Alien Affairs

Director Georgia Turnbull ordered her pilots to take her to Tel Aviv. While in the air she phoned to request a meeting with her counterpart at the Mossad. Tamir Pardo only despised the American president, so he was happy to grant a meeting to the director of the CIA—he even sent an armored limousine to the Ben Gurion Airport to fetch her. His generosity was not altogether altruistic. The limo’s windows were blacked so she could not see where Mossad’s headquarters was actually located.

“Ah, Madam Director, how good to see you.” Pardo gave her that curiously tight smile of his. “So you have a situation in Egypt?”

“I’m glad you’re on top of things. Are you prepared to help?” Turnbull went straight for the kill.

“The prime minister is unlikely to approve such a mission. After all the hostages are not Israelis, and an extraction of this sort on foreign soil is a dangerous thing.”

“Oh, bullshit, Tamir, you were at Entebbe. You know damn well how to do it, and if there is a political pushback, it’s only because of that little prick in the White House.”

“He is not on our most favored list.”

“He’s my problem too. That’s why I came to you. I could never get approval to do this from that girly boy. Besides, you’re the best in the business.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. We do not even know where they are being held,” Pardo said.

“We’ll know damn quick or I’ll have somebody’s head. There is no indication the Egyptian government is behind this, so with a wink and a nod, they may just look the other way.”

“Georgia, that’s shit and you know it. No sovereign country is going to willingly let foreign commandos operate on their soil, and this is not Uganda. Egypt has the second most powerful military in the region.”

“And you have the first. Tamir, try to remember who you’re talking to.”

“First we have to know where they are. I can’t commit to something if I’m not sure it can be done.”

“Well, let me use a phone. They may be trying to reach me with that information now. Your countermeasures are jamming my phone.”

“Of course they are. Use this room. I’ll be in my office when you’re finished.”

He opened the door to a small conference room and left her. She dialed the head of station, Cairo.

“Just got the answer but you’re not going to like it. The location is an abandoned storefront on the ground floor of a multi-story apartment building. It’s in a residential neighborhood. Lousy spot for an operation. Got a pencil?” He gave her the street address, then added, “We also have a message for you. Your other two teams were successful. The Mali team had some problems and you’re probably going to get some flak from the State Department.”

“What else is new? What about Player and Glassman?”

“No problem there—just some bitching about spiders and snakes.”

“Good. Keep eyes on the place. I’ll get back to you. I need to know how many guards.”

“Already on it.”

Turnbull barged into Director Pardo’s office carrying a notepad. He was talking to an aide and looked annoyed.

“Here is the location of the hostages,” she said.

Pardo sighed and handed the piece of paper to the aide. “Show us where this is, please.”

The young Israeli woman turned to a computer and opened Google Earth on a large wall-mounted monitor.

“I can’t believe the Mossad uses Google Maps,” Turnbull said.

“Why reinvent the wheel? What do you use?” he asked.

“Google.”

“Here it is,” the aide said and pointed to a building shown in a satellite view.

Pardo shook his head. “Well, that can’t be done with helicopters.”

“Don’t try to tell me you don’t have enough assets in Egypt to breach a building like that.”

“And as soon as I use them, they’re compromised. How do I get them out?”

“You get my people free and I’ll get them all out,” she said and immediately wondered exactly how she was going to do that.

“We need to know how many and what kind of arms.”

“We’re working on that. Now, are you going to take my little request to the prime minister or not?”

“Madam Director, you can be, how do you say it? A pushy bitch.”

That earned Tamir Pardo one of those rare, radiant Turnbull smiles.

The fact that the request for help came from Georgia Turnbull and not the President of the United States was the only reason the prime minister authorized it. Pardo continued to gripe about the expense of reinserting assets into Egypt after his current agents were blown, but Turnbull smiled and assured him that everything would be all right and that she would cover the cost of the operation. There never was any consideration given to releasing Palestinians and the security of the virus container actually carried more weight in Tel Aviv than the American lives.

