by Reece Hirsch
“President Putin is already planning the press conference. He is not used to being disappointed.”
Sam stared at Grishin with his best poker face. “I’m sorry, but there’s only one way that this is going to happen.”
“You know, Mr. Reston, even the patience of a good host may be tested by an ungrateful guest. We have options here that I don’t think you fully appreciate.”
“Is that a message from President Putin?”
“It is a message to be taken seriously.”
“Like a threat?”
“Such a blunt word . . . People who ask blunt questions should be prepared for blunt responses.” A pause. “But today is not that day.”
Grishin stood and walked across the large living room, pausing for a moment to look out the window at the view of the Kremlin and Red Square. “Oh, and if you would like tickets to the Bolshoi, please just let the security detail downstairs know. Do you appreciate dance?”
“I’ve never been to the ballet.”
“Well, then you must see the Bolshoi. But it will spoil you for any other company. I’ll arrange a ticket.” Grishin left without waiting for a reply.
Sam was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the notion of being the Russian government’s pet US dissident. Although he had ultimately become disenchanted with the actions of the NSA and now the Working Group, he had served the agency for more than twenty years because he believed in the role it played. He still considered himself a patriot, even though many would no doubt disagree when the leaks became public. And if the disclosures were made through the Russians, then even more Americans would view his actions as endorsing and empowering the ruthless Russian intelligence state, an outcome that Sam could not abide.
The full force of what he was doing had finally hit him now that he was becoming acquainted with his new “allies.” By pulling the veil away from the NSA’s newest technology, he would eliminate a critical edge that the US clandestine services held over their counterparts at SVR, Mossad, GCHQ, and other spook shops. But that was only part of the problem. If Sam’s actions led to the end of quantum-computing technology in US surveillance, he could be exposing his country to untold external threats.
On the other hand, having the power to tap into every private conversation and online exchange of US citizens—a power that grew exponentially with the advent of the quantum computer—carried with it responsibilities. The NSA had not honored those responsibilities, and he had not honored them in his own work as an analyst. In his calculus, as he weighed it now, that pervasive, personal invasion of privacy was more critical than any jockeying for advantage between rival intelligence agencies or protecting against theoretical threats.
But who was Sam Reston to make a unilateral decision so vital to the national interest? Did he really think that he was more qualified than the president, Congress, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the Working Group?
Who was he to decide?
Still, each time Sam tried to focus on the big picture, his thoughts turned to the fate of Sheila Capaldi and the similar ends facing Chris Bruen, Ian Ayres, and Zoey Doucet, none of whom were guilty of anything more than turning over the wrong rock and learning something the Working Group did not want them to know. When he thought about the innocent civilians who had been killed to protect this unaccountable secret agency, he knew he was doing the right thing. He knew there would be unintended consequences of his disclosures. He knew that he would agonize over those ripple effects in the weeks and months and years to come. But the Working Group had to be stopped, and he was in a position to do it.
Sam had spent most of his adult life accepting the judgments of a government, and an agency, as to what was right and wrong. After the things that he had seen and the things that he had done, Sam had decided that if he was going to follow a moral compass, his was about as accurate as any other. And if it didn’t invariably point to true north, well, whose did?
Sam went to the window and watched a fine snow settling over the brick expanse of Red Square and the Moscow skyline, slowly erasing the city’s features. As the unfamiliar city faded ever so gradually to white below him, he had a low-grade out-of-body experience.
These were not his clothes.
This was not his apartment.
These were not his people.
This was not his country.
The more Sam thought about his predicament, the clearer it became that he could not live in exile like this for long. Perhaps he was too old, or maybe just too alone. Or maybe he was just tired of living in the shadows after having spent most of his life holding a shadow job for a shadow agency.
Sam was ready for the firestorm that was headed his way, and he resolved to face it: in the clear light of day.
And in his homeland.
40
Arriving with Ian at the Plaza México, the world’s largest bullring, Chris expected a tired remnant of a fading tradition. The Plaza defied his expectations; it was as modern as a US football stadium and ringed by a red concrete wall studded with pillars, upon which sat statues of famous matadors, many of them sweeping bronze capes before charging bulls. As Chris and Ian approached, the Plaza México was strangely quiet, unlike a football stadium, where the noise of the crowd and the announcers crackled constantly. As they purchased their tickets, Chris and Ian were startled as a great “¡Olé!” erupted from within the bullring.
“I don’t think I have to ask who’s winning,” Ian said.
“Well, you chose this place for the meet-up,” Chris said.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I figured a little local color would be interesting, but I hate the sight of blood.”
“Ours or the bull’s?”
“Both.”
As they walked up a broad ramp to the upper reaches of the stadium, Chris saw an array of video cameras mounted above them in the rafters at twenty-yard intervals. “I wasn’t expecting this level of CCTV coverage here,” he said.
“Yeah, looks like the security is pretty up-to-date,” Ian said. “They probably don’t have many gaps in camera coverage. But at least the agency shouldn’t have access to these video feeds, right? Mexico is not one of the NSA’s close allies—what do they call them? The Five Eyes?”
