Текст книги "The End Game"

Автор книги: Catherine Coulter

Соавторы: J. T. Ellison
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

73

KING TO E1

Hoover Building

Sherlock met them in the lobby, hugged them both. “Andy Tate’s body was found an hour ago in a motel in Lorton, Virginia. He was shot through the forehead. There were some electronics lying around, but no laptops, no phones. Only Spenser and Tate went into the room, so it wasn’t Damari, unless he was wearing Potter’s invisibility cloak.”

“Yes,” Nicholas said. “Matthew Spenser, no doubt.”

Mike frowned. “Why did he kill Tate? He was one of his core group, his right hand—the computer guy who implemented the cyber-attack.”

Sherlock said, “Dillon believes Spenser had simply gone over the edge at that point. His only focus became killing Vanessa and blowing up the president. He knew he was going to die, accepted it.

“Dillon just called me, told me to tell you he’d spoken to both Carl Grace and Vanessa, told them what had happened. He wanted to assure you that Vanessa was going to be okay, and she sends her thanks for helping wrap things up, glad what she recorded for Spenser worked. But like the rest of us, she’s terrified Damari got Matthew’s coin to Iran.

“Still—you saved the president of the United States, and that makes everything, for the moment, at least, okay. I’ve already heard from at least six agents that you guys were amazing. Nicholas, what does it feel like to have the president of the United States owe you big-time?” And she laughed, punched him in the arm. “My advice is to call the IRS, make a deal. I bet those dual taxes are crippling. Now follow me, guys, not much time now until Yorktown. And no one wants to guess what will happen.”

Sherlock took them to the fifth floor, to a large conference room that had been turned into a sophisticated command center, similar to the command and control room in the New York Field Office. Four large flat-screen televisions showed four different aerial shots of the Yorktown refinery and surrounding area. There were light-green labels on the waterways—Back Creek, York River.

There were a dozen or so FBI agents sitting around the large center table, drinking coffee, speaking in low voices to one another, always one eye scanning the television screens.

Sherlock introduced Mike and Nicholas. There were so many new names, Mike knew it would be impossible to remember everybody, except Director Comey, of course, who rose and shook their hands. He looked closely at Nicholas. “Ah, our very own Brit. Didn’t I just graduate you from the Academy thirty minutes ago? And already you’ve managed to save the president’s life?”

Everyone laughed.

“Talk about hitting the ground running. The vice president wanted me to thank you, Agent Caine, for your quick thinking, and you, Agent Drummond, for your remarkable demonstration on the computer. I must say, I am very grateful both of you were at the hospital.” He paused a moment, then shook his head. “I read Matthew Spenser’s dossier and I’m left feeling it was all a tremendous waste. It was as if Spenser became the very person he’d started his crusade to fight against, a killer who eliminated everyone who got in his way or betrayed him.”

He looked toward the map of Yorktown, slowly shook his head. “So many people in this world filled with hate, so many people who see violence as the only solution, who see murdering other people with dissimilar views as the right thing to do, as the only thing to do. Ah, well, that’s why we all have jobs.

“Enough of that. Agent Sherlock, explain to Caine and Drummond exactly what they’re seeing on the screens.”

“Yes, sir. We have drones and a satellite sitting over Yorktown, waiting. The bomb teams and K9s will continue searching until three-thirty p.m., in exactly three minutes, then everyone’s out. No matter what happens, no one will be in or near the facility at four. Though I have to tell you, the bomb squad doesn’t think there’s anything to worry about. They’ve seen nothing out of place, no violence toward any of the workers, no sign of any of Spenser’s undetectable bombs, and if you know the K9s, you know they’re thorough. We’re all hoping the attack on Air Force One was Spenser’s real target and the threat of Yorktown blowing up was simply a misdirection.”

Nicholas didn’t think so, but he only nodded.

He didn’t think any of the agents in the room, including the director, believed that, either.

