Parallelogram : Day Two : Chapter 60

Five Days, Ten Hours, Thirty-Two Minutes

Isaac Mentnor was relieved when he felt the support harness slip down through the shaft. Quickly, he tucked the device he had recovered from deep beneath the War Room into his pocket, and he stretched his arm carefully over the strap. Easily, he forced it down over his shoulders and pulled it snug under his arms. From above, the Secret Service hoisted him up, out of the shaft, and set him on the floor.

"I hope you don't take this the wrong way, doctor," the dark-suited young man tried, "but you're a bit too old to be playing Indiana Jones."

"Don't I know it, son."


The War Room was buzzing with activity. Its endless screens were flood with the telemetry that now – thanks to him – was being electronically beamed in from all over the world. On several screens, he noticed technicians quickly reviewing the pictures from over Alaska: the endless palette of pure white was suddenly blotted by a huge gaping hole in the powdered ground. Mentnor shook his head. He couldn't imagine how someone could think to create such a weapon, let alone use one. The world was full of madmen, he knew, and BackStep was just a single, solitary operation ... it couldn't stop all of them, even if Frank Parker or Channing Michelson had all the time in the world. Life wouldn't be that fortunate.

Still, on other screens, he saw an endless expanse of blue.

"What's happened?" he asked, turning to the young agent that had escorted him out of the maintenance area. "Have we been attacked again?"

"I believe so, sir." Taking his arm, Mentnor followed as the man led him to the nearest bank of screens affixed to the long stretch of wall. "I'm not completely certain about this, but I believe we're looking at the Persian Gulf."

"The Gulf?"

"Yes," he said. "There were some images – several moments ago – that I noticed the Peacetime Drilling Rigs above the water."

"But ... why would anyone strike an ocean?"

Then, it dawned on him.

"What did he hit?" Mentnor asked.

So far as I know, sir," the agent began, "nothing. At least, that's what I can tell you from what I saw." Quickly, the agent shouted out to one of the technicians. He asked for the man to replay the attack that happened to be captured by one of the defense satellites over the Gulf, and the screen blanked for a moment only to be replaced by another shot of perfect blue, small wave lines stretched across the screen. The water was peaceful. After several seconds, Mentnor noticed that the liquid suddenly moved as if a huge hand had reached down into the body of water and stirred. He watched as torrents of steam rose from the Gulf – reaching upward as if into the face of the satellite's lens – and splattered into every conceivable direction. The water beneath seemed to be bubbling, churning, boiling from an unseen heat. Then, there was a flash of brilliant light – the camera had undoubtedly detected something like a heat signature of a massive laser blast – and the water ... simply ... vanished? It was gone, there before but now nothing but a memory, an afterimage reflect on the back of the eye. Mentnor blinked, and another wall of water poured angrily into the gaping hole.

"My Lord," he whispered.

"Dr. Mentnor!"

Quickly, he turned, and he watched as Chief Stoddard marched over to where he stood.

"Given this development and my need of your expertise here, doctor, I'll spare you prosecution for violating my order to evacuate the White House," the man stated as he approached. "And, please, spare me the trouble of placing you under house arrest, ordering what few agents I have left to stay at your side, and share with me what exploits you're planning to undertake in the future before you undertake them, will you?"

The scientist felt his face flush red with embarrassment. "I apologize, chief."

Waving a hand, Stoddard snapped, "Spare me the platitudes, Isaac ... and call me 'Ethan.'"

"Yes, sir."

The chief stopped directly in front of the man.

"I hear that we owe you a debt of thanks for returning control of the satellites to the President."

Mentnor nodded. "I'm sorry to report that ... my efforts were not without casualty."

"Yes," Stoddard agreed. "Donovan called me ... and he told me about Chloe."

"I'm so sorry ... Ethan."

If he didn't know better, Mentnor thought he recognized a glimpse of regret twinkling in the younger man's eyes.

"What's happened has happened, Isaac." The chief quickly changed his expression as he knew that now wasn't the time to wax on about life and death. "Working in Washington teaches all of us many lessons, not the least important of which is that each of us chooses what cause to serve and whether that cause will be just or ... less-than-perfect." He nodded to the man at Mentnor's side. "Agent Golanski will oversee the recovery of Chloe's body." The young man immediately responded by leaving the scene, heading back in the direction of the maintenance door. "I understand you have this device that's caused us so much delay."

Mentnor retrieved the egg-shaped device from his pocket. He held it out for the chief, but Stoddard held up a hand. "You're the doctor, doctor," he chirped with an odd irony. "Please, show me how this works."

Together, they strolled over to the console where the older man had left his laptop. From his briefcase, Mentnor produced an electronic cord. He cracked open the egg and found a spot to plug into the interior circuitry – working from a standard USB connection – and he said, "It would appear that the senator or Miss Vandemark used a conventional computer to program this device. Let's see what we can find."

He took a chair and pulled up a quick diagnostic program. Accessing the external drive, Mentnor glanced at the long scroll of program files that appeared on the screen.

"This is a fairly standard cache of command files," he announced after reviewing the data on his small screen. "This configuration is hardly unusual, by any stretch of the imagination." However, he clicked on one file folder – WH3MGWest – that he didn't recognize. "This one doesn't make any sense." The folder refused to open, instead offering up a block requesting a password.

"I know what that is," Stoddard announced, much to Mentnor's surprise. "That's the network address to Chloe's office in the West Wing of the White House." He pointed at the password block. "Try 'magnet,'" he said. "All lowercase. It's a standard command password for the entire encryption system."

The scientist typed in the word, but the device refused. "I would imagine that this device is governed by an entirely different set of password-protected commands," he said. "The odds would be very high that Chloe quite possibly even altered the password from what Senator Pendley had initially installed into the program."

"Can you crack it?"

Mentnor grimaced. "I'm no seasoned expert on this particular type of stealth technology ... but I might be able to get somewhere with it, given some time." He noticed a command file, and he realized that the device was possibly still operating on its own internal power supply. "I could be wrong, but I believe this thing is still transmitting."

Reaching to the nearest phone, Stoddard grabbed the received and tapped the buttons for a line. "Yes," he declared into the mouthpiece, "this is Chief Stoddard. Get someone over to Chloe Vandemark's office right now. Take a look at her monitor. I want to know what's happened on that machine."

From his chair, the scientist glanced up at the younger man. "You don't think ...?"

"Like I said, Isaac, I'm no scientist," he offered. "I failed horribly at it regardless of what level of education required it ... but I'm willing to make a guess that the device is exercising some sort of failsafe, transmitting through a connection with Chloe's computer."

Suddenly, the chief looked up as Mentnor barely heard the voice on the other end of the phone. Stoddard asked a few quick questions before he nodded and hung up.

"Sonuvabitch," he swore.

"What is it, Ethan?"

"Her P.C. is up and running," he explained. "It's displaying a message that I expected. There's a program running that's deleting all files on her hard drive. But ... the system has also just emailed a flash priority message out through the White House server."

"An email?" the scientist asked. "To whom?"

Stoddard frowned. "It appears that Chloe sent her last words to the media."

"What?!"

"She's just alerted the White House Press Corps that the country is under attack."

END of Chapter 60