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goin’ top-down in Santa Monica.”
“I hear you.” The agent dried his hands. “Good luck,” he said as he left.
Tyrone stared at the closed door for a moment, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. So
far, so good. He went out into the hallway, his eyes straight ahead, his stride purposeful.
He passed four or five agents. A couple gave his tag a cursory glance, nodded. The others
ignored him altogether.
“The trick,” Deron had said, “is to look like you belong. Don’t hesitate, be purposeful.
If you look like you know where you’re going, you become part of the scene, no one
notices you.”
Tyrone reached the door without incident. He went past it as two agents, deep in
conversation, passed him. Then, checking both ways, he doubled back. Quickly he took
out what seemed to be an ordinary piece of clear tape, laid it on top of the fingerprint
reader. Checking his watch, he waited until the second hand touched the 12. Then,
holding his breath, he pressed his forefinger onto the tape so that it was flush against the reader. The door opened. He stripped off the tape, slipped inside. The tape contained
LaValle’s fingerprint, which Tyrone had lifted off the back cover of the file while
working the device that slit the security tape. Soraya had engaged LaValle in
conversation as a diversion.
At the bottom of the flight of steps, he paused for a moment. No alarm bells were
going off, no sound of armed security guards coming his way. Kiki’s software program
had done its work. Now the rest was up to him.
He moved swiftly and silently down the rough concrete corridor. Buzzing fluorescent
strips were the only decoration here, casting a sickly glow. He saw no one, heard nothing
beyond the susurrus of machinery.
Snapping on latex gloves he tried each door he came to. Most were locked. The first
one that wasn’t opened into a small cubicle with a viewing window in one wall. Tyrone
had been in enough police precincts to know this was one-way glass. He peered into a
room not much larger than the one he was in. He could make out a metal chair bolted to
the center of the floor, beneath which was a large drain. Affixed to the right-hand wall
was a three-foot-deep trough as long as a man with manacles bolted to each end, above
which was coiled a fire hose. Its nozzle looked enormous in the confines of the small
room. This, Tyrone knew from photos he’d seen, was a waterboarding tank. He snapped
as many photos of it as possible, because there was the proof Soraya needed that the NSA
was enacting illegal and inhuman torture.
Tyrone took photos of everything with the ten-megapixel digital mini camera Soraya
had given him. Given the huge memory of its smart card, it could record six videos of up
to three minutes in duration.
He moved on, knowing he had an extremely limited amount of time. Opening the door
an inch at a time, he determined that the corridor was still deserted. He hurried down it,
checking all the doors he came to. At length, he found himself in another viewing room.
This time, however, he saw a man kneeling beside a table. His arms were drawn back, his
bound hands on the table. A black hood had been pulled down over his head. His attitude
was of a defeated soldier about to be forced to kiss the feet of his conqueror. Tyrone felt a surge of rage run through him such as he’d never felt before. He couldn’t help thinking of
the history of his own people, hunted by rival tribes on the east coast of Africa, sold to
the white man, brought as slaves back to America. All of this terrible history Deron had
made him study, to learn where he came from, to understand what drove the prejudices,
the i
With an effort he pulled himself together. This is what they’d been hoping for: proof
that the NSA was subjecting prisoners to illegal forms of torture. Tyrone took a slew of
photos, even a short video before exiting the viewing room.
Once again, he was the only one in the corridor. This concerned him. Surely he would
have heard or seen NSA perso
All at once, he felt a prickling at the back of his neck. He turned, retracing his steps at a half run. His heart pounded, his blood rushed in his ears. With every step he took his
sense of foreboding increased. Then he broke into a full-out sprint.
Luther LaValle looked up from his reading, said ominously, “What kind of game are
you playing, Director?”
Soraya kept herself from starting. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve been through these transmission intercepts you claim come from the Black
Legion twice now. Nowhere do I find any reference to that name or, for that matter, any
name at all.”
Willard appeared, handed General Kendall a folded slip of paper. Kendall read it
without any expression. Then he excused himself. Soraya watched him leave the Library
with no little trepidation.
To regain her attention, LaValle waved the sheets briefly in the air like a red flag in
front of a bull. “Tell me the truth. For all you know, these conversations could be
between two sets of eleven-year-olds playing terrorist games.”
Soraya could feel herself bristling. “My people assure me they’re genuine, Mr.
LaValle, and they’re the best in the business. If you don’t believe that, I can’t imagine
why you want a piece of Typhon.”
LaValle conceded her point, but he wasn’t finished with her. “Then how do you know
they’re from the Black Legion.”
“Collateral intelligence.”
LaValle sat back in his chair. His drink was left untouched on the table. “Just what the
holy hell does collateral intelligence mean?”
“Another source, unrelated to the intercepts, has knowledge of an imminent attack on
American soil that originates with the Black Legion.”
“Who we have no tangible evidence actually exist.”
Soraya was growing increasingly uncomfortable. The conversation was veering
perilously close to an interrogation. “I brought these intercepts at your behest with the
intention of engendering trust between us.”
“That’s as may be,” LaValle said. “But quite frankly these anonymous intercepts,
alarming as they seem on the surface, don’t do it for me. You’re holding something back,
Director. I want to know the source of your so-called collateral intel.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. The source is absolutely sacrosanct.” Soraya could not
tell him that her source was Jason Bourne. “However-” She reached down to her slim
attachй case, pulled out several photos, handed them over.
“It’s a corpse,” LaValle said. “I fail to see the significance-”
“Look at the second photo,” Soraya said. “It’s a close-up of the inside of the victim’s
elbow. What do you see?”
“A tattoo of three horses’ heads attached to-what is this? It looks like the Nazi SS
death’s head.”
“And so it is.” Soraya handed him another photo. “This is the uniform patch of the
Black Legion under their leader Heinrich Himmler.”
LaValle pursed his lips. Then he put sheets back in the file, returned it to Soraya. He
held up the photos. “If you could find this insignia, anyone could. This could be a group
that’s simply appropriated the Black Legion’s sign, like the skinheads in Germany
appropriated the swastika. Besides, this isn’t proof that the intercepts came from the
Black Legion. And even if they did I have a problem, Director. It’s the same as yours, I
would think. You’ve told me-also according to your sacrosanct source-that the Black
Legion is being fronted by the Eastern Brotherhood. If the NSA acts on this intel, we’ll