Chapter 1
Meeting of the National Joint Terrorism Task Force
National Counterterrorism Center
McLean, Virginia
Late February
Timothy O’Donnell trailed the Director into the crowded conference room, still wearing his overcoat and warming his cupped hands with his breath.
“It’s colder than a witch’s t … toothbrush out there,” he boomed, catching sight of Ingrid at the last moment, just in time to sanitize his weather commentary.
A handful of the assembled agency and department heads smothered their laughs with fake coughs as they cut their eyes toward Ingrid. But the Director gave no appearance of having noticed any of it. He had his head bent close to his aide and was delivering rapid-fire instructions.
Even given the Director’s obliviousness, Ingrid Velder had sufficient experience being the only woman in an endless series of conference rooms to know she needed to get out in front of O’Donnell’s comment.
“I believe the saying is colder than a witch’s tit, O’Donnell.” Her voice carried across the room. She waited a moment for the fresh round of muffled laughter to die down before adding, “And it’s not that cold. Back home, it’s minus twelve. Now that’s cold. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.”
O’Donnell roared, pockets of laughter broke out among the country’s best and brightest, and even the Director managed a polite chuckle. Despite her doctorate in psychology, Ingrid figured she’d go to her grave not knowing why men found their genitalia so amusing. But, she’d learned long ago that working in a reference to it early in a meeting, briefing, or conference almost always broke the tension.
“It’s oddly appropriate that you’re all talking about the weather, but let’s get started, shall we?” the Director announced with a smile.
He gestured toward the long, polished table, and people hurried to claim seats. Ingrid wrestled a standard-issue black, vinyl chair out from under the table. The chairs were crammed so tightly around the table that the arms touched.
Ingrid had never been one for pomp and circumstance, but she had to admit she was just the tiniest bit disappointed. When she’d seen the agenda and attendee list for this meeting, she’d thought there was an outside chance they’d meet in the secure videoconference room—the one with all the monitors and the shiny, futuristic conference table shaped like an ellipse with one open end. The one where the President received briefings. She’d only ever glimpsed it, but it looked like it belonged on the Starship Enterprise. Instead, this lineup of heavy hitters had been shoehorned into a bland conference room that would fit right in at any mid-priced hotel chain.
She hoped the surroundings weren’t a portent of what was to come. She’d been told this meeting was critical and her attendance was necessary. If this turned out to be a discussion about some budgetary hoo-haw or, worse yet, the latest effort to improve morale and retention, she’d have her assistant’s head on a pike.
The Director cleared his throat and surveyed the room, interrupting her murderous daydream.
“Thank you all for braving the cold to be here.” He paused to smirk at O’Donnell. “A cursory glance around the table ought to confirm the importance of today’s meeting. Gentlemen—and Ms. Velder—we’re facing a clear and present terroristic threat the likes of which our nation has never seen. The situation is dire. And we need to act quickly. I give you Project Storm Chaser.”
On cue, the aide clicked a button on the laptop in front of him and a PowerPoint presentation loaded on the wall-sized screen behind the Director’s head.
Project Storm Chaser. Ingrid scribbled the words in her cherry red journal.
She’d used one of the leather-bound day keepers favored by executives the world over until she stumbled on a blog devoted to the bullet journal craze. Now, she kept her appointments, to-do lists, errands, and trackers for how much water she drank and how many criminals she swept off the streets all in one colorful, grid-dotted pocketed journal decorated with whimsical patterned tape and stickers. The incongruity amused her. And as the director of a standing shadow task force, funded by the Department of Homeland Security and tasked with performing those missions too dangerous, too illicit, and too ugly for DHS to acknowledge officially, humor was in short supply in Ingrid’s day-to-day existence.
“Storm Chaser? Sounds more like a project for the weather service.”
The Director turned toward the speaker, and Ingrid did, too. Harry Cole, who, like Ingrid, headed a program that officially didn’t exist. All she knew was Cole worked with the National Security Agency/Central Security Service and members of the various armed forces’ intelligence agencies doing … something of questionable legality but paramount importance.
“Fair enough, Harry. Seems climate change really is dangerous.”
The Director waited for the laugh.
The group managed a few weak chuckles.
He went on. “As you surely remember, last year brought us more than our fair share of extreme weather events.”
His aide clicked to a list of the catastrophic storms that had hammered the United States, one after another, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of damage. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. A trio of destruction.
“So, what’re you saying—ISIL controls the weather now?” Blaine Wilson, the Deputy Director of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, wanted to know.
