Free State of Emergency by Sam Fisher

Bureau suffered the man.'
    The assistant nodded. 'Looks like he was onto something
big, though, sir. He dropped out of sight three days ago –
simply vanished. Then yesterday he filed this report. He was
in southern California. Said he was close to the source. Asked
for backup to be prepped for his next call in.'
    'Ha! And?'
    'Freddie Neilson's body was found washed up on the
beach in Santa Barbara this morning.'

18
Base One, Tintara
E-Force training, week twelve
    'Abort! Abort!'
    'Okay, okay!' Stephanie brought her hand down hard on
the joystick and threw herself back in the chair. 'I will never,
ever get the hang of this thing!' she shouted into the helmet
mic, so loudly that Mark and Maiko in the control room
yanked off their headsets simultaneously.
    'Okay, Steph. Take five.' It was Mark's deep voice coming
through her comms.
    Stephanie emerged from the simulator seething. She had
been trying to land the Big Mac on a shelf of rock not
much bigger than the base of the vehicle, and every time
she had misjudged the altitude and slammed the VTOL
aircraft down so hard that the undercarriage buckled and
they plummeted 2000 feet into a digital ravine. 'I'm sorry,
Mark,' she hissed, stomping towards the control room. 'I
just –'
    'Look – chill, okay?' Mark took her by the shoulders. 'I
died at least a dozen times before I got it right.'
    Maiko was at the door to the control room as Stephanie
and Mark reached it.
    'Your turn,' Mark said.
    She was pulling on her comms headset when the central
computer, known affectionately as Sybil, interrupted. 'Mark,'
it intoned, in a soft female voice, 'perhaps you've forgotten
– the team are due to meet in Cyber Control at 15.00. Peter
and Josh are on their way. Tom is there already.'
    'Thanks, Sybil,' Mark said. 'I had forgotten.'
    They reached Cyber Control a few seconds after Pete and
Josh. The two men looked freshly scrubbed in new jumpsuits
– the standard uniform for everyone at Base One. Made from
polycarbon fibres, each suit weighed only a few ounces but
was as strong as silk, with a similar texture. The two of them
had just completed Survival Training Course 6M, one of the
toughest – and messiest.
    Tom gave Josh and Peter high fives as they came in. 'Good
day at the office, guys?' he enquired.
    'Can't complain, Tom. It must have been hell slaving over
a hot keyboard all day,' Josh replied.
    'Right, everyone,' Mark said. 'It's just the weekly check.
How're we all feeling?'
    'Apart from crashing six times today, just fine,' Stephanie
replied.
    Josh looked at her in amazement. 'You still haven't landed
the Big Mac?'
    'No, I haven't, smartass. I'm sorry to disappoint you.'
Stephanie caught herself and took a deep breath. 'Oh, look,
I'm . . . Not a good day.'
    He had his hands up. 'Hey, I'm sorry.'
    'Actually, there is something I want to pass on.' It was
Tom Erickson. He was at a computer terminal. A holographic
image floated in space in front of his eyes. At the apex of
red and green converging lines was a paragraph of text.
'Sybil,' he said. 'Project the global map onto the big screen,
please.'
    Tom spun his chair round and the others turned as the
wall behind them lit up.
    'I don't want to panic anyone, but we've been picking up
some strange intelligence traffic.'
    'What does that mean, exactly?' Josh asked.
    'Well, as you know, Sybil monitors all transmissions
on the planet. Then, just like a search engine on the net,
she sorts the stuff according to a set of pre-programmed
criteria. The most useful sources are secret-service and
military transmissions.' The screen lit up in clusters around
Washington, London, Moscow and Beijing. 'During the
past couple of days there's been increased activity from
the US and European intelligence agencies. A lot of crosstalk.
Sybil's picked up no fewer than 1800 communications
between the CIA and MI5 since Tuesday. They obviously
suspect something is about to go down.'
    'Any idea what?' Pete asked.
    'None at all. Either the spooks know and