“The governor doesn’t care about promising leads. We’re meeting him tomorrow and he wants results. And he’s not the only one on my back. Washington’s on me like flies to shit, not to mention the goddamned media. I want to know what the connection is between the president and this Green Freedom Brigade.”
“We haven’t established one yet, except for the Greenpeace link. And even that’s pretty shaky.”
“So what are you saying?”
“That it’s possible the Brigade’s claim of responsibility might be a complete fabrication.”
“Come on, they fall within the parameters of the profile. They have a well-documented history of arson and murder.”
“The deaths at the animal testing lab were accidental. Personally, I think this thing is too big for them.”
“Never underestimate fanatics. They’re full of surprises.”
“I’m not saying the Brigade couldn’t be behind it. But we both know terrorist groups blame killings and bombings on other groups all the time to deflect suspicion from themselves. That’s why I’m trying to figure out who Kieger’s biggest enemies are, or were. For me, his environmental record in California doesn’t seem bad enough that the Brigade would want to take him out. At the same time, we don’t have anything that points to Islamic militants, right-wing militias, or hate groups.”
“Okay, so who else would have reason to do it?”
“I don’t know yet. But it’s obvious who benefits most with Kieger out of the way.”
“Fowler.”
“That’s right.”
Sharp considered this a moment, stroking his cowboy mustache in the way that drove Patton nuts. “Too obvious and it just doesn’t fit. Fowler’s squeaky clean, and let’s not forget she’s only forty-eight. She can afford to serve as Veep for the next eight years and build up her creds.”
“That may be. But she’s about to become the first woman president in the history of the United States—all because of an assassin’s bullet.”
“Officially, I know you have to check into Fowler. But unofficially, I’m telling you I don’t think she has anything to do with this. So don’t waste too much time on it.”
Patton wanted clarification. “Are you telling me to back off, Henry?”
Sharp’s eyes narrowed. “No, but I am telling you to tread softly.”
“We’re the Federal Bureau of Intimidation. Discretion isn’t our strong suit.”
“It’s going to have to be on this case.”
“Okay, fair enough. But I think we’ve got to ask ourselves one important question. How powerful do you have to be to bring about regime change in the most powerful nation on earth?”
“We’re not the most powerful anymore, remember? The fucking Chinese are. What the hell’s your point?”
“Only this. Every radio blog, TV station, Twitter feed, and Internet chat line in the country is talking like the president of the United States is a bagman for ecoterrorism. Yet, no one’s come up with a reasonable explanation as to why he would do such a thing. And then there’s the matter of the Brigade. If they’re the ones behind this, their plan sure backfired. Instead of getting an anticorporate tree hugger like Mason Schumacher, they just got themselves Dick Cheney in a dress.”
Without responding, Sharp rose from his chair and went to the window. For a long moment, he stared out at the cobalt-blue mountains in the distance. When he looked back at Patton, his face was iron hard, his voice filled with warning.
“You just catch me the killer, Special Agent, and let me worry about the goddamned conspiracy theories.”
CHAPTER 32
ANDERS HOUSER, code named Pep Boy, was so scared he thought he would shit his pants.
He sat in a room in Berkley, California, in front of a custom-designed, next-generation desktop supercomputer, eyes unblinking, sweat beads clinging to his brow. His left leg twitched as his nervous fingers worked the keyboard. This was never supposed to happen—his system was supposed to be impenetrable—yet all the evidence before him told him otherwise.
Someone had broken into his frigging computer!
When news of the Ares virus first broke, he had been in an upscale hotel room in Chatham, on the Cape, recuperating from a wicked hangover. He had flown back East for the wedding of his best friend from prep school. Between the pot, ecstasy, and prodigious quantities of Bass Ale, it was a killer party, not to mention a great nuptial. But by one o’clock East Coast time, a mere three hours before he was to fly back to the West Coast, it appeared he had been out of town at a very inopportune time.
Pep Boy wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. The early reports said only that a radical ecoterrorist cell calling itself the Green Freedom Brigade was claiming responsibility for the assassination. This in itself was shocking news, considering he was an active member of the clandestine group. In fact, he was its sole cyber guru/saboteur, having hacked dozens of laboratory, government, and corporate networks during his three-year stint with the group. Later, he learned that the claim of responsibility was released as a computer virus. It was then that he really began to worry. As the Brigade’s cyber lord, he would have been the one to release Ares. Yet he had been at a wedding, three thousand miles from his workstation, when the virus was turned loose.
Which meant something was monumentally wrong.
His first step was to verify the authenticity of the claim. He suspected it was a hoax, but wasn’t sure, so he called Q-Tip and Gen-Mex, the leaders of the Brigade back in Berkeley. Their first reaction was to blame him for Ares, but he explained that he had been on the Cape over the weekend and had nothing to do with it. It quickly became obvious that some powerful unknown entity was trying to pin the assassination on the group.
Q-Tip and Gen-Mex were already in the process of preparing a vigorous denial. It was all bullshit, they told Pep Boy, and the Brigade wasn’t about to take the rap for something it didn’t do. As a precautionary measure, they were going to break up the fifteen-member group temporarily. Everyone was to lay low for a while until things quieted down.
