Payback

10

Rubens felt his shoulders and arms sag with relief as Lia left the bank, her image caught on a video bug Karr had planted on a light post near the entrance earlier.

“She’s going to the hotel,” said Rockman. “We’re looking good. They’re getting into a taxi. Dean and Tommy are right behind her.”

“Very well.” He turned to Marie Telach, the Art Room supervisor. “I want to know the results of the tests on the cards as soon as possible. I’ll be in my office.”

When Rubens reached it upstairs, he found John Bibleria waiting to talk to him. “Johnny Bib” was a classic NSA staffer — a mathematical genius and certified eccentric. While Johnny Bib had cut his teeth at the agency working on cryptography, he now supervised the operations of a multidisciplinary research and analysis team assigned to Deep Black. He was also in charge of H Group, a collection of computer specialists who were used for a variety of tasks in the Deep Black operations.

Rubens pulled out his chair and sat down behind his desk. Though the top was clear, he habitually covered it with a gray blanket, intended to keep anyone from inadvertently seeing highly classified information. Rubens wouldn’t keep truly important data in his office, but by definition everything at the NSA, even the weekly bill for the vending machines, was classified.

“My team was not established for history work,” said Johnny Bib, following him inside.

“I don’t have time for riddles today, Johnny. What are you referring to?”

Johnny Bib looked deeply offended. He took a specially designed flash drive from his pocket; the memory device could only be read on certain NSA computers and would erase itself in forty-eight hours. “You needed a summary for your briefing? The political situation in Peru?”

“Oh yes. I’m sorry.”

Rubens had asked Johnny Bib to have someone pull together the critical background so that he would have the facts ready if the president questioned him; he had not been present for the CIA briefing and did not want to rely on the skimpy handout the briefers had left behind.

“Petra did the work. I reviewed it. So did Segio. I was just pointing out that this sort of work is not our forte. This is not what we were assembled to do.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. How long will it take to determine whether the voter cards have been hacked?”

“Once the data is uploaded, eleven minutes and thirty-seven seconds,” said Johnny Bib. He drew out the pronunciation of “thirty-seven”—it was a prime number, of almost mystical significance. “Segio will report to you directly, from the computer section. We have Gallo working on it.”

Segio Nakami was the number two man on the research and analysis team. While he wasn’t quite the genius Johnny Bib was — Rubens blamed this on an affinity for set theory — Segio was refreshingly uneccentric, even normal. Which might be the ultimate eccentricity at the NSA.

Gallo was Robert Gallo, a young man who had hacked his way into an FBI computer at the tender age of twenty. Fortunately for Gallo, he had done it as a member of Johnny Bib’s staff, taking part in a “friendly” demonstration of security lapses. In the two years since, Gallo had handled a number of tasks; as far as the agency was concerned, his best was inserting a virus into the control code for North Korea’s test missiles.

Gallo himself preferred the hack that allowed him — and only him — to obtain free root beers from one of the soda machines on the main level.

“I had some new thoughts on Fibonacci sequences,” said Johnny, lingering. “A new set of rules regarding exponential division. I’d like to discuss it—”

“Unfortunately, I can’t right now.”

The mathematician looked as if he had been shot in the stomach.

“I’m due at the White House,” said Rubens. “I have to read your report first, and deal with everything else.”

Johnny nodded stoically.

“Have you spoken with DiGiacomo about it?”

Hope sprang into Johnny’s face. “I hadn’t thought of her.”

“She may have new insights. She’s fresh from Prince-ton,” said Rubens.

“No need to hold that against her,” said Johnny Bib, running out of the office.

Rubens quickly went through his important phone and e-mail messages, then turned his attention to the report on Peru and recent Peruvian history. The Shining Path revolutionaries — psychotic crazies spouting Marxist nonsense, in Rubens’ most charitable opinion — had been battled into submission by a properly aggressive response in the 1990s. While there had been a few abuses, the military campaign against the so-called revolutionaries had been effective and relatively free of scandal, certainly when compared to similar campaigns in other Latin American countries.

The same could not be said for the administration of Alberto Fujimori, president at the time. Fujimori was ousted after videotapes showing aides soliciting and taking bribes on his behalf were aired on Peruvian TV. The president and the head of Peru’s intelligence service, Vladimiro Montesinos, who’d acted as his bagman, both fled the country.

