Legacy of the Watchers Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Nancy Madore

  “But wouldn’t there be a disconnect in the network service when Lilith tapped into the wire?” asked Will.

  “Sure, but like Patricia said, those occur all the time,” said Gordon. “Assuming it only lasted a few seconds, no one would think anything of it.”

  “There has to be some way to confirm what happened,” said Will.

  “We could check the cables on this end of the network,” said Gordon. “See if they’ve been tampered with. But frankly, I think the fact that the formula got in is confirmation enough.”

  “The way they faked out both those computers,” mused Clive, “wouldn’t that take some talent?”

  “As I said, we’re looking at a professional hacker here,” said Gordon. “And it’s definitely someone who had access to that network.”

  “Ethan Blevins was a computer technician at T.D.M.R.,” suggested Nadia.

  “Whoever was using Blevins’ email to contact Asmodeous might also have gotten their access to the network from him,” agreed Clive.

  “So we’ve got two sources of outside help,” said Will. “One cleaning up the security cameras and another hacking into the network.”

  “Or a single person doing both,” said Gordon.

  “I think we need to have a little chat with Wayne Timmons,” said Clive.

  “I agree,” said Will. “And we have to work fast. We’ll never get back into T.D.M.R. once this crisis is over. As it is, the second djinn may already be gone. It could have left with Lilith.”

  “So Lilith, and at least one other djinn, were trying to destroy HAARP,” said Nadia. “But that still doesn’t explain how T.D.M.R. got this technology to begin with.”

  “If Ornias was right about it coming from the djinn…that would mean that there’s a third djinn out there,” said Gordon. “One that’s working with T.D.M.R.—probably against its will.”

  “Supposing we find it…what then?” asked Clive. “That place is crawling with video cameras and I’m sure they keep their djinn guarded every minute.”

  “This might fall outside of our jurisdiction,” said Will. “If the military is utilizing the services of a djinn…” He shook his head. “I’m not sure we can interfere.”

  “What!” exclaimed both Gordon and Nadia at the same time.

  “Look, we don’t have a precedent for this,” said Will.

  “That could be a good thing,” said Gordon. “It means we can act on our own authority for once.”

  “For once!” echoed Will. “I’d say you’re pretty much doing whatever the hell you want all the time these days!”

  “I’m with Will on this,” said Clive. “I’m not going up against T.D.M.R.”

  “So you think what they’re doing is just fine and dandy!” accused Nadia.

  “We have no idea what they’re doing!” Will told her, clearly frustrated. “They might be accomplishing wonderful things with this technology.”

  “Yeah, it really looks that way, doesn’t it?” she replied sarcastically.

  “Look, if we find the djinn—and that’s a really big if, given the circumstances—and we determine that it’s working for T.D.M.R., we’ll report back to our base and let them decide what to do,” suggested Will. He made a point of looking at Gordon. “Are we agreed on that?”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” said Clive, but Gordon didn’t reply right away.

  “Are we agreed?” Will asked more forcefully.

  “Sure,” said Gordon. “Whatever. We’ll do it your way.”

  “It’s not my way!” said Will. “Jesus, Gordon, what the hell has gotten into you lately?”

  “I said I agreed!” Gordon replied irritably.

  Will examined his face and decided to drop it.

  “And if we find a djinn out there working on its own?” asked Clive.

  “We get him,” said Will.

  “How?” asked Nadia.

  Will shrugged. “Follow him into the restroom…follow him home if we have to.” He looked at Clive. “We can’t get him out of the body on facility grounds,” he said. “It’ll be too messy.”

  “There are miles and miles of woods out there,” Clive said meaningfully.

  “Yep,” agreed Will. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he looked at Amanda, who had resumed staring at the ceiling shortly after their side discussion began. “I guess we’re done here,” he said.

  Chapter 47

  Fort Greely, Alaska

  It was a disturbing scene that they returned to at T.D.M.R. Trucks and S.U.V.s were pulled up to the building so that people could load equipment and other items into them.

  “What the hell is going on here?” asked Clive.

  “They’re evacuating!” said Gordon.

  “Hey!” Clive yelled to one of the men carrying stuff out of the building. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m loading this into that car over there,” said the man, “so it can be transferred to another location.”

  “Where are you taking it?” Gordon asked. “We need that for the investigation.”

  “I’m just following orders,” the man replied. “You’ll have to talk to Ritter if you have a problem with that.”

  “But where are you taking it?” demanded Will.

  “You have to talk to Ritter,” insisted the man, walking off.

  They found Ritter waiting for them inside the building.

  “This is years of research,” he told them. “It has to be preserved.”

  “This facility was used in an attack against a division of the United States military,” Will told him. “All of this is evidence. You heard the president…you’re supposed to be cooperating with our investigation!”

  “We have been cooperating,” said Ritter. “And we’ll continue to do so. But you must realize that we can’t further jeopardize our original military objective for an investigation into a security breach!”

  “But the breach came from within!” exclaimed Will. “The person responsible for it could be walking out with the evidence as we speak!”

