by Fiona Quinn
“Good group,” Finley said, his voice tight. “They pulled us out of the Zoric cesspool.”
Special Agent Chet Talbott shot a glance at Prescott. “But we didn’t contract that, did we?”
“No. A civilian, Lacey Stewart, hired them,” Finley said. “They did their ‘we’re special forces, we got this’ thing.”
“They had it, though, right?” Talbott asked.
Rowan didn’t think Talbott was being a jerk, he wasn’t from their office and probably just didn’t understand that Lacey Stewart had been Finley’s asset, and Finley had almost gotten her killed. Oh, and he’d fallen in love with her, hoping to marry her after the case was wrapped up. But Lacey fell in love with the Iniquus guy who saved her from the terrorist’s bullet. Finley was nursing a broken heart while he was holding his new position as a desk jockey instead of being out in the field where he wanted to be. All in all, it sucked for Finley. But the arrests of almost an entire branch of the Zoric family was huge for the FBI. And Iniquus took zero credit.
Talbott’s brow creased. “Or was that a bluff?”
“Oh, they had it all right,” Carmichael said. “Solved the crime, gave us the evidence we needed for conviction, found the bomb, and the icing on the cake was their operative got the girl.” He slapped Finley on the shoulder, gave him a squeeze and a locker room shake.
Finley didn’t rise to the bait, but Rowan could see he’d clamped his teeth down tight, making the muscles in his jaw bulge.
Sensitive topic.
“Speaking of losing the girl.” Finley’s voice was sincere. “I hear you and Jodie called it quits. Sorry about that, man.”
News travelled fast…
“It was a long time coming. I’m comfortable with this turn of events.” Rowan wasn’t going to bring up the effects on his Twitter accounts here. That work wasn’t part of this task force.
“Yeah?” Talbott asked. “Have someone else in the wings?”
Avery flashed through his mind. There was something about her that was warm and calming. Something about her that made him feel centred when the world was whirling around him. “Time will tell,” he said, now that he was free to take their friendship to a new level.
“Hey guys, before Peterson gets here and the meeting gets going,” Carmichael spun his computer around, “I wanted to show you this.”
There was an image of a children’s board game, the writing on the box was in the Cyrillic alphabet.
“What does it say?” Talbott asked.
“Our Guys in Salisbury,” Rowan said.
Talbot leaned forward to see better. “Are those guys in hazmat suits at the end of the game?”
“Yup,” Carmichael responded. “The children start playing at the image of the Salisbury Cathedral where the real-life Russian agents poisoned their defector. They play the game and get to the end, which apparently requires hazmat suits for survival.”
“This is…what is this?” Prescott pulled the lap top closer. “Is it really a game they’re selling in Russia? An Internet meme?”
“Real deal,” Carmichael said.
“That’s messed up.” Rowan stretched his legs out under the table to ease the ache in his knee caps.
“I brought this in,” Carmichael said, “because I thought it might be interesting in light of this new tack they’re taking in political gamesmanship. As Kennedy’s been reporting, The Bot Farmer of Bulgaria, Sergei Prokhorov, is planting new seeds of discord, hoping to harvest US civil unrest to ingratiate himself with his Russian father-in-law.”
“Yeah, well, if Sergei doesn’t become very cooperative, very fast,” Rowan said, “his father-in-law will see some intimate images that’ll put Sergei’s health at risk. He might end up with a Salisbury Cathedral incident of his own.”
“Got the goods, huh?” Carmichael stretched out his fist for a tap. “Kudos, man.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rowan
Washington DC
Tuesday
“Sorry, about that,” Peterson said as he rushed into the room. “My meeting just let out.”
“Okay, gentlemen, enough gab.” Amanda sat tall in her chair, taking control of the room. “We’re here to talk about domestic hate speech, Russian-connected bots, and the fomentation of violence, especially as it pertains to Taylor Knapp.” She looked at Finley who was over at the fridge grabbing a bottle of water. “Finley?”
