The Leviathan Effect (15 page)

“Really?”

“Really.”

As she walked to the stairway, Blaine thought about the system she was a part of, reminding herself that it operated as it did for a reason—that decades of wisdom and trial and error had gone into its making. So why did it seem so flawed and inefficient at times? She’d been at odds with her father over that question. “Rules exist for a reason,” he used to tell her. “Individual commitment to a group effort is what makes society work.”
Maybe
. She still sometimes wondered about that.

The early evening sky was thick with dark rainclouds, the cool air breezing up. Blaine added the numbers again as she walked along West Executive Drive to her car in the light rain, and came up with 3,700. The approximate number of people who had died in the “unnatural” disasters since the email warnings began.

A
WHITE
H
ONDA PULLED
to the curb in front of the Connecticut Avenue bus shelter, its emergency lights blinking as it slowed to a stop. Charles Mallory stepped forward and opened the back door. He slid inside. The driver was a man Mallory didn’t recognize.

Two switches followed, both deep inside parking garages in the city, before he came to a third garage beneath a Howard Johnson’s hotel downtown, where Mallory stepped out of the back seat of a gray Camry and saw Joseph Chaplin standing by the stairwell. He wore an all-black suit and tie, and looked like an undertaker.

“Greetings,” Chaplin said.

“Greetings.”

The set-up was the kind Chaplin had arranged countless times. It assumed there were watchers. And maybe watchers watching the watchers. It was designed to find the watchers and also to elude them, although Mallory didn’t think anyone was following him in Washington. Not yet.

Chaplin entered the stairwell first, leading him to a room on the third floor. He knocked twice. Then inserted a key card. He held the door open, as Charlie stepped in. The door closed, Chaplin still in the hall.

Charlie saw his brother walk toward him across the unlit room, wearing old jeans and an oversized Georgetown sweat shirt. He reached out to shake, tentatively at first, then more firmly. Jon’s hair was much longer than he remembered.

People who saw Jon and Charles together were often surprised to learn that they were brothers. Mallory was taller, blond,
fair-skinned and sharper featured, with slate-blue eyes. Jon’s eyes and hair were dark. He lacked the agile movements and physical dexterity of his older brother, possessing a slight awkwardness of manner that had actually worked to his advantage sometimes as a reporter. They seemed the products of two different families, if not nationalities.

The Mallorys had been opposites in their trades, as well. Jon was an outsider, a keeper of stories, who used journalism as his passport into the realm of international issues. Charlie had been on the inside for years, working as a government intelligence operative before starting his own contracting business and, eventually, retiring. Only rarely had the two crossed paths in recent years.

“So,” Charlie said. “How has my man Chaplin been treating you?”

Jon shrugged.

“Okay?”

“Other than kidnapping me from a crowded street corner, I have no complaints.”

Charlie smiled. “He says it was for your own good, though.”

Jon clucked his tongue.

“Anyway, he apologized, right?”

“He did.”

Charlie sat on the easy chair by the desk and took in the room: king-size bed with duvet covers, bedside tables, wall mirror, tan cloth sofa, chest of drawers. The drapes were drawn. A laptop was open on the bed, newspaper sections strewn on the floor, a medium-sized suitcase beside the bed, unzipped. On the chest were several magazines, paperbacks by Michael Connelly and John LeCarre, and his beat-up old
Complete Shakespeare
from college.
Casablanca
played silently on the television. Chaplin had set out a silver tray with bottles of water and orange juice on the desk, along with a plate of cheeses and vegetables. Typical Chaplin.

“So,” Charlie said, seeing the wariness in his brother’s face. “How have you been, anyway?”

“Me? Good.”

“Good.”

“
You
? You look good.”

“Thanks. Early retirement was treating me well.”

Jon frowned.

“I meant it sort of ironically,” Charlie added.

“Oh.”

Jon coughed, standing stiffly. “So? I mean, have you been able to figure any of this out?”

