Security: Jack Randall #4, page 21
Sydney considered the idea. “What if you just shut the whole place down?”
“The east coast is in blackout. Jack’s in complete darkness with a bunch of terrorists and the guys in the next room no longer have a reason to keep us alive.”
“So that’s bad then?”
“I’d say so.”
“Okay. Let’s not do that then. Pittsburgh will have to tough it out. What can we do?”
“I’m trying to re-hack my way in. So is a friend of mine. I have the security feed going to Larry’s computer now. He can see us. I’m hoping my friend made contact with him and is getting it to the people that need it.”
“What about Jack?”
“The only communication with the tunnel is through the landline in the next room. I’m looking for a way to tap into it but I haven’t found anything yet.”
“Don’t waste your time,” Beck said. “It’s a direct line only.”
“Are there cameras in the tunnels?”
“There’s one at the entrance. One at the inlet valve so we can visually verify its position, and one in each elevator, for the same reason. There’s two on the boring machine, but I’m guessing that it’s shut down. Those are for operation purposes though, not security, they don’t show up in the feed your man Larry is getting.”
Sydney said, “Makes sense. Why would you need security cameras in a tunnel full of water?”
“True,” Eric said. He rubbed his head and squinted his eyes.
Kianna asked, “So what do we do? Just sit here?”
Sydney said, “No, we think. We think of a way to help the people out there and we think of a way to help Jack and Greg in the tunnel. We can talk to the outside, well, text anyway, so that’s a start. Let’s try to come up with a way to talk to Jack.”
“I’m on it,” Eric said. He rubbed his head again, obviously in pain. Sydney had to ignore it, they needed him too much right now.
Sydney looked at the senator who looked ready to crack at any moment. Debra walked over to where the woman could see her, trying hard to keep her calm.
“Hurry, Eric. I’m not sure how much time we have.”
THE COMMAND CENTER
“Whoa, whoa, slow down. One at a time here. You, you go first.”
Stovall had commandeered an office suite in a nearby building that showed him a view of the dam and the tower. Its mirrored windows and multiple phone lines made it the perfect choice. Techs set up camera feeds and other communications. He’d been interrupted by the local cops stuffing two men into the room. They were clothed in filthy coveralls and covered in grey dust. They claimed to be tunnel workers. He motioned the two men into a corner office and shut the door.
Stovall pointed to the calmer of the two men. “Okay, start again.”
“We were in the tunnel, right? These guys come out of nowhere and they all have guns. They herd us into the supply cage and lock us in but your guy gets us out through the floor.”
“Wait a minute. Our guy?”
“Yeah. These two guys from Homeland Security and one of our engineers. Jack and . . .” He snapped his fingers trying to remember.
“Greg?”
“Yeah! Greg. Anyway, Jack and Jason, he’s our engineer, take us to the elevator while Greg and three others go down the tunnel to start up a few trucks.”
“Why?”
The other man explained, “The elevator makes noise. The trucks make more.”
“Then what?”
“We all squeeze into the cage, but there’s not enough room. Jason shut the door and sent us up. We get to the top and all these cops are there pointing guns at us. They yank us out and throw us on the ground, but I managed to send the elevator back down for Jack and Jason.”
“So where are they?”
“I dunno. The elevator stopped after half a minute or so.”
“I heard the brakes engage.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means whoever was at the bottom cut the power. There’s no going down or up now.”
Stovall asked, “So how many are still down there?”
The men exchanged a look. “Six?”
“Yeah. Greg took Wallace, Mitch and Jacobs with him. And then there’s Jack and Jason. That’s six.”
“How many terrorists?”
The men shrugged. “Couple dozen, including King.”
“Who’s King?”
“One of our guys. His real name’s Mustafa, but we’ve been calling him King since he started here. You know, after the Lion King?”
Stovall waved it away as insignificant. “So this guy is helping them. What does he do down there?”
“Runs a lift. That’s it. Just sits all day because of his leg.”
“His leg?”
“Got blown off in Iraq. Lost his whole family too, so the owner got him a job with us.”
“I see. I’d like you two to hang around and help me, that okay?”
“Can I call my wife first?”
“Just don’t tell her anything other than you’re all right and you’ll be home later, okay? Nothing else.”
The SEAL had switched to his command voice and both men got the picture. He gestured to the phone on the desk before walking to the window and staring out at the tunnel entrance. Obviously the men weren’t going to have any private conversations, but they used the phone anyway.
Stovall half-tuned them out while he reviewed what they had told him. Jack and Greg on the inside could be a positive if it were just the two of them. The others changed the game. Stovall had to get them out before an assault on the tunnels could be an option. He was weighing options when Carson stuck his head in the door.
“Hey, LT, you better come and see this. We’ve got the feed from the security cameras.”
“I knew there was a reason I kept you around. How’d you do that?”
Carson said, “Wish I could take credit but it came to us by way of the FBI. Jack’s partner back in DC.”
“How did he get it?”
