“Or the songs,” Spencer agreed, and they all laughed.
“We should probably grab some dinner before the flight. There are some amazing restaurants nearby,” Drake said, glancing at the time. “We have three hours to get to the airport.”
“You’d think the CIA could whisk us through security. Like making us take our shoes off and X-raying us is going to prevent anything. I can think of a dozen lethal weapons you can make from crap you buy in gift shops on the jetway side of security. Do they really think terrorists don’t have web access?” Spencer griped.
“I guess we just aren’t special enough,” Allie said. “Besides, Drake’s hands are lethal weapons.”
“Absolutely,” Drake agreed. “Just put a gun or a Lambo in them, and bam, it’s curtains.”
Music flooded the quiet area from next door as the sliding door opened, and Kyra sashayed onto her deck, wearing spandex exercise shorts and a jogging top. She raised a beer and toasted them all. “Hi.”
Spencer smiled like a Cheshire cat and Allie rolled her eyes.
“Hi back atcha,” Spencer said. Drake gave an embarrassed wave.
“Are you going to be around tomorrow for the barbecue? You didn’t forget, did you?” Kyra asked. The breeze carried the scent of vanilla and coconut from her as she neared the glass railing. Allie coughed.
“Oh, um, no, I can’t make it,” Drake said, flushing as Allie’s eyes bored holes through him. “I’ve got to go out of town for a few days.”
“That totally sucks. I guess it will be just me and my home girls, then. How boring.”
“Drake hates to miss an orgy. Maybe a rain check?” Allie asked innocently in a low voice.
“What?” Kyra said. “Let me turn down my stereo.”
“She said maybe a rain check,” Drake offered. “Anyway, have a good time.”
“I’ll try.”
Drake stood and went into the house before the conversation could go astray, and Allie and Spencer followed him in. “Let me change and we can hit the road,” Drake said, and didn’t wait for a response, opting to duck into his bedroom before being subjected to further torment.
At Allie’s request they ate a delicious Italian dinner at Gravina on Pacific Coast Highway, and then returned to Drake’s house to await the taxi to the airport. The ride south took an hour, and they were in the international terminal of LAX with ten minutes to spare. Alex was waiting for them at the Cathay Pacific counter, dressed casually, looking in his wrinkled safari shirt and cargo pants more like a midlife-crisis backpacker than a CIA field supervisor.
“Nice to see you made it,” he said. “First-class check-in is over there. I’m in business class.”
Drake noticed that his eyes never stopped roaming around the terminal even as he greeted them.
“No pampering for the wicked, I suppose,” Spencer said.
“Not terrible, though. I’m a good sleeper. I suggest you try to get as much rest as possible, because we’re going to hit the ground running. The only wait will be for the final go-ahead on the permits.”
They checked in and left all but their carry-on bags with the friendly counter staff, and then moved to the security checkpoint. There was the inevitable line, where bored dullards were searching grandmothers and kids as though they were smuggling bazookas, making for a tedious half hour of shuffling toward the imaging machines.
The first-class lounge was lavish and half empty, and they spent their time online until the flight was announced.
Boarding began almost an hour before takeoff due to the size of the plane, and both Drake and Allie were asleep by the time the 777 trundled down the runway and lifted into the sky. Spencer watched the lights of Los Angeles disappear beneath its wings as it climbed into the heavens, the quest he was depending on to replenish his fortune about to begin.
Chapter 10
Jiao Long sat at the long rectangular conference table, facing his superior, Xiaoping Wu, the second-highest-ranking member of the MSS. Next to him was a nervous technician in charge of analyzing the servers that had been removed from Moontech’s headquarters.
Xiaoping listened impatiently as Jiao gave his report. When he was finished, Xiaoping leaned forward, lit a cigarette, and exhaled a pungent gray cloud at the overhead light.
“So this Huang didn’t know anything? He wasn’t in bed with Liu?” he growled.
Jiao nodded. “I’m confident he wasn’t.”
“Will he make it?”
“No. He suffered a stroke during our interrogation. He’s on life support now, but not expected to regain consciousness.”
Xiaoping grunted and tapped ash from his cigarette into a porcelain ashtray, taking care to shape the ember with the side — a peculiar habit Jiao had seen too many times to count. “Then what does that leave us with?”
Jiao looked to the technician, who began speaking in a soft, almost feminine voice. “There’s no question that the intrusion into our computers came from Moontech. But when we were going through the logs, I found an anomaly that was very interesting. It appears that the attack on our system was directed remotely, via a Trojan horse that was able to co-opt one of the Moontech servers and make it look like the operator was in the building.”
Xiaoping waved an annoyed hand. “We know that.”
“Yes, well, what was interesting was that we were not the only target.”
“Don’t play games. Spit it out.”
“It looks like Liu was accessing the U.S. Department of Defense network. Their internal, most sensitive servers.”
“What?” Xiaoping exclaimed. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. The signature is… let’s just say that it’s distinctive.”
“How? We’ve been trying to crack that for years. We’ve never been able to do it,” Jiao demanded.
“I’m not sure. That’s the puzzling part. But he was able to gain access.”
Xiaoping took another deep drag on his cigarette and his expression grew pensive. Nobody spoke until he stubbed the butt out and nodded. “We need to understand what he was doing. This significantly complicates matters. The Americans’ DOD is the best-fortified network in the world. If Liu was fishing around in there, we need answers.”
The technician cleared his throat. “There is one more thing.”
Both older men stared at him. “What’s that?” Jiao asked.
“It looks like I may be able to reproduce the protocol that enabled him to access their servers.”
If the technician had levitated around the room, it would have had less impact on Xiaoping and Jiao.
Jiao’s eyes narrowed and he gave the younger man an appraising stare. “The hell you say.”
The technician nodded. “It’s true. I’ll need some time, but there still might be enough on the server to put the pieces together.”
Xiaoping sat back. “If you can do that, I’ll promote you to the highest possible position. You should be running our cyber efforts.”
The technician smiled nervously. “I will do my best.”
“Don’t sit here any longer, then. Go do it,” said Xiaoping. “Report to me at any hour of the day or night if you get through. But… the Americans cannot know it’s us. Under any circumstances. That would be disastrous.”
“Oh, I’ll bounce it through a half-dozen servers. They’ll never suspect.”
“I thought you told us that’s what Liu did,” Jiao said.
“He didn’t know about the program I wrote that could trace it back through to the source. It technically doesn’t exist. Except it does. And we have it.” The technician smirked like a guilty schoolboy. “I could explain exactly how it works, if you’re interested.”
Xiaoping shook his head. “I care about results. Don’t waste any more time with talk. This is the highest priority. Commandeer whatever resources you need. I cannot underscore its importance enough.”