The Cloud Collector (14 page)

Johnston's response still wasn't immediate. Eventually he said, ‘A tight unit: the inner core's headed by a NSA whiz kid, working with a CIA control. It's an Agency—which means me—covert operation.'

It was little more than confirmation of what she'd already inferred, but Johnston's vague generalization was to prevent her from getting a true picture of the operation from any inadvertent mistake he might make. It was her moment to generalize to get the potential difficulty out of the way. ‘An operation that pulled off a hell of a coup isolating what turned out to be three attacks.'

There was another pause from the man. ‘With the exception of losing al Aswamy.'

He'd introduced it, not her, Sally recognized, relieved. Which didn't sync with his earlier effort to impress. ‘Mistakes happen.'

‘This one shouldn't have happened. And it sure as hell wouldn't have if I'd taken over this job a week or two earlier.'

Now
it synced. Which direction could she safely follow? Feed the ego, she decided. ‘And if we'd had al Aswamy the threat of six more imminent attacks might not be so great. I can understand the problems you had with today's meeting.'

‘The only practical discussion, apart from the bounty, was the initial assessment I had our analysts here carry out. I was grateful for Dave's heads-up with that, of course.'

Sally had been curious if the man was going to more openly refer to his independent contact with the Director-General, but now that he had, she wished she understood what Johnston was alluding to. ‘I'm not sure I'm keeping up with you here.'

‘The matching accounts of further attacks confirming that they're genuine, not empty boasts by al Aswamy.'

Monkton hadn't said that! Certainly not to her. The reference had virtually been a dismissive afterthought illustrating the hysteria of some European security services at the prospect of further outrages on their soil. Sally remembered Monkton's warning of diplomatic and intelligence-service exaggerations in times of national crisis:
MI5's function is properly to advise the government of what dangers truly and genuinely exist, totally without embellishment that might lead to the wrong reaction or response. That's what I want you to provide.
She said, ‘My director-general didn't put it to me as strongly as that. I took it as a description of the over-reaction in Europe to the threats, not a confirmation of them.'

Johnston's face briefly tightened, then relaxed. ‘Profiling and Analysis was my division until very recently. I know their abilities and have a lot of respect for their judgement. They think the similarities strongly indicate genuine attacks.'

Because that was the assessment they were guided towards, guessed Sally, mentally flagging the exchange for her next conversation with Monkton. Time to get back to the more immediate objective. ‘This tight, inner core unit is based here at Langley, right? Everyone moved down from Fort Meade?'

‘You've done your research, know where the National Security Agency is.'

Along with millions of cyber buffs from age eight upwards who knew Google wasn't the sound made by a newborn baby, thought Sally, weary of the facile patronizing. She shifted in her seat, slightly smiling in expectation, saying nothing.

Finally Johnston said, ‘Split. All the interception stuff starts over in Maryland. Control's up here, answerable to me.'

‘There's no-one from NSA here?'

The face tightened again, longer this time. ‘The whiz kid I spoke about; worked on the Stuxnet sabotage of the Iranian nuclear facilities. Came up today with the bounty idea. Diplomatic family, spent all his life in the Middle East until college here; knows it like the back of his hand.'

‘Not American?'

Johnston, who'd labored his answer to deflect her, frowned. ‘American diplomatic family.'

It still wasn't the direct answer she wanted. ‘Working from here or Fort Meade?'

Now it was Johnston who paused. ‘Both. He's got an office here but spends time there, where the technical facilities are.'

‘My security clearance has been verified and accepted, hasn't it?'

‘Of course.' Johnston frowned. ‘You wouldn't have gotten past the gate if it hadn't been.'

Sally's smile widened. ‘No impediment to my meeting the inner-core guys down here then? Or up at Fort Meade, either?'

‘I can't authorize access to Fort Meade.'

‘But you can here, can't you? It's your operation,' seized Sally. ‘It really is essential to be as close as possible to the raw-material source, remember.'

