Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

Juan took a seat at the head of the table and said, “Eric, what have you been able to find out about the Colossus Project?” Maurice set a plate in front of Juan and closed the door as he glided out. Eric presented his findings with the aid of pictures from the notebook pages displayed on the room’s giant monitor.

“Even though the notebook is made from archival paper, some of the ink ran from exposure to the water,” Eric said, pointing to the letters that were smeared across the pages. “Many details about the biocomputer schematics are lost, but I was able to figure out how it worked.”

He switched to a view of the video that they had recorded from Little Geek and paused the image when it showed the damaged vat inside the hold. Murph frowned at the screen, still unhappy that his ROV had been destroyed in the explosion.

“Those vats contain a matrix of proteins, amino acids, and DNA molecules in specially designed biological cells,” Eric said, the excitement in his voice noticeable. “They literally grew this computer.”

“What’s the advantage over a silicon-based computer?” Julia asked.

“Silicon computers work in sequence, so you can only perform one calculation at a time. You’re limited by the speed of the electrons flowing through the system. But with a biocomputer, the DNA can process information in parallel, which means the speed of its calculations is a thousand times faster than any other computer’s processor.”

“If they’ve solved how to do this at scale,” Murph said, “they’re way ahead of anybody else. I couldn’t find any biocomputers bigger than a loaf of bread in the scientific literature.”

Linda said, “Why put this thing on a ship?”

“According the notebook, Colossus is fed by plankton,” Eric said. “That’s another advantage. Although the computer servers that help with the processing require normal power delivery, the vats run like any other biological organism. They feed and then produce waste. Not only that, the artificial intelligence could be destroyed by a self-destruct mechanism if it got out of control. That’s what sunk the ship Colossus 3. The sea really is the ideal environment.”

“If the ship was called the Colossus 3,” Eddie said, “does that mean it’s the third attempt to do this? Did they sink the ship because the AI already went haywire?”

Eric shook his head. “The scientist theorized that four ships would need to be linked together by microwave transceivers to achieve the processing power required for the AI to become self-improving, meaning it could write its own programming. At the time the ship sank, there were only two other Colossus ships, with a fourth nearing completion.”

Max spoke up. “While we were preparing for the dive at the site of the underwater volcano, I noticed three ships with those helical masts steaming north together. It was only after Nomad returned and we knew what Colossus 3 looked like that I realized that those were the other Colossus ships. The Colossus 4 must have been completed since the Colossus 3 sank.”

“Which means they must be building a Colossus 5 to complete their plans for four total ships,” Juan said. “I talked with Langston Overholt about our discovery, and he connected me with NUMA. They checked their database of shipyards around the world and found that the Colossus ships were all built at the Moretti Navi facility in Naples.”

“Is that our next stop?” Eddie asked.

“No, there was an ‘accident’ at the shipyard last week, the night before the attack on Diego Garcia. The ship was damaged and moved to another facility for final outfitting. But NUMA reported that they found it being finished under a different name at a shipyard in Cyprus. And it’s almost complete, so we don’t have much time to act. Lang has given us the green light to disable the ship, but before we talk about the operation, I want to hear about Mumbai.”

Eddie recounted the incident at the party. The media was labeling it a terrorist event targeting high-level Indian government officials. After checking with the CIA, Murph identified the attacker at the gala as Natalie Taylor, a former British Army Intelligence operative who’d been dishonorably discharged and now worked for Xavier Carlton. When Eddie got to the part about planting the barnacle on Mallik’s computer, Juan asked Murph if he’d been able to get any actionable intel.

“You had to ask,” Murph said. “The data download was going well until I hacked an internal firewall. It must have had a built-in silent alarm because the download shu

t down right after that.”

“What were you able to get?”

“The files confirm that Mallik has developed a weapons system for the Indian military that causes effects similar to an electromagnetic pulse, but I wasn’t able to find out how it operates.”

“Then they used Vajra to take out the electronics at Diego Garcia?” Juan asked.

“That seems likely.”

“Have they mounted the weapon on a ship or aircraft?”

“Neither,” Murph said. “It’s satellite-based.”

They all thought about the ramifications in silence.

“They can target anywhere on earth,” Max said.

“For the limited time the satellite is overhead,” Murph said.

“Which makes us vulnerable no matter where we are.” Juan looked at Max. “How are those modifications coming?”

“Still working on it. It’s difficult because the Oregon is so dependent on her computers. We’re hardened against most forms of EMP attack, but so was Diego Garcia.”

“Why would India attack the U.S.?” Linda wondered.