“Shut up, Bob,” said the president, irritably. “You know, sometimes you’re a real asshole.”
“Sometimes?” somebody said.
Hartley looked down at the sheaf of papers he was holding in his hand. If the president wasn’t going to pay attention to him at a time like this, then when was he? The election was less than a year away, the Iowa caucuses weren’t far off, New Hampshire was looming, and Hartley didn’t like the looks of his party’s guys, not one bit. Even a blow-dried pretty boy like Tyler could lose if he set his mind to it.
“Where are all the other reporters?” asked the man sitting at the president’s right hand. He was Lieutenant General Armond “Army” Seelye, the director of the National Security Agency. Hartley despised him, and he knew the feeling was mutual. By law, the DIRNSA had to be at least a three-star flag officer, and although Hartley and others in his party had argued passionately that the nation’s most sensitive electronic eavesdropping and communications should not be in the hands of the military, even Tyler had not had the courage to propose any changes in the law. Besides, Hartley suspected, the president probably got a kick out of bossing around the fruit salad.
“What do you mean, Army?” asked Tyler
Seelye shook his head: something was wrong. “Usually there’s half a dozen parasites on the scene by now. Local, national. Why just her?”
On the screen, Rhonda answered the question: “…have given strict instruction that they will only deal with one representative of the media. Otherwise, they threaten to start killing the hostages, including the children.” Rhonda gave a little smile that she hoped came off as concerned, but this was her moment and she was going to milk it for all it was worth. She’d have an offer from a national network before the day was out.
The camera swept the scene—there were plenty of reporters, along with anxious parents, all held back by police SWAT teams and other officials. In the background, an FBI team was moving into place, but nobody dared to approach the school too closely.
At that moment, Senator Hartley had a sudden inspiration: this thing could be just what the doctor ordered if they could spin it to their advantage. He was formulating a new strategy when something small got tossed out of one of the school windows. It hit the ground, bounced a couple of times. And, at that moment, Rhonda’s cell phone rang.
The cameraman retrained his focus on Rhonda, who nodded, then walked over, picked up the object, and held it up. Still on her cell phone, she beckoned to the cameraman. As he gingerly moved toward her, everyone could see what she was holding in her hand: a flash drive.
“I’ve just been instructed by the kidnappers”—she tilted her head in the direction of the building, just as she’d been taught in J-school—“to broadcast this video immediately.”
The screen went black for a moment, then the video began.
“Oh, my God,” exclaimed the president as he realized what they were looking at. “It’s Beslan all over again.”
Inside the school gym, where hundreds of kids were gathered, they were yoked together by rope or chain, lying on the floor. Several teachers were bound, with shotguns jammed under their chins. Worse yet were the bombs, wired to the basketball backboards, over the locked and chained doors.
Beslan was the horrific Russian school massacre in 2004, in which hundreds of children and adults had been killed by Chechen separatists and the ineptitude of the Russian security forces. It was the nightmare textbook case of how not to handle a hostage situation.
Inside Air Force One, all hell broke loose. General Seelye grabbed a secure phone to NSA headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland, barked some orders, then rang the secretary of education and told him to order all American public schools into full lockdown mode, and to recommend the same course of action for all private schools. Senator Hartley punched in the number of his party’s national committee and told them to stand by to see how this thing played out. The White House press secretary, Pam Dobson, opened her laptop and immediately started pounding out two statements ready for the president to read, depending on what happened.
“How far are we from Washington?” barked President Tyler.
“Half an hour from Andrews,” said Augie Willson. “You’ll be in the Oval Office in under an hour.” As if to underscore, the plane began its descent into the secure air space.
The president turned toward Dobson and shot her a look: double-time. If this thing went south, he was going to need her best efforts.
“Something’s happening,” said General Seelye. Everyone stared at the screen. Even Hartley had finally shut up.
The door to the school was opening.
Barely visible, in the doorway, was the figure of a man wearing a ski cap pulled down low over his forehead. Still his features were visible. “One of the hostage takers is coming out,” whispered Rhonda Gaines-Solomon into her microphone, as if she were covering a golf match. “He’s walking toward me now…it looks like he wants to talk. Let’s get a little closer.”
Rhonda moved to meet the man, but instead of responding he raised his right hand and pointed something at her.
She froze. “I think he’s got—oh my God. He’s got a gun.” Not since Jack Ruby had lunged out of the crowd in the Dallas Police garage, brandishing a handgun, and shot Lee Harvey Oswald live on national television, had anyone seen anything like this.
Rhonda stood her ground, scared but professional. She didn’t like guns, couldn’t understand why some people, mostly right-wing nuts, insisted on having them. The country would be better off without them, she believed, and saw no reason to change her mind now.
As the man drew nigh, she could clearly see the gun in his hand. She couldn’t tell what kind it was—some reporters could do that on sight, but she wasn’t one of them—but she had to assume it was loaded. And, to keep her sanity and her wits about her, she had to assume he didn’t intend to use it on her. After all, why would he? She was his conduit to the outside world, and he needed her.
“Sir”—she began, extending her microphone toward him—“can you tell us—”
There was the sound of a gunshot, and Rhonda Gaines-Solomon screamed and dropped to the ground.
