Safe House #29
South DC
9:45 AM
The sunlight illuminated the apartment flat in strips, as it shown through the blinds into Mac's apartment. They had just pulled an all-nighter, following surreptitious leads from Geneva. A brewing coffee pot in the small kitchen, sighed as it finished and released an aromatic roast into the air. Cusick and Mac now had access to the traffic camera grid but had no luck in finding the Hyman Seafood truck. Morale was dropping as the hunt was beginning to run cold.
"So, Ezra has confirmed that the targets are in the DC metropolitan area, but finding this truck in the city is like finding a needle in a haystack, or should I say a needle holding deadly bacteria in a haystack the size of Washington, DC." Mac glanced behind him.
"Get it?" he asked, almost immediately giving up on the joke, seeing Cusick consumed in his computer screen. Mac wiped the exhaustion from his face and then slapped his face. After a few silent moments Cusick chimed up.
"Got it!"
"It took you that long to get it, come on man. I thought that was pretty clever." Mac smiled.
"No, I got it!" Mac turned from his chair to face Cusick with a quizzical expression.
"The truck..." Cusick explained. Mac jumped out of his chair, eyeing the laptop monitor.
"When is this?" Mac asked, already over Cusick's shoulder. His finger tapped on the feed's time stamp. 10:09PM. They watched the truck park and wait alongside H Street outside the Rock and Roll Hotel. Cusick fast forwarded the footage to see Harak Khan get out of the truck, wait at the truck's backside for a young lady to walk by. The two hackers were shocked to see the sedative driven into her neck and her limp body thrown into the back of the truck. Mac gaped at the feed. He leaned forward and focused in on the next breadcrumb of the trail.
"Who is that girl?"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stacey Chapman was running down the street, buttoning up her military formals. She brought the phone to her ear as she rushed down the sidewalk. After a couple quick rings, an impatient voice answered.
"Stacey, where the hell are you?"
"I am on my way! I am so—" Stacey surrendered to another fit of coughing. She then crossed over an intersection and turned – the building where she worked was now in sight.
"Are you okay?" the voice asked over the phone.
"Yeah! I'm fine..." she exhaled gasping words, as she kept her pace up.
"How long until you get here?"
"I'm walking through the door now, I swear! I am so sorry." Stacey's apology was hoarse and discordant, as she battled the infection taking hold of her. She shook off any bit of unprofessionalism, straightened her military blouse and walked through the door.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The clocks populated the Situation Room monitor on the far wall. There were isolated discussions throughout the room as they hypothesized the meaning of them.
"2:04, 51, 53, 11:46, 2, 11" The President read the clocks, bewildered. "Are they times to an attack? 51, 53, 2, 11. These numbers may indicate trains departing in Union Station," he hypothesized.
"On it, Mr. President!" Powers consulted the Amtrak schedules of the day.
"They could be referring to different clocks around DC, marked by that time." Hardy suggested.
"It's definitely a possibility...Director Deacon, I want the NSA checking the city's surveillance for any reference to those times," the Commander-in-Chief ordered.
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Xander?!" Hooper spoke up over the comm unit.
"Yes, sir?"
"What are your first thoughts?"
"I'm curious as to why there are only two times. The two sets of three go: hour, minute, second, hour, minute, second. The problem is that the hours indicated are fractional. It is not 2 o'clock on the dot, its 2:04..." Xander formulated. Ashton and Seamus joined him and were also struck by the sight of the clocks.
"Maybe they are counting down to something?" FBI Director Fangold posited.
"No, that can't be, these clocks aren't moving." Seamus joined the discussion.
"Frozen in Time." Xander reminded them of the rhyme.
"Take out the time component and consider them as number strings: 2045153, 1146211," Ashton offered. The Situation Room jumped at the lead.
"Search the depths of each agency's database for these numbers," the President directed. "Do they indicate an agent in the field? A mission number? A passcode? I want everything you got, immediately." Hooper received a chorus of 'yes sirs'.
Marty Jacobs rubbed his temples and loosened his collar. Hooper noticed his odd behavior.
"Are you okay, Marty?"
"Yes, Mr. President. I'm fine. I could just use some water." He cleared his throat and then hit the intercom button on the phone before him.
