“In the last forty-eight hours,” Valerie said, “fourteen have gone empty.”
“How much in total?”
“North of a hundred million dollars.”
“Holy—can you trace it?”
She shook her head. “Our hottest coders had backchannel routines to prevent any withdrawal. I mean gray-hat stuff, quasi-legal hacks that could provoke international incidents. But the money is still gone. Worse, no alarm bells were tripped. If Quinn hadn’t asked me to look, we wouldn’t even have known.”
His stomach had a sour feeling like he’d eaten raw chicken. Cooper stared, processing. “So he’s going all in. Any guess as to his intentions?”
“Not specifically. But this is John Smith we’re talking about, right? You called him the strategic equivalent of Einstein.” Valerie shrugged. “Whatever he’s planning, it won’t be what we expect.”
And it will be devastating. Cooper said, “Bobby, you have to take this to the director.”
“You think?” Quinn shook his head. “I love you, man, but my paychecks read DAR. I talked to her before I texted you. But remember what I said in that dive bar?”
“Yeah, that the whole world is on fire.”
“And that there’s a shortage of water.” Quinn shrugged. “The director understands the threat. But across the country we’ve got brilliants being persecuted, burned out, lynched. There are massive food shortages. Riots in a dozen cities. A militia rampaging through Wyoming. Three assassination attempts on the president in the last two weeks. The metric for threat is a moving target.”
Cooper’s headache hadn’t been improved by any of this, and he leaned his elbows on the table, dug his fingers in just above his eyes. “Did you share my theory about the tier zeroes?”
“Sure,” Quinn said. “Had to explain to the powers that be how an egghead kicked my butt.”
“Any response?”
“They agree it would be bad.”
“Terrific.” Cooper sighed, straightened. “Listen, I know you all took a risk sharing this with me. I appreciate it.”
“Oh, don’t be an asshole,” Luisa said. “Just wish you were here, boss. This is getting grim.”
“Don’t worry,” Cooper said. “I’m still fighting.”
Quinn said, “All right, partner. We need to go earn our paychecks.”
“Yeah. Thanks again.”
“No sweat. Just remember, beer is on you.”
“Forever, buddy. Forever.”
His old friend smiled and opened his mouth to reply. Before he could, everything went white, and his office window exploded in a rain of fire and sparkling glass.
The video connection failed.
But in the fraction of a second before it did, Cooper heard screaming.
CHAPTER 19
Owen Leahy was in the shower when the man came for him.
December didn’t often mean snow in northern Maryland, but somehow that was how he always thought of Camp David: bare trees brittle with frost, and a swirl of faint snowflakes. The image stuck in his head even in summer, and he’d find himself feeling chilly, craving extra blankets and hot showers. He’d been standing in the billowing steam for half an hour, thinking, idly tracing the pattern of liver spots on his forearms with water-wrinkled fingers.
Then suddenly there was an officer in a naval uniform in his private bathroom. “Mr. Secretary? There’s been an attack.”
Six minutes later, they were jogging past bare trees and frosted greenery, Leahy’s hair dripping on his suit, tie flapping behind him like a tail. Agents and soldiers were everywhere. Although officially a “country retreat,” Camp David was in effect a fortress, with antimissile batteries positioned in the woods and a nuclear-safe bunker deep underground.
When the president was in residence, the Laurel Lodge conference room served as the Situation Room. Leahy entered, quick-scanning the assembled team: representatives from the armed forces, the intelligence services, the cabinet. Many were new to their posts, replacing men and women who’d been killed in the missile strike on the White House, but he knew them all.
“Madam President.” To the room at large he said, “What’s happened?”
Sharon Hamilton, the national security advisor, said, “A wave of terrorist attacks across the country.”
“How many?”
“It’s hard to say.”
“Why?”
“They’re still taking place.” Hamilton gestured to the bank of tri-ds.
After the last year, Leahy would have bet he couldn’t be shaken by footage of disaster. He’d watched the stock exchange fall, seen Cleveland burn, watched American troops massacre each other. And in a way, what was onscreen now was no different. It was just that there was so much of it. The screens were a grid of chaos and fire. Buildings smashed, infernos raging, people running in terror. Civilians spattered in blood, walking hollow-eyed. Children crying in the streets. And on the incident map, red dots glowed across the breadth of the country.
“Jesus. Any pattern to the targets?”
“Mostly military and political. Shooters in city hall in Los Angeles. A suicide bomber in a mess hall in Fort Dix. Two trucks forced the governor of Illinois’s limo into the Chicago River. There was a bomb outside the Federal Reserve—that one was stopped. The safety controls on the natural gas lines to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta were subverted, and the bulk of the complex is on fire. Most devastating so far is a massive explosion at the DAR, bombs apparently planted during the expansion of the facility. The newest building was flattened.”
“Casualties?” He looked to Marjorie May. The DAR director’s cheerful name belied her icy blend of political savvy and ruthless efficiency. But now her voice trembled as she said, “It’s the middle of the workday. A thousand people, maybe more.”
The world wobbled, and for a moment, Leahy thought he might fall down. He gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles went white. “The abnorms?”
“I’ve spoken to Erik Epstein,” the president said without looking away from the screen. “He offers condolences and assures us that the Holdfast was not involved.”
“Bullshit.”
Ramirez glanced over, cocked her head. Leahy said, “Sorry, ma’am, but that seems unlikely.”
“Respectfully, I disagree,” Marjorie May said. “I think John Smith is likelier. It’s his MO, and we’ve got a pattern of indicators suggesting he was about to attack.”
“Even so, Epstein is facing invasion. That makes him the real threat.”
“Mr. Secretary, I assure you, Smith represents—”
“I understand,” Leahy said. “I’m suggesting they’ve joined forces. Smith could be functioning as Epstein’s fixer, allowing him deniability. Alternately, maybe Smith fears Epstein capitulating in order to protect New Canaan.” He paused. “Regardless, this provides the political cover we would need to attack.”
“Enough.” Gabriela Ramirez had turned from the screens.
“Madam President—”
“Sit down.”
Leahy pulled out a chair. He opened his mouth to take up the argument again, but the president cut him off. “Listen to me, all of you. ‘Who’ is not important. There are attacks on America happening right now. Our people are dying. The first order of business isn’t assigning blame, and it’s not gearing up for war. Our job is to stop any further attacks. To save lives. Am I understood?”