The Cloud Collector (16 page)

‘What the hell's going on?' demanded Sally in her morning telephone contact with London, the monitoring TV in the embassy communications room loud enough for her to hear the continuous news coverage.

‘Everything that I was afraid would happen,' replied David Monkton.

*   *   *

Sally delayed leaving the compound apartment until the last possible moment, expecting the meeting to be cancelled, and drove out to Langley waiting for the cell phone call that never came. She entered Johnston's office with five minutes to spare. The two men she'd come to meet were already there, their chairs forming a vague semi-circle completed by Johnston at his desk. They reminded her of the three wise monkeys, although ready rather than reluctant to see, hear, and speak of evil. Or were they? Their body language was scarcely that of a combined team: each seemed to want space from the other. Her already positioned chair made her their focus, like a job applicant, which by a long stretch of imagination she supposed she was. If the seating arrangement was meant to unsettle her, it didn't work.

She'd correctly identified the two strangers while she was still standing, before Johnston's introduction. James Bradley's tightly corseting suit looked as if he'd uncomfortably slept in it, which considering the unfolding mistakes of the previous night was a distinct possibility. The handshake was overly firm—which she anticipated and so didn't flinch—but at the same time dismissive, matching the fixed expression with which he was now regarding her. He probably had more reason than she did to be uneasy, Sally supposed, remembering her previous day's conversation with Johnston. As the CIA supervisor, he would be held directly responsible for the failure of al Aswamy's surveillance. Jack Irvine, by comparison, hadn't attempted any finger-crushing nonsense and instead smiled an even-toothed smile and said, ‘Good to meet you,' as if he'd meant it, even if he didn't.

Sally put him at at least six feet two, the height accentuated by a slimness she guessed to be more naturally than athletically achieved. The freshly laundered chinos were barely creased, and the deep blue George Washington University sweatshirt looked fresh, too. He wasn't wearing socks with the loafers.

Johnston said, ‘Well, what do you think of what's happened overnight?'

As of an hour ago Johnston hadn't spoken with Monkton, Sally knew. ‘The leak of further possible attacks was inevitable, with so many people involved in so many countries. But it shouldn't have happened this way. It was ridiculous to pander to individual country posturing instead of centralizing the bounty offer, and even more ridiculous to let the announcements run like an all-night film, which is precisely what it's turned out to be, a Hollywood catastrophe movie. The biggest error was the ignorance it showed. Al Qaeda isn't a cohesive organization with al Aswamy at its head, like an army general. We all know it's a collection of disparate cells, only very loosely connected.'

This wasn't what she was there for, but Sally accepted the previous night couldn't be ignored. Bradley's face had initially tightened as she'd begun talking, but he relaxed by the time she'd finished without having referred to the missing Iranian.

‘What about you?'

Bradley too obviously didn't expect Johnston's direct question. Recovering badly, he said, ‘It's kind of a mess, but everyone in the world will know what al Aswamy looks like now. Twenty million will get him.'

The demand for Bradley's opinion hadn't been part of whatever preparation there'd been before her arrival, Sally guessed. So it
was
the continued humiliation of the man. She said, ‘Last night's damage can't be undone.' The remark wasn't compassion for Bradley: she wanted to get to the purpose of this meeting, not play a CIA who-did-what-wrong game.

‘What about you?' persisted Johnston, coming to Irvine.

There was no surprised reaction. Without any hesitation Irvine said, ‘What more is there to say? It was a screwup, from a bad start to a worse finish, and now there's worldwide panic, and al Aswamy, Tehran, and every half-assed terrorist in every cave, hole in the ground, ashram, or mosque is risking cardiac arrest laughing so hard at not having had to do a goddamned thing to generate that panic. So why don't we talk about something else, something constructive?'

Irvine enjoyed the restrained but approving smile from the woman, though he was still adjusting to her presence. He hadn't thought about what she would be like, hadn't thought anything about her beyond that their encounter was delaying his getting to the Moscow Alternative chat room. But he'd briefed everyone at Fort Meade beforehand and had his cell phone in his pocket. He could spend a little more time here.

