Blackout ck-3 Read online

The tech expert waved a hand dismissively. “These are just ready cash reserves. Tip of the iceberg. I was able to track dozens of transfers going back two years; Brainstorm, operating through various shell companies, has controlling interests in several multinational corporations, and those assets run well nigh into the trillions. But that’s not the point.

  “We’ve been working under the assumption that Brainstorm is an artificial intelligence. I thought that by following the history of the transactions, I’d be able to find a physical location…a bank of computer servers running the AI software.”

  “But?”

  Aleman shook his head, grinning. “It just wasn’t there. The transactions didn’t originate from any one location. At first, I thought it was just Brainstorm covering its tracks very well, but then something extraordinary happened. Last week, Brainstorm started transferring money out of those accounts-emptied them-and that left a huge footprint.”

  The undigested burger churned in King’s gut. “If Brainstorm is moving that much money around, then it must be planning something big.”

  “Maybe, but you’re missing the point. The money went to a non-profit foundation-Forward Looking Energy Solutions-which it just so happens was the outfit behind Bluelight.”

  King felt another lurch in his stomach at the mention. The memory of what had happened at the Bluelight Technologies experimental power station was, like the scars on his body, still all too fresh. Bluelight had been attempting to harvest energy from naturally occurring antimatter in the upper atmosphere, a process that had inadvertently summoned a horde of monstrous creatures from an unexplored cave system beneath the Superstition Mountains. King had been investigating the phenomenon when Sokoloff had made his move, and in so doing, had triggered a runaway antimatter reaction that had very nearly set the Earth’s atmosphere on fire.

  Aleman clicked the mouse controller and brought up the website for something called the “Global Energy Future Meeting.”

  “FLES-” he pronounced it fleas — “is currently hosting a conference for power plant managers from all over the world, ostensibly to discuss ways to upgrade the global power grid, so I was able to learn a lot about them, and in particular, I identified their chief executive officer. It’s someone you’ve met, King. Graham Brown.”

  An image of Brown flashed up in King’s mind’s eye; an older, compact figure, reserved and outwardly unthreatening, but confident and enigmatic, as if aware that he held a secret advantage. With his extraordinary ability to calculate mathematical probabilities in his head, Brown had made a small fortune gambling in Atlantic City, and then turned that into a much larger fortune playing the stock market. He had known about the connection between Brainstorm and Brown almost from the beginning-Brown had been present at the remote facility in Algeria where he had first learned of Brainstorm-and there was every reason to believe that Brown had been responsible for creating the artificial intelligence in the first place.

  But even as he stared at Aleman, waiting for the man to explain the importance of this connection, King understood. Brown hadn’t created…wasn’t working for an artificial intelligence called Brainstorm. “Brown is Brainstorm?”

  A flicker of disappointment crossed Aleman’s countenance as King stole his thunder, but he nodded. “It’s like a magician using theatrics and distraction to hide the fact that it’s all just sleight of hand.”

  “And it worked,” Deep Blue intoned. “Our strategy for dealing with Brainstorm was based on the assumption that it was a non-human entity. We were over thinking it.”

  “So what’s he really up to?” King gestured at the FLES web page. “This interest in new energy technologies would make a lot of sense if we were dealing with a computer. The easiest way to shut it down would be to pull the plug. But what’s Brown’s angle? And don’t tell me he wants to make more money.”

  Deep Blue grinned broadly, not looking at all like a former Commander-in-Chief. “I guess that’s something we’ll have to ask him.”

  King cocked his head sideways. “What have you got in mind?”

  Aleman scrolled down the web page revealing a bullet list of highlights for the conference. The last one fairly leapt off the page.

  “Casino night,” King said aloud.

  “Brown’s an inveterate gambler. There’s no way he’ll pass up something like that. And that will be our chance to grab him.”

  King met Deep Blue’s gaze. “So what’s the plan?”

  4

  Paris, France-1841 UTC/Local

  King stared down at the motionless form of Bill Downey-the man into whom he had been transformed by theatrical cosmetics and a high tech auto-tune vocalizing device-and breathed a silent curse. I hate this Mission: Impossible shit.

