“You have . . . k-vestion?” Boyd mimicked Gorev’s accent. Before the Russian could respond, Boyd’s eyes shifted to the lower portion of the monitor. “Wait. You’re bouncing this call off the satellite? You know this line comes with risks.”
“It is important.”
“I’m sure you think it is.”
Gorev checked his targets. Now that he knew their location, he could watch them without the scope. They had advanced, but not far. “I have concern about our plan for Hawk Three One Four. He is strong. An asset.”
Boyd lowered his chin and raised his eyebrows. “Our plan?”
“Your plan. Forgive my English, please.”
“I will not.” The Englishman paced in an oval on his rug. “Hawk Three One Four . . .” He scratched his temple, as if killing a poacher in Cameroon was an easily forgotten piece of his Friday. “Remind me. Which field mouse did this guy eat to earn his wings?”
“Field Mouse Eight Zero Zero Seven Five. Another poacher, across border in Nigeria. A wise move. For consolidation.”
Boyd snorted. “A lazy move. For convenience. Hawk Three One Four is old, Gorev. You know how I don’t like the old ones.”
Gorev bristled at the comment. In Boyd’s eyes, anyone over thirty-five belonged in a home. Or better still, a grave. Gorev was over thirty-five. “I think his experience is asset.”
“Do I pay you to think?”
The correct answer to that question depended on the day. “Nyet.”
“Nyet.” Boyd spat out the word. “Look. I brought you in after the fiasco in the Black Sea because you had one extremely valuable contact and one true talent. The contact was a bonus. Your talent is what led me to give you a job, a new identity, and generally save your former-Soviet bacon. Use that talent now.” He stepped closer to the monitor. “Or should I send an anonymous tip to Interpol, alerting them to your presence in Cameroon?”
Gorev tensed his jaw. “Nyet. I do as you ask.”
“Good. Here’s what you don’t see. I’ve got Jackrabbit Four Eight Two Five on the hook in Yaoundé. He’s younger and hungrier, building a top-notch ivory distribution network. If I hand him your hawk’s supply chain, costs go down and profits go up. What makes me happy, Anton?”
“Costs down and profits up.”
“Da. The old makes way for the new. Circle of life. Law of the jungle.” He picked up a remote from his coffee table. “Now go do your job. And make it quick.”
“Why quick?” Boyd had never cared how the job was done before. “For mercy?”
“No, you Neanderthal. I need you at the new towers in Bangkok . . . like yesterday. The contractors are botching up my game floors. You know how I feel about my games. Get down there and scare them straight.” He pointed the remote at the camera. “Boyd out.”
The screen went blank. Gorev stared at it for a long time, then returned his attention to the valley below. His targets had closed on the elephant, putting Okoro within a comfortable range for the big Nitro Express. It wouldn’t be long now.
Gorev’s rifle needed only a minor shift on its bipod to adjust for the new angle. After checking the chamber, he inched forward and pressed his shoulder against the stock. He moved his eye to the scope and waited until Okoro rose to a knee and lifted the elephant gun.
A shot rang out across the valley.
The family of elephants lumbered off into the trees.
Okoro teetered to one side and dropped.
Gorev had fired first.
He kept the Ballista trained on Okoro. One of the poacher’s men rushed into the scope’s view and picked up the Nitro Express—the ruler’s scepter. Gorev fired again.
The next man, the last of the poachers, understood. He left the scepter where it lay and tore off through the scrub, surely to tell others what he’d witnessed. The new blood, Boyd’s handpicked replacement for Okoro, would encounter no resistance when he moved in to take over the operation. For all Boyd’s entrepreneurial brilliance, Gorev doubted whether he knew how to send such a message.
CHAPTER
NINE
CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
“GOOD MORNIN’, SKINNY.” Luanne, the full-figured barista of the CIA’s very own internal Starbucks, rested a hip against her counter. “What’s new?”
Talia gave her a thin smile. “No skinny for me, today. I need the good stuff.”
