Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation

by Stuart Gibbs

  Of course, you had to expect there would be occasions when an agent couldn’t be immediately accessible. But an entire team of agents was a different story. That meant something had gone wrong.

  So Carter ordered her chief technology officer to access the mainframe in Jerusalem. There were three dozen security cameras in and around the safe house. Digital records for each were stored for two months and could be accessed by anyone on the CIA system.

  “Here we go,” the CTO announced. “This should be the live feed from camera one.” Carter took a seat behind him in the computer station. There was a lag of a few seconds for the images from Jerusalem to load, seeing as they had to be bounced off a satellite, but then the screen filled with . . .

  Static.

  The CTO checked the feed from each camera and found the same thing.

  “Is that a transmission error?” Carter asked.

  “No. The connection’s fine. And it looks like the system is still recording. The problem must be with the cameras. . . .”

  “Then rewind what you’ve got.”

  The CTO typed a few commands. The static on his monitor shifted slightly as the recording rewound at high speed.

  Carter’s secretary signaled that he needed her attention. A call had finally come in from Jerusalem.

  Carter took the phone quickly, expecting it to be Dante Garcia. Instead, it was Leah Bendavid. She apologized breathlessly for not getting back to Carter sooner; she had been down in the vault at the library, talking to the university police, and since the vault was in the basement, the phone reception was crap, so it wasn’t until Bendavid had left the library that she even realized anyone had been trying to call her. . . .

  Carter interrupted her. “So you haven’t been to the safe house?”

  “Not since early this morning.”

  “Have you had any contact with any of the Jerusalem team in the last hour?”

  “No. But I wasn’t expecting to. Is something wrong?”

  On the computer monitor, the static ended and there was suddenly activity on the screen, though it was running so quickly in reverse no one could tell what was happening.

  “Hold on,” Carter told Bendavid.

  By the time the CTO stopped the digital recording, it had rewound two minutes past the point where the static had begun. Now it began to play forward again. The CTO altered the connection so that the monitor was split into eight squares, each representing the feed from a different security camera in the safe house.

  Carter and the CTO watched everything unfold.

  It all went down fast.

  A figure approached the CIA’s safe house from the street, moving quickly, keeping his head down so his face couldn’t be seen—although Carter could presume he was a man from his build. He typed the access code at the security door, then raced up the stairs and entered the code for the second door as well.

  The CIA’s Jerusalem team was small; the Agency’s main office was in Tel Aviv. There were only three senior agents, and all were currently deployed on senior operations, so there were only two young agents on duty inside the safe house. They showed no sign of alarm, probably assuming it was Bendavid returning.

  The unknown figure came through the second door with his gun drawn. He shot both of the agents before they could even react. Then he swiftly went to each security camera and clipped the feed wire, turning each picture to static.

  Carter could guess what had happened after that. But she needed to know for sure.

  She returned her attention to the phone. “Agent Bendavid?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “How long have you been with the Agency?”

  “Three years and four months.”

  “Have you ever been in a situation where you had to use your gun?”

  “No, ma’am, but I spend three hours a week at the shooting range. And I served in the armed services here for two years. I hate to ask again, but . . . is something wrong?”

  “The safe house has been compromised. Everyone there was taken out by an assassin who knew the entry codes.”

  There was a long pause. When Bendavid spoke again, she sounded distant and confused. “I don’t understand. How could an assassin know those codes?”

  “That’s what you need to help us figure out. I have a relationship with a Mossad agent named Isaac Semel. Have you ever met him?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Several times.”

  “I’m calling him. I’ll have him contact you. Stay where you are until then. Do not return to the safe house until Semel and his team can accompany you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Carter hung up and looked back at the computer screen, thinking of the agents she had just seen die and wondering how Dante’s team had fared. None of them would have expected the safe house to be compromised. They would have had their guard down when they entered. Had anyone survived? How on earth had the killer learned the safe house access codes? And who was he? A member of the Furies? A rogue agent? Or a new player to the game entirely?

  A name suddenly flashed through Carter’s mind.

  Charlie Thorne.

  Things had gone very badly since she had come aboard.

  Carter knew Charlie was only twelve, but twelve-year-olds all over the world had been co-opted into doing very bad things: setting off bombs in the Middle East, running militias in the Congo, working for criminal enterprises throughout the United States. And Thorne was smarter than almost anyone else alive. She had hacked the computer system of one of the biggest software companies on earth; maybe she could have hacked the CIA, too, getting the pass codes, the names of agents, or anything else she wanted.

  If Charlie had decided to switch to the dark side—or had been aligned with the dark side all along—she would be a very formidable enemy.

  An enemy that would have to be dealt with in the strictest way possible.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jerusalem

  Charlie and Milana ran for some time longer, thinking they had shaken the Furies but unwilling to assume it. They turned left and right at random, creating a trail no one could follow until, legs aching and lungs burning, they found themselves at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

  It was a massive edifice, one of the holiest sites in Christianity, as it was erected atop the Hill of Calvary, where Christ had been crucified. The small plaza in front of it was thronged with pilgrims, and yet, to Charlie’s surprise, there were no guards, X-ray machines, or any other security at the church.

