The Director

28

Cyril Hoffman paid regular visits to the National Security Agency. It was one of the sixteen intelligence organizations under his supervision that were, as he liked to say, the arrows in his quiver. Hoffman managed the community with a light hand. To run the agencies, he tried to pick good people who understood the technologies of surveillance and collection and then, generally, left them alone. Graham Weber was the rare agency chief he hadn’t personally chosen, but that couldn’t be helped. The CIA was always a special child: needy, accident-prone, easily wounded. Hoffman had felt sorry for Weber the day he was appointed, but that empathetic feeling had given way in the weeks since to something closer to antipathy.

Hoffman’s trip to the “Fort” on this day had been requested by Admiral Lloyd Schumer, the NSA director. Schumer wanted Hoffman to hear personally about some new information that he had collected, which he didn’t think was appropriate for community-wide dissemination. Schumer had volunteered to come to Liberty Crossing but said it would be easier to talk at the NSA. Hoffman agreed. He felt like getting out of the office anyway. The DNI’s Lincoln Navigator was prepared for the trip, along with an identical vehicle that accompanied the first as backup and chase car.

Hoffman was dressed formally, as always for work. Today it was charcoal gray, with chalk stripes, a handsome suit his tailor had made on his last trip to Hong Kong. To the links of his gold watch chain he had recently added his Phi Beta Kappa key, which he had found in a drawer and decided made an attractive pendant. On his head was a stiff-brimmed gray homburg hat that he had acquired at Borsalino in Rome.

He relished the long drive for a chance to listen to music on his digital player. After some thought, he selected a Philip Glass opera titled Akhnaten, which, although famously difficult, was one of Hoffman’s favorites. The opera had vocal passages in the ancient languages of Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew, and the Egyptian of the Book of the Dead. Hoffman hummed and occasionally sang along with Akhnaten’s arias in an eerily high countertenor voice that startled even the driver, who was familiar with Hoffman’s eccentricities.

The Lincoln Navigator proceeded to Fort Meade via the Beltway, whose entrance was a few hundred yards from the front door of Hoffman’s office. They circumnavigated the Washington suburbs in a loop that crossed the Potomac and skirted the Maryland suburbs, and then they headed north on I-95 until they reached Route 32 East, which then turned into the aptly named Canine Road and the NSA’s well-guarded gate. Hoffman was waved through the barrier and the vehicle turned toward an office building that resembled an opaque black cube. To the right was a low-rise building of the sort you might see on any military base; Fort Meade was a military installation, after all, with soldiers in uniform lumbering between buildings.

Admiral Schumer met Hoffman at the entrance to the black monolith of the NSA headquarters and navigated the peculiar front reception area. The entryway confirmed that the NSA had something to hide: Rather than a straight path through the lobby, the corridor veered left, and then made a ninety-degree right angle, before opening to the inner hallway. This maze-like entrance had been created to check any straight passage for beams or waves, in or out.

The admiral was wearing his service dress blues, tidy and compact, decked with ribbons; he presented a contrast with Hoffman’s flamboyant garb. He showed Hoffman several new entries on the black marble wall engraved with the names of more than 150 NSA personnel who had died on duty. Above the long list was the code under which the agency had operated: THEY SERVED IN SILENCE. That reputation for discretion had been shattered by the recent hemorrhage of disclosures, but the NSA was officially in denial. It still treated all its documents as top secret, even the ones that had been published in the newspapers.

Hoffman was still humming quietly to himself; he stopped when the admiral beckoned him toward the elevator. Some of the people streaming past in the corridor were dressed in jeans and T-shirts. The NSA had concluded over the last decade that if it was to survive as a cryptological service, it needed to go geek. The problem was that free minds wanted free spaces, too.

The Admiral’s office was ostentatiously bland. He had a modest desk, with three computer screens behind, and three telephones. The one nearest his chair was for quick, secure communications; it had red buttons so the admiral could call his counterparts at other agencies instantly: There was a button for the CIA director, another for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a third for the national security adviser and so on. A second telephone connected with the public telephone network and switching; a third, marked STE, was used for secure encrypted calls. Schumer had pictures of his kids, too, lined up amid the top-secret hardware.

