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“Yessir,” Emma said.
“Where’d you get those images?”
“I – ahem – borrowed them from the National Imaging and Mapping Agency. And they got them from a Keyhole satellite.” She stopped the video, leaving only a still shot. “The video only lasts five minutes. As you know, Keyhole satellites are not stationary overhead.”
Silence.
Keyholes were among the nation’s top secret lines of defense. No photograph taken by a Keyhole satellite had ever been published. Hacking into NIMA and grabbing KH images was breaking about twenty different laws. Emma would be very aware of all of this. She would also be aware that if she were in the military, she could be court-martialed and sent to Leavenworth for the rest of her life. As a civilian, she could be tried in a court with no jury, closed to the public and sentenced to several decades in prison.
Raul bristled. This magnificent woman wasnotgoing to jail because she was doing her very best to stop an attack on US soil that could bring down the nation’s intelligence and security apparatus.
And then wreck the economy.
He stared hard at the monitor, as if he could stare right into Jacob Black’s eyes. Black was the wild card. He was the only outsider who knew. There wasn’t anyone else who could blame Emma for hacking into NIMA. “Emma was with the NSA and had the clearance to do what she just did. Which was on our order. She is not to be held –”
Black held up a big hand. “Can it, Raul. Nobody is looking to do anything but thank Emma for a very big break. Tell her to stay on the line because we’ll probably need her again. Tell her to send me that video with all the metadata scrubbed.”
Emma immediately bent to her laptop
He left, but the square where his face was remained empty.
It was 9:15.
“Sending scrubbed photos,” Emma said, to the air. But she continued working frantically.
“Got them,” Black said, a disembodied voice off-screen. “Thanks.” He kept the video function on and Raul could follow him through endless halls, with gleaming parquet floors, huge flower arrangements. An enormous coffee and tea station piled high with pastries, cakes, fruit. What looked like a thousand people milling around in the security and intelligence community in a form of Brownian motion.
An awful lot of people would die if they were right and didn’t stop this in time.
For a moment, Raul wished they were wrong. That some other calamity was about to hit somewhere else, far far away. On the other side of the country, far away from the brave men and women he saw through Black’s feed. Men and women who worked constantly to keep the country safe.
But logic and the crackling on the back of his neck was very clear that the danger was right here and right now.
Black was conferring with some serious looking dudes. Even the four women in the circle were dudes.
9:30.
“Black,” he interrupted. “I think you guys are going to have to start thinking of evacuation plans, even if you haven’t had time to look at the water pipes. It’s going to take a while to evacuate all these –”
“Wait!” Emma looked up from her computer monitor. Raul put a hand on her shoulder. That was panic he heard in her voice. She trembled under his hand. “How many security drones does the conference have operating at the moment?”
Black didn’t even have to think about it. “Ten over the compound, another fifteen around the perimeter. Why?”
“I’m getting the feed of twenty over the compound and twenty-five up to two miles out.” She was white down to her lips. “They’re watching you. If you start the evacuation, they could make the place blow at any moment. They might not wait.”
Black held up a long finger. “Bringing in the big guns. Wait a minute.”
He cut off the video again.
Raul and Emma waited. Toby was still pounding his keyboard, Raul had no idea why. They were past the discovery stage and were now trying to stave off disaster, both financial and physical. He didn’t care that much about financial disaster. What frightened him was the head of his country’s security and intelligence apparatus being lopped off. He couldn’t even think of the consequences, though SEALs were trained to evaluate worst-case scenarios. This one didn’t bear thinking about. His country would be fully open to its enemies for a while. He was running through his mind all the possible consequences when the big wall monitor sprang to life.
Black was flanked by Bob Bender, Director of the FBI, Martin De Martino, the head of Homeland Security and Anne-Marie Ingels, Director of the CIA.
Black introduced them to Emma, though Raul was certain she was already aware of who they were. “I briefed Bob, Martin and Anne-Marie already. We’re aware we’re short on time, and –”
He glitched and the next sentence was lost. When he came back online, he was looking seriously annoyed. “Sorry – we had –”
Emma bent forward. “That was me, sir. I’m experimenting with degrading the signal. Whoever is behind this is watching from the drones, you can be sure of that. I think I can degrade the signal in a way that looks natural, and not suspect. It would take them about half an hour to find out that the signal is being suppressed and they will send in more drones. In the next half-hour you’re going to have to send in EOD and evacuate the delegates. Whoever is watching cannot have a clue. I’m splicing together footage from the past few days, making sure it’s with the sun in the same position. You guys should evacuate as quietly as you can. I really hope they don’t have observers.”
