Guardian Program

Note: Tags are for the book and not individual chapters.

Warning: If you started reading the story in chapter one, please go back and read the prologue. Failing to do so will not change the read for most of the story, however, you will not understand the ending if you do not.

Guardian Program Ch 09

A novel by R.C.PeterGabriel, all rights reserved.

Director Deckard and CMO McKinney sat unseeing, lost in thought, while both sets of eyes stared fixedly at the protocol notification. McKinney blinked first, then took a deep breath saying, "Well, one message is clear anyway."

He glanced over at the Director, who was pulling himself back into the here and now. "Which one was that McKinney, there seemed to be quite a few messages in that video."

"The one where Smith yelled, 'I can kill you whenever I want'."

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Maybe not?..."

"Yes, maybe not. We don't know. We need to do our jobs and analyze the messages in the video as if they were from someone we weren't paying several kings' ransoms to. He is supposed to be on our side. Let's do this right and examine each scene for clues from a friendly perspective and then do it again from a hostile stance."

Deckard got up and retrieved a legal pad from a cabinet behind his desk. "This is 'eyes only' information so we have to destroy our notes when we're done."

"Speaking of destroying the information, we may not have two hours to review the video. I started looking at it a little over an hour ago." Looking at his watch, McKinney amended his estimate. "Actually, to be safe, I would guess we have closer to ten minutes left, not two hours."

"Okay, we start with that time frame. We could assume the notice about the protocol was a warning and not a threat, but either way, we need to destroy the disk. Agreed?"

"Agreed. The question is when?"

"Did you have your 'Black Knight' working when you started looking over the material?"

"Of course. Why?"

"One, how would anyone know when you started watching the video? Two, if Smith could tell you were watching it you would have already been in violation because you took it out of the first player and didn't destroy it." Deckard watched as the other man's face blanched, but then recovered quickly.

"Smith may have given me a pass because he would have known I would bring the information to you. Maybe he sent it to me because he wanted me to see it and if he had sent it directly to you, you probably wouldn't have shown it to me."

"Smith doesn't seem the type to give 'passes'.

Sims was in violation for under two seconds when his body hit the floor. Two or three seconds more and his ID would have checked out. However, it could be that the warning only came into effect when we finished watching and saw it."

"Okay, best case, Smith can't tell we watched the video. In which case we have as much time as we need. Worst case, he gave me one pass, and we have to destroy the disk in just over five minutes, or I'm dead too."

"I'm not willing to risk it, McKinney." The director ejected the disk and moved to the side of his desk where he pushed it into the top of his shredder. Five seconds later it had been reduced to plastic confetti.

Sitting back down saying, "It's a shame we couldn't have the video analyzed. Did you notice that some of the areas seemed to have a lower-quality picture than others? Outside when he was driving mostly. It became clear again near his building."

"I didn't notice, Sir. I apologize I should have, but I was concentrating on Sims. What do you think caused the distortion?"

"I couldn't tell," Deckard stated. "And because I have absolutely no idea what he used to record the video, I have to refrain from guessing."

"By the way, I want you to know that I appreciate what you did. It cost us valuable intel and may have been unnecessary."

"Don't worry about it McKinney, we lost one operative today, we don't need to risk another on conjecture.

"We need to concentrate on gleaning what we can while the whole thing is fresh. We have several areas to examine. The recording itself, the killing of Sims, the commando squad, the autopsy ... can you think of anything else right off?"

"Mmmmm, leaving the gun on the body, using his car but switching wallets and taking the money clip, whether or not the other members of the program got copies. Oh, and why send the whole video in the first place? It would have been evidence enough of the violation to show only the hallway where he died, without the rest of it."

"Good point. When I said 'the recording itself' I was referring to how it was made, but you're right, Smith didn't need to send the rest. Doing so exposed some of his tech, even if we have no idea as to what it is or what it can do."

"I suspect," began McKinney, "that Smith didn't expect Sims to die, that it was some kind of automated system that did it. From what I've been told, he wouldn't kill without provocation. If that is true, he wanted to show Sims for what he was, and that he had become a liability instead of a death caused by too strict of a security protocol."

"Okay, let's assume that is true. That means Smith is more worried about either being wrong, or the thought of killing being so distasteful to him that he would expose himself to avoid being attached to it. Either way, we can use it against him if needed. We just have to figure out which situation is correct to exploit his error."

"Sir, he is known for being a very astute businessman. It could be that he was going to expose the tech anyway, and by doing it like this, we now have to go to him. That means he has the advantage in some future negotiation."

"Something tells me he is way ahead of us McKinney. He came to us with promises that seemed like something out of science fiction and convinced a whole lot of important people he could follow through on those promises. Sims' death without proof of those promises being obtainable would have stirred up a lot of animosities. I suppose the video could be his way of proving the cost-benefit ratio. None of this however is anything but conjecture. Let's move on."

