End of Secrets (32 page)

FORTY-THREE

Kera entered the apartment with her mind still back in the diner, replaying everything Lionel had said—and what h
e’d
failed to say. She stopped and looked up before she could pull the key from the lock. Parker was standing in the center of the living room, looking as though h
e’d
been waiting for her for some time.

“Can we talk?” he said.

“Wha
t’s
wrong?” She shut the door and walked toward him until she could see that he was shaking. And then she knew: h
e’d
found out about Bolívar.

Without warning he wrapped his arms around her.

“Babe,” she said, “is everything OK?”

“Yes, I think so. Bu
t . . .
yo
u’r
e a journalist, are
n’t
you? No
t . . .
something else.”

“Of course.” She was not proud of how naturally this lie came out of her, faster than sh
e’d
even been able to think.

“If not, I need to know the truth. I wo
n’t
ask anything more about it. I just need to know.”

“Wha
t’s
this about? Why are you even saying these things?” She guided him to the couch.

“Today at work I was questioned by our Information Security department.”

“Your what?”

“Never mind that. The
y’r
e like—the
y’r
e just security guys. But well funded, apparently. It was creepy, babe. They had pictures of you, like yo
u’r
e some kind of criminal. Talking to some man in the subway, coming out of a building late at night.”

When he looked up at her, she felt certain that now he was going to ask her who sh
e’d
been with so late at night. It was about Bolívar, after all. At this realization she felt a calm pass through her. She would tell him the truth, at least about that. She could only take so much of the empty feeling that came with lying to him. But he did
n’t
ask.

“They said you are
n’t
who you say you are, that yo
u’r
e not really a journalist.”

“Why? How come they were following me?”

“The man you were talking to—the one in the subway—he used to work at ONE. The
y’r
e worried about things he knows, I guess. Company secrets. God, listen to me. It sounds crazy to even say that.”

“If it helps, I can just tell you. The man I was talking to is a source,” Kera said. The way he looked at her compelled her to go on. “I
t’s
for a story
I’m
working on about quants. You know, the Wall Street guys. I did a short piece a while back about how some of them had been hired by ONE. This is sort of a follow-up. Not just to understand why a company like ONE would want these math geniuses, but also to see how other industries, besides finance, are finding these guys useful. I contacted that guy from ONE because I thought h
e’d
be willing to talk to me now that h
e’s
no longer involved with the company.”

“Was he?”

“Not really, no.”

Parker looked hopeful. “So he did
n’t
tell you anything about ONE?”

“No. In fact, he seemed terrified to talk. Parker, wha
t’s
going on? What does he know tha
t’s
so dangerous?”

“Honestly,” Parker said. “I do
n’t
know.”

He fell silent, and she did
n’t
like the troubled look on his face. “Parker,” she said, “did they threaten you?”

He hesitated.

“Babe?”

“No,” he said quickly. “It was
n’t
really like that. The whole thing just shook me, tha
t’s
all. I
t’s
probably me wh
o’s
overreacting.”

FORTY-FOUR

Kera waited for Jones to come off the elevator. From the Starbucks in the ground floor of the building, she watched him cross the lobby and turn left on the sidewalk. She checked her watch. It was ten after seven. She tailed Jones down Seventh Avenue toward the Forty-Second Street subway station, just as sh
e’d
done on four of the five nights since their conversation in the park. For the first two nights, sh
e’d
noticed ON
E’s
man drifting a block behind her with the
telephoto-lens
camera. She could tell from his movements that he did
n’t
much care whether she knew he was there. They were sending her a message.

Then h
e’d
stopped showing up. She figured Bradley was their priority, and the clumsy resources the
y’d
dedicated to her were seeing diminishing returns.

Tonight she stuck on Jones after determining that the ONE goon was
n’t
in tow. Jone
s’s
routine was to take the train to his neighborhood in Brooklyn. There, he would usually get takeout from a local eatery and disappear into his apartment building for the rest of the night. Once he ate dinner by himself in a restaurant before turning in. She did
n’t
know if he lived alone, but she could
n’t
imagine otherwise.

Tonight, though, she did not intend to track him all the way to Brooklyn. At a spot sh
e’d
picked for its lack of HawkEye coverage, she closed the gap between them and came up beside him a block short of the subway. He did
n’t
notice her until she spoke.

“We need to talk. Can I buy you a drink?”

He seemed more pleased to see her than sh
e’d
expected he would be.
Maybe h
e’s
just lonely,
she thought.
Maybe h
e’s
in love with me.
Then he grew tense, and she knew he was thinking of the cameras.

“This way,” she said. The sidewalk on Forty-Fifth Street was covered for construction for a full block. This allowed them to skirt west with little risk of being picked up by HawkEye.

