Chapter 2: Ghost in the machine

 

“Give me something people,” the gray-bearded Berkner shouted from somewhere behind Nelson, a ghost-like figure from the old school days of the Cold War, not quite up to fully understanding this new virtual reality world in which younger technicians lived, techies not agents, leaving the ground work to grunt-like muscle men Nelson and other techies never needed to see except through the headset now firmly fit on his head.

“They’ve moving into the building now,” Nelson said, speaking into a mouthpiece that did not directly communicate with the men on the ground. He could see what they saw, and hear that they heard, but he could not talk to them except through the master controller on the other end of the room, this to avoid confusion during those confusing moments when things happened there, one voice serving for them as the voice of god.

“But it’s strange, chief,” Nelson said.

“What’s strange?” Berkner asked, his voice coming through the right ear piece, while the sounds of the men on the ground came through both.

“They’ve just gone through the front lobby where the guards should be on duty, but nobody’s there,” Nelson said.

Everything glowed white, the lobby, the ceiling, the chrome of the elevators and even the glass of the guard console. The security screens with their red recording lights showed various internal scenes in the building.

Berkner appeared at the end of Nelson’s row, his gray ahead floating above the line of other techies, each monitoring some other aspect of the scene, some in the head of other ground troops outside, or others operating various drones high and low in the sky above the building.

“This is bad, very bad,” Berkner said. “This isn’t what we planned for.”

Nelson felt relieved. The operation was meant to take out the guards. No witnesses, no surveillance recordings.

“The team is asking what to do?” the master technician said. “They were supposed to kill the guards and then destroy the security system.”

“Don’t let them destroy anything yet until we know where those damned guards went,” Berkner said.

“Do you want them to do a search of the building?”

“Yes,” Berkner said.

“That could take time.”

“Bring in the other ground team. They are useless outside at this point.”

The master technician relayed the command.

Nelson – viewing everything from the body cam of the lead trooper of the first team – saw the second team entering through the glass doors.

“I want alpha team to proceed to the target area, while Beta searches for the guards,” Berkner said. “We need to get that data out of there and knock out the system.”

Again, the master technician passed on the orders, and Nelson’s team moved on, down to the bank of elevators, inserting some devise in the operations key. This opened the elevator door and three of the six-man team went inside, the other three entered a second car, and both cars floated up to the fifth floor and the target office.

Nelson could hear the heavy breathing of the Alpha team members in their night vision masks and the repeated reports from the techie following Beta team’s search: “nothing on floor one,” the techie said. “They are proceeding by stair to floor two.”

The elevators arrived at the target flood, the doors parting onto a fully lighted hallway that should have been dark. The head of the team reported as much as did Nelson, and Berkner told them to proceed with extreme caution.

The guards, reportedly, bore no weapons. But if this was someone else, they might. The team – that strongly resembled a police swat team with body armor and other protection, as well as armament more suited to a combat zone, stepped out into the lighted hallway, moving along the wall single file, three along the wall with the elevators, three along the other wall, the rear members eyeing the hall behind as if expecting an ambush.

“Floor two clear, proceeding to floor three,” the beta team techie reported.

The main screen broadcast what Nelson saw in his goggles, an image of the advancing team as seen through the body cam of one of the middle members.

“Do we have access to the building security cameras?” Berkner asked suddenly.

“We can have it up in a second,” another techie said from the front row, obviously assigned to more remote surveillance, using public and private systems.

“Put it up,” Berkner said.

A more objective, but much inferior view of the hall appeared on a second large screen showing the advancing team from behind.

Nelson felt the disorientation of the double vision, looking into the goggles, while seeing the hazier vision through them of the larger screens.

“They’re approaching the target door,” Nelson reported as Alpha team paused, the first three located on one side of the door, while the second part crossed over from the far side of the hall to set up on the other side of the door.

“Floor three clear,” the Beta team techie said. “Proceeding to floor four.”

“The team is in place,” Nelson informed Berkner.

“Proceed,” Berkner said.

One of the team members reached for the door handle. The door was locked. With the rest of the team aiming their weapons at the door, one team member took out a long dark object that looked a little like a miniature baseball bat, as wide as the regulation version, but short. He hit the locked door with this and it burst in, glass shattering, and in an amazing rush, the armed team plunged inside the darkened room, night vision coming a life inside Nelson’s headset, creating an eerie vision of desks and computers and --- two figures tied back to back on chairs across the room, slumped, dark liquid dripping from a bullet hole in each of their foreheads.

