Protégé was silent. He felt uneasy, and the growing darkness outside seemed slightly ominous. What was this all about?
He debated with himself for a moment, then decided to give voice to his misgivings. “I find myself a little unsettled by the turn our conversation has taken. You clearly have me over a barrel, in the middle of nowhere and in the dark, and now this business of you being the real owner of my home? I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt because I like and respect you, but I have to ask: What do you mean by all of this?”
Archive smiled and put a reassuring hand on the younger man’s arm. “My apologies. I had hoped to gain your attention, to personalize my point, if you will, but not to cause fear or earn your ire. Banking is among the tools at my disposal, and at the disposal of the relatively few other people in the world like me. Together, we own and control the means of production. We own physical and human capital. We are able to own those things only because currency devaluation has enabled us to slowly but steadily redistribute the wealth of nations. We do it patiently and quietly. But we slowly collect capital from almost every other human on the planet.”
Protégé was momentarily convinced that the old man was bragging, but he quickly dismissed the thought. He had never heard a boast from his mentor in their years-long friendship.
He decided that there must be more to the older man’s point than mere braggadocio. Something important. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you will need to understand these things if you are to survive what is to come. And I would like for you to survive.”
“Shit, seriously? I hadn’t pegged you for a prepper crackpot.” Protégé wasn’t able to completely suppress the contemptuous edge in his voice.
“Prepper?” Archive responded. “As in, ‘one who prepares for inevitable events that occur on an unexpected timeline’? Guilty. As far as my being a crackpot, I’m not sure my wife would entirely disagree.”
Protégé felt himself flush and silently cursed his clumsiness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that preppers are quite an . . . unusual crowd, and I didn’t expect—”
“Think nothing of it. I’m not offended, and I don’t exactly fit the cliché. Besides, I have the benefit of a vastly different vantage than you currently enjoy. All of comprehension is a matter of perspective, and I daresay that yours is about to expand dramatically.”
The old man glanced at his watch. “In fact, that process will start in another half hour or so.”
31
Somewhere on the East Coast. Friday, 6:59 p.m. ET.
“That’s not a terrific idea, Detective.” The voice came from behind him, to the left. It was friendly enough, but its deep, disembodied resonance had appeared out of nowhere and caused an icy chill to run down Thierrot’s spine. He instantly ceased struggling.
He had no idea how long the man had been in the room with him, watching him suffer through alternating bouts of abject submission and panicked thrashing against his unrelenting restraints.
He involuntarily flexed his neck muscles to turn his head in the direction of the man’s voice, but the leather strap across his forehead prevented him from moving more than a degree or two.
“We’re all born with some fight in us, but there are times when resignation is the only course.” The calm, even tone resounded in the small room.
Thierrot’s well-trained police detective ears heard no apprehension in the man’s voice, and the hard edges around the echoes told him, subconsciously, that he was in a room without carpet or furnishings.
Was he in a hospital? That would explain the incessant beeping, but not the restraints.
And the man’s words were strange. No doctor would speak of resignation as the only course.
The man’s speech had an unusual accent, too, with inflections placed vaguely in the wrong places. The middle of the word “not” had shaded just a bit too far toward “note.” And it had almost sounded like the man said “ressiknation,” as if he had gotten stuck on the “s” and broken free only to run headlong into the “g,” which had come out a bit too harsh. Eastern Europe? Thierrot wasn’t sure. It was just a remnant of an accent, barely perceptible, the way a blemish sometimes remained even after a thorough polishing.
Thierrot moved his eyes as far as they would go, but he couldn’t move them far enough to locate the source of the strangely accented voice. He blinked, and felt the tightness of dried tears around his eyes.
He suddenly felt self-conscious, then ashamed. He was used to making other people feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. He was accustomed to shattering others’ resistance in an interrogation cell, with confessions being the frequent result of his storied and mostly-legal techniques.
He made it his practice to avoid being on the receiving end of such treatment, and he hadn’t responded well to his current predicament.
But it was, all things considered, one hell of a predicament.
He opened his mouth to speak, but felt something stuck between his teeth. A mouthpiece, like the kind he had worn playing high school football years ago. And a mask covered everything from his chin to his nose.
“What do you want?” he tried to ask, but his dry throat merely croaked. His words were unintelligible.
“You’ll find that your needs are quite taken care of, despite the discomfort. You likely feel very hungry, but you’re not starving. Relieve yourself whenever the feeling strikes. You have a catheter and a bucket all to yourself.” It sounded more like book-et than bucket.
Another garbled croak escaped Thierrot’s throat.
“Quietly, quietly we wait,” the voice said. “I am not sure how many more days.”
Thierrot’s spirits, which had lifted slightly during the short conversation with another human being, crashed violently. He knew it was extremely important not to give up hope or lose his will to fight, but the thought of spending days strapped down like this brought on an involuntary sob. It coursed through his body, which convulsed against the leather straps holding him down. A single tear escaped his left eye.
