The data stopped immediately on Joe’s monitor and after a few seconds began flowing into Felicity’s computer. It flowed like a curtain and as Felicity did her thing, the data started morphing into different patterns, sliding, forming shapes then flowing apart.
After ten minutes. Felicity froze her screen and lifted her fingers from the keyboard.
“Okay,” she said. “Ex-CIA guy, are you still with us?”
“Oh yeah,” the metallic voice answered.
Felicity shot them all a glance. “You guys ready for this?”
Isabel and Lauren were lost in their world in the corner but Joe’s guys were all ready and waiting.
Felicity drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. “So those three trillion dollars fled the country. And as you all would have noticed if this weren’t such an incredibly well-run company—” she shot a quick glance at the Senior, “—youd know how impoverished this country is now. Or perhaps you know it already. We had just begun climbing out of the post-2008 hole when the Massacre struck. Since the Massacre weve lost over two million jobs, unemployment is at its highest level since the Depression and the stock market has lost two thousand points. Its like the Massacre sucked out the economic backbone of the country, besides scaring the shit out of everybody. The darknet hasn’t managed to actually trace the money that was lost, but this information is new.
“These tables—” she gestured to her monitor, “—courtesy of a former hedge fund manager via ex-CIA guy, show sudden spikes in income and asset creation of a number of offshore funds and tax haven banks. Ordinarily it would be impossible to figure out who the people behind those funds and banks are but we have a treasure trove of info in these charts. I had to data-dive and do some massive number crunching to start to understand who profited from the Massacre but we have some preliminary results.
Everyone leaned forward. Joe was sure that Metal Voice was leaning forward, too.
Felicity gave a dramatic pause.
“Well?” Joe nudged her shoulder. Ordinarily Metal wouldn’t let him get away with that, nor would any of the other ASI guys because Felicity was untouchable, but they were burning to know, too.
“This doesn’t make me happy,” Felicity said. “Usually when I crack a difficult database the sheer challenge is enough to make me smile, but this doesn’t make me smile at all. Not when you think how many people died in the Massacre. Not when you think how many people have lost their homes, their businesses, their jobs. How many people’s lives have been ruined.”
Metal put his hand on her shoulder and she reached up to put her pretty hand over his, never taking her eyes from the monitor.
“The best way to tell you is to show you.” At each step, Felicity clicked a key, and a different screenshot came up. “That initial flow of data was several terabytes of bank account data and stock exchange movements and hedge fund quotations. The stock exchange now is run by quants running algorithms that operate with split-second timing and there are several million exchanges done every second of the day. It is almost unquantifiable. Almost.”
The screen started slowing. Was less a flow and more a series of data sheets. The data sheets had elements highlighted and the highlighted elements were then put on another set of pages.
“I can go over this step-by-step if anyone wants, but my system analyzed the funds and bank accounts and they were all shell companies. But digging down there were a few names that jumped out. First of all, the top earner was the PRC.”
Joe let out his breath slowly. The People’s Republic of China was behind the Massacre? If this news got out, it would mean war. A big, big war that would dwarf anything that had happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, which had been limited wars. This would be a war fought on land, sea and air, the US against a billion and a half people and a military of over seven million people, including reservists. A war with a nuclear power that also had a fleet of submarines with nuclear warheads that could cross the Pacific. A cold shudder ran down his spine.
“But there were also individuals who earned big. And the one who earned the most—several billion dollars in fact—is a man who is very well-connected.” She glanced up at Metal, then at Joe. “And he was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, too, so our ex-CIA guy is right to stay off the radar.”
The screen was coalescing, thousands of lines scrolling down, slowing, until one name was on the screen.
Joe exhaled again. This was worse than anything anyone could have imagined because the name was a man who was supposed to have been Alex Delvaux’s vice president. Hector Blake.
A cry came from the corner and Joe turned, goose bumps rising on his skin. Isabel. That was a cry of pain and shock. He whirled ready to run to her, reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster, ready to leap and throw his body over hers because Isabel in danger was his worst nightmare...
But she wasn’t hurt, no one was attacking her. She stood and turned to him, her face utterly white. She swayed and he didn’t even feel his feet as he shot across the room to her, putting his arm around her, not as a sign of affection but to hold her up.
Lauren was looking up at them, white-faced too. Jacko was by her side in a second.
“The man, Joe. The man in my dreams. The monster of the Massacre.” Isabel pointed with a shaking hand at the drawing Lauren had made.
Joe looked at the drawing
“Hector Blake,” she said. “Uncle Hector.”
Chapter Ten
Isabel couldn’t have done it without Lauren.
“I’m not very visual,” she apologized when they sat down in a corner. “I never have been. Unless it’s about food, I’m not very observant.”
Lauren smiled and patted her hand. “My dear, who cares about being visual when you can produce food like that? No one cares. But I am visual so let’s see if we can do something here. You want that, don’t you?”
“Oh God, yes!” Isabel said. A pang of anxiety pulsed in her chest. “More than anything. This man is in my nightmares, night after night after night. People don’t usually repeat their dreams. I’ve done a lot of reading up on it. A repeat dream is rare and is always anchored in reality in some way. So this man, this man I call the Monster, somehow exists in some way. Even though I don’t recognize his face and I never remember it when I wake up.”
Lauren set herself up—a big pad over her knees, several different types of pencils, erasers, charcoal sticks. The tools of her trade just as knives and wooden spoons and pans were Isabel’s. “That’s where I come in. The human face is infinitely variable. Seven and a half billion people in the world and, except for twins, no two faces are alike. But there are also only so many variables. Face shape, cheekbone and chin shape, eyes, nose, mouth. So this is going to be a collaborative experience. You talk, and I listen. I’ve got a big pad because we’re going to strike out a lot. That’s the nature of the exercise. We’ll get a lot of things wrong before getting them right.”
“Like kissing a lot of frogs before finding—”
“A Joe?” Lauren asked, then laughed at the face she made. “Don’t be embarrassed. Joe’s worth kissing a lot of frogs for. He’s a really good guy.”
“Yes.” Isabel sighed. “He is. In a way, he’s the reason I’m doing this, trying to exorcise a face I see in my nightmares. I long to get all of this out of my system because he deserves a sane, whole woman. Right now I’m a mess.”
Lauren was testing the consistency of the pencils on the top left-hand corner. “Don’t worry about it,” she said absently, cocking her head as she studied the results. “Joe will take you any way he can get you. He’s crazy about you. Has been for months, I hear.”