The Divide

by J. L. Brown

  “Goldman Sachs,” Pat said. “But what’s more important is that Judy Porter’s father, Eli Adams, invested his personal funds with Scofield Asset Management.”

  “You think there’s a there there?”

  “Maybe. But that’s still not the most interesting part.”

  “You’re killing me, Pat.”

  “Jared Carr.”

  “Jared Carr what?”

  “He invested his personal funds with Scofield too.”

  Jade took a moment to absorb this. “What about Jason?”

  Pat shook her head. “Scofield belonged to a club also. In New York.”

  “What was it called?”

  “The Club.”

  “Creative. Any affiliation with the Carrs’ club in Chicago?”

  “No.”

  “What about the sonnet numbers?” asked Jade. “Did the analysts find anything?”

  “If there’s a relationship among the numbers, they couldn’t find it.”

  “Roman numerals?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What about Judy Porter’s computer?”

  Pat’s fingers stilled on her keyboard.

  “What?” Jade said.

  Pat glanced over her shoulder at the other agents working in their cubicles. Some were in conversation or speaking on the phone. “Let’s go to your office.”

  Locking her computer, she got up and walked away from her desk. Stunned by the request, Jade, for once in her life, followed.

  She entered her office and closed the door behind her, gesturing for Pat to take a guest chair, while she took the other.

  “What’s with the cloak-and-dagger?” Jade said.

  “Judy Porter’s computer contained a lot of information on Fairchild’s stay in Chicago when she was a teenager. Her time with the aunt and at the convent. The adoption records, even a picture of the baby. Also, Landon’s work history with the president. That he paged for her in high school. What she didn’t have was proof that Fairchild knew—or believed—that he was TSK.”

  “I still don’t understand all the secrecy.”

  Pat eyed Jade’s desk phone, as if it might be bugged. She lowered her voice. “I discovered the identity of the witness.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Joseph Miller.”

  “Got an address?”

  Pat nodded.

  “That’s great,” Jade said. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” She sprung from her chair and went behind her desk, grabbing the handset. “I’ll call Dante. We can be in St. Louis in a few hours.”

  Pat walked around the desk, took the phone out of Jade’s hand, and returned it to its cradle.

  Pat held out her hand. “Where’s your cell phone?”

  Jade fished her phone out of her pants pocket and handed it to Pat. She took both of their phones and put them in one of Jade’s desk drawers.

  “You’re starting to freak me out,” Jade said.

  The wrinkles around Pat’s eyes seemed to multiply. “Maybe we should be. I’m not sure who’s listening.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We don’t need Miller’s address,” Pat said, “because he’s not going to be there.”

  “Did he move?”

  “No,” she said. “He’s dead.”

  “What happened?”

  Pat stared into her eyes. Jade saw fear in them for the first time. Pat motioned for Jade to bend down toward her.

  “A car accident,” Pat whispered. “Same stretch of road as the congressman, and he hit the same—”

  “Tree,” Jade finished for her.

  *

  After Pat left, Jade paced while she deliberated on next steps. She collapsed in her chair and leaned over the desk, resting her forehead on her arms. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through the night.

  Jade believed that her current supervisor, Warren Barringer, had halted a federal investigation into the murder of a US congressman, and an eyewitness to that murder who was in a similar accident as Steven Barrett was now dead too. Judy Porter, who’d dogged President Fairchild throughout her candidacy and her time in office, was also dead.

  Should she confront Fairchild? Jade didn’t have any proof that the president was involved.

  Should she confront Barringer?

  It would be career suicide.

  She picked up the phone. “I need to see him.”

  Moments later, she marched toward the elevator. Photographs of the many agents who’d served the FBI over the last century hung on the corridor’s walls. Some had fallen in the line of duty. Almost all of them were heroes.

  Micah jumped up from his cubicle chair and ran to catch up to her. He fell into step. “Where are you going?”

  “Headed up to Barringer’s office. Why?”

  “I wanted to show you something. On the Shakespeare case.”

  “I can’t now.”

  “It’s important.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  He held her arm, stopping her. “I want to show you now.”

  Looking into his eyes, she remembered when he’d warned her off reopening the Blakeley case in the bureau’s parking garage.

  He’d brought up the case at the English bar. What was his interest in it?

  Jade looked at his hand, waiting for him to remove it. After he did, she said, “What’s this about, Micah? It’s almost as if you’re trying to stop me from seeing Barringer.”

  She forced herself not to look away from those damn eyes.

  “I can’t imagine anyone stopping you from doing anything you want to do,” he said. “What I want to show you is more important.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “May I at least walk you to the lift?”

  “I can walk myself.”

  She brushed by him. After she entered the elevator, Jade pressed the button and turned around.

  Micah stood in the hallway, staring at her, as the doors closed.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Washington, DC

  “When did you last speak to your son?” Sasha asked quietly.

  They were ensconced in the back of the Beast. Sarah sat in the adjacent sofa seat, making changes to Whitney’s daily schedule. Whitney wanted to spend more time at her next stop, necessitating that they rearrange the entire day.