The current president was considered an honest man, though an inept politician. Ortez, one of Peru’s two vice presidents, seemed poised to return to the more corrupt ways of the past. Worse — while the current president was, at best, mildly pro-U.S., Ortez was a rabid U.S. hater, nearly as vicious as Fidel Castro on “the North.” Except for the fact that he backed the free-market system, Rubens thought, he and the aging Cuban dictator would be perfect bedfellows, scoundrels of the first order.

But that had yet to be proven, Rubens reminded himself, reading through the rest of the report.

The summary was brief and succinct. Nothing wrong with that, though more depth on who was who in the political parties would have been helpful. The leading candidate in most polls was Victor Imberbe, whose Peruvian Centrist Party was a coalition of several groups representing the middle of the Peruvian political spectrum. Ortez trailed by about five points; his numbers had been trending downward for some time. The number three candidate, Hernando Aznar, was said to be anywhere from five to twenty points behind the front-runner. His Futuro (Future) Party was two years old, but the report had nothing on its political philosophy, beyond the fact that it was considered slightly right of center.

Johnny Bib had a point about the research team being out of its depth. Desk Three’s Achilles’ heel was its lack of a historic perspective when dealing with world affairs. There was no organization better at collating current intelligence and using it, simply none. But when it came to supplying perspective on a world situation, Deep Black’s superintelligent math prodigies might as well have been walking cold into a seminar on medieval art. They could supply plenty of facts but had trouble putting them into a wider, deeply nuanced historic context.

What Rubens needed — what Deep Black needed — was memory. Not the simple memory of archives, as Johnny Bib’s team had provided, but an interpretive memory, the sort that could be provided by a human being who had lived through at least part of it.

Rubens got up from his desk, stalking back and forth. Collins’ innocent remarks at lunch earlier — were they truly innocent? Was there something in the background his people should know?

If the mission were in Europe or Russia, he would feel much more confident. But he’d only been to South America himself a few times.

Was he missing something?

Rubens found himself standing in the middle of the room, arms folded, eyes gazing at his blank computer screen.

I am overly concerned with Collins, he told himself. But perhaps there is something there that I should know. At the very least, a fuller perspective on Peru would be useful after the election if the vice president does not win.

Rubens berated himself for not thinking of this sooner. The mission had come up suddenly, but still — he had failed to anticipate the situation.

Who could supply a perspective without an ax to grind?

Hernes Jackson came to mind.

Jackson had served as the American ambassador to Chile before retiring only last year. Rubens thought most career diplomats were soft intellectually and naive pragmatically, but Hernes was an exception. His ambassadorship capped a distinguished career that included several different posts in the State Department Intelligence Agency. Virtually unknown outside of the diplomatic corps, he didn’t have the sort of smooth patter and distinguished looks it took to be a talking head and so had never made the jump to the media or consulting circuit — points in his favor as far as Rubens was concerned.

Rubens found Jackson’s phone number himself and dialed it. He was pleasantly surprised when the ambassador picked up on the second ring.

“This is William Rubens, Mr. Ambassador. I would like an opportunity to pick your brain,” he said, plunging in.

“Dr. Rubens. At the NSA?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course. When?”

“As soon as would be convenient.”

“I was on my way to the library, but I suppose I could put that off until tomorrow,” said Jackson with the casual ease of someone who really was retired. “Sometime this afternoon?”

“Actually, I expect to be tied up for the rest of the day,” said Rubens. He checked his watch. The report on the cards should be ready within the hour; he would head to the White House as soon as he had it.

They could meet after that. Jackson lived near Alexandria.

“Perhaps for dinner?” said Rubens. “Seven or so.”

“Dinner? Well, I suppose it would be possible. Yes. Dinner would be good, Dr. Rubens.”

“Few people call me doctor,” said Rubens. He had two PhDs, a fact he had been somewhat egotistical about when he was younger and at a junior government rank. Now he found the doctorates mostly useful to remind some of the younger mathematicians he employed that he was not simply an empty suit. “I’d be more comfortable if you called me William or Bill. Give me directions and I’ll pick you up at your house at seven.”