Seven Minutes to Istanbul

The intercom crackled.

“Final boarding call for Flight 217 to Istanbul. All remaining passengers, please proceed to Gate A11.”

Dylan had exactly four minutes.

He sprinted past a man fumbling with a tray of Cinnabon, pivoted around a stroller with a wailing toddler, and vaulted over a rolling suitcase someone had abandoned in line for Starbucks. The backpack on his shoulder bounced with every stride. Inside, carefully packed in a hard case, was the drive. Not just any drive. The drive.

Three minutes.

Across the concourse, a security officer’s radio squawked.

“Possible suspect spotted in Terminal A. Male. Late 20s. Gray hoodie. Black backpack.”

Dylan ducked into a Hudson News. He crouched behind a rack of neck pillows, scanning the crowd. Two TSA agents walked past, their eyes sweeping. He exhaled, low and shaky.

A woman to his left dropped a magazine. Dylan picked it up, handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said, her eyes lingering a second too long on his backpack.

He nodded, moved on.

Two minutes.

Gate A11 came into view—crowded, chaotic, with people pressing forward, boarding pass in hand. A flight attendant stood at the gate door, scanning barcodes with weary precision.

Dylan merged into the crowd, trying to blend in. Just a traveler, late for his flight. Just a guy going to Istanbul.

Behind him, a voice.

“Excuse me, sir—”

He turned. TSA officer. Sunglasses indoors. Military posture. Reaching toward a walkie.

Dylan moved.

He shoved into the boarding line, fished out a printed boarding pass from his hoodie pocket—stolen, hours ago, from a bathroom sink—and held it out to the gate agent like it was a winning lottery ticket.

The scanner beeped red.

The gate agent frowned.

“This isn’t matching your ID—”

“I lost my wallet, I just need—”

The officer was pushing through the crowd.

Then the woman from the Hudson News was suddenly next to him. “He’s with me,” she said, flashing a badge so fast even Dylan missed what it said. “Interpol.”

The agent hesitated.

“Now,” the woman snapped.

The scanner beeped green.

They were through the gate.

One minute.

The jet bridge groaned beneath their feet as they jogged down it, the door to the plane still open. A crew member was stowing last-minute bags.

The woman turned to Dylan as they boarded.

“Give me the drive.”

Dylan stared at her. “You’re not Interpol.”

“No,” she said. “But I’m the only shot you’ve got.”

“Then who—”

“I’m the one trying to stop what’s on that drive from launching.”

Dylan hesitated. The flight attendant was eyeing them. A decision had to be made.

He reached into his bag.

Elsewhere—

Gate B2. A janitor leaned on his mop as the bathroom door closed behind him. He pulled a small device from his pocket—looked like a pager. It beeped three times. He smiled.

In the restroom stall, he opened the janitor cart’s hidden panel. Inside: wires. Explosives. A red digital countdown, paused at 00:04.

He pressed a button.

Back at Gate A11—

Dylan handed her the drive. “You better know what you’re doing.”

She nodded. “Trust me.”

He gave a hollow laugh. “I don’t even know your name.”

“You don’t need to.”

She pulled out a compact satellite phone and turned away, speaking low into it. Dylan sank into a seat near the back of the plane, every muscle trembling.

Then the cabin door shut.

The intercom chirped: “Flight attendants, prepare for departure.”

He looked out the window.

Two levels below, the janitor was walking away from the cart. Not hurrying.

Thirty seconds.

The woman was still on the phone. “...need immediate reroute. I have the drive. Repeat, I have the drive.”

The janitor passed a security camera and looked directly into it.

Smiled.

Fifteen seconds.

Gate B2 exploded.

The blast ripped through the lower concourse, shattering glass, tossing kiosks like toys. Screams. Chaos. Fire.

From the tarmac, Dylan saw a fireball bloom beneath them, a pulse of pressure rattling the plane.

The pilot’s voice: “We’re holding here. Please remain seated.”

Sirens in the distance.

The woman came down the aisle, slipped into the seat across from him. “That wasn’t us.”

“No kidding.”

“I need to get this to a secure facility. We have five hours before the backdoor in this code activates remotely.”

“You said you stopped the launch.”

“I said I had the drive. Doesn’t mean they didn’t make a copy.”

Dylan stared at her.

“You still have your phone?” she asked.

He nodded, handed it to her.

She popped the SIM card out and crushed it with her heel. “We’re ghosts now.”

Dylan looked out at the rising smoke and fire trucks converging. No turning back.

“Why me?” he asked.

“You had access. And you had morals.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

She smiled faintly. “You did the second you hit copy.”

Then the plane began to taxi again.

Overhead, the intercom buzzed: “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the delay. We’ve been cleared for departure.”

Dylan closed his eyes.

And the world fell away beneath them.

Clouds swallowed the plane. Turbulence jostled the cabin.

The woman slid the drive into a matte-black laptop. The screen flickered to life: layers of code, glyphs, schematics.

Dylan leaned over. “That’s not a program. It’s a control system.”

She nodded. “It’s called Parallax. Built by a ghost contractor. Funded by your company, among others.”

“We thought we were building urban modeling tools. Emergency response forecasting—”

“You were. Until someone retooled it into a kill-switch.”

The screen zoomed in on Istanbul—a digital map glowing with active nodes.

“Power stations, embassies, traffic grids, water treatment, ports. Every node compromised. You take out Istanbul, and you don’t just hit a city—you hit history, commerce, borders.”

She tapped another folder: SPECTRUM.

“Psychometrics, language targeting, algorithmic panic. This was Phase One: Perception. Then comes Collapse.”

Dylan felt his gut hollow. “This is a cognitive weapon.”

“And it almost launched tonight.”

A red alert flashed across the screen: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. PURGE IN 00:07:59

Dylan bolted upright. “They’re trying to remote-wipe it.”

“Then we ghost it.”

She moved fast, patching in hard encryption, bypassing satellite signals. The timer ticked down.

7 minutes.

“What happens if we fail?”

She didn’t look up.

“Then Istanbul goes dark.”

Six minutes. One airport. A fireball, a drive, and a choice.

The countdown had started.

But so had the war to stop it.