They found a bar on Ninth Avenue. The place did
n’t
really matter, only that it was
n’t
too loud or too bright. Jones ordered a scotch. Kera could tell h
e’d
gone with the eight-year because she was paying; she told the bartender to make it a twelve-year. She ordered a vodka with soda for herself and paid in cash.

“Jones, I have to ask you something.”

“Wha
t’s
that?”

“Why did you come to Hawk?”

He looked both relieved by and suspicious of the question. “I assume i
t’s
the same reason yo
u’r
e here. I was asked to serve my country.”

“Tha
t’s
it? That was enough?”

“Enough to quit my fourteen-bucks-an-hour job so I could work in that Control Room for ten times the pay? Yeah, it was more than enough.”

“Before Hawk, why were you working in Austin?”

“I told you. I was married. I was trying that lifestyle out for a little while.”

“ ‘T
hat lifestyl
e’?
Installing security software you could have cracked in under a minute? You seem like the kind of guy who needs more of a challenge.”

He studied her. “If yo
u’r
e implying something, why do
n’t
you just come out and say it?”

She stuck her tongue in her cheek. She was asking him to level with her; it was only fair that she do the same. “OK. Why were you fired from NSA?”

Jone
s’s
eyes sharpened with caution, warning her off. Seconds earlier, he had seemed relaxed. The contrast was stark. Kera forced herself to return his gaze, growing more uncomfortable by the second. But then, just as suddenly, something new came into his eyes. An exhaustion. She recognized it immediately: he was tired of all the secrets.

“So tha
t’s
why w
e’r
e here,” he said. He tipped his glass on one edge, gazing down into it as he rolled the ice cube around.

“Why were you forced out?”

He hesitated, but finally answered. “I broke the rules.”

“What rules?”

“All of them I could. I took that to be the purpose of my job. Tha
t’s
what a hacker is supposed to do, is
n’t
it? Question everything. Disrespect boundaries. Live by the idea that security does
n’t
come through self-congratulation; yo
u’r
e safe only if you catch your flaws before anyone else does.” Jones shrugged. “They did
n’t
like how good I was at exposing their flaws.”

“What broken rule, specifically, got you fired?”

He shrugged. “I used NSA equipment to hack into the e-mails of executives at a private security contractor.”

“That have anything to do with your brother?” Kera said.

His eyes darkened in a way that made her wonder what he was capable of. But it was brief, only a reflex. He seemed to have brought it under control a moment later when he released an amused chuckle. “Some other time yo
u’l
l have to tell me how it is you know so much about me.”

She smiled. “We all leave a trail, right? Is
n’t
that the premise that makes HawkEye possible?”

“You did
n’t
use HawkEye on me, though.”

“Tha
t’s
true. I had to go much more low tech than that. I took advantage of your weakness: the world that ca
n’t
be controlled with keystrokes. So, your brother?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, it had something to do with my brother.”

“What happened?”

“You were
n’t
able to learn that?”

“No. I know the outcome but not the reason.
I’m
not doing this for my entertainment, Jones. I need to understand your motivations here.”

He took a long pull of scotch. “Sean was working for this contractor over in Afghanistan.
I’d
been e-mailing with him regularly. And then suddenly his e-mails stopped. I had a bad feeling about it, so I went looking for answers.”

“And tha
t’s
how you found out h
e’d
died?”

He nodded. “I found out he shot himself when I read it in an e-mail between his commander and the fir
m’s
CEO. You should see the e-mails these fuckers write. Men like my brother are
n’t
soldiers to them; the
y’r
e business expenses. After he died, they just wrote him off and passed his weapon along to the next vet fresh off the PTSD plane from Afghanistan. Tha
t’s
their business model. They put guns back into these guy
s’
hands, pump them full of steroids, and profit off the fact that war had turned them into monsters. They killed him, Kera. He might have pulled the trigger. But they killed him.” Jones stopped himself, embarrassed by the state h
e’d
worked himself into. “Sorry.”

“I
t’s
OK,” Kera said. She wondered if h
e’d
ever talked about this to anyone. “And you got caught stealing these e-mails?”

“Sure. I wanted to get caught. I wanted to expose a flaw in the way we were fighting our wars. Clearly, they were
n’t
amused.”

Kera sucked back a large gulp of her drink to keep pace with Jones, then ordered them another round.

“How did you first get into the NSA?” she asked.

