Chapter Twenty-Five

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” George Washington

Kate swallowed. She was plastered against Gideon, although if she raised her head she could see over his shoulder to where the world had changed into a swirling mass of smoke and chaos.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, the cries of panic sounding as though from a distance rather than only feet away. The blue sky had turned dark.

She tore her gaze from the mass of people to the other direction and went still. She wasn’t sure what to expect. Rebels? Instead she saw a line of Secret Service officers, weapons drawn, sinister behind their gas masks.

She gripped Gideon closer, knew he was aware of them, his body tense against hers. “Stay still,” he murmured.

She didn’t think she could have moved even if she wanted to; just her eyes darted from the crowd milling in the swirling mass of smoke to the moving line of black-clad officers. As they passed, no one seemed to notice the two of them huddled in the doorway. Or maybe they didn’t care that they were there. She expected them to come to a halt far enough away to monitor the protesters, but they kept moving, raising their weapons. Finally they stopped, a line of solid black facing the crowd. For a moment, everything was eerily silent.

Then gunfire shattered the quiet, roaring in her ears, and screams filled the air. Instinctively she fought to get away. To run or to do something to stop the carnage.

Answering gunfire echoed beyond the crowd. For a moment, it looked as if they were fighting back. And she was glad. Then she realized that they had turned and were running, but they were being prevented from escaping by more agents on the other side.

“Jesus, it’s a massacre,” she said.

The screaming was less now, though the gunfire still roared.

“Gideon, we have to go and see if anyone’s alive. There were children in there.”

“They’re going through killing everyone. They’re all dead. We can’t help.”

His voice was blank, held none of the outrage pulsing through her blood. She pulled away a little and looked up into his face, clear of expression. “Would you if you could?”

“Can you even ask that?” A tic jumped in his cheek, just above the scar he’d gotten defending his country. Defending this.

Her mind was numb. “They wouldn’t kill children.” A lone gunshot resounded in the relative quiet, and she jumped. “Why, Gideon? These people have never shown any violence—they just don’t like the president’s policies. That doesn’t mean they deserve to die, does it?” She could hear her voice rising as panic and disbelief took over. Her brain was denying what it had just seen, was searching for explanations. The people had been unarmed. They were always peaceable. The agents hadn’t given them a warning, a chance to disperse. Instead they’d blocked them in. Almost herded them to a place where they had nowhere to run. Then murdered them. All, without exception. Men, women, and children.

Another lone gunshot. A shudder ran through her. She made to pull away—she had to go stop them before they killed any more. She was shaking, and Gideon grabbed her by the shoulders, gave her a hard squeeze.

“Get a fucking grip,” he said, and his tone was fierce. “It’s finished.”

He was right, the gunshots had stopped now, and the street was quiet, smoke drifting up and away, slowly dispersing. The dead were almost surrounded by a ring of black-uniformed officers. She hated it, but Gideon was right. If they tried anything now, they would both die. And it would make no difference anyway, because everyone was dead. Two of the officers parted slightly and she caught sight of a body sprawled on the ground, a mangle of crimson and purple. Paula.

A small cry escaped her, and Gideon clamped his hand over her mouth. “Quiet. We have to get out of here. You need to look as if you belong. You can’t let them see you’re rattled.”

She took a deep breath and nodded.

The thought came to her that she could do nothing if she died here today. Whereas if she lived, she might still fail, but she would goddamn die trying her best. She wouldn’t go like a lamb to the slaughter.

As they stepped out from the wide doorway, two of the agents swung round, weapons raised, and her heart stopped.

Gideon already had his hands up, one holding his Secret Service ID, the badge glinting in a shaft of sunlight that probed through the billowing smoke. One man stepped closer, took the ID, studied it for a moment, then nodded. “Captain Frome, sir. I served under you on the Wall.”

Gideon nodded. “Corporal Watson, I believe.”

“Yes, sir.” The man looked from Gideon to her. This was a man who had gunned down innocent people. Would he do the same to them? Although, ultimately, Gideon was his boss. In the end all he said was, “This is a restricted area.”

“We were caught by accident,” Gideon replied. “I was walking my girlfriend back to her office at Homeland Security. This is Supreme Court Justice Buchanan’s daughter. We’ll leave now.”

