BETA - Project Avatar, page 34
He shook his head slowly. “You’re right. It’s going to be impossible. They’re never going to be satisfied until we’re both lobotomized and permanently locked away in padded cells.”
“That’s a lovely image,” Dee laughed. Then her expression clouded again, “Beta, what does all this have to do with Operation Hydra?”
“I don’t understand the question. Would . . . ”
“No, Beta. Is Operation Hydra associated with Project Avatar?” she asked.
“No, Operation Hydra is an active classified operation that is independent of Project Avatar. Project Avatar is no longer operational.”
Dee gave up on that line of questioning. “Beta, you’ve saved my life many times this week. You’ve been very helpful to me.”
“Thank you, Melody.”
“Why have you been so helpful, and yet you’ve issued an order for my suppression and detention?”
“I have two primary directives,” Beta reminded her. “My first directive is to assist and protect my registered owner. My second directive is the greater good of the American people.”
Abe began to laugh bitterly and nearly inhaled another glob of doughnut. “That’s rich,” he said. “It’s programmed to save your life and get you killed, both at the same time.”
She was silent, leaning on the rooftop wall overlooking the ocean, resting her forehead in the palm of her hand. It was just sinking in that she could never rely on Beta for advice again. She hadn’t realized until now how dependent she had become on this software. She suddenly felt terribly alone and unprotected.
“I guess I’d better just turn it off for good,” she said.
“Wait,” Abe said. “I just thought of something. Beta, I’ve got a question.”
“Yes, Abe. Would you like to hear a menu?”
“No, that’s okay, you little skunk. Here’s my question. You have placed an order to the National Security Agency, commanding the suppression and detention of Dee Lockwood. Has UMBRA also ordered Dee Lockwood’s detention or . . . elimination?”
“Yes. UMBRA has a Priority Alpha detention order for Dee Lockwood.” Dee stood upright and stared at Abe.
Abe nodded, and said to her: “All right. I was afraid of that. You can turn it off now. I guess you know what comes next, and it’s a doozy.”
“Beta, go back to standby mode.”
“Yes, Melody,” it replied, and disappeared.
“I’m not sure what you think comes next, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s time to turn myself in and hope for the best.”
“Okay, that’s right, I’m with you.” Abe leaned close to the screen again, giving a close-up view of his dark-ringed, bloodshot eyes. “We’ll have to come up with a plan. I’ll work on that with my Sub guys. In the meantime, we’ve got to keep you out of sight.”
“All right,” Dee agreed. “I guess I'm already off to a pretty good start, as far as that's concerned. The heart of South America is probably a good launching point if you're planning to vanish off the map of the world.”
“Yeah,” Abe replied absently. “But wait a second! Don't sign off yet. You're forgetting about Operation Hydra.”
Dee was unable to avoid groaning out loud. “Oh, right! Do I even want to know about this? Is it really going to change anything? I doubt if things can get much worse than they are already.”
“That's probably true. It's just part of the background of the situation. Do you want to know, or should we just skip it?”
“Go ahead. Tell me.”
“Good. I'm actually kind of proud of this.” He grinned suddenly, looking surprisingly boyish. “This may have been the hardest piece of information I've ever had to track down. Though I admit that I had a lot of good luck, putting the story together. I don't think any of my contacts had any idea of the whole story. I cobbled it together from bits and pieces.”
“Abe, it's been a long night. Quit bragging and just tell me.”
“Grouch! Okay, here it is. As far as I can tell, Hydra is a conspiracy of some sort, happening inside the CIA. The big picture seems to be that a secret movement has been at work inside the CIA for years now, trying to manipulate the Kuwaitis to take the main Saudi oilfields.”
Dee's eyes opened wide. “Take? As in . . . invade?”
“That seems to be the size of it. All the main Saudi oilfields are crowded close to the Kuwaiti border, and the logic seems to be that if they belonged to Kuwait rather than Saudi Arabia, the U.S. would have more control over oil pricing.”
