Jack in the Box

by John Weisman

  While Sam played with his goddaughter, Rensin installed a Blowfish algorithm-based encryption program on Sam’s laptop, along with the latest version of the Camouflage program Ed Howard had used, allowing Sam to reencrypt the defector’s documents and hide them in plain sight on the same pen drive Howard had left behind in Army Park. It also gave Sam a way to secure the thirty single-spaced pages of memos he’d written.

  4:30P.M. A turkey sandwich at his elbow, Sam decrypted the first batch of Ed Howard’s documents. He began scrolling through the pages and examining the photographs. When he finished, he went online, tapped into the Washington Post site, registered with the newspaper’s archive, transmitted a credit-card number, and pulled down three dozen stories about Yevgeniy Primakov’s 1993 visit to Washington.

  It was past midnight when he stopped making notes. The sandwich still sat, untouched.

  CHAPTER 24

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2002

  SAM WAS WAITING in the reception area of Hart 211, Senate Select’s office suite, at a quarter to eight, his document case tucked between his knees. Twenty minutes later Virginia Vacario came through the thick steel door with an armload of files, looking downright haggard. And her expression didn’t improve when she saw him.

  “My office, Sam.”

  He stayed where he was. “ ‘Nice to see you, Sam. How are you, Sam? Pleasant trip? Eat well in Paris? Hear you had both lunch and a floor show.’ ”

  “I’m not in the mood for playful this morning.” She lowered most of the files onto her secretary’s desk and looked at him mournfully. “We really do have to talk.”

  He rose and hefted the document case. “That’s why I’m here.”

  She walked to her office door and attempted to block Sam’s view with her back while she keyed in her cipher combination. But Sam was too fast and he caught the last four of the five-number sequence. Using the nub of pencil and half index card that he invariably carried in his right-hand trouser pocket, Sam wrote down the numbers 0-8-7-4. Vacario waited for the electronic lock to unlatch, then opened the door wide and stood back. “After you.”

  He followed her inside and watched as she turned the lights on. He heard the door click closed behind him. Sam gave the place a once-over. The office was unusual in that it was entirely characterless; neutral; impersonal. There were no photographs or souvenirs, and only a trio of mementos. On the credenza behind Vacario’s desk a Plexiglas case held an English bobby’s helmet, a truncheon, and old-fashioned manacles. A presentation-quality nightstick from New York City Police Emergency Services Division sat displayed like a samurai sword. Next to the nightstick, a two-foot, ornately decorated machete from the Mexican National Police extended, Excalibur-like, from a rough chunk of black granite.

  The windows were covered by thick, sound-absorbing drapes. Flanking Vacario’s credenza stood a three-foot-high, industrial-strength shredder, a wastebasket holding a burn bag, and an American flag on a stanchion. On the wall was the Great Seal of the United States, flanked by seals of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, No Such Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. And thus, Sam thought, endeth all ornamentation.

  A utilitarian wooden table held piles of manila file folders. Next to the table sat three four-drawer fireproof file cabinets with combination locks. On the opposite wall was a six-foot-tall, four-foot-wide bank-size safe, with a third-generation electronic lock. A brown leather sofa with an afghan tossed over the arm was pushed up against the safe. It was obviously the place where Ginny grabbed a combat nap when she worked a twenty-hour day, because there was no coffee table or overstuffed chairs to invite discussion or suggest hospitality.

  The starkness of the place was reinforced by the four old-fashioned, rail-back oak-wood armchairs that fanned out in front of Vacario’s desk. It actually occurred to Sam to check and see whether they came equipped with arm straps, leg restraints, and power cords.

  Vacario set the file folders on the desktop. She unlocked one of the drawers and dropped her handbag into the lower right-hand drawer, locked it again, settled into the austere fabric chair behind the desk, and indicated for Sam to take a seat.

  When he did, she rolled the chair forward, put her elbows on the desk, and cupped her chin in her hands. She looked like a little girl just then. “Oh, Sam,” she sighed mournfully, “what the hell am I going to do with you?”

  He shrugged. “There’s always vodka and caviar.”

  “It was vodka and caviar that got me in trouble.”

  He examined her face. It was, despite the tiredness and obvious tension, a lovely face. He wished he could trust it.

