Orbital Disruption Page 13

  “Yeah. It’s big enough. And… it’s going to have to be the last one for a while. We’re going to need to get away from here once this is done. Some bad shit’s coming.”

  Sergey was quiet for a moment.

  “Ok, one last big job,” he said, looking at Anna. “Where do we start?”

  “I’m already ahead of you, little brother,” Anna grinned. “I called in quite a few favors last night and a few more this morning. A friend at the phone company gave me location data for the cell phones of the targets. The bitch who shot me is already down in DC. We’ll take care of her later. But the main target and two of his friends look like they took off via the East River before they shut off their phones.”

  “They had a boat?”

  “There aren’t any real boats docked there but there are a couple of little skiffs and zodiacs that are used for maintenance. I think these assholes might have just grabbed the first thing they found but they couldn’t have gotten far in something small like that. So I called Oleg and Joey this morning and asked them to check out the marinas in the area. There aren’t that many.”

  “And?” Sergey asked as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to his sister.

  “Do you remember that I told you that Tabitha Chu was working for them?”

  Sergey’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah.”

  “Well, it happens that Tabitha has an ex who lives on a sailboat at the same Jersey marina where Joey found an abandoned zodiac this morning.”

  “So, let’s go check it out.”

  “Joey already did,” Anna replied. “The sailboat isn’t there anymore. They must have left during the night.”

  “Well fuck… they could be pretty far away by now,” Sergey leaned back and crossed his arms.

  “Yes, but I know someone who can help. She’s good at finding things. You and I are going to go visit her today.”

  “Do we at least know the name of the boat?” Sergey asked.

  “Yes,” Anna replied. “We’re looking for the Blue Orchid.”

  Twenty-One

  Marie Renault rode the escalator upward. Most days she would walk up the rumbling, squeaking metal steps but this morning she was exhausted. The previous night’s conference call with senior officials from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and regulators at the Monetary Authority of Singapore had already gone well past midnight when agents from London’s Serious Fraud Office came on with new information. She’d lost track of time from there but knew it had lasted several more hours. The sky was showing the faint pink streaks of dawn when Marie boarded the first red line Metro of the day and went to her apartment. After a quick shower and change of clothes she left and was on the Metro again shortly after sunrise. Now she was at Dupont Circle, gradually rising toward the oblong blotch of sky that marked the exit.

  Marie wasn’t sure how long they had until the main event occurred but she knew from some of the transactions that it was probably no more than a couple months and possibly much less. The web of suspicious transactions included a large number of options. Options were contracts that allowed the buyer the right - but not the obligation - to buy or sell some underlying asset at some point in the future. For example, an entity in Cyprus owned options that gave it the right to purchase gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange at six dollars per gallon - much higher than the current price. Those options were worthless now but would become very valuable if the price of gasoline were to rise above six dollars per gallon. They expired in just eight weeks, though - a strong indication that the buyer expected an unprecedented spike in the price of gasoline in the northeastern United States some time in the next two months. There were similar patterns elsewhere in the data that indicated the event was coming soon.

  As for the event itself, Marie wasn’t entirely convinced it was going to be an asteroid crashing into the ocean but she couldn’t think of a more likely alternative. In any case, it was likely to be a huge catastrophe given the scale and geographic distribution of the financial transactions that were staged to take advantage of it.

  Marie felt her palms grow damp and her breath quickened. They were doing all they could but would it be enough? Untangling the web of transactions undertaken by myriad accounts belonging to shell companies all over the world was tedious and complex. With every layer they unraveled it seemed they needed to request information from yet another agency in another country. And each one wanted to know why. A “major terrorist plot” was the reason given in most cases. Only a handful of people connected to STETSON knew the whole picture. Marie wondered how the people behind this scheme could possibly keep track of the whole thing themselves.

  The task force was making surprisingly quick progress compared to her previous experience in government. Requests for information on counterparties to transactions, trading histories, company ownership, travel documents, bank transfers, etc. were being returned in days or even hours - processes that usually took weeks or more. Marie was repeatedly impressed by the subtle power that Caroline O’Rourke and STETSON displayed. But the delay of even a few hours was painful when they knew disaster was so near.

  Marie stepped out of the Dupont Circle Metro station’s south entrance and walked down the wide sidewalk of 19th Street NW. The next station, Farragut North, was actually closer to her office at the Federal Reserve but Marie’s favorite cafe was on 19th. Impending disaster or not, having a good espresso was absolutely critical if Marie was going to be awake for this morning’s briefings.

  Less than ten minutes later, Marie crossed K street, walked under the massive concrete overhang, passed through security, took the elevator up to the 4th floor and strode into her cubicle. She took off her jacket, draped it over the back of her chair and sat down at her desk with a loud sigh.

  “Good morning, Marie.”

  Walter Stein’s balding head popped up over the cubicle partition next to hers.

  Marie swivelled her chair to face Walter.

  “I will agree that it is morning. What makes it good?”

  Walter smiled.

  “I think we got him.”

  Marie sat up straight.

  “Really? Tell me!”

  “We just got documents for the Channel Island accounts. The main one was opened by a trust whose sole beneficiary is a Hong Kong LLC owned by Ruben St. James.”

