The Good Traitor

by Ryan Quinn

  “I need to clear the room. Hank, you can stay.”

  Resentment flickered in Bristol’s eyes, but Bright had long since overcome his vulnerability to that. She knew the drill as well as anyone else in the room. Most of everyone’s daily movements throughout the Langley campus, into and out of certain meetings at certain times, were dictated by three words: “Need to know.”

  “See if we can get BLACKFISH on the line,” Bright said when the others were gone. He went back to reading the intel the analysts had surfaced on Zhau Linpeng and Anton Kozlov, the Russian hacker known as a11Egr0. US intelligence agencies had unraveled relatively little about BYZANTINE CANDOR, and Bright was far from the foremost expert on the secret PLA unit. But were the Chinese getting sloppy? If so, why? He’d never heard of the Chinese importing Russian espionage talent—they had plenty of their own homegrown stars and were too disciplined to trust foreign nationals, especially those who had worked in intelligence. He’d also never seen people like Zhau Linpeng and Feng Xuri be so careless with their use of texting, even when they believed the content of their messages was safely encrypted. On the other hand, Bright reckoned, there was no encryption that protected what a hooker saw if you left your phone out when you went to take a leak.

  In the background he could hear Liu on the phone, running through authentication phrases. A few moments later, BLACKFISH was swearing over the speaker.

  “I thought you’d never call. This is some shit, Lionel.”

  “You’re on speaker with me and Hank Liu.”

  “Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

  “No. He’s been read into MIRAGE but not half the other shit you’re hip deep in over there. So watch your mouth.”

  “Ignorance is bliss, Hank, whoever the hell you are,” BLACKFISH said. “Sweet, forgotten bliss. Get yourself transferred to a station somewhere exotic where nothing happens and no one tells you anything.”

  Henry Liu, who had never worked in the field, said nothing. He looked to Bright for some sort of a cue, but Bright was already launching into the purpose of the call.

  “We’re connecting some of the dots you’ve given us,” Bright said, both hands planted on the desk so he could lean over the speakerphone. “But I’m not sure I believe the story line that’s emerging. That young Russian you connected to BYZANTINE CANDOR, Kozlov, he apparently has a reputation with computers. He goes by the name a11Egr0 in those circles.” He provided the childish spelling of the hacker’s alias. “But it’s a little out of character for him to make friends with regimes like China’s that censor the Internet. So we’re a little confused about what he’s doing there. We need you to find out if the Chinese were able to turn him. And if so, what do they have him doing?”

  “A11Egr0?”

  “That’s the name he uses, yes.”

  “And how the fuck does he spell it?”

  Lionel again spelled out the numbers and letters.

  “Christ, Lionel. I know that cyber is supposed to be the sexy new thing right now, but tell me you see the irony in the fact that these geeks are the world’s largest collection of self-made virgins. No offense, Hank. You’re not in cyber, are you?”

  “Sorry, sir, that’s classifi—”

  “It’s a joke,” Bright said. “Forget it.”

  “You think this Russian kid’s in Shanghai?” BLACKFISH asked.

  “We don’t know that. But we think he was in Shanghai the day the ambassador’s plane flew out of there. We think a11Egr0 is the guy Uncle Orwell and Peng mentioned in that text exchange.”

  From the silence that followed, Bright knew he’d gotten BLACKFISH’s attention. This wasn’t another monotonous fringe op where the goal was to chat up the escort who occasionally slept with a corrupt commie who might eventually end up in the same room with the Chinese president—just so you could report to some analyst in Langley how everyone took their tea. No, this was for real. If BLACKFISH understood correctly, Bright was asking him to track the suspected assassin of an American diplomat. It was the sort of mission men like BLACKFISH had joined the service for.

  “I’ll start in Shanghai,” BLACKFISH said. “There must be airport surveillance footage. Your theory is that a11Egr0 planted a bomb on the ambassador’s plane while it was on the ground?”

