No Fortunate Son (10 page)

K
urt hung up the phone, thinking through the ramifications. He heard his name called and saw George Wolffe at the entrance to the West Wing of the White House, where he’d left him when his cell had rung.

“We’re going to be late. I thought you wanted to slip in unnoticed to this meeting. You keep stalling, and you’re going to end up interrupting the briefing with all eyes on you.”

Kurt waved him over, out of earshot of the security at the entrance. He handed George the simple manila folder in his hand. “I’m thinking of skipping this one and sending you in alone.”

“Whoa. Not a good idea. The president called it. You’re not briefing or anything.” He held up the folder. “All you have to do is hand this to Palmer.”

Exactly as George had predicted, the meetings had escalated outside of the small circle that knew about the Taskforce. The president had grown tired with the stovepipe and separate meetings and had scheduled an update briefing in the White House Situation Room. In attendance would be every big shot in the US government, from Homeland Security to the “Gang of Eight” from the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The majority were not read onto the existence of the Taskforce—much less its activities—so Kurt had been tasked with providing a hard-copy situation report to be hand-carried to Alexander Palmer, the national security advisor. After that, he was supposed to be nothing more than a fly on the wall at the back of the room.

The report itself summarized current Taskforce operations for the
missing hostages, which was to say it was a single sheet of paper delineating very little. The only clear lead they had was a ferry receipt from Morocco, but so far Knuckles had turned up zero.

Kurt said, “That call was from Pike. He’s found something out about Kylie. He has a thread.”

“That’s great. Let him work it, and let’s get our asses into the briefing room before it fills up and someone wants to question who we are.”

As the national security advisor, Palmer had given them cover as members of the NSC watch team, a thirty-man cell that maintained 24/7 operations inside the Situation Room, but that cover would work only if they were at the back, in the cheap seats. Not if they interrupted the briefing as it was in progress, like a couple of prima donnas.

Kurt said, “George, the thread runs through the vice president’s son.”

George’s mouth opened and nothing came out. Kurt didn’t wait for him to speak, giving him what little he knew.

George took in the information, then said, “We have to tell Palmer.”

Kurt shook his head in frustration. “How? I can’t brief in that room, and the information isn’t on this hard copy. I’m not even sure it’s real. On top of that, it’s fucking
Pike
. How am I going to brief the Oversight Council that the one lead we have is from a man they expressly forbade me from using on Taskforce operations? They’ll fire me on the spot.”

George smiled. “No they won’t. Not if it pans out. Nobody argues with success.”

“That’s just it. That ass-hat Billings will blow a gasket and demand something stupid, like recalling Pike and throwing other assets at the problem. They’ll screw up the one lead we have. They’ll get Kylie killed. There won’t be any success.”

George heard the words, now seeing what was really weighing on Kurt’s mind. He said, “Okay, look, we let Pike explore. Get the surveillance tapes, see if it’s real. If it is, we redirect someone else. Maybe Knuckles. Let them start the chase and then brief the council. Control the mission and preempt any shenanigans. Either way, if it’s real, we have to brief.”

Kurt started walking toward the entrance to the West Wing, saying, “What a mess.”

George fell into step behind him and said, “Well, I have to hand it to you. Sending Pike was a stroke of genius. That guy is a magnet for finding bad things.”

They signed in at the entrance, received their badges, and wound their way through the lobby, skirting by the groups starting to form outside the Situation Room, Kurt recognizing several faces as guests from Sunday news shows. Men and women he’d never met in real life. George took a seat at the back while Kurt walked up to Palmer, interrupting his discussion with the director of the CIA.

Palmer took the folder and said, “Anything good?”

“No, sir. Nothing much at all.”

He simply nodded, dismissing Kurt to sit with George. Kurt walked away, a feeling of deceit flowing through him, causing conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he wanted any lead on Kylie to pan out. On the other, a part of him hoped it didn’t involve the vice president’s son.

Lost in his thoughts, he failed to register President Warren entering the room. George elbowed him, and they stood, along with everyone else. To Kurt’s surprise, the vice president followed behind. The sight of him brought another twinge of regret for keeping silent.

President Warren said, “Have a seat. Let’s get this going.”

This time, it was Alexander Palmer himself giving the briefing. He started by stating where they stood on the search, which was basically nowhere. All the investigative effort had come up with very little. The murder of the secretary of defense’s son was a bust, with the command in Honduras stating he was supposed to be on duty, and since he’d basically gone AWOL, they had no thread at all. The information on the twins was no better. They had simply disappeared without a trace, and there wasn’t the faintest clue as to whether they were still on Okinawa or not. Still alive or not. The only lead was the Morocco ferry receipt from England related to the VP’s son, but that, too, had produced little.

Palmer finished the section and the president said, “That’s all we’ve got? The most powerful government on earth and we come up with nothing?”

Kurt had to physically stop himself from rising up at that point.
Palmer saved him. “No, sir. All it will take is one break, and this thing could crack open completely. And we might have that break.”

