An agent ran up. “Boss, the motel manager says these guys were having a meeting here. Twenty-four rooms booked in advance, cash. We’re finding plane tickets, cash, prayer rugs, and Korans.”
“Someone else look at the tape and check the numbers,” Brooke said. She turned to Wallace. “Thank you. We’ll get you a receipt for that tape.”
She turned and was heading off to the van when Wallace called out, “You know what? Now it makes sense!”
Brooke turned in her tracks. “What does?”
Chapter Five
Saturday night used to be date night. Now, the only date the Hiccocks looked forward to on a Saturday night was a date with the pillow after the week’s 7:30 a.m. staff meetings. So when his secure phone rang at 10:30, Bill’s sleepy voice answered.
Homeland Security was on the other end. “Mr. Hiccock, I have a high priority message for you from the Secretary.”
“Go ahead.”
Bill heard clicking sounds and then the connection hit.
“Bill, Brad Grayson, Deputy Secretary DHS. We have a situation in New York that could be — repeat could be — a bio-terrorism event. You are directed to monitor the situation through your White House SOP. Sir, do you concur that you have been duly notified?”
“Yes, but one question — who is running the operation on the ground in New York?”
“That would be S. A. Brooke Burell, JTTF.”
“I know her, she’s good.”
“Sir, if there are no other questions, do you concur that you have been duly notified?”
“Yes, William Hiccock has been duly notified.”
“Thank you and good night, sir.” The operator then switched off his recorder and dialed the next person on his Status 2 Alert List.
Bill redialed.
“Good Evening, White House Switchboard.”
“Good Evening, I am Bill Hiccock; please authenticate my identity.” A tone sounded and Bill repeated his name into the voice print recognition system. Then an automated voice said, “Acquired and authenticated, William Hiccock Science Advisor to the President.”
“Yes, Mr. Hiccock?”
“Switch me to signals.”
“Signals, what can we do for you, Sir?”
“I need to patch into the New York JTTF commander on the scene.”
“Roger, standby,” said the army master sergeant who ran the signals department at the White House, the super-interconnect of the U.S. government. A President could talk to a soldier in the foxhole with this network.
Special Agent in Charge Brooke Burrell was dealing with the ever-changing facts in the crime/terrorism/bio-terrorism/fugitive drama into which she had been catapulted. Her secure agency cell phone rang.
“Burell, go.”
“White House Signals Branch. I have…”
“I don’t have time to talk to the White House right now…”
“Brooke, it’s Bill Hiccock on the line.”
“Okay, White House, I got the call.”
The sergeant dropped out leaving a secure connection between the two participants.
“Bill, a local P.I. stumbled on a terrorist plot to infect some bio-weapon on U.S. soil. Very detailed plan, lots of target cities.”
“How far did they get?”
“We have seven still at large. We have nineteen on tape but it will be a few hours ‘til the tape is processed into our heads-up alert systems.
“Do you have a communications van there?”
“Yes.”
“Still got the tape?”
“Just about to fly it back to Manhattan H.Q. by chopper.”
“Do me a favor,” Bill said as he punched his cell phone. “Hold on for thirty seconds.”
“Thirty seconds, you got, Mr. Hiccock.”
“Kronos, get up. Get up now and go to your SCIAD terminal on the double.”
“Wha…?”
“Kronos, wake the fuck up!” As Bill yelled, Janice stirred.
“Okay, okay geez, where’s the fire?” came the disgruntled voice on the other end.
“In New York. I need the Joint Terrorist Task Force on the SCIAD net now.”
“They can’t.”
“Can you set up a backdoor to SCIAD for about thirty seconds from now?”
“Sure, Hitch, no big whoop. I can create a one-time challenge and passkey to my super FTP.”
“Just do it.”
As he typed on his end, Kronos couldn’t believe what he was being asked to do. “You’re gonna give all our stuff to the fucking feds?”
“Relax, brainboy. We’re the fucking feds, too. How long?”
“C’mon Hitch; I just woke up.”
“How long?”
“Sixty seconds… I’m booting up now. Geez.”
Bill smirked and changed phones. “Brooke, get the tape and the camera to the communications van. I have my guy making a password to my SCIAD net. We can use it to process the tape in three minutes max.”
Brooke entered the van and placed the camera and tape in front of her comm tech.
“What’s this?” the tech asked.
“You’ll get instructions.”
“From who?”
Brooke spoke into her cell. “Bill, who’s gonna tell my tech what?”
“My guy Kronos will be on the line in a few seconds.”
Brooke jutted the cell phone at the tech. “Can you capture this call?”
“Sure. What’s your number?”
In a few seconds the patch was complete and over the speaker they all heard, “Kronos here. Who am I talking to?”
“Rich Hest, JTTF com officer.”
“I’m Kronos. You got HTML?”
“Yes.”
“512K Bandwidth?”
“1 meg.”
“I’m going to multiplex that to 30 meg,” Kronos said.
“Whoa, how you going to do that?”
“Magicians oath. If I told you I’d have to make you disappear.”
“Okay, I’ll just do what you tell me.”
“Cool. X,F,T,P, back slash, back slash, sciad, forward slash, admin.”
“Forward slash admin. Got it.
“Here’s the answer to the challenge. Charlie, Siera, Tango, Romeo, Papa Siera.”
The tech typed simultaneously as he listened. “Papa, Siera. I’m in.”
“What are we uploading?” Kronos asked.
“I got a HD camera here.”
“Firewire?”
“Shit, no cable,” the tech said looking around.
“I’m on it,” Brooke said as she bolted from the van. Once outside she yelled to Wallace. “We need all the wires!”
Wallace reached into his car, grabbing the whole bag and ran back meeting her halfway.
Janice took the lull in the action to ask, “What’s going on?”
“Kronos is rewiring my network and pulling off another miracle.”
“Oh, that.”
Brooke opened the bag and the tech found a cord that had a small plug at one end and larger one at the other. He put the small end in the camera and the other in an Core i7 — iMac that was in the van. “Okay I’m hooked up.”
Kronos came back on the line. “I just set up, back slash, back slash, tape. Upload to that.”
“Okay, I pressed play; it’s on its way.”
“Bill, where’s this going?” Kronos asked.
“FBI labs in New York and Washington, TSA, DHS and Face Recognition Systems in Roanoke.”
“I better send them all this Ultra HD video codec as well, so they won’t waste time. They never got video like this before.”
None of this was lost on Brooke’s tech in the van. “Whoa, real-time HiDEF full-bandwidth upload? Who runs this thing?”
“Need to know only, Rich. Erase and forget it when this is over, understood?”