Nighthawk (NUMA Files 14)

“And ruin their plausible deniability?”

“Good point,” Hiram said. “Okay. We’ll give it a shot.”

Paul knew that meant it would get done. “Kurt wants the information as soon as you can get it. Preferably, before his romantic Sunday drive gets the best of him.”

Hiram promised to do his best and the call ended. Paul looked around to find a large crow staring back at him from another section of the roof.

“Thank God, you’re not a parrot,” he said.

The crow cawed and spread its wings. It flew off to the south, and Paul climbed back down into the warmth of the café.

“Get through?” Gamay said.

He nodded and checked the clock on the wall. “Joe is still several hours away.”

Gamay had already purchased a steaming cup of soup and an alpaca hat. “Yep,” she said, settling in and tapping away on a keyboard. “Looks like this café is our temporary home.”

Back in Washington, Hiram and Priya were left to figure out the details of their latest hacking scheme.

“Whether we should do this or not is one thing,” Priya said. “But how we do it is the more important question.”

“You’re not worried?” Hiram asked.

“Worst thing they can do is deport me back to Merrie Olde England. And while I can’t stand all the rain, you and Rudi will be the ones who go to jail.”

“Not likely,” Hiram said. “But it isn’t going to be easy to break their code. Each time Max and I have hacked the NSA, they’ve responded by raising their game. Their security is quite good.”

“We could overwhelm them with a brute force attack,” Max suggested over the speakers.

Hiram looked up—as he often did when speaking to Max. “Let’s try something less reminiscent of Genghis Khan.”

Priya was already tapping away at her computer. “The NSA may have built the Nighthawk in secret, but they didn’t design it from scratch. Design cues were taken from the space shuttle and the X-37. Ms. Townsend even said something about the Nighthawk using common parts from the X-37. If that’s the case, NASA probably shared data on the construction process. And that means we might be able to hack into NASA instead of the NSA.”

“Great idea,” Hiram said.

“I prefer the word brilliant.”

“Then brilliant it is,” Hiram replied. “To collaborate with NASA, our friends at the NSA would have set up a secure and authenticated connection. If we do as you say and break into NASA first, we can get into the NSA computers through the back door and they might think they’re just sharing data with the Johnson Space Center.”

Max chimed in. “I assign a seventy-three percent chance of success to the plan. And if they do discover the hack, they’ll investigate NASA first, giving us more time to make a run for it.”

“Without legs, you’ll be going nowhere,” Hiram said. “I’m afraid they’ll melt you down for scrap.”

“I could get wheels,” Max suggested. “Like Dr. Kashmir.”

For an instant, Hiram felt awkward, but Priya laughed. “Trust me, Max, having wheels isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Hiram laughed as well. “We’ll talk about your mobility issues some other time, Max. Let’s break into the space center’s network and see if their computers are still on speaking terms with the National Security Agency.”

It was the better part of the day before Priya and Max were able to gain access. Eventually, they had to go through the systems at Cape Canaveral and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before discovering a link to the NSA database. Shortly, they were receiving copious amounts of information on the Nighthawk’s design, test flights and mission parameters.

Priya and Hiram looked at what they could but relied on Max to determine what was important or not, as they soon had over a thousand pages of information.

As Max continued to sort things out, Priya found herself studying the technical papers related to the Nighthawk’s construction. “Look at this,” she said, waving Hiram over to her desk.

He peered down at the image on her computer.

“These are the blueprints and design specs for the X-37.” She pointed. “And these are the plans for the Nighthawk. See anything interesting?”