  “Sam, what makes me hurt so much is the fact that I’m so damnably attracted to you. I do like you. I like you a lot.”

  “Feeling’s mutual,” he said. “But you should have told me the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “Bonn,” he said. “You didn’t tell me about Bonn.”

  “I couldn’t. I can’t. You know how these things work, Sam.” She fumbled in her desk drawer. “You signed the same papers I did. Besides, that’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  “Oh, dammit, Sam, give me your credential. Please.”

  He pulled the laminated ID from his shirt pocket, lifted the chain from his neck, and slid the card across the desk. She took it, unfastened the chain, then dropped the ID into the shredder. “Chairman’s orders.”

  “So I’ve been declared a nonperson.” He snorted derisively. “How Stalinesque. Well, I guess that shows me.” His expression softened. “What about us, Ginny?”

  “Oh, Sam.” Vacario bit her lower lip. “This isn’t me talking right now. It’s Rand Arthur.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Your services are no longer required by Senate Select.”

  “Just like that.”

  “You haven’t made things easy. You met with a French agent in Paris, Sam—after entering the country as a tourist, and without notifying the French government, you planned to contact one of their assets, even though Paris was aware you were working for this committee. Then the man is killed on your watch. The Quai d’Orsay39 was furious. The foreign minister sent a démarche to State. Some wet-behind-the-ears DAS at EUR40 contacted the senator and demanded—demanded, Sam—an explanation. Which, of course, the senator couldn’t provide, since you were operating completely off the reservation.”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “Perhaps. I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt. But then, you refused to see the senator when you returned from Paris. State leaked the whole story to the press. The senator’s been badgered all weekend by questions—and he’s had to duck them. You know Rand Arthur, Sam. He doesn’t like to duck reporters.”

  “What about O’Neill?”

  “Michael’s been a big help—he smoothed things over with State, and he handled the press beautifully. But you, not he, were the focus of all the attention. We needed you—working in support of the senator. Rand Arthur asked for your help and you refused. He sees it as dereliction of duty.”

  How like Rand—everything was about him. “It’s not that simple, Ginny.”

  “It is to him.” She paused. “So, what’s the story about this Russian, Semonov?”

  Sam wasn’t about to go into detail under the circumstances. “He’s a Russian I used to know. We were having lunch. He got killed. End of story.”

  She looked dubious. “No connection to Edward Lee Howard?”

  “None.”

  “O’Neill told the senator Semonov was a double agent who had been terminated by Langley because he worked for Ed Howard.”

  Admit nothing. “O’Neill’s wrong.”

  “How do you know?

  Deny everything. “Because I was deputy chief in Paris with access to every single compartment and O’Neill was a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn with access to perhaps one or two.”

  “Then why was Semonov murdered?”

  File
countercharges. “How the hell should I know. Maybe Semonov was involved with the Russian Mafiya. Maybe he got on the wrong side of his Lebanese in-laws. Maybe the French got tired of paying him.”

  “You’re being defensive. Does that mean you’re hiding something?”

  For a minute, Sam had forgotten she was a Player—a pro, just like he was. She’d gone to tradecraft, too. Provoke. Goad. Incite.

  He used the countermoves. Deflect. Redirect. Sidetrack. “It means I’m pissed off at Rand Arthur, Ginny.” He gave her the wistful smile and the crinkling eyes. “Okay, the senator says I’m gone, then I’m gone.” Pause. “What about Senate Select’s chief counsel?”

  Vacario bit her lower lip again. “Sam, please. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.” She pulled a document from a folder, gave it a quick glance, then laid it on the desk. “Sign this please.”

  He leaned forward, pulled the single sheet of paper to him, and looked at it. It was a boilerplate agreement stipulating that everything Sam had learned while working for SSCI was confidential and proprietary to SSCI, and that all materials of any sort and in any form that were in his possession during the period he’d been working for the committee were the property of the committee and must be handed over. He scrawled his name at the bottom and slid it back toward Vacario. She stared at him. “Are you carrying any documents?”

  “I brought your transcripts. I knew you’d want them back.”

  “Do you possess any other materials?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing from Moscow—or Paris?”

  “Nothing from Moscow or Paris.”