  They were bound for a suburban Maryland elementary school, where Whitney would be giving a speech on the urgent need for girls to pursue STEM careers. The US needed more scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians.

  The United States needed women.

  Whitney didn’t understand the concern on Sasha’s face. Perhaps it was because of Whitney’s dysfunctional home life. Sasha probably suspected that something was wrong. Grayson resided in Missouri, and neither of her children had visited the White House in a long time.

  Immersed in shame, Whitney hadn’t spoken to her son since he walked out on them at Camp David.

  “I don’t recall,” Whitney said simply.

  “A source tells me that Chandler started a new job.”

  “Sampson’s replacement?” Whitney said. “What of it? I’m glad he no longer works for Sampson. I didn’t think he represented his state or the legislative branch well, and I certainly didn’t think he was the proper role model for my son.”

  Sasha pursed her lips. “Lord knows I agree with you. Money doesn’t buy class. But you’re not going to be happy about his new employer.”

  “I can live with Hampton, if that’s what you’re implying. It’s not optimal, but at least he possesses some principles and is a master of parliamentary procedure, which could prove helpful if, God forbid, Chandler decides to remain in politics.”

  “It’s not Sampson’s replacement, and it’s not Senator Eric Hampton.”

  “Who then?”

  “Your son,” Sasha said, “is the newest legislative aide for Congressman Cameron Kelly.”

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Washing
ton, DC

  Assistant Director, Criminal Investigative Division Warren Barringer’s spacious office looked out on Pennsylvania Avenue. Unlike Ethan’s office, with the FBI motto displayed behind the desk, photographs of Barringer with the who’s who of Washington—President Fairchild, former president Richard Ellison, Senators Eric Hampton and Paul Sampson, Representative Howard Bell—decorated the walls.

  After being waved in, Jade walked behind his desk, surveying the photographs.

  She pointed at one. “Who’s this?”

  Barringer strained to turn his bulk in the chair and glance over his shoulder. “That’s my latest addition. Congressman Cameron Kelly.”

  “From what state?”

  “Missouri.”

  Jade thought for a moment. “Which district?”

  “Who cares?” he said. “He’s a good man. Let’s get to it, shall we? I’m meeting with the director in fifteen minutes.”

  Jade moved to a chair across from him. “Actually, Missouri is what I want to talk to you about.”

  Barringer shuffled some papers on his desk. “What about it?”

  “There was an inquiry. About a congressman from there. Car accident. One of my agents said that you directed her to stop any further inquiries into the case.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “You don’t remember the case or calling her off it?”

  “Neither.”

  She pointed at his computer. “Can you check?”

  Barringer stopped shuffling. “No, I can’t. I’m busy.”

  “This might be important.”

  “I decide what’s important, and you’re working on a major case already, which, I’ll remind you, isn’t going that well. You don’t have time to mess around with an old closed case.”

  “That’s the point. It shouldn’t be closed. I think—”

  Barringer stood. “I don’t care what you think. You’ve got a job to do, and I expect you to do it.”

  “I’m doing my job.”

  “So you say. To be clear, I’m ordering you to drop any further inquiries into Congressman Steven Barrett’s death.”

  The heat flashed in Jade’s face. “Ordering?”

  “That’s what I said, princess.”

  She stood still.

  Motionless.

  Stared at him.

  “Why did you call me that?”

  “It’s just a term. I didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t go charging me with sexual harassment or assault or any of that foolishness.”

  Jade wasn’t angry at the inappropriate endearment. She was stunned. Only her father called her princess.

  Striding to the door, she turned back to him. “Given that you don’t remember the case, it’s funny that you know his name.”

  She made sure to slam the door on her way out.

  On the way back from Barringer’s office, Jade stopped by Micah’s cubicle, which was decorated with photos of Arsenal football players. A new photo had been added: a beautiful black woman who looked like a model. Jade peered closer. “That’s new. Who is it?”

  “What do you Yanks say? Noneya?”

  “Okay,” Jade said, feigning disinterest. She realized for the first time that aside from his love of the English Premier League team, she didn’t know much about Special Agent Micah Alexander. “What were you going to tell me?”

  Still fuming, she wanted to distract herself from the disturbing conversation with Barringer.

  “You said it wasn’t important.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said without humor.

  He shook his head. “It was about Hurley. She went to the Carr Summit years ago.”

  She leaned against the edge of his cubicle wall. “What’s that?”

  “It’s where a bunch of conservative blokes and ladies congregate, donate a lot of money, and carve up the world.”

  “Any of the other victims there?”

  He shrugged. “I only know Hurley was there, because she told her ex-husband.”

  “We need the list of attendees,” Jade said.

  “That’ll be hard to do. Not only is the invitation list a secret, but so is the event itself. If you tell anyone that you’ve been invited or discuss anything that takes place there, you’ll never be invited back.”

  “You learned all this from her ex?”

