CHAPTER ONE
The White House, Washington D.C.
January 16, 7:55 a.m.
“It takes some getting used to,” Admiral Chase Williams, retired, said quietly, sitting forward in a plump armchair in the small West Wing office.
The only other man in the room, Deputy Chief of Staff Matt Berry, stopped packing items on his desk and looked at his companion.
“For whom, you or me?” Berry asked.
“Both. I just never thought of you moving from the West Wing to the private sector.”
Williams’s voice was flat and the words, like the man’s attitude, were noncommittal. It was rare for Williams to be neutral about anything. The director of the National Crisis Management Center—informally, Op-Center—was an athletic six-footer with a commanding presence, even in repose. He had a perpetual squint that came from a lifetime on or near the water. Though his eyes were not hard, his ability to make tough, at times, impossible decisions and to do it correctly had earned him the respect of subordinates and colleagues alike.
Berry was standing beside an open backpack and holding an inauguration flag in one hand and a deep blue Camp David coffee mug in the other. A head shorter than Williams and over a dozen years younger, Berry was unintimidated. He frowned at the other man.
“It’s a jump,” Berry admitted. “Especially for a cynic.”
“You’re a helluva lot more than that, Matt.”
“A mega-cynic?” Berry suggested.
Williams frowned. Unlike the rumpled Berry, he always tried to see all sides of a discussion. It was not just their different natures but their different careers. For Williams, it was the result of having worked in arenas where orders carried risks for others. The first was as an admiral, a combatant commander for both Pacific Command and Central Command. The second was as the director of Op-Center. Now, it was as a covert team leader for the pared-down Op-Center.
“You know what Angie accused me of yesterday?” Berry went on. “She said I look at the dark side of everything. Not just government and people but my own life.”
Angie Brunner was the attorney heading the transition team of President-Elect John Wright. The former Hollywood studio head was credited as being the architect of the campaign of the Pennsylvania governor, and Wright had named her as the next presidential chief of staff.
“A bit out of her line of expertise, I would think,” Williams said. Again, diplomatically.
“The fact is, we are irredeemably programmed. Which route did you take driving from the Watergate this morning?”
“The usual. Why?”
“Was there anything different?”
Williams shrugged. “A ten-minute delay on 66.”
“Right. There was a fire early this morning at the Columbia Apartments, hot fire, blew the windows all over the streets. You waited. I would’ve cut around State Plaza.”
“You would have saved about a minute. And given in to impatience.”
“A venial sin, yeah. The point is we’re different.” Berry shook his head disapprovingly. “I’m going into the private sector because, unlike you, I can’t wait for the ideal situation to turn up. You, my friend—you got lucky with Black Wasp.”
“That I did,” Williams agreed. And there was not a day he did not thank God—and Berry, and the president—for that opportunity. When Op-Center was downsized, President Wyatt Midkiff—through Berry—offered Williams a one-person, three-soldier operation based at the Defense Logistics Agency. It was not his dream position. A basement office in the sprawling but austere McNamara Headquarters Complex rich with the recycled air of deep state and black ops. It was the worst possible spot for a man who loved the sea. But there was a stain on his record—more importantly, on his soul—that he had to wipe clean. And he had. With the blood of a terrorist.
Berry smiled triumphantly, took a step back, and resumed putting the personal contents of his desk into a backpack.
“I’ll tell you this, Chase. I won’t miss the political games. How long have we been without a vice president?”
“October 17.”
“Nearly three months, and Bustercluck was three months before that. No, sir. I will take a think tank disagreement over that scale of smear and rancor any day.”
Berry was referring to the impeachment of Vice President Newman Clark over a ten-year-old senatorial campaign finance abuse. It was directly after the worst of COVID and the news media drank deep of innuendo and hearsay. The Senate was somewhat united in his removal but refused to approve his replacement unless—by nomination or by the president’s death—that replacement was Speaker of the House Buster Kahn, a member of the opposing party. Midkiff had supported his VP to a point, but not the railroading to name a career insider. The electorate agreed. Kahn’s own bid for the presidency had not survived Super Tuesday.
Berry finished packing. There had not been much to take. Apart from a few mementoes there had been a backup personal tablet. Christmas cards he had received from members of the Midkiff administration, reminders of the few friends he still had. Pens branded with the names and logos of various government agencies, evidence that he had once been a player. A box of M&M’s from Air Force One with Midkiff’s gold-embossed signature on the box.
