Antivirus (The Horde Series Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter 10

National Security Agency Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland:
Major Thomas Bolson stalked along the corridor toward the lab. He had been in a foul mood since the meeting the day before with General Hawthorne and the NSA gorilla. After the meeting, he had worked non-stop in the lab by himself, trying vainly to come up with a way to reign in his creation and salvage his military career, while trying to stamp down the overwhelming feelings of betrayal. Yet as before, he had come up empty, and his anger had only intensified. At around 5:00 in the morning, he had gone home, hoping to catch a couple hours of sleep and change into a fresh uniform. The uniform change he was able to manage, but sleep did not come and his feelings of anger and helplessness were as raw as before.

Back in the military complex, he paused at the steel door leading into the lab and went through the normal palm and retina scan routine, before the door hissed open, allowing him entrance. He walked into the lab and froze as the door shut behind him.

Lieutenant Danielle Martz looked up from her work station, all the color draining from her face. It was obvious she had not expected him. She had avoided the lab after yesterday’s meeting on the advice of General Hawthorne and had only returned after she knew that Bolson was gone. The major had returned early, though, trapping her in a situation that she knew could get out of hand, particularly with their past together.

“What are you doing here?” Bolson snarled, tossing his briefcase on a lab table and folding his arms in anger. Every muscle in his body tensed, and it was all he could do to keep from killing the woman right there. She had betrayed him so completely; had compromised everything he had worked toward and had likely permanently derailed his military career. He could have his sidearm out and put several bullets into her head before she even moved and, truth be told, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t yet take that route.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she stammered, standing quickly. “If I had known you would be back…”

“You wouldn’t be here!” the major snapped, finishing her sentence. “What’s the matter, Dani? Are you afraid I would retaliate against someone trying to undermine my project and my command? Are you that desperate to take over this project?”

“No!” the young woman replied quickly. “It’s not like that at all, Tom! I swear!”

“Don’t patronize me!” Bolson yelled, moving forward threateningly. “You’ve had your eye on this since day one! You led me on! You set me up and then you betrayed me! Everything you’ve ever said was a lie and you’ve cost me everything!”

“No, sir,” she stammered again. “You’ve got it all wrong, Tom! You have to let me explain.”

Bolson had his sidearm out and two steps took him within reach of the young woman. She started to back away, but he grabbed her shoulder and yanked her toward him, pressing the barrel of the gun against the side of her head. “Give me one good reason not to do it, Dani,” he hissed, his face very close to hers. Memories from their relationship reared up in his mind, but he allowed his anger to blunt the emotions. He was ready to go over the edge.

“Tom, listen to me,” Danielle said softly, tears welling in her eyes. “I swear this is not how it was supposed to happen.”

Bolson pressed the gun barrel harder to her head. “Tell me how it was supposed to happen, then,” he snarled.

“Please, Tom,” she begged. “Please don’t hurt me. I never wanted this to happen. Never.”

For a moment, Bolson wavered, and that was the only window that Martz needed. An accomplished martial artist—a fact the major knew nothing about—she threw her left arm out, shoving Ayer’s gun hand hard to the side, while at the same time striking him hard in the chest with an open palm. It was not meant to hurt him, only to separate the two of them and give her room to work.

Bolson was thrown back and nearly lost his grip on his weapon, but he recovered quickly and began to bring his gun back to bear on the woman. Only this time, she was not the helpless victim and he found himself looking down the barrel of her own sidearm, freezing him in his place, his gun still pointed toward the floor. As if to punctuate the fact that the momentum had swung 180 degrees, Danielle Martz said coolly, “Your weapon, please, major.”

Bolson flinched visibly, expecting his head to be reduced to a puddled mass of brain matter and body fluids, but instead she motioned with her free hand for him to place his weapon on the table. Quickly becoming numb to everything that had happened, Bolson hesitated for a second before complying and backing away from the table.

Martz stared him down for a moment and then quickly holstered her sidearm, her eyes never leaving his. “I could have killed you, Tom,” she said icily, her face suddenly a mask of stone. She picked up his weapon and then surprisingly flipped it around and presented it back to him. “Of course, you still have the opportunity to kill me if you truly feel that’s your only recourse here,” she went on, indicating that he should take his weapon from her. “I won’t stop you. But understand that if you do, you won’t know the truth and if you’re truly concerned about your career, you can bet it would end in front of a firing squad or under a needle.” She paused before finishing. “It’s your move.”

“Why give my gun back to me?” he asked, trying desperately to piece together everything that had happened as he took his weapon and immediately holstered it. He was reeling from the about-face she had done, but was smart enough to know that he was in something a lot deeper than he had originally thought.

“Because I trust you,” she said simply.

“You’re NSA, aren’t you,” Bolson stated, trying to put some heat into his accusation, but failing miserably.

Without answering, she brushed past him. Pausing for a moment, she turned and reached into her pocket. She tossed him a key, which he quickly snatched out of the air. He knew what the key was, since he had used it a number of times in the past. “Noon,” she said simply and then left the lab through the hiss of the security door.

Thomas Bolson was shocked at how things had suddenly turned and he breathed out a long sigh as he slid into his office chair in a daze. For the next two hours, he worked in numb shock, unbothered by anyone, but accomplishing nothing. At about ten thirty, he left the complex.

He arrived at his destination an hour and a half later and used the key to let himself in. It was a small house, set back from a quiet tree-lined road in Manassas, Virginia. He hadn’t given it any thought in the past, but now he looked at it with an eye for detail. The house was sheltered from the road and unobtrusive. To anyone else, it was the perfect little cottage in a quiet part of town. To him, he now saw it for what it was – a cover.