  “At the very least you should be inventorying everything, so you know who’s taking what,” added Gordon.

  “We are taking inventory on the classified stuff but…we don’t have a lot of time here!” said Ritter, becoming exasperated. “Look…I’m just following Benderman’s orders. You’re welcome to discuss this with him if you like.”

  “Where is he?” asked Will.

  Ritter called out to a nearby officer and instructed him to escort them to the main conference room in the D building. “We’re all scheduled to meet back there at fourteen hundred hours for another update…which is about twenty minutes from now,” he told them. “You can bring this up then.”

  Will sighed, clearly frustrated. “Also—we need to find Warrant Officer Wayne Timmons,” he said. “Do you know where he is?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Ritter. “He’s night shift so technically he’s off duty, but I believe he stayed on for questioning. I got the security tapes from him a few minutes after I spoke to you on the phone this morning. At that time he was waiting to make a statement, along with some other witnesses, about the incident involving Ms. Fioretti last night. I told him to stick around, but I’m not sure where he is at the moment. He might be in the cafeteria…or resting in the barracks.”

  “Can you find him?” asked Will. “It’s urgent that we speak to him.”

  “Sure,” said Ritter. “I’ll send a call over the intercom.”

  “Actually…” interjected Clive, “the intercom might not be the best way to go. Can you send a few guys out to find him?”

  Ritter narrowed his eyes. “Is he involved in this?”

  “Let’s just say we don’t want to give him a reason to run if he is,” replied Clive.

  They were escorted back to the conference room, where they waited in silence.

  “You know how they are,” remarked Gordon after a while. He glanced at the video camera. “They’ll want to see what happens. If it is Timm
ons, and he got wind of our presence here, he won’t leave until he’s ensured that his plan is a success…even if it means dying here.”

  “If that’s the case then Finbury could be in danger,” said Clive. “Whoever helped Lilith is going to want to make sure that nobody interferes with the plan.”

  “Why is everything taking so long!” complained Nadia. She bit her lip, hating her own cowardliness as she added—“If their plan does go through…I mean…is it wise for us to stay here? What if we get stuck behind all the other people trying to evacuate?”

  “We don’t want to die any more than you do,” Clive assured her. “Don’t worry. We’ll get the jet to land in the parking lot if we have to.”

  They heard footsteps in the corridor and abruptly stopped talking. People began filing back into the room. Nadia was relieved to see that Benderman was among them. His face was pale and drawn, but his expression seemed almost tranquil.

  “Lieutenant-General Benderman, sir,” Will greeted him. “Is it true that you’ve authorized personnel to remove evidence from this facility?”

  The commanding officer of T.D.M.R. looked at Will as if he’d struck him. He motioned for them to follow him into a quiet corner. “Evidence?” he repeated.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Will. “We saw people taking computers and files…”

  “These items should be inventoried and cataloged in the event that they are needed for evidence later,” said Gordon.

  Benderman seemed distracted. “They are inventorying the items taken from the secured area,” he replied tonelessly. “We’ll lose it all in the earthquake anyway, if it comes to that.”

  “Those items being removed from the secured area,” persisted Will, “who do you have handling them?”

  “Patricia has the list,” Benderman told him. “We’ve assigned our top officers to the job. We have planes waiting to take the information to Washington.”

  More people were piling in. One of them was the officer that Ritter had sent to find Wayne Timmons, the night security supervisor.

  “We can’t find him,” said the officer, reporting back to Will.

  “What do you mean, ‘you can’t find him’?” demanded Will. “Could he have left?”

  “I guess so,” replied the officer. “This isn’t his shift.”

  “Son of a…!” murmured Will, struggling to control his anger. He turned to Benderman. “I need you to contact the local police,” he said. “I can get someone to do it on my end but it will take longer. As the commanding officer of this facility, I’m assuming you can authorize the local police to take action?”

  “Of course, but…” Benderman shrugged. “Okay, if you think it’s necessary.”

  “Tell them to go to the residence of Warrant Officer Wayne Timmons and pick him up,” said Will. “And if they don’t find him there, they need to put out an A.P.B.”

  “Is Timmons involved in this?” asked Benderman. Nadia couldn’t get over how apathetic he seemed. She looked at Will’s face, to see if he noticed it as well, but as usual, there was no reading his thoughts from his expression.

  “I’m not sure,” said Will. “But it’s critical that we speak to him immediately.”

  Benderman nodded. “I’ll take care of it.” And he left the room.

  Nadia noticed that Gordon was anxiously examining every person in the room, male and female. Mostly, he was looking at their hands.

  “Are you looking for a ring?” she asked him quietly.

  Gordon nodded. “Unfortunately, almost everyone in here appears to be married. It’s impossible to tell a talisman from a wedding band.”

  Everyone took their places around the large conference table. The screen on the back wall flickered a few times and then sprung to life. It revealed a scene almost identical to the earlier one, except that now some of the occupants of the Oval Office had removed their jackets and loosened their ties.

  “Is everyone there?” barked the White House’s chief of staff, Mick McCrea.

