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MacD was chagrined. In their haste, he’d neglected to tell the neighbors not to mention they had gone to the Werners’ cabin. Overholt had found them without breaking a sweat. It would have been that easy for John Smith too, he thought darkly and cursed his oversight.
“Impressive,” he finally said.
“Son, I learned to be a spy from Allen Dulles himself. Do you know where the Oregon is?”
“Monte Carlo.”
“Excellent. I am afraid that I must ask you to cut short your visit and come with me. Time is of the essence.”
“Where are we going?”
“Pensacola Naval Air Station, where, if a colleague of mine has been successful, a jet is standing by to take you to the Oregon.”
“What’s the rush?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lawless, but I must insist we leave right away. I’ll explain everything once we’re airborne.”
To get an eighty-year-old man to fly halfway across the country, MacD knew that this was something important. “Give me a minute.”
He turned and was surprised to see that his father hadn’t listened after all, and his parents and daughter were crowded in the doorway, gawking at the chopper and its distinguished-looking passenger. All three seemed to know that he was leaving with the man. Pauline and Kay both had tear-welled eyes, and his dad had clenched his jaw to fight from crying too. The good-byes were as painful to experience as they were for Overholt to watch, especially knowing that young Pauline had just been returned to the bosom of her family.
Five minutes later the pair was settled in the utilitarian chopper and wearing helmets with a private voice channel so they could not be overheard by the flight crew. The cargo master, who had helped Overholt step from the big helo, studiously ignored them as the chopper lifted clear of the beach and started pounding eastward in a hundred-mile dash to the Navy base.
“I want to thank you again, Mr. Lawless,” Overholt opened. “I know you wanted to spend more time with your family.”
“You can call me MacD.”
Overholt digested the odd nickname and nodded. “All right, MacD. A couple days ago there was a security breach at the White House involving our nation’s nuclear codes.” He held up a hand when he saw the questions racing through MacD’s mind. “It was a demonstration of what our best and brightest finally figured out is a machine called a quantum computer. Do you know what that is?”
“It’s theoretical now, but someday they’ll make the ones we use today as obsolete as vacuum tubes.”
“Quite right. However, it is no longer theory. One was used to hack into the NSA and ferret out the most secure set of numbers in the world. With that demonstration came a list of demands that we pull troops out of Afghanistan and all of the Middle East, release the Guantánamo detainees, cut off aid to Israel, that sort of thing.”
“Is it al-Qaeda? That sure sounds like their manifesto.”
“Unknown at this time, but considered unlikely for reasons I’ll explain in a minute. The president delayed action, and at the exact same time the following day there was another communication—a fax, actually—stating that the blood was on the president’s hands. Moments later the Acela train crashed into another locomotive. Over two hundred dead.”
“God. Ah heard about that on the radio. They said it was an accident.”
“It wasn’t,” Overholt said sharply. “It was a deliberate act of terrorism.”
“What are we goin’ to do?”
“Therein lies the rub. The unknown terrorist knows our every move because he can tap into our communications grid—landlines, cells, and everything that passes through a satellite, including the military birds. And they tell me this computer can decrypt our toughest codes. We can’t mobilize our armed forces without telling him we’re coming.
“That is why our response must be carried out by couriers and all correspondence done on typewriters. We’re practically back to where I started in this game. It was Fiona Katamora who reached out to me. She was rescued by the Corporation last year and remembered the Chairman well. Because our hands are tied, we want to sic Juan and the rest of you cutthroats on this terrorist.”
“I get it. You can’t just call him because this guy will know.”
“Precisely, my boy. I carry the message to you and you take it back to the Oregon, and nothing’s been put out over the wire. Even the flight we’re arranging for you is being handled by a Navy captain from the Pentagon. He flew to Pensacola yesterday with a presidential decree.”
“Is the president aware of our mission?”
“Obliquely. He knows we’re up to something, but the fewer details getting spread around, the better. We’re keeping the group as tight as possible to avoid an inadvertent slip over the phone or in an e-mail. The staffer from the Joint Chiefs getting you the plane has no idea who’ll be on it or why.
“Tell Juan that he has to locate the computer and destroy it,” Langston continued. “If he doesn’t, I fear for the fate of our great country. In fact, I fear for the fate of the world. This man”—he spat the word—“professes to value life, which is why he hasn’t used his awesome capabilities to destroy us outright, but the Middle East could explode overnight if Israel’s enemies sense she is a weakened state. And without our military help, Pakistan could fall to a Taliban-type regime in months, giving them nuclear capability and the hatred toward us to use it.”
“How will we communicate with you?” MacD asked.