Sherlock pointed to the middle screen. “The Yorktown Seaport runs out into the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the main reason they’re turning it into a depot, and storing gas and petroleum and metal there. Those huge freighter ships have easy access. They’ve already begun the transition.” She pointed to the far side of the screen. “See, you can make out the Chesapeake Bay in the background, there. Amazing the detail we can get with these shots. We’ll have a bird’s-eye view if the place blows. And look at this angle.”

She pressed a remote, and the view shifted, almost like they were on a ship out to sea, coming in to land. It was now clear enough they could see the stripes of the red-and-white-painted smokestack, looking almost like a quaint lighthouse, reaching a hundred feet into the sky.

Mike imagined the smokestack would be a welcome sight after a long journey, and the cheerful candy-cane stripe in the sky could be seen far out to sea. They would have the best seats in the house.

As everyone settled in again to watch Yorktown on the screens, Mike leaned over to Nicholas. “We have to check in with Zachery, see if Ben Houston and Gray Wharton have dug anything up.”

74

BISHOP TO B4 CHECK

Mike called Milo Zachery first, put him on speakerphone so Nicholas could hear, and filled him in on what had happened, her voice matter-of-fact, emotionless. He didn’t interrupt. When she finished, Zachery said, “Thank the good Lord you were able to stop the attack, Drummond. I hear you created a wild new hack to get into the flight control on Air Force One.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike said, “he did. He was amazing.”

“But you, Mike, I hear you were on the phone to the vice president making it all possible.”

“Well, okay, I’ll take credit for that one.”

“Nicholas, what did you do exactly? That’s Gray who wants to know.”

“Tell Gray I need to review it once we have the time. But tell him now that I’m not entirely sure what the code read, other than ‘Please God don’t let the plane crash’ in ones and zeroes.”

Zachery laughed. “Gray will like that and you can count on teaching our cyber-team how to do it. You two get back up here tomorrow. I’ll even go so far to say a round of drinks on your boss might happen.”

There was still Damari unaccounted for, and finding out if he’d gotten Spenser’s bombs to Iran, but he said, “We’ll try, sir.”

“Mike? The investigative board will meet in the morning to discuss the Spenser shooting, but don’t lose any sleep over it. You’ll have your gun back by noon tomorrow.”

After they’d rung off, Nicholas said, “Now we need to catch up with Gray and Ben,” and he dialed them. He said without preamble, “Ben, tell me what you’ve got.”

“You guys are going to like this. Our knock this morning was a treat. Like all our surprise early-morning visits to unsuspecting criminals, Porter Wallace heard us pounding on his front door, yelling ‘FBI, open up,’ stumbled out of bed and tried to run, the idiot. He didn’t even have slippers on. His wife was yelling at him through it all, demanding what was going on.”

Gray said, “In the end, though, Wallace proved to be quite cooperative. We barely needed to nudge him, he started singing like a canary when we showed him the statements Adam Pearce dug up for us. Let’s hear it for the kid, he’s good, Nicholas.”

Nicholas said, “He’s got great criminal instincts for someone so young. So Matthew Spenser and his Celebrants of Earth had their very own stockbroker. Who would have believed it?”

“Porter Wallace confirmed he and Matthew Spenser knew each other in school. Spenser showed up on his doorstep a year ago with a massive amount of cash and a need to invest it quietly. According to Wallace, he was forced into the scheme, which, I must say, is absolutely ingenious. When you get back, I’ll give you all the details and numbers in our secure documents. From what Wallace said, he’s been parlaying information from the backroom chat sessions he was having with his fellow brokers. They all get on a chat once a week and talk about what they’re going to be buying in the upcoming session. After the chat, Wallace makes all of his buys for his legit clients, and a few buys for his not so legit clients.”

“Two sets of books.”

“Exactly. High-stakes, too. The last numbers I saw give COE a bank account in the ten million range. This number grows and shrinks based on the market, but Wallace is a shrewd investor, and has done well for them.”

“Where did they get the money to invest in the first place? We’ve known they were well-financed from the beginning, but we haven’t been able to find the trail. Who’s behind this?”

“They were initially self-funded—Matthew Spenser’s quite large trust fund was more than enough to get them started. Then, three months ago, COE shows up with a massive influx of cash.”

Mike said, “That was when Zahir Damari showed up, with the money from Iran.”

