The Ragnarok Conspiracy (3 page)

Kanter stood up and leaned over the table, an exasperated expression on his face. “
This
is what makes sense?”

Standing up was the first sign that things were not going well for Savas. Kanter didn't usually stand unless he was upset. Once Kanter began running his fingers through his graying hair, Savas knew that he had lost him. It was only a matter of time before the lecture began.

“This is the special meeting of Intel 1 you called me in for? You
do
realize that I manage other groups in this division?”

“It does make sense, Larry! They're using guerilla-style methods. Removing those who are the key links in the international terrorist web! What else could unify all these attacks?”

Kanter threw up his hands. “John, that's the point—I don't see that they
are
unified. That's your task, to prove it to me, and,
damn it
, this isn't very persuasive!”

The rest of Intel 1 was very quiet. In addition to Hernandez, the group was fully assembled, torn from different tasks and assignments, interrupting their work of digging out international terrorists. All because Savas had called a special meeting with high priority. With their eyes on him and Kanter's dismissal, he felt like an idiot.

They had all listened intently to Savas as he had presented the information. A list of assassination-style killings, all of which were connected in one way or another to the international criminal underground that supported and enabled terrorist activity. Some were middlemen, some were spokesmen, and some were fundraisers. All were significant players, and all had met untimely deaths in similar ways. The MOs were very similar.
It was so clear!
Someone was moving systematically
and ruthlessly, brutally crushing the pressure points to cripple the ability of terrorist groups to function. The silence he received was maddening.

He glanced around the room for support.
Any
hint of support. J. P. Rideout and Matt King had their eyes cast down. The dark-haired Rideout, trim and stylishly dressed, had been Kanter's steal from Wall Street and Bloomberg monitors. Rideout retained a residual superiority inherited from his French forbears, his style sharply counterbalanced by the analytical bookworm named Matt King. King, a former energy lawyer for big-oil firms, had turned do-gooder after witnessing the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon from his hotel window. Both Rideout and King clearly thought he was nuts.

Across from them at the round table frowned Frank Miller, the hulking ex-marine. Miller clearly wasn't onboard with him, but he held his gaze with a thoughtful expression as he parsed what he had heard from Savas.

Last of all he looked over to Rebecca Cohen. She sat on his right, her deep-brown eyes troubled and nearly lost in the thick mane of chestnut hair that swept across her face and down her shoulders. Her small stature seemed dwarfed by the solid wall of marine next to her. Cohen had moved up through FBI counterterrorism for a number of years and was snagged by Kanter because she was so bright. She had come to the states as a small child, her father immigrating after several family members were killed in a bus bombing in Tel Aviv. Her motivation was keen, and her analytical skills had made her his “right hand” at Intel 1.

“Mad John.” A voice from the back of the room.

An uncomfortable silence fell. Savas glanced toward the source of the voice. He smiled as he glimpsed a young elfin woman in her midtwenties, long, ironed-looking orange hair to her waist framing a needle-thin body as pale as undecorated china. She wore a plain dark-blue dress that looked like it came out of an Amish catalog, complemented by bright-orange sneakers with flashing lights built into the bottoms.
Children's shoes.
She stood apart from the group seated at the
table, staring absentmindedly outside the window, seemingly caught in a trance of some kind.

“Greetings, Kemo Sabe.” The young woman spoke as if sensing his gaze, yet she never took her attention away from the glass or left her trancelike state.
Angel Lightfoote.
Brilliant and pulling out important connections in data no one else could see.
Larry's latest find.

The awkward silence continued. “Don't everyone act so shocked,” said Savas at last. “I've heard the name.
Mad John
Savas. Nice ring to it.”

“Does seem you're out to earn it,” grumbled Kanter. “You might have gotten a call from POTUS for your recent
heroics
, John, but back here we need you to
make sense
.”

Miller interrupted. “A series of coordinated hits—what about organized crime?”

Savas felt his frustration boiling over. “No! Not mob! I saw my fair share of mob hits when I was on the force, Frank. They're brutal, but blunt. These hits were surgical. The methods the same: single shot, high-powered rifle, military grade, professional work—
beyond
mob. Assassination style.”

“John, you would be talking about an organization with enormous resources,” Cohen interjected. All eyes turned toward her. “These are not a series of isolated murders. If this is all part of some broad conspiracy, the killers have to have an international scope, finances, skilled personnel, an ability to conduct intelligence and mission planning that would rival the best government agencies of the world!”

“How do we know it
isn't
governmental?” asked J. P. Rideout.

“Not possible,” scoffed Matt King. “You're talking about a series of coordinated assassinations. No reputable nation would dare.”

“Maybe one
not
so reputable,” grumbled Miller, his broad frame tense as a result of the new direction of the conversation.

“Which of the disreputable nations do you think cares enough to undertake an effort to
stop
terrorism?” quipped King.

Rideout turned toward him. “What makes
any
nation reputable? What about us? Didn't we have a vice-presidential CIA hit squad trained for this very purpose?”

A long silence fell over the room. The weight of that statement in connection with the assassinations sank in deeply. Even Kanter sat down and looked sharply at the former Wall Streeter.

“Well,
didn't
we?” Rideout echoed.

Kanter looked troubled. “If you're talking about Cheney's death squads, that's all documented. So is the fact that they were
never
activated. That entire idea was only a
hypothetical
.”

