The Mind Hackers

Chapter 1

Many people do not believe in coincidence. The dictionary definition of coincidence is the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection. Our small company is beginning to make a pretty good living by coming up with inventions and concepts as a result of ideas originally conceived for a different intended result. We weren't shocked when the statistical scientists at NSA’s Central Security Service came up with the idea of putting together a team of mathematical, statistical and computer geniuses, just to see what might happen. CSS was expecting some kind of results from their investment when they put the various scientists together, but probably didn’t envision a new technology with the potential to psychologically enslave masses of people.

When Shen and I were called in the middle of the night and asked to go to Seattle and check out a bizarre plane crash, we had no idea we would find ourselves in the middle of an inner agency conflict between the NSA, the CSS, the CIA, the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command and Homeland Security. We certainly did not expect to encounter the presence of a sophisticated Yakuza organization in this country nor were we prepared to enter combat with an enemy who planned to use brainwave-masking technology to subjugate unsuspecting civilians.

Cyber warfare, renegade assassins, mass murder, double-crosses and explosive payback were just a tiny taste of what lay in-store for my partner and me when we accepted the assignment.

It all started with the crash of the largest jumbo jet ever to fall from the sky. It happened in the light of a full moon and more than 500 people lost their lives. No screams of pain or cries of fear were heard from any of the burned and mangled bodies as death came slowly amid the chaos of smoke and flames and of melting flesh. I was asleep in my bed, 2000 miles away, at the time.

Hey Allyson, where the hell is Sixpack? Reidal’s voice echoed throughout the large room and down the long corridor. Allyson heard him but didn’t want to yell back. She continued picking up the folders on the desk and headed out into the hallway. Reidal heard her not so soft footsteps echoing in the hallway.

Allyson! He worked with a surge protector with six outlets on the end. Each outlet had an attached tentacle sinuously winding its way to a separate electronic scope or some other hardware device. If the room had been designed in the seventeenth century it might have appeared sinister and macabre. As it was, there were black and silver machines all over, each with one or two shiny cords connecting to a different shaped appendage. However, the lighting was too intense to leave the impression evil could survive in this place.

Shit, he thought, Allyson, I can’t get the fucking thing to work! He was still yelling. Half of the intent of his cursing was to get her attention and half was angrily directed at the equipment.

She appeared in the doorway and paused. Got a problem Reidal? Her body almost filled the doorway. She was wearing an MIT sweatshirt and jeans, a very large sweatshirt and very large jeans. The sweatshirt was like a billboard announcing her academic background to the world, particularly effective on those days when they worked with the students. Somebody had told Reidal Allyson’s weight and IQ were both about 200. He remembered thinking, sarcastically, at the time her IQ might actually be 200, but her weight might have passed 200 pounds in the second grade.

Allyson Imhoffer delighted in finding answers and in helping others. What she respected mostly was intelligence and knowledge, but she was patient when teaching other researchers. Every time she could help one of the Institute staffers, about anything, she felt just a little better about herself. Reidal was slightly different. He was her intellectual equal but he had little patience for distractions. Like Allyson, Reidal’s idea of appropriate attire for the workplace was a sweatshirt and jeans. His shirt was a message board instead of a university advertisement. Across the medium sized sweatshirt hanging loosely on small shoulders read the words Shit Happens.

He said, We’ve only got twenty fucking minutes and I can’t get the amplifier and transmitter to work! She had originally thought Reidal had been trying to shock her with his language when she first came to the Institute. It seemed as if every other word was shit or damn or fuck or something. Although she would never let herself stoop to such language, Sixpack’s personal style encouraged what he called common language practices.

You know how I feel about course language, she knew he was feeling helpless and was striking out through word rage.

Would you please help me get this thing to work? The tone of Reidal’s voice indicated capitulation. He was acknowledging Allyson’s momentary superiority.

That’s better, her voice was almost musical, Have you checked the switcher to the 220 circuit? You know it won’t work on 110.

Jesus, I should have known. I tried everything else.