  Without saying a word, Charlie and Milana both fell into line and funneled inside. Despite their disheveled state, no one regarded them suspiciously; pilgrims often came to the church looking far worse after their long, arduous journeys.

  Inside, the church was surprisingly large and unusual in design. Unlike most churches Charlie had been in, there was not one central space; this church had been destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly since its original construction in 325 AD and was now a sprawling labyrinth of chapels, some cramped and some cavernous. To the right of the entrance, a stone staircase led up to the supposed site of Christ’s crucifixion, while to the left, a small structure known as the Edicule covered the site where Christ’s body had been laid, though it was dwarfed by a soaring rotunda more than two hundred and fifty feet high. The church was dim, lit only by sacramental candles and oil lamps, the ceiling stained by centuries of accumulated smoke.

  Charlie and Milana discovered that the crowds thinned greatly beyond the Edicule. Despite the sacredness of the church, many areas were practically ignored. In some spots, construction supplies were piled up for repair projects that appeared to have been either stalled or abandoned. Charlie and Milana found a stone bench tucked deep in the shadows where they could still keep a close eye on the crowd. While some of the pilgrims and tourists were silent in reverence, most talked freely, and the church resounded with their voices. In the cacophony, Milana felt it was finally safe to speak.

  “How much of what you told A
lexei about Einstein’s clue was true? Have you really solved it?”

  Charlie gaped at her, upset. “You want to talk shop now? My brother could be dead!”

  “There’s a chance he’s not. . . .”

  “I can handle the truth. I know the odds aren’t promising.”

  “I’m not just saying this to make you feel better. And I’m not saying that the chances are good. But here’s what I do know: Our mission is to obtain Pandora, and so far it’s been a disaster. We don’t have our phones, half of the Jerusalem division is dead, and the Furies have the only clue to Pandora’s location. If we want to beat them to it, you’re our best hope. So, did you really solve that clue?”

  “No. That was a lie. I haven’t solved anything. . . .” To Charlie’s surprise, she started crying. The weight of everything that had happened suddenly came crashing down on her: the awareness of how close she had come to death, the knowledge that she might be the only thing standing between the Furies and Pandora—and, most of all, the fear that Dante hadn’t survived.

  Milana’s composure softened, and tears welled in her eyes too. She put an arm around Charlie and pulled her close, letting the young girl sob into her shoulder. It occurred to Milana that Charlie was so worldly and composed that it was easy to forget she was only twelve. There were agents who had been through years of training at the Farm who cracked after their first life-or-death encounter in the field. Charlie had been thrust right into all this with no preparation at all. The CIA had promised to keep her safe and then failed miserably.

  “Dante is a top agent,” Milana said softly. “If anyone could have survived that situation, it’s him.”

  Charlie wasn’t religious; no one in her family had been. And now, here she was, sitting inside one of the most important churches on earth. It occurred to her that maybe she should take that as a sign and pray for Dante.

  She pulled away from Milana and stood to go light a votive candle, as many of the other pilgrims were doing.

  But Milana caught her arm. “What are you doing?”

  “Something for Dante.”

  “If you really want to do something for Dante, help me find Pandora. So that all he did wasn’t in vain. If you haven’t solved the clue, did you at least memorize it? Or was that a bluff too?”

  “No. That was the truth.”

  “Could you write it down again? We could send it to our cryptographers at Langley, have them take a crack at it.”

  Charlie shook her head. “That’s a terrible idea.”

  Milana bridled at the insult. “Why?”

  “Because we can’t trust anyone at Langley,” Charlie said. “There’s only one good explanation for how the Furies ambushed us at the safe house.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone in the CIA sold us out.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  You think someone turned on us?” Milana asked angrily. “That’s not possible.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Charlie replied. “Consider the location of the clue in the first place. The only time Einstein ever mentioned it was inside the Sherlock Holmes book was on his deathbed—and the CIA had the only recording of that.”

  “That tape has been around for almost seventy years. The staffs of a dozen White Houses could have heard it. The FBI, the NSA . . . anyone could have let a copy slip accidentally. . . .”

  “Fine. Then how do you explain the terrorists inside your own safe house? Who gave them the access codes? How do you explain the fact that they even knew there was a safe house in the first place—not to mention its exact location? That ambush wasn’t a last-second backup plan. That was worked out way before we got here. Someone in the Agency is corrupt and working with the Furies.”

  “No way.”

  “I’m not saying it was someone on your team,” Charlie told Milana. “It was more likely one of the CIA agents stationed in Jerusalem. . . .”

  “Who? Rats? Rats is dead. And so is everyone else in the Jerusalem office.”

  “Not Barbie.”