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed President Tyler, watching the scene unfold at 24,000 feet.
Rhonda couldn’t believe he shot her. He knew she was a reporter, neutral, there to hear his side, and to take it if necessary. But one of her legs hurt like hell.
Without even breaking stride, the man in the ski cap picked up her microphone, looked at her cameraman, and said, “I speak now to the president of the United States. Listen very carefully, everybody, and nobody get hurt no more…”
Chapter Six
LOS ANGELES
“Eddie Bartlett” was out with his eight-year-old daughter, Jade, when his secure cell phone buzzed urgently in his jacket pocket. It was a lovely day in southern California, warm and dry and smog-free. Fire season was just about over and the winter rains hadn’t arrived yet. They were hiking together in Griffith Park near the Observatory, high above the city.
“Dad,” Jade was saying. “Why do people live in Chicago? Or New York? When they could live here?”
Eddie laughed. It was the kind of question he was used to from Jade: one that came out of the blue. “It sure would be awfully crowded, pumpkin,” he replied. From here you see the sweep of the city, from downtown, past the greensward of Hancock Park, to the towers of Century City and all the way to Santa Monica. “Where would we put everybody? Isn’t LA traffic bad enough?”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, somewhat exasperated with his obtuseness.
“What do you mean, then?”
“I mean…” she said, choosing her words with great care, “I mean, why would anybody live someplace where the weather is always terrible and the people are always angry?”
The phone buzzed again, and he knew he couldn’t ignore it, much as he wanted to. Say what you would about what kind of man Eddie Bartlett was, nobody could say he w
asn’t a good father. Given the confidential and often clandestine nature of his business, his wife and daughter were everything to him, and he jealously protected his time with them. He even used his real name with them.
“Just a sec’, baby,” he said. He pulled out the phone and turned away from his little girl as he spoke. Or rather, as he listened. He already knew who it was. Because only one person ever called him on this line.
“It’s Tom Powers. Are you watching this?” As usual, the voice was soft, low, scrambled for security.
“No. I’m in the park with my kid.”
“Then grab Jade’s iPhone and I’ll stream it to you.”
The phone was a gift from the man who was on the other end of the line. A man whom he’d never met face to face. “Tom Powers” was what he was calling himself today. “Jade—can I borrow your phone?”
Jade looked up from the cactus she was inspecting. “You’ve already got one, Daddy.”
“I need yours, baby. Just for a minute.”
Jade fished in her backpack and pulled it out. “How’s the reception up here?” Eddie asked her.
“Loud and clear, sir,” she replied, handing it to him.
He started the streaming video, and it took only a nanosecond thereafter to realize the purpose of the call. “Is this a go situation?” he asked as, on the screen, a man with heavy Slavic accent rolled off a list of demands: “…Abandonment of the Zionist entity. Withdrawal of all forces from the ummah…”
“Albanian Kosovar, maybe Azerbaijani,” said Eddie softly.
“…The abolition of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization…Finally, and most important…” With the whole world watching, the camera came in for a tight close-up. Randomly, Eddie Bartlett thought of the last scene of The Blair Witch Project, except that movie wasn’t scary. “We call upon President Tyler to publicly embrace and accept Islam on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial no more than twenty-four hours from…now.”
The camera pulled back. The man’s features were very clear: eastern European, unsmiling. His eyes were not the eyes of a fanatic, but rather of a man whose purpose was clear and deadly serious.
“This guy looks familiar. Running face-recognition scan now,” said Powers. “The demands are bullshit, of course. What do they really want?”
The terrorist spoke again: “Until then, we demand the removal of all your police forces from this area. No helicopters, no sharpshooters. Turn off all your klieg lights, infrared scopes, electronic surveillance devices. The air space over the school must be kept clear. And we insist that your spies and operatives lay down their arms and identify themselves.
“My comrades and I are not afraid to die. Neither are we afraid to kill all your children. For we have many children each. And you—weak, decadent, intent on your own pleasure—have only one or two. To you, death is an unutterable tragedy. To us, it is the meaning of life.” He looked down at the reporter at his feet.
“Got him. Suleyman Drusovic, forty-two, born Kosovo, currently Canadian citizen, resident Montreal.”
Rhonda gave him her most pleading look, the kind that would find a target in any man’s heart. Her leg hurt like hell but there wasn’t much blood; thank God his shot missed the artery. If she could just get out of here, everything was going to be all right.
To her immense relief and astonishment, the man extended his hand to her. As she reached for it, she heard him say, “In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most compassionate”—as he fired a single shot into her head.
The terrorist leader looked directly into the camera. “No one is to approach the school. Only news crews will be allowed within the perimeter—”
“You got that, Eddie?” said Powers.
“I got it,” replied Eddie.
Drusovic continued, “We wish the widest possible international audience. You will deeply regret any violation of these conditions.”
“Get ready to hop,” said the man on the other line of the line. “Both of you.” Abruptly, the connection broke off.
