“Today they call themselves the Pyramid,” Chancellor went on. “But make no mistake. Their goals are the same, to take control where they see a failure of political leadership. They have the same hubris as the original members of Inver Brass—the hubris of powerful people everywhere—that they know better than everyone else. They think they can save democracy—ironically, by dictating what they want people to believe. And they are every bit as ruthless about the ends justifying their means. Obviously, you can attest to that, Abbey. You got in their way, and their response was to destroy you.”
Bourne got up and paced, trying to wrap his head around what Chancellor was telling them. “How do you know about all this? I haven’t even heard about this from—”
He stopped.
“From Treadstone?” Chancellor replied with a smile. “Oh, yes, I know about them, too. Which is why I know about you. The thing is, my books are designed to do exactly what Abbey said earlier. To make people wonder if certain conspiracies could be possible, to ask if this is how it really happened. Because of this, over the years, I’ve been contacted by many people who know things that others wish to hide. Secrets. Crimes. Failures and mistakes by governments and businesses. These are the stories that I expose, in my way, as fiction. But the people who reach out to me often can’t go anywhere else. They don’t trust the government or the legal system to get to the truth or to protect them. And more and more, they don’t trust the media, either. Sadly, with good reason. But they trust me, because my only agenda is telling the truth. Which is ironic, of course, given my profession.”
Bourne went to the rows and rows of bookshelves, and he ran his hand over some of the spines. He liked Chancellor, and he knew the man was sincere in his outrage. He also knew, looking at Abbey’s face, that she was drawn to the old writer’s idealism and fire. She was much the same way herself. But Bourne didn’t have the luxury of that brand of naivete. Words on a page only masked the hard choices that needed to be made. In the end, there wasn’t really a lot of difference between Inver Brass and Treadstone.
“Did Louisa tell you about the Pyramid?” he asked Chancellor. “Did she reach out to you?”
“Actually, no, I went looking for her. Or someone like her. I’ve heard rumors about the Pyramid for years. In fact, I’ve been expecting some version of Inver Brass to be resurrected for a while now. Mostly because of who’s behind it.”
“You know who that is?”
“I have my suspicions. You see, the man who led Inver Brass in the 1970s—when they were manipulating me and Alison—went by the code name Genesis. Hence the name of my book. Genesis started out as a good man, but ultimately, power did to him what it always does. It corrupted him. Made him blind to the evils of what they were doing. There was a Czech immigrant who worked with Genesis back then. He did much of the dirty work for Inver Brass. He was a ruthless, talented operative—brilliant, in his own twisted way. Ultimately, he was killed, as was Genesis, when Inver Brass eventually fell. But this operative left a legacy behind for others to exploit. A son.”
“Who was this man?” Abbey asked.
Chancellor frowned. “His name was Varak.”
“Varak?” Bourne hissed from the other side of the room.
“Yes. Exactly. I’m sure you know the name. After the father’s death, his son was brought up by a rural couple in a small town in Iceland—ostensibly an ordinary life, but with hidden advantages that made sure he would be successful. I knew about him. I watched his rise. And I suspected that one day, Varak the son would follow in the footsteps of his father. He would lead the return of Inver Brass. Only this time, he would be Genesis.”
“The Pyramid,” Abbey said.
“That’s right.”
“What exactly is the Pyramid? What does it do?”
“Well, it’s all cloaked in respectability, of course. The Varak Institute is the public face, funded by billions funneled through his ‘foundation.’ And who could argue with the premise? Combat the rampant misinformation and disinformation propagated through social media. Focus on facts. Create panels of subject matter experts in science, economics, energy, whatever—and then work with the media and technology companies to emphasize those responsible voices instead of uninformed rumormongers. I’m sure you remember that Varak was treated as a hero when the institute was announced.”
“The savior of democracy,” Abbey said.
Chancellor chuckled. “Yes, because democracy is far too important to be left to the actual people.”
“So are the institute and the Pyramid the same thing?” Bourne asked.
“No, no, as I said, the institute is the cover. The Pyramid is Inver Brass—a small group of leaders, with Varak as Genesis. Some of the others are media, but I assume there are more. Politicians, scientists, academics, maybe military, too. They decide on the message and do whatever it takes to control it, because they know that whoever controls the message controls what people believe. You only know what you’re told, after all. If you don’t read about it online, or in the newspaper, or on television, then it might as well not exist. It started with suppression. Strategic censorship. Stories that didn’t advance the desired narrative simply vanished from public view. A few thousand people heard about something? So what? As long as millions knew nothing about it, the story didn’t exist.”
“I assume it hasn’t stopped there,” Bourne said.
“No. It hasn’t.” Chancellor got up and went to the heavy library door and closed it. “This is the part I’d rather Alison not hear.”
“Does Varak know about you?” Bourne asked. “Are people trying to kill you?”
“Well, Varak is ruthless, just like his father was. Fortunately, up until now, I think he and his colleagues have seen me as harmless. A novelist, someone who makes things up. But I’m worried Louisa may have changed that. That’s why I’ve been taking extra precautions, including the men you met at the tavern.”
“Those men won’t be much good against the kind of people Varak employs,” Bourne warned him. “I got involved with this because I’m chasing an assassin. One of the best in the world. Treadstone thinks he’s working for someone new, and I’m pretty sure that means Varak and the Pyramid. If they want you dead, he’ll find you, and he’ll kill you. Your security measures won’t be good enough to stop him.”
