Power Down

by Ben Coes

  But the segment that was promoted the heaviest—and which attracted the highest Sunday night audience in CBS history—was the interview that ran in the last half hour.

  From the living room in Ted Marks’s Manhattan apartment, Steve Kroft sat across from Marks and interviewed KKB’s nearly murdered CEO.

  A jagged cut across the top of his right cheek held stitches, and his right eye was slightly black. Still, Marks looked good. If anything, he looked like a warrior, a cross between a presidential candidate and a soldier fresh from battle.

  Kroft, and the nation, sat mesmerized as Marks told the minute-by-minute details of the attack on the house in Aspen, the murder of Nicholas and Annie Anson, the brutal fight with the killer who had invaded his home.

  “One last question,” Kroft asked as the interview came to a close. “What’s your opinion of what happened at Long Beach? Is it connected?”

  Marks’s thick brown hair was parted and still neat-looking. His handsome face nodded in silence at Kroft.

  “Of course they’re connected,” said Marks. “Long Beach. Capitana. Savage Island. What happened in Aspen; they are all connected. America is being attacked. And make no mistake, the terrorists are winning.”

  Marks sat up in his chair. He stared fiercely into Kroft’s eyes.

  “But what we’ve seen is not the end of this story. It’s the beginning. There are terrorists on our shores, in our midst. And what they want right now is for us to panic. They want us to suspend our laws and turn neighbor into enemy. But we can’t do that. Because then it will be the end. Then they’ll win.

  “There’ll be people who, in the hours and days to come, will say that Long Beach was somehow our fault. That Capitana was caused by our appetite for gasoline, Savage Island by our never-ending need for electricity and power. Well, sorry, but that’s not America’s fault. I’ll be damned if we’re going to apologize for our success, for our way of life. Give the terrorists credit; they’re attacking us at our most critical sources of economic activity. But the way to stop the attacks is not to apologize, to cower in the corner, or to change our ways. The way to stop the terrorists is plain and simple. We must hunt them down. We must capture them. Then, with God on our side, we must kill them.”

  34

  PARQUE CENTRAL HOTEL

  HAVANA, CUBA

  The Parque Central was a massive, majestic granite hotel built in the 1880s. Dewey checked in, feeling more exhausted than he could ever remember. His room, the clerk said, overlooked the Grand Theater. Dewey nodded, caring only about two things: calling Terry Savoy, and getting an hour or two of sleep.

  “Savoy.”

  “It’s Dewey.”

  “Dewey, man, are we glad to hear you’re alive.”

  “Me too.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’d rather not say, Terry,” said Dewey.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m done. This wasn’t my battle to begin with. I’ve told you everything I know. I’m going to take a few days’ rest, then disappear.”

  “Have you seen the news?”

  “No.”

  “The terrorists struck the Port of Long Beach. Wiped it out. Same explosive, but more than two thousand dead this time. It’s absolute chaos up here. Government’s clueless. They need a lead, big-time. You may be our best hope. We believe—Jessica believes—what you said about there being a mole. The head of the FBI authorized an investigation into the interagency group. We’re going to find him. But we need you too.”

  Dewey listened, staring out the window.

  Savoy paused to regroup. “Let me ask you something about the attack at Madradora. You said the Deltas were hit by operatives—not Middle Eastern–looking terrorists or anything like that. Right? Can you tell us anything more?”

  “I can show you something. I’m sending a photo to your phone.” He brought up the photo of the dead woman and texted it to Savoy.

  “Got it,” Savoy said after a few moments. “It’s grainy. Who is she?”

  “One of the assassins. She’s Panamanian.”

  “Let me show this to Jessica and I’ll call you right back.”

  “Why? You got the photo. That’s all I’ve got. I’m done.”

  “What’s your number? I’ll call back in five.”

  “I’ll call you,” said Dewey.

  He hung up, dropped the phone on the bed, took a shower, and then called room service for a meal of eggs and bacon. He went to the mirror and looked at his shoulder wound. It was raw and painful but not septic. He cleaned the wound with a moist washcloth then redressed it. He would need some new bandages and antibiotics.

