMP, so the corps had shifted operations out of Reagan and Dulles airports for the time being. It wasn’t critical, but managing shifting assets was vital to operations itself and a good chance to cycle through their routine procedures. The Citadel rooftop also held a large parabolic antenna, with secondary and tertiary antennas on the warehouse roof and on the larger campus sprawl, respectively.
They had reviewed the drone footage at the operational station on the fourth floor, with little success. Morgan and Atherton left Anguish and Haut behind to continue scrubbing the footage and went to the operations center on the fifth floor. There she knew there would be more data that the FBI wouldn’t have access to. With Lockdown in effect, there also wasn’t much in operations she wanted, but she quickly reviewed the situation in the United States. The US Embed Team was on high alert and deployed to BWI to assist the police in restoring order while BWI worked to replace damaged and nonfunctional systems. It had several redundancies but getting those fully operational would take a few hours yet. None of the passenger terminals were affected, but without functional air radar, all flights were grounded or rerouted. It was a mess, but the operations team handled it well.
Atherton went with her to the elevator.
“Payam provided you with the replacements necessary to fill the holes in the US Embed?”
“Yes,” Atherton said, tapping his folder. “Thank you for recommending that Gail assist Rex.”
Morgan nodded. “I thought you might recommend her, so . . . why not? I need to provide a list of Chevaliers to the Decommissioning Center. Would you like to come with me?” Morgan pressed her thumb to the biometric panel on the elevator and tapped the button for the topmost floor.
Atherton saw the button. “Am I cleared for that?”
Morgan would have preferred to go to the floor alone, but it would be valuable for John, as head of Moirai, to know she was proactive about the missing Chevaliers. “I’ll clear you for this special case. I owe you for not keeping you in the loop about Kiev.”
Atherton only nodded. She could tell he remained upset about that. “I’m glad to be here. My phone’s voice mail is probably full but being on this investigation and here at the Citadel gives me a chance to leave it behind. Bureaucrats are so infuriating.”
“You worked at a job that had the word ‘bureau’ in its title.”
“Ironic?”
“Just a bit.” Morgan smiled. The door opened to a clean, empty corridor with brushed metal walls and floor. Two Chevaliers met them. Morgan presented her biometrics to local pads the Chevaliers carried. They also took biometrics for Atherton. The system beeped an alarm and John raised an eyebrow. “Decom records everyone coming and going. Workers, janitors, Chevaliers, everyone.”
“I feel at home,” Atherton said. They swept them for electronics, though they had already left behind everything at the Citadel intake-processing entrance.
“One-time authorization for John Stephen Atherton,” Morgan said.
“Please verify,” the Chevalier said. Morgan again placed her finger on the biometric. The system chirped. “Thank you, ma’am.”
They passed the sentry station and entered a corridor to a door. They had reinforced the entire floor for the additional weight required to contain the safe room that was the Decommissioning Center. Morgan scanned her retina at the panel next to a vault-like door.
A red light came on over the door. “Name?” a voice said.
“Morgan LaFayette.”
“Passphrase, please, Ms. LaFayette.”
Morgan gave her passphrase. The light clicked green, and they opened the heavy vault door. Two technicians waited on the other side.
“Hello, Chevaliers Maltet and Precious,” Morgan said.
“They stay here often?” John asked.
“Rotation varies, but it’s at least for twenty-four hours,” Morgan said. The operators were taciturn people, consummate professionals.
“You mentioned in the operations room you were building another facility?”
“Actually, with the growth of the Peace Enforcers and overseas Embeds, it makes more sense to shift Decom over to Perilous in New Tripoli.”
“Soon?”
“When the relays are in place and we’ve tested the system,” Morgan said. She didn’t want to give out a timeline as that was highly sensitive. She turned to the operators. “Busy morning?”
“A lot of activity, ma’am,” Maltet agreed.
“More than we’ve had in . . . years,” Precious said.
The Decommissioning Center was roomy, though it only had a few monitors and two redundant terminals that connected to the antenna uplink.
“Who else has access to this room?” Atherton said.
“There’s a list,” Precious said without looking up. He sat down at the active terminal and began typing. Nine names noted in red came up on the monitoring screens. The second wall screen had worldwide locations of all Chevaliers, similar to the operations room, but with more granular GPS data.
“This is simple compared to the operations center,” Atherton said, looking around.
“It’s self-contained,” Maltet said. “Per control protocols, we have to maintain the ability to disable a Chevalier under any circumstance. Redundant systems; independent power, air, and water; and plenty of food for the personnel inside the center.”
