The Director

17

K. J. Sandoval, the Hamburg base chief, was still upset about the way her case had been taken away from her by a male superior from another division, and then blown, with no consequences for anyone, near as she could tell. It wasn’t fair. Her father had always counseled her with the bromide that in dealing with the Anglo power structure, don’t get mad, get even. So after a few days’ reflection, she consulted a former Justice Department lawyer in Washington who still had a high-security clearance and specialized in workplace-discrimination cases for people in the intelligence community. The lawyer wasn’t sure that Sandoval had a case, but she agreed to write a letter to the Equal Employment Opportunity office, laying out the basics of the complaint, without the highly classified details. The EEO office had a counseling and investigation staff, she said, that tried to resolve cases quickly and quietly.

The key paragraph of the letter read as follows:

Agency officials, who had become highly skilled at ass-covering and legal self-protection, recognized immediately that the letter had what they called “flap potential.” A copy was sent by the senior EEO compliance officer to the general counsel’s office, where it was bumped up to the boss, Ruth Savin. She knew that Graham Weber had made a personal decision to assign the Hamburg case to James Morris, which meant that he would personally be involved in any investigation and arbitration. So Savin made an appointment to see him that afternoon.

“Pain in the neck,” said Savin as she handed a copy of the attorney’s letter to Graham Weber. A career in the federal government had taught her to regard discrimination claims from civil-service employees in much the same way Supreme Court justices view habeas corpus petitions from condemned prisoners, as a tedious waste of time.

Savin waited opposite Weber while he read the letter. An unlikely smile came over his face. He was looking for new allies, and he saw a chance to recruit another.

“Let’s do what she wants,” he said. “Have her call me. I’ll assign her to work on the case personally, directly for me.”

Savin frowned. Her usual legal advice to senior officials was that they keep their distance from prospective plaintiffs, rather than embrace them.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Cases like this can bite you.”

“I need help. She wants to be useful. Sounds like a match to me. Let’s call her.”

“Now?”

“Why not? Let’s see what she can dig up. If she gets anything, we can bring her back here. Meet her away from Headquarters.”

“Are you going to tell Morris?”

“No. That’s the point. I want someone working this who is not Morris.”

“You’re the boss,” she said. Those words were frequently uttered by general counsels, in and out of government, but rarely with equanimity.

Weber had Savin wait with him while Marie dialed Sandoval’s secure cell phone in Germany. He wanted a witness. The phone rang. It was after ten p.m. in Germany. Eventually a half-sleepy voice answered, in English.

“This is Haven J. Pullman,” said Weber, using the agency pseudonym that he used in correspondence.

There was a pause on the other end, while Sandoval ran through her mental Rolodex of names, cryptonyms and pseudonyms. When she realized who it was, a note of surprise and worry came into her voice.

“How can I help you, sir? Is there a problem?”

“No, no problem. I just read your lawyer’s letter to the EEO office. The general counsel showed it to me. I think you’re right. I want you to be involved more in this case.”

“You do?”

“Yes. We need to do more. But I don’t want to put you on the special task force that was assigned to pursue it.”

“Why not? I’m well qualified.” There was a bite in her response, as she sensed she was getting passed over once again.

“I want you to work directly for me. I’d like a second set of eyes looking at this case. Use your own sources, and follow your own leads. Report to me directly. That’s the deal. Don’t tell COS Berlin and don’t tell EUR Division. This is a private reporting line. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Director,” she said, a slight quaver of awe. “Are you sure this is okay, you know, bureaucratically?”

Weber looked at Savin. He smiled.

“The general counsel is with me, and she says it’s fine. Isn’t that right, Ruth?”

Savin winced, but she didn’t say anything.

“What do you want me to look for?” asked Sandoval.

“The obvious questions: I want to know what happened to your guy. And I want to know whether he was telling the truth when he said we had a problem.”

“That means I have to get inside the hacker underground,” said Sandoval gravely.

“Yes, if possible. Did this Swiss boy give you any leads to work on when you debriefed him?”

“Nothing very good. He talked about the Friends of Cerberus, and the Exchange. I have no idea what they are.”

“Find out. Get me some answers. If you have anything good, then get on a plane and fly to Washington. Come right away, no waiting or hand-wringing. Just do it.”

“Yes, Director.”

“Don’t disappoint me. I want a report in a week, and I want to see you right away if you’ve got something I need to hear.”

“What if I get in trouble?”

“Don’t. But if something happens, I have your back.”

Sandoval was silent for a moment as she considered this profession of loyalty from her supreme leader.

“Hay más tiempo que vida. That’s something my dad used to tell us.”

“What does it mean?” asked Weber.

“‘Life is short. Seize the moment.’”

“Smart man. Do what he says. Goodbye.”

Weber hung up. Savin looked at him dubiously, but that didn’t matter. Now the director had his second back-channel ally — a Spanish-proverb-quoting, semisuccessful, modestly pissed-off, midcareer Mexican-American case officer with a chip on her shoulder and a name that sounded like a hooker’s. Perfect.

Kitten Sandoval stayed up much of the night worrying about how to perform the assignment the director had given her. It is often a fact that when we obtain the prize we have been seeking, it feels like a burden. But when she awoke after a few hours’ sleep, it was a sunny morning. She pulled the drapes so she could look out over the botanical gardens through the window of her flat. The morning sun was glinting off the artificial lake. Beyond were the pavilions of the Japanese tea gardens, and the orderly grid of plants and pathways of this very German park.

