The Leviathan Effect

by James Lilliefors

  “I am. That’s not a very encouraging thought.”

  “No, it’s not. On the other hand, it might work to our advantage. The scientists who are part of this are doing it because they’re working on the defensive end, not the offensive end. They don’t know that this storm is, in effect, an unprecedented act of terrorism. Terrorism disguised as a natural disaster.”

  “Right.”

  “So if we show them there is another side to it, maybe they can be persuaded to help us.”

  “Isn’t it sort of late for that?”

  “It may be. I’m trying not to think in those terms,” Mallory said. “If my guy Chaplin can get a message to Dr. Clayton, for instance, with the recreated texts of the emails—to show them what’s really going on—maybe we can even get him to help us. Can you do that?”

  “I already have. I’ll forward them to you.” She stood, and surprised him, then, by cleaning up, with a sudden urgency, washing the plastic glasses in the bathroom sink. Setting their plates in the trash. “I better go,” she said, turning to him. “I need to call my son and get my bearings for a few minutes. Thanks for dinner.”

  Mallory shrugged. “Just something I threw together.”

  He gave her the second room number, explaining about the key.

  Blaine took her windbreaker from the bathroom and draped it over her right arm. Something seemed to hold her there, though. “What’s the part you think you might have wrong?”

  “Oh.” He glanced at his notebook. In the next instant, one of his cell phones vibrated. Pat Hanratty. He decided not to take it.

  “Volkov,” he said. “That this was all about Volkov.”

  She frowned. “But you said you got that from a good source.”

  “A source who got it second-hand but didn’t have the whole story yet. I’m afraid I’ve been looking too hard at the wrong thing.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve just assumed Volkov and his organization orchestrated the emails. I’m starting to think that he probably couldn’t have.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s too far outside his realm of expertise. Or interest. Why target this so specifically to these particular Cabinet members? For one thing, it’s difficult to do. This is an internal email system, not the Internet. But more than that, it’s not the sort of thing he’d think of.”

  “Okay, so he hired Janus, or someone using his identity.”

  “He may have hired someone. Not Janus. Or else the idea came from someone else. Someone working with Volkov.”

  “On the emails.”

  “On everything. A more or less equal partner, let’s say. Remember what you said when I asked you what surprised you most about all this? You said what surprised you most was the President.”

  “Yeah,” Blaine said. “Because it feels reckless. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Mallory nodded. “It doesn’t make sense. He’s a careful, highly intelligent, and rational person, right? Politically astute. Comfortable in the international arena. A good husband, family man.”

  “Yeah, all of that. That’s why it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Unless he’s doing something other than what we think he’s doing.”

  Blaine glanced at the silent television. Saw the color-enhanced radar spirals of Alexander’s outer bands swirling counter-clockwise toward the East Coast of the United States. The storm was now the only news story in the country that mattered, it seemed. Blaine read the scroll at the bottom of the screen: ENTIRE EAST COAST UNDER HURRICANE WARNING.

  “You mean, he may know what’s really happening.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And he’s deliberately letting it go forward?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Why?”

  Mallory found himself unable to meet her eyes. He was still thinking it through. “I don’t know that part yet.”

  Her face flushed. “But you’re implying that the partner is someone inside. That he’s one of the people in the room with us, in other words?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a possibility.”

  “Or the President himself.”

  “Probably not,” he said. “But possible.”

  “There’s just one problem with it,” Blaine said.

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. Motivation.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “I don’t have that part yet. I’m working on it.”

  Blaine looked at the gusts of rain through the crack in the drapes. Mallory glanced at his phone, wondering where his brother was. What he was doing. Neither of them spoke for a while.

  At last, Blaine said, “If it’s true, then you know what that means?”

  AT HIS HOME in Adams Morgan, the assassin answered his secure cell phone after the first ring. He wasn’t the assassin this evening, though. He was on the other side of the partition again, watching the storm on the Weather Channel, and eating redskin peanuts from a can.

  “We have two new security issues,” his commander said.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall of his kitchen, and the calendar beneath it. Scenes of Italy. A regatta on the Grand Canal. A place he intended to visit once this thing was finished.

  “I have a track on Jon Mallory,” he said. “I think I can get him before this storm hits.”

  He listened to the other man breathing on the other end.

  “No, we’ve got something else, unfortunately. This will have to take priority. This needs to happen first.”

  Protect the mission.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I know there are meetings ahead and that this is an awkward time, but it has to be—”

  “There are no meetings,” the assassin said, angry that he’d mention this.

  “No, there aren’t. Good.”

  The other man was controlling him, motivating him.

  “Catherine Blaine has become a problem,” he said. “She’s going to try to poison the deal.”

  The assassin listened to the rain on the window. He was a soldier again, being summoned to a mission. “Can she do that?”

  “No, not really. But she could after the fact. She’s found out about Mr. Zorn’s background. And, presumably, the rest of it.”

  “How?”

  “That’s the second problem.”

  “Okay.”

  He listened to the other man breathe.