Finley worked domestic terror.
He turned. “We’re watching insular groups light up about a new video game, The Uprising, that’s going to be released next month. We’re looking for communications where the participants are taking their chatter from constitutionally protected speech into conspiracy to commit acts of terror. It’s big. And getting bigger.” Finley rounded on a chair and sat down. “It’s like watching the ocean suck the water off the beaches, so it has enough volume and capacity to crash onto the ground with a destructive power unimaginable.”
“That was rather poetic of you, Finley,” Amanda said. “Data shows that when The Unrest launched, there was an uptick in hate crimes by thirteen percent nationwide. In the last two years, data says that hate crimes are up thirty percent after an eight year period of decline. People have ended up in hospitals, and they’ve ended up dead. All from Knapp’s work? Obviously not. How much impact did Knapp’s work have?” She tipped her head left then right as if weighing the idea. “The jury’s still out. It’s certainly made for an enabling environment.”
“If civil unrest is the guy’s goal, surely he learned a hell of a lot in the time between projects,” Prescott said. “AI has improved. FBI domestic terror funding for domestic terror training and intervention programs has been defunded by our present administration. We’re working on fumes. And to switch metaphors, the domestic terror hot spots are bursting into flame, and there are just too many of them. We simply don’t have the fire fighters or the equipment to put them out.”
Rowan rubbed his thumb into his chin. “Do you all think Knapp’s books and games are the brainchild of a single person?”
“To be honest, no.” Amanda reached for her bottle of water. “Hey everyone, Finley’s already found his way over there, but if any of you need water, help yourselves. They’re in the fridge.” She lifted her bottle toward the bar fridge beside the credenza.
Rowan stood. “I think it’s a writing team of social scientists, propogandists, skilled as hell. I could write a dissertation on the first novel. Look at this.” He moved to the white board and grabbed up a marker and started scribbling.
He tapped the board where he’d written: Christian pro-Israel v. Anti-Semitism. “Call this I/S”
Black rights to safety/equality v. white supremacy. “B/W”
Common sense gun laws v. 2nd Amendment, guns without restrictions “G/R, Okay?”
The others nodded.
“Eight basic permutations. I get that I’m simplifying this.” He lifted his brow and tucked his chin as he checked in, making sure they were all on the same page. “But just as a quick look at the lenses someone could wear as they read this novel, we have…” His pen raced down the board drawing combinations like a Mendel genetics experiment. “There are eight main views. Pro-Israel, anti-racist, gun enthusiasts, is one permutation. See?” Then he tapped another combination. “Anti-Semitic, racist, gun restriction.” He rotated his pen in the air. “Eight basic points of view. With this information, I read through the book eight more times. Each time I read it in the character, or mindset, if you will, of one of these permutations.” He tapped the board. “Each of the eight times I read the book, my position was supported. If I was an anti-Semitic, racist, pro-gun guy, my understanding of how the world was ordered was more deeply entrenched. But it was equally validated if I was a pro-Israel, racist, gun-restriction guy.” He snapped the top on the marker. “And that right there is either mad genius IQ or it’s a dedicated team of social scientists who engineered this platform as a weapon against the United States.”
“
I’m laying money on the team approach,” Prescott said.
“And you think this author—team, what have you—is directly connected to Sergei Prokhorov and his propaganda farms?” Amanda asked.
“I do.” Rowan moved back to the chair. “I’ve been tracing the bot activity for a while now. Bulgaria and the Philippines.”
“The best way to get the dots connected is through the Windsor Shreveport contract and work backwards to Sergei Prokhorov.” Amanda took in a deep breath and sighed out. “Signals intelligence tells me that they have no information on this.”
“How is that possible, unless—” Finley started.
“We know that the game is played as a collaboration, and communications devices are embedded within. That means they’re untraceable through our normal signals intelligence,” Amanda said.
