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This novel is a fantasy of the future, a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Great effort has been made, especially regarding those individuals who have recognizable positions with government, or publicly known organizations, mentioned herein, to insure they are not mistaken for past or present individuals in those positions. What the future holds, what possible outside influences may be brought to bear on future participants in those organizations, no one can say.

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ISBN 978-1-943054-09-1

Cover image by permission of Peter Vangeen, copyright(©) 2020

Duluth Harbor Entrance in February by Pete Markham Modified (Lighthouse Removed)

A view of the Wasatch and the suburbs of Salt Lake City from the air (modified).Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

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Treason, Bigamy, And Murder

The scream of jet engines brought the maid running in a down parka over her pajamas. Snow flared. A strange helicopter was landing in the floodlights. Strange-looking to be so sleek for how large it was, with two sets of blades rotating in opposite directions. And strange because the maid didn’t know who the helicopter belonged to.

She wondered if she should call security. She hadn’t been told to expect anyone. In summer, Lake Superior intruders had put ashore in motorboats, even a canoe.

The helicopter’s side door opened. She sighed with relief when a woman with a helmet of black hair waved from the silvery craft. The maid knew what Leslie Brighton liked to drink when she arrived this time of night. She hurried back inside the mansion.

“You better take a look at this, Everon!” said Phil Loonan, the helicopter’s owner.

The helicopter’s pilot, Everon Student, shut down the X5’s engines. Phil handed Everon his phone.

Everon was blond, in good shape, and in his early forties, though a false hint of California surfer caused most people to think he was younger. No way should he have been flying a helicopter across Minnesota tonight. He was supposed to be in Nevada, running his company Two-State Solar, but his stepbrother was missing.

As Everon read what was on the phone aloud, Victoria Hill, the tall, dark-haired former CNN news anchor, moved up front and read over his shoulder.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE. FBI sources disclosed the arrest tonight of international talk host Dr. Franklin Reveal, a former minister at the First Congregational Church of Erie, Pennsylvania. Reveal is being held for treason in the mass murder of millions in New York City, Virginia Beach, and Miami; for his part in the bombing of the tallest building in North America; and for the murder of FBI Special Agent Lance Bolini.

“That’s crazy!” Victoria said. “Bolini’s dead, and they’re blaming Franklin?”

“What a load!” Everon agreed. Franklin was Everon’s stepbrother.

“Strange.” Victoria looked at Phil. “There’s no mention of that FBI agent, Rompson, who went flying out your tower window when Claus shot out the glass. It’s like Rompson never existed!”

Phil frowned.

Everon scrolled the article up and down.

“You’re right!” Everon said.

On the flight up to Minnesota, Victoria, Franklin’s producer, had given them every detail of Franklin’s warrantless kidnapping. A pair of handcuffs still hung from her wrist where a CIA officer had attached Victoria to a file cabinet.

During a battle Franklin and agent Rompson had gone out the window together. At the very last second Franklin had snagged the corner of the window ledge. Rompson had fallen 88 floors to his death.

Everon read on:

According to Homeland Security Agent Greg Claus, working with the FBI, Dr. Reveal was seen leaving Dearborn Tower minutes before it was destroyed.

“The timing of the tower’s destruction is undeniable,” Claus pointed out. “And Dr. Reveal could only have learned things he broadcast from sources directly involved in the nuclear attacks on our country.”

Additional charges against Reveal are expected to include bigamy because of his marriage to two women, whose names have been withheld.

“Married?” Victoria said to Everon. “What women? Samua and I? That’s not true!”

Samua Schiro was Victoria’s closest friend. The two women were Franklin’s business partners.

“And Claus isn’t with Homeland Security,” she went on. “He’s CIA!” She looked at Phil. “Franklin brought your tower down?” her voice rising.

Phil’s fists were clenched. The tallest building in North America, Chicago’s Dearborn Tower, had been his. Phil knew damn well Franklin had nothing to do with its destruction.

Victoria said, “Greg Claus shot his way into the broadcast booth and cut Franklin off the air. They took him away in handcuffs! Even his feet were cuffed! Do you believe Franklin killed that FBI agent?”

“It’s not possible,” Phil said. “The whole thing makes no sense —”

“To us!” Victoria cut in. “To the Trib it makes perfect sense!”

“It’s one article,” said Hunt Williams. Snowflakes drifted onto his salt-and-pepper hair as he followed Leslie, Victoria, and Phil from the helicopter.

Hunt’s company, Williams Power, had been wrecked by EMP from the New York and Miami bombs. He’d flown to Chicago tonight to talk Everon into bringing his repair crew back to Pennsylvania, never expecting to be drawn into a mess like Franklin’s arrest.

“Need a hand?” Everon asked Hunt’s daughter Mary Williams, as her teenage sons pulled their bags from under the seats.

Mary shook her head. “We’ve got it.”

“Okay.” Everon followed Hunt off the helicopter.

“What about that damn CIA officer?” Victoria asked. “Not one news outlet mentions Claus’s kitchen?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Phil said.

Moments before they escaped the tower helipad in the X5, a private investigator had called Hunt to report what she’d found in Claus’s Washington condo.

Victoria turned to Hunt. “Naomi was supposed to hand the case over to the FBI,” she said darkly.

Hunt grimaced. “She said she was going to. I’ve always been able to count on her.”

“Claus has a freezer full of dead women cut up for dog food!” Victoria shot back. “How many murders is the media hiding?”

“Take it easy!” Phil said. “We have to figure this out!”

Seeing Phil upset calmed Victoria a little. She closed her eyes and released a slow breath the way she’d seen Franklin do so many times.

“It doesn’t say where Franklin’s been taken,” she said.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Hunt gave her a brief one-arm hug. “Several high-priced lawyers I called on the way up here won’t be getting any sleep tonight.”

Hunt turned to Phil. “You ought to shut off your phone.”

Phil nodded. The others had disabled theirs.

Victoria cringed as Phil pried the back off his phone and removed the battery. “How can we find Samua without phones?” she asked. “And my parents!”

“We’ll find them!” Everon said.

“I hope Sammie doesn’t go back to Dearborn Street!”

“She’s not going there!” Phil said savagely. “There’s nothing left!”

“I should try to call her!” Victoria said for the tenth time. “And somebody was in my parents’ house!”

“Not. Yet!” Everon said.

Victoria released a shaky breath.

“The NSA works for the CIA,” Ray Williams cautioned, following his mother from the helicopter. “They use voice recognition to track phones. Even when they’re turned off.”

His younger brother Jacob nodded. “I would.”

Victoria stared at Hunt’s grandsons. “I know you’re right.” She held up a handcuff. “The government has to be looking for me!”

Leslie said, “Hurry in, everybody, and get warm. A cup of hot chocolate always makes things easier to understand.”

Nick and Lama, engineers who worked for Everon, followed with their computers.

Samua Schiro pulled into Downtown Chicago and parked along Wacker Drive, thirty yards from Dearborn Street. Police barricades wouldn’t let her drive any closer. She walked to the corner.

The tower’s collapse was all over the radio, but the news hadn’t done it justice. Dearborn Street was filled with huge chunks of concrete, shattered glass, lengths of bent steel girder, and a heavy dark gray dust.

She looked into the evening sky. The tower simply wasn’t there. Everything Samua owned was gone with it — the new equipment in boxes for her lab and the kitchen. None of it mattered.

She wondered, Are Victoria and Franklin dead or alive?

CIA Officer Tristan Fugue had just experienced the ten most exhilarating minutes of her life — running through the rear loading dock while the tower broke up above her. Dodging falling chunks of concrete as terror-filled screams rent the air. She was so fucking jazzed!

Now, as she walked beneath the street lights on Dearborn, wiping dust from her face, raking back her long blonde hair, her boss, Greg Claus, was nowhere to be seen.

Oh, well, she thought, Greggie probably took the minister in. I’ll catch up.

Then her day got even better.

She couldn’t believe it. She pulled out her phone and checked.

It is!

Standing on the corner was the faintly Asian-looking woman — a little older than the college photo Greggie sent — but definitely the chemist, Samua Schiro, they were supposed to capture. Or kill, as Tristan saw it.

Tristan reached into her jacket. Slipped out her custom silver Glock. And attached the silencer.

Samua And Tristan

Samua didn’t know where to go or what to do. She was leaving another message on Victoria’s voicemail when she heard an odd little Ptew!

“Ahhh!” she screamed as she felt a terrible pain in her hip. Blood was dripping down her pant leg. “I — I’ve been shot!”

She dropped behind the side of a gold Mercedes, then crawled to the car’s trunk and peered around the bumper.

A slim, determined blonde was moving steadily through the crowd. Her right arm was straight down by her side. Then, through a gap between two people, Samua saw the young woman was carrying a pistol with a long silencer.

Why me? she thought. Then, I have to get out of here!

Hiding her gun in her coat, Tristan Fugue dodged around disaster scene addicts, EMTs, cops.

Tough shot for a pistol, she thought. At this distance? In this crowd?

She hated making excuses, but she’d rushed things. There’d been no choice. The woman had been turning away.

Tristan preferred her long gun. Waiting, hidden. No matter. The wound was enough to slow Schiro down. In a moment Tristan would stand over the chemist and finish her off — two in the head.

All Greggie needs is Schiro’s phone so he can track down Reveal’s friends and clean things up.

Tristan approached the Mercedes.

A few more steps.