The man studied her for a moment longer, and she shivered. She tried to hold herself still, then decided that a little fear was allowed in the circumstances. It would be odder if she wasn’t affected by what she had seen. Finally, he nodded. “You can leave. But ma’am, sir, this is under the Official Privacy Act. Any mention of what you saw here will be taken as an act of treason.”

“She won’t say anything, Watson.”

“I’ll escort you to the checkpoint.”

They didn’t speak or touch as they walked through and then away from the checkpoint.

Don’t look back.

Kate could feel the agent’s eyes boring into her, but she avoided glancing over her shoulder in case it would result in some biblical punishment.

Even when they were out of earshot and sight, Kate remained mute. She had no clue what to say. It felt like the last of the world she had known had been ripped away from her, replaced by something twisted and rotten and indescribably filthy, reeking of blood and smoke.

She wanted to cry. At the same time, she was aware that no amount of tears would wash away the feeling and leave her cleansed. She wasn’t sure what, if anything, could.

Her old life was gone forever. She could no longer close her eyes and say that the Party had the best interests of the American people at heart. Paula was American, and they’d gunned her down.

They made it through her building’s security and across the foyer without her falling apart. She stumbled in the stairwell heading down to her office, and Gideon’s arm came around her waist to keep her upright.

Somehow she managed to unlock her door, slamming it closed behind them as though this was some sort of sanctuary that would keep them safe from guns and bombs. But as Gideon had said earlier, safety was an illusion.

No one was safe.

She stripped off her jacket and tossed it into the corner. It stank of smoke and death—and so did the rest of her. She longed for a long hot shower, a bottle of wine, anything to help her forget. As if she could.

Except that now, more than ever, she had to persuade Gideon to help her. This had to be stopped.

“Sit down,” she said, waving a hand at a chair.

He complied, and she crossed the room and powered up the systems. She waited while Auspex woke up, then switched him to audio.

“The Secret Service just massacred the people at the Bring Back Democracy rally. Do you know why?”

The answer with the highest probability is that it is the administration’s attempt to solve the unemployment crisis.

What? “Is there an unemployment crisis?”

There has been a rise in unemployment over the last five years.

She turned to Gideon. “Did you know this?”

He had a frown between his eyes. “I’d heard something. That there were programs being brought into play to address the problem.”

There’s an active program to decrease the population. Those the government predict will be most problematic are first.

“Paula wasn’t problematic, and the Bring Back Democracy rallies are always peaceful.”

The president has expressed his dislike of the Bring Back Democracy group. Based on recordings I have amassed, he believes they do not love him enough.

“Christ, that doesn’t mean he would kill them. Does it?”

There are several recordings of people who ‘do not love’ the president meeting with accidents. The president’s most predictable criteria is to be loved.

Gideon got up as though he couldn’t bear to sit still. “You’re kidding, right?

“You know,” Kate said, “Stella once told me that she would never go much higher in the Party because Harry knew she didn’t like him.”

“She didn’t?”

“She hated him. She told me she loved the Party, but that Harry was a complete piece of shit.” That had been one night when they’d drunk too much wine together, and Stella had opened up a little. She didn’t usually drink. “She wouldn’t say anything more.”

Gideon ran a hand through his hair. “She was a good enough politician to hide what she thought of the man.”

“Maybe not that good.” She shrugged. “She’s dead now, and so are all those other people.”

“You think your machine is right? About the unemployment thing being the reason for the massacre?”

“Maybe. I don’t think it really matters. There is nothing, nothing on this earth that could justify the killing of those people.” She glared at him, part of her praying that he thought the same. She’d finally felt as though she had someone on her side. Now, the idea of going forward without Gideon’s support was scary. Plus, if he decided he didn’t support her, the chances were she was finished anyway, since he’d turn her over.

She supposed her best bet was that he’d just think she was some harmless geek, playing with her computer games and making up conspiracy theories.

He stared at her for what seemed like a long time, and then he nodded. “I agree. There’s nothing.”

The breath left her in a whoosh, and she sank down into her chair, her legs wobbly, her hands shaking.

She had to put what she’d seen behind her and move on. While she couldn’t change what had happened to Paula and all those others, she could do her best to make sure it didn’t happen again. She remembered a saying she’d heard long ago that had resonated with her. It came back to her now and she spoke it aloud into the silence.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

“What?” Gideon asked.

