Freedom (34 page)

In moments, they detected her watch and the silver amulet on a chain around her neck. They scanned both closely then nodded to Boynton that they were okay.

A soldier now strapped a small gray plastic bracelet around her wrist. He fastened it into place with a rivet gun and ran tests on it with an electronic device.

Philips looked at it. “You’re strapping a transponder on me?”

A soldier snapped a digital photograph of her.

Boynton held up his hands reassuringly. “RFID tag for tracking purposes. Don’t try to remove it.” He pointed to the one on his own wrist. “It’s your identity while on the ranch. It’ll send an alert if it’s tampered with. Sensors at the entrances to most buildings will go into alarm if you enter without one. Likewise if you enter restricted areas. And alarms are responded to with lethal force. These RFID tags let the troops know that you’re friendly, and we’ve got quite a few snipers out there—so please wear it at all times.”

Boynton opened the door to the first limousine and gestured for Philips to get inside.

She lingered at the open car door. “Why is the airfield so far from the house?”

“The FAA restricted the airspace within a twenty-mile radius of the mansion.”

Philips nodded. “I guess after 9/11 you can’t be too careful.”

Boynton looked confused.

“Planes as weapons.”

Boynton thought for a moment, then nodded. “Oh, right.” He gestured again for Philips to get inside the car. “If you please . . .”

She got inside.

The drive to the main house was a blur of grass and scrublands. For all the signs warning of cattle and the dozens of cattle guards they rumbled over, Philips never saw one. Instead she saw military units and anti-aircraft missile batteries.

Even though she remembered every word of what she’d read of the Aubreys, she was still stunned at the sight of their mansion. After World War II they’d purchased an English manor house from one of the grand estates of central England—one that had gone bankrupt as the British Empire started to collapse. They’d had the house dismantled stone by stone and reassembled here in south Texas. A hundred-room neoclassical mansion done in solid granite blocks, replete with acres of ornamental gardens and statuary.

It was as if Philips had just rolled up to Castle Howard in Regency-period England. The cobblestone courtyard in front circled around a massive Italian fountain, blasting water thirty feet in the air from a dozen cherubic lips—with a muscular stallion rearing up over it all. It looked as though the Aubreys had sacked Europe. For all Philips knew, they had.

Linked to the back of the house by a covered causeway was what looked to be a sizable modern conference facility, done in smoked glass and granite.

The Maybach stopped under the shadow of twin marble stair-cases rolling out from the massive front door of the house. Philips stepped from the limousine as a valet in a red livery coat held the door for her.

Boynton had exited the Suburban and walked past them. “This way, Doctor.”

Philips followed Boynton through a maze of ornately furnished hallways dotted with armed guards. With every room they entered, she heard a
beep
as radio frequency sensors along the doorways logged her movements.

They passed people in impeccable suits and diverse military uniforms walking in groups of two or three, all hurrying off somewhere.

“So you have more than KMSI troops on this project?”

Boynton nodded absently. “We’ve had to gather several dozen corporate military providers to deliver the needed manpower. Not to mention the expertise.”

Philips followed Boynton into the center of an echoing ballroom and was dumbstruck at its size. It was dotted with sets of ornate furniture on islands of carpet and bustled with activity. People of various ethnic extractions, either military or smartly attired civilians, moved in and out, talking in hushed tones in English, Mandarin, Arab, Tagalog, Russian, and several other languages she didn’t recognize. The ceiling was easily forty feet high. Philips craned her neck to look up at the murals. She had visited Versailles once, before joining the NSA, but the Sun King’s palace exuded a neutered magnificence. This palace was still alive with authority.

“Doctor.”

Philips turned to see Boynton gesturing to a rich damask divan. She hadn’t noticed him moving on without her. She caught up.

“Please have a seat. You’ll be called soon.” He nodded toward a distant buffet table with uniformed staff. “Feel free to have a bite. I hear the quail is excellent. Hunted locally.”

“Thank you, no.”

Boynton raced off, checking his watch, and Philips sat on the sofa. Her eyes swept the walls, taking in the dozens of massive paintings. They seemed like a cross between royal portraits and roadside billboards, depicting eighteenth-century battles from the Continent, landscapes, and portraits of nineteenth-century railroad barons leaning on walking sticks. Their gold-leaf frames were so ornate they looked like collections of medieval weaponry, dipped in gold paint and glued together.

Philips glanced around at the knots of people talking softly and in earnest. Military officers nodded and pointed at satellite photographs—all in the open. What was this place? It was the NSA without internal security and with a decorating budget gone out of control.

Philips leaned back and recalled the details she’d just read of Operation Exorcist. The complete, simultaneous extermination of the Daemon from critical data centers throughout the world. A Daemon-blocker patch, capable of interdicting the self-destruct signal on infected networks. An ambitious plan, but notably not one that destroyed the Daemon—one that simply blocked the Daemon from destroying selected targets.

The question was how she’d be able to use
their
resources to carry out her own plan: to destroy the Daemon.

Philips was dozing an hour later when a booming voice nearby suddenly shook her awake. A tall, loose-jowled Texan in his sixties wearing a bespoke suit was slapping a nearby Chinese statesman on the back and speaking with a powerful Southern drawl. “How ya’ll settlin’ in? They treatin’ ya a’right, Genr’l Zhang?” He smiled broadly and broke into Mandarin.
“Ni hao ma? Wo feichang gaoxing you jihui gen nin hezuo.”
He smiled and shook the man’s hand.

The Armani-suited “general” nodded back grimly and exchanged a firm handshake just a shade removed from an arm-wrestling match.

“Mr. Johnston, health to your family.”

