Deep Black

5

Rubens straightened and walked down the narrow aisle behind the row of consoles, glancing toward the back of the room where the technical people were monitoring relevant intercepts and other real-time intelligence. Jeff Rockman, who was assigned to communicate with the field agents on the operation, leaned from the station Rubens had just been hunched over.

“You were right,” Rockman told Marie Telach, who as watch commander was supervising the mission. “She went into the men’s room.”

“Did she dunk his head in the toilet?”

“No.”

“She must like him,” said Rubens acerbically. Lia DeFrancesca — shanghaied from the Army Special Forces Delta unit — was one of his best field agents but had a personality that the Wicked Witch of the West would have admired. “And what’s with the miniskirt?”

“Tools of the trade,” said Telach.

“Which trade is that?”

“Boss.” Telach gave him the same look a teenager’s mother might use to ward off an overprotective father.

“All right,” said Rubens. He turned back to Rockman. “The Russian take the flight?”

“They’re just boarding,” said Rockman. One of his computer screens showed the Polish flight’s manifest, which was being updated passenger by passenger as they boarded. “There goes Dean.”

“One of George Hadash’s best men,” sneered Telach.

“We can leave Mr. Hadash out of this,” said Rubens. “Dean is doing us a favor, even if he doesn’t know it.”

“Classic deer caught in the headlights,” she answered.

“He’s not that bad.” Rubens had reviewed Dean’s file again. He had been a competent — maybe more than competent — Marine sniper, no mean feat. He had nothing but disdain for the CIA operatives he’d worked with, which made it extremely unlikely he would knowingly help Collins. And the fact that he hadn’t just decked DeFrancesca spoke well for his self-control.

“All right, they’re aboard,” said Rockman. He began pumping the keys on one of his computers. “You want to listen to the plane and tower?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Rubens. “What about Lia?”

“Just made her flight,” said Rockman. “Gave one of the male attendants a wedgie.”

“No doubt.”

Located on subbasement three of OPS 2/B in the heart of the Black Chamber, the Art Room was the center of operations for Desk Three. An improvement over the original War Room — officially known as OPS 1 Room 3E099—the Art Room allowed a small group of specialists and former field agents to run operations all across the globe. Sitting at three banks of consoles, Rubens’ people — called runners because they “ran” the field agents — could access real-time data from satellites and other sensors. If their own library of scripts and programs couldn’t get them into target computers or security systems, they could call on Desk Three’s hacking operation, which was housed in a separate facility. Besides tying into the Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center (DEFSMAC), which maintained an array of satellites, they had their own satellite and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) force available, controlled from a bunker down the hallway.

Rubens had handpicked the runners from former CIA as well as NSA officers. (With the exception of Collins, Rubens had a high opinion of the agency and most of its ops.) The majority of the runners had some science or technical background as well as experience in the field. Jeff Rockman, for example, had started with the NSA as a cryptographer. Assigned to the Moscow embassy, he had begun working with some CIA agents there and helped turn a low-level field clerk into a major conduit of Russian cipher keys. Loaned to the agency, he’d distinguished himself in Afghanistan before returning to Crypto City to help Rubens set up some of the procedures for Desk Three. Telach had led a clandestine mission into North Korea, sabotaging a nuclear research facility during the Clinton years. She had then come back to the NSA and helped work out the bugs in Predator 2.1 and Predator 3.0, two programs that Rockman could unleash with hot keys from his station. (The differences in the versions had to do not with the basic coding but with the ways the programs disguised themselves. Depending on the configuration, both programs could either act as sniffers, gathering data, or simply destroy the targeted computer.)

Rockman and the other runners could speak directly to agents such as Lia through a secure satellite communications system. An ear-set chip was embedded in Lia’s inner ear; the chip was just small enough to escape detection by a metal detector. But the most critical part of the system was contained in her jacket, whose studs and zippers were actually an antenna and the miniaturized radio gear. Unfortunately, the communications system itself was not perfect; the need to not only keep transmissions secure but also limit them so they couldn’t be used to direct others to an agent meant that there were generally only small geographic and time windows when it could be used. The direct-link satellite had to be almost directly overhead; this wasn’t always possible. The field agents often fell back on small, secure satellite phones and a wireless transmitter built into handheld computers they used for a variety of tasks.

Rubens had two teams working on upgrading the implant com system; it was just a matter of time, they predicted, before they could implant his thoughts in his agents’ heads on the go.

