Under Pressure: A Lucas Page Novel

by Robert Pobi

  Kehoe was setting the stage for the investigation, but all future briefings—twice a day according to protocol—would be handled by the special agent in charge, Samir Chawla, who stood off to one side. The bureau was a massive bureaucracy, and it functioned on a hierarchal mechanism that was as ingrained as its collegial preppy image. Everyone had a position. And every position had a function. And every function had a purpose. All the way down to the guy who washed the official vehicles in the garage.

  Kehoe was in perfect form, the appropriate mix of gravitas and authority. His upbringing was diametrically opposed to the career he had pursued—he had come from a wealthy West Coast family that was prominent not only in agriculture and industry but in politics. He had been a concert pianist by the time he was fifteen, followed by a classical education at Yale that he had walked away from to become a lawman. Lucas understood what money like that could do to a person—he had been raised around it—and very few people could break away from the expectations to take the Robert Frost road. Stories like Kehoe’s illustrated that there was something addictive about this business; all you had to do was ask all the agents who had lost their marriages and friendships and health and youth to the questions they couldn’t turn off when they went home.

  But even a man like Kehoe couldn’t fight the clock, and the past twenty hours had taken some of the polish off his chrome. He was in the process of telling everyone to play nice with one another—and he emphasized that this included other agencies: federal, state, and municipal. “I expect a lot of jurisdictional cross-chatter, but I don’t want snakes and ladders to hobble our efforts—if things get tied up, I want you to consult Legal to work them out. This is going to chew up all the media cycles for the next while and we can’t make any mistakes.”

  Kehoe stopped the chatter with a raised hand. “The specific cause of the explosion has been determined to be a thermobaric bomb. You might remember the first publicly acknowledged operational use of the MOAB—which is the military designation for Massive Ordnance Air Blast, dubbed the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ in the media—by our military forces in Afghanistan on April 13, 2017. The device used in the Guggenheim explosion was a scaled-down and custom-made version of the MOAB.” Delivery was getting better with each syllable that rolled out of his mouth—exhaustion giving way to instinct.

  “A thermobaric explosion is relatively simple to achieve, and functions under the same general mechanics as a grain silo explosion—with a little massaging to increase damage.” Kehoe took a sip of tea from his mug. “In this particular instance, the flammable particles were delivered as aluminum confetti dropped from a snowmaker—a device used in movies and television to create weather for the camera.” With that verbal prompt, the screens went live with an HD image of the confetti machine suspended below the blown-out skylight. The four massive steel drums now looked like what they were—bombs.

  “TEDAC is taking the delivery system apart one bolt at a time, and so far they’ve confirmed that the chemical composition of the confetti used as the combustible was a thin slice of aluminum backed with a laundry list of other components, mostly tweaked magnesium molecules that accelerated the burn rate, magnifying the pressure wave of the explosion. The banners that hung from the ceiling were also of the same manufacture. The drum gears were modified to create a static charge after a certain number of rotations—about seventy turns—when most of the foil was dispersed.” Kehoe put his tea down. “Besides the massive loss of life, somewhere around a billion dollars’ worth of art was destroyed.”

  Seven hundred and two dead people: a ripple of murmurs—lost dollar signs: actual gasps.

  Kehoe lifted an eyebrow and all chatter stopped. “Many of these pieces were on loan from private individuals, but there were also corporate loans on the roster. The loss of these works means we can’t discount insurance fraud or some complicated confidence scam as a component.”

  Kehoe put his hands on either side of the podium and leaned forward. A picture of the Guggenheim appeared on the monitors around the room. “The company that was hosting the gala—Horizon Dynamics—is a privately owned corporation that was going public this morning; the IPO was expected to trade at somewhere around half a billion dollars, and the gala was a presale celebration. Horizon Dynamics specialized in environmental risk assessment and the rejuvenation of ecosystems damaged by industry, specifically former petroleum extraction and bauxite mining sites. They lost all of their top people and most of their mid-level management; they will not be bouncing back from this. Because we are looking at a crime that has ramifications in the billions of dollars, we will be closely partnering our efforts with the SEC, the IRS, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the CFTC, and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, since they are used to looking at crimes from a dollars-and-cents perspective. So far, all concerned haven’t come up with any sort of a lead.

  “So until we have evidence to the contrary, we are classifying this as an act of terrorism—with the specific motivating ideology still unknown. Our Joint Terrorism Task Force will be coordinating with the usual outside agencies, and we’ve reached out to every foreign intelligence agency on the planet through the DOJ and the DHS. So far we’re looking for a crime that was orchestrated by people who don’t seem to exist, which means we don’t know if they are foreign or domestic. The complicated nature of the attack suggests that we are looking for several individuals or a group.

  “All the early indicators are that the attack was too complicated and well executed to have been carried out by Islamic fundamentalists; most of the known groups are too unsophisticated to have done this. We’re not writing them off, but this looks more like the kind of thing a foreign-state-funded actor would do. Another possibility that has been brought to my attention is that we might be looking at a group of eco-fascists—check the updates.” With that he turned to Lucas and eyed him for a moment. “When looking at evidence, a good way to put it is to not only look for the things that are there, but for the things that aren’t.