  Marie was stunned for a moment and then grinned.

  “That is fantastic news, Walter! And so quickly - didn’t the guy from the Serious Fraud Office, um, I forgot his name… Didn’t he say last night that it was likely to take some days? Something about Channel Islands bank secrecy laws?”

  “Yes, yes, normally it would. But apparently someone at number Ten Downing Street called someone in St. Helier an hour ago and voila!”

  “Just like that?” Marie asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “Just like that,” Walter confirmed. “You were copied on the email a few minutes ago. We have quite a few documents to review this morning, I think. But I’m pretty sure we’ve found a bad guy.”

  Marie clasped her hands together and closed her eyes. She hadn’t been to church in years but she still said a brief prayer of thanks. Then she took a deep breath, exhaled and opened her eyes.

  “This means it’s almost certainly an asteroid,” Walter said more quietly.

  “Yes,” Marie agreed. “If Ruben St. James is behind it then the theory of an asteroid impact in the ocean is even more likely.”

  “But I thought Excelsior lost their asteroid? And isn’t it still months away from Earth?”

  “I don’t know. We’re still missing something. But at least we have a suspect.”

  “Yes, it’s progress,” Marie’s colleague agreed and nodded.

  “Ok. Let’s pull together the suspect transaction set from the model and line it up with the transactions we can now link to Ruben St. James. We’ll need a summary to present at this morning’s briefing for Caroline.”

  Walter looked at his watch and frowned.

  “That’s
just forty-five minutes from now.”

  “Then let’s get going,” Marie replied. “We have a super-villain to catch!”

  “Thank you, Marie,” Caroline O’Rourke said through the speaker in the center of the table. “That is compelling evidence that Ruben St. James would be a beneficiary of the massive market upheaval that your model is predicting and thus should be our primary suspect.”

  Marie and Walter were in a small conference room at the Federal Reserve, one floor up from Marie’s cubicle. Caroline, Jessica, the Deputy Director of the FBI, two Associate Administrators from FEMA, a dozen other STETSON team members who Marie barely knew and a liaison officer from Britain’s MI-5 all occupied small rectangles on the screen on one wall of the conference room. Marie noted that the sound wasn’t perfectly synchronized with Caroline’s lips and that her eyes were focused slightly off center - probably a result of the camera on her end being placed to the side of her screen. Video conferencing technology still left much to be desired but it saved a lot of time compared to physically gathering everyone in the same room.

  “Jessica, I believe you came to the same conclusion via a more dramatic route.” Caroline continued. “Can you please give your update next?”

  Jessica leaned forward and un-muted her line. Judging by the background it looked like she was in her office at the Department of the Interior. Marie hadn’t been there since the first day when she was introduced to Jessica and inducted into STETSON but she recognized the reproduction of Remington’s The Sentinel on the wall behind Jessica.

  “Good morning. Last night a senior executive from Excelsior Launch Systems, Anna Ivanov, entered the office of Jovian Resources in Brooklyn, demanded the return of allegedly stolen information and shot one of Jovian’s staff before fleeing. I believe the information includes encryption keys that can decode Excelsior’s communications with the asteroid they captured. It appears that the information was sent to Jovian by Edward Morton and that Excelsior assassinated Mr. Morton with a car bomb to attempt to prevent him disclosing that information.”

  Marie heard Walter gasp next to her.

  “Three of Jovian’s team members - Dennis Li, Molly Owens and Tabitha Chu - fled the scene while I provided first aid to the man who was shot and awaited the police. I believe they will try to use the information they received to interrupt Excelsior’s plans but I have not been in contact with them since last night’s incident.”

  A thin man with small gold-rimmed spectacles who Marie knew only as a fellow STETSON member leaned forward and unmuted his microphone.

  “Is this the same Tabitha Chu who I’m thinking of?”

  “Yes, one and the same,” Caroline confirmed. “Is that a problem?”

  The man paused for a moment before replying.

  “No, under the circumstances I think it’s probably a good thing. Tabitha was unorthodox in her methods but she was effective and I never had any reason to question her commitment to doing what she thought was right. Even when that was incredibly ... inconvenient.”

  “Good,” Caroline replied. “Jessica, please regain contact with the Jovian folks as soon as you can and do whatever is possible to disrupt Excelsior’s plan. Whatever resources you need will be made available.”

  “Understood,” Jessica said, nodding.

  Caroline continued, her eyes shifting slightly as she looked at another person’s image on her screen.

  “Based on this new information and what we know from the financial models I believe it’s likely that St. James’s plan somehow involves an asteroid impacting in the Atlantic Ocean. What is the status of our emergency response planning?”

  One of the Assistant Directors of FEMA unmuted his line.

  “We’re still at an early stage, ma’am. We have existing evacuation plans for each of the major cities on the East Coast but we’ve never planned to evacuate all of them at the same time. We’re assessing whether it’s even feasible, especially on the short timeframe implied by the financial models. Even at the most optimistic edge of that envelope it’s going to be ugly. The evacuation itself is likely to result in at least some loss of life and significant economic disruption.”