He felt a deeper despair than he ever remembered feeling. A wave of panic washed over him. He tried to calm down with a deep inhalation, but the resistance of the mask covering his mouth made him suddenly and violently claustrophobic.
Against his own will but unable to stop himself, he struggled with his full strength against the leather straps, feeling sharp stings as the chafe wounds on his skin reopened.
His muscles and skin burned, but he kept fighting against his restraints. His voice strained in a deep, guttural yell that came from the center of him. It sounded like stark, primal fear.
Thierrot awoke again with a start.
His body jerked, and zings of sharp pain shot through his arms and legs. His raw skin rubbed against the leather restraints that held him fast to the bed.
He forced himself to stay calm. He breathed deeply, making a conscious effort to tolerate the mask still strapped to his face and the mouthpiece still firmly in its place between his teeth.
How long had he been out? Had he been drugged? He had no idea.
He thought about the mouthpiece. It seemed a strange thing for them, whoever they were, to have given him.
Them. Adrenaline shot through his veins and he felt butterflies in his stomach. He wondered if the man with the vaguely strange accent was still in the room with him.
He had no idea how long he had been asleep, or how long he had been strapped flat on his back. An hour? A day?
Probably more than a few hours, but it was impossible to tell. The fluorescent institutional lighting was always on, and there were no familiar events that might serve as signposts for the flow of a day. There was nothing to mark the passage of time.
He tried again to look around the room, but the strap across his forehead didn’t permit much movement in either direction. His panicked struggles had left his forehead just as raw as his wrists and ankles.
He clearly wasn’t going
anywhere.
His back, buttocks, and heels hurt from supporting his bodyweight in an immobilized position for hours on end. He tried to shift his weight slightly in either direction, but he wasn’t able to move far enough off the sore spots to give him any relief. He settled for repeatedly flexing and relaxing his butt muscles to generate a little movement and allow the blood to circulate.
It’s one hell of a pickle, he thought. He had no idea who was holding him and he had no clue what they might want from him.
He recounted those events he could remember, searching for any indications that might shed light on where he was, and to whose whims he now found himself so thoroughly exposed.
He had given the Agency the right of first refusal, turning to them first. His first loyalty was to them, and always had been. The one-word reply, “no,” had told him all he needed to know.
Sure, a meeting would have been a bit risky. It was always a risk. But in almost two decades of CIA employment, Thierrot hadn’t ever come in just for a chat and a donut. There had always been a damn good reason, and they knew it. The monsignor’s death and the sudden attention of the counterintelligence clowns on his investigation had put him in a hell of a bind, and they knew that, too.
He couldn’t continue to manipulate the evidence or manhandle his team to influence the investigation’s outcome without arousing suspicion, especially given his past.
On the other hand, it was clear that without some form of intervention, at least a few unsavory truths were bound to find their way to daylight.
He desperately needed some outside help from a specialist or two to make sure the investigation he was responsible for running didn’t produce any unwanted revelations. The Agency’s refusal to meet with him made him suspect that he was about to be burned.
So he did what any double agent with an inkling of a survival instinct would do. He initiated contact with his other set of friends.
He had gone through the procedures as carefully as he ever had in his life, making doubly sure not to cause any problems in the process.
He didn’t think he was followed, but nobody ever does. Multi-car surveillance teams were the norm, and it was beyond difficult to detect them.
Plus, there was no doubt that Thierrot had a lot on his mind, so it was possible that he had missed something important.
He thought through the way the meeting had unfolded. He had parked where he was supposed to park, trudged through the weeds and insects, and entered the dark garage, just as he was told.
Then . . . BAM. Gut punch.
It was probably the best punch he’d ever taken. It crushed him. It hurt. Had to have been a big, powerful guy on the other end of that fist. He hadn’t seen any faces or heard any voices. He hadn’t had a chance to fight back.
He was on the ground imitating a goldfish out of water when they stuck him with the needle.
He let out a deep, frustrated sigh, and felt the pressure of his exhalation push the mask ever so slightly away from his face.
Stay focused, he thought, fighting a wave of claustrophobia. Thankfully, the feeling passed.
For the first time since he had awoken to find himself strapped down like cargo, Thierrot started to feel a little bit like himself. There might not be much opportunity right now, he reckoned, but sooner or later, something, a chance of some sort, would eventually pop up. It might not be a huge opportunity, but he knew he needed to be ready when it showed up.
I don’t need to put up with this forever, he thought. Just this moment. Just right now.
He focused on breathing deeply. And you gotta stop losing your shit like a five-year-old girl. Keep it together, man!
He started to feel better, like maybe death wasn’t imminent. Maybe he would survive. Maybe they were just softening him up a bit before asking a few touchy questions. He could play ball, wait for an opportunity, maybe negotiate or make a move if the right situation presented itself. Keep your head, man.
