The Grid

by Nick Cook

  Hetta and I have made our way to the back of the auditorium and we’ve seen nothing. I tell her I’m heading back toward the stage. She stays where she is.

  ‘Unknown to my administration, or to any administration, this system was developed and financed as a special-access program – in the black – beyond the oversight of our Congress. It was financed using money laundered off the back of criminal activity in another nation state. That nation state was Russia.’

  The whole place goes silent.

  ‘For the past year, I have been working with my friend and colleague, the President of Russia, to expose this activity, whose purpose can only achieve one thing: a perpetual cycle of mistrust, of simmering conflict between our two nations, and many other nations of the world. And it is certainly not the only program to have done this.

  ‘I am all for secrecy, in certain circumstances, but too much of what we develop militarily exceeds what is appropriate and affordable. And as the acquisition of this system has demonstrated, it is open to serious abuses of power.

  ‘As a research tool, its technology will enable us to see that the differences that we believe divide us – of race, color and creed – are simply not there. They don’t exist.’

  He pauses.

  ‘As a surveillance tool, however, this system is beyond anything that has ever been built in the name of decency and honor, and should not be placed in the hands of any one nation.’

  He pauses again.

  ‘It is for this reason that I have taken a decision. As of today, I am handing over the Grid, as we call this technology – lock, stock and barrel – to my good friend the General Secretary of the United Nations.’

  He steps down from the podium and takes his seat next to his wife, the Pope and the Russian President.

  Anybody who hadn’t been on their feet before is now.

  Some are cheering, others are yelling. Some are shouting abuse.

  Chaos in the room where we’re hunting for a killer.

  65

  I’M ALMOST BACK AT THE STAGE WHEN I HEAR GIBSON’S VOICE IN my ear. ‘Agent Hart, we have the data.’

  I have difficulty spotting Hetta over the heads of the audience. She’s stopped, head bent forward, one hand pressed to her ear.

  ‘Matthew Voss was the ops team marksman. And Axel Lydon is listed as a cyber-security specialist. Strictly backroom.’

  ‘And he’s here on whose authority?’

  ‘Approval came through in the past hour. From the White House.’

  My heart stops.

  I see Gapes in the tower. Hear his words from behind the mask. There’s a plot to kill the President. It is well planned, advanced, and will be well executed, unless you move to stop it.

  Gapes was shot by a sniper from the window he’d sketched on the crazy wall. He hadn’t just seen the future, he’d shaped it.

  An act of self-sacrifice.

  His final clue.

  I look up.

  Right at the back. Above Hetta’s head. In the rear wall. Two tiers of windows. For stage lights. Projectors. Christ knows.

  An upper and a lower tier.

  Hetta sees them too, and bolts through the emergency exit.

  I hear her breath sharp in my ear as the adrenaline kicks in. She’s crashing up steps. A door bangs open.

  ‘What’s he waiting for, Josh?’

  I don’t know.

  The crowd is on its feet. I can’t see the President. He’s lost in a sea of heads and hands. The noise is deafening.

  I dip my head toward my lapel mike.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Second level. A hallway, doors leading off.’

  Thompson appears on one of the giant screens. He’s shaking hands with the Pope and the Russian President. Still the huckster from Texas with the people, acknowledging their response. Good and bad, he doesn’t care.

  In my earpiece, Hetta catches her breath. ‘Is he on this floor or the floor above?’

  I glance at the two tiers of windows.

  The only view I have of Thompson is still onscreen.

  And if I can’t see him, nor can the Special Ops marksman.

  ‘Hetta, he doesn’t have line-of-sight.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Voss. He can’t see the target. He must be on the lower tier.’

  I hear her crash down the steps and throw open a door.

  ‘Hallway, same as the floor above. Doors off.’

  A bang as she kicks the first of them in.

  ‘A storeroom. Clear.’

  I turn.

  Thompson is getting to his feet.

