by Jack Bowie
“Yes, sir.” Yang’s emotionless countenance didn’t fool Robinson. He could feel the mathematician’s anger heating the room.
In some ways Robinson didn’t blame him; like any large bureaucracy, individual advancement in the NSA was built on results and visibility. No matter how good you were, if the brass didn’t know it, you languished in obscurity.
“I just hope they see the importance. We’re losing valuable time. Maybe if I went to see him.”
“No!” Robinson slammed his fist on the desk. “These messages have major policy implications. You know that.” He paused and his voice softened. “Look, Kam. Nothing ever moves as quickly as we would like. We’re all doing our part. I’m sure I can count on you to do the same?”
Robinson reached for his phone. “If that’s all, I’ve got a call to make.”
“Sure, Garrett. I’m done.” Yang walked out without closing the door behind him.
* * *
Connelly threw the binder across her desk, where it fell to the floor, broke open and spilled individual sheets of product specifications all over the carpet.
Why can’t I make any sense of all this?
When she looked up to check her aim, she saw Petrie standing in the doorway, just waiting there.
“What is it Cathy?” Connelly barked. “I thought I told you no interruptions?”
“Yes, I know, Megan. It’s just, well, . . .”
Connelly could hardly hear her assistant. Why was she being so obtuse? And she looked like she had just seen a ghost. “Well, what?”
“It’s an email message. It just came in.” Petrie cautiously approached her boss’s desk and held out a single piece of printer paper. “It’s about Ben.”
“What do you mean ‘about Ben’?” Petrie was frightening her. She grabbed the sheet out of her assistant’s hand and scanned the text.
From: Paul Venton
To:Vision One Senior Staff
Subject: Benjamin Lawson
It is with great personal and professional sadness that I must report that Benjamin Lawson died last night of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Ironically, Ben was on the way to Schiphol airport to return to Vision One headquarters in California at the time of the accident.
Ben was one of Vision One’s founders. A Yale and Stanford-trained computer scientist, he was a brilliant researcher, an insightful colleague, and a valued friend. Much of our recent success was due in no small part to his dedication and diligence.
Most recently, Ben has been on a special assignment in Utrecht, setting up our new European subsidiary headquarters.
Our utmost sympathies go to Ben’s family. Information on funeral arrangements will be forwarded as they are available.
Please cascade this memo to your staffs as appropriate.
Paul
“Cathie!” Connelly called, looking for her assistant. “When did you get this?”
But the room was empty. She was alone.
Oh God. Not Ben. Why him? Why now?
She had known him for years, of course. Ever since she had started at Vision One. But over the last nine months something had changed. They had been working together on the IPO: building a new business plan, producing unending reports, resolving issues with potential investors. It required long hours and tight deadlines. Enough to bring out the best and worst in a colleague.
At first he had been distant. Difficult to understand. But he was as committed as she, and soon they had found a pattern of working that, well, worked. The tasks were energizing and they became seduced by the activity.
She had seen it before. Two people working under stress, relying on each other. Perhaps more than they had ever relied on anyone. It was a formula for disaster. Office romances burned bright in the intensity of deadlines, but turned painfully cold in the monotony of day-to-day routines. She had been determined not to let that happen.
She had failed.
It had not been a blazing affair. More a smoldering expectation. It had started with a few lingering glances. Some quiet dinners. And then a brief good-night kiss.
She had marveled at the things they had in common. Parents who had died too early. A failed marriage and long line of unfulfilled relationships. An intense compulsion to succeed. He had opened a door she had long tried to keep shut.
They had gone to dinner at a quiet French restaurant in Palo Alto, but he had been distant, preoccupied, all evening. She had feared another rejection.
Then he had reached over and taken her hand. His warmth had rushed through her body, displacing all the doubt. She had never been happier.
“I have to go to Europe,” he had said. “To set up the new facility. I know it’s bad timing, but it will just be a short assignment. A few months. I promise.”
She had stared back into his dark eyes, wanting him more than she had ever wanted anyone. But there would be time; it was just a temporary assignment. He had promised.
Now this. How could it have happened?
* * *
Connelly pulled her head up from her desk. Standing in her doorway was Paul Venton looking even worse than she felt.
“Paul! What are you doing here?” After reading the message about Ben, Connelly had forgotten about Venton’s morning visit, cancelled all her meetings and locked herself in her office to hide. She smoothed her hair back from her forehead and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, but knew the redness was visible to anyone.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long” she said as nonchalantly as she could.
“No, it’s just been a moment,” Venton replied softly. He pulled a chair alongside her desk and sat down. “I’m truly sorry about Ben, Megan. I know how closely you two had worked together the past year. It’s a great loss for all of us.”
Connelly searched her boss’s eyes for recognition of something more than a reference to her professional well-being, but found nothing. Then again, she had never been able to see into Venton’s thoughts.
Paul Venton was an enigma. He had personally recruited her for Vision One. Recruited her hard; harder than was necessary in fact. She had accepted because she had needed to escape. Escape from Boston. Escape from her marriage. Had he known that all along?
