Arch Enemy

by Leo J. Maloney

  Strickland read from a printout.

  The locations of all US military black sites and all data regarding secret and clandestine operations will be released to the public. Everyone will know all your dirty little secrets.

  “It’s bluster,” said Morgan. “They’ve got nothing.”

  “I’d entertain that notion,” said Strickland. “But he sent us a taste of what he had. A small cache of documents. It’s . . . troubling.” He cleared his throat. “We now believe that Praetorian allowed himself to be caught. We believe that his purpose was to gain access to certain highly privileged information.”

  “I thought he already had access to everything through Blackrot,” said O’Neal.

  “Not everything. The most secret government information runs through different networks and security protocols. It’s impossible to get to them through regular connections. The only way to access it is—”

  “At a government black site,” said Morgan.

  “That’s right.”

  Morgan swore. “What did he get?”

  Strickland balked.

  “What did he get?”

  “The locations of all US secret holding facilities,” said Strickland. “Along with the agents who work there, the identities of the prisoners, interrogation techniques, and complete records of our black ops initiatives, including false flag operations, assassinations—you know the game, Agent. If this were released, we could expect riots. It would be pure anarchy. Terrorism would prevail.”

  A pall of silence fell over the room.

  “We’ve already taken steps to remove the prisoners, but this creates a serious vulnerability in itself.”

  “Can’t we stop them from releasing it?” asked Bloch.

  Shepard broke in. “Not without shutting the whole Internet down.”

  Bloch looked at Strickland for an answer.

  “We looked into it. He’s right. There are countless avenues of decentralized communication on the Internet. Once it’s out, it’s out.”

  Morgan spoke up. “This is bigger than us.”

  Strickland furrowed his brow. All eyes were on him.

  “We need everything on this. The CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the entire Department of Homeland Security. I’d like to know why you’re here.”

  “Zeta has a track record of—”

  “Because Praetorian said something,” Morgan went on. “During my interrogation. On the last day, right before he made his escape.”

  The color drained from Strickland’s face. “Would you excuse us? Morgan, if you please?” He motioned toward Bloch’s office. Morgan followed him up the stairs, and Strickland closed the soundproof doors, giving them complete privacy from the people below.

  “You’re afraid,” Morgan began. “Of what he might have. That it might damn you.”

  “Listen to me, Morgan.” Sweat beaded on his forehead. “We need to present a united front. We can’t afford division.”

  “You can’t afford it.”

  “Suppose you bring out something damning against me,” said Strickland. “Something that stains my credibility, that of my office, of the entire US military. Is that a victory? Is that good for our country?”

  “The logic of a coward.”

  “You have no idea the decisions that need to be made by a man in my position.” His voice was even, but his pupils were dilated and his breathing shallow. Controlled as he was, Strickland was furious. This was not a man who was used to being questioned.

  “You’re right,” said Morgan. “This isn’t the time. There are more important things in play. For now.”

  He walked out the door. All eyes turned to them as he descended the stairs to the War Room, Strickland following. Each sat down in his own seat.

  “Well?” Morgan said, slapping the table with both hands. “Don’t we have some terrorists to catch?”

  Bloch stood on cue, dispelling the atmosphere of curiosity. “We need to lay out a course of action. I want suggestions. Now.”

  Conley stared at Morgan. They’d been partners for too long, and he could tell that Morgan’s suspicions of Conley were undiminished.

  Karen O’Neal, fidgeting with her hands, spoke first. “If we aggregate all the data of all their activity, we might be able to find patterns that could give us actionable information. We know they’re associated with the Ekklesia now. It gives us a lot more potential data points to work with.”

  “There might be another weak spot,” Lily offered, looking subdued in a black turtleneck and hair in a ponytail. “Anyone we can identify in the organization who might want out or might be willing to make a deal.”

  “Good,” said Bloch. “Keep it coming.”

