“What about now?” she said.
“I’ll admit, that’s pretty unusual.”
“They don’t all use the same postal building for their P.O. boxes, especially in the larger metro areas, but they’re still tightly clustered,” said O’Reilly.
“Could they be spreading this out for tax reasons or something corporate related?”
“Based on Brown River’s latest quarterly statement, they shouldn’t have a billion or so dollars to fund an expansion. They’ve barely kept the doors open as it is,” said O’Reilly.
“Strange,” said Sharpe.
“You want to see something even stranger?”
“Probably not.”
She clicked the mouse again, the pattern remaining the same, but more concentrated. “This is all three thousand six hundred and forty-two phantom employees.”
“Same exact pattern,” muttered Sharpe.
“You haven’t seen the strange part yet,” she said. “I broke all of this down in a spreadsheet by city and metro area, salary, military or police specialty, years in service prior to joining this payroll, and a few other factors. I created a graphic with bar graphs, pie charts, and all kinds of bells and whistles.”
“That’s a lot of work,” said Sharpe.
“I think you’ll agree it was worth the time. There’s nothing random about the distribution of this group. In fact, it’s organized down to a level that suggests something more nefarious than corporate tax evasion. I identified forty-six geographical clusters, each with the same proportion of employees, based on salary. Six at the seventy-five-thousand-dollar level per one at the one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand level. Sounds like a team of grunts with a team leader. For every ten at the one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand level, you have one at the four-hundred-and fifty-thousand level. Like an area coordinator. The grunt to team leader ratio never varies. The area coordinator to team leader number stays consistent until you start dissecting either the highest population metro areas or low population clusters. Makes sense. One area coordinator runs a few states out in the Great Plains, while the New York tri-state area requires a more intensive management approach.”
“This holds up in every cluster?”
“Yes. It’s structured like—”
“A sales organization,” interrupted Sharpe.
“Or a paramilitary organization,” O’Reilly countered. “I found something else, which doesn’t exactly shed any light on the purpose of this structure, but I found it interesting. Ajax wasn’t the only company recruiting military contractors. I ran a few search strings through the social-media tracking database—”
“Which doesn’t officially exist anywhere at the FBI,” said Sharpe.
“Yes. I used a system that doesn’t yet exist to link names on the payroll list to Ares Global and Mars Global. Two more Delaware companies with bogus corporate officers. The matches I made corresponded geographically. Ajax is East Coast to the Ohio River, roughly. Ares is everything west of the Rocky Mountains. Mars is everything in the middle. Not sure what that means, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks high up on the Brown River payroll had responsibility for these larger areas.”
“It looks like a deliberate arrangement,” said Sharpe. “Each a mythological name associated with warfare.”
“Berg claims they’re directly involved in two kidnapping attempts,” said O’Reilly. “Should we take this to Carroll? I’ll take the heat for it, say I was contacted by an anonymous source and stole some time away to investigate.”
“First, you’re not taking the heat for my problems, though I appreciate the offer,” said Sharpe. “Second, Berg warned me to be discreet with this. He sounded a little paranoid.”
“He’s a career CIA officer,” said O’Reilly.
“Right. Which also begs the question, why does he need to bring me into the fold? The CIA has resources,” said Sharpe, standing up. “I need to hear the rest of this story he alluded to. We’ll make a decision at that point.”
“One more thing, since you’ll have Berg on the line,” said O’Reilly. “Maybe I should have started our conversation with this. Sanderson and his known associates are back on the FBI’s most wanted list. Interpol. Europol. Everywhere.”
“Jesus. That does shade your findings a different color.”
“Or it’s just an incredible coincidence.”
Sharpe rubbed his face. “I know I’m going to seriously regret this call.”
He walked to his adjacent office and closed the door, dropping into the guest chair facing his desk, staring at the deep red patches of horizon peeking between the buildings of the East End. Sharpe did the same thing every morning, taking a few minutes to stare out his office window at the waking city. He really had a bad feeling about this.
Mumbling a few obscenities, he turned the desk phone in his direction and dialed the number scribbled on a Post-it note stuck to the secure phone. As he expected, the CIA officer answered immediately.
“Good morning, Ryan,” said Berg.
“That depends on one’s perspective, I guess,” said Sharpe. “Six men, one team leader, an area coordinator for every ten teams.”
“Each coordinator has one team comprised solely of former Special Operations types. Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Fredericksburg each have a team of former tier one special operators,” said Berg. “This is an army on U.S. soil.”
“Tell me more about these attempted kidnappings.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Who was kidnapped, and how do you know it was this group?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” said Berg.
“Cut the theatrics, Karl. If this group is behind domestic kidnappings, what else are they into? I need to know what to do with this.”
“Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance to sit this one out,” said Berg.
“You reeled me in good,” said Sharpe.
“Technically, only one of the kidnappings was attempted,” Berg began. “I’ll keep this short.”
When he finished, Sharpe stared out at the buildings. He wasn’t sure what to do with the information Berg just shared. All he could summon was a simple question.
“Who can I trust?”
“Inside the Beltway? I don’t know yet,” said Berg. “We’re meeting to discuss this shortly.”
“Be careful who you discuss this with. Sanderson and his crew just went back on every law enforcement watch list in existence.”
“Son of a bitch. They had an immunity deal. Wide scope,” said Berg. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“I haven’t read the corresponding write-up for the watch list. Could be something completely different.”
“What are you doing this weekend?” Berg asked.
“This weekend? Why?”
“I’d like you to meet the people I know for a fact that we can trust.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I can’t see you walking away from this, Ryan,” said Berg. “You’re going to need a tight circle of trust. One you can call on at any time for help and that can rely on you for the same. If my suspicions prove anywhere even remotely correct, we won’t get much help outside of that circle.”
“I’ll consider it,” said Sharpe.
“Call me when you’ve decided,” Berg said, and hung up.
Sharpe closed his eyes for several moments, wishing this nightmare away. When he opened them, the sun’s deep orange rays skimmed the tops of a few buildings in the distance. He buzzed O’Reilly, who appeared almost instantly, shutting the door behind her.