Potential terror attacks in residential neighborhoods in Mar del Plata, Argentina and Cape Town, South Africa

Adam Jones, Pioneering Clockmaker, Dies at 77 Working on his Tower Masterpiece.

Adam Jones, leading Gibraltar clockmaker, died Saturday in British Honduras. He was found by his valet. His bones will be interred near his late wife’s — a site they selected together. Please send a card or advise family if visiting.

The message was here somewhere. What was the key? Josh opened the other obituaries and scanned them, hoping for some sort of clue. Each obituary contained a location, and each one was early in the text. Josh ran through several possibilities, re-arranged several words, then sat back and thought. The obituaries were written awkwardly, like certain words were out of order. Or forced, like they had to use those words. The order, the intervals. He saw it. The names were the cipher, the length of the names. It was the second part of the code.

The 4/12/1947 obituary was for Adam Jones. 4/5. The first name was 4 letters. The last name was 5. If he took the fourth word of the obituary, then the fifth, it yielded a sentence.

Potential terror attacks in residential neighborhoods in Mar del Plata, Argentina and Cape Town, South Africa

*** Breaking News Update: additional blasts reported in Karachi, Pakistan and Jakarta, Indonesia. We will update this report as details emerge. ***

Cape Town, South Africa // The sound of automatic gun fire and grenade explosions shattered the early morning calm in Cape Town today, as a group estimated at 20 armed assailants entered an apartment building and killed 14 people.

Eye witnesses at the scene described it as a special-operations-style attack. A BBC reporter onsite took this eyewitness statement: “Yeah I seen it, looked like a tank or something, you know, one of them armored troop carriers, rolling up on the curb and then dudes was pouring out it like ninjas or robot soldiers or something, moving all mechanical like and then it’s like the whole building exploded, glass falling all over the place, and I ran up on out of there. I mean, it’s a rough neighborhood, but man, I ain’t never seen nothing like that. I figured, at first, it was, you know, a drug raid. Whatever it was, it done gone real wrong.”

Another witness, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the group had no official insignia on their vehicle or uniforms.

A reporter with Reuters who briefly gained access to the scene before police removed him, described it this way: “It looked to me like a safe house, maybe CIA or MI6. It would have to be somebody very well-funded to have that kind of technology: a situation-room with wall-to-wall computer screens and a massive server room. There were bodies everywhere. About half wore plain-clothes; the rest were dressed in black body armor similar to what witnesses say the attackers wore.”

It remains unclear if the attackers incurred any casualties and were forced to leave anyone behind or if the bodies were those of individuals defending the location.

The BBC sought a comment from both the CIA and MI6 for this report. Both declined.

The incident in Cape Town follows a similar story earlier today in Mar del Plata, Argentina, where a massive explosion in a low-income neighborhood killed 12 people at approximately 2 AM local time. Bystanders say the explosion followed a raid by a heavily armed group that no one could identify.

As with the attack in Cape Town, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack in Mar del Plata.

“It’s very concerning that we have no idea who’s involved,” said Richard Bookmeyer, a Professor at American University. “Based on the initial reports, if either the victims or the perpetrators of the attacks are part

of a terrorist network… it would indicate a level of sophistication not currently thought possible by any known terror entity. It’s either a new actor or a significant evolution of an existing group. Both scenarios would require re-examining what we think we know about the global terrorism landscape.”

David was studying a map of Jakarta and Clocktower’s safe houses around the city when the surveillance tech walked in. “He’s here.” David folded the map up. “Good.”

Josh Cohen walked toward the nondescript apartment building that housed Clocktower’s Jakarta Station Headquarters. The buildings around it were mostly abandoned — a mix of failed housing projects and dilapidated warehouses.

He entered the building, walked down a long hallway, opened a heavy steel door, and approached the shiny silver elevator doors. A panel beside the doors slid back, and he placed his hand on the reflective surface and said, “Josh Cohen. Verify my voice.”

A second panel, this one level with his face, opened and a red beam scanned his face while he held his eyes open and head still.

The elevator binged, opened, and began carrying Josh to the building’s middle floor. The elevator ascended silently, but Josh knew that elsewhere in the building a surveillance tech was reviewing a full body scan of him, verifying he had no bugs, bombs, or otherwise problematic items. If he was carrying anything, the elevator would fill with a colorless, odorless gas and he’d wake up in a holding cell. It would be the last room he’d ever see. If he passed, the elevator would take him to the fourth floor — his home for the last three years and the Jakarta headquarters of Clocktower.

Clocktower was the world’s secret answer to state-less terror: a state-less counter terrorism agency. No red tape. No bureaucracy. Just good guys killing bad guys. It wasn’t quite that simple, but Clocktower was as close as the world would ever get.

Clocktower was independent, a-political, anti-dogmatic, and most importantly, extremely effective. And for those reasons, the intelligence services of nations around the world supported Clocktower, despite knowing almost nothing about it. No one knew when it had started, who directed it, how it was funded, or where it was headquartered. When Josh had joined Clocktower three years ago, he had assumed he would get answers to those questions as a Clocktower insider. He had been wrong. He had risen through the ranks quickly, becoming Chief of Intelligence Analysis for Jakarta Station, but he still knew no more about Clocktower than the day he’d been recruited from the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis. And they seemed to want it that way.

Within Clocktower, information was strictly compartmentalized within the independent cells. Everyone shared intel with Central, everyone got intel from Central, but no cell had the big picture or insight into the larger operation. And for that reason, Josh had been shocked to receive an invitation three days ago to a sort of “Summit Meeting” for the chief analysts of every Clocktower cell. He had confronted David Vale, the Jakarta station director, asking him if this was a joke. He’d said that it wasn’t and that all the directors had been made aware of the meeting.