“Exactly,” Gray said. “I started back tracing all the IP addresses they’ve used for the past month. Their computer expert is—was—first rate.”

“But you’re better.”

“I’m skilled in a different way. Last known IP address came from a motel in Lorton, Virginia. I heard they found the computer guy’s body—Andy Tate?”

“Right. They purchased DDoS attacks from Gunther Ansell, Tate loaded his own code next to it, and launched it into the systems. Ingenious plan.”

“Lot of moving parts,” Gray said. “But we’ve got them now.”

Nicholas said, “It does sound like we have nearly everything we need to wrap up this part of the investigation. Great work, thanks to both of you.”

Ben said, “Come on home, guys. We miss you. Mike, give the big Brit a smooch for me.”

Ben and Gray both laughed like loons, and Mike looked like she’d been shot. She punched off the cell.

“You want to talk about it?” Nicholas asked.

“No, there’s nothing to talk about, you know that. As for those two, they’re idiots.”

“No big smooch?”

“No more in this lifetime.”

“We’ll see. Now, how much time before the bomb at Yorktown?”

“Seventeen minutes, and there’s nothing to see.”

“Good, enough time to speak to Adam about a theory I have about how Spenser managed to break into the electrical grid and upload the worm to Air Force One’s flight computers.” He punched in Adam’s number.

Adam answered immediately. “I’ve been waiting for your call. Wow, that was some really gnarly coding, Nicholas. I’ve never seen anything like it. You two okay?”

Nicholas laughed. “Yes, we’re fine. Now tell me, how exactly did you see my code?”

“Dude, you’re an instant freaking legend! The entire hacker community knows what happened. They’re calling it the Swoop, and calling you Superman. Go into the darknet, check it out when you get a chance. It’s totally awesome. They are bowing at your feet. Reddit blew up with requests to join your forces of good—you now officially have minions.”

Nicholas cleared his throat. “Thank you for passing that along, Adam.” He decided having minions couldn’t hurt. “If you’re through, I need your help again. It shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“Go for it, Superman, Sir Superman.”

“Shove it. Let’s see how clever you are. Is there anything Air Force One might have in common with Dominion Virginia Power and the attacked oil companies, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, etcetera?”

“Well—yeah, software, I suppose.”

“Exactly. And what do we do with software used for national security?”

“We run risk assessments constantly, like any other software, though at a much higher level, to make sure there are no breaches. It’s part of what I did when I was—ah, before. Break in, then show them the faults. For a price.”

“And is there a particular company who might be responsible for these risk assessments?”

There was a sharp intake of breath. “Holy crap, Nicholas. Juno. It has to be, but you already figured that out, since Juno caters to all the high-end military and government installations, and has a number of private-sector contracts. They are the leader in the field of cyber-security.”

“Good, you agree with me. Here’s what I think. It’s not about Juno’s incompetence, no, I believe someone who worked the risk-assessment teams for all of the companies planted the bad code during the assessments. All Andy Tate had to do was upload Gunther Ansell’s code COE had purchased, and they were in.”

Adam whistled, long and low. “So someone left them keys to the back door. It makes sense.”

“Find out who it was for me, Adam. Look at all of Juno’s male employees thirty-five to fifty years old. I’m sending you a photo right now for comparison. Tear apart their financials. We’ll take care of the warrant on this end, but we need to find out who this man is, and find out now.”

“How did you get a photo of the man?”

“We have video from a café in Baltimore. Zahir Damari was meeting with him, and the man was passing him a tube that possibly had plans for Yorktown refinery inside, or plans for something else, we don’t know for sure. I’m willing to bet this is our guy and he works for Juno.”

“Got it.”

“Run the photo through their employee profile, Facebook page, everything. Cross-check against the risk assessment teams. Find out who this is.”

“Give me five minutes. You want to stay on the phone?”

Nicholas smiled at Mike. “I’m timing you. Go.”

It took Adam three minutes.

“Got him. His name is Woody Reading, works risk assessment out of the D.C. office. Sending you his particulars now.”

