Authors: Daniel Suarez
Odin motioned for McKinney to take a seat next to him. “So what is it now—Ryan James? That’s pretty bland for a guy like you.” Odin gestured in their host’s direction. “Professor, this used to be the far more interesting Mordecai Elijah Evans—a very talented member of a U.S. Cyber Command worm squad—part of the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare. Mort here was their pet black-hat. On a short leash under the threat of—what was it again, Mort?—sixty-five years and a two-million-dollar fine?”
“I paid my debt to society.”
“But not your debt to me.”
“You don’t— You’d better not be here for me, Odin. One phone call, and you go away. I have friends now. Powerful, official friends.”
“I need your talents.”
“I don’t work for DOD anymore. I got my package, motherfucker. Legal pardon. A new life.” He gestured to the office. “I’m a legitimate businessman.”
Odin nodded appreciatively. “Yes, very lifelike.”
Evans sneered back at the sarcasm with an intense nasal imitation of Odin’s voice. “Mmm . . . vera lifelike. Fuck you. I’m not the same person I was back then.”
“Not the same name maybe, but I don’t think you’ve changed. You forget how much I know about you.”
“Leave, or I make a call.”
Odin spoke to McKinney, keeping his eyes on Evans. “Morty here sold zero-day exploits to international criminal gangs—helped advanced technology escape to parts unknown. What we’re dealing with right now might be because of him.”
“I got my deal. They need people like me, Odin. It’s that simple. Door kickers like you are replaceable—or should I say disposable? I am not.” He frowned. “How did you get in, anyway?”
“I kicked the door in.”
“Look, this is all moot. You can’t twist my arm anymore. I’m part of the system now. The system wants you to leave.” He swept his arm dramatically to point at the door. “So leave.”
“I need information. You’re going to help me get it.”
Evans just laughed. “Are you deaf? I’ve got powerful allies, and I don’t work for you.” He put his hand over the multiline phone system on his desk. “One more word, and I make the call.”
Odin leaned forward and produced a black automatic pistol from the waistband at the small of his back. He held it up for Evans to clearly see. McKinney noticed a short exposed barrel with threads at the end of its blocky body. The words
USP Tactical
were engraved in letters large enough to read on its side.
Evans just frowned at it. “What, are you kidding me?”
Odin produced a metal cylinder from his pocket and proceeded to screw it onto the end of the barrel.
Evans laughed. “I feel insulted by this posturing.”
McKinney grabbed Odin’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”
Odin finished screwing on the suppressor. “I’m doing what’s necessary, Professor. I assure you, there’s no other means to secure Mordecai’s cooperation.”
“But you’re making me party to a— I don’t think we need this person so badly that we need to resort to this.”
“Listen to the lady, Odin.”
Odin shook his head but kept looking at Evans. “Mort, would you cooperate under any circumstances other than the threat of physical force?”
Evans chuckled and ruefully shook his head. “You know, I’m going to have to say no to that—in fact, I’m going to say no to physical force as well.” He picked up the handset of his desk phone. “If I disappeared—all these witnesses. Too many cameras. They’d track you down. It would be suicide to lay a finger on me.”
Odin chambered a round. “Good thing I don’t give a shit.”
“Well, you care about your team. The man can get to them to get to you.”
“My team’s all dead. Betrayed by someone inside the system. The same system you now belong to, apparently.”
Evans’s smile started to fade.
“And if you check around, I think you’ll find they’re already hunting for me. Killing you would have no effect whatsoever on my afternoon, much less my life.”
McKinney could see the change in Evans’s face—the first time he’d shown any regard whatsoever for Odin. She watched, feeling bad for being a party to threatening this man she’d never met, and tried not to react to Odin’s lie.
Evans had gone pale. “Who’s your pretty friend, Odin?” Evans grinned weakly.
“You call her ‘Professor.’”
Evans extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Professor.”
McKinney nodded and shook his clammy hand.
Evans didn’t let go immediately but instead studied her hand. “Not an operator.” He pointed toward Odin but spoke to McKinney. “See that callus on Odin’s gun hand? You get that firing fifty thousand rounds a year. The training acclimates you to gunfire. And the screams of innocents.”
