The Alarmists (19 page)

Then, as if forced into action by something outside of himself, Brent began to run toward the SUV. He brought up the shotgun as he ran and came a hairsbreadth away from pulling the trigger when it occurred to him that he might hit Maddy—a realization that left Brent defenseless as one of the men, masked and wearing jeans and a plain white shirt, spotted him. Whoever he was, he could fire a gun a lot faster than Brent. The only way the professor survived was by throwing himself to the ground. He forced himself into a roll, and didn’t stop rolling until he reached the cover of a large pine tree.

As he tried to catch his breath he heard doors slamming, followed by the squeal of tires. By the time he reached the street, the truck was too far away for him to read the plate.

December 16, 2012, 9:12 P.M.

Brent suspected that Albert Griffiths had never considered that his house would be turned into a command center for several very agitated military personnel. For the most part, the man kept to himself, watching the activity around him with a bemused expression while nursing a Guinness. Albert’s wife had come home not long after the shooting stopped, and she too seemed oddly amenable to the situation.

The rest of the team, with the exception of Addison and Bradford, whom Richards had left to continue their research, had arrived an hour ago. But the colonel’s superiors had hedged at sending anyone else. It was always a tricky area for the military to operate domestically, and the call was made to let the FBI manage things. Brent looked at the colonel and could see that the decision did not sit well with him. There was something else as well, and Brent knew what it was without Richards having to speak it.

The truth was that they had next to nothing to go on. Neither Rawlings nor Brent had gotten a close look at their attackers. And Brent hadn’t caught the license number of the truck. Without those, there were few places for the investigation to begin. He caught it too from the expressions of the FBI agents, who had interviewed him and Rawlings—the latter while he was having a bullet extracted from his leg.

“How did they know we’d be here, Colonel?” Snyder asked. He’d been outside helping the feds pick up shell casings, and Brent suspected he was now starting to feel like the rest of them. “You only decided to send them here this afternoon. That shouldn’t have been time enough to set up something like this.”

The colonel shook his head and indulged a deep sigh.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The timeline suggests these people have someone on the inside.”

“Not necessarily, Colonel,” Brent said from his spot on Albert’s couch. When Richards refocused his attention on the professor, Brent said, “Who’s to say they came for us?” He gestured with his head toward Albert.

It seemed obvious to Brent, and he guessed the only reason the colonel hadn’t thought of it was because of whatever walls he had to put up in order to keep functioning under the circumstances. Military training or not, losing two team members in the span of a few days was a bit much to handle. Brent understood, because underneath the calm that he was working hard to maintain, he felt as if his insides had been ripped out. And he knew that part of what he felt was guilt—the realization that he hadn’t been able to keep Maddy safe. On some level he knew that was backward. She’d been responsible for protecting him. He understood that, but it still didn’t make it easier to deal with. The only thing he kept telling himself was that a very real chance existed that Maddy was still alive.

“Colonel, we came here because Mr. Griffiths put a bug in a congressman’s ear. Now, if there’s really something going on in Antarctica, and whoever is behind it learned that a former employee was bending ears in Washington, don’t you think they might want to pay him a visit?”

At that suggestion, every eye in the room turned toward Albert, who after raising his Guinness in salute, suddenly realized what Brent had said. “Wait a minute. What’s all this about a visit?”

“So you believe that Mr. Griffiths was the primary target,” Richards said. “And the fact that the three of you were here was—”

“Coincidence,” Brent said, finishing for him.

Richards’s jaw set in irritation. “As you know, Dr. Michaels, I’m not very fond of coincidences.”

“And yet sometimes they happen, Colonel.”

Richards looked as if he might say more, but instead he turned and crossed to the screen door, letting himself out onto the porch.

—

When Catherine came running into his office, Arthur Van Camp immediately regretted allowing his emotions to get the best of him.

“Everything’s fine, Catherine,” he said, forcing a smile he did not feel.

Despite his assurances, she looked unconvinced, eyeing the broken vase on the floor against the office’s interior wall.

“Believe me, it’s fine. You can go back to your desk. And please close the door behind you.”

