by Gayle Lynds
Keeping his ears tuned for movement upstairs, he headed straight to the desk, where a computer sat. He went to work, installing tiny wireless transmitting devices inside the hard drive and keyboard.
Finished, he listened to the house again. Silence. He slipped out of the office and let himself out the French doors. The early-morning sky was still black. Tomorrow night he would return and remove the bugs, lessening the chance anyone would ever know his business tonight.
Pausing near the street, he surveyed the area. At last he strolled to the Eugenia bush and gestured. Frodo scooted out, and the man gave him a dog biscuit. Whistling to himself, he walked his pet back to the car.
Johannesburg, South Africa
It was half past noon in Johannesburg when Thomas Randklev received a call from the Library of Gold director. As soon as he hung up, Randklev phoned Donna Leggate, the junior U.S. senator from Colorado. It was only 5:30 A.M. in Washington, and it was quickly apparent she had been asleep.
As soon as he said his name, the tone of her voice modulated from gruff to welcoming. “This is an odd time to be calling, Thom, but it’s always good to hear from you.”
He knew it was a lie. “I appreciate that. I’d like a bit of information. Nothing unseemly, of course.”
“What can I help you with?”
“This is about a woman named Gloria Feit, who’s with your Clandestine Service. We’d like to know for whom she works and what she does.”
“Why are you interested?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, except it involves someone special like you, someone we like to give good service to—one of our investors. Certainly nothing about your national security. It’s just business.”
She hesitated. “I’d rather not—”
He interrupted. “I hope your shares in the Parsifal Group are making you smile.”
A widow, Leggate had been appointed to the Senate to succeed her husband when he died four years earlier. Her husband’s debts had left her in a precarious financial position, but because of Parsifal, she was earning far more than her husband had. She was also far more ambitious, but in Washington ambition unsupported by money was just another social affectation.
Her tone was guarded. “Yes, very much so.”
“And of course there are the dividends,” he reminded her.
“Even better,” she admitted. “But still . . .”
Although unsurprising, her reluctance was annoying. They needed her to move on this, and fast—but he was not ready to tell her that yet.
“You’re on the Senate Intelligence Committee,” he pointed out. “ You’ve brought a CIA employee, Ed Casey, into Parsifal. Tell him to e-mail someone at Langley for the information. If you feel you can’t, you’ll have to drop out of our special club for investors, and I’ll transfer your shares to another of our groups. You can count on the returns being decent—but they won’t support you in your old age.” He let that sink in. “On the other hand, if you can do us this favor, you can stay in the club, continue to recruit selected others, and receive a sizeable contribution to your reelection campaign.”
“How sizeable?” she asked instantly.
“One hundred thousand dollars.”
“Five hundred thousand would make the sun shine a lot brighter.”
“That’s a great deal of money, Donna.”
“You’re asking a huge favor.”
He was silent. Then: “Oh, hell. All right, I agree—but only if you call Ed Casey immediately.”
“If I’m awake, he can damn well get his butt out of bed, too.”
“You always could charm me, Donna.” He smiled to himself. She had quit negotiating too soon. He had the director’s approval to go to $800,000.
“And you’re a delightful rogue, Thom,” she said. “Love that about you. Tell me, will you be needing any other favors?”
“Perhaps. And remember, you can ask occasionally, too. If it’s in my power, I’ll be delighted to help. After all, we’re friends. All part of the same club.”
24
Washington, D.C.
Senator Leggate put on her bathrobe, lit a cigarette, and waved smoke from her eyes. Washington was a town where favors were exchanged like poker chips. To survive, one learned to be helpful while being careful with whom one played. If you wanted to be a serious contender in the nation’s fast, treacherous political waters, you had to be an Olympian at the game.
While she had a sense of ominousness about Thom Randklev’s naked laying out of her options if she refused to help, she also felt a sense of exhilaration. He had agreed to her high number easily. That told her he had access to even more cash. What frightened her was whether she could handle him—or herself—if she ever had to refuse.
But that was the future. Maybe years from now. With luck, never. She marched into her office, turned on her desk lamp, spun open her Rolodex, and dialed.
“A good early morning to you, Ed. This is Donna Leggate.”
“Good Lord, Donna, do you know what time it is?” Ed Casey was a top gun in Langley’s Support to Mission team, which built and operated CIA facilities, created and maintained secure communications, managed the CIA phone company, and hired, trained, and assigned officers to every directorate. His department also handled payroll, which meant he had access to the records of everyone the CIA employed—as long as they were on the books.
“I’ve been up for hours reading classified reports,” she told him, fabricating a lie he would believe. “Sorry to bother you, but I’d like your help with something before I go into the office. One of the reports mentions an officer named Gloria Feit, in the Clandestine Service, but there’s nothing about to whom she reports. I’d like to know that as well as what she and her boss do.”
“You’ll need to go through the D/CIA’s office.”
“If I’m asking questions about this, others on the committee will be, too. Going through the D/CIA opens up the possibility of a leak, and then the press dogs will drool for everything they can claw up. The reason I’m calling is because I know you and I are on the same page about protecting Langley whenever possible.”
