Midnight Secrets (22 page)

Felicity stirred. “It was a powerful jammer.”

“Yeah,” Nick said.

“
Not just the cells
,” the metallic voice said from the monitor. “
Power
,
the power backups
,
elevators
,
security vidcams
,
all switched off.
All over the city
,
too.
”

“Yeah, the power going out all over DC was crazy,” said Nick. “It was all crazy. We were part of the rescue team that night after it was clear that it was a terrorist attack. We thought there would be hostages but there weren’t. It was just wholesale slaughter.” Nick clenched his fists. He’d been there that night, seen the carnage. For Joe it was all secondhand information, acquired after he’d woken up. No one had actually given him an overall recounting of the event and the first month after he’d woken up he’d been in pain and weak. The outside world had retreated to a far-off signal for him. And Isabel had no memory of it at all.

“
So what’s the official version of what happened that night in the ballroom of the Burrard?
”

They all looked at each other uneasily at the mention of the term
official
. As if there were several versions.

“The few eyewitnesses who survived said that a group of men dressed in black, with black ski masks and goggles, stormed into the room shouting ‘
Allahu Akhbar
.’ God is great. They were heavily armed and they opened fire immediately with automatic weapons. AK-47s. Police and the FBI were notified only at 7:32 that there was an attack at the Burrard, via landline. Since the hotel is so close to the White House, the Secret Service was notified and they hustled the president into the war room. By the time we scrambled and were on the scene, the explosives blew and half the building came down. Most of the few people who survived the massacre died in the rubble. There were very few survivors.”

“
And the terrorists.
They all escaped.
”

“Correct.”

“
And the lights went out all over Washington.
”

“Correct.”

From what Joe had read, it was the lights going out all over the nation’s capital that had brought the situation briefly to DEFCON 3. Even the White House and the Pentagon and Congress had lost power. There had been talk of an invasion of the United States. Martial law had been declared and there was a nighttime curfew. Police officers shot three hundred and forty people who didn’t obey the curfew.

“
Flights were grounded.
The president was subsequently taken to an undisclosed location where he addressed the nation.
Wall Street closed for two days.
”

“That’s all correct,” Nick said steadily.

“
The country lost three trillion dollars
,
almost overnight.
”

“I heard that.” Nick leaned forward, as did the others.

“
Your genius friend
,
Felicity.
Ask her.
She’ll have details.
”

Felicity looked serious, sad. “That’s right. It’s not a figure that has been officially published. The country was just coming out of the tail end of a recession. But three trillion dollars were siphoned out of our economy. As much as we lost in the decade of war with Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s all over the darknet but the mainstream media hasn’t talked about it at all.”

“
Nor will it ever.
But that three trillion dollars went somewhere.
What does the darknet say
,
Felicity?
”

Felicity looked uneasy. Metal said that Felicity, being Russian, thrived on conspiracy theories but this seemed to spook even her. “Darknet says a lot of things.”

“
But the thing it says most?
” the metallic voice inquired.

“Well...” Felicity shifted in her chair and looked unhappy. “A lot of money was sucked out of the economy due to the Massacre and that money had to go somewhere, as you said.”

“
Yes.
Does the darknet say where?
”

“A handful of offshores.”

“
A
handful of offshores suddenly gains three trillion dollars.
And no one notices?
”

Felicity’s mouth set as her fingers blurred over the keyboard. “Here’s who noticed. I’m sending you a list of websites naming the companies. But no one in the mainstream media even touched this.” She huffed out a breath. “Like after 9/11. Like the collapse in 2008. No one talks about it except the conspiracy crazies.”

“
Not so crazy after all.
”

“No. So you seem to know a lot about this, too.” Felicity glanced at Nick. “And if you want someone squeaky-clean from the FBI that means you don’t trust the CIA, even if international terrorism is their thing.”

There was a long silence.

Joe leaned forward. “Are you CIA?”

Another long silence. Then: “
Not anymore.
”

The hairs on the back of Joe’s neck rose. “You contacted me. About Isabel. What does Isabel have to do with this? Are you contacting the survivors?”

“
Not all of them.
”

Goddamn. Isabel was in the middle of something really fucking serious. “Is there, is there a chance that someone from the
CIA
could be involved in this?”

Of course not. The CIA was full of liars and cheats—that was their bread and butter. But traitors? No.

“
Yes
,” the voice answered and Joe looked at Senior, Metal and Jacko in turn. They all looked grim.

Joe’s hands were balled into fists. “Who?” Who in the CIA could turn traitor like this? “Not the entire agency, obviously. How many people do you think are involved? And can’t they be reported?”

“
I
don’t know how many people are involved.
Probably not many
,
four or five I think.
But they are strategically placed.
And those who ask questions of the wrong guys end up dead.
”

A shudder went through Joe. He glanced at the corner where Isabel and Lauren were working hard on the image she saw in her nightmares. “No one is touching Isabel.”

“
No.
Keep her alive.
”

Fuck yeah, he was keeping Isabel alive.

Nick shouldered Joe aside. “If any American citizens were involved in the Massacre, they’re going down. Whoever is involved is guilty of high treason.”

“
And mass murder.
”

Joe was a warrior. He’d been in battle. He’d killed. But he had never encountered anything like this before.
From his own countrymen
. It was hard to wrap his head around this. Afghani warlords behaved like this, not members of the US government.

