Page 77 of The Devil's Ransom

“Well, believe it. The spacecraft they’re using has been to the International Space Station a half dozen times, but fully half of those were unmanned—meaning they were controlled from the ground. They had backups to the backups, but every single one of those systems has been hit, just like all the Blaisdell Consulting connections. The astronaut on board had the ability to abort, but apparently that’s also been corrupted. They’re trying to rebuild the infrastructure as we speak, but it’s literally like trying to build an aircraft while it’s flying.”

“How’d they do it? I mean, how did this happen after we took out the cell?”

“We don’t know how they penetrated, because Auriga has a pretty robust protective infrastructure, but they managed to do it.Apparently on some sort of time-delay Trojan horse. I think Blaisdell Consulting was a test, and Dark Star invaded Auriga’s systems on a time delay, based on the launch. Auriga systems would have been on high alert the day of the launch, but not so much before. And then we destroyed the cell that did it before it initiated.”

“How much time do we have?”

“They’ll be orbiting two and a half days, apparently just sightseeing, then the capsule will attempt to execute its last commands and line up for docking, but that’s the last thing it knows. Without the ability to control it, it’s going to fly into the space station at Mach five or six, killing everyone on it, including the people in the capsule.”

“I’m not a rocket scientist, but can’t you move the space station? Let those guys in the capsule miss it and just go off into space?”

“Maybe. I don’t know, but that’s not the answer President Hannister wants to hear. It’s a little coldblooded, even for you.”

“Well, it’s the price you pay for space tourism. A little karmic justice if you ask me.”

Wolffe chuckled, then said, “I’d agree with most of the people on board, but one is just a teacher from Arkansas. The owner gave her a seat. She isn’t rich and certainly didn’t ask for this.”

That made me feel a little slimy. He was right. She didn’t deserve any of this. He asked, “Can you get to Rodavan again?”

“No. That guy is probably out of the country by now, and anyway, he doesn’t do the penetrations. Pushka did that. Pushka handled the keys for the ransomware encryption, and he’s dead.”

Then a thought occurred to me. “Hey, did you try the key we got from Pushka last night? The one that unlocked our computers?”

Wolffe sighed and said, “Yeah, we did. It didn’t work. It’s a newkey, and without someone who knows how it was created, we’re dead in the water.”

I said, “Branko is the keymaster, and the leader of this whole thing. We have their last functioning computer here with us. If I get his ass behind the keyboard, he can remove the ransomware.”

“That’s more like it. Do you know where he is? We only have about two days to solve this. Maybe a little more, but that’s cutting it close. They’re making those orbits of the earth because they paid for the flight and want the full monty.”

“I don’t know where he is, but Creed can find him. Are we back up and operational?”

“Yes. All of our systems are now working. How will Creed know?”

“Branko bought a new smartphone and called Pushka on it. Creed has the information. Get me a geolocation of that phone and I’ll go hunt his ass. His last known location was here, in Split. Might be easy.”

Wolffe gave some commands to Blaine, and I saw Blaine leave the room. Wolffe returned to the screen and said, “This is all being kept under wraps for now, but it’s going to get out. They had so much publicity for this launch that someone’s going to leak, and the end state isn’t going to be good. The first commercial United States space launch ends up destroying the International Space Station, killing all aboard, to include three Russians, three Americans, and a Japanese scientist? And that’s not even talking about the dilettantes who paid a fortune for this tourist trip in the capsule. Everybody is shitting bricks on this one. We need to find that guy.”

“What about putting him in Interpol? Put the word out and just get him arrested.”

“That would mean telling the world we couldn’t protect our own space systems. It’s something we might end up doing, especially if it leaks, but right now, that’s not an option. President Hannister wants him taken down quietly, and he has some obscene faith in you. Especially after you solved the Blaisdell Consulting problem. Your team is the closest to this issue.”

I said, “Speaking of that, this whole cell is fronted by a Russian named Andrei, and there’s some guy named Sphinx who gave them the code to penetrate our systems. He’s an American.”

“Any idea who he is?”

“None. I didn’t get a chance to finish the interrogation because we were attacked by those damn Afghans. Rodavan didn’t know who Sphinx was, and Pushka was dead. But that Russian should be someone we could find because we have a real name instead of a code word.”

“Can he help stop this, or is he just the payroll? We don’t have time to mess around.”

I thought about that, and realized he was right. Getting the Russian would only be a linkage to finding Branko, the only guy who could stop this, and thus would be wasting time. I could find Branko without him.

I said, “Good point. I need Branko’s location.”

Blaine returned and said, “Creed’s got a geolocation. It’s in a town called Korcula. He has the bed-down location.”

Wolffe said, “That mean anything to you?”

“Yeah, it’s an island south of here. The quickest way to get there is by ferry out of Split, but we’ve missed all the ferries for today.” I looked at my watch and said, “I could drive to Orebic and try to catch the ferry there—they run a lot later—but I’m not sure I’d even make that one.”

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