“What have we got on those faces and cards?” Brognola asked.
“Still checking on it,” Price told him. “But we’ve got the fastest fingers on the East Coast working on this.”
Brognola looked immediately over to Akira Tokaido, who was running through multiple images on his computer screen. They were flashing through too fast for Brognola to follow, but Tokaido had been born with a nervous system that seemed to have a quad-core processor. Brognola was still in abacus world when it came to technology, and he barely knew what quad-core meant, but it was fast, and Tokaido was that quick. He could look at those faces and run through code at lightning speed.
There was a quick whoop as Tokaido made a connection. “Barb! I have IDs.”
“That was fast,” Price said. Brognola accompanied her over to his station.
“We’ve been looking for signs of trouble since the first explosions,” Tokaido said. “That meant going back months.”
“So missing persons reports?” Brognola asked.
Tokaido nodded. “A bunch of twenty-somethings gone missing, but they said that they were staying on some extra time.”
“Email contact?”
“And new photos and videos up on social media,” Tokaido added. “So that’s allaying most of the suspicion.”
“Who isn’t buying this?” Brognola asked.
“Young lady, Cathryn Lopez. She was due to ship out after her vacation,” Tokaido said.
“Where?” Brognola asked.
“Marines. When a female Marine doesn’t report in for duty, it raises some flags. Especially if she’s still posting online,” Tokaido said. “As her last port of call...”
“The USMC is doing part of our intel for us,” Brognola mumbled. “There was a face in that batch?”
Tokaido shook his head. “But Lopez was on the same boat with Bryce Jennings. And his SIM card was recovered by McCarter.”
“Bryce Jennings?” Price asked. She shook her head. “Was he a porn star or something?”
“No, it was his real name,” Tokaido said.
“They slipped ashore disguised as tourists,” Brognola murmured. “Does our satellite coverage have identification on any of the boats?”
“We’re getting interference,” Tokaido returned. “And any IFF we have on the ships show nothing on the yacht that these kids were supposedly on.”
“So they’re anticipating us,” Price mused. “They’re anticipating something.”
“Are we getting anything at other marinas on that side? Or just Tarajal?” Brognola asked.
“No fine details in Tarajal, so that means that particular marina has some craft inside that’s jamming us,” Tokaido mused.
“And keeping watch on that coast,” Price added.
“You can fit a bit of surveillance equipment on a yacht,” Brognola said. “Radar, telescopes, satellite communications...”
“And Option Omega scouts,” Price noted.
“Option Omega has very little history except as an Idaho-based splinter of a white-supremacist militia,” Huntington Wethers, another member of Kurtzman’s cyberteam, interjected. “As to being a splinter, we’re talking a top membership of a dozen.”
“No other references?” Brognola asked. “Because—”
“I’ve been quite thorough,” Wethers told him. “Option Omega has the computer skills and resources to launch attacks on any other group usurping their name. I’ve tried a couple of runs at their main website, and they are not only pro-La Palma takeover, but they are vehemently anti-G8.”
“Idaho is a long way from Norfolk,” Brognola said. “And it’s even farther to the Spanish Canaries.”
“Traffic to their site has risen exponentially,” cyberteam member Carmen Delahunt advised. “As has the mention of them on BBSs. They appear to have been recruiting heavily.”
“Appear?” Brognola asked, aware that Delahunt was referring to computerized Bulletin Board Systems.
Delahunt shook her head. “It doesn’t feel right. Especially since they ratcheted back their angry militia rhetoric and pumped up the antigovernment bile.”
“Like they switched horses midstream,” Price mused.
Brognola nodded. “Someone either usurped the leadership or is influencing them.”
“So Option Omega has become a sock puppet,” Wethers offered. “Maybe they were inspired by the supremacists who threatened the G8 before, utilizing orbital launched rods. I can’t see much in way of La Palma’s significance as a strategic target, outside of the Jeopardy Corporation’s white paper.”
“If they’ve got enough resources now to transform cruise ships and assemble a large enough army to control an island, they’re going to have some kind of money trail,” Price said to the distinguished African-American cybernetics professor. “Dig deep, Hunt. If anyone can find even an infinitesimal trace of outside influence, it’s you.”
Wethers took out his pipe, then clenched it between his teeth. “I shall be thorough.”
Wethers was an educated man who had been working with computers for decades. He had the appearance of a college professor, and many of the mannerisms of a highly intelligent, cultured man. One thing, however, that made the job worthwhile at Stony Man Farm was fighting against groups that victimized innocents. On those occasions when they went up against intolerant bigots, he took special satisfaction in being of assistance in slamming the lid on their plans and machinations. Especially against white supremacists, men who considered him no more than a talking ape, rather than a brilliant mathematician and programmer.
He turned his attention back to his workstation and dived in deeply.
At the same time, Carmen Delahunt took her cue to return to her work, checking for Option Omega’s links to prior white-power groups that Stony Man had recently encountered.
There had been a sudden surge in activity among the Christian Identity and White Power movements, where lots of money had been raised. The most violent of the groups’ splinter elements had been involved in multiple other crises, which meant that there was someone who wasn’t putting their eggs in one basket, or maybe some manipulators were seeing the near success of others as their chance.
With the right words, the right equipment and the right money, things could be attempted that could rock the world, to the benefit of one or another cabal.
Either way, the monsters behind the scenes were nearly as insidious as the general thugs who were manipulated into committing murder for the profit of their puppet masters. In some ways, even worse, as they rarely caught the full attention of law enforcement, or were well hidden behind the shields of treaties and diplomatic immunity.
Brognola grumbled this time, and knew that he was going to have to do something to bring down the headmasters of this particular escapade in terror.
He pulled Price aside and spoke with her in confidence.
This was going to be one instance where the plotters would bleed, as well.
* * *
“WE’VE GOTTEN WORD from the Farm. Your assumptions were pretty good,” T. J. Hawkins said after closing the satellite-linked field laptop that put them in uninterrupted contact with the Sensitive Operations Group headquarters back on Stony Man Farm.
“Tourists murdered so