“I don’ know if I can allow that.”
“It’s just one drink.”
“Mmm-hmm. Like I ain’t heard that before.” Luanne twisted the steel cup in her hands, wiping it out with a dishrag. “Look, honey. I give you one with the good stuff today, one tomorrow”—she raised her eyes to Talia’s—“and the next thing you know, my little Skinny looks like Frank Brennan.”
“I’ll never let it go that far. I don’t have the cheek structure for the mustache.”
“Funny, but you know what I mean. You’re on the edge of a sugary, slippery slope.”
“Look, I don’t pay you to talk.” Talia tapped a finger on the counter and gave her a wink. “I pay you to pour.”
“You hardly pay me at all.” Luanne shot a glance at her tip jar, then threw the rag over her shoulder and went to work on Talia’s leaded white chocolate mocha. “So what in the world’s got you turnin’ to the caffeinated dark side?”
“Something happened in the field.” Talia slipped a dollar bill into the jar. The conversation had reached a gray area. Luanne worked inside the CIA. She’d been vetted, but Talia could only say so much. “Someone may or may not have tried to have me killed.”
Luanne didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, is that all?”
She shoved the steamer down into Talia’s full-fat milk and raised her voice above the hiss. “You know where you work, right? This ain’t the Department of Agriculture, although I hear it’s pretty cutthroat over there.” Luanne poured the milk. “This is the C-I-A. Just ’cause someone tries to kill you ain’t no reason to go mopin’ around, drinking high-calorie death coffee.” She worked the syrup bottle, pumping squirt after squirt of flavored sugar into the cup. “In this business, when someone tries to kill you, you track ’em down and kill ’em right back . . . or at least lock ’em up.”
“This is different.”
“No it ain’t. You only think it’s different.” She sprayed a small mountain of whipped cream into the cup and pushed the finished product across the counter.
Talia said nothing. She stared down into the softness of the cream.
“Listen, Skinny. You know you’re gonna take my advice before it’s all said and done. Why not save us both the time and get started now?”
The coffee would go on Talia’s running tab. She picked up the cup, feeling its warmth, and turned to go. “I wish I could.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Luanne turned as well—hips first, head second. “Go on then, girl. Wander off mumblin’ and grumblin’ into your big ol’ dessert. But when you’ve settled things, I expect you to come back so I can have my ‘Told you so.’”
TALIA AND HER BIG OL’ DESSERT took an elevator six floors down to the black marble halls and clear cubicles of REED. But before heading to Russian Ops at the heart of it all, she turned down a nondescript hallway. At the end was a door, marked by a brass plate.
OTHER.
One corner hung a nanometer south of level.
Inside, Frank Brennan lounged behind his desk with a fragment of donut in his hand and a large napkin tucked into his collar. The napkin had failed to catch all the powder, leaving his plaid shirt dusted white.
“You’ve got a little something . . . ,” Talia said, circling a finger around her entire blouse. “And also . . .” She moved the finger to her upper lip, indicating his bushy mustache.
Brennan shoved the last of the donut home. “Thanks.” He whipped the napkin from his collar and made a failed attempt to clean up. The smears of white made a nice abstract pattern, shifting the focus away from the pit stains. “Welcome back. I’m glad you’re not dead.”
Had the broom-closet office shrunk even more in the two weeks Talia had been away? She glanced at an empty workstation in the corner. “I see they haven’t replaced me.”
“No one can replace you.”
“You’re sweet.”
“As sweet as the creepy uncle you only see at Thanksgiving.” Brennan rubbed the remaining powder out of his mustache. “I assume you and Tyler had a chat. How much did he tell you?”
“The whole story.”
“He never tells the whole story.”
“Okay.” Talia lifted the box of donuts from the corner of Brennan’s desk. The day was just getting started and only two remained. “He told me enough. And before you start, I haven’t bought into the whole Oleg’s tip came from the Agency thing.”
“That’s fair.” He took the box away from her. “Hands off. You don’t work here anymore.”
