An Armageddon Duology (3 page)

“
S
o it is only fitting
that today, five years after the events in New York and around the world that brought us to the brink of international conflict, we honor a man who was instrumental in bringing us back from that cliff.”

Special agent John Savas squirmed in his metal fold-out chair and prayed that this horrific political pageantry would reach its inevitable and dreaded climax. His salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed similarly to that time five years back, a time when the home-grown terrorists of Mjolnir had aimed a nuclear warhead at the Muslim holy city of Mecca during the great Hajj pilgrimage. But no amount of self-delusion could hide the fact that it was considerably more
salty
now than it had been. While he still worked to keep himself in shape, at fifty-five, age was beginning to finally have the upper hand, and his increased desk time as the director of Intel 1 hadn’t helped.

But it was more than simply age. As for the nightmares—Savas was too mired in a dying male culture to do much about them. PTSD was what psychologists talked about on cable news, not what men had or admitted to. Only his wife of three years, agent Rebecca Cohen, truly knew the extent of the damage. And that because she shared the trauma as well.

Savas watched the new Attorney General of the United States bring the speech to a point of tension and transition. The former prosecutor looked in his direction and nodded.

“And without further delay, here to receive the Award for Exceptional Heroism, please welcome a true American hero and pride of New York City, John Savas!”

Savas surged to his feet, flashbulbs exploding around him, applause drowning his thoughts like a churning waterfall. He moved as confidently as he could toward the stage, remembering to paste a reserved smile on his face for the evening news. A row of officers from the NYPD and local FBI branches greeted him with handshakes and pats on the back. Nearing the podium, reporters’ cameras pummeling him like strobe lights, he shook hands with the Attorney General with one hand while grasping the medallion case and plaque in the other.

As they paused for the photographers, Savas instinctively searched among the front row of FBI agents for a diminutive brunette. Her long hair would be secured formally behind her. For events like this she usually wore her blue pantsuit. He would see her radiant smile beaming toward him, his desire to impress her flooding him with energy.

But she wasn’t there. He knew she wouldn’t be there, but looked anyway. She was hundreds of miles away in a secret location only a handful of people knew, checking up on two charges that Savas had personally assumed responsibility for. Deep in a forest, high in the mountains, Rebecca Cohen was at this very moment in the company of the nation’s most wanted fugitives.

Savas shifted his focus back to the Attorney General. He smiled for the cameras.

E
xhausted
, Savas dropped into his office chair and stared forward blankly. The medal and certificate stared back at him from his desk. He didn’t want them. He didn’t join the FBI after his son’s death on 9/11 for honors, and he hadn’t risked everything, even Rebecca, to stop Mjolnir to get a damned medal. He could think of thousands of victims of terrorism who deserved much more than he did. Who would repay them and their families? He could think of one man, Husaam Jordan, who had stopped a nuclear holocaust by sacrificing his own life. But what good were medals to the dead?

He grasped the award materials and unlocked a key-coded drawer in his desk. He yanked it open and pulled out a thick file folder, dropped the medal into it, and closed the drawer. It clicked loudly as it locked. The label on the file, bold black ink on white, left an afterimage in his mind:
The Ragnarök Conspiracy
.

Savas loosened his tie and sighed deeply. Now for just five minutes of peace.

“Captain Overlord, sir, transitional paperwork is now one hundred percent completed.”

He startled at a bald woman framed by his office door, her arms grasping the metal support above her head. Savas tried not to gawk at her toned body, hammered and stretched by several years of intense combat training. Gone were the waist-length orange hair and the Amish dresses. Piercings ran up her ears, in her lips and eyebrows. Today she wore fatigues and a green tank revealing rippling muscles on a thin frame—some punk version of Sigourney Weaver in
Alien 3
, but with orange eyebrows, green eyes, and a more spaced-out glare.

Another casualty.
The meek girl he had known was gone, murdered just as surely as many in the ground. In her place stood something far more potent.

“Morning, Angel. Here to ruin my day?”

"It's part of my mission statement," she said.

"You know, agent Lightfoote, I’ve spent every favor I had left to let you parade around here like GI Jane. A little protocol every now and then would be nice."

"Stopping a madman and saving the world buys some unique capital, Fearless Leader." Her face darkened. "Steals other things though."

Savas absorbed her words silently. The losses could never be measured. Talented people, good people who could never be replaced.

"John, it's not your fault they died. Not your fault that you're the best to run Intel 1. Trial by fire," she said, nodding to herself. "They cut the fat. Axed all those 9/11 counter-terrorism toys or put them under you. Larry couldn't have done a better job."

Visions of a house bomb rushed through his mind.

"I don't know about that. He was a genius."

"And things are different now. Larry didn't know shit about cybercrimes.
You
set up the Operations Center under Manuel, not Larry. After what happened, you knew where crime and national security were headed:
digital.
"

Savas shook his head. "Big picture only, Angel. I still can't figure out my email sometimes."

"Boss Man is supposed to be big picture."

"At least making you head of cybercrimes means someone can call you Captain Overlord or whatever for a change. How is your command and control center coming along?"

Lightfoote pouted. “John, there’s no budget! We cannibalized the Operations Center, but it’s not nearly enough. It’s outdated. We need server farms to handle the loads of searches and to fend off digital attacks. DNS floods are
daily
. Everyone wants to bring down FBI or get in our systems.”

Savas nodded. “I know, Angel. But times are tight. Budgets are bleeding. You’re going to have to be creative. If the criminals can do it, so can you.” He smiled.

“So Mr. Big Picture is telling me to emulate cybercriminals? You know blowing things up is a lot easier than building them.”

