by Brad Taylor
“You won’t find him at all. He’s on leave. He went back to the United States for thirty days.”
“I thought he was on a classified assignment?”
I got a blank stare.
I asked, “When did he fly?”
“That’s classified.”
The answer tripped a trigger he didn’t want to see. I slapped the bars, causing them to jump back. I shouted, “Are you shitting me? Open this fucking gate. Right now.”
Colonel Fairchild’s face went from amazement to anger at the outburst. He said, “Sergeant Major, I don’t know where you’ve worked in the past, but I will not tolerate such behavior. You will leave here right now, or I will call base security. Tech Sergeant Seacrest is on leave. Period.”
I stared at him for a moment, wanting to rip his throat out. I looked at the men to his left and right, then turned away without another word.
By the time I reached the cab I was in a fine mood. I told the driver to hang on a minute, then pulled out my phone, moving out of earshot of the cabbie. Jennifer exited the car and asked what had happened. I said, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
She said, “What’s that mean?”
I dialed and said, “It means we need some help.”
I waited for the connection, fuming, and Jennifer said nothing more, knowing she’d get the answer from my call. After a few seconds, I got Kurt on the phone, his voice sounding tinny from the encryption.
“Tell me you found her.”
“No, sir, I haven’t. But I will with a couple of requests.”
“What? What do you have?”
“First, I need all surveillance video from a place called the Eagle here in Cambridge. It’s held on a server for a company called Sentinel in London.”
I heard nothing, then, “You want me to hack it?”
I knew what was going through his head. I was telling him to use US assets to penetrate a foreign company for personal business. He wasn’t asking because he was unsure of my request. He was running the ramifications through his head. Deciding how far he would go to save his niece. Deciding where his boundaries lay. As the commander of the Taskforce, he had the capability. Now it was only a question of whether he would use it.
I said, “Yes, sir. That’s exactly what I’m asking. The Eagle is her last known location. I need the footage to see who she was with.”
He said, “You mean she was on a date with someone? That’s why you want it?”
“Yeah. And that brings up the second thing. I think I know who she was with, but I’m getting the runaround by the military here.”
“Military? What do you mean?”
“I think she went on a date to the Eagle with a Tech Sergeant Seacrest from Molesworth, but they’re telling me he’s on leave. And they’re doing it in a weird way. I got a full-court press from a bunch of Chairborne Rangers when I asked about him. All top brass.”
I heard nothing but breathing. I said, “Sir? You there?”
“What was the name?”
“Technical Sergeant Nicholas Seacrest. He’s apparently a weatherman here. I need to talk to him. I need you to put some pressure on the NIFC.”
I heard an explosion of air, then, “Jesus Christ. Kylie’s been taken by terrorists.”
I said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Nick Seacrest is the vice president’s son.”
19
Kurt hung up the phone, thinking through the ramifications. He heard his name called and saw George Wolffe at the entrance to the West Wing of the White House, where he’d left him when his cell had rung.
“We’re going to be late. I thought you wanted to slip in unnoticed to this meeting. You keep stalling, and you’re going to end up interrupting the briefing with all eyes on you.”
Kurt waved him over, out of earshot of the security at the entrance. He handed George the simple manila folder in his hand. “I’m thinking of skipping this one and sending you in alone.”
“Whoa. Not a good idea. The president called it. You’re not briefing or anything.” He held up the folder. “All you have to do is hand this to Palmer.”
Exactly as George had predicted, the meetings had escalated outside of the small circle that knew about the Taskforce. The president had grown tired with the stovepipe and separate meetings and had scheduled an update briefing in the White House Situation Room. In attendance would be every big shot in the US government, from Homeland Security to the “Gang of Eight” from the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The majority were not read onto the existence of the Taskforce—much less its activities—so Kurt had been tasked with providing a hard-copy situation report to be hand-carried to Alexander Palmer, the national security advisor. After that, he was supposed to be nothing more than a fly on the wall at the back of the room.
The report itself summarized current Taskforce operations for the missing hostages, which was to say it was a single sheet of paper delineating very little. The only clear lead they had was a ferry receipt from Morocco, but so far Knuckles had turned up zero.
Kurt said, “That call was from Pike. He’s found something out about Kylie. He has a thread.”
“That’s great. Let him work it, and let’s get our asses into the briefing room before it fills up and someone wants to question who we are.”
As the national security advisor, Palmer had given them cover as members of the NSC watch team, a thirty-man cell that maintained 24/7 operations inside the Situation Room, but that cover would work only if they were at the back, in the cheap seats. Not if they interrupted the briefing as it was in progress, like a couple of prima donnas.
Kurt said, “George, the thread runs through the vice president’s son.”
George’s mouth opened and nothing came out. Kurt didn’t wait for him to speak, giving him what little he knew.
George took in the information, then said, “We have to tell Palmer.”
