‘Damn,’ breathed the Vice President, ‘it’ll be like the whole damned Cold War all over again.’
Thanks Richard, Hansard thought silently, as he saw the effect Richard Jensen’s words had on the men and women in the room, people already starting to shift nervously in their seats.
Ellen Abrams looked sombrely about the room, shocked but dignified as always. ‘Then Heaven help us all,’ she said with genuine feeling.
73
Back in his office at the ODNI, Hansard was drinking his fourth cognac of the day, more than normal — although he might soon have to address what constituted normal, he decided.
The meeting had gone well of course, and the plan was still well on track, but the situation with Cole and his family was nagging at him uncontrollably. He had no idea where Mark Cole was, and Sarah and the children had somehow managed to escape from the train, and there was now no trace of any of them.
He finished his glass and was reaching for the bottle when his computer bleeped at him. He glanced at it briefly, and then his head snapped back.
A systems breech? What the hell is this?
He tapped some buttons, and all was revealed. Someone was downloading all — all! — of his files, including his secure communications records.
Cole. It had to be Cole.
Hansard picked up the phone on his desk, calling through to Max Wilborough, the head tech who designed his system security. ‘Max,’ Hansard said forcefully, ‘there’s been a breech. Track the source. Now.’
74
Cole had not touched the new cup of coffee since it had been put down next to him nearly an hour before. His entire focus had been on the laptop computer in front of him, and the time had flashed by in an instant.
He could simply not believe what he had discovered. Was Hansard insane?
On one level it was brilliant, of course; but anyone who would come up with such a plan — much less actually go through with it — was without a doubt suffering from some sort of mental illness.
And now the whole world might suffer for it, Cole realized with dread.
Cole snapped back to reality when a red light started to flash intermittently on the screen. Shit. The breech had been caught; he had kept it open too long.
He didn’t know how long ago it was discovered, but files were starting to be deleted. He immediately started downloading the most important information to a secure host, where he would hopefully be able to access it again later.
Next, he slowly raised his head to check the surrounding area. If Hansard was aware that his system had been corrupted, he might be able to trace the source of the cyber attack. Agents might already be on their way.
He turned his head back to the screen and watched as the information was transferred from the laptop to his secure computer vault back in the Caymans.
The question now, was what should he do with it?
75
Agents were on their way. It hadn’t taken long for Wilborough to track down the source — first to Germany, then to Munich, then to the Fünf Höfe, and finally to the Café Tyrol on the centre’s second level.
There were eight American agents in Munich that could be relied upon. None from the SRG, but that would have been hoping for too much.
As it was, at least the eight men available were from the DIA, an agency under the directorship of Hansard’s friend and fellow alumni member Jerry Adams. As such, they were also part of the US security net that had been spread throughout Europe. They were not part of Hansard’s inner circle, but they were loyal, and would follow his orders to execute Cole with no questions asked.
And there was not a doubt in Hansard’s mind that the man needed to be killed — and killed quickly, at that.
Because if he had read the files as well as just downloading them, Cole would now know everything about Hansard’s plan, and his ultimate goals. And Hansard was sure that the man would now try and do everything in his power to stop him.
76
Cole’s head moved constantly. He would look down at the lower concourse, sweep the floor, then go back up to the upper level, following the wrap-around balcony that stretched from the café all around this level. Finally, he would look down at the laptop for an update on the download. There were three minutes remaining.
It wasn’t that the computer was slow; rather, there was such a large amount of information to be transferred. Hansard had managed to delete some files — and now Cole would probably never learn what had been on them — but the ones Cole had already opened and read, and with which he had pieced together Hansard’s crazed plan, were now being saved for future use.
If he still had a future, Cole thought grimly, performing yet another visual sweep of the mall. Hansard would almost certainly have put a trace on the source of the security breech, and Cole knew there might well be agents on their way right now. He didn’t know what assets Hansard had in Germany, but the man’s reach was vast.
Two minutes left. Cole scanned again, his mind doing cartwheels. It wasn’t just Hansard’s lunatic scheme that concerned him; it was other orders and communications that he had found buried in Hansard’s system.
It appeared that there had been a team waiting for his family back in the Caymans, with original orders to kill his wife and children once he himself had been taken care of. Cole was relieved to see that this had been rescinded to a tailing order only, presumably in the hope that Sarah would lead Hansard’s agents to Cole.
It appeared so far that the team had failed to locate them, but Cole didn’t know how up-to-date such communications were, or if the latest updates were amongst the files deleted by Hansard.
The leader of the team was Dan Albright, and this alone was enough to give Cole cause for grave concern. The blond pretty-boy was a stone-cold psychopath, so much so that –
Movement to his right lower corner. His head turned and he picked up two men in suits hurrying through the main entrance foyer in the lower concourse. Possibly just businessmen late for a meeting, but then they looked up, scanning the mall, looking for … him.
Shit. Two more on the far side of the balcony on this level. He adjusted himself in his seat.
Another two on this same level, on the near side of the balcony. Six so far, and he had no idea if there would be more. As it was, they were already boxing him in.
He had let himself be distracted, his attention divided between Hansard’s plan, and worry about his family. He should have concentrated on the job at hand, and picked the men up earlier, but now was not the time for recriminations; now was the time to act.
77
Michael Porter looked up at the café on the level above and to the front of him, scanning the clientele. There. One man sat by the balcony, casually performing a scan of the crowds as if he was just taking a momentary rest from staring at the computer screen in front of him.
The man’s face wasn’t an exact match to the picture Hansard had sent through to his cell phone, but it was close enough. Mark Cole. According to Hansard, although the man was supposed to be a diving instructor from the Caymans, he was really a terrorist, a radical convert to Islam. This was the man who had killed some of his colleagues back in London, and was an adversary to be cautious about. Not to be feared — Porter was too much a professional for that — but definitely someone to be careful with.