The Director: A Novel (8 page)

That brought a general murmuring. These were government workers. The very idea they might lose their jobs was heresy. Weber raised his hand for silence.

“A lot of you will say it’s not your fault. And yes, it’s true that the agency gets mistreated in Washington. The only thing liberals and conservatives agree on these days is that they don’t like the CIA. But that’s part of the agency’s job, isn’t it, to take shots from politicians? If people just had nice things to say, they could say them to the State Department or the Pentagon. Am I right? I think so.”

Where was he going with this? From the nervous silence, it was obvious that people didn’t know.

“No, the CIA’s problem isn’t the undeserved blame. It’s the deserved blame. From what I have seen and heard, too much of the work product is mediocre. Too little real intelligence work gets done, because people are so busy trying to protect the past and avoid getting hit by the congressional investigation. It’s like working at a company that’s losing money. It’s no fun. Under previous management, it appears that people were so contemptuous of the organization they were actually ripping it off. That’s how bad it’s gotten. People have been looting their own workplace.”

A few people began to applaud, not sure what else to do, and then they stopped. He waited and let the silence build until it was embarrassing and people were fidgeting in their seats, which was exactly what he wanted.

“The president told me that we have a morale problem, and that I should fix it. But with all due respect to anyone in the audience from the White House, that is inaccurate. The CIA has a performance problem. The bad morale is a symptom. The disease is something else. And from what people tell me, it has been going on for a long time.

“Now the question is, why does the CIA have a performance problem? Why is it that so many of the things the agency does turn out badly? Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria. How can you do better for policy makers—but forget about them, for the moment—do better for yourselves?”

“Kill more bad guys,” said a voice in the back.

“Oh, very good,” answered Weber, without missing a beat. “Let’s turn the agency into a force of paramilitary killers, full-time. Give up on spying and just shoot people, twenty-four/seven. Sorry, friends, but that’s part of the problem. This is an intelligence agency, not Murder, Incorporated. We’re supposed to gather the secret information that can protect the country; we’re not operating a shooting gallery.”

“What’s your answer, Mr. Director?” asked Pingray in the front row. “How do you propose to get the agency back on track? That’s what everyone would like to hear.”

Pingray was a tidy man; short, bald, round-faced. He asked the question sincerely, with the voice of someone who knew how many obstacles Weber would encounter, even if the new director didn’t. But Weber didn’t really hear him. He jumped on the question.

“The answer is the same as in any failing organization. Find out what’s wrong. Then promote the good people who can fix it and fire the bad ones who can’t. What’s the point of taking the job, otherwise? Not just me as director, but all of you: Why work for this unpopular, low-pay organization—except to do great work, and be respected for it?

“At the risk of sounding immodest, let me tell you all something: I know how to fix organizations that are broken. I’ve been doing it all my life. But it’s like a twelve-step process. You have to want to get better. You have to admit to yourself that if you don’t change, you’re going to end up dead. For the CIA, the past is an addiction. You’re going to have to quit.

“So that’s the end of my little pep talk. But you’ll be hearing more from me, I promise. And please, no applause or I’ll know you didn’t hear anything I just said. Now, any questions?”

The air had been sucked out of the room. Nobody spoke, or even moved for a moment.

“Nobody?” He looked around the auditorium. “When you kick an old dog, at least you get a few growls. Come on, people.”

There were a few hands. Employees asked predictable questions about pay freezes and furloughs and benefits changes, all of which Weber said could be better answered by HR. Someone asked him his views on “targeted killing,” which was a euphemism for drones. He said it was too early for him to know what he thought; ask in another month. One person praised him for speaking so frankly, to tepid applause. Nobody was ready to call him on the heart of what he’d said about performance, because most of them knew it was true. They were working for a failing enterprise; he said he was going to turn it around. They had to hope he pulled it off, even the ones who resented him.

As Weber made his way out of the bubble, there was stone-cold silence like the quiet after a funeral, and then a low hum when he was out the door and everyone was murmuring, asking whether he meant it, if this was for real, if the agency was actually going to have a director who would kick ass in a way that no current employee could remember.