Evidence that he had been that closer to power, officially deputy chief of staff but in fact acting chief of staff. His predecessor couldn’t take it, and Berry had not wanted the title and the target that came with the title. But he had the power. Chase Williams was evidence of that. The admiral’s predecessor at Op-Center was founding director Paul Hood. When Hood was diagnosed with ALS, he stepped aside, and Berry pushed for Williams to take his place.
The sixty-one-year-old watched in silence as Berry took a moment to look around. He understood his companion and, his comments notwithstanding, he admired the man’s intuitive grasp of situations—national, international, and Berry’s own.
Though Williams had offered a counterpoint to his friend’s actions, he did not judge them. Berry had not been asked to remain in the administration by the president-elect, nor had he expected to be. Governor Wright and President Midkiff belonged to different parties, different ideologies, and different generations. The new, younger commander in chief wanted more Pennsylvanians and fewer Washingtonians for his inner circle. Of course, Wright was not yet born when Jimmy Carter made that same mistake with fellow Georgians. And he obviously had not studied history. When wagons are circled like that, good and bad ideas alike remain inside.
But Wright would have to make his own mistakes or show everyone else how it was done. Right or wrong, one of the other decisions the president-elect had made was to retain Williams, Op-Center, and Black Wasp intact. Wright was navy, and fraternity never hurt. It helped that Op-Center—and Black Wasp—had two wildly successful covert missions in the bag.
Williams knew it was not necessarily Chase Williams that Wright wanted. Rather, the idea of having a small, secret, personal army—one he could always “blame” on his predecessor if it were outed—had apparently appealed to Wright. The admiral was simply convenient.
Berry zipped the bag. He did it slowly, almost reluctantly.
“And so it’s finished,” Berry said.
“I hate to say it,” Williams said, “but being surrounded by federal vipers brings out the best in you. A think tank or an ivory tower may not suit you.”
“You’re not wrong. I already feel the withdrawal symptoms. But—and this is greed piled atop cynicism—the high six-figure salary was a powerful inducement, and I can parlay that to TV gigs.”
Berry shouldered the bag. Williams rose. Both men looked around. The framed pictures had been taken down the night before. The place looked as impersonal as the White House freight elevator. Unlike the Oval Office, there was no history here.
So close, yet pay grades away.
“One more question,” Berry asked quietly. “The cash we’ve got in your office for off-book operations. Did you ever wonder if I intended that to be my own personal retirement fund?”
“I did,” Williams admitted.
“If I asked, would you give it to me? Part of it? Any of it?”
“Are you asking?”
The man was silent for a period bordering on the uncomfortable. The tension broke when the first notes of Beethoven’s Fifth sounded on Berry’s phone.
“The answer is ‘no,’” Berry said before reading the text. “Well, my friend, the vipers are active. The president wants us both.”
Williams was not surprised that Midkiff knew he and Berry were together. The president’s executive secretary as well as the Secret Service were copied with the name of every visitor and who they came to see.
Berry set his backpack on the desk, and their breakfast plans at the Retro Hot Shoppe were put on hold. He extended his arm, and Williams left first. They walked briskly along the West Wing corridor that was full of other employees with boxes and backpacks, with creased, youthful faces Williams did not recognize. Some were going, a few were coming, and all was chaos. When the two men reached the Oval Office they were waved in by Natalie Cannon. The supernaturally efficient woman had made no secret of where she was going in four days: to her family’s horse ranch in Silver Spring, Maryland. Only her loyalty to her longtime boss, Midkiff, had kept her here for eight long years.
Berry had intended to ask Williams if Natalie’s plans were “interesting” too—he could not resist pushing and probing—but there was no time. Not when they saw the face of the president. For the past few days, Midkiff had been relaxed, openly sociable. That look had been wiped away, as if by a flood.
“Close the door,” Midkiff said flatly. He was looking at the monitor on his desk.
“Mr. President,” Berry said. “Good morning” did not seem appropriate.
“Please sit,” Midkiff said in response. “Harward and Hewlett will be checking in shortly. I held off bringing you in because we know so damn little.”
The president was referring to National Security Advisor Trevor Harward and Homeland Security Secretary Abraham Hewlett.
Berry sat in one of the two armchairs facing the desk. “Where are they?” he asked, concern rising along his spine.