Not unattractive, Venton had a husky, outdoorsman look with tousled brown hair and only a slight middle-aged paunch, but she had never known him to have a steady companion. For what it was worth, he had never even attempted a friendly flirtation with her, certainly a first for Connelly. He seemed to stand apart from the rest of the world, as if he was watching his creations act out the roles he had written for them. So far he had seemed to be directing quite effectively, but Connelly wondered how he was dealing with this latest twist.
“How are you doing, Paul? You knew Ben longer than any of us.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” he replied, but Connelly heard an unusual weariness in his voice. “It was certainly a shock. Ben was, eh, a very good friend.”
“What happened?”
“He was on his way to Schiphol. We had finally opened the new facility and he was anxious to get home. There was some kind of accident and his gas tank exploded. He didn’t have time to get out. It was awful.”
Connelly shivered at the thought of Ben trapped in a burning automobile. What a terrible way to die.
The last time she had seen him, he was sitting across from her at this very desk. His face filled her mind.
I’ve got to think about something else.
“Since you’re here, I have those marketing numbers we talked about last week,” she said weakly. “We can go over those and . . .“
“I don’t think we need to do that now, Megan.” Venton reached over and put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “I tried to catch you earlier, before the message went out.”
“Oh, I was at the dentist. I . . .”
“It’s okay, Megan. I only want to say how sorry I am. We can talk about work later.”
He gave her shoulder a tender squeeze and got up to leave.
“Yes?” Venton turned back to Connelly’s desk.
“Ben didn’t seem, well, different, the past couple weeks did he?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He just seemed distracted the last few times I talked to him. Almost like he was worried about something.”
“Did he mention anything specifically?”
His tone was sharp, accusatory. Why was he grilling her?
“No. It was just a feeling I got talking to him.”
Venton seemed to relax, but his voice turned low, almost conspiratorial.
“I wasn’t going to mention it, but Ben had been acting strangely.”
There was something wrong! Why didn’t he say so in the first place?
“I was afraid he had been working too hard,” Venton confessed. “His projects were slipping and frankly, his work wasn’t up to his usual standards. I asked him to take some time off. That’s why he was on his way home.” He shook his head slowly. “God, in some ways I blame myself for his accident.”
Connelly was speechless. How could he be saying this?
“I know you won’t let this go any farther, Megan. There’s no point in tarnishing Ben’s memory now.”
“Ah, no. Of course not, Paul.”
“Thank you. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure.”
Venton turned and disappeared into the reception area, closing the door as he left.
Why would he say that about Ben? They were friends.
Something had been wrong. Lawson’s mood had changed over the past few weeks. The daily telephone calls had stopped. So had his emails. She had received a letter, a real one, handwritten, last week. It had seemed forced, as if he needed to be careful about what he said.
She had to look at the letter again.
And she had to talk to someone about it. Someone outside of Vision One. But who?
* * *
The insistent buzz of the cordless phone stirred Robinson out of a sound sleep. Who would be calling him this late?
“Hello,” he said sleepily.
“What the hell are you doing!” came an angry voice.
Robinson shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. “What are you doing calling me at this time of the night? Some people try to sleep.”
“And some of us can’t! Not when their supposed allies are off spilling their guts to our enemies.”
“What are you talking about?”
“IMAGER! That’s what I’m talking about. Who thought up this stupid little plan? You said you could keep Yang quiet.”
Robinson had never heard the man so angry. Was he worried about exposure? “It’s compartmentalized. We’re completely protected.”
“I’m not worried about protection! I’m worried about divulging the existence of the algorithm. We can’t afford that. Find a way to bury this.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll cut off IMAGER.”
“Damn right you will. If you can’t, I will.”
A dial tone had never sounded so ominous.
Chapter 11
Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia
Wednesday, 1:30 p.m.
Slattery was reviewing the latest Homeland Security alerts when his private phone rang.
“Slattery.”
“Roger. It’s Peter. Can I borrow you for a couple hours?”
The hairs raised on the back of Slattery’s neck. His boss had been completely unavailable for the past two days and now the DDI wants to see him. What did Markovsky want now? Whatever it was, Slattery doubted it would answer the questions he had from Carlson’s meeting.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Something new. There’ll be a car waiting downstairs in fifteen.”
His anxiety level jumped up a step. “An off-site meeting? Do I need to ask where?”
“Probably not. We’re going back to McLean.”
* * *
Glen and the Escalade had been waiting in the underground garage when Slattery stepped out of the elevator. Traffic was light, so the trip to the NCTC was thankfully brief. Entering the SCIF, Slattery saw that most of the previous meeting’s attendees were already present. He pulled up a chair behind Markovsky.
“Nice of you to invite me along again, Peter. I hardly get out of Langley at all anymore.”
“Okay, Roger. I know we’ve been riding you pretty hard lately. I promise I’ll get you back before dinner. Is Beth still putting up with all your complaints?”
