Mastermind: A Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood Thriller Read online

  The implications of what Theo is saying are dawning on me. Dad’s medications are prepared in the clinic by a machine that the pharmacist types instructions into and then lets do the rest. I’ve given him pills without questioning if they were the right ones. His condition got worse for a while. Was this the natural course of the disease, or was he part of Heywood’s secret testing? The thought makes my blood boil, and—if true—it would enrage millions of people around the world. It was one thing for us to believe Heywood hacked pharma software to suggest new treatments that all worked. It’s another to think that his cures came at the cost of tens of thousands of people dying.

  “Okay, I’m not saying I completely buy it,” says Gerald. “But if I did, how would we manage to convince half the government that Heywood’s lying?”

  “The data centers,” replies Theo. “Heywood wasn’t breaking into them to retrieve the rest of his neural network data. He was covering the tracks of his massive experiment.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I think he had to cover up for Autopharmix . . . or rather, the software. He built back doors into all those medication manufacturing machines, which would leave digital footprints. He sent in his teams to cover them up.”

  “He used the Voids just for that?” asks Gerald.

  “The Voids were also a convenient excuse to erase whatever other data he needed to,” Theo replies.

  “All right. So how do we proceed?” I ask.

  “I have some thoughts. But this comes down to you, Jessica. We’re going to need a miracle of our own.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  RAW DATA

  “How’s it look?” I ask Theo as I make sure my blonde wig doesn’t look like a wig.

  We’re sitting inside an SUV down the street from CenterOps, the Manhattan data center that we learned Heywood’s team broke into disguised as fire department officials.

  “Great. May I?” He tucks a loose strand of hair over my ear. “The glasses look good. You’re probably an outlier on the attractiveness scale of New York City Fire Department inspectors.”

  “Have you seen some of the guys who fight fires?” I reply.

  “Um, point taken. I guess I was grading on a different scale.”

  “Let’s check in with Gerald.” I put my phone on speaker and place it on the dashboard.

  “What’s up?”

  “We’re about to go in,” I reply.

  “Okay. But remember, since we don’t have a warrant, this is on you. If anything happens, it’s your asses, not mine.”

  I think he’s overdoing it with the “asses” comment, an uncharacteristic swear for Gerald, but the point is made. “We understand. Get in. Get out. Get caught, we’re screwed. Theo, you okay with that? This would ruin your FBI protective custody.”

  “I know what I’m getting into. Get the data on the IMT device and get out,” he replies.

  “Okay, we’re set. We’ll let you know when we’re out and on our way back to DC.”

  “Be smart, Blackwood.”

  I click off and slip the phone back into my pocket. “You sure you’re good, Theo? The protective custody arrangement is only effective if you don’t get caught.”

  “I’m good. Let’s go find the other server.”

  We let Gerald know two hours earlier that we’d located a backup server at CenterOps that recorded all incoming and outgoing traffic to the servers that Heywood pulled. If we can get hold of it, then we might be able to figure out where all that data went.

  We exit the SUV and walk to the entrance of the data center. Theo is casual and doesn’t show any sign of anxiety. He hasn’t had my training, but I can assume from his own experience that he’s had plenty of practice pretending to be someone else. The blue blazer fits him well, but his physique underneath looks like he’s really meant for climbing cliffs and hiking through uneven terrain. He’s the kind of handsome that’s dangerous because he doesn’t realize he’s good-looking. I can only imagine the thoughts some of his female students had when he was teaching, or some of the male ones who were so inclined.

  Theo holds open the glass door to the lobby, and we step inside. An armed guard is standing at the front desk. He looks like a former cop . . . for a reason: CenterOps takes their security very seriously.

  I show him my fake FDNY badge. “We’re doing inspections for Void-related damage.”

  “We just had you guys in here,” he says, looking from the ID to my face.

  “We only take the assignments. We don’t make them.” I hand him a card listing the Manhattan Department of Homeland Security office. “Call them.”

  “No need. Let me get you an escort.” He picks up a phone and dials a number, punching at the keys like he’s gouging someone’s eyes out.

  I glance over at Theo to see if this “escort” thing is an inconvenience. He’s either playing it cool or doesn’t seem to be bothered. I’m still trying to learn how to read the man.

  A short-haired woman dressed in slacks and a CenterOps polo shirt greets us at the door. “I’m Becca. I’ll be your escort.”

  “Thanks, Becca. I’m Dana, and this is Steven. We need to check some of the alarm systems and do a spot electrical check in your server room,” I tell her.

  “All right. Follow me.” She uses a key card on her lanyard to let us inside the metal door. “We can start with the server room. It’s this way.”

  She takes us down a floor on the elevator. “How have you guys been doing since the event?” she asks Theo.

  “Trying to pick up the pieces. Trying to understand why some things are in pieces and some aren’t,” he replies.

  “This way,” she says after the doors open. We follow her to another set of doors; she uses her key card to unlock it. “Where do you want to look?”

  Theo surveys the cavernous interior and the endless rows of server cabinets. “Let’s start with a spot at random. I want to measure voltage values.”

  “All our power is carefully controlled,” she replies, almost taking offense at the suggestion that they might have slightly variable current.