  “We have teams interviewing everyone from the event planner to museum employees to delivery personnel. We’re looking at the confetti supplier, the company that built the snowmaker, and the transport people that delivered it. Our agents are talking to absolutely everyone and anyone in the supply chain for both the gala and the Guggenheim.”

  Kehoe nodded and the displays cycled up photos of the scene outside the police tape at the Guggenheim—people holding up conspiracy signs and QAnon placards. There were plenty of crazed expressions and spelling mistakes. “These people are going to be the biggest obstacle you face out there—we’re combing social media and message boards, chat rooms and comments sections, and they are pumping out disinformation, misinformation, and lies at a rate we can’t keep up with.

  “We’ve already had two tourists beaten unconscious after they were incorrectly identified as suspects by online digilantes. Unfortunately, those people are the gift that keeps on giving, and we can expect more problems because of them. You all know how social media clogs up the gears of a good investigation, and with this many victims and so much global curiosity, be prepared for the worst from people. Expect innocent people to be attacked and expect mob thinking. The conspiracy fools at the crime scene are just the beginning—I fully expect their numbers to grow into a sizable problem in both the virtual as well as the actual world. Again, if you’re not sure about something—ask.” He stepped away from the podium and Lucas knew this was where he would try to make everyone feel like a big family. Kehoe stopped and nodded at Lucas. “Which brings me to Dr. Page, who is standing at the back with our own Special Agent Whitaker.”

  Lucas didn’t bother waving. He just nodded a single time and kept his focus on Kehoe, who continued.

  “I am sure those of you who were here last winter during the New York sniper case remember Dr. Page. He is a mathematician—an astrophysicist, actually—and is here as an independent consultant. His methods are not always obvious, and I
don’t want anyone giving him any grief if he asks for something.” He turned back to his people, clapped his hands once, and was back in command mode. “Please keep your phones and computers synced and read all updates. If you don’t know something or you need something, ask. From here on out, all briefings will be delivered by the special agent in charge—you all know Samir Chawla.” He nodded over at Chawla, then turned off the mic, picked up his mug of tea, and stepped away from the podium.

  11

  CNN Offices at the Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle

  Melanie McGillivray was rounding out her fifth month as an intern in the communications department for CNN. She had a BA in computer science, with an emphasis on systems analysis, and hoped to one day run the IT department for either a Fortune 500 company or one of the lifestyle dot-coms out west. But until she had the experience, knowledge, and connections necessary to climb the ever-greased corporate ladder, her job would lack glamour, living wages, and—hardest of all—self-esteem.

  Today, like every day for the past five weeks, she was relegated to one of the lesser spirals of hell—one where she and four other interns managed the insane volume of email on the network server. In any other company, she would spend her hours quarantining viruses picked up on porn sites (she thought that contracting a virtual virus from virtual genitals was a splendid example of the irony her generation was so fond of); fixing pop-up blockers; installing anti-virus patches; updating software; and generally keeping human error to a manageable scale.

  But McGillivray didn’t work in a typical office. They didn’t sell real estate, manufacture widgets, or produce mountains of paper under the guise of contract negotiation. What they did was trade in the most valuable commodity in the realm of human commerce—information. And that core function invariably produced an inordinate amount of correspondence. Which in turn generated all kinds of digital security nightmares.

  The bombing at the Guggenheim yesterday had everyone working overtime, the mentally unwell in particular, which meant that the network was inundated with thousands of “tips”—a euphemism for crazy bullshit. And this was on top of the usual truckload of troll droppings that they had to wade through every day. The reactor was running at 110 percent capacity.

  In the information trade, both journalists and sources alike were continually plagued by hackers, blackmailers, and all manner of social misfits—people intent on sowing discord simply because they could. The end result of this malfeasance was that both the transfer and management of information got exponentially more difficult with each day. Since journalists were a justifiably paranoid group, this resulted in all kinds of complicated password-driven booby traps and encryption software that kept their information locked away. Often from themselves.

  Right now, Chad Worthington was standing over her shoulder, screaming about the text he had received asking him about an email he hadn’t. The text was from an unknown source, delivered to his tip box. It referenced an email that had been sent to him yesterday and advised him to take it seriously.

  “This isn’t rocket science, for chrissake!” he said, his volume creeping up. “It’s a goddamned email and it’s supposed to be there.” Chad was a stereotype, a designation he took great pride in fostering, and by some miracle was one of the few straight men occupying an anchor chair who hadn’t been #metooed into an early retirement with a golden parachute. He was a lousy journalist, but a decent talking head, a distinction he understood with uncharacteristic insight. Chad didn’t usually take himself too seriously, but today he was making an exception.

  McGillivray tried to ignore him as she tapped, typed, clicked, highlighted, dragged, and expanded. It took almost four minutes, but she found it. The address was correct, but it looked like an ad for fertilizer—which was why the spam filter had taken it out. “Is this it?” she asked.

  Worthington leaned over her shoulder and squinted. He smelled of hair spray and a hint of cologne with some coffee thrown in. “How am I supposed to know?” He held up his phone. “All I have is this text telling me to look at it. Why would someone go through the trouble of texting my secure message box to tell me to look at a brochure?”

