Unrestricted Access: New and Classic Short Fiction Read online

  Let’s hope they get here in time.

  As they crossed the lobby, a loud roar echoed to them.

  Kowalski froze, but Sara smiled nervously back at him. “That’s Anton, a Siberian tiger caged in the neighboring Reproductive Sciences Department. They’ve been collecting semen from him this week as part of an endangered tiger breeding program.”

  Lucky him.

  She glanced down a side hall. “Anton’s generally a pussycat, but he’s notoriously cranky when woken up early.”

  Me, too.

  They hurried to the back of the building and found Masterson’s other man waiting inside Sara’s office. He introduced himself as John Kress and joined his boss in guarding the hall as Jason followed Sara into the depths of her lab. The small space was cramped with stainless steel equipment, shelves of glassware and pipettes, tall freezers, and a workbench holding a trio of computers.

  “Mine’s in the center,” Sara said.

  Jason pulled out a portable thumb drive. “If you can get me access, I need to copy the root directory to capture any malicious executable code and get a record of the night’s TCP/IP connections. After that, I’ll try to—”

  Sara cut him off. “Do anything you have to.”

  She woke up her computer, typed in the long string of a password, and lifted a wired blue puck toward her face. A small light flashed across her left eye, then the blank login screen cleared, revealing her desktop.

  She stepped back. “All yours.”

  Jason took her place and slipped his drive into a USB port on the side of her keyboard. He began typing rapidly with one hand, while manipulating her wireless mouse with the other.

  “Interesting,” Jason mumbled.

  Sara drew closer. “What?”

  “The hackers seemed to have targeted any of your files tagged as N_sis.” He glanced back to her. “What does that stand for?”

  “It’s just my shorthand for Neanderthalensis,” she answered. “Those are my files comparing Neanderthal sequences with those of modern man, highlighting those genes we obtained from our long-lost ancestor. Most of us carry a small percentage of Neanderthal genes, some of us more than others.”

  Kowalski waited for someone to glance in his direction at this last statement, but thankfully no one did.

  Jason suddenly swore, lifting his hands from the keyboard. Files flashed on the screen, opening and closing on their own, as if there was a ghost in the machine. But it wasn’t any ghost.

  “We’re being hacked,” Jason realized. “Right now.”

  Jason kicked himself for being so stupid, so shortsighted. He considered yanking the power cord to the computer, but he knew it was already too late. In just that fraction of inattention, they’d stolen everything.

  “What’s happening?” Sara asked, watching as he furiously typed.

  “As soon as you logged on, the first thing I did was cut your computer off from the Internet, from the world at large, but someone attacked your server through your LAN. Your local area network.”

  “And that means what?” Kowalski asked.

  “The hacker must still be in the area, close enough to have connected to the system locally. Probably in the same building. They must’ve waited to ambush the system but first needed Sara to unlock it.”

  No wonder the enemy tried to avoid killing her at the outset. They wanted her to return here and access her computer.

  “Even the false alarm must have been used to lure Masterson’s forces away,” Jason realized aloud, “long enough so that they could get an operative close enough to orchestrate the attack.”

  “But where are they?” Kowalski asked.

  Jason continued to type. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out, but whoever did this mirrored their trace across eight different computers.”

  Sara clutched her arms across her chest. “That’s the number of computers networked in this building,” she said, confirming his fear.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kowalski said, swinging toward the door. “I know where they’re at.”

  Jason looked over a shoulder at him. “How?”

  Kowalski collected Lieutenant Masterson and the other officer on his way out the door and down the hall. “One of you, head outside and canvass the perimeter. The other, stay in the lobby and cover the front door.”

  Just in case I’m wrong.

  He had a narrow window to catch the culprits red-handed and retrieve what was stolen. He left Masterson in the lobby as the other officer ran for the front door. He headed to the left, to the hall he had noted Sara glancing down earlier—when the tiger had roared.

  He remembered her earlier words: Anton’s generally a pussycat, but he’s notoriously cranky when woken up early.

  He hoped she was right on both counts.

  He had initially written off the tiger’s outburst as a complaint against their arrival, but what if whoever had bothered the tiger was closer at hand, invading the animal’s private space? Maybe that was what had made him cranky.

  It was a thin lead, but better than nothing.

  He reached a set of double doors with a sign that read Department of Reproductive Sciences. He hoped Jason was as good as he claimed to be. The kid had said he could hack into the building’s security system and unarm all the building’s electronic locks, opening a path for Kowalski.

  He tested the knob, and it turned freely.

  Good job, kid.

  Leading with his Desert Eagle, he cracked the door enough to slip inside, then closed it behind him. The hallway ahead was dark, flanked by small offices. The main reproductive lab was directly ahead of him at the end of the hall.

  That’s where Sara said the department’s main server was located. He hoped it was the correct networked computer. He had one in eight odds of being right.

  He edged down the hall, sticking to one wall.

  His ears strained for any sign of an intruder—then he heard glass break, followed by a shout from outside. A loud gunshot exploded from inside the lab ahead.