  “Not exactly. Do you know anything about computer viruses?”

  “I know a lot about free Internet porn. I don’t use computers for much else. They’re not safe.”

  “You’re right about that. I doubt a11Egr0 put explosives on that plane, if he in fact had anything to do with it at all,” Bright said, vocalizing for the first time the theory he’d been developing in his head. “But I think he may have planted a software virus. The guys here call it a logic bomb. Or a zero-day exploit. Or both. I can’t keep all that straight. Whatever it is, it programmed the plane’s computers to bring the thing down.”

  Another silence on BLACKFISH’s end. Then only, “I see.”

  Bright told him everything Amy Bristol had come up with about a11Egr0’s relationship with China, which wasn’t much, and promised they’d send him more when they could. It was nearing midnight when he started to end the call.

  “Hold on, Lionel,” BLACKFISH said. “I almost forgot. That woman from the embassy here—Vasser. What’s happening with that?”

  “I gather they’re putting together a case,” Bright said. He had to tread carefully on this turf.

  “There’s something a little strange about it, don’t you think?”

  “I haven’t really had time to think about it,” he lied.

  “There were only five people at the embassy over here who knew about TERMITE, and she wasn’t one of them.”

  So Bright wasn’t the only one whose bullshit detector had been set off by those stilted e-mails purportedly exchanged between Angela Vasser and Conrad Smith. As eager as Bright had been to nail down the source of a potential intelligence leak, the e-mails bearing Angela Vasser’s name had not been written in the tone of an accomplished diplomat—even one depraved enough to betray her country. Bright would have picked up the receiver at this point, had there been one attached to the conference-call device, or he would have at least muted BLACKFISH if he knew how the futuristic-looking speaker unit worked. Instead, he looked down at the poorly labeled buttons and winced.

  “All I’m saying is, it doesn’t make sense,” BLACKFISH continued. “She couldn’t have been the leak.”

  “Stick to your beat,” Bright snapped and then wrapped up the call. After they’d hung up, he turned to Liu. “You didn’t hear that last part.”

  “Hear what, sir?” Liu responded predictably.

  Though Liu’s play-it-by-the-book style was valued in most situations, Bright suddenly found himself longing for a deputy who wasn’t too cautious to go out on a limb when something felt off. But maybe he was just being a sentimental old man, he thought, silently cursing himself. It wasn’t fair to Liu to compare him to the previous operative who’d worked under Bright on China and cyber. She would have had as many questions for BLACKFISH as Bright had come up with, maybe more. And he would have trusted her to ask them. He had to admit that he missed her. For a moment he wondered where she was. But then he stopped himself. There was a team working on that; if there was any update, he’d be the first to know.

  THE VALLEY

  Bolívar came to Kera’s cabin on her fifth night in the valley.

  “How are you?” he asked when she opened the door. Her chest tightened at the sight of him in jeans and a white T-shirt.

  “I’m great. The place is perfect. I have everything I need.”

  “No. How are you?” he said more softly, lingering on the final word.

  “I—” She couldn’t think of a word to say.

  “Can I . . . ?” He gestured inside. She stepped back to let him in. “I brought you a phone,” he said, pulling it from his pocket. “Jones finished installing the encryption program this afternoon.”

  The device looked just lik
e the satellite phones she’d seen Bolívar, Jones, and everyone else in the valley use to communicate with each other. Though the phone was roughly the size of any modern smartphone, Jones had explained to her that it avoided eavesdropping-friendly cell towers by routing communications through secure satellites. The satellites also allowed for reception in remote areas, like the valley.

  Kera turned the phone over in her hand. “Does this allow you to track my location?” she said, meaning it as a joke even though she failed to scrub the edge from her voice.

  “You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. But unless we’re in the same room together, it’s the only safe way to communicate.”

  She slipped the phone into her pocket. When she looked up, his eyes were on hers, a shade more intensely than they’d been a few moments earlier.

