by Barry Eisler
He shook off the daydream, knowing he had to work with the tools available to him today. Tomorrow was another matter.
Istanbul, he wondered. Why Istanbul for the meeting? Close enough to Ankara for Perkins to be able to slip away and travel by train or by car. No cell phone, no credit cards, no electronic breadcrumbs. Ankara would have been more convenient, but if Hamilton were on any kind of watch list—and he was—his presence in Ankara might have drawn suspicion onto Perkins once the Intercept published whatever Perkins was handing over.
All of which meant there might still be a chance to contain the damage. If this was the first meeting . . . if nothing had been transferred electronically yet, or, even if it had, if no one else had the encryption keys . . . if they were planning on spending at least a little time together so Perkins could bring Hamilton up to speed . . .
He had to be careful, though. Gallagher was suspicious. Not so suspicious she was afraid to share the suspicions with him, he was glad to see. But suspicious enough. On top of which, she was smart, and observant. Another suicide—or worse, two suicides—of problems Gallagher herself had flagged would likely worsen her concern. He needed something even more deniable.
But no matter how deniable, Gallagher would have to be watched. In his experience, suspicion was like flu. Many people caught it, but only a relatively few succumbed. Given time and proper treatment, most got better. But the illness still had to be monitored. You couldn’t let a fever reach a point where it threatened the health of the body.
Most of all, you couldn’t take a chance on contagion.
He thought about Hamilton. For a moment, he felt . . . not bad, exactly. But sorrowful. Some of his colleagues looked at the world through a cartoon prism in which their domestic enemies hated America and loved the terrorists and other such comforting absurdities. Anders understood human nature to be generally more subtle than that, and assumed Hamilton loved his country in his distorted way, no matter how much his activities were likely to harm it. Well, there was a sort of solemn pride in knowing the reporter’s death wouldn’t be in vain. That the manner of his dying would actually serve to unite Americans, to bring them together in strength and common purpose. Hamilton would never know, and even if he could, would never understand, but in an odd way, Anders respected him. If the man had to die—and he did—wouldn’t he want his organs to be harvested, for example, that he might give the gift of life to others? Of course he would. As would any decent person. And there was some solace in the knowledge that Anders was honoring Hamilton by making his death the occasion for an equivalent bestowal. That he was mitigating Hamilton’s loss, not magnifying its tragedy.
He called in Remar, who sat ramrod-straight facing the director’s desk during the briefing—the posture he tended to adopt, Anders knew, when he was resisting difficult conclusions. And indeed, predictably, Remar remonstrated about what clearly needed to be done. But also predictably, in the end, he reluctantly agreed there was no other way. Only after they had agreed on a plan did Remar ask, “Why do you think he did it?”
Anders leaned back in his desk chair, relieved the difficult part of the conversation was done. “Who knows? He had a strained relationship with his family, which I know he attributed to the demands of the job and how it took him away from them. Maybe this was his way of showing them he was one of the good guys. Or maybe it was some misplaced sense of conscience, growing like a tumor as he got older and more aware of his own mortality. I knew some of this might have presented a vulnerability. I should have taken it more seriously.”
“You can’t know everything.”
“Our job is to know everything.”
Remar’s expression remained frozen. Sometimes it was hard to know whether the impassivity was the result of his injuries, or whether he was trying to hide his thoughts.
After a moment he said, “This couldn’t have been . . . there’s no way Perkins could have known anything about God’s Eye, right?”
Anders shook his head at the absurdity of the thought. But he felt a tightness in his gut that was like a flashback to the night Remar had awakened him with the news about Snowden.
“It’s impossible that Perkins could have known anything,” he said after a moment. “You and I are the only ones who have full access. The only ones who even know it exists, at least on a big-picture level. But . . . let’s conduct an audit. Personally conduct it, obviously.”
Remar nodded. “Of course. But . . . would you agree that now would be a good time to call it something else?”
“You’ve never come up with anything better.”
“I know, but—”
“God’s Eye fits. It’s perfectly descriptive.”
“What I’m saying is, The Patriot Act and The Freedom Act . . . those were effective names. They made surveillance sound good. Carnivore, Total Information Awareness . . . those programs came under fire because the names sounded scary.”
“The Eye of Providence is already ubiquitous. It’s on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, and the back of every one-dollar bill. It’s familiar. Comforting. But none of this is even relevant. Because God’s Eye is not going to get out.”
“Of course not, but—”
“What we’re talking about now is just a precaution. No more than looking under the bed to make sure the bogeyman isn’t hiding there. Confirming what we already know.”
“Fine, but—”
“Look, God’s Eye was secure even before Snowden, yes? We know this for a certainty. Because—”
“—because if Snowden had access to God’s Eye, he would have revealed it.”
“Exactly. Just like if al-Qaeda had access to nukes before 9/11, New York and Washington would have been vaporized. In both cases, the absence of evidence—”
“—was evidence of absence.”
