The phalanx code, p.4
The Phalanx Code, page 4
The guard who had jogged to the helicopter flipped up his goggles and stood before an eye scanner. After a few seconds, a metallic hiss preceded the opening of two doors. We stepped into a brightly lit white-paneled room with shiny floors and ceilings with an array of lights and cameras pointing at us from all directions. The guard pointed at Calles and made her stay with another sentry while we stepped into a sleek, futuristic rail car that felt like it was levitating with small, controlled vibrations beneath our feet.
“Hyperloop,” Mahegan said.
The doors snapped shut and we were strapped into standing positions not unlike an amusement park ride. A red light at the far end of the car flashed to yellow, then green. Inside the pod were ventilation systems and tanks that said OXYGEN on them. Like an airplane, this thing was probably pressurized, or the oxygen might have been to assist passengers in case of an accident underground deep in the mine shafts. The car shot at seven hundred miles per hour through the mountainside, and a few minutes later we stopped just as abruptly as we had started. My math told me that seven hundred miles per hour was eleven point five miles per minute. We probably traveled between thirty and forty miles underground. This was a huge complex.
We unsnapped from our harnesses and walked through the open doors into another well-lit foyer where the guide was eye scanned again. We were greeted by a tall blond man with broad shoulders. He looked like he might have been a college athlete thirty years ago. Maybe a baseball pitcher with long arms and lanky legs.
“Hi, General, I’m Mitch Drewson,” he said.
“Garrett Sinclair,” I said.
“Just so you know, General, while you were in my south station anteroom and in the hyperloop itself, I had facial recognition, infrared scanners, and voice recognition software confirming your and your team’s identities. Wanted you to know that we don’t let just anybody in here, which is why Sergeant Calles is still in the anteroom being searched and investigated. Though we already have a detailed dossier on her, other than having her on the payroll, we don’t know much more about her. You’ve all been scanned for smart dust and cleaned when you came into the first chamber. Any that you might have had on you has been neutralized. The point of the hyperloop entrance is to provide some standoff as we are screening newcomers.”
I nodded as he punched some buttons on a sleek silver console. The wall to his front lit up with a jumbotron consuming all the wall space. A blurry picture of Mahegan’s face projected onto the wall.
“Let’s get right down to it. Not much time,” Drewson said. “Jake Mahegan. We took this picture a minute ago. Very little information out there on you. Good job. Former Delta Force operator from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Left the unit several years ago and now do freelance security work … when you’re not grinding personal axes. Mother was murdered when you were fourteen. You killed three of the four men who had gang raped and killed her in Lumberton, North Carolina. Father died an alcoholic on the Lumbee reservation searching for his roots, which Jake found on Roanoke Island. Croatan. The Lost Colony.”
I looked at Jake. He was clenching his jaw and flexing but he kept his cool, for the moment.
Hobart’s scarred face now dominated the screen.
“Joe Hobart. Sergeant Major. US Army. The best sniper in the inventory, as they say, as if you’re simply property of the government, which I guess you are. Or, at least, were. From Missouri. Ozark region. You have a wife, Zoey, and daughter, Syl, back home in North Carolina. Syl is actually Sally Sylvester Hobart and is named after Sally McCool, your former pilot, and Sylvester Morgan, Zoey’s father, who was your former command sergeant major, both killed in action at the Eye of Africa fight.”
“The fuck?” Hobart said.
Van Dreeves’ picture appeared next.
“Randy Van Dreeves. Also, a sergeant major. Surfer boy from San Clemente, California. Technology and communications whiz and good enough with an aid bag most medical schools would be proud to have you. While all of you miss Sally, Randy and Sally were planning on marriage after returning from Africa, but that wasn’t meant to be.”
Van Dreeves looked away and then at me.
“Is this necessary?” he asked me.
“What’s the point of this?” I asked Drewson. “We’re here because Jake brought us here, I presume at your request.”