“Not sure, he was kind of vague about that. You need to talk to him yourself.”
People clustered around a large screen. Stovall elbowed his way to the front.
The screen displayed a rolling set of images. Most showed empty rooms or pieces of machinery and were void of people except for the control room. Carson froze the image. Four men were visible, two at the console and two others, holding rifles, standing in the corners. A control box sat on the console next to one of the men along with a submachine gun.
“Look through the glass.”
Peering through the glass room divider Stovall could make out a few people sitting on the floor. He counted eight. One of them was the senator. He recognized one of the others.
“That’s the woman who works with Jack. Sydney something. She’s probably armed.”
“What are those things on the desks?”
Carson zoomed in and despite the loss of clarity they could make out the objects well enough to see what they were.
“That’s an explosive charge, LT. I count four of them.”
“Shit.”
THE TUNNELS
Jack peered into the tunnel while Jason checked on the elevator. The leader must have assumed all the men other than Greg and his crew had escaped and had not bothered to leave a guard on it. He heard a whisper from Jason who was motioning him back into the shadows.
“Well?”
“They just used the Emergency Stop. All we have to do is start the pumps and release the brakes and we’re out of here. They won’t hear us over the drills.”
“You don’t know that. I saw one guy crossing over to the other tunnel and another carrying some parts the other way. It takes too long to get to the top, they could still hear it and stop it.”
“So what do we do?”
“We’ll have to come up with a way to delay them long enough for us to get to the top.”
“How?”
“I don’t know that yet. We need to find Greg and the others. Let’s go south.”
Jason frowned at that. With a last look at the elevator he followed Jack into the crates.
They passed another communication box. Like the others the handset was gone and the panel was smashed. If only they could talk to somebody outside. There had to be a way.
ODENTON, MARYLAND
Patrick shook his hands to get some more blood flowing before attacking the keyboard again. He was on his fourth can of Mountain Dew and had already run to the bathroom twice. Following Eric’s trail through the plant’s operating system was proving to be more difficult than he had thought. It was his own fault: he had taught Eric the security tricks he was now trying to overcome. So far he had managed to hack the camera feed and forward it to Larry who had then forwarded it again to someone near the dam. He assumed it was a SWAT team or something but didn’t want to waste time finding out.
Pittsburgh. He had almost countered the blackout but Eric had waved him off. He figured out why after a few minutes of thinking it through. OUR MEN INSIDE TUNNEL Eric had also texted. His texts were short and to the point, as if he had to keep them that way or risk getting caught. Patrick assumed the worst and after watching the camera feed for two minutes he confirmed it.
COMMO WITH M IN T?
NEG. TRY LL, CAMERAS, GPS
LL meant landline. He had already tried that, they were between the tower and the tunnel only, with no outside access. Of the cameras they had, there were none in the tunnel. Or were there? GPS? What the hell was he talking about?
NEG LL. CAMERAS? GPS?
BIG VALVE. BIG BERTHA.
“Valve? What valve?” he asked the cat. “What the hell is he talking about?”
EXPLAIN
No answer.
Big valve? The only big valve was the one holding back the river. Did they have a camera on it? Was there another system of cameras he didn’t know about? Who the hell was Bertha? He grabbed the phone.
“Hello?”
“Larry, it’s Florey. I need to talk to someone who works there.”
“Hold on a sec.” Larry punched buttons and Patrick heard ringing.
“Stovall. What you got for me, Larry?”
“I’ve got a friend on the phone here who needs to talk to somebody who works there.”
“Would this be the hacker guy you mentioned?”
Patrick cut in. “Yes, I’m the hacker guy and I’m texting with Eric. I need to talk to somebody who works there. I can’t understand what Eric is telling me.”
“Just who are you anyway?”
“Not important. Eric sent me two messages but now he’s not answering. Is he okay?”
“We think those are his feet peeking out from under the desk in the top right of the frame. The guard is walking back and forth outside the window. He’s probably just being careful. What did he say?”
The tunnel workers entered the room escorted by Carson. They arrived in time to hear Patrick’s question.
“When I asked him about communicating with the men in the tunnel he said ‘Big Valve Big Bertha.’ Any idea what he’s talking about?”
“It has to be the inlet valve at the top of the tunnel. It’s holding back the river.”
“Is there a camera there?”
“Yeah. So they can verify that it’s functioning. It’s embedded in the wall of the tunnel behind two inches of glass. But it only sends the image to the tower, you can’t even get to it without climbing up the tunnel shaft.”
“Any others?”
“One at the tunnel entrance, but it’s outside the doors. There’s two others on the boring machine, but they shut down Bertha when they took the crew off.”
“Bertha? The name of the machine is Bertha?”
“Yup.”
“Is there communication with it, her, whatever?”
“There was. But they took all of our radios and stripped the handsets out of the commo boxes. There’s nothing left. Except maybe the guidance system.”
“Say that again?”
