“Fine, but—”
“Look, God’s Eye was secure even before Snowden, yes? We know this for a certainty. Because—”
“—because if Snowden had access to God’s Eye, he would have revealed it.”
“Exactly. Just like if al-Qaeda had access to nukes before 9/11, New York and Washington would have been vaporized. In both cases, the absence of evidence—”
“—was evidence of absence.”
“Correct. And even so, out of an abundance of caution, we had Chambers increase all the security protocols.”
Remar looked at him, the old disapproval in his eyes. “Aerial was an amazing talent. And loyal.”
Anders didn’t like Remar referring to Chambers by her first name. Well, her nickname — her real name was Nicole — but that was even worse. It made what was purely a national security decision seem more personal. Worse, he didn’t like the probe. He looked into Remar’s eye. “Are you questioning my decision, General Remar?”
Remar dropped his gaze. “What’s done is done. But if you’re not worried Perkins might have accessed God’s Eye, why such extreme measures?”
“Just because there’s no way Perkins could create Armageddon doesn’t mean he doesn’t represent catastrophe. You want another Snowden? The costs of all that publicity, the distractions? That damn Greenwald, mocking NSA for being the only organization to lose the data we’ve been trying to get back?”
“No, of course not.”
“Not to mention how it’s going to make us look personally if it happens again.”
Remar nodded.
Anders sighed. “We don’t know what Perkins was up to. But we can assume if the SUSLA Turkey, of all people, thought it was newsworthy, it was going to be damaging. Exceptionally damaging.”
Remar nodded again, seemingly mollified. “Who do you want on it?”
“I’m thinking Delgado for Perkins. Manus for the journalist.”
“Perkins is the finesse job, the journalist is brute force?”
Anders shook his head. “Don’t misjudge Manus. Just because he can’t hear doesn’t mean he’s incapable of finesse.”
“I don’t know about that guy, Ted. I can never tell what’s he thinking.”
Anders looked at Remar’s ruined face, and refrained from noting that the same could be said for his XO.
“It’s not what he’s thinking, Mike. It’s what he does.”
“He doesn’t make you nervous?”
“I know how to handle him.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s what matters.”
“I know he’s loyal to you. Like a… I don’t know, an abused dog you rescued, or something. But a dog like that is damaged, you know? Down deep. You can never really trust it.”
“It’s not a question of trust. It’s a question of utility.”
It came out a little more bluntly than he’d intended, but on the other hand, could anyone deny the statement’s essential truth?
Remar stood. “All right. What else?”
Had he taken Anders’s words as commentary on their own relationship? The director hadn’t meant it that way.
No, Remar was all right. As loyal as Manus — though sometimes with too many questions. But at least he always knew when it was time to swallow his objections and carry out his orders.
“We’ll need a Turkish cutout,” Anders said. “Contact our guy. Manus will deliver the journalist to the Ergenekon people. They’ll smuggle him into Syria.”
“A second cutout.”
“Correct. Tell our guy Ergenekon gets paid in three tranches — when they take delivery, when they deliver to the Syrians, and when the Syrians complete the transaction.”
“What Syrians are we talking about?”
“Does it matter? We’ll describe them as ISIS.”
“The ISIS brand is pretty well known at this point. Might be better to use something new.”
Anders considered. “Well, we could attribute it to the Khorasan Group. You know, ‘too radical even for al-Qaeda.’”
“I don’t know. We claimed to have killed the group’s leader once the bombing in Syria began. Plus, the name never really caught on. Too much like ‘Kardashian.’ I’ve told you, names matter.”
Anders ignored the gambit. God’s Eye was a perfect name, and he wasn’t inclined to change it — or anything else — to something less than perfect. “Keep it vague, then. But attach it to ISIS. ‘An ISIS splinter group,’ something like that. And as far as the Turks, start at twenty thousand US per tranche, but be prepared to go up to a hundred overall.”
“They want hardware more than cash these days.”
“Tell our guy if this goes well, next time we can talk about multiple grenade launchers. They’re hot for those. But don’t let him get greedy.”
Remar headed to the door. “I’ll get Delgado. And your human dog.”
CHAPTER
3
Twenty minutes later, there were two firm knocks on the door. Anders looked up and said, “Come.”
Thomas Delgado entered and closed the door behind him. Five-five and fit as a ferret, he was wearing an immaculately tailored gray suit and white shirt, the absence of a tie his only stylistic concession to Maryland’s late August heat. As if in recompense, a half inch of white linen emerged from the breast pocket of his jacket. The outfit was ostentatiously stylish in the corridors of NSA, especially during shirtsleeves summer, but Anders supposed the look had its merits — chiefly that it at least partly disguised the fact that once upon a time, Delgado had earned a reputation as a technology-savvy killer for various East Coast crime organizations, foreign and domestic.
That had been ten years ago, when Anders had warned him about and ran interference with an FBI task force looking to put him behind bars. The warning had of course been part of a quid pro quo, and Delgado had proven enormously capable — imaginative, discreet, decisive. You told him who, you told him where, you gave him parameters about how. He never asked for anything beyond that, and he never failed to take care of the problem. If he had a shortcoming, it was that he enjoyed aspects of his work a little more than might be considered… desirable. But no one was perfect.
Delgado sat. His breathing was regular, but there was some perspiration along a row of hair plugs that seemed to be struggling to take root.
“You come from outside?” Anders asked.
Delgado nodded. “Fucking murder out there. Like a hundred degrees. Remar said you wanted to see me right away.”
Anders steepled his fingers. “We have a problem in Ankara. You’ll be leaving on a military flight from Andrews immediately. This one can’t be a suicide. Can you make it look like a car crash?”
Delgado smiled. “You know I can, especially if it’s a newer model.”
There was something about Delgado’s smile that always looked like a sneer. Well, the man wasn’t employed for his charm.
Anders thought of the fancy European car he knew Perkins drove in Ankara. “New enough. If you can’t get inside yourself, I’ll have a Tailored Access Operations team as backup.”
“I won’t need them.”
“Probably true, but they’ll be available in case.”
The TAO people were magicians. One team had been tasked with developing access to the checked baggage computer networks of every major airline. Now it was child’s play to cause a bag, or better yet a whole planeful of bags, to be temporarily “misplaced,” and, while the bags were missing, to replace a wheel or a handle or the heel of a shoe with a listening or tracking device. After a few hours, perhaps a day, the airline would discover its error, apologize, and send the bags on to their proper destinations. Airline incompetence was so universal that no one ever thought to question whether sometimes something else might be at work. Snowden had revealed a lot of these capabilities, but not all. Thank God.