by Ken Fite
“This is Jordan,” I said as I moved back to the window and lifted the blinds once again.
“Blake, it’s Emma,” she said urgently. “Are you aware of what’s going on with this ransomware attack?”
“Yes, I just met with Chris Reed. He said that the Bureau’s Cyber Division is all over it, Emma. So is DDC. Their Chicago field office is working closely with people at the Washington location to try to stop it.”
“Blake, the president is in a meeting about the threat right now and asked me to get with you to make sure you were aware and staying on top of the situation. Are you at DDC now?”
“No,” I replied. “But Chris Reed is on his way. I’ll get an update from him shortly, and I’ll relay that back to you as soon as I know more about it. Right now, they’re just trying to figure out how to slow it down.”
Ross didn’t respond immediately. I pulled my cell away from my ear and held it to my face for a moment to make sure we were still connected. When I brought the phone back, she said, “Blake, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I think you need to get over there. Keller’s going to expect you to be on-site.”
“I’m dealing with something right now, Emma.”
“And I can appreciate that, but—” She pulled the phone away to talk to someone before coming back on. “Blake, I need to go. I’ll call you back in half an hour unless I hear from you first. Get over to DDC. Okay?”
“Fine,” I replied. “But, Emma—”
Before I could continue, the line was disconnected. I looked at my phone briefly before dropping it in my back pocket. I rested my hands on my dresser and leaned on it, closing my eyes, and shook my head. When I opened them, I saw two items on top of it: the novel I had purchased less than an hour ago and the ring.
I opened the top of the messenger bag still strapped over my shoulder and dropped the book inside and closed it back up. Then I picked up the ring, looked at it briefly, and placed it inside my front pocket.
When I got to the front door, I turned and looked all around, trying to think of anything else I might need.
Deciding that I had what I needed for a few days, I exited, walked down the long hallway that led to my apartment, and descended the stairs. I stepped out onto Madison and walked a block west and then went south on Pitt Street, where my car was parked two blocks farther south at the corner of Pitt and Pendleton.
While I preferred to take a taxi when traveling around Washington, I didn’t want to leave my vehicle at home. I climbed into my black government-issued SUV and set my messenger bag on the passenger seat.
Starting the engine, I looked behind my vehicle through the rearview mirror and checked the other mirrors. I didn’t see anyone besides an older woman walking north on Pitt. I put it into gear and left.
But I didn’t head to the Washington DDC field office. I decided to drive to Charlie’s, like I had planned.
Sometimes, you have to decide what you’re willing to get in trouble for not doing. Chris and Jami would have to handle the ransomware cyberattack with Morgan and find a way to stop it without my help.
ELEVEN
THE DRIVE TO Charlie’s was in the same direction as the new Department of Domestic Counterterrorism field office. From the Kingsley, I began heading north toward Washington, where I’d pass Reagan National and take George Washington Memorial Parkway the rest of the way. Only I wouldn’t exit at I-395 to go into DC. I’d stay on the parkway and loop around Arlington to meet my friend at his home in Rosslyn.
As I passed the Potomac Yard neighborhood, I thought about the new DDC field office.
In the three months since it had opened, I hadn’t visited it yet. I avoided it, actually. The office was across the street from the Hoover Building, which Chris Reed and Mark Reynolds, another Bureau agent I partnered closely with, worked from. Back in Chicago when I ran the first DDC office, the Bureau moved from their downtown location to a new building practically across the street from us. We joked that they were keeping an eye on us, only to confirm later that they actually were monitoring DDC, a subgroup of the Central Intelligence Agency formed to fight and prevent domestic terrorism within the United States.
Soon after I was fired as the SAIC, my boss, DDC Director Roger Shapiro, became friends with the FBI’s Bill Landry. When Landry got transferred from Chicago to Washington to run the Bureau’s DC field office, Shapiro made it a point to keep that friendship going and began collaborating more closely with the FBI. Since then, Landry had been promoted to deputy director, second only to FBI Director Peter Mulvaney.
When it came time to build a second DDC office, Shapiro chose Washington and had it intentionally located as close as possible to the Bureau’s Hoover Building, in the spirit of collaboration and partnership. That was how Jami had explained it last Christmas when I visited her in Chicago before we left for New York.
As I approached Reagan National, my mind began to wander, and I started to think about Jami again and the way that I had walked away from her six months ago on that cold New Year’s Eve night in New York.
Jami and the rest of my team had just helped me take down the terrorists responsible for coordinating a cyberattack against the government along with trying to dismantle a surveillance program that was operating out of a secret NSA building in the heart of Manhattan called TITANPOINTE. With her help, I had killed both of the men involved: a guy named Jeff Clayton and a Russian man named Nikolai Ivanov.
And the last thing that Ivanov had said to me, moments before I sent him racing toward his death, was that while I might be stopping him, he had already relayed to his people who I was and who I worked for.
And that scared the hell out of me. Not for my own safety, but for Jami’s. If it hadn’t been for those words spoken to me, Jami and I might still be together. And that ring would be on her finger, not in my pocket.
