Power Down

by Ben Coes

  The problem was, once written, the execution of what was in essence a toll system—weeding out good data from irrelevant data—required an almost unbelievable amount of computing capacity.

  “So how much time are we talking?”

  “Hours, not days,” said Karlove.

  “How many hours?”

  “I don’t know. But once we have the blocks of data sets, that’s when the real art comes in. We need to build a force-rank algorithm. That’s what I’m going to do while I’m waiting. So once we get the data into buckets, we can whittle it down to the specific institutional events.”

  “Okay. I have no fucking idea what you just said, but obviously keep me posted.”

  “I’m assuming you want me to omit any firm that was long in KKB or Anson? I’m assuming any firm buying KKB and or Anson wouldn’t be behind the attacks, right?”

  “Yeah, weed those guys out too.” Essinger patted Karlove on the back, then turned to walk out. At the door, he suddenly stopped.

  “Actually, Igor, don’t remove those guys. I’m assuming whoever did this is as smart as you or me. If it was me, I would’ve bought some KKB and Anson for appearances’ sake.”

  “Ten four.”

  As Essinger left Igor’s office, the renewed blast of the Rolling Stones faded quickly behind him.

  42

  CENTRIX-LASSA SECURITY, LP

  GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA

  It took Qital less than an hour to call Savoy with the information he needed. Marks, Savoy, and Spinale had been waiting in the KKB jet back at the airport, where Dr. Getschman had time to rebandage Marks’s shoulder.

  “She was working for an outfit out of Guatemala City,” Qital told Savoy over the phone. “A security company called Centrix. They do corporate work, guarding development projects, senior executives, that sort of thing. I don’t have an address for the outfit, but if you ask the right people, you’ll find it.”

  “Great information,” said Savoy, making notes. He nodded to Spinale and made a motion with his index finger, indicating the need to get ready to take off. “Thank you, General.”

  “Mr. Savoy?”

  “Terry.”

  “Terry, finding Centrix is the least of your problems. These are, how shall we say, black hats.”

  “Meaning?” asked Savoy.

  “Real mercenary types. Not typical ex-military. Not just security contractors. I’m talking about a rougher crew. I am told many of them came out of Nicaragua. Sandinistas. Death-squad type of stuff. Wet work.”

  Savoy nodded. The Gulfstream’s engines were roaring. “Got it.”

  On the plane, Savoy told Spinale to track down a firm called Centrix using an old contact from the military. He cautioned him to do it quietly, under the radar.

  It took less than an hour to fly from Panama to Guatemala City. The KKB jet landed at La Aurora Airport on the outskirts of Guatemala City as the late afternoon sky was turning orange and the sun was low on the western sky.

  When they landed, Savoy walked to the main terminal and rented a tan Chevy Tahoe from the Hertz desk. By the time he’d driven the SUV to the private terminal, next to the Gulfstream 500, Spinale had something.

  “I got it,” said Spinale. “The outfit’s called Centrix-Lassa Security. Where are we?”

  “We’re at La Aurora.”

  “We’re close. They’re nearby. They have an office downtown, but they also work out of a building near La Aurora; looks like a warehouse with a landing pad for helicopters.”

  “Makes sense,” said Savoy.

  “The address is 1244 Bolivar. We take a right out the airport exit and drive on the access road less than a mile, then make a left. My guess is they won’t have a sign posted.”

  “I’ll man the phones back here,” said Marks as his doctor redressed his burned hand. Despite having come this far, Marks couldn’t hide his obvious fatigue and an ashen complexion. “I want to talk with Essinger and see how his analysis is going. You two are going to have to do this one without me.”

  “Me?” asked Spinale. “You want me to go into this place? I mean, I was in naval intelligence. I don’t know what the hell—”

  “You’ll be fine, Spin,” said Marks. “Piece of cake. Just try not to shoot Terry, okay?”

  _____

  The building that housed Centrix-Lassa Security was a large green warehouse—with no sign on the front. Bolivar was lined on both sides with such warehouses. Most of them offered some sort of shipping and logistics services. The Centrix-Lassa parking lot held a few dozen cars, with a couple of motorcycles mixed in.