  I nod, pretending to understand.

  “I believe you,” says Theo. He holds up what looks like a voltage meter. “I just have to convince this. Let’s start here.”

  Theo chooses a cabinet on the outer edge of the server center. Becca uses her key card to open its back hatch.

  “Explain to me what you’re about to do before you do it, okay?” She pats a server rack. “These babies are my responsibility.”

  “I’m going to connect the thingamajig to the whatsit and see if the pretty numbers move,” Theo replies with a smile.

  “Smart-ass,” she says with a grin of her own. “I bet you two have lots of fun.”

  “A regular barrel of monkeys.” Theo connects a plastic clip to a power cord—which is my cue to get ready. “Have those fire suppressors been checked since the Void?” he asks.

  She glances up at the overhead pipes. I use the opportunity to slide the USB device into a port in the back of the server. I’m done before she even finishes looking where Theo pointed.

  “There? I believe so,” she tells him.

  “You probably want to have the pressure checked. Some people have had problems with leaks because the reed switches were exceptionally prone to damage from the EMPs.”

  “Yeah. We need to keep all that pressure,” she replies.

  I have no idea if what Theo said is true or not, but she seems to think it makes sense. Theo can be quite convincing with his bullshit.

  He checks his device. “We’re good.”

  “Are my power curves smooth enough for you?” asks Becca.

  “I’ve seen better, but they’ll do,” he replies.

  “Oh, you have, have you? I’ll take that as an insult.”

  “Okay, fine. They’re the smoothest,” Theo says with a smile.

  “Right answer.”

  Hold up . . . have I been witnessing some kind of nerd flirting and didn�
�t realize it? “Do we need to check the sensors?” I ask.

  “I think we’re good,” says Theo.

  “Let me show you guys the way out. I’ll also give you my contact information in case you need another inspection or anything else,” Becca says.

  I’m fairly certain that was directed entirely at Theo, or rather, Steven, the nerdy fire inspector with the square jaw. I wait until we’re out of the building before commenting on it.

  Across the street, a man pushing a shopping cart loaded with garbage bags stops and looks at us for a moment, then continues on. He was there when we entered.

  Theo looks past my shoulder and mutters, “Oh shit.”

  There’s a sound of a blaring siren and the flash of blue lights as two all-black SUVs pull up on either side of our vehicle, blocking us in. Doors open, and footsteps rush up behind us.

  “Hands in the air!” says a woman’s voice.

  “By whose authority?” I shout.

  “IDR,” says Director Vivian Kieren. “You’re under arrest for felony data theft.”

  I turn around to face Kieren and the six men flanking her with their guns pointed at Theo and me. We both refuse to raise our hands. Kieren directs her men to apprehend us.

  “Take a step closer and this isn’t going to end pretty,” I growl.

  “This is going to end however I like. Search him,” she says, pointing to Theo.

  Two men grab him, slam his head into the hood of the car, then cuff him behind his back.

  I wince, wanting to jump in and stop it, but I know I have to wait for the right moment.

  Kieren’s men go through Theo’s pockets and his bag, dumping everything onto the hood.

  One of them holds up the device he used to check the power levels. “Got it,” he calls out.

  Kieren walks over to inspect the apparatus. “Okay. Bag the IMT. Cuff her, too, and let’s bring them in.”

  “This is a mistake,” I explain as they handcuff me. “I’m a federal agent in the course of an investigation.”

  “You don’t know when to shut up, do you, bitch?” she says to my face. As her men hold me, she grabs me by the throat. Her nails claw into my skin. “You’re done. So done.”

  I smile back at her, thinking ahead to when I get my payback.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  LIFELINE

  The nameless guard tells me to stand facing the wall of my cell. I do as I’m told with my hands above my head and allow them to put restraints on me, plus a hood to keep me disoriented.

  It’s exactly as Theo described, only more demoralizing, even though I know my situation isn’t as hopeless as his was.

  The last time I was at IDR containment, I was a visitor who knew where the facility was and who was operating it. I also didn’t have to wear a hood as I was escorted through the intentionally confusing labyrinth. Knowing that the internal layout is designed to make detainees psychologically vulnerable doesn’t make me feel any less exposed.

  I’m walked into a small room and sat down on a chair with my hands shackled to a counter in front of a mirrored window.

  The last time I saw this room, it was from the other side. Now I’m the inmate waiting to find out who’s come to talk to me.

  In the four days I’ve been here, there’s been no communication from the outside. Theo is confined somewhere else in the facility, and Gerald has been radio silent since our capture by Vivian Kieren. Now I’m in her private prison.

  The lights flicker on the other side, and my visitor is revealed to me. It’s him.

  Michael Heywood.

  He sits silently, studying me. I knew this moment would come, but I had no idea how he’d handle himself. Apparently, neither did he. I remain silent, letting the rage in my face speak for me.

  “I thought I’d say something clever about how the last time we spoke inside a prison the roles were reversed. But that seemed too obvious. Yet I just said it.” He shakes his head. “You understand why I had to make a machine to talk to you, Jessica? I can never find the right words.” He nervously bites the edge of his thumbnail. “I’m sorry. I never saw this coming. When Vivian told me that she’d apprehended you, I decided I had to intervene.”

