Free The Leviathan Effect by James Lilliefors

out for him.
    “Do you know what it’s about?”
    “I do. But you’ll need to visit Cleveland, sir, first. Mr. Green will meet with you next week. Room 789. Then to St. Louis in the afternoon. He’ll have more.”
    “You’re sure.”
    “Yes.”
    Charles Mallory sighed. “Okay, then. Goodnight.”
    “Goodnight.”
    Mallory walked out onto the back deck to decipher what he had just been told. Chaplin wanted him to come back again. He had told him so with a simple verbal code that was written nowhere but in their heads. Words substituting for other words. Cleveland meaning Washington. Next week meaning tomorrow. Mr. Green was National Car Rental, and Room 789 a hotel in the Maryland suburbs.
    Just like that
. Mallory felt a deep-rooted mixture of apprehensionand curiosity. Chaplin was summoning him back. But it was really his brother reaching out to him. Jon was the “someone.” And that was the only reason he would even consider doing what he had sworn he would never do again. Mallory felt a fine mist of rain in the breeze and he thought about what might be coming. Storms he’d never imagined.

EIGHT
8:45 P.M. Oval Office, Washington, D.C .
    “H ELLO , C ATE .”
    Catherine Blaine reached across the famous Resolute desk to shake hands with Aaron Lincoln Hall, the President of the United States.
    “And welcome. Our circle has five members now.”
    Blaine smiled politely. The President’s face seemed tired, belying his upbeat tone. He was a tall, striking man with inviting brown eyes and a classic senatorial profile—strong chin, narrow, slightly curved nose, swept back silver hair. In meetings, journalists had said, his assurance and charisma seemed to “suck the oxygen from the room.” Blaine had been struck by the difference between how self-assured he could be in person, though, and how self-conscious and wooden he occasionally came off in television interviews. When you separated Aaron Lincoln Hall from the contact sport of politics, he was a sharp-witted man, and a brilliant speechmaker, even though his enemies had diligently branded him otherwise—he’d been called everything from a milquetoast to a Muslim terrorist sympathizer. For Blaine, the only criticisms that carried any weight were the claims that he could be too cerebral and that he depended too much on the counsel of his advisers, particularly in military matters.
    “I’m sure this has been a lot to absorb in a short period of time,” he said, looking at her as if they were the only two in the room.
    “It has.”
    “Naturally, I’m curious what your impressions are. I respect your background and what you can bring to this.”
    Blaine blinked self-consciously. She glanced at Harold DeVries, her former mentor, who was seated in the rosewood chair to herleft. To her right was Clark Easton. These were the two advisers the President relied on most.
    “I know you’ve been given the outlines of what’s happened, Cate. I want you to understand we’re doing all that we can diplomatically. Which isn’t much. The Secretary of State has opened channels with Beijing. That’s not yielding much, unfortunately. We’re really in something of a holding pattern right now.”
    She nodded. “You said five members.”
    “Yes. The Vice President has been briefed on all of this. He’s the fourth, you’re the fifth. We’re a circle of five.” His smile faded so quickly that Blaine wondered if it had been there at all. The President was a man of big ideas and she could sense that he was already mulling over the possible outcomes of this crisis. “The Secretary of State has a limited knowledge but has not been privy to the actual contents of the emails. Nor has anyone else. We’re now honoring the request to keep those threats within a tight circle.”
    “What about at the IT level? Isn’t someone aware of this at NSA?”
    “Dean Stiles, yes, of course. It started there, as a cyber threat. The email incursions are being thoroughly analyzed by a