Josh’s shock at the invitation was quickly trumped by the revelations at the conference. The first surprise was the number of attendees: 238. Josh had assumed Clocktower was relatively small, with maybe 50 or so cells in the world’s hot spots, but instead, the entire globe was represented. Assuming each cell was the size of Jakarta Station, about 50 agents, there could be over 10,000 people working in the cells, plus the central organization, which had to be at least a thousand people just to correlate and analyze the intel, not to mention coordinate the cells.

The organization’s scale was shocking — it could be almost the size of the CIA, which had had around 20,000 total employees when Josh had worked there. And many of those 20,000 worked in analysis in Langley, Virginia, not in the field. Clocktower was lean — it had none of the CIA’s bureaucracies and organization fat.

Clocktower’s specials ops capabilities likely dwarfed that of any government on Earth. Each Clocktower cell had three groups. One third of the staff were case officers, similar to the CIA’s National Clandestine service; they worked undercover in actual terror organizations, cartels, and other bad-guy-run groups or in places where they could develop sources: local government, banks, and police departments. Their goal was Human Intelligence, or HUMINT, first-hand intel.

Another third of each cell worked as analysts. The analysts spent the vast majority of their time on two activities: hacking and guessing. They hacked everyone and everything: phone calls, emails, and texts. They combined that Signals Intelligence, or SIGINT, with the HUMINT and any other local intel and transmitted it to Central. Josh’s chief responsibility was to make sure Jakarta Station maximized its intelligence gathering and to draw conclusions about the intel. Drawing conclusion sounded better than guessing, but his job essentially came down to guessing and making recommendations to the Station Chief. The Station Chief, with council from Central, then authorized local operations, which were conducted by the cell’s covert operations group — the last third of the staff.

Jakarta’s covert ops group had developed a reputation as one of Clocktower’s leading strike teams. That status had afforded Josh something of a celebrity status at the conference. Josh’s cell was the de facto leader of the Asia-Pacific region and everyone wanted to know what their tricks of the trade were.

But not everyone was star-struck with Josh — he was glad to see many of his old friends at the conference. People he had worked with at the CIA or liaised with from other governments. It was incredible, he had been communicating with people he had known for years. Clocktower had a strict policy: every new member got a new name, your past was destroyed, and you couldn’t reveal your identity outside the cell. Outbound phone calls were computer voice-altered. In-person contact was strictly forbidden.

A face-to-face meeting — with every chief analyst, of every cell — shattered that veil of secrecy. It went against every Clocktower operating protocol. Josh knew there must be a reason — something extremely compelling, and extremely urgent — to take the risk, but he never could have guessed the secret Central revealed at the conference. He still couldn’t believe it. And he had to tell David Vale, immediately.

Josh walked to the front of the elevator and stood close to the doors, ready to make a bee line for the station chief’s office.

It was 9 AM, and Jakarta Station would be in full swing. The analysts pit would be lit up like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, with analysts crowded around banks of monitors pointing and arguing. Across the floor, the door to the field ops prep room would be wide open and likely full of operatives getting ready for the day. The late arrivals would be standing in front of their lockers, donning their body armor quickly and stuffing extra magazines in every pocket on their person. The early risers usually sat around on the wood benches and talked about sports and weapons before the morning briefings, their camaraderie interrupted only by the occasional locker room prank.

It was home, and Josh had to admit that he had missed it, although the conference was rewarding in ways he hadn’t anticipated. Knowing he was part of a larger community of chief analysts, people who shared the same life experience as he, people who had the same problems and fears as he did, was surprisingly comforting. In Jakarta, he was head of analysis, he had a team that worked for him, and he answered only to the Station Chief, but he had no real peers, no one to really talk to. Intelligence work was a lonely profession, especially for the people in charge. It had certainly taken its toll on some of his old friends. Many had aged well beyond their years. Others had become hardened and distant. After seeing them, Josh had wondered if he would end up that way. Everything had a price, but he believed in the work they were doing. No job was perfect.

As his thoughts drifted back from the conference, he realized the elevator should have opened by now. When he turned his head to look around, the elevator lights blurred, like a video in slow motion. His body felt heavy. He could hardly breathe. He reached out to grab the elevator rail, but his hand wouldn’t close; it slipped off, and the steel floor rushed up.

“Why won’t you listen to me? Why the hell aren’t you out looking for those two boys?” Kate Warner stood, leaned over the metal table and stared at the smug little interrogator who had already wasted twenty minutes of her time.

“We are trying to find them. That is why we are asking you these questions, Miss Warner.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” The little man tilted his head side-to-side as he said the words.

“You are in Jakarta, Miss Warner. No lawyer, no call to the American Embassy.” The man continued looking down, picking dirt off his boots. “We have many foreigners here, many visitors, many people who come here, who do not respect our country, our people. Before, we fear American Consulate, we give them lawyer, they always get away. We learn. Indonesians are not being as stupid as you think, Miss Warner. That is why you do your work here, is it not? You think we are too stupid to figure out what you are up to?”

Kate would never, in a million years, tell this man why she had left America. Instead, she said, “America is the most expensive place in the world to conduct a clinical trial.”

“Ah, then it is about the cost, yes? Here in Indonesia, you can buy babies to experiment on?”

“But your trial owns these children, does it not?” He turned the file around and pointed at it.

“Miss Warner, your trial is the legal guardian of both of these children, of all 103, is it not?”

“You use different words. So did the Dutch East India Corporation. Do you know of it? I am sure you do. They used the word colony, but they owned Indonesia for over two hundred years. A corporation owned my country and its people, and they treated us as their property, taking what they wanted. In 1947, we finally got our independence. But the memory is still raw for my people. A jury will see this as just the same. You did take these children, did you not? You said it yourself, you did not pay for them.