Even with this second admonition, his admin seemed reluctant to leave. Yet she knew better than to ignore a request from her boss, however kindly delivered. Still, she stole one last glance at the broken vase as she walked out. Once the door closed behind her, Van Camp lowered himself back into his chair.

He’d reached the end. It no longer mattered that the project still lacked days. His return on the investment in Alan had ended; the man was now a liability. His only wish was that Brunner had called him before he left for Tucson. Van Camp would have stayed his hand. Now his corporate security officers were holding an army captain at the safe house in Lubbock.

He felt the anger growing again, but then checked it before it could overtake him. He understood Alan’s intent, to clean up the one loose end from Shackleton. He didn’t fault the man for that. He could not have known that the same army unit that continued to poke their heads into portions of the project would be standing on the target’s front door. In truth, much of the blame rested on Brunner, who should have called the attack with the added complications. Ultimately, though, everything went back to Alan.

Van Camp rose from his chair and walked over to where the expensive vase lay in pieces on the carpet. He bent down and, reaching a hand under the table, retrieved the Akbal. He studied the carving, noting the chipped corner. He ran a finger over the irregularity, then turned and walked back to his desk, returning the carving to its spot.

—

The woman hadn’t made a sound since Canfield arrived at the safe house in Lubbock. Her hands were bound behind her, the rope threaded through the chair slats, and Brunner had pulled a hood down over her face. He could hear her shallow breathing and knew she was awake.

He looked past her, catching Brunner’s eye, and gestured to Van Camp’s security chief to follow him as he left the room.

“Did she see either of you?” he asked once Brunner had shut the door behind him.

“No. She was bound and blindfolded before we took off the masks,” Brunner said.

An agitated Canfield ran a hand through his hair. He took a few steps away from the door and then stopped as if unsure how to proceed.

“What are we supposed to do with her?” he asked.

Brunner didn’t hesitate in his response. “There are at least three places within six blocks of here where we can dump her. She wouldn’t be found for days.”

Alan Canfield, a man responsible for more deaths over the last few years than he could recollect, almost shuddered at the dispassionate suggestion. Even so, it seemed the most logical choice; it was certainly the most convenient. However, if he’d learned anything under Arthur Van Camp’s tutelage, it was that hasty decisions, when not necessary, were best avoided.

“Keep her here for the time being,” he ordered. “I’ll call you when I decide what to do with her.”

As he turned to leave, he had no delusions that this situation had not already been reported to his boss. While the security team was at his beck and call for the duration of the project, Canfield knew the way the lines would fall on any org chart. Brunner reported to Van Camp; it was as simple as that.

It was a truth that meant there would come a point when Canfield would no longer be able to use the team, when whatever target he gave them would be superseded by one designated by Van Camp. Canfield’s only ace in the hole was that he still had the detonator. Without that in his hand, Van Camp would hesitate before striking his subordinate down. Still, it was with profound relief that he made it out into a Texas evening without a bullet in the back of his head.

December 17, 2012, 7:17 A.M.

As much as it went against every feeling in his gut, Brent could not fault the colonel for bringing the remnants of the team back to Washington. After spending most of the night at the home of Albert Griffiths, doubtless setting the neighborhood ablaze with speculation, the colonel had come to the conclusion that they could provide no real assistance to the FBI. He suspected they could do more to help Maddy by continuing the work than by standing idle in a private residence in Tucson. Brent agreed, although it didn’t make him feel any better about what seemed tantamount to abandoning Maddy to her fate.

“I’m not even sure how to go about investigating this, Colonel,” Rawlings said. “Especially not in the time we have.”

“That’s why I’m giving this to you,” the colonel told Rawlings. “I think satellites are our only chance, and there’s no one better at finding a needle in a haystack than you.”

Rawlings returned a slow nod.

“We’re not set up to do that here, sir,” he said.

“That’s why I’ve got the plane ready to take you to NORAD. They’re already pulling data so it will be ready for you when you get there.”

“Yes, sir,” Rawlings said.

After Rawlings left, Richards turned his attention to Brent, who gestured toward the door through which Rawlings had just passed.

“Is it reasonable to think that he can find something over a surface area as big as Antarctica?”

“Eastern Antarctica,” Richards corrected. “And whether it’s reasonable or not, we’re running out of avenues to explore.”

