The Sentinel

by Lee Child

  ‘Snappy name.’

  ‘Only the geeks call it that. Everyone else calls it The Sentinel.’

  ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It protects the integrity of the election system software in forty-eight states. It’s the only thing that does.’

  ‘Why not all fifty?’

  ‘Politics. I haven’t got time to go into it.’

  ‘And the Russians are trying to steal a copy. So what? If they succeed what could they do with it? Change the result of an election? Aren’t there fail-safes? Paper backups?’

  ‘In some places. But changing the result is not their goal. That’s too direct. This is the Russians we’re talking about. You’ve got to understand just how long a game these people play. Their philosophy is if you hit a man with a fire hose he goes down, but he can get up again. If you gather enough raindrops and use them in the right way you wind up with the Grand Canyon. They’re trying to carve gaps in society that are too big to bridge. It’s all part of a bigger campaign. To sow discord and division. It’s been running for years. On social media. Conspiracy theories. Attempts to undermine the mainstream media.’

  ‘Fake news? I’ve heard about that.’

  ‘This time they’re specifically trying to erode faith in the election system itself. We know they’re serious. They already had a dry run four years ago, in Kentucky. What happened was, on election day, they sent out a phishing email. You know what that is?’

  ‘No idea,’ Reacher said.

  ‘It’s an email that looks legitimate, like it’s from some official trusted source. Like a bank or an insurance company.’

  ‘People trust banks and insurance companies?’

  ‘Some do. Anyway, the messages look genuine and they generally have a subject that sounds tempting in some way. Or urgent. Like half-price car insurance if you apply within twelve hours.’

  ‘So gullible people open these messages and something bad happens? Like an old-school letter bomb.’

  ‘Right. Opening the message or following a link or downloading an attachment, one way or another it infects the computer. A malicious program gets in and gains access to your files and passwords, and if you’re on a network it gets into that too. In the Kentucky case the Russians sent an email to all the election officials purporting to be from the VP of technical support at the company that supplied the election software. The subject line said it contained a critical update to the operating instructions.’

  ‘I can see how people could fall for that.’

  ‘They shouldn’t. They’re specifically trained not to. But trained or not, the email went to two hundred people. Six of them opened it.’

  ‘So the Russians got access?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘Nothing. That time. They were proving the concept. Laying the foundations. Building up to a wider-scale attack this year. Imagine the scenes on election day if every person who shows up to vote at the correct precinct is told they’ve been re-registered without their knowledge at some other precinct on the other side of town. Or that their registration’s been cancelled altogether. Or when the results are announced it turns out that in some marginal districts Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck are registered. Or that a bunch of people are registered in multiple precincts, even if they didn’t know it at the time or act on it.’

  ‘There’d be chaos.’

  ‘Total chaos. Only The Sentinel can stop it.’

  ‘It didn’t stop their dry run.’

  ‘It didn’t exist then. That’s why it was developed.’

  ‘Are you sure it works? This is the Russians we’re talking about. Maybe they’ve already penetrated some local elections and are just pretending they want to steal it to make you think they’re frightened of it.’

  Fisher shook her head. ‘No. We know The Sentinel works. It’s already stopped twelve attempts in six different states. Plus we have a source who’s confirmed the Russians don’t believe they can defeat it. They weren’t too worried because they have an agent in place to steal it. Then panic set in because a record of some kind surfaced here that could lead to his exposure.’

  ‘I heard the town archive burned down.’

  ‘It did. The Russians did that. They’re also behind the ransomware attack that cost Rutherford his job. Evidently they wanted to shut down the new digital archive before it could go online.’

  ‘The town’s going to pay to get it unlocked. It had insurance. Why not wait until it’s up and running again, and go through it with a fine-tooth comb?’

  ‘The town might pay, but that archive is never going to see the light of day. I guarantee you that. Not all of it, anyway. Not the part we need.’

  ‘Rutherford figured out that some system he built might have captured the identity of whoever ran the ransomware attack. He thought that’s what someone wanted to get from him.’

  ‘Not possible. We know it was the Russians. The Russians know we know. And they want us to know, frankly. Every successful attack is them giving us the finger.’

  ‘I spoke to a guy yesterday at the courthouse. He said he was an agent with Homeland Security. Infrastructure Protection. He had a theory that Rutherford had colluded with the attacker.’

  ‘Agent Wallwork? He’s my partner. Sorry for the deception. We were hoping Rutherford might have somehow revealed what the item is. Or where it is. No. The panic’s about whatever can unmask their agent. That’s definite.’

  ‘In that case, how much do you know about a guy named Henry Klostermann?’

  ‘Who lives at the so-called Spy House? Don’t even think of going there. It’s such an obvious coincidence but we checked it out anyway. Those original guys from the fifties weren’t KGB agents. Just misguided citizens giving secrets to people they thought were their friends. They did some serious damage when they were in Los Alamos but nothing at all while they were here. They moved on after two years and defected soon after because they felt the noose beginning to close. They’re both dead now. They never married. They had no illegitimate offspring. No cousins. No other family that we know of. And they weren’t members of any parties or groups that might be looking to carry on their work.’