Gun ready, she spun around the hood —

Where’d she go?

She looked down Wacker, back the other way.

At the squeal of rubber, Tristan spun. Schiro was low in the seat of a white Audi, the top of her head barely above the rear window.

Tristan was fast. Ptew! Ptew! Ptew! Ptew! Every shot hit, punching holes in the rear door, smashing a tail light.

People were screaming. Tristan was being noticed.

The white Audi disappeared in traffic.

Where Are They, Dammit?

The swirling red and green mist surrounded Franklin like . . . Christmas. A rainbow of sound assaulted his ears — red, yellow, purple, blue. Heavy thumps fell like slow brown tree trunks. The higher tinkling was a shimmering field of grass.

It’s only a dream, Franklin thought. I can wake up whenever I want.

His vision cleared. Over the fields he floated, across a rolling blue river that flowed down a long and gentle hill. Beyond a wide valley was a city with streets of gleaming gold.

High on a hill in the middle, seated on a high-backed throne, was a strong, bearded old man with penetrating eyes. To His right sat a younger man of Franklin’s age (Jesus?).

“WHERE IS VICTORIA HILL?” the old man thundered.

Are you — God? Franklin wondered back.

“Who helped her get away?” Jesus shouted. “Where is Samua Schiro?”

Don’t you know? Franklin responded.

The bright colors and sounds collapsed into a tragic mess of orange and brown — a warning! A voice echoed: “What is the name of the artist — name of the artist . . . Who drew Claus and Zhou — Claus and Zhou? Where does he live — live?”

The oddness of the questions floated into Franklin’s conscious mind. None of them would he answer, but resisting made his head pound, his back hurt, his feet cramp terribly.

“Where can we find the Mexican girl who described Claus and Zhou? Where is Everon Student? Where are they, dammit?”

Yet, between the swirls of color, the questions, the pain — in the smallest of spaces — came a thought Franklin barely suspected: My mind is being attacked.

“It’s taking too long!” said Chief of Staff Marc Praeger.

One of Prophet Joy’s big headsets covered the minister’s eyes and ears. They were holding him on the thirty-fifth floor of a deserted office building.

Greg Claus leaned forward. “How ’bout this for a headline: Shot while trying to escape!”

“We’d never get away with it,” Praeger said. “Wait until the media tears him down, Greg. Then you can get rid of him. Right now we need what he knows.”

Praeger turned to Michael Joy. “Maybe he needs more Joy Juice?”

“Shhh!” Joy whispered,“It’s working!”

Good thing I’m handling this man myself. he thought. He’s caused far too much trouble.

“Let the program run,” Joy said softly. “No one can resist this combination.”

If he had to, he would increase the dosage. Even if it fried Reveal’s brain.

Franklin Fights Back

Franklin could feel what was happening, but he couldn’t do a thing about it. His optic nerves were overwhelmed. And it wasn’t just images and voices rampaging through his mind; part of it had to be chemical. He struggled to think. He felt his mind drowning.

Yet, between the beautiful images of a Heaven he’d once believed in, the swirling colors, the questions he wasn’t going to answer, and the pain, there were gaps. Tiny pauses that allowed him to understand: Someone - is doing this - to me.

He had never used hallucinogenic mushrooms, like some soldiers he’d known, but he’d listened to their tales of psychedelic trips. Things that made the experience stronger . . . or weaker.

If I’m drugged, he wondered, is there any way my mind can block it? Someone — Samua! once told him, “Every emotion releases a different chemical.” What I need is a chemical so powerful it can stop anything.

He couldn’t be the first person they’d done this to. Prisoners must have tried defending themselves with every possible emotion — hate, rage, hysterical laughter. But — what about appreciation? What about desire and passion and — what about their highest form — love?

He searched for a value the pain could not take away. There could be no possibility of love for his captors. Thinking about them produced only raw hatred, which increased their power.

What about Cyn?

He remembered his sister’s smile. The agony in Cynthia’s face on the bombed out floor of her apartment.

No!

Thinking of her death brought more anger, more pain.

He let Cyn drift away into the rainbow . . . and let two of the Voice’s questions come forward:

“Where is Samua . . . ?”

“Where is Victoria . . . ?”

Allowing them to repeat until only their names remained —

“Samua . . . Victoria . . .”

The women who loved him.

Let only my trust, appreciation, and desire come through — only my love . . .

The change was at first so small he barely noticed. But as Victoria and Samua came closer, clearer — as he began to feel them . . . the torture receded and the Voices became fainter. The swirling color, darker and more ominous, moved to the edge of what he could see. His two beloved partners were with him. In him. Filling his core.

His mind cleared.

“Who — who’s there?” he whispered.

“He’s speaking,” Praeger said softly, “But he’s not answering our questions!”

“They do that sometimes,” Joy whispered. “It won’t last long. He’s not talking to us. It’s part of the vision. We’re breaking through.”

“Is someone there?” Franklin asked.

“It sure sounds like he’s talking to us,” Claus said.

Franklin’s captors had to be people comfortable with forcing a mind. To get what they wanted.

After his kidnapping he’d woken up tied to a chair. Three faces he’d seen flashed across his vision of Heaven:

The blond buzz cut, pug nose, and thick neck of CIA Officer Greg Claus.

The doughy, overweight face of Chief of Staff Marc Praeger.

And the heavy brows and deep-set hunter eyes of the Prophet of the People of the Book, Michael Joy.

Likely they’re watching me.

Heaven dissolved — into a vision (a memory?) of Cynthia on a beautiful fall day, pounding a piton into the Red Cliffs, harnessed on a rope next to him. The sky had just enough puffy clouds to cool his arms. For a long moment he felt he would burst, so happy he was to be with her.

“Where is the sketch artist?” the Voice demanded. “Where is that Mexican girl?”

The instant he held back, the rock dissolved. He was on the roof of his sister’s New York apartment, holding her head. The long hoarse death rattle, “RRROOOOTH —” fluttering from her throat.

Pain tore though him. He was engulfed in fire. A huge burning demon faced him, stabbing his stomach with a white hot pitchfork. The creature’s head expanded, its mouth growing large enough to swallow him whole.

But he let his mind drift to his mantra, the names of the women he loved: Victoria . . . Samua . . . and the vision of Hell and the pain of losing Cynthia flowed away.

Claus, Praeger, Joy, he thought. If I can get just one of them alone, my chances will improve tremendously.

He wasn’t quite as helpless as they believed.

He couldn’t see or hear the real world, but he could blink. And, unlike a blind man who could move his eyeballs while seeing nothing, he could change his eyes’ focus. He could deepen his breathing. He could wiggle his toes. He sensed the hard surface beneath his climbing shoes.

My wrists are numb, he thought — still tied to something, but I can move my fingers. And, I can speak!

“Marc?” he whispered. Marc Praeger?”

“Dammit, Michael!” Praeger shouted. “He’s saying my name! Is this even working?”

Joy whispered harshly, “Don’t respond, Marc! Don’t interrupt the process!”

“But it isn’t —”

Joy leaned close to Praeger’s ear. “Step into the hall with me a minute, Marc.” Then said quietly to Claus, “Keep an eye on him, Greg.”

Claus nodded. Smiled to himself. Just what he wanted.

War

A wide, roaring fireplace warmed Leslie Brighton’s dining room. Ten Italian chairs around a slab of black magma were occupied by Franklin’s friends sipping from large mugs.

A few of the refugees — for that’s what they’d begun to feel like — had chosen to make their hot chocolate a little stronger. At the table’s center were a bottle of seventy-year-old French cognac, a bottle of Irish cream whiskey, a platter of oatmeal-raisin cookies, and a shoebox.

Everon looked at Victoria, “If we’re going to eat and sleep here —”

Hunt raised an eyebrow. “Home base?”

“Exactly,” Everon said. “We make no calls from the house. All our phones are too risky to use. They’ll be tracking our phones, if they aren’t already.”

Leslie nodded at Everon. “Thank you.”

Victoria took a worried cookie, holding her phone in a death grip. Leslie’s handyman had used a grinder to cut off Victoria’s handcuff. She still didn’t know where her parents were, or Samua, or Franklin. She wanted desperately to make half a dozen calls right now.

Phil glanced uneasily at the shoebox.

Leslie smiled at Victoria. “Feel free to use anything in my home except a phone. Not until we organize something secure.”

Leslie put her own phone and battery in the box. Victoria clutched her phone more tightly.

Lama, Everon’s chief programmer, glanced at Victoria. “You don’t shit where you eat,” he said, voice naturally half an octave higher than the other men’s voices.

“Yeah, we get it, Lama,” Everon said and put his phone in the box.

Lama dropped his in too.

“Aren’t we taking this too far?” Phil asked, glancing at the box. “We aren’t children.”

Ray and Jacob, Mary’s boys, shook their heads and put their phones in the box.

“Ms. Brighton is putting herself at risk just having us here,” Ray said.

“Insecure communications are dangerous,” Hunt agreed with his grandsons. His satphone, and Mary’s phone, went in.

Nick, Everon’s chief engineer, smiled gently at Victoria. “I used to give Lama a hard time about all that crazy conspiracy stuff.” He offered his friend a nod of apology. “But after what Claus did at the tower, and the way that story in the Tribune was written — you were right.”

Nick added his phone and battery to the box.

“Thanks, Nick,” Lama said.

