10th September
‘Shit,’ said the president staring from the window of the Oval office at the stars in the night sky over Washington.
Elliot, Robin and Paul sat in the armchairs.
‘She’d gone within the hour,’ said Paul. ‘I never expected that to happen.’
‘Tell me more about the woman,’ said the president, turning to face the others.
‘Her name’s Camellia Carson,’ Elliot replied. ‘She works in the Pentagon as an IT advisor on strategic systems.’
The president interrupted: ‘Was she in a position to sabotage a missile launch by transmitting an inaccurate Permissive Action Link code confirmation.’
‘Yes,’ replied Elliot.
‘She must have been the WAR operative at the Pentagon,’ Robin concluded. ‘Otherwise, why would she vanish as soon as Paul’s visit spooked her?’
‘There’s one more thing,’ said Elliot. ‘The car on the CCTV was a Ford C-Max. That wasn’t the make of Hemmingway’s car, so I didn’t make a connection. When his mother’s farm was searched this morning, a C-Max with false plates was found in the garage.’
‘It looks like Hemmingway probably killed Rodriguez, and Carson was nearby.’
‘Why did they kill him?’ asked Robin.
‘It may be that they thought it safer to eliminate a compromised operative,’ ventured Paul.
‘That doesn’t ring true,’ said Robin. ‘Why would they make such an elementary mistake? Hemmingway and Carson were the only two uncompromised WAR operatives left in America. They were taking a huge risk to undertake an assassination themselves – and together. When you have to use key agents to undertake assignments outside their primary roles, you’re running crazy risks,’ Robin concluded.
‘They weren’t amateurs,’ noted Paul. ‘Why would they take a chance like that?’
The president brought an end to the speculation: ‘That’s not important now,’ he said. ‘We’re lucky they took that risk because it led to the identification of Camellia Carson. The important question is about where Hemmingway and Carson are at the moment.’
‘Also,’ added Elliot, ‘what their capabilities are. My guess is that they had a contingency plan in the event of being discovered. That contingency might include access to weapons systems.’
‘You mean they might be somewhere where they can launch our weapons,’ said the president.
‘They know how to use Pentagon and White House systems to launch or sabotage US weapons and to authorise other missions,’ Elliot continued. ‘If they were in the right location, they could transmit a PAL code confirmation, and they might have access to the presidential password. They could be in a position to launch nuclear and other operations – as if authorised by the president.’
‘Surely they can’t do that from any street corner,’ said Paul.
‘No,’ said Elliot, ‘they need to be where they can access the cable connections that link the Pentagon, the White House, NORAD, other strategic locations and the relevant weapons systems. That’s why Python can’t directly get the information that A51H was providing to ARK in respect of the PAL code and the presidential password.’
‘Where is the nearest of those locations?’ asked Robin.
The room fell silent.
‘They couldn’t be …’ said the president as he and Elliot looked down at the floor.
‘What is it?’ asked Paul.
‘There’s a bunker beneath the White House that was built at the end of World War Two,’ explained the president. ‘It was designed to be an emergency control room for the president in the event of a nuclear attack. It’s never been used, but it has the capability to be exactly the place that Hemmingway and Carson need.
‘Once someone’s inside it, there’s no way of regaining control of the bunker or the weapons systems that can be controlled from there … at least not within the next three days.’
‘Hemmingway and Carson might be in a position to prevent US missiles being launched against the asteroid,’ said Robin, ‘and also to attack the Theta bases from which the missiles could be launched – if they know where they are.’
‘It’s worse than that,’ said Elliot. ‘If they’re in the bunker, they can set their own presidential password for any day – it was an additional security feature to ensure that the president retained all control in a nuclear emergency.
‘If they’re there, and we haven’t taken the bunker by the day after tomorrow, we can’t relay the real password to Theta.’