The Cause (19 page)

That’s why we track the little guy
, Montgomery thought. “What do you think the government should do?”

“I’m not an economist, sir.”

“Neither am I, but economists were the ones that got us into this shit. What makes you think they have the answers? I’m asking you what you think.”

Davis was silent. Their car rolled into the city. They edged up
to a traffic light and a Harley pulled up alongside them, motor popping and gurgling with engine spit. It was an old-school Fat Boy, low body, shiny chrome exhaust and engine, chassis with a cherry paintjob. Davis gazed over, checking things out. Then his eyes wandered back to the mirrors.

The guy on the bike wore a blue flannel
suit—Armani
by the looks of it—black dress shoes, no helmet. Montgomery listened to the deep chug of the engine. The churn overpowered all of the other street noise, the deep breath of the machine over other sounds within a forty-yard circumference. The idling motor like a rasping cough digging deep through the bulletproof glass.
It’s the sound you pay for
, Montgomery thought. Thirty grand for a monopoly on noise. The sound of a dragon’s throat. He wanted to make a sound like that just breathing, sucking in wind for an exhale.

Finally Davis spoke. “Seems to me the government promised too much. Now that they can’t promise more, it’s a problem isn’t it, sir? A case of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately.”

“Ha,” Montgomery snorted. “I like that. The virus of ingratitude. So what do you do? Kill them all?” Montgomery pulled out the drawer under his seat. A mini bar with exotic Caribbean rums, Russian vodkas, and single malt Scotches were neatly lined in rows within the red-velvet interior. He fished out a glass, and took out a miniature bottle of Talisker.

“No, sir,” Davis said. “I don’t think that would work. Best thing to do I’m guessing is to open up massive feeding centers.”

“Soup kitchens?”

“I suppose.”

“Do you think the poor would go for that after EBT cards? I’m not so sure, Davis.” Montgomery sipped his Scotch. It was peaty against his palate. He let it evaporate like smoke deep into his mouth.

Davis made another proposal. “Could try getting people back to work. But not government jobs. Too much of that as it is.”

“That kind of talk leads to trade wars,” Montgomery said, finishing off the glass, the liquid burning in his throat. He liked to feel the fire of it going down. He reached in the drawer and pulled out another mini-bottle. “You haven’t told the truth, Davis.”

“And what truth is that, sir?”

“That you’re fishing for a solution. You’re guessing. Perhaps there isn’t really a solution. Perhaps we’re beyond solution. It’s the sticking point in the evolution of what will happen next.”

“Could be, sir.”

The car approached the main gate of Fort Meade, the secret city. He resented how he lived off base, but Emily had threatened divorce, and in the end he relented. They passed through security, got on Savage Road, and then pulled into the building’s parking lot and dipped down two levels into the garage. The bottom level was almost empty of cars. Two other guards waited for them and approached. Montgomery waited for Davis to get out. Davis circled the vehicle, and opened his door. Then the guards and Davis formed a circle around him. With roaming eyes, they moved swiftly into the elevators. The Dupe had still not arrived.

His met first with Datalion’s CEO, Blake Thompson. Thompson was an aging tycoon who did everything in his power not to look worn. The odor of cigarette smoke hung around him like a cross. The bifurcating man; the dyed-black hair burying the gray, the waxed eyebrows, the fake tan, the skin yanked tight as leather, so stiff you could bounce a quarter off of it.

The CEO had fourth quarter numbers to make. The bean counters were getting worried about accounts receivable, current and quick ratios, cash conversion cycles. Analysts were looking at free cash flow these days. Most of the revenue from the NSA had been recognized, some of it not. Datalion needed to book it. Thompson told him the NSA’s accounts payable people were doing the song and dance. The new software had been delivered,
the hardware before that, so where was the money?
Show me the money
, Thompson said in more eloquent words. Montgomery sat behind his mahogany desk and tried not to smirk when Thompson hinted threats customer support might go AWOL on the NSA. He had a sadistic love for a man who thought he had power, yet came before him groveling—or worse, a man who purported power when in fact he had none—as was Thompson doing now. Montgomery could create ghosts, wipe identities out of existence, bury a man before he even knew he was dead. He was the State, and if there was one rule, you didn’t fuck with the State. But today, he was kind with Thompson. There was still much to do, so Montgomery promised the checkbook. He promised Thompson’s numbers. Bonuses would be collected, stock options exercised. For this quarter at least. But in the end, all of it had to be faster. Light speed was promised, but not delivered.

