The End Game (9 page)

18

KNIGHT TO B6

Back to Federal Plaza

M
ike left the safe house in Bayonne a little before two in the morning, hyper, full of adrenaline from the explosion, and rage pounding through her from the murder of three of her friends.

She drove Louisa's pool car, and the sucker was fast. There was next to no traffic at this dead-night hour and she made it back to Federal Plaza in record time, and who cared if she broke a few traffic laws along the way?

As she drove down the ramp and into the silent garage, she wondered how long the adrenaline would last before she bottomed out and keeled over. No, the rage would keep her upright and alert.

She parked the car, tossed the keys to the agent stuck on night duty—Prother was his name—and he gawked at her. She'd forgotten what a mess she was. She nearly smiled, waved him quiet. She stopped the elevator at the twenty-second floor and hit the kitchen, pulling out sodas and apples from the refrigerator. Her last meal had been too long ago and there was a long night to get through.

She found Nicholas and Gray in the conference room, papers spread out on the table, both tapping furiously on their respective keyboards. She set down the sodas and apples. Nicholas didn't break stride. “Thanks. You okay?”

When the words wouldn't come out, he looked up at her.

“Mike?”

“Of course. Fill me in.” She slid a Coke to Gray, opened her own.

Nicholas said, “Gray and I managed to stop the cyber-attack on the oil companies. I recognized the signature of a German hacker, but Menard told me he'd been killed a few days ago.”

“This has already gone international?”

“Yes.”

She pushed hair out of her face, jerked it back into a ponytail. How odd, even her scalp hurt. “Someone's covering their tracks, then. You think your hacker friend was hired to do the work, then eliminated when they didn't need him anymore? But who did it, Nicholas? He was killed in Germany and COE is here.”

Nicholas smiled at her. “Our question exactly.”

“Tell me about this hacker.”

“Gunther Ansell. His work is legendary, but he never could resist attaching a bit of flair for others to see so they could admire his architecture. He's made a living hovering on the borders of society. But this time he trusted the wrong people. If we're right, he was killed after he provided COE with the worm.”

Gray said, “One of the COE people must have flown over to Germany and killed him. In and out, fast.”

Nicholas added, “These people are playing for keeps, and this plot has been under way for a while, since it takes time to build software this sophisticated, able to break through firewalls and seize control of an entire system. It required a vast amount of planning
and coordination. This was not easy to pull off, nor was it the work of a single person.”

“How long would it take?” Mike drank half her soda, felt the caffeine rush zing her brain.

“Weeks, even if they're really talented. An attack of this scale? To find the funding—Gunther's code is wildly expensive—develop the software, plan exactly where and when to gain entry? Plus time it to a bombing? It's possible we're looking at months of back-end work.”

Mike saw a chessboard in her mind, saw chess pieces moving slowly, one space at a time, getting into the proper position. It was hard to get her brain around all the complicated and unexpected moves COE had made, all the while sticking with their penny-ante refinery explosions. “But why did they waste time killing Mr. Hodges? He did nothing, nothing. And you know Larry Reeves is most likely dead, probably buried in the rubble at Bayway.”

Nicholas was stroking his hand over his chin. “What they've done, killing three agents—this group has to know we'll come after them with everything we've got.”

Gray said, “Nicholas is right. They've declared war.”

It didn't make sense to Nicholas, but he now knew the FBI would focus their incredible resources on this group. Did they want to go out as martyrs?

Mike finished off her soda and crushed the can. “We've got to find them before we line them all up and fire our cannon. Where are they? Who is their leader?”

Nicholas said, “We now have some light, Mike. What with the hiring of Gunther, the massive attack, we know they have ties to the hacktivist community. It changes everything. There are probably
others ready and willing to help with whatever COE needs, since it appears the group has unlimited funds. Maybe even Anonymous.”

Mike said. “But to date, Anonymous has held government websites hostage and stirred up trouble in places like Ferguson, whipping the populace into a frenzy. But Anonymous doesn't bomb refineries and take electric grids down and preach for people to stop importing Middle Eastern oil.”

Gray looked thoughtful. “Yet.”

