by Brad Thor
“No matter what you do, your government sees you as the greatest threat to its existence—greater than al-Qaeda or any foreign invader—and it will do whatever it needs to do to protect itself.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Is it?” Nicholas asked. “Under the rubric of ‘homeland security,’ Americans are being subjected to more invasive screening and intensive surveillance every day. TSA is now not only at airports but also train and bus stations. They’re even appearing at highway rest stops. You’re being told it’s for your own good, for your safety, while this framework, this cage is being built around you. Very soon, construction is going to be complete and the cage door is going to swing shut. When that happens, there will be no way out.”
“There’s got to be a way to stop this.”
“They’ve stacked the deck completely in their favor, right down to the federal court’s guaranteeing immunity from criminal and civil prosecution to any private companies that assist the government, i.e., the NSA and thereby ATS, in spying on American citizens.”
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with why the Carlton Group has been targeted.”
“From what Caroline uncovered, ATS is moving into some final phase of an overall plan to solidify its control.”
“What kind of plan?” Harvath asked.
“That’s where it gets interesting. According to her notes, the powers that be at ATS are obsessed with the Internet. They love social media because it does such a good job of mapping relationships for them. Online purchases, online searches, e-mails, all of it is invaluable. In that sense, the Internet has been a positive in their eyes. The ‘negative’ as they see it, comes from the free flow of ideas and information.
“In the days when there were only TV, newspaper, and radio, information could be controlled. That’s no longer the case. In essence, information is no longer bottled up. It’s no longer controlled. It has been unleashed, and that poses a danger to ATS.
“In Caroline’s notes, she cited multiple political movements from different parts of the spectrum. These, ATS believes, would never have been possible without the Internet as a means for organizers and participants to communicate. ATS sees something coming in the very near future, and they don’t want American citizens to be able to communicate about it. They want to deny Americans the primary vehicle by which they would likely organize and mount any sort of resistance.”
“Whoa,” interrupted Harvath. “Resistance? Resistance to what?”
“I haven’t been able to figure that out,” Nicholas replied. “I don’t even know if Caroline fully knew. All I can say for certain is that ATS views the Internet in its current form as very dangerous.”
“What does that mean, ‘in its current form’?”
“I’ve been looking through quite a few articles that Caroline saved covering the idea of some sort of a digital Pearl Harbor. From what I’ve discerned, ATS was heavily invested in promoting this concept.”
“Some sort of cataclysmic cyber attack?” said Harvath.
“Precisely. Whether ATS used it to spook clients into purchasing more hardware or software upgrades or consulting, I can’t tell. What the evidence does seem to show is that they worked very hard behind the scenes to push the idea of America’s vulnerability to such an attack. In order to bolster the gravity of the vulnerability, they enlisted the cooperation of former high-ranking government officials, now in the private sector, who would be in the know on the subject.”
“You don’t think America is vulnerable to that kind of attack?”
“Very much so,” Nicholas replied. “The FBI Director, the Director of National Intelligence, even the head of the NSA, have said so publicly. But what’s interesting is how badly ATS wants the American people to know. This goes beyond convincing the government. I think they already had them in the bag. The American people, though, needed more convincing, more of a campaign, in order for the narrative to take hold. That’s where the former high-ranking government officials came in.
“These officials were used to write attention-grabbing books about America’s cyber vulnerability. Others were booked on television programs and interviewed for newspaper articles. ATS went so far as to pitch a major cable news channel on a slick, two-hour televised war game entitled We Were Warned: Cyber-Shockwave.”
“I remember that,” said Harvath. “It was like a who’s who of former high-ranking government officials. National Intelligence, CIA, Homeland Security, the White House, even some military personnel and some folks from the Attorney General’s office, right?”
Nicholas nodded. “They were all assembled in a mock situation room to respond to a major cyber attack. According to Caroline, the program’s purpose was very straightforward, to precondition the American people.”
“Precondition them for what?”
“Number one for the attack, and number two for expanding government power in order to deal with it. Federalizing the National Guard, nationalizing power companies and other utilities in order to keep the NSA up and running; they thought of everything, even a host of new and expansive presidential powers, which they put forth as not only necessary but also ‘justified’ by the Constitution.”
“You’re saying the entire thing was a propaganda piece?” Harvath asked.
“An exceptionally well executed propaganda piece. It just happened to coincide with a widely reported, real-life computer virus that infected more than seventy-five thousand computers worldwide and ten U.S. government agencies. How about that for timing? People tuned into the program in droves.”
Harvath didn’t believe in coincidences. “So ATS has been prepping the battlefield for an actual real-life attack?”
“Yes. And based on Caroline’s notes, it’s going to be much worse than the mock scenario they dreamed up for TV. The real attack won’t focus just on the eastern seaboard, it will consume and cripple the entire nation.”
“Why? What could they possibly get out of that?”
