The Director: A Novel (34 page)

“Good Lord Jesus, protect us. Do the British know?”

“No, sir, not so far as we can tell.”

“Well, don’t tell them. Let’s sort this out on the home front.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hoffman flicked at the lapels of his jacket. He adjusted the crease in his trousers. He was thinking.

“James Morris is a Weber project,” said Hoffman. “He wanted some younger, creative people to take more responsibility at the agency, and he sent Morris out on a very sensitive operation. He gave him a hunting license. The problem is that Morris is swimming in a pond with the rest of the fish, including Russian fish. And they all pee in the same water, which gets pumped back into our tanks.”

“I’m not sure I follow the fish part,” said Schumer, “but I get your point.”

Hoffman was nodding, in agreement with himself.

“The question I find myself wondering about,” Hoffman continued, “is why Graham Weber lets this young gentleman, Mr. Morris, wander so freely. We don’t really know all that much about Weber. He is not of our world, is he? He’s a businessman. He got rich making deals and cutting corners. That’s what people do in business.”

“I’m out of my lane now, Cyril.”

“Sorry, old boy. I’m thinking out loud. I shouldn’t draw you into it.”

“There’s one more thing I wanted to warn you about,” said Schumer. “I mentioned at the beginning that some new malware is surfacing in Europe, which my analysts linked to Morris. The problem is, some of them think it’s a prelude to a coordinated cyber-attack.”

“By Morris?”

“That’s what the analysts think. So you have to tell me: If this is Title Fifty covert action and it’s none of my Title Ten military business, just say so and we’ll stay out of the way. We just don’t want to let something slip inside the air gap at CIA that could contaminate other systems.”

Hoffman took off his glasses. He took the tie from beneath his vest and rubbed the lenses of his spectacles. Then he stuffed the tie back under the vest. The glasses were more smudged than before.

“It’s not any Title Fifty operation I approved. Let me pursue it, for now. Morris is Weber’s man. If he has allowed this young man to fall into perdition, he needs to answer for it. If Weber should prove to have a shorter than expected tenure at CIA, well, so be it. I think he already has a good pension.”

“Perhaps I should send Director Weber a report on the foreign activity connected to his networks? He needs to know about that, doesn’t he? Just to be safe.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Russian links, Chinese, all that. Quite right,” said Hoffman. “Send him a report about the foreign contacts with Morris. Mention something about the malware, too. Copy me. That way we can’t be blamed later for not giving a warning. Meanwhile, I’ll jump on this Morris business. We need to find him first, and then turn him inside out. I may need help from other agencies, FBI, whatever. Don’t you worry.”

Schumer closed up the folder on the conference table. He had planned to give it to Hoffman, but he said he would redo it and send a new, briefer version to both directors, Hoffman and Weber.

“Hold off a day on that, would you? I need to get started on Morris before there are too many ripples in the water.”

“Certainly, Mr. Hoffman. It’s a relief, reading you into this. I was worried, I can tell you.”

“Of course you were,” said Hoffman, nodding gently. “It’s quite serious.”

Hoffman, never a man to be ruffled by events, wanted a tour before he got back into his enormous black car, so Schumer walked him through some of the secret spaces in the black cube of the NSA’s headquarters. The surveillance tools were still mostly in place, Snowden notwithstanding, allowing the analysts to dial into metadata and content around the world, so long as they had the proper legal stamps on their requests.

Hoffman was surprised, making his tour, to see just how young and freewheeling the NSA workforce was. They did their recruiting now at hacker conferences and a dozen other less visible honeypots for the smart and mischievous.

As he was on his way out, Hoffman saw a young man in a T-shirt that said
DEF CON XX
. That triggered something in his mind. The young Swiss man who had wanted to defect, who had come in from the underground to warn that the agency was penetrated—he had been wearing a shirt with that same logo. Hoffman had seen it on the video recording of his initial handling by the base chief in Hamburg, which had been circulated by Earl Beasley.

Hoffman always played a long game. But he suspected that, in this case, the decisive innings were nearer than he might have thought. One the way home, he listened to another of Philip Glass’s operas,
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8
, and thought about the puzzle that was taking shape.

