The Cloud Collector (29 page)

Irvine's own concentration during the night had been on access code banks of military bases and facilities within the United States. Now he switched overseas, most of which were annotated alphabetically, which made easier his cursory initial subject comparisons or similarities with the smartman IP, before downloading for the more detailed supercomputer scrutiny. Quickly Irvine became oblivious to everything and everyone around him, as he had in the earlier pre-dawn. Just as quickly he lost count of how many codes he'd downloaded.

Awareness of time went, too, but as it passed, an incipient doubt began to nag. Was he wrong insisting [email protected] needed the operational cover of a military installation or facility? Or could it function through some darknet bot—or series of bots one inside another, like a matryoshka doll—as Burt Singleton argued? It was practicably immaterial: the Pentagon searches were programmed on supercomputers functioning at thousandths of a second, with parallel random-number programs. There were no other ways of getting the access code. Nor was there any wasteful manpower diversion. It came down to pride: Who was right, he or Burt Singleton? Which was … He was abruptly conscious of his shoulder being shaken and of Marian's voice repeating his name to break through the concentration.

As she said, ‘I think you'll want to see this,' and gestured towards her computer, Akram Malik turned from the telephone Irvine had not heard ring and said, ‘It's Langley, for you.'

 

28

‘I've been waiting,' greeted David Monkton.

‘The statement was only broadcast thirty minutes ago and I had to get to the embassy,' retorted Sally from her communications cubicle. As usual she couldn't gauge anything—impatience or irritation or curiosity—from the monotone that sounded more like a public-address announcement than a human voice.

‘I've scanned you the full transcript.'

‘I've already got it in front of me. It seems to have covered all the points.'

‘You heard from Langley?'

‘No,' said Sally. ‘Have you?'

‘No.'

‘I'm going to wait for them to come to me.'

There was a brief pause from London. ‘How long?'

‘Until tomorrow, at least.'

‘No longer,' insisted Monkton.

‘Anything from GCHQ?'

‘Too soon.'

GCHQ had only had the intercept for five hours, Sally accepted. But that wasn't any longer her major preoccupation. Would Irvine keep that morning's promise to share whatever he got from the Vevak penetration? It was a test of sorts, she supposed; she'd pass on the memorized Hydarnes domain address if she suspected he reneged, but hoped he wouldn't. Keeping to what she could discuss with the Director-General, she said, ‘We need something soon. We don't want another Sellafield.'

‘Sellafield was prevented by you,' reminded Monkton, although almost dismissively. ‘I'm surprised you didn't get an advance of today's announcement, after the co-operation you've been getting.'

Sally, in turn, was genuinely surprised at the passing twitch of discomfort. She had nothing to feel uncomfortable or guilty about: what had happened between her and Irvine was quite separate—totally unconnected—from what she was doing professionally. ‘We're the obvious “friendly intelligence organization” supposed to have named an innocent man as al Aswamy. I don't know what the curve's going to be, but there'll be one.'

‘You think the communiqué is going to defuse all the hysteria?'

‘No,' said Sally at once. ‘It'll just re-direct it. Which might, in fact, be the curve.'

‘That's the way I see it. It's why I want your impressions the moment you form them. We've kept up so far—been ahead, a lot of the time. That's where I want it to stay.'

‘That's the way I want it to stay, too.' She believed she had a good chance of achieving it, although she didn't expect to see—maybe not even to hear from—Irvine that night. He'd warned before he left Owen Place that morning that he'd stay at Fort Meade until they'd broken the Vevak encryption. Or was he staying down there for another reason? Could he have known about the Homeland statement and used Fort Meade as an excuse to be out of DC when it was issued? It was Irvine who'd suggested that London—with her the most likely focus—would be targeted as a diversion from America if the ruse backfired. Could he have already known about today's announcement, taken part in formulating it?

‘You think Abu Hurr is the innocent man?'

Sally blinked the reflection away. ‘I can't see how they could manipulate that, but who knows?'