“Naval intelligence.” He regarded Williams. “There’s been a murder. It’s someone you know, Chase.”
Williams was suddenly oblivious to settling into the other armchair. Williams’s mind went automatically to the people he had worked with closely at Op-Center before the downsizing. He thought of the terrorist he had assassinated in Yemen, of Iranian sleeper agents taking revenge. He had been closest with Deputy Director Anne Sullivan, who had landed at the State Department. And visual analysis expert Kathleen Hays, who had flowered at Op-Center, had gone to the National Reconnaissance Office. Williams knew where they were working, but they were not privy to his whereabouts. He was heartsick waiting for the president to continue. It had only been moments, but it felt far longer.
“Last night, around eleven, Captain Atlas Hamill was stabbed to death in his bed,” the president said.
The name was clearly unfamiliar to Berry, who looked at Williams. The admiral did not react outwardly. Inside, he was sick.
“Who was he?” Berry said.
“He used to run Naval Support in Philly,” Williams said in a soft monotone. “He retired a couple of years ago, fed veterans in need.”
“I’m sorry, Chase,” Berry said.
The admiral and the captain had interacted with some frequency at both United States Pacific Command and United States Central Command. Hamill was an honorable man and a crack logistics officer. Williams had tried to get him for PACOM, but Hamill did not want to leave his home.
Williams sat silent, staring. Typically, death came along a familiar path, the line of duty or an accident. This news, this method, was so unexpected he could not yet rouse himself to ask who or why.
“Actually, Chase, it appears that Captain Hamill was not retired,” the president continued. “He was collecting his pension, but he was also working off the books for the Office of Naval Intelligence. In fact, Mrs. Hamill had the number of her husband’s contact there on speed dial and called that number instead of 911. The matter went on immediate internal lockdown.”
“What did Atlas Hamill have to do with naval intelligence?” Williams asked.
“I’ll get to that in a minute. There’s something else. The man who entered the home told Mrs. Hamill to deliver a message, which is probably the only reason she’s alive.” Midkiff put on eyeglasses and read from the monitor: “He said, ‘Those who move against us will die,’ and then he told her, ‘The war has begun.’”
“Forgive me for asking, but what was the woman’s mental state?” Berry said.
“It’s a fair question,” the president said. “She was hysterical, of course. But I’m told that before she was sedated, she seemed to have total recall of the event and damn near everything the intruder said. She didn’t imagine any of it.”
“What about the ONI?” Williams asked. “I just don’t see the connection.”
“All we know, at present, is that ONI has him listed as a Contact Only Asset.”
Williams registered surprise.
“That’s going to slow things down,” Berry remarked.
A Contact Only Asset was a confidential source, meaning only the “handling” officer knew their function. Williams and Black Wasp were the same. In their case, the contact was Matt Berry working on behalf of the president. To get to a “Contact” at ONI meant getting approvals through a chain of command. More often than not, COAs acted not only outside channels but outside regulations. That was the reason most people in government referred to the acronym by another name: Conceal Our Assets. Even the president was kept out of the loop.
“Red tape and secrecy are why I sent Trevor and Abe over there now, to try and cut through the hedges,” the president said. “Allen Kim is also in contact with the FBI field office trying to secure footage from surveillance cameras in the area.” Midkiff held up his secure phone with a series of texts from the FBI’s deputy director. “The Philadelphia PD initially pushed back on that request. Within an hour of the call from Mrs. Hamill, there were three ONI investigators out of Lakehurst at the Spruce Street town house, looking for evidence, and four masters-at-arms arrived from NSA Mechanicsburg—”
“Not Philly?” Berry asked.
“Not Philly,” the president confirmed.
Naval Support Activity Mechanicsburg was a sister facility located 110 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The navy had wasted no time removing as much direct responsibility as possible from NSA Philadelphia.
“Everyone had instructions to refuse admission to the town house not just to local authorities but to everyone except a very small number of specifically authorized personnel,” the president continued. “The police still haven’t been told there was a murder. The remains of Atlas Hamill were claimed by a doctor from the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner at Dover Air Force Base. They’re looking on the body, and at the town house, for fingerprints, of course, along with fibers, hair, spit—anything. Special Agent Dave Wildman, who runs the FBI field office, told the PD that the bureau is also in the dark—which Kim says should at least get police to cooperate with them.”
“Under what, the shut-out agencies act?” Berry asked. “They can share traffic control duties?”