  She struggled to her feet, holding the transcripts to her chest, and walked across to the big safe. She punched at the dial and turned the handle but the safe remained locked. She waited ten seconds and repeated the sequence. This time Sam caught it. He flipped the index card and wrote the numbers down.

  Vacario opened the heavy black enameled steel door, knelt, and lay the Howard transcripts on the bottom shelf. The top shelf contained an accordion file that was labeled sen. Arthur—personal. Just behind it Sam could see a padlocked safe-deposit box.

  Ginny rose, closed the safe, and tested the handle to make sure the door was tightly secured.

  “Do you have anything else I should see, Sam?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” Sam set the heavy leather bag on her desk, opened it up, and extracted three plastic bags, each containing a package protected by plastic bubble wrap. He unwrapped them and set the contents gently in front of her. There was a half liter bottle of Golden Ring vodka, 250 grams of Petrossian beluga, and a full ounce of Chanel No. 5. “I picked these up at de Gaulle on my way out.”

  Ginny’s eyes teared up.

  Sam tilted the case so she could look inside. “See? Nothing else. You can report to the senator that you searched and came up dry.”

  He snapped the top of the case shut, then stood up. “Ginny,” he said, “I’ll be in touch.” Then he stood, took the case in his left hand, and walked out to the sound of quiet sobbing.

  11:45 A.M. Sam metroed to Rosslyn. He walked up to the Hyatt on Wilson Boulevard, turned west, and made his way two and a half long blocks, skirting Purgatory to ensure that he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. Just past a fire-house, he turned onto a narrow ribbon of concrete that skirted an elementary school, made his way across the street, and used a small electronic device on his key chain to unlock the back door of his apartment building. He passed through a second locked door, turned left, then made his way down a long, carpeted hallway to a service elevator, which he took to the ninth floor.

  He made his way down the dimly illuminated corridor and stopped in front of his door. He could see a bunch of circulars had been slid under the sill. He turned the key, extracted it, pushed the door open, stepped over the flyers, set his case on the rug, closed the door behind him, and rolled the dead bolt.

  He’d bought the apartment just before he’d left for his Paris tour. It was a comfortable two-bedroom apartment in a glass-fronted, fourteen-story building called the Atrium. He faced northwest, and from his living room Sam could see the spires of Georgetown University; the hulking, white, boxy Russian embassy on upper Wisconsin Avenue; and beyond it, the crocket-ornamented towers of the National Cathedral. The location was convenient, the building anonymous, and the desk manned twenty-four hours a day. He’d rented the place out during his overseas tours—and each time he came home, the apartment was swept by Agency technicians to make sure no bugs had been planted during his absence.

  First, Sam checked to see that the intrusion devices he’d placed before leaving for Moscow hadn’t been disturbed. He dismantled them, set his case on the foyer table, and walked to the living room windows. The vertical blinds were set at an angle that allowed him to peer down at the street. There was no sign of a media stakeout. He flipped his cell phone open and called the front desk, recited his pass code number, asked if there was anyone waiting to see him, and was gratified to hear he was not in demand. That was the way things went in Washington—the lead story on Friday is birdcage material on Monday. Thank God for the media’s short attention span.

  He turned on the lights, turned up the thermostat, and brewed a pot of coffee. The red message light on the wireless phone in the kitchen was blinking. Sam uncradled it and dialed his voice-mail number, punched in his code, and learned he had sixteen new messages. He queued them up and listened. Most were from reporters asking him to return their call. There were two from O’Neill. Sam listened to both. His friend’s voice was high-pitched, almost panicky. The same way he’d been on the phone in Moscow. The messages were almost identical. Please, Sam, call ASAP. Sam—criticoni. Must talk.

  Well, O’Neill would have to wait. Sam pulled the materials he’d retrieved from the concierge at the Cosmos out of his document case, sat down at his dining table, and went to work.

  The two American agents Howard had mentioned at Rand Arthur’s were cryptonymed SCARAB and SCEPTRE. Sam checked his notes. Edward Lee Howard had said that SCARAB, who’d managed to get the Kiev op scrubbed, worked for NSC. And that he passed messages using a safe house. And that Primakov had seen SCARAB at a reception on the eighth floor of the State Department—the Diplomatic Reception Rooms. Primakov had watched, according to Ed Howard, as SCARAB’s control officer had passed the agent a tasking.