“There’s a chain of command. I don’t buck it.”
“As I was dialing,” she continued thoughtfully, “I was remembering when you told me you needed a college nest egg for your kids. How old are they now?”
There was a change in Ed’s voice. Perhaps a hint of guilt. “I appreciate your paving the way so I could buy shares in the Parsifal Group.”
She rammed the point home: “Has it been a good investment for them?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“I’m delighted. I think all of us like to help each other whenever we can. What I’m asking I can get anyway. The only difference is I want it now, while it’s fresh in my mind.”
“What’s the report about?”
“It’s M-classified. Sorry.” “M” indicated an extraordinarily sensitive covert operation. Among the highest the United States bestowed, single-letter security clearances meant the information was so secret it could be referred to only by initials, and there was no way Ed would be privy to it. “You can e-mail your office for the information about Gloria Feit.”
“Hold on,” he grumbled.
Senator Leggate smiled to herself. She had watched her husband cajole and threaten to get what he wanted, and now she was the one in the power seat.
Johannesburg, South Africa
Thom Randklev stood before the floor-to-ceiling window in his office, hands clasped comfortably behind, and stared out at the rocks and shales of the Witwatersrand—“White Water’s Ridge” in Afrikaans. As clouds drifted past and the sun blazed through, pockets of quartz glittered, attracting his gaze. For a moment he felt a fierce sense of pride.
The Witwatersrand was the source of 40 percent of the gold ever mined on the planet, and it had provided his family’s first small fortune. Then his lazy father had lost everything in drink, divorces, and wild spending. But now Thom had all of it back and m
ore, including homes in San Moritz, Paris, and New York City, which was where he had met Senator Leggate and begun cultivating her. As he had assured the director, she was the one who could handle the first step in resolving the problem of why the CIA wanted to exhume “Charles Sherback.”
As his mind roamed over his accomplishments, he turned to stare at the books stretching across two long walls of his office. He had been disturbed by the director’s information, but at the same time he had complete confidence the situation—whatever it was—could be resolved.
What mattered was the Library of Gold had remained secret for centuries because of careful attention to detail, and that secrecy was the hallmark of those who had inherited the library. In today’s world, the biggest wars were fought inside boardrooms behind closed doors, and the book club knew exactly how to train, fight, and win every skirmish. And that was what this was—a mere skirmish. As he ruminated about that, he remembered what Plato had written: “Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.” How true, he decided as he poured himself a drink.
When the phone rang, he snapped it up.
As he had hoped, it was Donna Leggate. “Gloria Feit is chief of staff for Catherine Doyle. Doyle has some special assignment, but there’s no record of what it is. Since I know something about these matters, I believe Doyle has a team—and it’s deep black. And that means there may be no official record of employees or missions. Ed wouldn’t tell me more. Frankly, I doubt he knows more, because it’s above his security grade. Doyle appears to me to be a NOC.” Nonofficial cover officers, NOCs, were those highly talented and daring officers who operated without the official cover of their CIA identification. If arrested in a foreign country, they could be tried and executed as spies.
“Thank you, Donna. I appreciate it. I’ll put my people to work filtering in the money to your reelection campaign. We want good friends like you to stay in office.”
As soon as he got rid of her, he phoned the director and relayed the information.
Stockholm, Sweden
It was noon in Stockholm, and Carl Lindström was sitting in the leather recliner chair in his office, reading financial reports, when the director called. Once he understood what the director wanted, Carl went to his desk, checked his e-mail, and found the note forwarded to him that contained the information the Washington break-in artist had uncovered from Ed Casey’s secure e-mail to Langley.
Now he had a record not only of the routing, the message, and the address to which it was sent, but also the clandestine codes used.
With that, he phoned his chief of computer security, Jan Mardis. A former black-hat hacker herself, Jan was in charge of uncovering and stopping attacks on their worldwide network. She also kept her staff’s expertise honed with regularly simulated assaults on their systems, designed hacking tools, and drafted network-infiltration tactics.
Upon occasion, she did special jobs for him. Through him, the Library of Gold’s director had used her several times over the past few months.
“I have a challenge for you, Jan,” Lindström told her. “And when you accomplish it, you can count on a generous bonus. I need you to crack into the CIA’s computer system. There’s a particular team I want you to find. It’s run by Catherine Doyle. One office employee is Gloria Feit. The unit is probably black, which means they’re going to appear to be unlisted, but we both know there’s a record somewhere. I’ve sent you an e-mail with the information you’ll need.”
“Interesting.” Jan Mardis’s voice was usually bored, but not now. “Okay, I’ve read your e-mail. Barring complications, this should be fun, a dip in Lake Mälaren on a hot summer day, as it were. I’ll route my signals through multiple countries—China and Russia, for sure. That’ll stop the digital cops cold. I’ll get back to you.”