And I see no record of the parents. They gave no consent to the adoption. Do they even know you have their children?” Kate stared at him.

“I thought so. We are getting somewhere now. It is best to be honest. One last thing, Miss Warner. I see that your research is funded by Immari Jakarta — Research Division. It is probably only coincidence… but very unfortunate… Immari Holdings purchased many of the assets of the Dutch East India Corporation when they were driven out 65 years ago… So the money for your work came from…”

The man stuffed the pages in the folder and stood, as if he were an Indonesian Perry Mason making his closing argument. “You can see how a jury might see this, Miss Warner. Your people leave, but return with a new name and continue to exploit us. Instead of sugar cane and coffee beans in the 1900s, now you want new drugs, you need new Guinea Pigs to experiment on. You take our children, run experiments you could not run in your own country, because you will not do this to your own children, and when something goes wrong, maybe a child gets sick or you think the authorities will find out, you get rid of these children. But something goes wrong. Maybe one of your technicians cannot kill these children. He knows it is wrong. He fights back, and he is killed in the struggle. You know the police will come, so you make up this story about the kidnapping? Yes. You can admit this; it will be better. Indonesia is a merciful place.” “It’s not true.”

“It is the most logical story, Miss Warner. You give us no alternative. You ask for your lawyer. You insist we release you. Think about how this looks.”

The man stood and made for the door. “Very well, Miss Warner. I must warn you, what follows will not be pleasant. It is best to cooperate, but of course, you clever Americans always know best.”

Jin tried to open his eyes, but the light was blinding. His roommate, Wei, huddled over him, whispering something in his ear, but Jin couldn’t make it out. In the background, a booming voice called over the loud speaker, “204394, report immediately. 204394, report immediately. 204394. 204394. Report.”

Jin leapt out of the small bed. How long had they been calling him? His eyes darted left and right, searching the 10x10 cell. Where were his pants and shirt? Please, no — if he was late and forgot his outfit, they would kick him out for sure. Where were they? Where— Wei sat on the opposite bunk, holding up the white cloth pants and shirt. Jin snatched them and pulled them on, almost ripping the pants.

Jin wanted to say something but there wasn’t time. He ran out of the room and down the hall. Several of the cells were empty and most had only one occupant. At the door to the wing, the orderly said “Arm.”

“Quiet,” the man said. He waved a handheld device with a small screen over Jin’s arm. It beeped and the man turned his head and yelled “That’s it.” He opened the door for Jin. “Go ahead.”

Jin joined about fifty other “residents,” and three orderlies escorted them to a large room with several long rows of chairs. The rows were separated by tall cubicle-like walls. The chairs looked almost like reclining beach chairs. Beside each chair, a tall silver pole held three bags of clear liquid, each with a tube hanging down. On the other side of each chair stood a machine with more readouts than a car dashboard and a bundle of wires hanging from the bottom, tied off on the chair rail.

Jin had never seen anything like it. It never happened like this. Since he had arrived at the facility six months ago, the daily routine had rarely changed: breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the exact same times, always the same meals; after each meal, blood draws from the valve-like device they had implanted in his right arm; and sometimes, exercise in the afternoon, monitored by electrodes on his chest. The rest of the time, they were confined to the 10x10 cells, with two beds and a toilet. Every few days or so they took a picture of him with a big machine that made a low droning sound. They were always telling him to lie still.

They showered once per week, in a large, co-ed group shower. That was by far the worst part — trying to control the urges in the shower. During his first month, a couple was caught fooling around. No one ever saw them again.

Last month, Jin had tried to stay in his cell during shower time, but they had caught him. The supervisor had stormed into his cell. “We’ll kick you out if you disobey again,” he had said. Jin was scared to death. They were paying him $2 per day — a fortune, an absolute fortune. And he had no other options.

His family had lost their farm near Burang. No one could afford the taxes on a small farm anymore; a larger farm, maybe. Land values were skyrocketing and the population was swelling throughout China. So his family did what many other farm families had done: sent their oldest for work in the city while the parents and younger children held on.

His older brother found work in a factory making electronics. Jin and his parents visited him a month after he started. The conditions were much worse than here, and the work was already taking its toll — the strong, vibrant 21-year-old man who had left his family’s farm looked to have aged 20 years. He was pale, his hair was thinning, and he walked with a slight stoop. He coughed constantly. He said there had been a bug at the factory and everyone in his barracks had gotten it, but Jin didn’t believe him. His brother gave his parents $15 he had saved from his $.75/day salary. “Just think, in 5-10 years, I’ll have enough to buy us another farm. I’ll come home and we’ll start again.” They had all acted very excited. His parents had said they were so proud of him.

On their way home, Jin’s father told them that tomorrow, he would go and find better work. That with his skills, he could surely make supervisor somewhere. He’d make good money. Jin and his mother simply nodded.

That night, Jin heard his mother crying, and shortly after, his father shouting. They never fought.

The next night, Jin slipped out of his room, wrote them a note, and left for Chongqing, the nearest major city. The city was filled with people looking for work, and they weren’t kind to newcomers. The lines were long, and assuming you were tough enough to muscle your way into line, you were rarely hired.

Jin was turned down at the first seven places he applied. The eighth place was different. They had line monitors that made sure no one applying got beat up. They didn’t ask any questions. They put a cotton stick in his mouth and made him wait in a large holding room for an hour. Most of the people were dismissed. After another hour, they called his number — 204394 — and told him they could hire him at a medical research facility, for $2/day. He signed the forms so fast his hand cramped.

He couldn’t believe his luck. He assumed the conditions were dire, but he couldn’t have been more wrong — it was a resort, like one of those American health spas in the magazines they sold in big cities. And now he had screwed it all up. Surely they were kicking him out. They had called his number.

