The Atlantis Gene: A Thriller by A. G. Riddle Read Free Book Online Page B

and withdrew several folders.
    “I have a report to make. It’s significant —”
    “I think you better let me start.” David joined Josh at the table and placed the files between them.
    “With due respect, what I have to report may change your entire perspective. It may cause a major reassessment. A reassessment of every active operation at Jakarta station and even how we analyze every—”
    David held a hand up. “I already know what you’re going to tell me.”
    “You do?”
    “I do. You’re going to tell me that the vast majority of the terror threats we’re tracking, including operations in developed nations that we don’t yet understand — aren’t the work of a dozen separate terrorist and fundamentalist groups as we’d suspected.”
    When Josh said nothing, David continued, “You’re going to tell me that Clocktower now believes that these groups are all simply different faces of one global super-group, an organization with a scale exceeding anyone’s wildest projections.”
    “They already told you?”
    “Yes. But not recently. I began putting the pieces together before I joined Clocktower. I was officially told when I made station chief.”
    Josh looked away. It wasn’t exactly a betrayal, but realizing something this big had been kept from him — the head of analysis — was a punch in the gut. At the same time, he wondered if he should have put it all together, if David was disappointed that he hadn’t figured it out on his own.
    David seemed to sense Josh’s disappointment. “For what it’s worth, I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now, but it was need-to-know only. And there’s something else you should know. Of the 240-or-so attendees at the analysts conference, 142 never made it home.”
    “What? I don’t understand. They—”
    “They didn’t pass the test.”
    “The test…”
    “The conference was the test. From the minute you arrived until you walked out, you were under video and audio surveillance. Like the suspects we interrogate here, the conference organizers were measuring voice stress, pupil dilation, eye movement, and a dozen other markers. In short— watching the analysts’ reactions throughout the conference.”
    “To see if we would withhold information?”
    “Yes, but more importantly, to see who already knew what was being presented, specifically, which analysts already knew there was a super-terror group behind the scenes. The conference was a Clocktower-wide mole hunt.”
    At that moment, the glass room around Josh seemed to disappear. He could hear David talking in the background, but he was lost in his thoughts. The conference was a perfect cover for a sting. All Clocktower agents, even analysts, were trained in standard counter-espionage methods. Beating a lie detector was first base. But telling a lie as if it were true was much easier than faking an emotional response to a surprise, and sustaining the reactions, with credible body metrics, for three days — it was impossible. But to test every chief analyst. The implication was…
    “Josh, did you hear me?”
    Josh looked up. “No, I’m sorry, it’s a lot to take in… Clocktower has been compromised.”
    “Yes, and I need you to focus now. Things are happening quickly, and I need your help. The analyst test was the first step in Clocktower’s firewall protocol. Around the world, right now, the Chief Analysts who returned from the conference are meeting with their Station Chiefs in quiet rooms just like this one, trying to figure out how to secure their cells.”
    “You think Jakarta Station has been compromised?”
    “I’d be shocked if it wasn’t. There’s more. The analyst purge has set events in motion. The plan, Firewall Protocol, was to screen the analysts for moles and for the remaining Chief Analysts and Station Chiefs to work together to identify anyone who could be a double.”
    “Makes sense.”
    “It would have, but we’ve underestimated the scope of the breach. I need to