The Cloud Collector (28 page)

When it finally ended, Irvine said, ‘I'm safe with you. I know that.'

Sally didn't speak, quieted by the knowledge that for the first time she hadn't stayed apart, uninvolved. She'd
made
love.

 

27

In the Washington tradition—and speed—of political buck passing, the responsibility for al Aswamy's claimed seizure was shuffled all the way up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. From there the White House chief of staff passed it straight back to the internationally besieged State Department with a demand for a politically and publicly acceptable explanation for the continued official silence. Encouraged by the implied presidential authority, the State Department convened a Homeland Security breakfast session restricted to directors and their deputies of all of its component agencies, who with one voice embarked upon another Washington tradition, the scapegoat hunt.

Each lined up behind the FBI—enraged at what it insisted to be illegal encroachment upon its internal U.S. jurisdiction and daily pillorying by an even more enraged
New York Times
—to denounce the CIA's handling of the al Aswamy search as negligent, incompetent, and leaderless. None risked openly identifying the hapless Conrad Graham as the obvious sacrifice for authorizing Cyber Shepherd. But the tuned-in Graham already knew that CIA director Admiral Jack Lamb was privy to the intended career assassination of Graham, himself: despite Graham's persistently memoed requests, he'd had no prior consultation with Lamb during the two-day, White-House-and-back runaround.

Based on how the criticisms had so far been voiced, Graham believed that he could face down the other agencies. His uncertainty was in publicly confronting someone who was not only a political appointee but also someone with the inherent support of fellow admiral and Homeland Security director Joshua Smith. But one word—
political
—lingered in Graham's mind as he looked beyond the assembled directors to the White House and State Department staffers, none of whose expressions or body language matched the increasingly obvious satisfaction at the blame-fest that Joshua Smith was encouraging.

The specific insistence was for a public and politically acceptable explanation, Graham reminded himself. And the fixed-faced, unimpressed professional diplomats were the arbiters. For the second time that morning Graham pushed aside the temptation to totally scrap his intended counter-attack and improvise instead upon Jack Irvine's unexpected phone call minutes before he'd entered the meeting. But there wasn't enough information from what Irvine had hinted at. And whatever Graham speculated wouldn't fit the White House remit, which hadn't been addressed by anyone. That had to be his escape route.

And still wasn't being addressed, Graham recognized, as FBI director Frederick Bowyer, with unembarrassed hypocrisy, demanded the CIA resolve a CIA debacle and that they publicly identify and discipline the inept officers responsible to restore public confidence. That having been done, the pursuit of Ismail al Aswamy had to be transferred to the FBI, whose investigation it should have been from the outset.

What little doubt Graham had of his total abandonment came with Joshua Smith's invitation to Lamb—Jack, not Mr Director, the courtesy title by which he'd addressed every other agency head—to respond.

The debacle, unquestionably the fault of the CIA, had tarnished his recent appointment as its director, declared the grey-haired, smooth-faced Lamb, each word carefully selected. He intended a complete overhaul of operational procedures to prevent future failures and welcomed suggestions from all the Homeland Security agencies. He'd had no personal involvement in, nor did he endorse, Operation Cyber Shepherd, which had been initiated before his appointment. Specific details and answers to all the criticism would be provided by his deputy, Conrad Graham, who had approved the project.

Graham didn't hurry assembling what little counter-argument he had with the lawyer's acumen with which he'd graduated from Harvard. He intentionally waited for shifts of impatience from those around him before abruptly declaring, ‘I'm disappointed that so much time has been wasted without a single, constructive suggestion for what we've been brought together to provide.'

The shift in mood now was to startled surprise, the most visible from Admiral Smith. Hurrying to build upon it, Graham went word for word, line by line, through every accusation, logically insisting on the disarray that self-serving individual exculpation would cause, doubling the political and public clamour they were meant to allay.