  Kowalski rushed forward, hit the swinging set of doors, and slid low into the room. Skidding on his knees, he took in the view while bracing his Desert Eagle. The reproductive lab looked more like an operating room, with a pair of stainless steel hydraulic tables, overhead swing-arm lights, and banks of glass cabinets.

  Between the tables, a computer rested on a large desk.

  At the station, a small, wiry figure was detaching a palm-sized drive from the back of the monitor, while on Kowalski’s left, a man who matched him in size and muscle stood bathed in the moonlight flowing through a shattered window. The guy held a smoking pistol in hand—likely used to fire at the officer outside. The weapon whipped toward Kowalski and fired.

  Unable to get clear fast enough, he took the round square to the chest. The impact knocked the air from his lungs and exploded his rib cage with fiery pain. He dropped to his back—and returned fire from under the table on that side. The cannon boomed deafeningly in his hand. The plaster exploded behind the man’s legs as the shot went wide. Still, Kowalski took advantage of the moment to roll behind a steel medical cart. The man fired after him, rounds pelting the side of the cart, keeping Kowalski pinned down.

  He patted his chest, expecting to find blood, but instead he felt the dented steel plate in his front pocket. It was the nameplate he had unhooked from Elizabeth’s office door earlier. He had forgotten he had stolen it, absently slipping it inside his jacket. It had saved his life—at least for the moment.

  Sirens sounded in the distance, racing closer.

  Must be the reinforcements sent by Director Crowe.

  Kowalski gripped his pistol and risked peering past the edge of his shelter.

  The small figure by the computer—a young woman—also recognized the approaching threat and called to her partner while pointing to the window.

  “Kwan, zǒu!”

  The man grimaced, clearly being ordered to leave.

  With the portable drive in hand, she headed
over to her partner’s side, ready to make their escape. She had her own pistol out and fixed toward Kowalski’s position, as if daring him to show himself.

  But Kowalski wasn’t the only one irritated by the intruders.

  Farther to his left, a tall, shadowy cage door swung open with a creak of heavy steel hinges—and a massive beast stalked into the lab. It seemed Jason’s release of all the building’s electronic locks had included the tiger’s cage. A snarling hiss flowed from the cat’s throat, and its fur bristled in stripes of black and rust. Paws the size of dinner plates padded across the floor in slow, determined steps, drawn by the figures standing in the moonlight.

  The woman backed fearfully from the sight. She tried to pocket the bulky drive, but it slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. Clearly panicked, she gripped her pistol with both hands.

  Her partner also kept his weapon upon the beast. “Bù, Shu Wei,” he whispered to the woman, warning her not to shoot or risk antagonizing the tiger, who was still plainly confused by the noise and commotion.

  Instead, he scooped his free arm around the small woman’s waist, lifting and drawing her to his side as easily as if she’d been a doll, then the pair fell backward through the open window. The tiger stalked over, drawn by the motion. It sniffed at the breeze, then stretched its neck to a jaw-cracking yawn.

  Kowalski used the distraction to back slowly out of hiding—but his knee banged against the corner of the metal cart. The tiger whipped around at the sudden noise, dropping into a hissing crouch. Kowalski dove for the only refuge at hand. He flung himself headlong through the open door of the cage and yanked the gate shut behind him.

  The tiger pounced after its prey, slamming into the front of the cage.

  Kowalski kept his hands clamped to the bars, holding the door closed.

  The tiger rolled to its feet, stalking a bit back and forth, ruffling its fur as if shaking off water. Large brown eyes stared at Kowalski, while hot breath panted through the bars.

  “That’s a good kitty, Anton,” Kowalski said softly, hoping it was true.

  A large huff escaped the beast’s throat, as if it recognized its name. The tiger stalked back and forth twice more, then settled to the floor, slumping against the bars. After several tense moments, a low rumbling purr flowed from its bulk.

  Kowalski swallowed hard—then, knowing he would never have a better chance, he risked reaching through the bars and running his fingers through the warm ruff of the great beast. The purring deepened, proving Sara was right.

  You are a pussycat.

  As if Anton sensed this thought, the timbre of his purr rattled into a deep, warning grumble. Kowalski retracted his hand.

  Okay, maybe not.

  Three hours later, Kowalski was back in the motor pool. Painter had debriefed him, and medical had cleared him. Though his rib cage still ached with every breath, he hadn’t even broken a rib.

  With a smoldering cigar clamped between his molars, Kowalski stared down at the bent length of steel, dimpled in the center from the 9 mm round. He had wanted to dismiss his survival as dumb luck, like something out of a movie, but he knew a part of him had slipped the nameplate inside his jacket on purpose.

  Placing it over my heart.

  The only luck here was that the Chinese assassin had been such a crack shot.

  If he had struck a few inches in any other direction . . .

  He ran his fingers over the silver letters, knowing in this moment that their love had saved him this night.

  Thanks, Elizabeth . . .

  He contemplated repairing the plate, returning it to its pristine condition. Maybe even sending it to her in Egypt with some note, some last attempt at reconciliation. Instead, he exhaled a stream of smoke, recognizing the futility of such an act and accepting the reality of the situation—maybe truly for the first time.

  And that was okay.

  With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the nameplate into a trash bin, knowing that was where it belonged.

