The Sound of Echoes

by Eric Bernt

  If things went according to plan, she would be able to bring them back in relatively short order. A cover story involving national security would be created, allowing Peter to return to his position as chief financial officer, and her children could resume their studies at their elite private school. If, however, things went awry, Caitlin wanted her progeny to live out their lives without her while still cheering for the red, white, and blue when it came time for the Olympics.

  Besides, heading south was a good strategic move because it wouldn’t be expected.

  Her phone rang. It was Peter. He was not using video. “Just wanted you to know we landed safely.”

  “Don’t I get to see your face?” she asked expectantly.

  “Let’s just talk. I’m still struggling to get my head around all this.”

  She nodded. “How was the flight?”

  “The kids think we’re rich now that they got to fly private.”

  “Tell them not to get used to it.”

  “At least now they’re not the only ones in their class who haven’t.”

  She smiled briefly, then asked a question she already knew the answer to. “Did you read my letter?”

  “How long ago did you write it?”

  “A few months ago. I can’t explain in detail right now, but some things started happening that gave me cause for concern. I thought it was prudent to be more safe than sorry.”

  “You’re being vague as hell. You know that, right?”

  “One day, I’ll explain everything.”

  “Be careful not to make any promises you can’t keep.” He tried to say it with some degree of understanding, but it came out sharply.

  “I really am sorry about all this, Peter.”

  “You said that in your letter.” The statement was not just sharp, but terse. He clearly could no longer hide his anger.

  Caitlin didn’t blame him. In his shoes, she would have been even more upset. “How cold is it there?”

  “If I breathe in through my nose, it feels like the hair in my nostrils freezes.”

  “Then I suggest you breathe through your mouth.”

  He paused to laugh, which broke the mounting tension. “God, I hate you.”

  “Right now, I hate me, too.” And she meant it. “I’m only doing this because I had no other choice.”

  “I believe you.” It was clear from his tone that he did.

  Caitlin breathed a sigh of relief. “Are the kids okay?”

  “Seem to be, for now. But we’ll have to see.” He was obviously just barely holding it together. “Where the hell is Harvey, anyway?”

  “It’s about seventy-five miles southeast of where you are now. I’ll send directions to your phone.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” he replied sarcastically. “So, to ask something obvious, are you sure it’s safe for us to even be talking right now? I mean, couldn’t somebody be tracing this call, or something?”

  “The phone I gave you is completely secure. Any call made to or from it is untraceable.”

  He exhaled briefly. “God, I hope you’re right. What about on your end?”

  “I’ve taken every possible precaution.” She appreciated that even in a situation he didn’t understand at all, he was still trying to protect her—or, at least, help her to protect herself.

  “One last question.” He paused to emphasize the great import of what he was about to ask. “Did it have to be a truck?”

  She burst out laughing. “Yes, as a matter of fact, it did.”

  “You couldn’t have at least gotten me an Audi, or a BMW, or maybe an Aston Martin, for what you’re putting me through?”

  “Do you have any idea how many Audis or BMWs or Aston Martins there are within five hundred square miles of you? The idea is to blend in, knucklehead, not to stick out.”

  “Oh, fine. Now I suppose you’re going to tell me I need to get used to waking up at four o’clock in the morning to milk the cows.”

  “It’s goats, not cows.”

  He paused. “I’m waiting for you to say that you’re kidding.”

  “Who said I am?” she asked playfully.

  “Please don’t say you stuck us on a farm.”

  “Of course not,” she answered. “It’s actually more of a gentleman’s ranch.”

  Peter garbled his voice, producing the sound effect of static. “You’re breaking up, honey, I couldn’t hear you. What was that?”

  “These kinds of phones don’t get static, honey.” She closed her eyes, desperately wishing she could hold him for just a moment. She imagined the warmth of his embrace, and the comforting scent of his cologne.

  “Oh, right. I knew that. Just please tell me I won’t have to muck any stalls.”

  She paused briefly. “There will be no mucking of stalls.”

  Now it was his turn to pause. “You know, when this is all over, you are buying me an Aston Martin.”

  “Any color you want.”

  “I’ll call you when we get to Harvey.”

  She paused to emphasize the following. “I love you, Peter McCloskey.”

  “I know.” And with that he hung up.

  Peter had no idea that a man who’d already been there for an hour was watching him from the shadows. This man also drove a truck, which he kept at a safe distance behind Peter’s as the family began the drive to their new home.

  CHAPTER 44

  SAFE HOUSE

  GILBERTS CORNER, VIRGINIA

  June 1, 10:50 p.m.

  Caitlin turned her attention to another screen, which was tapped into the American Heritage Foundation vehicle-tracking system. She watched as Daryl Trotter’s vehicle headed toward their offices, returning from the White House. “My God, they did it.” Speaking to no one in particular, she had forgotten that her connection to Hogan remained open.

  “Who did what?” he asked from his dedicated screen. He was not visible until he adjusted his camera.