“As well as ever. She’s started taking some classes at George Mason. Wants to be a psychologist. Just when I’m ready to retire, she wants to go sticking her nose into other people’s heads. Doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Well,” Markovsky said with a smile, “maybe she doesn’t cherish the thought of having you around the house all the time.”
Slattery scowled at his boss, then relaxed back in the plastic seat and returned the grin. Markovsky probably wasn’t that far from the truth.
“So why the call?” he asked. “I thought the advisory meetings were on Mondays.”
“The DNI called an emergency meeting. I don’t know the details but his office said it was urgent. It’s almost like he thinks something terrible is about to happen.”
“I thought we were the ones that were supposed to know that first.”
Carlson hadn’t arrived yet, so Slattery decided to do some pushing. It wasn’t the best time, but Markovsky had been avoiding him for days. It was time to find out what his boss was hiding. “What’s the story on this IMAGER agent, Peter? Who the hell is he?”
The door opened and Carlson strode through. The room went silent.
“Guess we’ll find out about that emergency now,” Markovsky whispered and turned back to the table.
“Good afternoon,” Carlson began. “I appreciate your prompt response to my request. There has been a development in our monitoring of the militia groups that Mary Ellen has convinced me should be discussed. Copies of the briefing are on the table. Mary Ellen?”
The DNI nodded to his right and Flynn stood, moved fluidly around the table and took a position at the front of the room.
Slattery had a grudging respect for the Special Assistant despite her abrasive demeanor. She had had to work twice as hard as any other agent to break the Bureau’s glass ceiling, but still managed to look like something off the cover of Vogue. She too was wearing a pinstriped power suit, but it looked a helluva lot better on her than the other bureaucrats. Slattery hoped she had the courage to stay a real cop and not get pulled into the muddy gutters of Washington politics.
“Two nights ago,” Flynn began, “fires were set at the offices of three small, independent newspapers, the Guardian of Tyler, Georgia, the Tennessee Populist of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Free Citizen, of Leavenworth, Kansas.”
As Flynn spoke the names, a map of the United States appeared on a screen behind her and three red spots glowed in unison with her narrative.
“In all cases the fires completely destroyed the buildings. We have determined that the fires were intentionally set.”
“This is all very interesting, Mary Ellen,” Delacroix interrupted, “but why is the FBI involved in these events? Shouldn’t they be investigated by the local authorities?”
“They were initially, Admiral. But by mid-day yesterday our tracking systems had identified a pattern that sent an alert to the serial crime team. As you know, we developed the RIPPER computer program to search for common patterns in criminal events. We have found this enables us to gain a critical time advantage in the identification of serial crimes.”
“But you said these fires all occurred at about the same time,” Garcia interrupted. “In three different states. They couldn’t have been set by the same person.” Slattery had known Homeland wouldn’t give the FBI free rein on this one.
“You’re absolutely right, Jerry. But the program was developed to i
dentify common patterns, not people. And these three registered with a ninety-three percent positive correlation. All the arson targets were newspapers; decidedly liberal newspapers. And as best as we can determine the fires were all started at exactly the same time. Midnight in Tennessee and Georgia, 11:00 p.m. in Kansas. The MOs of the arsonists were very similar.”
“There must be some differences, Mary Ellen,” Delacroix asked.
“Yes, Admiral. There was one. In Georgia, the arsonist was also a murderer. The editor of the newspaper, a George Brown, was killed. We don’t know if Brown’s death was accidental or planned. As a result of these developments, we have activated the Serial Crimes Unit.”
“Isn’t that a bit of a reach, Mary Ellen?” Garcia asked. “All you have is three small fires.”
“Certainly you must agree that the similarities are way beyond coincidental. Look at the facts, Jerry!” Flynn’s voice ratcheted higher. “These were premeditated, coordinated events.”
“Okay, Mary Ellen,” Delacroix said. “Let’s say you’re correct. But this is still just three arson cases.”
“And a murder,” Flynn added.
“And a murder,” Delacroix repeated. “But even given that the FBI is now involved, why was it necessary to call all of us in?”
Slattery had been busy watching the body language around the table, the action “away from the ball” as his son would have said, rather than the formal exchanges. Markovsky and Stroller had been surprisingly relaxed compared to their usual state of impatient agitation. Normally they would have jumped at the chance to take a swipe at their FBI colleague. He got an uneasy feeling in his stomach. It didn’t take long before his concern was justified.
“After RIPPER identified the events,” Flynn continued, “we sent local teams to investigate. The initial correlation was completely correct.”
“I must again ask, Mary Ellen,” Delacroix pressed, “how do these events affect us?”
“I believe, Admiral, that these arsons are simply the first step in an escalating militia agenda. An agenda that will require an integrated response by this group.”
The room erupted into an explosion of questions. Subordinates frantically shuffled through the briefing to feed information to their bosses. Delacroix, Garcia, and Scott peppered Flynn with demands. Stroller and Carlson, on the other hand, were uncharacteristically silent. And Markovsky also sat quietly, but bowed his head during the questioning and intently rubbed his nose between his forefingers.