“The way my brother and I were raised, if ther
e’s
a war on, you fight it. I thought tha
t’s
how everyone in America was brought up. It was
n’t
until I got out in the world a little more that I understood that most Americans do
n’t
even know a single vet from the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. Most of the country just goes about their lives as if the wars are
n’t
even happening. Not in our house.
I’d
grown up thinking that
I’d
be army like my father. But the truth is, I would
n’t
have been much help to anyone on a battlefield. I was a wimp. A geek. Sean knew that and so did my parents, even though no one would say it. I did
n’t
want to let everyone down—most of all myself. So, out of desperation, I guess, I took some tests for the NSA. Turns out they were the only people in the world who thought the hours I spent alone in my room throughout junior high and high school were well spent. They hurried me off to Fort Meade like I was late to the party.”

“And you were there for six years?”

“Yeah.”

“And then you were forced out and went back to Texas to live the American dream?”

“Something like that.”

“Who recruited you to Hawk?”

“One of Branag
h’s
guys. I led them right to my doorstep. Mind you, I had a lot of free time back then. My days consisted of coasting through a bad marriage and showing up for my menial job. I spent every second of my spare time on my computer, mostly fucking with the NSA. Finally they noticed. The surprise was that instead of sending FBI agents to haul my ass to jail, I was at a coffee shop one day, and Branag
h’s
guy just sits down across the table from me.” Jones smiled. “They were a little pissed that it was me.”

“They did
n’t
know?”

“No. When I hack, I stay anonymous.”

“What was Branag
h’s
pitch to you?”

“I was getting a second chance to serve my country. It was going to be elite, top-secret stuff, vital to national security, blah, blah, blah.”

“Sounds familiar.”

Jones shook his head. “In retrospect, I should have been suspicious that they wanted me back. I wanted it too bad.”

“Given your past at NSA, they knew it was a risk to take you,” Kera said. “And yet they still wanted you more than you wanted them.”

“Yes. But Hawk is being more careful with me this time. The
y’r
e watching closely. Tha
t’s
why i
t’s
taken me so long to figure out their connection to ONE. And do
n’t
kid yourself, Kera. The
y’r
e watching you too.”

“Then w
e’l
l just have to do this right under their noses.”

He shot a hopeful, questioning glance at her.

She nodded. “
I’m
in.
I’l
l help you take down Hawk. If we can.”

He nodded but did not thank her. There was no reason for that; they both knew that she was
n’t
doing it for him. This would only work if they were each looking out for themselves.

“But just so w
e’r
e clear,” Kera said. “W
e’r
e in agreement that Hawk has become a rogue operation of the CIA and the NSA. I still have a contact at the agency I trust and who trusts me.
I’m
guessing yo
u’r
e no longer on good terms with your former colleagues at NSA?”

“Tha
t’s
correct.”

“OK, then w
e’l
l feed whatever we can get on Hawk back to my guy at the agency, and let them clean it up internally.”

“Kera, I—I do
n’t
think i
t’s
that simple. What if they do
n’t
clean it up internally? What if i
t’s
too messy for that, and they opt to do nothing?”

A part of her knew that Jones was right. Lionel did
n’t
want her and Jones to succeed at exposing Hawk any more than Gabby, Branagh, or ONE did. That was the problem with classified secrets that were kept classified for the wrong reasons: only the people who were keeping them knew if they were the sort that ought to be revealed. But if she could
n’t
bring this to Lionel, who she hoped could help her get her job back at Langley, then she could
n’t
even imagine what she would do next.

“What other choice do we have?” she asked. “Everything related to Hawk is classified. If we take it to anyone else, w
e’l
l violate our security clearances, and our careers in the intelligence community will be over.”

Jones thought about this, though she suspected h
e’d
already thought about it plenty. Finally he nodded. “OK. We can give it a shot your way. But I wo
n’t
let this just disappear. If the agency tries to bury it,
I’m
going public. I do
n’t
think I was cut out for an intelligence career anyway.”

“Fair enough,” Kera said. “One more thing. It is
n’t
just Gabby and Branagh who are watching us. I
t’s
ONE too.”

Jones eyed her. “Since when?”

“A few days ago. When I contacted Bradley, I was careful to slip past HawkEye, but ONE has men on Bradley. They made me. And then yesterday Parker was asking questions about my job.”

Jones looked away, and at first Kera thought he was angry. But he just nodded, and she realized h
e’d
only been thinking about how this changed things. “I
t’s
better that the
y’r
e watching us. Let them. Allow them to think that the
y’r
e a step ahead. Parker, though,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I need to know right now. Will he be a problem?”

Kera had already made up her mind about Parker—perhaps sh
e’d
made it up weeks or even months ago. But it was still difficult to actually take the next step. “No,” she said. “
I’m
going to handle that.” Then she moved the conversation forward to more practical matters. “W
e’l
l need to keep working
A
TLANTIS
until we walk out of that Control Room for the last time.”

“Of course. It would look suspicious to Gabby if we did
n’t
.”