Lama looked grimly at Victoria and Phil. “The government doesn’t even need a court order to tap your phone anymore. Every wireless conversation worldwide is recorded by the NSA.”

Leslie stared at Victoria and Phil, “Do we really want to take a chance on government agents showing up here? That’s why I’m asking you to give up your phones — just until we get new ones.”

“Okay!” Victoria cried.

She put in her phone and battery, and even Phil put his phone in the box.

Leslie called out, “Millie?”

The maid appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Yes, ma’am?”

Leslie pointed at the shoebox. “Please lock these up for us, will you?”

“Right away.”

Watching the box go, their tension grew. Nobody liked being unable to make a call, send a text, or look up something on the internet.

Leslie turned to Victoria. “Remember, my phone’s in that box too.”

Victoria’s lips bunched.

“There are six vehicles in the garage,” Leslie said. “The keys are in them. Don’t use the Cybertruck if you’re going far, since the charging network won’t take cash. Once we get new phones, just unplug the dipstick heater on any of the others and drive somewhere to make a call.”

Lama added, “At least fifteen miles north or west of here before inserting your phone’s battery.”

Lake Superior was to the southeast.

“And let’s agree not to make calls from southwest of here,” Everon added.

“What’s wrong with going southwest?” Phil asked.

“If the National Security Agency IDs you through voice recognition,” Lama said, “they’ll try to triangulate your position.”

He glanced at Victoria. She was the highest risk. Her voice had been on the radio with Franklin. She was known from CNN.

“If some of us make calls north of here, and others make calls west of here,” Lama went on, “NSA’s computers can combine those calls and predict our home base to the northwest. That wouldn’t be too bad. But if someone also makes a call from southwest of here, the NSA could combine that with the other calls and pinpoint our location. They could find us.”

“Not good,” Hunt said.

“So where can we buy new phones?” Phil asked. “I don’t suppose they have an Apple Store up here in the Arctic Circle.”

That brought a few chuckles.

“It only gets down to about ten below in early April,” Leslie smiled. “There’s a Fiskmart an hour south in Duluth. There’s a Target and a Walmart too.”

Lama looked at Phil. “Your tower’s collapse is all over the news, Mr. Loonan — television, the internet — I don’t think you should go. You’re too well known.”

“Nick and I will drive down,” Everon said firmly. “I need to scout places near town we might land the X5. We’ll buy all the prepaid phones we can. I’ll stay in the car and wear a hat.”

“Pay with cash only,” Lama said.

“Of course.”

Hunt said, “I lost my bags at the hotel when the tower went down.” His suit was rumpled. “If I give you my sizes, Nick, would you mind picking up a few polo shirts, some slacks, socks, underwear, and a pair of sneakers?”

“No problem, Mr. Williams.”

Hunt jotted down his sizes.

He slipped a wallet from inside his jacket. “I’ve been carrying a couple thousand in mad money since New York.”

“Put it away Hunt,” Leslie said. “I keep plenty of spare cash in the safe. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you, Leslie,” Hunt said.

“You and Phil choose a couple of the larger down jackets from the upstairs hall closet.”

Phil rubbed his hands together coldly. “Sounds good to me!”

“Clothes, Phil?” Hunt asked.

“I keep two changes in the X5. I’ll be fine.”

Leslie said, “The way you left the tower, Victoria, I don’t remember you bringing anything. You’re a little taller than me, but most of my stuff should fit you.”

“Thanks, Leslie, but I’d rather go into town myself.”

“Absolutely not! If they’re looking for any of us, they’re looking for you.”

Victoria sighed. “Okay. Er — Nick? Think you’d mind buying me some underwear?”

Nick grinned, “For women’s underwear I only shop Victoria’s Secret.”

“Very funny. Think I could persuade you to pick up a couple of packs at Fiskmart?”

“I guess I can make an exception.”

She gave him her size and the style she preferred.

Millie?” Leslie called.

The maid reappeared.

“Can you find an old paper atlas and write out directions to Fiskmart?”

“I’ll take a look.”

“Are they open this late?” Everon asked.

Millie nodded. “Until eleven. May I bring in dinner now?”

“Sounds great,” Leslie said. “I’m sure everyone is starving.”

Everon was anxious to get on the road. Get some new phones. Start trying to find his brother.

Leslie was watching him.

“You need food to think,” she said. “Otherwise you’ll be too tired and make mistakes.”

Everon took a deep breath. He leaned back in his chair.

Ten minutes later Millie had set the table with cream place mats, beautiful silver, and crystal. Everyone did their best to enjoy a dinner of sweet potatoes, spinach, and delicious broiled lake bass.

While they ate and talked over the clink of silverware, Everon considered what it was going to take to get his brother back. His resources were not trivial.

Many of the 150 people who worked for him in Nevada were nearly as talented as Nick and Lama. His MD-900 tailless NOTAR helicopter and recently acquired Learjet (Hunt’s old one), though small, could take him and several other people anywhere Franklin might be. Clearly, it was not enough.

He had to find his brother inside a nameless, faceless, bureaucratic monopoly. He had to get the government to tell him where Franklin was. Then get them to let Franklin go.

It was a job beyond his capabilities.

Everon couldn’t imagine a group better equipped to find his brother. His own resources paled compared with Hunt’s, Leslie’s, or Phil’s. Franklin was fortunate; he meant a lot to his friends around the table. Everon listened to them speak.

Hunt looked at his watch.

“The lawyers are still up,” he said, “writing writs they’ll serve on the FBI, the CIA, and Homeland Security tomorrow morning. We’ll find Franklin . . .”

How does Hunt stay so calm? Everon wondered. Thousands of customers without electricity? It must be driving him crazy!

The billionaire’s financial resources were formidable, but his company was as wrecked as Phil’s tower. That afternoon, Hunt had come to a meeting of the holders of “those Mexican shit-paper bonds!” — as Hunt called them (he’d invested millions) — to talk Everon into bringing his Nevada crew back to Pennsylvania.

But repairing Williams Power didn’t make sense. Not to Everon.

His crew had just finished fixing the EMP damage from Zhou’s New York nuke when, hundreds of miles away, Zhou’s Miami nuke detonated and trashed Hunt’s system a second time. And Zhou was still out there. Getting ready to strike again.

Amazingly, from the moment Hunt learned Franklin had been taken, he hadn’t said another word about Everon going to Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, Hunt’s investigator Naomi Soul had come up with startling information about the CIA Officer who had taken Franklin from the studio. Apparently, Greg Claus was cutting up women to feed his dog.

Everon tuned in on Leslie suggesting other government agencies that might be holding Franklin.

“And Hunt,” she said, “I think you’d better have that law firm check the Bureau of Prisons.”

“Good idea.”

Leslie added, “A soon as we get new phones, I’m going to talk to some people I know at the major airports around Chicago and find out if anyone’s seen Franklin being transported out of the city.”

Of the three, Leslie Brighton was the strongest financially. She was tough and smart and played her business cards very close to her chest.

Leslie’s company, Taconite Mine and Chemical, produced billions in adhesive and polymer products. Everon used thousands of yards of Leslie’s thin-film plastic in the production of solar panels. Leslie’s ore mines were spread across much of Minnesota’s iron-rich Mesabi Range.

And from what Everon had seen, Leslie had an excellent staff to support her at the mansion, allowing her guests to focus on the things it would take to get Franklin back.

Everon listened as Phil and Victoria took over the conversation.

“I think you’re right, Phil,” Victoria said. “Samua wouldn’t have gone back to the tower. I hope those people breaking into my parent’s home didn’t arrest them. Or worse.”

“Where would your parents go if they got away? And Samua?” Phil asked.

Victoria rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know . . .”

Victoria Hill knew dozens of reporters all over the world. She had friends at CNN and other networks. Once she got the media involved in getting Franklin released, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.

Normally, Victoria was calm, organized, and able to handle any situation. She seemed unusually manic tonight.

She’s probably just worried over the people she cares about, Everon thought. I am.

Everon was the only one who knew that Victoria was one of his brother’s two love interests. The other being Victoria’s best friend, the brilliant chemist Samua Schiro.

Franklin had never told Everon he was sleeping with both women. Everon had noticed, one night, all three of them were sleeping in the big back bedroom at Reason House.

It amazed Everon that both women had become involved with his brother sexually. Not behind each other’s backs, but jointly. Not that Franklin was anything less than extraordinary, but because, before the relationship began, as far as Everon knew, Franklin, an unmarried minister, had been a virgin.

Phil Loonan, the lanky brown-haired owner of the X5, the tallest man in the room, was going to be in terrible shape financially. The destruction of Dearborn Tower was a personal disaster.

Phil is clever and adaptive, Everon thought, but can he recover from such a tremendous blow? In a climate of two wrecked cities?

Thing was, Phil’s X5, the world’s fastest helicopter, could make all the difference once they found Franklin. If they had to make a quick getaway.

Franklin’s radio, satellite uplink, and internet system had begun broadcasting in the local Chicago area, then quickly expanded to send Franklin’s voice around the world. It had been designed and assembled by four people, Nick Zavel, Lama Tritian, and Ray and Jacob Williams.

Nick, who looked a bit like a dark-haired, shorter version of Everon, could build anything, electronic or mechanical. Lama was the best programmer Everon had ever seen. The two wild cards were Ray, who had blond hair, and his auburn-haired younger brother Jacob, a couple of teenage hackers — Mary’s sons, Hunt’s grandsons. Everon was glad to have them. Ray was the big picture thinker and natural communicator with anyone who might not understand the technical side of things. Jacob was the faster programmer.