  “Intervene?” I speak for the first time. “Is that what this is? An intervention?”

  He smiles. “Of sorts. If she had her way, the IDR would use one of her judges to place an indefinite containment order on you. Instead of the temporary one we have now.”

  “I’m sure the FBI has other thoughts,” I reply.

  “Unfortunately, no. I think the word they used was rogue. I understand that they told Vivian you’re her problem.” A smile forms on the edges of his mouth, and he lowers his voice. “I’ll let you in on a little secret: that makes you my problem.” He clears his throat. “In case you haven’t figured it out, I call the shots here.” He raises his voice. “No need to whisper, by the way. The microphones are off. The cameras aren’t on. I could say anything I wanted to you. Anything, Jessica. If I were a lesser man, I could do anything I want.”

  “I can’t think of a lesser man than you.”

  His face contorts for a moment before he regains his composure. “That’s one of the things I admire about you. Here you are in the last place you ever thought you’d be, under the complete control of the man you presently despise more than any other, and you still have your humor.”

  “Presently?”

  “There’s hope. I think you might see me differently in time.”

  “I think I’d rather go back to my cell.”

  “You don’t have to do that. We could come to an arrangement. Nothing untoward, I assure you.”

  “Obviously. Not just because you’re the biggest asshole on the planet, but because you just dropped the word untoward into a conversation that was rather rapey.”

  His face twitches. I’ve done this to him before. He wasn’t expecting it here, though, while he pictured himself in complete control of me.

  “I don’t think you understand your situation. You’re in a jail that I have the only key to.”

  “Is the key supposed to be your dick?”

  He slams his fist on the metal counter, rattling the window.

  A guard comes rushing in through the door behind me. Heywood jumps to his feet and yells at the man. “I said stay the fuck out of here!”

  The guard retreats and shuts the door behind him. Heywood sits back down and runs his fingers through his hair. “Well, at the very least, I think that demonstrates who’s in control here.”

  “Do you think you look like someone in control?” I ask, intentionally provoking him again.

  He sits back and stares at me with his arms crossed. Then his eyes suddenly light up. “I see now. You’re still under the impression that your friends in the FBI will be coming for you. You’re in a state of denial.”

  “No, Heywood. It’s what I know. A visitor’s pass and a bad temper don’t mean that you’re running this facility,” I explain. “No matter what you offered them, they’re never going to give you that much power. They’re not that stupid.”

  “Agree to disagree on the last point. As far as my power, there’s what I’ve been given and what I’ve taken. Vivian Kieren works for me, whether she wants to admit it or not. One of my talents is finding people’s vulnerabilities. For her it was her need for credibility. I chose to feed her intelligence that I hacked from the computer networks of our enemies and gradually built up enough trust that she’d gladly use her wide-ranging and poorly understood legal powers for my purposes.”

  “IDR were the ones who broke into the data center in Manhattan during the Void.”

  He nods. “Very good.”

  “That’s why they were in Seoul. They weren’t looking for Theo; they’d just broken into that facility.”

  Heywood grins. “Correct. A little late, though.”

  I decide to test how comfortable he feels in his safe space. “Theo was right.”

  “Right? About what?”

/>   “You needed someone to cover your tracks because of the pharmaceutical machines you tampered with.”

  Heywood falls quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure what he was implying.”

  “Autopharmix? That’s the company you used to mess with prescriptions and find out all the combinations Lifeline generated that didn’t work. The ones that killed people.”

  “I’m afraid Dr. Cray may have been reaching on that one,” says Heywood. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You never had a controlling stake in Autopharmix? I saw the paperwork and the timing with the clever Bitcoin heist.”

  He shakes his head.

  I see an opening. “If you expect me to believe you’re in control, then why do you feel the need to keep lying to me?”

  “I am in control, Jessica.”

  “So why do you act like you’re afraid? As far as I can tell, I’m talking to the same scared man I saw back in that Texas police station after we caught him with the kidnapped girl he was going to murder. You were pissing yourself because you didn’t think I was smart enough to catch you. But there we were. And here we are . . . and you’re still scared of me. Too afraid to admit what you really are. Only now you’re fixated on me. You wanted to kill me before. Now you want to fuck me.”

  Heywood is back on his feet, hands on the glass as he glares down at me. “Who says I still don’t want to kill you?”

  “It is what you’re good at. How many lives did it cost to come up with Lifeline’s treatments? Five hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand?”

  “Twenty-two thousand,” he says. “I killed twenty-two thousand people, most of whom were going to die. I gave them purpose. I gave their deaths meaning.”

  “Purpose? For your snake-oil machine built on top of other people’s ideas?”

  He smirks. “It works, Jessica.”

  “That’s not what Theo says.”

  “Fuck Theo Cray. He’s a pathetic burnout.”

  “You hate him because you know he’s smarter than you.”

  Heywood shakes his head. “I’m glad you’re finding these mind games amusing.” He sighs dramatically. “One day you’ll want to remember what the sun looks like, and we’ll come to an arrangement.”