Read Online Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist Aftermath by Peter Telep - Free Book Online Page A

kicking him out. He was a classic genius underachiever.
     He went on to the Rochester Institute of Technology because his grades wouldn’t get
     him into MIT like the rest of his friends, and after that, some of his online exploits
     had caught the attention of the NSA and he was quickly rolled into Grim’s R&D group
     at Third Echelon.
    He didn’t last long. He was immature, had an uncompromising vision for what the SMI
     should be, and Grim summarily fired him. That he’d flipped her a double bird on the
     way out didn’t help. He’d tried a few scrub jobs, even moonlighted for two weeks as
     an IT temp under false credentials, until some of the people he’d hacked in the past
     came looking for him, including members of a Mexican drug cartel he’d once helped
     expose, or “dox,” by revealing all of their personal information online.
    Vic’s private security firm had rescued him from all that, literally saving him when
     the Mexicans had sent two hit men to teach him a final lesson. Vic took him under
     his wing, and Charlie helped support some deftly executed operations for private clients.
     Despite his youth, his defiance of authority, and his often brash and animated demeanor,
     Charlie possessed a rare combination of go-with-your-gut instincts coupled with a
     cunning and always up-to-date knowledge of complex computer systems and code.
    And if you wanted to get deeply psychological about it, you could say that he’d become
     all of these things because he was searching for his lost father, wanting answers
     for why the man had left him so long ago.
    Charlie rubbed the corners of his eyes and nodded. “Grim’s intense. I get that. But
     sometimes she’s gotta back off. I’m afraid to say anything—because I know you’ll take
     the heat for it.”
    “You just do your job. She’ll keep you honest.”
    “I got the feeling that when you first came on board, you didn’t want her around.”
    “This was her initiative, nonnegotiable with the president.”
    “So why didn’t you walk away?”
    Fisher steeled his voice. “Because they need us. The country needs us. Remember that.”
    “Hey, Sam?” came Briggs’s voice from the hallway. “Got something else here. Apparently,
     the Russian government just pulled Kasperov’s license. His company is officially shut
     down. At least for now.”
    Fisher met up with Briggs and followed him back to the command center with Charlie
     in tow.
    “Sam, we’re still analyzing all the flights out of every airport around Moscow at
     the time Kasperov might’ve bolted,” said Grim. “The radar distortion has made that
     tough.”
    “So did any of Kasperov’s jets take off?”
    “Well, not according to the flight plans, but I’m sure he didn’t file one. And he
     probably didn’t take his own plane. Maybe a friend’s with falsified docs.”
    An alert screen flashed in the upper right corner of the SMI’s main screen. Grim dragged
     and dropped a new data window into the center of the display then opened it. “Well,
     it can’t be this easy, can it? We’ve just confirmed that one of Kasperov’s private
     jets did take off from Vnukovo Airport, actually just
after
the radar interruption. Flight plan indicates that the jet’s bound for Tbilisi, the
     capital of Georgia. Says there’s three passengers on board, along with two crew members.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Charlie. “Again, he wouldn’t use his own plane
     and wouldn’t file a flight plan.”
    “I agree,” Grim answered.
    “Decoy?” asked Fisher.
    “Hard to say. Maybe a decoy to buy him time? Divert forces away from him?”
    “Yeah, he’s a smart bastard, because he knows that jet’s a decoy we can’t ignore.
     No matter what, we have to check it out.”
    “I’ll see what assets we have in Georgia, get some people to Tbilisi before that plane
     arrives.”
    “I’ve got the rest of the flight plans for that bird,” said Charlie. “Looks like his