But there was guided purpose to the movements. A zeroing in towards defined goals. Familiar and famous objects swam into view. The Capitol. The New York Stock Exchange. The Citibank building.
Savas gasped. “Oh, my God, Rebecca. They’re drones. They’re drones flying in for the kill.”
The screens went black. Outside the FBI windows, light pierced the darkness. The crowd turned toward the flash, an orange fireball climbing in the evening sky from Midtown. An explosion rattled the windows of their building.
SAVAS Deposition 1
[REDACTED]: Again we remind you that you are under oath, Mr. Savas. You understand that this is not a Federal or Civilian court, that the jurisdiction of this case is considered outside the Constitution and to be part of the armed forces in a service in time of war and public danger?
Mr. SAVAS: I have been made to understand that all too clearly, [REDACTED].
[REDACTED]: Please answer the question posed. Do you understand the law as it pertains to you in this tribunal?
MR. SAVAS: I forfeit my rights to the 5th Amendment and others. No grand jury or due process. And I can be compelled to be a witness against myself.
[REDACTED]: Counsel may continue the questioning.
CBD: Mr. Savas, let's pick up where we left off yesterday, shall we?
MR. SAVAS: Or why don't you go fuck yourself, instead?
CBD: Cooperation will save you time and mitigate further inquiry.
MR. SAVAS: Inquiry? Is that the latest term? I thought it was enhanced interrogation.
CBD: [Inaudible] Would you please just continue your account from yesterday?
MR. SAVAS: Remind me. My brain is a mush. Isolation for a month, sleep dep. Just staring at gray walls. Messes with your mind. So will near drowning.
CBD: The executions.
MR. SAVAS: Right. Jesus, yes. The executions. [Inaudible] Live and HDTV for all to see. Well, as horrible as that all was, it was our first real break.
CBD: How so?
MR. SAVAS: The worm. Angel's spyware reported back. The television hijack was tied directly to it. So, there it was. What we had been pursuing as unrelated cases, the murders, the kidnappings, and the financial meltdown. It was all tied together by the worm. By Anonymous. It was part of the same thing. And it all made sense.
CBD: What made sense?
MR. SAVAS: I mean it all fit together. Anonymous had set its eyes on bringing down the world financial system. It was fighting on several fronts from the virus wrecking the markets to the drones killing financial tycoons. The blackmail of congressmen changing laws was another front. It was incredible, really. Amazingly orchestrated. Diabolical genius.
[REDACTED]: You sound inspired.
MR. SAVAS: You sound like a goddamned Nazi. Inspired? Well, we all had to be. The world had been caught with its pants down and effectively castrated. Anonymous had played us like fools.
CBD: And you are so sure it was the hacker group Anonymous? Who was their leader again?
MR. SAVAS: I've told you already, there isn't one Anonymous. There are legions. It's more an idea than an organization. And Fawkes, well, he was the inevitable, the instability that takes over any distributed authority.
[REDACTED]: Fawkes. This is the one found in your office. That you claim you caught and who single-handedly masterminded the Event?
MR. SAVAS: Yes. It was his worm. His plan. His signal that was to bring it all down once and for all. But I didn't know that then, when he murdered them all.
[REDACTED]: And that is when you contacted Lopez?
MR. SAVAS: That is correct.
[REDACTED]: Can you tell us why you thought it prudent, let alone legal, to search for and enlist the aid of the nation's most notorious outlaws? Murderers of hundreds, including some of the most important persons in our nation?
MR. SAVAS: Because I knew they weren't murderers. I knew that they had been framed.
[REDACTED]: This is ridiculous. You only reveal your own involvement with these terrorists!
CBD: This is not a trial, [REDACTED]!
[REDACTED]: There isn't going to be a trial.
CBD: This is a deposition and we are instructed to take it. [Inaudible] May I continue? Thank you.
CBD: We will ascertain how you knew the pair later. For now, can you tell us please how they got involved?
MR. SAVAS: We had setup a safe house for them.
[REDACTED]: Who is we?
MR. SAVAS: You'll have to waterboard me some more to get near that. Let's just say there are many forces at work here that you don't know about. Forces that believe in this nation. What it used to be, anyway.
CBD: Mr. Savas, look. As your counsel I am trying to help you, but you are making that a challenging assignment. Can you help this panel understand why you would bring in two wanted terrorists and murderers?
MR. SAVAS: After we put together the bigger picture, when I saw where Anonymous was headed, I knew then what was at stake. So did my team.
CBD: And what was at stake, Mr. Savas?
MR. SAVAS: Civilization itself.
19
Chaos stormed through New York and the world.
After the feed from Anonymous, network programming returned to something quite different than normal. Broadcasters replayed the carnage over and over, whipping themselves and the public into a frenzy.
At FBI, Savas had steered his people back to work. They would be slogging through the night. Schedules, family, health would suffer, but until the crisis could be controlled, he didn’t see any other choice. His phone rang constantly. From his superiors came a barrage of commands. Most of these came from above as the governmental apparatus went into war mode. Contacts and numerous agencies checked in with him, provided small pieces of useless information, and asked for favors of investigation and protection in return. He had nothing to give. His staff was already depleted even before the televised mass assassination.
In the middle of the chaos he received a message on his private cell. He stared at the number. It made sense. In all that was happening, now was one of the greater periods of danger from a government eating itself, going too far, forgetting its principles. Now would be a time for the Watchmen to call.
The group had formed during the Bush years when some in the FBI and CIA had grown concerned about the powers the executive branch and other governmental agencies had begun to assume under antiterrorism laws. Under the increasingly paranoid Obama administration, they had only redoubled their efforts to exert a more sane response to threats. Indefinite detention and torture were one thing, but secretive decisions for assassination of Americans without trial, endless spying on citizens by governmental organizations — for some of them, it had gone too far. With the national scandal of the Priest and Whore last year, they had finally pooled their meager resources and acted. And thus had Gabriel been created.
“Alice. To what do I owe the pleasure?” His smile faded. “What? Are you sure? When?” Savas looked around the floor. “Jesus. What will that mean? How far is the decree?” He nodded scribbling on a notepad. “Understood. Right. Thank you.”