Sandoval made herself a cup of coffee, ate half a sweet bun and threw the rest away so she wouldn’t be tempted. When it was nine, she telephoned her most useful friend in Hamburg. His name was Walter Kreiser, the former head of Germany’s concatenated Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, the federal intelligence service.

Sandoval was direct. She asked Kreiser if they could meet for a conversation that very day. He suggested lunch at Die Bank, his favorite brasserie in Neustadt, housed behind the grand façade of a nineteenth-century finance house. But Sandoval said no, this was better discussed in a private place; she asked if she might perhaps come visit him at his apartment in Uhlenhorst, across the lake from the consulate. Kreiser suggested she come at eleven for coffee.

Kreiser was waiting in his apartment, an austere modern German structure of blocks and rectangles, all in white. He was a widower, but his housekeeper kept the place tidy and had set out flowers on the table; she brought a coffee service on a silver platter soon after Sandoval arrived, and then disappeared.

He was a gentle-looking, white-haired man in his early sixties who wore wire-rimmed glasses, a white button-down shirt and rep tie; his every aspect was neat and unobtrusive. He was a product of the early Cold War school of German intelligence officers who had been trained by the British and believed, with their mentors, that intelligence officers should to the extent possible be invisible.

“What a nice surprise,” he said, pouring the coffee from the silver pot. “I hope it is nothing bad that brings you to see an old man on a sunny morning.”

“I need your help,” she said.

He took her hand. He was flattered, but he was not an idiot.

“Don’t be silly. The U.S. government wants something. I understand.”

Kreiser had taken an interest in Sandoval when she first arrived in Hamburg, not just because she was young and attractive, but because he was unabashedly pro-American and could see that this new arrival needed a mentor who understood Germany. They took to having coffee, and then an occasional dinner. She dressed up when she went to see him and took his arm when they went for a stroll. He reciprocated in his way, buying her presents and taking her to favorite haunts in the old city, telling things about the German scene that she could not otherwise have learned. He liked calling her by her forename.

“So tell me how I can help, my dear Kitten.”

“We lost someone, Walter,” she replied.

“So I’ve heard, my dear. I was going to call you, but you saved me the effort. How can I be of help?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t understand what went wrong. The young man who was killed was in my office a few days before he died. He wanted to help us.”

“Yes. I heard that, too. You mobilized half of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein trying to find him. You Americans do not move quietly.”

“But we didn’t find anything except a dead body, and a bullet.”

“The BfV and the BND are telling the old boys that it was a Russian Mafia hit. They traced the gun, so they are saying, with much congratulating of themselves. Isn’t that right?”

“Probably. I don’t know, to be honest. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I don’t understand where this man was coming from. He was frightened, I can tell you that. He was shaking when he talked to me, but I don’t know why.”

Kreiser knew Hamburg. He had started his career there and risen to become Hamburg’s chief of police before moving to Munich and then Berlin to run the national spy agency. He’d had a good run at the BND, making many friends and few enemies. When he retired, he had come back home to Hamburg, and after so many years of liaison with the CIA, he wanted to keep his hand in, which Langley was only too happy to facilitate. Sandoval had in fact been sent to brief him, which was how they had first met.

“I thought this was being handled by someone else: your Internet specialists. That’s what the BND chief told me,” he said.

“It is, officially. My visit to you is unofficial. I just want some ground truth about where this Swiss boy was coming from. We need to understand if we are vulnerable.”

Kreiser laughed. The smile transformed his face, from its severe and somber lines to something more supple and playful.

“That’s a good one, Kitten. You want the old man to help you understand hackers. I am flattered, but I think you need a younger adviser.”

Sandoval was too upset to be coy. Kreiser was her best shot, and she didn’t want to blow her chance with the director.

“Help me, Walter. You must have contacts in that underground. Certainly your old service does. Germany has more good hackers than anywhere in Europe. Find me someone to talk to, so I won’t feel so stupid. Just give me a start.”

Kreiser’s smile had vanished. His blue eyes narrowed as he reviewed names and cases in his mind.

“These people don’t like to talk, you know, especially to your government. They hate the CIA. They live to make difficulty for you.”

“Then I’ll be someone else, a businesswoman or a professor. Just find me someone who knows this world.”

He took her hand.

“They pushed you aside, I gather.”

“Yes, and I didn’t like it. This is a second chance.”

“Braves mädchen,” said Kreiser.

He rose from the couch and walked to his computer notepad, where he kept his addresses. He scanned it, found what he was looking for and returned.

“I think maybe I have the right person for you. But you will have to be very careful. This one is marked ‘Vorsicht! Handle with care.’ He’s a German boy, not a boy now, almost thirty. His name is Grulig. He was very helpful to me once, just before I left Berlin. But he’s confused. Sometimes I think he has seen a ghost.”

Sandoval sat back with a start.

“The Swiss boy had that same look, like he was spooked. What’s going on with these people?”

“I cannot say, Miss Kitten.” Kreiser poured his guest more coffee.

“This boy can help you,” he continued. “But you’ll have to go to Berlin. That’s where he is. And he’ll never meet you in a public place. I’ll have to find something else.”

Sandoval folded her hands. She was getting to the hard part.

“Don’t tell the BND, Walter. Promise me. Keep it off the books. And don’t tell anyone at the agency. I’m freelancing. This could get me fired.”

He reached out again and placed his big hand over hers.

“My dear, this is a very hot wire that you have touched. If you hold it too tight, you will get burned. You must see where it goes, where it originates, where the power comes from. With that I cannot help you. But I will show you how to start.”

Sandoval wanted to be professional. But she could not resist giving the old man a kiss on the cheek.