Then there was the Chinese photographer, or at least everyone assumed he was a photographer, because he was lugging around a huge camera case. He also spoke halting English, and asked everyone he met whether they knew a good place to take photographs of ships entering and leaving the canal. When the question was answered, he would stare back, uncomprehending, through his dark sunglasses. Then he would wander off in the wrong direction, leaving the locals to scratch their beards in amusement.
The last two strangers appeared to be Arabs. They had swarthy complexions, thick dark hair and beards, and spoke perfect, if slightly old-fashioned, Arabic. The smaller of the pair did most of the talking. Smaller, in this case was a relative term, because at just over six feet in height, he was taller than most of the locals. Nevertheless, he was dwarfed by the other man, who was a good head taller and built as solidly as the pyramids. The two men did not attempt to question the locals or strike up conversation, but merely sipped their coffee in the shadow of an awning. From time to time, the smaller man would check his wristwatch — a closer look would have revealed a vintage 1967 Omega Speedmaster Professional — while the larger man mostly looked straight ahead, almost statue still. Like most Egyptian men, they eschewed traditional Arab attire for modern trousers and cotton shirts. The big man’s muscles strained the fabric of his. Curiously, both were wearing dark sunglasses just like the others.
The sunglasses connected the five visitors in more than just a symbolic way. In addition to concealing their eyes, each pair of Oakley Half-Jacket 2.0 sport frames also hid a miniature Bluetooth wireless device that was linked to a next-generation quantum smartphone. The superior processing and data transfer speed of the quantum computers, which were an order of magnitude faster than anything commercially available, meant that each member of this group of visitors could send and receive real-time audio and video instantaneously. Because the processor used quantum entanglement, any lag of signal transmission was too minute to be measured. Nor was there any need for encryption. The transmission was not broadcast using radio waves, so there was no way for anyone to intercept it.
Images were recorded by a high-def camera in the nose-piece of each pair of glasses. They were viewed using a virtual, retinal-display projection system that beamed the video feed directly into the wearer’s eyes. From his perch on the roof of a three story building near the port, the man the locals had dismissed as the ‘Chinese photographer’ was able to see everything that the others could, and in turn, he was able to share his unique perspective with them. That, however, was only the beginning of what was possible with the technology in the glasses.
Even a cursory look around was enough to transmit a wealth of data into the shared network. The information was also transmitted instantaneously to a mainframe on the other side of the planet. A sophisticated facial recognition program compared every single face that passed in front of the cameras against a dozen different databases, including several international terrorist watch lists. The information could be displayed visually if so desired, but at present it was enough to simply overlay the results of the facial recognition scan. Each person that entered into the virtual environment had a tiny icon right above their head: a green dot if a positive identification was made and the person was free of suspicion, a yellow dot if no identification was possible and a red dot if a person was of special interest.
“I think I’ve been out in the sun too long. All I can see is a lot of yellow spots.”
The man on the roof smiled. He heard the voice as clearly as if the speaker were standing next to him, right down to the trace of a New England accent on some of the vowels. But if someone had been standing right next to him, they would have heard nothing at all. The sound was not played through ordinary electronic speakers, but instead utilized a technology called ‘bone conduction’ to transmit sound waves from tiny metal probes in the ear pieces of the glasses, directly into the skull of the person wearing them.
The statement wasn’t completely accurate however. While there was a sea of yellow dots, all marking people whose identities remained unknown, there were four tags that were neither yellow nor dots. The icons marked the four other visitors, and if it were possible for the man on the roof to see himself, he would have found a fifth icon floating above his own head — virtually speaking at least. These markers were a bright royal blue, but each one was different. Each one was the likeness of a chess piece.
“Seriously,” the same voice continued. The speaker was Stan Tremblay, but when he was working — as he was right now, albeit disguised as the German tourist — he was simply: Rook. “What good is facial recognition technology if it doesn’t recognize any faces?”
The man on the roof nodded in silent agreement. His name was Shin Dae-jung — his nom de guerre was Knight — and he was not Chinese. Ethnically, he was Korean, but he had been born in the United States and considered himself, first and foremost, an American. Nor was he a photographer. His camera case contained a disassembled Chey Tac Intervention .408 sniper rifle. It was the tool of his trade, and he had been practicing his trade a long time, without any help from quantum computers and high-tech sunglasses.
“He’s right, Blue,” another voice said. “If the FRS is just going to show us a lot of yellow dots, then we’d be better off without it.”
Knight was surprised to hear King supporting the wise-cracking and generally rebellious Rook. King, also known as Jack Sigler, was the field leader of the group, and he was usually the calm voice of reason. He was the shorter man presently disguised as an Arab, sipping coffee at the outdoor café. He wasn’t an Arab, but his thick black hair, strong features and skin bronzed by years — a lot of years — in the sun, along with his uncanny mastery of the Arabic language, enabled him to easily pull off the deception.
Eight years ago, King had been an officer in the US Army Special Forces Operational Detachment D, better known as Delta or simply ‘the Unit.’ Circumstances, in the form of a crisis that threatened the safety of the entire planet, had brought the five of them together from different military special operations backgrounds, to form what King had called the ‘Delta of Delta’—the elite of the elite, a new team answerable only to the president. The Chess Team. Since then, they had faced threats beyond comprehension — dangers that were the stuff of science fiction — and King had always guided them with a steady hand, no matter what the world threw at them. Except that after their last mission, where they finally, once and for all, dealt with rogue geneticist Richard Ridley, King just didn’t quite seem like himself anymore.
“Egypt doesn’t have a centralized picture ID database,” a new voice explained. The speaker was not one of the five — in fact, he was in a command center on the other side of the world — but he was nevertheless an essential member of Chess Team. His callsign was Deep Blue — a nod to the marvelous chess-playing computer that had performed the impossible, by beating the then-reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, in 1997. Deep Blue’s real name was Tom Duncan, and he had once been the President of the United States. In his role as chief executive, he had created Chess Team, and he’d personally overseen their missions, anonymously at first, until necessity had forced him to sacrifice his presidency to save the nation he had sworn to serve. Giving up the Oval Office had enabled Deep Blue to devote himself full time to leading the team. The organization that had begun with the team was now a separate entity from the military, operating from their new headquarters in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.