Taylor Carter sat very quietly in the front seat of his mother’s car. It was early, and he was sleepy, but he knew better than to say so. He’d been on his phone for two hours after she’d told him to go to bed the night before.
“You going to give me the silent treatment every morning, or just today?” his mother finally said.
“Sorry, Mom. I’m just waking up, that’s all.”
“I don’t want you sitting home for this whole break. You need to be doing something.”
“It’s fine,” Taylor answered. He’d known she was going to be mad when she found out about his grade. Having to go work for her friend over break was actually a much softer punishment than he’d anticipated. “Tia’s got to work anyhow.”
“Tia.”
“She’s nice, Mom.”
“You’ve been seeing her a while now. When do I get to meet her?”
Taylor shifted. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to keep her away from you, just you’re always working late and stuff.”
Carter glared over at him, then sighed. “You’re right, of course.”
“But, um, she wants me to go to dinner at her house on Christmas Eve. I told her I had to check with you.”
She glanced over again. “Christmas Eve, huh? That’s pretty serious.”
“They just have like ham and stuff. Not a big deal. But, yeah, her mom and dad want to meet me.”
“I like them already.” Carter nodded. “Okay. I guess that’s okay. I have to work anyhow.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“But then I want you to invite her over to our place Christmas Day. She can come for dinner, or just for dessert after. But I want to meet her. Right?”
Taylor smiled. “Okay. I’ll ask her.”
“You got her a present, right?”
“Not yet, but I’m thinking about it.”
“Do not let me find out that you’re out shopping on Christmas Eve.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Carter shook her head. “How are Tia’s grades?”
“Mom.”
“You’ve got to get that grade up, Taylor.”
“I know. I will, I promise. I’ve got this extra credit paper I can write over break.”
“And have you started on it?”
“I’ll start tomorrow.”
“You’ll start tonight.”
She parked the car in front of what looked like an old bar. Taylor got out and looked at the place. “Chaos?” he asked.
“The name fits,” his mother promised. “You’ll see. C’mon.”
There was a sign on the door that read:
MISTLETOE IS BOTH POISONOUS AND PARASITIC
NOW KISS!
“I’m scared,” Taylor said.
“Me, too,” Carter answered. “You go first.” She pushed him inside.
The place was crazy. It was loud. There were Christmas decorations and lights everywhere. There were also people everywhere. A bunch of them were in line at the counter, people in suits scrambling for their morning coffee before work. But there were also a big bunch of teenagers and college kids in jeans running around. They all had Christmas hats: red Santa hats, green elf hats, hats with reindeer horns. Taylor groaned.
“Scotty!” Carter yelled over the noise.
A woman popped up from behind the bar. She was somewhere between Taylor and his mom in age, and she was pretty. “Hey, Carter. Zubec, get Carter some coffee.”
“To go,” she added. “This is Taylor.”
“Hi, Taylor. I’m Scotty.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Hey, Joey! This is Taylor.”
Behind him, a very tall, thin young man with an elf hat said, “Hey, Taylor. Welcome aboard. Come on, we got to get the tables from the basement. Suze, come help with the tables!”
And that was the end of the introductions. “Bye, Mom,” Taylor said. He followed the elf into the crowd.
“Bye!” she called after him.
As punishments went, Taylor decided, at least this one wouldn’t be boring.
***
John Reese walked out of the diner and slid into the passenger seat of Christine Fitzgerald’s car. He’d finally given it back to her, after driving it all summer. Technically, it might have been Harold’s car. He wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter.
Christine nodded without speaking, and he reached into the glove compartment to switch on the damper. A soft white noise fed through his earpiece. Sure that they were alone, Reese said, “You get it?”
“I got it.” She passed him a piece of paper with an address on it. “It’s in the garage. The code to the door is there. Eight boxes. You’re going to need a van.”
“Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Oh, you’d have figured out something.”
“Can you get him to the library?”
“It’s all set.”
“Good.” Reese folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket, turned off the damper, and got out of the car.
Christine drove off without a backward glance.
***
Will Ingram paused in the doorway of the café and looked around.
It made him think of his mother.
His mother was very precise about decorations. She did not decorate at all for the lesser holidays; he’d carved pumpkins for Halloween, but they’d been set out on the back patio, not the front porch. Nothing for Easter or Independence Day or any of other holiday people decorated for. For Christmas she’d consented to indoor decorations only, and they were provided and installed by a professional decorator.
