Nightfall

by Peter Hoole

  “While terrorists live up to their title – creating terror – these guys, it was as if they just did whatever they did to… please themselves. I don’t know why, really.”

  “What are you saying? They’re just anarchists?”

  Dunleavy shook his head, drumming his thumb against the windowsill. “Not anarchists, Jackson. There was a pattern to what they did. After a time, it became clear there was something else going on. I’m certain they had a plan. Something big—”

  “What was it? Do we know what their end game is?”

  “No. Or at least, I never found out. These guys had people concealed everywhere. They have their own people in the CIA, NSA, FBI – and yeah – even the fucking WPD. Shit, it wouldn’t have surprised me to discover they had people in every freakin’ city in the United States.”

  Caleb whistled. “Really? It was that advanced?”

  “Yeah… but we caught a break. Remember that mission in Beijing?”

  “Vaguely. It was a simple aggressive hack. From memory, we didn’t come up against much resistance.”

  “Yeah, that was because the group hadn’t quite got their hands on China yet. No one can really, the place is a vault. Anyway, I’m getting side-tracked. The info you brought back—” Dunleavy paused, turning back to glance at Darcy. “I’m not sure I can speak openly in front of her, Caleb,” Dunleavy admitted. “A reporter?”

  “I’m assuming you’re going to share some pretty critical information with me, right?” Caleb responded. “And it’s going to breach all kinds of laws?”

  “Sort of,” Dunleavy replied.

  Caleb grinned. “Anything you tell me, I’m gonna tell her later, so you might as well save me the effort of repeating it.”

  Darcy smiled at the notion.

  “Okay,” Dunleavy continued, after a moment where he scrutinised Darcy carefully. “Where were we? Right – the China mission. Anyway, what we discovered was that while the group didn’t have an active member in China, they were using the place as a routing station.”

  “Routing station?” Caleb questioned blankly.

  “Yeah… you know. Basically, a message would get sent from one place, and it would go through five or six, maybe even dozens of different computer terminals. Each terminal sends the message to the next point. At first, we couldn’t break the encryption they were using. But eventually, we got through it. While we couldn’t tell where the information came from initially, we were able to discover where it went.”

  “And where’s that?”

  Dunleavy inhaled a deep breath. “DC.”

  Caleb took his eyes from the road for a moment and stared at the former Chief-of-Staff. “Shit. Who was it?”

  “Some low level piece of shit in the WPD. This guy was nuts. We located him and with a bit of pressure, eventually got him to talk.”

  “Okay, back up a little. Who is ‘we’?”

  “You know how I said we didn’t know who to trust? I wasn’t kidding. We really didn’t. I only had a small team that I trusted enough to be involved in investigating this stuff. There was me, and a couple of nerds I recruited from MIT. Fucking losers, all of ’em, but they could definitely work a computer. I had one other guy, who was a former Marine. He was one hard mother, but he followed orders without question. You were my go-to guy when I needed a team of operatives. He was the guy I used when a team would have been too many.”

  “Okay. So what information did you get?”

  Dunleavy shrugged. “Once again, not much. From what I could discover, the group we were after, well, they didn’t give out much information. They weren’t terrorists, that much we confirmed. This was in spite of the type of acts they were undertaking, but they learned some important tactics from the real terrorist groups. Basically, everyone in their organisation seems to be on a need-to-know basis. They’ve shared their information very sparingly.”

  “So what did you get from the WPD guy?”

  “We really only found out how he was recruited.”

  When Dunleavy lapsed into silence again, Caleb stared at him. “And how was he recruited?”

  “Caleb – I hate to tell you this, but this group were recruiting their people in exactly the same way I recruited you.”

  “And? How was that?”

  Dunleavy paused, seeming to contemplate, once again, whether he should share the information with Caleb and Darcy.

  Caleb had been driving random streets during their discussion, taking turns randomly to ensure they weren’t followed. He probably would have enjoyed the serenity of the drive, if it hadn’t been for the conversation he found himself embroiled in.

  They were approaching an empty Walmart parking lot, and Dunleavy pointed toward it. “Caleb, you should probably pull over for this.”

  Agitated by Dunleavy’s serious tone, Caleb turned left into the empty lot. He reverse-parked the car up against a wall, ensuring he had a decent view of the road and the rest of the lot. Once stopped, Caleb turned off the engine and braced himself for whatever Dunleavy was going to say.

  Dunleavy sighed. “Caleb, I should probably start from the beginning.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Pierre pulled over to the side of the road. He opened the car door, surveying the house opposite his position. He’d tracked the call to this address, and made his way over as soon as he could.

  He was about to cross the street when his phone rang. He answered it swiftly, trying to avoid announcing his presence to anyone.

  “William?” Pierre began, sounding very agitated, “William, I’m about to sort out your mess, and I don’t need interruptions.”

  “Good” said a voice Pierre wasn’t expecting.

  “Sorry sir, I was expecting it to be William,” Pierre said, struggling to deal with the shock of hearing this particular voice.

  “Yes, I imagine you did,” James stated. “I hear we have a problem.”