  I pull my radio from my pocket, switch channels.

  ‘Graham, this is Cain. Get Thompson to sit the fuck down!’

  I’m met by a wall of static.

  The President steps back onto the podium. He looks up from the lectern. Sees something.

  I turn to my right.

  A man on his feet. Tall and dark. Short hair. I can’t see his face, but I’d recognize my companion from the tower anywhere, from any angle. He’s wearing a suit. A loose-fitting jacket. No tie. He takes a step down toward the stage. Then another.

  Three members of the Presidential Protection team see him too. Graham, making his appearance from the wings, is one of them.

  Thompson reaches for his glass of water. His hand is shaking.

  ‘Hey!’ Graham shouts. ‘You! Back in your seat!’

  The Engineer keeps on going.

  Graham doesn’t know who he is. Nobody does.

  In my earpiece, I hear Hetta kick in another door.

  ‘Clear! What’s happening?’

  ‘It’s the dream,’ I murmur.

  ‘Say again.’

  ‘It’s the President’s dream.’

  I start moving again, also toward the stage. Some people are still on their feet; others have sat back down as it becomes clear Thompson isn’t leaving the Plenary.

  I push past a group of priests, who are standing in the aisle arguing about what’s just been said. I’m still three rows back.

  ‘Hey!’ Graham yells again. He moves forward, placing himself between his boss and the Engineer.

  Graham slips his hand inside his jacket. ‘I said—’

  Thompson steps out from behind the lectern. Two Secret Service agents move too slowly toward him from the wings.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Thompson’s voice booms over the PA. ‘Let him come.’

  All eyes turn to the intruder. His hands appear to be clenched, but I can’t see if he’s holding any kind of weapon. An unearthly light seems to shine from his eyes – the look that I’d seen in the tower. He’s an automaton. Unstoppable.

  I push past a cardinal and attempt to vault the front two rows. I almost make it, but my foot catches a backrest and I sprawl between them.

  I look up as the next part of the story unfolds, exactly as Thompson said it would.

  One of the agents attempts to pull him to safety. Thompson resists. The Engineer reaches the stage. They look at each other.

  The Engineer opens his jacket, reaches inside it.

  Graham raises his weapon.

  A crash in my ear.

  Hetta, kicking in another door.

  A shot.

  The high-powered bullet punches through Graham’s upper body. Blood sprays across the screen behind him.

  A scream from the crowd, then: ‘Hey, you!’

  Hetta in my ear.

  The Engineer steps to his right, in front of Thompson.

  He turns, sees me. Then looks up at the back of the auditorium. His eyes close. He spreads his arms wide.

  Two shots, so close together the second sounds like an echo.

  Hetta’s voice in my ear: ‘Nailed him, Josh. But not before he fired. The President, is he …?’

  I don’t hear any more. My earpiece falls to the floor as I get to my feet and rush for the stage.

  The Engineer’s lying face up, taking short, sharp breaths. I pull back his jacket. The entry woun
d is tiny, but the damage is irreparable. A crimson flower blooms from his punctured heart.

  ‘Stand away, Colonel.’

  An agent’s voice, somewhere behind me.

  ‘Stand away! He may be wearing a belt.’

  I ignore him.

  As I touch the Engineer’s neck, his eyes open. The face that has haunted me since I was first confronted by him at the cabin – and maybe even before then – now gives me a look of infinite kindness.

  His skin is still warm but I can’t find a pulse.

  ‘Joshua …’

  ‘Shhh … Don’t speak.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he says softly.

  ‘Somebody get me a first-aid pack!’

  ‘It’s all right …’

  I lean forward until I can feel his breath on my cheek.

  ‘I am you … Joshua …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I … am … you.’

  He somehow finds the strength to raise his hand.

  Holds three fingers in front of my face.

  As I pull his devastated body toward me, I see the disciple falling backward out of Rembrandt’s Raising of the Cross.