Brent conceded that point with a nod.

“How’s your research progressing, Doctor?” Richards redirected.

“I’m not entirely sure. I knew Maddy was waiting for a report from the SEC, so I used her computer to access her email.” As soon as the words left his lips he realized the security implications of tapping into a military officer’s computer, and he hesitated, waiting for Richards to react. But when the colonel did not so much as raise an eyebrow, Brent pressed on. “To be honest, the report is a lot less helpful than I’d hoped. While there are a number of companies that have seen better than average gains over the last year, none of them jump off the page. And most of these companies are so big that it’s difficult to link stocks across their various lines of business.” He shook his head in frustration. “Maybe if they had more time, but I think this is just a second haystack.”

As the colonel absorbed that, Brent switched gears.

“But I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Colonel, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met a captain of industry who wasn’t a complete narcissist.”

“I haven’t met many captains of industry” was the colonel’s dry response.

“Most people who end up controlling huge corporations have a certain personality type. They’re completely ego driven, which can cause them to take risks most people wouldn’t take. Because the more the deck is stacked against him, the greater the ego validation if he wins.”

“And if he loses?”

“Then it’s because of things he couldn’t control. No CEO worth his pay would admit a personal failing in the face of a loss.”

Richards was thoughtful for a moment before saying, “I’m with you so far. Now tell me what you’re getting at.”

“What I’m getting at is that a significant part of the ego validation comes from other people being aware of the accomplishment,” Brent said. “If no one knows, is it really a win?”

He saw the colonel frown.

“I’m not following,” the man admitted.

“What I’m saying is that if this guy is your typical CEO, he won’t be happy unless people know what he was able to pull off.”

“I like the psychology,” the colonel said, “but I’m not sure it fits here. With something as large a scale as this, my thought is that someone with the resources and intelligence to pull it off would also exercise sufficient self-control to ensure he isn’t caught.”

“I agree,” Brent said. “But he’s been working on this for a long time. My guess is as far back as Y2K. That’s a lot of time to drop a hint or two. And more than likely he wouldn’t be aware he’d done so. Braggadocio is just part of his DNA.”

He watched as the colonel considered his argument and then asked the next logical question. “Even if you’re right, how do you expect to follow it up?”

“I’m not sure. But everyone else has a haystack.”

That pulled a slight smile from the colonel, but it vanished an instant later.

“While you’re pursuing your theory, you may want to see what you can find out about the name Miles Standish.”

The professor gave a thoughtful nod. “That’s the guy that Griffiths said recruited him for the drilling operation, right?”

“I have Bradford talking to Sheffield Petroleum. He hasn’t given a full report yet, but at first blush it appears they haven’t had a crew in Antarctica for at least three years.”

Out of all the pieces of news he’d received during this consult—if it was even appropriate to call it that anymore—the one just delivered by Richards stole any response he might have made, and it took him a while to determine the reason. Until now, he had only appreciated the magnitude of the plot they were uncovering on a clinical level. It was one thing to read about a series of small events occurring at points around the globe. It was quite another to understand that whoever was behind this had the wherewithal to construct a shell corporation atop a real one, recruit a few dozen men for a job in a remote part of the world, and provide them with all the resources they needed to engage in what was shaping up to be a mammoth drilling operation. For some reason, the weight of the thing was now settling on Brent’s shoulders.

The colonel, as good a reader of people as Brent had met, tried to take a portion of that weight from him.

“One thing at a time, Dr. Michaels. We’ll get it all sorted out.”

It wasn’t much of a pep talk, but Brent appreciated it nonetheless. And as the colonel left to check on Bradford’s progress, Brent dug into his new line of inquiry.

—

Alan Canfield was accustomed to dealing with a sense of loss. In his understanding, loss went hand in hand with accomplishment. One did not succeed without giving up much. In his estimation, he’d sacrificed a great deal to achieve what he had—both on a personal level and for the company. His marriage had been in tatters long before Phyllis took the pills; his health had certainly suffered; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d pursued a leisure activity of any kind. In fact, his efforts toward advancement had stripped him to the point that he had no idea who the man was who looked back at him from the mirror.

