16
"Special Forces, served in Afghanistan and Iraq for a number of years,” said Rebecca Cohen, reading off the screen. “And get this: discharge code: 28B/HKA — Discreditable Incidents — Civilian or Military. What does that mean?”
Savas turned to Miller. “Frank, any idea?”
Miller shook his head. “It's not good, but it can cover a lot of ground. You could sweep almost anything under that. One thing is sure; he was out of control in some way.”
“So, we have an out-of-control former special-ops soldier functioning as an assassin who was chasing down a player in the underground terrorist network. Doesn't sound like a trained CIA operative.”
“Not sure he was the assassin,” said J. P. Rideout. “Sure, he was muscle hired to kill the guy, but he was sloppy. Looks like they needed someone fast and had to settle for poor quality control. When the Sheikh caused them problems, they brought in a second, an expert, who got the job done seriously.”
Savas sighed. They were back to the death squad idea. The growing mystique behind these kills was becoming almost superstitious. “Look, he was part of something. If these are CIA death squads running around the world murdering people, why hire a flaky ex-SEAL who could blow the entire thing? There aren't enough super-assassins in the world to cover all the territory these guys are covering. It's like a little army. Some soldiers perform better than others.”
“Army?” asked Matt King, his eyebrows raised.
“Honestly, people! These aren't superheroes! For the kind of impact they've had—”
“If you're right that they are all linked,” interrupted King.
“Yes, if I'm right, that kind of impact on several continents has to be associated with a large personnel base. There's no other way. When your operation gets too big, you always make recruitment mistakes. I think this is one of them. Besides, rogue CIA assassin teams don't suddenly get all organized and vengeful! This is a group, a large group, with a purpose behind it.”
There was silence in the room. Savas decided not to press the argument further.
“What else do we have?” he asked sullenly.
Cohen swiveled away from the computer screen and sighed. “That's it, John. Hardly any background. He was discharged four years ago, disappeared off the map, and showed up two thousand miles away from home brandishing a weapon in Queens.”
“There's got to be more. This is our only link!” he said in frustration. “Anything on that pendant?”
“No. Why?”
“I don't know,” began Savas hesitantly. “Not many men wear jewelry. If they do, it's usually a cross, Star of David, St. Christopher's medal, dog tags. Men tend to wear pendants that have meaning rather than as decoration. That pendant is unusual. Anything unusual can potentially tell us something.”
“All we have is an anchor with a bird's face,” said Rideout. “Not sure where we go with that.”
Savas was ready to call the meeting to an end when Hernandez came bursting into the room.
“John, you're going to love this,” he said, dropping a printout on the countertop beside the computer.
The other members of the group drew closer and strained to see the page. Savas picked it up. His brows furrowed as he stared at the strange collection of figures running across the page. After a few moments, he looked toward Hernandez expectantly.
“OK, Manuel, I'm stumped. What is this?”
Hernandez shrugged. “No idea. It was encoded in the big mysterious audiotapes you gave me.”
“They're runes.” It was Lightfoote. She had wiggled her way in between several bodies, her head almost on Savas's forearm, orange hair spilling everywhere, her gaze full on the page.
“Runes?” asked Hernandez, perplexed.
Lightfoote cocked her head at him. “Yeah, roooones,” she dragged out the vowel, mocking his question. “Letters. Old. Magical.”
“Oh, brother,” said Rideout under his breath.
“She's right,” said Cohen, staring closely at the paper. “Not sure of the writing system, but look — clearly letters of some kind, with broad strokes and simple forms. Old ones designed not for pen and paper but for carving, wood, or stone.”
Savas turned toward the former programmer. “Manuel, where did these letters come from?”
“Runes,” piped Lightfoote. Savas ignored her.
“That's the craziest part, John. The audio transmission, with the weird language no one understands, it was double-coded.”
“Meaning?”
“There was a second message overlaid at high frequencies. I found it by running the message through a Fourier analysis. In general, you would need to know to look for it, or you'd never extract it. The second message is coded, but it's clearly bitmapped imaging. I had to try a few permutations, but once I got the encoding right, out popped this. It's like a page worth of text and a diagram of what looks like a geographical region. These are instructions for the receiver.”
He handed Savas another printout, diagrams of a site.
“Looks like an assault plan,” said Miller.
“How can you be sure?” asked Savas.
“Style, points of entry, defense lines, observation points — here, and here. I've seen a thousand such drawings. Military style is easy to spot, once you know what to look for. I'd wager this is a plan of attack.”
“This is crazy,” said Savas. “I mean, hidden messages within messages, written in letters no one can read? Seems a bit extreme.”
“What about this doesn't, John?” asked Hernandez. “These guys are totally FUBAR. Secret language, layered codes — they set things up so that no one could possibly figure out what they were talking about. Now Frank says they are commando hit teams?” He looked at Miller, who merely shrugged. “Really out there, man.”
“John,” Cohen began, “just why are we looking into this audio? It must be related to the assassinations, but how?”
Savas frowned. “Larry's mum on that. Super spy, top-secret decoder ring material, I assume. I don't think we can find that out.”
“Think again,” said Hernandez. All eyes were riveted on him. “The map is laid out in precise detail, down to the friggin' coordinates. Convert to longitude and latitude, and bang, instant top-secret information.”
“And, so where is it?” asked Savas with irritation.
“Afghan-Paki border, dudes. Deep in the mountains. No-man's-land of terrorists and drug lords. Nice spot for a military assault plan.”
There was a pregnant silence. Savas whistled. “Larry, that bastard. He should have told us.”
“Told us what?” asked Matt King in confusion.
“Larry was called up to DC once we raised the lid on a connection between these murders. He came back with instructions relating to those killings, and this mysterious audiotape.” A dawning awareness spread across King's face. Hernandez nodded and looked back at Savas, who continued. “That's right. We have a connection not only to isolated hits but to larger, military-style missions in hostile territory. Secretive missions, not using any known military codes. Somebody is very serious about their pursuit of Islamic baddies.”
He checked his watch. “That's great work, Manuel, even if I don't know where the hell this is all leading.” Savas turned to the group. “Folks, this has been fun, but it's been assigned to Miller and me, if you remember. In ten minutes, we're all due in Larry's office for a breakdown on the much bigger story going on around us. Maybe these guys are purging their ranks, but we still have some serious terrorist activity going on, right on our front lawn. Let's minimally prepare, get me and Frank up to speed on the latest that you have, and head on up there.”