The Cloud Collector (19 page)

‘You going to say anything about the re-activation?'

‘Not until we know more.'

‘What have you got to tell me!'

‘The Brits aren't linking last night with a continuing al Aswamy campaign: they think they were opportunists, jumping on a bandwagon.'

‘Can't see how that helps a hell of a lot.'

‘What you've just told me could change a lot of things,' said Irvine, deciding against disclosing the potential prisoner access—and the inevitable rendition—to someone who already questioned the legality of what they were doing.

‘Is the British gal co-operating?'

‘On a political level she's giving us more than we're giving her because we've got fuck all to give!'

‘You going to tell her everything about Shepherd? GCHQ might have come across today's code.'

‘It's a thought,' begrudged Irvine.

‘Then think it,' urged Singleton. ‘Jesus had disciples, remember?'

And one of Snow White's little helpers was named Grumpy, thought Irvine.

*   *   *

‘Didn't think you were going to call,' greeted Sally.

‘Got caught up in something,' said Irvine, who like the rest of the Fort Meade team had failed to understand anything of the new Iranian code. ‘Didn't think I'd still be at Langley.'

Clumsy avoidance or even clumsier seduction pitch? Immaterial questions: she had him on the line, literally, and she wasn't going to let him get away. ‘It's only a little after seven. I don't consider it late.'

‘We could meet in town.'

Seduction pitch, she isolated; better, on balance, than heavy-footed avoidance. ‘Why don't we do that?'

‘There's a touring Boston Philharmonic at the Kennedy Center or jazz in Georgetown. We can eat at either.'

‘Georgetown,' she chose at once. ‘Let's eat first.'

‘There's an Italian place on M Street and Wisconsin: Francesco's. Eight o'clock?'

 

18

Sally was there by eight fifteen, determined to be first. But failed. Irvine had beaten her by what she guessed from his half-empty beer mug to be several minutes, maybe as many as ten if not more. Sally resolved the awkward hiatus of his rising to greet her simply by sitting down without offering a handshake or cheek to be kissed, which she guessed to be his open-armed expectation. The jeans were those he'd worn earlier, but the casual-necked, button-up polo shirt and Ivy League blazer, complete with heavily embossed, fake club badge, replaced the sweatshirt. Suspecting the preparations, Sally had changed, too. Her indigo Gucci silk shirt contrasted against the designer-faded jeans but matched the Chanel pumps. A cologne miasma smothered her Dior eau de toilette, so she guessed he'd showered as well.

Sally thought, Zero for trying too hard, minus even that for over-confidence.

Irvine thought, Good-bye empty bed, fingers crossed against my receiving a cell phone alert that spoils it all. Gesturing around the crowded restaurant, he said, ‘Much more conducive than Langley.'

‘Conducive to what?' Rules of engagement from the outset, she determined.

Right off the block, Irvine decided, encouraged. ‘Getting to know each other, working together. That's the idea, isn't it?'

‘Very definitely my idea. Is it yours?'

The waiter's arrival broke the moment. Sally ordered valpolicella. Irvine shook his head against more beer. Struggling for the innuendo, he said, ‘Do you take the lead in everything?'

A lead she had to get absolutely right, she reminded herself, ignoring the clumsiness: professional business before private curiosity. ‘I appear to be providing all of that without getting anything in return.'

Her obvious reference to the earlier Langley encounter momentarily confused him, but if those were the motions she wanted initially to go through, it was fine by him. ‘What other way is there except from you guys? All we've done is fuck up big-time and create an international crisis. And we sure as hell don't want to talk about that.'

Sally suggested they order when the waiter returned with her wine, guarding against interruptions. Not waiting for his agreement, she took linguine with clams. After a brief hesitation, Irvine chose veal and a bottle of the wine she was drinking.

Sally said, ‘I don't want to talk about any of that, either. What I want to talk about is a secret covert operation conducted by a very select code-breaking unit that was pretty damned successful before the CIA fucked up, a fuckup that wasn't the direct fault or responsibility of that unit.'

Irvine looked sharply around the adjoining tables before coming back to her, genuinely off-balance. ‘You've forgotten we're in a public place, for Christ's sake!'