Allyson glanced out of the window and down the mountainside. She noticed the dark green Mercedes swinging into the parking lot, leading the convoy of other staffers who had accompanied Sixpack to the airport in Bellingham. Sixpack’s here. He’s just driving in.

They hadn’t expected him to be gone this afternoon, especially this afternoon. They all had apartments surrounding the Institute complex, small condos with every amenity and luxury possible. Even Sixpack had the same one-bedroom unit like everybody else and he was normally around the Institute for twenty-four hours every day, like everybody else.

The Institute for Biological and Electronic Research (IBER) was founded in 2006 as a privately funded research facility with loose ties with Western Washington University in nearby Bellingham, Washington. In actuality, Sixpack was IBER. He had total authority to do whatever he wanted and enough money to do it. The first thing he did after agreeing to manage the Institute was to locate an isolated location suitable to his personal disposition. For Sixpack, the only choice was a location in the mountains, specifically the southwesterly facing mountain range just east of Bellingham. He equipped the Institute like an electronic fairyland and disguised it as a resort lodge.

Reidal acknowledged Allyson’s comment with an anxious grunt as he began to adjust knobs and buttons on a keyboard controlling the huge combination transmitter/receiver dish located high above the Institute on the side of the mountain. As the pulsing image on the screen indicated the transmitter dish above the Institute was, indeed, operating, he keyed in the commands focusing the transmission on a dual receiver/transponder on the WWU campus at Bellingham. He glanced out the window to try to get a glimpse of Sixpack.

Sixpack was already out of sight and Reidal’s attention returned to the wonderful vista just outside the window. One of the benefits of being out in the wilderness and close to the timberline was, when the sky was clear, it was like looking into tomorrow! And just hanging above the mountaintops, way over on Vancouver Island, was a full moon, covered in a soft, mystical frost.

The moon looked all silky and marbled as it approached the darkness of the tree-lined mountains over 100 miles away. Reidal knew Sixpack would be entering the room at any moment to begin transmitting to the room full of students over in Bellingham who had agreed to participate in the after hours project. There was little time to waste and no time at all for failure. Reidal needed a trial run to test the equipment before the actual transmission could begin. Without thinking, he turned the frequency down as low as it would go. He focused the transmitter equipment on the delicate outline of the moon balancing on the horizon and then he tested the range of amplitude as he transmitted. Wouldn’t it be odd, he thought absentmindedly, if we had a colony on the moon and actually reached them with this package? He gave no further thought to fantasy moon colonies. His focus was entirely on the task at hand as a paunchy man in his early thirties bounced energetically into the room.

Its all ready, Sixpack, Reidal told him.

Chapter 2

The Pilot’s hands worked the keys smoothly and with the precision coming from years of experience. He could easily have permitted his co-pilot to set the slope of descent and then to enter the commands to bring them into the slow sweeping turn required at the Tatoosh transponder location. However, he needed the reassurance the old, familiar process seemed to give him. No matter how many times he made the journey between Honolulu and Seattle he couldn’t get used to the idea of arriving on the same day as he left. The mental effort of making a complete change of working and sleeping schedules messed up his mind.

The cockpit was a puzzle of gadgets and gizmos. Buttons and alphabet keys were everywhere around him. To an outsider it looked like mass confusion. To Tim Dobber the cockpit was an old friend. The dials and pointers all shared essential information. They were steady and reliable, not like international date lines and fleeting time zones where you could experience noon on two different days, all within a twelve clock hour time period.

He looked briefly at his watch. It was a beautiful sculpture, all black and silver and gold. It was waterproof to ten fathoms and accurate to within one second per year. It wasn’t a Rolex, but probably was the next best to it in price. It had been a semi-retirement present from the main fleet at Hawaiian Airlines and he loved the watch. Even after making this flight twice a week for two years, he still hated to reset the watch on each trip. It was no-good to just tell your mind what day it was or to impose a local’s concept of the time of day when all of your senses told you something different. It was better to just look at the watch and rely on it. The watch had become essential to him as a part of the piloting process, even though his craft seemed to weave in and out of time on each and every trip he made.

