“I am fighting for her. My way. She is scary smart and fiercely determined. I know her better now than I did before this all started. Realize now that I can’t force her to admit she loves me. I can only tell her what I think of her and let her absorb it in her own due time. Which I’ll do, when I see her in person.”
“So until then you’re giving her the silent treatment?”
“No. You’re going to let her know I’m fine. When she’s through with the Stollen interview, I’ll call her. I’m making a prediction. All we’ll do is talk about work—because she won’t be the one to bring up personal issues. She and I will have to communicate about business issues until the trial ends and—hope against fucking hope—we figure out who has been impersonating Maximov. I’ll keep talking to her about work, until she decides she’s ready to talk about personal issues. And if she’s not ever ready to do that, well…” He was quiet for a second. As the helicopter landed, and his gaze rested on the people who were waiting for him, he added, “I’ll eventually change tactics. I’m not giving up, Ragno. Just trying to outsmart her without breaking my heart.”
He stepped out of the chopper and ran across the tarmac, arms outstretched, as his baby girl ran to meet him.
“Daddy!”
He fell to his knees as she collided with him. Enveloping her in his arms, he buried his face in her dark hair. With his arms and shoulders shaking from the force of emotion he couldn’t suppress, he squeezed her tightly as he thanked God that she was alive and safe.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
London, England
Thursday, February 10
The elevator dinged as the door opened on the fifth floor of One River Thames. As Zeus stepped into the hallway, he glanced at his watch. 1415. It felt like years since he’d been in Texas, reunited with Ana, but it was just over twenty-four hours. Now, although it was midafternoon in London, his body felt like it should be the middle of the night. Still, his adrenaline rush from Ana’s kidnaping energized him. He’d barely slept on the transatlantic flight he’d just taken. Instead, he’d maintained contact with Ragno and Barrows, monitoring developments in Jigsaw, as information was fed into the program.
When jet lag catches up, it’ll be a bitch.
On Wednesday, shortly after Zeus’s reunion with Ana, DNA results had confirmed that the remains Gabe found in Praptan were Andre Maximov. Once Maximov’s remains were identified, the judges of the ITT had recessed the trial until Friday morning. For today, Thursday, Judge O’Connor had convened an unofficial status conference for the U.S. prosecutors, defense lawyers, and Amicus counsel.
Rather than conduct the status conference at the Royal Courts of Justice, where the London phase of the ITT trial was being held, Judge O’Connor—through Sam and Zeus—had chosen One River Thames, the private building where the Amicus team was housed, as the location for the conference.
Zeus agreed with the rationale for the location. Having the status conference at the Royal Courts of Justice, a public building, would have created a media event. One River Thames was more private than the large hotel where the U.S. judges were staying. Plus, Black Raven had already secured the premises, as the team’s London home base was in apartments on the seventh and eighth floors.
Walking through the long, wide hallway that led to the conference room, Zeus nodded hello to Jenkins. Glancing further down the carpeted passageway, he spotted Deal and Miles—two agents on Sam’s team, along with agents who made up the security teams for Charles and Abe. Six U.S. marshals, providing security for judges and lawyers, were also present.
“Gabe, I’m on site.” Gabe had flown to London to be lead agent in charge of the Amicus team until Zeus arrived. He was in the conference room.
“Roger,” Gabe responded in a low whisper.
“Ragno, I’m about to head into the conference room.” He walked to a buffet table and poured coffee into a paper cup. “Give me a quick update.”
“As of five minutes ago, DHS has William Peterson in custody. They’re going straight into interrogation. They also apprehended a man named Christian Lawrence, who happened to be in the apartment with William Peterson when DHS arrived. Sebastian is now here, at headquarters, working with his father-in-law. Which is good, because even I can’t understand some of the things Barrows tries to tell me. Sebastian’s cool interpretation of Barrows-speak is going a long way.”