J. P. Rideout laughed. “Sure! For eight years of the Bush presidency, these guys were being prepped—that much is on the record, too. Larry, that's a hell of a long training program.
Eight years
readying themselves to kill terrorist leaders and never once going on the job? Must have been a frustrated bunch of dudes.”

Kanter's face was stern. “You can speculate all you want, J. P., but at the FBI, in
my
division, we deal in
facts
. And let me tell you, even the speculation of such activity by the US government is a serious matter.”

“It would surely make a good framework for hanging John's linked assassinations, though, wouldn't it?” added King.

Cohen shook her head. “Come on, guys, this doesn't make sense. It would mean that the current administration had put into motion the clandestine murder of numerous US and foreign targets.”

“Bin Laden. That's all I have to say,” broke in Rideout.

Cohen rolled her eyes. “Damn it, J. P., that's
completely
different!
Bin Laden
?
These
are kills on US soil, some of them
American
citizens. CIA killing Americans
in America
? That's 1984 material, folks, really scary stuff.”

Rideout wasn't fazed. “2011, Defense Appropriations Bill authorized the indefinite detainment of American citizens arrested on American soil for
suspicion
of terrorist activities. 2012, Obama has his attorney general justify killing Americans
suspected
of terrorist activities. Due process be damned.”

“That authority has never been used!” said Cohen animatedly. “And now you're going from hypotheticals to documented murders? It
is
a crazy idea!”

“A crazy idea for which there is absolutely
no
evidence!” banged
out Kanter. The others began to speak out of turn as the argument escalated.

Savas shouted them down. “They're right!” The eyes of Intel 1 turned to him in surprise. Savas held his palms up, trying to explain. He lowered his voice. “Larry and Rebecca are right. It's too outlandish. It doesn't feel right.”

“
Feel
right?” asked Rideout.

“No, it doesn't, J. P. Let's just say these death squads were still around,
activated
. They might make hits on foreign soil, not
here
. Even the craziest antiterrorist zealots would think twice about that. For God's sake, we don't have to shoot them here! Why not just pick them up, extraordinary rendition and all that? We do it all the time, whatever you think of it: grab a suspected terrorist, take him someplace far away, interrogate him. Maybe worse. A hit on someone abroad, maybe, but not like this.”

Cohen picked up his thoughts. “And not with this frequency, this thoroughness. Such a group might make a hit here or there, take out a particularly important target. But the list of possible kills John is showing is too long. It's
absurdly
long. It would begin to call attention to the murders. That's the last thing some covert death squad would want. Bad for the US, bad for them, bad for their long-term goals.”

Savas refused to let go. “I still think these deaths are linked, but it's not governmental. It's something else; something else is driving it forward.”

“John, what the hell are you talking about? Something else
what
?” asked Kanter. He seemed beyond frustrated. “How do they magically appear in the span of half a year in ten or twenty different places around the world, bringing down the target—often a highly protected target, by the way—without leaving any trace? Are these
ninja
snipers? Who funds this? What's the unifying motive for your imaginary marksmen with the special bullets?”

Savas was silent. He didn't know if he had the words for this intuition, the connection between his own experience and the pattern he was seeing in these murders. He wasn't even sure it made sense to him. Then the word just came to his lips.

“Vengeance.” As soon as he spoke, Savas felt his stomach drop—he could almost feel the disbelief in the room.

“Vengeance, John?
Who?
” asked Kanter incredulously.

“I don't
know
, Larry! But if
I
struck back for everything they've done to us, it might be something like this. Hell, it might be worse.”

The second the words left his mouth, he knew it was over. Savas knew he had blown it, shot to hell any hope of objectivity, any chance of persuading a group of analysts that he was correct. Their expressions confirmed his fears, the downward glances, no one looking him in the eye. Kanter moved quickly to resolve the issue.

“John, we appreciate that many of us here have had personal experience with international terrorism, and we use that every day to motivate us. But we can't let it cloud our judgment. I don't like to go over this in front of everyone, but too much has been said,” Kanter noted, glancing over the table, “by too many of us here. We've ended up in no man's land of speculation, serious accusations, too much emotion, and too few facts. There's the beginning of a coherent linkage between these murders, but only a beginning. I'm torn about how we proceed. Good detective work is often shot to hell if heads are clouded by emotion.”

Kanter seemed to mull something over in his mind, then he stood up abruptly. “John and Manuel will continue looking into this idea of a link between these murders, at least for the time being. But we'll hear no more of international death squads and the like. I've got to fly to Washington for another one of our interagency summits this weekend, and the last thing I want on my mind is wondering if my agents are out and about trying to prove the CIA or whoever is involved in an international assassination program. Honestly, folks, I'm too young for forced retirement.”

There were nervous smiles around the room, but Savas merely stared forward, unable to focus on Kanter's words. “Let's call this a day. I'm late for a twelve o'clock. Get back to your posts and saving the country.”

Awkwardly, the members of Intel 1 got out of their seats and headed for the door. Lightfoote brushed past Savas and whispered in his ear.

“It's OK, John.
I
think you're right.” She smiled blissfully at him and danced out of the meeting room. The irony was total—his main support came from the most
eccentric
member of this team.

He glanced up. The room was empty. Kanter entered and closed the door.

“Is there anything we should talk about?” Kanter began.

“No, Larry. Maybe I
am
biased on this, but you might consider that I also have an advantage.”