“Not much. Please. Have a seat,” Charlie said, indicating the sofa. He reached over for a carrot, ate it in two bites.

Jon finally sat, and leaned back. Then, as if reconsidering, he hunched forward. “You talked with Church.”

“I did. He gave me your list. I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about this story. About what Dr. Westlake told you.”

Jon nodded. When he didn’t say anything else, Charlie said, “How did all this come about? How do you know about this list? How do you know Dr. Westlake?”

“I don’t know her. I mean—I interviewed her. We emailed back and forth a few times.” Jon looked at him sideways and, for a moment, Charlie saw their mother’s dark eyes gazing back at him. “Our common interest was geo-engineering. She was concerned about a certain research project based in California that was happening under the radar, so to speak. She reached out to
me
, actually, telling me this. I was supposed to meet with her last Friday.”

“But she went missing.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Charlie held out the vegetable tray for his brother, who shook his head. “She answered a question you didn’t ask.”

“Right.”

“We’ve gone through the list you left,” Charlie said. “Chaplin and I ran some data searches on the names, as you probably have. Church did, too. There are a few loose connections we’re following up on. But, unfortunately, there’s no clear intersection among them yet. No sense that their paths ever crossed.”

“I know.”

“But Dr. Westlake thought that there
was
something tying these people together.”

“Yes. She
knew
there was,” Jon said.

“Okay.”

“It’s just that it’s very difficult to prove.”

“All right.” Charlie ate another carrot, waiting for Jon to say more. “And she considered herself the last name on the list.”

“Yes.” Jon leaned back again. “When she went missing, I realized I was probably part of this list, too. If Dr. Westlake was number eight, I was number nine.”

“Because of what she told you.”

“Right.” There was another silence. “Also, she suggested I contact you.”

“
She
did?”

“Yes.”

That
was odd. Charles Mallory had never met Dr. Keri Westlake. Had never even
heard
of her until the day before. His brother watched him, reminding Charlie of how he used to occasionally stare when they were kids; when he’d done something wrong and expected his older brother to help him fix it.

“How did she put it, exactly?”

“Pardon?”

“How did she put it? Dr. Westlake.”

“She said I should share this with someone who can do something about it. ‘Maybe you can pass this to your brother.’ ”

Charles Mallory thought about that, trying to make sense of it. He couldn’t. “And what about the other thing?” he said. “The answer to the question you didn’t ask.”

Jon leaned forward again and clasped his hands. He took a deliberate breath. “Okay,” he said. “This was practically the last thing she told me. That each of the people on this list had learned something. Through their work. Something he or she had found disturbing.”

“Okay.”

“And each of them … had begun to ask questions about it. And what they were asking questions about was, in effect, the same thing.”

“Really.”

Jon nodded.

“Even though their careers and their lives didn’t seem to intersect.”

“Right. That’s what she said. I can’t tell you how she came to that conclusion, exactly. But she obviously believes it. That each of them had become suspicious about something. Someone, actually.”

“Some
one
.”

“Yes. Someone who has been working very quietly for a number of years, apparently, consolidating research firms, R&D, doing it under various names, different foundations, corporations, and front
groups. So that it wasn’t clear who it was or what exactly was happening. There was an intricate effort, in other words, to conceal patterns.”

“But these seven people somehow saw those patterns.”

“Yes, right.”

“And threatened to expose them.”

“Or had the ability to do so. That was the implication.”

“Okay. And? This person didn’t want to be exposed because—why? There’s something illegal about what he was doing?”

“Presumably.”

Charlie ran through the seven names again in his head, and the sketchy details he had learned about each. “So she knows
about
this person, without knowing who he is.”

Jon cleared his throat and sat forward. “No,” he said, “she does.”

“She does. But she didn’t have a chance to tell you.”

Jon’s dark eyes moistened. There was something in his face that Charlie had never seen before. “No, that’s the thing,” he said. “She
did
tell me.”

“Oh.” Charlie tilted his head, looking at his brother with incredulity. “So you
know
who this person is.”

