by Fiona Quinn
“That’s why you took my phone from me, for diagnostics” she asked under her breath. Then louder, “Well yes, I always take my phone into Mom’s room with me in case I can’t handle my mother, and I have to call 911. I always set it in the same place, and I always put it upright so I can see it and grab it if things go to hell.” She held up her hand toward the screen where the video had played. “As you can clearly see, they can.”
“Is the video shot from the location where you set your phone?”
She looked from the still frame back to Nutsbe. “Yes, but how did you..?”
Without waiting for Avery to finish, Nutsbe said, “This is posted on different social media sites and is going viral.”
“Viral?” Avery shook her head. She looked over at Rowan. Rowan recognized that look, it was called freeze, and it was the moment when the brain felt so shocked and endangered that it failed to function.
Avery couldn’t process.
Nutsbe must have seen it too. His voice became louder, slower, so the words could go in. Calm. That should help lower Avery’s adrenaline. “It made more sense to me when you mentioned that you were selected specifically as the editor when this isn’t the type of book you normally edit,” Nutsbe said. “That probably meant that they thought you were the most vulnerable to attack.”
“Sex appeal is a major component in making a video go viral,” Rowan said.
“There’s nothing sexy about that video,” Avery protested. “That video is horrible.”
“But you’re attractive, ma’am, and if you’ll forgive me, your nightgown is pretty see-through. A beautiful person means more clicks,” Honey said, matter-of-factly. “Sexy, even in a circumstance like this, means more clicks.”
Avery hadn’t stopped shaking her head. “I’m still lost.”
“They’re getting ready to release the Taylor Knapp video next week,” Lisa said. “The way to make sales is publicity. The way to get publicity is through controversy. They want to brew controversy. Nutsbe’s been tracking it.”
Rowan said, “I’d imagine that, between the first Taylor Knapp book and the second, they did research on all of the potential editors that could be assigned. You were most likely tapped as the editor for two reasons—you’re attractive, and like Honey explained, that gets social media clicks, and you’re in a vulnerable place with your mother. Without further proof—"
“Inge Prokhorov had her husband assign me to Taylor to set me up for a fall? They got this video, obviously it’s been edited to meet their needs, and now the time is ripe to start the controversy? How is this controversial?” Avery looked over to Lisa.
“They show this video to the world, and the whole world sees that you’re an elder abusing monster.” Lisa did the air quotes, hopefully Avery wouldn’t feel judged by the people in this room. “They have people up in arms. Then others who pretend to have family members with mental health disorders get on and say, ‘That’s life. You do what you have to.’ They start attacking each other. The bot farms push both narratives.”
“Exactly,” Nutsbe said. “The bots are clearly involved, influencers have been purchased to weigh in.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Avery said. “And did you actually tie this to Taylor Knapp, which it would have to be, right? Or you wouldn’t care.”
“Paid professionals were involved in making this go viral,” Nutsbe said. “In all of the posts, they’ve specified that you’re Taylor Knapp’s editor.”
“And they’re trying to push sales by destroying me?”
Chapter Forty-Two
Rowan
Saturday Night
Iniquus Headquarters
Avery took in a deep breath and let it out. She was shifting gears. And that was a good thing. Putting both feet on the ground and leaning forward, her fingers laced, thumbs pointing upward, she obviously was shifting from an emotional state of mind to her analytical mind, and her body language suggested, that there, she felt some level of power.
“Okay. They’re going after my reputation.” She looked at Nutsbe. “This is associated with me being Taylor’s editor. Fine. I’ll quit. My mother can’t stay with me anymore, anyway. I can get a job as a ghost writer or something. I’m not going to live this way—trashed in the media. If I’m no longer associated with Taylor, I’m no longer a target.”
“We need you to not do that,” Lisa said. “Even if this sounds ridiculous, I’m going to say it anyway. You’re country needs you to not do that. You are our ‘in’ with Taylor. If you stay in the game, we have access.”
“And that’s the case that makes me interesting to Iniquus and their reputation protection. If I’m not involved in the case anymore, that goes away too, doesn’t it?” Avery asked.
“Yes ma’am,” Nutsbe said.
She looked down at the carpet. “So I have no choice.”
“You always have a choice. If you laid low for a few weeks, this would go away,” Titus said. “They’d find another victim.”
Avery looked over to the corner of the room. She stilled. Her eyes lost their focus as she thought. When she turned back she said, “I have a plot point I want to have addressed, please. And I say that because this does seem to be some crazy suspense novel I’ve fallen into. I want to understand why they attacked our houses.”
“And Rowan,” Lisa added.
“What do you mean and Rowan?” She turned to Rowan, her face creased with concern. “Is that the accident you got into? Is that why you’re bruised the way you are? I thought you were overseas when that happened. They tracked you overseas? Knowing me is going to impact your job?” With each sentence her voice ratcheted up to high-pitched, breathless squeaks. Her eyes were held wide and disbelieving.
Rowan took her hands, sending her a smile that he hoped would take her concerns for him off the table. He’d work through things as they came. And no, even though the Taylor Knap strategy was associated with the Prokhorovs, this had been a project that had been spooling out long before they knew Rowan was in that picture. They shouldn’t have made the connection. He didn’t think he was exposed. But time would tell.
