Page 11 of Mastermind

“Gerald? You won’t find anyone better. Also, he’s one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet.”

Managing people, my blind spot, was never a weakness for Gerald. He’s one of the only true multitaskers I’ve ever met. He can have a detailed discussion with you while filling out field reports. He taught himself to text without looking at his phone so he wouldn’t annoy people while carrying on three conversations.

“Hello, everyone. I’m Gerald Voigt. I’ve been asked by the director to get this task force going. As you know, last night at approximately 8:00 p.m., Manhattan suffered a massive blackout, disabling virtually the entire electrical grid and destroying almost every phone, computer, and electronics system on the island.

“We’re unable to discern at this time what the cause was. Our preliminary guess is a number of chemical EMPs. That’s to say, a number of devices that caused an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to short-circuit all local electronics. Until this morning, I’d never heard of a chemical EMP, but it was explained to me that it’s a device that uses an explosive charge to apply kinetic energy to a material that then converts into an electrical pulse. Later today, I hope to have a report from the Department of Energy, which has apparently done some research into this area. In any event, this pulse was accompanied by a black mist that shrouded the city for almost twelve hours.”

Gerald taps his computer, and an image of an orange traffic barrel appears on the screen behind him. The top is burned off, and soot stains the exterior.

“We’ve found at least forty of these so far, by last count. We estimate there were several hundred placed around the city. The good news is that one of the thousands of cameras in Manhattan was bound to catch someone placing one. The frustrating news is that because of the EMP, many of the data centers where that information would have been stored have been wiped. However, it’s likely that some were backed up before the EMP affected them.

“We believe this is an act of terrorism. Nobody has come forward yet, but given the deliberate, destructive nature of the act, there seems to be no other explanation.

“Because this happened unexpectedly and we have no idea if other cities are going to be targeted, the Department of Justice, at the president’s urging, has decided to take an extremely proactive approach.” Gerald points to several people in the front row. “We’ll be working with the CIA, DIA, and IDR.”

“IDR?” I whisper to Sheppard.

“New agency. Information Data Retrieval,” he whispers back.

“How come I never heard of them?”

“They were a division of the DIA until a few weeks ago.” The Defense Intelligence Agency?

“What do they do? Fix your hard drive?”

“Not quite. After COVID-19 knocked us on our ass and somebody realized that maybe you shouldn’t trust totalitarian regimes that chronically lie about internal matters to give you honest answers, this idea came up,” says Sheppard.

“Okay. But what does that mean?”

“The joke goes that they’re a SEAL team with a thumb drive. They go in and get data. The not-so-funny part of the joke is that they have virtual free rein in deciding what they want to retrieve. IDR supposedly has a number of former CIA operatives who did renditions.”

“Ah, so they don’t have to worry about the same laws that we mortals do.”

“Basically.”

“That surely won’t end up in a New York Times exposé five years from now.”

“Not if they take the reporter’s laptop,” sighs Sheppard.

An agent hands me a stapled sheaf of papers as she walks down the aisle.

“I’m just an observer,” I tell her.

She looks at a list she’s carrying. “You’re Agent Blackwood? Jessica Blackwood, right?”

“Yes?”

“You’re in here.”

Sheppard waits for a moment, then makes an audible sigh as she moves to the next row. “Glad I dodged that one,” he says, clearly trying to convince himself that he hasn’t been slighted.

I flip through and see a list of names. The column on the left has names of agents; the column on the right, people who I assume are suspects. My name is on the last page.

“Some of you have been given names to follow up on,” Gerald tells the room. “These were provided to us by IDR. They’d like up-to-date information on each of them. The ones with asterisks by their names . . . ? Contact IDR immediately if you locate them. Don’t engage. Just let IDR know.”

There’s something about Gerald’s voice that tells me he’s not too happy about that directive. I have a feeling there may have been some loud words exchanged—first, over the FBI having to turn suspects over to this other agency; second, knowing Gerald, about the quasi-legal nature of what he’s been asked to do.

He’s part of a new breed of FBI agents that Ailes and others have been trying to promote, hoping to put the politically charged past behind us. Which means for many of Gerald’s colleagues and supervisors, he’s a by-the-book pain in the ass who won’t compromise when it comes to ethics.