“You were attacked by an enemy who stops at nothing . . . Hell, they even tried to blow up Saint Pats.”
“I exposed our flank. I didn’t assess the threat properly.”
“You’re right. You fouled up on this one, Burrell.”
“I know.”
“I want a full report of this debacle, pending disciplinary action.”
It was a bitter pill, but Brooke totally understood the need to write this up, even against her own best interests. “Will do, sir. I’ll start on it right away.”
“No you won’t. You’ll start on it the day after you thwart this attack.”
A small grin started to escape from her mouth but the nineteen dead pulled it back. “Thank you for the show of confidence in me, sir.”
“Hell, you’ve earned it.” He stood up to leave. “Let me know whatever you need.”
“Sir, I need you to support my recommendation to the president that he initiate Archangel.”
“I never heard of this.”
“It’s being drawn up now. You’ll have a copy as soon as I do. It will give us a fighting chance to stop or at least limit whatever is coming our way.”
“Do you like this plan?”
“Yes, sir. And more importantly my chief of military operations is drawing it up.”
“Send it to me. I am already predisposed to like it.”
“Will do. And again, thank you for the confidence, sir.”
“I’ll get out of your hair. Good luck and carry on.” He smiled a reassuring smile and left.
Brooke sat in the empty office and looked down at the folder on her desk. It was the death benefits forms for each of the agents and staff that had been killed. As director of the group, she had to sign the forms so that the families could get burial and life insurance payouts. With a deep breath she opened it. The government bureaucrats that would process the forms would have to deal with occasional tear-smudged ink on a few of the pages.
Chapter 37
Yogi Moose
Wallace Beesly was an analyst working for Graystone Equities. He was a frequent guest on the various business shows that populated the cable networks. He had predicted many stock market trends in the past, and with each successful prediction gained more and more stature as a go-to analyst on the street.
Beesly, who had originally trained as a mainframe programmer back in the 80s, used his ability to write routines and algorithms to do predictive analysis that was rich in data points and therefore very accurate. Still, the markets responded to random elements such as the human psyche versus groupthink or, more specifically, human greed against fiscal conservatism. So logical trajectories or trends only got you so far. It was human panic or euphoria that had the last say in the direction and outcome of any given event, day, or era of the markets.
He had just finished his next big research paper entitled “Trends Out of Municipal Bonds and Infrastructure Stocks.” Before him on the screen was three weeks of analysis, now in the form of a chart. The curve was unmistakable. Someone, some huge institutional investor had, over the years, taken major positions in all these sectors and now, quietly, over time, placed put and call contracts on the very same portfolios.
He decided to see if this was unprecedented or cyclical in some nature so he wrote a program in C, his favorite code, to interrogate the vast database of every move in stock market history and find any similar dumping or pumping in the past.
It was about one hundred and twenty lines of code. When he hit “compile,” the progress line was quickly calculating hours and hours for the program to complete, so he got up and went downstairs to Dunkin Donuts for a double turbo-shot cup of brew.
.G.
2 days until the attack
Paul arrived in Dearborn, Michigan, at 1:00 a.m. He flew commuter from Westchester County Airport in New York. He was met by a man who drove him an hour into the woods, where his ten-man “First Team” facility defense unit was armed and ready to show him what they had trained for.
Each night-vision-capable man had a MP5 machine gun and seven hundred rounds of ammo. They each carried four grenades and two smoke canisters on their webbing. They had all seen action in Afghanistan; the older ones had battled against both the Russians and Americans. Two of them were released detainees, having been inmates at Guantanamo Bay eighteen months before; they had eluded their trackers and slipped over the Mexican border into Texas. They relished the opportunity to become martyrs in this grand act of God that would bring the Great Satan to its knees.
Paul watched as they exhibited excellent shooting and counter-insurgency skills. He turned to their leader and said, “Your men are ready. Move your operation to New York. Soon the great victory will be upon us.”
For his part, the team leader thought Paul an infidel. Although he had converted to the faith, he was too . . . too . . . “white bread,” as he understood the American term. But Dequa had made this American the man in charge, and the team leader was duty bound by oath to obey Dequa’s man rather than slit his throat.
.G.
At 5:30 a.m., Remo and Kronos were running simulations across Bill Hiccock’s SciAD network. Bill, the science advisor to the president, had established the network as a top-secret cluster of the nation’s leading scientists and technological innovators who’d taken an oath of secrecy to defend America. The name SciAd itself stood for Scientists in America’s Defense.
Using what they knew about the skill sets of the missing “student” visa violators, they played out multiple war games with the brightest minds in America and extracted probables from each run.
So far they had the following odds, denial of service: electrical, thirty-three percent; denial of service: Internet; thirty percent, biological, twelve percent; chemical, twelve percent; nuclear event, three percent; and the ever popular ‘unknown-unknown’ at ten percent. They had until 7:00 a.m., at which time Brooke was expecting to order a heightened alert at whatever entity they felt was vulnerable.