  The plan Deep Blue had outlined some thirty-six hours earlier, was to gain entry to Brown’s casino party by impersonating one of the guests.

  “Why not just have Knight reach out and touch him from…say the Eiffel Tower?” Shin Dae-jung, otherwise known as Knight, was Chess Team’s designated sniper and the man was exceptionally lethal from a long distance. “I bet he could get a clear shot.”

  “Normally, I’d be happy to give the go-ahead,” Deep Blue had answered without a trace of humor. “It’s a kinder fate than Brown deserves. But as you just pointed out, Brainstorm is mobilizing for something big, and we have no idea what it is. Whatever he’s up to, the wheels could already be turning. Bringing Brown in alive might be the only chance we’ve got to put the brakes on.”

  “We can’t exactly arrest him. He’s untouchable. He’s got his hooks in too many powerful people.”

  “In a strict legal sense, that might be true, but there are other options available to us.” Deep Blue had seemed content to leave it at that, and King had no trouble reading between the lines. And Deep Blue was right about the importance of learning Brainstorm’s overarching goal. Brainstorm-or rather Graham Brown-did not do anything on a small scale. He had emptied his cash reserves-in poker parlance, he had gone all in. Perhaps even more telling, he had made virtually no effort to cover his tracks. Brown was unquestionably up to something. They didn’t have the first clue what, but if the past was any indication, it would probably mean the end of the world. Ergo, they had to take Brown alive.

  Conceptually speaking, their plan was simple. King would impersonate one of the guests and get close enough to Brown to jab him with a tetrodotoxin-tipped needle. The poison, a synthetic version of a toxin found in the internal organs of the puffer fish, would create the appearance that Brown had suffered a fatal heart attack, though in reality he would be in a deep coma, his vital signs slowed to be almost undetectable. Brown’s seemingly lifeless body would be taken to a Paris hospital, where some of CIA director Domenick Boucher’s most trusted field agents would be waiting. Then, borrowing a page from the Twilight Zone, they would spirit Brown away to a private hospital, and using a combination of play-acting and powerful narcotics, deceive the gambler into giving up all his secrets. After that…well, that was a decision for someone else to make.

  Aleman had obtained a list of conference attendees and found one that was a fairly close physical match to King: Bill Downey from Nebraska. A little “ Mission: Impossible shit”-a three-hour session spent with a make-up specialist on loan from the CIA and a little high-tech audio magic from Aleman-completed the illusion. Shortly thereafter, King boarded a commercial airliner, bound for the City of Lights. The flight had been interminably long. He couldn’t eat anything and he didn’t dare nod off since either activity might ruin the elaborate facial disguise. His only distraction had been a paperback thriller novel called The Eden Prophecy, which he’d picked up at the airport gift shop. He had enjoyed it immensely and made a mental note to check out the author’s other novels when the mission was finished.

  Speaking of which… He fished out his phone and spoke: “Call Deep Blue.”

  The voice of the former President sounded in his ear almost immediately. “What’s your status?”

&nbs
p; “Phase one is complete.” The sound of his electronically modified voice-Downey’s voice-was mildly disorienting, but he pressed on. “I’ve made the switch.”

  As if to punctuate his words, the telephone on the desk trilled with an incoming call.

  “I’ll call again when it’s done.” He didn’t wait for a reply, but thumbed the ‘off’ button and snatched up the room phone. “Yes?”

  “Monsieur,” came a smooth voice. “It is Maurice. Your car has arrived.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be right down.”

  Showtime.

  5

  Fiona Lane gazed out across the treetops at the city skyline. The unfamiliar buildings-and of course the all too familiar outline of the world famous Eiffel Tower-were starting to sparkle with artificial light as the sky darkened from twilight to dusk.

  Paris, she thought. Who would have ever believed I’d be here?

  It was a long way from the obscure reservation town where she’d grown up, a long way from hanging out in front of Noel’s Market and drinking milkshakes at the Little Chief diner.

