39
Situation Room
The White House
Washington, D.C.
0935 Local Time
Kyle had been to the White House a number of times, but always as a member of the First Family. The Easter Egg Roll, First Family Christmas photos, even once to impress a cute, and very awestruck, political science major he’d had a crush on. This was the first time he had come in an official capacity as a government employee.
Moose was at his side. He looked uneasy. He was wearing his only jacket, a threadbare tweed item that would have been rejected if he’d donated it to Goodwill. Both of them were tired, having gotten only a few hours’ sleep last night in the “quiet room” down the hall from their workspace at DIA headquarters.
They had endured a phalanx of security at the entrance and were now following an intern down the hall.
“You must know your way around here,” Moose said at a stage whisper.
“Certain parts. A lot of it I’ve never seen. Did you put together that PowerPoint?”
“I was too busy programming the next search. But I did get the videos uploaded.”
“Okay…then we wing it.”
“You’re gonna do most of the talking, right?”
Kyle laughed. “MAADN is going to be the star. You and I are just the messengers.”
The reason for the hastily drawn meeting had come out of nowhere. MAADN had spent the previous night scouring Tangier for any traces of Ronald Hauptman, the mysterious missing passenger from SAM 719. Then early this morning, at the direction of the White House, the CIA had shared more information. The man they were looking for was named Gunther Klaus, a Swiss banker who was attempting to reach the West with a trove of information on illicit Russian finances. With that bit between its digital teeth, Cyber Cell 6 started plowing.
The results came quickly and were nothing less than a revelation. After a brief phone call to Mary Pat, it was decided that an in-person briefing by Kyle and Moose would be the best option.
Their escort descended a set of stairs and led the way to the Situation Room. There were perhaps ten people in the room, the bulk of the National Security Council. Kyle had met a few of them at social occasions he’d been dragged to, and the rest he either recognized or knew by reputation. Mary Pat Foley stood beside his father, who was sitting at the head of the large conference table. Kyle locked eyes with his dad—no, he corrected, the President in this situation—for a prolonged moment. The connection was clipped when someone shut the doors behind them.
Kyle hadn’t been nervous about the meeting. He knew he wasamong friends and one family member. But now, in the hush of this famous room, with the weight of what they were about to discuss…he began to feel the pressure. He was no longer in his binary comfort zone, dealing with ones and zeros. This was the real world, a far grayer place, where decisions were made that could cost men’s lives.
“Welcome,” said Mary Pat, her eyes on him and Moose. She introduced them by name—their real ones—and their affiliation with the DIA’s Cyber Cell 6. She then got straight to business.
“I understand you have some footage relating to our operation in Tangier?”
Moose set up a laptop and went to work. A large projection screen was in place, and as he made the relevant connections Kyle started talking.
“Early this morning our team at CC6 launched a search on a Swiss national, Gunther Klaus. He is believed to have gone into hiding in Tangier, Morocco. According to the CIA, Klaus was supposed to have boarded SAM Flight 719 two days earlier, which as you all know ended tragically. Given that starting point, we backtracked and were able to place Klaus at the airport. In a still photo I believe you’ve all seen, we placed him on the curb in front of the executive terminal prior to the flight’s scheduled departure.
“Since then, we’ve been able to recover the full video.” Kyle gave Moose a signal. The clip began to run, and Kyle provided narration. “You can see Klaus exiting a taxi and approaching the terminal. As he does so, another man appears and clearly gets Klaus’s attention. Before the second man can close in, a policeman cuts him off. We’ve reviewed the footage carefully, and we believe this was nothing more than a stroke of luck—the man had left his car unattended on the curb, something the police are trained to watch for.” Gesturing to the video, Kyle said, “Klaus isclearly spooked. He uses the distraction to disappear into the terminal. We don’t know where he went after that.”
“Do we know who this man was?” asked his father. “The one who approached him on the curb?”
“We grabbed the best image and ran it through enhancement algorithms followed by facial recognition. We were able to achieve a high-confidence match. His name is Joachim Bartos. He’s former Czech Republic Special Forces, and for the last five years Bartos has hired himself out as a mercenary in Africa and the Middle East. The NSA was able to isolate his phone and run a partial call history. At the time of the photo, he’d been in Tangier for at least two days, presumably to search for Klaus. Using what we learned about him, along with what the CIA has on file, we performed a deeper dive and uncovered some new footage.” Kyle signaled for Moose to run the second clip, and a grainy CCTV feed filled the screen. Three men, one of whom was almost certainly Bartos, could be seen rushing through a foyer and up a flight of stairs.
“This took place roughly five hours ago. The footage was acquired from a security camera in the lobby of Klaus’s apartment building. Minutes after these men ran upstairs, we can see Klaus escaping.” The time stamp advanced, and Klaus could be seen rushing down the stairs and out into the street. “We’re not sure how he got away, but Klaus is clearly aware that he’s been hunted.”
Another finger swipe from Moose, and the final video ran. “This next scene takes place roughly twenty minutes later. The footage was obtained from various cameras at a large outdoor market nearby.”
From various vantage points, the three men who had rushed up the stairs of Klaus’s building appeared to be searching for him in the market. There were also momentary sightings of a nervous Klaus, who was clearly trying to evade them.
Kyle said, “Analysis of various signal intercepts suggests these individuals were tracking Klaus using Quark. It’s an app designed by an Israeli company. The Israelis are leading edge when it comes to hacking and tracking phones, and they’re not shy about selling their apps on the open market.”
The screen went blank, and President Ryan asked, “Do we know if they caught up with Klaus?”
