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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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"I will." Nolan pushed a glass of Metaxa toward Richard.
Caine nodded, closed the door behind him.
Nolan picked up his glass. "Do you think he suspects?"
"That we used him as bait? Not yet-maybe never, given how close we came to cocking up the whole op."
"What the hell happened out there?"
"Damned if I know-but for some reason, he and Opal stopped in the only blind spot on that side of the mountain."
"Thank God the overwatch team adapted quickly."
Downing nodded. "Your son trained them well."
"And he's been kept in the dark about us tapping his former team for this op?"
"Trevor doesn't know a thing. But how long that will last is hard to say."
Nolan sighed. "I know: SEALS are rough, tough commandos, but they gossip like wrinkled church ladies among themselves. Still, they did a good job."
"No slight intended, but we may owe more to good luck. Things could have worked out very differently. Almost did."
"Well, we still drew the opposition out, forced them to make their move in a time and a place of our choosing, and trumped their hand. And we manufactured the...
"Yes-but we created more of a crisis than we could handle. I still say it was unreasonably risky, Nolan." Downing would have preferred the word "reckless." "T...
"Look, Rich, after Alexandria, we have to accept that conventional notions of security are damn near useless. Whoever's after Caine has proven that they can h...
A nice theory. Downing sipped the Metaxa. Let's hope it's accurate. "Even if they were amateurs, it would have been damned helpful to get some identities."
"Yeah, as is anything that might show us who's after Riordan. Speaking of which, any word of the forensics analysis on Alexandria?"
Downing nodded. "The final after-action report came in this morning's pouch. The analysts are now speculating that Riordan may not have been the only target; ...
"What has the analysts thinking that?"
"Well, the power outage killed almost all the sleepers within minutes: with both the main current and the backup generator out, those early cryocells had only...
"You said the power outage killed almost all the sleepers?"
"Yes: three others were in modern cryopods, so their systems defaulted to long-duration self-power when the generator went offline."
"So they're alive?"
"No, they're dead too."
"How?"
"The intruders shot them."
Nolan's glass froze in the transit from tabletop to mouth. "Say again?"
Downing nodded. "You heard me correctly: the intruders shot them."
Nolan returned the glass to the table. "Not good."
"No, no good at all. That's why the analysts are rethinking why the attackers were there in the first place, and the rationale behind their tactics. Did they ...
"Or was it to kill off all the sleepers?" Nolan finished for him. "Christ, Rich, you were dead right when you suggested we replace the original sleepers with ...
"Sixty-three."
"Okay, you can rub it in: you're entitled." Nolan bolted back most of his Metaxa. "When the intruders killed the other sleepers, did they bother to open the c...
"No. So the enemy strikers could not have learned that we switched the occupants. Which brings up yet another related issue: when should we inform the penal a...
"About the untimely demise of sixty-three of its sociopaths and axe murderers? Not until after we know who hit the facility and why. And how."
"Yes. About the 'how': the final assessment on the site's power loss indicates there was no sabotage: no sign of explosives, wire cutters, or computer hacking...
"What do you mean?"
"There is no sign that the control panel for the building's generator was ever opened. Indeed, they never even entered the generator room."
"Then how the hell-?"
"As best we can tell, the power was cut by an intensive but very narrowly localized EM pulse that shorted out the internal regulators. At least, that's what i...
"How localized an EM pulse are we talking about?"
Downing double-checked his notes. "Essentially pinpoint: half a cubic meter, at most."
"Rich, that's impossible."
"I did not say the report establishes that it was an EM pulse-just that it looked like one. But just because we aren't aware of anyone with the ability to cre...
"Which showed nothing."
Downing nodded. "And given the thoroughness of the after-action sweeps, we can rule out a buried device."
"So we've got a locked-room mystery."
"Seems so, Holmes."
"Ha ha, Watson. And still nothing on the intel leak that gave the attackers the location of Riordan, or the sleepers-or whatever the hell they were after?"
Downing shook his head. "No-and we've exhausted our investigatory options."