The Last Option Read online

  "What do you think they're looking for?"

  Bernard shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

  "They must think something is hidden in the luggage. Why send two important agents all the way here if there was nothing to be found?"

  "A Russian bureaucrat is murdered. He's an informant to their CIA. Perhaps he was bringing something out with him, possibly hidden in his luggage. They're Americans. A very naïve and arrogant people, even their spies. They would assume our incompetence. I think they just had to see for themselves."

  Nick began examining the carry-on. People had long been known for hiding things in the linings of suitcases. The technicians at DGSE had thoughtfully slit open the lining, making it easy to examine the interior. The seams had been opened and probed. The carry-on wasn't much good for anything, anymore.

  There was nothing there.

  He turned back toward Selena. She was looking out the window, her face turned away from the camera, listening to the recording. There was an odd look on her face. She stopped the playback and took the earphones from her ears.

  "You enjoy your musical break?" Nick asked.

  He was tired and irritable. It showed.

  "I didn't expect to find Swan Lake here." She held up the player. "It's not a very good recording. It takes more than enthusiasm to play Tchaikovsky."

  She turned and set the CD player down on the table.

  "This trip was a waste of time," Nick said.

  "You didn't really think we'd find anything, did you?" Selena asked.

  "You can always hope. Anyway, at least we can say we put eyeballs on it."

  The door opened and Bernard came back into the room.

  "Did you find anything? Something we missed?" he said.

  "Your agents were thorough," Selena said. "There's nothing here of interest."

  "I'm sorry you've had a wasted trip."

  "It goes with the territory," Nick said. "This wouldn't be the first time we've come up dry."

  Bernard frowned.

  "Come up dry?"

  "An idiom," Selena said. "It means we didn't find anything."

  "What were you looking for?"

  "We wondered why Kolkov was murdered," Nick said. "Langley thought it was possible he might have brought something of importance out with him, something his killer didn't want us to know about. But it was always a stretch. If he had any secrets, they died with him. There was nothing in the clothes he was wearing?"

  "Nothing," Bernard said. "Once we knew he was a Russian bureaucrat, we examined the clothing carefully. Nothing was hidden in it, no micro dots, no documents, nothing of importance."

  "Nothing hidden in a body cavity?"

  "Do you think we're amateurs? No, Monsieur Carter, nothing stuck up his ass."

  Nick was about to say something sharp, but a glance from Selena silenced him.

  "We should be getting back to the airport," she said. "There's nothing more for us to do here."

  "We have a car waiting for you," Bernard said. "Come with me."

  They followed the Frenchman back to the elevator. They dropped down to the garage and stepped out. A moment later the gray Citroen stopped in front of them.

  No one said anything on the ride to the airport. They pulled up at the departures terminal. Bernard got out with Nick and Selena. He went with them into the airport and escorted them through security.

  "Thanks for your help, Monsieur Bernard," Selena said.

  "You're welcome. Please give my regards to your Director Harker."

  They shook hands. Bernard left them.

  "You were in a hurry to get out of there," Nick said. "There's plenty of time before the plane leaves."

  "Let's find a quiet place to talk," Selena said. "Somewhere without cameras."

  Nick looked around. There were cameras everywhere.

  "Good luck with that."

  Looking down at the floor, away from the nearest camera, Selena said, "Then it can wait until we're on the plane."

  Three and a half hours later, they were headed out over the Atlantic.

  "Okay, what's up? What's the big secret?"

  "I didn't want to tell you in the airport because of the cameras."

  "You were afraid of being overheard?"

  "No, lip readers. I didn't want our friends from DGSE to have any idea about what I think I found."

  Selena reached under her blouse and took out Kolkov's CD of Swan Lake.

  "You swiped the music? I didn't know you liked Tchaikovsky that much."

  "I like Tchaikovsky, but that's not why I took the disc."

  "They must have listened to it," Nick said. "There's nothing on it except music, or they would've kept it back."

  "I think there is. I love Swan Lake, it's one of my favorite pieces. When I was fourteen I wanted to be a ballerina, and I learned it almost by heart. I know every movement, I know the story. Something's not right with this recording. The music is almost correct but something's wrong with it. No one who wasn't as familiar as I am with the piece would ever notice it."

  "Maybe it's just a bad recording."

  "I'm sure it's not. It's possible to use the notes of music as a code to spell out hidden messages."

  "You think Kolkov hid a message on that disc?"

  "It's possible. I'm going to give this disc to Stephanie and let Freddie take a shot at it."

  CHAPTER 8

  Holding her coffee in one hand and her key card in the other, Stephanie ran the card through the reader at the entrance to the computer room and leaned forward for a retinal scan. A few seconds later the glass doors hissed open. She walked past the row of Cray computers to her console at the far end of the room. A large camera lens tracked her approach.

  Good morning, Stephanie.

  "Good morning, Freddie. How are you today?"

  I am always the same, Stephanie.

  "What do you think about being back in headquarters?"

  It is good to be home. It is also good to have new circuitry to enhance my capabilities.