When Hoffman returned to the office, he was told that Dr. Ariel Weiss from the CIA’s Information Operations Center had telephoned, requesting an appointment. He told his secretary to call Weiss back immediately and suggest that she stop by Liberty Crossing late that afternoon at six p.m., if possible. He asked the secretary to advise Weiss that this would be a private meeting, at the personal request of the director of National Intelligence, not to be shared with any of her colleagues at the CIA.

Weiss’s office was near the ODNI complex, so it was easy enough for her to slip away and make the short journey to Hoffman’s headquarters. She was cleared quickly through the lobby and escorted upstairs to a capacious suite. When she arrived, the director of National Intelligence was sitting at a round table, away from his desk, going over some papers.

His secretary rapped on the door. Hoffman looked up over the top of his glasses. His eyes widened. He’d never met Ariel Weiss before. She had dressed up for Hoffman, exchanging her usual trousers and white shirt for a gray suit with a pencil skirt and fitted jacket. Her demeanor was cool and composed, as ever.

“The alcove, please,” Hoffman told his secretary. She led Weiss into a small adjoining room, windowless and lined with bookshelves, which Hoffman used for personal or especially sensitive meetings.

Hoffman followed a few moments later and closed the door. He removed his suit jacket, so that he was wearing his pin-striped vest, decorated with its sparkling gold chain. The room had a drinks cabinet and a bucket of ice. Hoffman hung his jacket neatly in a closet and walked to the bar.

“Too early for whiskey? I think not.”

He poured himself a half glass of the amber liquid and sprayed in a jet of seltzer water from a crystal bottle. He added two cubes of ice.

“And you?” he asked.

“The same,” said Weiss. “Neat.”

“Good start,” said Hoffman. “There’s hope.”

They sat down across from each other in brown leather chairs separated by a cherrywood table. The little room danced with the flickering yellow-blue flame from a fake fireplace against the near wall. It was almost cozy in this small room.

“Cheers,” said Hoffman, raising his glass and taking a sip. Weiss put the glass to her lips, let the taste of the whiskey moisten the tip of her tongue and then set it down.

“Do you enjoy your job, Dr. Weiss?”

“Yes, sir, I like it a lot.”

“Is it your expectation to remain with the agency a long time?”

“I don’t know. As long as the work is challenging, yes, I think so.”

“And do you aspire to higher management? People tell me that you’re ambitious.”

“I like the job I have,” she answered cautiously. “But if something attractive came along, of course I would be interested.”

“I see. Well, that’s good. But it behooves an ambitious person, especially, to be careful and follow the rules.”

“I know that, Mr. Hoffman. I try not to violate the rules.”

“Oh, really? Because I gather from a member of my staff, Ms. Hazel Philby, that you were making unauthorized inquiries yesterday about some DNI payment accounts that are strictly compartmented. That’s a violation of the classified-material handling rules, where I come from.”

“I did nothing wrong, sir. I was investigating activities by personnel from the Information Operations Center at the request of senior CIA management. I was following the rules, not breaking them.”

“I’m not sure that a disciplinary panel would agree with you, Dr. Weiss. In fact, I am rather certain they would find you at fault, in a way that might put your security clearance and continued employment at the agency at risk. But let’s put that aside for the moment.”

Weiss was shaking her head.

“I can’t let that stand, Mr. Hoffman. You are accusing me of something. I need to respond.”

Hoffman raised his hand.

“Enough. I said we would return to this later. I want to talk about something else. How much do you know about the activities of James Morris? I gather that’s what you were poking your nose into so deviously. What have you found out?”

“Morris is the problem you should be worrying about. He’s running a secret network with Russians, Chinese and Israelis. He’s totally outside CIA control. From what I picked up, his authority and funding come from your office, Mr. Hoffman. The ODNI supports his clandestine operations out of Denver.”

“Have you told Graham Weber that?”

“Of course I have. He’s my boss.”

“But Dr. Weiss, I am also your boss. And I am telling you that whatever authority I may have given to Morris, which is none of your business, it does not include working with Russians, Chinese and Israelis. That is freelancing. And in my opinion, it’s a result of your esteemed ‘boss’ giving Morris too much authority. This ball is on Weber’s racquet, not mine.”

