Read Online Kill Chain by J Robert Kennedy - Free Book Online

see how punctual he is.”
    Tong attacked her
keyboard and moments later new footage played on fast-forward. “There he is!”
    Leroux watched the truck
pass through the intersection, turning right, exactly at the corner where he
had been forced to pull over. He noted the time. Three minutes after today’s
arrival. “Go back a day.”
    Tong complied, and again
they spotted the vehicle. This time two minutes early.
    Leroux tapped his chin.
“They had to time this perfectly. They couldn’t risk him arriving late, but
early is fine.” His eyes narrowed. “If he leaves on time every day, and he has
no stops before this point, then the only thing that could hold him up is
traffic.” His eyes widened slightly. “Can we see a shot of that road from one
of the cameras that were working? Something that shows the traffic lights?”
    Tong worked her magic and
they were soon watching footage showing a steady stream of traffic heading
east. “Is that him?”
    Leroux leaned forward in
his chair, peering at a fuel truck from the rear as it drove through a green
light. “Looks like him.” He snapped his fingers, leaping from his chair.
“Look!” He rushed toward the front of the room, pointing at the shot. “Every
light is green!” He twirled his finger. “Roll it forward on this shot. Let’s
watch what happens.”
    The fuel truck continued
forward, the traffic flowing smoothly, the lights at the intersection just
cleared turning red, all lights ahead remaining green. The traffic was moving
smoothly, no delays, and Leroux counted in his head how many seconds the lights
remained green.
    At forty seconds, it had
cleared the next light, it immediately turning red.
    At a minute-thirty the
next light.
    Again red.
    He turned to face his
team. “They controlled the lights to make sure he’d get there on time.” He
pointed at Tong. “Sonya, let the Koreans know they need to look for an
intrusion on their traffic control system as well.”
    Tong grabbed her phone,
quickly dialing.
    “Shit!”
    Leroux looked at Child.
“What?”
    “Something’s hitting the
web now, sir.” He motioned toward the display. “Look.”
    A video filled the
screen, a North Korean flag fluttering in the wind, patriotic music blaring as
Korean lettering scrolled across the screen. Leroux spun toward Tong. “Get me a
Korean translator, now!” He turned back toward the screen to see a series of
laughably bad CGI effects showing various landmarks around the world destroyed
by cartoonish missile strikes.
    In other words, it was of
the quality only a country completely isolated from the world could think might
be taken seriously.
    North Korea.
    The shrill voice of a
woman sounded as the images continued to loop and text continued to scroll,
Leroux motioning for Child to turn the volume down a bit. It dropped to a level
where he could think. “Where’s this coming from?”
    “It’s hitting all the
major sites now. It’s already trending on Twitter.”
    Leroux’s eyes narrowed as
he turned toward Child. “How long’s it been up?”
    “Not even five minutes.”
    “Huh.” He turned back
toward the amateurish production. “They must be using dummy accounts like we do
to force it up the rankings.”
    “It’s on Twitter, Reddit,
Facebook, LiveLeak. Pretty much everywhere that’s anywhere.”
    “Do the news networks
have it yet?” He glanced over at an array of displays showing the world’s major
news networks to answer his own question.
    Nada.
    Wait.
    The screen with Fox
showed a Breaking News banner as the door to the operations center opened.
Leroux turned to see an older woman of Asian descent rushing into the room. She
opened her mouth but Leroux cut her off, pointing at the screen as he motioned
with the other hand for Child to jack the volume.
    The woman opened her
mouth again when Leroux cut her off, the image suddenly changing, four dead
bodies on the screen. “ID them!”
    Another window on the
display opened, each body isolated,