Maybe he had enough for a new farm. Or maybe he could find another research place. He’d heard that the big factories in China exchanged lists of bad workers. Those people couldn’t find work anywhere. That would be the kiss of death.

“What the hell are you waiting for!” The orderly shouted. “Find a seat.”

Jin and the other fifty or so white-clad, barefooted “workers” scrambled for chairs. Elbows flew, people pushed, and several people tripped. Everyone seemed to find a chair but Jin. Every time he reached a chair, someone would sink into it at the last second. What if he didn’t find a chair? Maybe it was a test. Maybe he should—

“People. Relax, relax. Mind the equipment,” the orderly said. “Just find the closest chair.”

Another group of staff entered. They wore long white coats and carried tablet computers. A young-looking woman came over to him and hooked the bags to his arm valve and attached the round sensors to his body. She tapped a few times on her screen and moved to the chair beside him.

Jin awoke in the same chair. The bags were detached, but the sensors were still connected. He felt groggy and stiff, like he had the flu. He tried to lift his head up. It was so heavy. A white coat came over, ran a flashlight across his eyes, then unhooked the sensors and told him to go and stand with the others by the door.

When he stood, his legs almost buckled. He steadied himself on the arm of his chair, then hobbled over to the group. They all looked half asleep.

There were maybe 25 of them, about half of the group that had entered. Where were the rest? Had he slept too long — again? Is this punishment? Would they tell him why? After a few minutes, another man joined them, he seemed in even worse shape than Jin and the rest.

The orderlies ushered them through another long passageway and into a enormous room he’d never seen before. The room was completely empty and the walls were very smooth. He got the impression that it was a vault or something.

Several minutes passed. He fought the urge to sit down on the floor. He hadn’t been told he could sit. He stood there, his heavy head hanging.

The door opened, and two children were escorted in. They couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. The guards left them with the group, the door closing behind them with a loud boom.

The children weren’t drugged, or Jin didn’t think so. They looked alert. They moved quickly through the crowd of people. They were brown. Not Chinese. They both spoke rapidly, wandering from person to person, trying to find someone to respond to them. What language were they speaking? Jin was too tired to think about it.

At the end of the room, he heard a mechanical sound, like a winch. After a few seconds, he realized something was being lowered. His head was so heavy. He strained to lift it. He could barely see the device. It looked like a massive iron chess pawn with a flat head, or maybe a bell with smooth, straight sides. It must have been twenty feet tall and heavy because the four cables that lowered it were huge, maybe twelve inches around. When it was about ten feet off the ground, it stopped and two of the cables moved down the wall along a track Jin hadn’t noticed before. They stopped about level with the huge machine and seemed to tighten, anchoring it at each side. Jin strained to look up. There was another cable running from the top of the machine. It was even fatter than the ones at the sides. Unlike the others, it wasn’t metal, or even solid. It seemed to hold a bundle of wires or computer cables, like some sort of electronic umbilical cord.

The children had stopped in the middle of the crowd. All the adults tried to look up.

His eyes adjusted, and Jin could just make out a marking etched into the side of the machine. It looked like the Nazi symbol, the—. He couldn’t remember the name. He felt so sleepy.

The machine was dark, but Jin thought he could hear a faint throbbing sound, like someone rhythmically beating on a solid door — boom-boomboom. Or maybe the sound of the picture machine. Was it a different picture machine? A group picture? The boom-boom-boom grew louder with each passing second, and a light emerged from the top of the giant pawn — its head apparently had short windows. The yellow-orange light flickered with each pulse of the boom, giving it almost the effect of a lighthouse.

Jin was so entranced by the machine’s sound and light pulses, he didn’t notice the people falling around him. Something was happening. And it was happening to him too. His legs felt heavier. He heard a sound like bending metal — the machine was pulling against the cables at each side; it was trying to lift.

The pull of the floor got stronger with each passing second. Jin looked around but couldn’t see the children. Jin felt someone grab his shoulder. He turned to find a man holding on to him. His face had deep wrinkles, and blood ran from his nose. Jin realized that the skin from the man’s hands was coming off on Jin’s clothes. It wasn’t just skin. The man’s blood began to spread over Jin’s shirt. The man fell forward onto him, and they both collapsed to the ground. Jin heard the boom-boom-boom of the machine blend into one constant drone of sound and solid light as he felt blood flow from his nose down his face. Then the light and sound suddenly stopped.

In the control room, Dr. Shen Chang and his team stood and watched as the test subjects collapsed into a pile of wrinkled, bloody bodies.

Chang slumped into his chair. “Okay, that’s it, shut it off.” He took his glasses off and tossed them on the table. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. “I have to report this to the director.” The man would not be happy.

Chang rose and walked toward the door. “And start the clean-up, don’t bother with autopsies.” The result had been the same as the last twenty-five tests.

The two-man cleanup crew swung back-forth-back-forth and released the body, hurling it into the rolling plastic bin. The bin held around ten bodies, give or take. Today would probably mean three trips to the incinerator, maybe two if they could stack them on top.

They had cleaned up a lot worse; at least these bodies were intact. It took forever when they were in pieces.

It was hard to work in the hazmat suits, but it was better than the alternative.

They lifted another body and swung forward, then— Something was moving in the pile.

Two children were struggling under the bodies, fighting to crawl out. They were covered in blood.

One man began clearing bodies. The other turned to the cameras and waved his arms. “Hey! We’ve got two live ones!”

Josh Cohen tried to open his eyes but the light was too bright. His head was throbbing.

Josh could barely make out a blurry figure sitting by him on a hard bed. Where was he? It looked like one of the station’s holding cells. The man brought a pellet to Josh’s nose and cracked it open with a loud pop. Josh inhaled the worst smell of his entire life — a sharp, overwhelming ammonia smell that coursed through his airways, inflated his lungs, and sent him reeling backwards, hitting his head against the wall. The constant throbbing turned to a sharp pain. He closed his eyes tight and rubbed his head.