Everon watched Hunt talking with his daughter Mary at the other end of the table. She was Everon’s age, with auburn hair and a great figure. From the moment they’d met, he’d been impressed by her intelligence. Without saying a lot she seemed to get to the heart of things quickly. Except in one area. She didn’t want much to do with Everon. There’d been some casual animosity between them.

Everon looked around the table. They’d all gone silent. They were all watching him.

“Are you okay?” Hunt asked.

Mary frowned. “What were you thinking about?”

Everon smiled. “About how fortunate Franklin is to have you all on his side.”

“Did you hear Leslie’s question, E?” Lama asked.

“What question?”

“What you think we ought to do first,” Leslie said.

Everon bowed his head and stared into the black tabletop.

Their biggest deficiency is that none of them recognize how difficult it’s going to be to get Franklin back.

He raised his head. Put down his knife and fork, then spoke a single word.

“War.”

He looked at each of them.

“There’s no other way to see it. What the government has done is illegal, unethical, immoral, and unfair. If the government can do this to Franklin, they can do it to each of us. The thing we have to keep in mind is: do not get arrested!”

“If we’re locked up,” Leslie said, “we won’t be able to find anybody.”

“Right.” Everon nodded. “But there is no first — we do everything at once. Between us we know hundreds of business people, lobbyists, members of congress. We each have different contacts, associates, friends.

“Lama, Nick, Ray, and Jacob,” he looked at each of them. “Please do something to improve our communications. Find a way we can safely use the internet and make phone calls here in the mansion. So we can find the information we need efficiently and go after Franklin.”

“Leslie, you know people at the Chicago airports. Find out what they’ve seen. You have suppliers and customers all over the world. Get the word out that Franklin is innocent.

“Phil, you know real estate people and hotel people. Those government agents stayed somewhere, flew somewhere, drove somewhere, took my brother somewhere.

“Victoria, while Hunt is attacking on the legal front, get your media contacts involved in protecting Franklin’s reputation. See if any of them have heard where my brother’s been taken. If you’re willing, Mary, help Victoria. And meanwhile, Hunt, maybe you can push your investigator to give us some real ammo we can use to defend Franklin. Whatever Naomi’s got on this CIA nutcase Greg Claus!

“We fight back every way we can,” he said. “All at the same time. Find Victoria’s parents! Search for Samua! Locate her! Find Franklin and bring them home!”

They were nearly through with dinner when Lama turned to Everon.

“You know, E, if we had some headsets with microphones we could set up an encrypted phone system right here. Voice-over-internet, using a virtual private network that I glom onto a phone system on the other side of the country. Then we wouldn’t have to drive all over the place to make calls.”

“I’m in favor of that!” Phil joined in.

Everon frowned. “How secure would it be?”

“Done right, extremely secure. I could set up the same PBX we use at the factory. Say, twelve phone lines — one for each of us, with a couple to spare, if you can buy us some more computers. I’ll have to create an encrypted VPN that hooks into somebody’s phone system.”

“You mean steal,” Everon said.

“Let’s say, borrow. Maybe a low-level government building.”

“How long to write the code?”

“A couple of days, maybe.”

“Until then, we’re stuck driving fifteen miles to use a phone?” Phil groused.

“I’ll work as fast as I can.”

Ray chimed in, “Jacob’s written a pretty cool VPN we could use.”

Lama shook his head. “Thanks, boys, but I’d rather start from scratch. We need something very secure. Bulletproof, in this case.”

Everon considered the internet webcast systems the boys had put together for Franklin at Reason House and, after the fire, at the tower studio. “Maybe you should look at what they’ve got, before you decide, Lama.”

“Okay, E,” Lama agreed doubtfully.

“If our mom will let us stay up to work on it,” Ray said.

“As if I could stop you,” Mary answered.

She smiled. “You’d just sneak downstairs and do it anyway.”

The boys grinned back.

Everon frowned at Nick. “Did you bring those aviation headset adapters?”

“Yup.”

Everon looked at Lama. “I can give you two headsets. Four, when we’re not flying the X5.”

“That’ll work to start.”

“I found one!” the maid said, hurrying into the dining room and handing Nick an old atlas, folded to Minnesota.

“Thanks!” Nick said. “Nice.”

Along the north shore of the lake, Route 61 had been surrounded by a long red oval down to Duluth. At the bottom of the page, Millie had written the word Fiskmart and some directions.

“Over the next couple of days,” Leslie said, “we may not get much sleep, so —”

“So, everyone who can ought to catch a few hours right now,” Hunt said. “Good idea.”

They all rose.

Leslie considered the angry red welt around Victoria’s wrist where her handyman had removed the handcuff. Leslie took in Victoria’s tired eyes. The young woman was utterly exhausted.

“Try to get some sleep,” Leslie said.

“I don’t think I can,” Victoria huffed. “All my contacts were on my iPad and my office laptop. That CIA jerk Claus took them. I’ve got to start making a list of everyone who might be able to help Franklin.”

She headed upstairs.

Ten minutes later Leslie tapped on Victoria’s door. There was no answer. She peeked inside.

Victoria was asleep on the bed with her clothes on. Written on a yellow pad next to her was, Who Can Help Find Franklin? Followed by a list of networks and reporters.

Leslie took a spare blanket from the closet and covered her up.

Mary Williams was standing on the back porch looking at the lake when Everon came outside. She turned and faced him. She saw him frown, as if expecting another of their usual tiffs.

But Mary was thinking about how far away the X5 must have been when Everon, in the pilot’s seat, had spotted her motor home pulling into Lincoln Park, the RV’s side blackened from the Reason House fire. The way he’d brought the helicopter in smoothly on the grass so close, even before she was parked.

She and the boys had run to the helicopter, carrying backpacks and computer cases. “Thanks, Dad!” she’d told her father as they climbed in, Hunt giving them each a quick hug.

Everon had looked back as they took their seats. The instant their belts were buckled, he’d lifted off.

Mary had watched him at the controls up front as they traveled north.

How focused he is! she’d thought. Well, they’ve got his brother. I’d feel the same way if they took Ray or Jacob. She’d frowned. Or — is this the way Everon always is. Something I never noticed.

Two months ago, when Mary had glanced down the hall at the Williams Control Center, she’d seen her father’s pilot Andréa pulling Everon into an office. Whatever had been going on between them, Everon had left Andréa quickly. Mary had assumed that Everon was just another player, interested in only one thing.

Flying north tonight, Mary had begun to realize her father was right, how reliable and competent Everon was. Mary’s thoughts had been interrupted when she noticed her boys watching her, faint smiles on their smug faces. Mary had felt herself blushing.

Now, on Leslie’s back porch, Mary said, “Thank you for getting us out of Chicago,” and kissed Everon’s cheek.

He smiled, offering no snappy comeback or sexual innuendo. Only, “I’m glad you’re all okay.”

She went inside.

“Hmm,” Everon muttered. “That was interesting.”

He walked down the steps. The extension cord he’d run from the house out to the X5 had melted a groove in the snow. It was hot to the touch.

Phil’s right, he thought. It’s damn cold up here. Glad I plugged in the engine heater. January must be incredible.

He popped a door, reached around the X5’s front seats, and unplugged the headsets.

He didn’t like cannibalizing equipment, but it was only until they bought something to replace them. Everon needed to know what was going on. They had to find Franklin soon.

Everon unzipped his flight bag and dug out his two backup headsets. He carried all four inside, to the living room.

“Got the adapters?” he asked Nick.

“Right here.”

Nick pulled a baggie of little black boxes from his knapsack.

“Perfect,” Everon said.

Lama and the boys were booting up their computers. Everon and Nick set the gear next to them on the coffee table.

“Thanks,” Lama said absently, attacking his keyboard.

Everon waved. “Later.”

He doubted Lama even heard him.

He and Nick walked out to the garage, unplugged Leslie’s all-wheel drive Subaru. They wound down the long driveway to the front gates. When the gates opened they turned south toward Duluth.

Naomi and Bea

Hunt’s private investigator Naomi Soul had her green Mini Cooper halfway to the bus station when she heard the words “talk host Franklin Reveal” on the radio. She turned it up.

“— Reveal was also charged with the murder of FBI Special Agent Lance Bolini.”

The reporter moved on to another story.

“I don’t believe it!” Naomi said. She shut it off.

As she wove expertly through Washington’s evening traffic, she felt Bea watching her.

Bea, Greg Claus’s small girlfriend, was in the passenger seat. Claus’s short-legged German shepherd Bowser was in the back. All three of them had gotten away together.

Naomi thought of what was sealed in a baggie in the Mini’s console. She pushed her dark-blonde hair from her face as the stress returned. She needed to turn this damn case over to the FBI.

Naomi recalled everything she knew about Franklin. Particularly the conversation they’d had at the burned-out ruins of Reason House — only hours before Franklin saved thousands of people from Zhou’s Lake Erie bomb.

Naomi had shown Franklin the matching, rarely-used microswitches she’d found in the rubble. Someone, probably Claus, had used one to blow up Franklin’s jeep. Likely the same person had used one of the microswitches to start the fire that burned down Reason House. Despite danger to himself, Franklin had carried out an astonishing independent investigation of the bombings of New York and Miami, using a world-wide radio network. Way beyond anything Naomi had ever seen.