He believed they were joking, though that wasn’t necessarily a given.

Besides Rockman and Telach, there were three other men on duty. All top-shelf geeks chosen from other NSA areas, they handled and coordinated the various intercepts funneling in from the NSA’s vast outer reaches. The team was still small because the mission was just getting under way; by the time Lia got Dean into Russia at least a dozen people would be on duty. Literally hundreds more, toiling at their various jobs in the Puzzle Palace and associated military agencies, could be called on to lend expertise and backup in an emergency.

Rubens took a quick tour around the room, then told Telach to page him if he was needed. He gave Rockman and the others a wave, then entered the decompression chamber.

The chamber had nothing to do with atmospheric pressure, though the process of clearing its scans seemed to take nearly as long. The original designers had wanted to make the Art Room a full-blown “clean room,” meaning that anyone entering would have to wear a special suit inside, doffing it on leaving. Rubens had personally nixed the idea, but as he stood waiting for the various sensors to do their work, he wondered if the showers and bio suits wouldn’t have been more expedient. Finally satisfied that he harbored nothing he hadn’t come in with — and it did remember what he came in with — the automated security computer cleared Rubens into the vestibule, where he was met by two men in black from the Security Division, who’d picked this moment at random to do a PASS check. He submitted; there was no choice, not even for the director himself. He was directed to sit on a metal folding chair while one of the men took what looked like a small Palm Pilot from his pocket, along with a set of wires. The handheld computers were made by a company formed solely to work on NSA gear; a wide variety were used for an array of functions by NSA employees and field agents. In this case, the small computer was optimized as a lie detector, running a miniature version of the updated PASS, or the Polygraph Assisted Scoring System, that was the primary lie detector software used at the agency. The wires were taped to his palm and temples. Rubens was next asked a dozen questions drawn at random from the computer’s list. Most, though not all, had to do with security matters, but there were others thrown in to keep subjects off their guard, such as: “Have your sexual preferences changed in the last two weeks?”

They hadn’t. The two men showed no emotion whatsoever; Rubens could have told them that he was a pedophile and they would not have cared, as long as the machine said he wasn’t lying.

Cleared, he headed back upstairs to the eighth floor of OPS 2/A, where he had his office next to the director’s. He was running late — his cousin had invited him to her seven-year- old daughter’s First Holy Communion party, and while he ordinarily avoided such events, he had accepted this invitation partly because the guest list included Johnson Greene, a congressman on the Defense Appropriations Committee. The congressman was expected to run for Senate; if he won, he would be a likely candidate for the Intelligence Committee within two years. It was never too early to cultivate someone with that kind of potential — especially since he had been a critic of the agency in the past.

A mild and uninformed critic, the best kind.

After checking his messages and making sure his computers and office were secure, Rubens ran the security gamut and left Black Chamber. Traveling without a driver or bodyguard, he took his agency Malibu out of Crypto City, through Annapolis Junction. After a brief jaunt on the Baltimore— Washington Parkway, he turned to the west and headed toward a rather inconspicuous suburban enclave of yellow and white raised ranches. Rubens took a right turn past a stone fence where the words “Sleepy Hills” had been enshrined in floodlit mock stone; a short distance down the road he took another right and then a left, entering a cul-de-sac. He pulled into the third driveway on the right, where a sensor in the garage read his license plate and automatically opened the second bay door.

Rubens was out of the car as the garage door came down, sidling across the narrow space at the front to a vehicle more in keeping with his personal preferences — his own black BMW M-5. The garage and car, and in fact the entire house and block, were under constant surveillance, but this did not keep Rubens from making his own discreet check, taking a small container of powder from his pocket and sprinkling a generous portion over the locks and handle, as well as part of the hood and the door for the gas cap. The powder contained a chemical that interacted with oil residues less than twenty-four hours old. When he was sure that no one had touched his car he used his key to unlock it, got in, gave the interior another check, then left the garage.

His next stop was a car wash. The fingerprint powder supposedly didn’t harm the car paint, but Rubens didn’t trust the guarantees. Besides, he didn’t particularly care for anything associated with him to be dirty, not in the least.

No one else at the NSA went to the length of keeping a safe house as a car drop. It was almost certainly unnecessary, and the bureaucracy’s attitude toward the arrangement could be seen in the fact that Rubens paid for the safe house himself.