He could open his eyes now, and he realized that David was in full body armor and there were two other field operatives with him, standing by the door to the cell.

“I think so.” Josh struggled to his feet. He was still groggy from the gas that had knocked him out in the elevator.

Josh followed David and the two operatives out of the room with the holding cells and down a long hallway that led to the server room. At the server room door, David turned to the other two soldiers. “Wait here. Radio me if anyone enters the corridor.”

Inside the server room, David resumed his brisk pace, and Josh had to almost jog to keep up. The Station Chief was just over six feet tall and muscular, not quite as beefy as some of the linebacker-esque ops guys, but big enough to give any drunken bar-brawler pause.

They snaked their way through the crowded server room, dodging tower after tower of metal cabinets with green, yellow, and red blinking lights. The room was cool, and the constant hum of the machines was slightly disorienting. The three-person IT group was constantly working on the servers, adding, removing, and replacing hardware. The place was a pigsty. Josh tripped over a cord, but before he hit the ground, David turned, caught him, and pushed him back to his feet.

David said nothing but walked a bit slower the rest of the way to a metal closet at the back of the server room. David pushed the closet aside, revealing a silver door and a panel beside it. The red light of a palm scan flashed over his hand, and another panel opened and performed a facial and retinal scan. When it finished, the wall parted, revealing an iron door that looked like something from a battleship.

David opened the iron door with a second palm scan and led Josh into a room probably half the size of a gymnasium. The cavern had concrete walls and their footsteps echoed loudly as they approached the center of the room, where a small glass box, about twelve feet by twelve feet, hung from thick twisted metal cords. The glass box was softly lit, and Josh couldn’t see inside it, but he already knew what it was.

Josh had suspected the cell had such a room, but he’d never seen it in person. It was a quiet room. The entire Jakarta station headquarters was a kind of quiet room — it was shielded from every manner of listening device. There was no need for further precautions within the station — unless you didn’t want another member of the cell to hear you.

There were certainly protocols that required it. He suspected the Chief talked with other station chiefs via phone and video in this room. Maybe even with Central.

As they approached the room, a short flight of glass stairs descended and quickly retracted after they climbed into the room. A glass door closed behind them. A bank of computer screens hung on the far wall of the room, but other than that, Josh thought the room was surprisingly sparse: a simple fold-out table with four chairs, two phones and a conference speaker, and an old steel filing cabinet. The furniture was cheap and a bit out of place, like something you might see in the on-site trailer at a construction site.

“Take a seat,” David said. He walked to the file cabinet and withdrew several folders.

“I think you better let me start.” David joined Josh at the table and placed the files between them.

“With due respect, what I have to report may change your entire perspective. It may cause a major reassessment. A reassessment of every active operation at Jakarta station and even how we analyze every—”

“I do. You’re going to tell me that the vast majority of the terror threats we’re tracking, including operations in developed nations that we don’t yet understand — aren’t the work of a dozen separate terrorist and fundamentalist groups as we’d suspected.”

When Josh said nothing, David continued, “You’re going to tell me that Clocktower now believes that these groups are all simply different faces of one global super-group, an organization with a scale exceeding anyone’s wildest projections.”

“Yes. But not recently. I began putting the pieces together before I joined Clocktower. I was officially told when I made station chief.”

Josh looked away. It wasn’t exactly a betrayal, but realizing something this big had been kept from him — the head of analysis — was a punch in the gut. At the same time, he wondered if he should have put it all together, if David was disappointed that he hadn’t figured it out on his own.

David seemed to sense Josh’s disappointment. “For what it’s worth, I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now, but it was need-to-know only. And there’s something else you should know. Of the 240-or-so attendees at the analysts conference, 142 never made it home.”

“The conference was the test. From the minute you arrived until you walked out, you were under video and audio surveillance. Like the suspects we interrogate here, the conference organizers were measuring voice stress, pupil dilation, eye movement, and a dozen other markers. In short— watching the analysts’ reactions throughout the conference.”

“Yes, but more importantly, to see who already knew what was being presented, specifically, which analysts already knew there was a superterror group behind the scenes. The conference was a Clocktower-wide mole hunt.”

At that moment, the glass room around Josh seemed to disappear. He could hear David talking in the background, but he was lost in his thoughts. The conference was a perfect cover for a sting. All Clocktower agents, even analysts, were trained in standard counter-espionage methods. Beating a lie detector was first base. But telling a lie as if it were true was much easier than faking an emotional response to a surprise, and sustaining the reactions, with credible body metrics, for three days — it was impossible.

Josh looked up. “No, I’m sorry, it’s a lot to take in… Clocktower has been compromised.”

“Yes, and I need you to focus now. Things are happening quickly, and I need your help. The analyst test was the first step in Clocktower’s firewall protocol. Around the world, right now, the Chief Analysts who returned from the conference are meeting with their Station Chiefs in quiet rooms just like this one, trying to figure out how to secure their cells.”

“I’d be shocked if it wasn’t. There’s more. The analyst purge has set events in motion. The plan, Firewall Protocol, was to screen the analysts for moles and for the remaining Chief Analysts and Station Chiefs to work together to identify anyone who could be a double.”

“It would have, but we’ve underestimated the scope of the breach. I need to tell you a little about how Clocktower is organized. You know about how many cells there are — 200-250 at any given time. You should know that we had already identified some of the chief analysts as moles — about 60.

“Actors. Mostly field agents who had worked as analysts before, anyone who could fake it. We had to. Some of the analysts already knew the approximate number of Clocktower cells and the actors provided an operational benefit: they could facilitate the 3-day-lie-detection, ask pointed questions, elicit responses, get reactions.”

