“What do you mean, ‘looking’?” Chavez asked.

“This thing is like a caged animal,” Richwine said. “It’s trying everything to find a way out.”

“‘Out’?” Adara said.

“Of my computer… Holy crap…” Richwine pointed at the screen. “It just went dormant. It’s… it’s disguised itself as a JPEG among a bunch of other files.”

“A JPEG?”

“A file like you use for photos.”

“So,” Chavez said, “theoretically, what would something like this do to the systems on a ship or a city’s power grid?”

“Whatever it pleases,” Richwine said. “I mean, I’m not trying to be flippant, sir. This is basic-bones stuff, a soldier running around without a mission. Someone who knew what he or she was doing… they could make this code do whatever they asked it to do — take over a ship, have that ship fire its weapons, sink that ship…”

Commander Akana reached across the table and slammed the laptop shut.

“Let’s stow that thing back in the Faraday bag.”

Richwine handed the thumb drive back to Adara. “Is there another one of these out there?”

She shrugged.

“Because if there is…” The IT2’s voice trailed off.

“So,” Adara said. “You’re the computer expert in this wardroom. How would you stop this?”

Richwine blew out a hard breath, then rubbed a hand over his face. “Like I said, this is beyond anything I’ve ever seen, ma’am. First you’d have to find it.”

“Okay,” Adara said, coaxing.

“All I can really do is identify it,” Richwine said. “Help people know what they’re looking for. If it was me, I’d talk to those who were in the know, and find out about the most important things going on in the world right now — the big events, the possible targets. And then I’d look at those events for the biggest dumpster fire I could find.” He tapped the Faraday bag. “Because wherever that catastrophe is, this thing will be the cause of it.”

<p>65</p>

Major Schmidt took off first, light on fuel. It was an hour before sunset, cooling slightly. Makin Island had a helpful fifteen-knot wind on her bow, and was making an additional twenty-two. These factors, combined with the airplane’s lift fan, helped Schmidt into the air with the weight of his weapons stores before he fell off the end of the eight-hundred-foot LHD. The mission was a short one, so he’d have enough fuel to perform a vertical landing. There was no other choice.

Major Black took off next with even less fuel on board to make up for the 2,500 pounds of the long-range anti-ship missile in the weapons bay of his aircraft.

* * *

Calliope located the AGM-158C LRASM as soon as she had access to Skeet Black’s weapons-stores computer. The missile registered as present in the weapons bay, but she was not able to make the jump until the aircraft actively communicated with the missile at the time of launch. The difference between that final jump and all her previous jumps prior to hitching a ride on Major Schmidt’s F-35 was that this time, Calliope did not delete herself. Her main target was the LRASM, but in order to complete that task unimpeded, she would still have tasks to complete on the jets.

<p>66</p>

Kang led the way, coming in from the south on Michigan Avenue, heading toward the river. A team of three, moving silently in the darkness.

Lily’s death had put Kang’s team one person short. He did not count Wu Chao toward the full complement, but his death was still a terrible loss. As bosses went, Wu Chao had been a good one, supportive, intelligent, unwilling to send a subordinate anywhere he would not go himself. And that last one had gotten him killed. His death had been preventable. The old fool had forgotten that theirs was a bloody business — if he had ever really known. Unlike the movies, not all intelligence officers were good at the messy side of things.

The embarrassment of their most recent failure had proven one thing: Peter Li was not to be underestimated. The man was a dragon. In different circumstances that didn’t include the death of his friends, Kang might have respected Li’s inner fire. As it was, the assassin had vowed to feed the man his balls. On some level, Kang knew his seething fury made no sense. How could one be angry at a man who was protecting his family? They had come to kill him and he’d killed two of them instead. In truth, Kang was angry at himself. He merely focused the emotion on Peter Li. Killing him was the job. Slaughtering the rest of the family was a personal matter, a way to save face, however long it took.