“I was going to throw them away.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Exactly what I’m trying to prevent.” Talia glanced over her shoulder, checking the door. “To be clear, you and Tyler think Jordan is Archangel.”
A hard stare was all the confirmation Brennan would offer.
“Look. Jordan’s harsh. But an abrasive boss isn’t necessarily a traitor. I learned that lesson with you six months ago. I’d hate to make the same mistake twice.”
Brennan sighed and steepled his fingers over his spare tire. “So, what’s your play?”
“Business as usual. Keep my eyes open.”
“And if she sends you out again?”
Talia shrugged. “I go out.”
“Risky.”
“Comes with the job. Ask Luanne. She’ll tell you.”
“And what about Tyler?”
Talia scrunched up her nose. “What about him?”
“If Jordan sends you out again, you’ll keep Tyler in the loop. Right?”
Talia flicked his donut box with a finger and laughed. “As if you won’t. I know where he gets his intel.” She started for the door.
“By the way, young one,” he called after her. “I picked up on the thinly veiled insult earlier. For your information, I was never an abrasive boss.”
“See you, Frank.” She let the door to OTHER fall closed behind her.
CHAPTER
TEN
CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
EDDIE GUPTA SAW TALIA COMING. She watched him duck behind his bank of monitors when she entered the gleaming intelligence palace known as Russian Ops, still called The Russian Ops Desk by all who knew of its existence.
The central branch of the Directorate’s Russian Eastern European Division had shrunk to just that—a desk—after the dubious end of the Cold War. The Agency’s operational focus shifted to counterterrorism, and funding for old-school espionage against America’s favorite foe had diminished. But in recent years, thanks to the almost mystic talent of its chief, Mary Jordan, to put officers in the right places at the right times, the desk had once again bloomed to a full branch. And Talia was its rising star.
This hadn’t earned her a great many friends.
“Terrance.” She gave a ’sup chin lift to a passing case officer, a veteran of the branch. Terrance had scored a seat at Russian Ops four years earlier and had dug in like a tick. He favored bow ties, although he refused to see any correlation between his fashion choices and his glaring lack of field assignments.
He answered with a curt smile. “Welcome back. I hear you got your asset killed. Nicely done.”
“He wasn’t an asset. Not yet.”
“Oh, that’s right. You never landed him in the first place.”
She glowered at his back as he marched up steel-grate steps to his cubicle. Russian Ops had reached its lateral limits, and Jordan had added staircases and a few upper-level cubicles—sought-after real estate, like the top bunks at summer camp. Terrance had already declared to Talia she’d never get his.
“Eddie . . .” Talia approached the geek’s desk. He didn’t answer from behind the monitors, but she heard a sneeze and a juicy sniffle. “I know you’re there.”
He rose like a prairie dog peeking out of its hole, assuming a prairie dog could hold a handkerchief to its nose and wear wire-rimmed glasses that were perpetually sliding out of place. A second hand appeared, palm up, holding a little box of chocolates.
Gifts were not really a thing between them. Talia set her coffee on the edge of her desk and folded her arms. “What’s this?”
Eddie traded the handkerchief for his phone, showing her a text message on the screen.
She knows.
Arriving today.
Run, hide, or bring gifts.
Maybe all three.
The sender was listed as UNKNOWN. “Tyler?”
“Finn, I think.” Eddie looked at the screen as if trying to decide. “You can almost hear the Melbourne accent.” He brought the chocolates to her and offered them, lowering his head. “Look. I’m sorry. I should have told you I was working on Tyler’s project.”
“I get it. And you’re forgiven. Sending him to Volgograd saved my life.” She accepted the gift. “But don’t tell him that.”
The designation NC-1701-D was stamped in gold print on the clear plastic top of the chocolate box. She turned it over. “Hey. This says ‘Free with your purchase of Star Trek: The Next Generation commemorative Christmas socks.’” She lowered the box. “And it’s dated two years ago.”
Eddie scrunched his shoulders. “I was pressed for time.”