Jigsaw had identified William Peterson as Caller X, as Zeus had been in flight from Miami to London. Using communications data gathered from the TRCR—in particular a cell phone used by DIC—Jigsaw had isolated burner phone usage on incoming calls to DIC at points in Paris and London. Jigsaw determined parallel usage patterns between the calls made to Duvall’s mother, the Miami cruise ship bomber, and the calls to the TRCR. Jigsaw then pinpointed the location of the burner phone at the times the calls were made. Although the burner phones with which Peterson had made the calls were long gone, he hadn’t stripped himself of all of his co-existing digital devices that had been in use when he used the burner phones. Jigsaw searched for the devices in current time. Jigsaw had located Peterson in London, in an apartment on Chancery Lane, walking distance from the Royal Courts of Justice.
As Jigsaw started putting the puzzle pieces together, Zeus had contacted the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the director of the National Security Agency and kept them apprised of the developments. DHS had mobilized agents—already in London as part of the ITT security team—to arrest Peterson. Interrogation would be conducted by government agents who were briefed on the classified aspects of Jigsaw, but because Jigsaw provided firsthand information to Black Raven, and not to either the NSA or the DHS, Black Raven’s assistance had been requested in the interrogation of Peterson. “Your team’s providing interrogation assistance?”
“Yes. We’re providing strict controls on what kind of information Black Raven provides. We’re succinctly laying out what we have in a manner that will encourage the suspects to start talking, but not giving them anything regarding our methodology.”
“No need to tell the how and why of it.” Zeus sipped the coffee, opened a peanut butter power bar that had been sitting in a basket, and took a bite as he listened to Ragno, whose calm tone conveyed underlying excitement. He felt it too, the thrill that Jigsaw—the brainchild of Ragno, Zeus, and Barrows—was putting cyber-puzzle pieces together and producing answers. Barrows was a fucking genius, and his hefty salary was worth every penny.
“I’ve got live camera and video feed into the interviews, so I’m seeing it in real time,” Ragno added. “They will soon understand from the DHS interrogators that they have only a couple of bargaining chips. One, admit their crimes early. Two, bring down anyone they’re working with.”
“Either Peterson, or, what’s the name of the guy who was arrested with him?” He finished the power bar in two more bites.
“Christian Lawrence.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“I thought so too. Getting ready to run more expansive searches. Oh. Wait. Get this: Lawrence, a lawyer, was formerly an assistant United States attorney. That fact just came in as you chewed in my ear. We’re working on putting some flesh on his AUSA profile.”
“Are either Peterson or Lawrence talking?” He washed down the power bar with the last of his coffee and dropped the cup and wrapper into a wastebasket.
“Not yet.”
“What do we know about William Peterson, aside from him being Caller X?”
“Minimal at this point. Just that Peterson, like Lawrence, is a lawyer. Details coming shortly. Seems he retired a while back.”
“Great. So they’re both lawyers. What the hell? Anything else?”
“Jigsaw is still pulling the threads together. Wait. This just in—Lawrence’s laptop was used in the proximity of burner phones that placed calls to the TRCR, when those calls were placed. Meaning it’s becoming more likely that Christian Lawrence and William Peterson are accomplices, and now Jigsaw is dissecting
Lawrence’s cyber history, which…Oh. You’ll love this. As of last week, Lawrence did a good bit of searching for information on you, Ana, and Barrows, at the same time Peterson was doing similar searches and making contact with the TRCR. This confirms that it wasn’t just a coincidence that Lawrence and Peterson were together today, when Peterson was arrested.”
“Too bad authorities got to these fucking bastards before me.”
“Given the tone of your voice, I’m glad the authorities apprehended them. Need I remind you that you can’t always get away with being judge, jury, and executioner? Wait. Information is now flowing so fast I can’t keep up with the items of interest.” Through the mic, he heard her fingers clacking furiously on her keyboard. He could imagine her eyes scanning the numerous monitors in front of her workstation as she typed. “Holy hell. From 1992 to 2010, Peterson worked in the office of general counsel for Sullivans of New York, the company that sells insurance coverage due to terrorism.”
Click. Another puzzle piece fell into place. Potential motive? Money—a lawyer’s wet dream. “Hell. Peterson probably drafted the terrorism clause.” The skin on the back of his neck prickled as another thought occurred to him. “Could Peterson or Lawrence be secret partners in Sullivans?”
