The Fellowship (5 page)

U.S. Capitol Building

Washington D.C.

The hearing room had been fashioned in the style of a classic
tribunal.  Blake Carver and his attorney sat at a simple table on the hearing room floor. A panel of congressional representatives sat on an elevated panel in front of them. The height differential was designed to make the person testifying feel small and to exaggerate the power and influence of the committee members.

Bolstering the
committee members were two additional rows of junior congressmen and their staffers. As Carver surveyed the tired, stressed-out bunch of public servants, he envisioned an equal number of medicine cabinets stocked with Adderall, Ambien and antacid tablets. 

Luis
Gonzalez, (D-New Mexico), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, peered down from his seat in the front row. Although he sat scarcely 20 feet from his subjects, he switched on his microphone. “Glad to have you with us this morning, Agent Carver.”

Carver
, who was dressed in a shark-colored suit with no tie, leaned into the microphone situated on the table. “The feeling is not mutual,” he said to polite laughter.

“It was a battle getting you in here,” Rep. Gonzalez remarked, “
So forgive me if we waste little time in getting down to business. This committee is concerned with events taking place 13 months ago. Can you please characterize your professional activities during that time period?”

He looked over his shoulder.
Where was Julian? He had promised he would be here. It wasn’t just that Carver wanted him for moral support. Speers had been a district attorney prior to joining the Hatch administration as general counsel, and later as chief of staff. He was imminently more qualified than the rental lawyer he’d sent in his place. 

“Agent Carver?”

“The answer is no. I won’t characterize last August.”

Judging by the look on the committee
members’ faces, nobody had ever refused to answer a question before. “Excuse me?”

“It’s nothing personal, Congressman. My activities at that time were highly classified in nature, and frankly, above your security clearance.”

The attorney leaned into Carver’s ear and whispered, “There’s no reason to piss these guys off. The administration has your back, but if you create enemies here, God help you.”

Carver turned his head and
covered his mouth before whispering – just in case there were any lip readers on the panel. “We just met. You don’t even know me. If you have sound advice of a legal nature, I’ll take it. Otherwise, please let me do the talking.”

Gonzalez cut in. “Agent Carver, we aren’t here to uncover
intelligence secrets. To be frank, we’re primarily interested in the release of a federal prisoner named Nico Gold into your custody on August 21 of last year.”

So
Julian was right. Of all the ethical lines that had been crossed that day in the name of national security, it figured that the committee would waste Carver’s time with this.

Personally, Ca
rver found Nico Gold obnoxious, manipulative and arrogant. But there was no denying that he had an unparalleled mind. For years nobody knew his real name. He had been the Banksy of the hacking community. He had started as a teenager, lifting tiny sums out of millions of bank accounts in western countries. He would then redistribute the money into the accounts of NGOs in poor African countries. Modern-age Robin Hood stuff. But then he took a big score from the International Monetary Fund, and got a little carried away in flaunting his success.

As Nico would discover later, when he found himself serving 20 years, he had messed with the wrong
lady. Eva Hudson had been the head of the IMF in those days. And once she learned the identity of the person who had stolen from their coffers, she was relentless in her pursuit.

“August 21 is
widely considered to be the first day of the Ulysses Coup,” Gonzales continued. “You saw Mr. Gold that day, didn’t you?”

The Ulysses Coup.
Carver shuddered at the name, which missed the point completely. It had only taken a few days with a TV network using the catchphrase before it had become a modern-day Watergate.

In what appeared at first to be coordinated terror attacks by
religious extremists, a group of conspirators had succeeded in decapitating the presidential line of succession, an act of congress that had last been amended in 1947. President Hatch, his vice-president, the president pro tempore and the secretary of state were all killed. Of those in the immediate line, only treasury secretary Eva Hudson had escaped. Ulysses USA Inc., a security multinational that had grown to dwarf the once-mighty Blackwater Corporation, had only been the tool of the crime, not the cause of it. The complete information about the perpetrators and how they had infiltrated the president’s inner circle was still known only to a small group of Washington insiders, and, by executive order of the president, those names would likely be sealed for many years to come.