“That's appalling!”
“What can I say? You're right.”
“How certain are you of this?”
“I'd say it's confirmed. I know a guy who knows a guy who does electronics for the embassy in Kuwait City. The buzz is that a flurry of weird little backroom deals have been happening for months now, involving U.S. and Kuwaiti military and intelligence people, as well as diplomats and representatives of various ministries. Anti-Saudi sentiment seems to be running very high, and there's a so-called 'war game' gearing up right now that will concentrate pretty much the entire Kuwaiti ground and air forces along their southern border, facing the oilfields. Best guess is that the invasion will occur in three or four days.”
“Three or four days! This is unbelievable. Are you talking about an officially approved American intelligence operation?”
Abe laughed with a fair amount of force but no humor—a sort of braying sound. “Damn good question! It could be. Or it could be some nasty little cabal buried inside the CIA. You know how these things work. It could even just be one insane genius with a lot of authority at Langley and way too much time on his hands. Someone who knows General Tyrone Grimmer, obviously.”
Dee put her face in her hands and shook her head slowly. This news was so distressing that it briefly relieved her of the vast weight of her personal worries. “Well, we have to do something.”
Abe opened his mouth to reply, then just stared at her. He started again: “You can't be serious.”
“Of course I'm serious! You can't just walk away from something like that.”
He gave an irate, lopsided frown. “You can't. Speaking for myself, I lost all hope of saving the world when I was about twelve years old. Stuff like this happens, Dee. Get used to it.”
Dee got up and started pacing again. “We'll send an anonymous tip to the press. I'll do it. I've got nothing to lose.”
“Yeah, right. Aren't you forgetting something?”
“What, that I'm an international fugitive?”
“No. I'm assuming you haven't forgotten that. I'm talking about a little assumption you're making. Namely, that this is the work of a madman. What if it's an official, government-approved military strategy?”
“Oh come on! How could it be?”
“It could be, and you know it. The vast majority of diplomatic negotiations that take place in the Middle East happen in closed-door sessions. And military strategizing? Don't even get me started! For all you know, Saudi Arabia isn't even our ally anymore.”
Dee stopped pacing and stood still with her arms crossed over her chest. “Drat. That's true, isn't it?”
“Of course it's true. It's not like the White House would issue a statement on television if we stopped getting along with the Saudis. And they've always been our weirdest allies. Unless China counts.”
“Fair enough.” Dee glanced up from her brooding for a moment. “Is China our ally?”
“Ha! I can never keep that straight. But let's not get sidetracked here. My point is just that you can't go blowing the whistle on top-secret international operations when you don't even know if they've been condoned by your government or not.”
Dee stamped her foot in frustration. Then she took a deep breath and sat herself down, leaning her face closer to her smartphone, as if huddling nearer to the little image of Abe's face. “Why do I have to be hearing about this right now?” she asked rhetorically, in a pleading voice. “If I weren't tangled up in this whole mess with Project Avatar, I could probably use my regular contacts to find out if Hydra is legitimate or not. Then I wouldn't have to lose sleep over it.”
“If you weren't tangled up in Project Avatar,” Abe pointed out, “you never would have heard of Hydra.”
“True.”
“Take my advice, just forget this thing.”
“I don't think I can do that.” Dee pinched her eyes closed, trying to imagine how she would feel if she read the news of an illegal war in the Middle East next week, and knew she could have prevented it. Her head began to shake slowly. “You know, if I weren't a fugitive, I would never let a thing like this slip past.”
“Yes, but . . . ” Abe appeared to be watching her image on his computer screen with some alarm.
“If this is an unapproved and criminal war, someone has to do something.”
Abe's image on the little screen slumped visibly. “I know,” he admitted. “I know.”
Suddenly Dee brightened up a little. “I've got an idea! I'll get Beta to help!”