“The guidance system. It’s a GPS system that keeps Bertha on track. Accurate to three inches. It works on a series of relays that are wired above the conveyor.”
“Is there power to this system?”
“Maybe. If the power in the tunnel is still on there should be, just have to flip a switch in the cockpit.”
“Okay, okay, this is good. I can work with this. If Jack, or . . . what’s your guy’s name?”
“Jason.”
“Jason. If they get to Bertha can he make the GPS work?”
“Pretty simple. But how you gonna get them to go to Bertha? It’s a dead end. They’ve got no reason to go there.”
“It’s a fair question, Mystery Man,” Stovall said.
“Tell me about these elevator shafts.” Patrick listened for two minutes before an idea came to him. “Okay, listen. What if we do this?”
“Security holes in power grid have federal officials scrambling.”
—LA Times
—TWENTY-EIGHT—
THE TUNNELS
Jack and Jason crouched behind a stack of rebar while two men walked by. They were just south of the second elevator and a hundred yards short of the cage.
“Listen.”
It sounded like a air horn. Faint at first and then louder. A long blast followed by three short ones. It repeated once before pausing and doing it again.
“What is that?”
“No idea,” Jason said. “Not our equipment.”
“Where’s it coming from?”
“From the north I think. If it’s not our equipment than it has to be coming from the surface.”
“The elevator shaft?”
“Maybe.”
Jack listened to the sounds repeat. What the hell was it?
ELEVATOR ONE
“Not sure what the hell this is going to do?” the fire chief yelled.
An officer yelled back, “I’m just following orders myself, chief.”
They stood in the elevator room with three of his men. Others had been forced outside by the noise. A set of wires and an air hose trailed through the partially open door and disappeared over the side of the shaft. Down below a truck’s air horn dangled on a hastily rigged rappelling rope and was blasting away in the ordered pattern. The chief held a radio to his ear.
“How long do we do this?” he screamed.
“Two more minutes!”
They shrugged and put fingers in their ears. Whatever the man wanted.
THE TUNNELS
Four hundred feet below Jack listened to the blasts echoing up and down the tunnels.
One long, three short. Or was it three short and one long?
He asked, “Do the letters VV mean anything to you?”
Jason said, “No, why?”
“How about BB?”
“BB? Not that I can . . . no wait, Big Bertha? Is that what they mean?”
“It’s Morse code. It’s either VV or BB. What’s Big Bertha?”
“It’s what the crew call the boring machine.”
The sound suddenly stopped and Jack almost spoke too loud.
“The boring machine? Why would they want us to go there?”
“I don’t know. It’s no way out, it’s a dead end with limited overhead cover. The most dangerous part of the tunnel.”
“Are there communications?”
“Not unless you start it up. There’s a navigation system with an inertial and a link to . . . the GPS. We can send a text with the GPS without firing up the machine! That must be what they want. Idiot! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Relax. Quiet down. Can we get there?”
“It’s way past where they’re drilling. If they see us . . .”
“Yeah. We’re stuck in a dead end.”
AIR FORCE ONE
“Mr. President, I have an update for you.”
The man looked up from the briefing papers and motioned Chief of Staff John Taylor into the room. He was followed by his deputy and a young man in a Navy uniform.
“What do you have, John?”
“We’ve confirmed that they have Senator Prescott held in the tower with at least seven other hostages. Evidently she was there to observe an inspection by Homeland Security. She showed up unannounced but they let her join them. She’s there with one of her staff and a lobbyist from an environmental group. The others appear to be Homeland Security people or personnel employed by the dam itself. So far the press hasn’t picked up on that.”
“Any more casualties?”
“Three that we know of. Two at the tunnel entrance and one at the guard shack leading to the facility. There may be others inside we don’t know about.”
“And these are Somalis? You’re sure?”
“One of the leaders has been identified as Mukhtar Zubeyr, a Pakistani we’ve been looking for. He and his brother, who we’re assuming is in the tunnels, were engineering students at a university in Berlin when their family was killed by friendly fire back home. They returned home, were radicalized and then disappeared. There were sightings in Yemen and Somalia several months ago, but little since. We’ve reviewed their transcripts and they have the education to operate the dam. One of their professors is being watched by the Bundeskriminalamt, but they only have suspicions at this time. The brothers proved they have enough working knowledge of the grid by what we saw with Pittsburgh. I’m told they could black out the upper east coast at any time. They’re the leaders, the rest appear to be Somali recruits.”
The President contemplated the passing clouds outside the window. He had one hour before they landed at Andrews and made it back to the White House. Then he’d be expected to make a statement. He had nothing positive to say.
“Tell me some good news.”
“The majority of the men in the tunnel managed to escape. Two of our men were there on a tour when it happened and they were able to somehow distract the terrorists long enough for the others to get out. We think there are only six people being held in the tunnel now.”
“We’ve got two men inside? Who?”
“Greg Whitcomb is one. He’s been the leader of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team for the past three years and now with HS, and Jack Randall, he’s former FBI and now—”