  “No problem sir. Just a wrinkle that needs to be ironed out,” Pierre replied, nervous to think that James had felt the need to intervene. It was something he’d never done before. No matter the mission, nor the target, James had always kept a distance.

  That distance had created a comfortable boundary. While Pierre trusted James, he also knew of his reputation for ruthlessness. Only a few select people knew about this reputation, and those who knew, also knew it was imperative not to lose James’s trust.

  Pierre also figured, with the implementation of Phase Two so close, his leader would be on edge.

  “Okay,” James said, “Pierre, I’m sure you’ve got a solution, and will ensure its successful outcome.”

  “Of course, sir. I haven’t let you down before, have I?”

  “No, you haven’t. But this is different, Pierre. This is the most important task you have. Is Emmett in place?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “We’ve been tracking the movements of the intelligence agencies. It’s a bit quiet. Will Emmett be putting out the recordings?”

  “Yes, sir” Pierre glanced at his watch. “More information should be sent out in the next few hours.”

  “Good. And Matthew?”

  “He’s in LA. He’s following William’s man.”

  “Good.”

  “Sir, I assure you the reporter won’t be a problem for us.”

  “I hope so, Pierre. For all our sakes,” James warned, and then promptly hung up.

  Something about James’s tone during the conversation disturbed Pierre. In his long relationship with the man, it was the first time Pierre had heard him sound so…. nervous. Everything was on the line, and Pierre knew the plan might fail if he didn’t do his job.

  The trick was to lure the reporter and her boyfriend back to LA, where Leon could carry out his task, and Matthew could complete his. Pierre had thought about going to Phoenix and finishing the job himself, but it would expose him, and create too big a risk.

  He worried the plan might be exposed. He didn’t know Phoenix and he had no contacts there.

&nb
sp; Pierre pondered on this as he moved towards the house. More of a cottage than a home, the target’s house was quaint, reminding him of scenes he’d seen on a postcard.

  Pierre knew exactly what he needed to do once he got into the house. It was something he had done so often now, he felt nothing.

  After all, these people were going to die eventually, anyway.

  Pierre walked up the steps and onto the patio. The patio itself was made of wood, obviously in need of a recoat of lacquer. Various bushes and shrubs hung around the vicinity, in no real discernible pattern.

  He knocked on the door, and took a moment to focus himself for the task.

  After about twenty seconds, Pierre heard the door unlocking. Being a relatively quiet neighbourhood, the occupant obviously felt safe enough to open the door without checking on who might be waiting on the other side.

  It would be the last mistake they made.

  As the door opened, Pierre raised the Glock he’d concealed in the back of his jeans. The suppressor pointed at the sixty-something year old woman who had opened the door, no more than an inch from her forehead. There was fear in her eyes, something that would have distracted Pierre in his younger days. Not now.

  He pulled the trigger, and the woman slumped to the floor.

  Pierre quickly stepped inside the house and closed the door quietly behind him.

  His gun still drawn, he surveyed the small house quickly but came across no other occupants. He began a closer inspection.

  He had tracked the call to this house, and he knew the person he was looking for should definitely be here. He decided to check the basement.

  The parking lot was almost completely silent. Save the cars driving past, and the light breeze occasionally shuffling leaves across the road, there wasn’t a sound to be heard.

  Caleb was suffering a fresh bout of nerves. Dunleavy had been so open on the car trip so far. Why had he suddenly asked Caleb to stop? What was the information he thought Caleb should hear when he wasn’t driving? Caleb struggled to think straight and focus, such were the shifting thoughts in his head.

  Dunleavy also remained quiet. Caleb could tell from his expression that he was searching for the right words to explain whatever he was about to say, but Caleb grew impatient. “Okay then,” he said, trying to prompt Dunleavy into speaking.

  “Alright,” Dunleavy began, “do you remember your junior year in high school?”

  Junior year in high school? Caleb thought to himself. He couldn’t begin to imagine what Dunleavy was alluding to.

  “Not really,” Caleb said, “it’s been a while.”

  “During junior year, everyone was given a basic IQ test. It was around the time when Congress was pushing for better educational standards. The best way to do that was to compile a baseline of where students were at. Congress figured using those students in senior year would be too difficult to compile accurate results, what with the SAT’s and all. It was decided that something should be done to target those in their junior year, to create a more accurate result.”

  “Okay,” said Caleb slowly, still unable to see where Dunleavy was leading.

  “At the time, I’d been in the CIA for about ten years, and the recruitment pool was languishing. Remember, this was the late nineties. The cold war was well and truly over, and 9/11 had yet to happen. In order to locate viable new recruits, we organised with Congress to add our own section to the tests. A personality test of sorts. Basically, it told us what type of person you were, and whether you were predisposed to serving in the CIA. The questions would appear completely normal to any outsider, but would give the CIA very clear indications of how people could be useful, in the future. All the results were sent back to the Department of Education, and we made sure we had a guy in the department, one who would sort through and flag anyone who might be of interest to the CIA. Simple profiling, really”

  “What happened?” Caleb asked, sceptical about what Dunleavy was telling them.