“Remember all of the changes made in the aftermath of 9/11? Those will pale in comparison to how radically different the country will be after this digital Pearl Harbor. ATS wants to usher in a brand-new version of the Internet. They call it Internet 2.0 and it will be completely controlled by the government.”
“The government?” Harvath asked. “Or ATS?”
Nicholas smiled ruefully. “If Washington, D.C., is Oz, then ATS is the man behind the curtain.”
Harvath nodded and Nicholas continued, “To use Internet 2.0 for any purpose, no matter how small, you’ll be required to log on with a user-specific, government-issued identification number. Anonymity will be a thing of the past. Everything will be monitored: what you say, what you look at, all of it. The government, under the guise of ‘safety’ and ‘national security,’ will have sole discretion as to who should be allowed on the Net, and for what purpose. They’ll have a massive off switch that they can throw whenever they deem it necessary, and they could keep the older version of the Internet turned off indefinitely. It would be the ultimate curb on people’s ability to communicate and would strangle the free flow of ideas and information.”
It took a moment for all of it to sink in. Finally, Harvath said, “So if they control the Internet—”
“They’ll control everything,” said Nicholas, finishing his sentence for him.
“What is it that’s coming down the pike, though, that they need all this control?”
“Like I said, I don’t know. I don’t think Caroline even knew. All I can do is speculate.”
“So go ahead and speculate.”
“An attack of this magnitude, to take down the entire Internet in order to replace it, is pretty spectacular. But what follows has got to be even more spectacular.”
“And it has to be something that the American people are going to strenuously resist,” added Harvath.
Nicholas nodded. “What Caroline was able to assemble hints that the people at ATS forecasted multiple scenarios,
up to and including a full-fledged revolution. What would cause Americans to revolt?”
Harvath didn’t need to think about his response. “Loss of their freedom, America’s sovereignty being dismantled, the nation subverted to some foreign or international body like the UN.”
“Whatever they have planned, replacing the Internet with Net 2.0 was the last piece of their puzzle.”
“Why now? Why wait for the Internet to become this ingrained in people’s lives? Why didn’t they do this ten or even twenty years ago?”
“I can’t even begin to understand the way these people think. Caroline’s notes indicate that the Internet grew much faster than any of them had anticipated; that it took on a life of its own. It boomed so quickly, they couldn’t get a fence around it. The haphazard attempts at levying taxes on it and establishing various control measures like a presidential kill switch are prime examples. It simply took them this long to develop and perfect Internet 2.0.”
“And part of getting everything online was the preconditioning of the American people for the attack, the PR campaign so to speak,” said Harvath. “We’ve been warned.”
“Exactly. It’s a clever form of the Hegelian dialectic—a psychological tool used to manipulate the masses. In this case, you create a problem, wait for the reaction, and then offer the solution. What people historically fail to realize, though, is that those offering the solution are the same people who caused the problem in the first place. They also fail to realize that no matter what the solution is, it always ends up providing its creators with more power.”
“Do we have any idea what this digital Pearl Harbor will look like or how it will happen?”
Nicholas shook his head. “No. But to justify completely remaking the Internet, its impact would have to be enormous; something that would surpass any attack America has ever known.”
“When you sent word through Peio, you warned me to avoid tripping the PROMISE or TIP systems,” Harvath said. “Do you think there’s a connection between what Caroline uncovered at ATS and the hit on me and Riley in Paris and then what happened in Spain?”
This time Nicholas nodded. “Let me show you.”
CHAPTER 34
MARYLAND
Come in!” Craig Middleton yelled after slamming down the handset of his STE. He had been on and off with Bremmer for the last three hours. The operation in Spain had been an utter failure.
Kurt Schroeder stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. He carried a file folder in his hand.
Middleton looked at him. “What the hell do you want?”
“It’s about Reed Carlton.”
“Is that the coroner’s report?”
Schroeder nodded. He removed the report from the file, walked over to his boss’ desk, and handed it to him.
The older man snatched it away and flipped to the end. “What the fuck is this? Inconclusive?”
“The bodies were very badly burned.”
“Ya think?”
Schroeder ignored the sarcasm. “We’re talking charcoal. They had to go by dental records. The only problem is that Carlton was CIA, so his records are classified.”
“Bullshit. Nothing’s classified to us. We practically run that place. Get the records.”
“I did, but they’re so old they were still on paper. I had to request a copy from the Agency’s dead-file storage.”
“So why are you wasting my time?” Middleton asked. “What’s the bottom line?”
“Carlton’s body was not among those recovered at the scene of the fire.”
As a new wave of anger overtook him, the older man’s face reddened like a rapidly rising thermometer.
Schroeder could tell that his boss was going to blow and tried to circumvent it. “I’ve already set up a dragnet. If Carlton uses his phone, a credit card, or reaches out to anyone on his relationship tree, we’ll know.”
“We’ll know?” Middleton bellowed. “The fuck we will. He’s not going to do anything under his real name.”
