The Gatekeeper, page 22
“What the fuck is this,” Constantine Alexandris growls. “I can’t get this damn screen to change!”
Petra sets her coffee down and reaches out. “May I try?”
He thrusts the tablet computer at her. Petra takes it, turns, raises it over her head, mimics her best tennis overhead smash, and slams it into the corner of a sandstone bookshelf. The tablet screen shatters, glass flying. She turns and hands him the piece of rectangular plastic, now bent like a hockey stick, its screen missing.
She retrieves her coffee, makes eye contact with him, keeps her voice neutral. “Better?”
He takes it. “Petulance ill becomes you. I raised you better.”
“Mother raised me. Which is why I have a moral compass.”
Constantine moves to the wall-mounted monitor and physically turns off the soccer match by pressing a button. He sighs, as if using such a menial approach is beneath him.
“The others are on their way. We’ll explain everything to you. Trust me, Petra, once you see the big picture, you’ll understand.”
“I understand that greed has driven you insane.”
Constantine paces the office, which reflects her tastes, not his. Petra redecorated in her usual way. She has an eye for art and no tolerance for clutter. There are very few actual objects in her office, and nothing that she doesn’t need to get her work done. The scattering of glass on the hardwood floor near the stone bookshelf stands out amid the order of her space.
“Dmytro Rudko is waiting offshore,” her father says. “When General Tancredi takes the nuclear power plant and decrees an independent nation, the Russians will go ashore and recognize the new country. Sacramento might have been quick to send in the National Guard and stop us. But with the nuclear plant threatened, the response turns from Sacramento to Washington. And they’ll pause, analyze the situation, consider their alternatives. Once Rudko recognizes our new country, the United Nations will intervene. That will slow down all responses even further.”
He pauses, glares at his daughter, willing her to concede the genius of his plan.
Petra sips her coffee, does not react. Tall, angular, barefoot, serene mask in place. She manages to make sipping coffee look like tai chi. Constantine paces and smokes. His hands gesture as he talks, conjuring images to go with his thoughts. He comes from a long line of Greek laborers and fishermen. He disdains subtlety; mistakes it for weakness.
“Other countries have been lined up to acknowledge our new nation. No, don’t ask which ones. It doesn’t matter.”
She wasn’t going to.
“What matters is this: Triton Expediters has been serving as the bank for half of the world’s military. We are the ultimate purveyors of war as a commodity. You know that, I know that. The justness of war, the stupidity of it, the idiocy of it, the shortsightedness of it … none of that matters to Triton. Who wins? Who loses? Not our concern, so long as we make our profit. We provide the capital for war, but not the reasons for war. Well, no more.”
Petra nods. From her face, they might be talking about that year’s harvest from one of Constantine’s vineyards. “I see.”
“Ours will be the new Vatican. A city-state,” he says. “A tiny nation on the edge of the Pacific, with billions of dollars already in play throughout first- and third-world countries alike. The finest international infrastructure of computers that call the shots. We get to say who uses our capital to make war, and who doesn’t. The Saudi crown prince wants to pulverize some dirt-poor African nation because of this perceived slight or that niggling blasphemy? Well, no more. Thanks to Brittany Kinney, our computers do a lot more than transfer money around the globe. Thanks to the diplomacy of Colin Frye, we have the back-channel communications to parliaments and military leaders across the globe. The Saudis want to act like sandbox bullies? We could turn off all their security mechanisms along the Iranian border.”
He reaches for the packet of cigarettes that sits on the desk—on her desk—like a cancerous growth.
Petra nods. “That would be handy if Saudi Arabia and Iran shared a border.”
“Don’t be insolent!” he barks, face flush. “It was just an example! The point is, within weeks, our nation and Triton Expediters will be calling the shots, worldwide. We will be the most powerful city-state since Rome. We will finally wield the kind of power that will truly matter. That’s us, Petra. That’s me. And when you finally see the full picture, you’ll see the genius of it.”