“That’s pretty much it,” Midkiff said. “I told Kim who is not cleared to inform anyone below and only the director above.”
“How did we survive eight years of this?” Berry wondered aloud.
“Love of country,” Williams replied. “The same as Captain Hamill.”
The comment sobered the querulous deputy chief of staff to silence.
“What does Vice Admiral Nathan have to say about any of this?” Williams asked.
“I spoke to him just before you walked in,” Midkiff said. “He said the ONI was as much in the dark as everyone else. He said his people would cooperate fully with Trevor and Abe. Ordinarily I wouldn’t count on that—”
“But the director can’t run out the clock until the twentieth,” Berry said. “Not a lot of time to find someone to blame.”
“Is there anything else about Sophia Hamill’s condition?” Williams asked. He had heard enough of politics.
“Mrs. Hamill was not seriously injured, at least physically.”
“Was she in the bed at the time?”
The president nodded.
“Is there family?” Williams asked. “She’s going to need that.”
“No kids, as you probably know, and no one else has been told. ONI security took her to NSA Philadelphia, where she’s under guard. That’s the way it’s got to be for now. Hewlett pointed out that she may be expendable now that the message has been delivered.”
“Something’s cockeyed about all this,” Berry said. “We had a retiree on a secret mission that did not seem to have much heat. Now, overnight, it’s become a war. How did the ONI not know?”
“Matt, you know as well as I do that we can get intel about China’s Xinjiang electronic warfare compound faster than we can from some of our own agencies. Let’s see what Trevor and Abe dig up.”
A weary silence filled the room as Berry decided to check emails on his tablet and Williams looked around the Oval Office. He thought back to the first time he had come here as a newly minted admiral. He had felt privileged then, the location a shrine to freedom. Now the luster was tarnished, even if his personal idealism was not blunted. As he looked around clear-eyed, the walls and doorjambs showed their age. Seams were visible under the paint or jambs, and furniture was nicked depending on the sunlight.
Still, the place meant something. He seemed to recall that Atlas lived near Independence Hall and had the same feeling about that sacred ground.
The president’s desk phone buzzed.
“It’s Trevor,” Midkiff said and thumbed it on speaker. “Matt is with me—go.”
The president did not mention Williams because, as far as anyone knew, Op-Center had been shut down.
“We don’t have much, but we pried something out of ONI. They believe that Captain Hamill was investigating something called the Black Order.”
“Is that an ONI designation or—?”
“It’s what the group calls itself, Mr. President,” Harward said. “There was a request just yesterday from the COA handler, pushed through Hopper Information Services Center, to investigate the name. The response triggered a shit storm that shot up to the vice admiral and back down within six minutes. I’ve got the answer here: ‘HISC … 9:01 p.m.… check ordered by U.S. Fleet Cyber Command reveals the Black Order showed up on the dark web in an overlay network that had its own distributed hash table.”
“Overlaid on what?” the president asked.
“The ONI,” Harward replied, pausing a moment to let the implications register.
“How were they discovered?”
“HISC did a deep dig when the name didn’t show up, because the handler knew it had been in the files of a gunrunner named Taikinys. Someone reached up from the dark web and expunged it. Investigators found the Black Order on the far side of a choke point called Canadian Hemlock. It was something big, tangled in every ONI database, and growing everywhere outside the sunlight.”
The news was stunning. Someone outside the Office of Naval Intelligence had constructed a copycat network that hid within the infrastructure of a major intelligence framework. For how long, and revealing what, they had no idea. Clearly, it had exposed Atlas Hamill.
“It’s got everyone spooked,” Harward went on. “IT guys here had to leave the building to text or call with sensitive information. I’m outside right now. They don’t know how many linked systems have been compromised. Vice Admiral Nathan expanded the blackout, ordering that until they were sure the overlay had been removed, everything at the ONI be done face-to-face, or in handwritten notes couriered between offices.”
“ONI PROP,” Berry said.
The president looked quizzically at his deputy chief of staff. Williams was glad. He had not heard the term, either.
“Paul Revere Operation Protocol,” Berry said. “If an entire system is vulnerable, you go old-school with the investigation. Nothing communicated, except by mouth or handwritten, and only on a need-to-know basis.”
“Trevor, you’re saying this Black Order has been able to access ONI files across the board?” the president asked.
