The Pandora Deception by David Bruns

Author:David Bruns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER 27

Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Africa

For the second time in the same day, Dre Ramirez found herself on an airplane, the same CIA-owned Gulfstream V that had carried them from the United States. Except on this flight, they had Shira Fishbein with them.

Janet fell asleep before the plane taxied to the runway. Next to her, Don huddled over his laptop, his face locked in a scowl of concentration. Michael and Shira sat together, deep in conversation, which left Dre to her own thoughts.

At the end of the runway, the jet’s engines rose in pitch. The acceleration pressed Dre back into her seat, emphasized how tired she was. She closed her eyes as the cabin angled upward in a steep climb.

But sleep would not come. Instead, she tried to piece together in her mind all the facts they had gathered.

A mysterious, messianic figure claims a desire to unite all Islam, but uses violence to inflame tensions between Egypt and the upstream countries of the Nile River basin. His website uses top-secret cryptography stolen from the Israelis, who claim no knowledge of the terrorist attacks.

Nothing made any sense.

She rested her head against the window and let her mind drift as the plane reached cruising altitude and leveled off. The land beneath them was a carpet of rich browns as they left the Dead Sea behind and headed south over the Negev Desert. From this height, it was not easy to tell where Israel ended and Jordan began. A few minutes passed and Dre could see the Gulf of Aqaba in the distance. Somewhere in that vast expanse of brown, Jordan ended and Saudi Arabia began, another political border.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Shira’s voice brought Dre’s stream of consciousness to a screeching halt. The Israeli woman indicated the empty seat next to Dre. “May I?”

Dre looked past Shira to see Michael’s head bowed in sleep. She shrugged.

Shira pointed out the window. “The Red Sea will be coming up soon. The amount of container traffic through the Suez Canal is amazing. You should be able to see US Navy ships on patrol.”

Shira was obviously trying to make a connection, but until Dre knew more about her and this mysterious Mossad software program, she would keep her own counsel. It seemed odd that they were taking a Mossad cyber expert into a secure US forward operating base, but that decision was well above her pay grade.

To change the conversation, Dre nodded toward the sleeping Michael and leaned close to Shira. “What do you think of our Michael?”

She watched Shira’s expression soften. “I think he’s remarkable. I still can’t believe that he was able to figure out the website was secured by metamorphic encryption without using some sort of program.”

“That’s our Michael,” Dre said with no small measure of pride. “He’s also single, in case you’re wondering.”

Two spots of color appeared high on Shira’s cheekbones, a sure sign that Dre’s intuition had been correct.

“Thanks for that.” Shira recovered enough of her composure to smile back. “I might be interested.

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