The Ragnarok Conspiracy (9 page)

 

"Special Forces, served in Afghanistan and Iraq for a number of years,” said Rebecca Cohen, reading off the screen. “And get this: discharge code: 28B/HKA—Discreditable Incidents—Civilian or Military. What does that mean?”

Savas turned to Miller. “Frank, any idea?”

Miller shook his head. “It's not good, but it can cover a lot of ground. You could sweep almost anything under that. One thing is sure; he was out of control in some way.”

“So, we have an out-of-control former special-ops soldier functioning as an assassin who was chasing down a player in the underground terrorist network. Doesn't sound like a trained CIA operative.”

“Not sure he was the assassin,” said J. P. Rideout. “Sure, he was muscle hired to kill the guy, but he was
sloppy
. Looks like they needed someone fast and had to settle for poor quality control. When the Sheikh caused them problems, they brought in a second, an
expert
, who got the job done seriously.”

Savas sighed. They were back to the death squad idea. The growing mystique behind these kills was becoming almost superstitious. “Look, he was part of something. If these are CIA death squads running around the world murdering people, why hire a flaky ex-SEAL who could blow the entire thing? There aren't enough super-assassins in the world to cover all the territory these guys are covering. It's like a little army. Some soldiers perform better than others.”

“Army?” asked Matt King, his eyebrows raised.

“Honestly, people! These aren't superheroes! For the kind of impact they've had—”

“
If
you're right that they are all linked,” interrupted King.

“Yes,
i
f
I'm right, that kind of impact on several continents has to be associated with a large personnel base. There's no other way. When your operation gets too big, you always make recruitment mistakes. I think this is one of them. Besides, rogue CIA assassin teams don't suddenly get all organized and vengeful! This is a group, a
large
group, with a purpose behind it.”

There was silence in the room. Savas decided not to press the argument further.

“What else do we have?” he asked sullenly.

Cohen swiveled away from the computer screen and sighed. “That's it, John. Hardly any background. He was discharged four years ago, disappeared off the map, and showed up two thousand miles away from home brandishing a weapon in Queens.”

“There's got to be more. This is our only link!” he said in frustration. “Anything on that pendant?”

“No. Why?”

“I don't know,” began Savas hesitantly. “Not many men wear jewelry. If they do, it's usually a cross, Star of David, St. Christopher's medal, dog tags. Men tend to wear pendants that have meaning rather than as decoration. That pendant is unusual. Anything unusual can potentially tell us something.”

“All we have is an anchor with a bird's face,” said Rideout. “Not sure where we go with that.”

Savas was ready to call the meeting to an end when Hernandez came bursting into the room.

“John, you're going to love this,” he said, dropping a printout on the countertop beside the computer.

The other members of the group drew closer and strained to see the page. Savas picked it up. His brows furrowed as he stared at the strange collection of figures running across the page. After a few moments, he looked toward Hernandez expectantly.

“OK, Manuel, I'm stumped. What is this?”

Hernandez shrugged. “No idea. It was encoded in the big mysterious audiotapes you gave me.”

“They're runes.” It was Lightfoote. She had wiggled her way in between several bodies, her head almost on Savas's forearm, orange hair spilling everywhere, her gaze full on the page.

“
Runes
?” asked Hernandez, perplexed.

Lightfoote cocked her head at him. “Yeah, roooones,” she dragged out the vowel, mocking his question. “Letters. Old.
Magical
.”

“Oh, brother,” said Rideout under his breath.

“She's right,” said Cohen, staring closely at the paper. “Not sure of the writing system, but look—clearly letters of some kind, with broad strokes and simple forms. Old ones designed not for pen and paper but for carving, wood, or stone.”

Savas turned toward the former programmer. “Manuel, where did these letters come from?”

“
Runes
,” piped Lightfoote. Savas ignored her.

“That's the craziest part, John. The audio transmission, with the weird language no one understands, it was double-coded.”

“Meaning?”

“There was a second message overlaid at high frequencies. I found it by running the message through a Fourier analysis. In general, you would need to know to look for it, or you'd never extract it. The second message is coded, but it's clearly bitmapped imaging. I had to try a few permutations, but once I got the encoding right, out popped this. It's like a page worth of text and a diagram of what looks like a geographical region. These are instructions for the receiver.”

He handed Savas another printout, diagrams of a site.

“Looks like an assault plan,” said Miller.

“How can you be sure?” asked Savas.

“Style, points of entry, defense lines, observation points—here, and here. I've seen a thousand such drawings. Military style is easy to spot, once you know what to look for. I'd wager this is a plan of attack.”