  Savoy and Spinale drove by the building twice. Across Bolivar, down the street a few hundred feet, they parked in an empty parking lot. Night was coming. They waited, watching from across Bolivar as the Centrix-Lassa parking lot gradually thinned out. When only one car remained, Savoy turned on the Tahoe and drove back up Bolivar. He came to the end of Bolivar and took a left, then another left, coming down a street called Via Rio behind the Centrix-Lassa building.

  Savoy turned into an empty parking lot. He drove to the back of the lot and they came to a parking area across from the rear entrance to Centrix-Lassa. Three helicopters sat on the pavement behind the building. One looked relatively new, a white Bell 412. The other two were older, a Russian Mi-8 Hip, black with orange trim, missing its tail rotor, and a green SA 330 Puma.

  Savoy parked the Tahoe. The sun had set and the sky was now dark. A lone lamppost between the two buildings illuminated the parking lot. Savoy opened the duffel bag in the back seat and took out the Smith & Wesson 1911 Koenig semiautomatic. From a side pocket, he screwed an HTG silencer onto the weapon. He reached in and handed Spinale another handgun, a Wilson Combat CQB semiautomatic, also with an HTG silencer screwed onto the end. He grabbed a set of wire cutters.

  They climbed out of the SUV. Looking up, Savoy took aim at the lamppost and shot quickly, the tinkle of shattered glass hitting pavement as darkness descended.

  At the fence that separated the two parking lots, Savoy cut an opening in the metal fence and they climbed through. Spinale followed Savoy as they walked quickly across the Centrix-Lassa facility. Past the helicopters, they came to the back of the windowless building. A back door was locked. Savoy looked up.

  “No security cameras,” he said quietly.

  “Are you surprised?” asked Spinale. “We’re in Guatemala.”

  “I’m going to the roof,” said Savoy, looking up. “Hopefully there’s a skylight.”

  “You gonna fly?” Spinale asked, looking around. There was no ladder, just the back wall of the steel building.

  “You forget,” said Savoy. “I was a fucking Ranger for five years.”

  He holstered his weapon. At the corner of the building, he found the metal ridge that ran vertically up the building’s edge. He gripped the seam in his hands and lifted himself up, leaning back so that his feet could press hard against the building. He moved quickly up the building, breathing heavily as he went, shimmying with his hands and feet. He was soon at the roof, where he pulled himself up onto the roof. He sat for a few moments to catch his breath, then leaned over the edge. He could barely see Spinale through the darkness. He nodded, then gave him a sign indicating he was going to move down the roof.

  Spinale moved to the side of the building and walked slowly toward the front of the warehouse, hugging the side of the building and remaining in the shadows.

  Savoy stepped gingerly down the roof until he came to a skylight. Light emanated. Looking down into the skylight, he could see most of the building. It was partitioned into training cells. In one area, ropes dangled down from the ceiling; in another, a climbing wall; several rooms from what looked like a house, an old bus, the cockpit from an airplane; all designed to enable training in commando scenarios. A dojo stood off to the side. The building was deserted for the night. In front, behind another partition, several offices sat empty.

  Savoy slowly raised the skylight. Next to the skylight, one of the
climbing ropes was attached to the roof inside the building. Savoy reached out and placed his hands on the rope. He quietly climbed inside the skylight and eased his way into the space, shimmying silently down the rope, as he had been trained to do so long ago as a Ranger. He felt the familiar pressure on his fingers, the burning in his muscles that he’d initially hated, then grown used to. He descended in a whisper. At the cement floor, he stepped onto the hard ground softly. He pulled the Smith & Wesson from his holster and walked to the back of the warehouse, where he opened a door and let Spinale in.

  “Let’s make it quick,” Savoy said as they walked to the front offices. “We may have tripped an alarm.”

