Interception

Price nodded. “You’ll have an enhanced cell phone-PDA for urgent visual updates. And direct audio with them. Otherwise the Jack and Charlie team will do its thing completely separate from you and feed us updates every eight hours. They’ll go trolling to see what they pick up until you point them in a direction.”

“So I’m supposed to enter a section of the city of Split that is a law unto itself. A place where everyone is pretending to be something they aren’t. Then I start following up leads to find two people who’ve disappeared, but whose disappearances may or may not be linked.”

Brognola nodded. “Yeah. That about sums it up. But don’t forget, if anyone suspects you of being an American agent, there are half a hundred intelligence and criminal cells who’ll try to kill you.”

Kurtzman leaned in. “And there’s so much going on that the potential that you could stumble onto something nefarious is high. Almost guaranteed. It just won’t be guaranteed that it’ll be the exact nefarious activity we want.”

Bolan leaned back. “When do I leave?”

CHAPTER SIX

The underground railcar came to a stop and Bolan climbed out, went through the requirements of the security checkpoint and entered the Annex. He found Akira Tokaido sitting in front of three separate computer screens at a desk with the music from his MP-3 player so loud it bled out of his earbuds. When the lean Japanese American saw Bolan approaching, he lifted his chin in greeting and killed the volume on his digital player.

“’Sup, boss,” Tokaido said.

“Barb told me you have something I could use.”

Tokaido grinned. “I got something good cooked up for you.” He swung around in his chair and pulled open a desk drawer. Bolan watched as the cybersorcerer removed two electronic devices and placed them on the desktop.

Bolan nodded then pointed at the pot of coffee brewing over on the wall across the room. “Bear make that?”

“Yep. Oh yeah,” Tokaido bobbed his head. “You want some?”

“No. I don’t think my stomach could take two cups in the same day. What you got for me?”

“This is a BlackBerry. Common model, the latest but nothing that screams ‘spook.’ Inside however, under the hood, I’ve created a system of incredible power. So incredible that I prefer to think of it as magic.

“This will let Jack and Charlie give you a head’s up on anything they find using our advanced placed relays. Your laptop will display any of the TEMPEST info they pick up, as well as parabolic and laser microphone readings. Video surveillance, still shots digital relay, whatever. All passive and all linked to them through our cutouts here on the Farm. Very secure.”

Bolan knew TEMPEST technology allowed individuals in physical proximity to read the energy emitted from computer screens and translate it. There were commercial programs available to thwart the program, but nothing existed to defeat the version of the TEMPEST equipment used by the NSA.

“Excellent.”

“Look, I put an interactive layer over the tech. Reduced it to point-and-click shortcuts so you don’t need to be an MIT grad to use it and defend it—same thing I did for the gear Jack and Charlie will be using. But that was a risk, so if you don’t put in the passive code indicator that I’m going to show you, within six seconds of initiating use, it’ll scramble and dump everything. A prompt screen will not appear—just your desktop icons, but the software will be monitoring your keystrokes. Miss the window and the thing shuts down and buttons up.” Tokaido leaned forward, his face intent. “Then the weaponized laser on our Keyhole satellite fires.”

Bolan looked at him, one eyebrow cocked.

The young man chuckled, obviously amused at his own super-secret agent joke. “Just so you know, if we did want to, I could hook that up.”

“I know, you’re a mad scientist of binary process.”