Sally didn't expect a direct response to the rhetorical question, but the silence lasted so long that had they not been talking on a secure line, she would have imagined they'd been disconnected. Then, abruptly, Monkton declared, ‘We need to talk specifics.'

The voice had risen above the normal blandness for the first time. ‘What specifics?'

‘We had to bulldoze your acceptance into the working group?'

‘Yes?' agreed Sally cautiously.

‘Was that resented?'

‘There was a general understanding that it was professionally justified, I think.' Where was this going!

‘By Johnston?'

‘You, the Director, were the person with whom he was prepared to co-operate, not me.'

‘Bradley?'

‘He lost al Aswamy. He followed wherever the senior officer led, kept his head down whenever we met.'

‘So you weren't accepted by him?' pressed Monkton.

‘It didn't arise, not in any practical way.'

‘As it did in a practical way with Jack Irvine?' Monkton's voice, which had subsided, grew stronger again.

‘It's obvious from what I was able to give you earlier today that he's co-operating,' said Sally without any hesitation.

‘Did you use the father's disgrace?'

‘It came out in conversation, when I told him about my parents. I didn't
use
it.' She shouldn't have qualified it like that! Sally thought immediately.

‘When I asked you, you told me you weren't compromised.'

‘I'm not.'

‘Is there a personal as well as a professional relationship between you and Irvine?'

‘I don't consider that to be a question I should be asked, nor one to which I need to reply.'

‘You just have replied,' said Monkton. ‘So I'll ask you again, are you professionally compromised?'

‘No.' He'd withdraw her, Sally guessed, recite all the prohibiting regulations, even though technically they didn't apply, and order her immediate return. Which she didn't want to do, not yet. Could she refuse, postpone it at least? Argue she needed time to pack up or insist upon the long-overdue vacation? She smiled in sudden, belated awareness. She had an irrefutable argument for staying where she was. She had access to the Vevak's Holy Grail Web site.

From London Monkton broke another pause. ‘Don't confuse your priorities, Sally. Don't ever do that.'

It was the first time he'd ever called her Sally, she realized after they'd hung up. As she crossed to her parked car, her vibrating phone signaled another surprise.

*   *   *

‘Motherfucker!' exploded James Bradley, thrusting unannounced into Johnston's office, trailed by Johnston's protesting secretary. Johnston waved the woman away and told Bradley to close the door. Bradley ignored him, standing instead with his legs spread, hands imperiously on his hips. The secretary closed the door on her way out.

‘Which son of a bitch ordered this!' demanded Bradley, waving a piece of crumpled paper in his hand.

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' said the covert operations director. ‘What is it?'

‘You didn't have this sent! Weren't involved!'

‘What is it, for Christ's sake!'

‘I'm off the active field register, off covert ops. Re-assigned to a fucking desk job in Personnel with a lot of fucking clerks. That's what I've been demoted to, a fucking clerk!' Bradley became aware that his jacket was unbuttoned and hurriedly re-fastened it to form his protective shell.

‘Haven't you seen what Homeland just issued?'

‘I've been reviewing the whole al Aswamy thing, trying to find anything we missed.'

Johnston pushed the two-page printout across the desk, saying nothing while the other man read. It took several minutes.

Finally looking up, Bradley said, ‘What the fuck's it mean?'

‘It means total bullshit and that everyone's bunkered down and that there have to be internal executions, yours and mine, to account for all the mistakes so far.'

‘You?' questioned Bradley doubtfully.

Johnston picked up another sheet of paper, fluttering it like a flag, and let it fall back onto the desk. ‘My authority to initiate covert activity has been indefinitely suspended. All such potential action must be submitted for the signed approval of Admiral Jack Lamb.' He sighed. ‘I'm a fucking clerk, just like you. But as I'm keeping the title, I'm going to be responsible for all the other covert fuckups in the future.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘Be a fucking clerk. I'll keep my grade—which you'll do, too, don't forget—on which my pension is calculated, and which I'll draw at the first available retirement opportunity, which I've already calculated to be eight years, six months, and four days. That's more than enough time to find a house on a golf course somewhere in the sun.'