Franklin had exposed the true perpetrators. Now they were trying to silence him.

She gritted her teeth, pulled into the left lane, and began a U-turn.

“What are you doing?” Bea asked.

Naomi didn’t answer. She didn’t want to turn the car around. She had to. The radio story changed everything. She considered what she’d done.

Claus’s freezer chest had been well organized. On its right side, baggies labeled “Bowse” had contained ground meat. Of some kind. On the counter had been a powered meat grinder. Digging through baggies on the left, Naomi had taken a female hand, its nails painted with red and blue stripes and little white stars.

Proof.

Neither Bea nor Naomi had known how soon the little freak might return. Naomi’s only goal had been to grab the hand and get Bea and Bowser the hell out of Claus’s condo. She’d been in too much of a hurry.

Mistake.

She’d thought the hand would be enough. That her ex-boss at the FBI, Madeline Wu, would have to listen. So what if Claus was CIA? Naomi would take this all the way to FBI Director Line if she had to.

The news story about Franklin made her realize what she was up against.

“What are you doing?” Bea asked again.

“We have to go back,” Naomi answered.

“Back? Back to where?”

“Arlington.”

To Greg’s house?” Bea shook her head. “I’m not going back.”

“I knew Lance Bolini at the FBI,” Naomi said, “and I know Franklin Reveal. It isn’t possible. Franklin would never murder an FBI agent.”

“I’m not going!” Bea said. “You’ve got the hand!”

“The stuff in Claus’s freezer won’t be worth a dime without something that ties it to him.”

“I’m not going back there!”

“I’ll leave you off with the next cab we see. You can take it to the bus station.”

Bea shook her head. “I don’t have money for taxis. I don’t even have enough money to leave town. I was going to ask you —”

Bea began to hyperventilate. “I’m afraid when he gets back he’ll find me and kill me. I don’t want to end up in his fucking freezer!”

“You won’t,” Naomi said. “We’re going to stop him.”

“What if we can’t?”

“I’ll find an ATM. I’ll get you bus fare to your parents in Omaha. But first I need to get more evidence, before your boyfriend returns from Chicago and gets rid of it.”

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore!”

“Okay, but I need to know what’s locked in that room off the hall. It’s very well protected.”

Three dimple locks, Naomi thought.

No way could she pick those; who knew how soon the little psycho might show up. She had no tools that could cut through a metal door either. But she did have another idea.

Bea was staring out the front window, saying nothing, her middle finger on the door latch. She let out a long breath. “You’ll make it fast?”

“Fast as I can.”

In a very small voice Bea said, “Okay.”

They parked in the dimly lit lot outside Claus’s condo.

“Stay here, all right?” Naomi said.

“No way!”

“Bowser will protect you.”

Bea glanced across the lot at Claus’s big black Hummer in the shadows.

“I’m coming with you,” she said. “Bowser can wait in the car. I’m not spending a minute in this parking lot by myself.”

Bea used her key, and they hurried cautiously inside to Claus’s kitchen.

Naomi chose a large, heavily-serrated knife from the countertop caddy. She shuddered to think what the little freak probably used it for. She hurried back to the hall.

Three feet to the left of the metal door, Naomi turned the blade horizontal and used the heel of her hand to hammer it into the drywall. She worked the knife in and out, back and forth, forcing it to the right until it hit a wall stud. She flipped the blade over and sawed it to the left. It was tough, slow work. She worried over how close Claus might be.

According to Hunt Williams, Claus and Bolini had carried Franklin from his broadcast studio two hours ago. That was Chicago.

As Naomi sawed long vertical cuts down the insides of the studs, the creepy feeling grew.

Even if Claus flew straight back to Washington, jets were only so fast. Claus hadn’t called Bea to pick him up yet. They had time.

Naomi hoped.

“Your phone is on?” she asked.

Bea pulled it nervously from her pants and nodded. “He hasn’t called.”

Naomi made a second horizontal cut, joining the bottoms of the vertical cuts. She wedged out the large rectangle of wallboard with the knife.

This was taking too damn long. She worked faster, pushed harder, cutting a second rectangle through the inner wall in half the time. She kicked it into the locked room.

Naomi squeezed through, into a space filled with shadows. Its only light came through the hole in the wall. Hair rose on the back of her neck. She felt along the wall until her fingers found a switch.

Bright light flooded the room.

To her left, an overstuffed red leather recliner was topped with a slanted, swing-over lap table that supported a keyboard and mouse. Directly in front of the recliner was a huge wall monitor. Expensive speakers were mounted high in the corners.

To the right side of the monitor was a tall rack of electronic equipment. Two cables ran from the rack through holes at the top of the wall that held the monitor.

She thought, Isn’t that the wall to the master bedroom?

On the wall opposite the hole she’d cut were shelves holding hundreds of cheap-looking flash drives. She picked one up.

Written in thick Sharpie letters was Celeste.

She flipped through the neat stacks. Carla — Debbie — Mona — Rosie. Naomi considered what she’d found in the kitchen freezer.

How much worse can these be?

Halfway up the equipment rack was a computer. She pushed the power button. It took a minute to boot up. A flash drive was plugged into a USB port. It was labeled Sarah.

She grabbed the mouse and found the flash drive. There was only one file, a movie, under the same female name.

She clicked play.

“Uhhhh.” What came up on the big monitor turned her stomach.

“What did you find?” Bea asked.

She was quite a bit smaller than Naomi and stepped through the wall before Naomi could stop her. Bea looked at the monitor.

“Eeeew!” she said.

Naomi asked, “Did you have sex with —?”

Bea blushed furiously. “Of course not!”

Naomi ejected the drive. Pulled it from the USB port. From a shelf she grabbed a handful of flash drives and stuffed them in her pockets.

More proof.

Bea followed her back through the wall.

They peered cautiously out Claus’s front door.

Nobody.

They ran for the car.

Twenty minutes later they pulled up outside the dog pound.

Bea looked at Bowser.

“On the one hand . . . but on the other — Eeeew!”

They left Claus’s dog with the assistant inside the pound and drove away.

Naomi decided that before she went to the FBI, she’d better have the hand fingerprinted. Hunt Williams had told her Franklin was taken from his studio in handcuffs by Claus and Bolini.

Then, somehow, Franklin murders Bolini?

It didn’t add up.

Naomi would take no chances. This was too weird. If the hand’s ID matched someone on one of the disks she’d taken, it would be easy to lock the case down. And lock Claus up.

She drove to the Edison Protectorate, a private think-tank where her friend Denise, a former FBI lab rat, often worked late.

A tall, serious-looking, rail-thin black lobby guard checked her ID, asked who Naomi wanted to see, then picked up a phone, and said a few soft words. He nodded and put the phone down.

“She’ll be right out,” he said.

An unmarked door at the back of the lobby opened. Denise, a slim woman with fluffy dark hair, wearing a white lab coat, walked over briskly.

“Hi, Naomi,” she said, smiling. “What’s brings you here so late?”

Naomi introduced Bea, then said, “Let me show you something.”

She held out the baggie containing the hand.

Denise reached out automatically, but jerked back and made a face.

“Where did that come from?” she asked.

“A freezer in the condo of a CIA Officer named Greg Claus. It was filled with body parts.”

Denise’s mouth dropped open as Naomi told her about Claus. And Bowser.

Denise hesitantly took the hand.

Back in her lab, Denise found the flesh beneath the hand’s skin too degraded to support a clear print. She cut the skin from each fingertip and laid it over her own finger, allowing her to hold each one to the glass of a high-resolution flat-bed scanner and produce a clear image. She stopped at a set of four.

“The thumb looks like it’s been chewed on,” Denise said.

The women looked at each other and grimaced.

Denise transmitted the prints to a buddy at the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia.

Twenty minutes later, a report came back. The hand belonged to a missing twenty-two-year-old from Kansas named Patrice Klem, more recently a hooker in the Washington sex trade known as Misty Delight.

That ought to help Franklin! Naomi thought.

She put in a call to her old boss at the Hoover Building, Madeline Wu. Mad Maddie, as she was called behind her back, had never been the easiest to work for. But Naomi needed her help.

The call went to voicemail.

Naomi recorded what she’d found at Claus’s condo. How to contact Denise so someone could pick up the hand. Who to contact at Quantico for a copy of the fingerprints. She ended the call with Claus’s address.

She’d call Hunt after the FBI logged everything in. A whole freezer of evidence awaited the Bureau’s agents. If they moved fast enough.

The Hack

Ray and Jacob opened their laptops next to each other on a wide glass coffee table in Leslie’s gigantic living room. They took the right side of the long brown davenport. One of two big fireplaces, the one on their end, was lit, warming that side of the room.

Lama set up his two laptops on the coffee table’s other end. He sat in the middle of the davenport, fingers dancing over the keys.

“This phone system has to be as NSA-proof as we can make it,” he muttered as he typed, doubting the boys would be much help. “We’re all at risk here.”

“NSA,” Ray nodded darkly. “No Such Agency.”

“Old joke,” Lama said. “But you’re right. They usually keep a low profile. Thing is, if they keep pulling crap like shutting down Franklin’s internet feed they won’t be out of the public eye much longer.”

Ray nodded. “That had to be the NSA.”

Jacob was silent, completely focused on his typing.

“Did you hear about the CIA getting hacked last year?” Lama asked, filling his screens with text windows.