Philips caught Johnston’s eye. “Excuse me, Genr’l.” He strode toward Philips, turning his powerful voice on her. “Dr. Philips. Why don’t you come on in here for a chat?” He grabbed a uniformed servant by the arm, but kept his eyes on Philips. “You want something? Coffee? Tea?”

“Nothing for me. Excuse me, have we been introduced?”

“Damn me, we haven’t.” He extended his hand and nearly crushed hers with it. “Aldous Morris Johnston; I’m fortunate to be senior legal counsel for several companies backing Operation Exorcist.” He turned to the servant. “Get us a pot of coffee and some finger sandwiches in here.”

“Sir, no offense intended, but time is wasting. The news I saw coming in was quite dire. When can I meet with the Weyburn Labs team?”

“Doctor, that’s what we’re here to talk about.” A nearby door opened, and several suited men could be seen rushing about inside. A security man in a navy blazer and gray slacks held the door. An earphone wire ran down into his collar.

Johnston was leading Philips along. “Now that you’re part of the team, we want to get your input on the overall direction of the effort.”

They moved into a sitting room warmly furnished with more human-scale sofas and chairs and wall-to-wall carpet. The security man closed the door and stood, hands clasped in front of him. Paperwork was everywhere on the coffee tables, and several suited men were tapping furiously on laptop keyboards. A bank of towering windows filled the far wall and bathed the room in diffuse light. The frames were arched into gothic points but the glass was smoked—keeping out much of the daytime heat. Beyond the windows lay vast grasslands dotted with horses.

“It’s something, isn’t it? Our group owns it all as far as the eye can see.”

Philips nodded at the view. “Including the sky, apparently.”

He didn’t seem to notice. “It’s a rare joy on horseback—especially at dawn.”

Johnston patted a large upholstered chair. Philips bristled at this potential display of social rank and sexism combined—but realized she was being childish and sat where invited. Johnston sat on the arm of a nearby sofa. Someone shoved a bone china cup and saucer into her hand, and a servant in a dinner jacket and white gloves poured steaming coffee from a silver pot.

Johnston gestured toward three other men sitting nearby—lots of symmetrically graying temples and impeccable tailoring on display. “Dr. Philips, this is Greg Lawson, Adam Elsberg, Martin Sylpannic.”

They nodded in turn as people came and went from various doors in the background.

“Are you gentlemen with Weyburn Labs?”

Johnston laughed. “No, no, Doctor. They’re with one of our Houston-based firms. They’re here to represent the interests of key partners.”

Philips placed the coffee cup on a nearby table. “Gentlemen, why am I sitting here? I need to speak with the Weyburn Labs team. Events are unfolding in the streets right now. Action needs to be taken.”

“Understood, understood.” Johnston nodded, while the other men looked questioningly toward him. “But first we want to hear your thoughts, Doctor. Did you have a chance to read the briefing paper on the way in from the airfield?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

“I think there are weaknesses. First, this Daemon-blocker mentioned in the report—I don’t see how you can insinuate it into all infected networks. Especially in the timeframe indicated. Not to mention the risk of storming all these data centers simultaneously around the globe.”

One of the trio of Johnston’s aides was furiously tapping at a keyboard as she spoke.

Philips stopped for a moment. “Look, I’ve had more than a few difficulties working with private industry against the Daemon in the past. I need to know who is—”

Johnston nodded genially. “Yes, I know there was some unpleasantness—that some of our representatives might have taken wrongful actions.”

“
Wrongful actions?
My DOD liaison shot key group members, and destroyed our task force headquarters with demolition charges—killing everyone and destroying all our work. That’s more than a little unpleasant.”

“I understand, Doctor. But this is a war. And in war mistakes are made. It’s whether we learn from those mistakes that spells the difference between victory and defeat. We’ve tightened up the chain of command. You weren’t aware of it at the time, but the Daemon Task Force was just a pilot project. A proof of concept. And thanks to you, a successful one. Operation Exorcist is the result—a multibillion-dollar effort. It will take all of government and private industry resources to defeat the Daemon. We truly need your help.”

Philips still eyed Johnston. She figured acquiescing too quickly would seem suspect. “What about The Major?”

“He’s no longer on the project.”

“But neither is he in Leavenworth.”

“The Major needs to be kept on a short leash, but we need all hands right now, Doctor.”

“He murdered special agent Roy Merritt.”

“Understood, but nothing about this situation is personal. This is national security, and Deputy Director Fulbright assures me that you’re familiar with making leadership decisions. We think you have a bright future in the private sector, Dr. Philips. We see leadership potential in you.”

She paused as long as she thought necessary to make it appear that she was wrestling with her conscience. In actuality she was wrestling against the desire to spit into his face. “Who’s calling the shots?”

“Joint public-private advisory committee. Sounds bad, I know. But doesn’t matter—they’re back in Washington and we’re all out here. I want to hear your thoughts.”

“Who came up with the Daemon-blocker?”

“Weyburn Labs folks. Some Chinese fella.”

“The code sample in the report—it bears a disturbing similarity to some of the API calls I discovered in the IP beacon. Those API calls are not safe.”

Elsberg responded. “You needn’t worry, Doctor—”

“Don’t tell me what to worry about.”

Johnston motioned for her to calm down.

Elsberg continued. “They didn’t use the Daemon’s API. We all know it’s a trap, Doctor. Weyburn reverse-engineered the Destroy function. They found that it’s susceptible to what I believe is called a . . . a buffer overrun, and they developed a countermeasure. A ‘vaccine, ’ if you will, against the Daemon’s data-destruct command.”

“And this works?”

“It’s still in testing, but the tests were very encouraging.”