Ingrid reminded herself Wilson was actually FBI, assigned to the CIA as part of the two agencies’ work together through the FBI’s counterterrorism division. In fact, every person squeezed around the table had a rock-solid pedigree in counterterrorism. Her heart ticked up a beat. This meeting wasn’t about the weather.
“No, but it benefits from it. ISIL, Hezbollah, al Qaeda—they all do. Not to mention our homegrown knuckleheads.”
O’Donnell drew his eyebrows together. “Benefit how?”
The aide pulled up the next slide, and the Director’s neutral expression folded in on itself. He continued with a grimace, “Some of you’ve been around long enough to remember the aftermath of Katrina back in ‘05. You may recall we lost track of some folks on the terrorist watch list in the wake of the storm. They got swept up in the evacuations and ended up who-knows-where.”
Several heads bobbed, Ingrid’s among them.
She’d been working for the FBI’s Financial Crimes Section back then. Her investigations had been impacted by the hurricane—shoot, everyone’s had. And the Bureau had been in a low-level panic because dozens of targets they’d been tracking were in the wind. 9/11 was still fresh in the populace’s memory. There was no way the government could let the media catch wind of the fact that potential terrorists were roaming around the country unaccounted for. There’d been an all hands on deck scramble by the Bureau’s National Security Analysis Center (NSAC) to feed flags into the Investigative Data Warehouse, or IDW, in an effort to find them.
“If memory serves, NSAC eventually caught up with most of them,” Wilson volunteered. “The Pentagon was able step up and assist.”
“Correct, Blaine. And today, they can’t do so, because the Counter-Intelligence Field Agency is no more.”
Technically—officially—the Director was right. But every person squeezed around the table knew full well the Pentagon’s spies still gathered intelligence on American citizens. And they all also knew the IDW was quaint—a relic compared to the vast network of military, government, and commercial databases the NSAC could now access. But nobody spoke up.
The Director pointed to his final slide. “We’re in way worse shape than we were post-Katrina, folks. My people have combed through the databases. Preliminary estimates are that more than six hundred suspects have fallen off our radar since the three storms. Let me repeat, that’s six hundred-plus potential terrorists. And we have no idea where they are.”
The already-heavy atmosphere of the room grew downright oppressive.
“So Project Storm Chaser—” Ingrid began.
“Is how we’re going to find the bastards. Beginning immediately, Project Storm Chaser is the top priority for each of you. We’re going to track down every one of these targets. Every last one,” the Director finished.
Ingrid closed her journal. Some sixth sense told her she wouldn’t want to have a written record of the rest of this meeting.
Chapter 2
Six weeks later
The Law Offices of McCandless, Volmer & Andrews
Pittsburgh, PA
Sasha McCandless-Connelly gave her legal partner and best friend a blank look.
“Seriously, Mac? You really don’t remember? It was my pro bono project last year.” Naya tossed her head and made a clicking noise with her tongue.
“Did you just tsk-tsk me because I don’t remember a client you donated legal services to? Do you know who I represented pro bono last year?”
“There was that guy from Angola seeking asylum—I gave you a hand with his petition. Then you represented the woman who stole her abusive husband’s car to escape her marriage. And I think you also did something for the library.” She reeled them off.
“Oh.”
“Want me to tell you who Will did pro bono work for?”
Sasha took a swig of lukewarm coffee and tried not to shudder at the acidic taste. She desperately needed a warm up—or even better, a fresh mug.
“No need. You’ve proved your point. I’m sorry I don’t remember DoGooderHive or whatever they—”
“DoGiveThrive.”
“Right. Sorry.” She searched her memory. “Did you help them get their designation as a non-profit charity?”
Naya beamed. “You do remember. Right, I guided them through the application process for their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.”
Sasha willed her eyes not to glaze over at the reference to the Tax Code. “I sort of remember. In fairness, though, I did have a pretty busy year last year, and I definitely didn’t lend you a hand. I’d still be having IRS-related nightmares if I had.”
“It’s all good. Because now they need help with something that’s definitely in your wheelhouse.”
Naya lifted her chin, and Sasha knew better than to point out the towering pile of deposition transcripts teetering on the credenza. Or the stack of invoices she needed to review and send out. Or the unearned continuing legal education credits hanging over her head. Or the fact that the twins had pediatrician appointments. She’d baked community service and pro bono work into her firm from the very beginning. She couldn’t very well whine that it wasn’t convenient this week. Instead, she grabbed her pen and leaned forward.
“Hit me.”
“DoGiveThrive received an information request from the feds.” She handed Sasha a sheet of paper she’d been waving around.
“A request, not a subpoena?”
“Right.”
Sasha scanned the short memo Naya had prepared. Some governmental contractor had wanted the charity to voluntarily search its database against a list of names the government would provide and turn over the results.