“Uh —” Ray plugged in cables to each computer and connected the cables’ other ends to an Ethernet hub. “— Vault Twenty-two breach?”

“That’s right!” Lama said, surprised. “Someone stole the code to three top-secret hacker programs: Polar Bear, Montezuma’s Revenge, and Bath House. Word in a few darkweb chat rooms was that it might have actually been the CIA that broke into its own servers.”

“Why would they do that?” Ray asked.

“By making themselves appear vulnerable,” Lama replied, “they don’t seem as threatening to us.”

Ray huffed. “There’s a fine line between being seen as non-threatening and suggesting their own incompetence.”

“Very fine,” Lama agreed. “Which matters, unless your funding doesn’t all come from Congress.”

A message popped up on Lama’s screen.

“What the —?”

He turned to Jacob, who was busily coding away.

Jacob didn’t turn, but the corners of his mouth formed a small grin.

Lama muttered, “You want my PBX port numbers?”

Jacob nodded.

Lama could see the boy silently editing his way down a screen of code, changing his program’s elements to work with Lama’s computer-based phone system. Lama typed the requested numbers into Jacob’s message and hit SEND.

Other than their clicking keyboards, the crackling fire, and the high moan of wind off the lake, the huge room was quiet.

Ray connected a cable between the Ethernet hub and Leslie’s cable modem. They would use no WiFi. They were pretty far from the nearest house and a good distance from the road, but they couldn’t risk someone picking up their signal.

Ray asked, “What do those stolen CIA programs do?”

“Polar Bear makes your computer freeze,” Lama said. “When you reboot, it gobbles your entire hard drive and sends a zip file to a waiting CIA server.”

He went on typing.

“Montezuma’s Revenge gets activated when you open an email claiming you’ve won a vacation in Cancún. It makes your computer expose all its passwords, bank account and credit card info, and dumps it onto that same CIA server.”

“And Bath House?”

“Bath House forces your computer to send messages that infect all your email contacts’ computers with Polar Bear and Montezuma’s Revenge.”

Ray huffed out a single laugh. “Not funny.”

“No it’s not. But some NSA hacker probably thinks it’s hilarious.”

Jacob hit a key and a cheesy green-and-red splash screen appeared on Lama’s left monitor:

J's VPN

The splash screen dissolved, leaving a column of blank spaces in which to enter IP addresses — routing points across the country. Or the world.

“What level encryption is this built on?” Lama asked.

“RSA combined with Diffie-Hellman,” Ray said. “Strength 269.”

“That’s sixteen thousand bits!” Lama said. You boys wrote this?”

“Jacob did,” Ray said, with pride in his younger brother.

Jacob smiled. “Ray helped a couple of times when I got stuck.”

Lama grinned like he was in hog heaven.

Ray and Jacob, he thought, young, but talented. And they don’t put down my conspiracy theories. Maybe I can use their virtual private network after all.

He’d give them the chance Everon had asked for.

Lama configured his office PBX for a smaller phone system here in the mansion.

“Hmmmm,” he muttered, noticing a university logo on Jacob’s screen. The teenager was connecting to a server at the University of Tampa.

“Ahh, here we go,” Ray said.

Jacob had chosen a professor named Benticof, from the faculty list — chairman of the history department.

“The more tenure, the more arrogant,” Ray muttered. “The weaker the security.”

After reviewing Benticof’s bio, it took Jacob less than a dozen tries to guess the professor’s password.

“These Linux systems usually have a hole that lets you overload the kernel and drop into root,” Ray narrated, “using a small, harmless, self-limiting virus,” as Jacob did just that. “Then you simply modify the admin list and become superuser.”

Jacob installed his first cross-country hop on the university computer.

Lama hurried to keep up.

“Twelve phone lines should do it,” he said, pressing several keys.

He connected one of Nick’s dongles to one of his laptops’ USB ports and plugged in Everon’s headsets.

“Ready when you are, boys!”

Jacob was remotely installing the other end of his VPN on a phone system he’d obviously been inside before — he certainly knew his way around. The phone system seemed to handle calls for a large office building in Washington DC.

Lama pointed his telephone PBX, here in the mansion, at Jacob’s VPN. A connection was established. Now the two programs were one.

Jacob took over and installed Lama’s PBX in Washington. The two programs auto-linked.

Ray said, “We should be able to make calls through the Washington phone lines now. Let’s test it.”

Lama frowned. “Where is that? What’s that building?”

A mischievous grin spread across the boys’ faces. Ray pointed to the bottom of Jacob’s screen which showed a four-digit address on a street named for a US state. A very famous building.

Lama’s mouth popped open. “Y-you can’t do that!”

“Why not?” Ray smiled.

“Be-because — !”

“Well?” Ray asked. “They do it to us all the time. They try.”

“They’ll never notice,” Jacob added. “Ever since the president began moving agencies to Colorado, the place has been operating on a skeleton staff. And the NSA isn’t allowed to monitor the building.”

Lama burst out laughing.

“You know, boys,” he said, gasping, “It just might work!”

Ray asked, “So how about we try a couple of calls from the Old Oval Office?”

The Headset

The moment Marc Praeger and Michael Joy left the room, Greg Claus unfolded a long thin skinning knife, shiny and black, from his rear pocket. He looked Reveal over. The minister’s wrists were tie-strapped to the heavy wooden chair.

Holding the knife in his teeth, Claus carefully rolled up the Reveal’s shirt sleeves. Then — slashed out, cutting a nice half-inch crescent from his left arm. Blood spurted over Reveal’s pants.

Another flick. Blood squirted from his right arm.

The crazy visions surrounding Franklin became physical. Out of the swirling color, something sharp stabbed at the crook of his elbow. He felt something wet and warm flowing down his arm. At least he thought he did.

Then something stabbed his other arm.

Franklin tossed his head, trying to fling off whatever was controlling his hearing and vision. He couldn’t do it.

That’s not the way, he thought.

He stopped.

The colors surrounding him were unbearably vivid. The crazy cacophony of voices and screams were growing louder. He pushed against the pain and fear and trickling wetness, not knowing if it was real.

But he had real pain in his arms.

That wasn’t there before. It wasn’t part of the hallucination!

He tried to think of a way he might manipulate whoever was doing this to him.

Shortly after whispering Praeger’s name, Franklin thought he’d felt a faint sensation beneath his feet. As if someone, perhaps more than one, had been leaving the room.

If I upset Praeger, Franklin thought, Joy might go with him to settle him down.

All right. Assume one person watching me. Who?

The pain in my arms? The warm wetness? Claus would be most likely to get physical.

The short, tough CIA officer had arranged the bombings of New York and Miami. He was responsible for the deaths of millions. But cutting Franklin — if that’s what Claus was doing — was torture.

What does mass murder have to do with torture? Franklin wondered. Not much, really. They’re so different. In scope. In size. But they do have one element in common: Lack of respect for the individual.

This, Franklin thought, is the real Greg Claus.

Within every person who tortures lives a bud of weakness, a euphoria that can grow until the torturer becomes consumed by his desire. Claus can be controlled by that.

Franklin would have to create a very strange induction, based entirely on guesswork. With this thing on his head and the visions interfering, he couldn’t mirror what he couldn’t see. If Claus really was in the room with him, there could be no way to time his breathing or blinking to Claus’s autonomic responses. Franklin would have to reverse the process.

Ignore the physical, mirror Claus mentally, he thought, then lead.

Lightning-like, Franklin rejected phrases.

Big knife for a little man?

That wouldn’t help.

That all you got, asshole?

This was no time for insults.

No mentally healthy person would accept his own evil being thrown in his face. But Claus wouldn’t care. Not consciously.

There’s one chance.

Pop songwriters had long known that repeating any word converted it in the conscious mind to a meaningless sound. Which then slid deep into the vulnerable subconscious. An hour or a day later, you found it playing in your head.

He whispered, “Eeeevilll . . .”

“What?” Claus asked, though Franklin couldn’t hear him.

“EVIL!” Franklin grunted.

Claus chuckled. What is with this minister? he wondered.

“E — E — EVILLL!” Reveal’s voice rose.

Claus felt a stirring irritation.

“EeeeeVILLLLLLL!” Reveal screamed. “Look-At-Himmmm! Look, everyone, look at the eeeeVILLLLLLLL!”

Damn it! Claus thought. This maniac is screaming at me while he bleeds? Refusing to give me what I need?

“EVIL — EVIL — EVIL —”

There’s just those few bits of evidence I have to get rid of, Claus thought. The things Reveal exposed on his program.

Top of the list was the waitress from Mexico.

An artist had made a sketch from the girl’s description of Claus’s restaurant meeting in Los Cabos with the bomber Zhou. Claus had destroyed the sketch, and the NSA had deleted every electronic copy.

Whispered: “Eeeeeevilllll.”

Tristan would lead a team to eliminate the artist, but Claus needed to eliminate the source of the sketch. That damn Mexican waitress!

Claus pictured the restaurant in Baja California. The girl, slim and tan, with long dark hair. A honey-eyed beauty. He’d like to take the jet and hop on down there.

Bowser would just love her!

“EEEEEEVILLLLLE!”

But she’d be tough to find. Mexico was a mess. With the US economy faltering, tourism was way down. Restaurants were closing, maybe the girl’s restaurant too.

He didn’t have time for that crap. He hoped she was still in Chicago. He had to get Reveal to disclose her real name and US address, before she left the country.

“Eeeevil!”

