MR. RIDEOUT: Hang on! So they had a block — they could fence it out — but kept it to themselves? Genius! How did the asses there feel when the Boeing plants blew themselves to bits? Robots slinging parts every which way, killing hundreds of workers, crippling aircraft construction for years? Jesus! Or the General Dynamics tanks and trucks? So sophisticated with their fully wired innards! The worm had them turning on their operators and blowing holes in the army bases! Bet those guys would have liked a peek at that firewall!
CBD: There was debate. For example, it says here—
MR. RIDEOUT: Debate! I love it. How about the farm belt catastrophes? Irrigation and treatment systems poisoning tens of millions of acres? Chinese air traffic control going to shit and nearly leading to a launch of missiles? Taiwan is lucky to still be here, honestly. And of course, who can forget the digital money supply of the world banks literally disappearing before our eyes?
CBD: The NSA isn’t the focus of this inquiry!
MR. RIDEOUT: Then why bring them up at all?
CBD: I was getting to this point. The document continues.
CBD: Debate on this topic intensified during the next few days as the worm caused accelerating damage to civilian and governmental infrastructure. However, increasing concern developed over a second, and unrelated series of malicious code attacks that were eventually determined to have originated from offices of the FBI in New York City.
MR. RIDEOUT: Oh, here it is! Angel. Now I see what this is about. So the NSA began to spy on the FBI as well.
[REDACTED]: Because your division had gone rogue and was releasing viral code into the internet!
MR. RIDEOUT: Because it was the only way to fight the damn thing! Fight, well, that came later. At this point, we’d only begun to see the worm’s activity through Angel’s code. We didn’t have time to get permissions or test the friendliness of this stuff! As you read so eloquently, the damn world was falling apart around us!
[REDACTED]: Many find it intriguing that at the same time as Anonymous was bringing down the world’s digital economy, military, even food and water production, your group at FBI was engaging in a simultaneous release of hostile code.
MR. RIDEOUT: It wasn’t hostile to—
[REDACTED]: And that it was your small division in an obscure branch of the FBI that managed to bring in the leader of Anonymous. A hacker who personally communicated with your chief programmer before and after the arrest—
MR. RIDEOUT: Communicated? He fucking wiped our server farm!
[REDACTED]: leaving her, and her only, encrypted messages and files.
MR. RIDEOUT: You’re serious? You think we’re in league with that fuck? He tried to kill us multiple times! We were trying to save the nation!
[REDACTED]: Did saving the nation require you to provide aid and comfort to enemies of the state?
MR. RIDEOUT: Aid and comfort? That’s treason. What the hell are you talking about?
[REDACTED]: Francisco Lopez. Sara Houston. The Priest and the Whore. Surely you have heard of them?
MR. RIDEOUT: The Priest and Whore? [Inaudible] Oh, my God. Gabriel and Mary! Are you telling me those cyphers were Lopez and Houston?
[REDACTED]: It’s charming that you are so ignorant of this.
MR. RIDEOUT: I didn’t know who they were and I don’t believe anything coming out of your mouth! All I know is that those two risked their lives over and over to bring Fawkes in. And they did! You should pin a fucking medal to their chests.
[REDACTED]: Perhaps they’ll receive what’s coming to them if you would tell us where they and Angel Lightfoote are hiding.
MR. RIDEOUT: I have no idea! Neither does anyone else in Intel 1. For all I know they’re dead in the chaos. The city was on fire when you took us underground, when your thugs knocked our doors down and grabbed us. They were already gone into that mayhem. From what I’m seeing here, I’m thinking that was maybe the best outcome.
CBD: You say this Mary and Gabriel risked their lives several times. Can you elaborate?
MR. RIDEOUT: I’ve told you about the warehouse raid. Jesus, that was straight out of Call of Duty. That’s where we found the drone stash. They took down a bunch of armed guards to get into that place. Of course, that fuck had more than one location. But I can at least say that there is no way their raid didn’t save lives and infrastructure. Some bridges are still standing and some people still walking around because of that raid.
CBD: Who else was in on it?
MR. RIDEOUT: No one. Two on like fifty, I don’t know. Bodies were everywhere. I saw the photos. Of course, the craziest was the boat.
CBD: Boat?
MR. RIDEOUT: Yeah, the very next day. Airlifted them like battle bots and dropped them in. And we almost had him, dammit. We could have prevented so much if they had caught him. So many deaths. But it wasn’t to be.
CBD: Fawkes? How did you know he was there?
MR. RIDEOUT: We tracked some phones. Dead guards had contacted people. Led to the boat.
[REDACTED]: How was the FBI able to track this boat without computers, without the technology? Where did you get the vehicles to airlift the fugitives?
MR. RIDEOUT: John had connections. In fact, I think some were in your vaunted NSA. Some good guys. I don’t know. But they made it happen, tracked the calls, got Mary and Gabriel in there. Would have been something to see in the flesh, I have no doubt.
39
A dark-haired man handed Lopez a tablet and swiped through several photos. Although dimmed, the glow of the screen was nearly blinding in the dark interior of the aircraft, the thundering sound of the blades and engine suffocating auditory senses as well. They were flying just over the low cloud cover on a moonless night, shadowing the boat by matching speed and direction, remaining well out of earshot.
The two men were young, barely out of their twenties, and Lopez wondered where Fred Simon had found them. Breaking agency protocol, even in this crisis environment, likely meant they were not mere tools, but a part of the loose network united by Savas and Simon. The Watchmen. Lopez didn’t know whether to respect their efforts or consider them hopeless idealists.
He turned his attention to the tablet. The images showed increasing zooms toward an unusual-looking boat. Lopez strained to hear the CIA man over the sounds of the helicopter and the strong headwind that rocked the craft mercilessly. Even with the headphones, he found himself using hand signals to get Houston’s attention as he handed her the device.
The CIA man repeated what he had said. “It looks like one of the newer anti-pirating vessels. Aluminum hulls and cabins designed to withstand small-arms fire. Dual-engines to bring top speeds of around sixty miles per hour. They can turn on a dime and chase down anything that isn’t a speed boat. Or outrun it.”
“Good thing we’re in a helicopter,” said Houston, smiling.
The CIA man wasn’t amused. “Look, I don’t know who you are and what strings you pulled, but his isn’t a day trip. Look at these.”
He scrolled past several photos that centered on the boat and its hull, pausing over a pair that focused on the deck.
Houston interrupted. “We see them. Guards fore and aft, automatic weapons, even a fairly large machine gun mounted there,” she pointed. “If I were you, I wouldn’t bring this bird in too close. The gun might almost qualify as anti-aircraft depending on the rounds.”
“But if we are going to have you near enough that thing, the approach is going to have to be close,” he scowled. “They’ll make us for sure by sight as well as sound. There’s nothing identifying on the outside, especially at night, but that in itself will likely send up flags.”