‘Of course you should meet them.'

Not easy but then again not as difficult as she'd expected it might be, reflected Sally. Something else was surprisingly much easier on her drive back into Washington, and the concentration it required delayed a proper analysis of her conversation with Johnston. She was chilled, her mind momentarily frozen in disbelief, when the possibility occurred to her, but then she refused to accept it because it couldn't be possible. Or could it?

*   *   *

‘The son of a bitch hung me out to dry in front of the largest fucking Washington audience he could find!' fumed James Bradley. ‘Bastard; cocksucking bastard!'

Neither Irvine nor Packer said anything, watching the fury-driven man stride from place to place around his office, picking up and putting down unfocused-upon objects, too agitated to remain still.

‘It's on the written record, all there in print. It'll go beyond Graham to the Director himself. Anyone need a fall guy to dump all the shit on, they got it now.' Bradley punched his chest, further crumpling the buttoned-up jacket. ‘Here's the target; just pull the fucking trigger.'

‘There's almost six hundred people already in the slammer, and that'll quadruple by the day when the bounty is announced,' reminded Packer. ‘We'll get al Aswamy from among them.' He hoped. Packer had seen his personal recognition by the president as his guarantee of promotion through the NSA executive to financial survival, but had been worried by the absence of White House staffers at the meeting.

‘That wasn't how I heard what the Bureau jerk-off said,' refused Bradley. ‘The way I heard it, every jerk-off and his dog are calling 911 if they see a guy in a beard and a bedsheet, and all of us know that the last thing al Aswamy has got now is a fucking beard and kaftan. And you're right about the bounty. There's going to be a roundup of more people than you can shake a stick at for al Aswamy to hide behind.'

‘There were as many photographs with the beard airbrushed out,' said Irvine, searching for a contribution. ‘And a million bucks might ring the right bell.'

Disregarding the effort, Bradley said, ‘I could sure as hell have done with more help from you, too!'

‘What goes around comes around,' reflected Irvine, vindicated by the man's earlier abandonment. ‘I gave a completely honest answer to Conrad Graham's intercept question.'

‘There was time before the meeting for us to talk about the bounty idea.'

‘I didn't have the bounty idea before the fucking meeting!'

‘You could have talked up your chances of catching a transmission again,' persisted Bradley, changing tack. ‘What the hell are your guys doing up there at Fort Meade apart from scratching their asses!'

‘We're the last of the last of the conceivable chances of finding him again, for Christ's sake!' insisted Irvine.

‘He's got to speak to someone, somehow!'

Bradley was flailing around like a blind man swatting bugs. More quietly but with his anger growing, Irvine said, ‘Of course he's got to speak to someone. He's probably doing it right now, from wherever the hell he is, which could just as likely be from a bazaar in Islamabad as from a cell phone in Lafayette Park across from the White House. We found him for you once, Jim. We played him like a puppet and did a lot of collateral terrorist damage. And then your guys lost him like a bunch of amateurs, and it was on your watch, which is why you're getting the heat. And I'm not going to let any of my guys get burned by that heat.'

‘What the hell's that mean!'

‘Exactly what every word meant. Your watch, your ass. Don't try to off-load it. We can't do any more than what we're doing now.'

‘What do you think of Johnston's analysis theory?' intervened Packer to defuse the confrontation, his decision to distance himself from Bradley confirmed.

‘It's bullshit,' dismissed Bradley, finally sitting at his desk. ‘He just wanted to sound like he was taking everything forward, which he didn't.'

‘Who knows?' Irvine shrugged, disinterested.

‘You think Cyber Shepherd can survive?' Packer asked him, voicing another concern.

‘With changes,' predicted Irvine.

Bradley turned sharply at the remark but said nothing.

 

14

‘Johnston's already been on,' David Monkton said at once, hurrying through the perfunctory greetings. ‘How was the meeting?'

