Ballistic by Travis S. Taylor

Author:Travis S. Taylor [Taylor, Travis S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Technological, Science Fiction, Hard Science Fiction, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781982192020
Google: r2WvzgEACAAJ
Amazon: 198219202X
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2022-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

It had taken them a few minutes to get parked, badge into the front door, have Amy escort him up to her floor level, wait on him at the men’s room for a bit, open the SCIF, and then get settled in. She powered on the computer system in her office and offered Dugan a chair next to her desk after she turned on her personal coffeepot.

“Alright, Casey, we can talk at any level of classification you are cleared for in here, so what’s this all about?”

“I sent you a file through JWICS late last night. Bring that up first.”

“Okay, that’ll take a second.” Amy toggled her screen to the secure side and typed in her very long password. The screen lit up with the words TOP SECRET/SCI in a banner at the top and bottom of her screen. She waited for the system to spin up and then clicked open her email application. “Here it is.”

“Okay, open it, and I’ll start.”

“Done.” Amy opened the PDF file that was attached to the email. A spinning icon appeared on the screen saying that the file was being scanned for malware and then it finally opened. Amy scrolled past the classification cover page and started reading the first page with information on it. It was a compressed version of a PowerPoint slideshow. The first slide was a typical intelligence briefing explaining the classification, date, time, and originator of the data.

“Go ahead and flip to the next slide,” Dugan told her.

“A Topol-M?” she asked rhetorically. “I’ve seen jillions of them.”

“Well, five days ago, this particular Topol-M TEL was attacked by a highly skilled team of mercenaries or some similar group who killed all of the Russian soldiers—except for their commander, a Colonel Vladimir Lytokov, who was in on the attack it now appears. They then made off with some plural number—as of yet unknown, estimated max of six—nuclear warheads each possibly up to one hundred and fifty kilotons,” Dugan explained. “As far as we know, neither us nor the Russians have any idea where the nukes are now.”

“Holy shit! Seriously?” Amy gasped.

“Seriously.”

“What are we doing about it?” Suddenly, Casey figured, Amy’s thoughts had gone from wondering what the major was doing for dinner to fear—the type of fear that some asshole was about to set off a nuclear weapon and kill millions of people. Casey could tell she was looking at his face differently now.

“A task force was stood up by the Joint Chiefs almost immediately following. We started chasing any leads we could find. That investigation has now led us to a former Oak Ridge nuclear physicist and likely Chinese spy who, while in college at MIT, had two roommates. One has turned out to be the wanted fugitive computer hacker Keenan James Ingersol, whereabouts unknown, and a Phillip Joseph Watkins, aerospace engineer and missile systems analyst for CIA, now deceased.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Amy said so reflexively loud that she looked about to make sure nobody was disturbed by it. She then realized it was Sunday, and nobody else was there.

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