“And these racist scum pouring into your spanking new country? These are your honored citizens?”
Constantine grimaces and waves off the thought like it was a mosquito circling his head. “Don’t get distracted by that sideshow, Petra. General Tancredi needs them for now. They’ll be jettisoned soon enough. They’re useful idiots.”
Petra gives him a slow-burn smile, eyes boring into him.
“What?” he barks.
“Polezni durak.”
“What? Speak English, for God’s sake. Or at least Greek!”
She shakes her head slowly.
“Enough with this Cheshire Cat nonsense! Speak your mind!”
But she turns and studies the roiling Pacific Ocean.
One of the guards knocks and steps in.
“Sir? Ms. Kinney is here.”
“Show her in.”
The guard never makes eye contact with Petra.
The Secondary is of no importance to the guardians of the Malibu house.
CHAPTER 65
Malibu Colony Beach, California
Over the next fifteen minutes, Brittany Kinney and Colin Frye arrive at the Malibu estate. Vincent Guerrero lets them in. He has a security team at least eight men deep; that’s how many Petra spots, anyway.
Colin, in a summer-weight suit and a silk pocket square, looks nervous. “I just spoke to Dmytro. He’s on his way here.”
Constantine gives him a glacial stare. “Rudko? Why?”
Why indeed, Petra wonders, but maintains her mannequin face.
“He wouldn’t say. He’s bringing down the yacht.”
Brittany, in her standard black-and-white garb, is scanning her tablet computer. “We’re not hearing anything from Boca Serpiente County. Total comms blackout.”
“That was the plan.” Constantine waves it off. “When General Tancredi makes his move, he wants to be in position before anyone can react.”
He glares at his battered old steel watch. Constantine Alexandris could buy the whole Patek Philippe company, lock, stock, and watch springs, but he won’t part with that old stem-winder. “It’s started. We should be hearing soon.”
As the men talk, Brittany puts her computer away and approaches Petra. The tech officer looks flushed. And it’s not just because of the conspiracy to commit treason, Petra thinks.
Brittany keeps her voice low. “Are you okay?”
Petra studies her awhile. It’s a stupid question, so she doesn’t bother answering.
“At some point, you’re going to see this is the right thing to do,” Brittany says. “We’re making the world safer. We’ll be the steady hand on the tiller. No more dipshit generals and admirals with their fruit salad medals and spangled epaulets. Constantine is a fucking force of nature. Colin has glad-handed enough political leaders in the right countries to go along with us. You’d be surprised how many of them want their militaries on a leash.”
Petra says, “And you?”
Brittany shrugs. “If you used Triton money to upgrade your nation’s infrastructure, any time in the last couple of years, then I have a back door into your system. Most of NATO. Japan and Australia. Big chunks of Southeast Asia. People will get in line like this”—she snaps her fingers—“or they’ll be using Commodore 64s and issuing their orders on pin-feed paper coming off dot matrix printers. I can turn the clocks back on their technology so bad an OfficeMax in a strip mall will look like NORAD Command.”
Petra nods. “That doesn’t surprise me. You are that good.”
Brittany blushes and uses a finger to brush crimson hair behind her ears.
“It’s the fact that you followed my father’s idiot scheme that surprises me. I didn’t figure you for one of those blind-faith mutts who drink the Kool-Aid.”
Brittany looks like she’s been slapped. Her cheeks turn pink.
“That’s unfair. Petra, we—”
“Orange Department of Correction jumpsuits absolutely will not go with your do. You can use my bathroom if you want to wash the dye out before the CNN perp-walk.”
“Shut up.” Brittany says it without rancor. She’s not angry, she’s hurt.
Petra suddenly, in the blink of an eye, figures it out. She’s known for a while that her presence makes Brittany Kinney nervous, but she thought it was an alpha-female/turf thing.
It’s not. It’s unrequited love.
Petra glances at her father and Colin Frye, who are talking business on the far side of the office. She reaches out and touches the back of Brittany’s hand with the tips of her fingers.