They ran a second set of scenarios, this time tempered by the assumptions that somehow Prescott, and possibly Kitman, had some sort of role as well.
One of the ninety-two element members of the SciAd network wrote back at that point. “If you are considering a financial impact component, one of the best guys I know is Beesly at Graystone. He was one of us before he went over to Wall Street. He’s got a good track record in predicting market events. I’d give him a call and read him in or swear him in or whatever you need to do to get him to cooperate.”
.G.
Yogi Moose’s ears perked up at the low buzzing noise. Yogi Moose was a weird name for a dog, but somehow it’s what the little girl in the shelter had called him. When her mother told her she couldn’t have another dog, the little girl had said goodbye in a way that broke Wallace’s heart. So he’d switched from getting a cat to giving Yogi Moose a good home and rescued the older, dopey-looking dog from the gas chamber.
There was the buzzing sound again. The dog lifted his head. On the third ring he put his paw on his master’s sleeping shoulder. Wallace awoke and squinted at the clock. A fuzzy 6:00 a.m. caused him to sink deeper into the pillow and say in a muffled voice, “Come on, Yogi, I’ll walk you in thirty minutes.”
Then he heard the vibrating phone. Wallace turned over to licks all across his face as he fumbled for the phone. He put his arm around Yogi in that definite way that said, “Calm down. I love you, but daddy’s on the phone right now.” Yogi kept his eyes on Wallace as he panted.
“Hello?”
“Wallace Beesly?’
“Who is this? How did you get my private number?”
“This is Peter Remo with FinCEN. We need you to help us defuse a very dangerous situation.”
“Is this a joke?”
“I assure you this is deadly serious.”
Yogi’s head spun around toward
s the direction of the front door. He yelped and backed out from underneath Wallace’s arm and hit the floor running, barking all the way. The doorbell rang followed by very loud knocks, followed by, “Federal Agents, Mr. Beesly, please open the door.” Followed by more knocking.
“You sent agents to my house?”
“Time is critical, sir. Would you let the agents in? I can’t go into this over an unsecured line.”
“Let them in?”
“Yes and please bring photo ID to the door.”
“Photo ID?”
“Please hurry.”
Wallace swung his feet out of the bed and picked up the bottom part of his sweats from the floor.
He opened the door. Yogi was still barking.
“Sir, please secure your dog.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll just lick you to death.”
“Just the same, I don’t want to have to shoot him if he attacks us.”
“Hold on.” He closed the door. “Come on, Yogi, in the bathroom, come on . . . That’s a good boy.”
He reopened the door.
“Good morning, sir,” the agent said as if they hadn’t just spoken.
“Now you want to be nice to me, after you threatened to shoot my dog?”
“No, I want to see your ID.”
“Shit.” He closed the door again, then went to the dresser and retrieved his wallet.
He opened the door, dangling his driver’s license.
The agent took it, looked at the photo and back at Wallace’s groggy face. “Are you a natural born citizen of the United States?”
“Wha . . . er . . . yeah, Beaumont, Montana. What’s this all . . . ?” He yawned.
“Are you now or have you ever been an agent or representative of a foreign government?”
“No, no, why?”
“Do you affirm or swear that the information you just imparted is the truth?”
“Yeah . . . sure. What’s this all—”
“Hold on, sir.” The agent handed him a phone.
“Hello?” It was the same guy. “Didn’t I just talk to you?”
“This is a secure line. Will you agree to help us?”
“I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but this big guy is ready to shoot my dog, so my immediate answer is ‘go jump in a lake.’”
“Mr. Beesly, this is a national crisis. We need your expertise to avoid what could be a calamity.”
“Something with the stock market?”
“No, bigger. But before I can divulge any further information, you need to tell me that you are willing to help.”
“Two agents with guns and secure phones? And now you’re asking if I am willing . . . You mean I have a choice?”
“Yes sir, this is just a crisis. Had it been deemed a national emergency, you’d be here by now.”
“Where’s here?”
“FBI New York headquarters.”
“You say this is serious?”
“Look at the agents, sir. We went to a lot of trouble to get to you. If you agree, they will drive you back here immediately.”
Wallace pulled the phone away from his ear. He looked down at the floor. Yogi barked from the bathroom. “Hush boy, I’ll let you out in a minute.” He looked down at the phone; he rubbed his eyes and brought it back up to his ear. “Do I have time to feed and walk my dog?”
.G.
“Dequa, all cells and units are ready.”
“Anything on the authorities?”
“As far as we can tell they took the bait on the Yonkers’ house and are looking for leads to Rashad’s truck.”
“Good. We’ll start the countdown at midnight.”
.G.
1 day until the attack
Brooke was startled when the elevator door opened and she came face to face with a mangy mutt. His expressive eyes melted her heart in an instant. She then snapped out of it as George walked by. “George, why is there a dog in the office?”
“Remo and Kronos. Do I have to say more?”