Continuing to draw upon his lawyer's training, Graham mentally composed an alternative as he demolished the arguments of others, encouraged by the now-visible reactions of the State Department and White House contingents. The Homeland Security announcement should be neither apologetic nor an admission of fault or failure, Graham asserted. Rather it should illustrate a considered, objective anti-terrorist investigation that had prevented a totally innocent man from being wrongly accused on circumstantial evidence provided by a closely allied Western intelligence service. That totally innocent man had been released. The inevitable demands for an identity would be enormous, conceded Graham. But they could be rejected on the grounds of fairness: innocent or not, the man's life would be ruined by public exposure. The statement should make clear that no Homeland Security component had any knowledge of how the original story of Ismail al Aswamy's seizure appeared in
The New York Times
. There should be reassurance, insisted Graham. It should be made clear that obviously not every resource had been assigned to the misled investigation. Independent, parallel enquiries had guaranteed the unremitting hunt for Ismail al Aswamy continued and was lawfully led by the Central Intelligence Agency, responsible for external intelligence.

It was a decision for Homeland Security whether publicly to admit CIA failings, continued Graham, reaching for his briefcase for the prepared photocopied performance warnings to both Charles Johnston and James Bradley. Sliding the copies along the table for individual distribution, Graham read aloud his five-day-old replacement recommendation for both men that had been ignored by Admiral Lamb. He also offered his written requests to Lamb for a pre-conference briefing at which he had intended to outline every point he was making that morning. Apart from the two men whose replacement he'd recommended, the CIA's failings were not those of incompetence but of too little adjustment time for a newly appointed director.

Neither had Operation Cyber Shepherd failed. It had proved the outstanding anti-terrorist success he'd anticipated when he'd originally authorized it.

‘And which it will continue to be, with other anti-terrorist activities as well as hunting down al Aswamy,' Graham concluded, intent on the response from around the table.

Jack Lamb was looking for guidance from Joshua Smith, whose concentration in turn was on the murmurs among the White House and State Department group, some of whom were exchanging scribbled legal-pad notes. More messages were passing between other directors, too.

The FBI's Frederick Bowyer broke the confused impasse. ‘So there's been no mistakes! No-one's done anything wrong!'

‘Just the normal internal glitches of an ongoing investigation,' agreed Graham, defeating the intended sarcasm.

‘You really think
The New York Times
is going to buy it?'

‘You were as misled as a lot of other people in the beginning,' guided Graham, conscious of two of the White House staffers openly smiling. ‘You're genuinely sorry and you'll make it up to them with a lot of exclusives in the future, starting with the confirmed arrest—or whatever the outcome—of al Aswamy.'

One of the smiling men offered what Graham guessed to be a written suggestion to Joshua Smith, who avoided the look of his fellow admiral and announced, ‘I think that satisfactorily resolves the immediate problem.'

Graham gauged that he—and Operation Cyber Shepherd—had survived by a whisker. A hell of a lot—probably everything—depended upon whatever Jack Irvine had tried to indicate.

*   *   *

Irvine's mind worked to mathematical conformity: in Irvine's world everything, ultimately, had logical, deducible answers. Numerals and lexigrams and symbols and their algebraic substitutes could be disarranged or scrambled into labyrinthine codes and ciphers, but eventually the rules of mathematical certainty applied, irrespective of whatever language concealment or ambiguity in which they might additionally be cloaked. At that moment, on the car journey to Fort Meade, Irvine struggled for an algorithm to the last twenty-four hours. But couldn't find one.

There was no hypocrisy in giving Sally the England-routed IP he'd initially withheld to force the London prisoner exchange: that was the deal, the domain address for a prisoner. But disclosing his Vevak intrusion—letting her watch his unsuccessful search—wasn't part of any deal. So why had he let her in so completely? To impress her, get her into bed? No! he rejected, feeling a positive flush of anger. He'd been virtually unaware of Sally's presence throughout the hunt for [email protected]. Any intrusive thought of sex would have risked a repetition of his first-night humiliation, making it doubly unthinkable. Why then? Why not? was his immediate mental response. Sally Hanning—possibly the best lateral thinker he'd ever encountered—was an officially co-opted, top-security-cleared British intelligence officer who'd practicably contributed more to Cyber Shepherd than any CIA counterpart; she had the professional right to know. But there was one obvious caveat: Was it above and beyond Conrad Graham's professional right?