“Correct. And even so, out of an abundance of caution, we had Chambers increase all the security protocols.”
Remar looked at him, the old disapproval in his eyes. “Aerial was an amazing talent. And loyal.”
Anders didn’t like Remar referring to Chambers by her first name. Well, her nickname—her real name was Nicole—but that was even worse. It made what was purely a national security decision seem more personal. Worse, he didn’t like the probe. He looked into Remar’s eye. “Are you questioning my decision, General Remar?”
Remar dropped his gaze. “What’s done is done. But if you’re not worried Perkins might have accessed God’s Eye, why such extreme measures?”
“Just because there’s no way Perkins could create Armageddon doesn’t mean he doesn’t represent catastrophe. You want another Snowden? The costs of all that publicity, the distractions? That damn Greenwald, mocking NSA for being the only organization to lose the data we’ve been trying to get back?”
“No, of course not.”
“Not to mention how it’s going to make us look personally if it happens again.”
Remar nodded.
Anders sighed. “We don’t know what Perkins was up to. But we can assume if the SUSLA Turkey, of all people, thought it was newsworthy, it was going to be damaging. Exceptionally damaging.”
Remar nodded again, seemingly mollified. “Who do you want on it?”
“I’m thinking Delgado for Perkins. Manus for the journalist.”
“Perkins is the finesse job, the journalist is brute force?”
Anders shook his head. “Don’t misjudge Manus. Just because he can’t hear doesn’t mean he’s incapable of finesse.”
“I don’t know about that guy, Ted. I can never tell what’s he thinking.”
Anders looked at Remar’s ruined face, and refrained from noting that the same could be said for his XO.
“It’s not what he’s thinking, Mike. It’s what he does.”
“He doesn’t make you nervous?”
“I know how to handle him.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s what matters.”
“I know
he’s loyal to you. Like a . . . I don’t know, an abused dog you rescued, or something. But a dog like that is damaged, you know? Down deep. You can never really trust it.”
“It’s not a question of trust. It’s a question of utility.”
It came out a little more bluntly than he’d intended, but on the other hand, could anyone deny the statement’s essential truth?
Remar stood. “All right. What else?”
Had he taken Anders’s words as commentary on their own relationship? The director hadn’t meant it that way.
No, Remar was all right. As loyal as Manus—though sometimes with too many questions. But at least he always knew when it was time to swallow his objections and carry out his orders.
“We’ll need a Turkish cutout,” Anders said. “Contact our guy. Manus will deliver the journalist to the Ergenekon people. They’ll smuggle him into Syria.”
“A second cutout.”
“Correct. Tell our guy Ergenekon gets paid in three tranches—when they take delivery, when they deliver to the Syrians, and when the Syrians complete the transaction.”
“What Syrians are we talking about?”
“Does it matter? We’ll describe them as ISIS.”
“The ISIS brand is pretty well known at this point. Might be better to use something new.”
Anders considered. “Well, we could attribute it to the Khorasan Group. You know, ‘too radical even for al-Qaeda.’”
“I don’t know. We claimed to have killed the group’s leader once the bombing in Syria began. Plus, the name never really caught on. Too much like ‘Kardashian.’ I’ve told you, names matter.”
Anders ignored the gambit. God’s Eye was a perfect name, and he wasn’t inclined to change it—or anything else—to something less than perfect. “Keep it vague, then. But attach it to ISIS. ‘An ISIS splinter group,’ something like that. And as far as the Turks, start at twenty thousand US per tranche, but be prepared to go up to a hundred overall.”
“They want hardware more than cash these days.”
“Tell our guy if this goes well, next time we can talk about multiple grenade launchers. They’re hot for those. But don’t let him get greedy.”
Remar headed to the door. “I’ll get Delgado. And your human dog.”
CHAPTER . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 3
Twenty minutes later, there were two firm knocks on the door. Anders looked up and said, “Come.”
Thomas Delgado entered and closed the door behind him. Five-five and fit as a ferret, he was wearing an immaculately tailored gray suit and white shirt, the absence of a tie his only stylistic concession to Maryland’s late August heat. As if in recompense, a half inch of white linen emerged from the breast pocket of his jacket. The outfit was ostentatiously stylish in the corridors of NSA, especially during shirtsleeves summer, but Anders supposed the look had its merits—chiefly that it at least partly disguised the fact that once upon a time, Delgado had earned a reputation as a technology-savvy killer for various East Coast crime organizations, foreign and domestic.
That had been ten years ago, when Anders had warned him about and ran interference with an FBI task force looking to put him behind bars. The warning had of course been part of a quid pro quo, and Delgado had proven enormously capable—imaginative, discreet, decisive. You told him who, you told him where, you gave him parameters about how. He never asked for anything beyond that, and he never failed to take care of the problem. If he had a shortcoming, it was that he enjoyed aspects of his work a little more than might be considered . . . desirable. But no one was perfect.