  I plead with him to hold on.

  But my friend is dead before I can gather him into my arms.

  66

  TWO HOURS LATER, THOMPSON STANDS SEVERAL STEPS BEHIND A lectern on which someone has hastily hung the presidential seal. The impromptu press conference is taking place in the suite on the top floor of his hotel, a block away from the Hall of the Assembly. Flashbulbs fire. TV lights have been rigged. Hetta and I watch on a monitor in a protection suite along the hallway.

  ‘Mr President! Mr President …!’

  Shouts, yells. Everybody trying to fire in the first question.

  ‘Hey!’ his embattled press secretary cries. ‘One at a time!’

  It’s my old friend, Molly’s nemesis, Joe Seitz.

  ‘We will be issuing a full statement in the next hour. In the meantime, President Thompson wishes to make a short statement of his own.’ Seitz ushers him forward. ‘Mr President.’

  Thompson steps up to the mike. ‘There will be a full inquiry into these events. Three people are dead. The identity of two of them is unknown at this time. Tragically, the third, Haight Graham, is the second White House Special Agent in Charge to have been killed in the line of duty in the past two months. Words cannot express my sadness at this loss. Jennifer’s and my thoughts and prayers are with him and his family at this time …’

  His words tail away as hands shoot skyward.

  ‘Mr President! Has it been confirmed that the man who rushed at you was holding or wearing any kind of explosive device?’

  ‘No, that has not been confirmed.’

  ‘Did he have a gun?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any idea who he was?’

  ‘Not at this stage.’

  ‘Or why he appeared to step into the line of fire?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where were you taken in the aftermath of the incident?’

  ‘Somewhere safe.’

  ‘Who fired the shots? The Secret Service says it wasn’t them—’

  ‘Hey. What did I say?’ Seitz wades back in. ‘One at a time.’ He pauses. ‘And if you have a question, please give us your name and affiliation.’

  He picks out somebody at the front.

  ‘Mr President, Carolee Stanley, CNN. Was the announcement you made today scripted before you took to the stage?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. And for this I must apologize to my media team.’

  ‘They didn’t know?’

  ‘No. And they deserved better. It was … spontaneous. My decision.’

  ‘Your decision alone?’

  ‘Not entirely,’ Thompson concedes. ‘The delicate liaison between us and the Vatican has been greatly assisted these past months by Senator Tod Abnarth, the only person I know with the experience and skill to broker an initiative of this kind. The Senator, being a prominent Catholic, already had strong ties with His Holiness.’

  ‘The son of a bitch planned this?’ Hetta whispers.

  ‘Abnarth must have warned him that something like the Grid was out there.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  I nod. ‘Between them I think they took the decision to flush it out of the shadows.’

  ‘Sure as shit did that.’

  Thompson directs his gaze to another part of the room. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr President, Mike Honniker, Washington Post. First off, are you all right, sir?’

  ‘Shaken, but OK. Thank you, Mike.’

  ‘You said the guy who came at you was unarmed. And yet footage appears to show him reaching into his jacket for something.’ Honniker checks his notes. ‘So, if it wasn’t a bomb or a gun—’

  ‘It was an envelope, Mike.’

  ‘An envelope?’

  ‘An old photograph of a kid holding a box.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A wooden box. With a lid.’

  ‘Any idea who the kid is?’

  ‘Yes.’ Thompson pauses. ‘The kid is me. It was taken when I was at school. In ninth grade.’

  ‘Do you know how he came by it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Maybe the guy was sick. Have you considered that possibility?’

  ‘We’re considering everything, Mike. The Secret Service is all over it. Forensics are working the angles. As soon as we know any more we’ll share it with you. But in the meantime, sick isn’t what I’m thinking. Unless sick means sacrificing your own life to save someone else’s.’

  He scans the sea of faces and picks out a Reuters reporter.

  ‘Are you able to summarize, in just a few words, what you think the breakthrough you announced actually means?’