“It’s a saying.” She turned her chair so that she was facing him. She leaned across and rested her palms on his thighs, stared him in the face. “I believe you’re a good man. And I want to be a good person. Are we going to do nothing?”

“No.” He forced a tired smile that left his green eyes blank. He’d said he was at a crossroads, and she figured this was him finally deciding which road to take. Though she doubted he’d ever had much of a choice. He’d always be a hero.

She sat back. Right, first job: persuading him that she wasn’t crazy. That Auspex’s predictions were accurate and based on reliable intel. Intel that was being ignored by the government agencies for some reason.

“Auspex, what is the probability of a nuclear bomb detonating on American soil in less than two weeks?”

91.5 percent.

Gideon sighed. “So how does it work?” he asked, waving a hand toward the screen.

“Auspex is a combination of collaborative system, predictive engine, and artificial intelligence.”

“And what does that mean exactly?”

“He works with other systems, gathers all their raw data, and makes predictions on what might happen based on that data. Plus he’s evolving all the time, learning to assess what is meaningful and what isn’t. After your retinal scan gave him access to more systems, he’s evolved more quickly than before.”

“Glad I could help,” he grumbled. She could almost see him considering his next question. “Can we see the intel behind the prediction?”

As she opened her mouth to ask for the information, the data began streaming across the screen. Auspex must have picked up Gideon’s question and answered. There were hundreds of individual data streams, far more than in the original info dump. Which was odd, as she’d been checking and hadn’t picked up anything new. She’d presumed the agents at NTAC had changed the search parameters.

“Auspex, why is there so much more data now?”

I increased the search parameters to identify anything which might be related to the attack.

He’d done that on his own? The information was still downloading.

“How many entries are there?”

Two thousand two hundred and sixty- five.

Wow. It would take forever to go through the individual files.

“Can you sort them by relevance?”

There was a stutter in the data stream, and then it continued. Kate scrolled back up to the top and swiped open the first file. Gideon scooted his chair up close so he could see the screen. It was a transit document for a shipment, although it didn’t mention nuclear warheads and the locations were in some sort of code. The next file was the one she’d seen before.

Final test of Special Atomic Demolition Munitions completed.

She opened a few more files. They were like clues, snippets of information. She’d been hoping for something more definitive. Like the minutes of a rebel meeting laying out their plan to set off a nuclear bomb. Would this be enough to convince Gideon?

“Well?” she asked when he remained silent.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I think you’re right. Something is happening. There’s just not enough information to put it all together.”

“That’s what Auspex does.” She sighed. “The thing I really don’t understand is why NTAC found the threat negligible. It doesn’t make sense. There was clearly a cause for investigation.”

“Maybe they want it to go ahead,” Gideon said. “I heard a rumor that the president believes that a war would increase his popularity.”

She hadn’t heard that one before, and she frowned. “That’s crazy.”

“Not so much. People like to see a good clean fight. Good defeating evil.”

“There’s nothing clean about war. Certainly not a nuclear war that could kill us all.”

“Maybe not, but people wouldn’t go into a war expecting something so…terminal. Look at me. I was brought back because everybody thinks I’m some goddamn hero. Harry mentioned it when I talked to him at his birthday celebration. He also mentioned people not appreciating him, and it rubbed me wrong.” He sat back in his chair, pressing a finger to his forehead. “I should have listened to my gut.”

A tight band inside her loosened. It had been there since Auspex had first come up with the crazy prediction; a sense that she was alone with an impossible task. Now she wasn’t alone.

Not that she had any clue how they’d fix any of this. Even if they succeeded, there was a good chance that the truth would come out about her research and tampering with the alerts. The best-case scenario was that she would spend time in prison. Worst case, she would have to endure some really unpleasant torture, followed by a public execution. They’d probably kill her family along with her.

Even if by some miracle it didn’t come out, there was no way she could go back to pretending everything was fine and dandy. So what was she to do—join the rebels?

If Gideon agreed to help her, he could expect the same. This was going to be hard, and it would only be harder if she followed her natural inclination and allowed herself to become attached to him.

No going there.

Time to get down to the details. There were two separate things here. Whatever Stella had been involved in, and Auspex’s prediction of the nuclear attack. She couldn’t see how the two could be connected. But what did she know? She’d ignored politics for so long. Hidden herself in her own little world. Now she was having a crash course in reality.

