A bullhorn whined outside. “You are surrounded.”
“If I go, we all get caught,” Shepard said. “Don’t make me insist. Playing noble doesn’t really suit me.”
“Morgan, Conley, Lily, Alex,” said Bloch. “You go. We’re going to need you on the outside. Karen. You go with them.”
“What about you?” Karen asked.
“Come out with your hands up!”
“I’m staying,” Bloch said. “You’re all more useful than I’m going to be.” Bloch wrote down a number on a pad of paper. “Get in touch with Smith.” She handed it to Karen O’Neal, who glanced at it, then folded it up and held it out to Morgan.
“I’ve already memorized it,” she said. “Diversify your risks.”
Alex spoke up. “Someone’s going to check, right? They’re going to see that whatever reason they’re arresting you for is bogus—aren’t they?”
“On a terrorism case, I’m afraid it won’t be soon enough,” said Bloch. “If we’re caught, it’ll be weeks at the minimum before any one of us sees the light of day.”
“I repeat, come out with your hands up!”
Lisa opened the front door, both hands raised, holding her badge in her right. “Lisa Frieze, FBI!” she called out. “I am in contact with the suspects inside. They are going to come out peacefully!”
“Time for you to go,” said Bloch.
Morgan hustled Alex down the stairs to the basement. Conley had taken the lead and was already holding open a wooden panel that held a set of tools and swiveled upward to reveal the secret tunnel. Alex ran headlong into the darkness to the sound of heavy boots invading the house upstairs.
Chapter 98
It was dark by the time Morgan pulled the van up to the parking lot of a rundown roadside motel right off the highway, bordered by forest on three sides. He sent Alex to get the keys to the rooms because among them she was the only one who wasn’t wanted by the FBI. Not even sleazy motels were too keen on harboring terrorists.
Alex got two adjoining rooms for the five of them. They shuffled inside, watching for anyone who might see them. They congregated in the same room, which looked like every other cheap motel room in the country—two hard beds with dirty, sticky bedspreads, peeling wallpaper, an ancient TV on a stand, bad art hanging on the wall.
All were so exhausted that they collapsed in place, forming a rough circle, Lily and Karen on the beds, Morgan on the single chair, and Alex on the grimy carpet.
Conley walked in from the adjoining room. “I spoke to Smith. Bloch and Shepard are safe in custody, but it’ll be some time before they’re free. He’s working on lifting our warrants.” He cleared his throat. “Most of the CIA prisons were evacuated in time after Praetorian’s leak. All but one. Smith wouldn’t say where, but it got swarmed by militias. All the prisoners were released. The guards were executed.”
The group was unresponsive. They looked like a group of shell-shocked soldiers, with deep bags under their eyes, faces drained of blood, blank expressions. O’Neal was gnawing on her fingernails. His daughter was nursing a burn on her right hand he hadn’t noticed before.
Morgan broke the silence. “We’re running like rats,” he said. “And all that running gets us is that we’re chased into an even worse corner. We need to stop running and start attacking.”
“Great, in theory,” said Lily. She had washed her face, and this was maybe the first time Morgan had seen her without makeup on. “I’m all for it. Now what does it mean? What do we do? We’ve got an enemy that always seems to know where we are but we can’t seem to find even with all our resources, let alone like this. And whatever we throw at him, he’s not only ready for, but uses it against us. What do we do?”
“I say we sleep,” said O’Neal, who was barely holding her eyelids open. “We can’t make good decisions in this state.”
“I want a plan,” he said. “Or a shred of something. Anything that will put us on the offensive.”
“Simon,” Alex said.
“Who?” asked Lily.
“Simon. My friend. The one I pushed to join the Ekklesia with me. The recruiting front for the Legion. He sent me a message. He wants out. He’s scared. He could be our way to Praetorian.”
“We tried that with you, remember?” said Conley.
“That was different. They found me out because of Dad. And I didn’t know anything then, no inside information. But Simon—whatever they’re planning, they’re going to be using him.”
“The kid has a point,” said O’Neal, who had given up trying to sit up, and now lay in bed with her eyes closed.
“As long as you know how to contact him,” said Lily. “It wouldn’t be much use to us if he couldn’t find us.”
“I already have,” she said. Morgan didn’t like this at all. More secrets she’d been keeping. More lies. “He wants help. Which I think means he might be able to help us.”
“What do you think?” asked Conley, addressing Morgan, who understood it was about more than just finding Praetorian.
“If it’s our best plan, then it’s the best plan,” he said.
“But on one condition,” said Alex. “If we go through Simon, I want to make sure he’s safe. I don’t want to use people anymore.”
“That isn’t always an option,” said Morgan.
“There is no other option,” she said. “I’m making this the only one. If we use Simon, we help him as much as we’d do one of ours.” She raised her voice to address the group. “Does anyone have a problem with that?”
If anyone did, they didn’t speak up.
“All right,” she said. “I need a computer.”
Conley spoke as Alex wrote her message. “No matter what, if we’re going up against the Legion, we need someone who knows their way around a computer,” said Conley. “We’re up against impossible odds. If they have that large of an advantage over us, there’s no hope.
