The Director: A Novel

  The two intelligence chiefs arrived at the Washington Marina within a minute of each other. They made an improbable sight for the handful of people at the landing that early November afternoon. The two shiny black SUVs pulled up to the gray face of the boathouse; the security details had already staked out the wooden dock. Overhead was the roar of a Delta jet coming in to land at the airport a half mile away across the shallow bay. A young couple who were pedaling their bicycles along the Potomac bike path stopped to watch; they were shooed along by one of the security men.

  Hoffman descended from the open door of a Lincoln Navigator, a car even more grotesquely large than Weber’s Cadillac Escalade. He was wearing boat shoes and a pair of faded cranberry-red pants. For a topcoat, he wore a jacket embroidered with the DNI’s logo on the left breast and his name, Cyril, in script on the right. Atop his head was a sun-bleached cap that had the word (REDACTED), in parentheses, stitched above the brim.

  Weber was wearing the outfit he had put on that morning for work. In deference to Hoffman he had worn a tie, but when he saw his host’s boating costume, he took it off and put it in his jacket pocket. Hoffman had Weber on the back foot already; Weber wondered if the director of National Intelligence had discovered his recent discussions with Ruth Savin and Earl Beasley and was attempting a preemptive strike. But the CIA director was not entirely defenseless; he’d had a productive morning with Beasley, before Hoffman’s call.

  Hoffman’s sailboat was already rigged and moored to the dock, its sails flapping in the wind. A man in jeans and sneakers stood by the forestay, holding the boat steady. Under his jacket was the bulge of a weapon.

  “My yacht,” said Hoffman, gesturing toward the small craft. It was a nineteen-foot fiberglass sloop, from a class known as the “Flying Scot,” as simple a boat as you could find. On its stern was painted its name, (REDACTED), along with its home port, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Hoffman stepped gingerly into the vessel and assured himself that everything was shipshape before inviting Weber to join him. His round gut bowed the blue shell of his windbreaker, but he moved with surprising agility. Weber clambered aboard with less finesse, and the little boat dipped sharply when he stepped in. The security man in sneakers steadied the craft while Weber boarded, holding the side stay to keep it from rocking. Weber settled into place along the port railing.

  “Do you know how to work the jib?” asked Hoffman.

  “Nope,” answered Weber. “They didn’t have a yacht club in Pittsburgh.”

  “I can manage it,” said Hoffman contentedly. He reached around Weber and trimmed the jib, pulling the sheet through a wooden jam cleat.

  “Cast off,” he told his aide on the dock, who undid the bowline and laid it on the foredeck. Hoffman trimmed the flapping mainsail until it was taut and gently filled with wind. He pulled the tiller toward him and the little boat glided off on a puff, while Hoffman hummed to himself.

  Weber was sitting on the leeward side, his weight tipping the boat toward the water as it slipped away from the dock.

  “Move, please,” said Hoffman, gesturing to the windward side. Weber transferred his frame to the other side of the cockpit, and the craft immediately righted itself and gurgled forward. Another plane was just overhead, casting a large shadow on the water and ruffling the sails with the exhaust of its engines.

  “Isn’t this just . . . ripping?” asked Hoffman, gazing with pleasure at the wide expanse of the Potomac. Weber nodded dutifully, though his face betrayed discomfort. He pulled his cashmere blazer tight against the breeze.

  “There’s a Top-Sider jacket in the hold,” said Hoffman. “Put it on. You’ll feel much more comfortable.”

  Weber reached under the deck for the windbreaker. His movements rocked the boat and he had to grab for the railing to steady himself. When he put on the yellow slicker, he stopped shivering.

  The boat was churning along, making for the wooden breakwater that skirted the western edge of the harbor. Hoffman adjusted the jib and checked to make sure that the centerboard was properly lowered. Then he turned to Weber, taking off his (REDACTED) cap so that the bill didn’t obscure his view of his companion.

  “Comfortable?” asked Hoffman.

  “More or less.”

  “Good, because I need to discuss something uncomfortable. Sorry to drag you out on the water, but I couldn’t think of a more secure place to have a conversation.”