“Oh, no.” Abe raised both hands and waved his palms at her. “Don't even think about it!”
“Why not?” Dee sulked. But her tone betrayed her, showing that she knew why not. She added, almost pleadingly, “Beta would know what to do.”
“Yeah, it sure as hell would. That's kind of the point. Dee, swear to me, swear to me, that you're not going to turn that thing back on.”
“All right, all right. It was just an idea.” She sat herself up very straight and faced the camera grimly. “Then there's only one way. It will be morning soon. When the U.S. consulate opens, I'm going to turn myself in.”
“What! You can't do that!”
“It's the only way. If I say nothing, it's likely that tens of thousands will die, all on the whim of some criminal lunatic. God, if this invasion really goes ahead it could ignite wars across the whole of the Middle East! You know how volatile the region is right now.”
“Yes, but don't do it!” Abe's image was lurching about in a way that made Dee feel a little seasick, and it took her a moment to realize that he had actually picked up his laptop with both hands and was shaking it, as if trying to bully some sense into her electronic image on the screen. “If you turn yourself in, no one's going to listen to you! You'll just vanish. You're not going to get the ear of anyone that matters. And certainly not in the next three or four days!”
Dee frowned and shook her head slowly from side to side. “I know that you're probably right—almost certainly. But if I don't try, I'll never be able to live with myself.” Dee closed her eyes, thinking of the face of her father, then of her sister, Cecelia. What would those faces look like to her, if she knew that she had allowed a major war crime to occur and had done nothing to prevent it? Then John's face appeared behind her closed eyelids, unbidden, staring at her searchingly.
She shuddered and stood up again. “The consulate will be open in three hours,” she said firmly. “Just enough time to make myself presentable. I'm turning myself in.”
Abe stared at her, aghast, for a few silent moments, until he saw her hand reaching out to cut the connection. “Wait!” he yelled. “Wait a second, Dee. There is another way.”
“No, there's not. My mind's made up.”
“Actually, there is.” Abe gave a strange, sheepish smile. “The truth is, I thought up kind of a wild plan before I called you. But I really didn't want to talk about it.”
“A plan?” Dee leaned over her cell phone, casting a look of a unprecedented wrath down at Abe's little face. “You had a plan? And you weren't going to tell me?”
“See, it's kind of reckless. All right, just settle down. You look like you're about to bite your cell phone.”
“God, you make me furious sometimes. I was on the verge of turning myself in!” Dee clenched her teeth for a few seconds, then took a breath and said, “Okay, spit it out.”
Abe made placating gestures with his fingers in the air and said, “Look, the problem is simple. We don't know whether Operation Hydra is an officially authorized covert action or not. Right?”
“Right.”
“Well, the most efficient way to find an answer to that is not to ask someone. In fact, asking someone is likely to be counterproductive, because almost anybody who knows the answer, whatever it is, is just as likely to tell us a lie as to tell the truth. The best way to find out the answer is to dig it up ourselves.”
Dee made a wheeling motion with her hand in the air, prompting him to speed up the recital a little. “But I'm assuming you've already tried that, and found out that it can't be done.” She gave a terse smile. “Even the mighty Substructure has its limits. Am I right?”
“Sort of. You're right that I have no way to get into federal files at that level of classification. But I'll bet you can.”
Dee opened her mouth to make a snide rejoinder, then stopped. “Me? What are you talking about? Those kinds of files are going to be isolated behind firewalls on the national security database. Even if I had access to the machines, I wouldn't have nearly the clearance level to open a file like that.”
Abe paused, then surprised her with an impish grin, indeed one that bordered on devilish. “But . . . in this particular case that wouldn't necessarily stop you. Now would it?”
“Abe!” But despite her shocked tone, Dee's mind was already racing through the possibilities.
“You’ve had clearance into some of the most secure computer facilities in the country at one time or another. Hell, you designed half their cryptosystems. You’re going to have to hack into one of them and find the logs for Operation Hydra’s chain of command.”