Kurt shook his head in frustration. “How? I can’t brief in that room, and the information isn’t on this hard copy. I’m not even sure it’s real. On top of that, it’s fucking Pike. How am I going to brief the Oversight Council that the one lead we have is from a man they expressly forbade me from using on Taskforce operations? They’ll fire me on the spot.”
George smiled. “No they won’t. Not if it pans out. Nobody argues with success.”
“That’s just it. That ass-hat Billings will blow a gasket and demand something stupid, like recalling Pike and throwing other assets at the problem. They’ll screw up the one lead we have. They’ll get Kylie killed. There won’t be any success.”
George heard the words, now seeing what was really weighing on Kurt’s mind. He said, “Okay, look, we let Pike explore. Get the surveillance tapes, see if it’s real. If it is, we redirect someone else. Maybe Knuckles. Let them start the chase and then brief the council. Control the mission and preempt any shenanigans. Either way, if it’s real, we have to brief.”
Kurt started walking toward the entrance to the West Wing, saying, “What a mess.”
George fell into step behind him and said, “Well, I have to hand it to you. Sending Pike was a stroke of genius. That guy is a magnet for finding bad things.”
They signed in at the entrance, received their badges, and wound their way through the lobby, skirting by the groups starting to form outside the Situation Room, Kurt recognizing several faces as guests from Sunday news shows. Men and women he’d never met in real life. George took a seat at the back while Kurt walked up to Palmer, interrupting his discussion with the director of the CIA.
Palmer took the folder and said, “Anything good?”
“No, sir. Nothing much at all.”
He simply nodded, dismissing Kurt to sit with George. Kurt walked away, a feeling of deceit flowing through him, causing conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he w
anted any lead on Kylie to pan out. On the other, a part of him hoped it didn’t involve the vice president’s son.
Lost in his thoughts, he failed to register President Warren entering the room. George elbowed him, and they stood, along with everyone else. To Kurt’s surprise, the vice president followed behind. The sight of him brought another twinge of regret for keeping silent.
President Warren said, “Have a seat. Let’s get this going.”
This time, it was Alexander Palmer himself giving the briefing. He started by stating where they stood on the search, which was basically nowhere. All the investigative effort had come up with very little. The murder of the secretary of defense’s son was a bust, with the command in Honduras stating he was supposed to be on duty, and since he’d basically gone AWOL, they had no thread at all. The information on the twins was no better. They had simply disappeared without a trace, and there wasn’t the faintest clue as to whether they were still on Okinawa or not. Still alive or not. The only lead was the Morocco ferry receipt from England related to the VP’s son, but that, too, had produced little.
Palmer finished the section and the president said, “That’s all we’ve got? The most powerful government on earth and we come up with nothing?”
Kurt had to physically stop himself from rising up at that point. Palmer saved him. “No, sir. All it will take is one break, and this thing could crack open completely. And we might have that break.”
He flipped a slide and said, “We received more communication from the terrorists, which is good. Every time they talk to us, they open themselves up to being found.”
The president said, “So we got something from this communication? A possible location? The name of the group?”
“Well, no. Not exactly. They once again masked their ISP.” Palmer tilted his head at the side and said, “We don’t know where it came from, but here it is:”
We could keep these men forever, much like you have at Guantánamo Bay and your secret prisons, but we are not like you. Lives matter. Even these lives. In the words of the prophet,“. . . if any one slew a person—unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land—it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.” You are the ones spreading mischief in our lands, but these men are mere puppets of your blasphemous regime. How much are they worth to you? How much are you willing to pay?
President Warren said, “So here we go. Let me guess, get all US persons out of the Middle East?”
“Actually, no. In this case, they’re talking about real money.”
Kerry Bostwick, the D/CIA, said, “What the hell? They want to ransom them? That makes no sense whatsoever.”
The SECDEF said, “What’s the price?”
“One hundred thousand Bitcoins.”
Secretary Billings said, “What the hell is a Bitcoin?”
20
Alexander Palmer looked to a woman on his right. She rose and said, “Sir, I’m Nancy Phelps of the FBI’s financial crimes division. To answer your question, Bitcoin is a form of digital currency that is fairly anonymous. It has no physical, tangible properties, like a dollar bill, but it is worth money and can be exchanged for cash. It’s a way for the terrorists to get something of value without us being able to catch them. They want to prevent us from setting up any traps by avoiding hard currency. No wire transfers, no banks, no suitcases full of cash to pass off. Basically, they give us a digital address and we transfer the ‘coins,’ all done over the Internet.”
President Warren said, “Can we track it?”
She said, “Not if they set up certain protocols. It’s not like wiring money, with all the regulations involved. The Bitcoins will simply go to an address on the Internet. If their current expertise is any indication, we won’t know where that is. But when they exchange it for real money, we might be able to track that. Every Bitcoin transaction is maintained in a log, so when those coins resurface, we’ll know they’re the ones we paid, and we can then possibly get a real address to work back from. Sooner or later, if they want to use them on anything besides novelty sites on the Web, they have to have a bank account that takes real money. And that account will be tied to a name.”