A more than competent field agent, Jami Davis had proved many times that she could hold her own in any kind of situation. I had hired her back at DDC in Chicago, and what really bonded us together was the kidnapping of then-Senator Keller and everything she did to help me find the man and get him back alive.
But I had lost my father in the process. Having already lost my wife to the same people responsible for Keller’s kidnapping, the only way I could keep Jami safe was by making the hard choice of walking away.
Shortly after Margaret Keller’s funeral, I learned that Jami had gone ahead with the transfer to the Washington field office that I had tried to persuade her not to go through with. But she was just as determined about going after what she wanted as she was beautiful—and that was what I loved about her.
I had felt cursed. Like anyone that got close to me, anyone I cared about, either ended up hurt or dead. That was a hard burden to carry. It made me feel broken, and she didn’t understand when I walked away.
After I ended things, I came back to Washington and was debriefed on my actions during that night by Bill Landry at the Bureau. I tried to move on with my life and focused on my job working for the president. Jami never called me after that night. I never called her, either. I got occasional updates from Chris Reed and Morgan Lennox, but I avoided Jami and the new DDC field office. I had spent the last six months looking over my shoulder every day, waiting for the Russians to come after me like Ivanov said they would. Based on what Sammy told me about the men that roughed him up, my past had finally caught up to me.
Just as I passed the airport, I heard the muffled sound of my cell phone ringing. Keeping my eyes on the road, I reached inside my messenger bag and felt around for it. I found the phone and held it up to my face.
It was Morgan Lennox. I knew why he was calling, and I didn’t want to have that conversation right now.
Dropping the phone, I turned on the radio and heard a woman’s voice giving a report on the ransomware attack. She said that Chicago-area hospitals were in crisis mode and turning away new patients. Seven people had died already, and their deaths were being directly attributed to nonfun
ctioning machines as a result of the ransomware attacks that had made those machines, critical to hospital workers, inoperable.
Then she began to give an update on Washington-area impacts. I raised the volume and held my breath.
“DC hospitals are now preparing for the worst as they struggle with the ransomware attack, with the only two facilities reporting major impacts being Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Children’s National Medical Center,” the reporter said. She went on, and I lowered the volume as I realized in that moment that, while the malware was spreading virally, the creators also seemed to be targeting specific groups.
In this case, veterans and children.
The woman ended the broadcast, saying that they would return with more on the ransomware attack after the commercial break. I turned the radio off and drove in silence for several minutes, hearing nothing but the drone of road noise on my way to Charlie’s. I thought about the veterans and children impacted by the attack. I held the steering wheel with one hand and wiped sweat from my brow as I started to feel anxious.
The situation at the hospitals started to weigh heavily on my heart as I looked up and noticed a sign up ahead, farther down the road, directing travelers to take the next exit for I-395 if driving into Washington.
I felt my heart begin to race again. It beat hard and fast in my chest as I started to think about my father and the days and nights that Jami had spent with me by his side in the Palos Community Hospital close to Chicago. I remembered the sounds of the equipment and the frenzy of doctors and nurses who would enter and leave, checking the readouts on the machines and monitoring my father’s health, making adjustments when needed. And I thought about the innocent children who were also now in harm’s way. Gripping my steering wheel tighter and becoming more upset about the situation with the ransomware the more I thought about it, I heard my cell ring. I reached for it and saw that it was Morgan calling again.
“Morgan, I’m five minutes out,” I said as I answered the call.
“Thanks, mate,” he replied. “Talk to you in a bit.”
He disconnected the call, and I dropped my phone back into the messenger bag on the passenger seat. Looking over my right shoulder, I veered into the exit lane on my right, cutting a car off in the process as I took the exit for I-395 and got on the bridge that would take me across the Potomac and into Washington.
In the distance, I could see the Washington Monument. I accelerated and drove my vehicle hard and fast.
I was headed to DDC.
TWELVE
MEG TAYLOR WAS seated at O’Malley’s desk, waiting for her call to be returned and wondering if she was onto something by looking into the man who she didn’t recognize. She hoped she wasn’t wasting her time.
Taylor held the picture that she had taken from the CNN guy and stared intensely at the face of one man.
Dropping the photograph onto the desk, Meg moved her mouse to wake up her laptop and reentered her credentials so she could access her system at the Times. She opened a web browser and did an online search for President Keller’s aides. She found a White House web page and scrolled down the page slowly.
On the “Executive Office of the President” page, Taylor found a listing of Keller’s closest advisors, overseen by Chief of Staff Emma Ross. Meg scrolled through names, titles, and stared at the corresponding headshots, which included some of the people shown in the photograph resting on the desk next to her.
Past the long listing of deputy chief of staff for legislative affairs, the press secretary, the director of strategic communications and countless other roles, Meg found a link at the very bottom of the web page that indicated that there was a separate listing for Keller’s senior advisors. She clicked on it and waited.
A few seconds later, she received a 404 error, indicating that the link was broken.
Meg leaned in and furrowed her brow. Scratching her head, she studied the URL at the top of the page and noticed a misspelling. Wondering if that was the problem, she moved her mouse to place the cursor on the misspelled word, corrected it, and hit enter. Immediately, she was taken to the correct location.
