But this time, as he stared downward, it was the light that won out.
Jen Huffman relayed the GPS coordinates of the EMP device to Kit and Buzz simultaneously. “This is weird, but the signal is stationary. Wouldn’t the GPS unit be destroyed on impact?”
“Apparently not. Give me the location,” said Kit.
“Two blocks east of South Rainbow and just north of West Post Road, but, wait and I’ll tell you what’s in the immediate vicinity…. Looks like half a dozen different companies—Consolidated Janitorial, Good Times Catering, Mainichi Auction House. That might be it. Private storage vaults!”
“That’s it,” said Kit. “Buzz, you copy?”
“Copy.”
“Hey, Yulana. Congratulations! The little boy didn’t go boom,” said Angel.
“But I’m worried about his crude Russian cousin,” she said.
Alex Bobrik and his two assistants sat patiently waiting in the subterranean room below AT&T’s PIC. PIC was an unofficial nickname used by telecom workers when referring to the “central office,” a physical location where local communication lines are merged with interexchange, or long haul lines.
The basement room where Alex and his team waited housed a main repeater station for AT&T’s southern fiber-optic trunk line. A massive three-foot-wide bundle of fiber-optic cables—there were thirty thousand individual fiber-optic cables in the bundle—ran vertically up from an opening in the cement floor and entered a gigantic relay switch. The bundle ran out of the other side of the switch and disappeared back into the cement floor as it continued its journey across the United States, all the way to Los Angeles.
There was no more space left for data on this cable bundle, since the recent severing of AT&T’s northern fiber-optic trunk line in Wyoming had caused all available room to be given to customers with the biggest clout—the big banks and the U.S. government.
The Russian technician with dark circles under her eyes adjusted some sort of electronic collar that had been placed around the cable bundle. The collar was connected via inch-thick black cables to some kind of portable device about the size of a microwave oven, and Alex’s laptops were connected to that device, which the Russians had nicknamed, the “toaster.”
Alex checked his watch, but what they were really waiting for was a radical change in the reading of the voltmeter Alex held, a change that would signal the power was out at the AT&T facility, out due to rolling blackouts that would soon plague the entire city and hence would not draw any suspicion to the PIC itself.
When the power went off, however briefly, Alex could make an “electronic splice” and begin stealing some of the most closely guarded secrets of a host of major banks, stock exchanges, brokerage houses, Fortune 500 companies, and the United States government, including secure communications from POTUS—President of the United States—and some of America’s intelligence agencies.
And the best part was that the thefts would go unnoticed until long after the catastrophic damage was done.
CHAPTER 37
Dennis Kedrov checked the time on the dashboard clock as he rolled the yellow golf ball around in his hand. He knew something was wrong. He could see all of the lights still on for blocks ahead.
Each of the trucks in Dennis’s convoy had very heavy, specially constructed boxes made of lead. Those boxes held all of the men’s electronics: watches, cell phones, two-way radios, flashlights, laser sights, and thermal optics. This was precautionary, since they were parked just outside of the estimated zone of effective damage. The trucks’ diesel engines would not be affected, he had been told, even if they were inside the zone.
He shook his head and smiled. Bennings has outwitted Viktor Popov! Dennis knew it was true, and a part of him was thrilled by the revelation. Yes, his boss would simply now drop the Russian bomb, and if it worked, the plan would still go forward. But Popov had not planned well at all. The American should never have been approached. This should have been a Russian maskirovka operation exclusively from start to finish. What in the world had gotten into his boss? But then, Dennis knew the answer, and had already begun taking steps to protect his own interests. Clearly, former KGB General Viktor Popov was well past his prime.
And when crime lords are past their prime, upheaval generally follows.
“Tak chto, dorogiye pridurki, my zakonchili igrat’?” So, dear assholes, are we finished playing? Popov scowled as he released the Russian bomb and sent it hurtling toward the airspace above Mainichi Auction House.
He nosed the helo into a radical descent but kept a wide birth of the target area to escape the effects of the bomb.
Jerry Kotsky checked the wall clock in the security duty office of Mainichi Auction House. He checked the wall clock because his watch, along with certain other items, right now rested in a lead box disguised to look like his lunch cooler.
Any second, he thought. The night-shift lieutenant sat at the duty officer’s desk filling out paperwork. The female officer at the CCTV monitor station had a bank of sixteen monitors in front of her, but she was cycling through other camera views, doing a good job of keeping an eye on things.
Then suddenly the room went dark. Pitch black. All of the monitors shut down, every last LED light was gone. Jerry literally could not see the fingers just inches from his eyes.
“What the hell?!” exclaimed Jerry.
“What’s going on, what happened?! Where are the emergency lights?” asked the lieutenant. “The backup generators?”
“I can’t see a thing,” said Jerry as he bent down in the utter, complete blackness and found his cooler, then flipped open the lid.
“Damn!” yelled the lieutenant.
“What now?” asked the female officer.
“My cell phone is red hot. I was going to use it as a flashlight,” said the lieutenant.
“Mine too, call nine-one-one.”
“Yeah, no kidding, if I can find the phone. Use your radio to call and have everybody check in. Jerry, grab a flashlight.”
“My flashlight isn’t working,” said Jerry.
“The battery is hot on my radio,” said the female officer. “Radio check, radio check.”
There was no answer.
“Press the squelch button.”
“I tried, but it’s not working,” she said.
“What the hell is happening? Jerry, you’re a smoker, where’s your lighter?” barked the lieutenant.
“One second.”
Jerry found the HK45 Tactical pistol in his cooler with a suppressor attached and a thermal sight. He felt for the button, and the thermal sight lit up.
“There’s no dial tone for the phone. Damn! The lighter, Jerry!” said the lieutenant impatiently.
“Here, let me light you up.” Jerry stood and fired two rounds into the lieutenant’s head, and was fascinated by how the blood splatter looked through the thermal sight, which showed temperature variations of surface objects.
The screams of the female officer suggested that even with the suppressor attached, she must have seen some muzzle flash, so Jerry found her in the sight as she stumbled toward a wall, and he shot her three times.
He turned on a flashlight that he’d also removed from his cooler and put one more round into her head. He then crossed to his special cooler and equipped himself with the rest of the gear from within: two-way radio, two cell phones, extra flashlights, ammo magazines, and night-vision goggles. He put the goggles on, turned off the flashlight, and voilà! He could see but no one could see him. He opened the door and moved into the total blackness of the hallway, looking for targets.