As he completed the task at hand he became aware of Hitomi’s voice, Would you like me to do the Victor 495 approach Captain? He was used to it by now, the precise English, the total respect his co-pilot demonstrated in every communication between the two of them. Dobber had tried at first to get Hitomi to call him by his first name. Dobber finally realized it was a useless gesture. Cultural differences evolved over thousands of years prevented such familiarity in the workplace.

Hitomi Fujita was two years older than Dobber and could do everything with the giant airplane Dobber could do but Hawaiian Airlines officials thought Americans should captain the 747 fleet. "Hell, he thought, he might just as well do it this time. We’re still a fair distance out of the terminal control area, and it couldn’t hurt."

Go ahead, just remember they’ve got some weather coming in south of Seattle. We will be coming in on 16R. Try to hit the terminal control area with a little extra altitude, say about one eight zero. Normally they should hit the 36-mile radius from the Seattle-Tacoma airport at a 16,000 foot altitude instead of the 18,0000 foot level Dobber had suggested. Still, he wanted his passengers to continue experiencing the silky smooth ride they had enjoyed for the past eight hours. The extra 2000 feet of cushion should provide enough insurance for it to happen.

There was a knock at the cabin door. The first 747s off the assembly line required a third person in the captain’s cabin. That person was called the flight engineer by the airlines and a navigator by military pilots. In the initial series, the 747-200, it would be the flight engineer’s job to find out what the senior flight attendant wanted. Dobber flew the newest version of the 747. It was bigger and stronger than earlier versions. It carried more passengers and was electronically linked with each stage of air traffic control on the earth below. Every button in the cockpit relayed information to the cockpit. Duplicate transmissions went to one or more of the many control towers comprising the air traffic control system throughout the world. This 747 didn’t need a person to supply navigational information, so with Hitomi busy with the Victor 495 coordinates and the in-flight data input, the task of interacting with the flight attendants fell on Dobber’s shoulders.

He opened the door and allowed the elegant, small-framed woman to enter the cabin. Captain, please forgive the intrusion, a small gap in the conversation seemed to grow into an unnatural, hollow silence, interrupted by the soft clicking of the keys as the co-pilot continued his work. Dobber knew it was the custom of the Japanese flight crew to courteously wait for some an acknowledgement before continuing to speak.

That’s O.K…what is it? He already suspected the problem would be with one of the loud and potentially unruly American passengers. The attendant wouldn’t have bothered him unless it required intercultural finesse to resolve the situation.

It is the woman with the dog, Captain. The dog is bothering the other passengers. He bet it was! The plane was predominantly filled with a tour group from Tokyo. Nearly 350 of the passengers were a part of the group. Japanese tour guides tended to fill the choice seats in the plane, starting first with the first-class cabin and then spreading to the window seats in the main cabin. The balance of 200 or so passengers on this flight was made up of Americans, a few Europeans and a few other Asians, mostly Koreans. They filled the outside seats in the forward wing areas, where the view was somewhat restricted.

Dobber rose to escort the senior flight attendant back to the main cabin. Everything under control? He spoke to Hitomi as he went through the small opening in the cockpit serving as a door.

We are currently descending to two four zero for a Victor four turn. We are set at one eight zero for Victor 495 intersect, Captain, Dobber had expected nothing less.

"The damn plane gets all the easy work," he thought as he left the friendly confines of the cockpit.

Captain Dobber was a large man and towered above the small woman who had summoned him to the main cabin. He had donned his Captain’s hat for the journey rearward and wisps of his silvering hair were visible beneath. His dark uniform with glimmering gold bands was in sharp contrast with the crisp tailoring of the uniform of the senior flight attendant. Still, their appearance, together, drew the admiring attention of most of the passengers within visual range of the exercise.

He hated this part of the job. It was easy to pilot an airplane, almost any airplane. It was no chore to share parts of his knowledge with passengers by way of the intercom system on the plane. He had used every opportunity to play announcer and talk about the weather and even the moon on this trip, especially the moon. They had been watching the moon arc through the sky from horizon to horizon in less than six hours today. It never ceased to amaze Dobber. It happened in the rare situations whenever a flight coincided with the scheduled orbit of the moon when it was full and whenever the weather was obliging.