  The computer housing Freddie's program had been damaged beyond repair during the attack on headquarters. The new computer was similar to the old, but more sophisticated. Stephanie had programmed in a few tweaks of her own to give it extra speed and capability.

  "I'm glad you like your new digs, Freddie."

  Digs?

  "It's slang for where you live."

  Thank you for explaining it to me, Stephanie. Shall we play a game?

  "I have something more interesting for us today. Do you like music?"

  I am not sure what the attraction of music is to humans. I appreciate the mathematical progressions of music, however many forms of current music seem limited and uninteresting. I prefer what you call classical music for its complexity and structure.

  "Please access your database for the complete musical score of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake."

  Processing. Would you like me to display the score on the monitor?

  "That will not be necessary at this point. I'm going to insert a musical CD with a performance of Tchaikovsky's composition. I would like you to compare what is on the CD with the correct musical score."

  Do you want to hear the music as I compare the two?

  "That would be nice. Just down here, though. There's no need to play it upstairs as well."

  Stephanie took Kolkov's disk from her purse and inserted it into a slot on her console. The introduction to Tchaikovsky's famous ballet filled the room. Stephanie allowed herself to relax and listen to the intricate mix of the orchestra's instruments.

  It dawned on her that it had been too long since she'd listened to music. She was always so busy, between work and the baby and trying to sort out what was happening between her and Lucas.

  Their work was stressful, exhausting. When they were home, the baby demanded all of their attention. Lucas was tired all the time. They almost never made love anymore, she wasn't sure why. She felt unattractive, still carrying weight she'd put on before the bir
th. It was hard to find any time to exercise. The truth was she hated exercising, but she needed to do something to feel better about herself. She decided to start using the gym.

  The music swirled about her.

  Stephanie knew the story of Swan Lake, a tale of enchantment and the power of love to transcend evil. As the music flowed around the room, she imagined herself as a ballerina, dancing in a beautiful white outfit, graceful as a swan, Lucas in the audience, awestruck at her beauty...

  The music stopped, shocking her back to reality.

  Stephanie.

  "Yes, Freddie, what is it?"

  I have detected an anomaly.

  She waited, then sighed. If there was one thing that really bothered Stephanie about Freddie, it was that sometimes he had to be asked directly about whatever he'd been tasked to do. Unless she asked what the anomaly was, he wouldn't tell her. Sometimes she wondered if he did it on purpose.

  "What anomaly, Freddie?"

  In act one Prince Siegfried is drinking with his friends and the peasants begin to dance for him. The score has been altered on the disk at this point. Would you like to see a comparison of the two versions?

  "Yes, Freddie."

  There were three monitors on Stephanie's console. Two of them lit with lines of musical notation.

  Monitor one displays the original score as written by Tchaikovsky. Monitor two shows the notation for the altered section.

  "What do you make of it?"

  The altered section is a coded message using the musical ciphering system known as Cicada 3301.

  "Holy shit," Stephanie said.

  Please explain your comment.

  "Never mind, Freddie. What is Cicada 3301?"

  It is a popular online puzzle using combinations of musical notes to encrypt words and numbers.

  "Can you decode the message?"

  Of course.

  The third monitor lit. On it was a message in Russian.

  "Please translate into English."

  The message appeared on the screen.

  "Holy shit," Stephanie said again.

  She stood, went upstairs and burst into Elizabeth's office.

  "You need to see this. Right away."

  Elizabeth looked up from the intelligence brief she was studying.

  "Slow down, Steph. What's the matter?"

  "I gave Freddie the disk that Selena brought back from France. The Tchaikovsky piece."

  "Yes?"

  "I asked him to compare the music on the disk with the original score. I don't know how he did it but Kolkov managed to plant a message on the disk, using a musical cipher."

  "Did Freddie decipher it?"

  "Yes. Freddie, please put the deciphered message from the Tchaikovsky disk up on the monitors in Elizabeth's office."

  Yes, Stephanie.

  Russian sentences sprawled across the screens.

  "In English, please."

  The sentences changed to English.

  Status 6 torpedo development complete. Intention to deploy on the coast of US mainland. Timeline imminent.

  "Oh, oh," Elizabeth said.

  "I thought the Status 6 project had run into problems," Stephanie said. "The last Intel we had indicated that the Russians were considering scrapping the whole thing."

  "Not according to this. I'm going to have to brief the president."

  "He's already left for Atlanta."

  "I'll see him when he gets back," Elizabeth said.

  CHAPTER 9

  President Corrigan's town hall meeting was going to be held at the Fox Theater in Midtown Atlanta, a venue popular for rock concerts and political rallies. The theater had the advantage of being large enough for significant exposure and small enough for the crowd to be contained by the Secret Service. The Fox was a national historic landmark, a unique example of architecture and Art Deco décor that mixed a dazzling combination of Islamic and Egyptian themes. Of the few old-time movie palaces left in the United States, the Fox was at the top of the list.