Delgado sat. His breathing was regular, but there was some perspiration along a row of hair plugs that seemed to be struggling to take root.
“You come from outside?” Anders asked.
Delgado nodded. “Fucking murder out there. Like a hundred degrees. Remar said you wanted to see me right away.”
Anders steepled his fingers. “We have a problem in Ankara. You’ll be leaving on a military flight from Andrews immediately. This one can’t be a suicide. Can you make it look like a car crash?”
Delgado smiled. “You know I can, especially if it’s a newer model.”
There was something about Delgado’s smile that always looked like a sneer. Well, the man wasn’t employed for his charm.
Anders thought of the fancy European car he knew Perkins drove in Ankara. “New enough. If you can’t get inside yourself, I’ll have a Tailored Access Operations team as backup.”
“I won’t need them.”
“Probably true, but they’ll be available in case.”
The TAO people were magicians. One team had been tasked with developing access to the checked baggage computer networks of every major airline. Now it was child’s play to cause a bag, or better yet a whole planeful of bags, to be temporarily “misplaced,” and, while the bags were missing, to replace a wheel or a handle or the heel of a shoe with a listening or tracking device. After a few hours, perhaps a day, the airline would discover its error, apologize, and send the bags on to their proper destinations. Airline incompetence was so universal that no one ever thought to question whether sometimes something else might be at work. Snowden had revealed a lot of these capabilities, but not all. Thank God.
Delgado wiped a bead of sweat from his scalp. “The particulars?”
“General Remar will provide you with an encrypted file on your way out. You can read it when you’re airborne.” He paused, then added, “You won’t be able to liaise with the local field office. The problem is the head of that office.”
If Delgado was surprised by that, he didn’t show it. He simply nodded and said, “Well, now I know why you want a car crash. Are you going to stick me with the freak, or do I get to operate alone this time?”
“You’ll be on a plane together. It’s already waiting at Andrews. Manus will be in the region, but on something else.”
As if on cue, there were three soft knocks on the door. Anders waited. If it was someone else, the person would leave. If it was Manus, he wouldn’t hear Anders’s command to enter.
The door opened, the office beyond it briefly blotted out. Then Marvin Manus was inside, the door closed behind him. Delgado turned so that Manus could read his lips and enunciated extra loudly and clearly, “Well, don’t just stand there, genius. Sit.”
Not for the first time, Anders wondered at Delgado’s animus. The smaller man had a mean streak, that much was clear. But did he also have a death wish? Delgado was formidable, yes. But Manus . . . Manus was something else, something elemental. Anders had rescued him fifteen years earlier, when Manus had just turned eighteen and was about to graduate from the juvenile correctional center in St. Charles, Illinois, to the maximum-security adult facility in Pontiac. It said a lot that Remar was nervous about him. Because Remar, who had fought his way back from wounds and endured pain that would have killed most other men, wasn’t nervous about anyone.
Manus ignored the taunt and looked to Anders for his cue. Anders glanced at Delgado and said, “Go.”
Delgado hesitated, then stood and sauntered past Manus, eyeing the larger man up and down as he moved. He paused so Manus could see his lips, then said loudly, “Glad we’ll be traveling together. I’d miss your scintillating conversation.”
Manus watched him leave, saying not a word. Anders knew how to handle Manus, of course, but even so he sometimes found his stillness . . . disquieting. Especially when it was in response to something that would have produced some evidence of anger in an ordinary person.
Anders gestured to a chair, then simultaneously signed and said, “Marvin. Thank you for coming.” The courtesy was deliberate. With Manus, it was powerful currency. And though he knew Manus was an excellent lip-reader, whenever he could he still tried to add some of the bits of American Sign Language he had learned, because he knew how much Manus appreciated his efforts.
Manus nodded an acknowledgment and lowered himself onto one of the chairs, gripping the
arms gingerly as though concerned he might inadvertently snap them off.
“You’re going to Istanbul,” Anders said. “Same military plane as Delgado, different assignment when you get there. General Remar will give you an encrypted file with all the particulars. This is only a snatch. A journalist, presumably not security conscious, presumably unarmed. It doesn’t matter if he sustains some damage when you take him, as long as he’s alive and basically intact.”
“What do I do with him?” Manus’s voice was low and sonorous, the pronunciation slightly off because he couldn’t hear himself talking. Overall, his tone offered no more clue to the thoughts behind it than did the more customary silence.
“You’re going to turn him over to a group of Turkish middlemen who have contacts on the other side of the Syrian border. General Remar is arranging the logistics now, and I’ll brief you in the air as soon as I have details. Any questions?”
Manus offered a single shake of his head.
Not a surprise. If there were more Manus needed to know, Anders would have told him.
Anders looked at him. “How are things with Delgado?”
There was a pause. “How do you mean?”
The tone was as neutral as a flat-lined heart monitor.
“He’s got a lot of hate,” Anders went on. “But he’s useful to me.”