Odin still held the pistol aimed toward the drop ceiling.
Evans kept a wary eye on Odin. “Professor, do you have any idea how many people he’s killed?”
McKinney couldn’t help but glance with concern at Odin.
“You remember that shopkeeper in Dushanbe, Odin? How he pleaded for his life, and you just double-tapped him in front of his kid. So glad I could help you locate him. Makes me proud to be an American.”
Odin remained emotionless. “If you were so disturbed, why’d you take his cigarettes?”
“Because they were French cigarettes.” Evans was starting to perspire. “In your experience, Professor, what usually happens to witnesses when heartless guys like this get what they want? See, I think they kill witnesses to cover their tracks. That’s what I think.”
McKinney cast an impatient look at Odin and motioned for him to put the gun down. “Mr. Evans, we just need information. If you help us, I promise you that I won’t let Odin harm you.”
Evans laughed. “Oh, you won’t let him harm me. I’d like to see that. What sort of information?”
McKinney cast Odin another look and kept the floor. “Communications records.”
He looked back and forth between them, and then let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, we’re doing this the hard way: What sort of communication records?”
McKinney hesitated. “We need access to historical data—we want to find out who in the intelligence sector might have been searching for drone attack victims just before they were killed.”
Evans cast an incredulous look at Odin. “Is she for real?”
Odin nodded.
Evans turned back to McKinney. “Ah. Right. Let me just hook you up. . . .”
“Mr. Evans—”
“No, let me just confirm this: You want to eavesdrop on the eavesdroppers—have I got that right? Which pretty much means you need root access to whatever the NSA developed Project ThinThread into, not to mention AT&T’s Aurora database—quite possibly the biggest data store on earth.”
McKinney held up her hands. “Look, I know that—”
“No problem. I figure we can knock this out in a few minutes.”
Odin interjected. “Mort, this is no joke. My mission is to identify whoever’s behind the drone attacks—and when we got close, somebody inside the system sent drones after us.”
Evans just rubbed his temples and closed his eyes. “I’m not hearing this.”
“Someone in the establishment might be behind the drones. I need to find out who.”
“Fuck! Why the hell did you come down here? Goddammit, man! I finally have my life together.”
Odin leveled the pistol at Evans. “I guess we’re through, then. . . .”
Evans raised his hands to hold him off. “And if by some miracle I manage to do this? What then—you kill me and dump me in the Everglades?”
“Is there anything in my past behavior that leads you to believe I would kill for no reason? You know damn well that shopkeeper in Dushanbe was a bomb maker. That he strapped bombs to kids.”
They sat staring at each other for several moments, Evans breathing heavily.
“There are big issues on the line—not just national defense, but the future of the human race, and I’m convinced you can point us in the right direction. Someone has hijacked at least part of the national security apparatus, and I think it’s related to the multibillion-dollar autonomous drone bill being fast-tracked through Congress. How do we find out who?”
Evans looked horrified. “Oh, man! You’ve got to be shitting me. These are not people I want to tangle with.”
Odin raised the gun again. “I’m going to make you do the right thing, even if it kills you.”
McKinney nudged it aside. “He’s going to help us.”
“This is why you shouldn’t get involved in the underworld, Mort. What’s to stop me from letting them know you helped us, even if you haven’t? I could just pick up your phone and speak over the line in my voice. That should do it.” Odin reached for the receiver.
“Don’t!” Evans slid the phone away. “What you’re asking is hopeless, but I’ll see what I can do. But we can’t do it here. I need access to real equipment.”
* * *
M
cKinney glanced around
the huge condo with its tall windows and wide view of the bay. It was a penthouse unit in a quasi-Mediterranean twenty-story tower on Bayshore Boulevard. The condo was new and looked relatively unlived in—there was no clutter or dirty dishes. It was coherently, if a bit enthusiastically, decorated. There was an L-shaped sectional sofa on a zebra carpet, wide expanses of wood floor, a full bar, mirrors, brushed steel lamps, urns, bold modernist paintings that said nothing, but loudly, as well as petrified blowfish and other bric-a-brac on shelving units that McKinney couldn’t quite map to the urban cowboy who presumably owned it.