Lily stood up. “I have an idea who we can call.”
Chapter 99
Bruce Ansley was having one of his headaches. This one was so bad he could barely drive straight. The night before had ended in a screaming match between him and Annemarie. Cory was sleeping over at a friend’s house, but Pam had heard everything and gave him the cold shoulder that morning.
Anger was welling up in him, fueled by the pain in his head, and in his mind it found his usual targets. Annemarie, the nag. Pam, the ungrateful little brat. He’d have words with them today. Oh, he’d tell them exactly what they were.
He called in sick and turned the car around to head home. Through the headache, the familiar anxiety pestered him. The post office. He had to stop at the post office.
He opened the post office box, prepared to give it his usual glance to confirm that it was empty, and that the day he never expected had not come, again.
But this time, it was different. This time, there was a package.
He reached out, hand shaking, and took it. It wasn’t large, maybe the size of a children’s lunchbox. It wasn’t heavy, either. But it now was his whole life and carried the weight of the world.
Dazed, he sat in his car and opened the box. Inside, in foam padding, was a smaller case made of aluminum and a letter, which he opened and read.
The day had come. He couldn’t escape anymore. It was here, it was now.
At least, he thought through the pain, it would be the end.
Chapter 100
Centurion sat in his 1979 Buick in the parking lot of the roadside motel. He pulled up next to the van and cut the engine. No need to hide here, not now. No cameras, no electronics. And Praetorian had other things on his mind.
All he had to do was walk up to that room door and knock. It was early, and because it was winter the sun still hadn’t risen and the morning was still dark. But they wouldn’t turn anyone away with the kind of information he had.
He got out of the car. His shoes hit the gravel, and the moment he stood, someone slammed the car door shut against him, pinning his chest betwee
n it and the chassis, and grabbed and twisted his left arm.
“I’m clean!” he protested, wind knocked out of him. “You want money? I’ll give you money.”
“I want answers.” The Boston accent. The in-your-face tone. And Centurion finally got a good look at his face.
“You’ve been here eyeing that room for an awful long time, buddy. What are you looking for here?”
“Dan Morgan. And I think I just found him.”
Morgan pulled on Centurion’s arm harder. “You’ve just made this a lot more dangerous for yourself.”
“Wait! I-I come in peace.”
“You have five seconds to tell me who you are. This is not a good day to test me.”
“My name—they call me Centurion. I’m a lieutenant in the Legion.”
Morgan gritted his teeth and twisted his arm harder.
“No! I’m here to help. I want to help you stop him.”
“I’m not just going to trust you on this one,” he said. “Why today?”
“They’ve gone off the rails, the whole group. Praetorian, he—I guess he’s always been crazy. I just never realized what kind of crazy he is. How far he’s willing to go.” Morgan eased the force on his arm. “I joined the group because I wanted to do good. I wanted justice.”
Some birds cawed overhead.
“You believed in his freedom and openness crap?”
“With every fiber of my being. And I fell under his spell. Here was someone who didn’t only want to talk. He wanted to do something—ambitious things. Things that could bring down the whole system. And until recently, I never had a question about the righteousness of what we were doing. About why Praetorian did what he did.”
“And you just changed your mind?”
“Would you believe it if I told you it was about a girl?”
“Oh, brother.” Morgan took some weight off the door and released his arm. “All right. Let’s get inside and we’ll talk.”
Chapter 101
Morgan roused everyone who was still asleep and they all gathered in the room he was sharing with Conley. He sat Centurion on the bed by the bathroom wall and the rest sat in a semicircle around him. The Zeta operatives seemed tense, like they might jump for a gun as soon as he did anything suspicious.
Morgan was the wariest among them. This could be a trap. Praetorian was elaborate in his plans, that much he knew. But what would’ve been the point? He’d already sent the police after them. For all he knew, Morgan could be caught at any moment. And if Centurion came to him, Praetorian could just as easily have dispatched an assassin. “Get talking,” he said.
Centurion fussed with his hands. He seemed uncomfortable with the attention. “I’m not very good at public speaking.”
Morgan rolled his eyes. “What’s Praetorian’s endgame?”
“You know he has the secret government data from the prison ship,” Centurion said. “Well, that’s only half the plan. He wants to deal a death blow to the US government. It’ll be a two-pronged attack.”
“He’s using the Ekklesia cells to carry out his plan,” said Alex.
“No. They are just a distraction.”
“Who are these cells?” asked Lily.
“People like your daughter and her friend. People who were fed up. Who were leading meaningless lives in a system they no longer had faith in. People who wanted to be part of something greater than themselves.”
“Why don’t these people ever join Habitat for Humanity or something?” said Karen O’Neal. “Why does it always have to be terrorism?”
“Praetorian has a way of bringing people to see things as he does. There’s something about him. A strange and powerful charisma. It doesn’t matter why they joined in the first place. He will convince them that they did the right thing. They—at least most of them—will join the team as if this had been the plan all along. And they’ll love him for it.”
Lily snorted in disdain. “People are not that stupid.”
“I’ve seen it done on a smaller scale,” said Centurion. “You’d be surprised how much you can convince someone to do, thinking that it’s the right thing.”
