The Chimera Secret (19 page)

She picked up her cell again and tapped a quick-dial number.

‘
Ben Consiglio.
’

‘It’s Natalie. I’m being followed, Ben.’

There was a long pause.

‘
You sure about it, I mean, really sure?
’

He didn’t sound convinced. She gripped the cell tighter.

‘Dammit, Ben, I’ve got pictures on my cell, I’m bringing them in.’

‘
You took pictures? Jesus Christ, Natalie, you sure that’s a good idea?
’

‘I just drove across the Potomac and back, came right round the switchback and they followed me the whole way. It’s too much of a coincidence, Ben.’

‘
Holy crap,
’ Ben whispered down the line. ‘
What do you want me to do?
’

‘Keep this to yourself, okay? I don’t want anybody to know about this until I’ve figured out what the hell’s going on.’

‘
Okay.
’

Natalie racked her brains for a moment, trying to think of a way forward.

‘Do you think that there’s some way we can figure out who’s behind this?’

‘
What do you mean?
’

‘Y’know, track them down. Run the plates or something?’

‘
I don’t know. I’m not a cop. I’d have to check if we can even legally do something like that.
’

Natalie focused on the road ahead as she replied.

‘I’m pretty damned sure that it’s illegal and an invasion of privacy to monitor the movements of any American citizen without some kind of probable cause, regardless of what
the Patriot Act says.’

There was a long silence down the line before Ben spoke again.

‘
Let me see what I can do. Just get back here right now, okay? And don’t do anything else that might let them know you’re onto them. Just act normal.
’

Natalie shut the cell off and drove across the Potomac, but instead of heading back to the office she took Ben’s advice and drove to her apartment. People didn’t just pop out for a
drive in Washington’s busy traffic, so she pulled into her parking space and got out. A quick trip home to collect something, anything, and she could head back to the Capitol.

She opened her apartment door and hurried inside.

Then she stopped.

It wasn’t that she could tell instantly that something was wrong. It was more like a sixth sense, like the sensation of being watched. From where she stood she could see that there was
nobody in the apartment with her, but her keen eye picked up on the dislodged rug in the center of the living room; the kitchen door not quite as open as she had left it; the pictures on the
mantelpiece above the faux fireplace at slightly off angles.

Somebody had been here while she was at work.

‘It’s not much to go on.’

Doug Jarvis stood behind Marty Hellerman and looked at his monitor, where a window displayed the apparently empty files contained on the flash drive Ethan had sent from Idaho. Another smaller
window displayed the DOS boot screen and a flashing cursor beside an ‘ACCESS DENIED’ message.

‘Do you recognize the encryption?’ he asked.

Hellerman stroked his top lip with one finger. Barely out of his teens, he was a graduate of MIT and Jarvis was lucky to have him. Most of the promising information technology big guns were
hoovered up through recruitment drives by the National Security Agency. Hellerman shook his head.

‘No. We could send it to NSA.’

Jarvis shook his head. His recent meeting had reminded him that whatever was going on in Idaho had repercussions that affected a great deal more of the American intelligence community than just
the DIA. Somebody, somewhere, was hiding something, and while it was easy to assume that the CIA were behind it, it was just possible that they were as much in the dark as anybody. The thought of
that sent a tremor of apprehension down his spine. If not the CIA, then who – and why?

‘Where the hell does some kid from the backwoods get encryption good enough to stop a professional code-breaker?’ Jarvis mused. ‘Even for a moment?’

Hellerman waved a hand airily about as he replied.

‘You’d be surprised. Sure, we’ve got top-notch decryption software and access to super-computers, but all of it’s for nothing if an entirely new code is generated,
something unique. Think about it. All a code or encryption really represents is the means to conceal a message within randomness. As true randomness is very hard to generate in any system, so clues
and hints to decoding the encryption can be found.’ Hellerman swiveled around in his chair. ‘But if somebody encodes their data based on some piece of encryption derived from, say,
private events in their personal life, then there’s no baseline from which we can begin decryption because we know nothing about their personal lives. There’s no pattern to follow, and
so the code becomes, in essence, unbreakable.’