“Zeus, you could be one of the secret partners for all I know. We have yet to discover the identities of the secret partners. Lawrence certainly has the old-family money, Ivy-League pedigree that could make such a monied background a fit. Peterson comes from humble beginnings. What I do know is, given the sparse payout history of Sullivans for claims, the company is making boatloads of money off of their terrorism coverage. Every time there’s an uptick in terrorism, more companies seek coverage.”
It made perfect sense. “And these guys are creating the upticks in terrorism. Either they’re getting paid to do so, or they’re part of the company.”
“Potentially,” Ragno said. “Don’t forget, a hell of a lot has to come together before we can prove this theory. But we’re close, really, really close. Without Jigsaw, this would take three years or more to put together. At the rate Barrows’s masterpiece of a program is going, we’re hopeful we’ll have all the pieces tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.”
Closed double doors marked the entrance to the conference room where Sam was working. He hadn’t seen her since she’d boarded Raven One in Miami. She’d been headed to ADX Florence for her interview of Stollen, at the same time he’d been headed into the Sikorsky with Sebastian to rendezvous at the latitude and longitude where Martel’s GPS chip had been signaling. It felt like a lifetime had elapsed, but it had only been a little more than forty-eight hours. “Alert me if they start talking.”
“Will do.
“By the way, Peterson is, apparently, a serious chain smoker. Interrogators are going to enjoy depriving him of his smokes. Wait a sec.” He could hear Barrows and Ragno talking. “Zeus. We’re close to identifying someone else.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not sure. Using Jigsaw’s analysis of co-existing digital devices, we’re analyzing cyber footprints from any and all devices used in the proximity of digital devices owned by Lawrence and Peterson.” Her fingers raced across the keyboard as she spoke. She was telling him things he already knew, but he didn’t mind. “It’s a hybrid indoor/outdoor positioning system that Barrows developed. It allows pinpoint tracking of Wi-Fi enabled devices—and these days, everything is Wi-Fi enabled. Turning off a device doesn’t help. The big slowdown is trying to forensically analyze historical data. We’re working through it, given that we don’t have to go too far back. Peterson, aka, Caller X, called TRCR several times last week—so we’re dissecting that time frame.”
“Keep me updated.”
“Wait. Before you go in, you’re not planning on revealing the apprehension of William Peterson and Christian Lawrence to Judge O’Connor or Samantha, are you?”
His hand rested on the doorknob. “The identity of William Peterson as Caller X is certainly relevant to the ITT proceeding. I’m communicating with the powers that be at the DHS and NSA on what to reveal, when. We’ll have to tell the ITT something, and soon.”
Ragno clicked away at her keyboard as she spoke. “Ideally, Jigsaw will reveal that Peterson was the mastermind behind the Paris metro bombings, the Miami cruise ship drone attacks, Ana’s kidnaping, and other events. At the moment, however, we can’t forget that Jigsaw is proprietary to Black Raven and run in the context of a top-secret government job.”
“Understood.”
“Unless and until you get the green light from DHS and NSA, you don’t have authority to go public at this point in time with anything. Even after we have the green light, we still have to tread carefully with what we reveal. From our perspective, technical aspects of Jigsaw aren’t for public consumption. It isn’t in Black Raven’s benefit to give away Barrows’ thought processes and trade secrets.”
“Agreed.” He appreciated Ragno’s words of caution. Given the importance of Jigsaw, and its capability to become a crime-fighting tool of unprecedented dimension, the last thing he wanted to do was to expose it prematurely in a proceeding that had been doomed for failure at the inception.
Zeus quietly slipped inside the large conference room, which had high ceilings, recessed lighting, and two walls of floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Thames. There were no drapes to close on the windows, so the glass panels remained exposed. Flat afternoon light from the overcast day filled the room. Zeus knew from his prior assessment of the building that the windows were tinted, so that no one could see into the high rise. The other walls were paneled in large squares of polished mahogany. A long rectangular table that could easily seat thirty was centered in the expansive room. In each of the four corners of the room were smaller circular tables.