He flipped a slide and said, “We received more communication from the terrorists, which is good. Every time they talk to us, they open themselves up to being found.”

The president said, “So we got something from this communication? A possible location? The name of the group?”

“Well, no. Not exactly. They once again masked their ISP.” Palmer tilted his head at the side and said, “We don’t know where it came from, but here it is:”

We could keep these men forever, much like you have at Guantánamo Bay and your secret prisons, but we are not like you. Lives matter. Even these lives. In the words of the prophet,“. . . if any one slew a person—unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land—it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.” You are the ones spreading mischief in our lands, but these men are mere puppets of your blasphemous regime. How much are they worth to you? How much are you willing to pay?

President Warren said, “So here we go. Let me guess, get all US persons out of the Middle East?”

“Actually, no. In this case, they’re talking about real money.”

Kerry Bostwick, the D/CIA, said, “What the hell? They want to ransom them? That makes no sense whatsoever.”

The SECDEF said, “What’s the price?”

“One hundred thousand Bitcoins.”

Secretary Billings said, “What the hell is a Bitcoin?”

A
lexander Palmer looked to a woman on his right. She rose and said, “Sir, I’m Nancy Phelps of the FBI’s financial crimes division. To answer your question, Bitcoin is a form of digital currency that is fairly anonymous. It has no physical, tangible properties, like a dollar bill, but it is worth money and can be exchanged for cash. It’s a way for the terrorists to get something of value without us being able to catch them. They want to prevent us from setting up any traps by avoiding hard currency. No wire transfers, no banks, no suitcases full of cash to pass off. Basically, they give us a digital address and we transfer the ‘coins,’ all done over the Internet.”

President Warren said, “Can we track it?”

She said, “Not if they set up certain protocols. It’s not like wiring money, with all the regulations involved. The Bitcoins will simply go to an address on the Internet. If their current expertise is any indication, we won’t know where that is. But when they exchange it for real money, we might be able to track that. Every Bitcoin transaction is maintained in a log, so when those coins resurface, we’ll know they’re the ones we paid, and we can then possibly get a real address to work back from. Sooner or later, if they want to use them on anything besides novelty sites on the Web, they have to have a bank account that takes real money. And that account will be tied to a name.”

“So if we give them the coins, they can’t ever use them? Surely they know that.”

“Well, there are ways around the problem. There are mixing sites that will take your coins and intermingle them with others.”

“Speak English, please.”

She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, then said, “Say you marked a bunch of quarters, then gave them to me. Every time I spent one of the marked quarters, someone would know. Now say I want to guarantee my anonymity. I get together with fifty or a hundred other folks with quarters, and we put them all in a bag and shake it up. When I’m done, I simply count out the number of coins I put in the bag. What I end up with is washed quarters. The mixing sites work the same way, only digitally. When they’re done, our Bitcoins will be spread out all over the place. We could track them to the mixing site, but little else.”

President Warren said, “Why on earth would such a site exist?”

“Because criminals use Bitcoins. Just like these terrorists.”

Billings said, “Well, why don’t we just make up a bunch of Bitcoins? It’s all digits, right? Hell, give ’em a million of them.”

Nancy smiled and said, “It doesn’t work that way. It
is
digital, but it has a real architecture and backbone behind it. We can’t counterfeit Bitcoins. One other thing, the actual dollar amount fluctuates wildly. Currently, one Bitcoin is worth about five hundred US dollars, so he’s basically asking for about fifty million. Tomorrow, that could be a hundred million or one million, depending on price fluctuations.”

President Warren said, “Can we get a hundred thousand of them? Without spiking what we’re doing and causing questions?”

“It will be hard and involve setting up multiple different accounts that purchase small amounts from different exchanges, but we could do it. It will require time.”

Kerry Bostwick said, “Wait, wait, before we even go down that road, how do we know this is for real? I cannot believe that an Islamic group would ransom such valuable hostages back to us. It makes no sense. I mean, look at the chain of events: First they talk about stopping our drone attacks, then they kill one of the hostages to prove they’re serious, then they tell us they believe in the sanctity of life and we can pay to get them back? How do we know this message is from the group that’s got our people?”

Palmer said, “Good question. They also gave us an account and
password for an application called Snapchat. They stated they would tell us when to log in.”

President Warren looked at the ceiling and said, “Do I need to bring my daughter in here for this? What the hell is Snapchat?”

“It’s a picture-sharing application. Basically, you can send an image or video that has a finite time before it deletes itself. You take a picture, send it to a friend, and it disappears seconds later.” He coughed and said, “Apparently, it’s primarily used to send naughty photos between young people. We think they’re going to use it as proof of life.”

“So once again, we can’t do anything with it? Only get a couple of seconds to analyze it for clues before it self-destructs like a
Mission: Impossible
movie?”

