Jake handed out assignments based on phone locations that were out in the open. Phones located inside private offices identified the people quickly. The ones used in the open were more of a mystery.
Over the next three days more FBI agents arrived. In addition, Honi had several NSA analysts brought in to help handle the technical load of information flowing in. More members of the Phoenix Organization were being identified. What the analysts discovered was that the code word associations were consistent around the globe, so more and more of the recorded conversations were making sense. A real picture of the Phoenix Organization’s activities was emerging, with the obvious exception of the top layer of control. Over the next eleven days not a single piece of information led them any closer to the top level of the Organization.
By then, Jake was growing absolutely furious over the lack of progress in identifying that illusive top level. “No!” he screamed. He picked up a chair and threw it across the room. “I am not letting you, a bunch of homicidal psychopaths, destroy the world! I’m not! If it’s the last thing I do, I will find a way to stop you!”
Honi slowly walked over to him. “Why don’t we take a walk and get some fresh air. You could use a change of scenery. You’ve been cooped up in here working twenty hours a day since we got here. And maybe what we need is a new perspective.”
He didn’t say anything, just grabbed his jacket and stalked out the door. They strolled slowly toward the center of the city, among the largely European-style buildings. It was winter in the southern hemisphere, but Buenos Aires is at about the same latitude south as Florida is north, making the daytime temperature around sixty degrees. Neither Jake nor Honi said anything for the first few blocks.
“We still don’t know who’s in charge of the Phoenix Organization, how they are communicating, or where the satellite control station is located,” Jake said, finally. “I’m just afraid we aren’t going to figure it all out in time.”
“And seven billion people are going to die?” Honi asked.
“Yeah.”
“So let’s focus on what we do know for a moment. We’ve got approximately 96 % of the people in the Phoenix Organization identified. We could take down the highest level of people we do know about, and interrogate them. Maybe we can find out from them who is on the top level. Some of the people we grab might also know where the satellite control center is located.”
“Too many maybes,” he replied. “What happens if we do that and nobody knows where the satellite control center is? What then?”
They entered the Plaza de Mayo in the center of the city.
“I know it’s not ideal,” Honi said. “But what we have now isn’t enough. Taking those people down would at least give us more than we have right now.”
They strolled to the left around a raised platform with a tall obelisk in the center. The Casa Rosada Presidential Palace stood majestically across the street.
“It’s a huge risk,” Jake said. “If we do that, there’s no turning back. We’re stuck with whatever consequences come from that point on.”
“That’s true.”
“Sometimes, like now, I wish I’d never seen that countdown watch. Then I wouldn’t feel like everybody in the whole world was depending on me to save them.”
“Honestly. I can’t think of anyone better than you to save them.”
They crossed the street that ran in front of the Presidential Palace. Jake looked at the street sign: Balcarce. The palace was to the southeast of them. Jake stood on the corner of the street and looked at the palace, the rose-colored Spanish architecture standing proudly in the center of the city. The old style of the building contrasted sharply with the modern antennas that bristled from the northwest corner of the third-story section.
“What is that?” Jake asked.
“What are you looking at?”
“That weird design on the corner of the north wall. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“The squiggly thing?”
“Yeah. It’s got like four arms that keep breaking up into smaller and smaller shapes, like smaller squares within even smaller squares, but not squares. The lines are all single extensions of the same line, folded into smaller boxes.”
Honi took her phone out and photographed the object. A few quick touches and it was on its way to Brett. Thirty seconds later her phone buzzed. She looked at the text.
“It’s an antenna. Brett called it a fractal antenna, some kind of broadband thing.”
“Broadband? That means it covers a wide range of channels, or frequencies, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. According to Brett, it can receive a large number of frequencies at the same time.”
Honi pulled her phone and called Brett. “That photo I sent you? Distance to the antenna is about one hundred feet. Can you determine the size and frequency response of the antenna?” She listened. “Thanks, Brett.” She disconnected.
“How wide is the frequency band for our encrypted phones?” Jake asked.
Honi punched in a text to Brett and waited for the reply. When it came back she looked at Jake. “We’re using about five percent of the frequency band that the fractal antenna uses.”
“So the frequencies that can be used for encrypted communications are twenty times larger?”
“Apparently. Instead of jumping around among one hundred different frequencies, that system would jump through two thousand, making it impossible to break the encryption.”
“Would Echelon pick up the frequencies?”
“Yes. But making sense of the frequencies and any potential message would be impossible.”
“We have to get back,” Jake said. He hailed a cab and they returned to the command center. Jake phoned Stafford and updated him on the way back.
Stafford met them at the door. “I took the liberty of having FBI agents look for fractal antennas on all of the buildings where we have future supreme leaders staying — should have some results back soon.”
Jake’s phone rang. It was Briggs. “Yeah, boss.” He looked at Honi. “Thanks.” He disconnected. “Identical antenna on the Treasury building, located right outside Secretary Halleran’s office.”
Photos began arriving on the computer system. One after another, the buildings in every country where a future supreme leader was located came back with the same fractal antenna on an outside wall.
Honi’s phone rang again. “It’s Brett,” she said. She answered and listened. “Frequencies are active,” she said. “Sounds like a hiss on every channel. It’s an encrypted communication system.”
“The top layer of the Phoenix Organization,” Jake said.
“Yes,” Stafford replied. “But who is the top person or group?”
“At this point, who it is can wait. Wherever the Phoenix Organization’s master communications center is, that’s where we will find the satellite control system.”
“And the control for the nuclear bomb,” Honi said.
“Hang on a second,” Jake said. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “In Senator Thornton’s office, I don’t remember seeing a special piece of equipment for the fractal antenna. It had to be connected to something, right?”
“Yes,” Stafford replied.
“Could it have been connected to Thornton’s computer?”
Stafford pulled his phone and called Dave Smith. “Was Thornton’s computer connected to anything in his office?” He listened. “Computer was connected to a USB cable that fed into the wall,” he told Jake.
“Do Thornton’s people know the computer’s missing?” Jake asked.