“So if we give them the coins, they can’t ever use them? Surely they know that.”
“Well, there are ways around the problem. There are mixing sites that will take your coins and intermingle them with others.”
“Speak English, please.”
She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, then said, “Say you marked a bunch of quarters, then gave them to me. Every time I spent one of the marked quarters, someone would know. Now say I want to guarantee my anonymity. I get together with fifty or a hundred other folks with quarters, and we put them all in a bag and shake it up. When I’m done, I simply count out the number of coins I put in the bag. What I end up with is washed quarters. The mixing sites work the same way, only digitally. When they’re done, our Bitcoins will be spread out all over the place. We could track them to the mixing site, but little else.”
President Warren said, “Why on earth would such a site exist?”
“Because criminals use Bitcoins. Just like these terrorists.”
Billings said, “Well, why don’t we just make up a bunch of Bitcoins? It’s all digits, right? Hell, give ’em a million of them.”
Nancy smiled and said, “It doesn’t work that way. It is digital, but it has a real architecture and backbone behind it. We can’t counterfeit Bitcoins. One other thing, the actual dollar amount fluctuates wildly. Currently, one Bitcoin is worth about five hundred US dollars, so he’s basically asking for about fifty million. Tomorrow, that could be a hundred million or one million, depending on price fluctuations.”
President Warren said, “Can we get a hundred thousand of them? Without spiking what we’re doing and causing questions?”
“It will be hard and involve setting up multiple different accounts that purchase small amounts from different exchanges, but we could do it. It will require time.”
Kerry Bostwick said, “Wait, wait, before we even go down that road, how do we know this is for real? I cannot believe that an Islamic group would ransom such valuable hostages back to us. It makes no sense. I mean, look at the chain of events: First they talk about stopping our drone attacks, then they kill one of the hostages to prove they’re serious, then they tell us they believe in the sanctity of life and we can pay to get them back? How do we know this message is from the group that’s got our people?”
Palmer said, “Good question. They also gave us an account and password for an application called Snapchat. They stated they would tell us when to log in.”
President Warren looked at the ceiling and said, “Do I need to bring my daughter in here for this? What the hell is Snapchat?”
“It’s a picture-sharing application. Basically, you can send an image or video that has a finite time before it deletes itself. You take a picture, send it to a friend, and it disappears seconds later.” He coughed and said, “Apparently, it’s primarily used to send naughty photos between young people. We think they’re going to use it as proof of life.”
“So once again, we can’t do anything with it? Only get a couple of seconds to analyze it for clues before it self-destructs like a Mission: Impossible movie?”
“No. They may have outsmarted themselves this time. We can intercept the picture and do a lot with it, depending on how it was taken and transmitted. It’s a mobile application, so it’ll be coming from a cell phone, which opens up a host of possibilities.”
“Good. About time we get a break. Okay, here’s what I want. Continue the full-court press with the units in the field. Something may break.” He looked at Nancy. “In the meantime, start buying Bitcoins anonymously. Get up to what they want.”
Kerry started to protest, an
d President Warren held up his hand. “I’m just covering all bases. Finally, get whatever experts we have on standby to receive this Snapchat. I want everything associated with that picture analyzed when it comes in.”
Kerry said, “I’m assuming we’ve already bled the Bitcoin account for any information?”
Palmer nodded. “Yeah. We talked to the company.”
Now jotting in a notebook, President Warren snapped his head up at the comment.
Palmer said, “Don’t worry, there aren’t any fingerprints. We went through the FBI on a routine check. Anyway, it didn’t do any good. The account was created from an ISP in Shanghai, which is to say it was spoofed. No help.”
President Warren said, “Listen up, everyone. Palmer’s last comment reminded me of something. The circle of trust on this thing is getting bigger and bigger, which means a leak is just around the corner. That cannot happen. This isn’t about politics, and it isn’t about egos.” He looked at the vice president, then Easton Clute, the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “There are lives at stake here, and if word gets out to the press, our options will be severely limited.” He paused, looking from person to person around the room. “Does everyone understand?”
Kurt saw the powerful first tier sitting around the conference table nod their heads, the various staffers in the back row with him doing the same, and wondered how many times a sitting president had said similar words only to read about something the next day in the newspaper.
One man raised his hand. Kurt recognized the secretary of Homeland Security.
President Warren said, “What is it, Gerald?”
“Sir, I was going to bring this up later, but now’s as good a time as any. What are we supposed to say for press inquiries? The reason I ask is that Grant Breedlove contacted me today. He wants to talk. He didn’t say what it was about, only that he was working on a story. But he seemed pretty sure he had something explosive and gave the usual threats about posting the story without my input.”
