by Eliot Peper
“Diana, I-I don’t know what to do.” He was sobbing quietly now, shoulders shuddering. That was better than a breakdown, though. Rationality could shine through tears. “It doesn’t make sense. I don’t want it to happen, but I can’t stop it. And I keep asking myself, ‘Is this happening because of what I told Diana?’ but I know you would never want such a thing, but then I don’t know if I even know you well enough after all these years to know what you would want and then—”
“Start from the beginning, Kendrick,” she said, keeping her voice steady even though her mind was already racing like wildfire. “You said that you were called into the White House.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, clinging like a drowning man to the chronological life raft she offered. “It was just a few hours ago. I mean, I’d had requests over the last few months for various reports on Commonwealth. All the datasets we hold, transcripts from executive interviews, correspondence with auditors, all that stuff. It’s like I told you, you’re not the only one asking questions. But this is way off the charts, an unprecedented amount of activity. I mean, they’re America’s most valuable company, so there’s always a lot of scrutiny, but this was crazy.”
“So you were called into the White House,” she repeated like a mantra.
“Uh-huh.” He hiccupped. “And I walk in there, and President Lopez is right there, sitting at his desk.”
“Yes,” she said. “Well, it is his office after all.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Anyway, there are a bunch of other people too. I recognized the attorney general, the national security adviser, Senator Watkins, and then there were a few others I’d never seen before.” He paused for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. “This woman, Helen, took over the meeting and gave a presentation. She introduced herself as some kind of senior adviser, but I don’t remember the title. She said that Rachel, Commonwealth’s senior executive team, and the company’s board were all guilty of treason, that she had evidence that they had been funneling state secrets and selling illegal feed access to foreign intelligence agencies for billions, that she was heading to San Francisco to oversee the strike team that would bring them in. Given the situation and how critical a piece of national infrastructure the feed is, she said that the only option was to nationalize Commonwealth and seize control of its assets, at least until we can verify that the perpetrators have been caught, the problem has been fixed, and that we can implement a foolproof safeguard on their operations.”
Kendrick pressed his fingers to his temples. “It’s insane. I don’t know what to think. I mean, I’ve been studying Commonwealth for years, and it doesn’t make sense. Why sell classified intel when you’re already a dominant monopoly? They make legitimate money hand over fist. It seems ridiculous to risk everything for a few big personal payouts. I mean, she was talking big money, but these people are already billionaires. Diana, Helen quoted some of what I told you about Commonwealth’s financials. Those weren’t confirmed numbers, that was just the idle speculation on what we might be able to read between the lines of their official reporting. It’s nothing that could stand up in court or even under analyst scrutiny. Does Helen think those numbers are real? But why would she think they constitute proof? Is this what you were working on the whole time, drumming up evidence for this operation?”
Diana felt as if she had just been dunked into an ice bath. Somewhere, somehow, Helen had discovered that Diana was not, in fact, executing her mission of planting false evidence. She could have had a physical surveillance team disprove one of the fake reports Diana had been automatically delivering, or maybe one of the security contractors had called in Dag’s escape. It didn’t matter how. What mattered was that the avalanche was starting, and far faster than Diana could have imagined. Diana going rogue meant that Helen had, at best, fabricated circumstantial evidence to work with. But she was pulling the trigger now, forcing things through while she still had the element of surprise rather than risking that Diana might spread the word and ruin her ambush. She would backfill whatever evidence she wanted after the raid.
“What did POTUS say?” It had to be asked, but she knew it was a foregone conclusion. Her mind was already braiding new contingencies like glossy strands of spun sugar.
Kendrick frowned. “He was shocked. I thought he was going to have a stroke. He challenged her, questioned the evidence, said that even if this was true, the solution wasn’t to attack Commonwealth head-on. They should run a full investigation, share the results with friendly nations at the UN, lead a joint intelligence committee that brings the guilty parties to heel.” He sucked in a shaky breath. “Helen said that was a good point and that maybe they should change their tactics. But then the national security adviser freaked out, said they couldn’t guarantee the nation’s defenses if the feed was compromised. They had to act now, and unilaterally, or every American could be at risk. Watkins chimed in too, and suddenly the whole room was pushing for Helen’s original plan. I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there, mute. Helen called me forward when she was talking about Commonwealth’s financials, but it felt like some kind of staged play where I was just there as a prop. After two hours of debate, POTUS rubber-stamped the operation. He looked like hell.”
“Where are you now?”
“Still at the White House. Helen just flew out to supervise the field team in California. None of us can leave until the operation is wrapped. There’s an impossible amount of work to be done. They’ve called in everyone they can who has a security clearance. It’s a circus. I don’t even know what to think. Is this all true and we’ve somehow missed the biggest cover-up in history? Could it be some huge mistake? But why would all those people believe it? How could they be wrong?”
“When did Helen take off?”
Kendrick shook his head. “It’s time for you to start answering some of my questions. Is this why you were asking about Commonwealth? Are you working for Helen?”
“Look, time is a critical factor,” said Diana. “Believe me, I’ll fill you in later, but for now I need as much information as possible. You signed up to serve your country, and this is the definition of a national emergency.”