"Sims' death? I think that is probably the next big item."

"I want you to contact Las Vegas, have them do a complete autopsy, and send us a copy. Find out what their PD has to say about the death, whether or not they have connected Sims to the hooker, and who they think Sims is. Is our facility compromised? I don't recall Sims having any family, but check into that also."

"I take it you think a discussion on the death itself is moot at this point?"

"Correct. We only have Smith's intel that says Sims is even dead. When we have a positive ID on Sims' body and a completed autopsy to compare to the one Smith provided we can continue that portion of the discussion but you and I both know that video can be altered. If that was even Sims, he could have been shot for all we know."

"To be honest Sir, are we even sure this is from Smith? Couldn't it have come from Sims himself, or someone trying to hijack the program?"

"You're being paranoid McKinney. Focus. We will have to hold the discussion about the autopsy as well until we have a comparison."

"I agree, but I still say the autopsy was the real message. I will be very surprised if this autopsy is not an exact representation of the one we get from Vegas.

"The commandos were next I think. I would say they have to be posted within the program complex somewhere."

"The response time would require that. What was your take?" asked Decker.

"They were most definitely well-equipped and highly trained. Tactical training, I can understand, even expected really, but they were prepared for Sims' death.

They acted as a unit that knew exactly what to do like they had done it repeatedly in training. They knew where his wallet was and had a replacement for it ready and they knew where the money clip was. I can't believe they didn't know about the gun as well, even with body armor on, the guy who carried Sims should have felt it. They knew ahead of time that it was to stay on the body."

"I think they had a spotter. Whoever they had communicated with using their throat mic. The spotter controlled the elevator and was watching the couple in the garage. They had to have been prepped for any eventuality, then acted under orchestration."

"That makes sense. Smith did say that none of us would have privacy ever again. Someone had to be watching his every move and a person or persons assisting him continuously with details like the wallet."

"That means every Guardian Program member has a support staff of a minimum of seven members per shift. Even with twelve-hour shifts on a rotating basis for days off, you would need four shifts or twenty-eight members. More, most likely, unless the staff doubled up on duties."

"You would also need a staffed training facility with maybe a dozen members to handle the different shifts. You would have to either transport the commandos from each city where a member was stationed to a training facility or have one for each city. My guess is one for each city. That means Smith has a paramilitary force of about ..." McKinney checked the math on his phone. "... Four-hundred-eighty, not counting the force Bridge Security employs."

The Director had been doing a search on his computer while McKinney spoke. "Bridge Security shows a national security staff level of nearly eight hundred for private contracts and almost five times that for government contracts. Putting his forces at about forty-five hundred in this country alone."

"Sir, if he reports numbers like the government, it could be more like ten to fifteen thousand."

"Well, we certainly are paying him enough to support those numbers, plus equipment, support staff, and facilities to house them. The big question now is, would he use them for other purposes?"

"Speculation? ... I don't think so, but we need more intelligence. Our office has been wrong before."

"Alright, bringing us to the question of leaving the gun, but switching the wallet and taking his money clip. I assume we'll get those answered when we talk to Vegas PD. Although, the money clip could have been bugged and Smith didn't want the police to dig too far into the case."

"That may be, but we know the phone was. Why not take the phone too?"

"The phones don't show up as bugged, it would only dial Bridge Security if they notice the panic button. I'm sure they would just claim Sims was a client. He was driving a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car after all. It wouldn't be hard to make the claim."

"Speaking of which, that was a colossal waste. Any car would have done the job, or the sidewalk for that matter. There has to be a message there as well."

"It says to me that money isn't Smith's motivation although the four-million-dollar life insurance policy may belay that sentiment."

"Okay, we've managed to say Smith is an enigma."

"We know he seems to have tech way above what we thought possible. We know he can spin the appearance of a situation at a moment's notice. We know we need to replace Sims, and we know we need to check with the other agencies to coordinate our intel on Smith. I also want an experiment to find out if Smith can watch us inside the jamming field of his. I don't think he can but we need to know."

"I'll get with Vegas PD and their coroner for the information you asked for, then compare the two autopsies, as well as contact Smith and begin the process of replacing Sims."

"No," said the Director. "I'll get with Smith about replacing Sims. I want you to contact another file reader and have him scan some offices for suspected terrorist activity but first make sure a 'Black Night' is active on site. Arrange it ASAP. I'll get with the other agencies and get a meeting arranged."

With that, the two men stood and shook hands.

McKinney passed his blank note sheet to the Director who set it on top of his equally blank notepad. Deckard went to his desk and unsealed the room, allowing McKinney to leave, and then picked up his phone.

End of Ch 09,

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