  ‘So there’s no connection to Klostermann other than the address?’

  ‘No. None. Why?’

  ‘I met him this morning. I think he’s looking for the same thing you are.’

  ‘You know what the thing is?’

  ‘Possibly. A computer thing. A server. It has a preliminary copy of part of the town archive on it.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Why didn’t you say so before?’

  ‘I didn’t know about the agent and The Sentinel before. Klostermann said he wanted it for a different reason.’

  ‘What reason?’

  ‘Some family tree project, he claimed. It didn’t quite ring true. I think he’s trying to hide something.’

  ‘How does he know about this server?’

  ‘He said he hired Toni Garza, the journalist who was murdered, to dig up some property records going back to when his father immigrated. She found out that when the town started putting the archive on the computer they were using this server. It turned out to be too small so they switched it for a larger one, and Rutherford as IT manager took it back into stock for some future use.’

  ‘When did Garza start working for Klostermann?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly.’

  ‘But before the archive burned down?’

  ‘Yes. She started searching the paper records, then was going to use the online archive, then contacted Rutherford as some kind of Hail Mary, hoping he still had the server.’

  ‘This is finally starting to make sense. She must have found something in the records. Realized the significance and tried to report it. Or just mentioned it to the wrong person without even knowing its importance.’

  ‘Or the Russians could have had some kind of tripwire in place. Something to alert them if anyone was close to finding whatever they wanted
to keep hidden. They’re not reckless. They’d know that one document sitting unnoticed amongst how many – thousands? millions? – in a dusty old archive would attract less attention than a fire.’

  ‘Either way, Rutherford needs to hand over that server. Like, yesterday.’

  ‘That’s a logical request. But it’s impossible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Rutherford doesn’t know where the server is.’

  Fisher turned and slammed her palm against the wall. ‘Damn. Are you sure?’

  Reacher nodded. ‘He already tried to get it back.’

  ‘How did Klostermann account for his project getting someone killed?’

  ‘He claimed Garza wasn’t working for him exclusively. Said she had a bunch of projects on the go. Blamed her death on some hoodlums from Nashville that she’d been sniffing around.’

  ‘But you didn’t believe him.’

  ‘I’m not saying he killed her. I’m not saying he’s working for the Russians. But I know when someone’s hiding something.’

  ‘I’ll have my people take another look at him. The organization is so compartmentalized you could be married to the local Russian contact and not know it.’

  ‘I get that.’

  ‘And Rutherford? Not knowing where the server is? Are you sure he’s telling the truth?’

  ‘I am. It turns out he used the server for some other project and—’

  ‘Tell me he didn’t wipe it.’

  ‘No. He didn’t. Don’t worry. Before the ransomware attack he pressed the town to buy a backup system for all the computers. They wouldn’t come up with the cash so he tried to build one of his own out of spare parts. It was supposed to overwrite whatever was on the server, but that didn’t happen. That’s how he knew it had failed. He was so mad about it he threw all the equipment in the trash.’

  ‘He’s got to get it back.’

  ‘He’s trying.’

  ‘Why? To give it to Klostermann?’

  ‘No. He thinks the server can help with another thing he’s working on. He wants it back for himself.’

  ‘Can you help him find it?’

  ‘Can’t you? With all the resources of the Bureau?’

  ‘No.’ Fisher shook her head. ‘If the Russians latch on to a bunch of federal agents searching the local trash heaps they’ll know where to look. We have to keep this under the radar. Give it another couple of days. Please.’

  ‘What difference will a couple of days make? The election is weeks away. Rutherford can find the server on his own and figure out a way to get a copy to you. He’s a smart guy.’

  ‘It’s not that simple. For a start, the election. Yes, it’s a while away. But for thirty days leading up to it there’s what’s called a systems freeze. Nothing computer related can be changed in any way. It’s the same kind of thing the credit card companies and online retailers do heading into Black Friday and Christmas. It makes sure no one loads new software which turns out not to work properly and screws everything up at their most critical time. So, if we can’t positively confirm that The Sentinel hasn’t been compromised before then, we have a real problem. And if – when – we get our hands on Rutherford’s server we don’t even know what we’re looking for. There could be thousands of documents on there, and I very much doubt one of them will be labelled Identity of Russian Spy. All kinds of cross-referencing will be needed. Lateral thinking. Reading tea leaves and casting chicken bones, probably. So the bottom line, like I said, is we need that thing yesterday.’

  ‘I’ll tell Rutherford to search quickly. And anyway, how many trash heaps can there be in a town this size?’