  He turned and crossed over to the Jeep. He ran his palm along the front quarter panel, feeling the dimpling of bullet rounds here, too.

  He smiled around his cigar.

  You, my beautiful girl . . . you I can fix.

  Painter Crowe stood inside the communication nest of Sigma command, while Jason Carter once again worked at one of the stations. It had been a long night, with still more meetings scheduled at daybreak. There remained countless unanswered questions, mysteries that would need further investigation in the days ahead.

  While Sigma had recovered the drive abandoned by the pair of Chinese spies at the lab—thus safeguarding most of Dr. Sara Gutierrez’s research—Jason’s forensic analysis of the cyberattack offered no concrete answers as to who was actually behind all of this. The Chinese government had already gone into full plausible-deniability mode, and Painter doubted any attempt to identify the three bodies recovered from the Mall’s excavation site would trace back to Beijing. The other assailants, along with the two spies at the zoo, had vanished into the wind.

  But even more disconcerting was the fact that the goal behind all of this remained a complete enigma.

  Jason spoke up from his station. “I give up. I can’t find any significance to this symbol. Maybe Captain Bryant will be able to use her contacts in the intelligence agencies to offer some further insight once she gets here.”

  Painter joined Jason, staring at the set of Chinese characters glowing on the screen. The symbols had been found etched on the recovered drive’s housing.

  “All I can tell you is that this translates from Mandarin as ‘The Ark,’” Jason said. “But beyond that, I have no clue to its significance.”

  Painter placed a palm on his shoulder. “That’ll have to do for now. Why don’t you head home and get some well-deserved rest?”

  Jason nodded, but he did not look happy.

  Neither am I.

  Once Painter had the place to himself, he brought up a video file on another screen. It was footage from one of the countless security cams that monitored the nation’s capital. In this case, it covered the National Mall.

  He watched a small Jeep shoot up the side of a mountain of dirt, coming to an abrupt halt near the top. The pair of pursuing motorcycles shot past the stalled vehicle and went sailing high—before descending in a deadly plunge into a dark pit.

  Painter rubbed his chin, appreciating the quick wits and skill involved in pulling off that takedown. He sensed that there remained unplumbed depths to that driver. He even allowed himself to consider an impossible proposition.

  Maybe it’s high time I gave Kowalski his own mission.

  Author’s Note

  What’s True, What’s Not

  At the end of my full-length novels, I love to spell out what’s real and what’s fiction. I thought I’d briefly do the same here.

  Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute. This research station’s main facility encompasses thirty-two hundred acres in Fort Royal, Virginia, but it also has a campus at the Rock Creek Research Labs at the National Zoo. One of the programs mentioned here—the “Ancient DNA” project—is an ongoing endeavor. The researchers seek to study changing patterns of genetic variation over time by analyzing DNA collected from museum specimens and archaeological artifacts. Where this might lead—as well as the implication for our species—is fascinating. And it leaves lots of room for further exploration on an even grander scale.

  National Mall Turf and Soil Restoration. This is indeed an active project to restore the thirteen acres of heavily trafficked lawns. Since the current phase of this project has ripped up the acres that lie between the Smithsonian Castle and the National Museum of Natural History, I thought what better chance for an off-road chase scene, especially with the site’s towering piles of dirt and deep excavations, including the digging of a 250,000-gallon cistern to collect stormwater.

  Chinese Hackers. It seems like seldom a week goes by that we don’t hear of a new cyberattack by Chines
e agents, whether it’s the infiltration of the Office of Personnel Management or the theft of fighter jet schematics. But these incursions are not only to steal intellectual property; they’re also to compromise systems. Chinese cyberforces—which do number into the hundreds of thousands—have damaged systems aboard commercial ships and even an airline used by the United States. And they have grown bolder of late, even sending operatives onto US shores in an attempt to nab Chinese defectors, as reported by the president recently. As to the next level of attack, I believe it’s coming—soon.

  So that ends this tale—but as you might imagine, it’s only the beginning of a much larger story, The Bone Labyrinth, an epic adventure like no other, one that will reveal a real-life archaeological mystery tied to Neil Armstrong, one that masks a monumental secret about the moon itself . . . all that, and also the introduction of a new character, unlike any seen in print before.

  Ghost Ship

  A Sigma Force Short Story

  James Rollins

  January 21, 9:07 a.m.

  Queensland, Australia

  Now, you don’t see that every day . . .

  From the vantage of his horse’s saddle, Commander Gray Pierce watched the twelve-foot saltwater crocodile amble across the beach. A moment ago, it had appeared out of the rain forest and aimed for the neighboring sea, completely ignoring the trio of horses standing nearby.

  Amused and awed, Gray studied its passage. Yellow fangs glinted in the morning sun; a thick-armored tail balanced its swaying bulk. Its presence was a reminder that the prehistoric past of this remote stretch of northern Australia was still very much alive. Even the rain forest behind them was the last vestige of a jungle that once stretched across the continent, a fragment dating back some 140 million years, all but untouched by the passage of time.

  As the crocodile finally slipped into the waves and vanished, Seichan frowned at Gray from atop her own horse. “And you still want to go diving in those waters?”