Jarvis peered at the monitor.

‘So if I created a code based upon the number of times I’ve been to the dentist, it would be unbreakable?’

‘If you broke those visits down into individual times, plus say the length of the visit and then formulated a way to convert that data into strings of characters, then yes, it could be
unbreakable,’ Hellerman agreed. ‘There would probably be a pattern that would emerge somewhere within the data, perhaps because most visits would last roughly the same amount of time or
occur at regular intervals, but if you then added another layer of encryption like a simple character cipher even that pattern might cease to exist.’

‘The individual who owned this data was a computer geek,’ Jarvis said, and saw Hellerman raise an eyebrow. ‘No offence. He might have been able to encode stuff but he
doesn’t have the profile of somebody who would go to quite such lengths to hide this information or even have the knowledge to do so.’

Hellerman smiled up at him.

‘And yet he did, so whatever’s on here he considered important enough to hide well enough that even we’re not getting in here. There must be a key, Doug – something that
can get our encryption software started. Once we find it, my guess is that your code will be cracked in seconds. But we can’t do that from here. It’ll be down to your guys on the ground
to figure out what the key is.’

Jarvis searched his memory for the details of the file that had been handed to him by the FBI agents assigned the case. Having written it off as a cut-and-dried multiple homicide, he had made it
his business to read the file from front to back before contacting Ethan Warner.

‘The geek’s name was Randy MacCarthy,’ he said to Hellerman. ‘This guy was right out there, if you know what I mean. He’d been busted by the local PD a couple of
times for possession of cannabis but nothing serious. What made him stand out to local law enforcement was his conviction that there was a sinister government conspiracy at work in his
area.’

‘Another one?’ Hellerman said. ‘Let me guess: CIA covert ops? Corrupt FBI agents? Buried alien remains?’

Jarvis decided it best not to mention Ethan Warner’s recent investigations in Israel’s Negev Desert.

‘Randy MacCarthy claimed that he had photographic evidence of government agents at work in and around Riggins, Idaho. Thing is, when he said this the local Sheriff’s Department
hauled him in and held him at their station for nearly forty-eight hours without charge.’

Hellerman blinked in surprise.

‘Maybe an overzealous sheriff?’

‘Sheriff’s as clean as can be,’ Jarvis replied. ‘No complaints from people on his watch in the last twenty years.’

Hellerman thought for a moment.

‘Outside influence? Maybe this Randy really was onto something and the local sheriff is under some kind of leverage?’

Jarvis inclined his head thoughtfully.

Fact was, when the security and intelligence agencies went to work on or with local law enforcement, they normally got the cooperation they required without complaint or condition, not because
of jurisdiction but because the police were happy to have the help. Although inter-departmental rivalry was a real factor, it did not manifest itself in the manner of a TV cop show, with rival
department heads or conflicting agents thrashing it out on the street. It was more of a behind-closed-doors kind of deal: withheld information, confiscated data and suchlike. Everybody wanted to
catch the bad guys, but nobody wanted somebody else to get there first.

‘It’s not impossible,’ he conceded. ‘Problem is, why? Randy would have had to uncover the mother of all national secrets to get himself killed by a military or government
agency. I mean, this is Idaho. There’s nothing of ours there that would generate any real interest, just a few airbases and training grounds, none of which is hard to find.’

Hellerman thought for a moment.

‘Maybe whatever’s there isn’t on the official list,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe this guy Randy stumbles upon it, takes a few photographs or whatever, and then hightails
it out of there. He hides the evidence but then blabs about it to anybody who will listen to his conspiracy theories.’

Jarvis frowned.

‘Randy rarely left the house as far as we can make out,’ he said slowly, and then it hit him. ‘But his brothers were hunters and woodsmen,
always
out and about. If one
of them had seen something or taken photographs . . .’

‘Then Randy would have been able to encrypt them, but maybe not been able to keep his mouth shut about what they contained.’

‘Because he didn’t have direct access to whatever was seen,’ Jarvis enthused. ‘He wouldn’t have feared whatever it was as much as the other witness, the one who
took the pictures.’