  Finally, Dewey picked up the hotel phone and dialed.

  “Savoy.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Hold on.” The phone clicked. “Dewey, you’ve got me, Jessica, and Ted Marks.”

  “We’re glad you’re alive,” said Jessica. “Where are you?”

  “I’d rather not say,” he said.

  “Okay,” Jessica continued. “Good job getting the picture. She may be traceable. I’ll run it through Interpol.”

  “You do what you want,” said Dewey. “But I wouldn’t run it through Interpol, CIA, or any other government database. You run that photo through and they will know, before you do, how to erase that lead. By the time you get there, the lead will be gone. There’s someone high up, in your town, your building even, watching out for signs that we’re onto them. Don’t take this personally, but for all I know it could be you.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” said Jessica. “But it’s not me. Right now, we’re running a tracking protocol on all twelve participants in this morning’s interagency where the Madradora meet up was discussed. I have a team of agents scouring financials, e-mails, phone records, travel patterns, you name it, on everyone who knew about your exfiltration. Including me, by the way. We’re going to find whoever it is who betrayed the United States and got those soldiers killed.”

  “What about the photo? How are you going to run that?”

  Savoy broke in and said, “Ted and I will follow up on it ourselves.”

  “Dewey? This is Ted Marks. Any idea why they want to kill you so badly?”

  “I’m not sure. I already told you everything I know about the Capitana attack, but obviously they can’t know that. Maybe they’re afraid I know more than I really do.”

  “Maybe there is something else,” said Jessica. “Something you know, but aren’t thinking of. A small detail that will help us. We still need to make arrangements to bring you in.”

  Dewey stood and looked in the mirror. The feeling of turmoil, inner conflict, felt like it was going to paralyze him. Something old and long dormant stirred in him, a feeling of duty. A familiar sensation that he associated with being briefed on a mission for the first time. The sense of anticipation that a Delta felt when the hunt was about to begin. When he believes in the mission with every ounce of his being. A feeling Dewey realized he’d almost forgotten.

  He stepped from the mirror and walked to the window, looking down on the crowded street in front of the Parque Centrale. He closed his eyes and let the feeling subside. For as much as he felt the desire to return to the United States, he also remembered how he’d left; accused of crimes he didn’t commit, left to defend himself all alone. He’d lost his family, then his reputation, his calling, everything. Yes, he wanted to help find the terrorists—for his men who died aboard the rig, for himself. But he fought the instinct, pushed it back and away, steeled himself.

  “I’ve told you all I know,” said Dewey. “I’m out.”

  “ ‘Out’?” asked Jessica. “Done? Just like that? We need you. Don’t you care about the fact that thousands of people are dead, that terrorists are attacking your country?”

  “Of course I care. But it’s not my battle. Not now.”

  Dewey glanced at his knife and handgun, both lying on the bed. He listened to the silence coming from the phone.

  �
��Good luck,” Jessica said, a trace of bitterness in her voice. “Please call if you think of anything else.”

  Dewey hung up the phone and lay back on the bed.

  But all need for sleep seemed to have vanished. In fact, suddenly, he couldn’t imagine sitting in the room for a moment longer. An intense feeling of guilt, shame even, came over him. His country had asked for his help, and he refused. He fought to shut the feeling out of his mind. He would go for a walk. Tomorrow, he would fly somewhere else. He would escape again, disappear. He’d done it once, after all. He owed no man. Tomorrow he would run again.

  Dewey tucked the handgun into his pants, knife into his ankle sheath, then left his room. He walked out through the entrance to the Parque Central. For the next hour, he walked the streets of Havana. He was surprised at how happy people seemed, how kind. They said hello to him as he passed them. The sun beat down and it felt good on his shoulders and face. He stopped at a farmacia and bought new bandages for his shoulder and a bottle of antibiotics.

