Menard gave a charming snort. “Paperwork, from you? I will believe it when I see it. There is still paperwork missing from the Koh-i-Noor case.”
“Not so loud, Pierre. Savich might hear you.”
Menard laugh. “Hello, Agent Savich. Good luck, Nicholas. Michaela, I hope we will see you again very soon. Au revoir.”
Nicholas stared at the screen in front of him. As his finger traced a length of code along the screen, he felt Mike’s hand on his shoulder, felt her lean in, and her hair brushed against his face. Jasmine, he thought. Jasmine.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, her breath on his cheek.
Yes, beautiful. Nicholas cleared his throat. He said, “Gunther was an artist. I will miss him.”
Mike smacked his shoulder. “Get a grip, Nicholas, this maniac caused billions of dollars in damage, and nearly gave all of us a heart attack, and you’re admiring his art?”
Savich laughed. “I suppose I will, too. Sorry, Mike.”
Nicholas said, “You have to respect the enemy, first rule of warfare.”
“You’re both nuts.”
Sherlock stepped into the room. “If all is peachy keen again, then why aren’t the lights on?”
Martin called out, “That will take a while. Once we kick the intruders out of the system, the power companies will have to turn the grids back on gradually so they don’t overload the system again.”
Nicholas stood up and stretched. He felt good. It was a major save. He shook Martin’s hand, yelled his thanks to everyone in the room, and let Savich pull them both out of the IT room.
“Listen up. Mr. Maitland called. Iran’s nuclear facilities are online, and Vice President Sloane is, needless to say, closely monitoring everything. We may be called upon to help launch a cyber-attack.”
Nicholas said, “What? What’s this? Aren’t they all in peace talks in Geneva?”
“The talks have been suspended. The president is coming home early. And listen to this. POTUS’s schedule has him and the vice president giving a speech at the former Yorktown Refinery tomorrow.”
Mike cocked her head to one side, said slowly, “The president’s speech tomorrow at Yorktown—it’s all about clean energy, emergency independence, probably more, but that’s the gist and that’s why we took Yorktown off our COE threat matrix after they announced they were changing from refining to being simply a depot. The move is in answer to the president’s green-initiative program. It was bought by a private investor who is bringing all the facilities up to current environmental standards. It’s what he’s announcing tomorrow, and I’ll bet he was going to announce success with the peace accords, too.”
“Probably, though it sounds like that’s off the table. What are you getting at, Mike?”
Nicholas was watching her. He recognized the look on her face—focused inward, brain sorting through scenarios at the speed of light—it was mental leap time. She said, “A lot of people in the oil industry would be invited to this event, correct? The people from ConocoPhillips and the other companies who were part of the cyber-attack last night would be invited?”
Savich said, “You think the cyber-attack was more than sowing chaos in the oil companies, don’t you?”
“Yes. The fact is that COE downloaded a ton of stuff off the servers. They could easily know exactly who’s going to be at Yorktown. They’d also know the president’s exact schedule, and very possibly the vice president’s schedule as well. But you know, I bet what they really wanted was the plant plans.
“If they bombed Yorktown, not only could they take out the oil company leaders, they could take out the president and vice president. Yorktown is their target.”
She grinned maniacally. “And now try this on for size. I think it makes sense—that third unidentified Middle Eastern man seen at the apartment in Brooklyn could very well be the assassin Zahir Damari. I think he’ll be at Yorktown to make sure the vice president is blown to bits, and if she isn’t, he’ll assassinate her himself. Maybe the president as well.”
Savich, like Nicholas, had been watching her. She was right. Nicholas loved her brain.
Savich said, “Mike, it’s the first question we’ll ask at Langley. Come on, let’s go. The CIA is ready for us.”
“I have a feeling,” Mike said as she double-stepped to keep up, “that the CIA already knows this and now they have to admit to us that Damari was part of COE. The bastards.”
56
ROOK TAKES E1
Catoctin Mountains
There’d been rain recently, and that was good luck for him. A thick layer of wet leaves mulched the trail and kept his steps quiet and obscured. Zahir had walked for half a day without seeing another human being, but now, as twilight began to creep in around him, the guards appeared, silent as wraiths, walking alongside him in concert, weapons at the ready, the dogs tight on their leads, one hundred yards away. Separated by space, and a large electrified fence.