He stared at her for a long moment, crow’s-feet forming around his eyes.
“No,” he said, his tone firming like wet concrete under a summer sun.
“Kendrick.”
“No, this isn’t sharing the contents of a report a couple months before we publish it. It’s not the same. I’m getting called in to see POTUS and people are fudging my data and the world is spinning out of control and I don’t know a goddamn thing. Tell me what the hell is going on. Why is this happening? Who do you actually work for, Diana? Come on, you owe me the truth after all these years.”
Diana appraised her longtime agent, remembering the cheap beers they’d shared at Freaky Pete’s, his genuine if credulous commitment to public service, the relish with which he’d tasted that artisanal joint as they walked along the Potomac. He had already given her all the information she needed at this point. She should sever the connection and scramble to update their plans now that Helen was launching her offensive. Even if Kendrick was holding something back, which she doubted, Diana ought to deploy one of the ready lies she always had on hand. She should lead him down a path that reaffirmed their relationship and his dependence on her. She could even bully him, dredge up a compromising detail from his past to assert her dominance. That’s what Helen would do in this situation, and that’s how Helen had coached Diana to manage her agents, an unending stream of misdirection with unpredictable applications of prizes and rebukes.
Diana dialed down the opacity on her feed and looked at Dag, who was just nodding quietly, listening intently to whatever apparition haunted his feed. We all have to start somewhere. Otherwise what’s the point? She refocused on Kendrick, his burgeoning conviction as delicate as a seedling. At their core, infosec protocols balanced security against efficacy. If you never told anyone anything, you could keep your secrets safe, bu
t you’d never get anything done. Helen was building an empire with her keen intuition for sniffing out veiled fear, using intimidation to inflame it, and playing people against each other in a deadly, recursive dance. Diana didn’t have to run her agents, or her life, the same way.
“Kendrick, you’re right,” she said. “I owe you answers. The truth is that I used to work for Helen. I was investigating Rachel on her orders. But in the course of the investigation I discovered that Helen was using the intel to fabricate evidence justifying a bid to seize Commonwealth.” She had expected that sharing the truth would feel like laying down a burden, but it was more like loading a gun. “That’s why she’s citing your unconfirmed reports and using your numbers to drum up proof of treason. Your gut is correct, this is a conspiracy to take over the feed. The other people at that meeting were either already in Helen’s pocket or innocent but convinced to acquiesce by her false claims and political pressure. But we can’t let this happen. You can imagine what will happen if she overthrows Rachel. That’s why I need you now more than ever. I’m assembling a team to fight back, but we need someone who knows what’s really going on at the White House.”
Blood drained from Kendrick’s face. “Diana.” He stumbled, tried again, faltered again. Finally he found his voice. “Diana, I’ve got a family. Rob and the baby. I can’t do this. I can’t.”
“For now all I need you to do is stay put and pretend to do whatever they tell you to do,” she said. “They can’t fault you for that, right?”
His expression pleaded with her to assure him that this was all some twisted joke or hyper-realistic nightmare. Truth was a bitter antidote.
“I will do everything in my power to protect you and your family, even the dog,” she said, hoping for a bleak smile that didn’t rise. “In the meantime, I need you to hang tight and trust me.”
Trust. Diana felt naked exposing so much for so little. She could only hope that showing vulnerability might inspire loyalty, not just illustrate weakness.
CHAPTER 30
Haruki was waiting for them at the hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, macchiato sitting untouched in front of him as he nervously scanned passersby. Here in downtown San Francisco, he might be just another budding entrepreneur anxiously awaiting his chance to pitch a new piece of world-changing tech to savvy venture-capital investors. But Diana knew that the briefcase on his lap didn’t hold a prototype. She remembered her first real-world op, the knowledge that it wasn’t a training exercise heightening the senses, turning every detail into a highlight.
“Dag, Haruki,” she said. “Haruki, Dag.”
They shook hands, eyeing each other suspiciously.
“You chaps can get to know each other later,” she continued. “For now we need to get a move on.”
Haruki passed her the briefcase. “Everything’s arranged.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Dag’s gaze flickered in and out of focus as he tapped into his feed. “Hsu just arrived.”
“Time to strap on our little space boots and get this show on the road,” said Diana.
Wanting to stay, to press pause, but unable to avoid the necessity of haste, she led them out of the coffee shop. Cars sped along the streets, the feed navigating them in smooth curves that avoided pedestrians and minimized congestion. Sunlight slanted through the dizzying skyscrapers towering over them, artifacts hinting at the human aspiration to apotheosis.
Diana still remembered the childlike sense of wonder inspired by her arrival in the United States. Manhattan’s towers dwarfed the squat, utilitarian construction so common in Bulgaria. Waterworks held back the rising Atlantic as if issuing a challenge to nature itself. The smells of sauerkraut, urine, leather, fish, and stale coffee assaulted her nostrils. But the people made the biggest impression. Hordes of them crowded the sidewalks, individuals striding in all directions but always forward, driven by indefatigable purpose and buoyed by the inborn confidence that they were participants in a shared destiny, that freedom itself was a right, not just a privilege.