“That’s one of the questions we have to answer. There’s more. Not all the cells are like Jakarta Station. The vast majority are little more than listening posts; they manage a small group of case officers and send Central the HUMINT and SIGINT they collect. A compromised listening post is bad, it means whoever this global enemy is, they have been using those cells to collect intel and maybe even send us bogus data.” “We could be essentially blind,” Josh said.

“That’s right. Our best case scenario was that this enemy had co-opted our intelligence gathering in preparation for a massive attack. We now know that that’s only half of it. Several of the major cells are also compromised. These are cells similar to Jakarta station, with intelligence gathering and significant covert ops forces. We are one of 20 major cells. These cells are the last line of defense, the thin red line that separates the world from whatever this enemy is planning.”

“We don’t know. But three major cells have already fallen — Karachi, Cape Town, and Mar del Plata have all reported that the cell’s own special forces swept through their HQ, killing most of the analysts and the Station Chiefs. There have been no communications from them for hours. Satellite surveillance over Argentina confirms the destruction of the Mar del Plata HQ. The Cape Town insurgents were assisted by outside forces. As we speak, firefights are on-going in Seol, Dehli, Dhaka, and Lahore. Those stations may hold, but we should assume they will be lost as well. Right now our own special ops forces could be preparing to take over Jakarta Station, or it could be happening this second, outside this room, but I doubt that.”

“I believe they’ll wait for you to return. Given what you know, you’re a liability. Whenever they attack, you’ll be at the top of the target list. The morning briefing would be the ideal time for a strike; they’re probably waiting for that.”

Josh felt his mouth go dry. “That’s why you grabbed me off the elevator.” He thought for a moment. “So what now, you want me to identify the threats on the staff before the briefing? We initiate a preemptive attack?”

“No. That was the original plan, but we’re past that now. We have to assume Jakarta Station will fall. If we’re compromised as badly as the other major cells, it’s only a matter of time. We have to look at the big picture and try to figure out our adversary’s end game. We have to assume that one or more cells will survive and that they will be able to use anything we learn. If not, maybe one of the national agencies. But there’s still one question you haven’t asked, a very important one.”

Josh thought for a second. “Why now? And why start with the analysts? Why didn’t you clean the field operatives first?”

“Very good.” David flipped open a folder. “Seven days ago, I was contacted by an anonymous source who said two things. 1: there was an imminent terrorist attack — on a scale we’ve never seen before. And 2: that Clocktower had been compromised.” David arranged a few pages. “He included a list of 60 analysts that he claimed were compromised. We shadowed them for a few days and confirmed them making dead-drops and unauthorized communications. It checked out. The source said there might be more. The rest you know: the other station chiefs and I organized the analyst conference. We interrogated and quarantined the compromised analysts, replacing them with actors at the conference. Whoever the source is, he either didn’t know about the field agents or didn’t disclose it for his own reasons. The source refused to meet, and I received no other communications from him. We proceeded with the conference and after… the purge. The source was radio-silent. Then, late last night, he contacted me again. He said he wanted to deliver the other half of the intel he promised, details of a massive attack code-named Toba Protocol. We were supposed to meet this morning at Manggarai Station, but he didn’t show. Someone with a bomb did. But I think he wanted to be there. A kid gave me a newspaper with this message right after the attack.” David pushed a page across the table.

“Yes, it’s surprising. The other messages were straight-forward. But now it makes sense.”

“Whatever the code is, it’s the real message — it’s what the entire setup has been about. The source wanted the analyst purge to happen so he could send his coded message at the right time — and know it would be decoded by someone who wasn’t a double agent — namely you. He wanted us focused on cleaning up the analysts and delaying the fireworks until he could send this message. Had we known how thoroughly we had been compromised, we would have quarantined the field operatives first and sent Clocktower into total lock-down. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Yeah, but why even bother with a code? Why not send the message in the open like the previous communications?”

“It’s a good question. He must be under surveillance as well. Communicating whatever he’s trying to tell us in the open must have repercussions; maybe it would cause his death or speed up this terrorist attack. So whoever is watching him assumes we don’t know what the message says yet. That may be why they haven’t taken more of the cells down — they still think they can contain Clocktower,” David said.

Josh thought for a moment. “Right, why not the director of Clocktower, all the other Clocktower Station Chiefs, or simply alert all the world’s intelligence agencies? They would have more far-reaching power to stop an attack. Maybe tipping them would start the attack early — just like sending the message in the open. Or… you could be in a unique position to stop the attack…” Josh looked up. “or you know something.”

“That’s right. I mentioned earlier that I began investigating this super terrorist group before I joined Clocktower.” David stood, walked to the filing cabinet and withdrew two more folders. “I’m going to show you something I’ve been working on for over ten years, something I’ve never shown anyone else, even Clocktower.”

Kate leaned back in the chair and thought about her options. She would have to tell the investigator how the trial had begun. Even if he didn’t believe it, she had to get it on the record in case she went to trial. “Stop,” she said.

Kate set her chair down and put her arms on the table. “There’s a very good reason why my trial adopted those children. There’s something you should understand. When I came to Jakarta, I expected to run this trial like any other trial in America. That was my first mistake. We failed… and we… changed our approach.”

The little man turned from the door, sat down, and listened as Kate described how she had spent weeks preparing for patient recruitment.

The trial had hired a Contract Research Organization (CRO) to run the trial, just as they would have in the US. In the US, pharmaceutical companies focus on developing a new drug or therapy, and when they have something promising, they hire a CRO to test it for them. The CROs find medical clinics with doctors interested in clinical research. The clinics, or sites, enroll willing patients into the trial, administer the new drug/therapy, then test them periodically for any health problems — adverse events. The CRO keeps close tabs on every site in the trial, reporting results to the sponsor/research organization, who makes their own reports to the FDA or governing body in countries around the world. The ultimate goal was a trial with the desired therapeutic effect without any negative or adverse effects. It was a long road, and less than 1% of drugs that worked in the lab ever made it to pharmacy shelves.

