Arch Enemy (33 page)

M
organ huddled around the War Room table with the broken remains of Zeta Division—Diana Bloch, Paul Kirby, Lincoln Shepard, Karen O'Neal, Lily Randall, and Peter Conley, with Smith standing at the head. General Strickland sat at a remove from the table, watching from a chair in the corner.

“An investigation of Polemarch yielded no results,” Smith said. “All records of his existence have been scrubbed clean. We've run his photograph through facial recognition software and compared it against the major criminal databases, with no luck. We distributed his photograph to local police departments, but I'm not hopeful that it will give us anything useful.”

“So that's it?” said Morgan. “That's all we got?”

“Except for one thing,” said Smith, nodding at Lily.

She cleared her throat. “Polemarch is the man who killed Roger Baxter—who almost killed me. Whoever he was, he was an important operator inside the Legion.”

“Which still doesn't give us anything to go on,” piped in Shepard.

“Meanwhile,” said Conley, “they still have their all-access pass to the world's electronic communications.”

“I'm afraid the situation is even more dire,” said Smith. “I yield to General Strickland.”

Smith retreated into the background as the general stood and approached the table. Stormy weather showed on his face.

“There is more to the Praetorian escape than what it seemed. The CIA intercepted a message from the Legion last night—one that, we believe, was meant for us.” Shepard moved to speak up, but Strickland preempted him. “Untraceable. Better minds than yours have made sure of that.” Shepard scowled, sore at the comment.

“It's bluster,” said Morgan. “They've got nothing.”

“I'd entertain that notion,” said Strickland. “But he sent us a taste of what he had. A small cache of documents. It's . . . troubling.” He cleared his throat. “We now believe that Praetorian allowed himself to be caught. We believe that his purpose was to gain access to certain highly privileged information.”

“I thought he already had access to everything through Blackrot,” said O'Neal.

“Not everything. The most secret government information runs through different networks and security protocols. It's impossible to get to them through regular connections. The only way to access it is—”

“At a government black site,” said Morgan.

“That's right.”

Morgan swore. “What did he get?”

Strickland balked.

“
What did he get?
”

“The locations of all US secret holding facilities,” said Strickland. “Along with the agents who work there, the identities of the prisoners, interrogation techniques, and complete records of our black ops initiatives, including false flag operations, assassinations—you know the game, Agent. If this were released, we could expect riots. It would be pure anarchy. Terrorism would prevail.”

A pall of silence fell over the room.

“We've already taken steps to remove the prisoners, but this creates a serious vulnerability in itself.”

“Can't we stop them from releasing it?” asked Bloch.

Shepard broke in. “Not without shutting the whole Internet down.”

Bloch looked at Strickland for an answer.

“We looked into it. He's right. There are countless avenues of decentralized communication on the Internet. Once it's out, it's out.”

Morgan spoke up. “This is bigger than us.”

Strickland furrowed his brow. All eyes were on him.

“We need everything on this. The CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the entire Department of Homeland Security. I'd like to know why you're
here
.”

“Zeta has a track record of—”

“Because Praetorian said something,” Morgan went on. “During my interrogation. On the last day, right before he made his escape.”

The color drained from Strickland's face. “Would you excuse us? Morgan, if you please?” He motioned toward Bloch's office. Morgan followed him up the stairs, and Strickland closed the soundproof doors, giving them complete privacy from the people below.

“You're afraid,” Morgan began. “Of what he might have. That it might damn you.”

“Listen to me, Morgan.” Sweat beaded on his forehead. “We need to present a united front. We can't afford division.”

“
You
can't afford it.”

“Suppose you bring out something damning against me,” said Strickland. “Something that stains my credibility, that of my office, of the entire US military. Is that a victory? Is that good for our country?”

“The logic of a coward.”

“You have no idea the decisions that need to be made by a man in my position.” His voice was even, but his pupils were dilated and his breathing shallow. Controlled as he was, Strickland was furious. This was not a man who was used to being questioned.

“You're right,” said Morgan. “This isn't the time. There are more important things in play. For now.”

He walked out the door. All eyes turned to them as he descended the stairs to the War Room, Strickland following. Each sat down in his own seat.

“Well?” Morgan said, slapping the table with both hands. “Don't we have some terrorists to catch?”

Bloch stood on cue, dispelling the atmosphere of curiosity. “We need to lay out a course of action. I want suggestions. Now.”

Conley stared at Morgan. They'd been partners for too long, and he could tell that Morgan's suspicions of Conley were undiminished.

Karen O'Neal, fidgeting with her hands, spoke first. “If we aggregate all the data of all their activity, we might be able to find patterns that could give us actionable information. We know they're associated with the Ekklesia now. It gives us a lot more potential data points to work with.”

“There might be another weak spot,” Lily offered, looking subdued in a black turtleneck and hair in a ponytail. “Anyone we can identify in the organization who might want out or might be willing to make a deal.”

“Good,” said Bloch. “Keep it coming.”

Shepard tossed his pen onto the table. “I'm out of ideas.” His boyish face looked aged and pale, and he had dark bags under his eyes. “He's better than I am. Pure and simple.”

“This is an enemy beyond any of us.” It was Paul Kirby. His eyes didn't seem to focus on anything, just stare into the middle distance. “I'm sorry to say it, but it's true. He's beat us every step of the way. Everything we've done so far has played right into his hands. He's got not only us but the entire government outclassed.”

Nobody spoke. The hum of electronic equipment was the only sound. Morgan felt the energy that Bloch had mustered draining from the space.