‘A very noisy public place. There are only two tables that could conceivably over-hear us, and I've tried very hard since I got here to catch a single word that either couple has said. And haven't. We said “fuck” three times—that makes it four—and there hasn't been the slightest reaction from any of them, which there instinctively would have been even though it's an utterly meaningless and inoffensive expression outside of monasteries and nunneries and probably not even there. From now on we can talk in generalities that wouldn't mean a thing if overheard. So let's stop fucking about—there, I've said it again and no-one flinched—and you tell me what's so special or different about what you're doing from what NSA does all the time but which no-one is telling me, despite a supposed agreement. And despite, also, an exchange bargain that might solve your embarrassment.'

She hadn't been first off the block in the way he'd hoped, and his false start could have disqualified him, Irvine acknowledged. But it was recoverable. He smiled broadly and said, ‘That sure was one hell of a speech!'

‘Any part you didn't quite understand? I do re-runs.' Easy, she warned herself. He was back on track; she didn't want to stir resentment.

‘I think I got it all.' Why hadn't he gone back up to Fort Meade to continue the code search instead of subjecting himself to this!

‘So do I get it all in return?'

She really did have them by the balls, Irvine conceded, glad he'd already thought everything through. Fort Meade was occupying more of his thinking now than thoughts of an empty bed.

She'd off-balanced him, Sally decided; she had to maintain the pressure, not give him time to recover. ‘We can talk as we eat,' insisted Sally as their food arrived. ‘
You
can talk as we eat.'

Irvine did both carefully. Sally had pushed aside her plate long before he finished but didn't immediately respond, looking directly at him as if expecting more, mentally filtering the explanation for what he
hadn't
told her. Eventually she said, ‘You locate a questionable Facebook and satisfy yourselves it's a terrorist route by hacking into it? Getting in gives you the sender's complete contact list? The identifications increase with every interface that group has with others: suppliers, sympathizers, government links? You infiltrate misinformation, and if or when you get enough to indicate a possible attack, you press the button and stop it before it happens?'

‘Take your prize from the top shelf.' Irvine smiled, believing he deserved one, too. If he wrapped this up soon, he could still go down to Meade.

What
hadn't
he told her! Sally wondered again, not smiling back. ‘Tell me about the misinformation?'

Irvine shrugged, disinterested. ‘Slipping stuff in here and there, creating distrust or suspicion, turning them against each other.'

Possible sensitive spot, detected Sally; certainly an unthinkingly weak response. ‘Is that what you did with al Aswamy?'

Too close, Irvine recognized; still not a problem though. The trick would be to avoid lengthy answers that she could pick at. ‘In the beginning.'

She gestured the waiter to clear the table, shaking her head in refusal to anything more without consulting Irvine, who stopped the man before he could leave to order coffee and brandy he didn't want. He didn't ask Sally if she wanted to change her mind.

‘Tell me more about that,' persisted Sally, ignoring the petulance as she'd ignored the earlier innuendo.

‘Followed his contacts list; leaked Sunni to Shiite and vice versa.'

Sally easily hid the satisfaction, hurrying on before Irvine could reflect upon what he'd said. ‘And created chaos?'

Irvine shook his head. ‘They broke away from what they were planning, certainly. There was some infighting.' Which was virtually the truth, dependent solely upon interpretation.

‘What's al Aswamy?' she asked, taking the chance.

‘Shiite.'

She had enough information! Sally determined triumphantly. But to cut off at once would be too obvious. ‘What about last night?'

‘Last night?' hedged Irvine.

‘Sounded as if there was something going on at Fort Meade?' Would he finally mention the muted cell phone call she'd heard?

‘We thought there might have been something,' allowed Irvine cautiously. ‘We're still working on it.' Singleton's frustration had stoked the distracting guilt that was now crystallizing in Irvine. He definitely shouldn't be here, doing this. He should be at Fort Meade working grids and graphs and computers and randomly generating number sequences with the rest of them, not sexually fantasizing over someone who could probably scarcely wait to get home and wash her mouth out for uttering a forbidden word.

‘Involving al Aswamy?'