  “My counterparts at the foundation just paid a visit to the White House. There’s only one reason Bob Stenson would have arranged it.”

  “What reason is that?”

  “I believe they are returning to our offices with the greatest cache of intelligence ever gathered.”

  “With all due respect, you’re being a little overly dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “If I’m right, they now have a record of every single conversation ever held inside the Oval Office.”

  “Ever?” He leaned in toward his screen so that he now appeared in close-up.

  “Ever.” She left no doubt.

  “I stand corrected.” He paused, then asked, “You mind telling me how this is possible?”

  “We acquired a device that can re-create never-recorded sounds using acoustic archeology. It’s called the echo box.”

  Hogan’s eyes went wide. “Seriously? There will be no more secrets. Stenson will know everything.”

  “That’s correct.” She locked her gaze on the camera to emphasize the gravity of what had occurred.

  “Holy shit.” It took him a moment to process. “May I ask how he acquired it?”

  “The guy who created it lives in a facility for high-functioning savants. He’s autistic. Stenson tortured his doctor until he gave up the code.” Her tone revealed her disdain for what had occurred.

  He nodded. “No wonder you initiated an Alpha Reset Protocol.”

  “We don’t touch innocents. My father taught me that.”

  “Was there something specific Stenson was after in the Oval Office?”

  “The president cut a deal with the Fields brothers to rig their voting machines in certain districts in the upcoming election, which will swing things in his favor. Stenson is going to bring him down.”

  “Why would he do that? I thought the president was one of your guys?”

  “He was. Until he wasn’t. The president went to outside help instead of using the AHF. Stenson didn’t care for that very much.”

  “Seems disloyal to me, too,”
he commented. “If you leave a dance with a different date than the one you brought, somebody’s going to get bent out of shape.”

  “Stenson became obsessed. His priority for months has been to make an example of the president so that no one ever tries it again.”

  “With this device, the echo box, Stenson will be incredibly dangerous.”

  “I agree. That’s why we’re here.” She paused, then asked, “Where are you, by the way?”

  He smiled directly into the camera. “I am everywhere, and I am nowhere.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Now who’s the one being overly dramatic?”

  “Hey, if you can’t have some fun with this shit, we might as well pack it in and go home.”

  “Some of us can’t do that, remember?” she responded sharply.

  “Oh, give me a break. This will be over soon enough,” he tried to reassure her. “Do you want to know why our connection cannot be terminated?”

  She slammed down her fist in mock exasperation. “Wait a minute. You mean I can’t even hang up on you?”

  He smiled with genuine affection. “Your father wanted you to know you would never be alone,” he answered seriously. “What you’ve done is brave. Most people couldn’t or wouldn’t take the risk. I gather you didn’t see yourself having much of a choice.”

  She nodded. “I’m pretty stubborn that way.”

  “You are your father’s daughter.” He then cited the famous quote often attributed to the Irish statesman Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”

  “That goes for women, too, pal.”

  He paused for a moment. “If you’re right about the trove of intelligence your counterparts are bringing back to the American Heritage Foundation, I can tell you how we’re going to win this thing.”

  If anyone else had said that, she would have rolled her eyes. But this was Hogan, and Caitlin was eager to hear what he was thinking. “Do tell . . .”

  CHAPTER 45

  115 NORTH PENNSYLVANIA PLACE

  INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

  June 1, 10:55 p.m.

  Senator Corbin Davis was working at his desk on the speech he was to give the following day, at a banquet for the newly elected leadership of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, when he heard a knock on the door. “Elaine, I told you I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  Davis’s chief of staff, Bob Welker, poked his head in. “And I told her I thought you’d want to see these.” He waved several printouts of grainy surveillance photos.

  Davis waved him in. “Those from your friend in White House security?”

  “They are,” he answered smugly. Welker approached the senator and placed the screen grabs neatly in front of him, one at a time for dramatic effect.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” The senator picked up one of the images and studied it closely.

  “Is that it?” Welker asked.

  Davis nodded. “That is the echo box.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “No question. This is the device I told you about last week. The top of it pops open right there at the hinges. Inside are eight one-inch satellite microphones that move together in this weird kind of dance.”

  His chief of staff sounded dubious because it was his job to be. “This is also the thing you said didn’t work and led Homeland Security all around New York on a wild-goose chase, wasting lots of valuable time and resources.”

  “It didn’t work. I had two world-class experts who proved it didn’t.” The senator paused to think it through. “Which means one of two things happened. Either they put on a show for me last week to lead me to think it didn’t work when it actually did, or somebody fixed it in the last eight days and just took the thing out on its maiden voyage.”

  Welker nodded. “So the space-based surveillance nonsense was just a cover for them to get the box into the Oval Office. What we need to understand is, to what end?”

  Davis stared at his chief of staff like it was the dumbest question anyone had ever asked him. “I can think of a thousand reasons—my God, ten thousand—but only one is a clear favorite.”