  Dewey went back to the hotel. He walked to the newsstand in the lobby and bought a copy of The International Herald Tribune. He paid and walked through the lobby and sat to have a cup of coffee at the hotel’s restaurant.

  “What would you like, señor?” the waitress asked. She was young, with long black hair, and pretty.

  “Espresso,” he said.

  He sat back to read the paper. The words quickly became a meaningless blur, though, as his mind roamed. He replayed the events in Cali, at Capitana. He felt confused, anxious, a pit in his stomach. When the check came, he reached into his jacket. In the pocket, he felt his passport and the small wad of cash he hadn’t handed over to the customs agent in Cali. He pulled out the photo of Holly and Robbie. Would his son be proud of him today? He couldn’t bear to imagine the answer.

  He went for a walk. Near the piers in south Havana, he stopped to buy cigarettes, and he took one out and lit it. It tasted good. He hadn’t smoked in a couple of days.

  “We need you.” Jessica’s words ate at him. The guilt came back again, a bitter feeling that he tried to push out of his mind. He wanted a drink. He finished the cigarette and flicked it into the ocean off the end of an old wooden pier.

  “It’s not your battle,” he said aloud, to no one, as the darkness settled over the western horizon. “Leave it behind.”

  35

  KKB WORLDWIDE HEADQUARTERS

  FIFTH AVENUE

  NEW YORK CITY

  Ted Marks limped out of the elevator. It was Christmas Eve. The seventy-fourth floor was dead quiet. He walked down the hallway, entered the outer office where his assistant Natalie normally sat. He crossed through the room and walked into his office, past the two large leather sofas at the center of the massive room, then past his desk. At the window, he stood and stared out at the Manhattan skyline. Snow was falling in thick, heavy lines across the black sky. Suddenly, he felt sharp, stabbing pain emanating from his hand. He turned, walked to his desk, pulled a bottle of Advil from the top drawer of his desk. He opened the bottle and tossed down four pills.

  Looking down at his desk, he noticed the stack of clippings, articles Natalie had collected about the announcement of the KKB merger with Anson Energy. It seemed so long ago now, even though it had been only four days. He felt disconnected from the events of the past few days, as if they’d happened to somebody else. Then the pain struck again, this time from his shoulder. Marks had been trying to deal with the pain without the Percocet, a bottle of which he carried in his pocket. But he knew he would need some soon. He would wait until after the meeting. He needed to be sharp before the others.

  He returned to the window, feeling nothing but frustration as he stared into the monotony of the blizzard, the quiet of his palatial office suite offering little calm to a man and a mind so used to action, so deeply angry about the events of the last week, about the destruction of his life’s work. It was the unknown that ate away at him like a cancer. Even with the help of the Percocet, he had barely slept for two nights in a row. He would barely sleep this night. He had to do something.

  Suddenly, he heard a dull knock on the door to Natalie’s office.

  “Come in,” he said loudly.

  “Hi, Ted,” said the voice. A short, wiry man with curly black hair and thick glasses peeked his head in the door. Joshua Essinger ran KKB’s proprietary trading desk, overseeing eight traders who collectively managed a portfolio of more than $25 billion. Essinger’s desk invested money off the KKB balance sheet, buying securities across the energy complex, though mainly oil, natural gas, and electricity futures, a financial tool by which KKB was able to smooth out the peaks and valleys that were typical of an energy company whose value was, to a certain extent, dictated by not only the success or failure of exploration projects, but also by the whims of fluctuating commodity prices. Essinger was hired by KKB after a highly successful career as a commodities trader at Morgan Stanley.

  “Josh, come in, sit down,” said Marks.

  Essinger crossed the office and sat, somewhat delicately, on one of the leather couches.

  “I have a question for you,” said Marks.

  “Yes, sir. Name it.”

  “If you knew about Savage Island ahead of time, about Capitana, how would you go about profiting from it?”

  Essinger sat up, shocked for a brief moment. “Well, that’s an awkward sort of question—”

  “I’m not saying you did it, Josh. I’m asking how you would do it.”

