Extinction Crisis

“Better us than someone who can’t handle a worm or logic bomb,” Kurtzman explained. “We can cordon off any infection. The FBI or CIA get hit, and there’s a chance we lose half the intel that Homeland Security somehow managed to gather.”

“Half of nothing, you mean?” Delahunt asked. “I fail to see how bloating the intelligence-gathering process does anything for securing our national security.”

“Don’t say that too loud,” Kurtzman replied. “There are still types who’d rather trade their freedom for security up the road.”

Delahunt made a face. “You’d have thought after eight years of that kind of ineptitude, we’d be done with it by now.”

“Promises made are just pillow talk. Politics is still the Greek term for many blood-sucking insects, not many truth speakers,” Kurtzman growled.

“Back to work?” Delahunt asked.

Kurtzman sighed. “The bad guys aren’t going to find themselves for us, are they?”

“Nope,” Delahunt answered.

The two computer experts returned to their workstations, toiling on in the search for any link to the robot masters.

D ARRIN H OMM LOOKED OVER the UAV footage from Egypt. Though the images were grainy due to the lack of finesse inherent to night vision, he still had height and weight estimations thanks to computerized parallax analysis relating the images to known objects on the ground around them. He entered the data into a search program that contained dossiers for known current and past agents of a half-dozen governments.

With that particular information, the computer mastermind turned to his partner, Mischa Shenck, putting the pictures down in front of the engineer. Shenck looked at the printed photos, then raised an eyebrow.

“An African in Africa?” the Russian-born cyberneticist asked.

“African-American,” Homm replied. “But black Americans are usually tourists, and Egypt doesn’t let tourists run around with state-of-the-art assault rifles.”

Shenck looked at the picture. “So, he’d be an American CIA agent? Special Forces?”

“Special Forces is straight Army. Get the facts straight,” Homm growled.

Shenck sighed, knowing the computer expert’s obsessive-compulsive disdain for improper terminology. “Sorry. Special operations.”

“Likely special operations. I put that face through recognition software, but it’s come back as a null return,” Homm said. “That marks him as a sanitized operative since he doesn’t even register on recognition patterns.”

“So, you want me to help you figure out who he is?” Shenck asked. “He’s been sanitized by professionals if he’s a nonentity in your recognition program. Whoever wiped him out of the database would have been thorough.”

Homm nodded. “If anything, they are working closely with the Egyptian authorities. Their driver is a member of Unit 777.”

“It’s not much to go on,” Shenck said.

“Bullshit it’s not. Somehow, two Americans brought their own personal weapons, because SIG-Sauer is not standard Egyptian gear, even for their high-speed, low-drag units,” Homm said. “And they were on watch for our robots.”

“Which means we’re not talking about a large agency here,” Shenck said. “The Americans at the Department of Energy had only encountered the other robot a few hours ago. Intelligence agencies take days to get word to units in other cities, let alone other countries.”

“Hence the logic of a small agency or a tightly knit department,” Homm suggested.

“Something around twenty people,” Shenck mused. “Half in the field, half working cyber support. They undoubtedly have an efficient and secure communications network, as well, so tapping them will be nearly impossible.”

“They might be hard to trace, but they have their own contacts and allies abroad,” Homm stated. “So we should be able to tap whomever they’re working with.”

“Breaking the DoE and Egyptian military intelligence networks to figure out who they’re interfacing with will be your job, but this group does sound sort of familiar,” Shenck said. “Did you only get a picture of the black man?”

“There was an Israeli woman. I managed to pry her identity from Mossad’s computers,” Homm said. “And she was with another man.”

“Did you run him through?” Shenck asked.

“He also had a zero response,” Homm answered. “He was of average height and build, though.”

Shenck looked at the second American’s photo. He smiled. “Just what I expected.”

“Who did you think you would find?” Homm asked.

“The Latino member of the team,” Shenck answered.

“One black. One Latino. And three sort of average white men as partners?” Homm suggested.

“Exactly,” Shenck replied. “We’ve come up against the urban legend known as Phoenix Force.”

Homm punched the desk between them. “Damn! That means the big blond guy who didn’t even stop when we hit him with the Taser must have been from their so-called sister team, Able.”

“Presumably the same Mr. Stone who my former friends in the KGB despised so deeply,” Shenck said. “Stone or iron or some such invulnerable material fits the description of a man who shrugged off twenty thousand volts through a Taser.”

“So those two groups are allied?” Homm asked.

“Considering that they are aspects of the same myth, it is a likelihood,” Shenck said.

“These groups aren’t myths. We have photographs of them,” Homm growled.

“We’ve seen the basis for the mythology,” Shenck countered. “But the facts are not so clear in regard to what the nature of their organization is.”

“Their agency is large enough to operate in Washington, D.C., and outside of Inshas, Egypt, but they are still small enough to quickly communicate across the Atlantic Ocean. They also have their pulse on things, because Hirtenberg was investigating our touches on the DoE’s security system and they hooked up with the Mossad after the Negev near-incident,” Homm speculated.

“So they know all about our infiltration, the nature of the attack robots and our deal with local terror groups,” Shenck mused.

“They also know that we have Global Hawk UAV drones,” Homm said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have excellent face shots if they weren’t looking directly at the drone.”

“How screwed are we?” Shenck asked.

“It all depends on operations in France,” Homm replied. “And if they have their teams granulated enough to have a presence in Europe, as well.”

“You believe the teams have split?” Shenck asked.

“There’s only two visible in Egypt. We can’t discount the remainder of Phoenix Force being elsewhere, especially in the wake of the violence committed in Paris,” Homm sighed.

“What do we do?” Shenck asked.

“Adapt. Which means I call in some extra help on my side, and you utilize some of those upgrades which I thought would be too flashy,” Homm replied.

“What about Inshas?” Shenck asked.