Orbital Disruption by Andrew Brook

Author:Andrew Brook [Brook, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-22T22:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

Marsha Saunders had been a Special Agent in the FBI for more than twenty years. She’d been the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the San Francisco field office for the past three years. She’d led raids on the heavily armed meth lab of a notorious drug gang, the corporate headquarters of a bank suspected of money laundering and a vast factory complex that was making weapons for the black market. But she’d never seen anything like this.

Just two days earlier she’d been briefed by her boss in DC about a possible link between a terrorist network and an aerospace startup down in Silicon Valley. A week ago she wouldn’t have taken it seriously but… a week ago she’d have put the risk of a car bomb assassination in Sunnyvale as slim. So she’d started preparations. And then overnight she’d received word that new evidence confirmed that this firm, Excelsior Launch Systems, was almost certainly involved in a major plot and that the matter was serious enough to warrant the attention late at night of the FBI Director himself.

This morning Agent Saunders had stood on the doorstep of a judge’s townhouse to receive a warrant. The judge had still been in his bathrobe. Now she found herself in the passenger seat of a California Highway Patrol Eurocopter AS 350 as it swooped in low over the bay. The Dumbarton Bridge passed below them. The pilot was talking to the control tower at Palo Alto’s small airport to request a temporary halt to all flight activities. A few tech billionaires would be late to wherever they were going. So be it.

Agent Saunders heard a crackle in her earpiece.

“Saunders, this is Hays. We’re coming off the 101 now, turning onto Embarcadero Road.”

“Roger,” Agent Saunders replied. “Proceed to the primary staging area. I’m one minute out. No lights.”

“I copy. No lights. See you on the ground soon, ma’am.”

“Over and out,” she replied.

The improbably bright green mounds of the Palo Alto Golf Course passed under the helicopter and the pilot slowed. They were close. On the ground in the distance Agent Saunders could see a convoy of a dozen vehicles including several armored SWAT trucks turning into the parking lot. The pilot made a single pass overhead, banked, and selected a section of the lot that was free of cars. It was a good thing they were doing this raid early in the morning, Saunders thought. By nine the lot would be full and the helicopter would have had trouble finding a clear spot to land on.

“Wait here in case we need you,” Agent Saunders said to the pilot as they touched down. He signaled his understanding with a thumbs up as Saunders opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement. Keeping her head down and clutching her briefcase, she ran toward a group of agents huddled behind a SWAT truck.

“Hays, is the team ready?” Agent Saunders asked, her voice taking on the tone of command that came naturally to her at times like these.

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