Still just a kid, she hadn’t been able to articulate it, but she felt the tug of this ideology of confidence, of denying that anything was impossible, of knowing that she was doing her part to advance the cause of progress in an uncertain world. Unlike the crumbling castles of what had once been her home, this strange new country was zealously focused on the future. For its citizens, the always-vanishing present was not an inheritance but an opportunity. History was as mutable as the waves that hurled themselves against the seawalls. Like religion, the future belonged to those who believed in it.
Diana cultivated that faith. From that day forward, the unfamiliar glimmer of hope was inextricably linked to her new identity as an American. The future was a real place, a land, a people. Her metaphysics was bounded by geography, and every step she took into the shadowy world of espionage reinforced the sanctity of national borders. Spymasters, generals, and security experts acknowledged “nonstate actors” as exceptions that proved the rule that countries were the units that really mattered when it came to shaping the course of future history. The political boundaries on a map yielded more insight than its topography.
The doors slid open, and they stepped across the threshold into the hushed redwood forest of the atrium. The trees were silent sentinels, their highest branches lost in artificial mist. Diana’s heart skipped a beat as she waited for the inevitable alarm to sound, their feeds blaring notifications that they weren’t authorized to enter Commonwealth headquarters, that security was already on its way. That was how delicate their desperate plan was, how easily it might be torn apart. But Sofia had done at least part of her job, tagging Diana, Dag, and Haruki as legitimate guests. Proud Sofia, who had played the spy in order to nurture her own seed of hope, suffering the psychological torment of double-crossing friends and colleagues in order to earn the privilege of mere participation.
Perhaps that was why she had harnessed herself to this particular behemoth, eschewing Diana’s Beltway lair to seek her fortune in California, where the future wore a different costume and history was shaped by the agricultural, industrial, and information revolutions more than the French variety. Sofia helped construct Commonwealth algorithm by algorithm, fiber by fiber, turning life into data and data into insight until the feed was a digital mirror reflecting the universe of human experience. That was a dream no less ambitious and no less flawed than that of nation states themselves, whose borders proved irrelevant to the digital infinity of the feed, parallel worlds with different rules whose collision spelled catastrophe.
Diana glanced over at the bench hidden in the thickest part of the grove, but Rachel was not there today. Just as Diana had latched on to Helen, soaked up her life lessons and worldview like a sponge, eager for a guide to the promise and contradiction of her new home, so had Sofia found a role model in Rachel, an avatar of providence who deigned to offer her a first-class ticket to board the techno-utopian ark.
Dag’s arm grazed Diana’s shoulder as they entered the elevator, their stomachs dropping and spines compressing as it whooshed them silently upward. His kidnapping had been a wake-up call of sorts, ripping away the blinders of patriotism and forcing her to look with fresh eyes on the people she’d manipulated, betrayed, and killed in the name of national security. She was a monster. That’s what it came down to at the end of the day. Monsters hid in the shadows, stalked their prey, and imagined their misdeeds cleansed by ideology. Diana had thrown off the mantle of personal responsibility, deferred her own moral judgment, replacing it with loyalty to a woman whose ambitions had finally exceeded Diana’s limits, her conscience snapping like an old rubber band spread between the fingers of an inquisitive child.
The elevator deposited them into the sculpture garden. Abstract shapes, mythical beasts, and impressionist fantasies leered at the three intruders as they traipsed through the exquisite jungle of blown glass, forged iron, and hewn marble. Diana let her fingertips brush the copper coat of the penny bear, half wishing
for a miraculous return to that simpler time when her objective had been nothing more than good old surveillance, harvesting secrets instead of deploying them to build a bridge to nowhere.
Her grip was tight and slick with sweat around the handle of the briefcase, its lightness at odds with the gravity of the evidence it contained. By rights she should have to drag it in behind a locomotive, wheels screeching as they searched for traction on rusty rails and engine straining to pull a load that no one should have to bear. Rescuing Dag could be shrugged off as bucking under the yoke of duress. This, though. This was treason through and through.
Diana could only hope that even treason might serve a higher purpose.
CHAPTER 31
The striated granite boulder still held the giant cut-glass table like Atlas shouldering the earth, but this time the vase at its center held tulips, not sunflowers. Some were a purple so deep as to be almost black, while others were scarlet rimmed with fiery orange, and a few were pure white, all sprouting from bright-green stems like inverted bells ready to toll this world’s demise and ring in the next one. Street vendors had hawked tulips near Amsterdam’s train stations while Diana had been deployed there, wrapping them in brown paper for hopeful lovers and happy tourists. Diana had ignored the colorful bouquets, preferring stands offering buttery, raw herring or dry cappuccinos. There was a part of her that saw cut flowers as fresh corpses.
Despite his advanced age, Hsu was anything but a corpse. His eyes had a mischievous vivaciousness as he surveyed the newcomers, and his crooked fingers drummed on the surface of the table as if his old bones couldn’t quite contain the abiding energy that had fueled his lifelong campaign to assure the ascent of Taiwan’s geopolitical fortunes.
“Dag,” he said, gripping the knob of the cane that rested against his chair and rising to his feet. “These aren’t the circumstances I imagined for our reunion.”