“Yes, thank you, Mr. President; Commander Hawke and I both appreciate being invited to participate in this critically important meeting. The good news is, we actually may have brought along a bit of good news to share with you this morning. MI6’s Red Banner, a joint spec-ops unit working in concert with the CIA, has made significant progress. I’ll let Alex take you through it. He’s been spending productive time with the AI scientists at Cambridge.”
Hawke leaned forward and locked eyes with McCloskey. “Mr. President, I’m honored to be here. I worked closely with your predecessors and I look forward to continuing that process with you. A question first, if you don’t mind. I believe you have been briefed on Project Perseus, correct?”
“I have been.”
“Then you know that a scientist at Stanford, Cohen by name, had achieved enormous theoretical breakthroughs in the field of AI-ideas he considered so dangerous he built an impenetrable firewall to protect them.”
“I’m aware of all this.”
“The quantum supercomputer at Leeds, used by Cambridge scientists, has determined that someone hacked into Cohen’s encrypted life’s work and stole his ideas for a Singularity machine. I don’t want to understate the ramifications of what I just said. This is not just another of the many cyberthreats to national security in the West, sir. According to Dr. Partridge at Cambridge, this particular theft is analogous to the Soviet KGB acquiring the secrets of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos.”
“He said that? Those words?” the president said, some of the color draining from his face.
“He did, sir. Precisely those words. He added that the individual responsible, or whatever state wields this power, is now the most dangerous threat to human existence on the planet.”
“Wait a second. Can we replicate Cohen’s design ourselves? On a crash-and-burn basis?” Anson Beard, the ruggedly handsome secretary of state, asked.
“Unfortunately not, Secretary Beard. It isn’t crash-and-burn science,” Hawke replied. “According to the Cambridge group, it will take at minimum two years to replicate this technology. If we’re lucky.”
“Mr. Hawke,” the president said, “you said there was good news. Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Quantum has finally been able to determine the whereabouts of the hacker, Mr. President.”
“Yes?”
“Iran.”
“Damn, I knew it,” the president said. “Who else but Iran could be behind the most dangerous threat on the planet-those crazy mullahs and that pinhead president of theirs? The latest intel shows the cabal of mullahs in Tehran are convinced that the End of Days is near. That their divine ruler, the Mahdi, is going to appear and set the world straight. Meaning, kill all the nonbelievers. Were it up to me, I’d turn that country full of Islamofascists into a parking lot. But it isn’t up to me. It is, unfortunately, up to those deadlocked, dithering bureaucrats on the Hill.”
Hawke said, “Mr. President, if I may continue, as I said, we were able to identify the hacker. An Iranian scientist who worked on the original Perseus Project at Stanford with Dr. Cohen. He’s also the man we suspect of murdering Dr. Cohen and a number of other key scientists who worked on the project. He goes by the name of Darius Saffari. But his real name is Sattar Khan. Ironically enough, he is a nephew of the late Shah of Iran. His mother was the Shah’s sister.”
“The deus ex machina,” McCloskey said. “We know his name and we know where he lives. Am I missing something here?”
Hawke said, “Sorry, sir, your question?”
“Why isn’t he dead?”
“He will be. Director Kelly and I were discussing his demise at breakfast this very morning. Brick, you want to take over?”
“Thanks, Alex. Mr. President, we have a nonspecific location in Iran, but at least we know it’s an area in the southeastern portion, on or near the Persian Gulf. We immediately put a dedicated bird in the sky over that area. I have sat photos here of locations we consider the most likely possibilities. I’ve a set for everyone.”
Once each attendee had the photos, Kelly said, “The site we favor is the one marked IR-117. A compound located directly on the Gulf. As you can all see, it looks to be heavily fortified. But the thing that interests me most is the mammoth power plant you can see on the mountainside below what appears to be an observatory. It is surrounded by twenty-foot-high fences topped with concertina wire and is patrolled by guards with dogs twenty-four hours a day.”
“Why does that interest you, Brick?” the president said.
“A supercomputer of the size and complexity we are talking about would require enormous amounts of power. This particular plant is big enough to supply a small city. And, as you can see, the complex looks to be primarily residential, a large palace, surrounded by countless streets of ancient buildings. It is substantial and well fortified by a massive thirty-foot-high wall. A citadel, in fact. There’s something inside that compound that needs a whole lot of juice, Mr. President.”
“A ghost in a machine.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I believe.”
“So who’s going to take out the ghost, Brick?”
“Commander Hawke and I, sir. CIA will assist under the aegis of our joint Red Banner unit. We are already in the planning stages. I’ll brief you when we’re ready to go. Black ops, off the grid, untraceable. Complete plausible deniability should Commander Hawke, his team, or any of our special forces be killed or captured during the incursion.”
The president said, “How do plan to get in and out of Iran, Commander? Their air defenses are significant.”
“Always only three ways in, sir. Air, land, or sea. I plan to sail in harm’s way,” Hawke smiled. “I’m going to sail my yacht, Blackhawke, into the Persian Gulf and knock on the bugger’s front door.”
“How do you intend to do that without waking up the big bad Iranians?”
“A little idea Director Kelly and I cooked up at dinner last night. I wonder if the White House operators could help me place a call to King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia?”
“Why in hell do you want to call the king of Saudi Arabia?”
“Old friend of mine, Mr. President. We’ve had numerous business oil dealings together in the past. I intend to tell him that I’ve acquired an interest in ocean yacht racing due to the purchase of my first sailing ship. And that I’m particularly interested in a race against His Majesty’s own sailing yacht, Kingdom. My yacht, Blackhawke, will just happen to be in the Persian Gulf soon. She’s en route now. With your permission, I’d like to tell him that it would be very helpful to the White House if the king were to agree to a race on a date to be determined by Director Kelly and myself.”
The president laughed out loud.
“I’m beginning to like you, Commander Hawke. A yacht race in the Persian Gulf with the king of Saudi Arabia. It’s obvious that you’re a very creative individual in matters of clandestine ops.”
“Element of surprise, Mr. President,” Hawke said with a smile, “whatever it takes.”
“I’ll have my secretary, Betsey Hall, get the operators to work on tracking King Abdullah down. Probably in Dallas. He spends a lot of time there with his doctors.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Operation Ghostbusters,” McCloskey said with a smile. “That’s the code name for this damn thing. I’ll also put in a call to Abdullah first thing tomorrow, back up your request for a race. He owes me a couple of favors, shouldn’t be a problem. Go get these bastards. They’ve murdered enough innocent civilians. And thank you, Commander Hawke. I read your entire dossier last evening. Very impressive. I’m glad you’re on our side.”
“One should always strive to be on the side of the angels and the big battalions, Mr. President,” Hawke said.
The meeting was over.