Sigler stifled a laugh, but he noticed that Parker was now sitting up a little straighter. Daniel Parker, a self-confessed science geek, was the antithesis of most African-American stereotypes: a man who would count it a greater honor debating astrophysics with Neil deGrasse Tyson than playing one-on-one with Allen Iverson…though if push came to shove, he would probably acquit himself equally well in either situation.
“Sasha is, among other things, a cryptanalyst,” explained Klein. “We might have stopped outsourcing the dirty work, but we can’t afford to keep people with her talents on the payroll.”
Sigler connected the dots. “So we found some kind of coded message.”
Klein pursed his lips. “Not exactly.”
“This is what you found,” Sasha declared, as if abruptly deciding to take an interest in the conversation. She turned the laptop around and showed them the screen, and the image on it that had so captivated her.
The display showed what Sigler could only assume was a digital copy of one of the documents they had recovered during the previous night’s raid. It didn’t look familiar, but then he hadn’t really been looking when they’d done the collecting. He recognized the delicate curves of Arabic script, but there was a block of writing in the middle that looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. The letters might have been Greek or perhaps Cyrillic, but interspersed among the not-quite-familiar letters were other shapes that looked almost like Chinese characters:
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” Sasha replied, looking genuinely bothered by the admission.
The CIA man broke in impatiently. “It’s evident from the accompanying message that the enemy does know what it says, and that it’s critical to the development of a biological weapon.”
Sigler had been in the Unit long enough that such a declaration no longer surprised him. The stakes were always high. America’s enemies were bent on acquiring bio-weapons or loose nukes. It was the Unit’s job—his job — to nip those deadly aspirations in the bud.
“The intel you collected,” Klein continued, “doesn’t tell us what exactly, but it does tell us where: an old Republican Guard depot about thirty klicks northeast of Samarra.”
Sigler reviewed his mental map of the region, but the area didn’t ring any bells. Samarra lay between Baghdad and Tikrit, along the eastern leg of the Sunni Triangle, where nearly all of the insurgent activity had been focused lately. East of the triangle, there was a whole lot of nothing, all the way to the Iranian border.
“We had no idea this place even existed; it doesn’t show up on any of our satellite imagery, going back all the way to the First Gulf War, so we have to assume that it was decommissioned sometime following the end of the war with Iran. We should have a UAV over the site within the hour, but we’re thinking most of it’s underground. Saddam probably buried it to hide it from UN weapons inspectors. That’s probably why we didn’t find it sooner.” Klein shifted forward in his chair.
Here it comes, thought Sigler.
“The window of opportunity on this one is narrow. Once they figure out their couriers got nabbed, if they haven’t already, they’ll pick up and move. We need to hit this place ASAP.” Another pause.
“Tonight.”
Sigler didn’t question the assessment. Klein wasn’t asking for his opinion or advice; the CIA man was telling him to get ready. “I’ll tell the boys.”
“Slow down. There’s more.” He glanced at Sasha. “You’re going to have a ride-along.”
This time, Sigler wasn’t able to hide his dismay. “You’re shitting me, right?” He glanced over at Rainer, but the Boss was stone-faced. “You mean you’ll bring her in once we secure the site?”
Klein shook his head. “Miss Therion needs to be there with you.”
For the first time since her introduction, Sasha seemed to be aware of the discomfort her presence was creating. “The Iraqis know how to crack this code,” she said, tapping the computer screen emphatically. “And we don’t. We don’t even know where to begin. I have to be there. I have to be the first one inside.”
Rainer cleared his throat. “The decision is made, Jack.”
“With all due respect, sir, I would like to say for the record that this is a piss-poor idea.” Sigler hoped that his use of the military honorific — something that was almost never done in the Unit — would convey that this wasn’t just run-of-the-mill bitching and moaning.
Rainer’s reply was succinct. “Deal with it.”
Sigler glanced at Klein, who now seemed to be making a studied effort to avoid meeting his gaze, and then at Sasha. “I don’t suppose you’ve been trained for field work. Can you shoot?”
Before she could answer, Klein spoke up. “Don’t worry about that, Jack. I’ll take care of her. You guys just need to get us through the front door.”
A dozen different retorts flew through Sigler’s mind, but this time he checked himself. He stood up. “I’m going to need that imagery from the drone as soon as you can get it to me. The more I know about the site…” He let the thought trail off; there was nothing to be gained by stating the obvious. He motioned for Parker to follow, but to his surprise, his friend waved him off.
“Actually Jack, I’d like to have a word with Miss Therion.”
For a moment, Sigler wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly, but before he could inquire, Pettit snapped: “Parker!”
Usually, a stern look from Cipher element’s top NCO would be enough to put any member of the team in their place — even Sigler, who, as the platoon leader, outranked him. Pettit rarely had to chastise with words, but when he did, everyone sought cover.
Parker, however, didn’t even blink. He pointed at the computer screen and kept his gaze on Sasha. “I know what that is. So, either you can talk to me, one-on-one, and tell me what’s really going on here, or I can walk out that door and tell the rest of the team that we’re about to go put it on the line over an undecipherable medieval manuscript that’s probably a hoax.”
Sigler gaped at him. So did nearly everyone else. Klein swore softly under his breath.
Sasha shook her head. “It’s not a hoax. That much, I’m sure of. And this could be the closest anyone has come to cracking the code in over four hundred years.”
“What the fuck?” growled Pettit, turning to Rainer in disbelief. “Medieval manuscript? Is this shit for real?”
Rainer didn’t respond to his sergeant major. Instead, he stood abruptly and motioned toward the door. “Gentleman, let’s give Danno and Miss Therion a chance to get acquainted.”
THREE
Rainer’s abrupt declaration caught even Parker by surprise, and he didn’t hide his elation very well; he grinned so hard, his jaws started to hurt. As the others filed out of the TOC, Sasha just stared at him in what he guessed was complete disbelief.
Yeah, that’s right, he thought, nodding his head ever so slightly. The black man was the smartest guy in the room. Bet you didn’t see that coming, princess.
“So,” she said, when they were alone. “You know about the manuscript?”
He shrugged, but his irrepressible grin foiled his attempt to appear nonchalant. “Maybe. Or maybe I was just trying to find an excuse to be alone with you.”
She blinked, uncomprehendingly. “Why would you do that?”
That dulled Parker’s smile just a little. This girl wasn’t pretending to be aloof as a way of fending off unwanted advances; this was who she really was. “I’ve dabbled a little in number theory and mathematical codes. I like to do brain teasers. Lateral thinking puzzles, cryptograms…stuff like that. I must have come across an article about it somewhere and it stuck in my head.