The dog lady and her husband had purchased a full fare ticket for her animal and it occupied a seat between them on the flight. They realized it would have to be quarantined when they landed in Seattle, but they both planned daily visits during the confinement. Dobber had spoken to her earlier in the flight about the dog. The woman was a timid creature married to a timid man who had inherited a business. Unable to bear children, they adopted this mixed breed little dog from a pound in Cleveland. To them the dog was their little child, and like many human parents they were oblivious to the antics of the dog until specifically brought to their attention.

The dog was a tiny, meticulously spoiled little creature seeming to bounce around as fast as the top speed of the 747. At this stage of the flight, passenger nerves normally frayed just a little. A majority of the passengers did not understand the nature of an animal used expressly for the purpose of petting. Some passengers might even picture the little creature in a stew. Dobber knew the rambunctious animal had few friends on this flight. In addition, Dobber knew the dog wasn’t the real problem. Everybody was more than a little bored after ten hours in the air and some tensions were beginning to show.

Dobber leaned over and started a conversation with the lady who owned the dog. He consciously placed one hand on the arm of the woman and softly petted and calmed the dog. In just a few moments the couple were both smiling. She thanked the Captain for his graciousness and took the little dog onto her lap.

Dobber turned slowly as he stood up in the aisle and commented to all within hearing. We’ve started our descent into Seattle. We should be safely on the ground very soon. Dobber realized, at this stage of the flight, being safe on the ground was a desire everybody shared. After a flight as long as this one, everybody just wants to be DOWN. Period!

A glance at the moon outside the starboard side of the plane reminded him of a joke he wanted to share with all the passengers… "It might help to ease their collective tension," he thought. He hurried back to the cockpit so he could use the intercom.

Even before sitting down, Dobber replaced his headset and voice microphone and was announcing, This is your Captain speaking. Off to the left of the plane you could see Victoria and Vancouver in the distance. It seemed like the moon was just hanging just barely outside the plane. He had intended to paraphrase an old song by saying something about being between the moon and Vancouver City. A smile of anticipation was already beginning in the corners of his mouth when his joke was interrupted by a low frequency humming noise. It grew in strength until the entire plane throbbed with sympathetic vibration. The hum subsided as gradually as it had begun but left an eerie stillness throughout the massive body of the mammoth silver creature.

It was a normal day for Freida Lynn in the SeaTac Approach Control Center in Auburn, Washington. Air traffic control was supposed to be the single most stressful job in the country for a man. Try a single parent woman! Freida had been taking her daughter to the babysitter this evening when a mist began to settle slowly upon the Rainier valley. The mist was sometimes vapor-like and sometimes dribbled down like a shower that won’t turn off. Mommy what is piss? Freida smiled at the naiveté of her daughter.

What do you mean?

Piss. What is Piss? Traci says this type of rain is a pissing rain. Is it Mama?

It does remind me of it, she replied in an amused tone. Freida leaned over to kiss her daughter on the cheek. She waited for the crashing sound indicating the younger Lynn’s transition from the warmth and protection of the car and turn into a dash into another evening away from her real home. Wham! The car door expectedly slammed shut, and with significantly more authority than one would expect from even a very active six-year-old.

She had driven less than a block when she came to an abrupt stop to avoid colliding with the car in front of her. Then her head snapped back against the headrest when an old Jeep, with only a portion of its canvas top still tied on, plowed right into her. There were fifteen feet of skid marks on the wet pavement telling of the driver’s vain attempt to avoid the collision. "Great! Now she had a throbbing headache." The good news was the sturdy old Explorer didn’t seem to be damaged and she continued on to work. Her ex-husband had told her the Explorer was built like a tank. It appeared he had been right for at least once in his life.

Freida had missed her first break this morning and would get none this day. They would be short three controllers this particular day. "Damn. She thought. No breaks, and she knew there would be a migraine before it was all over. What else could go wrong?"