Sally hesitated in her cramped cubicle in the embassy communication room, hopeful the remark indicated more immediate openness than Monkton had so far shown. Establish the parameters, she decided, confirm the hope. ‘What time did he call?'

Now the Director-General hesitated at the unexpected response. ‘Four fifteen, your time.'

‘I left him at four ten. He was anxious to get in first, wasn't he?' And Monkton was still at Thames House at 10:20 p.m. London time, she calculated from the cubicle clock set on English time.

‘We're in the middle of a crisis,' reminded the man, unwittingly meeting Sally's reflection. ‘Did he appear pressured, face-to-face?'

‘He's very positively distancing himself from the loss of al Aswamy. Actually insisted it wouldn't have happened if he'd been in place earlier, so there's clearly some responsibility-shifting going on.'

‘He tell you about the bounty?'

This is encouraging, thought Sally. ‘Said it was the idea of the NSA cryptologist assigned to the operation.' There was no reason to mention the Middle East diplomatic background. It was only of curiosity interest to her, nothing at all to do with her professional assignment.

‘Working
how
?' seized Monkton. ‘What's different from normal NSA activity?'

‘We didn't get that far. But I am going to meet him and the CIA supervisor heading the unit, so I should find out.'

‘When?' demanded the Director-General. ‘We're never going to be side by side with whatever they're doing, but I want to be as close to Johnston's shoulder as it's possible to be. He's got to go on believing we've got stuff he needs to stay just that far in front.'

Confirmation she scarcely needed that she was piggy in the middle, acknowledged Sally: roasted if she got it wrong, farmyard queen if she got it right, whatever
it
was. Sally eased her shoes off against the chair leg and felt a stocking ladder.

‘What about the bounty?'

Sally frowned at the phrasing: Monkton wasn't giving her any leads. ‘They've worked in the past for America. Us, too, although not quite on the same publicity scale.'

‘He give you a figure?'

‘No.'

‘He claimed the CIA paid twenty-four million for bin Laden. When I told him our intelligence was that it went directly to finance Al Qaeda, who'd decided to sacrifice someone past his sell-by date, Johnston said so what, it made the right headlines.'

‘It answers your question about pressure, doesn't it?'

Monkton laughed approvingly. ‘The State Department are going to press European governments to make big-dollar commitments as well, to make the eventual pot impossible to refuse. And for us to dangle the carrot right away in front of our four particular detainees.'

‘You think our government will go for it?'

‘It would be a reward for information leading to the eventual arrest and conviction of al Aswamy, which is quite different from paying a ransom, which we officially don't do. And publicly it would look like positive action, which Downing Street's anxious to be seen taking.'

‘When do we pay ransom?' demanded Sally, continuing the cynicism.

‘Whenever it'll get people back alive,' answered Monkton without hesitation.

‘You believe our four know more than they've so far admitted?'

‘It's possible, although they haven't moved their initial claims forward. Johnston wants us to make them available for American interrogation.'

‘In England?' questioned Sally, practically before the man finished speaking.

‘America.'

‘That means extraordinary rendition: torture somewhere.'

‘Probably,' accepted Monkton in flat-voiced agreement.

‘Are you going to hand them over?'

‘I'm not. I understand the approach is also being made by the State Department to the Foreign Office, which makes it a political decision.'

London would go along with that, too, Sally knew. With that acceptance came another awareness. Monkton was now telling her
everything,
if not directly then by inference. Taking the man's lead, she said, ‘We got any harder information of new attacks?'

‘We never had
hard
information in the first place, only what the four told us without anything to substantiate what they're saying.'

‘That's what I told Johnston. He's arguing there'll definitely be more, according to the analysis division he used to head, based on what our four and the two in Italy are saying.'

‘You believe he said that at the crisis meeting?'

‘Yes.'

‘He told me State were there. It'll be spun back as a definite possibility through the Foreign Office.'

‘He didn't tell you about the analysis?'

‘He asked if there was anything more from the debriefings; that was how he got round their being handed over for American questioning. You think yours was a good first meeting?'