  The assassin had considered several possible positions for the shot. Directly across from the theater was the upscale Georgian Terrace Hotel, but he immediately discarded it as a possibility. For one thing, the windows in the hotel didn't open. For another, the Secret Service was certain to examine every room facing the theater. In the end he chose an apartment building located farther away. It wasn't as close as the hotel but the distance to the front of the theater was not a problem. It would be an easy shot.

  The street in front of the theater and several blocks around would be closed to traffic. People who wanted to attend the event had already been vetted and issued official tickets. They'd go through additional security checks when they entered the building. The president's motorcade would pull up in front of the theater a few minutes before his speech. By that time, all the people invited to attend would be in their seats, while the press would be waiting outside the main entrance. Corrigan planned to enter the theater, walk down one of the isles waving to the crowd, and take the stage.

  The press was playing up the president's appearance. Corrigan had turned down the Secret Service's advice to enter the building by a side entrance. He wanted a photo op, with the famous façade of the theater in the background. Even if the Secret Service got its way and the president entered by a side entrance, the building the assassin had chosen for the shot covered the side of the theater as well.

  The window of opportunity would be small, no more than a few seconds at most, when the president got out of his car. The assassin didn't consider that a problem.

  Once he'd decided on the location, he made a call on a cell phone provided by his employer. He let it ring twice and hung up. He waited exactly five minutes and dialed again. This time the call was answered on the first ring.

  "Identify."

  "This is HAMMER."

  "Wait one."

  After a minute a new voice came online.

  "Yes."

  "I have a location."

  The assassin gave the address, described the building.

  "The schedule is confirmed," the voice on the other end of the connection said. "I'll make arrangements. Wait for my call."

  "What about the diversion?"

  "Don't worry about that."

  "Yes, sir."

  The call disconnected.

  CHAPTER 10

  Nick brought the rifle up to his shoulder and fired a three round burst downrange, punching out the center of a target bearing the silhouette of an armed man. Lamont and Ronnie had been watching.

  "Seems to work just fine," Lamont said.

  Ronnie grunted agreement.

  The weapon was the H-K M27 IAR. IAR stood for "Infantry Automatic Rifle." Field tests had produced rave reviews from Marines using the weapon. It was about to become standard issue for selected units.

  "I like it," Nick said. "Weighs about the same as an M4. Maybe a little more with a suppressor and good optics."

  "A lot lighter than a 269," Ronnie said.

  The M269 light machine gun weighed twenty-two pounds loaded. That was a lot to lug around all day on top of all the gear a Marine carried in the field. The M27 tipped the scale at a little under ten pounds fully loaded and could perform essentially the same functions. Potentially, every man in the squad was a machine gunner.

  Ronnie began coughing, a deep, wet hack. He bent over and coughed into his fist.

  "Hell, man, you sound a little rough," Lamont said.

  "I'm okay. Still getting over it."

  It was getting shot through the lung during the assault on Project HQ.

  "You sure you're ready to go back on duty?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure. But I gotta tell you, I'm thinking about hanging it up."

  "Leave the Project?"

  "When I was back on the Rez I had a lot of time to think," Ronnie said. "I spent time with my uncle."

  "The singer."

  Ronnie nodded. "The last couple of years, there hasn't been much time to study the old ways. My uncle isn't
going to be around much longer. My auntie is almost blind. Someone has to look after her."

  "Have you told Harker?"

  "Not yet. I wanted to tell you guys first. I was thinking you could start looking for someone to take my place."

  "Damn it, Ronnie, who am I gonna argue with if you leave?" Lamont said.

  "Ornery bastard like you, I don't think you'll have any trouble finding someone."

  Lamont shook his head and turned to Nick.

  "Let me try that beast." Lamont said.

  Nick handed him the rifle.

  "Selena's in the pool. I'm going to join her."

  The pool at Project headquarters had been inherited from the previous civilian owners, who had purchased a decommissioned Nike site after the end of the Cold War and converted it into a private residence. The pool was located in what had been one of the missile magazines.

  Nick changed into a bathing suit he kept in the locker room and walked out to the pool. Selena was completing a lap, practicing her breast stroke. She pulled up by the steps leading into the water.

  "The water's perfect. Just the right temperature."

  Nick climbed in.

  "I love this," Selena said. "When I'm in the water, I feel light again."

  "A couple of more months and you will be light again."

  "Nick..."

  "What?"

  "What are you going to do when the twins are born?"

  Something in the tone of her voice set off a faint alarm in the back of Nick's mind. They'd never really talked about the future after the twins made their appearance.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean what are you going to do? Do you think you should keep working for Elizabeth? "

  "The way you said that tells me you don't think I should."

  "I didn't say that."

  "No, but that's what you meant."

  Selena said nothing.

  "I can't quit. Ronnie just told me he's going to leave. I'll have to train his replacement."

  "Lamont could do that."

  "It would put Harker in a bad place. I'd be letting her down."

  "What about me? What about the twins?"

  "Selena, what's got into you? You know who I am. You know I can't just walk away and dump everything on Harker."