When 8:30 PM came she was busy with three in-comings and a predicted change in landing directions because of the wind. The blips on her screen scheduled to begin landing on 16R from the north at any moment. The new wind direction had meant changing altitudes and airspeeds on all approaching traffic. The new change in landing direction would make her control tower more remote for most of her aircraft. She was located in Auburn, southeast of SeaTac. The terminal control area where her planes would begin descending to SeaTac airport would be over fifty miles north of her now, instead of flying almost directly overhead from a southerly approach.

Freida picked up signals from flight HA 28, still above Tatoosh and well beyond the terminal control area. The keyed in information indicated an altitude of one eight zero at Victor 495 instead of one six zero. "This could bear watching."

By 9:00 it was apparent to Freida she was not going to get any breaks at all today. No breaks always equaled a headache! "What is pissed? I am pissed!" She thought angrily. She turned to the data displaying the HA 28 information. HA 28 had just made a slow, controlled turn onto Victor 4 at Tatoosh, the northwesterly most point of the state of Washington. The aircraft appeared not to be descending to one six zero as required. Freida could use a scapegoat for the way she was feeling and brusquely opened a channel to the incoming aircraft even though HA 28 had not yet officially entered the terminal control area.

HA 28, she said like twenty-eight, this is SeaTac Approach Control. Please respond on channel one two three-point niner. Over.

She received no response to her message and tried it again. HA 28 this is SeaTac approach Control. Please respond on one two three point niner. Over. She waited for a few seconds for a response, then switched to an internal channel for her control center supervisor. Say, does anybody in there know who is piloting HA 28? A few seconds went by before a voice on the intercom she recognized as one of the second shift supervisors indicated the pilot was Tim Dobber. She recognized Dobber’s name and had heard he was taking an early retirement from Hawaiian Airlines as a pilot and switching over to chief flight instructor for the 747 fleet.

Captain Tim Dobber of Hawaiian Airlines flight two eight, this is SeaTac Approach Control. Please respond immediately on channel one two three-point niner. Over.

Some of the other controllers were now interested in her one-sided conversation and were turning in her direction while they continued to offer counsel to their own aircraft.

Hey Fred, you getting any of this? Freida said into her microphone loud enough for Supervisor Fred Certs to hear. The intercom voice said, Give him another channel.

HA two eight this is SeaTac Approach Control. Try responding on alternate channel one one niner-point niner. SeaTac Tower, do you monitor? Over.

SeaTac Approach this is SeaTac Tower. We are monitoring your transmission. Standing by. Over.

Freida no longer was hungry and did not notice her headache any more. She noticed the emptiness of the airwaves. She could feel her own anxiousness beginning to permeate the rest of the center as Fred began to channel all her other aircraft to other controllers. To everybody around her she seemed incredibly calm. She had experienced nightmares in the past about losing a plane in a mid-air collision while on her watch. When she had those dreams she always awakened with trembling hands… but at least she did awaken. Now she had the equivalent of an office building wrapped in aluminum foil with more than 500 people on board, suspended silently in HER sky!

She turned her attention to the radar screen where HA 28 was finishing the right turn from Victor 4 to Victor 495, right on schedule. The aircraft had begun to descend from one EIGHT zero at the same rate of descent as required for a safe landing from an altitude of one SIX zero. The aircraft was in a controlled glide with an airspeed of two five zero knots or about three hundred miles an hour. The rate of speed was a mere crawl for the super aircraft normally flying at nearly the speed of sound. HA 28 was still outside the normal limits of the terminal control area of nearly thirty nautical miles. The Victor 495 intersect was about forty nautical miles or 48 miles from the Seattle-Tacoma airport.

Fred, what do you want to do on this? Freida calmly asked her microphone. The current rate of descent will put HA 28 on the ground somewhere around Enumclaw in a little over fourteen minutes. I suggest we scramble McChord.

There was a lot to do while the fighter aircraft from McChord Air Force base in Tacoma were scrambled. It took about three minutes before scramble leader Captain Art Quady made visual contact with the flight deck of HA 28. Other Seattle incoming flights had been stacked or diverted. Outgoing flights were temporarily grounded at the command of Controller Freida Lynn and all other controllers were watching and listening as if this were their own version of their own personal nightmares.