  Shepard tossed his pen onto the table. “I’m out of ideas.” His boyish face looked aged and pale, and he had dark bags under his eyes. “He’s better than I am. Pure and simple.”

  “This is an enemy beyond any of us.” It was Paul Kirby. His eyes didn’t seem to focus on anything, just stare into the middle distance. “I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true. He’s beat us every step of the way. Everything we’ve done so far has played right into his hands. He’s got not only us but the entire government outclassed.”

  Nobody spoke. The hum of electronic equipment was the only sound. Morgan felt the energy that Bloch had mustered draining from the space.

  Morgan broke the silence. “I remember something the magician Penn Gillette said, ‘Doing magic sometimes just means spending a lot more time on something than anyone would think is reasonable. ’ ”

  O’Neal perked up with interest, the faintest smile glimmering on her face. “I think I know where you’re going with this.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” said Kirby.

  “Praetorian’s a planner,” Morgan continued. “He’s been working on these designs for months, maybe years. Playing the long game. These things have been going off all in a row not because he’s been conjuring them out of nothing, but because he’s been setting up those dominoes for a long, long time. He’s always two steps ahead of us because he started moving long before we did.”

  “How does that help us?” said Kirby. His tone was snippy, his upper lip curled into a sneer. But the others were watching Morgan with interest.

  “We’ve been trying to catch up this whole time. That won’t work. He already has his dominoes all in a row. We need to aim at where he’s going to be. Look at the big picture, figure out where it’s headed, and then knock out the intermediate dominoes. When we do that, the chain reaction stops.”

  “A nice analogy,” said Smith. “But what do we do about it?”

  “He’s set up an entire network of operatives through the Ekklesia,” said O’Neal. “He wouldn’t do that if his ultimate goal was to release sensitive information to the public. This might be part of his plan, but it’s not everything.”

  “So he’s got a different endgame,” said Bloch. “A distributed network suggests that it’s big. He’d be able to pull off an attack on a single target as it is, just like he did the prison ship.”

  “So what are the targets?” broke in Smith.

  “The organization is focused on the powerful,” said O’Neal. “Assassinations of powerful individuals, destruction of property in major corporations, government agencies—”

  “Shepard,” said Bloch. “Look for events coming up that might be targeted.”

  “Oh, I keep an updated spreadsheet.” Shepard dove into his computer.

  “Karen,” said Bloch, “crunch the numbers on the Ekklesia actions. Find me a pattern.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  “And Morgan—”

  The lights flickered.

  “Shepard,” she said. “What’s going on with the system?”

  He frowned. “I have no idea. Let me—”

  The big screen overlooking the table shimmered on. It showed, in extreme close-up, a familiar face. Black hair now groomed, face now clean-shaven, but the dark, penetrating eyes unmistakable.

  Pra
etorian.

  “Hello, Dan Morgan. Good to see you again.”

  Chapter 94

  All watched in dumb silence as the face of the man they were looking for—their bitter enemy—stared down at them from the screen, his face dominating the entire space.

  Praetorian tapped the microphone. “Hello? Is this thing on?”

  “This isn’t possible,” said Shepard. “It just isn’t possible.”

  Morgan looked up at Praetorian, feeling his eyes boring into him, even though the master hacker, of course, wasn’t looking at them through the screen.

  “Shepard,” said Bloch. “Cut him out.”

  Shepard worked at his computer, going a mile a minute. Morgan could barely tell what was happening on his screen, he was opening and closing windows so fast.

  “Don’t bother,” said Praetorian. “You’re beneath me.” Shepard’s computer screen went blank.

  “The heck—”

  “He can see us,” said Morgan. “How can he see us?” He turned to Bloch: “Where are the cameras?”

  “Dan Morgan.” Praetorian’s voice reverberated through the space. “It took me a lot longer to find you than I thought it would. I have to congratulate your security people on that feat. Isn’t that right, Lincoln Nathaniel Shepard?”

  “Screw you!” Shepard screamed, half at his own computer. “What did you do, you bastard? What did you do?”

