The Darkest Day

FORTY-SEVEN

‘The blackout?’ Victor asked.

‘We shouldn’t talk about it here,’ Raven said. ‘Not with two dead federal agents.’

‘I’m not going anywhere without answers. We’re okay for a few minutes. Even if someone were to walk in, what are they going to do? Send a carrier pigeon to notify the police?’

Raven frowned, then said, ‘The blackout is the first stage of it, yes. Not the whole thing. This city has had blackouts before. It’s no big deal and certainly not what you’d call a terrorist attack.’

‘Then what happens in the second stage?’

‘Now that, I’m afraid, I don’t know exactly. It’ll be a bomb though, for certain. Halleck’s people acquired two tons of black-market C4 earlier this year. A Turkish banker named Caglayan brokered the deal.’

‘So he was the true target in Prague,’ Victor said. ‘Halleck wanted me to sever the connection.’

Raven shook her head. ‘No, Caglayan was my target. Halleck knew I would go after him, that’s why he sent you after the prince, to make sure our paths crossed. I knew he would send someone after me, so I killed Caglayan and waited for Halleck’s assassin to arrive.’

He nodded, thinking that Halleck would have known about the prince’s activities from dealing with Caglayan and gone to Muir under the guise of the prince being a legitimate target, which he was.

‘And Halleck couldn’t have hired me to go after you directly,’ Victor said. ‘He had to trick my CIA broker as well as me. He couldn’t risk them knowing your name, because like me you’ll be on a list, and that could expose him. He even said he wanted to keep my broker in the loop. But I said no.’

‘Because you didn’t want anyone other than Halleck to know what you were doing,’ Raven added. ‘Which he would have predicted.’

Victor said, ‘So it was you who I was communicating with then in Prague.’

She said, ‘I was pretending to be Caglayan while you were pretending to be the prince’s accountant.’

‘You’re good,’ he said. ‘You almost killed me.’

‘Almost,’ she echoed. ‘As you can imagine, that two tons of plastique will make some serious mess in an urban environment.’

He said, ‘A bomb doesn’t first require a blackout.’

‘That depends where the bomb is planted, doesn’t it? No power means no CCTV to record them placing it, overstretched emergency services, no cell towers, no —’

‘I understand how electricity works.’

She nodded in apology. ‘Whatever Halleck plans to blow up, the blackout is necessary to make it happen. I don’t know any more about the attack than that, but what I do know is that this blackout is only going to be active for twelve hours. Well, under twelve now. So whatever it is Halleck is planning, it has to be occurring very soon. Sometime tonight.’

‘Under the museum you said, “It’s started.” How do you know how long the blackout is going to last for? You also told me when the lights went out that it wasn’t you this time. Explain.’

‘I didn’t activate it,’ she explained, ‘but I caused it. I made sure the virus got into the system.’

‘I assume you mean a computer virus.’

‘A computer virus, yes. A pathogen, we called it. We stole the idea from the Israelis. Mossad used one to knock out an Iranian nuclear reactor by making the turbines run too fast. Set Tehran’s enrichment plans back several years. They released the virus into the world and sat back and waited while it infected computer after computer, doing no damage but spreading exponentially until it naturally found its way on to a USB stick that someone took to the nuclear power plant. Obviously, the computers that run such things aren’t linked up to the web. It worked brilliantly. They were a bit more sophisticated than us. I broke into the house of one of the guys who works at a power plant upstate and infected his home computer with our virus to make sure it got into the power plant’s system on the right timescale. The Israelis were a lot more patient than Halleck.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Victor said. ‘Halleck works for the government. Why is he going to commit a terrorist attack in the US? He’s no terrorist.’

She stood and stepped towards a window, giving him her back. ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.’

‘I don’t buy it.’

‘I bought it at first,’ Raven explained, turning to face him again. ‘When he first had me killing people I couldn’t rationalise as bad guys. I believed his bullshit about sacrifice and the greater good and all of those clichés. But eventually I figured out that he works for whoever pays him the most. More often than not that’s the government. But not always.’

‘Halleck said you lost a teammate in Yemen. A lover. He said you blamed him and were going after his people in revenge.’

She looked sad for a moment and avoided eye contact. ‘I did lose a man I cared about in Yemen. But it was no one’s fault. The intelligence was bad.’

The intelligence was bad. Halleck had used the exact same words. The man was a skilful manipulator, hiding the lies within truths to convince Victor of his veracity.

‘And who is paying Halleck this time?’ Victor asked.

‘They are.’

‘And who exactly are you talking about?’

‘The one per cent. The old white men. The guys who run the world.’

Victor said, ‘I don’t do conspiracy theories. Who?’

‘The man who Halleck has been answering to this time was a lobbyist for the arms industry.’

‘Ah,’ he said, understanding. ‘Cause a false flag attack and blame it on… let me guess: some hotspot in the Middle East?’

She nodded. ‘Cue increased defence spending and billions more to the share values of the corporations who manufacture the bombs and bullets. Like I said: the old white men who run the world. Do you know why they call it a false flag attack? It dates back centuries, from naval warfare, when ships used cannons and sailors fought each other with swords and hatchets. It was a ruse, flying the flag of your enemies to deceive the target ship, allowing you to sail close enough to strike. But the ship flying the false flag would raise its own before engaging in battle. It would admit the deception before the fight began.’

‘I don’t imagine Halleck will show the same kind of honour.’

‘Of course he won’t,’ Raven agreed. ‘Governments have been doing this, and getting away with it, forever. In 1962 a plan was drawn up to justify the invasion of Cuba to overthrow Castro. The Department of Defense put together Operation Northwoods to sink ships and shoot down planes and blame it on Cuba. It was never put into action, but it wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last.

Victor said, ‘This lobbyist will know who he’s working for.’

Raven shook her head. ‘Don’t be naïve. He’s only a middleman. Besides, there isn’t someone in charge of this. There isn’t even a conspiracy. It’s just the way it works. It’s like a consensus. In fact that’s what I call them: The Consensus.’

‘The Consensus,’ he repeated.

‘The old white men who keep the wheels turning for their benefit, and those who support them. In this case it’s all about peacetime, which is bad for business. The US spends over a trillion dollars a year on defence, most of it going to US arms manufactures. That has to be justified. There has to be war to keep that bankroll. The problem is there’s been too much of it recently. The politicians need to be able to justify those wars. They need to get public backing. No better way to do that than have something blow up.’

‘I’d like the name of the lobbyist all the same.’

She said, ‘His name is Alan Beaumont. Or, to be more precise, it was his name.’

Victor said, ‘You killed him,’ and she nodded.

‘I’ve been doing what I do best, trying to stop Halleck.’

‘But Halleck’s going forward anyway?’

Raven said, ‘I was too late getting to Beaumont. He’d already transferred the money to Halleck. Now, the vested interests are expecting their fireworks. Halleck’s got a job to do or he’s going to make some extremely powerful enemies.’

‘Okay,’ Victor said. ‘Then it’s time to leave the city. I have no desire to be a casualty of Halleck’s attack.’

‘Good luck with that.’

He said, ‘I don’t believe in luck,’ and headed towards the door.

‘Well, whatever you do believe in, you’ll need its help.’

Something in her tone made him turn round. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because you’re going to be Halleck’s patsy. By coming here you’ve set yourself up to take the blame for the attack.’