“Why?” His voice came out hoarse but no one seemed to notice. He felt rattled like never before. He knew the crazies out there. He’d fought them far away from the homeland never thinking that pure random evil on that scale could happen here.

“
Money
,
for one
,” the metallic voice answered.

So—not pure random evil. This was worse.

“
As Felicity said
,
those three trillion dollars went somewhere.
Check what I’m sending.
”

On Joe’s laptop files started appearing, data streams flowing vertically like something out of
The Matrix
.

“Stop,” Felicity said, typing furiously. She picked up her laptop and showed her monitor to Joe’s monitor. For a second it was like SkyNet had taken over the world and the monitors were talking to each other. “Send the info here. I’m showing you the IP. Joe’s computer can’t handle the data, mine can.”

The men in the room looked at Joe to see if he’d taken offense. He hadn’t. It wasn’t like Felicity was challenging his manhood or his dick size. And anyway, hers
was
bigger than his.

The data stopped immediately on Joe’s monitor and after a few seconds began flowing into Felicity’s computer. It flowed like a curtain and as Felicity did her thing, the data started morphing into different patterns, sliding, forming shapes then flowing apart.

After ten minutes. Felicity froze her screen and lifted her fingers from the keyboard.

“Okay,” she said. “Ex-CIA guy, are you still with us?”

“
Oh yeah
,” the metallic voice answered.

Felicity shot them all a glance. “You guys ready for this?”

Isabel and Lauren were lost in their world in the corner but Joe’s guys were all ready and waiting.

Felicity drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. “So those three trillion dollars fled the country. And as you all would have noticed if this weren’t such an incredibly well-run company—” she shot a quick glance at the Senior, “—youd know how impoverished this country is now. Or perhaps you know it already. We had just begun climbing out of the post-2008 hole when the Massacre struck. Since the Massacre weve lost over two million jobs, unemployment is at its highest level since the Depression and the stock market has lost two thousand points. Its like the Massacre sucked out the economic backbone of the country, besides scaring the shit out of everybody. The darknet hasn’t managed to actually trace the money that was lost, but this information is new.

“These tables—” she gestured to her monitor, “—courtesy of a former hedge fund manager via ex-CIA guy, show sudden spikes in income and asset creation of a number of offshore funds and tax haven banks. Ordinarily it would be impossible to figure out who the people behind those funds and banks are but we have a treasure trove of info in these charts. I had to data-dive and do some massive number crunching to start to understand who profited from the Massacre but we have some preliminary results.

Everyone leaned forward. Joe was sure that Metal Voice was leaning forward, too.

Felicity gave a dramatic pause.

“Well?” Joe nudged her shoulder. Ordinarily Metal wouldn’t let him get away with that, nor would any of the other ASI guys because Felicity was untouchable, but they were burning to know, too.

“This doesn’t make me happy,” Felicity said. “Usually when I crack a difficult database the sheer challenge is enough to make me smile, but this doesn’t make me smile at all. Not when you think how many people died in the Massacre. Not when you think how many people have lost their homes, their businesses, their jobs. How many people’s lives have been ruined.”

Metal put his hand on her shoulder and she reached up to put her pretty hand over his, never taking her eyes from the monitor.

“The best way to tell you is to show you.” At each step, Felicity clicked a key, and a different screenshot came up. “That initial flow of data was several terabytes of bank account data and stock exchange movements and hedge fund quotations. The stock exchange now is run by quants running algorithms that operate with split-second timing and there are several million exchanges done every second of the day. It is almost unquantifiable. Almost.”

The screen started slowing. Was less a flow and more a series of data sheets. The data sheets had elements highlighted and the highlighted elements were then put on another set of pages.

“I can go over this step-by-step if anyone wants, but my system analyzed the funds and bank accounts and they were all shell companies. But digging down there were a few names that jumped out. First of all, the top earner was the PRC.”

Joe let out his breath slowly. The People’s Republic of China was behind the Massacre? If this news got out, it would mean war. A big, big war that would dwarf anything that had happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, which had been limited wars. This would be a war fought on land, sea and air, the US against a billion and a half people and a military of over seven million people, including reservists. A war with a nuclear power that also had a fleet of submarines with nuclear warheads that could cross the Pacific. A cold shudder ran down his spine.

“But there were also individuals who earned big. And the one who earned the most—several billion dollars in fact—is a man who is very well-connected.” She glanced up at Metal, then at Joe. “And he was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, too, so our ex-CIA guy is right to stay off the radar.”

The screen was coalescing, thousands of lines scrolling down, slowing, until one name was on the screen.

Joe exhaled again. This was worse than anything anyone could have imagined because the name was a man who was supposed to have been Alex Delvaux’s vice president. Hector Blake.

A cry came from the corner and Joe turned, goose bumps rising on his skin. Isabel. That was a cry of pain and shock. He whirled ready to run to her, reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster, ready to leap and throw his body over hers because Isabel in danger was his worst nightmare...

But she wasn’t hurt, no one was attacking her. She stood and turned to him, her face utterly white. She swayed and he didn’t even feel his feet as he shot across the room to her, putting his arm around her, not as a sign of affection but to hold her up.

Lauren was looking up at them, white-faced too. Jacko was by her side in a second.

“The man, Joe. The man in my dreams. The monster of the Massacre.” Isabel pointed with a shaking hand at the drawing Lauren had made.