  ‘Finding the server’s not the only problem. You said you care about keeping Rutherford safe.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The original plan was for us to snatch Rutherford. He’d give up the item – the server, as we now believe – or its location and then, overcome by shame and depression after losing his job and bearing the blame for the ransomware attack, he would kill himself. I’m the senior operative so it would have been me who staged it. Obviously I’d have made sure Rutherford walked away. Only before that could happen you arrived and put half the team on the disabled list. The rest of us have been switched to surveillance only. A new guy is being brought in to finish the job. A specialist, from Moscow. He’ll outrank me. So if you leave and he gets his hands on Rutherford, there may be nothing I can do about it.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Reacher drove the six miles from the factory to the town with six words on his mind.

  Forty eight hours. And Need to know.

  The issue of timing was the more straightforward, in a conceptual sense. They had a two-day window to operate with relatively little interference while Fisher’s cell was restricted to surveillance. After that things would get more difficult. The offensive would resume. Reinforcements would arrive. A specialist. From Moscow. Outranking Fisher. With unknown capabilities. But certainly unsympathetic to Rutherford. Which meant that if they were going to retrieve the server and turn it over to the FBI it would be advantageous to do so before the new guy got his feet on the street.

  The issue of secrecy was more difficult to resolve. It brought practical considerations into play. Back when Reacher had run the 110th MP Special Investigation Unit he had tended to be open with his people. Sometimes more open than he should have been. More open than his superior officers would have liked, anyway. If they’d known. But Reacher trusted his team. He had hand-picked each of them. He had worked with them. He could predict how each of them would respond in any given situation. And besides, when you were dealing with the likes of Frances Neagley, trying to keep anything hidden was a fool’s errand. Reacher liked Rutherford. He had no wish to keep him in the dark. Not just for the sake of it. But he didn’t know him in the same way. Rutherford had already expressed a reluctance to let the authorities have the server. His eye was on the prize he thought his Cerberus system could win for him. Reacher was fairly certain he would change his mind if he understood the full implications. The Sentinel. The integrity of the election. The Russians. Discord and division. But there was no way to bring him into the picture without revealing that there was an agent in place in one of the Russian cells. Or at least implying it. And if something went wrong and Rutherford fell into the Russians’ hands there would be no way he could avoid spilling that information. Either now, or later if they came back to run some kind of post-mortem into what went wrong with their operation. When Reacher wouldn’t be around to watch out for him.

  When Reacher got back to Mitch’s apartment he realized that he needn’t have worried about instilling any sense of urgency into the other two. The lure of the almighty dollar had taken care of that for him. Sands had started digging first thing that morning but she’d turned up nothing useful, so Rutherford had taken up the baton. He had started trawling through the files on his laptop the moment Reacher left for the factory. He found the minutes of a Heads of Department meeting he must have dozed through the previous month. One of the agenda items had been the town’s refuse contract, and a follow-up note confirmed it had been renewed for another year with a local company. Warhurst’s Waste-Away Express. He Googled their contact information and Sands called their office. She said she was writing a story about responsible refuse management for The Tennessean. She had to try four different people before she found someone who believed her. But she did finally manage to finesse the information they needed. The town’s surplus or obsolete electronic equipment was separated from the regular trash. Then it was sent for recycling at a facility eleven miles west of town. She and Rutherford were on the verge of leaving to investigate the place when Reacher arrived at the door.

  Reacher didn’t like the sound of a recycling plant. It conjured visions of equipment being dismantled and harvested for parts. Or melted down. Or crushed. Or pulped. Or otherwise rendered useless. He sensed the prospect of retrieving the server in serviceable condition receding into the distance, which at least made his
second decision easier. He figured there was no need to mention what he had learned about its contents, or who needed to see it. Not at this stage. Not until they found out for sure whether the thing still existed.

  ‘There’s dirt on your shoes,’ Sands said when Reacher joined her and Rutherford in the elevator. ‘And on your pants legs. So you must have showed up at the factory. But it’s not noon yet. So you didn’t wait. What happened? What brought you to your senses?’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ Reacher said. ‘I got there early, as planned. The opposition showed up, as expected. But only one of them this time. And she didn’t hang around very long.’

  ‘Why only one of them?’ Sands said. ‘And why didn’t she wait? At least until the appointed time, to see if you even took the bait. It makes no sense.’

  ‘Maybe she got a message calling her away,’ Rutherford said. ‘Like yesterday. Maybe the doorman thought he saw me leaving and texted in a wrong report.’

  ‘Sounds plausible,’ Reacher said. ‘But who really knows why anything happens?’

  Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. That was a mantra Reacher was familiar with. The first two parts he was personally acquainted with. Because of his mother. She was a kid during World War II and grew up in France during the occupation. Food was in short supply. All kinds of essentials were. Clothes. Shoes. Fuel. If something ran out or wore out or was lost or broken or stolen it may never have gotten replaced. Recycling was a different story, though. There hadn’t been much of a role for it at the military bases that Reacher grew up on all around the world. As far as he knew. It may have gone on behind the scenes at West Point during his four years there, but if so he hadn’t been aware of it. He’d had other things on his mind. So his concept of it was very much a product of his imagination. He pictured it as something new and high tech, involving shiny modern plants with advanced equipment and lots of automation. Maybe even robots.