“This is crazy,” said Savas. “I mean, hidden messages within messages, written in letters no one can read? Seems a bit extreme.”

“What about this doesn't, John?” asked Hernandez. “These guys are
totally
FUBAR. Secret language, layered codes—they set things up
so that no one could possibly figure out what they were talking about. Now Frank says they are commando hit teams?” He looked at Miller, who merely shrugged. “
Really
out there, man.”

“John,” Cohen began, “just why are we looking into this audio? It must be related to the assassinations, but how?”

Savas frowned. “Larry's mum on that. Super spy, top-secret decoder ring material, I assume. I don't think we can find that out.”

“Think again,” said Hernandez. All eyes were riveted on him. “The map is laid out in precise detail, down to the friggin' coordinates. Convert to longitude and latitude, and
bang
, instant top-secret information.”

“And, so
where
is it?” asked Savas with irritation.

“Afghan-Paki border, dudes. Deep in the mountains. No-man's-land of terrorists and drug lords. Nice spot for a military assault plan.”

There was a pregnant silence. Savas whistled. “Larry, that bastard. He should have told us.”

“Told us what?” asked Matt King in confusion.

“Larry was called up to DC once we raised the lid on a connection between these murders. He came back with instructions relating to those killings, and this mysterious audiotape.” A dawning awareness spread across King's face. Hernandez nodded and looked back at Savas, who continued. “That's right. We have a connection not only to isolated hits but to larger, military-style missions in hostile territory. Secretive missions, not using any known military codes. Somebody is
very
serious about their pursuit of Islamic baddies.”

He checked his watch. “That's great work, Manuel, even if I don't know where the hell this is all leading.” Savas turned to the group. “Folks, this has been fun, but it's been assigned to Miller and me, if you remember. In ten minutes, we're all due in Larry's office for a breakdown on the much bigger story going on around us. Maybe these guys are purging their ranks, but we still have some serious terrorist activity going on, right on our front lawn. Let's minimally prepare, get me and Frank up to speed on the latest that you have, and head on up there.”

The members of Intel 1 scrambled. Savas stared at the screen,
hardly seeing the ex-soldier's file. In his right hand was a page of archaic runes and an attack map, and running through his mind, the face and pendant of a dead assassin. Did it all fit together? He was sure it did. Somewhere was the key to link these strange bits of evidence and the progression of killings across the globe. In the chaos surrounding them, he hoped they could find it.

 

Savas's mind raced as he listened to Cohen's animated words. Their FBI vehicle crossed over the George Washington Bridge, en route to the New Jersey distribution offices of a military weapons manufacturer. The company representatives had sounded shell-shocked when he explained the reasons the FBI wanted to speak with them. They were also in full denial mode.
Their
explosives?
Impossible.
Well, the analysis had shown it was all
too
possible. These guys had some serious explaining to do, and Savas was going to be there to hear it.

“John, are you listening?”

He refocused. “Yes, Rebecca, sorry. I'm thinking ahead to the meeting today.”

“So then, what do we have?”

Savas sighed. “Two massive bombings targeting foreign embassies in separate cities. We've got the UN screaming their lungs out at the United States, and half of their reps booking flights out of the country. We've got the president on TV trying to calm the nation down, trying to calm the whole world down, while offering our jobs to the meat grinder if we don't find out what in the name of God is going on here.
That's
what we've got.”

The Hudson streamed by two hundred feet below them. Savas could sense their driver trying to listen in on the conversation. He couldn't blame the man. The world seemed to be burning down. “Still no group has claimed responsibility.”

“It's crazy,” said Cohen, shaking her head. “There was nothing,
nothing
on any of the watches for terrorist chatter, which makes no sense! Since when does a terrorist organization plan and execute coordinated
multicity attacks of this magnitude, pull them off, and all without a sound? In 2001, we had NSA and even German intelligence intercepts of al-Qaeda chatter on the attacks. This time, it was as quiet as the vacuum of space.”

“They're also not some bunch of fanatics who learned how to fly planes into buildings or how to rig IEDs,” said Savas. “Surgical strikes, surgical bombings that were carried out under our noses, under security, and set up to take out single buildings and no more.”

Cohen nodded and completed his thought. “It takes professional expertise with munitions to do something like this. Put that together with the skill in how they pulled it off, and you have a group of terrorists with a talent base we've never seen before.”

The vehicle rattled roughly as they transitioned from the bridge to the New Jersey Turnpike. Savas felt his stomach lurch.