  “I figured.”

  “You’re in trouble,” said the DNI.

  “I know,” answered Weber.

  Hoffman continued as if he hadn’t heard the response.

  “Your problems come in different shapes and sizes. The biggest is James Morris. He’s on the wind, you can’t find him and there is every reason to believe he is up to serious mischief. I believe the NSA director sent you a little something summarizing his concerns about young Morris and his misadventures.”

  “It scared the hell out of me,” said Weber.

  “As well it should. How much do you know about Morris?”

  “A little,” said Weber. “I’m digging for more. What can you tell me?”

  “Two things that might be useful. First, he is, forgive the term, a pervert.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  They were nearing the breakwater. Hoffman eyed the sail. He reached past Weber for the jib sheet and pulled it out of the cleat so that it fluttered for a moment in the wind.

  “Ready about,” said Hoffman. He pushed the tiller away from his rotund form, announcing at the same moment, “Hard a’ lee.”

  The mainsail swung amidships as the boat turned into the wind. Hoffman pulled in the jib sheet on the starboard side and cleated it, motioning at the same time for Weber to transfer his bulk to windward. This ballet took less than five seconds and the boat was skimming off on the other tack. Hoffman moved with economy; even with a touch of grace. He studied the sails and the sky, seemingly lost in the rigging of his little boat.

  “You were saying,” pressed Weber. “How is Morris a pervert?”

  Hoffman blinked, paused and blinked again.

  “Let us say he has peculiar sexual tastes. Far be it from me to question another person’s personal behavior and interests. Live and let live, says I. The problem with Mr. Morris is that he ‘acts out,’ in a way that exposes him and the agency to danger.”

  “He ‘acts out’ what?” asked Weber.

  Hoffman answered clinically, through pursed lips, as he enumerated the behavior.

  “Bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism, bestiality, coprophilia, urophilia, acrotomophilia. A full spectrum of deviant activity, I would say.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s sloppy. He allows himself to be known. That is the part that is not forgivable. The rest, piff, what do I care? But he is beginning to raise eyebrows.”

  “Not at the agency. This is the first I’ve heard of any of it. The book on him is that he’s a weird, smart kid who knows a lot about hacking.”

  “He is all that: a useful fellow in most respects. But he is also a deviant. That is rather common in the hacker underground, or so I am told. They have been poached in pornography, these hackers. That is part of the cult. Obtaining illegal or extreme imagery is a rite of initiation.”

  “Is that so?” said Weber vaguely. He felt stupid and wished, even more than before, that he wasn’t captive on this little vessel with a skipper who resembled Humpty Dumpty in boat shoes.

  Hoffman gently wagged a finger toward Weber.

  “Your problem, if I may say so, is that you consort with other high-minded individuals like yourself, who couldn’t conceive of such activities and thus tend to overlook the evidence. But you might ask that nice young woman Ariel Weiss, whom you’ve been consulting. I’ll bet she has her suspicions about what Morris does after dark.”

  “How do you know about her?”

  “Please, Graham. I don’t want to seem boastful. But there is very little that I don’t know. Every i
ntelligence agency in the nation reports to me, and there are few people in senior positions who don’t owe me a favor of one sort or another. Dr. Weiss is an ambitious young woman. Of course I know her.”

  Weber was silent, pondering what Hoffman had just told him, and also the puzzling question of why he had chosen to share this information now.

  The little boat had made its way to the middle of the broad river. Ahead lay Bolling Air Force Base and its neat rows of military housing. To the west, upriver, was the compact epicenter of national government: Congress, the civilian agencies, the White House, the monuments and museums, all arranged symmetrically as if the federal establishment were a formal garden. The president was weak, it was universally believed; the Congress was enfeebled by partisan divisions; it was as if the balance wheel had broken and the real work of the government had stopped, but the garden remained immaculate.

  “I think . . .” began Hoffman, without finishing the sentence. His attention was absorbed by the boat. He tacked again so that they were heading upstream, and then he steered farther off the wind, easing the main and jib sheets so that the sails were extended. The little craft gained speed as it sailed on a broad reach toward Hains Point.

