He shrugged. “Kinda slow, I know. Did I mention I’ve been binge-watching Alias?”
Chapter Ten
Eric gunned the Humvee and barreled toward the mountain, only slowing at the last minute to check the dashboard display for satellite flybys. The next one was an hour away, so he slammed the accelerator to the floor and punched the button that opened the door to the underground base.
Hydraulic pistons raised a section of the desert floor in front of him. He roared down the tunnel, punching the button to close the door behind him.
The end of the tunnel approached rapidly, and he hit the brakes, spinning the vehicle around in the large cavern and slamming it into park. The massive door stood open, guarded by a young corporal who snapped off an impressive salute as Eric approached.
“Sir,” the corporal said. “You’re requested in the War Room.”
“Of course I am,” Eric muttered.
“Sorry, sir?”
“Nothing. Carry on.” He nodded at the young soldier, even though his hand almost snapped to his face to return the salute. The OTM might be a quasi military operation, but as the director, Eric was now technically a civilian.
Hard to break twenty years of learned muscle memory.
He made his way deeper into the base, stopping at his quarters long enough to place his briefcase on his kitchenette table, next to a prototype Kimber handgun, then made his way through the corridors to the War Room.
He entered the large chamber and found every station manned. Sergeant Huell stood at the command station, and he saluted and barked out, “Director on deck!”
Almost two hundred of the smartest men and women he had ever met stopped their work and turned to stare at him. The cacophony of voices and keyboard clicks faded inside the massive stone room.
“You all have your assignments,” Eric said to the collected group. “The Swiss situation will blow over, but our mission stays the same. I couldn’t ask for a better team. You are the best of the best, people. Make it happen.”
The analysts nodded, and the buzz picked back up as they returned to their jobs. Karen Kryzowski had watched his performance with little expression, but she gave him a small nod of approval before heading for the main conference room.
“Where’s Clark?” he asked Huell.
“Leave, sir.”
“Leave?”
Huell smiled. “Clark worked almost seventy-two hours straight.”
Eric blinked. Clark was an ever-present figure in the War Room. Sometimes he forgot the man was only human. “Is he still on base?”
“No, sir. Twenty-four hours R&R in Vegas.”
Los Vegas was one hundred and fifty miles to the south. “Did he take the bus?”
Huell actually laughed, an unusual expression from the usually dour man. “No, sir. He took a Janet flight.”
Everyone on base knew that Sergeant Todd Clark hating flying. “You’re joking.”
Huell’s smile disappeared. “He hadn’t had a day off in almost six weeks.”
“I hadn’t realized.”
“He’d be angry that I’m telling you, sir, but Clark doesn’t take care of himself. He spends too much time on deck. He…”
“Yes?”
“He doesn’t want to let you down, sir. Nobody does.”
“Do me a favor, Sergeant. Compile a list of all of the analysts who haven’t taken their mandatory R&R.”
Huell nodded. “You’ll have it within the hour.”
“Don’t put a rush on it. Just… make sure I get that list.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eric spun on his heel and joined Karen in the conference room. Karen sat at the head of the table, and former FBI agent John Waverly sat to her right. Waverly was taller than Eric, with broad shoulders and a military-precise buzz cut. His bright blue eyes were hooded, and his jaw was clenched so tightly that muscles stood out in his neck.
“Go ahead,” Eric said. “I know you want to.”
“This is what happens when you let that psychopath loose,” Waverly said. “The Swiss want us to take responsibility.”
Eric sighed. Waverly was right about one thing. The Swiss were not going to let it go. “We’ll need a plan for the president to deal with the fallout.”
Karen started to speak, but Waverly interrupted her. “You know what this means? We just started gaining traction on tracing a new terror cell in Syria. The money is flowing through Switzerland.”
“I’m well aware,” Eric said.
Waverly frowned. “I’m just saying—”
“I know,” Eric said, “but what happened in Switzerland isn’t John’s fault.”
“That’s more right than you know,” Karen said.
Waverly turned to glare at Karen, but Eric spoke first. “What?”
“Dewey found something.”
“Mr. Green is always at the center of something,” Eric growled. “What did he do this time?”
“It’s not like that,” Karen said. “I asked for his help.”
“He traced the video of John jumping from the hospital window to the DFA,” Waverly said.
“I already knew that,” Eric said.
“Yes, but Green discovered someone within the DFA has been manipulating the global oil market.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He found some of the DFA’s infrastructure servers and pieced together transactions made over the past six months.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Eric said. “They’ve been hacking banks for a couple of years. They’re anticapitalist freedom fighters. Why on earth would they be trying to corner the oil market?”
Karen shook her head. “Dewey thinks they were manipulating the oil prices for another reason.”
“Punk kids taking on banks makes sense,” Waverly said. “Punk kids messing with the commodities market? Not so much.”
“If these kids were manipulating oil prices,” Eric said slowly, “and we sent our team to investigate, and those kids released the footage of John? We were set up. These kids set us up. They could be the ones who murdered Reinemann and Holzinger.”
“What do we actually know about the DFA?” Eric asked.
Karen stood next to the giant wall monitor in the conference room. “They’re an offshoot of the hacktivist group Anonymous. They started on 4chan—”
“What?” Eric asked.
Karen sighed. “4chan is a website founded in 2003 that started off hosting manga—”
“What?” Eric asked again. “Are you screwing with me?”
“Have you been living under a rock?”
He mentally counted to three. “Karen? I spent 2003 humping through the Afghanistan countryside.”
Waverly smirked, but Karen swallowed hard. “I… forgot. The details aren’t important. Just know that they started off innocently enough, but like all things with the Internet, the website allowed like-minded individuals to gather together. Anonymous was the first group that discovered they could really organize.”
“Them I’ve heard of,” Eric said. “I authorized an investigation, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“You said they were just a nuisance.”
“That’s true,” Karen admitted. “But the DFA isn’t Anonymous. The DFA were drawn to an Anonymous attack on the Church of Scientology but quickly grew bored. They realized that social activism was the key.”
“The key to what?” Waverly asked.
Karen turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “The key to changing the world.”