The admiral gestured for Hoffman to sit at his glass-top conference table, facing a window whose blinds were perpetually drawn. Coffee was served; aides disappeared, leaving the two of them alone.

“So nice to escape my office, Lloyd,” said Hoffman. “How’s life at the Fort?”

“We’re surviving. It’s hard for the older employees. They spent a lifetime protecting secrets that get blown in a few weeks. They’re depressed. But the younger ones adapt. Applications are up again. That’s something. If we lose the smart kids, we’ll be dead.”

“Which one will be the next ambitious malcontent who decides he can save the world by exposing the wiring diagram?”

“I worry about that every day. But we should see the next Snowden coming. We can monitor everything a person does now. I get a report every day listing any employee who has requested anything out of the ordinary. You need a buddy along when you download anything, FTP anything, practically when you go to the toilet. We’ll see the dangerous ones. Knock on wood.” He rapped the glass-topped conference table.

“I wish other agencies were as tightly buttoned,” said Hoffman. “We have a new CIA director who thinks it’s time to open the windows and doors and let the sun shine in. And he has some people working for him, I’m afraid, who think it’s fine to request files on programs they’re not cleared for. Not my choice, but there you are. I reassure myself that the way Weber is going, he’ll never last.”

Schumer nodded noncommittally. He wasn’t about to criticize a fellow agency director.

“So what’s on your mind?” asked Hoffman. “Other than locking the doors and windows?”

“Something is bothering me. I’ll be frank with you.”

“You’d better be. Otherwise I’ll send you back to submarine duty.”

“We’ve been picking up some things the analysts don’t understand,” said Schumer. “First, we’re getting signs of new malware in some of the circuits we monitor. We’re seeing some of the European hacker networks go dark, we don’t know why. We’re registering new activity in China and Russia that connects with some IP addresses that we try to monitor in Britain even though we told GCHQ we wouldn’t. We think something is up.”

Hoffman stared at the admiral.

“So?” he said. “What’s the actionable item here? I’m hearing noise, not signal.”

“Well, that’s the problem, Cyril. It is mostly noise. But to the extent there’s a central locus, we think it’s an agency officer from the Information Operations Center.”

“James Morris,” said Hoffman.

“Yes, sir.” Schumer nodded. “We know Morris has some special authorities from your office, so we don’t want to get in the way. And we gather that Director Weber has found him useful. But there is something you need to know. The analysts gave it to me several days ago, but I asked them to double-check so I could be sure before I told you.”

“Well, what is it, man? Go on.”

“James Morris has been in contact with a Russian from the SVR in Britain. We’re able to decrypt their traffic again. They’ve had two meetings with him and the Russian case officer claimed in a cable to Moscow that he has delivered information to Morris.”

Hoffman was fiddling with his tie as he listened.

“Are you sure about this? Morris is many things, but I wouldn’t have thought he was a traitor.”

“Yes, sir. As I said, I didn’t want to tell you until the agents had double-checked. But we decrypted the case officer’s reports about a meeting with a special source, and then we were able to decrypt a special message to SVR headquarters at Yasenevo that gave the agent’s true name. It’s James Morris.”

“Do we know where Morris is?”

“No, sir. The Russian officer met him in a small town near Cambridge, but he’s not there anymore. He’s not showing up on any digital track we have.”

“What is Morris doing?” muttered Hoffman. “Has he gone completely off his rocker? He has been polygraphed more times over the years than I have. How did they get to him?”

“Judging from what we were able to decrypt, the Russians seem to be running him through some sort of free-the-Internet cover. It’s like WikiLeaks, but more high-minded. They have some prominent supporters. Professors, tech gurus, people like that. It seems to have roots at Stanford, and in Silicon Valley. Sorry about that.”

“Good Lord Jesus, protect us. Do the British know?”

“No, sir, not so far as we can tell.”

“Well, don’t tell them. Let’s sort this out on the home front.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hoffman flicked at the lapels of his jacket. He adjusted the crease in his trousers. He was thinking.