“I’ve plugged in all known aliases for him too.”
“And he’s got a hundred or two others we’re not aware of.”
Schroeder felt his boss was overestimating, but he wasn’t sure. “That many?”
“I’m exaggerating, you idiot. It doesn’t matter how many aliases he has. Carlton has decades of field experience. If someone like that doesn’t want to be found, it’s almost impossible to find him.”
The younger man bristled at being called an idiot but kept his temper in check. “You’re the one who always says we own every haystack.”
“Are you being a smartass?”
“No, sir.”
“It doesn’t matter if we own every haystack,” Middleton asserted, “if we can’t find the needle in time. Whatever they’re planning, we know it’s supposed to happen soon.”
“Then let’s call in some help with the haystack,” said Schroeder, who still didn’t have a complete picture of what his boss thought was coming.
Middleton looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s get local law enforcement to put out a Be-On-The-Lookout for Carlton. Suspected arson and homicide.”
The older man liked the sound of that. “Good idea. The more people searching the haystack the better. Just make sure it doesn’t trace back to us.”
“Don’t worry. I can do it so it looks like it came through the FBI.”
“Then do it. What else do you have for me?”
Schroeder pulled a sheaf of pictures from his file folder and handed them over.
“What the hell are these?” Middleton demanded.
“Surveillance photos.”
“I can see that. What I want to know is what I’m looking at.”
“They were taken this morning at the airport in McAllen, Texas. The woman in the truck outside the civil aviation terminal is Margaret Rose. She manages the Three Peaks Ranch near Agua Nueva. She’s the one who conducted the Google searches for Caucasian Ovcharkas and primordial dwarfism,” Schroeder replied.
Middleton was suddenly interested. “And who’s the guy she’s picking up? None of the cameras seem to have captured his face very well.”
“I noticed that too. He flew in on a private charter from Monterrey, Mexico, but cleared customs and immigration with an Italian passport.”
Middleton took an even closer look at the photos. “Do we know if he was anywhere before Monterrey?”
“We do,” Schroeder replied. “I ran him through the Mexican databases and it turns out he just arrived in Mexico last night.”
“From where?”
“Bilbao. He flew into Mexico City via Madrid.”
“And how close is Bilbao to Harvath’s last-known location?”
“As far as commercial airports go, it would have been one of the closest.”
Middleton was suddenly very animated. “I want you to download all the CCTV footage from every airport he passed through. I want to know every step he made, every person he talked to.”
“I’m already on it,” Schroeder said as he headed for the door.
Staring at the final photograph that showed Harvath climbing into the truck branded with the Three Peaks Ranch logo, Middleton smiled and said, “Gotcha,” as he reached for his STE.
CHAPTER 35
TEXAS
It was late. They sat with untouched plates of food in front of them at a desk in Nicholas’s room while Nina slept down the hall. Storm cases and various pieces of computer equipment were stacked about. Harvath watched across three linked monitors as the little man walked him through Caroline’s data. As Nicholas spoke, his tiny hand worked a wireless mouse, opening folder after folder, bringing up articles and notes for Harvath to read.
“This was one of the most interesting things I’ve found on the drive,” said Nicholas as he clicked on a file labeled Roundup. “Have you ever heard of something called Main Core?”
“Only in passing,” Harvath replied. “What is it?”
“Since the 1980s, there’s been an allegation that the United States government actively maintains a database of U.S. citizens it considers a potential national security risk. Some say there are more than eight million names on the list. Supposedly, it’s part of the government’s highly secretive continuity of government plan. The idea behind Main Core is that if there should ever be a major national emergency, the government would have a list of people it saw as potential threats and could zero in on for additional surveillance, questioning, or even detention. For each name on the list, there was a full dossier, and the database could ID and locate any perceived enemies of the state almost immediately.”
“So that’s what it is, an enemies list?”
“Precisely,” replied Nicholas as he pointed to the screen. “But there’s something beyond Main Core, something that predates it by decades and doesn’t need a national emergency to be activated. It’s called the Black List. This list is much more than just citizens the government feels need tracking, questioning, or detention. This is a kill list, and once you’re on it, your name doesn’t come off until you’re dead.”
“Now I know what the operative in Spain meant when he said that I was on the list.”
“According to the data Caroline gathered, treason is one of the reasons you can be placed on the list.”
“There’s no review? It’s completely extrajudicial? That’s insane,” said Harvath. “The American government doesn’t just accuse a citizen of treason or terrorism and then go out and kill them.”
“That’s not what these files say.”
“Then the files are wrong. Even Americans who have left the country to support al-Qaeda against the U.S. have gone through a vetting process before being targeted.”
“That’s true,” replied Nicholas. “But this is something different. You yourself have been sent on multiple assignments to kill persons hostile to the U.S. Was every one of those sanctioned at the top?”
“No comment.”