Montgomery rushed out of his chair, shuffling Thompson to the door. Thumping a finger on Thompson’s breast, he verbally attacked. This had to happen. It was imperative. Stellar Wind had to store a petabyte a day for further analysis. The rate of growth was parabolic, even with the maturing Internet. The machines were running at ninety percent CPU utilization and still it was a data dam, clogging up like a freeway traffic jam. They were throwing some of it away. Throwing it away was incomprehensible. Do you understand? Choking on data. Drowning in it. We’re building precrime, predictive profiles. We can’t settle for mosaics. You’re only as good as your data, and the data had become too irrelevant. Do you want to become irrelevant? Of course not, so fucking get it done. Pathfinder needs more CPU. This is national security we’re talking about, so just get it done, and don’t tell me it’s all a matter of scaling, a matter of pumping up your elastic cloud horseshit, and I don’t want to see the PowerPoint, and spare me the marketing hoopla. You’ve made promises you don’t want to break. Remember that. Remember
whom you’re fucking dealing with and deliver another QX.

After Thompson, Montgomery waited in the eleventh-floor conference room for his next appointment with a Mr. Basim Hassani, a CIA guy he had tailed over the last few days. The tail had fucked things up royally, but something about Hassani kept Montgomery curious nonetheless. He sipped on his drink and thought deeply about it. It was out there shifting in his brain, a thought he could almost touch.

Was the CIA even relevant anymore? Human intelligence was almost an anachronism these days, used more as a tool to gain access for SigInt to do its job. HumInt’s importance was now only prevalent in the “tough scrub” jobs, cases where an organization of interest used couriers and antiquated methods of communication outside the NSA’s scope. But most of the work was digging up foreign cables, bribing foreign agents, paying off personnel who had critical computer and network access. Most of it was power of persuasion and Dear Friend letters. Terrorism was an asymmetric threat no one in a pay grade that mattered really cared about anymore. Terrorism was the boogeyman, a propaganda tool to fund the programs.

A small knock on the door, and then Davis showed Mr. Hassani in. Hassani’s hair showed more bronze than black. His serious, green eyes almost sparkled when he blinked, but the man didn’t blink often. Serious tension in the cheeks, a glower in his brow—a skeptic.
We’re always skeptical, aren’t we? All of us cynics, full of suspicion, the proverbial eyebrow raised, doubt pouring out of us into paranoia and the sense of betrayal. We boil like frogs in Machiavellian pots, don’t we, Hassani?

Montgomery offered Hassani one of the seats opposite a photo on the wall of him shaking hands with the President. Amazing the effect the room had on people—Montgomery liked to call it the Glamour Room. Walls covered with framed photographs—the President, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the top leaders of the G8, the Secretary of State, the
Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House, the UN chief, the Security Council. He had cleared the room of old presidential photos with ex-NSA chiefs. The room—a statement about current leadership, not relics of the past. He wanted the person in the room to recognize this was a space where movers and shakers met, where power seeped out of the walls with an unspoken voice, and just by being here, you felt lured by its presence.

He offered Hassani a drink, but Hassani refused. Perhaps the man thought it a faux pas to drink during work hours. Montgomery enjoyed the fact he could, and he never heard a word spoken about it. Montgomery went to the bar and poured himself a drink.

Perhaps Hassani was a Muslim. In the file it said “non-denominational”. Horseshit. He was a Muslim. It was in the eyes. That sanctimonious look. The same
I’m better than you
look his wife gave him.

“I want to thank you for coming,” Montgomery began.

“What am I doing here?”

Montgomery smiled, raised a finger at him. “I was a bit curious about you. Who likes to work with someone they don’t know? You, Mr. Hassani, are a stranger.”

“Under what delusion do you think we’re working together?”

“In due time, perhaps we will. But moving forward, I hoped we might speak about one of your acquaintances.”

A couple of Montgomery’s men came in, thick-chested, short crews, ACU uniforms. One of them whispered in Montgomery’s ear while he took a sip of whiskey from his glass. Montgomery nodded while glimpsing at Hassani’s stare. The aide told him the garage was secure and only five minutes remained until it would be time to go to the presidential briefing.