Will didn’t think it had always been that way, but every Christmas he could remember at home had been. Understated, Elegant. Reflecting their wealth.
The Chaos Café would have made his mother scream.
It looked like the Spirit of Christmas had exploded, or maybe thrown up. There were lights everywhere, some colored, some white, small and large, blinking and steady. There were garlands and bulbs. Colorful cardboard cut-outs. Fake snowflakes with yellowing sequins sewn on them. Several three-foot high felt stockings. A dozen smaller stockings hung from the bar. Bells. And mistletoe, everywhere.
Will Ingram laughed out loud in delight.
A very large man in a white apron was stringing more lights. “Like it, huh?”
“I do,” Will agreed.
“Hold this.” The man handed him a coil of lights. Then he climbed onto the nearest chair. “Okay.”
Will handed him the lights. The man looped one strand around a hook, handed the rest of the coil back down, and climbed down himself. “Over here, now.”
Ingram followed obediently, still looking around.
Beneath the decorations, the place was grungy. Worn. But homey, too. It looked like a college lounge. Nothing matched, but everything fit. He liked it. Liked the way it felt. But it didn’t quite fit with the professional woman he’d seen with his uncle. Or with his father’s long-lost potential-filled computer genius.
He handed the coil of lights up again. “Is, uh, is Christine here?”
The big man looked at him. “Scotty?”
“Yes.”
The man handed him the coil and stepped down again. “Scotty!” he bellowed.
The woman came out of a door toward the back. She had on jeans and a white shirt and a black wool coat. “Good God, Zubec, stop with the lights already.”
“They’re pretty,” he argued, climbing onto another chair.
“They’re blinding,” she argued. “And you’re going to blow a circuit.” She crossed the bar. “Hey, Doctor Ingram.”
“Will, please,” he corrected. “Hi.”
“Hi. Welcome to Chaos.”
“Thanks. I like it.”
“Want some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I just, um, I wanted to talk to you for a minute, but you’re going out, I can come back later …”
“I’ve got a minute,” she said. “Come on, have a cuppa.” She took the last of the lights from him, handed them to the big guy, and led him over to the bar. “Black? No. Two cream, two sugar.”
He grinned nervously. “How do you know that?”
“I am the coffee whisperer. I can sense these things. And also, I watched you at the restaurant.”
“Oh.”
The young guy behind the bar brought him a big mug of coffee. He tried it. “This is really good.”
“I know, right? What’s on your mind?”
“My Uncle Harold says you’re really good with computers.”
“That’s true.”
“Do you know anything about finding people?”
“What, online?”
“Yeah. Or in real life. Whatever.”
“Sure. It’s pretty easy, these days.”
“Could you help me find somebody?”
Christine grinned. “No problem.” Before Will could continue, she added, “As long as her name isn’t Julie Carson. Or Essex. Or Mullins.”
He sighed heavily. “Uncle Harold told you.”
“Who do you think’s been tracking her for him?”
“So you already know where she is.”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell me?”
“No.”
He sat back, reached for his wallet.
“No,” Christine repeated firmly.
He stopped. “Please?”
“Look, you are less than three weeks out on this thing. If you want to screw it up, that’s your choice. But I’m not going to help you do it.”
Will put his elbow on the bar and his head in his hand. “I just … I’m going crazy.” He sat up. “She’s okay? Really?”
“Yes.”
“Is she … seeing anybody?”
“Lots of people.” She cocked her head. “You mean romantically? No.”
“I guess that’s something. Will you give me a hint?”
“No.”
“And I can’t bribe you.”
“No.”
He took a big swig of coffee. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“I never do.” She patted his arm. “You look like a man in need of distraction. You like Gerald Walsh?”
“What? No. He’s a psycho.”
“Oh, good. Come on, we’re going to his rally.” She slid to her feet and took his arm.
Will followed, then pulled back. “Wait, what?”
“C’mon. You’ll like it. There’s a party.”
“A Gerald Walsh party?”
“Trust me.”
“But …” She was already dragging him toward the door.
He followed her out, got into the waiting cab with her. “Umm … you know I have a girlfriend, right? I mean, sorta? Maybe. I hope.”
Christine nodded. “You know I have a schoolgirl crush on your father, right?”