There was definitely a Middle East connection, he decided. If Sally Hanning was her real name—and during his first week at Langley he'd learned exchanged names were rarely if ever birth names—she'd had mixed parentage. Caucasian features, so the most likely was a Western father—British even more likely because she'd been accepted into Britain's MI5—and a Middle Eastern mother. Milked-coffee complexion, deeply blue eyes, blond hair fashioned to Western shortness, maybe five feet eight, maybe an inch taller. Didn't fit a Maghreb profile; farther north than Israel—the strongest contender—Syria, Lebanon, or Jordan. Flawless face, flawless body, catwalk couture, in-your-face confidence. Not the right combination, came the abrupt caveat. Another first-week lesson: professional intelligence agents didn't exist. They were never there, never seen, never remembered: like ghosts, they didn't cast shadows, didn't photograph, neither on camera nor in mind. Sally Hanning was break-your-neck-turnaround beautiful to look at, which he was having a hell of a job steeling himself from too obviously doing, glad at that particular moment he didn't have to try so hard because she'd picked up on his remark.

‘Why don't we do that?' snatched Sally. ‘There's nothing we can do or say that's going to affect anything else at this moment, is there?'

‘I'd hoped there might have been something,' said Johnston, refusing to be hurried. Still talking to Irvine, he said, ‘Something you might have come up with?'

Moving in the right direction, thought Sally: it actually sounded like an easy transition into what she was there to hear.

‘If there'd been anything, anything at all, I wouldn't have waited until now to tell you,' disappointed Irvine.

‘I haven't spoken to London yet today?' switched the covert operations chief, implying the question as he turned back to Sally.

‘There's disbelief at what happened last night, nothing more,' replied Sally shortly, determined to force the pace as well as the direction. ‘Perhaps we can talk about what part I can play in the Shepherd operation?'

Bradley stirred. ‘Yes, that's what we're here to talk about.'

Sally thought she detected some resentment, which wasn't so easy to understand. There was no authority, no way, her presence could affect him.

Johnston said, ‘Shepherd's a specialized operation, targeted against terrorist groups using social networks, predominantly Facebook. We identify, isolate, infiltrate, and misdirect.'

Too generalized, too glib, assessed Sally, at once; go along with it, prise it out a scrap at a time, she told herself. Overly generalizing in return, she said, ‘Isn't that what NSA does anyway?'

Both Bradley and Irvine frowned at the demand. Johnston came close and said, ‘Identifying, certainly; more suspecting, maybe, before passing it on as we did with Sellafield and the Colosseum, in Rome. But we confirm the suspicion when it directly affects America.'

Better, but not by much, thought Sally. ‘And having isolated and confirmed the suspicion, the CIA infiltrates?'

This time Irvine didn't frown. Bradley did, though, and Johnston came closer than before. With a vague hand gesture to Irvine, the man said, ‘You want to come in here, Jack?'

‘It's not physical infiltration. We do it electronically—' started the cryptologist.

Sally broke in, ‘Hacking?'

‘Yes. You up to speed with that?'

Sally shook her head but didn't speak, wanting everything to come from one of the three.

‘We don't do it direct: we get into other sites, without the account holders knowing, and from the first go into a second and from the second go into a third. They're our firewalls. Our targets can't ever get past them. They self-destruct the moment they're detected. There's no danger of our being detected.'

‘And access all their planning; get ahead of them?'

‘Exactly.'

Shit! She shouldn't ask questions that only got single-word answers; there'd even been a hint of a patronizing smile from Johnston. ‘Where and how does misdirection fit in?'

For the first time Irvine hesitated. ‘It gives us logistical time to get the CIA in position.'

Sally was conscious of a facial relaxation from Johnston and Bradley. Keeping her attention more on Bradley than Irvine, she asked, ‘What happened to the Washington Monument logistics?'

‘We weren't properly in position when the media leak happened,' said Bradley hurriedly.