Mike watched Nicholas’s computer screen light up. “This has to be our mole,” she said. “You’re fast, Adam.”

Windows continued opening on the screen. Adam said, “Would you look at this—what an idiot. Guy has two houses, in Bethesda, no less, but only has enough money coming in from Juno to afford one of them. His financials are suspicious, Nicholas. You have everything I do now.”

“I see it all. This is great work, Adam. I’ll be in touch soon.”

“This was fun. And I am glad it’s all shaking out for us. Hey, am I your head minion? Direct all the other minions?”

“Go for it.” Nicholas hung up, grinned at Mike. She said, “You could have done that as fast as Adam.”

“Maybe, but my brain has been otherwise occupied. How much time until zero hour?”

“Four minutes. We’ve got our mole. Now all we have to do is tie the money to COE, which in turn ties to Zahir, and the Iranians and Hezbollah. Hard proof of their contract to assassinate the vice president. But we still don’t have Damari and we still don’t know about those bombs.”

“One problem at a time, Agent Caine. Now, since Woody Reading is local, we’ll have Sherlock send a team to grab him up, get him arrested and brought in. Zahir seems to like eliminating people he works with. We might be able to save this guy’s life.”

Mike shrugged. “Hopefully he’ll think being alive is better than being charged with high treason.”

Nicholas said, “Good point. When his world begins to unravel, he might not want his life saved.”

“Nicholas, we need to find what was in that tube Woody Reading gave to Zahir Damari, and fast. If it wasn’t plans for Yorktown, and I don’t think it was since Vanessa said they could get that information when COE took down the oil companies’ computers, then whatever the plans were, it can’t be good for us.”

“No, it can’t be good for us.”

In unison, they both looked at the countdown clock.

Two minutes to go.

Wednesday

4 p.m.–Midnight

75

KING TO D1

They had a bird’s-eye view from the satellite images over Yorktown. One of the screens now showed strategic areas around the plant and stress points, and listed the names of the various buildings, too. There was no movement. It looked deserted.

When they told Sherlock about what Adam Pearce had discovered, she rubbed her hands together. “Well done, Adam. We’ll send a team to grab Mr. Woody Reading as soon as the ink’s dry on the warrant.”

Nicholas said, “I’m beginning to think of Adam as our secret weapon.”

All eyes in the conference room were watching the countdown clock draw closer to four zeroes.

With every tick of the clock, more agents filed into the room. All the agents from the CAU came in, Jimmy Maitland with them. He said to Sherlock, “Savich called, said to keep him informed. He can’t get back in time.” He said aloud to the room, “No surprise, the media is going wild on the story of the president’s plane. They’ve only been told there was a mechanical problem, and they were forced to land in Nova Scotia. The press secretary’s statement assured the president is fine and resuming his schedule as soon as he’s back in D.C. However, apparently it’s all over the Internet what Superman here pulled off. They won’t be able to deny the truth of the attack much longer.”

Director Comey asked, “How did the media take the news about the cancellation of Yorktown?”

“Not a problem, sir,” Maitland said. “The president is being praised up and down, primarily for not backing down in the face of Iran’s provocation and walking out of the peace talks, and almost as important, for proving he’s not stupid for canceling Yorktown. Not in those exact words, of course. I believe the word more used was the president was prudent.”

Sherlock said, “It’s nearly four o’clock.”

Mike flashed on a memory of the high school principal gathering all the students in the gym to watch the Space Shuttle Columbia take off. She remembered clearly the heart-pounding excitement, wondering what it was like to be inside, a real live astronaut. And then, two weeks later, watching the shuttle return to earth, and with no warning, it exploded. Dead, all dead. Please, please, she prayed, staring at the countdown clock. Please.

The countdown ended.

The drone and satellite views drew closer to the facility.

Everyone was holding their breath.

Her prayer wasn’t answered.

It started in the western edge, a small plume of smoke, and then every screen flashed a blinding white, with yellow edges. A ball of fire consumed the plant entirely.