  The musing brought a pang of grief. The market and the diner, and everything else-everyone else-in Siletz was gone.

  She looked down quickly, blinking back the tears that had welled up, hoping that Sara hadn’t seen. The myth of the inscrutable Indian was just that, a myth, but she didn’t like showing weakness in front of other people…and especially not in front of King’s girlfriend.

  King had an assignment to complete in Paris, all very hush-hush like everything he did for Chess Team, but King’s boss, the man Fiona still thought of as President Duncan, had decided to surprise King by arranging for Fiona and Sara to join him in the legendary City of Lights for a well-deserved vacation once everything was wrapped up. Fiona had been overjoyed at the prospect and all through the long flight, had felt a thrill of anticipation. But now that was gone, replaced by an overwhelming sadness.

  Born and raised in tiny Siletz, Oregon, the idea of visiting Paris seemed like a dream come true. But as they had left the airport and she had gotten her first look at the European city, like a picture book come to life, she had begun to contemplate the unique trajectory of her life that had made this particular dream a reality. Noel’s Market and the Little Chief diner…that’s where she ought to have been, and but for the tragic events of a few years ago, that’s where she still would be. Instead, she had survived the bizarre attack-she alone, while more than three thousand people, including her grandmother, had perished-and been swept up into a new world…a new life. King was her family now, her legal guardian and in every way that mattered, her father. She loved him deeply, but the cost of her new happiness was almost too much to bear.

  Three thousand people died… Grandma died… and I get to visit Paris.

  She rubbed her eyes, banishing the tears. “I thought there was supposed to be a carousel.”

  She had to fight to get the words past the lump of emotion in her throat, but if Sara noticed, she gave no indication. Instead, King’s girlfriend consulted a tourist pamphlet. “Place du Carrousel,” she said after a moment, “gets its name from a type of military review that took place here back in the seventeenth century. Troops on horses, paraded in front of King Louis XIV.”

  “So, no carousel?”

  Sara shook her head, her short spiky hair barely moving with the gesture. “Sorry, kiddo. Just a big park. Want to grab a taxi and head over to the Eiffel Tower?”

  That was the last thing Fiona wanted to do. Place du Carrousel, a large circular area between the Louvre Museum and the expansive park known as Jardin des Tuileries, had been in easy walking distance from their hotel and had seemed like the perfect place to stretch their legs after the exhausting flight. A proper visit to the Louvre would require at least a full day, maybe more, but there was plenty to see in the park-monuments and performers. Right now though, Fiona just wanted to crawl into bed and hide from Paris. She turned away from the skyline and let her eyes drift along the current of people moving through the park, some of them on their way to the magnificent Louvre Museum, most of them obviously tourists, just like her.

  I’ll bet their vacation didn’t cost three thousand lives, Fiona thought bitterly.

  “No,” she said finally. “We should save that for when dad…”

  Fiona’s voice trailed off as her gaze settled on a tall figure moving purposely through the courtyard. Her eyebrows came together in a crease as she watched the man stride past, not twenty-five yards from where they stood. He bypassed the glittering glass pyramid that decorated the expansive courtyard in front of the main entrance, and continued up the Place du Carrousel toward the busy intersection with the Rue de Rivoli. “What’s he doing here?”

  Sara looked up from her pamphlet. “What? What’s who doing here?”

  Curiosity overshadowing her grief, Fiona grabbed Sara’s hand. “Come on. Let’s follow him.”

  6

  Julia Preston watched museum visitors come and go from La Chappelle gallery. Like window shoppers perusing the wares in a high-end retail store, they did not linger, and she found their apparent lack of interest discouraging. It was, she supposed, to be expected. People were so utterly predictable. Tourists-and that’s what most of them were-did not explore places like the Musee du Louvre with an open mind, eager to make new discoveries, but instead brought their expectations with them, checking items off a list.

  See the Mona Lisa. Check. What’s next?