Her eyes unfocused from the screen, and she found herself looking at the eastern horizon, where the rising sun was creating its first silver-orange glow over the Atlantic. In tired, hollow tones, she said, “It’s impossible. You can’t even approach the firewalls of those databases unless you’re on site. I’d have to physically break into one of the most secure facilities of the intelligence network.”
“Break in, or just sneak in. I know, it sounds tough, but you have to do it. I’ll come with you.”
She couldn’t help scoffing a little, trying to imagine him sneaking into anything at all. “Do you have any idea what those places are like?”
“In principle. I’ve never actually been in one. All right, not me, then. Look, I’ll find someone to work with you—someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“Great. So this person and I will just stroll into . . . where? CIA headquarters in Langley? The NSA building at Fort Meade?”
“There’s the place in Kansas,” Abe suggested.
“Right, the one where they send out long-wave communications to the nuclear submarines? I don’t think they hand out visitor passes.”
“No, you’re right. Scratch that. The easiest one would probably be the Clearinghouse.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the black-ops cash center in the Cayman Islands. You’ve never heard of it? Well, that makes sense. There’s no reason you would have, since you’re always paid over the table.”
She frowned, becoming interested in this line of thought despite herself. “The Clearinghouse? No, I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard of it. But if it’s an offshore facility, they’re not going to have access to black-box files.”
“Yes, they do! That’s the beauty of it. Better still, it’s not even on a military base—it’s self-contained.”
“What does this place do?”
“They launder money, basically. Then disperse it to fund clandestine operations.” Abe had run out of doughnuts, and it was clear that the conversation was coming to an end.
“To clandestine operations—you mean like Operation Hydra?”
“Sure. Black ops that have some kind of approval but can never appear on the congressional budget or in any report to Congress, because they’re usually against the Constitution or break some international law or treaty.”
“You’re kidding! That’s the sleaziest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“Really? Well, you’re going to love the Caymans. You can round out your education there. On top of that, the seafood this time of year is unbelievable.”
“What happens if I fail?” she asked nervously.
Abe sat thinking for a while, then said, “I’ll send the operation outline to Brice and tell him to publish it in a week unless he hears otherwise from us. That way, I can threaten the authorities with leaking the details if we need extra leverage.”
“Wow, you know, I think that might actually work,” Dee said. “As long as I don’t get killed breaking into the Clearinghouse. Maybe I can ask Beta to help me.”
“Dee! Have you gone completely bat shit?” he sputtered. “You are about to break into a high-security military facility, and you want Beta to help you?”
“Okay, okay. It was just a thought,” she replied, chastened. The whole plan just seemed impossible, and yet she had to do something. The consequences of failure were too horrible to contemplate. “Okay, I’ll do it,” she agreed.
“I’ll give you all the information we have on the Clearinghouse. Now, if you have any sense at all, you will pack up that application and never use it again.”
After a few moments of silence, she let out a slow breath. “Beta.”
The little animation reappeared on her smartphone, smiling agreeably.
“In a moment, I’m going to ask you to pack all of your code into a compressed-file format. Do you understand the command?”
“Yes, Melody.”
“I don’t want you to leave any active version of your code on this machine. Put everything into compressed form.”
“When should I execute the command?”
“Execute now.”
The image of Beta blinked off of Dee’s screen. For a few seconds, Abe and Dee were silent—waiting to make sure they were really alone.
“Beta. Beta, answer me immediately.”
No reply.
“It’s gone,” she said to Abe. She couldn’t keep a certain wistfulness out of her voice. “After we sign off, I’ll pack up the other copy, on my laptop.”
If Abe noticed her sadness, he didn’t respond. With obvious relief, he said, “Yeah, and don’t forget to overwrite the disk space with randomized data. Make sure that thing is dead and buried. All right, good. That’s step one.”