“I’m aware of the risks,” Chancellor assured him.
Abbey shivered and got up, too. Talk of Lennon obviously reminded her of what she’d been through in the hotel room in DC. How Lennon’s Yoko had nearly killed her. She came up to Bourne, and in a gesture that felt very natural, she slung her arm around his waist. He liked it. He liked it far too much.
“Tell us about Louisa,” she said.
Chancellor’s face darkened. He shoved his hands in his pockets and wandered to the windows, where he stared out at the darkness. “I feel very guilty about Louisa. She’s dead because of me.”
“How did you connect with her?”
The writer turned back to face them. “Abbey, I believe you met a young woman who first told you about the murder in DC.”
“Iris? You know about her?”
Chancellor nodded. “She made contact with you at my suggestion. As I told you, I’ve been quite interested in you ever since I wrote Serpent!”
“Iris is dead, too,” Abbey told him. “Killed. Did you know that?”
“Yes. I was devastated to hear it. The walls of the Pyramid are closing in, you see. That’s what makes this so urgent. And so dangerous. Iris was part of an online group that I use from time to time as my eyes and ears when I need research for my books. I don’t leave my estate here very often anymore. I don’t want to leave Alison alone, and frankly, I’m an old man now. Traveling is a burden. So the young people online go where I can’t go. Much of what I know about the Pyramid is because of work they did. Of course, none of them know it’s me or who I am. I stay in the shadows, just one more anonymous account. It’s all done on the dark web, and I thought that was keeping us safe, but I was wrong. Someone inside the Pyramid found the group. Found me. As it happened, I was lucky, because it was someone who’d grown disillusioned with the things she was forced to do. She reached out and told me she wanted to meet.”
“Louisa,” Abbey concluded.
“Yes.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Not a lot. She was concerned about our messages being intercepted. She said she worked at something called the bot farm. I don’t know where it’s located, but I gather it’s a technology center for the Pyramid. She hinted at the things they do there. Deepfakes, hacked social media accounts, artificial identities. The things that happened to you, Abbey? I’m sure they originated at this bot farm.”
“Jesus,” Abbey murmured.
“But Louisa indicated there was much more. She was one of their most trusted people, which meant traveling around the world to implement complex operations in the field. Lies. She manufactured lies, amplified all over the media, used to do everything from shape legislation to sway elections. According to Louisa, those lies included murder. She didn’t give me details, but she said she would when we met in person. She swore that she had no idea how far it had all gone, and when she discovered the truth, that’s what convinced her to betray them. To tell me everything and get my help in exposing the Pyramid.”
“So the two of you agreed to meet in DC,” Bourne said.
“Yes. She flew in that night.”
“From where?”
Chancellor shook his head. “That I don’t know. I gave her detailed instructions on how to shake a tail—I’ve learned some tricks of the trade over the years from people like you—and we arranged a meeting in West Potomac Park. However, for all the precautions, the Pyramid obviously discovered what she was planning to do. They killed her. I would have been killed, too, if I’d been there on time. But I was fifteen minutes late. I planned to walk from my hotel, but of all things, my knee went out halfway there. I’ve been putting off having it replaced, and it stiffened up on me. By the time I got there, I was horrified to find that Louisa was dead.”
“You didn’t talk to the police?” Abbey asked.
The writer shrugged. “And tell them what? I had no evidence of anything. By the next morning, it was clear that the Pyramid had already erased who Louisa was. She’d become a fictional creation, like one of my own characters.”
“What did you do next?”
“I hinted in my online group that there was more to this murder than the media and police were saying. They took it from there, and they came up with quite a lot of evidence to challenge the official story. But the Pyramid suppressed everything they found. It was like none of it ever existed. Videos, witnesses, airline manifests, customs info. All gone. That’s when I sent an anonymous message to Iris and suggested that she reach out to you for help. I even mentioned that I’d ‘heard’ that a character in a Peter Chancellor novel was based on you. It may sound vain, but that upped your credibility with her.”
“But why not contact me directly?” Abbey asked.
Chancellor hesitated. “To be honest, I didn’t know whether I could trust you. The Pyramid has people everywhere, especially in the media. It wasn’t safe for you to know about me until I was sure you weren’t part of them. Also, I wanted to see how far you were willing to go, how much you could discover on your own. Call it a test. Of course, I should have foreseen that pursuing this story might put you in grave jeopardy. And Iris, too. I’m very sorry.”
Bourne joined Chancellor at the windows. “So you think Varak is the head of the Pyramid. That he’s Genesis.”
“I believe so.”
“The problem is that Varak is largely untouchable,” Bourne said. “He walls himself off in his estate in the Hamptons, and he’s built a public reputation as a great philanthropist, doling out millions around the world. We won’t bring him down without a lot more evidence than we have. Do you know anyone else in the group?”
Chancellor shook his head. “I’m afraid not, but as I told you, they have fingers throughout the media. Most probably don’t even know they’re being manipulated. However, the inner circle itself is bound to be very small. Half a dozen, ten people at most. But even if we knew who they were, we have no leverage to turn them. We need to know more about what they’ve done. Things that can be exposed, proven, things that can’t be suppressed or ignored. That was what Louisa promised to bring me. But she paid the price for her bravery. So I’m not sure where we’re going to find someone else who’s willing to betray the Pyramid.”