“They shouldn’t, but they might,” Chris said. “We should get this done as quickly as possible and get out of here.”
They stepped through a darkened archway and beheld a breathtaking spectacle. The bright sunlight, the sudden open expanse of the open-air stadium, the closeness of a full-house crowd of fifty thousand people all focusing on the impending dance of death in the brown dirt ring below. It was like the feeling Chris got entering AT&T Park for a Giants game. No matter how many times he had stepped out of a dark tunnel into a bright, crowded stadium, it always gave him a little jolt.
Plaza México also felt a bit like stepping back into a different century. Despite seeing the skyscrapers that peeked out over the rim of the stadium, he felt transported to a time when men wore capes and brandished swords.
Chris and Ian took their seats in general sol, general admission on the sunny side of the arena, the equivalent of the outfield bleachers at a baseball game. A bugle sounded, and then the participants entered the bullring, the matador in glittering white, picadors on horseback, and a battalion of lesser attendants in white pants, red shirts, and red caps. The matador and picadors waved to some visiting dignitary as they paraded around the circle, and the brass band blared.
The air was cool despite the bright sunshine, but Ian looked flushed and was sweaty. His hands fidgeted with the day’s program.
“You okay?” Chris asked.
“I think that street vendor’s tacos didn’t agree with me,” Ian said. “I’m going to hit the restroom.”
“I told you that guy didn’t look hygienic,” Chris said.
“I’ll be back in a few.”
Chris watched the procession in the bullring below, then turned to observe his fellow spectators. A group of work
ing men in jeans and green shirts that were some sort of uniform studied the ceremonies intently as they drank from a canvas canteen they passed around. Clearly, there were layers of meaning to the proceedings that he was not appreciating. Chris was certain that they would probably look at him the same way if they sat with him during a Giants game.
Chris’s burner phone rang. Aside from Ian, no one had the number except Zoey.
“Hello?”
“My name is Rajiv Gupta, and I’m going to help you stay alive right now.”
“Who are you?”
“I work for the agency that’s been pursuing you. We call ourselves the Working Group. There’s a man coming to kill you, one of our agents. We don’t have a lot of time for background here.”
“Where is he now?”
“In the stadium.”
“How close?”
“He hasn’t seen you yet, but he knows where you are, and he’s coming.”
“How long do I have?”
“Maybe three minutes tops.”
“How do you know where I am?”
“I can see you.”
Chris spun around in his seat and scanned the crowd for someone with a cell phone watching him.
“No, I’m in South Carolina, but I’m accessing the video feed from the security camera. The one behind you on the right.”
Chris spun again and saw the camera mounted on a nearby pillar. “How are you doing that?”
“You really want to waste time on that sort of question? You need to move.”
“I need to get Ian.”
“Don’t worry about him.”
“I can’t leave him to die.”
“That’s not gonna happen. Your friend Ian sold you and Zoey out.”
Chris lost about half a minute processing that statement. At first he couldn’t believe that Ian would betray him, but as he thought about it a bit more, he found that he could. Ian had demonstrated a strong instinct for self-preservation at the expense of others when he nearly left Chris behind on Mission Street after the shootings at his office.
“Chris? Hey, man, you gotta snap out of it. You need to move. Hey, do you have earbuds?”
“Yeah.”
“Put them in.”
He did as instructed.
“Okay, now put your phone in your pocket. Do not turn it off. I’m going to guide you out of there.”
“Okay.”
“Now stand up and walk down the row behind you.”
Chris stood and began moving down an empty row of seats.
“Go past the first tunnel and keep walking until you get to the second tunnel, then go inside.”
The crowd stood and murmured “¡Olé!” again, and there were scattered whistles. Chris had no time to look in the ring; he forced his way past the standing spectators, spilling one woman’s sangria as he reached the entrance to the second tunnel.
“How do I know to trust you? You could be leading me right to your killer.”
“Oh, our killer needs no help, believe me about that.”
As he moved, Chris looked behind him but didn’t see Corbin or anyone else who looked particularly suspicious. “I don’t like the way you just used the word ‘our.’”
“Force of habit. Believe me, my bosses are not going to like it when they figure out what I’m doing. Now, are you going to go in the tunnel or not?”
Chris stepped out of the dazzling sun and into the dark of the tunnel, where he was nearly blinded for a moment as his eyes adjusted.
When he reached the interior walkway through the stadium, the voice said, “Okay, wait there for a second inside the tunnel.”
Chris stopped. The voice sounded as clear as if it were over his shoulder or inside his head.
“Wait, wait.” A pause. “Now go, turn left.”
Chris began walking away. He wanted to turn to see if he could spot his pursuer. But the voice truly seemed to be in his head, because it added, “Don’t look back. Keep walking.”
“Why?”
“He’s looking your way. He might even be staring at your back, wondering if that’s you.”