  In the front office, they searched for any information they could find. Savoy ransacked one office while Spinale went to the computer of one of the offices he’d seen from above. He performed a simple desktop search, starting with Andreas, then Colombia, listing his search results with the most recent first. A series of recent e-mails came up. Spinale saw the word Madradora in one of the subject lines—an incoming message to Centrix, setting up the hit on Andreas and the Deltas in Cali. He then took the DNS source from the HTML and wrote it down on a piece of paper. Then, typing furiously, Spinale opened up the internal KKB security server, which he was able to access from anywhere in the world with Internet connectivity. He opened an application called Sarajevo, developed by the National Security Agency more than a decade ago, which enabled users to decode encrypted DNS addresses. He fed the encrypted address from the piece of paper into the Sarajevo entry line and hit return.

  Savoy entered the office.

  “In about ten seconds,” said Spinale, “I will tell you the name and address of our precious mole.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  They stared at the computer screen until finally the words appeared on the screen.

  BUCK, VICTOR A., 17 OLD DOMINION, ALEXANDRIA, VA

  “Ever heard of him?” asked Spinale.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Savoy, staring at the screen, nodding. “He’s the NCS chief at Langley. We’ll need to move quick.”

  43

  ES CADA FARM

  OUTSIDE OF HAVANA, CUBA

  The terrorists were slumped over against the side of the turned-over van. Their faces were covered in blood. The shorter man’s eyes had closed. He was unconscious, badly injured in the crash.

  The larger man stared up at Dewey.

  “What’s your name?” Dewey asked.

  He said nothing.

  “I’ll ask one more time. What’s your name?”

  The man didn’t respond. Dewey aimed the Colt at the man. He sent a shot between the man’s legs, into the ground just inches from his crotch.

  “Mahmoud,” said the larger man with the broken arm.

  “Why are you trying to kill me?” asked Dewey.

  Mahmoud coughed and blood trickled from the side of his mouth. He didn’t respond. He stared back at him contemptuously.

  “Are you Al-Qaeda?”

  Mahmoud continued to stare. Dewey walked forward. He took the toe of his right boot and stuck it under the head of the unconscious one. He flipped the man’s head backward with his foot. It bobbed limply backward. He leaned over and felt the pulse at the man’s neck. He kept the Colt trained on Mahmoud as he leaned over.

  “What was your friend’s name?”

  “Ebrahim,” said Mahmoud.

  Dewey reached down and searched through his pockets. He pulled out some cash and a few coins. He reached to the man’s neck at a leather necklace that was wrapped around it. A small silver circle was attached to it. Dewey ripped it from the man’s neck. Other than the money, that was all he found. He stared at the silver decoration on the necklace, looking for some sort of clue. After a moment, he tossed it to the ground.

  Suddenly, without provocation, Dewey pulled the trigger of the Colt and sent a bullet into Mahmoud’s ankle. Mahmoud let out a scream and leaned forward to grab at the wound.

  “Where were you trained?” asked Dewey. “Crimea Camps? Jaffna Peninsula? Northwest Territories? Kabul? Kenya?”

  Mahmoud looked up as he clutched his ankle. “Jaffna,” he breathed.

  “Did they teach you about torture?” asked Dewey.

  Mahmoud’s shrug said it all.

  “What’s the most effective torture?”

  Mahmoud looked up at him, desperation in his eyes as blood continued to pour down his face. “Electricity,” he whispered.

  Dewey leaned down, next to Mahmoud, who closed his eyes. “Who’s behind it?” asked Dewey, leaning forward. “What’s next?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You destroyed Capitana, Savage Island. Why?”

  “Why? Because we hate you, that’s why.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. These were terrible targets if you want to kill people.”

  “It’s not about body count. It’s your greed. Your way of life. The way to destroy you is by hitting the greedy Americans where they feel the most pain; in your wallet. People are casualties, that is all.”

  “What about the World Trade Center?”

  “Al-Qaeda. I applaud them. They’re my brothers. I trained with them at Jaffna. I worked for Bin Laden. But they have different goals.”

  “Like what?”

  “You don’t see us,” said Mahmoud. “We’re everywhere now. Already we’ve hit you so hard and you don’t even know it.”