It sickened
Carver to think about the countless history teachers who would no doubt build curricula around the crisis in the coming years, only to get its most fundamental elements completely wrong. But that was neither here nor there. Ulysses USA Inc. was done for, even if all its puppet masters weren’t. And the official line of succession had been reinstated, making Eva Hudson, the fifth in line, the unlikely Commander-in-Chief.

One thing was for sure:
For Carver, the memories of those six days in August were still too raw for his liking. The horizontal scar on his neck – he’d been grazed by a bullet while defending the White House – was a daily reminder.

The rent-a-lawyer was
whispering something in his ear, but Carver wasn’t listening. He sat forward again. “About all I can tell you, Congressman, is that Nico Gold was critical in helping us with the national security crisis we faced that day.”

“Our records indicate that
on August 21 last year, you arrived at Lee Federal Correctional Facility at 10: 30 a.m., with the intention of recruiting Mr. Gold.”

“It was 10:41 a.m. when I signed in.”

“You remember that precisely?”

He did indeed.
What Carver’s small-town doctor had once diagnosed in Carver as a photographic memory, was now known in the medical community as super-autobiographical memory, or
hyperthymesia
.

In short, it
was the ability to recall an unusually high number of experiential moments in his life. He could point to most any day on the calendar and recall what he had for lunch, what the people he was with had been wearing, and what had been on the news that day.

Hyperthymesia was o
ften regarded as a problematic condition more than a gift. Some people found the constant recall of archived memories emotionally crippling. Others found that the constant influx of the past impaired their ability to experience new things. 

Carver was lucky.
Although he occasionally had problems with focus, he was mostly able to wield the extreme amounts of data located within his brain to his advantage. His was a medical condition with benefits.

“Yes,” he
continued. “My partner and I signed in at 10:41. We were with Nico for approximately 17 minutes, during which time we were able to convince him to serve the very country that had incarcerated him.”

Cindy
Blick (R-Wyoming), a 55-year-old woman with a red beehive haircut, spoke into the microphone mounted before her. “Agent Carver, what I’m trying to understand is why you would enlist the help of a convicted felon when you had access to more than 20 qualified government and private cryptologists, including some from the NSA.”

The attorney covered the microphone with his right hand and leaned in to offer advice. Carver nudged him away.

“They may have been qualified,” Carver stated, “But they were ineffective. The cryptologists at my disposal had been working on the case for weeks without any progress. We’re living in an age where one truly gifted person with a computer can do more in a day than a roomful of PhDs could in a year.”

“
I’m not disputing that Nico Gold is a smart person. But in this case, when you chose to enlist the help of a felon, you made a mistake.”

He hated them. He hated
this
. His thoughts drifted to Operation Crossbow, which had only just gotten interesting. One of the world’s most powerful bioengineers had said that he had the capability to clone a human being, and then had gone missing. Whatever country or organization had nabbed him now had a tremendous intellectual asset at their disposal, and you could bet they weren’t going to use it for a good cause.

“Agent Carver?” Blick said. “We’re waiting.”

Carver quickly rediscovered his train of thought. “My only mistake was bringing Nico in too late. If it hadn’t been for him, you might not be sitting up there today.”

Gon
zales leaned forward. “Save the speeches, Agent Carver. The committee will determine, upon learning more details, whether those choices were justified.”

“
No it won’t. The committee is incapable of making that determination without all the facts, and those facts are sealed.”

“Is that so?
Then I’d like to hear Mr. Gold’s heroics from his own mouth.”

“I bet you would.”

“Do you know where we can find him?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

Blick took off her glasses and peered down at Carver, her eyes darting back and forth between the federal agent and his attorney. “To be blunt, Agent Carver, we have evidence that you forged a judicial order to arrange for Mr. Gold’s unlawful release. Out of respect for your service, the White House has strongly recommended that we look the other way on this transgression, which we are inclined to do despite the fact that nobody will tell us why you’re such a value to our intelligence community, or even what agency you currently answer to. Despite this, we might be persuaded to comply with this request providing you help us return Mr. Gold into federal custody.”

