She tried smiling. Johnny didn’t seem to think it was much of a joke.
“When was the last time you got some real sleep?” he asked.
“I’m all right.” She got up and walked over to the coffee machines. With the increase in staffing, they had added two microwaves and a pair of refrigerators, along with two more coffee makers.
“Seriously, you do need to get rest.”
“An espresso machine would be better,” she told him.
Johnny followed her over. “You mad at me?”
“No.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Want one?”
“Sure.”
Chelsea pulled over a cup and poured. “I gotta figure this out. We will,” she added.
Back at the console, Chelsea scrolled through the windows detailing what Socrates was up to. It had located what appeared to be a safe house in Chechnya; it highlighted the information, putting it in a special tab for further investigation.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” he told her. “Why do they have so many computers there?”
“Where?”
“In the bunker. Why? No guns, no explosives—”
“Everybody uses computers. They were planning.”
“If you’re talking to people, one or two will do it. Surfing the web — they don’t use it for porn.”
“Oh yeah they do. You should see what they look at. Violent stuff.” Chelsea shook her head. The Daesh people who worked with Ghadab were sick misogynists.
The ones that didn’t prefer little boys, that was.
“You’re thinking they’re primitive,” Chelsea told him. “Like because they’re from the Middle East, they don’t use computers. That’s not true. They’re crazy, but they’re not primitive.”
“What were they using the computers to do?”
“Map targets.”
“But you said they were looking at Chernobyl. There are no other plants like that, right?”
“It’s the idea that’s important. And we’re missing data,” said Chelsea. “If we had the original computers, if we had all the data, maybe we’d know.”
“Sometimes you can have too much information,” suggested Johnny.
“Not in my world,” she said, turning back to the screens.
Of the prisoners and the others who’d been in the bunker and identified already, one was a doctoral student in nuclear physics — which reinforced the nuclear-plant theory.
The others had all been software engineers or computer-science majors. Two, according to Socrates, had been active hackers, running scams on Facebook and harvesting credit-card numbers from European retailers.
Not one had anything in common with the people arrested earlier in the day. They did, however, have links to Ghadab.
Subtle links. They’d been in the same countries at times when he was there. They’d looked at the same websites, listened to podcasts from the same demented imams.
Maybe there were messages there. Socrates kept probing.
They were onto something, Chelsea thought, but they didn’t have it yet.
An hour later, even Chelsea had to admit she needed a break.
And food.
“I’m going to go get something to eat, take a shower,” she announced to the room. “I’ll be back.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Johnny.
Chelsea knew it made no sense to object, especially as he enlisted two other security people — John Bowles and Greta Torbin — to come along as well. Bowles was rather tall and sinewy; Greta was nearly a foot shorter but had fought mixed martial arts. Both were armed with AR-15s.
Johnny insisted that Chelsea put on a bulletproof vest before they went upstairs. Too tired to argue any more, she cinched it up, then fell in between Bowles and Torbin as they went up to one of the SUVs. Johnny got in the back with her; the others took the front, with Bowles at the wheel.
“They had hackers,” Chelsea told Johnny as they started for her home on the west side of the city. “Pretty good ones.”
“OK.”
“And a programmer who worked on environmental controls.”
“Like global warming?”
“No, environmental controls. Like cooling, that kind of stuff.”
“Maybe they want to attack our air-conditioning supplies.” Johnny laughed.
But Chelsea was serious.
“There must be a connection to what he’s doing now.”
“You’re looking for logic from a nutjob,” said Johnny.
They drove the rest of the way in silence. It was a little past six, but it seemed to Chelsea there was far less traffic than normal, as if the city was still not quite sure whether to go fully back to normal or not. A few blocks from her apartment, Chelsea realized she had left the air-conditioning off while she’d been gone; the rooms would be sweltering. She took out her phone, then keyed up the app that controlled her lights and appliances.
“Preset One, make it cold,” she told the app.
The screen blinked, then presented a quick environmental rundown — the apartment was eighty-six degrees.
“Good thing you don’t have a cat,” said Johnny, looking at the screen. “It’ll never cool off. We’re like two blocks away. Come over and rest at my house.”
“No, I want to go home.”
Bowles slowed as they turned onto the block, looking for a spot to park. Chelsea leaned forward to tell him to just let her off — he could park down the street — when she saw a flash from down the block.
Something exploded to her right — a missile had just struck her apartment.
98
Massina had just turned from his desk to look out the window when he saw it flying in the distance: a Sikorsky S-92A, a huge beast coming in from the north, low, in the direction of the city center. The sun glinted off its nose; it looked like a muscular cat striding across the northern reaches of the city. The helicopter veered in his direction, banking and then leveling, heading directly toward his building.
Directly toward it.
Massina watched as it grew bigger. It was low, barely above him — descending, in fact, in his direction.
Get out!
He reached the outer office just as the helicopter smashed into the exterior windows.
99
“We’re under attack!” Johnny pushed forward against his seat belt, leaning toward the front seats. “Get us out of here!”
Bowles had already thrown the SUV into reverse. They spun into a U-turn. Johnny grabbed Chelsea, pushing her down in the seat.
“Hey!”
“Keep your head down until you’re out of here. Bowles, get us over to the office.”
Something exploded behind them. Another missile, Johnny thought, or maybe an IED.
He pulled out his radio, which was set for the common security channel. “Somebody just attacked Chelsea’s house,” he said. “Call nine-one-one.”
“Johnny — the Smart Metal building’s just been struck,” said the desk man. “Something flew into the top floor.”
“No.”
“Outside — there are IEDs. We’re under attack here.”
Johnny heard an explosion over the radio.
“Bowles, we need to get to the Mountain.”
The Mountain was a safe house near Bald Hill well northwest of the city. Massina had purchased the property several years before, keeping the two buildings on it vacant. In the past few days he had clandestinely had work done to increase its security. Two Smart Metal security people were stationed there around the clock.
“I need to get back to work,” insisted Chelsea.