Hellerman nodded.

‘Then all three brothers get taken out, but one survives and his story is too incredible to believe so he gets put inside for it.’

Jarvis let the pieces fall together inside his head. It was a wild story, but if any one piece of evidence stood up then they could pursue it and maybe uncover the key they needed to access
Randy MacCarthy’s images.

Jarvis gestured to the screen.

‘Keep working that through our filters, maybe we’ll get lucky.’

As Hellerman got back down to work, Jarvis pulled out his cellphone and dialed a number. He checked his watch: a quarter of five. Ethan and Lopez would probably have met up with the military
team that Director Mitchell had assigned to the case, but they still might be within range enough to . . .

The line cut dead in Jarvis’s ear and he lowered the cellphone.

They were already out in the forests, which would make communication difficult even with the advantage of satellite phones and the escort team’s advanced radios. Jarvis decided to change
tack and try to figure out what the CIA might have an interest in all the way up in Idaho.

Ethan Warner pushed up with his right leg around the edge of a massive gray boulder that was lodged deep into the hillside, the damp, dark surface sheened with rainwater. The
incessant drizzle dripped in a symphony of tiny splashes through the gloomy forest of Ponderosa pines around them as they climbed into the mountains.

To his right, far below, a churning river gouged its silent way through a canyon, much of its course lost beneath wreaths and ribbons of cloud drifting through the cold air.

‘Does it ever stop raining here?’ Lopez asked, her voice sounding tiny.

Duran Wilkes, his graying features semi-concealed behind the hood of his waterproof jacket, shook his head.

‘Not so much at this time of year. You get used to it after a while.’

‘That so?’ Lopez mumbled, picking her way around a fallen tree trunk thickly laced with damp creepers and vines. ‘Hard to believe.’

The team of soldiers were fanned out in a loose wedge formation ahead of them, the troops apparently oblivious to the cold and the wet as they advanced with their weapons held at port-arms
before them, safe but ready. Behind the soldiers labored Dana and Proctor, hindered by their lack of physical fitness but equally driven forward by their enthusiasm. Ethan and Lopez trailed them by
a dozen yards, alongside Duran and Mary Wilkes.

‘Who called those guys in?’ Mary asked, gesturing ahead to the troops.

‘They were sent as protection by our boss,’ Ethan explained. ‘At least two people have died out here at the hands of something extremely strong and aggressive. We didn’t
want to take any chances and risk lives, ours or yours.’

Duran Wilkes snorted beneath his hood.

‘Mighty thoughtful of you, son,’ he muttered, ‘but I’ve been walking these hills for the best part of sixty years and whatever’s hiding out here, a few pop-guns
aren’t going to stop it.’

‘Bears, you mean?’ Lopez asked.

‘Black bears,’ Duran nodded, ‘elk, raccoons, cougars. There’s plenty of critters out here that’ll attack humans if they feel threatened, but they’re fine if
they’re left alone.’ He gestured up ahead to the soldiers. ‘Those trigger-happy goons, waving their weapons about, will be the first to get hit if they stumble across a sleeping
bear.’

Ethan decided not to say anything. Kurt and his men were from the National Guard, which to some people was held in the same regard as the Boy Scouts. But in reality the guard was highly trained,
highly motivated and often manned by former regular soldiers. They were far from amateur.

‘They’re here to protect us,’ Lopez said. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll lead us into danger.’

‘They already are,’ Duran said.

Ethan looked at the old man. ‘What do you mean?’

Duran didn’t reply, instead giving a low whistle that sounded like a bird but immediately caught the attention of the soldiers. Lieutenant Watson looked over his shoulder and raised his
hand to halt his men as Duran beckoned him back.

‘What is it?’ Kurt Agry demanded as he joined them alongside Watson.

‘Light’s getting low,’ Duran pointed out. ‘We need to find shelter before dark.’

‘We’ve got that covered,’ Kurt snapped in reply. ‘We know what we’re doing.’

‘Then you’ll know that we’re close to the six-thousand-foot line,’ Duran said.