Taylor scrolled through quickly, looking only at the headshots of the president’s closest aides and ignoring the accompanying titles, long biographies, and details of their current responsibilities. She only wanted information on the one man she didn’t recognize in the picture. At the very bottom, the last senior advisory position listed within the national security advisory staff, Meg found what she was looking for.
Picking up the photograph from the desk, she held it next to the laptop’s screen and compared the images.
It was the same man. Mid-thirties, same boyish look to him, and the same Secret Service-like appearance about him. And the website listed the same name that was on the photo, handwritten by the CNN guy.
Dropping the picture, Meg whispered to herself, “Senior advisor on issues of domestic counterterrorism,” She scrolled down to read through the official bio, which was noticeably shorter than everyone else’s.
“Blake Jordan serves as a senior advisor to the president and has held roles in the intelligence community,” she said aloud and scrolled down, confirming that there was no other information listed.
Meg scratched her head, feeling annoyed and wondering if there might be anything on a non-White House website about the man. In the past, she had seen plenty of hit pieces written about incoming presidents, on both sides of the aisle, listing their newly appointed advisors with their background and experience.
She accessed a search engine and performed a search on “Blake Jordan” in quotes. There were no results.
“What?” Taylor whispered to herself as she leaned in to look at the screen on her laptop. She tried the search again, this time removing the quotes, and was presented with a couple of hundred results. Reading through the first page of results, none of them referred to the presidential aide that she wanted to know more about. But that gave her an idea based on something one of her former colleagues had shown her once. Accessing a website that was known as the “internet archive,” she once again tried her search.
This time, Taylor was given search results that did include the man who she was trying to learn more about. She found a twenty-year-old news article from the Chicago Tribune showing a younger James Keller standing next to another man with an arm around his shoulder. A teenage boy stood between the two men, holding a sign that read KELLER FOR SENATE with two hands. All three were smiling for the picture as they stood in front of several rows of tables and chairs filled with smiling campaign volunteers.
The caption under the photograph explained that Ben and his son, Blake Jordan, were helping Keller, a family friend, the day he was elected to the senate. Meg read the accompanying story, but there was no further mention of Jordan. She picked up the photo again and held it next to her monitor and stared at the two images—one of a boy; the other, a man—curious about the twenty years between the two photos.
She looked through the rest of the online results, but there wasn’t much more on the man who didn’t seem to exist or, at the very least, didn’t believe in having any kind of online footprint. As Meg went back to the picture of the young Jordan and studied his warm smile, her cell rang, and she fumbled to answer the call.
Turning back to the entrance to the press corps offices, Meg said, “Hello?” and waited for a response.
“It’s me,” the caller finally replied after a long pause. “I got the information that you asked me for.”
Meg moved her gaze back to the image on her screen. “I figured it out on my own. Jordan’s known Keller for a long time,” she said. “Looks like his dad was friends with the man while he ran for senate about twenty years back. Jordan probably went into the service, based on his physical appearance. Keller got elected and hired the guy. It wouldn’t be the first time a sitting president appointed a family member or friend as one of their aides. It actually happens a lot.” Taylor paused and added, “There’s no
thing here.”
Another long pause. “That’s where you’re wrong. There’s a lot more to it than that, Megan,” said the voice.
A confused look fell upon Taylor’s face. “Then why don’t you tell me what I’m missing?”
“I’ll tell you,” the man continued. “But I want to see you again.” He paused once more. “Tonight.”
Taylor thought about it for a few seconds, holding her cell up to her ear with one hand and chewing on a fingernail with the other. Then her thoughts drifted to the ultimatum that her boss had given her earlier. “Fine,” she finally replied after weighing the options in her mind and realizing that she didn’t have any.
“Blake Jordan,” the man said, speaking immediately, “grew up in Oklahoma City. At seventeen, moved to Chicago with his parents shortly after Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building. His father, Ben Jordan, worked with the ATF out of that building. Requested a transfer. My guess is the whole experience was traumatic for his son; the guy probably wanted a new start in a new city. So they moved.”
“Go on,” said Meg as she rummaged through her desk, found a pencil, and started writing on a yellow pad.
“Ben Jordan worked with another ATF man, a guy with high hopes of doing more than a desk job. The Chicago ATF office is where Ben Jordan met James Keller shortly before Keller retired to run for senate.”
“I found a picture,” said Meg, looking up from her yellow pad. “Ben and Blake helped with the campaign.”
“That was part of the deal,” said the caller. “My sources tell me that Ben Jordan agreed to help Keller if Keller—a former SEAL himself—would help train Ben’s son, who wanted to join the Navy after his senior year. Keller trained the boy. After graduation, he got in. Spent time at Camp Rhino in Afghanistan as part of SEAL Team Three during Operation Enduring Freedom before leaving the service to head up the CIA’s newly formed Department of Domestic Counterterrorism back in Chicago.” The man paused before continuing. “And, Megan, that’s just the beginning. You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.”