  The chief of staff struggled to hide his annoyance. “Which one would that be?”

  The Indiana senator smiled. “The rumor is true.”

  “Which rumor?”

  Davis paused for emphasis, stating what he thought should be obvious. “The one involving the Fields brothers and their voting machines.”

  Now it was Welker’s turn to pause. His tone of voice sounded like that of a man who could see the future and liked what he saw very much. “Stenson is going to bring him down.”

  Davis nodded, staring out the window, imagining what his future might hold. He took out the special phone that the American Heritage Foundation director had recently given him and stared at it. “When he asked me if I wanted to be president, I assumed he meant following the president’s reelection.”

  “Looks like we may be in the Oval Office sooner than either of us had thought possible.”

  CHAPTER 46

  AMERICAN HERITAGE FOUNDATION

  ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

  June 1, 11:11 p.m.

  Bob Stenson imagined the giddiness his two lieutenants must have felt during their drive back from the White House. In possession of every conversation ever held inside the Oval Office, they had an absolute treasure trove of intelligence. They had Bill Clinton’s little chitchats with Monica Lewinsky that had preceded the blue-dress incident; the Richard Nixon temper tantrums before he started the tapes rolling during Watergate; the brotherly confidences shared between Jack and Bobby Kennedy; and the legendary thumpings of Lyndon Johnson’s reportedly oversized member on his desk, just to name a few.

  In other words, they had a gold mine. Now the only question was how much Stenson was going to let them hear. Trotter and Greers sat in the foundation’s conference room across from their boss as their chief technician and resident acoustic archeologist, Carter Harwood, analyzed the files of echoes they had retrieved from the Oval Office.

  Trotter and Greers knew the years of research and frustration that had gone into the development and acquisition of the echo box, including Stenson’s most recent embarrassment involving Homeland Security and the New York City Police Department. And now, it was all about to have been worth it. Their superior was going to share his moment of glory with them, and they were grateful to be present. Trotter commented anxiously, “I imagine this is what it felt like to be in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the morning of July 16, 1945.”

  Greers had no idea what he was talking about. “Why is that?”

  Harwood responded without looking up from the laptop screen. “Trinity.”

  “What’s Trinity?”

  Stenson answered, “It was the code name for the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon.”

  “It occurred at five twenty-nine a.m.,” Trotter interrupted.

  “And forty-five seconds,” Stenson added.

  “And forty-five seconds,” Trotter repeated, impressed. “Touché.”

  Stenson addressed Greers, who was clearly not a nuclear-history buff as they were. “Trinity marked the end of the Manhattan Project and the beginning of the nuclear age.” He turned to Trotter. “Yes, this is a lot like that.”

  Greers thought quickly, trying to play catch-up. “Except that was a technology they wanted everyone to know about.”

  Stenson nodded in agreement. “Awareness amplified its effectiveness. The threat of its use has proven to be even more effective than its actual use. In the case of the echo box, however, the opposite is true. The longer we can keep it a secret, the more effective it will be.”

  Greers continued gaining momentum. “And thanks to the newly discovered threat of satellite-based eavesdropping, every major politician in the country will want the same reassurance you’ll soon be giving the president.”

  Stenson nodded some more. “And we have just the technology to g
ive them that reassurance.”

  Trotter looked a bit puzzled. “What are we going to tell people this device actually does? I mean, if the supposed threat is space-based, we have to come up with something we can sell to the tech guys.”

  Greers smiled. “I guess we know what you’re going to be focused on for the next couple days.”

  Harwood mumbled under his breath, “It never ceases to amaze me how dumb some politicians can be.” He clearly hadn’t meant to verbalize the thought, because he quickly looked up nervously. “Sorry.”

  Stenson stared at him coldly. “It’s not just some of them. It’s all of them.” He then cracked a smile.

  “Our goal should be simple,” chimed in Greers. “Get them to invite us into every space where they know they communicated something that could hurt them.”

  Trotter interjected, “That would be every room they have ever entered.”

  Greers continued without noticing that Stenson was now glaring at him. “The more urgently they want us to analyze a space, the more serious we know their indiscretion was.”

  All Harwood could say was “Wow.” Both because of the diabolical genius of the plan and because such a strategy was being mentioned in front of him. He was usually excluded from this kind of discussion.

  Which was why Stenson stared daggers at Greers, who only now realized his transgression. He looked down at the tabletop quickly.

  Trotter was oblivious. He was too busy thinking about ramifications. “Eventually, the cat’s going to get out of the bag. There’s no way around it. A secret like this can’t be contained forever.”

  Stenson didn’t disagree. “It’s too bad, really.”

  “A sure sign will be when there’s a sudden rash of unexplained explosions in high-powered homes and offices around DC,” Trotter commented. “People will start destroying all the evidence they can.”

  Harwood chimed in casually, “I would imagine that’s right around when we’ll be introducing the echo box 2.0.”

  The others in the room went silent. It was Greers who spoke first. “We’ll be introducing what?”