  McGillivray tried not to roll her eyes. “Maybe it’s not an ad. Maybe it just looks like an ad.” She scanned the email with antivirus software, and when it was given a clean bill of health by the digital doctors, she opened it up.

  It wasn’t an advertisement.

  It was a letter.

  They both began to read and she stopped half a paragraph in. “Oh my god,” she said.

  Worthington was still reading, but he was used to people speaking while he sifted information—it was one of the skills that twenty years in front of a camera with a producer piping in through an earpiece had made second nature—and he asked, “Is this real?”

  “It was delivered yesterday afternoon at…”—McGillivray checked the time stamp in the metadata—“6:32 and thirty seconds.”

  “That’s thirty seconds before the bombing.” Worthington didn’t bother trying to hide the excitement in his voice when he said, “Which means it’s real.”

  12

  26 Federal Plaza

  Lucas and Whitaker were in Kehoe’s office with Chawla and Special Agent Kathryn Brady. Brady was one of the top people with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and her specialty was ideologically motivated groupthink. She was part behavioral psychologist, part necromancer, and Lucas wondered if she and Whitaker got along, because he could sense a quiet tension between them. Brady was tall, with a wide face and dark eyes that might have been too large for her face. She exuded confidence and smarts and looked like she had a finely tuned bullshit meter. But all of that was just first-impression takeaways, and Lucas decided that he would reserve judgment—almost anyone could come across as competent for a few minutes.

  Chawla’s main objective during the brief had been to assign personnel to the appropriate departments. He was engaging and his presentation bolstered Whitaker’s assessment, but he let a little vanity poke through the veneer of command and Lucas wondered if he was capable of processing constructive criticism. An investigation of this magnitude was bound to bounce around in the ditch once in a while, and the person leading the troops needed to be able to adapt on the fly.

  Chawla was trying to stare Lucas down, which was a losing battle. “And why do you disagree, Dr. Page?”

  “I’m not disagreeing. This has all the earmarks of a terrorist attack. But I think you’re connecting some dots that might not even be there.”

  Chawla looked rankled. “Such as?”

  Lucas shrugged. “Like Kehoe said out there, this could be insurance fraud or art theft. Stock manipulation. A rival company clearing the playing field. A message to someone. Like the man once said, my crystal ball ain’t so crystal clear, but I think it’s too early to become wedded to a single line of approach.”

  It was Brady who said, “Could you be a little clearer?”

  He turned to her. “We have seven hundred and two victims, which provides the mass casualty factor. But these weren’t a bunch of average folks out at the mall on a Friday night—many of these people were wealthy investors attending a party for a unique company. There was a billion dollars of artwork on the premises. And the explosion had a secondary purpose other than to take lives—it was sadistic. Those people were supposed to suffer.”

  Brady nodded as she took that in. “And you don’t think that qualifies as terrorism?”

  Lucas didn’t like being baited like a first-year philosophy student. “Of course it qualifies as terrorism. But it could be a number of other things.”

  Chawla pulled his cuffs so the prerequisite quarter inch was peeking out from his jacket sleeves. “If it’s insurance fraud, there would have to be several dozen people in on it to make it worthwhile.”

  Lucas stared at him over the frames of his sunglasses. “How do you figure?”

  “The most valuable piece in there was worth about thirty million bucks. No one would
kill seven hundred people for thirty million bucks.”

  “A woman was killed on the Lower East Side last week for three dollars. Multiply that by seven hundred and two and that room of people is worth precisely two thousand, one hundred, and six dollars to the right criminal. There are people who would cook an entire city for thirty million dollars.”

  “So you think it’s insurance fraud?”

  Lucas was getting frustrated, but he made an effort not to let the steam seep through his seams. “What I said was that even though a mass casualty factor lends itself to a terrorism narrative, there are other possibilities.”

  Chawla smiled at him when he said, “Dr. Page, this is not some pop science book people buy at the airport, this is the real world. With real consequences.”

  It was obvious by the way he had formulated the dig that he had read some of the less inspired reviews of Lucas’s latest book. “Right now the only certainties are that we have no idea who did this or what their motive was. And anyone who claims different is setting themselves up for failure.”

  Kehoe pushed off the edge of his desk. “Page, Chawla, this isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  Lucas shrugged. “I answer questions when asked.”

  Chawla leaned forward. “I don’t think—”

  “I know. Which is why I’m here.” Lucas took a sip of his coffee and caught a glimpse of Whitaker smiling over Chawla’s shoulder. “Sorry, Brett. I’ll take a look at the victims list to see if I can come up with anything meaningful. See if there’s any signal through the noise.”

  Kehoe nodded as if that settled the argument. “Coordinate everything through Special Agent in Charge Chawla here. And Chawla?” There was no missing the command in the voice—this wasn’t an ask. “Extend every courtesy to Dr. Page.”

  Chawla’s expression was still frozen between indignation and shock when someone knocked at the door and came in without being invited. It was Kehoe’s monstrous assistant, Otto Hoffner. He held up his phone. “CNN just received a letter from the bomber.”