“James Morris is a Weber project,” said Hoffman. “He wanted some younger, creative people to take more responsibility at the agency, and he sent Morris out on a very sensitive operation. He gave him a hunting license. The problem is that Morris is swimming in a pond with the rest of the fish, including Russian fish. And they all pee in the same water, which gets pumped back into our tanks.”

“I’m not sure I follow the fish part,” said Schumer, “but I get your point.”

Hoffman was nodding, in agreement with himself.

“The question I find myself wondering about,” Hoffman continued, “is why Graham Weber lets this young gentleman, Mr. Morris, wander so freely. We don’t really know all that much about Weber. He is not of our world, is he? He’s a businessman. He got rich making deals and cutting corners. That’s what people do in business.”

“I’m out of my lane now, Cyril.”

“Sorry, old boy. I’m thinking out loud. I shouldn’t draw you into it.”

“There’s one more thing I wanted to warn you about,” said Schumer. “I mentioned at the beginning that some new malware is surfacing in Europe, which my analysts linked to Morris. The problem is, some of them think it’s a prelude to a coordinated cyber-attack.”

“By Morris?”

“That’s what the analysts think. So you have to tell me: If this is Title Fifty covert action and it’s none of my Title Ten military business, just say so and we’ll stay out of the way. We just don’t want to let something slip inside the air gap at CIA that could contaminate other systems.”

Hoffman took off his glasses. He took the tie from beneath his vest and rubbed the lenses of his spectacles. Then he stuffed the tie back under the vest. The glasses were more smudged than before.

“It’s not any Title Fifty operation I approved. Let me pursue it, for now. Morris is Weber’s man. If he has allowed this young man to fall into perdition, he needs to answer for it. If Weber should prove to have a shorter than expected tenure at CIA, well, so be it. I think he already has a good pension.”

“Perhaps I should send Director Weber a report on the foreign activity connected to his networks? He needs to know about that, doesn’t he? Just to be safe.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Russian links, Chinese, all that. Quite right,” said Hoffman. “Send him a report about the foreign contacts with Morris. Mention something about the malware, too. Copy me. That way we can’t be blamed later for not giving a warning. Meanwhile, I’ll jump on this Morris business. We need to find him first, and then turn him inside out. I may need help from other agencies, FBI, whatever. Don’t you worry.”

Schumer closed up the folder on the conference table. He had planned to give it to Hoffman, but he said he would redo it and send a new, briefer version to both directors, Hoffman and Weber.

“Hold off a day on that, would you? I need to get started on Morris before there are too many ripples in the water.”

“Certainly, Mr. Hoffman. It’s a relief, reading you into this. I was worried, I can tell you.”

“Of course you were,” said Hoffman, nodding gently. “It’s quite serious.”

Hoffman, never a man to be ruffled by events, wanted a tour before he got back into his enormous black car, so Schumer walked him through some of the secret spaces in the black cube of the NSA’s headquarters. The surveillance tools were still mostly in place, Snowden notwithstanding, allowing the analysts to dial into metadata and content around the world, so long as they had the proper legal stamps on their requests.

Hoffman was surprised, making his tour, to see just how young and freewheeling the NSA workforce was. They did their recruiting now at hacker conferences and a dozen other less visible honeypots for the smart and mischievous.

As he was on his way out, Hoffman saw a young man in a T-shirt that said DEF CON XX. That triggered something in his mind. The young Swiss man who had wanted to defect, who had come in from the underground to warn that the agency was penetrated — he had been wearing a shirt with that same logo. Hoffman had seen it on the video recording of his initial handling by the base chief in Hamburg, which had been circulated by Earl Beasley.

Hoffman always played a long game. But he suspected that, in this case, the decisive innings were nearer than he might have thought. One the way home, he listened to another of Philip Glass’s operas, The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, and thought about the puzzle that was taking shape.