Drewson nodded and said, “You’re here because I created the conditions for you to be here. Quid pro quo. I did the quid. You now get to do the quo.” Then he continued.
“And Lieutenant General Garrett Sinclair. The man of the hour. Saved an inauguration of his friend, President Kim Campbell, and led the fight at the Eye of Africa to stop Chinese hypersonic glide nukes from being delivered to precise locations in the United States. Wife Melissa, dead, presumably to cancer. I have some more information on that, by the way, which I’ll save for later. Your father was a general. Your grandfather was a general. All West Pointers. Ring knockers. But you have a unique reputation, General, as a cowboy. Like to get your boots muddy, shall we say? Instead of lifting a pinky and sipping tea while watching the troops duke it out on the big screen you get right in the middle of the fight. Grandfather, Garret I, known by friends and family as ‘Coop,’ was a legit World War Two hero.”
Drewson paused, held up a gunmetal-gray dog tag and said, “More about this later.”
Then he continued, “The Coop nickname came from a fully restored 1935 Cadillac LaSalle Series 50 Coupe he dragged from a Raleigh junkyard and rebuilt in the summers while attending West Point. He climbed the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc and fought his way across Europe as one of the very first army Rangers. Garrett the second was a Vietnam War hero, having led his Green Beret A Team to A Shau Valley to reinforce his brethren who were being overrun by the People’s Army of Vietnam. Both your father and grandfather received the Distinguished Service Cross for their gallantry, second only to the Medal of Honor. And you, Garrett III, a general, received a prison sentence after a truly distinguished career. What do you make of that?”
“I’m not sure why we’re here or why you’re busting our chops,” Hobart said.
“Not busting anything, Joe,” Drewson said. “I’m telling you that I know who you are.”
“Why diss the general?”
“On the contrary, I have tremendous respect for the general. The better question is, why did the country diss the general? Why did the secretary of defense do it? The chairman of the joint chiefs? The president, even?”
“Joe, I understand what Mr. Drewson is doing,” I said. “He’s pointing out that Coop and my dad were rewarded for their combat action, while I’ve been punished … we’ve been punished. He’s making commentary on the condition of society. If my father could be rewarded even in a controversial conflict like Vietnam, for example, despite the social divisions, then the government must have been hanging together at the high concept level. Political divisions be damned, military sacrifice could still bridge those gaps. There was some semblance of cohesion at the highest levels of governmental decision making. Now, Mr. Drewson is claiming that the chasms in our country have penetrated up through all our institutions, and that we’ve been punished for doing our duty.”
“The general gets a star,” Drewson said. “Would that make four or one? It’s hard to keep count these days.”
“You’re testing my patience, Drewson,” I snapped. I didn’t appreciate his condescension.
He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, then looked down. He lifted his hands and pushed out with his palms. A wry smile came across his face.
“The truth is, guys, I’m nervous. I know I’m awkward. The most elite military squad in the country is in my command center. I’m awestruck. So, this is how I burn energy. By knowing as much as possible about the topic, any topic. Right now, that topic is the Dagger team and its status, or lack thereof with the US government.”
“Why don’t we cut to the chase here, Mr. Drewson?” I said.
“Mitch. It’s Mitch. Please call me Mitch. And yes, one more photo and I’ll do exactly that. Cut to the proverbial chase.”
On the screen was a man with black hair and a grayish white beard standing at a glass lectern giving a speech with a white foam microphone headset resting next to his mouth. He was tall and ropey but didn’t give off an athletic vibe. His eyes were narrow, suspicious even. Feet were splayed at ninety degrees, like duck feet. His hands were large as if he cut wood with an ax. He might have been a rock climber or aficionado of some other hipster sport like kayaking. For some reason he looked familiar, but only vaguely. I couldn’t place him.