Brittany pulls her hand back, blushing, eyes on the carpet.
“I’m sorry,” Petra says. “I’m lashing out. I’m mad at my father. I apologize.”
Brittany looks at the window and the wall and a tall potted bamboo in the corner. “It’s not crazy. It’s not. I’ve run the numbers. I’ve calculated the odds. You know me. I don’t do faith. I do facts.”
“Just because you can do this, doesn’t mean you should. It’s—”
Vincent Guerrero raps on the doorframe and steps into the office. He addresses Constantine. “Ambassador Rudko, sir. He’s just dropped anchor.”
Petra turns from the blushing tech wizard to the big window behind her.
Sure enough, she spots the megayacht, with its three decks, helipad and helicopter, and infinity pool. She has, on occasion, negotiated with Dmytro Rudko aboard the Os’Minog. It’s a floating corporate headquarters for the Rudko family’s petrochemical empire. The ship is parked maybe two miles off the coast, directly opposite the Malibu estate.
Guerrero says, “They’re bringing over a launch.”
Brittany turns to him. She seems to have regained a little of her usual cool. “Vincent? So who’s this Limerick?”
Guerrero eyes her coolly. “Nobody.”
“Yeah? Well, nobody hacked the shit out of you,” she says. “He was in your personal computer. He owned this house. He’d screwed with your surveillance here.”
Petra had been counting on all this going unnoticed. She remains stoic.
Guerrero says, “Bullshit.”
“I’ve reset everything. He’s locked out. But”—Brittany shrugs—“he made you his bitch, big-time.”
Petra enjoys that but doesn’t show it. She sees a small motorboat vectoring toward the Malibu Colony dock. She spots at least three people on board.
Guerrero’s phone vibrates. He reads the incoming text, turns his eyes to Constantine. “Something on TV we should see. It’s about Boca Serpiente Valley.”
Colin Frye looks around for the smart-home tablet and doesn’t spot it. That’s because, after Petra smashed it, her father threw it in the garbage can by the desk.
Constantine stalks out of the office before Brittany Kinney can stop him, his short legs pumping like pistons. After a beat, the others follow.
He reaches the living room and finds another tablet. He activates this room’s wall-embedded television. This time he gets nothing but static.
“I tried to tell you,” Brittany says. “I had to cut off the cable service. This Limerick guy appears to be a decent hacker. He’d have used that to get in. Here…”
She turns on her own phone and uses it as a Wi-Fi hot spot. She brings up MSNBC.
Constantine Alexandris, Colin Frye, and Vincent Guerrero gather in a semicircle around her to watch the tail end of an impromptu, outdoor press conference, shot against the backdrop of a handmade wooden fence and a ranch house beyond. Joe Ryerson, recently widowed patriarch of the Ryerson Ranch, has just exposed one of his followers as an Army mole who shot his wife and two of his own men.
The officer, a tall man with an unevenly tanned face, leans with his chest against a police patrol car, his wrists cuffed behind him. The man looks like he’s inhaling with difficulty.
Colin Frye says, “Ah. Well. That doesn’t look good.”
Constantine snorts. “General Tancredi has to have a contingency plan for this. I’m not worried.”
Brittany has moved to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the Pacific. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
Constantine turns to her. “Why not?”
Brittany points to the motor launch being tied off at the Malibu Colony dock. “Because General Tancredi isn’t running things up there. He’s here. He came with the Russian.”
CHAPTER 66
Shortly after Mike Whitney talked to the U.S. Department of Energy—explaining why he and his senior staff had activated the SCRAM shutoff of the nuclear power station—a bevy of U.S. troops from Point Mugu Naval Air Station, the Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, and the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center rolled down Interstate 5 and the 1, heading for Boca Serpiente County and Joint Military Base McKinzie-Clark.
After the local and federal law enforcement officials on duty at the gate of the Ryerson Ranch took statements from Joe Ryerson and others living in the compound, they booked U.S. Army Captain Bart Weaver into custody on charges of first-degree homicide. At that cue, county, state, and federal law enforcement officials began heading toward the town of Sloatville.
