Savas shook his head. "Big picture only, Angel. I still can't figure out my email sometimes."
"Boss Man is supposed to be big picture."
"At least making you head of cybercrimes means someone can call you Captain Overlord or whatever for a change. How is your command and control center coming along?"
Lightfoote pouted. “John, there’s no budget! We cannibalized the Operations Center, but it’s not nearly enough. It’s outdated. We need server farms to handle the loads of searches and to fend off digital attacks. DNS floods are daily. Everyone wants to bring down FBI or get in our systems.”
Savas nodded. “I know, Angel. But times are tight. Budgets are bleeding. You’re going to have to be creative. If the criminals can do it, so can you.” He smiled.
“So Mr. Big Picture is telling me to emulate cybercriminals? You know blowing things up is a lot easier than building them.”
“Angel, don’t twist—” An alert tone rang on his phone. He scanned the message. “It’s Rebecca.”
“Yeah? How’s her special assignment?”
Savas frowned. “It’s very special. Now I need to take this.” Lightfoote beamed at him. “In private.” She grinned more broadly and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Savas sighed and opened the connection. A woman’s face appeared on his smartphone, brown hair and eyes, a smile on her lips. God, it’s good to see her.
“Agent Cohen, it’s been too long.”
“Yes, I’ve been stuck with babysitting duty. In the mountains. Now, who was it that stuck me here?”
“A heartless boss.”
“No doubt. If he hadn’t, Agent Savas, I could be there now. Next to you. Much closer.” Her eyes smoldered.
“Yeah, definitely way too long. I hope this call means you’ll be coming home tonight?”
Her smile was mischievous. “Booked my flight. In by ten.”
“Good. There’s a lot to catch up on.” His face darkened. “And how is Gabriel?”
Cohen looked to her side. “Gone now. Back to the cabin. They’re adapting, but getting restless. They’ve made it a home. But the world has made it a prison.”
There was a long pause as he considered her words. “No one said this would be easy for either of them. It’s wrong, but the setup was too good. A fight we couldn’t win.”
“I think they need to continue to fight, even a guerrilla war.”
“It’s on the agenda. We’ve finally put things back together over here and I’m coordinating with Fred Simon at CIA. We won’t leave them hanging. There’s a lot to be done.”
The landline on his desk buzzed. Now what?
“Hang on, Rebecca. This is from NYPD, on my red line.” He pressed the button to go to speaker. “Hi, Will. Don’t hear from you often.”
“John, we need you and a crime unit up to the East Side, Sutton Place. ASAP.”
“You sound rattled. Boys in blue don’t want this?”
“It’s a car bomb. A big one with some collateral damage.”
Car bomb? “Anyone killed?”
“Several bystanders and those in the car.”
Savas furrowed his brows. “Your crews are about as good as ours. Why me?”
“This one’s different.”
“Might be a challenge to ID those in the car if the fire was bad.”
“That’s just it, John. We know who was in that car. Phone GPS confirms it.”
Savas glanced to his smart phone. Cohen’s face looked tense. He turned back to the speaker on his landline. “Well, who was it?”
“Jack Craig, CEO of Goldman Sachs.”
“Ah, hell. Are you sure?”
“Unless someone else had his phone, it was him and the driver.”
“Dammit. A car bomb?”
“So it looks. That’s why we’re calling you in. It’s getting out already and it will stir all the hornets’ nests. And a car bomb, Goldman CEO? Whatever it is, it’s big. Mafia, some Unabomber type, or maybe one of these new terrorist groups. Too radioactive for us.”
“Understood. Moving on it now. Where are we headed?”
“Sutton Place south, fifty-three. Or just follow the GPS coordinates on all the photos flooding the internet. There’s no hiding this.”
MILLER Deposition 2
MR. MILLER: We sent a crime unit. I was there, too. Jesus, what a mess. I hadn't seen anything like that up-close since Afghanistan. I think without the GPS data we'd have spent a while trying to figure out just who the hell was hit.
CBD: And the target was confirmed by location data and DNA analysis to be Jack Craig, CEO of Goldman Sachs?
MR. MILLER: That's right. There was no question.
CBD: And how did the defendant react to this event and information?
MR. MILLER: Well, sir, John Savas is a good as they come. Everyone was shocked. John, too, but he was professional. Got the division primed and assigned several agents to the case. They-
CBD: The agents assigned would be you and Agent Cohen?
MR. MILLER: Yes, that's right.
[REDACTED]: What about the other members of Intel 1?
MR. MILLER: They were on other duties.
[REDACTED]: Why didn't Savas treat the bombing with the full attention of the division?
MR. MILLER: Well, we didn't know then what it was all linked to. I mean, it was a car bombing in Manhattan. That's pretty fucking serious, but still isolated. Still with more unknowns than knowns. There were a lot of serious things with unknowns going on in the world and we were charged with keeping tabs on a lot of it. I mean, it wasn't long before the whole finance thing started to go FUBAR and that ate our cybercrimes subdivision.
CBD: We'll get to that. Let's focus on how this began and what you remember. So, how did Intel 1 respond at this point?
MR. MILLER: Well, John — Agent Savas — personally got involved with the footwork.
[REDACTED]: Why?
MR. MILLER: He's like that. I mean he can't do it in every case, but he's very hands on. Goldman CEO? This had PR nightmare all over it. John went personally.
CBD: Went where?
MR. MILLER: To talk to the employees at Goldman about our investigation. To try and find out if they could shed any light on the situation.
CBD: He went alone?
MR. MILLER: No, he and Agent Cohen.
[REDACTED]: For the record, let it be noted that Agent Rebecca Cohen is the defendant's spouse. Mr. Miller, can you comment on FBI policy with respect to employees and nepotism laws? Romantic associations?
MR. MILLER: I don't much read the regs, sir.
[REDACTED]: Can you or can you not tell us if you know that it is against Bureau policy to have superiors and those under their authority in personal relationships?
MR. MILLER: No. That stuff never mattered to me. Besides, we always did everything a little different at Intel 1.
[REDACTED]: Yes, that is becoming more and more clear.
CBD: Let's return to the events immediately after the bombing. You say Savas and Cohen went to Goldman.