There was only one problem: Jakarta, and Indonesia at large, had no autism clinics and only a handful of specialty practices focusing on developmental disorders. Those clinics weren’t experienced in clinical research — a dangerous situation for patients. The pharmaceutical industry was tiny in Indonesia, mostly because the market was small (Indonesia imported mostly generic drugs), so very few doctors were ever contacted about research.

The CRO came up with a novel concept: engage parents directly and run a clinic to administer the therapy. Kate and the trial’s lead investigator, Dr. John Helms, met with the CRO at length, searching for any alternatives. There were none. Kate urged Dr. Helms to move forward with the plan, and finally, he agreed.

They built a list of families within 100 miles of Jakarta that had any child on the autism spectrum. Kate booked an auditorium at one of the nicest hotels in town and invited the families to a presentation.

She wrote, re-wrote, and revised the trial booklet for days-on-end. Finally, Ben had barged into her office and said he would leave the trial if she didn’t just let it go; they were ready to recruit. Kate relented, the pamphlet went to the ethics committee, then the printer, and they prepared for the event.

When the day came, she stood by the door, ready to greet each family as they arrived. She wished her hands would stop sweating. She wiped them on her pants every few minutes. First impressions were everything. Confidence, trust, expertise.

She waited. Would they have enough booklets? They had 1,000 on hand, and although they had sent only 600 invitations, both parents could show up. Other families could show up — there was no reliable database or registry of affected families in Indonesia. What would they do? She told Ben to be ready to use the hotel copier just in case; he could prepare copies of the highlights while she talked.

Fifteen minutes past the hour. The first two mothers appeared. Kate dried her hand again before shaking vigorously and talking just a little too loud. “Great to have you here—thank you for coming—no, this is the place —take a seat, we’ll get started any moment—” Thirty minutes past the hour.

She circled the six mothers, making small talk. “I don’t know what happened—what day did you get the invitation?—no, we invited others—I think it must be a problem with the post…”

Finally, Kate led the six attendees to a small conference room in the hotel to make it less awkward for everyone. She gave a short presentation as one-by-one, each of the mothers begged off, saying they had children to pick up, jobs to get back to, and the like.

Downstairs, at the hotel bar, Dr. Helms got drunk as a skunk. When Kate joined him, the gray-haired man leaned close and said, “I told you it wouldn’t work. We’ll never recruit in this town, Kate. Why the hell— heyho, bar keep, yeah, over here, I’ll have another, uh-huh same thing, good man. What was I saying? Oh yes, we need to wrap it up, quickly, I’ve got an offer in Oxford. God I miss Oxford, it’s too blasted humid here, feels like a sauna all the time. And, I must admit, I did my best work there. Speaking of…” He leaned even closer. “I don’t want to jinx it by saying the words No. Bel. Prize. But… I’ve heard my name’s been submitted — this could be my year, Kate. Can’t wait to forget about this debacle. When will I learn? I guess I’ve got a soft heart when it comes to a good cause.”

Kate wanted to point out that his soft heart had certainly driven a hard bargain — three times her salary and his name first on any publication or patents — despite the fact that the entire study was based on her postdoctoral research, but she held her tongue and swallowed the last of her Chardonnay.

“Stop right there, Kate. You can do anything you set your mind to. You always have. There are 200 million people in Indonesia and almost seven billion people on this tiny planet. And as many as half of one percent could be somewhere on the autism spectrum — that’s 35 million people — the population of Texas. You’ve sent letters to 600 families. Don’t give up. I won’t let you. I’ll make a call tomorrow morning to Immari Research’s head of funding, they’ll continue funding you — whether that hack John Helms is on the study or not.”

The call reminded Kate of the night she had called him from San Francisco, when Martin had promised her Jakarta would be a great place to start over and to continue her research. Maybe he would be right after all.

The next morning, she walked into the lab and told Ben to order a lot more study booklets. And to find translators. They were going out to the villages. They would widen the net — and they wouldn’t wait for families to come to them. She fired the CRO. She ignored Dr. Helms protests.

Two weeks later, they loaded up three vans with four researchers, eight translators, and crate after crate of the trial books printed in five languages: Indonesian/Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, and Betawi. Kate had agonized over the language choices as well: over 700 distinct languages were spoken throughout Indonesia, but in the end, she had chosen the five most commonly spoken in Jakarta and throughout the island of Java. She would be damned if her autism trial would fail due to a communication breakdown.

As with the hotel in downtown Jakarta, her preparations were an entirely wasted effort. Upon entering the first village, Kate and her team were amazed: there were no autistic children. The villagers weren’t interested in the booklets. The translators told her that no one had ever seen a child with these problems. It didn’t make any sense. There should have been at least two, maybe three potential participants in every village, possibly more.

At the next village, Kate noticed one of the translators, an older man, leaning against the van while the team and remaining translators went doorto-door.

The man held up his hands. “I mean no offense, ma’am. I only mean you ask the wrong questions. And you ask the wrong people.”

Kate scrutinized the man. “Ok. Who would you ask? And what would you ask them?”

The man pushed off from the van and walked deeper into the village, past the nicer homes. On the outskirts, he knocked on the first door, and when a short woman answered, he spoke quickly, in a harsh tone, occasionally pointing at Kate. The scene made her cringe. She selfconsciously pulled the lapels of her white coat together. She had agonized over her wardrobe as well, ultimately deciding that projecting a credible, clinical appearance was the order of the day. She could only imagine how she looked to the villagers, who were mostly dressed in clothes they had made themselves from scraps taken home from the sweatshops or the remains of partially-disintegrated hand-me-downs.