Will actually blanched. “Okay, you win.”
“Relax. We’ll be fine.”
He felt a little as if he’d fallen down the rabbit hole, but Will sat back in the cab and waited for the next surprise. The Chaos Café, he remembered, and wondered why he’d expected anything different.
***
The next Number came in around noon. Reese, at Finch’s instruction, finished his lunch before he returned to the library. By then, the genius already had the man’s picture and other documents up on the board.
“You do not look happy, Finch.”
Harold scowled, not at him but at the board. “This is Tony Woods,” he said crisply. “Until yesterday he was the IT director for Bender Warren Financial.”
Reese dropped into the chair, leaned back, crossed his legs. “What happened yesterday?”
The scowl deepened. “Christine Fitzgerald got him fired for gross incompetence.”
He put his feet down and sat forward. “Does Woods know that? That it was Christine?”
“They all had lunch together.” Finch raised a hand. “But I don’t think it’s her that he’s planning to kill.”
“You don’t think?”
“Miss Fitzgerald also recommended that Bender Warren hire a forensic accountant. She’d uncovered some evidence of significant financial improprieties.”
“A forensic accountant?” Reese asked slowly. “You can’t be serious.”
Finch looked at him. “They asked me ” they asked their insurance advisor, Harold Wren ” to recommend someone.”
“Finch, you didn’t.”
The billionaire’s voice went up just a little, into a not-quite-aggrieved, not-quite whine. “It seemed like a good idea at the time!”
***
Gerard Walsh’s ideas genuinely scared Will Ingram. His followers scared him more. There were a lot of them in Central Park, maybe a thousand people, gathered around the stage where Walsh was going to speak. In the days before the election, Walsh’s crowds had been ten times as big. With the numbers down, Walsh’s rhetoric was increasingly aggressive. He didn’t call for actual violence, but he came close. The government, he warned his followers over and over, was watching everything they did, and it going to take their weapons and then their freedom forever.
And the President was going to give those orders.
The followers who remained were rabidly faithful to him. They believed every word he said. They believed, and they were terrified.
Will Ingram had been in enough hot-spot countries to know first-hand that terrified people in large groups were dangerous. He’d been caught up in riots twice, and both times they’d been sparked by a speaker just like Walsh. He’d spent weeks putting people back together after those riots. He’d walked through neighborhoods destroyed by them.
Riots wouldn’t happen in New York City. He was pretty sure of that. But other things might. Other kinds of violence. He didn’t really want to be there if it did. And if he did have to be there, he wished he had his gear with him.
But Christine wasn’t headed into the crowd. Instead, she led him across the street and into a high-rise building. They went to a restaurant on the mezzanine, then out onto the patio deck. Despite the cold, there were about fifty people there, all hovering around the rail, watching the rally from a safe distance with good table service.
He followed her across the deck to the railing just as Walsh stepped to the microphone. The people already gathered made room for them. Several of them greeted her.
They acted like they’d been expecting her.
“What are we doing?” Will asked.
“Just watching. You’ll see.”
Behind the podium was a huge projection screen; in the front row were a handful of network and cable TV crews. There were also, as always, a contingent of protestors. They were penned to the back of the gathering.
Walsh made his usual start, thanking the local celebrity who’d introduced him and the fans who’d come to hear him speak, then a little story about his childhood to warm up the crowd. They didn’t need much warming up. They were true fanatics, there to hear their hero speak about the evils of their elected (but not by them) government.
“He’s insane, you know,” Will said.
“I know.”
“And dangerous. He’s gotten much worse since the election. He’s going to get someone killed.”
“Maybe.” She leaned her hip against the railing. “What do you know about infosec?”
“Uh … I don’t even know what that is.”
Below them, Walsh had started into the meat of his speech, about how the government in Washington was no longer listening to the people, about how their rights were under assault. The screen behind him showed a panorama of D.C., with dark ominous clouds over it.
“Information security,” Christine said. “Basic and massively important. Here’s your first lesson. If you’re going to give the same speech dozens of times, and you’re going to use the same Powerpoint as your backdrop at every speech, you really need to change your password on a regular basis.”
Walsh said, “This President is has dangerous ideas. If he is left unchecked, he will take away the rights that our brave forefathers fought to give you. Rights that were endowed on us by God Himself.”