  “His name is Charles Mallory. He’s a former CIA field agent and special ops man, and he’s in town right now, digging into this.”

  “Because of his brother?”

  “Because of his brother. He’s apparently starting to go pretty deep.”

  The assassin took a long breath. “It can be done, but it’s going to be delicate.”

  “Yes, I know, but we need it done. They’ll have to be Jimmy Hoffas.”

  “How soon?”

  “Tonight would be convenient.”

  “It’s going to be delicate,” the assassin said again, feeling the adrenaline kick in, a wicked potion sweeping through him.

  “I understand. But in the context of the storm, maybe it won’t be so delicate. There are going to be hundreds of casualties. These will just be two of them.”

  The assassin nodded to himself. Yes. The other man was in charge of strategy. And as strategies go, this was a pretty good one. No, it was an ingenious one.

  “This, I think, could finally be the end of it.”

  “All right,” he said, waiting. “Go ahead.”

  “Here’s how it works: One will lead to the other. Blaine is with him now. I don’t know where. She’s got a decoy at her apartment. She’s somewhere else.”

  “All right.”

  A few seconds later, the phone clicked off. The assassin looked out at the rain falling on Eighteenth Street in Adams Morgan. He got his jacket from the hall closet and prepared to drive to the farmhouse, where he stored his disguises in a large cedar closet.

  FORTY-ONE

  MALLORY STUDIED
CATHERINE BLAINE’S intent gaze as she stood with one hand on the motel room doorknob, leg cocked.

  “What does it mean?” he said.

  “If it’s true, if someone within the circle is involved, it means that I may have really just screwed up. Big time, as my son likes to say.”

  “How so?”

  “By challenging him. By alluding to Volkov, questioning Victor Zorn’s background in front of them. By calling the project into question.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe not.”

  “Or maybe not. Right.” She pulled the door out several inches and glanced at the rain. “I need to call my son. Give me a few minutes, okay? I want to go to the other room and decompress.”

  “Sure. How long?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  Mallory looked at the clock. 5:43 P.M.

  “Okay. Twenty minutes,” he said. “Want me to walk you down?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Sure?”

  Blaine smiled at him and turned. Rain streamed past the concrete overhang and he saw the red glow of the motel sign on the wet pavement. Felt the cold air seeping into the room.

  “Be careful.”

  “Thanks,” she said, “for the pizza and wine.”

  “Oh, it was nothing.”

  He watched through the window as she walked to the stairwell and disappeared. He pulled the drapes closed and clicked on his cell phone. Watched the storm on television for several minutes, and read through the memos again. Then he called Hanratty.

  “Good heavens. What an intrigue you’ve pulled me into, dear.” She sounded slurry again. “I’m just afraid I’m going to get into some bloody trouble over this, if it continues. But it’s most intriguing. Anyway, this will have to be my last call.”

  “I don’t want you to be in trouble.”

  “But I’ve found a few more details on your project, dear.” He heard her rustling papers, breathing heavily. “It had two parts, I’m told. One was in Wyoming and the other in Alaska.”

  “Okay.” Had she forgotten she’d already told him this?

  “All right? Now. One was to create a disturbance with underground ELFs. That’s what they were called. That part was in Alaska. It was a division of the Air Force, apparently, partnering with both Defense and private industry.”

  “Yes, you told me that. The project ran for three years.”

  “Three?” He heard a shuffling of papers again. “I don’t know, let me see. It might have been three. Yes. No. Less, actually. Hold on. Let me look at my notes for a second. Okay. Let me just—are you still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Okay. It was started in January of 2002. All right? The project became inactive, then, at the end of 2004. But the entire project was funded into 2005. Let’s see, the Wyoming facility was then turned over in 2005 to a private research firm. And the government got out of both.”

  “What’s the firm?”

  “What?”

  “What was the private research firm?”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t know that, dear.”

  “Who oversaw the two parts of the project? Were you able to find out who the project administrators were?”

  “The project administrators? I’ve got that, yes. Let me just find it, dear. Okay. All right, the Wyoming facility was run by a Roger Grimm, of the Department of Defense. The Alaska facility was run by Thomas Rorbach, who was the director of a company called EARS. We already talked about that. He was the project administrator in Alaska.”

  Really. “And what do you know about Rorbach?”

  “Rorbach? Nothing, dear.”

  Another silence. He said, “Look, I’ve got someone on my other line. I’ve got to go. I’m very grateful to you and I’ll make it up.”

  “For one year, we agreed.”

  “Yes, although don’t forget, I offered eternity.”

  Mallory let her go, feeling a jolt of adrenaline. He sat, called up the file of names on his computer again. Scrolled through them, studying his notes.

  He was startled by a knock on the door. He reached for his gun and became completely still, listening.

  Then he looked at his watch.

  It was 6:04.

  CATHERINE BLAINE SLID in the room and closed the door, bringing a cool scent of rain from her jacket and hair. Her first breath inside was vapor. Mallory saw that something had changed again.