  “I’m still getting used to my newfound freedom.” The last word was yelled out gleefully. He shook as if in ecstasy. “Still getting back my land legs, you know. The fresh air, the sunlight. I had forgotten how beautiful they can be.”

  “Break the connection!” yelled Bloch. “Cut the network cables if you have to!”

  “Maintenance hall,” said Shepard to himself. He ran into the bowels of the facility, yelling back, “Get me tools! Cable cutters, knives, anything!”

  “You, on the other hand, have your own imprisonment to consider. And here I mean you in particular, General Strickland.”

  Alex walked in from the hallway. “What’s going on?”

  “Enter the daughter!” Praetorian’s voice boomed. “Young Alex, responsible for the death of one of my better captains.”

  “Get out of here,” said Morgan.

  “Trying to hide her? You think I don’t have eyes in every chamber of your little home base?” He emitted his mechanical laugh. “We’ll find the lovely Jenny, too. Now that I have everything I could want from the Project Aegis servers, it’s just a matter of time.”

  Morgan burned with impotent rage.

  General Strickland stepped forward. “What do you want?”

  “From you? To gloat.”

  “You have us in a bind,” said Strickland. “You are in a position where you can make demands of the US government. I can make your case. I can be your voice in the President’s cabinet.”

  “Demands? I don’t have any demands. I need nothing from your murderous government except for it to die. And I don’t need help to make that happen. I make my first move today.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m starting with the locations of all your secret detention facilities. Those have no long-term value—I’m sure they’re already being evacuated. I’m putting that up on the Internet as we speak. YouTube, e-mail, Bittorrent, deep web—it’s massively distributed and you can’t stop it. To answer your question, we are going to do nothing. We will leave it in the hands of the people. Information wants to be free, General Strickland.”

  In the hand of terrorists around the globe, Morgan thought, who want nothing more than to strike this blow at US intelligence.

  “Get the word out,” Strickland demanded. “Alert the CIA.”

  “Won’t work,” said Praetorian. “You’ll never get a single word to the outside. Don’t even bother sabotaging the cables. I have everything I want from your little fly-by-night operation. I’ve done my damage. Now it’s time to say good-bye forever.”

  The screen went black and the lights flickered off. They were plunged into darkness. The whirr of the ventilators and of every other piece of equipment on the premises stopped.

  What remained was the silence of the grave.

  Chapter 95

  Zeta headquarters was dead. That much was clear.

  Alex Morgan strained her eyes to see after the lights went out. The afterimage of Praetorian’s face remained, and for a few seconds she could see nothing else. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that the odd device that ran on batteries provided a hint of illumination, their glow lost in the expansive War Room. All other equipment was unresponsive.

  No one spoke. The faces Alex could make out were somewhere between spooked and defeated.

  “Will somebody do something?” came the voice of General Strickland.

  Bloch stepped in to take charge. “Flashlights first. We can’t do anything in the darkness.”

  “Got it,” said Lily, standing and walking into the tunnels.

  Alex drew her phone and turned on the flashlight function. Karen O’Neal, who also had hers, followed suit.

  “Is there any chance we’ll get a signal down here?” Alex asked.

  “Not one,” said Shepard. “I made sure this place was impregnable. Well . . .” His gaze turned to the big screen, where Praetorian’s face had been.

  Karen checked her reception anyway, with no luck.

  Lily came back in a pool of light, holding a high-powered aluminum-body flashlight in her left hand, three more clutched against her body. Alex’s father helped Lily set them down on the table, then turned one on, facing the ceiling. Light dispersed, just enough to see vague features and outlines.

  “We need to get out of here,” said Strickland.

  “Let me try the elevators,” Lily said, going into the passage under Bloch’s office.

  “Would anyone hear if we shouted, maybe through a pipe?” asked O’Neal.

  “No,” Shepard said. Alex noticed that his attention would turn to his bricked computer every few seconds—she guessed because he was so used to looking at it for answers.

