The Leviathan Effect

by James Lilliefors

  TWENTY-NINE

  CLARK EASTON’S PENTAGON OFFICE was in Room 3E-880—part of the same suite of offices that had been used by every Secretary of Defense since just after World War II. On the wall behind his desk were more than a dozen photos, most of them showing Easton with important men he’d worked with and worked for—presidents, congressmen, generals, soldiers, business leaders.

  The rooms of the world’s largest office building were identified by floor, ring, corridor, and room numbers. Easton’s was on the third floor of the outermost, E-ring. His office looked out on the Potomac River and the US Capitol, through windows that had been tinted years earlier as a precaution against outside surveillance. Room 3E-880 was about a thousand feet from where American Airlines Flight 77 had ended its journey on the morning of September 11, 2001. Easton still thought about that tragedy every day. When he looked across the river, he frequently considered the fourth plane, too; a plane that might have destroyed Washington’s most potent symbol, the US Capitol, if it hadn’t been brought down in that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

  Secretary Easton typically worked at his Pentagon office until at least 6:30 P.M. each night. His long working days were wellknown. The person calling his Pentagon office on the afternoon of October 5 would have known he’d probably be at his desk.

  At 5:13, Easton was informed that he had a call from a representative for something called the Weathervane Group.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Easton pressed a button to take the call and then another to activate the digital recorder so that he could replay the conversation to the members of the “circle.”

  “This is Easton,” he said.

  “Secretary Easton. This is Mr. Zorn.” A deliberate voice, gravely, confident. Metallic.

  ONE HOUR AND thirty-nine minutes later, Catherine Blaine was sitting in the Cabinet Room, preparing to listen to the playback. Rain washed down the windows and low thunder rumbled occasionally in the distance. It bothered her a little that the President, Easton and DeVries had clearly already met to discuss details of the conversation.

  “All right?” Easton said. He pressed the PLAY button on the digital recorder and the audio began. Vice President Stanton caught Blaine’s eye as they began to listen:

  “This is Easton.”

  “Secretary Easton. This is Mr. Zorn. I think you are expecting my call.”

  “Yes. Go ahead.”

  “I represent an international consortium known as the Weathervane Group. We represent twenty-seven individual science research concerns. I believe we have been referred to you by a third party?”

  They listened to a protracted silence. Blaine glanced at Harold DeVries to see his reaction, but he showed nothing.

  “We would like to arrange a meeting with your group for tomorrow afternoon, if that is feasible.”

  “All right. Give me the details.”

  “We would like to meet in the Cabinet Room at the White House, at one P.M.”

  Easton’s breathing was audible on the recording.

  “Who would we be meeting?”

  “We will bring a four-person team … Dr. Jared Clayton, Dr. Susan Romfo, Mr. Morgan Garland, and myself.”

  Blaine heard Easton’s slow intake of breath on the recording. In the Cabinet Room, he slid his palms against each other.

  “We will arrive at the southwest gate of the White House at twelve forty P.M. Will that be acceptable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who will meet us there?”

  “The White House Chief of Staff, Gabriel Herring. Along with the Secret Service.”

  Zorn’s voice was an interesting blend of accents, Blaine thought, both American and something vaguely European.

  “We will have to run background checks on all four parties before you are allowed to enter.”

  “I’m afraid that will not be not possible. You may do your standard security and identification checks, of course. Unfortunately, we will not have time for any sort of background checks other than what you’re able to do on your own between now and then. Will you be coordinating your group for this meeting?

  “Yes.”

  “And who will be representing your group?”

  Easton gave him the five names.

  “Good. Thank you, sir.”

  “How can we get back in touch with you?”

  “That will be explained tomorrow. We will be at the gate at twelve forty, ready for our security check. Is that acceptable?”

  “All right.”

  “We are looking forward to this meeting.”

  Easton clicked off the recording.

  “So. That’s it,” said Vice President Bill Stanton. He scooted back his chair and began to shake his head. “I don’t get it, though. How could they have gotten those people on board?”

  “Yes, an interesting question,” the President said.

  It did instantly change the calculus, Blaine realized. Morgan Garland. Dr. Jared Clayton, Dr. Susan Romfo. All three names were familiar to her; household names, in certain households. Morgan Garland was the country’s most successful venture capitalist. Jared Clayton was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Susan Romfo was a climate researcher well known for her sometimes provocative television interviews on global warming. Three nationally known and well-respected figures.

  The President turned to DeVries, who had a folder of notes in front of him. “Tell us what you have on this group, Harold.”

  DeVries provided an overview. Weathervane Energies, or the Weathervane Group, was a for-profit “foundation” that had incorporated just five weeks earlier. It represented a consortium of cutting-edge companies in the fields of energy, weather tracking, climate research, and geo-engineering, including companies based in China, Russia, Europe, Canada, Africa and the United States.

  “How about this man in charge?” Blaine asked. “Victor Zorn. Who is he?”