  “Hurley sometimes got drunk and would call him late at night. I guess being a CEO, she didn’t have a lot of people to speak freely with. He said he’s never told anyone.”

  “And now it doesn’t matter that she won’t be invited back,” she said. “Solid, Micah.”

  “Told you.”

  She turned to go.

  “That wasn’t all,” he said. “I found a link between Scofield and Carr.”

  “Pat told me Scofield handled Carr’s money.”

  “Did she also tell you that they went to prep school together?” He checked his notes. “The Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.”

  Chapter Eighty

  The White House, Washington, DC

  Whitney occupied a lounge chair on the Truman Balcony just off the Yellow Oval Room, which afforded a view of the South Lawn, the National Mall, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. A few small trees and fresh flowers were interspersed with chairs, couches, and tables grouped in various arrangements. The balcony was used for entertaining foreign heads of state, diplomats, members of the other branches of government, and celebrities.

  It was becoming Whitney’s favorite spot in the White House. She enjoyed breakfast out here on the weekends, and, on warm nights, she worked or read.

  The phone rang. She picked up the extension on a side table.

  “Madam President,” Sasha said, her voice tight, “you’re needed in the Situation Room. Now.”

  “Sasha, what’s happened?”

  “Reports are coming in that a number of power plants and electrical grids are down along the West Coast.”

  “What’s the cause?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “You don’t think it’s a coincidence?”

  “No.”

  “Tamirov.”

  “Or Min. Or both.”

  China and Russia had reportedly infiltrated the electrical grid of the US back in 2009, leaving behind software that could disrupt several regions of the country.

  “We’ve received word that at least three large corporations were breached. Social security numbers, email addresses, personal information. Cyber Command thinks there will be more.”

  “My God,” Whitney said. “I’ll be right there.”

  She hung up.

  Whitney looked longingly at her glass before picking it and the bottle up and heading inside. She poured the remaining wine in the glass down the sink and capped the bottle, returning it to the wine refrigerator.

  She called the ground-floor kitchen for a pot of coffee to be delivered to the Situation Room.

  Time to go to work.

  *

  Whitney scanned the intense faces around the table.

  “Dani?” she said.

  “Electric power grids, water systems, and energy were impacted on the West Coast,” said Danielle Oliver, the secretary of energy.

  “Ditto for telecommunications and transportation,” said Julio Casillas from transportation.

  “Automatic cars crashed. Interstate trucking has been impacted. Grocery stores won’t receive deliveries on time, if at all. If this goes on a lot longer, they’ll run out of food. Same with gas stations.”

  Oliver said, “Blackouts in LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas, and Portland.”

  “I’m worried about the inner cities,” Vice President Josephine Bates said.

  “What time did this happen?” Whitney asked no one in particular.

  “Midnight,” responded several of them.

  Energy Secretary Oliver caught her eye. “Exactly midnight.”

  “Personal computers and cell phones aren’t working at all
,” Transportation Secretary Casillas said. “Some are displaying gibberish.”

  “Manufacturing facilities have been infiltrated,” said Tucker Price, secretary of labor. The sweat from his underarms formed gray semicircles on his white shirt.

  Smaller than most citizens imagined, the Situation Room now smelled of a mix of sweat, cologne, perfume, and coffee.

  Secretary of Homeland Security Maricela Salcedo said, “Several banks and credit card companies were hit with denial-of-service attacks. Corporate servers, ISPs are down. Folks will panic when they can’t email, Skype, text, or conduct online transactions. Even the RainForest, which provides cloud-based solutions that support many businesses around the world, including eighty percent of the Fortune 500, was hit. When the public starts realizing what’s happening… we need to be prepared. For possible violence.”

  “This will disproportionately hit poor people,” Jo said. “Minorities. They’ll freak the fuck out.”

  “Everyone’s going to freak out,” wailed Price. “It’s a fuckin’ mess.”

  “Calm down, Tucker,” Whitney said.

  Jo said to him, “Why are you always so emotional?”

  Whitney cut her a look. “Jo. Please.”

  “Asian markets are plummeting,” said London James, secretary of the treasury. “I expect US markets to plunge. Thousands of points.” She paused. “Should we stop the market from opening?”

  “No,” Whitney said. “The world needs to know that the United States of America is open for business.”

  “How can we be open for business when a quarter of the country is in the dark?” said Oliver.

  Good question.

  She turned to James. “What’s the impact?”

  London James was the first female CEO in Goldman Sachs’s history and another in a long succession of former Goldman Sachs CEOs to join presidential cabinets. Whitney liked the tenaciousness it took for James to claw her way to the top spot at the top investment bank in the world.

  “Daily?”

  Whitney nodded.

  James shrugged. “Trillions.”

  “Go on,” Whitney said.

  “Banks will shut down. Customers won’t be able to access cash or credit. People will panic. Demand for food, gas, and other necessities will outstrip supply. A US panic will cause a global panic. Demand for the dollar will plummet. Inflation will rise. If it goes on for long, hyperinflation will ensue. Interest rates will increase. Investors will invest in other currencies. Shall I continue?”