It was Bayway all over, only bigger, huge in fact, which meant Spenser used a larger portion of one of his bombs. What would a whole one do? Two of them? But this time she and Nicholas weren’t running through the flames, feeling the heat burn their lungs, singe their flesh, hearing screams, knowing people were dying, already dead, and the fear, the gut-wrenching fear.

She said aloud, “But where was the bomb?”

Nicholas said, “The smoke plume came from South Four-G. We need to find out what was stored there.”

Sherlock unrolled the plans for the plant. “Here’s Four-G. It’s a metal depot. They keep tungsten there, among other things.”

Director Comey said, “So that’s where Spenser put his bomb? In a mess of tungsten?”

“Yes, sir,” Nicholas said. “I imagine Spenser and probably Tate managed to deliver it in a shipment of metal—maybe even tungsten. It would be totally disguised. The agent undercover with COE told us the new bombs had tungsten components, and would be near on impossible to distinguish it from the rest of the metal.” And Nicholas would bet Nigel’s best bottle of Scotch Spenser had done it during the blackout when everything was down, all the cameras, everything, security precautions heightened but handicapped.

Mike read his mind, more likely their brains were running on the same track. “I’m betting Spenser and Tate took down the power grid so they could have easier access to the plant.”

Nicholas said to Mike, “And some very creative coding by Woody Reading at Juno that made the blackout spread so quickly. Hard to control an overload of outages like we had.”

Sherlock said, “We’ll start tracking all the tungsten shipments over the past week.”

Stunned silence continued in the conference room. The sheer enormity of the explosion, the complete destruction, it was hard to take in.

Mike said, “Matthew Spenser’s final roar and no one was hurt. That’s got to be a win for us.”

All the phones in the room began to ring.

•   •   •

Ten minutes after the annihilation of Yorktown, Vice President Sloane called Mike. She said only, “Thank you both for what you did today.”

The vice president was actually thanking them, live, on Mike’s own cell phone? Her heart speeded up. What an amazing feeling. “You’re welcome, ma’am,” and that sounded stupid, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Do you have any further word on the whereabouts of Zahir Damari?”

“I’m sorry, no, ma’am.”

“We have Homeland on the lookout for him. About half my advisers and half the CIA believe Damari will pack it up since it would be suicide for him to try and attack me now, with the entire world watching. However, I plan to be on the side of the other half who tell me he simply never gives up, not in his DNA. You can bet all my staff are on alert until he’s caught. Which assessment do you agree with, Agent Caine?”

“I come down with the side that says let’s take extreme care. Damari is the type of killer who has backups for his backups. Yes, he’s out there, somewhere, and he’s got a plan.”

“Thank you. Now, actually, I’m also calling you two to tell you the president would like to thank you himself for saving his life. He, and I, of course, would like you to join us at Camp David this evening. We’re having a small dinner, cocktails prior. It will be casual, only staff, a few people from the Hill. The president was planning on being at Camp David this weekend to, ah, recover from the peace talks. We’ve simply moved his schedule around to get him there a day early. Given what we know about Spenser and his group breaking into the POTUS scheduling, the prevailing wisdom says if we change our plans, there’s no way Zahir Damari can surprise us.”

Mike said, “But, ma’am, I didn’t think the president and vice president were allowed to be at Camp David at the same time.”

Callan laughed. “Well, what the public doesn’t know won’t hurt them. Tony Scarlatti, you remember him, my head of security? He felt it would be smart to keep me on a different schedule, too. Since it’s not protocol, we think it will be the safest place for me to be. Secret Service will pick you up—some of Tony’s guys—and we’ll chopper you in. Trust me, you don’t want to spend the afternoon hours driving up there, not in our traffic. This is much more efficient. You’re at the Hoover Building?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you so much for the invitation and the transportation.”

“The car will be there in thirty minutes. And Agent Caine? Thank you again. What you and Agent Drummond managed to do today, it will not go unrewarded.”

Could she mean a tax break? No, probably not.

Nicholas was watching her, an eyebrow raised. Mike slipped her cell into the back pocket of her jeans. “Well, that was the vice president.”

“Yes, I gathered. Why are you grinning like a loon?”

“I was just thinking about my taxes. Hey, you want to go to a party?”