“This is Aurelius Blanc. He was born in France near Caen. As a kid he tinkered with coding and developed several different software platforms that were first to market in their niche. If you’ve purchased anything online, you’ve probably used his software either directly or indirectly. Invented the drag-and-drop method of coding, for example. Instead of having to bang out millions of lines of code to establish a platform, he created the big chunks of preprogrammed code and put them in tiles so that programmers can lay the foundation. Just that is worth billions. The only thing better than his coding skills are his business skills. With every platform he developed, he made it reliant on the entire universe of his platforms. As each became ubiquitous, so did the others. Better facial recognition begat better biometrics, which begat better surveillance, which begat Blanc’s epiphany that he really could have it all.”
“‘All’ meaning what?” I asked.
“What any megalomaniac wants. Control. He sees the United States faltering economically and politically. He sees an opening for his global security state.”
“But how?” I queried. “All this high concept stuff is easy to talk about but hard to do.”
“By aligning his significant technology with all the enemies of the United States. Leverage their significant capabilities.”
I nodded, thinking it through. I could see the concept of technofascism coupled with multiple governments. Strength in numbers and all that.
“Even so, I still don’t understand what you or even Blanc want from us,” I said.
“Blanc sees you as an impediment, I believe, to his plan. Likewise, he sees me and Project Optimus as competition. Have you ever met our common adversary, Aurelius Blanc?”
I thought about the Eye of Africa fight where I vaguely remembered seeing someone that looked like Blanc standing on the balcony of the castle at Dakhla Point. He had been in a shouting match with Chinese General Liang as Sanson the executioner had raised his sword above the heads of President Campbell and Evelyn Champollion. I couldn’t be sure, but it was the only connection I could fathom.
“Maybe last year in Dakhla,” I said.
“You saw him? Yes, he was there. That must be it. Perhaps now he is tying up loose ends. Our informant tells us that he ordered a hit on you in prison, true?”
“Maybe,” I said.
Drewson pulled a dog tag from his pocket and held it in his hand, flipping it between his fingers like a magic trick. When he pinched it between his fingers for a brief moment, I could make out the stamped letters: S-I-N-C-L-A-I-R. I wondered if it was mine, but it looked dated. Perhaps it was Coop’s?
“And then there’s me,” Drewson said. “I freed you so you could help protect my people as we counter Blanc’s nefarious scheme. I need security, vision, planning, and operational capability to safely deploy my Web 3.0 technology, which by default will undermine Blanc’s global security state. He knows that I’ve got you.”
“You don’t have me or us, at the moment, Drewson. Why would we even be interested in that?”
“The world will become a harsh place very quickly if we don’t counter Blanc. Your children, Brad and Reagan, and Hobart’s daughter, Syl, will grow up in an AI-dominated surveillance state that restricts the very freedoms you have fought for.”
“The world is already harsh,” I said.
“The people you love are here. Your team. You can make a difference. Blanc is after my team because we are an existential threat to Phalanx.”
“After your team?” I asked.
“Blanc used his LanxPro platform of artificial intelligence, satellites, and GPS to find two of my developers, Emily Sedgewick and Blair Campbell, and an entire team managing my server farm in Grass Valley, California.”
“Blair Campbell? The president’s daughter?” I asked.
“Precisely,” he replied.
“Where is Blair now?”
Blair Campbell, the president’s daughter, was a friend of my daughter, Reagan. I knew Blair reasonably well, as we had interacted during family outings when Melissa and Kim made plans to go to dinner or the rare moments I could make a vacation on the coast of North Carolina. Blair and Misha had connected through Reagan, who’d had a crush on Mahegan at the time.
“We’re trying to locate her. She was supposed to link up with Evelyn Champollion in Denver but didn’t make the link-up point. My Zebra team is geolocating her and will feed the information to Misha. We’re just getting the reports in now.”
“Zebra team?”
“Geniuses that work for me in a separate wing of the tunnel system here,” Drewson said.
I nodded, piecing it all together.
“If Blanc is out to destroy you using his technology and these assassin squads, as you claim, and this is an epic struggle between Optimus and Phalanx, who does Optimus have?”