“It’s actually worse than that, sir. It’s possible that they poured into every system linked to ONI—base security, harbor, and waterway cameras at every port in the free world and many outside of it. Through those, they may have gained access to other security systems. Whoever designed this, I’m told, was a genius. Someone told me Mossad has learned about it—probably their own dark web spies—shut all of our intel sharing systems down, and is looking for Black Order fingerprints in their system.”
“But in all of this shutting down and checking for tracks, there is no indication whatsoever what Hamill was doing for them?” the president said. “Is that possible?”
“If they know, they aren’t sharing. They’re angry and in damage control at the same time.”
“Do I need to get the vice admiral in here?” Midkiff asked.
“Honestly, sir, I’d feel better if he were working on this matter instead of lying to you.”
Harward would not have been so blunt before the election. Now, he was actually doing his job instead of sucking up. But there was another dynamic, one Williams hoped was not in play. In the waning days of any administration, information was capital, and it could be used to preserve fiefdoms. Someone like Trevor Harward might not hesitate to deploy whatever he gathered or knew or suspected to bargain his way into some other appointment with the new administration.
It’s a stinking business, Williams told himself.
“It’s Matt. Who is the handler? I assume they’re being questioned.”
“They say they don’t know.”
“The ONI doesn’t know,” Midkiff said with disbelief.
“Sir, they say sequestration is the only way to prevent leaks.”
“That was before. Wouldn’t that person have come forward after hearing about Hamill?”
“Not if they were part of this,” Berry pointed out.
“Some people here are saying that same thing,” Harward said. “Couple of people have called in sick, one was simply a no-show and is being checked on. But if it’s not one of them, then they’re hiding in plain sight … maybe even using access to cover the Black Order’s tracks.”
Berry did not have to ask, again, how they survived eight years of this. His expression said as much. Williams refused to allow himself the luxury of headshaking.
Williams grabbed a White House pad from the coffee table, passed Berry a note.
Berry read it. “Trevor, did Atlas Hamill leave behind a trip manifest or auto license they can track, see where he went, who he saw?”
“They won’t know that until they can find him in the system. He doesn’t show up anywhere except on inventory and requisition documents from NSA Philadelphia.”
“Jesus, is there any way we’re up to speed?” Berry asked.
“Yeah, you want to take notes, see what any of our IT people can make of what the Black Order ‘genius’ came up with?”
“Sure,” Berry said, activating his phone recorder.
The others heard paper rustling. It was the NSA director checking handwritten notes.
“Okay, the Black Order fingerprints consisted of variable-length numbers. Cryptology has been working on deciphering it, but the two investigators were more interested in getting through the DiffServ and IP Multicast layers to locate the site layer—frankly, they lost me. But they found a spot where a ‘packet format,’ those bundled numbers, piggybacked onto an ONI data stream.”
“And that spot was Hamill’s former command?” the president guessed.
“Yes, sir,” Harward replied.
“That’s why outside personnel were brought to the base,” Berry said, shutting off the recorder. “Inside job.”
“We have to at least consider that,” Harward said.
Williams suspected that the technical information was going to be of no use. Anyone smart enough to construct that bridge would be smart enough to blow it up.
“I don’t know why I’m asking,” Berry said, “but what about Captain Hamill’s cell phone, personal computer—”
“Laptop and tablet are en route to ONI. They found a cell phone on Mrs. Hamill’s side of the bed and took that too.”
“Has anyone scheduled a debrief of Mrs. Hamill?” Berry continued.
“We don’t know. I’m told that she’s out now. It was either that or restrain her. The only other information she offered is that the killer wore a ski mask, but that’s no help. It wasn’t just to hide the killer’s face, but—it’s winter. A lot of people have ski masks. We could get surveillance footage, look at dozens, maybe hundreds of people and be wrong. And if he took it off, we would have no way of knowing it was him.”
“Any idea how the killer got in?” the president asked.
“If they have any ideas, sir, no one’s shared them.”
There was conversation on the other end of the call. Harward seemed to be swearing. He came back on the line after nearly a minute.
“They have the identity of Captain Hamill’s handler,” Harward said. “They found his name and contact numbers, and only that, were on her computer.”
“How did they know what computer to go to?” Berry asked.
“It was the one who didn’t show up for work today,” Harward replied. “Major Becky Lewis. She died in a fire at the Columbia Apartments early this morning.”
Copyright © 2021 by Jack Ryan Limited Partnership and S&R Literary, Inc.