“And your—our—client politely told them to go pound salt, right? Please tell me I’m right.”
“You’re right. They’re do-gooders, not idiots.”
“So, what’s the problem? The government pushed back?”
“Not exactly.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “But about forty-eight hours after they told the feds to kiss their rears, they fell victim to a data breach.”
“Ah, that stinks.”
“It stinks? It’s a freaking disaster!”
“Simmer down. It’s probably nowhere near as bad as it looks—at least from a legal perspective. So long as they safeguarded the information using reasonable precautions, they really only need to address the public relations issue. Typically, there’s no legal liability unless the company acted intentionally to release private data.”
Sasha smiled, happy to have been able to quell Naya’s worry so simply. The only problem was, Naya didn’t seem remotely reassured. She cut her eyes toward Sasha and pressed her lips together.
“What?” Sasha demanded.
“Would the actions of a rogue employee be considered intentional?”
“A rogue employee? You’re telling me DoGiveThrive wasn’t the victim of hackers? It was an inside job?”
“Bingo. A programmer who worked for them quit. Apparently on his way out the door, he uploaded all their user data to some paste site, whatever that is.”
Sasha’s stomach sank to somewhere in the vicinity of her knees and she pressed her fingertips against her temples. “I’ll need to do some research. What, if anything, does the data breach have to do with the information request?”
“It’s just suspicious—the timing, the programmer’s behavior before he quit, I’m not sure what else. They’d like to meet you at their office to explain it all in more detail.”
“Before I make any client visits, what exactly is it they want me to do?”
“They need to notify their users about the data breach. They’d like some help with the notification. Obviously, the goal is to avoid being sued. You’ve got experience guiding clients through recalls. This is similar. And if litigation is threatened, they’re going to need help.” She held up a hand. “Before you even say it, they know we can’t defend a big privacy breach case pro bono. They’ll be able to pay a reduced fee. But let’s hope it doesn’t get to that.”
“Since when are you an optimist?”
“Since I promised these guys you’d help them without clearing it with you first.” Naya produced her most winning smile.
Sasha laughed despite herself. “Remind me what the business model is here. What kind of information does DoGiveThrive collect, and what do they do with it?”
“They’re a twist on a crowdfunding site. People or organizations in need can post projects seeking funding, and then folks can donate small amounts to help them reach their goals.”
“Lots of sites do that.”
“Sure, but DoGiveThrive differentiates itself on two counts—one, it very carefully vets the recipients of the funds. Some other sites do vetting, too, but these guys really dig deep. The Chief Caring Officer personally visits every potential recipient, sits down with him or her, and hears his or her story. The company also conducts an extensive financial review of every individual or group before they accept them as a site project.”
“What’s the second thing?” Sasha reached for her coffee mug then reconsidered. She’d hold off until she could get some fresh stuff from the coffee shop downstairs.
“They also guarantee anonymity—for both the recipients and the donors. There’s no option for either side to know the other. It’s like a closed adoption. It’s central to the company’s mission. They believe to truly give freely, both the donor and the recipient have to remain anonymous.”
“So this data breach …”
Naya nodded. “It’s a major violation. Not just of people’s private information, but of the company’s core promise. The office is in a total uproar. And they have to get out in front of it—fast. Or they’ll risk losing the trust of their community.”
Sasha’s chest tightened. Naya’s client had a serious problem, one with the potential to sink the company if it wasn’t handled properly. “I don’t think they need a lawyer. It sounds like they need a crisis management firm.”
“Yeah, well, those don’t work pro bono. I told them you’re the next best thing—a lawyer who consistently gets herself into and out of crises.” Naya laughed shortly, but Sasha didn’t hear any humor in it.
“Geez, I’m flattered.”
“Come on. I’ll walk you out.”
Sasha powered down her laptop, packed up her bag, and wriggled into her coat. “Aren’t you coming, too? It’s your client.”
“I know, and I would. But I promised Will I’d pitch in on the briefs you were supposed to be working on for his foreign bribery case.”
She’d entirely forgotten her promise to help Will. She was already overextended—what was one more major case? “Fine, but we’re stopping by Jake’s and you’re buying me a fresh coffee for the road.”
“Puh-lease. Do I look like I’m new here? I already called down and put in your order. And since when do you pay for coffee at Jake’s?”
“Good point. Lucky for us we know a pro bono coffee shop owner.”
This time, Naya’s laughter rang true. “Pro bono, my sweet behind. Jake builds the cost of your caffeine addiction right into the lease.”
Sasha nodded. It could very well be true. And worth every penny.
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