“It won’t stop a determined hacker,” Christine continued, “but at least you won’t insult her. Or him.”
The waving American flag on the backdrop suddenly vanished. A plain blue screen replaced it, with large text spread across it:
“WILL NO ONE RID ME OF THIS MEDDLESOME PRIEST?”
The crowd gasped, but Walsh went on, unaware. “It’s not popular to speak out against a man who’s just won re-election, but if you look at the numbers, the real numbers, it’s obvious that the vote was fixed. This man is not the legitimate President of these United States. It is an abomination that he’ll stand on the steps of our Capital and place his hand on our Lord’s Holy Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution, when his very inauguration is in defiance and defilement of that Constitution.”
The text behind him changed.
THIS IS CALLED SCHOASTIC TERRORISM.
And then:
YOU HAVE SMART PHONES. LOOK IT UP.
The crowd’s reaction and the scrambling of the news crews finally caught Walsh’s attention. His well-practiced speech sputtered. He glanced over his shoulder.
The screen read:
IN SHORT, HE’S BLOWING A DOG WHISTLE AND HOPING A LONE WOLF WILL SHOW UP.
Walsh stared at the screen.
HE WILL DENY THAT HE IS CALLING FOR THE ASSASSINATION OF OUR PRESIDENT
JUST AS HENRY II DENIED THAT HE WANTED BECKET DEAD
(SMART PHONES, PEOPLE. LOOK IT UP)
The protestors at the event began to cheer, and the supporters began to boo, trying to drown them out.
Walsh reached for his microphone. “This is outrageous!” he spluttered. “Our event has been hacked, we’ve been taken over by cyber terrorists … “
The screen predicted:
HE WILL SAY THAT HIS RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH HAS BEEN DENIED
Walsh wasn’t looking. “It’s begun already. They are trying to take our right to free speech! I have the right to speak! They have no right to interfere with our event!”
He was all but screaming. He pushed the microphone away. “Turn it off! Turn it off!”
There was scrambling at the side of the platform, frantic technicians and handlers. But the screen continued, implacable:
HE IS FREE TO SAY WHATEVER HE WISHES
BUT IN THE EVENT THAT HIS WORDS LEAD TO VIOLENCE
GERALD WALSH WILL NOT BE FREE FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS WORDS
The screen turned from blue to deep scarlet.
HE WILL BE HELD RESPONSIBLE.
“Pull the plug!” Walsh shrieked.
The screen went black. Not five seconds later it sprang back to life, exactly as it had been, but just a bit off to one side.
The Guy Fawkes mask appeared under the text.
“Pull the fucking plug!” Walsh screamed.
WE DO NOT FORGET
WE DO NOT FORGIVE
“The plug! Pull the fucking plug!”
The technicians had pulled every plug and cord they could find. “It’s not ours!” one of them screamed back.
The last message came up on the screen:
EXPECT US
Then, suddenly, the massive waving American flag was back on the screen and Walsh’s customary cheerful patriotic music filled the air.
Over the silence of the crowd, the music was brutally ironic.
Red-faced and cursing, Gerald Walsh stormed off the stage. One of his tech people tried to talk to him and he shoved the man aside on his way to his limo. The media crews scrambled for places to do stand-ups. The crowd grumbled and shouted. Someone tried to start a chant, but it died awkwardly. Confused, deflated, and leaderless, they began to disperse.
“Holy shit.” Will Ingram stared at his new companion. “That was amazing.”
“It was,” she agreed. “I’m glad we were here to see it.”
“How did you do that?”
“Me?” She blinked innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But you …”
“Don’t know anything about it,” she said serenely. “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
“Holy shit. Holy shit.”
They watched the wandering, dispirited crowd below them for a moment. “I don’t usually pay much attention to politics,” Christine said, “but you’re right, he was dangerous.”
“And now he’ll get a ton a free publicity.”
“First wall-to-wall coverage of him screaming obscenities, and then a hard look at the context of his speech. Sunlight.”
“The best disinfectant,” Ingram completed. “It’s not, you know. Medically speaking.”
“You’re no fun.”
“You’re amazing.”
“I have my moments.” She glanced around the deck, where the crowd was cheering and laughing and drinking. “So. You want some lunch?””
“I … yes. But I’m buying.”
“Suit yourself.”
They went back inside. It was too cold for lunch on the deck.
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