Reality sucked. Big time.

She took a deep breath. “What do we do next?”

Gideon had been waiting patiently for her to speak. “I think the first thing is to find out what information Stella has on this file.”

“Do you think the two things are connected?” She waved a hand to indicate Auspex.

“I doubt it.”

To get Stella’s information, she had to somehow get into the White House, then into Stella’s office and onto her system. “I suppose I could do a White House tour and sneak off.” They were still run on a weekly basis, mostly for local schoolchildren.

“You’d never get near Stella’s office. It’s in the restricted area. There’s probably surveillance, too; certainly outside in the corridor, but maybe inside.”

That should be easy enough to check up on.

“Auspex, can you get me surveillance details for Stella’s office? Without anyone seeing a record?” The last thing they needed was to put anyone on the alert.

“He can do that?” Gideon asked.

“With your security clearance, yes.”

A few seconds later, the information flashed up. Gideon was right; there was a security camera outside the office. There was also a camera inside.

“They don’t trust their own people?” she asked.

“We don’t trust anyone.” He got up and came to stand beside her. “Do all the offices have surveillance?”

No.

A list of names flashed up. Not many.

“So, the chances are they suspected your sister of something. Or they had some other reason for the surveillance. It also means they might not be monitoring it any longer.”

“How about if I contact someone and ask to go clear out her personal belongings?”

“Not policy. I doubt they’d agree.”

“Then what?” She could hear the frustration in her voice.

Gideon straightened. “I think there’s a way. Tomorrow night. There’s a function at the White House. I’ve been invited. Harry wants to give me a medal.” He grimaced. “It will be televised. A lot of people.”

“And a lot of security.”

“Yes, but around the party. Not the offices. I can get you in as my partner for the night. Let people think we’re in a relationship. We sowed the seeds for that at the funeral. People will expect to see us together. They won’t be suspicious.”

She hated big parties, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. A perfect excuse to get into the White House and into her sister’s office.

She thought about asking Auspex what the probability of succeeding was, but she decided that the information wouldn’t help—and might just impair her ability to function.

“In the meantime, just act normal,” Gideon said. “Come to work. Keep your head down. If Stella was under suspicion, your whole family could be being watched.”

Her spine prickled at the thought, and she cast a furtive glance around the room. She made a mental note to program Auspex to tell her if there were any changes to her security. In fact, maybe she should program Auspex to actually work out what might be of use to her. Right now, he answered specific questions. But he should be able to extrapolate what information improved her probability of surviving.

“What are you doing tonight?” Gideon asked.

“I’m meeting my mother. Stella kept an apartment in the city. She used it if she worked late. We’re going to go through her things.” She wasn’t looking forward to it. Just the thought made her heart ache. It made everything seem so final. Plus, spending time with her mother hurt. Since Stella’s death, the ravages of whatever had been going through her mom’s mind for years were clear every time Kate looked at her. What had gone wrong? The mother of her childhood had been a happy, easygoing woman. She’d loved her position as the wife of a supreme court justice, had been proud of her husband, ambitious for her daughters. That had all changed fifteen years ago. But maybe it was time to stop hiding from that and find out why.

“Should I still go?” she asked.

“Yes, keep to your schedule. It’s what you’d be expected to do, and you might find something.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think that’s all we can do for now. We have to know what this information is before we decide our next move. Until tomorrow night, we both act normal.”

She stood up. It looked like he was leaving, and she had the urge to beg him not to go. However illogical it was, she felt safe when she was with Gideon. As though he could protect her from all the bad things.

“What will you be doing?”

“I’m going into the office. I’m sure someone will have reported that I was at the shooting this morning. I need to make it seem natural.”

She’d almost forgotten about the shooting. Or rather, she’d pushed it to the back of her mind. There was only so much grief you could process.

For a moment, they both looked at each other, as though there was something they should be doing. Instead, she just stood there, staring at him, until finally he gave her a brief nod and turned and walked out of the room.

The door slammed behind him, and she sank back down onto her seat.

She had a date with Gideon Frome. Which might have been nice under other circumstances. Even without asking Auspex, she had a good idea that the chances of them getting out alive were pretty low.