“These groups are getting higher-tech every day.” Rowan came back to his seat. “Special Agent Lisa Griffin was in here last week showing me that there was a game that had a trash can in one of the scenes. You could get your character to pick things out of the trash can, balled up paper, for example. Some communications device can be laying there in plain sight, and no one would know. Griffin happened to figure it out on a lark. In the game, she pulled a ball of paper out of the trash, had her animated character smooth it out, and there was a topo of where our troops were hunkered down in Syria. The unit got moved stat.”
“And things like that make Taylor Knapp, and the groups that form through playing her games, into ghosts.” Amanda planted flat hands on the table top. “We’re trying to find informants inside Windsor Shreveport.”
“They have million dollar guns held to their heads,” Finley said. “It’s going to be hard to find someone who will talk.”
Rowan doodled on his pad. “What happens if we had someone inside? What could we do to protect them?”
Finley leaned forward, excited. “We’d bring them in, talk to them in a safe room. Let them know there’s no way anyone would find out. Do you know someone?”
Rowan looked at Amanda; their gaze held. “I do,” he said slowly. “We’re dating. I’m not turning her into my asset. Certainly not in something as messy and dangerous as this.” Rowan looked pointedly at Finley. His girlfriend almost died when he was using her to stop a crime ring. The post-Soviet Union crime ring families don’t mess around. When someone gets in their way, that someone gets removed from the picture, sometimes viciously so.
Of course, if Avery cooperated she’d be considered an asset. Which gave her some legal cover and had the potential to help her if things took a criminal turn.
There was a lot to weigh.
“That’s fast, man,” Prescott said. “You jumped right back on the horse? Jodie doxxed you just a few days ago when you broke up.”
“Okay, dating is a stretch,” Rowan said. “We have plans for a first date. I’ve known her for a few years. I’m not going down the road of making someone I care about into my asset,” he repeated. He wished he hadn’t brought this up, but if things unfolded, and he hadn’t mentioned it, life could get tricky. For one thing, if he hadn’t been forthright, he might be cut out of the need-to-know loop, and that meant he wouldn’t have information that would help him keep Avery safe. Should she need to be kept safe.
He looked around at the faces. To them, national security superseded the chance at a relationship. Or the safety of a single individual. “Look, Lisa knows this person, as well. Let me talk to Special Agent Griffin and get a plan together to feel this individual out. Just see if she doesn’t know the general area where the truffles are buried, and we can bring in a pig to sniff them out.”
“And that metaphor, gentlemen, is what happens when you spend too much time on the other side of the Atlantic.” Carmichael chuckled.
Amanda maintained her focus on Rowan. “Do you think this individual knows something that would be helpful?”
“We were talking about work last night,” Rowan said. “She brought up morality and was asking about whistleblower laws. But we all know what happens to whistleblowers. They are the best of the best, the ones with the straight moral code, and they’re the ones that get smashed. Every time.” He sent his gaze around the room to make sure everyone was paying attention when he said this, “I don’t want that to happen to this woman. She has a lot on the line. Not just her, but she has a dependent mother.”
“We don’t know what she might be blowing that whistle about, right? Do you think she might know specifics about Taylor Knapp?” Prescott pressed. “Maybe she’s on that project?”
“She’s not in that genre of writing, so I’m just not sure. Maybe she heard industry rumor or could tell us who’s on the project team, help us focus on the right targets.”
“All right,” Amanda said. “I need you to make that happen, Kennedy. Team, if this route produces intel, we need to develop a next step, so we can act swiftly. Time is of the essence. As you all know… this bomb is ticking.”
“Say we can get to Taylor Knapp himself—or the person who is posing as an author with this pen name—how do you think we engage this person to get him talking without him knowing he’s talking?” Prescott asked.
Finley looked up at the ceiling. “What if we made talking to us something elite?”
Amanda focused over on him. “Like what? What are you thinking?”
“What if the FBI is developing their own Red Cell?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Avery
Tuesday Night
Falls Church, Virginia
“Whatever they put in those shots is a pure miracle,” Lola said from the hallway.
