“OVER THE next five days, we visited six houses,” Ingrid said.
“How many safe houses were there in total?” Rachel asked.
She shook her head. “In total? I don’t know. But he was going off of a list he kept in his wallet. Must’ve been twenty or more there. In each house, it was the same thing, these young people wanting reassurance from him. Wanting a plan. Over time, the basic idea gathered details. For example, a Mary in West Virginia suggested that after we returned, we release a steady drip of leaks, suggesting a date—maybe New Year’s—when something would happen. So rather than media attention fizzling out, it would build steadily toward that date. It would require an actual event, and no one could agree on what that was. But the leaks became part of the plan. And it was up to each person to find ways to connect to each other once they returned home. And bring in newcomers. So that by the prearranged date we could send out a message—just a single word—to trigger thousands to act at once.”
“A single word?”
Ingrid opened her hands. “Something known but not commonly used. Martin suggested ‘inscrutable.’ I pushed for ‘circumnavigation.’ It didn’t matter what the word was, as long as everyone knew it.”
“Tell her about Berlin,” said Kevin.
Rachel raised her head, curious.
“Yeah, right,” Ingrid said. “He told me about the Kommando Rosa Luxemburg. They had been his friends, those people who were killed in the explosion. He was still upset when he spoke about them. One of them, a woman named Anika, was his lover.”
Rachel blinked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, she died. And after the explosion he left, went south to Spain.”
“Did he tell you what he did in Spain?”
She shook her head. “Not really. But he did say he met someone important there. Without this person—a man—he never would have been able to do what he’d done.”
“Financially?” Rachel asked, then saw the question in Kevin’s face. “We followed his money back to the shell company I asked you about: Magellan Holdings. But we weren’t able to ID the owners.”
Kevin took this in, interested, and Ingrid said, “He never told me why this guy was important. Maybe it was inspiration. Or, yes, maybe money. But he said he was international, that he knew an unbelievable number of languages. Martin spent a week with this guy in Spain, and they drank vodka martinis and discussed the future of Western society.”
“Vodka martinis?” Rachel asked, remembering her Russian who was not a Russian, James Sullivan who was not James Sullivan. The only thing she really knew about him was that he drank vodka martinis. “Anything else about him?”
She shook her head. “We didn’t dwell on him. Martin didn’t tell me more until everything went to hell. After July 4.”
“The day of the assassinations.”
“We were at a house in Indiana—near Lexington—when the news came on the radio. At first, and like everybody else, we thought it was al Qaeda, or ISIS.”
“Everyone except Martin,” Rachel said.
“Everyone including Martin. You don’t get it, do you? He never ordered those killings. He had nothing to do with it. We wanted to frighten the politicians, but actually kill them? All that would do was turn people against us. When that message came out on The Propaganda Ministry we were all stunned. But Martin—he was fucking furious. I’d never seen him like that. I was scared.”
To be sure Rachel understood, Kevin said, “The assassinations were a rogue operation, run entirely by Benjamin Mittag.”
“And with that one action,” Ingrid said, “Ben ruined absolutely everything. Martin was laying out a plan for everyone to return home. How did that look now? Massive was officially a terrorist organization. Each one of us was now a criminal, and we’d be thrown in jail as soon as we showed our faces. Everything had been for nothing.”
David got up and went to the kitchen. He looked as if he’d heard this story too many times already.
“But … why?” Rachel asked. “Why would Mittag do that?”
Ingrid turned her attention to Clare, and when she finally spoke it was directed, softly, toward her daughter. “Because he wanted war. On both ends of the political spectrum live people like him, who see bloodshed as the only way to real change. They’re inspired by the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution—”
“The Red Army Faction,” Rachel cut in.
“Exactly.”
David returned with an uncorked bottle of red and three glasses. He placed them on the table and, as everyone watched, filled the glasses, then took one back to his seat. Rachel took one as well. With the first sip she knew she needed it.
“How did Martin get word to Benjamin to meet?” she asked.
“He had a phone,” Ingrid said. “He kept it disassembled, but once a day he’d drive out somewhere, put it together, and check for messages. Once Ben’s manifesto made the news, he got in the car and drove off to send a message. By the time he returned he had calmed down, and we discussed other options. It was looking like surrender was all we had. But he didn’t want to make any decisions until he’d faced Ben. I told him I was coming with him. He didn’t like that—he wanted to go alone—but I wasn’t going to be denied. I remembered Ben from the party. I remembered how easily he’d tossed David off the porch.”
“So you were worried Mittag might do something to him.”
“After what he’d done to those politicians? I was sure of it.”