Carl Lindström stood and stretched. Cyber crime was the fastest growing criminal enterprise of the twenty-first century, and his software corporation, Lindström Strategies, was one of the fastest rising in the world. It had been attacked time and again. But because of Jan Mardis, no one had ever breached the firewalls. He had complete confidence in her not only because of her skill, but also because of human factors: He had saved her from a jail term by pulling strings in the judicial system, which included his promise to hire her. The occasional side job he secretly gave her allowed her to exercise her love of taking on some of the most highly secure organizations on the planet. And he paid her excessively well. As Machiavelli wrote, to succeed, it was critical to understand what motivated an individual—and use it.
As he waited to hear back from her, he walked to his bookcase, which was filled with leather-bound and embossed volumes. He pulled out a collection by August Strindberg, one of his favorite modern authors. He opened the book, and his gaze fell upon a passage: “A writer is only a reporter for what he has lived.”
He thought about that, then he applied it to himself. His entire life’s work, rising from the slums of Stockholm to create and head Lindström Strategies, was a reflection of what he had learned about the need to go to any length to armor against the indignities of poverty. With pride, he decided his corporation was his book, the book he had written.
An hour later, he was reading financial reports in his recliner again when the phone rang. He reached for it.
“It’s me, boss,” Jan Mardis said. “I’ve got a bonus for you. I’ve got access to Catherine Doyle’s office computer. Is there anything you want me to look for?”
He sat up straight, and his pulse sped with excitement. “Send me a copy of all Doyle’s e-mails for the last twenty-four hours. Then get the hell out of there.”
25
Aloft over Europe
The Gulfstream V turbojet soared through the night, its powerful Rolls-Royce engines humming quietly. Above the aircraft stretched an endless canopy of sparkling stars, while far below spread gray storm clouds punctuated by jagged bolts of lightning. From his window Judd Ryder studied the skyscape, feeling a sense of suspension between two worlds, uncertain and somehow dangerous. He wondered what his father had been involved in, and how much he was his father’s son.
Shaking off his emotions, he sat back and focused. The Gulfstream had been waiting at Gatwick Airport at a private hangar, one of the aircraft Langley regularly rented for transporting federal employees and high-value prisoners. He and Eva were the only passengers, sitting together near the middle of the cabin. Each armrest contained a laptop and hookups for electronic devices. On their tables stood steaming cups of coffee brewed in the galley. The rich aroma scented the air.
He peered at Eva’s tired face, the rounded chin, the light California tan. Her red hair lay in a wreath of long curls around her head where it rested back against the seat. The lids of her blue eyes were at half-mast. At the moment she showed none of the fire and combativeness that had aggravated him, instead looking soft and vulnerable. He was still unsure what he really thought of her. In any case, it was irrelevant. What mattered was he needed her for the operation. He hoped to be able to ship her back to California soon.
Her eyes opened. “I should try to reach Peggy.”
“You can’t turn on your cell while we’re flying, but you can borrow mine.” He plugged his mobile’s connecting cord into the armrest, tapping into the plane’s wireless communications system. He explained about its secure mode, then showed her how to make what would appear to others to be a normal call.
She dialed Peggy’s cell phone number. Listening to the voice on the other end, she looked at him and frowned. “May I speak to Peggy, please?” There was a pause. “I’m not going to tell you who I am until you tell me who you are.” Another pause. Abruptly she cut the connection.
“What happened?” he asked instantly.
“A man answered. He kept asking questions.” As she dialed again, she told him, “I’m calling information for the Chelsea Arms’s number.” Once she had it, she phoned out again. “Peggy Doty’s room, please.” She listened. “I know she has a room there. We were g
oing to share it. . . What? She what?” Her face stricken, she hung up and stared at him. “Peggy’s dead. The clerk says the police think she shot herself, but there’s no way she’d take her own life. Someone had to have killed her.” She shook her head, stunned. “I can’t believe she’s dead.” Tears slid down her cheeks.
Watching her, he felt again the awful loss of his father, his conflicted emotions. He went to the galley and returned with a box of tissues and handed it to her. As she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, he said, “My guess is Charles told Preston that Peggy was your friend, and Preston went to her in hopes of finding you. He’s her killer. I’m sorry, Eva. This is horrible for you.”
He had a sudden vision of his father when he was about his age, towering over him as he rode the carousel at Glen Echo Park. The full head of blond hair, the strong nose and chin, the happy expression on his face as the music filled the air and he stood beside his son protectively. About five years old, Judd had been riding a palomino horse with a flowing silver mane. As the horse rose and fell and the carousel circled, he felt himself slipping. His mother waved, her face beaming with pride. As he raised a hand to wave back, he fell, his legs too short to reach the floor to steady himself. He dangled half off the horse.
“Hold on tight and pull yourself up,” his father had said calmly. “You can do it.”
He had grabbed the pole hard, his little arms aching as he slowly righted himself.
“You can do anything, Judd. Anything. Someday you won’t need me to stand beside you anymore.”
Suddenly he realized Eva was talking.
“Those people are unspeakably evil.” She was staring at him, her expression cold. “Those bastards. We’ve got to find them.”
“We will.” He grabbed his peacoat from the seat across from them. “Ready to do some work?”
“Absolutely.”
