An Armageddon Duology (6 page)

C
itigroup CEO Mitchell O'Kelly
glared across his desk at his chief of security. He couldn’t believe they were wasting his time on this, but the directors had insisted and there was one thing even the CEO couldn’t ignore, and that was the Board.

He had known Jack Craig personally, of course. They’d been sparring frenemies for their entire careers across a slew of different corporate locations. O'Kelly had always found Craig an uptight puritan who couldn’t help but judge everyone else around him. But he had respected Jack. The man was a fucking genius with the nose of a shark, and you were a fool to bet against him unless you were holding one hell of a hand.

What had happened last week was indeed disturbing. Certainly O'Kelly was worried for his own safety, but the odds that this was something corporate CEOs in general were going to have to be concerned about were very low. He still didn’t have a working model for who could have committed such an act—nor had law enforcement as far as he could tell—but it was most likely related to specifics of Craig’s business dealings, his personal life, or a random nut job like John Hinckley or Mark Chapman. Sure, beef up the security, scramble the schedules, and then get on with business.

If only.

“Mr. O'Kelly, we have contacted a private security firm that was active in Iraq for VIPs.”

“Active in
Iraq
?” This was getting ridiculous!

“Yes, sir. They have a lot of experience dealing with threats of violence against vulnerable and important targets. They are mostly former military, highly trained, experienced with this sort of thing.”

“This is
Manhattan
, gentlemen, not Kabul or Baghdad. We’re not going to be driving around in bombproof Humvees. Let’s get a grip.”

“Sir, we’ve been personally contacted by the Chairman. He supports our recommendations. With threats of this nature—bombings, IEDs, whatever—we need people who have clocked hours with this sort of thing. The landscape changes.”

Holy shit.
“What does this mean? Armored vehicles? SWAT escorts? Can I go to my son’s soccer games without a parent shakedown?”

The two security men glanced at each other anxiously. The older man spoke. “We don’t know yet what they will recommend, but we have scheduled a meeting with them tomorrow, first thing in the morning. They’re eager to find work in the States, sir.”

“I’m sure they are.”

“We’ll get recommendations and then brief you and schedule a second meeting all together to iron out a course of action.”

Ah, to hell with it.
“Fine. Do what you need to do. Now, out. This nonsense has taken enough of my time today.”

The two men excused themselves with apologies and quickly exited the CEO’s office. O'Kelly swiveled his chair away from the closing door and glared up at the dim ceiling of the executive suite. The second floor design hadn’t been renovated for years and still possessed the wood and metal, mirrors and leather sensibility of a previous era of financial power. He found the stately atmosphere helped clear his mind, focus his thoughts on the tasks at hand.

His cell phone rang. He scanned the caller ID.

Franklin?

His son had grown up with a special rule in the house: Dad isn’t to be bothered during the work day unless it’s an emergency. In sixteen years he had never called. Not once. Not during his parents divorce. Not even when he had smashed his first BMW on the Long Island Expressway. Why was he calling now?

“Franklin, what’s going on?”

A harsh voice cut through the speaker. “We have your son, O'Kelly. Don’t do anything rash, anything stupid, or we will not hesitate to kill him.”

O'Kelly jerked upward and stood at attention, his gaze wild. “Who is this?”

“You know what we did to your partner in crime, Jack Craig. We blew him to bits. His bones litter the streets of this city, one of many he robbed for so many years. We will do much worse to your brat if you do not follow our instructions to the letter.”

His pulse racing, sweat building on his brow, O'Kelly paced the plush floors of the executive suite in panic. “How do I know—”

“Dad?”

It was Franklin. O'Kelly closed his eyes.

“Dad, God, please. They’re not kidding.” He seemed to be choking up. “They
killed
Coach Larsen. Shot him.
Dead!
It’s my fault, Dad! He was just trying to—”

Abruptly his son’s voice was cut off.

“Convincing enough for you?”

“Yes,” he whispered, his mind racing for solutions. He walked to his desk and the red panic button.

“You have two choices, O'Kelly. The first is that you kill you son by calling the cops, the Feds, your new military men,” said the harsh voice.

“How do you know—”

“
Or
, you act normally, alert no one, and do exactly what we say. You have no guarantees from us except that we will kill him. I think you know we are willing. But we don’t give a damn about your son. Only about
you
.”

A voice cried from the background.

“Dad! No, don’t—”

O'Kelly heard a slap, then silence.

“We are more than willing to let your spawn escape to gain increased cooperation from you. Because we have a special use for you. And you will be helpful to us because you know that your son will never be safe.”

“What do you want?”