  ‘It means, after too many years of an escalating arms race in the field of mass-surveillance, that everybody gets to see what everybody else is doing. That is why I am handing it to the UN, for the benefit of every nation. I believe we are about to enter an era of zero secrecy. I will leave you to speculate on what a world without secrets will mean, but I believe it will herald a paradigm shift in the development of both domestic and international relations.’

  Another chorus of yells.

  ‘WE HAVE TIME FOR TWO MORE QUESTIONS!’ Seitz bellows. ‘Yes, Eli.’

  ‘Eli Harper, Mr President, CBS. If this was a classified program, how did you – or the Executive Branch – get to learn of its existence? And a follow-up, if I may. Does this have anything to do with what we are hearing out of Washington as we speak: about a series of raids launched by the FBI and the Secret Service on several facilities owned and operated by the National Security Agency, as well as a number of other US intelligence agencies?’

  Thompson takes a step back. ‘How did we learn about it? Too big of a deal for today, Eli. Joe Seitz and his media team will brief you on the salient details as soon as they become available.

  ‘In answer to your second question, I issued orders ninety minutes ago for a number of key individuals within the NSA, CIA, INSCOM, the DIA and some of our other intel agencies to be detained under the Patriot Act for questioning about the unauthorized development of this system. There will be further arrests over the coming days, weeks and months.

  ‘Again, I will leave Joe and his team to brief you further, but you may want to check with my Russian counterpart and his team. I understand there were also a number of significant arrests by the Russian authorities across Moscow today.’

  ‘We’re getting unconfirmed reports of arrests within the White House too,’ Harper says.

  ‘There has been only one arrest,’ Thompson says. ‘That of my Chief of Staff, Reuben Kantner.’

  This, inevitably, triggers another deluge. Seitz says that he will brief on this delicate development in due course.

  ‘Last question,’ he says, surveying the forest of hands.

  Thompson shields his eyes from the glare as he sweeps the room. ‘Yes. Right at the back there. Your
question, please.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr President. Avi Keller, Haaretz. I am a security correspondent here in Jerusalem. We are picking up reports of an incident that allegedly involved your security people at around seven o’clock this morning on the Mount of Olives. The area was closed to public access for several hours.

  ‘Is this something you’re aware of? And the Israeli authorities? Was it terrorist related? Does it have anything to do with what just took place in the Hall of the Assembly?’

  Thompson throws a glance at Seitz. ‘I’m out of time, I’m afraid, but Joe and his team have your questions, and I know that they’ll get back to you as soon as they possibly can.’

  67

  THERE’S A BUZZ AND A HEAVY CLICK. THE NURSE PRACTITIONER, a heavy-set guy who’s introduced himself as Bass, pushes open the door. I step inside and am greeted by a strong smell of bleach.

  The NP asks if I want to be accompanied.

  I tell him that won’t be necessary. I’ve known the patient half my life. He closes the door. Bolts slide and locks tumble.

  It is more than a week since Reuben’s arrest and in that time he has twice tried to take his own life. His mental collapse is due to a condition that has been diagnosed as involutional melancholia.

  The psychiatrists here at South 3 – the mental health unit attached to D.C.’s Central Detention Facility in the South East district of the city – have stabilized him, but his condition remains grave. They have agreed to my request for a visit in the hope it will help him ‘reverse himself out’ of the illness, and prepare to take steps to fully recover.

  My onetime brother-in-arms is lying on a bed of sorts secured to the far wall, in white hospital pajamas. His back is to me. The cell is free of protrusions and under observation 24/7.

  Reuben doesn’t move. I watch the rise and fall of his breathing for the longest minute of my life.

  ‘Did you give the order to kill Gapes?’

  ‘No. They pulled me in after the Bluffdale raid, when everything began to unravel.’

  ‘So, the V-22, that was you …?’

  ‘No. But I signed off on it.’