  “Everyone appears to be present…except our commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Benderman,” replied one of the officers.

  “Where is he?” demanded McCrea.

  There was a moment’s hesitation as the officer looked around the room questioningly.

  “Sir, the lieutenant-general is contacting local officials to enlist their help in locating T.D.M.R.’s night security officer, Wayne Timmons, for questioning,” said Will.

  “Is Officer Timmons involved in this?” asked the president.

  “We don’t know that for certain,” replied Will. “We believe whoever breached the system may have received assistance from either Timmons or someone on his staff.”

  “Then you know who executed the breach?” asked the president.

  “No,” said Will. “But we believe we know how they did it.” He gestured to Gordon to explain.

  “The secured area where your main computer is located was penetrated last night,” Gordon told them. “The woman in custody, Amanda Fioretti, killed Thomas Gerard, the head of security, and used one of his eyes to get through the iris recognition checkpoint. Once inside, she took an outside computer device that was preprogrammed to mimic your system and linked it to the network by tapping into the network wire. In this way she intercepted the formula seconds after it was sent out into the network, changed it, and then sent it back out into the network.

  “This was a complex hack job that required professional help,” continued Gordon. “First, someone had to hack into the network ahead of time in order to get the information needed to program the equipment they used to hack into the system. Next, someone had to alter the video cameras to make sure Miss Fioretti wasn’t discovered in the secure area—that’s where Timmons and his staff come in. Finally, once Miss Fioretti got in and intercepted the formula, someone had to decrypt the code, change the formula and then encrypt it again—all in about a minute—before sending it back out into the network.”

  “So the woman…Amanda Fioretti, is behind this attack?” asked the Max Wessler.

  “No,” replied Gordon. “She was being influenced by someone else.”

  “What do you mean by…influenced?” asked Wessler.

  “Miss Fioretti is extremely unstable,” said Will. “She let herself be manipulated into carrying out these acts. She’s an accomplice, but there’s no way that she’s the mastermind. She didn’t even know who the other participants were.”

  Nadia gasped when she heard this, and Will gently squeezed her arm in a gesture of warning.

  “How do you know she’s not just faking ignorance on those details?” asked McCrea.

  “We know,” said Clive. “She was following orders, that’s all.”

  Nadia looked at Will. “Why are you guys throwing her under the bus like this?” she whispered.

  “You want to tell them she was possessed by a djinn?” he whispered back.

  “But…she could go to jail!” she hissed.

  Benderman had returned by this time, and he was quietly working his way to where they were standing. Will gave Nadia’s arm another squeeze.

  “They’ve got Timmons,” Benderman told him.

  “Thank God!” said Will.

  “He’s dead.”

  Will just stared at Benderman in surprise. “What happened?”

  “They don’t know the cause of death yet,” Benderman said. “Stroke, maybe. They said he was in pretty rough shape. They found him in his apartment. I’ve asked them to test for injections—poisons, drugs…” His voice trailed off. Nadia could have told him not to waste his time. Timmons’ death was caused by the trauma of having a djinn forcibly removed from his body. She thought of her father’s body after the procedure had been done to him and shuddered. The djinn in Timmons would not have vacated the body willingly.

  “Is there something else?” asked the president, who’d been watching them from behind his desk on the large screen.

  “The night security supervisor, Wayne Timmons, was just found d
ead in his apartment,” announced Will. “They don’t know the cause of death yet.”

  “Was he killed?” asked the president.

  “We don’t know yet,” said Will.

  The president looked stunned, but he remained as composed as ever. “I want you to keep on this,” he said to Will, and then he turned to Benderman. “Are there any updates on the mass in the ionosphere yet?”

  Benderman looked around the room. “Patricia?”

  “I’m right here,” she said, raising a hand. “We’re currently attacking the mass with high frequency energy in an attempt to force it to dissipate. It’s still too soon to see results.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Molten,” said the president. He paused a moment. “Is there anything else?”

  “Mr. President,” said Will—“In light of this new evidence indicating that Miss Fioretti had accomplices within T.D.M.R., I’m concerned about the removal of items from this facility. I’m worried that important evidence could be walking out the door.”

  “What are you proposing?” asked Wessler. “That we leave all the records there to be destroyed in the event of an earthquake?”

  “No, sir,” Will replied respectfully. “I agree that we need to save the records, but I really think you should bring in someone from the outside to record every detail.” He shook his head. “This is precisely how things disappear—during the confusion period in a crisis. I mean…it could be too late already.”

  “This is highly confidential, potentially dangerous information, and you’re suggesting we just hand it over to anyone?” exclaimed Wessler. “It’s preposterous!”

  “How many divisions are there out there with the security clearance to do this?” asked Will. “There must be hundreds. They would have no reason to steal any of the documents. They wouldn’t even know what they were looking at! They would have no interest in what’s going on here. That’s who should be collecting this data and delivering it to Washington!”

  “I agree,” said the president. “But we may be running out of time. What are we looking at now…just over two hours left?”

  “It’s a moot point,” said Benderman wearily. “They’ve been taking information out of here for the better part of an hour.”