And so to accept the prospect of yet another loss—his life this time—lacked most of the raw emotion it might have otherwise had.

When he’d arrived back in Atlanta after leaving the safe house in Lubbock, he drove home with the intention of catching a few hours of sleep before making what might well be his last appearance in the office. He could feel the noose tightening, knew that all the pieces were in place and it was time now to find a hole from which to watch things unfold. Pulling into his driveway, he saw it right away.

On his leaving the house for a business trip, Phyllis always left the light on in the front room. He would see it through the window when he pulled in. It was, he supposed, a greeting of sorts if he arrived home after she went to bed. When he left the day before, he’d flipped the light on in some small sentimental gesture that his wife would doubtless have appreciated. But when he returned, the light was off.

Canfield had cut the engine and sat in the driveway, watching the darkened house. Nothing was moving as far as he could tell, but he understood how little that meant. After ten minutes, half expecting the sound of a gun tapping on his window, he exited the car and walked to the front door, key in hand. In the dim lighting provided by the streetlamp, he could see nothing to indicate a forced entry. He opened the door and went inside, deciding not to switch on the hallway light.

A thorough canvassing of the house yielded no sign of an intruder and he relaxed. He was ready to laugh it off, assuming he simply had not turned the light on as he thought, when he stepped into his office and found his eyes moving to the bookshelf. Only a man who had built the shelf with his own hands and who had stocked it with great care would have recognized that some of the books were out of place.

He crossed to his desk and opened the bottom drawer, from which he pulled the gun that Phyllis hated keeping in the house. Then he ascended the stairs, grabbed a suitcase from the closet, and tossed in as many articles of clothing as he could fit. Once he’d lugged the suitcase down the stairs, he paused in the hallway, his mind racing to think of anything else he should take with him. It took only seconds for the realization to hit that there was little there he couldn’t do without. Less than a minute later he had pulled out of the driveway.

Now his car idled outside of the hospital. He’d thought about going in and seeing Phyllis but knew that if Van Camp had marked him for termination, someone on the team would be watching the hospital entrance. He’d already taken too much of a chance in going to his office to collect a few things. He’d taken the loading dock entrance and then used the service elevator to get to the lobby, after which he’d chanced the second elevator bay, where an elevator took him to the twentieth floor. The remaining twenty flights of stairs had provided more exercise than he was accustomed to but had enabled him to collect a number of important files, check and send email, and satisfy himself that some of the open-ended portions of the project were falling into place.

He also retrieved the item his boss had been seeking when he sent men into Canfield’s home. The ultimate success of Project: Night House relied on what happened at their southernmost battlefront. After the millions of dollars spent readying the ice shelf for separation, he couldn’t consider it not happening. If nothing else, it would make the loss of life an incalculable waste. While Canfield wasn’t the religious sort, he suspected that abandoning the project now would mean a monumental misuse of assets—a true disservice to the dead. Before he left the office, he pulled the detonator from behind
The Art of War
, a book that held a prominent place in his office library.

He slipped the detonator into his briefcase, took one last look around his office, and walked out the door, turning the light off behind him.

—

Dabir truly enjoyed purchasing expensive things, especially when he could procure them with the money of others. Such was the case with the CheyTac M100. He held the high-end sniper rifle across his lap, his fingers running over its surface. He’d only held its like one other time, on a training exercise in Saudi Arabia. His teacher had been impressed by Dabir’s steady hands, the accuracy of his shots. And Dabir had been impressed with the optional surface-to-surface missiles that one could send on its course with deadly accuracy. He had not opted for such with this purchase. For this mission, stealth and finesse were all that were required.

He stood and placed the gun on the hotel bed. He considered disassembling it now, knowing he would have to do so before carrying it from the room, but decided against it. There was something almost spiritual about seeing such a fine instrument of death ready to be picked up and used.

The Eritrean padded across the dingy carpet to the sink, where he poured himself a glass of water. As he drank he inventoried himself in the mirror, an introspection that served to help him focus, to banish everything that was not the mission. Satisfied with what he saw, he checked his watch and then lifted his suitcase onto the bed, the lid opening over the M100. From the suitcase he pulled his prayer rug.

He spread it on the floor and then knelt upon it, finding east before starting to pray.