“If they look for me on Twitter, I followed you as Row_man and I followed Lisa. Is that how they associated us?” She gasped. “Your picture! If they know who you are on Twitter…Lisa and I had avatars…but it was your picture.”
Man, her mind was sharp. She could wiggle around and find all the twists and connections. No wonder the Red Cell at the CIA was so effective. Rowan was definitely going to broach this subject to his task force leader and see if they couldn’t get something like that set up for the FBI. “Avery. Stop. I’m fine. No one can search that photo.”
Avery’s lips drooped; her frown had a ferocity to it.
“You searched, didn’t you?” Rowan reminded her. “You said you were trying to find me on the Internet and found nothing, even with my correct name?”
“Yes, I searched your photo. I thought it might be a stock photo. Neither the banner photo nor your icon came up.”
“The banner photo doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Internet. It was a gift from a photojournalist I know. My picture was encoded, so it can’t be traced. Lisa did it. It’s a safe image. And that Twitter account was closed last week, before this happened. So no, that didn’t compromise me, either. Next.” He waited for her to move her gaze from the floor to his eyes. “Next, I told you there was a disturbance in my neighborhood Monday night. Remember?”
“Yes.” She exhaled.
“A group of men were trying to ambush me on my jog. They were armed. But I was a Ranger and have plenty of rotations under my belt. They didn’t find me. Well, a couple of them found me, and they were incapacitated.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nutsbe lift his chin. Rowan would ask in a minute.
“These men were talking about my running pace, Avery. Other than staking me out for months on end, the only way they might have known what they knew was through the running app on my phone. So the pie
ces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place.” Rowan turned to Nutsbe. “You got something on that?”
“Three of the men were injured. And two of those men had their images captured. The FBI was able to track down the names of the men in the photos you took. Prescott sent me the file when I called over to your office earlier. Some interesting data points, both are young, white, males. They live in Northern Virginia. Both have social media footprints. They’ve formed a kind of a weekend warrior group that gets together and plots for doomsday. It looks like on weekends they train with a group out of West Virginia named Sons of the Iron Cross. Again, that information came from the FBI. I’m still compiling a list of their members. Patriots Pledge is the name of their group. A skull cut out of an American flag is the symbol.”
“You’re nodding you head,” Lisa said to Rowan. “That seems right to you, based on what you saw that night?”
“Yeah, that stars and stripes skull was on both guys’ arm patches. They acted like a bunch of wannabes. Weekend warriors and new at it, too. It was like watching cosplay.”
Lisa lifted a brow. “Bet they didn’t expect the bullets.”
“It didn’t seem like they’d thought any of it through. Someone had to turn them on to me.” He turned to Nutsbe. “What about the heart and lightning bolt? Getting anything on that?”
He shook his head. “Pictures of the vandalism haven’t gone up on social media. I’m expecting them. Our computers are watching for them. But it didn’t look like someone leaving a calling card. That looked like a gang tag. Sort of like counting coup, they want to show someone how big and brave they are. Those images will be up soon if this ties back to Knapp.”
Rowan thought of Brussels and making contact with Sergei Prokhorov, the alpha-dog himself. He’d thought in just those terms, counting coup, when you don’t kill your enemy, you just take a smack at them to show your superiority and disdain.
The vandals had miscalculated what bravery looked like.
The Patriots Pledge, though, that wasn’t an act of cowardly destruction. That team had intended an act of violence. Not a counting coup. Something else. Rowan wondered just what it was they had thought they would have accomplished, ambushing him on his run.
“These might be two separate groups?” Avery asked.
“They may all be separate. One, the attack on Rowan by Patriots Pledge,” Lisa explained. “Two, the vandals, and three, the viral video maker who co-opted your phone. Unless and until we have something tying them together, they’ll be treated as separate attacks.”
“What the hell?” Avery swung her head around, looking from one person to another. “This is crazy!”
“I can tell you,” Nutsbe said. “The computer found postings from the Patriots Pledge members that let us know they coalesced as a group playing The Unrest. So that’s an important point.”
“I don’t understand,” Avery said.
“Instead of them being friends who started to play The Unrest,” Nutsbe said. “The Unrest helped them to become friends, and from that friendship they developed a group that trains and attacks.”
“The game gathered people from the same geographic vicinity?” Lisa asked.
“So far, it looks that way,” Nutsbe said. “As we do more research, we’ll see if that bears out.”
“Isn’t that terrifying?” Avery asked.
Rowan looked at her.
“A computer that gathers people in the same area,” Avery said. “That means they can meet, and plot, and act. The game introduced them, like the Russian chick did when this all started as a pretty benign idea in Taylor Knapp’s head. Katya put the right people together, and out of their association came this bigger badder plot.” Avery spread her fingers and pressed them to the sides of her head. “I’m seeing this playing out in my mind. It’s like all of these little terror cells. Tribes of people who feel that they are just and right, work to stop people of divergent views. They do whatever they think will advance their cause. Different views clash both in the cyber and real worlds. The violence spreads to the streets. The violence spreads to the neighborhoods.” She lifted her hand to Rowen. “People see fighting, hear shots fired, they buy a gun, get a personal arsenal of bullets. They take action to protect themselves. It’s a free for all of us-them tribalism.”