The double doors at the back of the room opened.
Julian Speers blew in, nodding at Carver as he walked past the table and made a beeline for Rep. Gonzalez. The congressman leaned over the wood paneling to get a quiet but spirited earful from the DNI.

Gon
zalez’ face turned a shade of pink before he abruptly spoke into the microphone. “The director has just advised me the president has suspended these hearings in the interest of national security. Naturally, we will use every feasible legal and constitutional option to reverse this decision.”

As the committee erupted into chaos, Speers
motioned for Carver and started for the door.

Carver waited
until they were in the hallway before speaking. “Took you long enough,” he grumbled as they speed-walked. “Things were getting pretty heated in there.”

“
I didn’t bail you out for your benefit,” Speers said. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d have told them how to find Nico Gold.”

“Then why are you here?”

“The president asked for you personally. We have a mess on our hands.”

5
th
Street Northeast

Washington D.C.

The inside of Speers’ black Highlander was just as Carver had
remembered it. It smelled like a candy store and was littered with chewed lollipop sticks and fast-food wrappers. The only new wrinkle was the pair of child car seats in the vehicle’s second row. The babies were the result of a torrid relationship Speers had with a DOJ analyst named Lydia. Within four months of dating, Speers had gotten her pregnant with twins. Before he knew it, he needed a wedding planner, a financial planner and a real estate agent.

Speers
pulled the SUV up to the address FBI Director Chad Fordham had given him on 5
th
Street Northeast. The home was inconspicuous among the row of three-story brownstones. “This is it?” Carver said incredulously. They were only a few blocks from the Capitol Building where Carver’s hearing had been. “We could have walked faster.”

They
got out of the vehicle and walked into the tiny yard. The front door opened and he spotted Fordham inside, beckoning them up the stairs. What was going on here? Carver couldn’t fathom anything happening at a residential address that would require the heads of both the FBI and the ODNI to make a personal visit. Nothing short of a major breech in national security.

Carver liked Fordham, who was a rare holdover from the previous administration. Last year Fordham had helped put an end to
the Ulysses Coup. Sixteen FBI agents sacrificed their lives that week – a huge loss by any measure, especially considering that, until that day in August, only 26 agents had been killed in the agency’s entire history.

After assuming the
presidency, Eva Hudson had set about cleaning house from top to bottom. No one was safe. Of the 17 agency heads making up the intelligence community, only Fordham had been retained. He had proven himself to be an ally. 

As they entered, Fordham greeted Julian and
reached out to Carver with a latex-gloved hand. The presence of latex suggested a crime scene. And yet there was no police tape, no guys in FBI jackets swarming the yard.

“If you two will suit up, please,” one of Fordham’s men told them. He pointed to a box of aqua latex gloves and shoe prophylactics
, which the two men quickly put on. As Fordham led them through the home, Carver heard the sound of a woman in hysterics. He poked his head into the living room, seeking the source of the commotion. He didn’t spot the crier, but the calfskin rugs and original Eames lounge chairs told him that the occupants were people of means with western taste.

“Who knows about this?” Speers
asked.

“As of now,” Fordham said, “There are only
seven people in the circle of trust, including you two and the POTUS.”

The president?
Whatever was going on here, it was huge. Either someone high-profile is dead in this house, Carver thought, or they’ve found a nuke in the basement.

Carver lingered in the doorway of a small study, where he found the source of the noise.
A woman, mid-20s, sporting a blonde boy-cut and a sharp but conservative red dress. Her black flats danced on the floor as the rest of her convulsed in manic weeping. A plainclothes special agent with her back to the door was trying to calm the woman down and conduct an interview.  Carver’s eyes scanned the gray pantsuit that revealed a runner’s haunches and slender, smallish shoulders. He knew those gams.

“Haley?”