Danielle Martz was waiting for him in the living room, seated in an easy chair, her face much softer than the ice queen she had been when she’d left the lab a few hours earlier. Several times in the past, she would have been waiting for him in a negligee or something even less, the part of their relationship they had kept secret from everyone. Today, she was dressed comfortably in work-out clothes - spandex shorts and a tight-fitting Under Armour top. Bolson had always been attracted to her and the two had hit it off surprisingly well when she had first come to work with him on the Horde Project. He was just now starting to understand why that was.

“Sit down,” she said softly, indicating the couch that cornered her chair.

“You used me,” he said matter-of-factly, keeping his voice controlled as he took a seat.

She offered him a smile that was almost sad. “Not entirely,” she answered. “Regardless of the reasons behind it, I assure you, the attraction was mutual, Tom.”

“But why?” he asked, still in shock. “Why lead me on like that?”

“You were correct back in the lab,” she said with a sigh, ignoring his question. “I work for the cyber-ops division of the NSA.”

“Is that why you were assigned to my project?”

“Partly,” she answered. “But there’s more to this than you know, and in my opinion, it’s high time you know what’s going on.”

Bolson looked confused. “I don’t understand,” he finally said.

“I’ll start from the beginning,” she replied. “The Horde project has been on the NSA radar since its inception. As a matter of fact, we’re bankrolling it.”

“I thought this was General Hawthorne’s baby?”

“That’s correct, for all intents and purposes. It’s his project, which is the way it needs to be for now. At the moment, the NSA is involved with the management team in an advisory role and, in my case, hands-on assistance. But ultimately, the NSA will fully control the project upon completion.”

“But why?” Bolson was confused. With the work he did for the government and with the clearance level he had, he knew there were always powerbrokers pulling the strings behind the scenes on secret projects. Maybe it was that it was now his job and his project that was being manipulated, that this whole thing was bothering him.

“Why not?” Martz answered. “Think about what the Horde project is, Tom. We’re not talking about simple artificial intelligence here. We’re talking about a finished project that would create a thinking, growing entity. Scientists have been trying to play God for years. What you’re working on is playing God in a whole new world. And make no mistake, it’s a living, breathing world you’re playing in.”

Bolson didn’t know whether to be ashamed or proud. “I don’t know if I would go that far,” he finally stammered. “All we’re trying to do it harness control of cyberspace.”

“And the first nation to do that is going to be the only remaining super power in the world,” she added. “Face it, Tom. This isn’t the United States of thirty-odd years ago. Back when it was the USA and USSR, things were pretty simple. Our two countries were the only ones at the poker table and we both had our fingers on the buttons. Oh, there were a few pretenders in the nuke game, but MAD kept everything at least semi-civil.”

“Mutual Assured Destruction,” he reasoned.

“Exactly. But today, the United States is a shell of what we were back then. Several administrations have stripped the military to the bone and what we have left is off fighting the unending 21st century version of the Crusades.” She shook her head, clearly irate. “It would chill you to know just how vulnerable we are today, Tom. Russia continues to saber rattle and we’d be stupid not to be paying attention to what’s going on over there. Even worse, if the Chinese decided they wanted what we have, our chances of survival as a country would be virtually nil. They can beat us economically, they can beat us militarily, and we both know it. The only thing that keeps them from doing so today is that we are a big player in their economy. Once they have worked out how to get around it, China will be the biggest threat we have ever faced.” She shifted in the chair and drew her legs underneath her. “Did you ever see the movie Red Dawn?” she went on, abruptly changing topics.

He shook his head.

“It’s an older movie, but a good one, much better than the remake,” she said. “The story is pretty straightforward. A foreign nation launches a coordinated attack on the United States, taking over huge chunks of the country before anyone even knows what’s happening. Back then, that scenario would be far-fetched. We were, after all, the top superpower in the world. Today, however, things are much different and it’s a very real possibility.”

“Don’t you think you might be exaggerating a bit?” Bolson countered, stopping short of mentioning tin-foil hats.

“No,” she snapped, looking angry. “In the history of the world, no empire has ever survived. All of them rise and fall and we’ll be no exception, unless we take the appropriate steps. What is at stake here is quite simply the control of the free world. Whoever controls cyberspace will control the world, and it’s in our best interests to be the country that controls it.”

“Okay,” Bolson sighed, feeling exasperated. “Whether or not I buy into all the conspiracy theory rhetoric, what does this whole thing have to do with me?”

“The Horde project is the key, Tom,” she answered. “In simplest terms, to have a thinking life form in control of cyberspace; a thinking life form that is actually under our control, gives us an insurmountable advantage. It gives us a level of control over hostile nations never before considered.”

Bolson nodded. This was familiar territory for him and he disputed none of it. “I am aware of all of this,” he answered. “Cyber warfare has been all the rage for the past decade or more. But you haven’t answered my question. Again, how do I fit into all of this?”

She sat back and folded her arms, eyeing him carefully before answering. “Because we had to be sure you weren’t the mole.”

“The mole?” he asked in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“One of the reasons I brought you here is that I’ve been cleared by my superiors to discuss this with you,” she replied. “I didn’t want to have this discussion at the lab because there’s no telling what kind of surveillance Hawthorne has on you right now. At least here, it’s me and you.”

“And the NSA,” he added, looking around. “I’m not dumb, Dani. I know this is a cover house. How deep does the NSA surveillance on me go?”

She grinned almost impishly. “If you’re worried about our bedroom action, don’t. I do have some say in what is and is not monitored in here.”

Bolson allowed himself to relax slightly, but not enough to allow the deflection to continue. “Where do I fit into all of this, Dani? Don’t screw with me. I have a right to know.”