The room fell quiet.
Tribalism. She was right.
It’s what happened in the Middle East.
There was really no reason it couldn’t happen here in America.
Chapter Forty-Three
Rowan
Sunday Morning
Springfield, Virginia
Rowan had gone to Mass with Avery that morning. She said it was the first time she was able to receive communion at a service since her father died. Avery couldn’t leave her mom alone, and her mom would sing through the ceremony.
It seemed to help her.
He was glad they had gone.
Now, they were back in their hotel room with Lisa. Iniquus had come to catch them up on what they’d found. Until they were given the green light. Lisa, Rowan, and Avery would be staying here at the hotel with no outside contact.
“The vandals with the heart and lightning are called FlashDeath.” Nutsbe was telling them.
“Oh. That’s also a song from Taylor Knapp’s new video game,” Avery said. She was lying on the hotel bed with a pillow over her eyes. “It’s already been released on YouTube. I’ve met them, the band members. I heard that song when they were playing her new video game, The Uprising.”
Nutsbe and Titus sat in the hard chairs over at the table, their computers booted up. Rowan was next to Avery on the bed. Lisa had brought chairs in from her room next door. She was perched backwards on one, her hands crossed on the back, her chin resting on her hands.
“When you came in, you said you had an update on the Patriots Pledge guys?” Rowan reminded Nutsbe.
“There are arrest warrants out for the guys with the photos. They’ve gone to ground,” Titus said then looked over at Nutsbe.
“There was a BOLO out for the men you incapacitated,” Nutsbe said. “Knowing they would probably seek medical attention. Once we knew about the attack, that was one of the parameters I inputted to our system. An hour ago, the police found a guy passed out in the streets. No I.D. Two bullet wounds in his leg.” Nutsbe was speaking directly to Rowan. “They must have been round-nosed bullets. They passed straight through, according to the responder chatter from the paramedics. The wounds were days old and infected. The unknown subject was transported to the local hospital. We already flagged this for the FBI. We’re sure the hospital did, as well. It’s a little sketchy when you don’t seek help after you’ve been shot. We sent Panther Five over, Margot, she’ll get photos. We’ll get the patient ID’d and see if this isn’t the guy we’re looking for.”
“Gun shots?” Avery gripped his hand harder as she pushed the pillow off and lifted her head.
“Left leg?” Rowan asked. “Outside thigh?”
“Roger that,” Nutsbe said.
Rowan smiled broadly. “Finally, some good news.”
“Unless he dies,” Lisa said.
“Gun shots?” Avery stammered.
Rowan leaned to the side and kissed her forehead. “I’m fine. Nothing happened to me. I just got some aerobic exercise in a way I hadn’t planned. That’s all.”
“More good news,” Nutsbe said. “We’re pretty sure that we know how the vandals linked the three of you.”
“Have there been police reports of similar incidences?” Lisa asked.
“No, ma’am,” Nutsbe said. “And I’m not expecting them based on this data.” He turned from the desk to look at Avery. “Thank you for letting us check on your phone. We’re going to keep it a little longer if that’s okay with you. I brought you another one.” He reached into the pocket of his tactical pants and pulled out a phone.
Same brand, this one was black.
“I input all of your contacts. This one should be sa
fer. Your phone number didn’t change.” He laid it on the table.
“Safer,” Avery repeated.
“Avery, what day did you get assigned to Taylor Knapp?” Nutsbe asked.
“Last Thursday afternoon.”
Nutsbe gave a thumbs up. “And last Thursday did you happen to read something from a ShareItApp after the time when you accepted that assignment?”
Avery looked around as Rowen and Lisa groaned. They hadn’t warned Avery to turn on the security key.
“It wasn’t an option to accept or not to accept the Taylor Knapp assignment, but yes. After,” she said as she spun back to look at Nutsbe. “An author from Twitter asked me to read her first hundred words in her WIP, and I said I would.”
“Someone you know?” he pressed.
“Not really, just a young English major who recently followed me on Twitter.”
“Twitter? What’s that name?” Nutsbe asked as he faced his computer and started typing.
“Mary Turner and then a string of numbers.”
Rowan and Lisa groaned again. Anytime there was a string of numbers after a name it was almost a hundred percent guarantee that was a Russia-connected bot.
Rowan climbed from beside Avery and moved to the extra chair by the computer where Nutsbe was searching.
“Got her,” Nutsbe said. “Look at this, Kennedy. She’s following Avery, and two hundred bots. And look at her join date. This sockpuppet was set up just for Avery,” he said quietly. He changed the screen as he pulled up a schedule of events, put a finger on a line, then turned back to Avery “When you opened a ShareItApp file on Thursday at 11:37 p.m. malware was placed on your phone that allowed for the person on the other end to access your phone’s microphone, your video camera, and your keystrokes.”
“Oh.” Avery was sitting with her back to the headboard, hugging a pillow, her legs pulled up to her chest. “They could read my texts?”