Chris nearly jumped at the words. He clenched his fists, drew a deep breath, and attempted to tame his jackhammering pulse. He walked briskly through the crowds, resisting a strong urge to run.
“Is he still staring?”
“Yes, he’s still staring. He’s not moving.” After a beat Rajiv added, “He just went into the stadium. You’re okay.”
“What’s the status on Mexico City?” Sigrid asked. She seemed to have suddenly materialized at the entrance to their work space, a tall, colorless specter.
Rajiv turned around so suddenly that he nearly tore his headset out of its jack. “Corbin is on site. Bruen and Doucet haven’t shown yet, but they should be appearing any minute.”
“I want a report the instant it’s done,” Sigrid said. “I’d be with you for the whole thing, but I’m still dealing with the fallout from this Sam Reston thing.”
Rajiv and Josh nodded that they were aware of the media firestorm involving their former boss.
“I can assure you that Reston is going to pay dearly for his breach,” Sigrid said. “No mistakes today, gentlemen.”
As soon as she had stalked off to her office, Josh whispered, “She’s onto us. I can feel it.”
“No, she just can’t wait to see Bruen and Doucet dead. Stay calm. We can do this.”
Rajiv was trying to sound confident for Josh’s benefit, but he despaired that they would never make it home from work, instead delivered straight to prison or some black site. Corbin was smart and so was Sigrid, and they both had their guard up.
Rajiv’s journey to this dire pass had begun two days ago when he received the call on his home number from Sam Reston. As soon as he heard Sam’s voice over the scratchy international connection, he knew that the prudent career move was to hang up and report the call to Sigrid immediately. Everyone knew that Reston had gone Snowden, joining the man himself in Russia.
But instead, for reasons that he didn’t fully understand, Rajiv had chosen to follow Sam’s instructions. He had bought a burner phone from an all-night convenience store, then driven to Josh’s house and woken him. When Josh opened the front door, with explosive hair and eyelids at half-mast, Rajiv promptly slipped him a note. It said that they couldn’t talk until they were away from the house and in a secure location where there were no CCTV cameras.
They ended up driving Rajiv’s car to a small pond about five miles from his house. They parked, walked down a worn dirt path to the pond, and spoke to Sam by the feeble illumination of the smartphone screen. Sam’s disembodied voice addressed them over the tinny speaker from halfway around the world, outlining his proposition. The only other sound in the landscape was the insistent, near-mechanical whir of cicadas.
Rajiv had watched Josh’s face as he listened, trying to guess his decision. “I know this is a lot to ask,” he’d told his friend, “but I just can’t stand by and allow Bruen, Ayres, and Doucet to be killed. If you choose not to do this, I understand.”
After a pause Sam asked, “Are you in?”
Josh nodded.
Rajiv said, “Josh says he’s in, and I am too.”
“You could lose your jobs over this,” Sam said. “And maybe much worse.”
“We understand,” Rajiv said. “You wanted us to be emotionally invested in our work, right?”
There was a long moment as the static crackled. Finally, Sam said, “This is different. And forget what I said.”
They hadn’t forgotten, of course, and now they were in the thick of it, playing a deadly and complicated game. The critical thing was not to confuse the two phone lines. Rajiv was simultaneously connected to both Corbin and Bruen, toggling between the two with his headset on while following them on the various CCTV cameras they passed and constantly checking the stadium schematics.
When Zoey arrived on the scene, Josh would play the same game of keep-away between her and Corbin. One
obvious stall or wrong word would tip Corbin off to their deception.
“Where are they?” Corbin was growing angry.
“Bruen should be there. He was sitting in that row just a minute ago.”
“Well, you’ve got the video feed. Rewind it and tell me where he went.”
That was what made this task so challenging. Video coverage of the stadium was nearly complete, so they couldn’t credibly tell Corbin that they had completely lost them. Delaying tactics were all they had.
And they lacked any semblance of an endgame.
41
Two days after his previous visit, Vladimir Grishin returned to call on Sam in his Moscow penthouse. This time Sam was ready for him.
When Sam opened the door, Grishin’s demeanor had changed entirely from previous visits. He looked hard and dead eyed, like a cyborg after his flesh-colored foam rubber has been burned away from his face. At least it wasn’t a surprise. Despite the older man’s attempts at diplomacy, Sam had known all along whom he was dealing with.
“I saw the video,” Grishin said. “You have made a terrible mistake.”
Snowden had told him how to procure a clean laptop and phone on the black market, and Sam had used them to enlist the aid of his former team at the Working Group, Rajiv Gupta and Josh Epstein. He had been taking a big risk by contacting them, because he hadn’t even known them for more than a few days, but it hadn’t taken Josh and Rajiv long to decide that they didn’t want to be complicit in the murders that their employer was about to commit.
Josh and Rajiv had helped him connect with a journalist at the Washington Post who was prepared to publish Sam’s materials on the Skeleton Key program and the Working Group. If Sam could freely communicate with the world, he figured that Grishin and his SVR cronies couldn’t continue to detain him as a “guest of the state.” That was the purpose of the YouTube video.
