Jack understood now. “Well, then, that changes things.”
Chavez said, “It also means, not only does somebody have to tell Eddie’s daughter that her dad’s been murdered, but also that her career in covert ops is over.”
Gerry turned to Jack now. “Are you suggesting that somebody out there has all these records, and they have the ability to take this raw data to find out where that person is now and what they are doing?”
“That’s it, exactly.”
Jack saw that his cousin Dom had the same confused look on his face that Jack himself had worn when Gavin had first suggested this.
“ISIS has these skills?” Dom asked.
Gavin chimed in to answer. “Not a chance in hell. Jack and I are working under the assumption that a private group has exploited this data. They then sold or gave a piece of the intel to a Russian kid whose brother died on a sub sunk in the Baltic. Then, after that, they’ve been using the material as the foundation of high-level identity intelligence exploitation, creating individual targeting packages, probably for money, but perhaps for other motivations. They’ve passed these packages off to several state actors, and now it seems they’ve given a large amount of information to Islamic State operatives in Europe and the U.S.”
Chavez thought over the scope of it all. “Hell… everybody in this room has filled out an SF-86.”
Jack Ryan shook his head. “Except me.”
Clark considered the irony. “Right, the famous guy is okay. But those of us who haven’t been in People magazine are now more famous than we want to be.”
“I was fourteen with braces the last time I was in People,” Jack said. “Still, I wouldn’t worry about you guys getting caught up in this breach. There are a lot of files this bad actor has to wade through, and any research he does into the present-day status of you all shows you work for a private equity management firm in Virginia. Your careers in corporate security and logistical operations are supported by all the right documentation. No, these bad guys are focusing on people still in the game or, in the case of Todd Braxton, still touting what they did to Islamic radicals.”
Gerry said, “But if what you say is true, that means there are tens of thousands of men and women who could be in danger right now. Have you gone to the DNI with this yet?”
Jack said, “No, sir. We just put this together ourselves yesterday, and wanted to test our assumptions a bit. The NSA doesn’t believe the OPM has been hacked, but Gavin has all but ruled out anything else.”
“Well, I’d say it’s time to talk to Mary Pat. She can make the decision if Dan Murray should know about your identity intelligence exploitation theory, but from what I’m hearing from my contacts in the IC, nobody else has found anything solid.”
Jack and Gavin looked at each other and nodded. Jack wasn’t as sure their theory was ready for prime time as Gavin was, but still he said, “We’ll write something up to present just as soon as we get back to the office, but I think I should stay here to help with security for the time being.”
Gerry turned to Clark. “I’d like to get him back on the analytical side as soon as possible.”
Clark said, “I agree. Jack, we’re fine with the security we have here. You and Gavin can take off, but do an SDR before returning to the office. We’re going to stay here till this evening, monitor the news and investigations. If we’re clear, we’ll move then. I might take Midas and Adara to my place tonight, just to get them out of town.”
Gerry said, “I’ll talk to Dan Murray as soon as I can get him on the phone, see what he can do to dial down any heat on us about what just happened in Alexandria. Anybody looking at security cameras up and down King Street will see Adara and Midas tailing Eddie before the hit. Dan needs to know you two are on our team and you neutralized the threats this morning.” Gerry then asked, “John, what about your Range Rover? It was seen at the Metro station.”
Clark shrugged. “There are five thousand just like it around here. Still… I guess it’s a good excuse for an upgrade. I’ll run that by Sandy.” With a shake of his head he said, “A good man died today. A man who served his country well. Just like Jennifer Kincaid. I know the government will be doing its best to get some payback for this, but I’d sure as hell like for us to be involved in that, too. Gerry, if Jack and Gavin can get us someone to focus on from their investigation, I hope you’ll allow us to prosecute that target.”
Gerry said, “Considering the obvious fact that covert U.S. government operators are exposed by this, I feel pretty sure Mary Pat would appreciate our assistance right through to the end. And I’ve got no problem with that, at all. If Jack and Gavin can get us targets, I’ll secure Mary Pat’s approval and get us involved in the hunt.”
35
Late in the afternoon in a third-floor office occupying a corner of a drab square concrete building on Bucharest’s Strada Doctor Paleologu, Alexandru Dalca watched the live news reports from America on his computer.
He did this just after checking his foreign bank accounts and confirming that he had become a rich man in the past week. Two deposits of $5 million for twenty-four American targets.
He smiled. Before these deposits he had about one million in his account, money he’d earned in the past year working on commission for ARTD, and here as a single man in Bucharest he’d been living like a multimillionaire, but finally his bank account actually mirrored his lifestyle.
But as much as he enjoyed looking at his money, he was surprised by the feeling that the actions in America were even more satisfying to him. He enjoyed the payback against America, the nation that sent him to prison years ago. And he was also pleased that he had correctly assumed whom he had been corresponding with all this time. Already connections were being made between the Islamic State and the attacks. Not because the Americans were smart — Dalca didn’t think Americans were smart at all. No, the connections among the first three attacks were made only via the propaganda video ISIS had released proving their complicity in them all.
The ISIS guys, as he liked to call them, had taken out Barbara Pineda and Michael Wayne, and though they royally fucked up the Todd Braxton assassination, they lucked out and killed someone arguably more famous to the Americans.
Dalca wasn’t the introspective or self-critical type, so he didn’t spend much time musing about the fact he deserved some of the blame for the error in the Braxton hit. His research into Braxton’s day-to-day activities told him the man was traveling to the movie set every day with Danny Phillips, but Dalca wasn’t much of a movie person himself, and he didn’t consider the fact that Phillips would have changed his appearance to look like Braxton.
He’d found out details of Braxton’s location with more ease than most of the other targets. Specifically, he used Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and other social media accounts. Just three days before the hit Braxton had posted a picture of himself on Twitter sitting in the back of a big black SUV, saying his entourage was on the way to the set in the Mojave Desert. In the background of the image Dalca had identified a Starbucks sign, and then by using the location metadata saved onto the digital image itself, he’d ID’d the coffee shop as being located at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Riverside Drive in Los Angeles. In his picture Braxton had the big muttonchops that were in all the hundreds of other photos Dalca had found of the man taken within the past three years, and Dalca had included similar photos in the targeting package sent to the ISIS guys.
The next day at 6:18 a.m., a Facebook post from Danny Phillips tagged Braxton and said the two men had had their coffee and were heading to the set. Along with the hashtag “#BloodCanyon,” Phillips added “#coffeefortheroad.”