“Like being deployed, I suppose,” Atherton said. “Hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of panic.”
Maltet smiled at that. “It’s not so bad. Ms. LaFayette and Commander Holt keep us engaged. When a protocol request comes in, that’s the real work,” Maltet said, turning to Morgan. “Your security key, ma’am?”
Morgan nodded, pulled a key from around her neck. It looked nothing like a key except that it had a handle and an end, which looked more like a stripped-down USB connector. She inserted the key and kept her thumb on the pad on the handle. Precious highlighted the three Chevaliers lost at the kidnapping of Leto, sorted alphabetically by last name.
The terminal screen lit up with “Security key, pulse, and thumbprint verified. Turn key to activate scrambler for . . .”
Morgan stared at the screen. It had only been half a day since they’d gone missing, and Atherton was here. Millions of dollars in training and . . . they were human. You are not ready. She wanted to show what she’d always shown—that she could and would sacrifice to forge a future. What did these three mean? Failure? Did they deserve it? A twist of her wrist would snuff their lives out. Her muscles tensed as she prepared herself. She’d never flinched from having others do the work . . . keeping her hands clean. Was this any different? There were protocols and paperwork that defended what she meant to do here. Nothing would mar her reputation.
Atherton’s hand was on hers. “You don’t have to do it,” he said. “There’s a grace period.”
Morgan pulled the key. Clemency. She hoped to find them. All four.
“Ma’am?” Precious said, his eyebrow raised.
“We have time. I’ll check with the training department. We should have a dozen new candidates waiting for reassignment,” Morgan said. She placed the key around her neck. “Thank you.”
“We’ll be standing by for all candidates, ma’am,” Precious replied, and shut the door behind them.
Atherton walked with Morgan to the elevator. “There were more personnel on that list than what was on your son’s bodyguard roster.”
“Some unfortunate fallout from the Kiev operation,” Morgan said. “It will be in my next update to the UNSC. Does Moirai need anything?” They got onto the elevator. Morgan tapped the ground-floor button.
John shook his head. “Peace Enforcers aren’t my concern, exactly. I’ve already made my ask. How are you doing, really?”
Morgan again touched his elbow and allowed herself a moment. “I’m holding it together. I’m desperately worried about my son. After the attempt on my life, what does that mean for him?”
John nodded and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. I’ve offered Gail and Rex the use of US Embeds—”
“I’d rather use my own Chevalier cadre, but thank you for the consideration. The US team is best used as you see fit. I have more than enough resources.”
“Then I’ll find out what I can.” The doors opened. Payam awaited her, along with a Chevalier in plain clothes, denoted by the silver dragon badge on her suit. “I can show myself out.”
“No stone unturned, John,” Morgan said, her eyes hard. John nodded. Payam stepped onto the elevator as Morgan tapped the biometric and touched the sublevel button that took her to where they kept their newest acquisition.
* * *
Morgan took a breath. Visiting the Decommissioning Center was less pleasant than she’d thought. I’m getting soft, she told herself. “What do you have for me?” she said to her assistant.
Payam adjusted his glasses as he looked at his report. “The Russian embassy has canceled their charter.”
“I’ve already reassigned their Embed Team to the Ukraine Team. It will be contentious, but let’s not get upset about it. Moscow did nothing with the Embed Teams but keep them near the US embassy. It was an amicable if ungainful employment of our Chevaliers. Chevalier Sagramore will be happy in Ukraine with his team. What else?”
“Something arrived while we were in transit,” he said. “I recommend visiting the vault before we visit our latest ‘guest.’”
“Very well,” Morgan said, touching the sublevel button that placed them at the vault. The doors whispered open and they arrived at another large bank-vault door, which, while automated, was much like the door to the Decommissioning Center. Three people were in the Faraday vault, a room intended to prevent electromagnetic radiation from entering or exiting. One of them was her cousin Gavin LaFayette. Bins of interesting items filled the Faraday vault. Old prototypes of Avallach technology, unused focal rings and prototypes, a coffin that held an old broken armored suit, and never-identified Paladin technology from Tripoli.
“Morgan,” Gavin said, his voice tight. “We received this . . . interesting package while you were in transit. I thought you might like to open it.” He motioned for someone to shut the door, closing the Faraday cage.
The package was in a plain FedEx box without markings. “Where did this come from?” Morgan asked.
“Delivered by courier earlier this morning. I don’t have the resources to investigate much further. Our processing team has thoroughly tested the package, X-rayed it and bombarded it with trigger signals. It has no biological, chemical, or radiological agents. It’s not a bomb.”