“I know,” Mike said, “yet.”

19

QUEEN TO C5

N
icholas cracked open another soda. He took a sip, yawned, and stretched. “Tell me what you think.”

Mike said, “My gut tells me it's got to be the new member, the person who's come on board recently and changed the group's focus, changed what they originally perceived their purpose to be—namely, to disable oil facilities that import Middle Eastern oil. It sure fits with the over-the-top cyber-attack.”

Nicholas was drumming his fingers on the table, never taking his eyes off her. She had bloody good instincts, and, he admitted to himself, he believed she was right, since that's what he'd been thinking too.

She said, “You've made the connection to this German hacker, COE launched, and you countered a massive cyber-attack. They've thrown down the gauntlet. Why, we don't know. While you guys do your fancy computer work, I'm going to pull every bit of camera footage from the area surrounding Bayway and from Bayonne and Mr. Hodges's house. Maybe someone slipped and we'll have the leader's face on film.”

Zachery stepped into the conference room, dragging. He sat
down hard in the chair at the head of the table. Nicholas slid a soda his way. He took it, opened it, drank half, then set the can on the table. He looked from Mike to Nicholas.

“I thought I told you two to go home,” he said. “Instead, you walk in on four murders, three of them our own people, and you, Nicholas and Gray, stop a cyber-attack. The head of ConocoPhillips called to say thank you.” He fiddled with the Coke can. “We lost three good men tonight. I want to know why. Tell me what you've discovered.”

Nicholas ran Zachery through everything they knew or suspected, including his call to Menard and Gunther's murder, and ended with Mike's plans to gather all the video feeds from Mr. Hodges's house and the refinery.

Zachery shook his head. “Who could have guessed? I mean, cyber-attacks? Talk about shifting gears. But you pulled the plug on them, by what means I probably don't want to know. But you also know they won't stop. Not only that, it seems like they've taken one huge step from the road they were on, new game, new rules, and who knows where it's leading?”

Nicholas sat forward. “Gray and I have a line in now. I'm confident we can begin tracing the attack and have names by morning. There's a start.”

Zachery massaged his forehead. “All right. Set things up. Nicholas, write up a warrant to go after everything Gunther Ansell had on his computers, if they even exist anymore, and Gray, get Interpol to release their files to us. I want to know everything this hacker has done, thought, or planned for the past year. Mike, put in your requests for the video feeds. And then . . .” He gave them a crooked grin. “Then I want all three of you to go home. No, don't argue. All of us need some sleep.”

He rose. “We'll tackle this again in the morning. You've done excellent work tonight, but it's time to shut it down.” He looked at his watch. “We'll meet again at eight-thirty tomorrow—this—morning. If I see any of you a minute before, I'll make you clean all the toilets on the twenty-third floor.”

Gray said, “Sir, we must get my team going so they can follow all the threads on the cyber-attack. Nicholas stopped the main event, yes, but there's no telling if they'll regroup and try again. With luck, we can protect all the systems and get the companies running normally by morning. It'll be bad news if we don't. Shanghai is reporting steady sell-offs in the oil and gas sectors. When the markets open here, there could be a huge mess.”

“Very well. Call in some of your people, give them instructions, then get some sleep; you've been at it over twenty-four hours. All of you, that's an order.” He paused, shook his head. “Another order.”

Twenty minutes later, Mike stuck her head in Nicholas's cubicle. “Ready to get out of here?”

“I am. Gray gave his people instructions and left. I got the warrants in and sent some threads into the ether.”

“And I've got in a request for the Bayway video feeds.”

“I'm sure Nigel could be convinced to put together a tray if you'd like to come to the house.”

“Sounds tempting, but a shower and my very own bed wins hands down. Get some sleep, Nicholas; you need it as much as I do.” She touched her fingers to her bruised face. “I gotta say, though, your pretty face looks better than mine. It's going to take a gallon of makeup to make me presentable. I'll see you back here at eight-thirty.” She gave him a little wave and was gone.