When Hoffman returned to the office, he was told that Dr. Ariel Weiss from the CIA’s Information Operations Center had telephoned, requesting an appointment. He told his secretary to call Weiss back immediately and suggest that she stop by Liberty Crossing late that afternoon at six p.m., if possible. He asked the secretary to advise Weiss that this would be a private meeting, at the personal request of the director of National Intelligence, not to be shared with any of her colleagues at the CIA.

Weiss’s office was near the ODNI complex, so it was easy enough for her to slip away and make the short journey to Hoffman’s headquarters. She was cleared quickly through the lobby and escorted upstairs to a capacious suite. When she arrived, the director of National Intelligence was sitting at a round table, away from his desk, going over some papers.

His secretary rapped on the door. Hoffman looked up over the top of his glasses. His eyes widened. He’d never met Ariel Weiss before. She had dressed up for Hoffman, exchanging her usual trousers and white shirt for a gray suit with a pencil skirt and fitted jacket. Her demeanor was cool and composed, as ever.

“The alcove, please,” Hoffman told his secretary. She led Weiss into a small adjoining room, windowless and lined with bookshelves, which Hoffman used for personal or especially sensitive meetings.

Hoffman followed a few moments later and closed the door. He removed his suit jacket, so that he was wearing his pin-striped vest, decorated with its sparkling gold chain. The room had a drinks cabinet and a bucket of ice. Hoffman hung his jacket neatly in a closet and walked to the bar.

“Too early for whiskey? I think not.”

He poured himself a half glass of the amber liquid and sprayed in a jet of seltzer water from a crystal bottle. He added two cubes of ice.

“And you?” he asked.

“The same,” said Weiss. “Neat.”

“Good start,” said Hoffman. “There’s hope.”

They sat down across from each other in brown leather chairs separated by a cherrywood table. The little room danced with the flickering yellow-blue flame from a fake fireplace against the near wall. It was almost cozy in this small room.

“Cheers,” said Hoffman, raising his glass and taking a sip. Weiss put the glass to her lips, let the taste of the whiskey moisten the tip of her tongue and then set it down.

“Do you enjoy your job, Dr. Weiss?”

“Yes, sir, I like it a lot.”

“Is it your expectation to remain with the agency a long time?”

“I don’t know. As long as the work is challenging, yes, I think so.”

“And do you aspire to higher management? People tell me that you’re ambitious.”

“I like the job I have,” she answered cautiously. “But if something attractive came along, of course I would be interested.”

“I see. Well, that’s good. But it behooves an ambitious person, especially, to be careful and follow the rules.”

“I know that, Mr. Hoffman. I try not to violate the rules.”

“Oh, really? Because I gather from a member of my staff, Ms. Hazel Philby, that you were making unauthorized inquiries yesterday about some DNI payment accounts that are strictly compartmented. That’s a violation of the classified-material handling rules, where I come from.”

“I did nothing wrong, sir. I was investigating activities by personnel from the Information Operations Center at the request of senior CIA management. I was following the rules, not breaking them.”

“I’m not sure that a disciplinary panel would agree with you, Dr. Weiss. In fact, I am rather certain they would find you at fault, in a way that might put your security clearance and continued employment at the agency at risk. But let’s put that aside for the moment.”

Weiss was shaking her head.

“I can’t let that stand, Mr. Hoffman. You are accusing me of something. I need to respond.”

Hoffman raised his hand.

“Enough. I said we would return to this later. I want to talk about something else. How much do you know about the activities of James Morris? I gather that’s what you were poking your nose into so deviously. What have you found out?”

“Morris is the problem you should be worrying about. He’s running a secret network with Russians, Chinese and Israelis. He’s totally outside CIA control. From what I picked up, his authority and funding come from your office, Mr. Hoffman. The ODNI supports his clandestine operations out of Denver.”

“Have you told Graham Weber that?”

“Of course I have. He’s my boss.”

“But Dr. Weiss, I am also your boss. And I am telling you that whatever authority I may have given to Morris, which is none of your business, it does not include working with Russians, Chinese and Israelis. That is freelancing. And in my opinion, it’s a result of your esteemed ‘boss’ giving Morris too much authority. This ball is on Weber’s racquet, not mine.”