‘Too early to say.' He'd be wasting time going all the way to Fort Meade now, he determined, his mind switchbacking just as he was wasting his time here to no purpose. He could be back at Owen Place in thirty minutes, remotely accessing what Singleton and the others were doing, making it clear that he was on board.

‘Anything our GCHQ could do to help?' His attitude had changed. Had he realized his mistake?

Irvine shook his head. ‘Nothing that would make any sense; nothing that would make sense to anyone yet.'

It had to be an enciphered code they couldn't break. But if they hadn't broken it, how could they suspect it? Obviously from its source. Al Aswamy's control had been very publicly identified. ‘Iran makes sense.'

‘So would your backing off just a little,' began Irvine, finally losing his temper, and continuing as far as ‘I've told you…' before his cell phone vibrated. Sure he hadn't paused but speaking slightly louder, he finished, ‘… everything there is to know, so why don't we call it a day?'

‘Don't you think you should take that call?'

*   *   *

‘You let me look like an asshole!' accused Charles Johnston, his anger worsened by Conrad Graham's delaying their meeting this late into the evening.

‘It's higher than me; higher than you,' said the deputy CIA director. ‘Everyone's hunkered down after all the shit there was about rendition after 9/11 and Guantánamo. We've got to be careful.'

‘I'm supposed to be heading the fucking operation!'

‘I've just told you it's gone wider than that now. There's too much in the public domain. Now it's damage limitation on what we're going to do about it.'

Johnston hesitated, trying to peel away the nuances. ‘You mean I'm no longer involved?'

‘I mean you and your guys are part of a bigger operation, making every possible contribution, but that some things are being negotiated higher up the chain,' said Graham, impatiently looking at his desk clock.

Off the responsibility hook, judged Johnston. Which was what he himself wanted. But not to be marginalized. Remembering his morning session with Sally Hanning, he said, ‘When are we going to get our guy from the Brits?'

‘Still being negotiated. That's what we've been discussing upstairs until now, how to make it work.'

The motherfucker didn't know! realized Johnston. ‘The conditions seemed pretty straightforward to me.'

Now it was Graham who hesitated, no longer occupied with the desk clock. ‘What are you talking about!'

‘We get a British prisoner to interrogate when the Brits are satisfied their gal is getting access to everything here. And I mean—and they mean—everything.'

‘Why the fuck didn't you tell me this before?'

‘Those higher up than me didn't keep me in the loop, remember?'

*   *   *

Sally sat unspeaking in the passenger seat of the '92 Volkswagen in its Canal Street lot, for the first time that night not trying to lead. Irvine remained silent for several minutes, staring down at his phone's text window. She could see a message, but wasn't able to read it from the intentionally awkward way he was holding the cell phone. Still unspeaking, he turned the phone off and put it back in his pocket.

Keeping the exasperation from her voice, Sally said, ‘Anything I should know about?'

‘There's a volume of traffic we can't read: a pattern.'

‘What are you going to do.'

‘Go back to Langley and give a warning.' More quickly than I did before, Irvine thought.

‘I want to come with you.'

He hesitated. ‘Why not?'

Sally twisted briefly in her seat to see if her followers were in place as they crossed the Key Bridge back towards Langley and exploded into laughter.

‘What the hell…,' Irvine said.

‘You haven't been left out.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘I picked up my surveillance the moment I left the embassy, itemized the cars around the restaurant—where you already were—when I got there. Your watchers are in line behind my watchers watching us. Gives you a warm feeling, being so well protected, doesn't it?'

*   *   *

How could things go from the president's calling him Harry to hell in a handcart? thought Packer.
Because
of that presidential recognition he would still have been okay, the way the others were still okay, if that asshole Burt Singleton hadn't pissed his pants and filed the formal disagreement declaration against Cyber Shepherd. Now he not only had to acknowledge an official document in writing but comment upon it before lodging the complaint with the counsel's office. He wouldn't hurry, Packer decided. If al Aswamy was detained and the threatened outrages prevented through Irvine's team—including Singleton—two floors below, the man's protests could be judged for what they were, pant pissing. Packer's problem was not knowing what to do if al Aswamy wasn't caught and there was an atrocity on American soil.