Eddie Bartlett was still staring at the tiny video screen when he heard the helicopter touching down a few hundred yards away. That was for him. A black limo was pulling up near the Observatory. That was for Jade. Tom Powers had already located them and sent their rides.
“Jade, honey,” he said. “We have to go now.”
Chapter Seven
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
“Tom Powers” shut down the secure GRID connection to Eddie Bartlett’s phone. In sequence, the call had been routed through multiple fake IP/Skype addresses, an Israeli officer’s satellite phone, a defunct al-Qaeda cutout in Treviso, and a soon-to-be-deceased Columbian drug dealer’s private line in Bogota. It would take Eddie and his team three hours to get to the Xe airfield southeast of St. Louis. They weren’t mission operable yet, but there was no point in wasting any time in case the situation went full Branch 4.
The GRID itself was the next-generation Internet, a network of more than 100,000 supercomputers powered by the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Not only was it infinitely faster than the Internet, it could also benignly hijack the computing power of unused personal computers on the network, setting them to work while their owners slept, watched porn, or played video games.
Tom Powers wasn’t his real name, of course, any more than Eddie Bartlett was the other man’s real name. For this mission, he was using James Cagney characters as rotating aliases; at random intervals, the CSS computers would instruct all Branch 4 ops to re-code and then, by running the Level Six double-blind ciphers through IMDB-Pro, they’d generate a whole new set of operational monikers. And by the time anybody might have the remotest chance in hell of making them, the names would be gone, blown away on the cyber-wind, never to be used again. Tom Powers and Eddie Bartlett would be just as dead as Cagney in The Public Enemy and The Roaring Twenties.
“Powers” looked at the banks of computers and firearms that lined three of the four walls of his panic room. That’s what he called it, even though it wasn’t really a panic room. Sure, it could be nearly instantaneously sealed off with halon gas, followed by a lethal jolt of electricity to anyone who touched the descending front wall, but such defensive measures were directed at any unauthorized persons who had managed to get past him and his other defenses first. Which meant, of course, that he was already dead. In which case there was nothing to panic about. The only way around the security settings was to know them.
On his desk, at the exact spot from which he controlled everything, there was a secure telephone. Not a videophone: an old-fashioned black telephone. It looked like the kind of instrument people used in the 1970s, except there were no buttons or dials on it. You couldn’t call out with it, and if anyone other than him answered it, the person would hear nothing. Only his voice could activate it through advanced voice-recognition software, but the security didn’t stop there. The receiver was a fingerprint reader, so his hand had to be on it for it to function. Finally, he had to look directly into the receiver, which activated a discreet retinal scan. If any of the three elements were not sequenced within five seconds, the phone would self-destruct in a fireball of shrapnel, killing any unauthorized person unlucky enough to have picked it up.
Only three people could reach him via that line: the head of the National Security Agency, the secretary of defense, and the president of the United States. The only three people who were even authorized to know of his existence. Of those three, two knew his permanent operational name, and only one knew his real name.
It was a name he barely remembered, a name from so long ago that it belonged to another person, a boy who’d once had everything a boy should have and then suddenly lost everything. A boy that had been very much like him, until he was gone. All that was left of that boy were a few memories and one indelible moment, a moment he could never get out of his head no matter how much therapy, aversion training, hypnosis, and other, less savory forms of persuasion he underwent.
Idly, his eyes t
raveled to a photograph that he kept on his desk. It was a picture of him and his parents taken in Rome shortly before Christmas 1985. It was one of the few things he had to remember them by, this fading old Polaroid of two beautiful people and a kid wearing an A. S. Roma football club cap, and carrying a couple of books his father had once given him…
One of them was about old movies—his father was a great film buff—and the other was a beginner’s guide to ciphers and puzzles and games of logic for the child to read and stretch his brain. “Take these,” he said to the boy before going off to meet his colleague on that fateful day. “You’ll get a kick out of them someday.”
He shook off his reverie and glanced at the phone, which stared back at him silently.
Under normal circumstances, there would be no question of his getting involved. Hostage situations were almost always best left to the local police, or the FBI, unless the hostages were high-value targets. To Powers, hostage situations were just a step up from domestic-violence calls, the kind cops hated most, because there was very little upside, while the downside potential was huge. In the end, there was always a dead husband, a dead wife, or a dead cop. But this was different: these were kids. And he used to be a kid, once.
Tom Powers rippled his fingers across multiple keyboards, calling up everything in the NSA/CSS arsenal: Echelon video feeds, RSS chatter sorters, real-time simultaneous translations of Internet café activity in China, India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, key-word trigger-coded for instant relay. All conversations could be heard live or as downloaded audio, and read as saved transcriptions in both the original language and in English.
He sampled a few, dipping in and out. He’d lost track of how many languages he spoke fluently, because when you started toting up you had to factor in dialects, subdialects, and even random bastardizations like Hawaiian pidgin and Marshallese. Nothing about what was happening in Edwardsville. Plenty of the usual stuff—angry but idle threats against the Great Satan, obscure religious and cultural diatribes, boastful European white supremacist rants, obscure American-sourced swagger—but nothing that stood out. No trip wires. And trip wires were his business.
Michael Walsh Bundle Page 3