“You brought the forensics report?” he asked as the car exited quickly onto the Palisades Parkway. The monotonous gray of the turnpike transitioned suddenly, jarringly into the greens of the New Jersey forests.

“The FBI-CIA teams fast-tracked some results to us, and my initial analysis of the report indicates that it fits very well with the preliminary assessment.”

“Mira got them to turn it over so fast?”

“Who else? She sent PDF files to all our secure accounts this morning.”

Mirjana Vujanac.
Vujanac came from Serbian grandparents. Savas's own Balkan ancestry provided a connection between them, and he also liked her for her basic decency. Ironically, her job as head of the Joint Offices group was to help de-Balkanize the intelligence organizations in the US government, serving as a focal point for interactions between the FBI and the CIA. It was a highly sensitive position, unpopular with both agencies, but Mira was the perfect person to balance the mutual paranoia and ego with her patient and winning personality. This case looked like it would require extended work with the CIA and other organizations. They were going to need Vujanac on this one.

“The initial analysis is solid?”

“Definitely.” Cohen had put on her sharp-edged, Euro-style eyeglasses, the kind that always increased a woman's sex appeal in an elegant way. Her expression was serious as she looked over the report, giving her the appearance of a graduate student presenting a paper.

“Looks like a recent derivative of the explosive Semtex was used,” she said. “Mass-spectroscopy analysis of numerous samples now confirms this. Same as the prelim report: judging from the molecular weight of the compounds, it's almost certainly homegrown. There are only two plants in the world that make this stuff, both run by the Heward Corporation. This stuff is made in the USA all the way.”

Savas glanced out the window as the vehicle slowed and headed off the ramp. The green of the parkway surrendered to the landscaped parking lot that boxed in a six-floor office building.

“Well, we're here. Let's see what they have to say about that.”

It was a frustrating half-hour before they sat down in the stale-smelling office. The two had run an obstacle course of security checkpoints for the vehicle and at the front door, temporary ID badges, metal detectors, and finally a walk down a long corridor to the office of a local divisions manager. It was a tranquil space, softly lit and shadowed by tall trees covering the window at one end of a rectangular room. A quiet space for the distributors of the world's most advanced explosives.

As they entered and shook hands, Savas noted the presence of two other men, open briefcases at their sides. The lawyers had arrived. Savas smiled. One lawyer meant denial. Two, limited accountability. The company must have gotten the new report from Vujanac this morning as well.

“Agent Savas, Fred Reynolds,” began the manager, the firmness of his handshake doing little to conceal the perspiration on his palm. “Welcome. Please, won't you sit down?”

“This is my colleague, Rebecca Cohen, also from the NYC branch.”

The man shook Cohen's hand as well. “This is Michael Ivy and Brian Colbert,” introduced Reynolds as the two lawyers stood up. “They are here to help advise me in any legal ramifications of our discussions.”

Savas and Cohen exchanged greetings with the men.

“I'm sorry you two found it necessary to come all the way out here,” said Reynolds, as they all sat around the conference table. “As we said over the phone, we were happy to come into the city tomorrow.”

And give your legal eagles twenty-four more hours to coach you into admitting even less than you will today.
“Couldn't wait, Mr. Reynolds. This is as red alert as it gets. National security priority.”

The man's face seemed to tighten. “Yes, of course.”

Savas nodded to Cohen, who stepped up to the plate. She opened her briefcase across from the lawyers and placed several documents on the table. “Mr. Reynolds, I assume you have had a chance to examine our forensics reports.”

“Yes,” he began stiffly. “Yes, we have.” He glanced at the other two men. “We are prepared to acknowledge that the material used in the bombings came from our nearby factory.”

Cohen glanced briefly at Savas. At least they wouldn't have to fight that battle. She made sure. “To confirm our results, this is your newest high-tech explosive, S-47, that matches the chemical analysis?”

“That's correct.”

“And, to make sure I understand correctly, you consistently ID each batch of explosive?”

Reynolds nodded. “There are records for every ounce we produce. Each lot is infused with a chemical called DMDNB for identification, and various ion ratios can essentially ID a given lot. We have completed an emergency review of all S-47 produced in the last year. There is not one gram unaccounted for. Everything we've made is either onsite or shipped to reputable governmental sources.”

Savas interrupted. “Then how did S-47 residue end up dusting the New York landscape last month?”

Reynolds glanced at the lawyers again. “Agent Savas, we really cannot speculate.”

“What about material produced further back?” asked Cohen.

“We are continuing to review our records,” said Reynolds. “However, I can assure you, we have exacting standards. We've never
lost material, and our customers are limited to United States military and allied governments.”