  “I’m going back to meet with him,” she said.

  “What do you mean? Who?”

  “The President. I have to.” Her eyes moved quickly, taking in the room. “I have to know if you’re right. I have to know what he’s really thinking.”

  Mallory watched her, his heart rate still returning to normal. A cold breath of outdoors seemed to linger around her. “Want me to go with you?”

  “No. I just called him. I need to go alone.” He saw the flecks of fluid gold around her green pupils and had a warm feeling toward her, admiring her sense of purpose; but worried for her, too.

  “I just got one more piece of this thing,” he said.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. Something that sort of changes it again.”

  He told her about Hanratty’s call. And then about Rorbach.

  “Jesus!” she said. “Rorbach’s the one heading up this Janus committee.”

  “I know.”

  “So do you understand the list now?”

  “Better. More than I did.”

  “You still don’t have the other part, though. Motivation.”

  “No. Not yet.”

  She twisted the knob, then turned to him. “I’ll call you when we’re finished, okay?” she said.

  Mallory watched through the drapes again as she splashed across the lot to her Ford rental. The lights came on, the taillights reflecting off the pavement as she quickly backed up and pulled onto the Pike, disappearing in the rain. He felt guilty for several moments that he had let her go. Thinking about people he had lost. And almost lost.

  He thought about the first time he had met Blaine, seven years earlier, on the sixth floor of CIA headquarters, in the woods of Langley, Virginia. He’d seen something then, as they had listened to a briefing on cyber-security, that had stuck with him. Something determined and restless. A subtle shade of dismissal and impatience in her eyes, as if she could not accept all the answers she was being given, but knew enough not to become argumentative. Diplomat and truth-seeker, trying to co-exist.

  Eyes like that he didn’t forget. They were eyes that saw things other people missed. Things that mattered. Usually, with time and the practicalities of getting older, the diplomat won out. But Blaine’s eyes had not dulled in seven years. She still saw what wasn’t quite there, the things that might be coming. And, when she looked at him, she sometimes seemed to see a potential ally. At least that’s what he was beginning to think. To hope.

  JON MALLORY LIFTED up the blinds and gazed at the storm—drenching rains, crackling veins of lightning above the rolling farm fields. He turned to the view on television—surge waves pummeling beaches in the Carolinas, submerging coastal roads. Two scenes, distant but related, parts of the same system. Then he got an idea; often that was how things worked for him—when he wasn’t trying; when he’d turned off the thinking part of his brain.

  He called up a file on his computer and sifted through the email Dr. Keri Westlake had sent. Bits and pieces of information, opinions, observations.

  By the time Chaplin arrived with his dinner, Jon knew how he was going to tell this story.

  “Greetings,” Chaplin said.

  “Greetings.”

  Jon watched him set their two deli sandwiches and sodas beside the television and hang his slicker in the bathroom. He wore a dark turtleneck and pinstripe trousers, wing-tip shoes. “So.” Chaplin brushed his shoulders and placed his hands together as if praying. “How are you making out here, Jon?”

  “Considering everything, not bad.”

  “Hungry?”

  “Not terri
bly.”

  Chaplin looked quickly around the room, frowning at the clutter—soda cans, newspaper pages, magazines, paperback books. “We’ve been able to make use of your cell phone,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I activated it. And moved your car. Both the car and your phone are now at the same location. Under surveillance.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A motel off of Interstate 95 in Virginia. Days Inn. Perhaps where you would be now if we hadn’t assisted you.” He showed a grudging smile.

  Jon winced. He still wasn’t sure quite how to take Joseph Chaplin. “Is this something my brother authorized?”

  He nodded ambiguously. “I made an executive decision,” he said. He walked to the window and looked out at the rain in the darkening countryside. “We’ll keep a watch on the location. Hopefully, he’ll come to the trap and we’ll at least learn who he is.”

  “He.”

  “The man who wanted to kill you.” Chaplin turned to face him. Jon wondered how much he should tell Chaplin. But he knew he had to pass the story now to his brother; Chaplin was the conduit.

  “Actually, I think I already know that,” he said.

  Chaplin’s face went suddenly steely. “You do.”

  “Yeah, I think I know who was hunting me. The bearded man.”

  Chaplin looked at the window, the telephone, the computer.

  “Did you call or email someone?”

  “No, you asked me not to.”

  “How could you have figured it out locked in this room, then?”

  “It’s all right here,” Jon said, touching the flash drive sticking out from his laptop. “And here,” he added, tapping his right temple.

  Chaplin’s face tightened. “You’re saying that you know who it is, the man who was pursuing you?”

  “I think so. More importantly, I think I know why these people were killed. But I need to get that information to my brother.”

  Chaplin waited a beat, then adopted a more officious manner. “All right,” he said, his posture straightening. “Let’s get to it. Give it to me and I’ll send him an encrypted email.”

  Jon sat at the desk and wrote down what he had discovered, pausing at one point to look at the rain. Feeling where he belonged at last: living in the story.