Haley Ellis turned. The skin of her angular face was tanned and framed by wispy, shoulder-length hair. It was her, all right. The last time Carver had seen her, she had been a senior liaison for Pentagon-White House Affairs.

“Forgot you two knew each other,” Speers said.

Carver hadn’t seen Ellis in 13 months.  And that had been on purpose.

“This way
,” Fordham urged, motioning for Carver to come to the end of the hallway. He held an old rectangular-shaped flashlight that looked large enough to light up FedExField.

“
Who’s that gal Haley’s talking to?” Carver said.

“
Mary Borst. She’s the executive assistant to Senator Preston.”

Carver
got tense just thinking about what her days must be like. The executive assistant for anyone on the Hill was never paid enough in relation to the stress they endured. They had to manage huge egos, scheduling and even menial tasks for the Senator, like picking up dry-cleaning and babysitting.

They
came to the basement staircase. “No lights down there,” Fordham commented as he switched on his flashlight, which was less powerful than it looked, and led them down 15 steps.

The
subject of interest was in the middle of the basement, which was unfurnished except for a row of tools and a wooden workbench along the far wall. A body clothed in a dark suit was crumpled in a fetal position, surrounded by a great deal of blood. The victim’s red-stained shirt was unbuttoned, revealing several dozen small slashes across the stomach and chest.

“Who’s the…” Carver didn’t need to finish his sentence, as he quickly recognized
the dead man’s face as that of Senator Rand Preston.

This was huge. Preston
was a third-term Republican from Texas. Over the past year or so, pundits had been touting him as a possible contender for the GOP nomination.

The furnishings
upstairs made sense now. Preston was from a Texas oil family, and he was often seen wearing pricey cowboy hats and boots. 

While some members of congress were forced to share apartments while congress was in session, many of those with means
kept second homes in Washington D.C., while their families continued to reside in their home states. The location was perfect. They were just a few blocks’ walking distance not only to Congress, but also to the Senate offices and Union Station.

Carver heard a scream from upstairs,
which was followed by another bout of intense weeping. “What time did she find her boss down here?”

“
She didn’t,” Fordham said, pointing to a solidly built man in a gray suit. “This is Hank Bowers. Section Chief with us for 15 years now. He and the senator were in the same fraternity at UT Austin. He was first on the scene.”

Carver noted the silver TKE ring on the man’s left hand.
“You guys were still tight, huh?”

“
Not so much. We see each other maybe a couple times a year these days. But Rand called me last night, said he wanted to get together. Something had him spooked. Wanted some advice on how to hire personal security.”

“
And he couldn’t get Secret Service protection?”

“
Didn’t qualify,” Bowers said. “As a senator, the only way to get protection is if you’re the majority or minority leader, or if you run for president, and even for that, it has to be within 120 days of the general election.”

“What
was he scared of?”

“He didn’t give
any specifics.”

“
What else did he say?”

“
Nada. We were supposed to meet up for coffee this morning. When he didn’t show, I came here. Front door was wide open.”

“
We got lucky,” Fordham said. “If Mary had found him first, this place would be crawling with reporters right now.”

“Who called her?”

"Said the senator was a no-show for another meeting, and she got worried. Arrived just a few minutes before you two.”

“
I don’t think he was down here long,” Carver observed as he crouched alongside the body. Judging by the stains all over the workbench and covered pieces of furniture – not to mention several traps deployed along the far wall – the house had a major rat infestation. Yet there were only a handful of rodent bites on the senator’s face and hands.  “Not more than three or four hours. Much longer and the rats would’ve given him a full facelift.”

“Are you in forensics
?” Bowers said.

Carver
shook his head. “I just watch a lot of TV. You guys find a murder weapon?”

“No
,” Fordham said. “We found his phone and his computer over there.” He shone his light into the corner, where Carver saw the notebook computer wedged in a vise on a workbench. “The SIM card is missing from the phone and the computer’s been gutted. My guess is they took the hard drive. Maybe we can pull some prints off the hardware.”