“I will have to leave soon,” Montgomery said as the aides left. “I apologize for the rush. So can we talk candidly about one of your training camps?”

“Which camp?” Hassani asked.

“I hear you have a camp,” Montgomery said, forming a pattern of conversation in his head.

“We have all sorts of camps.”

“A special camp,” Montgomery said. “The Abattoir.”

“We have nothing to do with The Abattoir.”

“Officially you don’t, but in reality you do.”

Hassani smiled. “Officiousness and reality rarely work in tandem, yet here I sit.”

Montgomery saluted Hassani with a tip of his glass. “I need my people to be trained for certain tactics that perhaps would fall out of the realm of what would be deemed acceptable under our formal charter.”

“What makes you think I know anything about The Abattoir?”

“Mr. Hassani—please. We do know some things.”

“I apologize,” Hassani said, standing to leave. “I don’t really have anything to tell you.”

“Perhaps, you wish to hear about the contents of your next shipment.”

Hassani stopped his movement toward the door and turned. “Mr. Montgomery, could you be more obtuse?”

“Mr. Hassani, if you desire to keep your revenue stream, it wouldn’t be wise to leave this room.”

Hassani hesitated, drummed his fingers together. The expression on his face turned. “Perhaps I can introduce you to someone who knows someone. What kind of arrangement did you have in mind?”

The two officers from before walked in the room again. One of them addressed Montgomery. “Sir, we have to leave for the briefing.”

Montgomery nodded at the men, then turned to Hassani. “The rumor mill says the camp might be shut down.”

Hassani stood silently, but his smile indicated the rumor was false.

“Listen, Mr. Hassani, all I want is a meeting. Just to present my offer to the leader of this Abattoir. All you have to do is pass along the message.”

Hassani nodded, smoothing out his sports jacket, and standing there for a second. “I’ll speak with someone who will talk to someone.” As he was extending his hand, Montgomery thought he saw a sudden shift in Hassani’s expression. Then he heard shattering glass, and a burst came from Hassani’s chest, as if someone had thrown a rock in a red pool. Hassani’s body jerked backward. Instinctively, Montgomery snapped around to look where it came from.
Wrong
, he
thought—this is what they want, an upright, vertical target—but
instinct had interloped on cognition and brain motion had already snapped his body around. He looked out at the missing window and into the open air, saw the other mirrored windows of the sister building. A triggerman lurked inside whom probably had him tight in the crosshairs.

Then everything came in fragments—a glimpse of the glass shards of the window scattered inside as he dove to the floor. The zing of bullets zipping in the air coming all at once, his aides, Jennings and Alders, dropping—guns not even drawn. He felt the adrenaline surge, his legs shaking and his whole body going electric. He felt his spine stiffening and the burning heat of fear on the back of his neck. Montgomery crawled toward the door, shots popping into the wall, almost synchronously, the conference table providing reasonable cover. Another round of shots, spraying the area like buckshot, wood splintering from the table, the clang of metal from a filing cabinet. Montgomery saw Hassani was still alive, blood flowing down his suit jacket and white shirt, face pale and confused, crawling under the table.
In the fucking Fort Meade building? How does this happen in the compound?
He reached for the doorknob and then his hand just wasn’t there, a hunk of flayed meat, bone pushed through his palm.

“Fuck,” he yelled, shoving his hand under his armpit and rolling under the table beside the heavy-breathing Hassani. He reached for the phone in his pocket as the pocked walls splintered again with the white puffs of plastering. The phone was still ringing when the door opened. Brewer, a guard from the Ops building security, crouched down, peeking into the room trying to assess the situation. A volley of shots blew in low through the door and the man crumpled to the floor. “Attack on fifth-floor conference room,” Montgomery screamed. “Coming from 2a. Lock everything fucking down!”

From the other end, “We’re already on it. Hang tight.”

Then a team of Charge Squad burst into the room, heavily geared.

Montgomery heard the ricochet of bullets coming off their body armor. The place opened up with machinegun fire. One of the black-masked team slipped under the table. Another one followed, and they hoisted it up while another two formed a circle around them. More men blew into the room, a storm of them now. One had an M32. They were going to light it up.