“I’ll leave the turf question to you, sir,” said Weiss coolly. “But based on what I’ve seen, someone had better take action quickly. Because I think Pownzor Morris is about to do something very crazy and dangerous. It’s just a hunch. But since you asked me about him, that’s what I think.”

She picked up her glass again, and this time she took a healthy swallow of whiskey.

Hoffman snorted, but it was impossible to know whether it was in appreciation of the young woman’s resolve or in anger. He stirred his drink with his index finger.

“What do you know about Morris’s contact with the Russians?” asked Hoffman. “You said you found evidence he has links with them. What about it?”

“I don’t know much. He’s forming a little army of hackers. I think one of them is a Russian. But there are also Chinese and Israelis. I don’t know what they’re planning. Do you?”

“Of course not! I told you, Morris is freelancing. I have talked to the people in Denver who, according to your sources, are his facilitators. Well, they know nothing. He went off-line a week ago.”

Weiss studied him. Was it possible that Cyril Hoffman, the master of the secret world, was getting flustered?

“You have a problem, Mr. Hoffman,” she said.

“No, Weber has a problem. I am trying to resolve it. What do you know about Morris’s contacts with the civil liberties crowd?”

“Not much. He’s a hacker, so he’s been hanging around with those people since college. We all have. It goes with the territory.”

“Could he get sucked into some WikiLeaks thing? Some Snowden thing? Is that possible?”

“Anything’s possible, Mr. Hoffman. Pownzor is a very private guy. There’s a lot going on inside him that I never know about. I think he sees his old friends from college and graduate school, but he never talks about it.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” said Hoffman. It was his version of a curse. “This is going to be complicated.”

“What are you going to do, Mr. Hoffman?”

Hoffman pondered her question. He took a long drink of his whiskey and soda.

“I will take discreet action. That is a personal specialty, if you didn’t know. I have contacts. The Russians are not immune to reason. They can be persuaded. So can almost everyone. Am I right, Dr. Weiss?”

“Most people can be persuaded. But I’m not sure about James Morris. I’ve worked for him for two years, and I’ve never convinced him to do anything he wasn’t already planning.”

Hoffman smiled. It was an eerie look that came suddenly across his face, and then vanished.

“Well, there it is! If Mr. Morris cannot be persuaded, then we may have to let him blow himself up. Self-destruct. Poof! And then we’re all rid of a problem. We are, and maybe the Russians, too.”

Hoffman smiled again. His eyes were twinkling as he peered over the top of his glasses at Weiss.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Hoffman.”

“That’s a relief. I feared I was becoming transparent. Now then, what about you? I hope you will agree that you are in something of a compromised position, Dr. Weiss. If I contact the Office of Security at the agency and request a formal investigation of your conduct — of your trickery, let us be frank about it — in convincing the CIA comptroller’s office to divulge classified material inappropriately, I am almost certain that you would be suspended from your job. I would insist on it, actually. I am a victim in this matter.”

“I would protest to Director Weber, my superior. I was conducting legitimate inquiries on the agency’s behalf.”

“Bosh! Weber can’t save you. He’s too new. He’s too inexperienced. He’s dangerous, in my opinion. His silly nonsense about ‘rebalancing’ and ‘restarting,’ all of that is just so much fluff. He is upsetting the order of things. I would be surprised if he can save himself when all this is over. But he certainly can’t save you.”

Weiss didn’t answer. She understood the deal Hoffman was proposing: Her silence and compliant behavior in exchange for keeping her job. She didn’t want to respond. Hoffman studied her, waiting for an answer, and then he decided that her silence was enough.

“Very well. I will assume that we comprehend each other. I hold the future of your career in my hand. You are a bright and talented person, obviously, and I would very much like not to injure you. Indeed, I would like to help you. But in return, I expect you to act in accordance with my wishes and requests. Otherwise, you will very quickly find yourself out of a job. Is that clear?”

Still, she didn’t answer.

Hoffman rose, and shook her hand.

“A doughty lass, but not a stupid one, I hope.”

He reached for a buzzer, and the secretary returned and escorted Ariel Weiss out of the office and back down to the lobby.