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when it came to her upper-echelon staff. It engendered a sense of trust and camaraderie
that-as she’d told Soraya-had been sorely lacking at CI in the past. In fact, from the vast amount of electronic data she’d pored over the last couple of days it was becoming
increasing clear to her that the previous DCI’s bunker mentality had led to an atmosphere
of cynicism and alienation among the directorate heads. The Old Man came from the
school of letting the Seven vie with one another, complete with duplicity, backstabbing,
and, so far as she was concerned, outright objectionable behavior.
Hart was a product of a new era, where the primary watchword was cooperation. The
events of 2001 had proved that when it came to the intelligence services, competition was
deadly. So far as Soraya was concerned that was all to the good.
“How long have you been at this?” Soraya asked.
Hart glanced out the window. “It’s morning already? I ordered Rob home hours ago.”
“Way past morning.” Soraya smiled. “How about lunch? You definitely need to get out
of this office.”
She spread her hands to indicate the queue of dossiers loaded onto her computer. “Too
much work-”
“It won’t get done if you pass out from hunger and dehydration.”
“Okay, the canteen-”
“It’s such a fine day, I was thinking of walking to a favorite restaurant of mine.”
Hearing a warning note in Soraya’s otherwise light voice, Hart looked up. Yes, there
was definitely something her director of Typhon wanted to talk to her about outside the
confines of the CI building.
Hart nodded. “All right. I’ll get my coat.”
Soraya took out her new cell, which she’d picked up at CI this morning. She’d found
her old one in the gutter by her car at the Moira Trevor surveillance site, had disposed of it at the office. Now she texted a message.
A moment later Hart’s cell buzzed. The text from Soraya read: VAN X ST. Van across
the street.
Hart folded her cell away and launched into a long story at the end of which both
women laughed. Then they talked about shoes versus boots, leather versus suede, and
which Jimmy Choos they’d buy if they were ever paid enough.
Both women kept an eye on the van without seeming to look at it. Soraya directed
them down a side street where the van couldn’t go for fear of becoming conspicuous.
They were moving out of the range of its electronics.
“You came from the private sector,” Soraya said. “What I don’t understand is why
you’d give up that payday to become DCI. It’s such a thankless job.”
“Why did you agree to be director of Typhon?” Hart asked.
“It was a huge step up for me, both in prestige and in pay.”
“But that’s not really why you accepted it, was it?”
Soraya shook her head. “No. I felt a strong sense of obligation to Martin Lindros. I was
in at the begi
creation of Typhon and in its recruitment. He meant Typhon to be a very different
intelligence-gathering organization, staffed with people who understood both the Arab
and the Muslim mind-set. He felt-and I wholeheartedly agree-that the only way to
successfully combat the wide array of extremist terrorist cells was to understand what
motivates them. Once you were in sync with their motivation, you could begin to
anticipate their actions.”
Hart nodded, her long face in a neutral set as she sank deeper in thought. “My own
motivations were similar to yours. I grew sick of the cynical attitude of the private
security firms. All of them, not just Black River where I worked, were focused on how
much money they could milk out of the mess in the Middle East. In times of war, the
government is a mighty cash cow, throwing newly minted money at every situation, as if
that alone will make a difference. But the fact is, everyone involved has a license to
plunder and steal to their heart’s content. What happens in Iraq stays in Iraq. No one’s
going prosecute them. They’re indemnified against retribution for profiting from other
people’s misery.”
Soraya took them into a clothes store, where they made a pretense of checking out
camisoles to cover the seriousness of the conversation.
“I came to CI because I couldn’t change Black River, but I felt I could make a
difference here. The president gave me a mandate to change an organization that was in
disarray, that long ago had lost its way.”
They went out the back, across the street, hurrying now, down the block, turning left
for a block, then right for two blocks, left again. They went into a large restaurant boiling with people. Perfect. The high level of ambient noise, the multiple crosscurrents of
conversations would make their own conversation undetectable.
At Hart’s request they were seated at a table near the rear where they had excellent
sight lines of the interior as well as the front door. Everyone who came in would be
visually vetted by them.
“Well executed,” Hart said when they were seated. “I see you’ve done this before.”
“There were times-especially when I was working with Jason Bourne -when I was
obliged to lose a CI tail or two.”
Hart sca
“No.”
Hart looked at Soraya over the menu. “Neither do I.”
They ordered brook trout, Caesar salads to start, mineral water to drink. They took
turns checking out the people who came into the restaurant.
Halfway through the salads Soraya said, “We’ve intercepted some unconventional
chatter in the last couple of days. I don’t think alarming would be a too strong a word.”
Hart put down her fork. “How so?”
“It seems possible that a new attack on American soil is in its final stages.”
Hart’s demeanor changed instantly. She was clearly shaken. “What the hell are we
doing here?” she said angrily. “Why aren’t we in the office where I can mobilize the
forces?”
“Wait until you hear the whole story.” Soraya said. “Remember that the lines and
frequencies Typhon monitors are almost all overseas, so unlike the chatter other
intelligence agencies scan, ours is more concentrated, but from what I’ve seen it’s also far more accurate. As you know, there’s always an enormous amount of disinformation in
the regular chatter. Not so with the terrorists we keep an ear on. Of course, we’re
checking and rechecking the accuracy of this intel, but until proven otherwise we’re
going on the assumption that it’s real. We have two problems, however, which is why
mobilizing CI now isn’t the wisest course.”
Three women came in, chatting animatedly. The manager greeted them like old
friends, showed them to a round table near the window, where they settled in.
“First, we have an immediate time frame, that is to say within a week, ten days at the
outside. However, we have almost nothing on the target, except from the intercepts we
know it’s large and complex, so we’re thinking a building. Again, because of our Muslim
expertise we believe it will be a structure of both economic and symbolic importance.”
“But no specific location?”
“East Coast, most probably New York.”
“Nothing’s crossed my desk, which means none of our sister agencies has a clue about
this intel.”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Soraya said. “This is ours alone. Typhon’s. This is why
we were created.”
“You haven’t yet told me why I shouldn’t inform Homeland Security and mobilize
CI.”
“Because the source of this intel is entirely new. Do you seriously think HS or NSA
would take our intel at its face value? They’d need corroboration-and A, they wouldn’t