Pep Boy was ordered back to Berkeley to check out his system ASAP. It was possible that whoever was behind the setup had used his computer to unleash the virus, to provide evidence the group was involved. If his computer had been used, the fact that he had not yet been tracked down by the authorities suggested the coding had been sophisticated enough to elude the feds, at least for awhile. He was to determine if his system had been physically tampered with once he’d verified that he wasn’t under surveillance.
Now, sitting before his thirty-four-inch color monitor, he saw that both he and the Brigade were in serious trouble. There was no mistake. Someone had broken in and released the virus from his terminal—of that he was certain. And every terminal was traceable in time.
It was mind-boggling that, with the technology at his disposal, his system had been penetrated. Not only did his computer have a thumbprint ID system, but it was equipped with more antitampering protections than there were days in a week. Yet, despite all the built-in precautions, his very own computer had released Ares at precisely eight o’clock this morning Pacific Coast Time. There was no doubt about it—the virus had been sent out from his terminal.
Without his knowledge, without even his presence. And that was frigging creepy!
It took him over an hour to check through the source code. Every so often he rose from his squeaky chair and snuck a peak out the window, to see if anyone was watching him. He didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t lessen his anxiety.
By the time he had examined the entire code, line by line, he knew he had been taken by an ace programmer working with surgical precision. His very own cyber prints were cleverly embedded in the source code, mostly stylish programming devices he had used on other jobs, but also a few obvious things, like his code name and initials. His gut feeling was it was a spook job. Only those rogue elephants at Langley could come up with something like this. Whoever they were, they had obviously captured some o
f his prints illegally, in Orwellian fashion, and that pissed him off. The Net was at once both panacea and anathema. However, the coding was so good, it would take the fed code breakers several days to track Ares to him.
That was the only good news—he had enough time to make a getaway.
Still, by the end of the week, Big Brother would be after him with a vengeance, expending vast sums of money and serious manpower to apprehend him. But at least he would have a head start. There was no way he was going to turn himself into the law and try and exonerate himself. That might be an option later if things got desperate, but not now. It was always possible that whoever had set up the Brigade would be identified, but he wasn’t banking on it. He had a narrow window of opportunity and he planned to make the most of it.
He decided to pack a couple duffel bags and stay in a motel tonight. Tomorrow, he would clear out his checking account remotely and sell his remaining high-tech stocks. He would have the money wired to a numbered account in some dirty bank on Grand Cayman. That wouldn’t be a problem; he had done it many times before for the Brigade.
When finished packing, he surveyed his apartment a final time. A dozen empty Four Loko and Red Bull cans sat on the coffee table that carried a hundred bumps and bruises. The rest of the furniture was scarcely distinguishable from the mélange of clothes, bicycle parts, and computer magazines cluttering the room and adjoining hallway that led to his bedroom. Sure, the room didn’t look like much, but at least he had done good, meaningful work here. At least he had been fighting against the insanity that was the human condition in the new millennium.
And that alone had made it all worthwhile.
CHAPTER 33
THE APOSTLE pulled back deeper into the shadows, his crystalline eyes fixed on the apartment. This one’s going to be special, he whispered under his breath, as he saw the nervous young man pull aside the curtain and peek out the window for the tenth time, searching vainly for signs of surveillance. The Apostle wondered what the kid’s face would look like at the moment of truth. What he liked most was the look of surprise on his victims, the raw shock as they realized what was really happening in the final moments of their lives. It was the look that got him off. That was what made it all so—how else to say it?—titillating.
The Apostle liked being out on assignment. Years ago, when he was a U.S. Marine, life had been such a bore. He had loathed the sheer tedium of the daily routine, playing the silly war games when there was real fighting to be done. Though a highly decorated captain, he had always hated having to suck up to the senior commanders. Most of them had come away from West Point or VMI with a chip on their shoulder and misguided education. They talked endlessly about battles fought a half-century or even a millennium earlier. Who gives a shit? he had often wondered. War was now. Fighting was about the present—who could inflict the heaviest casualties, and win, today!
It was time to move. He had observed his prey long enough to know what to expect, what possible surprises the kid could have up his sleeve. Whether Pep Boy had a gun or not, he posed no threat. But the time spent watching him would prove beneficial for another reason. By now, the kid’s fingerprints would be all over the keyboard. This was important, since it had been necessary to wipe the keyboard clean early this morning during the penetration of the system.
When the kid pulled away from the window, the Apostle slipped out of the shadows and began crossing the street. Instantly, a trickle of excitement played through his nervous system, like a melodious violin. His lightweight combat boots were surprisingly noiseless. Already he was feeling the inexorable rush of adrenaline—and something else. That something else was an almost orgasmic sensation, low in his gut, and it was growing stronger with every passing second.
Semper fi and praise the Lord Jesus Christ the Savior! This was what he liked to call active duty.
Reaching the sidewalk on the other side of the street, he took cover behind a large bush. He looked up at the window again to make sure the coast was clear. Check. He moved quickly to the front entrance of the apartment building. It was a nondescript, low-tech complex, with no keypad or intercom security system, so he was inside in a flash with his standard tools, a tension tool and feeler pick, a burglar’s best friends.