  “An investor and entrepreneur who has financed and directed a number of research firms during the past decade. Very deep pockets, evidently, although his background is a little murky. He’s invested heavily in emerging technologies, particularly in the fields of energy and weather. He’s American but evidently spent many years in Europe. Low profile. A very persuasive and charming man, supposedly. I’ll have more on him by tomorrow.”

  The Vice President was shaking his head again, half-grinning at something, Blaine noticed. “Sorry,” he said, “but I don’t think I can get behind this, folks. This just doesn’t add up to me. After the threats, it seems hard to believe they’d be sending someone to meet with us like this. I’m sorry, this just does not compute.”

  “But remember what the last message was,” Easton said, his mouth twitching slightly. “The group that will be contacting us has no knowledge of the email communications. Presumably, this is not the person who sent the emails.”

  “Or that’s what we were led to believe, anyway,” said DeVries.

  The President said, “I don’t know that we’d have grounds to arrest a Nobel Prize physicist or the world’s most prominent venture capitalist, would we?” He looked at the Vice President, then at DeVries, the intelligence director. “But we can certainly monitor them closely. In particular, this Mr. Zorn.”

  DeVries’s face was expressionless. “We’ll implement all security precautions,” he said, “as well as electronic, satellite, and ground surveillance.”

  The President nodded. “All right. Let’s get everything we can between now and one P.M. tomorrow, then. Work around the clock. Data mine this thing to death. I want to be armed with everything that’s out there. I don’t want any of this to be a surprise tomorrow. We’ve had enough surprises.”

  “Agreed,” said Easton.

  DeVries nodded.

  “Just remember what our objective has been all along,” said the President, turning his gaze to Blaine. “We want this to have a face, so that we really know what we’re dealing with. And when we do,” he added, “we’re going to bring them down. In a big wa
y.”

  JON MALLORY GAZED out at the sheets of rain in the rolling countryside and remembered a very different afternoon, five months earlier. Remembered cool winds blowing through a pine-scented forest and the faint smell of water just before they came over a rise and saw the sparkles of a lake through the trees. Remembered resting on a rock in the shade after a long hike through the woods and hearing the stillness of early afternoon, the creak of tree branches, water splashing on stones. Remembered feeling very fortunate that he had the day with Melanie, far from everything that had ever gotten between them; fortunate knowing that they loved each other and that even if it didn’t last, they had it then, and it felt as good to him as anything he knew.

  It was Jon’s second day now in this room, on a gated, guarded property more than fifty miles from his home. He could live in a cage here, comforting or torturing himself with memories, or he could live in the story. His better instincts told him that he had enough pieces now to begin writing it; but he also knew it wasn’t that simple.

  Jon looked at what he had started two days earlier:

  Scientist’s Disappearance Linked to Others

  Four days before she disappeared, Dr. Keri Westlake, a professor of meteorology at the University of Maryland, talked about a story that she said “needs to be told soon.”

  It was a story about groundbreaking scientific research into the field of weather modification, Dr. Westlake said, some of it involving the federal government. But it was also a darker tale of suppression and murder, she believed.

  Dr. Westlake produced a list of seven names—seven people who had died or disappeared over the past nine years. The people on the list, five of them scientists who had worked on climate research, knew at least part of the story that Westlake said needed to be told—enough perhaps to have gotten them killed.

  It was Dr. Atul Pradhan, the seventh name on the list, who told her about the others. Pradhan, an Indian climatologist who met with Dr. Westlake earlier this year, died September 25 in the Bay of Bengal tsunami.

  Several days later, Dr. Westlake herself went missing. Police say her home had been burglarized and her computer accessed.

  No, he thought. That wasn’t the way to tell the story—not only because it felt incomplete; but because it felt wrong. Dr. Westlake had forwarded Jon an email containing notes and documents: two memos from Frank Johnson, name number six on the list, from 2004 and early 2005; four documents about an energy consulting firm known as Energy and Atmospheric Research Systems, or EARS; and a seemingly disjointed series of notes, some attributed to the initials S. L. It was in those documents that the real story would be found; if he just spent enough time with them, the information he had would eventually take the shape of a story.

  Jon did not always enjoy the process. But it was what he did and what he was good at and he had to keep faith that the end result would justify the often tedious work in getting there.

  He pulled the blinds closed and went back to his computer.

  Here we go, he told himself. Let’s figure this out.

  FORTY-THREE MILES away, the assassin was preparing for his new assignment. It would be considerably easier than the last one, his prey unaware of any danger; still, it felt unsettling to receive another job so soon.

  As he drove away from the farmhouse in the rain, a Cole Porter song stuck in his head, the assassin received an alert on his handheld computer. He switched to the GPS tracking app and saw a flashing signal, indicating that the reporter’s cell phone had been re-activated. He pulled over onto the gravel shoulder of the two-lane rural road. Within seconds, he had the latitude and longitude and a map location. A motel off of Interstate 95 in Virginia.

