Page 13 of Mastermind

“Specifically, who’s not on it.”

“Michael Heywood,” says Gerald.

“Yeah, Michael Heywood. Last I checked, he’s at large and the reason I almost draw my gun every time there’s a new Uber Eats delivery person in my building.”

Gerald nods. “I know. I know. We’re following that lead, too.”

“Really? I didn’t hear that back in there.”

“Things are complicated right now.”

“You already said that. So, maybe make them uncomplicated for me while we’re alone?”

“Okay. The FBI has a mole. So does the CIA and just about every other intelligence agency. We’ve seen evidence that a number of investigations have been compromised by the release of internal information.”

“A mole or computer espionage?” I ask.

“Maybe hacking but probably human, too,” he replies.

“What does that have to do with this?”

“Everything. We don’t think it’s a state actor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Three months ago, we were about to launch an investigation into New Sun Energy, and the day before we served papers, someone took a massive short on their stock. Twenty minutes before the CIA got approval to launch a strike in the Middle East, we saw a huge move on the markets. All of it going to offshore accounts and leading to dead-letter offices.”

“Someone’s using top secret intel to play the market?”

“That’s all we know happened. Then the DEA was about to raid Gulzam Coceto’s hideout. But he got tipped, and someone walked away a hundred million dollars richer. The point is that in some of these cases, the suspects only had minutes to use the illicit information. You’d need a thousand people listening to hidden microphones or reading emails.” Gerald pauses. “Or . . .”

Now I understand why the FBI’s leading technical mind has been put in command. “Some kind of artificial intelligence?”

“Exactly. We don’t just use code to spy on people—we use it to figure out what we need to know. Someone’s doing that to us.”

“Okay. But why are you here? Why this case?”

“Because I pushed for it when I read the briefings late last night. They smelled funny. Not only are we being watched, we’re being misdirected.”

“Ah,” I say. “Meaning . . . ?”

“This has Heywood written all over it. It’s one of his Batman villain comic-book plots that he probably paid some minor-league anarchist group to pull off.”

“So why me?”

“Like I said, he’s misdirecting us. Who understands that better than you? While we’re chasing down former Antifa members and whatever lowlifes we can dredge from the depths of the internet, Heywood’s doing something else. And if he just made New York City appear to vanish into thin air, then what the hell’s his real plan? That’s what has me scared.”

“Okay. And the list of people? Just busywork?”

“Not at all. You know how he operates. He recruits broken minds. He manipulates people. He’s undoubtedly got conspirators. Some of them may be on the list. A number of people on it are on internal watch lists, in any case. It’s not random. In fact, a couple of them scare me almost as much as the Warlock.”

I point to a name on the list. “What about this guy? I thought he and the FBI got along great. Most people think of him as a hero.”

“Yes. And some people think he’s a little too good at what he does, which makes him seem suspicious. Let me ask you this: Does anyone really know what goes on in the mind of a man like Dr. Theo Cray?”

PART TWO

SCIENTIST