He eschewed the elevator for the stairs, taking them swiftly but silently. The rush grew stronger and he began growing hard. He felt supremely confident; he had reconnoitered well and knew his prey. So adept was he at creeping into places unknown to him, performing his assignments, and getting out quickly without a trace that it was positively intoxicating. It was uncanny how easily he could blend into his surroundings and pull off a job.
Still, the Apostle was smart enough to know that caution was the better part of valor.
When he reached the third-floor fire door, he stood frozen a long moment studying the layout through the vertical window. He went over the series of maneuvers required to accomplish his objective. A TV droned in a nearby apartment, but that was the only sound. He waited a few seconds until he was certain the coast was clear.
Then he opened the fire door.
The resulting squeak from the rusty hinges was scarcely audible, but to the Apostle it sounded like a deafening screech. Every muscle froze.
He kept his eyes fixed on the hallway. To his relief, no one came out.
He pulled the door open all the way. It squeaked again, but this time he ignored the sound and slipped quickly into the hallway. Tiptoeing noiselessly across the carpeted floor, he felt his heart calling out to him in a turbulent rhythm.
When he reached the kid’s room, he stopped and touched the doorknob.
Locked—too bad.
He moved from the door and withdrew a black Beretta 92F semiautomatic from the military-style shoulder holster beneath his camouflage jacket.
He felt his blood pumping and his breathing accelerated. The sweat seeped from his body. He could feel the warm dampness on his neck and beneath his arms. Inside, he felt ready to explode. This one was going to be special, he could tell. But he had to make sure to hold back at the end, like always, so he didn’t cream his pants and leave behind any evidence.
He plucked the custom-designed suppressor from the pocket of his fatigues and threaded it into the nose of his specially adapted handpiece.
This is it—the moment of truth.
His heavy breathing turned to low panting. His mouth was partly open, his lips moist with desire.
Chest heaving, the Apostle lowered the barrel of his silenced Beretta and shot off the lock. Then, without a split-second’s hesitation, he drove his shoulder into the door and charged into the room. He almost tripped over a pair of duffel bags at his feet as he hurtled through the door.
The kid was reaching to turn off the light at his desk. He jumped back, mouth open.
The Apostle smiled lustfully. His chest pumped as he raised the pistol to fire.
“W-Who are you?” Pep Boy asked in a faltering voice, his entire body quaking with fear.
The Apostle’s smile deepened and his face became contorted in a rictus of pleasure. He could feel himself about to explode and knew he would have to summon all his self-discipline to withhold from climaxing. “I’m Ares,” he gasped. “The god of war.”
A look of disbelief crossed the kid’s face, and his expression quickly turned to disgust. “Jesus Christ, you’re not about to…?” he spluttered as he realized what was happening.
“You’re right, I’m not—I’m holding back,” the Apostle said.
And with that, he shot Pep Boy three times in the face.
CHAPTER 34
TURNING OFF THE TV, Jennifer Odden went into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. She spread hummus inside a piece of pita bread and threw in a few pitted Greek olives, several slices of cucumber, and some crumbled feta cheese. After pouring herself a glass of soymilk, she sat down at the small kitchen table and ate her dinner.
Her thoughts turned to Ken, the tough but soft-spoken, blue-eyed ancestor of General Ge
orge S. Patton, Old Blood and Guts. The young man she had loved in college—and that a part of her would forever love—was now an FBI agent investigating the murder of the man who had been poised to become the next president of the United States. It was strange the curious twists life took, the way the past came back to mingle with, or perhaps alter, the present. Though she had seen Ken once in the flesh and twice on TV being interviewed by reporters, it was still difficult to comprehend that he was a big-time federal agent, and that, because of fate or happenstance, their paths had crossed again.
The years had been kind to him. He was still lean and athletic, with a sparkle in his eye and the same quiet air of competence. She realized she had never really gotten over him. After the disaster twelve years ago, they had both moved on with their lives, but she had never forgotten how meaningful their relationship was. She had never wanted to end it; she had been strong-armed into doing so by her father, for whom she would always feel nothing but burning contempt.
Several times since the dark episode, she had contemplated contacting Ken. But she had never summoned the nerve, after what she’d done to him. By not telling him the truth about why she couldn’t see him anymore, she had intended to protect him from her father. But in the end, all she’d accomplished was to hurt him. The hardest part had been lying to him when she loved him, hurting him when that was the last thing she wanted to do.
Finishing dinner, she went to the bookcase in her bedroom and picked out her college photo album. Though she and Ken had gone out together less than a year at Michigan, most of the pictures were of them together: strolling along the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore tucked away in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula; hugging after his fourth quarter comeback over Ohio State where he had thrown four TD passes; hiking in the rugged Adirondacks of upstate New York; making funny faces in front of the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh before a Dead concert; whitewater rafting and caving somewhere in Kentucky; tossing Frisbees and riding bikes on the Ann Arbor campus; and jumping in huge piles of autumn leaves. All great memories—all of them.
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