“No. They may have outsmarted themselves this time. We can intercept the picture and do a lot with it, depending on how it was taken and transmitted. It’s a mobile application, so it’ll be coming from a cell phone, which opens up a host of possibilities.”

“Good. About time we get a break. Okay, here’s what I want. Continue the full-court press with the units in the field. Something may break.” He looked at Nancy. “In the meantime, start buying Bitcoins anonymously. Get up to what they want.”

Kerry started to protest, and President Warren held up his hand. “I’m just covering all bases. Finally, get whatever experts we have on standby to receive this Snapchat. I want everything associated with that picture analyzed when it comes in.”

Kerry said, “I’m assuming we’ve already bled the Bitcoin account for any information?”

Palmer nodded. “Yeah. We talked to the company.”

Now jotting in a notebook, President Warren snapped his head up at the comment.

Palmer said, “Don’t worry, there aren’t any fingerprints. We went through the FBI on a routine check. Anyway, it didn’t do any good. The account was created from an ISP in Shanghai, which is to say it was spoofed. No help.”

President Warren said, “Listen up, everyone. Palmer’s last comment reminded me of something. The circle of trust on this thing is getting
bigger and bigger, which means a leak is just around the corner. That cannot happen. This isn’t about politics, and it isn’t about egos.” He looked at the vice president, then Easton Clute, the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “There are lives at stake here, and if word gets out to the press, our options will be severely limited.” He paused, looking from person to person around the room. “Does everyone understand?”

Kurt saw the powerful first tier sitting around the conference table nod their heads, the various staffers in the back row with him doing the same, and wondered how many times a sitting president had said similar words only to read about something the next day in the newspaper.

One man raised his hand. Kurt recognized the secretary of Homeland Security.

President Warren said, “What is it, Gerald?”

“Sir, I was going to bring this up later, but now’s as good a time as any. What are we supposed to say for press inquiries? The reason I ask is that Grant Breedlove contacted me today. He wants to talk. He didn’t say what it was about, only that he was working on a story. But he seemed pretty sure he had something explosive and gave the usual threats about posting the story without my input.”

Kurt heard the name and inwardly groaned. Grant Breedlove was an investigative reporter for
The Washington Post
and was very, very good at his job. He was Kurt’s greatest fear regarding Taskforce exposure. Somehow the man managed to find sources in the deepest, darkest places of the national security architecture—and those people always talked.

Kerry Bostwick said, “Put a bullet in his head.”

The table gave a polite chuckle, and President Warren cut it short. “We already have reporters circling? Jesus Christ, if I find out who’s talking, I’m going to put a bullet in
their
head.”

Palmer said, “Nobody’s talking. He’s just got his ear to the ground. He’s heard about all of these meetings. He’s sniffed a story but doesn’t know what it is. He won’t publish without comment. Why he went to DHS is a mystery.”

Kerry said, “Because the leak is in Homeland. That’s why. Someone’s talked. That’s what always happens. They get a whiff of blood and then start swimming for the carcass floating in the water. He’s smelled the blood downstream and is now trying to find the body.”

Gerald bristled. “Nobody in my office talked. I’m the only one read onto this.”

“Bullshit. Someone in your office—a contact of his—has pieced together something and fed it to him. It might be solely based on your schedule, but make no mistake, Grant is good. And honestly, half the time he listens. Maybe we bring him into the fold. He won’t want to get anyone killed.”

Vice President Hannister spoke up for the first time. “No way. We let him get his nose in the tent, and we’re screwed. It’ll be just like you say. He might keep his word, but his cubicle mates will then start sniffing. It’ll blow, and my son will die.”

Easton Clute nodded his head vigorously. “I agree. He can’t find out. My son and daughter are worth more than someone’s scoop.”

President Warren sat back and rubbed his eyes, saying, “The wonders of a free and open press.” He pulled his hand away and said, “Meet him. See what it’s about but don’t look too eager. You agree immediately, and he’ll think he’s near the body. Drag him out with mundane stuff, then finally agree, as if it’s a huge favor. Then find out what he’s talking about. Hopefully it’s just some stupid noncontroversy. Drones on the border or some other bullshit. If it is, let him run with it. Keep him focused on another story. Hell, it might work in our favor. He breaks a story I don’t care about, and the slavering twenty-four-hour news cycle will pick it up and go crazy, letting us work the real problem.”

Palmer said, “And if it isn’t?”

“Then we deal with it. But let me make this perfectly clear: Nobody in this room had better be keeping secrets from me. You hear anything, and that includes from the press, I want to know.”

He looked around the room, catching Kurt’s eye. Kurt nodded, once again feeling adrift. Torn between his desire to save his niece and his loyalty to the administration. But the president was only one man. As
much as Kurt trusted him, he knew Warren would defer to the “expertise” in the room, and Kylie would die.

Kurt glanced at the secretary of defense, the man’s grief radiating out like heat in a sauna. He focused on the vice president and recognized the same visceral fear that was eating at his own soul.

Come on, Pike. Work your magic. I need it now more than ever.