In Cairo the CIA surrounded the location of the hostages with advanced infrared cameras and listening devices. Turnbull returned to Tawfik Diab Street and asked to be brought up to date.

The station chief played her a video. “How the hell did you get that?” she asked.

“Micro-drone. We weren’t getting anywhere. Directional microphones identified five American voices and six Arabic voices but we didn’t know if one of the Arabs was the guy from the museum. The infrared images weren’t telling us anything useful, so we flew a drone the size of a dragonfly through a broken window.”

“Okay, so five guards with AK-47’s and side arms. Piece of cake. What’s your plan for getting everybody into the consulate?”

“We bought two old panel trucks—unobtrusive. We park them on the street and as soon as everybody is in the back of the trucks, we casually drive back to the compound—neat and clean.”

“Sounds solid enough. Then I take the Americans and the beach ball home, and since the Israelis are unconnected to anything shady, they filter home on regular El Al flights.”

They fitted the trucks with video cameras so Turnbull could see the operation in real time. She watched on a split screen monitor in the communications room at the consulate as the Israelis set charges on the door of the storefront. It was a rollup metal door. They had an untraceable car waiting at the curb with a cable attached to the door latch so they could quickly pull it out of the way. The shaped charges exploded, the door flew away and ten black dressed men with ski masks carrying Uzis bolted through the hole. All Turnbull could see was muzzle flashes for an agonizing minute. Then men started running from the dark building, not one of them carried a shiny globe. They divided in half and climbed into the two trucks, pulled the doors closed and calmly left the scene.

They arrived at the diplomatic compound as if making a normal delivery, albeit in the middle of the night. Turnbull went outside to greet them. She thanked the Mossad agents individually and questioned the Americans about their wellbeing. One had a minor gunshot wound. Mahmoud, the Egyptologist had wet his pants. Turnbull arranged to send him home in a taxi. The leader of the Israeli squad told her that there were no survivors among the radicals.

She took Keith, the security contractor, aside and asked, “What the hell happened to the big metal ball?”

“They took it in one of the other copters. We never saw it again.”

“Shit! Did you get any idea as to who these guys were?”

“Not a clue except that they used regular Egyptian military gear.”

“All right. Well, I suppose after this you need to go home.”

“No, ma’am, there is no reason I can’t finish my assignment.”

Well, then, let’s find the ball.”

Turnbull called Langley and spoke to the head of the electronics division. She told him to get a team to Vandenberg and see if the spheres possessed any means that they could be detected remotely. Simultaneously she put her Cairo staff on the streets to listen for human intelligence. Finally she called Carrie. “Get into your new book and see if there is any clue as to how to locate one of these things.”

“I take it that means you didn’t find it,” Carrie said.

“I take it that means you didn’t find it,” Turnbull mocked her. “The damned terrorists separated it from the hostages. It hasn’t been seen for several days. See what you can find out and don’t be a smartass.”

“Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am.”

Carrie briefed her team and was astounded to find that Eddy had been teaching himself to read the alien language. “How long have you been studying?” she asked him.

“Ever since you showed me how the thing works. I compared transcripts with the alien text. It comes naturally to someone of my brilliance.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. “Well, good, then you can help find something useful in on the old reader.”

She and Eddy scoured the two readers while Jan and Paul poured over the old transcripts. “Our best hope,” Carrie told Eddy, “is to locate the article by mentally requesting its title. Only we don’t know precisely what that title is going to be.”

“What did Deshler call them?” Eddy asked.

“Oh, he referred to them in different ways. It’s in the transcripts of our calls.”

“I’ll check those.”

