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Pace said, “I know Cuban radar stations are tracked, and we have a map of their blind spots. If we can get a couple of Blackhawks from MacDill, coming in low over the water, then maybe we—”
Watkins said, “I can’t go to the president with that.” He turned to Hernandez. “Steve?”
Hernandez seemed conflicted, but he said, “Actually, there is an existing protocol that might be simpler.”
Eyebrows rose around the room.
“I’ll just leave it there. But we can, with some effort, put eighteen jocked-up Ground Branch operators in Havana in a matter of hours.”
“And getting our people out after the raid?” Watkins asked.
Hernandez said, “I’ll work on that.”
Trey Watkins sat back in his chair. “Well…good. We obviously need the president’s approval. I’ll talk to the director.” To Pace he said, “Jim, you and Juliet Victor work up a plan, and Steve will put Travers in contact with the men we’re sending down.”
Pace said, “I don’t know how, but this needs to happen tonight.”
“I know,” Watkins said. “We just have to pray we have that much time. Okay, everybody clear out, I’m going to talk privately with Jim.”
Soon Trey Watkins sat alone in the conference room, looking into the camera, and Pace sat in the SCIF looking back.
Watkins said, “Primary objective is shutting this thing down somehow. Secondary is to retrieve this Cyrus if at all possible.”
“Retrieve it, sir?”
“Yes. Do you have any idea as to the physical form of this program?”
“My experts tell me there will be a node attached to the server farm where the actual brain is. All the data and processing power will be in the mainframes, but the executable program, the brain, will be on the drive.”
“Then that’s what we need. We’ll send you with a location to upload the data. I’m assuming that will take some time.”
Pace didn’t like this mission complication. The better plan, he thought, was to blow the facility to kingdom come.
But he wasn’t going to tell the deputy director his misgivings. “Understood.”
Watkins said, “You also have a tertiary objective, should your attempt to retrieve the program fail.”
“Which is?”
“Get Hinton.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Get him out, alive, and to the States.”
Shit, Pace thought. This nearly impossible operation was getting exponentially more complicated every time Watkins opened his mouth. “So he can work for us, I assume?”
“We would strongly encourage him to do that, yes.”
It was clear the U.S. wanted this artificial intelligence capability for itself, and if they couldn’t steal the product itself, they wanted to steal the brain behind it.
“If you can get me authorization, and you can get me some more men, then I will do my best to fulfill all your mission objectives.”
The conference ended, and Pace left the SCIF and headed to the cafeteria to see if they had Red Bull, or at least some coffee. He’d mainline either one at this point if it kept him sharp enough to pull this shit off.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Zack sat on the same stool at the same Old Havana bar on Calle Obrapia as the other night, willing someone from the Agency to make contact with him. He’d been here over an hour; he’d downed two beers and picked at a Cuban sandwich and fried plantains.