‘Which won't happen again,' said Johnston just as quickly.

They were treating her like a fool, Sally decided; shut up or put up time. ‘I came here, was accepted here, on an understanding between you, Mr Johnston, and my own director in London that I could make a contribution to Operation Cyber Shepherd, as I made a contribution to an intended assault upon an English nuclear installation. I was able to do that because I was at the absolute centre of the investigation, able to fit the pieces together—'

‘We're aware of your success,' intruded Johnston.

‘I'm not trailing success stories,' dismissed Sally impatiently. ‘I'm setting it out solely to illustrate
why
I was able to achieve it,
why
a potentially fatal leakage of nuclear material was stopped.' She looked directly at Bradley. ‘If al Aswamy is controlling other attacks, through other groups, and some of those we've detained in Britain and Rome know more than they've so far admitted, you could well get al Aswamy for twenty million dollars. But getting him doesn't guarantee that none of his other targets won't be hit; every indication is that he's too committed to disclose them even if he's seized. And it wouldn't reduce the threat if he is caught and gives up every location. One of his groups could—and probably would—get through. Which again isn't any guarantee that a catastrophe will be prevented. That twenty million dollars and all the hysteria it's generating is a direct challenge to enough jihadists and fundamentalists to stage outrages entirely unconnected with al Aswamy and anything he might or might not have planned.'

‘We know that,' persisted Bradley.

There wasn't the resentful attitude of the beginning, judged Sally. ‘I'm reassured, which I haven't been up to now.'

‘You are here by invitation,' threatened Johnston stiffly.

Almost too far, Sally accepted warily; no farther. ‘To do what! Work how? With whom? At what level?'

‘You'll work here, at Langley. Through me,' said Johnston.

A virtual repeat of the Patrick Fellowes charade, Sally recognized; confirmation of what she'd feared from the outset. ‘With access to all the raw intelligence, as and how it comes in?'

‘Eighty percent arrives in Arabic,' said Irvine, staging a personal experiment.

‘Which I have,' responded Sally, seeing an opening. ‘I could work with your linguists if there are any dialect or regional difficulties.'

It confirmed Irvine's first impressions, but he hadn't expected the reply. ‘We'll sort any problems out as and when they arise.'

‘You're a linguist?'

‘Some Arabic,' minimized Irvine, aware of the concentration from the other two men.

‘That could work well, with both of us being here at Langley.' She'd pushed the promises well beyond what Johnston had been prepared to accept, Sally thought contentedly.

‘We'll sort out the details,' Johnston tried to qualify.

She already had if she was quick enough, thought Sally. But she could allow a few more minutes. ‘While we're sorting things out, I'd like the surveillance that's been put on me since yesterday lifted. And please don't tell me it was for my own protection. The amateurs you assigned need far more protection than I do.'

*   *   *

Jack Irvine had enjoyed Johnston's discomfort at Sally's dismissal of the surveillance just slightly more than the inquest that immediately followed, although he believed he'd eventually convinced the covert operations director that he'd have no difficulty concealing the contentious aspects of Operation Cyber Shepherd. Today's episode compounded his increasing belief that the only way to preserve the operation was to completely bypass Johnston and Bradley and appeal directly to Conrad Graham—the original and enthusiastic authorizer—to reorganize the CIA supervising structure.

His phone finally vibrated as Irvine entered his CIA office, stopping him just inside the door. Marian said, ‘Shab's sending you the full e-mail, but I wanted to give you the heads-up right away.'

‘What!' demanded Irvine.

‘Akram's made a connection with Anis on the Action subcatalog: there's an ongoing exchange right now. And we've got three other possibles going through the number generator.'

‘Tell Akram—' Irvine instinctively began, but stopped short of appearing unsure of Malik's ability.

‘Tell him what?' demanded the woman.

‘Tell him well done.'

‘You coming down?'

Irvine hesitated. ‘Seems you're doing all right without me. I can monitor Akram from here.'

‘How's it going?'

‘Not as good as it's obviously going with you.'