  “How long will our air last down here?” Alex asked.

  “It’ll be at least a week before we run out of oxygen,” said Karen. “Of course, we’ll start dying from CO2 poisoning long before then.”

  “Great.”

  Lily returned in a slow jog. “Elevators are dead, too.”

  “Is there any other way out?” said Morgan. “Shepard, you know this place better than anyone else. Can we open the doors to the stairwell?”

  “I’ll check.” He picked up a flashlight and went down the same passage Lily had come from.

  “The world is burning out there and we’re trapped in here,” said Strickland.

  “Does anyone else smell something funny?” It was O’Neal.

  Alex furrowed her brow and sniffed the air. It was a funny smell, a whiff so tiny that her brain didn’t make the automatic connection to the faint smell of rotten eggs—

  “That’s gas,” said Bloch.

  “Everyone get on higher ground!” said O’Neal.

  “Nobody make a spark,” Morgan said.

  “Up to my office,” Bloch ordered.

  Morgan pushed Alex up first and everyone else followed, filling up the room. The office was spacious, but ten people were still a crowd, even standing against the walls to give each other space. Added to the heat and the anxiety, the constriction was suffocating.

  “This buys us time,” Morgan said. “But not much.”

  “Is there any chance anything in here sparks?” asked Strickland.

  “How is he even doing this?” Alex asked.

  “Every system at Zeta is integrated,” said O’Neal. “He might’ve turned off the pilot light on the water heater.”

  Shepard did some mental math. “It wouldn’t have reached us yet. Not nearly.”

  “He could’ve turned up the pressure,” said O’Neal, frowning, pupils contracting as she did the math in her head. “That might
actually be enough to blow a pipe junction somewhere.”

  She took a sheet of paper from a pad on Bloch’s desk and jotted some numbers by the light of her phone. “If we assume it to be an ideal gas, assume an atmospheric pressure equal to sea level, which is close enough for a Fermi estimate, and ballpark the total internal volume of Zeta at—”

  Alex peeked at the paper. She recognized some of the formulas from high school, but she wouldn’t know how to begin to apply them here. She wondered if maybe she should have paid closer attention in chemistry class.

  O’Neal seemed to come to a final figure, although Alex could barely make out the numbers in her scrawl. “See?”

  “That would give us . . .” Shepard grabbed the pen and ran a few of his own numbers. “We’ll take hours to suffocate in here.”

  “Suppose that’s not what he means to do,” said O’Neal. “Instead, suppose he wants to blow us up. Could he turn on the heater pilot light remotely?”

  Shepard’s face, drained of color, was all the response they needed. “If he burns up the gas now, he won’t get us. He’d wait for the optimal air-to-gas ratio.”

  “Ten to one,” said O’Neal. She scrawled on the paper. “That gives us . . . about ten minutes.”

  Alex’s heart sank.

  “We need a plan,” said Bloch.

  “Where is the gas coming from?” said Alex. “Maybe we can block it off. Somehow.”

  “There’s no way,” said Shepard. “There’s only one access point to the gas pipes, and that’s—the maintenance tunnel! It goes all the way to the garage. Someone might be able to climb up and get out.”

  “You think it’s possible?” said Bloch.

  “It’s a tight fit,” said Shepard. “It needs to be someone small.”

  “That’s me,” said Alex. All eyes went to her father.

  “She is the smallest here,” said Strickland.

  “Do it,” Shepard said.

  Shepard drew her a map, pointing out her path to the tunnel. “Once you’re out,” he said, “Circle back in through the main entrance. You’ll be able to open the stair door from the outside.”

  Bloch opened a drawer and took out a key ring. She drew three keys and put them in Alex’s hand. Two were regular cylinder keys. The third was a tubular key, solid and heavy, of a type she’d never seen before. “The first opens the door to the maintenance tunnel. The second opens the trap door to the garage. Use the third to open the door into Zeta.”