“Bill Hiccock, White House. We need to find out who this guy is working with and if there are more of them out there ready to attack other installations.”
“The Secret Service has every sensitive spot in lockdown by now.”
“I am not talking about government. These guys want to attack science.”
“Wanna run that by me again?”
“This attack was based on their objection to scientific policy. As egg-headed as that might sound, they shot down one of the president’s helicopters to kill a scientist. What else are they prepared to do, where else are they planning to hit or hitting right now?” Bill’s face turned to stone as a thought locked up his entire central nervous system. He blurted, “I gotta go.”
Bill ran to the Humvee. “Sergeant, I need to get back to the house quick.”
Bill jumped into the Humvee, which sped back to the main house. Bill jumped out, ran inside and fired-up the SCIAD computer. He typed as fast as he could…
Warning, all SCIAD members and your institutions. Probability of an attack on science and/or technology properties: high. Take measures to protect yourselves, your work and your families. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.
He was just about to hit Send when he thought again. The president wanted this contained. He deleted the messages to the outer rings and only included the top secret cleared inner ring. He added the words TOP SECRET to the message line and added the word “Quietly” in front of “take measures to protect…”
Then he ran back to the communications center. The Marine outside challenged him for ID and then the big fifty-ton door swung open.
“Get me the president.” He kissed Janice and patted Richie’s head.
“Air Force One on line two.”
“Mr. Pres…I’ll hold.” He turned to Richie, “You rode very well today, son. I bet you could be a cowboy. We are going to be riding a lot more this summer … Mr. President. Sir, I believe you should quietly raise the threat level to all government science and technology installations. We may have found the attackers and they might be fringe religious groups. I’ll have a report drawn up and to you within the hour. Yes sir, I’d like to err on the side of caution. I will, sir.”
He hung up and turned to the communications officer. “Get me the director of the FBI and use the words ‘Quarterback priority’.” He spun around to the leader. “Captain, I need to know what the fellow from Navy CIS finds out as soon as he has any information, especially who the shooters were and if they found any more of them. Same for your perimeter patrols. If they find that launch tube I want it tracked and identified stat.”
“Put it in the power rotation and get me Graphics. Tell Henson I want a four-second theme music cue for the bumper. I want four staff writers on this now. Who was this professor guy and see if there is an angle on budget cuts affecting helicopter maintenance? Oh, and get me the safety records for this kind of chopper. Get to it, people.” The CNN national desk editor hung up the phone on the inter-office conference call and looked up at a staff researcher. “What?”
“I overheard the call that came in claiming it wasn’t an accident.”
“Whoever it was hung up; probably some nut case. We’ve gotten twenty-five calls already, claiming everything from the Tea Party to aliens. Why are you standing around? See if the pilots had any drinking or drug issues.” He pulled out the budget to see how he could pay for all the stuff he had just ordered, and mumbled to himself, “Why does a story this good have to happen on a Saturday when the A-Teams are off?”
“… Aviation Captain Jesse Higgins and Warrant Officer Peter Klug. The sole passenger, Doctor Roland Landau, was also pronounced dead at the scene. The next of kin have…”
The Architect put down the science journal he was engrossed in and reached for the remote, not believing what he had just heard from the Swiss National news that was on as background noise. He rewound the DVR feature on his hotel room’s TV and replayed the entire White House helicopter crash news conference that had broken, unbeknownst to him, an hour and a half before.
He was stunned. He had been monitoring Landau and twenty other particle physicists and scientists for a year. Once Landau got his grant from LHC, he turned up his surveillance by having the professor’s house electronically bugged, as well as his computer at the school. It paid off. As soon as the Landau Protocols were being considered, he had the opportunity he had prayed for. It was an odd twist of faith that this man, his main source, died in an accident.
The Architect immediately assessed the damage. He concluded, that the professor’s death didn’t impact his master plan, because he had already gotten the most crucial strategic information from him: the exact day and time of the event.
Cheryl was driven to Camp David by uniformed Secret Service. Five more of Hiccock’s staff were scheduled to arrive within the half-hour. The president and Bill both decided to let Bill run the operation from Camp David, away from the press and the limelight. Cheryl entered, gave Janice a kiss, and then kissed little Richie, who was playing with a toy truck on the conference room table.
Bill was on the secure teleconference. Cheryl immediately recognized the face of the director of the FBI on the screen. Bill seemed to be just finishing up. “That’s why I want a separate task force, and the president and I agree to run the whole op from here, away from the White House. If this leaks out, there could be world-wide panic and chaos.”
“Okay Bill. Neil Cutter, my assistant director, will coordinate.” The head of the bureau paused, and when he spoke again his tone had changed, “Bill, is this God Particle thing real? I mean, are they fooling around with the apocalypse?”
Bill was taken aback by the question. He decided he should recalibrate his thinking on the impact of this, if even the notion gave the director of the FBI the chills. “Director, so far, and until I see proof, this all remains in the realm of particle theory, a speculation on the standard model. But the existence of this particle, or Higgs’ Boson for that matter, is purely an assumption which may be only one of many possible explanations for why everything holds together.”
“Some day when there’s time…”
“Yeah, we’ll go over the nuclear physics involved. Let’s talk again at six?”
Both screens shifted to the Camp David logo. Bill jotted some notes on his iPad, then turned and saw Cheryl. “Good, you’re here. Sorry to blow your weekend. Get me Kronos fast!”
“Kronos,” was the self-adopted name for Vincent DeMayo, a former hacker for the mob whom Bill had sprung from Elmira prison by presidential pardon during the Eighth Day Affair. His digital genius with computers had helped Bill thwart the greatest cyber-attack on American soil and saved millions of lives.
Cheryl burrowed in right away. She commandeered an area of the room and started logging in and moving phones, and somehow found a headset. She had it on and was calling Kronos as she synced her Blackberry to the system in front of her. Between her laptop and Blackberry she brought the entire operation with her. Then Bill recalled he had ‘stolen’ her from the White House chief of staff. She knew this place and the drill. She turned to Bill and said, “Kronos on c.o. four.”
Bill looked at his phone for anything with a number four.
“The flashing light, boss,” Cheryl gently said.
“Kronos. I need you to do something extremely important.”
Kronos was at a skate park with a helmet on and a skateboard under his arm. He was definitely the oldest guy there, and in the opinion of many, a ‘cool coot,’ a local skater term for, ‘old guy whose skills are pretty decent.’