“Just you,” he said. “Dagger team.”
5
I STARED AT DREWSON, whose light blue eyes sparkled with the anticipation of my response.
“You’re talking about two tech giants covertly using military machinery and information dominance to fight a global war,” I said. “Instead of the United States and China, it’s Drewson versus Blanc. I pledged an oath to a constitution, not a tech mogul.”
“No. I’m talking about stopping that,” he replied, pointing his finger at me. “And you are out of prison precisely because this tech mogul got you out.”
He pointed triumphantly at his chest, as if he had blown the hole in the side of the DB. “And I’m not asking for allegiance to me; I’m asking for allegiance to the people you served all your life. The American citizens you pledged to protect and defend. And more precisely, to appeal to your familial nobility, I’m asking you to help find Blair Campbell.”
“Of course, but other than helping Blair, we’re not interested in some grand struggle between you and another billionaire.”
His face hardened. A cloud passed across his eyes before he paused and looked at a camera in the top right-hand corner of the room.
“Then we should get you briefed up on Blair. My operations lead will brief you,” Drewson said. He handed me a smart tablet. “You’ll need this.”
I entered, the doors shut behind me, and then I saw Misha Constance.
Misha sat in a padded chair surrounded by her four large monitors on a table. At her feet were four high-powered computer stacks. Against the wall were rows of servers blinking red and green passing terabytes of information wherever Misha desired. The room was cool, in the mid-sixties, which kept the equipment functioning. Her chair had two pads the size of sofa cushions pressing against either shoulder, supporting her head. Her hands clicked away at the keyboard until she stopped and looked at me.
Her eyes were wide and blue behind a set of unique tri-colored glasses. Her blond hair hung loosely on her forehead. Her skin was almost porcelain. She wore jeans, a light yellow sweater, and Nike running shoes on her feet. She rocked forward, looked at a monitor on the wall that appeared with the text:
How may I help you, General? Can’t you see I’m busy??
I smiled and held up the tablet, which I assumed was connected to Drewson’s private server, and typed:
Too busy for me, ma’am?
Misha smiled, her teeth showing a set of white braces and pink rubber bands.
I’ll make an exception for you;)
I typed:
My lucky day
“But … talk to me. Don’t type,” she muttered.
I stepped back, then moved forward to hug her before she held up her hands, smiling.
Let’s not get carried away, she typed.
I nodded. “Of course.” Then, “You look beautiful, and all grown up.”
“The glasses … help me understand … keep me calm,” she said. Her words came in fits and starts, the rhythm like a car with a carburetor issue. Sometimes fast, sometimes sputtering.
Misha parlayed her autism into a superpower more than a disability. Several years ago, as an eleven-year-old, she had written a code that replicated swarming birds and schools of fish. The Iranian government hacked the code so they could swarm self-driving cars loaded with explosives to destroy high value targets like land-based cruise missiles. Misha had disabled the program through her backdoor program, which had prevented the Iranians from implementing their nefarious scheme until they kidnapped her, hoping torture would coerce her to patch the code. I had met her after Mahegan had saved her. Afterward, her father had built her the special glasses she was wearing today that modulated the sensory input and output as best they could. When I had seen her seven years ago, she was an awkward kid. Today, the glasses looked hip and modern, and her hair was a well-tended platinum blond. She spoke better than I remembered and her jumbotron communications platform seemed to give her control of her environment. Still, though, like many on the spectrum, hugging and physical contact was sometimes awkward.
“Monster saved you,” she said.
She had nicknamed Mahegan “Monster” because of his size, especially when compared to her eleven-year-old self.
“Yes, he did,” I replied, looking in her eyes.
“But … I showed him the way,” she replied. She turned to the jumbotron on the wall, clicked a few keys until the tunnel system leading from the banks of the Missouri River into Fort Leavenworth was apparent. She had Mahegan’s route into the tunnel mapped as well as the cell I escaped from pinpointed.