No, Irvine forced himself to admit, seeing the first of the Fort Meade signs in the far distance. There'd been every reason to withhold the Vevak coup from the incompetents with whom he'd originally been burdened. But not for keeping it any longer from Conrad Graham. His father's mistake had been to work virtually alone and … Irvine's mind blocked at this moment of awareness. Was that the algorithm he needed, the answer to how—and why—he'd behaved as he had last night? Had he told Sally everything as he now planned to tell Graham everything to protect himself from mistakes that had disgraced his father? A lot of factors contributed to that mathematically logical equation. Withholding the Vevak breakthrough from Conrad Graham had been dangerously arrogant, as Sally had implied. But on his way from DC that morning he'd made the first move to rectify that by calling the deputy director. When they identified [email protected], having a Trojan horse stabled in an Iranian intelligence site could be presented as a new coup, not something he'd worked on since Stuxnet.

Personal risk averted, Irvine decided, taking the first turnoff. What about the risk to Operation Cyber Shepherd? A confrontation, Graham had called that morning's encounter with Homeland Security high-command directors and their deputies. Irvine wished he'd had more warning, had time to properly produce a justification for Cyber Shepherd if one was demanded. Suggesting the strongest lead to the vanished al Aswamy without disclosing details of the smartman interception wasn't enough. Revealing his being embedded in Vevak would certainly have been. But it would have been a disastrous mistake. It would have been leaked—destroying everything—within an hour of its being announced to a full Homeland Security gathering, even one limited to directors and deputies. What
would
swing it would be deciphering the IP code to identify a Vevak source inside a U.S. military facility. Which was what he was at Fort Meade to do, he reminded himself as he located a parking space close to the sprawling complex.

As he entered, Irvine should have been warned by Singleton's reaction to his arrival, but his mind was still on his reflections during his drive over. Without any greeting or question from Irvine, Singleton said flatly, ‘Nothing.'

‘Not from
anything
I sent last night?' demanded Irvine, disappointed as much by the announcement as the tone.

‘I told you, nothing.'

Marian Lowell said, ‘We're still running programs on at least half of what you downloaded. And on the encryption.'

‘There'll be more from the Pentagon today,' said Irvine.

‘You're blatantly breaking the law,' accused Singleton.

‘There's a Homeland meeting going on right now in DC with Cyber Shepherd in the crosshairs,' declared Irvine, stopping at Singleton's station. ‘I've told Conrad Graham there's potentially something big.'

‘You tell him you're hacking into the Pentagon!' persisted Singleton.

‘Not from a cell phone on an interstate!' It sounded more like avoidance than the sarcasm he'd intended.

‘I've officially registered an objection with Packer.'

‘That's your right,' acknowledged Irvine, looking further around the room. ‘It's the right of all of you, if you feel like Burt. Just as it's your right to resign from the entire project.' It was a gamble, but Singleton was becoming more of a nuisance than the help Irvine had expected. If Cyber Shepherd survived, maybe it should re-emerge with a fresh team. Adjusted at least.

‘Your decision,' confronted Singleton.

‘Why doesn't everyone examine their commitment, take time to consider what you want to do?' said Irvine, his temper gone. ‘I'm going to continue downloading from the Pentagon while you think about what you want to do. Take your time. I'm the sole Pentagon intruder, the person accepting full responsibility for what I'm asking you to do as the result of my actions, okay?'

Irvine was embarrassed as well as angry as he turned to his terminal, conscious, too, of the discomfort among the rest of the group. No-one spoke, and he had the impression of their moving as quietly as possible, not wanting to attract attention. Malik and Barker silently left the room together, he guessed either for the supercomputer rooms or the number generators. Singleton and Marian concentrated fixedly on their screens.