The chocolates went straight to the trash bin under Talia’s desk, and she followed Eddie back to his monitors. Hundreds of lines of alphanumeric code rolled up his left screen in a continuous stream. Corresponding graphs and tables flashed up and down on the center and right screens. “Wow. What are you working on?”
“Oh this? This is my screensaver. Makes it look like I’m doing Jordan’s bidding when she walks by.” Eddie clicked his keyboard. The code and graphics dissolved, revealing a flat global map that took up all three monitors. Arcing red and yellow lines joined cities all over the world. “This is what I’m really wor . . . wor—” He sneezed. Hard. His glasses clacked down on the keyboard.
“Are you sick?”
“It’s nothing. Probably spring fever.”
“It’s the fourth of December.”
“Whatever.” Eddie wiped his nose, put the glasses back on, and went to work again.
The map coalesced into a globe on the center screen. Some of the yellow lines ran to satellites, hopping from one to the next before returning to Earth.
“The Volgograd save came from a breakthrough I had in Tyler’s project.” Eddie zoomed in on a bird in geostationary orbit over the South Atlantic. “But this morning I had another one. Big—like someone handing me a cheat code for Legend of Zelda. Suddenly hidden rooms and side quests were popping up everywhere.”
A diminutive woman of Korean descent walked by, hair pulled back into a tight ponytail—another Specialized Skills Officer like Eddie. She glanced at the screen with interest.
Eddie hit a key to bring up his screensaver. He swiveled his chair and motioned with his handkerchief for the woman to keep moving. “Eyes to yourself, Sue Lin. These are my screens, not yours. You’re not cleared for this.”
Sue Lin let out a huff, hugged a stack of files to her chest, and walked on.
Talia looked down her nose at her friend. “Can a guy with your social skills afford to alienate a girl like Sue Lin? You two have a lot in common.”
“I don’t need her.” Eddie swiveled his chair back to his screens. “I have Darcy.”
“Meh . . .” Talia made a face. “‘Have’ is a strong word when you’re dealing with the French female Unabomber.” She hit his keyboard to unlock the screens. “Okay. I heard cheat code and Zelda. Give me the Geek-to-Normal translation please.”
“I got an alert at four a.m., another hit from the digital marker Tyler and I traced to Boyd.”
�
��Like the one that told you Oleg’s tip-off about Vera Novak came from Boyd’s network.”
“Right. And since I knew you were safe, I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. But the image of the marker called to me. I saw it every time I closed my eyes, like when Rey kept seeing visions of Kylo Ren, and she—”
“We both promised never to speak of that movie again.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” Eddie clicked on the satellite, opening a window of constantly shifting data. “Anyway, the encryption fragment from the alert kept poking at my brain, especially the six-digit preamble.”
“Again, Geek-to-Normal, please.”
He captured a screenshot of the shifting data and blew it up to fill the center screen, showing her several columns of code. “Here. Look at these. Each one is a data packet passing through this satellite on its way to somewhere else. Keep in mind, lots of networks use this same satellite.”
“Okay . . .”
“Okay. Data packets entering a satellite acquire little riders, tour guides that help the packets navigate an internal maze. And it’s a moving maze—walls shifting, doors opening and closing—all designed to make a finite digital space as efficient as possible.”
Eddie was still talking above her geek level. Talia flipped back through images of his words to make sense of them. “The six-digit codes are tour guides that help the data find its way.”
“Exactly. Picture an army of tour guides who all speak different languages. When the satellite encounters a new encryption language, it builds a new tour guide with a new code.” Eddie sniffled, circling one of the columns with his cursor. “Look at this.”
She stared at the column, blinked, and shook her head.
He rolled his eyes. “You’re looking at a new six-digit tour guide, unique to Boyd’s encryption. In short, the marker led us to the satellite and its tour guide, and the tour guide led us to Boyd’s unique encryption pattern. Now we have a treasure chest filled with trackable data fragments.”
Chasing the White Lion Page 4