“Could this be an inside job?” Savas pressed. “I mean, could we be looking at
American
terrorists?”

“Again, Agent Savas, I think it is imprudent to speculate at this time.”

Savas felt his temper rising. “
Imprudent?
You fellows do realize that we've just had two terrorist bombings on US soil, one of them right across the river from here?
Your
explosives were involved in both of those attacks. Your high-tech,
military-only
S-47 leveled one New York City building and the entire Saudi Embassy in DC.”

“Yes, Agent Savas, but, as I stated—”

“You don't see navy mines being used to sink US ships, or army surplus surface-to-air missiles shooting down aircraft in this nation.”

“If you will just—”

“If you don't know how your explosives got there, then I think it's high time you started speculating and testing some hypotheses! At the very least, you're going to need some good cover stories for when the press gets hold of this.”

Reynolds's face turned white. “If you are trying to threaten me, Agent Savas, I can assure you, we will respond strongly to such harassment.”

Savas laughed. “Please, Mr. Reynolds. If you think the fact that an American company is the supplier for the bombs that hit us last month is something the FBI, the CIA, or G.O.D. could keep secret for long, you're more naive than I could have imagined.”

“We have supplied no terrorists!” Reynolds practically shrieked. “All our material is accounted for. All sales were legitimate, to verified US government sources!”

Savas leaned forward and locked eyes with the company man. “Then why don't you go explain that to the families of the victims vaporized by your product, Mr. Reynolds.”

There was an icy silence as the man broke eye contact with Savas. The lawyer beside Reynolds leaned over and whispered into his ear.
Reynolds seemed to make an effort to control himself, and his face drained of emotion.
Screw this tap dance
, thought Savas. He'd had enough. He apologized to Cohen, rose, and walked out of the room without another word.

Cohen's voice echoed strangely as he stormed down the hallway. “As you can see, Mr. Reynolds, my role is
good
cop. We'll need to set up some very open channels between your company and the FBI for the next few weeks as we work through this.”

The sounds inside the building faded as Savas stepped out into the bright sunlight. He exhaled slowly. He knew his fuse was too short. He knew he had to rein in his emotions, even as the events around him pushed every button. He knew these company men were just following orders.

And he knew he wanted to deck one of them.

Arriving back at FBI offices, Savas stepped into the Operations Room of Intel 1. He tossed his briefcase roughly onto a chair and removed his jacket. Perspiration stained his shirt. He sighed and loosened his tie.

“Bad day at the office?” came the words of Hernandez, whose fingers clacked across a keyboard nearby. J. P. Rideout, Mark King, and Frank Miller stood around the computer geek in a semicircle, staring at the screen.

“I'm at the office
now
, Manuel.”

“Suits stiff you?”

“Of course. But they seem to sink to new levels of corporate cowardice on a yearly basis.” Savas stared at the small gathering across from him. “So, what's the party about?”

“Well, we've got something interesting you might want to see.”

Savas walked over to the group. At that moment, Kanter stepped into the room as well.

“John, you're back. I need—”

“Hang on, Larry,” said Savas. “Manuel's reeling in some new fish.”

Interested, Kanter joined the group. Savas stared down at the screen; numerous time- and date-stamped video images of buildings flitted across his field of view.

“We've had a look at the security cams in a large radius around the site,” began Manuel.

“How did you get those?” asked Savas.

“We don't have to go to the sites for the newer ones. Patriot Act II—we're already plugged in, 24/7. We just need to access the relevant minutes from DTO…”

“Domestic Terrorism Operations,” Rideout whispered to Savas, who rolled his eyes. The acronyms never seemed to end.

“…and within hours we can get the footage from thirty local cameras downloaded.”

Miller turned toward Savas and Kanter, a serious expression on his face. “Every camera with a clear shot at 866 Second Avenue showed static from the hours of three to four a.m. the night before the bombing.”

“What?” said Kanter incredulously.

“I want to make this clear, Larry,” said Miller. “Every camera that could possibly have had a shot at recording what happened around the building that early morning had a similar malfunction for the same duration.
Every
one of them.”

“Some serious hacking, dudes,” noted Hernandez.

“Wait, no security firm noticed this? No one looked into it?” asked Kanter.

Rideout shook his head. “Most of the cameras don't have flesh and blood babysitting them. We get the feeds, but they are automatically routed and stored. Our analysis probably wasn't the first time they had been viewed, but when each individual firm saw the static for their equipment, they likely assumed their cameras were malfunctioning. Happens all the time. Only when you pool together all the local cameras can you see the pattern. No way that's coincidence.”