Weber walked back across the marble floor of the lobby. The CIA had been built in the brutalist modern style of the 1960s that eschewed ornamentation. There were no murals or paintings; only the stars in the wall to mark the agency officers who had died on duty, and the empty space where the Donovan statue had stood.

As Weber walked past the security gate where employees badged in each morning, his eyes focused on a sign beside the guard desk. It listed all the incongruous things that were forbidden inside the building:
EXPLOSIVES AND INCENDIARY DEVICES, ANIMALS OTHER THAN GUIDE DOGS, SOLICITING AND DISTRIBUTING HANDBILLS, DISTURBANCES, GAMBLING
. He’d seen this warning sign every day that week as he moved about the building. He turned to the bulky, assuring form of Bock, who was walking next to him.

“That sign is ridiculous,” said Weber.

“Say what, sir?”

“‘Gambling’ and ‘creating disturbances’? I thought that was what intelligence officers did for a living. And ‘distributing handbills’? Is that really a problem here? When was the last time someone gave you a handbill, Sandra? It makes us look asinine, to have a moronic sign like that where visitors can see it.”

“You’re in a pissy mood, sir.” It was the first time Bock had been even modestly disrespectful.

Weber laughed.

“Maybe, but I’m right about that sign. It’s silly. Get rid of it.”

And the sign was gone the next day.

8

WASHINGTON

The senior staff gathered
in the conference room across from the director’s office as five o’clock approached. People were trying not to talk about the director’s speech, but the mood was stiff and awkward, and they swiveled in their chairs or poured themselves glasses of water. The room was antiseptic and impersonal as only a government meeting room can be: a big table with a glass top; overstuffed leather chairs; television monitors for the now-inevitable video-teleconferencing hookups. Weber was a few minutes late, and people were looking at their watches when Sandra Bock arrived and said the director wanted everyone to gather instead across the hall.

The director’s office wasn’t big enough for the group, really. People had to sit three on a sofa and perch on the arms of chairs. But Weber liked it better this way, crowded and informal. He pulled up one of the chairs next to his big oak desk and parked himself in the arc of the circle. He still looked too young for the job: lean, fit, still some of his West Coast tan and that blond-haired baby face, peculiar for a middle-aged man.

He panned the group: At the center was Beasley, the chief of the Clandestine Service, resplendent in one of his tailor-made English suits and a Turnbull & Asser shirt with blue stripes and a pure white collar that set off his handsome brown face. Beasley looked at the new director and shook his head.

“Hell of a speech in the bubble just now, Mr. Director. Pow! Knocked me out. It made me want to commit suicide, actually, but that’s my problem, right?”

“Right,” said Weber.

Next to Beasley was Ruth Savin, the general counsel. She was a handsome woman, with jet-black hair and dark Mediterranean features that made her stand out among the Mormons, Catholics and fading WASPs who still, somehow, seemed to think of the agency as their place. She had come to the agency ten years before after a stint as staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and had shaped the legal framework of every piece of secret business since her arrival.

The heads of other directorates filled up the seats: Loomis Braden, the top analyst, who was deputy director for intelligence and known to all as “the DDI”; Marcia Klein, who ran Support; Tom Avery, who headed Science and Technology. These were the people who once upon a time would have been known as barons, but now were more like caretakers.

Standing just outside the inner circle was the tall, ascetic figure of James Morris, the head of Information Operations. His casual dress, T-shirt and linen jacket signaled that he was different in age, temperament and so many other qualities. He had one hand behind his back; hidden from view, he was turning a quarter over his fingers, the way a magician will sometimes do.

As Weber was about to start the meeting, the door opened and in walked a large man, dressed in a three-piece pin-striped suit with a gold watch chain across the vest. He was carrying in his hand a brown fedora, which he had worn outdoors. On his arm was an umbrella. He was round-faced, hair trimmed to a short buzz; he had a habit, even entering a room unannounced, of looking over the tops of his glasses, so that his eyebrows seemed perpetually raised in a quizzical look.

“Hello, Cyril,” said Weber. “Glad you could make it.”