‘They can't do this!' declared Bradley, the anger resurging.

‘They can and they just did.'

‘Not to me they won't. I'm not rolling over to die without taking others with me.'

‘You do that, Jim. You create a bloodbath all of your very own.'

‘I will. I know where enough of the graves are to dig a lot more.'

*   *   *

Irvine was already at Owen Place when Sally arrived, although he'd told her on the phone he didn't expect to get there until seven thirty. It didn't occur to either of them to kiss, embrace in any way. He already had his beer open, her wine poured.

She said at once, ‘What did you break, the IP code or the encryption! Tell me it was both!'

‘So far we've got neither?'

‘Then why are you back? This morning you said—'

‘You've seen the Homeland statement?'

‘Of course.' So he had known!

‘Bradley and Johnston are officially gone, although Johnston keeps the title. Graham's in personal control of Cyber Shepherd, which puts him on a very thin line because Homeland want it scrapped and him sacrificed with it. Your detainee is dead. I'm ordered to a breakfast meeting with Graham, eight a.m. tomorrow; that's why I'm back and why I asked you to come here, where the computers are for me to be properly linked with Fort Meade. That brings you right up to speed with what's not in the communiqué, so sit down and drink your wine. And I think you look terrific.'

Maybe he hadn't known about the statement in advance, she thought, her mind switching between her personal and professional satisfaction. Don't confuse your priorities, she reminded herself. There was a lot to distill from what Irvine had said, maybe even things, inadvertently or otherwise, that he
hadn't
told her. But which she had to discover—now—before they became engulfed in the obvious confusion that existed at Langley. ‘Where did Abu Hurr die?'

‘I don't know. Or how, although that's kind of obvious.'

‘You told Graham about the Vevak penetration?' she asked, conscious of his looking for the third time at the blank-eyed computers.

‘Not yet.'

‘You have to.'

He smiled briefly. ‘Lecture time?'

‘Reality time.'

‘Tomorrow. It's how I'm going to save Cyber Shepherd. And Conrad Graham.'

She couldn't lose access to the Vevak intrusion! ‘What about you?'

‘What?' He frowned.

‘You'll save Cyber Shepherd, sure. But look at it objectively. Cyber Shepherd's sensational. Stuxnet got Graham the deputy directorship, which now hangs by a very thin thread, according to you. Shepherd's his triumphant way back, with an expanded, dedicated unit. Where are you going to be in it all?'

‘Making it work, like I did with Stuxnet.'

That was an exaggeration, Sally knew. ‘You sure?'

‘What's your point?'

‘Cyber Shepherd is your baby. You should get the credit, not have it taken from you.'

‘It won't be taken from me.'

The moment to sow the seed, judged Sally. ‘GCHQ haven't made any progress yet; I'd be surprised if they had. But I'll know the moment they do, which will be the moment you'll know, too.'

‘GCHQ's
your
baby.'

‘Trust means sharing everything, doesn't it?'

‘I guess,' said Irvine, looking at his terminals again. ‘It's going to be another long night. We could order in.'

‘Last night was even longer. You order in. I'll go back to the apartment tonight.'

Irvine came fully back to her, frowning. ‘What's the problem?'

‘Near exhaustion.' Sally smiled. ‘Tomorrow night it won't be.'

‘Your solemn promise?' He smiled back.

‘My solemn promise.'

It was eight forty-five when she pulled out of Owen Place. Her fleeting impression was of imagining the surveillance, but as that thought came, Sally picked up the white Honda that had followed her earlier to Irvine's apartment. She kept to the shortest crosstown route, not trying to evade her tail, and stopped directly outside Guest Quarters for the doorman to park her car in the underground garage. From the darkened lobby she watched the Honda pull in farther along towards Watergate. What level of professional intelligence utilized a visibly obvious colour such as white for its surveillance vehicle? wondered Sally. If the outside street weren't so dark, she'd probably have been able to make out the head-bobbing doll on the windscreen ledge.