Rogue Operator (33 page)

“Yes,
they just put the EMP in today.”

“EMP?”
John
seemed excited by this. “Can you activate it?”

“Yes,
but they’d know. It’s not exactly quiet. And Phil would see me doing it as
well. We’re never alone.”

John
rubbed his chin.

“The EMP
would wipe out all of the computer research. Is there any paper?”

Jason
shook his head. “No, everything is kept on computer. If there’s paper, it’s
scanned and stored electronically. Notes are shredded. At least that’s how we
ran things back home. So there’s nothing here except electronic records.”

“Backups?”

“I don’t
see how they would have had time. And from what I’ve seen at the lab, there’s
no external linkages from a data perspective to the outside. I think we’re
wholly self-contained.”

“Prototypes?”

“They’re
there, but would be destroyed by the EMP.”

“We need
to activate that EMP somehow.”

“I could
program it to go off.”

“Huh?”

“It’s
linked into the lab computers. I could write a program that would activate it,
say at midnight tomorrow. Our lab would be empty, the buildup is only a couple
of minutes, and it’s only the last minute or so that you can really hear the
thing, and there’d be no time to stop it once started, without knowing what
you’re doing. And judging from the techs who installed it today, I’d say Carl,
Phil and I are the only ones who know how to handle it.”

“Do it.
I’m going to talk to Carl in a few minutes. I’ll let him know what’s going on
so he can help you tomorrow without you having to talk about it. Don’t say
anything to your family about this until ten minutes to ten.” He fished
something out of his pocket and handed it to Jason. It appeared to be a small
wrapped chocolate candy. “What time do you put your son down for bed?”

“Nine
o’clock.”

“Perfect.”
John
fished a device that resembled a remote control from his pocket. And
for the next ten minutes,
John
explained the plan to Jason, who
desperately tried to remember all the steps.

“Got
it?”

Jason
couldn’t honestly say he did. “I hope so.”

“Don’t
worry, you’ll do fine.”

John
stood and helped Jason to his feet.

“Promise
me one thing.”

John
looked at him. “What?”

“If this
doesn’t work, we don’t come back here.”

John’s
jaw squared, a look of respect written on his face as he looked
directly in Jason’s eyes.

“You
have my word.”

And the
fact that Jason didn’t doubt it, made the pit in his stomach all the more
hollow.

Peterson “Residence”, Outside the International Cooperation Center,
North Korea

Jason awoke to a hand gently shaking his shoulder. He opened his
eyes, but it was still too dark to make out anybody. His heart was momentarily
in a panic, but he quickly remembered the plan.

Part
one, the wake-up call.

The
remote control was handed to him, and as his eyes adjusted, he could see the
outline of
John
giving him a thumbs up. He returned it, and the shadow
disappeared.

Jason
made himself comfortable for the next hour, simply sitting up in bed, waiting
for the red LED lights on the alarm clock to read 5:45, fifteen minutes before
the house would begin to stir. He stared at the numbers, ticking past five am,
far too slowly.

His eyes
drooped.

He woke with a start, his heart slamming against his chest in panic.
He rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. 5:48.
Oh no!
He searched for
the remote, but couldn’t find it. Feeling around, he found it at his side, on
the bed. Grabbing it, he looked at the display, then pressed the number one.
The light went out. He then pressed each of the eight lit numbers until the
display was dark. He then placed it in the nightstand, and lay back down.

His
heart continued to race until the alarm screamed, announcing six am. He
pretended to wake with his wife, giving her his usual kiss, then headed into
the bathroom. He looked around as he went through his morning routine, trying
to find the device planted in this room, but couldn’t find it. After
John
had made his promise last night, he had gone through the house, searching for
all the bugs, and planting the recorders, while Jason lay in bed, trying to
fall asleep. He had thought he wouldn’t have much success, but he had, not
waking until
John
had woken him to hand him the control.

And he
assumed the same thing had happened at Carl Shephard’s “home” later.

Dressed,
he found his wife and kids at the table, looking a little groggier than usual.
He gave them all hugs and kisses, a little more intense than usual, the guilt
he felt over what had almost happened last night still consuming him. But the
hope he now felt, the first since their capture, fueled his aching body, and he
attacked his breakfast, knowing he’d need all the energy he could muster for
the day’s, and night’s, events.

He
shoveled the eggs onto his toast with the fork, then into his mouth. Maggie sat
down, dipping her toast into the soft egg yolk.

“Sorry I
fell asleep on you.”

Jason’s
chest tightened as he tried desperately to think of a way to change the
subject.

“Don’t
worry about it, I was dead tired too.” He pointed his toast at the eggs. “Do
these eggs taste different to you? Fresher?”

Maggie
shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. Probably from a nearby farm?”

Jason
shoveled the rest of his food into his mouth in record time, then jumped up.
“That was great, Dear, thanks.” He placed a kiss on Maggie’s forehead, then
headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He successfully killed the rest of
his time until he heard the crisp knock on the front door.

This
is it!

He
checked himself in the mirror, then headed for the door, kissing the kids and
Maggie, and joining his handler in the idling car waiting to take him to work.
He waved at the sad faces standing in the doorway, his own smile, forced the
previous days, genuine.

And
you’d better knock it off.

He wiped
the smile off his face, hoping
Kimmy
hadn’t noticed. That’s the name
he’d given his handler. If the man wouldn’t give him a name, he’d make one up.
And since they all worshiped their great leaders Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-Sung,
Kimmy
seemed appropriate.

A term
of respect it was not.

They
drove to the International Cooperation Center in silence, Jason staring out the
window, looking at his surroundings with renewed interest, now that he would be
soon leaving them. They pulled up to the front of the building, and he climbed
out, a blue jumpsuit holding open the door, nodding to him with crisp military
respect.