  “Do you think someone actually did this? Profited from it? Wasn’t this an act of terrorism?”

  “I don’t know what I think,” said Marks. He stepped from behind his desk, limped to the sofa across from Essinger, sat down.

  “Okay, okay. No, I understand. Well, the obvious answer is I’d own a bunch of shorts against us, KKB and Anson.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

  “But that’s not actually the best way. Problem is, you can only buy so many shorts. It’s just not a big pool. Sure, I could make some money, but the truth is, it’s capped. I’m thinking, depending on collars, limits, that sort of thing, you might have been able to make high nine figures, maybe a billion or two.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Sounds like a lot, but not in context. Depends, of course, on how much I’m running, but let’s just assume it’s the billion we have in cash on the desk. With the kind of quantum devaluation that just occurred with both companies, if I knew about it ahead of time I should have been able to make, I’m thinking, north of ten billion. Ten-x just feels right. Maybe higher.”

  “Right. But still, it’s the quickest—”

  “Shorts are also too obvious, Ted. They’re not going to risk being on the money side of these shorts.”

  “So how would you—”

  “Simple. I buy the shit out of competitors. Name it, I’m buying it. Electricity stocks—ConEd, Entergy, Southern, Duke, et cetera—oil and gas stocks, BP, Exxon, Valero, Andarko, et cetera. I can run a regression on it, but I don’t need to. All those guys popped pretty hard in the past few days, since Savage and Capitana got leveled.”

  “So, next question,” said Marks. “Can we look and see if someone did this? A company, a government, hedge fund?”

  “Well, sure, we can try. It’ll be tough. There are myriad ways to cloak a trade. If I did what you said, I’m doing everything I can to hide my trades. Offshore funds named after similar legal entities, pass-throughs buying ADRs, then flipping them out. That said, there are ways. I’d look at patterns and I’d look at dollar volume relative to overall balance sheet. I mean, Fidelity probably bought a billion worth of each of those stocks I mentioned in the days leading up to the attacks, but they’re running trillions and it’s being managed across dozens of energy-related entities, know what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “Under any circumstance, the longer you wait, the harder it is to look back. You need to look right now.”

&nb
sp; “And that’s because?”

  “These guys are criminals, right? They’re smart. They understand they need to break away from the money. So right now they’re probably selling out of their positions. It won’t be easy to find them. Then they’ll wind down the legal entities that wired the money, cleared the trades. They’ll be gone soon.”

  Marks sat back, nodded. He felt another sharp tear of pain in his palm. This one would not go away. He leaned forward, his eyes watering.

  “I want you to look into it, Josh.”

  “I will. How soon?”

  “Now.”

  “Now meaning today?”

  “Now meaning thirty seconds after you walk out of this office. I need you to hit it hard, immediately.”

  Essinger stood. “I’ll get on it right now.”

  “I’ll call you from the road,” said Marks, standing up. “In the meantime, you find anything, you call me, Terry, or, if you don’t get us, Jessica Tanzer at the FBI. Here’s her number.” Marks handed Essinger a slip of paper.

  “Where you going?”

  “Panama.”

  36

  CIA HEADQUARTERS

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  Buck arrived at his desk at CIA headquarters in Langley, shut the door, took off his jacket, and threw it on one of the chairs in front of his desk. At his desk he keyed up one of the three computer screens.

  Quickly, he keyed in a series of passwords and was suddenly at a screen that read:

  AMPHITHEATRE ARCHIVAL SET 117

  He clicked on the hyperlink next to the word video then entered another password. Then, he entered that day’s date. He waited for the prompt, then entered a period of time: 7:00 A.M. to 7:20 A.M.

  After a few seconds, a live shot video suddenly appeared in color showing the front of his house in Alexandria. He sat back, sipped his coffee cup, and watched. There was no activity until 7:11 A.M. Then, he watched as the image of himself on the screen suddenly appeared from just over an hour ago, leaving his home, first walking out the door, then, a minute later, his car backing out of the driveway.