The Clues

Lucas tried to figure out the sequence of events that had occurred in the past six hours as the cab headed towards Marianao. He needed to reach Maria and get in touch with the Serpent. He also needed to chalk out a plan to rescue Annie and figure out who the mercenaries from the hotel were working for. He needed to figure out who Dimitri was and how all of this was related to the agency Viper and to Rosmus and Suleiman. He had damaged his watch while trying out his acrobatic antics earlier in the day. So, he pulled out a spare from his backpack. As per the display module, Annie’s tracking beacon was still sending a weak signal from her current location. He needed to find the decryption code in order to find out her exact location. Lucas also noticed something really strange…..another beacon was emitting a signal at the same distress frequency. The signal was pretty strong and was being emitted from someone very near to his present location. He asked for the cab driver’s cell phone to make an emergency call.

He dialed for the Indian embassy. At the automated interactive menu, Lucas entered his pass code to gain access to the ANNT system. After a few validations, he obtained his decryption code. By the time Lucas entered the decryption code, Annie’s signal was no longer being shown in the system. Annie had probably entered a radio free zone packed with signal jammers. Based on the last position, she was somewhere near the Maximo Gomez Monument in the heart of the city. The location of the second signal proved to be of a greater amount of surprise. It was coming from his cab. The cab could not have been bugged since he had picked out one randomly from the alley. His earlier watch was dead……hence it could not have been emitting anything. Lucas searched his back pack frantically in search of the source. He emptied the contents….a set of specialized goggles, a silenced M9, two blocks of C4 with detonators, a smoke grenade, a spare grappling hook and few rounds of ammo. The bag had a secret compartment at the back, housing a hand glider. Lucas shuffled through the external pockets….a pen knife, PDA and his passports and credit cards. The PDA was non functional as he did not get a chance to charge it up. He lifted the PDA and opened the cover housing the battery and external memory compartment. The battery was present…….however Lucas noticed something plugged into the memory card slot. Lucas did not have a memory card, ANNT agents are not supposed to carry data with them; they access and upload data to their central servers for analysis. All their machines are self destructible in case the same is misplaced or any of the ANNT agents are compromised.

Lucas pulled out the stick attached to his memory card slot. It was a unique memory chip like device with a small led attached to it. He put the rest of his stuff back to the backpack and put on his goggles. With the heat vision turned on, he could see the presence of a tiny power source within the chip. He searched for the device in the ANNT database based on the digital signature of the beacon. It was a prototype of the Assassination Precision Targeting Systems (APTS) project which was developed by the DRDO as a joint venture with the Kremlin a few years back before the project was subsequently shut down owing to the possible misuse of the device. DRDO had planned to develop a device which could be attached to the highly secured assassination targets so that they could be tracked and subsequently destroyed. DRDO planned to strike them with laser tipped satellite guided ballistic missiles belonging to the nations or the neighboring countries where the targets would be present at that point of time. That would in turn ensure that no fingers would be pointed towards the Indian Government or the Kremlin for the assassination of these sensitive targets. The system could be used to eliminate high profile terrorist leaders as well as could be used for tactical nuclear strikes using the nuclear devices of the parent country itself if required. It would consist of a self powered microchip which would emit a signal encrypted according to the ANNT distress frequency criteria. The device could hide itself from external scanners by adapting to the frequency of the electromagnetic waves that would be used for tracking it. Hence such a device could potentially be un-identifiable by the security scanners at the airports and government organizations. The device could be attached to any object and could even be injected into the body of the target if required. The initial prototype was designed as a small memory stick and the DRDO was working on reducing the form factor for the subsequent versions. The Indian Government decided to shut down the project after the first demonstration itself owing to concerns on security and how the system could be misused if it was ever compromised. All the prototypes were destroyed under joint supervision of the DRDO and the GRU when the project was subsequently shut down.

It seemed like someone had managed to get hold of few pieces of the prototype which had purposely not been destroyed during the purge. Surely there were other pieces of the prototype in the market since Lucas was too small and unimportant a target to waste such a valuable weapon on. If there were other pieces of the APTS around, then Lucas needed to find and destroy them before they could be misused. He also needed to find out how these prototypes managed to stay intact after the purge. Someone from the Indian or the Russian side must have been involved and Lucas needed to find them out too. As the cab approached the road leading to Maria’s duplex in Marianao, he noticed the presence of the police and emergency vehicles. A plume of black smoke could be seen around the corner. He was shocked at the sight of the place when his cab turned around the corner. Maria’s house had been reduced to a heap of rubble and the entire neighborhood was burning in flames. As per the policemen and the medical teams, a series of explosions had rocked the neighborhood earlier in the day. The impact of the explosions had damaged the entire neighborhood and the old buildings nearby were beginning to collapse. While the police and the firemen tried frantically to rescue the residents from the nearby buildings Lucas sneaked into one of the police vans and grabbed hold of a laptop. The last logs showed the details of the distress call made from the area by one of the residents about a possible missile strike. The police headquarters had later played down the claims of a missile strike and treated it as a terrorist attack. Maria’s residence had been identified and marked as an Al Qaeda hideout which was destroyed by the terrorists as they tried to cover up their operations when neighbors had started suspecting their actions. All the terrorists were killed in the process when their bombs detonated before they could leave the place. The deceased list showed Maria Rosario Morales as a prime Al Qaeda operative among four others who were possibly killed in the incident.

Lucas connected his watch with the terminal and logged into the ANNT network. He searched the database for Viper and Dimitri. The results were quite amusing. Dimitri Bertsekas was Rosmus’s right hand man…….the one who handled all his illegal transactions in the Middle East. He initially belonged to Romanovich’s payroll before moving over to Rosmus team. Apparently Romanovich was a close friend of Rosmus and had personally suggested Dimitri’s name since he had made a big investment in Rosmus’s operations as well and wanted to have the entire operation monitored by someone he could trust. As of Viper, it was the name of the security organization which handled the security of Romanovich’s business establishments all over the world. The crew mostly consisted of handpicked ruthless mercenaries and criminals from around the world who were paid enough dough to ensure that they would do anything that Romanovich wanted them to do. The entire plot was slowly starting to make sense. Rosmus was up to something big with the Al Qaeda and Suleiman involved and was using Romanovich’s help in terms of finances, contacts, establishment as well as crew to execute his plan. They possessed something big which Agent Alpha had been able to intercept and hence he was eliminated. They also knew about every move that Lucas had made from the very beginning owing to the tracking device. Hence all his moves were intercepted and Annie had been taken as a hostage. They had also managed to track down his contacts and hence Maria had been eliminated as well. Only two questions still remain unanswered………the secret that Rosmus was holding with him and how the APTS was used to track him down. Lucas turned off the console and swiftly left the police van. He had to prepare for the next night. He was going to pay Rosmus, Suleiman and Romanovich a surprise visit…………at their own backyard……..the Tropicana casino.