Enemy In the Room (11 page)

“What would you like me to do?”

She looked up. “I’m not sure, David. I’ve
never been here before. I’m embarrassed. I’m going to get phone
calls that I don’t want. You may get some. So I don’t know. Maybe
just some understanding and some slack for now to help me get
through this. I love what we do, and with so much on our plate
right now, I’ve even managed to let
you
down. “

David remained silent when she finished.
My daughter. Now my best exec
.

Finally he spoke. “Kristen, of course. Take
as much time as you need.”

She broke into a small smile, her hands
together in front of her on the table. “Thank you.”

There was a knock at the door and David’s
assistant opened it, taking a step inside.

“Your voice mailbox is full, and Mr. Burke
says that he needs to talk with you about a personnel matter. And,
Kristen, Trish tells me that you have a lot of phone calls as
well.” She waited.

“OK,” David said, rising. “I’ll call Paul.
Kristen we’ll just do our best to get through the next few
days.”

She stood and pushed her chair back under
the table. “Thanks. I’ll stay on top of Porter and the other
deals.” She nodded to his assistant on her way out, hearing the
phone ring in her office as soon as she was in the hallway.

At Zhukovo Airport on the east of Moscow,
where NovySvet maintained a large facility, Simon North had
completed the acquisition of the company the previous afternoon.
Retired General Yevgany Beleborodov, the director of NovySvet, was
now, thanks to North, a rich man. Today the two former generals
from opposing cold war forces had flown together an hour further
east, where they stood on a high bluff overlooking a wide, almost
treeless valley in which the snow had melted but no plants yet
bloomed. Each wore a heavy coat against the late afternoon
chill.

They were actually on a covered platform
built on the edge of the bluff, and ringing the platform were
monitors and communication devices, manned by several NovySvet
employees. They could simultaneously view whatever was happening in
the valley through binoculars or watch close-up on the
monitors.

As they stood looking out over the valley,
Beleborodov spoke. “As you know, the key breakthroughs in this
technology will be the use of multiple satellites, both stationary
and low earth orbit, to illuminate the target. We have the one in
orbit now, launched by the Russian government for a fee that we
paid. They think it is a communication satellite—which it is—but
they don’t know about its other capability. This satellite has our
encrypted sequencing, which makes detection almost impossible, even
as the target moves. You have seen the videos, but now you will see
it in action.” He pointed to the valley and nodded to the men
behind the monitors.

With their binoculars they could see a
soldier on a dirt road in the valley, carrying what appeared to be
a pistol connected by a cable to his backpack. Around him were both
vehicles and the charred remains of past targets on what was
clearly a large firing range.

“In rapid sequence our soldier will
illuminate the brick wall you see to his left and the unmanned
automobile to his right. In this monitor you can see what he sees
on the ground.”

“The soldier assigns a unique ascending
identifier to each target just before he illuminates it. His
backpack transmits the encoded identifier at the same instant the
pistol illuminates the target. Every time the pistol ‘fires,’ the
specific light frequency transmitted to the closest satellite is
slightly different.”

The soldier dropped to one knee and fired
the laser. Although there was no visible light or noise, a number
instantly appeared in the upper right corner of the screen. “The
wall has been assigned that discreet targeting number.”

As the soldier repeated his firing sequence
for the auto, Beloborodov turned to North, gesturing upward with
his right hand, speaking in clear but accented English. “Just as we
instantly receive the target identifier here, so does the
satellite. It uses GPS to fix the position, and the target is
locked on.”

At that moment the automobile started to
move, guided by remote control.

“A target is identified only once. It is
thereafter illuminated continuously by a random sequence of low
power laser shots from the satellite. With your funding, once we
have more satellites in place, the illumination will sequence
between them in a random pattern set by that hour’s encryption key,
and we will be able to track faster moving targets, like airplanes.
And it will be almost impossible for a defender to lock onto the
source of the illumination. The result”—he gestured for North to
use his binoculars—”is almost continuous illumination, as the
target moves its position is constantly updated.”