"Can we get some water in here?"
Xander did not react to this theory or the prior, rather he remained entranced by the puzzle. He admired its simplicity, its clean approach.
The clues indicate the location of a target, yet he is using time here as a clue. It doesn't make sense though, there is already a rigid time element to his game. He wouldn't insert another layer of timing.
He then heard Ashton's voice echo through his head. Take out the time component.
"It's not a time. It's a location." Xander smiled, knowing he was solving the clue. His voice spoke soft over the comms. It carried a certainty that stopped everyone in their tracks in the Situation Room. They reached a collective silence and awaited further explanation.
"It's a location! There are 360 degrees on a clock," he spoke the disjointed thought over the comm channel. The Situation Room only grew more perplexed, unable to follow Xander's chugging train of thought. His gaze remained transfixed on the clocks as he connected the dots.
Degrees, minutes, seconds.
"Xander, can you explain?" The President reminded him that they were listening and needed to be walked through his logic.
"The first clock doesn't give a time. It gives an angle, the second gives a minute, the third gives a second. Degree, minute, second."
"Longitude and Latitude, they are coordinates." Ashton marveled over the comm.
"How do you calculate the degree?" Seamus added the next natural question.
"The angle is equal to ½(60H+M) – 6M," Xander recited, eyes closed as if he was reading from the SAT prep book. "1/2(120+4) – 24. 62-24 = 38."
He verbally performed the arithmetic. "The first angle is calculated as 38, so that makes the longitude 38 degrees, 53 minutes, 51 seconds." Hardy in the Situation room scribbled down the string of numbers.
"11:46," Ashton noted the second time for Xander to process. All eyes focused on Xander's incredible intellect, trusting his arithmetic and his instincts. The Situation Room was silent, marveling as the puzzle pieces connected.
"1/2 (706) – 46(6). 353 – 276 = 77. The second angle is 77. Latitude is 77 degrees, 2 minutes, 11 seconds!" Hardy jotted down the coordinates.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Cusick looked over the surveillance feed as he focused in on the female, abducted on the footage. A filter ran over her grainy face, adding clarity to her features. After the filter repeated multiple times, a pretty young woman came into view. Cusick ran a facial profiling software over her clear image. A file popped up showing her ID picture.
"Stacey Chapman, Date of Birth: March 8, 1985, Harvard grad, Political Science Masters. She currently works at –" The next words on the profile cut through the screen, rendering Mac and Cusick aghast.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Alright, I have Longitude: 38 degrees, 53 minutes, 51 seconds. Latitude: 77 degrees, 2 minutes, 11 seconds." Hardy double checked the coordinates over the comm. At that moment, a beautiful blonde woman quietly came into the Situation Room, dressed in slightly wrinkled military formals with a carafe full of water. She filled the glasses before each person, unnoticed amidst the shuffle. She placed a filled glass before the President.
"We're inputting the coordinates now!" Hardy typed quickly, the monitor showed a satellite view of America. He hit enter to zoom into the exact coordinate of Ezra's next target. The staffer with the water resisted the urge to cough in the President's company. But her throat seized on itself - the itching urge grew unbearable. She pulled her elbow up and coughed hard into it by the President's chair.
"Excuse me, Mr. President..." she spoke a soft apology. His eyes pried away from the screen to meet the staffer before him. He flashed her a polite smile, despite the chaos that was unfolding.
His eyes met the staffer. Knowing the names of all the White House staffers he had no problem recalling the name of the girl before him.
"It's okay...Ms. Chapman."
Stacey nodded and excused herself from the Situation Room.
The monitor continued to zoom toward the East Coast until it broke the clouds over Washington DC. Then it focused on a rectangular building near the middle of the city. The name of the building came into view.
The White House.
A horrifying revelation dawned on the Situation Room as they read the screen.
With great difficulty, the President accepted what it indicated.
"We are the target. The disease is already here."
Marty Jacobs's trembling hand already had the phone to his ear and issued the lockdown order to the Secret Service on the other end.
"Code Black – Crash. Seal off the building."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What do you think?! The shit is really beginning to hit the fan.
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