  That was strange. For the past two days, Jon’s cell phone had been turned off and undetectable. Now, the assassin had a track on him again; or, at least, on his phone. Except the timing was wrong. The timing was all wrong.

  He had to focus on this new assignment first. Protect the mission. Someone else knew too much, and was planning to talk about it with a newspaper reporter. This one had to be headed off quickly.

  THIRTY

  PATRICIA HANRATTY AGREED TO meet Charles Mallory for dinner at Café Ole in Tenleytown on Wisconsin Avenue. It was a cozy Mediterranean bistro, a few blocks from the National Cathedral, known for its extensive menu of mezze dishes.

  Retired now—forced out, really—Hanratty remained an outspoken critic of the government she had worked for most of her life. Her name still popped up in letters-to-the-editor columns, where she lambasted government pork-barrel spending or misguided military projects. Some regarded her as a cranky old lady and conspiracy freak. Mallory considered her a friend, and a valuable source with a photographic memory. She did see conspiracies a little too easily and always had; but the thing was, sometimes she was right.

  Hanratty was already seated at a small wooden table for two, wearing her trademark red beret and navy cape, her hands cradling a vodka and tonic. She looked the same to him, with thin, brittle white hair and her wide, slightly crooked smile, generous amounts of rouge on her powdered cheeks.

  “Hello, dear, marvelous to see you again,” she said, extending her hand without getting up. “This city just gets stranger all the time, doesn’t it?”

  Mallory kissed the top of her hand and sat.

  “Oh, it’s been such a dreadful spring,” she said, speaking in her slightly affected accent. “So much rain! Where have you been, anyway?”

  “Away,” Mallory said. “I moved to a land far, far away.”

  She blurted out a single-syllable laugh. “And so what brings you back? Business?”

  “Afraid so.” He noticed the crescent of lipstick on her glass.

  “I heard somewhere that you had become a private intelligence contractor.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “What on earth is that, exactly? You have your own intelligence agency?”

  “More or less. Less, these days. I’m here on kind of a special case.”

  She let out a surprising, bawdy laugh that caused more than one diner to turn.

  “Well, you’re lucky you caught me,” she said. “I’m flying to Scotland in three days. Although I hear we’re getting a doozy of a storm, aren’t we?”

  “We are.”

  “After that, I’m supposed to be on a cruise for two weeks. I have some dear friends in Greece that I haven’t seen in ages. It should be great fun.” Looking down, she said, “I love the lamb stew shepherd’s pie mezze here—quite delicious. I think I’ll have that.”

  Mallory realized then that the waiter was standing beside their table. He quickly scanned the menu, settling on a Bastila mezze—brick pastry dough stuffed with Moroccan couscous, chicken, almonds, and spicy yogurt.

  “The couscous here is quite good, too,” she said, winking at him.

  She talked animatedly for the next twenty minutes about her travels. Pat Hanratty traveled alone and had a gift for making friends out of strangers. This year, she said, she had already toured northern Africa and the Middle East and spent two weeks in Austria over the summer. In 2011, she’d been in Marrakech, just blocks from the Argana Café when it was bombed by terrorists. “It was dreadful. Just absolutely dreadful. Those poor, poor people. They were targeting tourists, you know. Dreadful business. But, you know, you can’t live in fear over that sort of thing. I never have.”

  Mallory listened and nodded at appropriate intervals. He waited until their second order of mezze arrived before broaching his topic.

  “I wanted to ask you about something,” he said as she sipped on a fresh vodka and tonic. “A project you worked on several years ago.”

  Hanratty’s shoulders began to shake convulsively.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Somehow I didn’t think you’d asked me to dinner to hear about my trip to Austria,” she said. “All right. What is it you want to know?”

  “A project you worked on. Cloudcover.”

  “Oh, God, that.” She squinted at him, then
held up her drink and studied it. “A dreadful project. I’m amazed I survived it.”

  “What was it, exactly?”

  “Data,” she said. “That’s all. Data collection. Absolutely horrendous amounts of data.”

  “Data about what?” He smiled unassumingly, poking at his food.

  “Everything. You name it.” She stirred the ice in her glass with her pinkie finger. “That’s a big part of what NOAA does, you know. They collect data and they store data. Sea levels. Sea surface temperatures. Wind currents. Air temperatures. Chlorophyll concentrations in sea water, for heaven’s sake. Ad infinitum.”

  “Storm data?”

  “All sorts of data, dear. Absolutely horrendous amounts of it.” She sipped her drink and seemed to become more thoughtful. “What happens is, NOAA’s supercomputers run climate-forecasting models twenty-four/seven. Sixty or seventy terabytes of data a day we used to process. God knows what it is now. Marvelous machines, though. And of course, the computing capacity keeps getting stronger …”

  “So what was the purpose behind Cloudcover?” he said. “Why did it exist? I seem to recall you got in some sort of trouble because of it?”

  “Oh, God, yes.” She laughed. “It was pure madness, really. I still don’t know what the fuss was about. Actually, I think it started because of that Chinese thing.”