  “Do you remember the last time we spoke? At my place in New York?”

  She nodded and whispered, “Of course.”

  “I told you then that I hoped someday we would meet again when the circumstances were different.”

  She nodded again.

  “You’ve been through a lot, Kera. And right in the middle of it, I just disappeared. I’m sorry.”

  “You had no obligation to me.”

  “I know. But the whole time, I wished there was something I could have done. I thought about you. The least I can do is let you know that.”

  She bit her lip. He was right; that was the least he could do. But he could not possibly have imagined how much it meant to her to hear him say that. They were still standing near the cabin’s entryway when she asked him on an impulse how long he planned to remain in the valley. He shrugged, but she caught the sly smile at the edges of his mouth.

  “As long as it takes.”

  “As long as what takes?”

  “Gnos.is will never be a source of perfect information. There will always be facts that exist that cannot be recorded digitally—that is, they cannot be expressed in a way that Gnos.is can process them. And at every moment in time, an entire universe full of new, recordable events takes place. We’re maybe five years away from having the computer power that can even attempt to compile all of that in real time. But we can get pretty close. We will reach a point where, for all intents and purposes, Gnos.is will be able to articulate to us nearly every demonstrable fact that is knowable about our universe.”

  “And then what?” she asked.

  “Then there will no longer be winners and losers in the information game. Everyone will have free access to the same accurate information. When I am confident that Gnos.is is not in danger of being seized by a government or a corporation that would use it as a tool of power, it will be safe for me to leave this valley.”

  Kera studied him while he spoke. His passion made him look to her like a man ten years younger. She wondered which of them was more naïve—he for believing in what he was saying, or her for doubting him.

  “Do you think that’s really everything—harnessing the universe’s facts?” she asked him. “So what? Will Gnos.is be able to articulate the point of it all? Will it tell us what, if anything, is meaningful?”

  “No,” he said quickly, as though he’d already thought plenty about this. “Would you even want it to?” He paralyzed her with a look. His eyes were vulnerable and questioning, as if looking wasn’t enough and he was seeking permission for more.

  “I’m not sure what I want anymore,” she said.

  And then suddenly they were both aware that they’d been stalling and now they’d come upon the moment to say good night. They shifted awkwardly; the recently assembled lumber squeaked underfoot. Finally, Bolívar excused himself.

  Closing the door behind him, Kera stood with her hand on the knob listening to his footsteps. She heard them pad against the wooden porch steps and then crunch onto the gravel drive. They crunched once, twice, and then a third time. But the fourth step did not come.

  She’d been holding her breath. She realized suddenly what was about to happen.

  She had the door open before he’d returned to the welcome mat. She let him kiss her as he backed her up against the kitchen counter. She pushed back, and then she began removing his clothes, hastily, the way she had the first time, back in New York, before everything else in her life had come apart.

  She had difficulty sleeping, but that wasn’t anything new. She lay awake most of the night, her thoughts paced by the sound of his steady breaths beside her. On several occasions she came within a moment of slipping out of bed, but she feared waking him and having to explain what she intended to do next. Finally, though, she succumbed to sleep, and when she woke it was he who had gone.

  It was still before dawn. She showered and packed quietly, though the nearest cabin was a hundred yards away. Then she put her bags in the car and drove without the headlights on until she reached the base of Bolívar’s driveway. She left the car idling there and got out.

  His house was quiet and she assumed he must have already gone to the mine. But then, as she was leaving the note she’d prepared for him on his kitchen table, she looked out at the lake and caught a glimpse of a figure sitting in a chair alone at the end of the dock.

  MANHATTAN

  Her instinct to leave the valley had come suddenly—and it wasn’t only because of the guilt that accompanied her desire for Bolívar’s touch, when only months had passed since the man she’d once been engaged to was murdered. Staring at screens in a windowless room buried under a mountain was not an efficient way to investigate assassinations that had taken place on three separate continents. And then there was the nagging echo of Lionel’s words—There is no future for you at Langley—which she knew had been spoken with a finality that she’d not yet accepted. Whatever the cause, the aimlessness she’d been sentenced to over the last few months was suddenly intolerable. She had to act.