“There will be no ransom. There will be no stalling. There is a black SUV waiting below on Park Avenue. If you are not in that vehicle in five minutes, your son dies. You are to come down from your second-floor perch. Do not bring your armed muscle.”

“They will follow me once they see I’m leaving.”

“Make sure you get outside. Then whatever happens, do not pause, do not stop, do not seek to do anything except find your way to that vehicle. Do you understand?”

Thoughts and scenarios flew through his mind, options and risks and assessments that could not be made with any confidence without data, without time.

“This is not something the both of you are going to get out of, O'Kelly. Make your choice: your life or your son’s. In four minutes, a decision will be made one way or the other.”

The connection was broken.

Mitchell O'Kelly did not hesitate. He had been presented with an impossible choice, and he didn’t need any more deliberation to make his decision.

Outwardly calm, he walked quickly out of his office and down the hall. Luckily the ground floor was only two flights down, otherwise there would be no chance to escape without being closely followed. Completely contrary to habit, he entered the stairway to the surprised expressions of the secretaries and leapt down the steps in painful bounds. His aging frame wasn’t up to this sort of shock, but it seemed likely he would soon have more serious concerns.

The CEO of Citigroup burst out from the lobby stairwell and walked like a man possessed toward the main entrance. He was not spotted until he had crossed nearly two-thirds of the distance. Shouts came from the voices of his security team, and his peripheral vision sensed several shapes converging from behind. They would reach him in seconds.

He was through the doorway, the sunlight of the clear October day blinding him momentarily, his eyes squinting desperately to find the black SUV.

There.
Blackened windows hid the occupants. O'Kelly surrendered all pretense of casualness and sprinted toward the truck.

“Mr. O'Kelly!”

His bodyguards cried behind him. The men were under the strictest orders. They would have him in their arms within seconds for this dangerous breach of protocol, especially after recent events. The black vehicle was still fifty yards away. He’d never make it.

Hornets buzzed past his head. There were screams. He heard bodies fall heavily to the ground. He didn’t look back. He ran harder, the back door of the SUV opening, arms grabbing his, pulling him in violently. The vehicle lurched forward with screeching tires and he was thrown backward into a seat.

But he had seen. In a split second upon entering the truck and turning his head toward the plaza in front of the building, it was all too clear.

The fiends had shot and killed the men that had been charged to protect him. Their bodies were strewn across the cement and steps, people racing in panic away from the scene.

O'Kelly closed his eyes. God only knew what they were going to do to him.

R
ebecca Cohen sat
in the back of the FBI vehicle, nearly sick from the lurching dash through traffic. Staring at the choppy video feed on her phone was surely not helping the situation. They should have just called. But they needed to see each other.

“On the tarmac, Rebecca,” said a pixelated Savas, his phrases peppered with staccato pauses. “This is getting a bit insane.”

They had not been back a day before the next crisis had pulled them apart again. This time it was sudden disappearances of important people both in New York and in Washington. Congressman, aides, more CEOs, workers at the Federal Reserve Board. Whatever theories they had before were jettisoned. Whatever was going on, it was highly coordinated and professionally implemented.

“Feels like we’re back under siege from Mjolnir,” she said to the frozen face of Savas. “John?”

There was a pause, and then the connection reestablished. “Lost most of that except for Thor’s Hammer. But I think I know what you were saying.”

They had split their team at Intel 1. Savas had taken ex-Marine Frank Miller with him to DC. They would soon be on their way to the Capitol. Cohen had called another agent on their team, JP Rideout, and they were going to meet at the headquarters of Citigroup. The other cases were reported disappearances, no shows and quiet vanishings. But not at Citi. There were witnesses. There were bodies. There had been a failed pursuit by NYPD.

The sedan jerked to a stop and Cohen dropped the phone, the connection with Savas lost. She quickly texted him that she had arrived and would talk to him later. He would soon be busy as well.

The driver opened the door for her and she stepped out quickly, heading for the crowd of police and decorations of yellow tape in front of the building. The glass and steel structure towered above her. Horns blared like a strong wind from the snarled traffic of rubberneckers.
Here to see the bloodbath
. She counted four bodies. Two were near the exits, and two had moved toward Park Avenue before they were cut down. A black NYPD detective met her.

“Agent Cohen?” he asked. “I’m Tyrell Sacker. You’re it for the Feds?”

“No, we have a crime group en route and another special agent from my division.”

“Which is?”

“Intel 1.”

The cops eyes opened wider. “Well, we need the best. Reports are coming in from all over the city. The radio’s total chaos.”

“I know. Look, we’re going to go through this thoroughly, but can you tell me what you’ve put together? Is there enough for a summary?”