Joy’s headset wasn’t doing its job. Claus had expected Reveal’s loss of blood would accelerate the process. But here the guy was — screaming at him!

Shit! Claus thought. Maybe I should cut him again. Weaken him some more. A little more blood loss —

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeevil!”

The word bounced around Claus’s head.

Damn this son of a bitch; this screaming is really beginning to bug me!

Claus studied Reveal’s arms, neck, and face for the best place to cut next.

Franklin thought, If it is Claus watching me, he must be almost ready.

He knew what he wanted Claus to do. Get whatever this was on his head — off! And cut him loose. What would push Claus over the edge?

Maybe —

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Franklin whispered, as if savoring something tasty. “That feeling of your fist smashing into someone’s face. Flesh giving in, bone collapsing . . . you can just feeeel it breaking . . .”

At the sides of Franklin’s face, suddenly, he felt rough fingers.

Removing —?

The images and sounds stopped.

It is Claus!

Standing before him, grinning, holding a knife.

Franklin was still strapped to the heavy chair. Both his arms were oozing blood. There was quite a lot of it on the floor. He needed the tough little officer to cut his wrists free.

He saw the pores in Claus’s cheeks tightening. The increasing tension at the corners of his mouth.

It was all Franklin had time for. Claus was putting on a glove. Taking a stance. Pulling back his fist.

“Evil! Feeeels soo gooood inside! Franklin whispered. You can enjoy the feeling more deeply . . .”

Claus hesitated.

Franklin saw the growing excitement in the agent’s body — Claus’s accelerating breath, dilating eyes, and stiffening posture.

As the little bulldog breathed in — Franklin whispered, “Can you feel your breath so deeply?”

Timed precisely at Claus’s inhale, it amplified his enjoyment.

Franklin waited . . . then —

“Each breath out,” he added as Claus exhaled, “is ahhhh . . . so relaxing.”

Reversing, inching Claus toward trance, Franklin’s breath kept pace with Claus’s now slowing respiration.

The agent’s eyes tried to focus, but he frowned, shaking his head like a trucker struggling through one last hour of midnight driving . . . wanting to twist, wanting to pull back his fist . . .

“Feeeeel the eeeevil warming you . . .” Franklin interrupted.

Claus liked it, and he hesitated again. But the more his thoughts were favorably interrupted, the greater his frustration grew. He struggled to make sense of what he was feeling, and —

Franklin offered release.

“You can take that deep breath, the one that feels sooo good . . .”

Claus did. Unaware of Franklin’s embedded commands, while affected by their urgency, his eyes fluttered.

“It feels good to release that nice deep breath,” Franklin went on. “It feels wonderful to allow yourself to let your eyes close . . . deeply, gently, relaxing into your chair . . .”

Claus’s eyes fell shut . . . and he sank all the way to the floor.

Franklin snatched a look over his own shoulder. Through the edge of the blinds, he saw distant lights atop a very tall building.

A tower? Willis Tower! I’m still in Chicago! If I can just get out of here!

Without the headset, now able to mirror the little officer physically, Franklin let his own head droop. He leaned in close to Claus’s ear.

“I know more people who are more satisfied —”

More satisfied? Claus wondered. Who’s satisfied? Me? More satisfied than what?

His right hand twitched.

Franklin noticed.

Confusion? Good!

He leaned into the CIA officer’s other ear.

“So deeply asleep, as you relax —” (filling Claus with satisfaction) “as one hand, or both, or neither, rest on your thighs, you return to so much enjoyment, so comfortably felt —”

Images suddenly flashed through Claus . . . wonderful things he’d done . . . hiding that Gold Tablet in Saudi Arabia and watching those Muslims kill each other over it . . . Those two old women he’d drowned in the Potomac . . . ghosts rising, people he’d hurt — oh, well — shooting that girl Rosie in the shower . . . and that other one, months ago, with the flaming red hair . . . what was her name?

“And then there’s Zhou . . .” Franklin suggested.

He could see the ready emotion beneath Claus’s face. The twitching mouth and cheeks; Claus’s eyeballs moving beneath their lids. Franklin felt a desperate need to hear what Claus was thinking, planning, before he tried to get Claus to cut him free. After weeks of nearly impossible investigation he couldn’t waste a golden opportunity! To obtain accurate information right from the source!

Franklin suggested softly, “Zhou’s next attack —?”

Claus’s mouth bunched.

He’s resisting! Franklin thought. Or, is it he doesn’t know?

“Such an excellent reason for Zhou do this . . .” Franklin said softly. “To reach your ultimate goal of . . .?”

But Claus’s mouth bunched even tighter. He was starting to come out of it.

Something’s wrong. Franklin thought. This isn’t working. Like trying to throw the headset off, this isn’t the way.

Franklin needed to release so much empathy he could feel what Claus felt. He had to be Greg Claus.

Empathic Reprogramming, Franklin called his type of hypnosis. Empathic, because when properly in sync he could hallucinate all his subject’s senses. Claus’s pain and joy and sadness became Franklin’s pain and joy and sadness. Claus’s overwhelming satisfaction, irritation, even love — horrible as that might be, Franklin would feel it too.

And Franklin’s hypnosis was Re-programming, because so much childhood programming had already been done. A person’s deepest, strongest, embedded foundation had been accepted, then forgotten consciously, long ago. But buried deep within those early feelings and decisions was the key to change.

Franklin was happy to guide a friend to reprogram connections, to remove limiting walls — as long as he had that friend’s desire and permission.

This was different. Franklin was facing an enemy. He had only used his methods like this once, to tear into someone’s mind — Zhou’s. Using these tools in this way bothered Franklin.

But not enough to make him stop.

Right now there had to be a conflict raging between the halves of Claus’s mind, its psychological wall on the edge of crumbling. Franklin had to learn what Claus’s associates were up to.

Franklin became Greg Claus, releasing suggestions as if Claus were speaking to himself.

“It doesn’t matter what I tell him,” Franklin muttered in Claus’s nasal voice. “Reveal won’t live to talk about it . . .”

Claus’s eyeballs oscillated rapidly beneath their lids.

Franklin said, “Reveal will be dead in a week and . . .”

Claus shivered with delight, shaking his head, a light smile on his lips, and began to speak: “Willows at the FCC will totally control the media. Marc (Marc Praeger, Franklin wondered, the president’s chief of staff?) will be Secretary of State when Joy takes over (shocking Franklin to his core), with Gunt at the Fed manipulating the economy.

“Poor Lance,” a tiny chuckle. “No one suspects it was me who killed him.” Claus smiled. “Bolini just had to go digging into New York and Zhou. It could have been a real problem. It was so perfect, Reveal taking the blame!”

Claus huffed, “By the time I’m running the CIA, our Indoc Centers will be fully operational. In Columbus, Dallas, Kansas City, San Francisco . . .” Claus named fifty cities, more in other countries — “Paris, Berlin, Oslo, Barcelona . . .”

It was appalling, and Franklin couldn’t let himself interrupt the flow of information.

Mistake.

Claus’s sense of death was affecting Franklin, and Franklin was losing blood. Such a psychotic connection made Franklin feel unclear — and unclean. Suddenly, all he wanted was to punish Claus.

He should have known better.

He should have got himself free.

Perhaps it was the drugs in Franklin’s system that caused his pain to boil over. Flashing on his sister’s death, he screamed, “IMMORAL! EVIL! CRIMINAL! SCUUUUMMM!” lobbing his uncontrolled and less than useless frustration against the little psychopath, wanting to utterly destroy him!

“Greg!” a voice penetrated Claus’s fog. “He’s got the headset off!” someone yelled.

“GREG!”

The force of the voice hit Claus. His eyes opened. He blinked at Reveal and realized what he’d done.

I’m sitting on the floor telling this fucker my secrets!

Praeger shouted, “Why is the damn headset off his head?”

“What have you done, Greg?” Joy asked, truly puzzled.

Joy took in the situation. Claus’s face was slack. Two spots were bleeding from Reveal’s arms.

Praeger yelled,“What the hell is wrong with you, Greg!”

Claus staggered to his feet and looked down on Reveal.

“You son of a bitch,” Claus said softly.

There were things he should not have said. This damn minister had made him sit on the floor and — and — he felt afraid!

“God damn you!” Claus shouted.

No man had ever made Claus feel fear.

“No!” Reveal roared back. “God damn you, Greg Claus! Any decent god would damn you to Hell for the things you’ve done, the people you’ve killed. Parents, brothers, sisters. My sister Cynthia was one of them, you depraved son of a bitch!”

“What the hell did you tell him, Greg?” Praeger asked.

Claus stood there, staring.

He whipped around and ran.

The Truth

Michael Joy squinted at Franklin, head cocked.

“Hmmm . . .”

Rubbed his chin, “Maybe —?”

He said gently, “The world has become too big,” wrapping Franklin’s left elbow with his handkerchief. “It needs to be protected.”

Protected from whom? Franklin wondered.

“Worldwide government is the only solution,” Joy went on.

He used Praeger’s handkerchief to wrap Franklin’s other arm.

“Combined control,” he said, “through religion, politics, and economics. The United States as its center.”

“Let’s not forget drugs, hypnosis, and electronics,” Franklin said.

“Modern times, modern methods.” Joy smiled. “Is it really so different from the social dance, Dr. Reveal? The seduction ritual? Alcohol, conversation, dinner, and a movie?”

Franklin frowned.

