“We told her,” says Ross, “that if she was going to reach out to local jurisdictions, she had to emphasize that she wasn’t speaking in her official capacity as a Bureau analyst. We even wrote up the words she had to use. But she hasn’t been using them. Reading her e-mails, I can see she’s leading people to believe that she’s doing official Bureau business.”
“Sounds like a technical foul to me, at worst,” says Books.
Ross says, “You call conducting unauthorized business in the name of the FBI a technicality?”
Books looks at Ross, then at Moriarty, his eyebrows raised. “Yes,” he says. “What’s the harm? If her hunt leads nowhere, no big deal. You don’t waste any resources, and the only thing she wastes is her own personal time. But if it leads to something real, then she’s helped stop a killer. When did that become a bad thing? I thought that was, y’know, kinda what you guys did here.”
“Books, I know you’re close to this,” says the director.
“Maybe, but I’m still right. She’s not hurting anything or anybody.” Except herself, he does not say. “She discovered Graham’s crimes,” Books goes on, “and the Bureau took down an evil sociopath.”
“Emmy took down Graham,” says Ross. “Or so the press seems to imply. You’d think the rest of the Bureau had nothing to do with it.”
Books turns on Ross, feeling the heat rise within him. “Emmy didn’t grant a single media interview. She never said a word in public. Nothing. The victims’ families spoke up for her. Local cops she’d contacted for help spoke up for her. Other agents on the team—Lydia and Denny and Sophie and I—spoke up for her. Because she deserved it. She never sought credit for it even though the rest of us had our thumbs up our asses while she was uncovering the most brilliant and horrific crime spree I’ve ever seen.”
“Enough,” says the director.
“I mean, that’s what this is really about, isn’t it, Dwight? That a lowly data analyst did the work that the superstar special agents were supposed to be doing—and did it better than them? That you got shown up by some numbers girl?”
“I said that’s enough.” Moriarty raises a hand.
“That’s not true at all,” says Ross, his eyes cold.
“It’s a little true, Dwight,” says Moriarty. He looks at Books. “But listen, Books, we can’t have her running around claiming that she’s doing FBI business when it’s not FBI business. Dwight’s right about that. Your girl’s doing that. And she can’t.” He lets out a sigh and looks up at the ceiling. “But we can’t call her out on this without revealing that we’ve been inside her computer. She can’t know we’re onto her until we’re ready to make a move.”
Books feels something stir inside him.
“If we make a move,” the director says, correcting himself.
Books turns to Ross. “You haven’t found any evidence that she’s leaking secrets, have you? Forensics hasn’t pulled anything incriminating from her computer?”
“Not yet,” he says. “It will take us some time.”
They won’t find anything. Books is sure of it. Emmy’s no traitor. “You still haven’t told me about the case she’s working on,” says Books. “The one where she’s supposedly leaking secrets.”
“Emmy never mentioned it?”
Books shrugs. “It’s Bureau business. I’m a private citizen. She keeps that wall up.”
Ross seems dubious about that claim. But it’s true. Emmy and Books don’t discuss her work. He doesn’t even bother asking. If the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t say anything to her either.
“Tell him, Dwight,” says the director. “Tell him about the investigation.”
16
“YOU’VE HEARD of Citizen David,” Ross says to Books.
Of course he has. Books has read several accounts of his exploits. He’d even discussed it with Emmy one lazy Sunday morning while they were reading the Washington Post in bed.
Citizen David is the person who has claimed responsibility for a number of acts of civil disobedience and domestic terrorism over the past six months. His manifesto is, simply stated, The deck is stacked against the little guy in this country. Businesses have no moral center and will rob, cheat, and steal their way to maximum profits at the expense of the consumers. Higher education is reserved for the elite who can afford the ridiculous tuition. The criminal justice system will give liberal breaks to affluent white people but trample the rights of minorities and the poor and disenfranchised. In every way big and small, the powerful keep their power, and the rich keep the poor down.
David versus Goliath, only this David, whoever he is, has more than a slingshot. He has money, resources, and sophisticated technology.
One of his talents is hacking. He hacked into the admissions system of an Ivy League university to reveal how little merit went into merit-based selection and how many students were admitted because of the size of their parents’ wallets.
He hacked into the computer system of a pharmaceutical company and leaked e-mails showing that the company knew but never publicly admitted that an ingredient in one of its hepatitis vaccines caused renal failure.
He hacked into the computers of a minimum-security prison in Georgia and popped open all the cell doors at once to protest the incarceration of a young African-American man whom an all-white jury had declared guilty of the murder of a white teenage girl in what many critics believed was a wrongful conviction.
But he hasn’t limited himself to cybercrime. He was responsible for the bombing of several buildings in the United States. A bank in Seymour, Connecticut, accused of discriminating against minorities in its lending practices. A fast-food restaurant in Pinellas Park, Florida, after reports came out about the franchise’s cruelty to the chickens it slaughtered. A city hall in Blount County, Alabama, where officials had refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The bombings always occurred in the middle of the night and always after a bomb threat was called in, ensuring that nobody was around when the explosives detonated.