But before all of that occurred, Dez got a ride back into town and was dropped off at his stolen F-250 Super Duty.
He’s halfway back to Los Angeles before all of that erupts behind him.
* * *
The first big problem: Dez can’t raise Petra. She answers neither phone calls nor texts. Either she can’t or she won’t, and Dez is leaning toward can’t.
When the two of them believed that Triton Expediters’ money was funding a bunch of far-right-wing dorks looking to create a fifty-first state, Petra appeared to be in no physical danger. She was confronting her own father, along with her company’s tech guru and chief lobbyist. At worst, they’d talk her to death.
Now Dez realizes the stakes are very much higher—life-and-death stakes—played out on a global arena in which real power, and not just money, is on the table. Military types who launched a coup d’etat are involved. Russian military intelligence is involved. Petra’s a brilliant legal mind and a dogged investigator but she’s up to her eyeballs with a different kind of predator this time.
She’s incommunicado, which means she’s either being held against her will or she’s dead.
Dez compartmentalizes that for now. There’s a time for action and a time for mourning.
Dez has tried to raise Alonzo. No luck there. The calls go to a number that has been disconnected.
He stops at a greasy spoon in Lebec. Walking into the diner, every part of his body aches. He orders coffee, two eggs, and bangers. “Sorry, love. Sausages.”
There’s a sundries dispenser in the men’s room and Dez pays for Tylenol. He downs five of them with his coffee.
While he uses the caffeine to fend off fatigue, he pulls out his bespoke, ruggedized tablet computer with the scuffed leather folder and subconsciously kisses the cover before opening it. He tries to access the security system at the Malibu house.
He’s been locked out.
He tries to access Vincent Guerrero’s computer at the corporate headquarters.
Locked out.
A cursory examination tells him the Triton Security computer protocols have been vastly hardened in the last twenty-four hours. The hacker’s tricks of the trade he picked up as a gatekeeper are way too amateurish for the current system.
Someone knows Dez had previously hacked the system. Brittany Kinney, likely.
Dez tucks into the food—it’s surprisingly good—and snoops around the security system at Petra’s beachfront smart-house. Again, he sees that the security protocols have been improved. With these modern smart-homes, the ways to break in via the so-called internet of things has made hacking much easier. Everything from the water heater to the lights to the bloody toaster are on the cloud these days. But Dez hunts around and can’t spot any weaknesses in those systems.
Neither Petra’s eight-digit security access code nor Guerrero’s twelve-digit security access code net him anything but frustration.
Dez does a quick scan of other homes in the Malibu area, looking for someone else piggybacking onto the Alexandrises’ internet router. It happens. And lo, he spots an incongruity.
An email is being routed into Petra’s home, but not through the home’s server. It’s as if a secondary server has been installed. And this server is not password-protected.
Dez accesses the server and opens the email to find a looped video, about eight seconds long. It’s eight seconds of meaningless football. A bit of play, midfield, nothing of importance happening. Dez recognizes the unis as Club Atlas and someone else—Atlético San Luis?—from the Mexico league.
Words have been photoshopped onto the lower left-hand corner of the image.
Liverpool vs. FC La Habana.
Dez starts to grin.
Liverpool is in the English Premier League. La Habana plays in the Cuban National Football League.
“More coffee, hon?”
“T’go, ta.” He digs cash out of his jeans pocket.
Liverpool is Dez’s team.
Alonzo is Cuban.
There are only two emails in queue. One has the snippet of a football game. The other has a subject line but no body copy. The subject line is an address in greater Los Angeles.
Dez goes to Google Earth and types in the address. He spots a bird’s-eye view of an apartment complex. The image may have been taken last week, last month, or last year. Whenever it was taken, it captured a lavender Mini Cooper with a rainbow flag decal in the window parked in the lot.
CHAPTER 67