Carrie went to her office and held Deshler’s reader upright on her desk pad. She willed her mind to think, “Canisters.” The results were enormous but all dealt with storing cooking supplies. She tried, “Aerosol canisters,” and got spray paint. “Time release canisters,” produced nothing. After an hour she had a headache and had run out of ideas. She laid the reader on the desk, closed her eyes and relaxed her brain. A moment later she sat upright and started remembering what she had done in Perú. She had photographed the inscription on the sphere but never bothered to read it. Taking her phone from her pocket and scrolling through all her images she found the video and replayed it. The text began with a word that she didn’t recognize and continued: “viral containment vessel.” A time value followed and then the animated part of the script that was counting down time units. She wondered if she could still reach Deshler and wondered if he would help her. First she downloaded the video, captured a still and printed it. Then she called Eddy.

“Have you seen this word?” she asked showing him the printout and pointing to the first set of characters.

He silently read the whole inscription and thought before he replied. “It’s a brand name.”

“Oh my God, you’re right. It’s an ‘Acme’ Viral Containment Vessel.” She grabbed the reader and phonetically pronounced the unfamiliar word followed by the next three common words and instantly a specification document opened. “I’ve got it. Go see if this document exists on the old device and tell Paul and Jan to look for it in the transcripts, then let’s crack this thing.”

The spec ran to thirty-thousand words. Most of it was safety procedures that put Carrie in mind of the stupid warning labels on everything from plastic buckets to TV remotes. About ten that evening she went into the bullpen to get a cup of coffee and found Eddy alone.

“There is nothing in the transcripts so Paul and Jan went home, but I’ve got it on my copy.”

“Your copy?”

“Well, you’ve got your personally inscribed copy.”

“Yeah, okay. Did you find anything?”

“Nothing more interesting than avoid sharp objects.”

Carrie chuckled. “I saw that too. My eyelids feel grainy. I just came out to make a pot of coffee.”

“I just made a fresh pot.”

“Aren’t you sweet—”

“Wait, what’s this? Thirty-two frequencies per time unit. This is talking about radio transmission.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fairly. Can you replay your video of the countdown on the side of the canister again?”

“Sure.” She tapped her phone and played the video while Eddy clocked the increments on the counter.

“Their seconds are a little shorter than ours—say point eight.”

“They use the oscillations of the cesium atom if that helps you.”

“Yeah, I can look that up, but they also use a base eight number system so that complicates it.”

“So, what’s the answer here?”

“This is saying that the things broadcast a beacon at such and such a frequency. That means we can locate them if we know the frequency.”

“Can you figure it out?”

“Isn’t the motto of the Alien Affairs Department ‘You’re not fucking with kids’?”

“Well, of course it is. Get busy, I’ll call the director.”

“Okay, but send me a copy of that video, please. I’ve got to find somebody who can time that increment to the gnat’s ass.”

The gnat’s ass equipment was upstairs. Eddy went to see if anybody was still working while Carrie called Turnbull. It was morning in Egypt and the director was having breakfast. Carrie said, “Sorry to interrupt your yogurt but we have something.”

“I knew you would.”

“Eddy found it.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“The canisters broadcast a signal. Eddy’s working out the frequency. He says when we know that, you can triangulate it like Deshler did when he found Onath.”

“How long is it going to take boy wonder?”

“I don’t know. He went upstairs to look for help.”

“Call me as soon as you’ve got something. I’ll get the guys at Vandenberg to see what they can detect coming from the two that they have.”

“You got it.”

Carrie found the part of the spec that ignited Eddy. She would have never recognized it for what it was. “Not as dumb as he looks,” she thought.

A little over an hour later Carrie was pacing. Eddy returned to the bullpen. He said, “It’s in the Extremely Low Frequency range—about thirty-five hertz.”

“Great, I’ll call Turnbull.”

“Wait. There’s a problem. The geek I worked with says there’s no way a thing a foot and a half across could transmit at that frequency. He said you would need an antenna as wide as the earth.”

Carrie felt crestfallen. “So what are you saying?”

“Well, the container spec says what it says, but the expert says it can’t be done.”

Carrie let her brain percolate. “My little buddy, Deshler, always like to say they were smart enough to make us so they were smart enough to do anything. I’m calling Turnbull. Give me the details.”