Control this is Scramble Leader Quady. How do you read my signal? Over.

Quady, this is control. Your signal is loud and clear. What do you see? Over.

This is Scramble Leader. I’m just outside the control cabin. I can see the two flight officers just sitting relaxed inside the cabin. They seem to know I’m here, but are making no effort to communicate. Over.

A second voice came over the intercom. Fred had piped the communications for all controllers to hear. This is Scramble Two. I have a visual of the starboard side of both the first-class and main cabins. Everybody is in there and they appear to be in their seats just as pretty as a picture. Over.

HA 28 was now passing over the SeaTac airport facility and still continuing on what used to be a vector heading of Victor 495. Quady can you get their attention? Over.

I can try.

Quady dropped the sleek fighter almost to ground level and opened the throttle. He climbed steeply, pushed through the speed of sound and passed directly in front of HA 28. Scramble Two reported the HA 28 shuddered when the shock wave of the fighter enveloped the larger plane, but nobody moved.

The loudspeaker came alive with Fred’s voice. We’ve notified the police and disaster teams in Auburn and Enumclaw to stand by. Part of his message was nearly drowned out by the deep rumble of four gigantic jet engines on the wings of HA 28 as it passed by the center, almost overhead. The scrambled fighters were in formation above and on the port side of the behemoth, lumbering forward in slow motion.

Freida felt helpless, but somehow at fault. She still remained physically composed but her voice became small and apologetic. Scramble Leader this is control. Please keep us posted. O.K.? Over.

Freida sat down and placed her head into her hands. She remembered her headache, only it was much worse, now. She felt awfully tired. She briefly worried her daughter’s babysitter might be in the flight path, but dismissed the thought when she remembered the plane was passing right overhead. The sitter’s home was much too far to the east of the flight path.

This is scramble Leader. The plane is approaching the town, now. It looks like Enumclaw. Nobody seems to be moving. The streets are all full of people. All emergency vehicles are already running and waiting to move. From up here it looks as if HA 28 is already touching the ground. Its wing tips cover more than a city block and the main cabin blocks our view of entire sections of the town.

Fred had taken over the control operation and it was his voice now questioning Quady. Is there any chance of a smooth landing in a pasture or something? Over." He knew much of the Rainier Valley was smooth and used mostly for agricultural purposes.

Not a chance, control. There are two hills directly in the glide path. There is pasture to either side, but hills are in the way. They just barely made it over the first hill, by inches. There is a wide plateau between two larger hills forming a potential obstruction to the front. Maybe we will get lucky and make it over the plateau to the valley on the other side.

The intercom hissed into an exclamation of horror, Ooooh God! The left wing just hit the top of the larger hill and the fuselage is spinning into the hill!

For some reason every single controller stared at the intercom boxes mounted on the walls, as if they could see inside of the speakers. HA 28 seemed to be exploding inside the control center, in each speaker, over and over again. Now the tail section is rotating up and over the fuselage like a diver doing a front flip in layout position, with a half twist. The tail section is continuing into the hillside with the tail telescoping into itself. The only part of HA 28 still recognizable is the right wing section. The wing and a piece of the main cabin are hurtling along upside down and parallel to the plateau and away from the rest of the wreckage.

Everything is in flames, now! The area is raining little pieces of pewter colored aluminum into a lake of pulsing fire. The flames, themselves, are choking in a mushroom of smoke.

Control, its out of our hands. We’re returning to base. God have mercy! Scramble Leader out.

On the ground below, the crackling of the flames could be heard from a considerable distance. The flames and smoke were visible from much farther away, all the way to the Approach Control Center. Fred had realized many of the controllers would be suffering from the psychological impact of the crash and sent out an urgent call for the next shift to report early. Certs feared there would be a sickness and pallor throughout the center. There would be wounds, the bloodless kind, the kind that would take years to heal.

It was only a little over one mile to the wreckage from the city limits of Enumclaw and it took only a few minutes for the first responders and the sirens and the cameras to reach the site. Those minutes were an eternity of silent, gruesome, agonizing events for the few