That was shortsighted of them, in his opinion. There was no such thing as too much security, especially when you were head of Desk Three. But then he took other precautions that the bureaucracy undoubtedly scoffed at, including not one but two cyanide capsules implanted under his skin, which he was fully prepared to break if the circumstances required.

As for paying for the house himself, Rubens considered it almost an investment, given the continual rise in real estate prices over the past few years. Besides, he lived independently of his government salary — and in fact regarded it as something less than a gratuity. It did not quite cover the amount of money he spent each year on clothes.

Car washed and dried, he got back on the highway and headed south toward Washington and his cousin’s home. When Rubens arrived, the party was just about reaching its height. A band that looked vaguely like ’N Sync and sounded like a cross between country pop and thrash metal, with the occasional rap beat thrown in, held forth on a stage in front of the pool.

The swimming pool and surroundings had been shaped to look like a bamboo sanctuary. The bamboo was rather obviously plastic; Rubens, whose own pool looked like the contemplative pond of a Zen monastery, smiled wryly at his cousin’s poor taste as she thanked him for coming.

Greta Meandes was related to him on his mother’s side. Greta had money, of course. No one related to Rubens did not have money; it was part of their genetic structure. But the bulk of it came from her husband, who worked as a CEO. As if that weren’t bad enough, his company made paper products, one of which was — naturally — toilet paper. It seemed to Rubens a grotesque satire on the decline of the family’s American branch, and he tended to keep Greta at arm’s length, even though she held a relatively important job as counsel to the House Defense Appropriations Committee.

“Sylvia looks very sweet,” said Rubens, who in fact had not seen the girl yet.

“She’ll be so glad that her favorite uncle could make it,” said Greta, as phony as ever.

“Yes,” said Rubens. The girl was actually his cousin once removed, but it was typical of Greta to be imprecise.

“I was talking to your mum just the other day,” said Greta. “She called with regrets.”

“Switzerland can be difficult to leave this time of year,” said Rubens.

“That’s exactly what she said.”

Rubens nodded politely as Greta began telling him how perfectly tuned the communion ceremony had been — balloons for the children, a sermon that included references to Chuckles the Clown.

A server approached with champagne. Five-five, she had a bright, beautiful face. Her curly shoulder-length hair was held back by a ribbon, accentuating her lightly freckled cheeks. These, in turn, complemented her very round breasts, which swelled from the black cocktail outfit like the glorious chest of Venus offered to the youth Adonis in the obscure but exquisite Estasi by Giorgione, one of Titian’s teachers. The painting hung in Rubens’ bedroom, a constant source of inspiration.

Some might translate the Italian title of the work as “Ecstasy,” others as “Ravishment” or “Rape.” All three ideas occurred to Rubens as he took a drink from the tray.

“Congressman Greene is here,” said Greta, probably hoping to break his stare as the girl walked away.

“How very nice,” murmured Rubens.

“He’s over by the pool, getting ready to take a dip. You should talk to him later — he’s running for senator.”

“He is?” said Rubens, feigning not to know much about him. “Greene is from Kentucky, right?”

“He’s on the Defense Appropriations Committee,” said Greta. “You didn’t know?”

“I can’t keep track. Honestly.”

Greta nodded. She knew that her cousin worked for the NSA, though they never discussed it. He doubted she knew what he did. More than likely she thought him a career paper-pusher, an image Rubens did his best to reinforce. He even doubted she knew Desk Three existed, though it was possible she had caught references to the supporting infrastructure through her work.

“Maybe I’ll say hello to the congressman,” said Rubens. “After I mingle.”

“Good.” Greta gave him a peck on the cheek and slipped away, leaving him with a perfect view of the waitress, who was now serving drinks to a cluster of leering white-haired business associates of Greta’s husband. Rubens sidled into a position to watch her pass back to the bar, feigning interest in the band. He tilted his glass up in her direction as she went by as a signal that he wanted more. She nodded; it seemed a professional nod, however, and after smiling in response he turned to look at the stage, determined to be discreet in his ogling.

Which meant he had a perfect view a moment later when the lead guitarist did a full-gainer off the stage into the nearby pool, guitar and all.

Unfortunately, the guitar was still plugged into its amp and power source. Even more unfortunately, Congressman Greene had just gone in the pool himself. The enormously loud pop and the massive blue spark that enveloped the stage appeared to some in the audience as just another part of the band’s act, but the odor of ozone and fried gristle that followed permitted no such delusion.