“Angel, don’t twist—” An alert tone rang on his phone. He scanned the message. “It’s Rebecca.”

“Yeah? How’s her
special assignment
?”

Savas frowned. “It’s very
special
. Now I need to take this.” Lightfoote beamed at him. “
In private
.” She grinned more broadly and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Savas sighed and opened the connection. A woman’s face appeared on his smartphone, brown hair and eyes, a smile on her lips.
God, it’s good to see her.

“Agent Cohen, it’s been too long.”

“Yes, I’ve been stuck with babysitting duty.
In the mountains
. Now, who was it that stuck me here?”

“A heartless boss.”

“No doubt. If he hadn’t, Agent Savas, I could be there now. Next to you. Much
closer
.” Her eyes smoldered.

“Yeah, definitely way too long. I hope this call means you’ll be coming home tonight?”

Her smile was mischievous. “Booked my flight. In by ten.”

“
Good
. There’s
a lot
to catch up on.” His face darkened. “And how is Gabriel?”

Cohen looked to her side. “Gone now. Back to the cabin. They’re adapting, but getting restless. They’ve made it a home. But the world has made it a prison.”

There was a long pause as he considered her words. “No one said this would be easy for either of them. It’s wrong, but the setup was too good. A fight we couldn’t win.”

“I think they need to continue to fight, even a guerrilla war.”

“It’s on the agenda. We’ve finally put things back together over here and I’m coordinating with Fred Simon at CIA. We won’t leave them hanging. There’s a lot to be done.”

The landline on his desk buzzed.
Now what?

“Hang on, Rebecca. This is from NYPD, on my red line.” He pressed the button to go to speaker. “Hi, Will. Don’t hear from you often.”

“John, we need you and a crime unit up to the East Side, Sutton Place.
ASAP.
”

“You sound rattled. Boys in blue don’t want this?”

“It’s a car bomb. A big one with some collateral damage.”

Car bomb?
“Anyone killed?”

“Several bystanders and those in the car.”

Savas furrowed his brows. “Your crews are about as good as ours. Why me?”

“This one’s different.”

“Might be a challenge to ID those in the car if the fire was bad.”

“That’s just it, John. We know who was in that car. Phone GPS confirms it.”

Savas glanced to his smartphone. Cohen’s face looked tense. He turned back to the speaker on his landline. “Well, who was it?”

“Jack Craig, CEO of Goldman Sachs.”

“Ah, hell. Are you sure?”

“Unless someone else had his phone, it was him and the driver.”

“Dammit. A car bomb?”

“So it looks. That’s why we’re calling you in. It’s getting out already and it will stir all the hornets’ nests. And a car bomb, Goldman CEO? Whatever it is, it’s big. Mafia, some Unabomber type, or maybe one of these new terrorist groups. Too radioactive for us.”

“Understood. Moving on it now. Where are we headed?”

“Sutton Place south, fifty-three. Or just follow the GPS coordinates on all the photos flooding the internet. There’s no hiding this.”

M
R. MILLER
: We sent a crime unit. I was there, too. Jesus, what a mess. I hadn't seen anything like that up-close since Afghanistan. I think without the GPS data we'd have spent a while trying to figure out just who the hell was hit.

C
BD
: And the target was confirmed by location data and DNA analysis to be Jack Craig, CEO of Goldman Sachs?

MR. MILLER: That's right. There was no question.

C
BD
: And how did the defendant react to this event and information?

MR. MILLER: Well, sir, John Savas is a good as they come. Everyone was shocked. John, too, but he was professional. Got the division primed and assigned several agents to the case. They-

C
BD
: The agents assigned would be you and Agent Cohen?

MR. MILLER: Yes, that's right.

[
R
EDACTED
]: What about the other members of Intel 1?

MR. MILLER: They were on other duties.

[
R
EDACTED
]: Why didn't Savas treat the bombing with the full attention of the division?

MR. MILLER: Well, we didn't know then what it was all linked to. I mean, it was a car bombing in Manhattan. That's pretty fucking serious but still isolated. Still with more unknowns than knowns. There were a lot of serious things with unknowns going on in the world and we were charged with keeping tabs on a lot of it. I mean, it wasn't long before the whole finance thing started to go FUBAR and that ate our cybercrimes subdivision.

C
BD
: We'll get to that. Let's focus on how this began and what you remember. So, how did Intel 1 respond at this point?

MR. MILLER: Well, John—Agent Savas—personally got involved with the footwork.

[
R
EDACTED
]: Why?

MR. MILLER: He's like that. I mean he can't do it in every case, but he's very hands on. Goldman CEO? This had PR nightmare all over it. John went personally.

C
BD
: Went where?

MR. MILLER: To talk to the employees at Goldman about our investigation. To try and find out if they could shed any light on the situation.

C
BD
: He went alone?

MR. MILLER: No, he and Agent Cohen.

[
R
EDACTED
]: For the record, let it be noted that Agent Rebecca Cohen is the defendant's spouse. Mr. Miller, can you comment on FBI policy with respect to employees and nepotism laws? Romantic associations?

MR. MILLER: I don't much read the regs, sir.

[REDACTED]: Can you or can you not tell us if you know that it is against Bureau policy to have superiors and those under their authority in personal relationships?

MR. MILLER: No. That stuff never mattered to me. Besides, we always did everything a little different at Intel 1.

[REDACTED]: Yes, that is becoming more and more clear.

C
BD
: Let's return to the events immediately after the bombing. You say Savas and Cohen went to Goldman.

MR. MILLER: Yes. The morning after. We had already pulled a late night and put together some interesting information we had to run by them.