Brooke looked down at the little soul then looked both ways and, seeing the coast was clear, bent down and gave him a pat on the scruff, then tickled him behind his ear. “Thanks for saying, ‘hi,’ to me this morning . . .”
She got up and headed to her office but made a right turn into Kronos and Remo’s. “Fellas, why is there a dog . . . ?”
“Sorry, that’s Yogi, Yogi Moose,” Beesly said.
“You named a dog Yogi Moose?”
“I didn’t, a little girl did.”
“And what did they name you?”
“I’m Wallace Beesly. I just came on this morning . . . very early this morning,” he said with a turn to Remo.
“He didn’t have time to feed him so . . .” Kronos said.
Brooke turned to Remo. “I’m listening.”
“Wallace is an ace at predicting market trends. We got him from a member of Bill’s network.”
“Okay, Wallace, what can you tell us?”
“Not much, but in a few seconds the routine I started yesterday will finish its final nested sort and then I might have something.” He walked over to one of the two-screen computers on the table that flanked the other side of the room Remo and Kronos had taken over. “I was able to log on to my main frame at work. And . . . here it is. Just finished.”
Brooke looked on as Wallace entered keystrokes in a flurry.
Kronos walked over and read the screen. “Sweet. Why’dja write it in C?”
“C language, best there ever was . . .”
“Hey, I like this guy,” Kronos said turning to Brooke and jacking his thumb in Wallace’s direction.
Brooke saw his face change as he leaned in closer and hit more keys. “Oh, God.”
“What?” everyone else said at once.
“I entered parameters yesterday for a finding I was doing on put and calls.”
“Why?” Brooke said.
“I had a working theory that someone or some entity was quietly buying up sector stocks; I thought it might be a prelude to a corporate takeover, which is always big news. So I wrote some code to interrogate the data base and see if a similar pattern of moves had happened before any major takeovers or mergers in the past.”
“And?” Brooke said to the guy who was once again glued to the screen. “. . . And?”
“And now, what with the phone call this morning and this . . .” He stopped again.
Brooke realized he was talking about what had popped up on the screen so she got closer to it. “What’s this?”
“My graph showing peak times when major moves happened correlated to big takeovers and mergers.”
“Yeah, I got that, what was the ‘Oh God’ for . . .”
“Oh, God. There were ten times when the peak happened, but this one here is third-quarter fiscal year 2001.”
“Third . . . that would be September.”
“2001!” Kronos said.
“Holy shit,” Remo said.
The moment hung.
“Can you give us a time frame, between the activity and the event?” Kronos asked.
“Working on it,” Wallace said as he hammered more keys. “Oh, my God.”
“Wallace . . .” Brooke said impatiently.
“Sorry, today, tomorrow, maybe the day after, but the indexes are converging in the next twelve to twenty-four hours. Like they did here on 9/10,” he said pointing to a place where four colored lines converged on his chart.
“How accurate is this?”
“The data is perfect. Whether my extrapolation has flaws, well, that I’d have to recheck.”
“Kronos, this is your wheelhouse; help him. Let me know if this is real, ASAP.
“Peter, what did you guys come up with overnight?”
“Got it all printe
d up, right here.”
“Grab a cup of coffee and be in my office in two minutes. Oh, and get yourself one too.”
Remo smiled. “Good morning to you, too.”
.G.
When Brooke got to her office, there was a legal document on her desk. It was a notice to appear. She read it and decided to give it to George. Then she picked up the phone. “Secure line, POTUS, emergency interrupt, director level, Transistor.”
She unconsciously smoothed her blouse and ran her fingers through her hair. She looked at her watch. At this time of the morning her interruption would be right in the middle of the presidential daily briefing given to him by the Director of National Intelligence. Appropriate, she thought.
After a few clicks and beeps the connection was made.
“Brooke, you caught me in the middle of the PDB. What’s up?”
“Sir, we have reason to believe we are on a twelve- to twenty-four-hour clock relative to the attack.”
“What is the basis of your assessment, Brooke?”
“Financial chatter, sir. We believe that the financial market’s play is coordinated to cash in on the attack. And sir, we believe it all ties in to Morgan Prescott, Barry Kitman, and probably Warren Cass.”
“Believe?”
“I trust my people, sir. Many of the indices are tracking exactly like Sept 10, 2001.”
“So you are sure?”
“I wouldn’t risk getting on the bad side of the DNI for busting up his briefing if I weren’t, sir.”
“Okay, Brooke, what do you want?”
“Sir, in two minutes your military aide will receive a briefing package on a contingency plan I ordered drawn up. Its code name is Archangel, and it calls for three joint military rapid reaction forces to be deployed at three strategic points in and around the city. Since we still don’t know the nature and scope of the attack, they will be within two-minutes flight time to any part of the five boroughs.”
“US Troops? In New York City? Brooke, I’d have to invoke some serious statutes.”
“I know, sir, but it’s the fastest, best chance we have to respond, if not disrupt the terrorist’s plans.”
Give Us This Day Page 33