  “Almost one hundred percent of the people we assessed were not of interest to us. We discarded their information, shredded their results. We had no interest in them for any future planning. Sorry, Ms Chamberlain.”

  “No need to apologise, I reckon I’m probably one of the lucky ones,” Darcy responded, sounding relieved.

  “So what happened to the others? The ones you were interested in?” Caleb prompted.

  “We followed you all for a year or so, learning as much as we could – backgrounds, lifestyles, propensity for violence – in doing so, we were able to cut it down to a few dozen persons of interest.”

  “And I was on that list?” Caleb asked.

  “Indeed,” explained Dunleavy, “and you definitely remained a person of interest to us.”

  “Why? I came from a loving family, a decent home. Shit, you know Darcy. The people we hung around with were fine—”

  “Agreed. But remember, the purpose of the tests was to ascertain who would be most suitable to work for us.”

  “So what’s your point?” Caleb said. “This is hardly ground-breaking information. There have been rumours around for years about the Government testing people and profiling them for their own uses.”

  “I know. That’s what makes it so easy… morally speaking. Our logic was, if people think you’re fucking them over, you may as well make use of it.”

  Darcy huffed her disgust in the background, and Dunleavy momentarily lost track of his thoughts before he continued.

  “Anyway,” Dunleavy said. “Let me continue. Caleb, the reason I asked you to pull over is because… after those tests, we followed your life very closely.”

  “And?” Caleb snapped.

  “I’m not sure you understand Caleb. Your results were of such interest to the CIA that we followed you closely enough to learn everything about you. We knew where you ate, what your grades were at school, your girlfriend. We even had access to all your medical records.”

  Caleb shook his head, as the implications began to filter into his mind. “Shit.”

  Dunleavy tapped his fingers against the windowsill. “Indeed, Caleb. We took your right to privacy and wiped our ass with it.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Dunleavy took a moment to think before he responded. “Basically, if my gut instincts regarding what’s coming is anywhere close to right, then I need to be upfront with you. We’re gonna need more than Darcy’s smile to stop this thing.”

  “Can’t you be more specific?” Caleb asked.

  “Fine. You need to know this for two reasons. One, I’ve seen your handy work in the field, and I’d rather you hear it from me, now, than you hear it from somewhere else. If that was to happen, there’s no doubt you would be none too happy with me. Honesty Caleb… the good news, for us at least, was that you decided to become a Marine. It was easier for us to keep track of you that way.”

  “And what’s the second reason?”

  “After 9/11, a process began where we talked to other national intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic. We showed them how we recruited, and trained our people. In turn they showed us the same. We were all trying to be better communicators to make sure 9/11 would never happen again.”

  Caleb listened intently, still trying to figure out what the hell Dunleavy was alluding to.

  “Anyway, remember that guy we brought in? The cop?” Dunleavy continued. “He was recruited in the same manner. But rather than looking for the positives, the group, as he claims, were looking for the negatives. The down-trodden, the easily malleable. The people who, given a good enough incentive, would do anything for them.”

  “So, they used our technique against us?”

  “Absolutely. Not just us though.”

  “Who else?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question Caleb.”

  “What exactly do we know?” Caleb asked.

  “Some… but not much really. I could never seem to get much information. Each mission you went on answered a question,
but asked even more. The plan, whatever it is, is big. Too big for just us to take down.”

  “Let me ask you, Mike – did the President know what you were doing?”

  “Not at first, but over time, he got suspicious. I knew I had to tell him. Like I said, the group seemed to have influence everywhere. Over time, I began to feed the President information.”

  “So, why did it stop? Why did you leave?”

  “Fucking politics.”

  “Sir?”

  “He didn’t approve of some of the missions we were doing. I was only following where each mission led, though. I knew the path we had to go down, so I sent you on the missions, regardless of where they led.”

  “What do you mean ‘Where they led?’” asked Caleb. “How did we even get started?”

  Dunleavy was silent for a moment.

  “Before we met, I started receiving emails. At first, they were merely information, suggesting I look at a certain bank account, or monitor a certain facility. I was able to verify the information provided as accurate. After time, the emails stated directing me to take action. After time, the actions we took, they led us on our own path.”

  “Who was sending the emails?”

  “To this day I don’t know. Someone with a pretty in-depth knowledge of the groups plans. I tried to back-trace the emails, but they bounced around so many IP’s that it was impossible to ascertain their origin. Eventually, the missions became the priority, and I always figured that once the end-game of the group was discovered, and stopped, then I’d be able to find out who was on the other end.”

  Caleb contemplated the situation, “So what happened? Why did you leave? Why Did Hawkins take control?”

  “After the London mission, Hawkins took over.” Dunleavy shrugged, “And I was out.”

  “Why though?”

  “The President realised we were doing missions in friendly nations, and asked me to step aside. He said I was unable to make the correct decisions and make proper use of your team.”

  “So, you left?”

  “Yes, and no. I still kept my ear to the ground. Remember I told you about my other operative? I was able to get him a job in the White House. He kept me appraised of the situation. He passed on what he could.”