Reboot

“She’s done it.” Dutch ran up to us as William and I were training. “She’s broken the code.”

We crossed the five meters to their side of the large cubicle to take a look. We found Nicks poring over piles of papers hanging on the wall, covered in figures and links. She pointed at some numbers. She was wearing just a white t-shirt now. It was hot down here. I found it hard to concentrate. “It’s a matrix code. Most codes change the message one letter at a time. First, letter number one gets changed (into a number, a symbol, or another letter), then the second letter, and the third, and so on. But in a matrix code, the numbers get changed in groups! So it’s much harder to decode the message. That’s why it took me so long.”

“So what’s it say Joanna, um, I mean Ms. Nicks?” I asked.

She smiled. Which was amazing to see. I wanted to see that again. Christ, I wondered if I was being too obvious.

“It’s many things. One part is a shopping list. A list of chemical compounds. And whatever it’s for, it’s not healthy. It comes from high up in the US government and it is also a clear message: we will not defend Israel. It’s high treason is what it is.”

“Why high treason?” I asked.

“There’s a message divulging secret information about US policy to a third party. How the US would react to Israeli attacks on Iran or vice versa. Pretty much the definition of treason.”

William asked: “Who was the client, Robert?”

“As far as I could tell, it was just a company, a private company.” I answered. “I got the text by email, it said to forward the finished translation on to the client, directly. Which is a bit unusual by the way.

“Of course it was just a company,” said Dutch.” And these are the ingredients for borscht.”

“We need to find out what this compound is. How do we do that without internet? We need a chemist,” said William.

“We have one,” said Dutch.

“A chemist? On a Navy ship?” I asked.

“Yes,” he continued. William also nodded. “The Navy offers a career path in biochemistry. Research biochemists work to promote the safety of Navy personnel as they travel the globe. Chemists help defend against chemical warfare on the Navy’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Environmental (CBRE) training team. Mr. Sark has degrees in biochemistry and in particle physics. This ship is also a science lab and he’s the best we got. Very lucky to have him here with us.”

“Good” I said. “Let’s see what he has to say. Right away. I want to get this cleared up.”

“I’ll get him,” said Marcos. “You guys have me convinced.”

Marcos came back with Chenoweh, Paul Ricks and Mr. Sark.

“Mr. Sark?” I asked. A skinny dark haired kid with thick black glasses looked back at me. The lenses were dirty. I wanted to grab them and clean them. Later.

He didn’t know how to respond initially. Do you salute criminals? But what if they’re not criminals. And who the hell was I anyway. He looked at the captain who just shrugged as if to say, “whatever”. So he put his hands in his pockets and just nodded.

“We need your help,” I said.

We had decided that I should do the talking because he wouldn’t trust any of the officers since in his eyes they could be traitors. I was just a kid. I had to convince them.

I continued: “Listen carefully please. It’s very important that you understand what’s going on right now. OK?

“Yes, sir, um yes, OK.”

“This whole mess is the result of me unwittingly passing on coded information from someone in the US government to someone in the Middle East. Lieutenant Nicks has deciphered the content of these messages and they form a clear message, but also a complex list of chemical compounds. We need your help in figuring out what it means. That’s all.”

Corporal Sark thought about it for a while. He was wondering if this was somehow a ploy to get him involved in something illicit, but he finally decided to take a look. He waved at the text. “Hand it over.” He looked at Chenoweh expecting a rebuke, but the captain just nodded. I suppose he had decided that it couldn’t hurt to get all the info he could.

I got the feeling that Sark never did anything more than was absolutely necessary. And I mean that in an efficiency capacity as opposed to being lazy like me. His movements were precise. His tone was even. I suspected his vocabulary would follow a similar concise path.

After a few minutes he said: “This is not a compound, it’s biological. See these here, they are the basic constituents of a DNA strand, and these here form nucleic acid. But the kicker is these… they define lipids. Fat.

“Fat?” asked Chenoweh, eyebrows raised. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Yes. Well no. It’s very bad. The influenza virion is roughly spherical. It is an enveloped virus – that is, the outer layer is a lipid membrane, which is taken from the host cell in which the virus multiplies. Inserted into the lipid membrane are ‘spikes’, which are proteins – actually glycoproteins, because they consist of protein linked to sugars – known as HA (hemagglutinin) and NA (neuraminidase)”.

“That doesn’t sound good,” said Ricks. William and Dutch looked at each other and then William said, “a virus”.

Sark continued, “A flu variant from what I can tell. There’s no way to be conclusive in the type of flu, but it’s clear that this is a weapon. What’s your name? Morgan? You were given a translation job from the US government for a company in the Middle East? And you sent them this?”

I nodded.

“Do you know where?”

“No.”

Sark looked at his captain who remained non-committal. Then he looked back at us. “What’s the name of the company?”

“GaryBarton,” I said. And he paled.

“Get them outta here,” said Sark to no one in particular.

“Why?” I asked.

“The power behind GaryBarton is and always has been Mooney. He’s always been on the board. If he wasn’t during the conflict, a crony of his had to be. It’s his company. Always been in his family. If GaryBarton sent a coded message to someone in the Middle East, probably Iran I’d guess, a message containing new information about secret US policy on Israel and how to create a deadly virus. This means that Mooney probably started this war. It means that our government is illegal. We started the war, Sir.” He looked sadly at his Captain, then back to me. “It also explains why he came after you Mr. Morgan. You are a loose end that needs to be put away. You understand? You have information that can destroy the President of the USA and he knows it.”

We all stood in shock. Mouths open. Dutch fell down heavily on his seat.

“But couldn’t it be someone else at GaryBarton? It’s a huge company,” I asked.

“Sure, but then why would the government be chasing after you? That was a SEAL team that was trying to take you out, one of our last I suppose, not a private organization. And if you add to that the attack on Mr. Hawksworth’s ship by our own fleet? That’s a lot of coincidences. I’m guessing there was someone on that ship that needed to be taken out too.” I looked at William then and he was nodding to himself. Seething. When Sark spoke again, his voice sounded really loud even though he hadn’t changed pitch. Sark looked impatiently at the other guys in the brig. Especially at the captain. “Sir?”

Captain Simon Chenoweh finally had enough data to choose a side. He chose to rebel against his own government. We were let out of the brig. We now had a minimally staffed, maximally autonomous, yet very dangerous ship at our disposal, maybe the last one in the American navy, and we had a clear mission. Mooney had to be brought down.