Citizen David is part Robin Hood, part Edward Snowden, part Bernie Sanders, part Black Lives Matter, and part Unabomber.
Some people call him a hero. Others call him a reckless anarchist. The Bureau calls him a domestic terrorist.
But the FBI agents don’t know where he is, and they don’t know who he is. Citizen David uses anonymous networks so his crimes can’t be traced to him, effectively shielding himself from view.
That’s where Emmy was supposed to come in. They wanted her to try to predict his next move, to discern some pattern in what he did. It was right up her alley.
“You think Emmy’s leaking the details of your investigation to the person who calls himself Citizen David?” asks Books. He asks the question with disbelief, even scorn.
But he has a sinking feeling in his stomach.
Because he’s remembering that quiet Sunday morning a few weeks back when there was a big front-page profile in the Washington Post about the anonymous Citizen David, and Books had read it while making comments on it to Emmy. Saying the kinds of things he always said: We have laws, we have rules. Protest and dissent are important, commendable, but you can’t do it by blowing up private property and invading confidential computer files. If people are breaking the law, report them or sue them, but we can’t have a nation of anarchists who take the law into their own hands or who create their own rules and punish anyone who doesn’t abide by them.
He doesn’t remember his exact words. But he remembers every word Emmy said in response.
He’s scaring the people in power, she said. Maybe that’s the only way to get them to change. Nothing else has worked.
That was it. It was one of those lazy mornings where conversations started and stopped and shifted. He never followed up. It didn’t stick out in his mind at the time. After all, Emmy had always been a protester at heart, ever since she was in high school, the sober, socially conscious girl, nothing like her popular-cheerleader-girl twin sist
er.
It gnaws at him now. Emmy might not approve of all of Citizen David’s tactics, but deep down, all things considered, she might be quietly rooting for him.
And that isn’t even the worst part.
“We don’t know how yet,” says Dwight Ross, leaning back in his chair, “but she’s leaking to that reporter.”
That was the worst part. Books had forgotten, but now it slams against his chest like a stiff forearm. The reporter who wrote the Post piece was Shaindy Eckstein.
Does the Bureau know that Shaindy and Emmy are close? That Shaindy is quite possibly Emmy’s only friend these days?
Shaindy, the one who learned about Emmy being rushed to the hospital after taking a combination of painkillers and amphetamines a year ago but who didn’t break the story after Books asked her not to, after Books looked her in the eye and said that it would be so painful for her to have it publicized. Some gossip rag got wind of it, probably from some paramedic or nurse on its payroll, and it all came out anyway, but Books never forgot what Shaindy did. Neither did Emmy. A friendship formed. Trust formed.
And now Shaindy Eckstein is writing stories on the FBI’s hunt for Citizen David, stories rich with details.
“No way,” Books says, trying to keep his voice strong, no longer sure what he believes.
17
THE MEETING is adjourned. Books gets to his feet on unsteady legs, a dull, sick feeling in his stomach. His brain tells him that Emmy looks guilty. His heart doesn’t want that to be true. His instinct, his gut, believes it can’t be true.
Dwight Ross leaves the room. Director Moriarty puts a hand on Bookman’s shoulder. “Like I said before, I’m sorry as hell about this. And I’m even sorrier to involve you in the investigation. But it has to be done.”
“Emmy’s not the leaker.” But even as Books says the words, he feels a distance forming; the picture of the woman he loves is fading and blurring. After all, she’s back to her obsessive hunt for a serial killer, and she didn’t tell him a thing about that. What else hasn’t she told him?
“Maybe not, maybe not,” says the director, though it comes out sounding like a lame attempt to placate him.
Books clears his throat and gives the director a curt nod. “Hey, Bill, I need to make a call. A landline. The cell reception in this place…”
“Not a problem.” The director gestures to a phone in the corner of the room.
Books wanders toward the phone, lost in thought, taking his time, waiting for the director to leave him alone in this room. He removes his wallet from his pants pocket and fishes out the business card, by now ragged at the edges and smudged with an unidentifiable substance.
His hands are shaking. He misdials the first time. He’s grown unaccustomed to landline phones; he has one at the bookstore but almost never uses it to call anyone.
A woman answers. “Dr. Bakalis’s office.”
Books takes a deep breath before speaking to Emmy’s therapist’s receptionist.
18
I GO straight from the airport to the Hoover Building. In the lobby, I figure that if the elevators are efficient and not too crowded, I might get to this meeting on time. I’d prefer to park my roller suitcase at my cubicle but there’s no time for that, so when I get upstairs, I leave it with Dwight Ross’s receptionist, a saintly woman named Roberta.
I pull the relevant files out of my folder, take a moment to compose myself, and stride down the hall to the conference room. I’m the last to arrive, as usual. The rest of the team members are present and alert: Carlton from the National Security Branch, Sloan from the Criminal Investigative Division, Mayfield from Intelligence, Cobbs from the Science and Technology Branch. All dark suits, crisp white shirts, boring ties. The men of the FBI; their motto could be “What We Lack in Imaginative Wardrobe, We Make Up for with Colorless Personalities.”