  She wondered how many of them would, fifteen minutes hence, even remember what they had seen in this room. Few, if any, would grasp its significance, or recognize that they had glimpsed a part of human history that predated Leonardo Da Vinci by nearly a thousand years.

  Unlike the pyramids of Egypt or the Acropolis of Athens, the Buddhas of Bamiyan were monuments that relatively few of the planet’s inhabitants had been privileged to gaze upon. In the early sixth century, the Hazara occupants of the Bamiyan Valley had carved two monumental statues from the native sandstone, modeling details upon the rock foundation using a traditional composite of mud and straw, covered with stucco. The statues had been noteworthy for being the tallest images of Buddha in a standing pose-the larger of the two measured one hundred and eighty feet-but because of their remote location, eight thousand feet above sea level in Afghanistan, they had not achieved the same level of notoriety as other monumental constructs. Time and weather had worn at the statues, scouring away much of the original detail, but it had been a deliberate act of vandalism that ultimately brought down the Bamiyan Buddhas. In March of 2001, just a few short months before the events of 9/11 plunged the turmoil-prone region back into a state of war, the oppressive Taliban regime, reversed an earlier position that the Buddhas were of historical value and deserving of protection. They had declared the statues to be idols, forbidden by Islam-even though there was not a single Buddhist in the country who might have venerated them-and ordered their destruction.

  Following the subsequent overthrow of the Taliban, an effort had been made to restore the Buddhas, but progress had been hampered by the ongoing war, funding problems and international politics. A further complication had arisen in late 2011, when the United States had, in protest of UNESCO’s decision to recognize Palestine, withdrawn financial support from the United Nations’ cultural agency, which had designated the Bamiyan Valley a World Heritage Site. The traveling museum exhibition, represented a last ditch effort to raise awareness of the flagging restoration effort.

  On a technical level, the exhibition was spectacular. It featured state of the art full-sized holographic reproductions of the Buddhas as they would have appeared at the time of their completion. A museum visitor could stand at the foot of the statues and gaze up at the eighteen story high likeness of the Buddha, never realizing that it was an illusion created by lasers and mirrors. Of even greater significance, at least to Julia’s way of thinking, were the countless fragments of the actual statues that had been painstakingly collected from the floor of the
Bamiyan Valley, and which now rested in dozens of glass display cases. Most of these pieces were nothing more than chunks of sandstone, scarred and scorched by the barrage of artillery rounds and dynamite charges that had reduced the Buddhas to rubble, but on a few it was still possible to see where ancient craftsmen of the Gandhara Empire had carved the folds of the Buddha’s robes.

  Yet, for all the technological sophistication and cultural relevance, the exhibition was plagued by the same general apathy that had stymied the restoration effort. Julia had watched museum visitors come and go for several days now; their indifference was almost palpable. But every once in a while, someone would stop and she could see the glimmer of appreciation in their eyes as they read the placards, gazed in awe at the dioramas, and then, almost reverently, placed their hands on the glass display case containing the fragments, as if wishing they could actually touch this part of history.

  Her gaze alighted on one figure, a man, who seemed to be taking more than just a passing interest in the exhibit. As she watched, he moved from one display to the next, carefully perusing the descriptive passages before studying the contents. Edging closer, Julia noticed first that the man’s silvery-blue eyes were turned to the paragraphs written in English. Then she noticed the handsome face around those eyes.

  The eyes shifted ever so slightly, catching her reflection in the glass display case, and then the dark haired man straightened and turned toward her.

  Mildly embarrassed at having been caught staring, she hastily tried to deflect his attention. “Tragic, isn’t it?”

  The corners of the man’s mouth tugged up a little into a rueful smile. “That’s one word for it,” he replied, seeming to agree.

  She nodded. “That these marvelous statues could endure the ravages of time for so long, only to be destroyed in a cowardly display of ignorance.”

  “Cowardly,” the man echoed, thoughtfully. “Perhaps. But I don’t think ignorance was a factor. The men who destroyed the Buddhas understood all too well the importance of symbols. This was no mere act of vandalism.”