He focused on the stoic woman, who stared at a flat screen monitor like he didn't exist. She was partially obscured by a green glass shaded banker's lamp, which lit the top of her desk, but did little to illuminate the rest of the room.
The whole setup here reminded him of the movie Three Days of the Condor, starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, except this brownstone didn't house a staff of CIA analysts. It was typically empty, except for Claire, and served as a convenient, clandestine meeting location for the CIA. Karl Berg, Assistant Director of the CIA's Counter Terrorism Center, had arrived here earlier to receive Keller's report in person, in order to keep Keller compliant with his CIS Category One obligations. He kept smiling at Claire, who finally looked up at him.
Claire was dressed in a light blue blazer, which covered an ivory blouse. She wore a single strand of pearls, which hung barely visible between the blouse's collars, just above the top button. Her gray hair was pulled back in a bun, leaving a few wisps of hair to flow freely down her high cheeks. Claire looked like old money to Keller, and she acted like it too. Ice blue eyes pierced him as she spoke.
"Mr. Berg will see you upstairs," she said, moving her right hand below the top of the desk to press a hidden button, smiling the entire time.
Keller imagined she had a pistol strapped to the underside of the desk, or maybe a shotgun. Certainly she had a bank of buttons, each serving a function in the building. Maybe one of them activated a trap door leading to an incinerator.
"Thank you, Claire." He turned toward the ornate staircase on the wall opposite to the bookshelves.
He’d started up the stairs when he heard her say, "Good to see you again, Mr. Keller."
"You too, Claire" he said somberly. He stopped before disappearing up the stairs. "Oh, the encyclopedias are out of order. Number fifteen is in front of fourteen," he said, and waited for a response.
"I never noticed. Thank you, Mr. Keller," she said, looking up from the computer screen with a forced smile.
Keller continued up the stairs, wondering about Claire's exact role within the agency. She'd have to be highly trusted if she knew about his photographic memory. This was not common knowledge within the CIA, for several reasons. Most importantly, he would become a fought over asset that not everyone could possess, and those who lost the fight to bring him into their fold, would never trust him.
There was too much infighting, petty jealousy, and paranoia inside the CIA. Widespread knowledge of his eidetic memory would be a career killer. Berg knew about his memory, but Berg had recruited him, keeping him close. Keller's skill could be a limitless treasure if used under the right circumstances, and he found himself assigned to one liaison position after another, mostly reporting to Berg. Not exactly the exotic CIA career he had imagined when first reporting to Langley, but unlike most CIA recruits, Keller was still a spy.
He opened the door at the top of the stairs and stepped into a different world. Classical music drifted into the brightly lit hallway, which contained five doors, and ended with a frosted privacy window. He knew that the open door to his immediate right was a modern conference room that extended to the front of the building, taking up at least one third of the second floor's square footage. He wouldn't find Berg here. He would be seated comfortably in the lounge at the end of the hallway, sipping a drink and enjoying the music. He couldn't wait to join him.
To his left, a closed door secured by a fingerprint access terminal reminded him where he stood. In the CIA, there was always another layer of secrecy, and he didn't have access to this room. He walked down the hallway and glanced into the open doors. One room contained a full kitchen, which was connected to the other room, a dining room with one large rectangular table. A crystal chandelier hovered precariously low over the table. He counted place settings for eight.
Keller arrived at the lounge, and knocked on the doorframe before poking his head inside. Berg sat in a dark leather chair in the corner of the room.
"Randy, please. You always knock on the door. I find it so peculiar," he said.
"I always feel like I'm walking into someone's private den," he said.
Keller loved this room. It had to be the most exclusive lounge in Washington, and no expense had been spared to make it feel that way, he thought, taking in the salient details. Two rich leather chairs flanked an ornately carved, darkly stained pedestal table, which held a bronze lamp with a deep red lamp shade. The lamp's soft glow drifted down onto a small tumbler filled with a finger of amber liquid. He stepped inside and inhaled deeply the comforting smell of expensive leather furniture and antique books. Three of the room's four walls were covered in bookshelves that contained real books, unlike Claire's faux reading collection. Classics, rare books, modern thrillers, curios. The shelves here were a treasury of gifts from dignitaries, world leaders, agency patrons, well connected politicians and thieves. He cherished receiving permission to spend the night here.
Staring awestruck at the collection, he almost stumbled over the leather couch that dissected the room, separating Berg and the deep leather reading chairs from a fully stocked bar immediately to Keller's left. He saw two laptop computers on the oval coffee table in front of the couch. He'd use one of these to type his report, and Berg would use the other to simultaneously read, and securely transmit his report to Audra Bauer, their director. His eyes caught a bottle of Chivas Regal standing guard over an empty tumbler on the shiny bar top.
"Pour yourself a drink," offered Berg.
"Thank you. Only a small one, though. I need to start typing this out while it's fresh," he said, and moved toward the bottle of outrageously expensive scotch.
"It's always fresh. I bet you could type out the first psychological exam we gave you with ninety-nine percent accuracy," laughed Berg.
"One hundred percent. I dip into the ninety-nine range when I try to tap into the middle school years. I hope you're the one who moved the encyclopedias," he said, walking over to his favorite chair with a splash of Chivas.
"Simply amazing. I moved them a few weeks ago. I don't even think Claire has noticed. Salud," Berg said, raising his glass.
"Salud," Keller replied, and clinked Berg's glass.
Berg took a long sip, relishing the drink. He leaned toward Keller, like he was sharing a secret. "I'm not going to bullshit you here, Randy. The CIA has very little on this Black Flag program. We know it was created and run by General Sanderson, with very little oversight. We are pretty sure it fell under Defense Intelligence Agency purview, and that it was abruptly shut down in 2000. We think it may have started in the late eighties, but details have been nearly non-existent. This was a word of mouth program, and we couldn't find any loose mouths willing to talk about it. General William Tierney, apparently one of Sanderson's many close rivals and enemies within the Army, brought the program's activities to the attention of Congress in late 1999. Tierney quietly retired a few months later, and Sanderson followed suit shortly after that. The matter was quickly sealed, and has remained that way until today. So, what is your impression of the file?"
"They need to burn this file as soon as they are done with it, and pray to God that these are the last remaining documents pertaining to this program," Keller said, and emptied his glass in one swallow.