“I would know,” Alex said. Morgan winced.
“What’s their plan?” he asked.
“They’re planting what they think are smoke bombs at various national landmarks. It’s supposed to make a point about national security. Except the bombs Praetorian is giving them will be real explosives.”
“No,” Alex cried out. Then she whispered, “Simon.”
“But you said that’s a sideshow,” said Morgan. “A distributed attack gets every counterterrorism government agency working on overdrive, resources worn thin.”
“Exactly,” said Centurion. “It’s the perfect moment to deliver his real blow. I take it you know that Praetorian let himself get caught?”
“Yes,” said O’Neal. “He wanted to get the secure data through the ship’s computer system.”
“That’s only half the plan. You see, he didn’t come back alone from the prison ship. He brought someone else with him and left the evidence to blow up and sink to the bottom of the ocean.”
Morgan furrowed his brow. Not good. “Who?”
“In the early eighties, the Soviet Union began a program to embed sleeper agents in the US. They were brought in as children, posing as Bosnian refugees. Nine children. They would grow up here until they were adults, raised to follow whatever orders came to them, when they came. There was one man who was responsible for all of them.”
The image of the old Russian prisoner came back to Morgan. “Sergey.”
Centurion nodded. “Kuklovod.”
“Was that his name?” asked Morgan.
“No. It means—”
“Puppetmaster,” said Karen O’Neal.
“Excuse me,” said Lily, “but who?”
“He was a KGB agent, responsible for this program. The only one who knew the identities of the nine sleeper agents in the US. He was caught by the CIA in 1992. Subjected to interrogation and torture over this entire time. He never broke.”
“And now he’s with Praetorian,” said Lily. “Is he talking?”
“More than that. He’s collaborating.”
“What’s his plan?” asked Conley.
“Praetorian is keeping his cards close to his chest,” Centurion said. “Nobody but he and Sergey know the identities of the sleeper agents, or what they’re supposed to do. But whatever it is, it’s going to be big.”
“How do we stop him?” asked Morgan.
Centurion shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Heck if I know. But I’ll tell you this. Show people who he is, and his followers—the cells—will abandon him.”
“How do we do that, if we don’t even know who he is?” said O’Neal.
“Because I know his name. His real name. Park Jeongwoo. Look for him, and you’ll find out who he is.” He looked out the window, blinking his eyes in a nervous tic. “I need to go. He’ll notice if I’m missing for too long. I’m already taking a huge risk being here.” He gathered his coat. “Find the sleeper agents. Find the cells. Don’t let him win.”
Morgan opened the door for him. As he walked out, Morgan put his hand on his shoulder. “Just one question. Why did you come to me?”
“He told me about you,” Centurion said. “He seemed to respect you. He never respects anyone. I think it says something about who you are.”
Morgan watched through the window as Centurion pulled out and drove away.
“This place isn’t safe,” he said. “We have to move out.”
Chapter 102
“That’s him,” said Lily. She saw the white Lexus when it turned into the parking lot, mostly because she couldn’t help looking out the window, waiting for Scott to arrive.
Another day, another motel. Different color carpet, different wallpaper, but everything else just about the same. Lily pined for Europe, where any old roadside inn might be up to a few hundred years old, each carrying its wonderful little idiosyn
crasies.
Morgan, Conley, and Alex were out trying to buy cars from dealers who weren’t particular about documentation. O’Neal was tapping at her computer in the other room. She wasn’t much of a people person, but on hearing this she came to the door that adjoined the two bedrooms. It made Lily wonder what kind of reputation Scott had among those who knew something about cybersecurity.
Lily opened the door before he could knock and threw her arms around him.
“I hadn’t had a welcome like that since my dog died.”
Lily gave a playful slap against his round face. “Arse.”
“H-hi,” O’Neal stammered. “I’m Karen. I do computer stuff, too—I’m an analyst. A big fan of your work.”
Lily watched with amusement as Karen tried to finesse the situation with the social graces of a jackhammer. She waved Scott inside and shut the door.
“What’s your area?”
“Data crunching,” she said. “Probabilistic models and machine learning, mostly. As applied to defense and intelligence. I’ve actually been running an algorithm now that I’d like your input on.”
“Maybe you can fill me in first,” he said, setting his case down on the bed. “Lily said you needed my help pretty desperately.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say desperately . . .”
They sat opposite each other on the beds and O’Neal gave him the rundown, tripping over her own words, with Lily adding the occasional aside in edgewise.
“So, to be clear,” he said. “We’re looking for a handful of sleeper agents no one’s heard from in twenty or more years, an unknown number of terrorist cells, and a guy no one has been able to find, ever, except on the one occasion when he wanted us to?”
“That’s the gist of it,” said Lily.
He drew his computer from its sleeve and booted it up. “Let’s get to it then.” He set up the laptop on the table across from O’Neal’s. “I’m going to log in through our system.”
“I am setting up search parameters to identify him by his name,” said O’Neal. “That’s Park Jeongwoo.”
“I’m going to use my computer to relay access to our systems to you,” he said. “You can load your parameters onto our algorithms to run on our servers to speed up the process by, oh, some five thousand percent.”
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