The End Game

“But you’re better.”

“I’m skilled in a different way. Last known IP address came from a motel in Lorton, Virginia. I heard they found the computer guy’s body—Andy Tate?”

“Right. They purchased DDoS attacks from Gunther Ansell, Tate loaded his own code next to it, and launched it into the systems. Ingenious plan.”

“Lot of moving parts,” Gray said. “But we’ve got them now.”

Nicholas said, “It does sound like we have nearly everything we need to wrap up this part of the investigation. Great work, thanks to both of you.”

Ben said, “Come on home, guys. We miss you. Mike, give the big Brit a smooch for me.”

Ben and Gray both laughed like loons, and Mike looked like she’d been shot. She punched off the cell.

“You want to talk about it?” Nicholas asked.

“No, there’s nothing to talk about, you know that. As for those two, they’re idiots.”

“No big smooch?”

“No more in this lifetime.”

“We’ll see. Now, how much time before the bomb at Yorktown?”

“Seventeen minutes, and there’s nothing to see.”

“Good, enough time to speak to Adam about a theory I have about how Spenser managed to break into the electrical grid and upload the worm to Air Force One’s flight computers.” He punched in Adam’s number.

Adam answered immediately. “I’ve been waiting for your call. Wow, that was some really gnarly coding, Nicholas. I’ve never seen anything like it. You two okay?”

Nicholas laughed. “Yes, we’re fine. Now tell me, how exactly did you see my code?”

“Dude, you’re an instant freaking legend! The entire hacker community knows what happened. They’re calling it the Swoop, and calling you Superman. Go into the darknet, check it out when you get a chance. It’s totally awesome. They are bowing at your feet. Reddit blew up with requests to join your forces of good—you now officially have minions.”

Nicholas cleared his throat. “Thank you for passing that along, Adam.” He decided having minions couldn’t hurt. “If you’re through, I need your help again. It shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“Go for it, Superman, Sir Superman.”

“Shove it. Let’s see how clever you are. Is there anything Air Force One might have in common with Dominion Virginia Power and the attacked oil companies, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, etcetera?”

“Well—yeah, software, I suppose.”

“Exactly. And what do we do with software used for national security?”

“We run risk assessments constantly, like any other software, though at a much higher level, to make sure there are no breaches. It’s part of what I did when I was—ah, before. Break in, then show them the faults. For a price.”

“And is there a particular company who might be responsible for these risk assessments?”

There was a sharp intake of breath. “Holy crap, Nicholas. Juno. It has to be, but you already figured that out, since Juno caters to all the high-end military and government installations, and has a number of private-sector contracts. They are the leader in the field of cyber-security.”

“Good, you agree with me. Here’s what I think. It’s not about Juno’s incompetence, no, I believe someone who worked the risk-assessment teams for all of the companies planted the bad code during the assessments. All Andy Tate had to do was upload Gunther Ansell’s code COE had purchased, and they were in.”

Adam whistled, long and low. “So someone left them keys to the back door. It makes sense.”

“Find out who it was for me, Adam. Look at all of Juno’s male employees thirty-five to fifty years old. I’m sending you a photo right now for comparison. Tear apart their financials. We’ll take care of the warrant on this end, but we need to find out who this man is, and find out now.”

“How did you get a photo of the man?”

“We have video from a café in Baltimore. Zahir Damari was meeting with him, and the man was passing him a tube that possibly had plans for Yorktown refinery inside, or plans for something else, we don’t know for sure. I’m willing to bet this is our guy and he works for Juno.”

“Got it.”

“Run the photo through their employee profile, Facebook page, everything. Cross-check against the risk assessment teams. Find out who this is.”

“Give me five minutes. You want to stay on the phone?”

Nicholas smiled at Mike. “I’m timing you. Go.”

It took Adam three minutes.

“Got him. His name is Woody Reading, works risk assessment out of the D.C. office. Sending you his particulars now.”

Mike watched Nicholas’s computer screen light up. “This has to be our mole,” she said. “You’re fast, Adam.”

Windows continued opening on the screen. Adam said, “Would you look at this—what an idiot. Guy has two houses, in Bethesda, no less, but only has enough money coming in from Juno to afford one of them. His financials are suspicious, Nicholas. You have everything I do now.”

“I see it all. This is great work, Adam. I’ll be in touch soon.”

“This was fun. And I am glad it’s all shaking out for us. Hey, am I your head minion? Direct all the other minions?”

“Go for it.” Nicholas hung up, gri

“Maybe, but my brain has been otherwise occupied. How much time until zero hour?”

“Four minutes. We’ve got our mole. Now all we have to do is tie the money to COE, which in turn ties to Zahir, and the Iranians and Hezbollah. Hard proof of their contract to assassinate the vice president. But we still don’t have Damari and we still don’t know about those bombs.”

“One problem at a time, Agent Caine. Now, since Woody Reading is local, we’ll have Sherlock send a team to grab him up, get him arrested and brought in. Zahir seems to like eliminating people he works with. We might be able to save this guy’s life.”

Mike shrugged. “Hopefully he’ll think being alive is better than being charged with high treason.”

Nicholas said, “Good point. When his world begins to unravel, he might not want his life saved.”

“Nicholas, we need to find what was in that tube Woody Reading gave to Zahir Damari, and fast. If it wasn’t plans for Yorktown, and I don’t think it was since Vanessa said they could get that information when COE took down the oil companies’ computers, then whatever the plans were, it can’t be good for us.”

“No, it can’t be good for us.”

In unison, they both looked at the countdown clock.

Two minutes to go.

Wednesday

4 p.m.–Midnight

75

KING TO D1

They had a bird’s-eye view from the satellite images over Yorktown. One of the screens now showed strategic areas around the plant and stress points, and listed the names of the various buildings, too. There was no movement. It looked deserted.

When they told Sherlock about what Adam Pearce had discovered, she rubbed her hands together. “Well done, Adam. We’ll send a team to grab Mr. Woody Reading as soon as the ink’s dry on the warrant.”

Nicholas said, “I’m begi

All eyes in the conference room were watching the countdown clock draw closer to four zeroes.

With every tick of the clock, more agents filed into the room. All the agents from the CAU came in, Jimmy Maitland with them. He said to Sherlock, “Savich called, said to keep him informed. He can’t get back in time.” He said aloud to the room, “No surprise, the media is going wild on the story of the president’s plane. They’ve only been told there was a mechanical problem, and they were forced to land in Nova Scotia. The press secretary’s statement assured the president is fine and resuming his schedule as soon as he’s back in D.C. However, apparently it’s all over the Internet what Superman here pulled off. They won’t be able to deny the truth of the attack much longer.”