The Cyclops Initiative by David Wellington Read Free Book Online

I committed us. Oh, look, son, it’s not, ah, it’s not your fault—­I didn’t give you a chance to talk back there.” He sighed and stared out his window. “All right, we’re still on the clock and we have a little time before we get to the NSA. We need to start thinking through how we’re going to find whoever struck the Port of New Orleans. We need a list of possible culprits.”
    â€œYes, sir,” Chapel said. This was good—­it was good because it would make him think about something other than what had happened to Angel. He forced himself to push his brain down a different road. “You said before this was a technological attack—­all done with computers. And we know the Predator’s control signal was heavily encrypted. That has to narrow down the search. If the same person intercepted and blocked Angel’s signal, that means even fewer candidates. Her encryption was stronger than the Predator’s. You said Russia and China might have that kind of technology.”
    â€œThey might. But in both cases it wouldn’t be something the average citizen could get their hands on. It would take military-­grade equipment, or maybe something their spy ser­vices would have. We know neither of them wants to start a war.”
    â€œBut maybe that wasn’t the point,” Chapel pointed out. “Maybe the whole plan was just to hurt us economically. They would know we would suspect terrorists first—­if they covered their tracks well enough, they’d have a chance of getting away with it and us never finding out.”
    â€œWe’ll put that on the list, then, but no—­that doesn’t feel right,” Hollingshead said. “I’ll admit I’m no, ah, economist. Perhaps they wanted to, I don’t know, short some market for foodstuffs or monopolize some commodity. But a real economist, I’m sure, would point out what they had to lose. Hurting us might give them a tiny advantage, but would it be worth the incredible risk? If we do discover that this actually was soft war, we’ll have to respond with the more traditional sort.”
    â€œSo what else, then? Who?”
    Hollingshead shrugged. “The problem with technology, of course, is that it’s always moving forward. Always innovating. We could be dealing with just one rogue hacker, for all we know.”
    â€œSomeone like Bogdan Vlaicu,” Chapel pointed out. Vlaicu was a Romanian hacker Chapel had worked with on a mission, once. He was a paranoid, morose man who was convinced he was constantly about to be killed. He was also the best computer genius Chapel had ever known, with the one exception of Angel. “He had access to Angel’s software, once, and he made pretty good use of it.” In fact he’d been a big part of why Chapel had screwed up so badly on that mission and gotten himself assigned to stakeout duty with Wilkes. “I know she upgraded her systems after we found out, but maybe he found another way in.”
    â€œIt’s possible. There are three or four other ­people in the world with those skills, ­people I’ve had my eye on,” Hollingshead said, “very dangerous ­people. But none of them would intentionally attack the United States, not like this—­it just wouldn’t interest them to do so.”
    â€œUnless they were paid well enough,” Chapel pointed out. Vlaicu had worked for both organized crime and for the Romanian and Russian governments in the past. He’d also helped a terrorist in Siberia, though that had been . . . complicated.
    â€œSo he and the others definitely go on the list, though finding them will be damned difficult. And then we’ll need to discover who they worked for,” Hollingshead said.
    Wilkes leaned over the seat back. “No answer from any of these phone numbers,” he said. Chapel had expected as much, but it still pained