  Milana shook her head. “I’ve seen Bendavid’s file. She’s solid. Jerusalem is one of the toughest beats the CIA has. No one gets sent here unless they’ve been vetted six ways from Sunday. . . .”

  “Well, someone is working with the Furies. Because there’s one more of them than you realized.”

  Milana sat back, suddenly grasping what Charlie meant.

  Charlie counted them out on her fingers. “Marko got killed by his own people. Alexei, Oleg, Hans, Fez, and Vladimir ambushed us at the safe house. Those are the only six the CIA had in the file. So who was the sniper on the roof?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the team missed someone in Bern. . . .”

  “After doing reconnaissance on them for months? No way. The Furies picked up this new person here. Plus, according to their files, none of the Furies had any serious weapons training. But whoever was shooting at us on the roof did. The kind of training Bendavid would have had at the Farm—or in the Israeli army.”

  Milana shook her head again. “There’s no way Bendavid was involved. . . .”

  Charlie sighed, exasperated. “The CIA must have defectors all the time. Not everyone’s a Goody-Two-shoes like you and my brother. Maybe Bendavid isn’t as nice as she seemed. . . .”

  “I’m not talking about corruptibility. I’m talking about access. No single agent at the CIA had all the information the terrorists needed to pull this off. No one in the Jerusalem office knew about Pandora or the Einstein tapes until this morning. And no one on my team knew the safe house location or access codes.”

  “The Furies knew about Pandora. Maybe they reached out to Bendavid months ago, looking for someone they could corrupt.”

  “And how would they have found her?” Milana demanded sarcastically. “Called the CIA here and asked to speak with any corruptible agents? Bendavid is a covert op. Her own parents don’t know what she does for a living. How could the Furies?”

  Charlie frowned, realizing the argument made sense. And yet she still didn’t see how the Furies could have pulled off their ambush without an insider. “How often are the access codes to the safe houses changed?” she asked.

  “Ideally, it ought to happen every day. But it doesn’t. Did you see the access panel here? It might as well be as old as this church. Someone would have to update it manually every day and then inform the team, which is a pain in the rear, so it never gets done.”

  “Never?”

  “Well, not nearly as often as it should.”

  “So maybe the codes hadn’t been changed in a few months?”

  “I suppose that’s possible.”

  “Is there anyone who worked in the Jerusalem office in the past few months who also worked on Pandora?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Well, there was one agent,” Milana said, annoyed by Charlie’s persistence, “but there’s no way he could be working for the Furies, because he’s dead.”

  Charlie stiffened, surprised. “The agent who died in Bern had worked in Jerusalem?”

  “Yes,” Milana said, though her annoyance had already faded, because she was now concerned about the connection herself.

  “What happened in Bern?” Charlie asked.

  Milana stared off across the church, watching the pilgrims lined up around the Edicule, thinking back to what she’d read in the files on Bern and all that had gone wrong there.

  And then she told Charlie the story.

  John Russo had been one of the stars of the CIA, a young agent who was fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, German, and Pashto. At just twenty-six, he had already done more undercover work than most veteran spies. His skills were in such demand that every time he came off one mission, another was waiting for him. He had just finished a six-month stint in Jerusalem, nailing a rogue Hamas cell, when the call had come from Bern.

  In Switzerland, John had posed as a blue-collar German named Maxim, working as a bartender in a sleazy
dive where the Furies drank. The CIA gave him fake German papers and a fake swastika tattoo to match Alexei’s. The Furies didn’t have much money, so John occasionally slipped them free drinks—and made it clear they shared the same views on race and immigration. The Furies were cautious about recruiting new members, but one drunken night they opened up to John about what they were plotting and John begged to become a part of it. Soon afterward he was joining the Furies on their excursions to search for Pandora.

  Everything had been going perfectly—until one fateful night. John had been hanging out with the Furies in their apartment, drinking beer and winning their confidence, when he suddenly botched a simple phrase in German, revealing that he wasn’t the man he claimed to be. The Furies, drunk and vengeful, had shown no mercy.

  “What did they do to him?” Charlie asked.

  Milana turned to her. This was the first time Charlie had spoken since she’d begun talking, an uncharacteristically long silence for the kid. She had just sat there, listening intently, until now.

  “You don’t need to know the details,” Milana said.

  “Actually, I think I do.”

  “It was bad, Charlie.”

  “How bad? Could you recognize the body afterward?”

  “No. The Furies were brutal.”

  “Did anyone do a DNA test on the remains?”

  “Now you’re a forensics expert?” Milana asked.

  “I’ve seen plenty of crime shows,” Charlie replied. “Was there a test?”

  “There wasn’t any point to it, from what I understand. John was wearing a wire when they caught him. The CIA overheard everything. By the time they got to the apartment, they found what was left of John’s body.”

  “Not his body,” Charlie corrected. “Someone else’s. John Russo is still alive—and he’s working with the Furies.”