Returning his attention to the body, it
appeared to Carver that the senator’s jugular had been slit with an extremely sharp blade. There was a great deal of congealed blood directly in front of the neck, but the incision was fine. Nothing to suggest the sort of tearing you might get with a domestic weapon of convenience, like a steak knife. They were going to need to get a blood spatter expert out there. He didn’t want to be the one to tell Fordham how to do his job, but he couldn’t fathom why there wasn’t already a forensics team on site.

Suddenly Carver
rose and looked around the room. “Hey, you guys find any ropes around the place?” Fordham shook his head. Carver crouched down again and used a gloved finger to expose the senator’s right wrist. “See this?”

He pointed to an inch-long laceration
cutting through the skin and muscle, down to the bone. The flesh around the left wrist was identically damaged. Speers stepped back and held his palm over his mouth. He hadn’t been exposed to many dead bodies in his life.

“
What could cause that?” Fordham said. “Handcuffs?”

“
Doubtful. Look at the color of the skin on the back of his hands. He was bound with something thick and rough to the touch. I think Senator Rand was suspended in the air, somehow.” He got to his feet and pointed at the ceiling. “Shine your light up there.”

Fordham pointed his light overhead
. The basement ceiling was about 14 feet high, with several exposed cross beams and pipes. “You should check out those beams,” Carver said. “Look for rope fiber.”

“What, y
ou think he was hanged before his throat was cut?”

“Hanged
, yes. But not by the neck. Check out his shoulders.”

Fordham returned
the spotlight to the body. “I don’t see anything.” Carver put his hand on Speers’ shoulder and guided him to a more advantageous position. “Oh.” The FBI director said. “Oh yeah, they don’t look right.”

“
I’d bet his arms are popped out of his shoulder sockets.”

Speers
scratched his salt-and-pepper Van Dyke goatee. “Sweet Jesus. You’re right.”

“Don’t take
my
word for it. Where is forensics?”

“
Like I said, the president wanted you to see this first.”

It was an odd request, but
he appreciated the vote of confidence. Late last year, the president had offered Carver a role as a national security advisor. He had turned her down flat, insisting that he didn’t belong behind a desk. Not long after that, he found himself behind one anyhow, although the desk he was assigned was far less prestigious than the one he’d been offered in the first place. During Carver’s more paranoid moments, he wondered if the president still resented him for it. If he’d taken the job, would he still have the House Committee on Domestic Intelligence breathing down his neck?

“T
he way I see this,” Carver continued, “the senator’s wrists were probably tied behind his back. The same rope was used to hoist him up in the air. Judging by the damage to his wrists, a weight might have been attached to his feet. Then, at the right moment, they dropped him halfway, dislocating the extremities.”

Fordham’s face wrinkled in disgust
. “That’s medieval.”

“Quite l
iterally,” Carver nodded. “It’s called rope torture, or if you prefer, the
strappado
. It was a favorite interrogation technique used by certain European organizations over the centuries. That’s not to say it’s gone completely out of style. A few people in our own military were said to have revived it at Abu Ghraib in the early 2000s. I believe they called it a Palestinian Hanging. Their words, not mine.”

“Could one person have done this?”

“Maybe with a hand winch or a pulley. But the senator’s a big guy. It would normally be a two-person job.”

Then he
noticed something red edging out of the senator’s mouth. He had seen it earlier and mistaken it for his tongue. Now he bent down, grabbed it with the tips of his gloved fingers, and pulled it out slowly. It was an octagon-shaped piece of fabric. Black, with two red stripes. On one side, a phrase was written in elaborate calligraphy:
Paratus enim dolor et cruciatus, in Dei nomine.

He rec
ognized the phrase. The Latin could be roughly translated as ‘Prepared for pain and torment, in God’s name.’ He didn’t translate it aloud, or discuss where he recognized it. He had seen too many investigations go down the wrong path based on the misinterpretation of symbolism.

But he also recognized the shape and color patterns. It was a
n old calling card of sorts. The people who had done this had gone to great lengths to mimic a methodology that the world had not seen in over 300 years.