And Dwight Ross himself, the executive assistant director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, at the head of the table, running the operation.
“Dockery, you’re late,” he says, glancing at me and then at the clock.
“Sorry, sir.” One and a half minutes late. Ninety seconds.
“This will be the last time you are late,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” I say, because men like Ross like that kind of submissive response from women, even though we both know it’s probably not the last time I’ll be late.
I’m not really sure why I’m here at all. These days I do most of my work at home, my secure undisclosed location, thanks to all the threats I’ve received. With multiple computers, secure access to the Bureau databases, a cell phone, and a video feed, I can do pretty much anything from my home office.
It wasn’t my choice to work from home—at least, not at first. The doctors wouldn’t clear me to return to the office for nearly a year, so working from home had been my idea, a way to “take it easy” and “rest and recuperate” but still contribute. Then I realized how effective I could be if I didn’t have to leave my apartment. I could eliminate the commute, the small-talk conversations throughout the day, the unnecessary staff meetings, the cake-in-the-conference-room birthday parties.
And yes, I admit it—I have to acknowledge it—staying home lessens the fear. I tell myself it’s in the past, but every now and again, it creeps up behind me and wraps its arm around my throat. When I’m in the car, on the elevator, at the grocery store. And it doesn’t slowly build up—it steals my breath and squeezes my neck and pummels my chest all at once.
So, yeah, if I’m going to have a panic attack, if I’m going to collapse to the floor and curl up in a fetal position and have to breathe into a paper bag, I’d rather not do it in front of my coworkers.
Ross eyes me with that expressionless, cold stare. I think he wanted more than a “Yes, sir” from me. He wanted more groveling, more remorse, for being ninety seconds late to the meeting.
Before his recent promotion to executive assistant director, Dwight Ross was in Intelligence, where, as far as anyone could tell, he had his head so far up the director’s ass that when the director belched, you could smell Dwight’s cologne. He likes the people who work under him to follow that model, which is one of the reasons we don’t get along so well.
We are here about Citizen David, the domestic terrorist who has given the Bureau fits and become a darling of social media in the process.
Carlton, who has a buzz cut and thick glasses, begins. Nothing new from the National Security Branch. No evidence that David is connected to any active terrorist cell, no chatter or indications of coordination.
Sloan, from the Criminal Investigative Division, doesn’t help much either—David isn’t leaving any traces behind when he blows up buildings. David seems to know how to avoid the CCTV cameras. He uses local materials for his rudimentary bombs. And it seems that Citizen David is working alone.
Nothing from Science and Technology either, says Cobbs, because David uses an anonymous server to post his messages on Facebook. The Bureau has tried to trace his messages and thus far has pegged him in Ukraine, in Mexico City, in New Zealand, and in Uruguay.
Everyone looks at me. I raise my shoulders. “The sample size of his bombings is too small for any discernible pattern,” I say. “He started in the Northeast, with the bank bombing in Connecticut, then he went down to Florida with the chain restaurant, then he headed west to Alabama and blew up the city hall. So that tells us, obviously—”
“That he’s heading west,” says Ross. “We know that.”
I take a breath. Ross didn’t interrupt any of the men even once.
“Given the length of time between the bombings,” I say, “my guess is he’s driving. He drove from Connecticut to Florida, which is about twenty hours if you take the fastest route, but he wouldn’t go the fastest way. He’d want to avoid the toll cameras and the ALPRs—automatic license-plate readers—and the speed traps. He’d go by back roads. So I’d say it took him a good four, five days to get to Florida. And then he spent a d
ay or two planning the bombing, buying the supplies, and plotting out exactly how to do it. That’s a good week, right there, which is exactly the space of time between the Connecticut and Florida bombings. But the city-hall bombing in Alabama was four days later. He traveled about four hundred miles, which you can do in two days even if you’re being careful. And then two days to plan.”
Ross opens his hands. “And now it’s eleven days since the last attack. He could have driven anywhere in the country.”
Sloan, from the Criminal Investigative Division, winces at Ross’s interruption. Ross really should just let me talk.
Ross glances at the map of the United States on the wall. “You think, what, California? Las Vegas? A target-rich environment that would take several days by car heading west. The Grand Canyon, maybe?”
Cobbs nods at that, as does Mayfield.
“I was thinking Manhattan,” I say.
The room goes quiet as everyone calculates.
“Doubling back,” says Carlton.
“Throwing us off,” I say. “Knowing that we’re trying to discern a pattern. And a target in New York City is a tougher nut to crack than some small town in Alabama. He’d need more time to prepare.”
“Interesting,” says Sloan.
Yes, interesting. Everyone’s wondering whether interesting means “accurate.”
And they’re probably also wondering how long it will be before this interesting conversation finds its way into an article by Shaindy Eckstein in the Washington Post.
19
I THREAD my way through the crowd and miraculously find a spot at the bar. This place, Deadline, is only a few years old but it has a throwback, old-school feel, with its dark wood and dim lighting. I’ve been told (I’m not much of a nightlife gal myself) that this has become one of the hangouts for the Washington press corps and the political class.
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