“Shit!” one of the team members said.

“Stow that,” Berkner ordered, which was repeated by the master technician, though Berkner’s resonated with the same shock Nelson felt and obviously the other technicians.

“It’s the guards,” the head of Alpha team said. “They’re quite dead.”

“Secure the room,” Berkner said, this order repeated by the master technician. “And check the computers.”

Two of the team went to the door where they remained with weapons ready. Two of the team pealed off small backpacks out of which they removed small laptops. The two men moved from computer to computer, and then settled in front of what they determined served as the one they wanted.

After a moment, one of these looked up and shook his head.

“They’re fried,” his stained voice said.

“What do you mean fried?” the non-technical Berkner asked, the question repeated by the master technician.

“Someone blew them up,” the team member said. “Ran virus that wiped everything out.”

“Can we recover the information?” Berkner asked.

“Not with what we brought here,” the team member said after the question got relayed. “Maybe if we bring it back to Langley.”

“We can’t do that,” Berkner mumbled, more to himself than to the team member, although the master technician repeated this anyway. “Who would do this?”

“Someone who didn’t want us to know what they collected,” the team member said.

“For Christ’s sake. This is a campaign headquarters, not the Watergate Hotel,” Berkner said. “Is there anyway to know if this information exists anywhere else?”

“Do you mean did someone copy it before they fried the computer?”

“Yes.”

“Not without us taking the computer back, even then, this looks like a thorough job.”

“You mean professional?”

“Yes.”

“Who would have that kind of knowledge.”

“A good hacker, most likely a state sponsored one.”

“Such as?”

“North Korea. Iran. China. The Russians.”

Berkner remained silent for a long time. Everyone waited. Time stood still.

“The fourth floor clear,” the Beta team techie announced. “Moving to the floor five.”

“Belay that,” Berkner shouted. “Can we look at the building security cameras recordings.”

“We can for the hallway,” the techie in front said. “There are no cameras in that office.”

“Run them,” Berkner said.

“From how long ago?”

“How fresh are these deaths?” Berkner asked, as the master technician relayed this question to the team.

“Very,” the team captain said. “No longer than an hour.”

“Run the recordings back for the last three hours,” Berkner said.

The image barely changed except that it went dark, and then someone a while later, turned on the lights, and the figure of a young black man appeared, carrying a brief case, paused at the door, produced a key, opened the door, and went inside. Then, more empty space – perhaps 45 minutes worth – followed by the sound the elevator arriving, and the fall of something plastic. The voices of the guards came before they appeared on camera. They looked nervous, as they approached the target door, where they paused, argued, and then went in.

They did not come out. The back man did, carrying the brief case in one hand and a weapon in his hand.

“Pause that,” Berkner shouted.

The image froze, blurry at first, until the techie ran it through filters and came up with a stronger image.

“Save it,” Berkner said. “We’ll try and identify him later.”

“Do you want me to keep running the recording,” the techie in the front row said.

“Yes, up to the point where Alpha team arrives.”

The recording went on. But a few minutes later, it was not the image of the team that appeared, but another man, older, grayer, carrying a backpack and a gun with a long silencer. He entered the target office. Two bright flashes showed briefly suggesting he had fired the weapon twice. But he did not appear immediately. When he did, he still carried the backpack and the weapon.

“Can we get an image of his face?” Berkner asked.

“No,” the techie in the front row said.

“Why not?”

“He’s aware of the cameras. He’s deliberately positioning his head to keep from being seen too closely.”

“You mean he knows we’d be looking at him?”

“He knows someone would be. He obviously doesn’t have time to find where the recordings are and fry them, too, and can’t be sure that they aren’t in the cloud somewhere.”

“What can you tell about him?”

“Not much. I guess at an age – maybe 50 something, and he has a limp.”

“Fuck!” Berkner said. “Get everybody out of there. Duplicate the recordings, then destroy what the building has including anything that might be stored remotely.”

“What about the server?” the team member said. “Somebody else might be able to recover data from it if we don’t.”

“Can you destroy it in a way that they can’t?”

“We’d have to burn it – I mean with real fire.”

“Fine, torch the office and then get everybody out. Activate the drones and start searching other surveillance systems looking for these two suspects.”

Berkner then left the floor and headed into his office, closing the door behind him, though Nelson could see him through the window as he picked up the telephone.

Sweat showed on Berkner’s brow although the room remained chilled by the air conditioning.

A harsh voice came on the other end.

“Well?”

“We have trouble, Mr. President, big trouble.”