“Yeah. That’s why I called you. That’s why I needed to disappear.”

C
HARLIE SAW THE FLUSH
of fear and urgency in Jon’s face.

With privileged knowledge comes heightened responsibility
. Words their father had said to him days before he died. Words that had failed to save his life.

“She
told you?
You know his name.”

“Yes. I know his name.”

Charlie waited. “Okay.”

Jon took a breath. His eyes widened and moved quickly around the room, from the doorway to the television to the drapes. Then he said, “His name is Vladimir Volkov.”

“Okay.” The name meant nothing to Charlie. “Who is he?”

“I have only a sketchy background. He’s a second-generation Russian oligarch, supposedly. A mysterious billionaire who made his fortune in oil and banking during the 1990s. Operating largely through intermediaries and shell companies. For years, he’s been investing in climate and weather research.” Jon paused. “He learns that someone is developing computer simulation models that might result in better weather tracking, or that a patent has been issued for an artificial rain process, then he learns all he can about it. If it’s viable and it’s for sale, he buys it. If not, he starts his own company and tries to produce the same results.”

“Volkov.”

“Vladimir Volkov.”

“Spell it.”

Jon did. “There’s one man in particular who does much of Volkov’s bidding in the United States, supposedly. His name is Victor Zorn. Mr. Zorn. He’s an investor and a venture capitalist.”

Mallory made a mental note of both names. “And Dr. Westlake told you all of this? Where did she get the names?”

“I think it came to her from someone on the list. I don’t know who, although, from what she said, I think it might have been the last person.”

“Dr. Atul Pradhan.”

“Yes.”

“This Victor Zorn,” Charlie said. “He’s American?”

“Yes. Based in California. Also very low profile and secretive. Dr. Westlake had been trying to learn more about Victor Zorn. She had attempted to contact him.”

“Okay.” Charlie nodded. “And what’s wrong with someone doing what he’s doing?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, buying up companies, supporting R&D. If he didn’t want to be so private about it, wouldn’t
Time
magazine put him on their cover and call him a visionary?”

“Well, there’s the list, for one thing. The chain.”

“Dr. Westlake thinks Volkov is responsible for those disappearances?”

“Yes. And she was also told that his business is not all necessarily above board. Supposedly, he has used intimidation tactics and industrial espionage to close some of his deals.” Jon sat forward, glanced at the door.

“And what kind of person is
she?
I mean, does she think LBJ was in on the Kennedy assassination, for example?”

Jon showed his first real smile. “No. No, I’ve known a few conspiracy nuts over the years. She’s not like that. But she’s genuinely afraid. I think she received a threat just before she gave me this list.”

Charlie thought about that. “Okay. And what else did she say about him?”

“Volkov? She said that he is a very brilliant man who tends to get what he wants. He’s ahead of the game because no one else is playing at the level he is. Or even able to recognize it.”

“But somehow these seven people did?”

“Or some part of it. That’s what she thinks. I don’t know. I haven’t been able to figure out what it might be.”

“Why didn’t Dr. Westlake tell anybody else about this?”

“She did. Including police.”

“Okay.” Charlie absently chomped on a carrot, thinking. “So, if something happened to these people, it’s because they became a threat to Volkov’s operation. Or because they threatened to draw attention to it.”

“Presumably.” Jon watched his brother as if expecting him to solve a difficult puzzle for him.

“And what else does Dr. Westlake know about Volkov? Where does he live, for instance?”

Jon shrugged. “He has a home in Russia, but supposedly lives there only a few weeks, or months, of the year. Only when the weather is pleasant. She thinks he has a very cultured exterior, but is quite ruthless underneath. Also, he supposedly carries some weight at the Kremlin.”

“With the government.”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“Mmm, no. Not really.”

Charlie nodded. “Well, it’s a big story, isn’t it? Maybe we can work on it together.”

Jon nodded, lifted his eyebrows.
I’ll do whatever I can to help
, Charlie thought.
But, more importantly, to keep Jon safe
.