“I’ll leave the turf question to you, sir,” said Weiss coolly. “But based on what I’ve seen, someone had better take action quickly. Because I think Pownzor Morris is about to do something very crazy and dangerous. It’s just a hunch. But since you asked me about him, that’s what I think.”

She picked up her glass again, and this time she took a healthy swallow of whiskey.

Hoffman snorted, but it was impossible to know whether it was in appreciation of the young woman’s resolve or in anger. He stirred his drink with his index finger.

“What do you know about Morris’s contact with the Russians?” asked Hoffman. “You said you found evidence he has links with them. What about it?”

“I don’t know much. He’s forming a little army of hackers. I think one of them is a Russian. But there are also Chinese and Israelis. I don’t know what they’re planning. Do you?”

“Of course not! I told you, Morris is freelancing. I have talked to the people in Denver who, according to your sources, are his facilitators. Well, they know nothing. He went off-line a week ago.”

Weiss studied him. Was it possible that Cyril Hoffman, the master of the secret world, was getting flustered?

“You have a problem, Mr. Hoffman,” she said.

“No, Weber has a problem. I am trying to resolve it. What do you know about Morris’s contacts with the civil liberties crowd?”

“Not much. He’s a hacker, so he’s been hanging around with those people since college. We all have. It goes with the territory.”

“Could he get sucked into some WikiLeaks thing? Some Snowden thing? Is that possible?”

“Anything’s possible, Mr. Hoffman. Pownzor is a very private guy. There’s a lot going on inside him that I never know about. I think he sees his old friends from college and graduate school, but he never talks about it.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” said Hoffman. It was his version of a curse. “This is going to be complicated.”

“What are you going to do, Mr. Hoffman?”

Hoffman pondered her question. He took a long drink of his whiskey and soda.

“I will take discreet action. That is a personal specialty, if you didn’t know. I have contacts. The Russians are not immune to reason. They can be persuaded. So can almost everyone. Am I right, Dr. Weiss?”

“Most people can be persuaded. But I’m not sure about James Morris. I’ve worked for him for two years, and I’ve never convinced him to do anything he wasn’t already planning.”

Hoffman smiled. It was an eerie look that came suddenly across his face, and then vanished.

“Well, there it is! If Mr. Morris cannot be persuaded, then we may have to let him blow himself up. Self-destruct. Poof! And then we’re all rid of a problem. We are, and maybe the Russians, too.”

Hoffman smiled again. His eyes were twinkling as he peered over the top of his glasses at Weiss.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Hoffman.”

“That’s a relief. I feared I was becoming transparent. Now then, what about you? I hope you will agree that you are in something of a compromised position, Dr. Weiss. If I contact the Office of Security at the agency and request a formal investigation of your conduct—of your trickery, let us be frank about it—in convincing the CIA comptroller’s office to divulge classified material inappropriately, I am almost certain that you would be suspended from your job. I would insist on it, actually. I am a victim in this matter.”

“I would protest to Director Weber, my superior. I was conducting legitimate inquiries on the agency’s behalf.”

“Bosh! Weber can’t save you. He’s too new. He’s too inexperienced. He’s dangerous, in my opinion. His silly nonsense about ‘rebalancing’ and ‘restarting,’ all of that is just so much fluff. He is upsetting the order of things. I would be surprised if he can save himself when all this is over. But he certainly can’t save you.”

Weiss didn’t answer. She understood the deal Hoffman was proposing: Her silence and compliant behavior in exchange for keeping her job. She didn’t want to respond. Hoffman studied her, waiting for an answer, and then he decided that her silence was enough.

“Very well. I will assume that we comprehend each other. I hold the future of your career in my hand. You are a bright and talented person, obviously, and I would very much like not to injure you. Indeed, I would like to
help
you. But in return, I expect you to act in accordance with my wishes and requests. Otherwise, you will very quickly find yourself out of a job. Is that clear?”

Still, she didn’t answer.

Hoffman rose, and shook her hand.

“A doughty lass, but not a stupid one, I hope.”