Morgan broke the silence. “I remember something the magician Penn Gillette said, ‘Doing magic sometimes just means spending a lot more time on something than anyone would think is reasonable. ' ”

O'Neal perked up with interest, the faintest smile glimmering on her face. “I think I know where you're going with this.”

“I'm afraid I don't,” said Kirby.

“Praetorian's a planner,” Morgan continued. “He's been working on these designs for months, maybe years. Playing the long game. These things have been going off all in a row not because he's been conjuring them out of nothing, but because he's been setting up those dominoes for a long, long time. He's always two steps ahead of us because he started moving long before we did.”

“How does that help us?” said Kirby. His tone was snippy, his upper lip curled into a sneer. But the others were watching Morgan with interest.

“We've been trying to catch up this whole time. That won't work. He already has his dominoes all in a row. We need to aim at where he's going to be. Look at the big picture, figure out where it's headed, and then knock out the intermediate dominoes. When we do that, the chain reaction stops.”

“A nice analogy,” said Smith. “But what do we do about it?”

“He's set up an entire network of operatives through the Ekklesia,” said O'Neal. “He wouldn't do that if his ultimate goal was to release sensitive information to the public. This might be part of his plan, but it's not everything.”

“So he's got a different endgame,” said Bloch. “A distributed network suggests that it's big. He'd be able to pull off an attack on a single target as it is, just like he did the prison ship.”

“So what are the targets?” broke in Smith.

“The organization is focused on the powerful,” said O'Neal. “Assassinations of powerful individuals, destruction of property in major corporations, government agencies—”

“Shepard,” said Bloch. “Look for events coming up that might be targeted.”

“Oh, I keep an updated spreadsheet.” Shepard dove into his computer.

“Karen,” said Bloch, “crunch the numbers on the Ekklesia actions. Find me a pattern.”

“You got it, boss.”

“And Morgan—”

The lights flickered.

“Shepard,” she said. “What's going on with the system?”

He frowned. “I have no idea. Let me—”

The big screen overlooking the table shimmered on. It showed, in extreme close-up, a familiar face. Black hair now groomed, face now clean-shaven, but the dark, penetrating eyes unmistakable.

Praetorian.

“Hello, Dan Morgan. Good to see you again.”

A
ll watched in dumb silence as the face of the man they were looking for—their bitter enemy—stared down at them from the screen, his face dominating the entire space.

Praetorian tapped the microphone. “Hello? Is this thing on?”

“This isn't possible,” said Shepard. “It just isn't possible.”

Morgan looked up at Praetorian, feeling his eyes boring into him, even though the master hacker, of course, wasn't looking at them through the screen.

“Shepard,” said Bloch. “Cut him out.”

Shepard worked at his computer, going a mile a minute. Morgan could barely tell what was happening on his screen, he was opening and closing windows so fast.

“Don't bother,” said Praetorian. “You're beneath me.” Shepard's computer screen went blank.

“The heck—”

“He can see us,” said Morgan. “How can he see us?” He turned to Bloch: “Where are the cameras?”

“Dan Morgan.” Praetorian's voice reverberated through the space. “It took me a lot longer to find you than I thought it would. I have to congratulate your security people on that feat. Isn't that right, Lincoln Nathaniel Shepard?”

“Screw you!” Shepard screamed, half at his own computer. “What did you do, you bastard? What did you do?”

“I'm still getting used to my newfound freedom.” The last word was yelled out gleefully. He shook as if in ecstasy. “Still getting back my land legs, you know. The fresh air, the sunlight. I had forgotten how beautiful they can be.”

“Break the connection!” yelled Bloch. “Cut the network cables if you have to!”

“Maintenance hall,” said Shepard to himself. He ran into the bowels of the facility, yelling back, “Get me tools! Cable cutters, knives, anything!”

“You, on the other hand, have your own imprisonment to consider. And here I mean you in particular, General Strickland.”

Alex walked in from the hallway. “What's going on?”

“Enter the daughter!” Praetorian's voice boomed. “Young Alex, responsible for the death of one of my better captains.”

“Get out of here,” said Morgan.

“Trying to hide her? You think I don't have eyes in every chamber of your little home base?” He emitted his mechanical laugh. “We'll find the lovely Jenny, too. Now that I have everything I could want from the Project Aegis servers, it's just a matter of time.”

Morgan burned with impotent rage.

General Strickland stepped forward. “What do you want?”

“From you? To gloat.”

“You have us in a bind,” said Strickland. “You are in a position where you can make demands of the US government. I can make your case. I can be your voice in the President's cabinet.”

“Demands? I don't have any demands. I need nothing from your murderous government except for it to die. And I don't need help to make that happen. I make my first move today.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm starting with the locations of all your secret detention facilities. Those have no long-term value—I'm sure they're already being evacuated. I'm putting that up on the Internet as we speak. YouTube, e-mail, Bittorrent, deep web—it's massively distributed and you can't stop it. To answer your question,
we
are going to do nothing. We will leave it in the hands of the people. Information wants to be free, General Strickland.”

In the hand of terrorists around the globe
, Morgan thought,
who want nothing more than to strike this blow at US intelligence.

“Get the word out,” Strickland demanded. “Alert the CIA.”

“Won't work,” said Praetorian. “You'll never get a single word to the outside. Don't even bother sabotaging the cables. I have everything I want from your little fly-by-night operation. I've done my damage. Now it's time to say good-bye forever.”

The screen went black and the lights flickered off. They were plunged into darkness. The whirr of the ventilators and of every other piece of equipment on the premises stopped.

What remained was the silence of the grave.