  Weber was impatient. He didn’t give a damn about sailboats. He was running an intelligence agency that had been penetrated, by whom or for what purpose he didn’t understand, and meanwhile he was trapped in a confined space barely large enough for two big men, while his host discussed sexual practices using obscure Latin words.

  “You said you had two things to tell me about Morris. What’s the other?”

  “Ah, yes,” said Hoffman, coming back into focus. “It seems that Morris is uncommonly friendly with the Chinese.”

  “Are we talking sex again?” asked Weber, though on this subject he actually knew more than he was letting on.

  “No, we are talking business. Morris has a surprising range of Chinese contacts in the information technology area. I believe some of them trace back to his youth. He spent two years in China after graduating from Stanford. Were you aware of that?”

  “Yes, actually. I know Morris did some programming for Hubang Networks back then, among others. He has been running an off-the-books research center in Cambridge with a Chinese partner, too. People tell me that it gets its money from a black account in the DNI’s office. Fancy that!”

  “Clever you.” Hoffman took his hand off the tiller and clapped his hands. “But don’t you find this Chinese connection worrying?”

  “Everything about Morris worries me.”

  “NSA thinks he is in regular contact with some of the corporate fronts the PLA uses for its cyberwar operations. Not just Hubang, but Golden Sunrise Technology in Shanghai, and Sinatron Systems in Guangzhou. Very bad actors, those two, the NSA says. They want me to blow the whistle on him. Cut him off. And they have some disturbing information about Russian contacts, as well, that I won’t bore you with now.”

  “But you’re not sure it’s time to pounce yet,” said Weber. “You want to watch and wait, and see what else Morris is up to. Am I right?”

  “That is our modus operandi in counterespionage cases, as you will discover. We are not policemen but intelligence officers, so we would always prefer to let things play out longer and see where they lead. But with Morris, I am beginning to wonder. Perhaps it is time, as the FBI likes to say, to ‘pull the trigger.’”

  “Take him down, Cyril. Be my guest, if you can find him. It’s going to be one hell of a scandal when it comes out: a CIA officer with links to the Russians and Chinese. And what’s more, he was working on secret, undisclosed programs for the director of National Intelligence. I may get my wish and bring the house down, after all.”

  “There are other ways to pull the trigger, Graham. We can let the unfortunate Morris autodestruct, as it were. He can play out whatever fantasy he’s working on, and destroy himself in the process.”

  “You’re the master,” said Weber, pulling back the strands of hair that were blowing in the wind. “But here’s what’s puzzling me. I’m asking myself: Why does Mr. Hoffman have a hard-on for Morris all of a sudden? Two weeks ago when I asked for advice you had the mumbles.”

  “‘Hard-on’ is not a term in my professional vocabulary,” said Hoffman primly. “Nor is ‘mumbles.’ But I am inclining toward the view that we should take action against Morris soon. This is a man capable of doing serious damage.”

  Weber eyed Hoffman. The two of them were confined in such a tiny area, it was as if they were on top of each other. The sloop rocked in the big wake of a passing powerboat. Weber leaned back against the bulkhead for balance.

  “You don’t have to convince me that Morris is trouble,” said Weber. “But the funny thing is, he’s not the only person who has close ties with the Chinese and the Russians.”

  Weber let his words sit in the air for the moment. Hoffman fiddled with the jib sheet.

  “Whatever do you mean?” asked Hoffman.

  “Well, take yourself: As director of National Intelligence, you’re the top dog. But people tell me you met six months ago with the chief technology officer of Hubang Networks. And I’m told you even have some investments with Chinese technology companies that are held for you by a trustee in Islamabad. A former general named Mohammed Malik. Do I have that right? And I learned something interesting today about the Jankowski case. Did you know that he didn’t keep all the money he skimmed? No, apparently he had a partner in the intelligence community who shared the loot. They did it through a common contact in the SVR.”

  “Well, aren’t you a sly fellow,” said Hoffman. His eyes narrowed till they were small slits on that big round face. “You’ve been spying on your Uncle Cyril. That’s unfriendly, where I come from. Not what you’d expect from a shipmate.”