  “I understand,” Caroline replied. “We won’t order an evacuation until we are sure we know that’s happening but I need to know how much lead time we need.”

  “Understood, ma’am.”

  “And of course we’ll do our best to stop them.”

  Several heads nodded and the FEMA Assistant Director muted his line. Caroline shifted her gaze again.

  “Which brings me to you, Malcolm,” she said, addressing the Deputy Director of the FBI. “I think between Marie’s and Walter’s evidence and Jessica’s eyewitness account we have more than enough to get a warrant to raid Excelsior’s office. We’ll need to move quickly, though.”

  “One step ahead of you, Caroline,” the heavyset Deputy Director said, looking down at his phone. “A team was assembled at the San Francisco field office early this morning and rolled out five minutes ago. They should reach Excelsior’s office in Palo Alto in another thirty minutes, forty tops.”

  “And the warrant?” Caroline asked.

  “I called in a few favors, we should have it any minute now. The special agent in charge of the SF field office will personally carry it down to Palo Alto by helicopter. With luck she’ll arrive just as the fun starts.”

  “Thank you, Malcolm. Please keep me posted.”

  Caroline’s eyes shifted slightly again.

  “And thank you, Marie and Walter. That’s an important breakthrough you made on the forensic accounting. Keep at it, we need whatever additional information we can get. Thanks everyone, we’ll reconvene at fourteen hundred Washington time.”

  Marie started to respond but before she could unmute her line Caroline’s image blinked out from the screen. The other lines dropped off quickly with just a few mumbled goodbyes.

  Marie clicked the red button on the speakerphone to end the call and then turned to Walter.

  “Let’s get back to work.”

  Twenty-Two

  Sergey Ivanov slowed the BMW and turned the steering wheel, leaving the narrow road and entering a gravel parking lot. A small plume of dust stirred up behind him and then rolled over the car as he came to a halt beside a rusty Ford pickup truck. The cloud left a thin layer of dust on the black body of the luxury car but Sergey wasn’t concerned. In this part of New Jersey an expensive car kept in less than pristine condition was perfectly ordinary.

  Anna Ivanov involuntarily touched her abdomen as she stood up from the passenger seat. The bandage that Sergey had applied remained in place and didn’t show through her black sweater but it still hurt each time she moved.

  Sergey noted Anna’s hesitation and raised his eyebrow.

  “It’s nothing, let’s go find Maggie,” Anna replied to the unasked question.

  “Are you sure she’s here?” Sergey asked.

  Anna nodded to the other side of the gravel lot where a red Audi sports car was parked next to a white trailer. More cars were parked on the other side of the trailer. A large, nondescript building was under construction behind it.

  “Pretty sure.”

  She started to walk toward the trailer and Sergey followed. As they neared the trailer, the door opened and a woman stepped out and down the short stairs from the trailer to the gravel. She wore work boots, cargo pants, a vest and a hard hat. As she came closer Sergey noted that she was Asian and that the logo on her hard hat and vest matched the logo on the side of the trailer - a stylized bird of prey and the name “Chan”.

  “Anna!” the woman exclaimed and extended her hand.

  Anna shook it firmly and replied, “Maggie! How are you?”

  “Same old shit, you know?” Maggie laughed. “Seems like everyone wants to build a datacenter in the ass crack of New Jersey. Boring work but it pays well enough.”

  Anna laughed as well and then gestured at her brother.

  “Anna, this is my little brother,
Sergey. Sergey, this is my friend Maggie Chan.”

  Sergey extended his hand.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a brother, Anna!” Maggie smiled as she shook Sergey’s hand. “And so handsome - you’ve been holding out!”

  Sergey smiled and glanced at his sister.

  “Oh, Maggie, you’re terrible!” Anna laughed. She had to make a conscious effort to avoid pressing her hand to her side, it hurt so much.

  “We’ll talk later, Sergey,” Maggie said and winked before turning back to Anna.

  Maggie continued to smile but the tone of her voice indicated that she was done joking around.

  “Something tells me you’re not here for a construction tour.”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Anna replied. “I need your help.”

  “Of course, anything for you, Anna. I still owe you big time,”

  “Thank you, Maggie. I need help finding someone.”

  Maggie nodded and Anna continued.

  “It’s urgent and it’s not going to be easy. Last I know, they were in a sailboat. But that was last night - by now they could be fifty miles away.”

  “These people owe you money?” Maggie asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Maggie frowned. “I hate people who don’t pay their debts. So dishonest.”

  Anna just nodded.

  “Of course I’ll help you. It’s no problem. It may take a few hours but if you know the boat they’re on, I can find them.”

  “You always come through for me,” Anna smiled.

  “We ladies need to look out for each other, right?” Maggie asked rhetorically before unclipping a walkie-talkie from her belt.

  “Bobby!”

  “Yeah, boss?” a voice replied seconds later.

  “Get over here, Bobby. I’m at the trailer.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Maggie clipped the walkie-talkie to her belt again and turned to look at the construction site. A moment later a young man in overalls, an orange safety vest and a hard hat stepped out through a gap in the unfinished wall of the building and jogged across the gravel parking lot to where Maggie, Anna and Sergey stood.