Sacker nodded. “A crowd of witnesses, and security cams to go back to and verify. But it still doesn’t make sense, even if the testimony agrees so far. Their CEO literally comes sprinting out of the building, ignoring the calls of his security team, running straight for a van or SUV. He was scheduled for meetings all day and was already late for one in the building. It’s like he went nuts. His team bolted after him, and, well, you can see what happened to them.”

“Shots came from the vehicle?”

“Doesn’t seem so. None of the witnesses reported seeing anything in the truck but some dark figures pulling O’Kelly inside. The shots were professional, agent Cohen,” Sacker said, looking back toward the bodies. “No evidence of misses. I mean, how often does that happen? I’d bet there were gunman positioned and waiting.”

“We’ll have our ballistics teams here soon, and we’ll need to get all the CCTV footage from all security cameras in the area.”

“On that. I’m point for this scene, so you’ll be talking to me.”

Cohen smiled. She liked Sacker immediately. He was gritty yet polite, sharp with an underlying empathic feel. She hoped that she could trust him.

“All right, we’ll work out the coordination of this investigation soon. For now, take me up to the crime scene. I want to get a look at the victims.”

T
he Capitol Police
officers glared at the hulking form of Frank Miller with suspicion. Savas stood with him before the grand entrance of the Russell Senate Office Building. The stately marble, lofted steps, and the presence of twenty to thirty uniformed officers in combat gear sporting military-grade automatic weapons made an undeniable impression. He was as polite as possible.

“Yes, special agents Savas and Miller. These are our IDs. We’re en route from New York because of an apparent coordinated abduction connected to those here.”

A nervous officer stood several steps above them. “We have explicit instructions not to allow anyone except approved law enforcement officers into the building.”

“We
are
approved law enforcement officers!” growled Miller. “We’re here
by request
of the agency acting on orders from the fucking president! The little headsets you're wearing with mics—try them out and contact your damn superiors.”

Several weapons were pointed their way.

Miller was losing his temper, as he tended to do. A decorated former soldier, he had been shot twice saving Savas’ life in the line of duty as an FBI agent. He didn’t suffer fools well, and there wasn’t much that scared the man. Which is what frightened Savas.

“Okay, Frank, let’s just back off and wait for the red tape to unspool. There’s a lot of tension right now. We’re all on the same side.”

They returned to their car and waited out the next half hour. Evening began to fall, and the streets were a ghost town. The Capitol had been completely locked down.

The wall of police opened and a figure in a suit shuffled down the steps. Savas immediately recognized him—Tim Cox, Assistant Director in Charge, a lanky, bespectacled man and former Secret Service agent. The local branch had brought in the big guns on this scene. People were shook up.

“Agent Savas,” said Cox extending his hand with a surprisingly strong grip. “Your reputation precedes you of course, but you’re a long way from home.”

“Things are moving very fast, sir, and there hasn’t been time to coordinate investigations. But the murder of Goldman CEO Jack Craig may be tied in some fashion to Senator Heidi Moss.”

The Assistant Director squinted. “How so?”

“His last phone calls, minutes before his death, were to her. We paid her a visit and while nothing concrete came up, it was clear that she was under some sort of threat of some kind.”

“And you did not bring this to the attention of my office, because?”

Great.
Miller glanced at him and Savas tried hard to ignore it. “It was a hunch, sir. And if not for the kidnappings of other CEOs and members of Congress today, it would have remained a completely unsubstantiated hunch. We can’t bother you with every possible idea.”

“Still, Savas, this is our turf. Let us decide what is worthy of our attention.”

“Point taken, Assistant Director.” Savas hoped they would be cooperative. “As you know, we have multiple events in New York, some still coming in as people are reported missing. I’m back here to begin coordinating with you on this seemingly related set of disappearances.”

Cox nodded. “It’s unprecedented. We have three missing Congressman, a high-level official at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and just as of ten minutes ago, it seems that the head of the Federal Reserve did not get off her plane at Reagan National.”

“Louise Lelann?”

Cox sighed. “So now you see the magnitude of this. Homeland Security is descending like a storm cloud, as if they didn’t eat up enough of our departments already. We’re on lockdown, the president’s day has been scrambled. I’m not sure who knows where he is. It feels like a terrorist attack.”

“I think it is,” said Miller.

“Well, then you folks are the right ones for the job.”

“There’s no one claiming responsibility? No ransom demands? Anything?”

Cox shook his head. “Nothing. But the game is still early. It’s certainly different than anything before. The murder of Craig—it could have been anything. But it was
murder
. A car bomb. A terrorist-y thing. Abductions of state officials? Corporate CEOs? What the hell is the play here?”

Savas looked at Miller and back to Cox, the cold night air bringing more of a chill than was warranted.

“I’m sorry to say, Assistant Director, I have no idea.”