They watched as the auto began driving up
the valley on a dirt road, and the soldier was no longer
visible.

“In a weapons-free environment,” continued
General Beleborodov, “the unique target numbers can be assigned
automatically to the best offensive assets. They could be cruise or
ballistic missiles launched from hundreds or thousands of
kilometers away. Today we will simulate that environment with two
short range, shoulder launched missiles from over that hill. Each
one has now been assigned one of the target numbers. We should see
results any moment now.” He smiled again as he raised his
binoculars.

North followed, choosing to focus on the
auto. He watched for a few moments as the vehicle propelled itself
up the dirt road, undulating with the terrain. There was a sudden
orange flash in his binoculars as the auto disappeared. He looked
out and saw a simultaneous flash destroy the wall. Only after the
flashes did they hear the sound of the incoming missiles.

Now it was North’s turn to smile.
“Impressive, general, very impressive. Tell me, is there any time
limit for when an attack has to be launched, once a target is
designated?”

“Theoretically, no. So long as there are
satellites orbiting overhead with our illuminators onboard, logged
into our system—which should be possible in two years with your
help—one could theoretically illuminate a target one day and not
actually fire on it for several days.”

“Can a target tell that it is being
illuminated?”

“Eventually of course there will be
countermeasures. We’re working on them ourselves. But for now only
the initial illumination from the first source carries enough power
to be detected. By interfacing through GPS, the ongoing
illuminations are aimed, knowing within a few meters exactly where
to look. This only requires relatively low power. For that reason,
and the changing frequencies, illumination is hard to detect.”

“Excellent. So, one could ‘tag’ a moving
target in one place and then, as long as a suitable missile was in
range, fire on it much later, in a completely different
location?”

“Yes. Impressive, isn’t it, sir?”

“Indeed. I think we have made a wise
investment in NovySvet. My congratulations to you and your staff,
General Beleborodov.”

“Thank you, Mr. North. Now, if you don’t
mind, I hope that you will join me and our officers for a small
party at our base
banya
before your trip back to London. I
think you will find the experience to be quite invigorating and
healthful.” He winked.

“It will be difficult to be more
invigorating than the last thirty minutes, general,” replied North,
“but I’ve always wanted to try a real Russian
banya
, and I
can’t think of a better time or place.”

“Excellent, excellent. Let us return to our
car for the short drive. And once we are there, I have some ideas
on how to improve beyond what you have seen today. We will discuss
them while we relax.”

“And there is some new German
laser-splitting technology developed by A.G. Thelkein that we just
found out about, and we want to share it with you.”

“Really? I’ve heard rumors. How did you find
out about it?”

North smiled. In fact, he did not know the
answer any more than he knew for whom he had just purchased
NovySvet. All his engagements with this client were done with
untraceable messages and codes. But the money was always good.
“That doesn’t matter. The main thing is that we know the results
from their latest tests, along with the compounds they have used,
and we will give them to you.”

Opening the door to the Mercedes for his new
boss, General Beleborodov said, “This will be very good, our
working together.”

“Yes, exactly,” North agreed.

Two hours later Kristen sat alone in her
office, her door closed. She had spent much of the morning
responding to her colleagues as each of them heard some portion of
the news and came to see her. Todd, Cheryl, Chris…each in turn. She
imagined what they were saying in the real estate group—indeed,
throughout USNet—as she finished her report on office space in the
Far East, left Bill Porter a voicemail, and shuffled the paperwork
on several other projects.

She had declined any comment to Sam
Bartholomew, one of USNet’s on-the-air reporters, who had
interviewed a Ms. Amanda Martin-Davis of the group Truth In
Politics. The interview, slotted for the second segment of the Noon
News, was just beginning, and Kristen was watching on her
computer.

