Chapter 46
“The chief of staff confirmed that the president ordered RRC overwatch on Cassandra, with clear rules of engagement for exactly the situation you have just lived through,” Director Brown said over the secure channel.
“In light of her warning and the attempt by the betrayer on the president’s protection team, you can bet he is evaluating her worth even higher. ”
Steele glanced at the young woman seated across from him on the Blackhawk. She was leaning back, eyes closed, apparently asleep. Agent Carmen sat next to her on one side and Dr. Chen was on the other. Both agents watched him, likely trying to glean anything they could from his body language.
“It was timely, then?” Steele said.
“It was very close. Turns out one guy on the presidential protection team was compromised. He drew his sidearm, but the team leader had just gotten word and already had his pistol out. The disloyal agent did not survive. You should prepare her, yourself, and whoever else you deem necessary to be called into the White House. Also, Congress is gearing up for an inquiry. At least making noises about it. When it happens, expect a number of compromised politicians to be on it. You should be preparing for that eventuality.”
“Are you directing me to investigate sitting Congressional members?”
“I am directing you to put your immediate energies into reviewing the Warlock app information to the greatest extent possible. Use your best assets. Major Crimes will work the attack in Jersey, Cyber will hand you their data on Warlock as they get it. You figure out what Cramer is up to.”
“Copy that, sir,” he answered, ending the call.
He looked at his people, getting their attention as he switched comms to the team setting.
“A compromised agent on the president’s protection team initiated hostile action. Due to our warning, the rest of the team was ready and ended the threat.” When his gaze roved back across the group, he found Cassie wide awake and alert.
“Our immediate mission is to continue to delve into all emails, texts, and other communications we can lay our hands on. We need to analyze this data for past hostile action, corruption, and future actions planned. On top of that, security for this team is paramount,” he said.
“Cyber and counterterror will handle the grunt work while we do what we do best and dig through the data for patterns.”
His gaze landed on Cassie as he finished, and she gave him a short nod before raising one foot to tap Red’s knee, who instantly passed her a tablet.
Cassie immediately bent over the tablet and began to swipe through screen after screen as if she was looking for a particular page.
It took a split second for him to realize she was actually committing each page to memory, each with just a glance.
She only paused to rub one eye, then went back to it, and he had another epiphany.
She was tired. Really tired. This eighteen-year-old prodigy had been solving their cases and processing reams of information for weeks now without hardly a break of any kind.
Suddenly alarmed, he glanced at Chen, who was surreptitiously watching the girl with the careful gaze of a doctor.
Rose met his eyes when he looked her way, and she gave him the smallest nod. She knew.
“I’m okay,” Cassie suddenly said without looking up. “Just tired like all of us.”
“Are you… well, committing too much…” he tried to ask.
“Scientists think the human mind can hold something like two and a half million gigabytes of information,” she said with a very brief glance his way. “Like watching television nonstop for three hundred years.”
“That’s a lot of television,” Rose said.
Cassie snorted. “This is partly why Cramer wants synthetic intelligence… no human weakness. But if I cram this all in while we fly and then catch some sleep, my brain will keep analyzing it. So I won’t really be taking time away from the investigation.”
That statement took some time to process.
“You’re not a robot, Cassie,” Dr. Chen said.
“God no,” Cassie agreed. “But we all process information while we sleep. Who here hasn’t woken up with an idea or two from a puzzle that was bothering you the day before?”
“It sounds so machinelike,” Rose Carmine noted.
“Well, sure, because we are machines of a sort. Biological machines that might seem weak and flimsy but are actually pretty amazing,” Cassie said, still flicking page after page.
“My abilities may seem crazy, but what if they’re not?
What if most people could do this if their own psychology didn’t get in the way? ”
“Explain,” Chen said, intrigued.
“Children often have much better memories than adults. The cases of eidetic memory recorded are children. But they tend to grow out of it. It’s been surmised that is due to picking up conceptualization skills and language.
I’m not so sure. Personally, and this is just my opinion, but I think the overlay of adult issues that children receive while growing up creates inhibitors. ”
“Interesting theory,” Chen allowed.
“Backed up by nothing concrete,” Cassie said, stopping her swipes. “Done with that batch. Anything else?”
“Not yet,” Red said, her head tilted as she studied their consultant.
“Okay. I’ll let this settle in,” Cassie said, leaning back.
The team exchanged incredulous glances until the young woman suddenly sat back up.
“Shit!” she said. “J. Edgar Hoover.”
“What?” Steele asked.
“J. Edgar Hoover. Kept himself in office as Director of the FBI with his files on everyone. Cramer has been using his rigged prediction market to reward people for sensitive, confidential, top secret or compromising information. CATMAP became unreliable, so he took his lemons and made lemonade. A database of information on everyone in power.”
“How certain are you?” Steele asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought of it. Maybe sixty to sixty-five percent.” She paused, head tilted. “No. Seventy to seventy-five. But what do billionaires really want? More money or more power?”
“Power, more likely,” Steele agreed.
“Holding life-altering dirt over the heads of the world’s most powerful people is just a transfer of power,” Cassie said. “Shit. Information is power. It would buy him time to bring something else to the fight. Maybe the next iteration of synthetic intelligence.”
She didn’t say anything more, instead just looking straight ahead, clearly deep in thought. And it was difficult to conceive of someone going deeper in thought than that girl.