“Soon,” Joy added, we’ll have ID chips embedded in every person and attached to every thing. We’ll be able to track the entire world in real time.”

“So, you don’t think of people as things?”

“Of course not. However, when we find those rare exceptions, like yourself, who resist doctrine and require physical intervention — those few nails that require hammering — we intervene.”

Franklin asked, “Is that even possible?”

Joy chuckled lightly. “It’s quite simple, really. We’re using the same method the British used in India.”

Unfortunately, Franklin knew where Joy was going.

“The Brits had a real mess on their hands,” Joy went on. “They had military and political control, but millions of Indians still believed in several thousand unique Hindu gods. The population was unmanageable.”

Joy smiled. “The British did a very smart thing. Using missionary schools and the printing press, they distributed new storybooks written in English. Combining all those old gods, they called them avatars of India’s most popular gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva — the Creator, Protector, and Destroyer — a familiar tri-godhead that paralleled the West’s Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Franklin nodded. Joy’s right. Historical fact. Franklin knew that subcontinent well.

“The British were not entirely successful,” Franklin put in.

“True, Dr. Reveal. They were able to co-opt large numbers of the poor, but not enough upper caste Hindus and leadership to hold them. The Brits did not have the technology to win all their hearts and minds.

“This we are now accomplishing, worldwide,” Joy went on. “We are combining the old monotheist religions — Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The Jews, of course, aren’t numerous enough to be important anymore, but they have such excellent public relations, if we leave them out they’ll cause trouble.”

Joy squinted. “Perhaps I made a mistake. Perhaps you can be of use to us.”

Praeger’s mouth dropped open. “Now just a damn minute, Michael!”

“Think about it, Marc.”

Praeger’s face turned red. “The media’s already painting him as a traitor!”

“That can be dealt with,” Joy said calmly.

He turned back to Franklin. “Your particular case, Dr. Reveal, is, I must admit, unusual. I’m thinking maybe we should ask you to join us. Reversing your present deteriorating public profile, you would quickly regain all that you have lost. Your voice, joined with ours, with your popularity restored, could smooth our way. You and your friends could be extremely valuable.”

Franklin stared at Joy and Praeger. These men have one weakness, he thought. Public opinion. They have to eliminate my proof of the things they’ve done. The people they’ve killed. They must be desperate to find everyone who helped me expose their scheme. They’ve been trying everything to get what they want, and it isn’t working. So now, this, invite me inside.

They must be insane! Deep down, they think everyone is just like them. They don’t even suspect how impossible it would be to betray my values — the people who helped me, the people who love me! Victoria, Samua, my brother, my grandmother, my niece! These assholes killed my sister!

Joy was watching him. Nodding.

He knows! Franklin thought. He can see it in my eyes. My anger’s too raw to hide.

The holy man pulled his lips between his teeth. Shook his head. Said more casually than he must have felt, “Oh, well. It was just an idea.”

Claus stepped back into the office they were using. He looked at Reveal and felt himself slipping.

He pointed.

“He’s dangerous!”

“Come on, Greg,” Joy huffed, turning to Franklin. “He may be resistant to my methods, but what can he do? Sooner or later everyone gives in.”

Joy and Praeger don’t know what the minister got me to say, Claus thought.

“He knows too much!” Claus snarled, smacking a fist into his palm. “Let me take him somewhere we can work on him.”

He turned to Praeger. “Let’s get him on my jet,” Claus said. “Put him on ice.”

“Take him where, Greg?” Praeger asked. “Saudi Arabia? Iraq?”

“Hmmm,” Joy nodded. “Not a bad idea. I know the perfect place.”

Joy reached into a little bag and brought out a hypodermic filled with something blue. He moved behind Franklin.

“Just a little pinch.”

Franklin felt the needle go into his neck.

As the world darkened Praeger was speaking.

“We’ll double the number of agents tasked with finding his associates. Greg can manage the whole operation and direct the termination teams for the hard cases.”

Joy’s voice came faintly.

“Don’t worry, Greg. As soon as we dilute the damage this guy’s done, you can have the pleasure of getting rid of him . . .”

Franklin had been allowed to see the truth. But as the world faded, he couldn’t help feeling there was more they hadn’t shown him.

And everything went black.

Spring Valley, not far from Pahrump, Nevada.

Everon’s secretary Judy used a mouse and a finger on the delete button to trash most of Two-State Solar’s email, leaving only what was important. She hoped to go home tonight without any bigger problems to worry about. Franklin’s arrest and being unable to reach Everon were enough.

Finger poised to delete an email she didn’t recognize, its subject stopped her.

What the —?

Subject: Your Cat On High Desert Way

High Desert Way? Judy wondered. That’s weird.

That was the street she had lived on in the rental, before the house she and her husband now owned.

Is this Spam?

She looked at the sender’s address. Judy@WBReveal706.com.

From —? How the —?

Judy’s old address on High Desert Way had been 706. Not long before moving out, she had lost her cat.

The text said only:

Open the attachment, Judy.

Open an attachment blind? she thought doubtfully. From an unknown source? Not a good idea!

With her finger poised over the Delete key, she looked at the email address again.

Judy@WBReveal706.com? WBReveal. Wasn’t WB the Whistle Blower? The person Franklin met with one night in Chicago?

She looked up the domain. It wasn’t spoofed. The owner’s information was blocked, but WBReveal706.com was a real domain. Someone had gone to a fair amount of trouble.

She grabbed the mouse, took a deep breath, and opened the attachment.

A picture of a snow-white cat appeared, with a single small black dot on its forehead.

My old cat! Lotus!

“What the hell?” she said. How did anyone get that picture?

Lotus had been her constant companion when she’d lived at 706 High Desert Way. When Lotus suddenly disappeared, Judy had put fliers on telephone poles around town with her cat’s picture. Judy had eventually given up, figuring a coyote had got Lotus.

She vaguely remembered posting the picture on Facebook.

Is this picture still up there?

Centered inside the bottom of the picture was a short, white, empty text field with a flashing cursor, waiting for someone to enter one, maybe two words.

A password, Judy figured. There was only one possibility.

She typed in: LOTUS. Her finger hesitated above the Enter key. Before she could press anything, an obnoxious buzzer sounded.

She studied the image. Something was wrong. It was a one-quarter front view of Lotus, facing left. Judy had taken the picture herself. Lotus had definitely been facing right.

She thought a moment, then backspaced over what she had typed and replaced it with: SUTOL.

Immediately the image of Lotus was replaced with a document. At its top was a message.

NOTE: Unknown if this is relevant to locating F. Reveal, but it should be considered. WB.

JOINT BASE REZA

CIA REPORT — CLASSIFIED 5A

Judy read the report as fast as she could, then immediately picked up the phone and tried Everon’s number.

“Damn it!” she cried as it rang . . . and rang. “Still no answer!”

Naomi Soul drove Bea to the Greyhound Bus Line at Washington’s Union Station and pulled her Mini Cooper into the lot. Bea got out with her little suitcase, and they went inside.

Naomi bought her a bus ticket for cash. It would be a long trip, but she would have worried more sending Bea by plane, where ID was required.

The bus won’t be expected, Naomi hoped.

“You sure you’ll be all right?” she asked.

Bea nodded. “My parents will pick me up in Omaha tomorrow night. I can’t wait to leave this city. All this white marble is creeping me out. It’s like Washington is one big tomb. I’m never coming back!”

“You have enough money?”

Naomi had given the girl two hundred dollars, just in case. She’d stopped at Fiskmart, bought Bea a prepaid phone, and they’d thrown away her old one.

Bea hugged her. “Thank you, Naomi. Really! I appreciate everything you’ve done. I’ll get the money back to you as soon as I can.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Naomi didn’t want Claus to find this girl. Plenty of time on the road, unfortunately, for the little freak to locate her.

“Take care,” Naomi said.

Bea smiled crookedly. Took one of the orange plastic seats and began waiting for her bus to be called.

A mile from the bus station, Naomi was wondering why the FBI hadn’t gotten back to her.

Something this big? A freezer full of dead hookers in Claus’s condo?

She turned on the radio and pushed scan. It quickly found a news report of Franklin’s arrest. The scan moved through other stations. But regarding Greg Claus, or the CIA, there was nothing. By now she expected to hear reports of Claus’s condo everywhere.

She pulled into a parking lot and called her ex-boss at the FBI. The line trilled.

“Yes?” Madeline answered.

“Hi, boss. It’s Naomi. What’s going on?”

Though Madeline wasn’t her boss anymore, Naomi’s greeting was an old habit. A sign of respect. Instead of a progress report, or a “Thank you,” it was met with silence.

“Hello? Madeline?”

“Ms. Soul.”

Her ex-boss’s voice sounded cold and unfamiliar.

“Did you receive that severed hand from Denise?” Naomi asked.

“We did.”

“Did Denise include the fingerprint match?”

Silence.

“What happened when your team got to Claus’s condo? Did they take his videos into evidence? The human remains in his freezer?”

“We didn’t send a team. I was instructed to pick up everything Denise had and turn the case over to the CIA.”

“Fingerprints? The hand? Everything?”

“The case is no longer our responsibility, Ms. Soul, nor your concern.”

Naomi couldn’t believe it.

“Pardon the pun, ma’am, but is the CIA just burying the whole damn thing?”

The line went silent. Then Naomi heard the rattle of a desk phone receiver being placed back on it’s base.