He heard a door open very close to his bed. There was a pause, then the door shut again. He held his breath, straining for another sound, a voice, any information whatsoever.
He heard nothing.
But he felt someone watching him.
32
Shirlington, VA. Friday, 6:54 p.m. ET.
The workout had been every bit as miserable as Vaneesh had anticipated. His back, buttocks, and upper legs felt rubbery from all of the squats, and the pull-ups had taken their toll on his upper body. A burgeoning blister now adorned his left hand.
Vaneesh’s exertion had completely purged him of any remaining uneasiness from the dead drop, at least for the moment.
He returned to the locker room. As he gathered his duffel bag, he noticed that the padlock on locker number 45 was now gone, and the door hung slightly ajar. A quick glance inside confirmed that the envelope he had taped to the top of the locker was no longer there.
Whoever had orchestrated the dead drop had done it very quickly. The entire workout, from warm-up to sweaty puddle of exhausted humanity, had taken less than twenty minutes.
He took a deep breath. There was no turning back now.
33
Washington, DC. Friday, 7:14 p.m. ET.
By the time Vaneesh had made the leisurely walk from his gym back to his apartment building, the pages containing his computer code were already on the other side of the city, winding their way through a digital scanner.
Word-recognition software converted the imagery back into usable computerized words, which a small man with a weak chin and too-large glasses copied and pasted into the compiler.
A stray semicolon prevented the code from compiling on the first try, but the man quickly found the error caused by the scanner.
Trojan, as he was known, was also exceptionally talented with computers, having designed and deployed his first continental-scale virus before he could drive a car. He had a solid appreciation for the elegance and genius woven into the code that was handed to him by the tall blonde-haired man he knew simply as Whitey.
“Is it doable?” Whitey had asked.
“Maybe. It may require delivery in two separate worms. It depends on how much code I have to compress.”
“Please, make every effort to fit it into a single file. It’s going to be hard enough as it is. Sorry about the insane deadline, too.” Whitey left him to his work with a friendly handshake.
In the large city all around him, most people were starting their weekend, but Trojan knew that there wasn’t much rest or relaxation in his immediate future. It really was a ridiculous deadline.
He sighed as he got to work in earnest.
34
The Chesapeake Bay. Friday, 7:23 p.m. ET.
Chaim floated in the small raft, shivering slightly in the dark. It was a warm night, but the Chesapeake was cold, and he was still wet from his frantic escape from the police dogs.
He was afraid. He had lost his backpack. It contained the rifle he had used to murder John Averett, the CEO of that weapons company.
The backpack contained evidence linking him to the crime, and it might even have enough evidence to compromise his whole team.
And it had contained something else of much more practical significance: his disposable cell phone. It was how he was supposed to relay his position to Farhoud, who would pick him up in the motorboat.
He still had the GPS receiver, so he knew inside of a dozen feet where he currently sat on the globe. But he had no way to tell anyone where to find him.
He was certain that the police would have patrols on the water searching for him shortly, if they weren’t already combing the waterfront just east of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds.
His heart thumped loudly in his chest. He didn’t feel at all prepared to survive a police interrogation without giving away important secrets.
He felt hungry, and suddenly very tired. He pondered solving all his problems by simply slipping into the water, but quickly dismissed the thought. The end would come only after hours of painful st
ruggle against the chilly water. It wasn’t cold enough to kill him quickly.
Chaim heard a motorboat engine in the distance. He felt conflicted. He longed to be out of the uncomfortable raft and off the water, and the thought of being hauled into a boat almost made him giddy.
On the other hand, the boat might not be just a fisherman or recreational boater out for an evening on the water.
It might be the police, searching for the owner of a backpack containing the high-powered rifle that killed one of the world’s most powerful CEOs.
In the end, there wasn’t much Chaim could do. He simply sat quietly in the raft as the boat approached.
He heard the motor slow, then idle as the boat neared. Why are they slowing down? There was nothing around him—he was smack in the middle of the Chesapeake, drifting along with the current with not even a buoy nearby. There was no reason for the boat to slow, unless . . .
A flashlight turned on and scanned the water near him. The boat floated ever closer. Chaim lay flat in the raft to make himself as small as possible. As badly as he wanted to be rescued, he feared the police even more.
His movement caused a noise, and the flashlight panned instantly in his direction. Shit. The light stayed on his raft a long time.
A voice scared him nearly to death.
“Chaim?”
He wet himself.
Then he realized that he recognized the voice. “Farhoud?” his voice broke with relief.
“Chaim, did you forget to tell me where to find you? I had to ping the beacon in your raft. Very dangerous.”
Farhoud’s familiar voice caused Chaim to laugh convulsively and a little manically, and tears snaked down his cheeks.
“I lost my pack, Farhoud. I’m so sorry.”
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