He watched her walk away down the hall, shoulders straight, head up, clothes ripped and black, straggly ponytail swinging. He
rubbed his hand over beard stubble and his fingers came away black with soot. He was tired, sore, and frustrated. Zachery was right, things could wait until morning.

He punched a couple keys on his laptop. Most of the things, anyway.

20

BISHOP TO G4

Brooklyn

A
ndy yelled, “You killed Ian, dude, you killed him, your best bud, your mentor! I liked Ian; he thought I was funny.” Something in Matthew's eyes stopped him in his tracks. He whispered, “Can you believe he wanted to protect her? I mean, what was that all about?”

Matthew stood stock-still in the middle of the carnage, the Beretta hanging loose in his fingers. He looked away from Andy, down at Ian, then at Vanessa, saying nothing.

“And dude, you shot her dead, too. I thought you didn't want to kill people.” Andy's eyes suddenly glowed with a mad light. “Hey, way to go!”

Matthew barely registered Andy's freak show. He'd always known Andy was crazy, but now he could feel the sick excitement rolling off him in waves. It turned Matthew's blood to ice. He couldn't stand it. He yelled, “Shut up, you idiot, or I'll shoot you,
too.” And he knew in that moment he meant it, anything to shut that crazy mouth, close those mad eyes forever.

Andy stared at him. The mad mania was gone; he looked ready to burst into tears. “Matthew, what are we supposed to do now? I mean, Ian did everything, he planned stuff and told us how to do things, and when to act; he always told me when I did a good job. And what about bombs, Matthew? Don't we need more bombs? Vanessa built all our bombs. Are you going to use your own bombs now . . . ?” His voice trailed off.

Yelling at Andy didn't help. Matthew had killed his friends, but the initial horror of what he'd done was gone now. It didn't matter anyway, there was no going back. He was the leader again, and the leader said, “Andy, stop your worrying, I'll see to everything. Haven't I always taken care of us all? You need to pack up everything, right now. We're leaving in three minutes, okay? Move it.”

Andy was wringing his hands. “But we can't leave them here, Matthew.”

“I said get everything we need, I'll take care of the rest. Two minutes, Andy. Move!”

Andy rushed to disconnect the computers and monitors while Matthew gathered the bomb bags, the suitcases, a bag of groceries from the kitchen. He was careful not to look down at Ian and Vanessa, lying drenched in their own blood.

Both men were careful to give the bodies a wide berth. It took longer than Matthew wanted to disassemble all of Andy's equipment, and three trips to the van.

“Start the van. I'll be right back.” Matthew grabbed a can of Andy's special gas, his own formula, designed to make things go up in flames in a heartbeat, and started back up the stairs.

He heard Andy's excited voice behind him: “Hey, Matthew, let me do it. Please, let me light it up.”

“I told you to start the car,” Matthew called back, not looking at him. “I'll be right down.” No way was he going to let Andy burn down the neighborhood.

Inside, he forced himself to look down at Ian, sprawled on his back, his plaid shirt black with blood, his eyes open, staring up at Matthew. He felt a punch of pain. Andy was right, Ian had been his friend and mentor, taught him everything, but in the end he'd chosen her, not Matthew. And he couldn't forgive that, ever, and he dumped some gasoline directly on Ian, then turned to take one last look at the woman he'd wanted, but not quite trusted, not quite, but it was close. Had he loved her? Perhaps, in moments when he was desperate to have sex with her. Tonight, though, in the aftermath of their brilliant success, his blood roaring through his body, he knew he would have told her everything and she would have skipped out, dancing because she'd won.

She was dead; it was all over. She lay on her side, her white shirt covered with blood, her hair floating in it. He felt bile rise in his throat. No, no, he'd done the right thing, the only reasonable thing. She'd betrayed him. Who was she? Some sort of spy, an agent? He didn't know, and now it didn't matter. She would burn with Ian.

Matthew turned away from her and methodically poured gasoline all over the apartment, but he didn't pour any on her. He said her name aloud, one last time, “Vanessa,” and tossed the gasoline can in the corner. He threw a lighted match in the hall beside the stairs, listened to it whoosh as it caught the carpet on fire. He ran down the stairs. He never looked back.