Once he’d conceded defeat, Evans didn’t put up much fuss about being hijacked by Odin. He seemed resigned to his fate. McKinney had followed Evans’s Jaguar in her domestic rental car, watching as he chatted constantly at Odin sitting in the passenger seat. Now Evans seemed almost jovial, humming to himself as he fixed a drink at the bar just off the living area.
“Want anything, Professor?”
She shook her head.
“I make a mean mai tai.”
“I said no. Thanks.”
“Suit yourself. You know, you’re pretty cute, in a tomboyish sort of way. What kind of chick joins CIA, anyway?”
“I’m not CIA. Let’s just stick to business, Mr. Evans.” She joined Odin, who stood at the glass wall overlooking the glittering water of the bay. “Do you really think this goombah can get us access to anything?”
Odin remained poker-faced. “No, but he can get us to the people who can. I’m just waiting for him to make his move.”
This surprised her. She glanced over her shoulder.
Evans worked a silver martini shaker, then tapped the top on the edge of the bar, deftly pulling the halves apart. He poured through a strainer into a chilled martini glass.
Odin spoke while facing the window. “You’ve gone up in the world, Mordecai. How much did this place set you back?”
“A million five—only half a million more than it’s worth now, which actually passes for real estate acumen in Florida nowadays. But I don’t give a shit. Zion’s doing booming business.” He took a sip and let out a satisfied “Aaaahhh.”
“Interesting that your company has no website—given your mad technical skills.” Odin turned to him. “What does Zion Group do exactly?”
“We work under contract to public relations firms. Boring stuff, but it pays well.”
Odin just stared at him. “I’m not going to ask twice.”
“Jesus, Odin. Chill out, man. I just didn’t want to bore your hot little friend here.”
“Cut that shit out right now. The professor’s smarter than you. Now tell me what Zion’s a front for.”
Evans held up his hands. “It’s not a front for anything. We—”
Odin gripped the edge of a mango-wood shelving unit dotted with vases and small sculptures.
“Oh. Come on, Odin—”
He tipped it over and it crashed across the floor, shattering the edge of a glass coffee table.
“What the hell, man? I paid somebody to buy that.”
Odin stepped over the wreckage toward the bar. “When I ask you a question, I want a prompt, thorough, and accurate response.”
“What about elicitation? You’re supposed to start with elicitation, for fuck’s sake.”
“I don’t have time to pussyfoot around with you. You’re a scumbag. You’ve always been a scumbag, and you’ll always be a scumbag. What’s Zion’s real business?”
Evans was looking at his wrecked living room. “Dammit.” He focused on Odin. “Fine. We do personae management. A gorilla like you wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Evans searched for the words. “We harness social media for multinational clients—help push brands.”
“Do you do intelligence work? DOD influence operations?”
Evans shrugged. “How the hell should I know?”
“Who were the ‘official’ friends you mentioned back at the office—the ones who supposedly have your back?”
“I don’t know. I have a number to call if there are problems. I’ve never had a reason to use it.”
Odin studied him. “So let me parse this into something I know Mordecai would be involved in. Let’s see. . . . You game social media to make it lie to the world. Does that about sum it up?”
“It’s a bit more sophisticated than that, and it requires engineering skill. They’re called
sock puppets.
We create armies of artificial online personas—user accounts that espouse views certain interested parties want espoused. We flood forums, online comment sections, social media. It requires good software to manage it all—to automate the messaging while maintaining uniqueness, and to keep all the fictional personalities and causes straight. I took the logic from my bot-herding software—from the gold-farming operation in China.”
“Where do you get your contracts?”
“I told you: public relations firms—or at least their secret ‘whisper marketing’ subsidiaries. In the old days they used armies of paid shills to sing the praises of products and causes online, but human beings are unreliable. We’re more cost-effective. You want a million ‘people’ to say the same thing online, on a certain day, at a certain hour? I’m your man.”
“Political work?”
“Sure. We have political clients. Beltway lobbying firms—but they’re all public relations subsidiaries of big parents. They use scores of front companies.”