  If Bolívar and Jones had a surveillance system that alerted them to her departure, they had not tried to stop her; neither had contacted her to try to get her to change her mind. They knew better than to tell her how to do the work they’d hired her to do. They trusted her capabilities. Each, though, did send her an encrypted OTR message asking her to be careful. She acknowledged their messages with a short response that assured them she’d be in touch soon.

  Kera sat on the bed in her Midtown hotel room with CNN droning on at low volume from the television. Her attention was devoted to her laptop, on which she composed a report to Bolívar and Jones that described what she’d learned about the catastrophic Lower Manhattan elevator accident that had killed Marcus Templeton, the second of their deceased sources. The short version of her report was that it had been no accident at all, which of course had been her expectation. What she’d really come here to find was evidence of the how and why—and she’d found it, at least the former. She laid out those details in an orderly report, which she still needed to finish and send via OTR chat. It was 10:40 AM; she had to be checked out of the room in twenty minutes.

  On the two-and-a-half-day drive from Montana, she’d stopped twice at trucker motels where she’d fallen asleep memorizing the key facts of the Pine Street elevator incident, most of which came from NYPD and FDNY reports, as well as news articles: Fourteen people had boarded the elevator in the lobby. Eight souls had disembarked on various floors during the ascent. Marcus Templeton had been among the six remaining commuters in the car when it came to rest on the seventy-second floor a few moments before it plummeted. Since there had been no evidence of a mechanical failure, the police had concluded that a freak software glitch was responsible. WhisperLift, the designers of the cutting-edge elevator system, were being sued by the victims’ families.

  After arriving in the city, Kera had gone down to Pine Street in Lower Manhattan. She stood gazing up at the ninety-story building where, two weeks earlier, Templeton had perished. She wore her hair forward in a tight frame around her face, with a hat and large sunglasses that further manipulated her silhouette and obscured her face. She knew all t
oo much about the facial-recognition software that processed hours of footage every second from the city’s thousands of surveillance cameras.

  Posing as a bike courier, she had tried and failed to gain access to the building’s operations department—the windowless, subterranean cluster of rooms adjacent to the mail room. Operations was responsible for regulating the building’s heating and cooling systems, power, and other utilities, operating the servers that stored data from the security cameras, and running the software that controlled the cars that lifted tenants up and down the skyscraper’s ten elevator shafts with computerized efficiency. Before the incident, the operations center had no doubt been an overlooked and relatively unsecure facility. Kera now found it to be closely guarded and inaccessible to uncredentialed personnel. The failed elevator remained out of service, she discovered on a swing through the lobby, though the rest of the building appeared to hum along apace, as New Yorkers were accustomed to doing in the wake of freak commuting tragedies.

  Unable to access the computers that housed the building’s elevator software in person, Kera knew there was nothing more to learn from the site. Had evidence of foul play been discovered in the crater caused by the impact of the stricken elevator car, it would have by now been made public. She knew the evidence she was looking for would be elsewhere.

  She went back to her hotel room, and using the most basic spear-phishing ploy in a hacker’s arsenal, she e-mailed three lower-level employees at WhisperLift, disguising the e-mails as messages from the employees’ bosses. Each e-mail contained text obliging the employee to click on a link that opened a Dilbert cartoon about quirky human behavior on elevators; Kera had found the cartoon using a simple Google Image search. Clicking the link also installed on each employee’s computer a small, invisible program that gave Kera remote access to their machines. The first employee clicked on the link three minutes after the e-mail was sent, immediately opening communication between the company’s computer and Kera’s. The two other employees opened the message and clicked on the link later that afternoon. By four o’clock she owned all three computers. Now she just had to wait.