Judge O’Connor and the other three judges from the U.S.—Judge Kent Devlin, Judge Amanda Whitsell, and Judge Mark Kennedy—sat in the middle of one side of the table, their backs to the river, facing the doorway through which Zeus had just entered. In dark business suits, not judicial robes, their somber, thoughtful expressions provided an immediate gauge as to the serious nature of the business they were conducting.
Robert Brier and his team of defense lawyers sat on the far right of the table, with the pretty brunette at his side. Benjamin McGavin and his team of prosecutors sat on the far left. Sam and her team sat with their backs to the doorway, directly across from the judges. Abe was on her left, Charles on her right.
“Your honors, I repeat, there is absolutely no need for a mistrial.” As a nod to the informal nature of the conference, Sam, wearing a light green business suit, was sitting as she spoke. Her voice, cool and moderate yet infused with the passion she conveyed as an advocate, took his breath. Her blonde hair was in a sleek ponytail that revealed her slender neck. In the perfect world, within minutes of this conference being over, his lips would be on that slender neck, his hands filled with her breasts, and there’d be no need to talk.
However, the world was imperfect, and, given the professional nature of every conversation they’d had since he’d gotten free from the TRCR, he doubted he’d be kissing her neck any time soon.
Didn’t matter.
I’ll figure it out. Given what had happened in the last forty-eight hours, I’m damn thankful for the opportunity to try again.
Gabe, standing three feet inside the door to the left, gave him a nod. Four U.S. marshals, the lead members of the judicial security teams, stood nearby.
Zeus went to stand beside his brother. “Great to be in the same room with you,” Zeus whispered. He added, with a touch of sarcasm, “Angel.” He pitched his voice low enough that only his mic picked it up. Gabe would hear him through his earpiece.
Professional decorum didn’t inhibit Gabe’s wide smile, a twinkle in his green eyes, and an eyebrow arch. “Back at ya.”
Gabe was a master at the Black Raven skill of ventriloquism speaking. While his voice came through Zeus’s mic loud and
clear, it was damn hard to detect that he was talking just by looking at him, because his lips weren’t moving. With his voice as low as it could go, without an earpiece no one could have heard him. “Samantha has been countering Brier for two hours. Brier is pushing for the judges to vote for a mistrial. She’s carrying President Cameron’s water on this one.” He arched an eyebrow. “She has certainly persuaded me. Hey, what’s with Brier and his hot-looking associate?”
“You see it too?”
“They don’t have the right amount of body space. I could be wrong, though.”
“Right before his wife was murdered, I asked Ragno to look into it.”
“And?”
“Nothing so far. Hasn’t been a priority though.” Zeus focused his attention on Sam’s argument.
“Each event that is being tried has defendants that can be convicted, regardless of who the ringleaders were,” Sam said. “The analogue in criminal law is the law of conspiracies. We can try some members of a conspiracy without having all in custody. In fact, that is often the case—”
“But not when there is no grasp on the parameters of the conspiracy,” Brier interrupted, his voice loud. “Your Honors, why rush to judgment? If not a vote for a mistrial, why not close the proceeding, and reconvene at a later date? The other countries will agree to a continuance. Why not take that—”
“I disagree that this is in any way a rush to judgment, and I have the answer as to why the proceedings must continue,” Samantha said. “Because the consensus of governments that created this ITT could very well dissolve it, if we lose all momentum.”
Abe handed her a yellow legal tablet. She took it and glanced down for barely a second. “As it exists in the current state, the record of this proceeding is sufficient to try and possibly convict at least one hundred twenty-seven people over the four incidents and countries at issue.” She paused for a moment for emphasis. The judges were focused on her. The room was quiet. “Conservatively, based on my knowledge of the information, I’d say I am confident at least one hundred convictions will result from the existing record. That number is based upon stipulated evidence—meaning we can drastically streamline the proceeding from here on out. But let me be clear; I am not recommending such a streamlined approach.”
Jigsaw (Black Raven Book 2) Page 43