“As you know,” Ms. Martin-Davis began on
screen, “Truth In Politics, as a public service, searches out
untruths and hypocrisy in the public square. Over the weekend one
of our supporters sent us tape recordings captured from several
cell phone conversations between Janet Sullivan’s husband, Richard,
and another woman, which clearly shows that they were having an
affair. This from the husband of a woman who pushes ‘family
values’”—Martin-Davis made quotation marks with her fingers—“and
wants the rest of us to live by her own narrow definition of
morality.”

The camera came back to Sam Bartholomew. “We
have a portion of one cell phone conversation.” Kristen felt her
stomach tighten. As the audio played, the transcribed words were
simultaneously printed on the screen over a still picture of
Richard Sullivan appearing to be leaving a church with his wife, a
Bible in his hand.

“Richard, how did you like lunch today?”

In her office, Kristen gasped at the sound
of her own voice, all those years ago.

“It was awesome.” He laughed.

“What about the new sheets?”

“All the better for the main course.”

She laughed. “Do you have to go back to the
office?”

“Hey, I just left your parking deck. Give a
guy some time to regroup.”

“All right. But what about Thursday? And
when are you going to tell Janet that you’re through?”

“Thursday is definite. You know the other is
more difficult. We’ll talk about it then.”

“All right. But I hate sharing you.”

As she listened to the tape, tears flowed
down Kristen’s cheeks. She blotted them with her handkerchief,
trying not to smear her make-up.

“OK. We’ll talk. So, go sell some real
estate, and I’ll see you in two days.”

“Bye. I love you.”

“See you then.”

The camera came back to Ms. Martin-Davis.
“As you can hear, we think it is ridiculous for Janet Sullivan, or
anyone else in Congress for that matter, to be telling the American
people how they ought to live their lives.”

“Ms. Martin-Davis,” said Sam from a small
insert superimposed next to her, “how exactly did you come by this
tape? Is it recent?”

“Our supporter is a technical person who has
apparently been scanning cell channels for years and only recently
realized what he had. And, no, it’s from several years ago. But
that doesn’t make any difference since Sullivan, President Harper
and others are trying to tell us that there are ‘eternal truths’ on
how to behave.”

“USNet has, by the way,” said the reporter,
“matched the voice print to be that of Richard Sullivan, a
well-known attorney, and we’ve tried today to contact him and
Congresswoman Sullivan. Neither has yet responded to our calls. We
should also say that the woman on this and other tapes released
today by Truth In Politics is Ms. Kristen Holloway, who,
ironically, now works in the real estate group here at USNet. Thank
you Ms. Martin-Davis.”

As the news program cut to a commercial,
Kristen moved the mouse on her desk and closed her computer. She
sat alone for several minutes.
Everyone in the department and
everyone I know will have seen that report, or its repeats during
the afternoon. And my dad. I’ve tried to do everything so
differently since those days
. She closed her eyes, the tears
coming again. She wanted to talk with Richard but knew that she
should not initiate the call. She prayed for strength and
wisdom.

Todd Phelps had just finished watching the
same interview in his office when his phone rang.

“Hey, Todd, it’s Mike. What’s up?”

Todd smiled. “Not much.”

“Say, do you know this Kristen Holloway
woman, the one that’s been sleeping with the Congresswoman’s
husband?”

“Well, yeah. Sure. She’s right here in our
department.”

“Really? Hey, what’s she like? Have you been
getting any?”

Todd shook his head. “No. No. She’s good
looking, even hot. But I mean, you would
never
have imagined
if you knew her. Never.”

“Really? Well, bring her up to Minneapolis
on your next inspection, and we’ll see about it. Don’t hide assets
like that from your friends!”

He smiled again. “OK. But, I promise,
Kristen is not what you’d think from that story. It might be nice
if she were.”

“Well, listen, did you get the package we
sent to the islands?”

“Yes, thank you. It arrived in good
shape.”

“Everything all right?”