  The hidden files on the pen drive included two dozen NSC documents dating back as far as 1993. The photographs were grainy black-and-white surveillance pictures. They showed meetings between individuals Sam couldn’t identify, what appeared to be signal sites and dead drops at locations that could be anywhere. Sam put the pictures aside and concentrated on the documents. All were clearance memos,41 which were classified either CONFIDENTIAL or SENSITIVE.

  That told Sam that no matter what Howard said, whoever had taken the memos probably didn’t have a TS/SCI42 clear- ance. If they’d had one, they would have had access to much better data. The memos on Sam’s screen were low-grade material. Which meant Howard’s claim of a Russian intelligence network operating within the highest levels of the American government was horse puckey.

  Or was it? Obviously, someone who was not Ed Howard had betrayed Pavel Baranov. Someone who was not SCEPTRE or SCARAB had access to top-secret intelligence files—code-word stuff—at Langley. That same someone had targeted Pavel Baranov, Irina and Ed Howard, and Alexei Semonov.

  There are no coincidences. That’s the key. Look for the pattern. Follow the road map Ed Howard left behind. It was like infiltrating one of the old Soviet networks: you started with the small fry, and worked your way up the food chain. So, the first hurdle was identifying SCEPTRE and SCARAB.

  IT WAS TIME to go to the videotape. Sam went to his bookcase and dug out the Federal Staff Directory for 1993. FSDs were published twice a year. Each volume listed more than thirty thousand employees working for the Executive Office of the President, the cabinet departments, and the independent agencies. For someone like Sa
m, working overseas, the FSDs were as vital as phonebooks and contact lists. And the old volumes were helpful, too. By checking the indices, he could track a federal employee’s career path over a decade or more.

  He flipped to the National Security Council listings, which ran just under three pages. All the memos dealt with Russia or the Ukraine. That meant he could discount most of the NSC’s divisions. Sam concentrated on the offices that handled Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, intelligence programs, and global issues and multilateral affairs. All the senior directors had boxes next to their names indicating they were presidential appointments—Schedule Cs in government-speak. Howard had said SCARAB was a long-term employee at NSC. So scrub the political people. That left a total of sixteen directors, assistant directors, and staff assistants in the three target offices. Sam wrote their names down on a legal pad. Then he pulled out all his FSDs and began the laborious process of cross-checking.

  2:15P.M. With the absolute certainty of the naïf, Sam was convinced SCARAB had to be one of three people. Edith Johnson had worked off and on at the NSC since the Reagan administration. She first showed up in the FSD as a special assistant in the 1982 edition. Then she was back in 1984 working in the NSC’s admin office as an assistant. In 1986 she’d been the administrative assistant in the Office of Defense Policy and Arms Control. In 1989 she’d been assigned to the Situation Room as a duty officer. And in 1993 she turned up in the NSC’s Office of Intelligence Programs as a special assistant.

  But there was a problem with Johnson. Sam knew that Sit Room duty officers all held TS/SCI clearances. They had to, given the waves of sensitive material washing over their desks.

  That left two. There was Barbara Steiner, who’d first gone to the Reagan NSC as a junior staffer seconded from DOD. Steiner had remained at NSC for twelve years in a series of dead-end positions before returning to the Pentagon in 1995. Vernon Myles had served on the NSC during the SCARAB window as well. Of those two, Myles was the most likely candidate for no-goodnik of the year. Currently he was a staff assistant in the office of the assistant secretary of state for politico-military affairs. But before that he’d worked at NSC. His first stint there was during the Carter administration—a political appointment as administrative assistant in the Pub- lie Affairs Office. But Myles hadn’t resigned when Carter lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan. He had “burrowed,”43 first as an anonymous exhibits officer at State’s Bureau of Public Affairs. Then as a staff assistant at WorldNet, the U.S. Information Agency’s moribund television arm. He reemerged at NSC during Clinton, assigned to minor slots in the information management directorate. Now he worked at State. What piqued Sam’s interest was that the guy was awfully old to still be a staff assistant. Staff assistant was a job for twentysomethings—maybe even thirtysomethings. Myles had to be fifty-three, fifty-four years old. Which told Sam that either Vernon Myles was a huge underachiever, or he was working far below his capabilities on purpose.