“They?” Seline broke in. “Shouldn’t you say we, Bullock? I mean—as in you?”
Bullock cleared his throat. “Ah—it was we. I’m still pretty much against a lot of that stuff but… it’s where they’re taking it. I was taking notes for Verrick at the last meeting of the Iceberg board of directors and… I guess it scared me. Could be that Verrick saw my reaction. And then when the SystemsLeak file about him and Van Ness came out he started thinking maybe I’d testify against him. Being as I knew about the… expropriation.”
“The expropriation?” Wolfe snorted. “You mean killing those soldiers in Somalia and stealing millions and millions of dollars from the US government?”
“Ah. Yes. That.” He nodded stiffly. “I knew about it. And I know about Project Iceberg. So I guess he figures I’m a liability to that as well as to him.”
Wolfe and Seline stared at him, waiting.
Bullock looked back and forth between them. “Project Iceberg… involves sending up UAVs—special drones, developed by Verrick and Starling. The drones will be transmission stations, intermediary tech that will hack into the automatic pilot systems of passenger jets. Jumbo jets preferably—the bigger the better. They’ve gotten more and more auto-pilot oriented, in the last few years. Makes them vulnerable to hacking, y’know.” He picked up his coffee cup, and put it down again. “Ultimately PURIFY plans to hack into planes coming into O’Hare airport to crash them all over the city. It will rain jet planes… including some military jets.”
Seline’s mouth dropped open. “How will that help anyone?”
Bullock sighed. “I had the same thought. But Verrick thinks it’ll provide cover for something he wants to do. He plans to take over Blume Corporation. There’s a special meeting of Blume Corporation’s top people… They’ll be meeting over several days. Most of them aren’t the kind who’ll sign on with Purity. They have some kind of qualms about the whole concept, I guess. Fairness, that kind of thing. So they’ll stand in the way of the Purity agenda. They’ll be roadblocks to Verrick and Van Ness. This way—they’ll die. Verrick figures when they’re killed, Blume’s stock value will plunge. Then —Roger Verrick himself—can buy up enough of it to put himself in control of the company. And then when he controls Blume, he’ll be able to get full control over ctOS. Right now he only has intermittent access to it. He’s worried the… the reds, the socialists, the unions, the liberals—that they’ll get control of ctOS themselves. He want to get there first. Chicago will be heavily damaged by the crashes all over town. That’ll weaken every part of the city. He can insert his own people, in the chaos. That’ll give him control of Chicago. Then he’ll push for ctOS to be established across the country—and he’ll have a special access to the system so he can control it. He’ll be able to take over the whole country… through ctOS.”
“But…” Seline shook her head in amazement. “Countless people will die in Chicago!”
“Sure. But one thing he plans to is to crash a lot of the planes into areas of Chicago heavily populated by liberals—or minorities. If they’re dead… they can’t vote. Plus—he can get rid of Pearce’s network. It’s more concentrated on the poorer sides of town. And he wants to eliminate Aiden Pearce. He’ll use the Club as his enforcers, when he’s rebuilding…”
“Wait,” Wolfe said. “The Club. Tranter. Aiden Pearce… so Verrick is definitely the guy who sent Grampus to kill Pearce?”
“Through Tranter. But… of course it was Niall Quinn who paid for it. And who demanded it get done. In exchange for services.”
“Niall Quinn. Son of Lucky Quinn?”
“Right. Niall Quinn wanted revenge on Aiden Pearce for killing his dad…”
Wolfe grunted. “Big mistake on Verrick’s fault, to get involved with that bunch. Because going after Pearce, for Quinn—got Pearce to fight back. And Pearce’s been using me like a chess piece against Verrick… only I don’t think he knows why Verrick sent Grampus…”
Seline glared at Bullock. “Just tell me—when was this attack… involving drones and planes… going to happen?”
“A few days. End of that meeting the Blume outfit was here for. But—I’ve heard… that Verrick is moving it up. It’s going ahead… tomorrow!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“So it was Niall Quinn?” Pearce’s voice on the phone was hard, brittle. “I wondered if it might be. He pulled the trigger on Verrick, who pulled the trigger on Tranter, who pulled the trigger on Grampus—who pulled it on me.”
“Yeah. But Pearce…” Wolfe was in the bedroom of the safehouse. She could hear the murmur of voices, Seline talking to Bullock in the next room. “…the attack. If Bullock’s right about that…”
“It fits in with what we know. It’s the last piece of the puzzle, Wolfe. We have to assume it’s true. You’re going to have to go to a guy I know at the Justice Department. Or—I have a friend who’s a friend of his. Kiskel knows him. He’ll see you. There’s an office right here in Chicago. You warn them—Homeland Security will ground those planes and put out an alert for drones.”
“You believe that?”
“Sure, they go on high alert every time a Muslim baby burps. They’re almost as worried about militia nut jobs. And this is pretty much what these Purity guys are.”
“But—Van Ness is a connected son of a bitch. And Purity has a lot of money. You know as well as I do that money talks in this country. Did the Department of Justice go after all those Wall Street lowlifes? I don’t know if they’re going to raid Verrick and Iceberg on my say-so.”
“Look, I’m not a law and order guy. I’m a wanted man. But —we’ve got an obligation to tell people about this. I think Department of Justice is more reliable than Homeland Security. Those dopes at HS will probably arrest you before they’ll detain Van Ness… they’ll figure it’s all a veiled threat from you. But Doolin at DoJ—Kiskel says he’s all right. Go to him, Pearce. Fast. I’ll try to set it up.”
It was dusk by the time Seline drove Bullock to the train station.
They were just approaching the curb near the station, when Bullock said, suddenly, “Young lady—you wouldn’t really have carved me up, would you?”
She hesitated. But she couldn’t keep up the pretense anymore. “No. And we wouldn’t have given you to Verrick. But we’d have turned you over to Pearce, probably. And who knows what he’d have done with you…”
He looked up at the station. “I don’t know if this is safe…”
“You want to try to drive out?”
“No. Verrick’ll be watching my house. I don’t want to use a credit card—I’d need that for a rental.”
“You could try O’Hare…”
“No, couldn’t go out through O’Hare. Not with a lot of crashing planes a possibility. But… I don’t feel good about this either. They could be looking for me here. Would you at least come in with me?”
“Okay, Bullock.” She took a left, and lucked into a parking place almost immediately. They parked, got out and walked through the cold gray evening to Union Station. She had the remote camera scrambler Wolfe had given her, in her pocket, and she pressed it several times as they approached. She didn’t know if they were looking for her but she didn’t want to take a chance.
They went through the glass doors, down the hallway, into the big ticketing room. Seline looked around. It was mostly just a room full of busy people, or waiting people. They were bustling off to a train, waiting in lines, or waiting in wooden benches. There were a couple of cops across the room, chatting, paying them no harm. An announcer’s voice boomed out, warning that a train to Kansas City was about to depart.