“Mom’s asleep?”
“Yup. But since it’s early, I just gave her the dosage that’s supposed to help her calm down. You’ll need to give her the regular dose later so she can sleep tonight.”
“Okay, thank you.” Avery was perched on her toilet. Lola had already given her a pedicure and manicure and now there was a pot of hot wax warming in the sink. Avery was wondering if a little bit of one of her mother’s shots wouldn’t help this next step in Lola’s process of “making Avery presentable.”
As if reading Avery’s mind, Lola said, “Look. If things are going well with your mom, you might leave a little bit of medication in the syringe, you know? I’ll buy them off you. There are some nights at my house when I want to drug the entire congress of baboons who’ve taken up residence there.”
“Flying from your chandeliers and eating all the bananas in one sitting?” Avery smiled.
“You’ve been to my house. You know what they’re like. Anyway, think about it. It could mean some extra income.”
Lola stirred the wax with a wooden stick, testing the consistency. “Ready?” she asked. “Lift your arm. I’ll start there.”
Lola slicked the melted sugar wax onto Avery’s underarm, pressed a cotton strip, counted 3,2,1, then ripped it off in one quick movement.
Avery gasped at the pain then turned her head to look at her bleeding underarm. “Ouch! Holy hell, Lolly that hurt. How in the world did I let you talk me into this?”
“You must be in love.” Lola batted her eyelashes. “There is no other reason for a woman to jerk hundreds of hairs out of her skin other than to ensnare a man’s heart. Hold up your other arm.”
Avery reluctantly lifted her hand in the air while Lola smeared on the hot goo. “You do this all the time, Lolly, and you’ve been married forever.”
“Right, well, ensnared is one thing. Keeping them entangled is another.”
“Entangled in what?”
“My bed sheets.” Lola winked. “Deep breath in.”
“Ah ah ah ah. God. Are we done?”
“Moustache and eyebrows next.”
“I don’t have a moustache!”
“Oh yeah? What do you call that?” Lola held up a hand mirror.
“I call it natural. And I call it blonde so no one can see.”
“New Yorkers don’t go for hippies. And people can see it. Ro
ll your lips in.”
Avery clutched the rim of the toilet lid where she sat being torture-groomed. She wouldn’t have tolerated any of this if she weren’t so stressed out about what Rowan would think when he saw her in person. “Oh, thank goodness. Done,” Avery said as Lola tossed a cloth strip into the overflowing trash bin.
“Not so fast, young lady. I haven’t finished. Legs and bikini line. Not a Brazilian mind you—that takes a professional. I’m just cleaning things up a bit.”
“Why would you need to? Bikini line? Seriously, Lolly, there’s no need for that. No one’s going to see down there. I swear.”
“Hmmm. Maybe you’ll get lucky.” Lola held up a finger. “Not George, mind you. Lean back and put your foot on the tub. I went to the store and bought you some pretty little under-things as a birthday gift, and we don’t want you looking like an unweeded garden.”
“I’m going to be gone for a few days. What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“I think you’re the kind of girl who hasn’t gotten any game in almost a year now. You know,” she said, then stopped as she blew on the stick to cool the wax, “you have to exercise things down there, blood flow and muscle tone. If you don’t hit the sheets regular, your bladder drops down in your pelvis, and you start to pee yourself. Then you have to wear a diaper for the rest of your life. Use it or lose it, is what the article said.”
“That’s… Okay, that’s a solid reason to have sex, I’d say. Protecting the function of my lady parts and all.”
“So you were asking what kind of girl I thought you were. Besides a girl whose about to need Depends because she doesn’t do the deed enough to keep things toned and happy, I also think you’re the kind of girl who’s been disappointed by her ex’s sad lack of skill.” She reached over, skimmed the goop onto Avery’s calf, and rubbed the cloth into place. “And the kind of girl who’s been chatting up a gorgeous guy with a panty-dropping smile.” She waggled her eyebrows and ripped.