She realized the woman was gone, and Kate stepped forward to question the man, but he held up a hand as the woman returned to the door, pushing three children out to stand before them. They stared at their feet and stood still as statues. The translator walked from child-to-child, looking them up and down. Kate shifted her weight a bit, contemplating what to do. The children were healthy; none showed even the slightest signs of autism. At the last child, the man bent down and shouted again. The mother quickly said something, but he yelled at her, and she fell silent. The child nervously said three words. The translator said something, and the child repeated the words. Kate wondered if they were names? Possibly places?

The translator stood and began pointing and yelling at the woman again. She shook her head furiously, repeating a phrase over-and-over. After several minutes of the translator’s badgering, she looked down and began speaking in low tones. She pointed to another shack. The translator’s voice was soft for the first time, and the woman seemed relieved by his words. She herded the children back inside, almost cutting the last one in half as she quickly closed the door.

The scene at the second shack unfolded much like the first: the translator shouted and pointed, Kate stood awkwardly, and the nervous villager presented her four children then waited with worry in her eyes. This time, when the translator asked the child, he said five words, names Kate believed. The mother protested, but the translator ignored her, pressing the child. When he answered, the large man sprang up, pushed the children and their mother aside, and burst through the door. Kate was caught off guard, but when the mother and children followed into the home, she did as well.

The shack was a crowded, three room hovel. She almost tripped walking through it. At the rear of the home, she found the translator and woman arguing more vehemently than before. At their feet, a small child, a gaunt child, was tied to a wooden beam that held the roof up. He was gagged, but she could hear low rhythmic noises coming from his mouth as he rocked back-and-forth, hitting his head on the beam.

Kate grabbed the translator’s arm, “What is this? Tell me what’s going on here.”

The man looked from Kate back to the mother, seemingly caught between his master and a caged animal whose volume and hysterics seem to grow by the moment. Kate squeezed the man’s arm and jerked him toward her, and he began explaining. “She says it is not her fault. He is a disobedient child. He will not eat her food. He will not do as she says. He does not play with the children. She says he does not even answer his own name.”

They were all classic signs of autism, a severe case. Kate looked down at the child.

The man added “She insists it is not her fault. She says she has kept him longer than the others, but she can not—”

The translator conversed with the woman in a normal tone, then turned to Kate. “Beyond the village. There’s a place where they take the children who won’t respect their parents, the ones that disobey constantly, that won’t be a part of their family.”

The translator coaxed more information out of the woman, then pointed toward the door for them to leave. The woman called after them. The man turned to Kate. “She wants to know if we will take him.”

The translator led Kate to a patch of deserted forest, just south of the village. After an hour of looking they had found nothing, but they continued searching. Occasionally, Kate heard the leaves and trees rustle as game moved about. The sun would set soon, and she wondered what this forest would be like then. Indonesia was entirely tropical; the temperature was nearly constant from day-to-day and season-to-season. The Javanese jungles were dangerous, untamed areas, home to all sorts of snakes, large cats, and insects. No place for a child. In the distance, she heard screaming and the translator call to her, “Dr. Warner, come quickly.”

She dashed across the dense forest, tripping once and fighting her way through the overgrowth. She found the translator holding a child, even more gaunt than the boy at the shack. Even with his dark brown skin, she could see the dirt and grime caked on his face. He fought the translator’s hold like a caged banshee.

“Are there any others?” Kate asked. She saw a lean-to, a ragged shelter about 50 yards away. Was there a child lying there? She started for it.

“Do not go there, Dr. Warner.” He tightened his grip on the child. “There are no others… to take back. Please help me.”

She took the child’s other arm, and they escorted him back to the vans. They gathered the research team, then retrieved the child that had been tied to the beam, who they learned was named Adi. The child from the forest had no name, and they knew they would never find his parents or anyone who would ever own up to what had been done to him. Kate named him Surya.

When the research team assembled at the van, Kate cornered her translator. “Now I want you to tell me what you did back there — exactly what you said.”

The man sighed. “I told them you are a humanitarian organization who is doing child welfare—” “What?” Kate said.

The man straightened. “That is what they are thinking you are anyway, so it makes no difference. They do not know what this clinical trial is. They have never heard of such a thing. Look around you, these people live just as they did a thousand years ago. I tell them you have to see their children and that you will help any that need help. Still they do not trust it. Some believe they will get in trouble, but many simply worry word will get around. Here, it is a dangerous thing to have a child with problems, people keep them out of sight. If word gets around, the other children will have problems finding a mate — they will say, ‘maybe you have his child and he is a problem like his father’s brother.’ They will say ‘it is in his blood.’ But the children tell the truth when I ask them to name their brothers and sisters. Children do not yet know to lie about this.”

Kate considered the man’s story. It had certainly worked. She turned to the team: “Ok. This is our new approach.”

Dr. Helms stepped toward Kate and the translator. “I won’t do it. Lying to a parent to enroll a child in a clinical trial violates basic medical ethics and is simply morally wrong.” He paused for effect. “Regardless of their circumstances or the community’s social norms.” He stared at Kate and then the other staff.

Kate interrupted his revelry. “Suit yourself. You can wait in the van, and so can anyone else who wants to leave these kids here to die.”

The doctor turned to her to fire another volley, but Ben cut him off. “Well, I’m in. I hate waiting in the van. And killing kids for that matter.” He turned and started packing up the gear, only pausing to ask the other staff for help.

The remaining three assistants reluctantly began to help, and only then did Kate realize how on the fence they had been. She made a mental note to thank Ben, but the pace of the day soon picked up, and she forgot.

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