“Howdy do,” said Cyril Hoffman genially, with a flourish of his hat. People made way for him on the large sofa. Hoffman fluffed his ample coat jacket out behind him as he sat down, like a concert pianist in tails taking his seat at the piano.

At the last minute, Weber had decided to invite Hoffman, the director of National Intelligence. It was partly an instinct for self-protection that he wanted Hoffman with him inside the tent as he faced his first real problem. But he also respected Hoffman’s judgment. The DNI had been around the intelligence community for his entire adult life. He was the closest thing the country had to a permanent undersecretary for intelligence. There were very few secrets that he didn’t know, and few messes that he hadn’t helped clean up.

Weber cleared his throat. He was nervous, for just an instant.

“We have a problem,” he began “It just arrived today. Some of you have seen the cable traffic, but for those who haven’t, let me explain what happened. Today in Hamburg, Germany, a young man walked into our consulate and asked to see me personally, the new director. He told the base chief that we have a security breach. He’s a ‘hacker,’ or claims to be, so he didn’t put it that way. He said we have been hacked. He said the names of our personnel have been compromised in Germany and Switzerland, and he had a list to prove it. He wouldn’t stay in one of our safe houses, as the base chief proposed, because he said our information wasn’t secure.”

Weber looked to Bock, who was standing motionless like an iron pillar.

“Is that more or less it, for the basics, Sandra?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“After considering this matter, I have decided to send James Morris, the head of Information Operations, to Hamburg to assist the base chief in the debriefing and exfiltration.”

Every eye in the room turned toward the casually dressed young man standing beyond the couches. He had drawn some resentment over the past several years from colleagues for pushing his authority. Now he was being given what amounted to a battlefield promotion by the new director.

“Big responsibility,” said Weber. “Unconventional decision, I guess. But my instinct is that the person who deals with hacker penetration of the agency needs to be able to swim in that sea, and the person here who fits that description is James Morris. Earl Beasley has generously agreed to help Morris work out the details. Thanks for that, Earl.”

“I just work here,” said Beasley slowly. “I do what the boss says.”

Beasley let the words hang in the air, an implied rebuke, and then softened. “It’s not crazy. The IOC should be more involved in operations. We’ve been saying that for years. Well, shit, now we gonna do it.”

Weber nodded his thanks. Beasley was a good politician, whatever else he might be. On the couch, Cyril Hoffman watched Beasley with what seemed a look of sly amusement. Evidently he doubted that the chief of the Clandestine Service had spoken in complete sincerity.

Weber turned to Morris.

“So, James, why don’t you explain to the group what you plan to do.”

“Nobody calls me James, Mr. Director. Everyone in my office calls me Pownzor. Even people on the seventh floor do, too.”

“I’ll stick with James,” said Weber. “Explain the drill.”

Morris adjusted his glasses and took a step toward the center of the circle. For an awkward man, a “nerd,” in common parlance, he also had a presence and a sense of theater.

“So the good news about hackers is that they can be hacked. Based on what the walk-in told the base chief in Hamburg this morning, we have a pretty good idea of who he is and the circles he runs in. He’s connected to a group of hackers with roots in Russia who started with credit-card scams a decade ago, stealing people’s data and buying expensive stuff they could fence in a hurry. They graduated to much bigger frauds; they extort banks, gambling sites, anything that loses money fast if it goes off-line. But they’re not just scammers anymore. It’s a movement.”

“Meaning what?” asked Beasley. He didn’t believe in movements.

Morris’s eyes were gleaming behind the frames of his glasses. This was the part he understood best.

“They are motivated. They hate authority. To be specific, they hate us, the CIA.”

“Everybody hates the CIA,” said Beasley. “What else is new?”

Morris continued with his narrative, ignoring Beasley and looking at Weber.

“I’m flying to Germany tomorrow. The director is lending me his plane. I’ll be working with the base chief. The walk-in is supposed to be back at the consulate Monday morning, but we’ll try to find him before then. Once we get him, we’ll bring him out. I’d like to make his exfiltration look like he died: in a car accident, that’s the easiest. We don’t want these people to know that one of their kids has flipped and come over to us.”