Jason
returned the nod, and followed
Kimmy
up the steps and into the elevator.
Moments later they were in the lab, Carl and Phil, along with their handlers,
already there. Carl gave him a look which Jason quickly avoided.

“So
what’s on the agenda for today?” asked Phil, his usual upbeat prickish self.

“I’d
like to verify the EMP installation,” said Carl. “I could use your help, Jason.
And in the meantime, Phil, why don’t you verify the integrity of the test
chamber and calibrate the scopes? Remember the last time we got a new scope in
and forgot to calibrate it.”

Phil
laughed out loud, and even Jason cracked a bit of a smile.

“Yeah,
I’ll never live that one down,” chuckled Phil as he headed to the other side of
the lab. He looked at the handlers. “We got a new scope in the lab a couple of
years ago, and we all assumed the other had calibrated it. Turns out no one
had. These two went to lunch and I put a sample device right where it should
be, but the scope showed nothing. I spent over an hour looking for the damned
thing, only to have these two come back and ask me if I had finished
calibrating it yet.” Phil roared in laughter, Carl and Jason joining in
lightly, but the handlers remained impassive. “You see, we’re dealing at a
microscopic level here. Atomic. If you don’t calibrate, it would be like
looking through a set of binoculars, but they’re pointing miles away from where
you think they’re pointing.”

Still no
laughter. Not even a smile.

Phil
shrugged. “I guess you need to be a scientist.”

Jason
turned to his terminal, quickly bringing up the EMP interface, then the low
level interface code. It didn’t take long, not when you knew what you were
doing, and when Carl was running interference, asking him questions, Jason
would run off the standard answers, pretending he was checking the values,
instead modifying the base code that controlled the EMP.

Within
half an hour the EMP was verified, and a new sub-routine was running that would
activate at 11:58pm, powering up the EMP, then discharging it at exactly
midnight.

Now
let’s hope their EMP is as efficient as ours was.

International Cooperation Center, North Korea

Phil Hopkins realized he wasn’t the most popular guy in the room.
But he was willing to tolerate a little hostility, even to be patronized, just
to get along.

But he
wouldn’t play the fool.

He had
done this for all of them. Had he made a mistake? Yes. He admitted that now.
After seeing Jason show up for work after his beating, it had been heart
wrenching, and he had gone to the bathroom and thrown up. Jason and Carl were
his friends. His buddies. His only friends. And he had lost them. He hoped over
time they would come around, and the camaraderie that had existed before would
return, and once they received their payout, they could all be friends again.

And if
they couldn’t, well, he’d have ten million big ones to comfort him.

And if
the others refused their money, he had already arranged that he would get their
shares. He had intended to keep it separate in case they ever changed their
minds.

But
play me for the fool?

He had
caught the glance between Carl and Jason. He knew them too well to not know
some surreptitious communication, some secret message had been exchanged that
only they could understand. What it was, he didn’t know, until he heard them
working on the EMP. Carl did his job, of that he had no doubt, but Jason’s
distracted, automaton type answers, and his fingers flying over the keyboard
far more than they should if just verifying settings, made it obvious he was doing
something other than validating Carl’s findings.

The
three had eaten lunch together in the cafeteria, a cafeteria he had to admit
was the quietest he had ever encountered, despite being packed. But like so
many other tables, there had been no conversation at theirs. In fact, Carl and
Jason couldn’t even look at each other, and both picked at their food until
Jason suddenly attacked his meal, and Carl followed suit.

The
clincher was when Jason ate his string beans. Jason never ate string beans. He
hated them. And he could think of only one reason he would eat them.

He
thought he needed the energy.

They’re
going to try and escape.

He
couldn’t let that happen, of course. It could mean death to one or more of
them, and even losing just one meant the end of the project, which would mean
the death of them all. They were in this together, until the end, whether they
all liked it or not.

The
thought of dying terrified him. He had fucked up, he knew it, and if he had to
do it all over again, he’d never have agreed to it. But they were here, now,
and it was too late. They had to cooperate, or die. And why would they choose
death over life? They both had families. Why wouldn’t they just cooperate, get
the job over with as quickly as possible, take the money, and leave? The life
they could provide for their families with ten million dollars would be
incredible.

But
these two were up to something, about to sacrifice everything, risking their
own death, and that of their families.

He had
to stop them, but first he had to find out what Jason had done in the lab.

The
loudspeaker beeped, and everyone rose, taking their trays to the nearest
garbage cans, then returning to their labs. It was a somber bunch, and Phil had
to admit each lunch spent in that cafeteria demoralized him more each day. It
was clear that the staff at the International Cooperation Center were not
happy, pasted on smiles of the jumpsuits notwithstanding.

Jason
and Carl busied themselves with something, what he didn’t care. He huddled at
his terminal in the corner, looking at the EMP configuration, but finding
nothing amiss. Then he started delving into the code behind it, and eventually
found what he was looking for, nearly shouting in triumph, but instead biting
his lip as he read the code.

Whatever
is happening, it’s happening at midnight.

He
quickly deleted the subroutine, then resumed testing the atomic microscope.
He’d go over to Jason’s house tonight and talk to him, after the kids went to
bed.

We’ll
settle this, once and for all, at ten tonight.

Peterson “Residence”, International Cooperation Center, North Korea

Jason looked at the control, then the clock, lying next to his wife
in bed. At 9:50 he pressed the buttons, in sequence, activating all eight
transmitters. He waited for a few seconds while his heart settled, then he sat
up in bed.

“What’s
wrong?” asked Maggie, pushing herself up on her elbows.

“Nothing.
We’re getting out of here,” he whispered.

“What?
Are you crazy?” she hissed. “They’ll hear you.”