  “Due diligence,” said Weber.

  Hoffman studied the younger man. There was a new coldness in his manner, as if a switch had flipped. He had regarded Weber with mistrust before, but now it was something closer to open hostility.

  “If you bother to check,” said Hoffman, “you’ll find that all my investments have been disclosed to the White House counsel’s office.”

  “I have checked,” said Weber. “There’s no record of the Pakistani trust or its Chinese holdings. And the DNI secretariat hasn’t logged any of your meetings with the man from Hubang, or with the chief technology officer of Yabo Systems. As for the Russians, I gather the information has all been given to the grand jury. The prosecutors just aren’t sure what to do with it yet.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Not at all, skipper. I just wanted you to know that I’ve been doing my homework.”

  Hoffman stared ahead at the approach of Hains Point, still a hundred yards distant, and looked up at the darkening sky.

  “Prepare to jibe,” he said curtly. “That means lower your head, or the boom will take a divot out of it.”

  Weber dropped as low as he could in the small boat. Hoffman called, “Jibe ho!” and pulled the tiller toward him. The wind caught the mainsail and it whipped sharply across the beam, just missing Weber.

  “I think it’s time to return home, don’t you?” said Hoffman mildly. “It’s getting late.”

  “I was just starting to enjoy myself. But whatever you say.”

  Hoffman steered the boat on a close reach back toward home. The wind was dying as the light fell, and they were making slower progress downstream than they had before, even with the gentle push of the tide and the river current.

  “You surprise me, Graham,” said Hoffman.

  “Why is that? Because I don’t roll over and let people pat my tummy?”

  “That’s part of it, yes. It turns out you are a resourceful fellow. But I was thinking more of the fact that you appear to have no clear idea of what you are dealing with. You have insinuations, but not a plan.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Cyril. But speak. Enlighten me.”

  “I think I’ve said enough already. To
o much, probably, but never mind. Time’s up. The creditors have called their notes. Bankruptcy looms. Isn’t that what your business friends would say, eh, Graham?”

  Hoffman took a cell phone from the inside pocket of his blue jacket, just under the stitching that read Cyril, and placed a call to his aides at the marina.

  “We need a tow,” he said into the phone. “Send the launch.”

  He put the phone away. Within thirty seconds they could see a twin-engine powerboat moving out of the harbor and toward them at high speed. Several minutes later, the Coast Guard launch was alongside, and a uniformed sailor was attaching the towrope to the bow cleat of (Redacted).

  Hoffman sat impassively in the stern. The bow of the sailboat lifted as the towrope took hold, and then the powerboat surged forward, pulling its cargo in its wake. The sailboat’s stern was so low that the water churned just behind Hoffman’s ample bottom, spraying his cranberry-red trousers.

  Weber studied him, measuring the man: Hoffman had been prepared to sacrifice James Morris with an indifference bordering on ruthlessness, but what was he trying to protect in the process? The DNI chief had alleged that Morris was a tool of Chinese intelligence, and perhaps the Russians too, but the very directness of his ploy made that allegation suspect. Hoffman obviously knew more about Morris than he was willing to share.

  And what of Hoffman’s own links abroad? The intelligence director had bristled at Weber’s mention of his dealings with the Chinese and Russians, but that touched only a corner of Hoffman’s global network. Weber was gathering the elements of a complex story, but Hoffman was right: He didn’t sufficiently understand what he was dealing with. Yet, watching Hoffman’s angry, sullen actions, Weber had reason to hope that he would soon know more. Everyone made mistakes eventually, even Cyril Hoffman.

  Hoffman was silent. He had said his piece, and heard more than he had expected in return, and now his boating foray was over. Hoffman looked at his watch. The silence continued until the little boat reached the landing.

  In Hamburg that day, K. J. Sandoval, still toiling as a consular officer on the Alsterufer, received an anonymous letter addressed to her work name Valerie Tennant. Inside was a picture that had been taken from a screen grab of a posting in a password-protected chat room. The page displayed a caption with the German words Ein Held. A hero. Below the words was a picture of a man Sandoval immediately recognized.