  Mahmoud leaned back, smiling. He sweated profusely, breathing hard as he tried to control the pain.

  “We’re everywhere. This energy project, Capitana, the dam in Canada? These were appetizers. Long Beach. Where are we going? Who knows. I don’t even know. Three Mile Island; do you still think that was an accident? It wasn’t. It was our first operation.”

  Dewey stood up and walked to the car. He leaned back against the Mercedes, next to the headlight.

  He aimed the Colt at Mahmoud. He let another shot fly through the air, this time striking him in the groin. Mahmoud screamed and reached down to stem the tide of blood.

  “The forty virgins won’t be very happy about that one,” said Dewey.

  He strode forward and sent a kick into Mahmoud’s stomach. Then he began the beating in earnest.

  Dewey had been trained in administering torture. All special forces are; how to give it, how to receive it. Every man was different. This one took it gracefully, swallowed the pain. He was a tough one. Dewey would have to beat him hard. He’d have to break a few more bones. The problem was, he didn’t have a lot of time; Mahmoud would be dead soon. He needed something, anything.

  He didn’t like to cause pain. Few men did. All things being equal, Dewey would’ve preferred to be on a beach, or reading a book, or drinking. But as he stared at Mahmoud, he knew that he had the enemy in front of him, his enemy, America’s enemy. He held in his hands a piece of an extremely vital puzzle. And a cold killer to boot.

  He kicked him again, this time in the chest, heard ribs crack.

  “Who tried to kill Marks? Was it you?”

  Mahmoud spat blood on the ground and looked up at Dewey, silent.

  “A pussy like you couldn’t have been the one to take down Marks. Was it him?” Dewey looked toward the dead body.

  “It was me,” groaned Mahmoud.

  Dewey leaned back against the Mercedes.

  “He was tough,” whispered Mahmoud after a few moments. “Fought hard.”

  “But why Marks?” asked Dewey. “I can understand Capitana and Savage Island.”

  “He’s a symbol.” Mahmoud struggled to remain upright against the side of the car. Blood covered him everywhere.

  “For who?”

  “I can’t tell you,” said Mahmoud. “Even if I wanted to. Can’t. Cells.”

  Dewey moved forward and knelt so that he was in the terrorist’s face. An image of the burning oil derrick at Capitana came into his mind. He stared down at Mahmoud, thought of the World Trade Center, the images of the men and women jumping from the top
of the building as the flames engulfed the upper floors, jumping rather than waiting for the heat to consume them alive.

  He hadn’t asked to join this war. It had found him. The enemy had accidentally pulled him in. Their shitty luck, and his, that he knew how to survive. To fight.

  “You know Marks lived. You failed.”

  “I know.”

  “When I put the last bullet into your thick head it will be for him.”

  He grabbed Mahmoud’s left hand. He took the index finger and slowly bent it back, at the knuckle in the middle of the finger until it snapped. The man screamed.

  “Give me a name, a place.”

  Dewey snapped another finger, then another. Mahmoud screamed with each pop.

  “Who is it?” yelled Dewey. He snapped Mahmoud’s thumb back. Mahmoud’s eyes rolled around in their sockets. He was in agony. He stared at Dewey at last.

  “Notre Dame,” Mahmoud blurted out. “My cell. That’s all I know.”

  “Why?”

  Mahmoud remained silent.

  Dewey stared at Mahmoud. “Why Notre Dame?”

  “The football stadium.”

  “Your buddy, was he there too?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? Octanitrocubane?”

  “Yes, yes. Detonator. My job is to set it. That’s what we all do. Someone else has the detonators. We don’t know where.”

  “Who?”

  “Karim,” he whispered. “The only one I know.”

  “Where is he?”

  “New York City.”

  “Last name. What is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who’s your contact?” Dewey screamed. “What’s his last name?”

  “Karim. That’s all I know.” Mahmoud remained silent. Dewey reached for his right hand. He began by snapping the middle finger. Mahmoud let out a loud yelp, then began a long, low keening, punctuated by labored gasps for air.

  “What does Karim do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dewey grabbed the man’s index finger.