The Director

37

Graham Weber was not the first to move, violating a cardinal rule that Sandra Bock had given him when he arrived. The morning after his visit with Morris, he arose at his usual hour of five in his apartment at the Watergate. It was a gray monochrome outside, with a white chop in the water that made the river blend with the overcast sky. He had slept badly, in fitful interludes through the night. Weber wearily put on his sweats and sneakers and descended to the street and the jogging path along the river. He went downriver to Hains Point and back, paced by younger men and women who pranced by him with their bottoms wrapped in spandex.

When he had showered and shaved and eaten a quick breakfast, it was nearly six. The big black car was waiting down on Virginia Avenue. Weber came out the door and walked to the curb, where the driver was holding open the door. Oscar had been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and had had a decade of stress. He liked having a job where the biggest thing he had to worry about most days was a traffic jam.

They set off for Headquarters. Oscar varied the route slightly each day in recognition of Weber’s status as a high-value target. One day they might take the Whitehurst Freeway down to Key Bridge, another day they would make a U-turn on Virginia Avenue and take the Roosevelt Bridge. This morning Oscar turned left onto Rock Creek Parkway and up the ramp past the monumental statues onto the broad span of the Memorial Bridge, framed on either side by the gray churn of the Potomac. Weber was reading the New York Times; the lead story was about the latest turn of the ceaseless European financial crisis. The British pound had come under heavy pressure the last several days, joining the eurozone in misery.

Weber’s car was about two-thirds of the way across the bridge when the engine stopped. It wasn’t a sputter or a cough that suggested fuel or carburation problems but a sudden loss of all power. The motor went silent; the running lights inside the car were extinguished; there was the sound of a battery alarm as the airbags deactivated. Jack Fong, the security man riding shotgun next to Oscar, cradled his automatic rifle on his lap as he reported a Mayday alert on the emergency communications frequency.

“What’s wrong?” asked Weber.

“I don’t know, sir,” shouted Oscar. He was struggling to control the car. The power steering had disappeared, along with the power brakes. Every electrical system in the car had become disabled simultaneously.

“Head for the circle,” shouted Fong, pointing toward the grass beyond the embankment at the far end of the bridge. The car coasted toward it as Oscar shouted out the window to warn other cars away.

“Get down, sir,” the security chief told Weber. Military training had taken over and he was treating this like a combat operation in downtown Kabul.

Oscar managed to bring the big car to a stop by riding it up on the grassy circle at the far end of the bridge; as the grass slowed the vehicle, he applied the emergency brake. The chase car swerved and followed the lead vehicle up onto the traffic circle. The two security men jumped out and formed a perimeter around Weber’s wounded car. Two cars that had been dented by the Escalade after it lost control had also pulled over.

“We have to get you out of here, Director,” said Fong. He was calling for help when his radio went dead. He tried swapping out the battery with a fresh one — it made no difference. Fong’s face turned red like a stoplight changing color.

“Is the backup car safe?” he shouted to the driver of the second vehicle.

“I think so,” said the driver.

Fong looked to Oscar, who shook his head. He didn’t trust the chase car. If the lead vehicle had been hit, the backup was vulnerable. Weber was standing outside the car by now, trying to dial a number on his cell phone, when the security chief urged him toward the vehicle with a ferocious, protective shout.

“Sir! We are under attack. I want you inside and on the seat, now, please.”

The security chief tried to get on top of Weber and shield his body, but the director wanted freedom of movement, above all now, and he wasn’t having it.

“Back off, Fong,” he shouted. “Let me call the watch room and find out what’s going on.”

Weber dialed the number on his BlackBerry. He was just starting the conversation, explaining where they were, just over Memorial Bridge on the Virginia side, when the phone went dead.

“Oh, Christ,” muttered Weber. “I know what this is.”

Fong was pushing him down again, and this time Weber didn’t resist. The security chief made the director lie flat on the seat while he assumed a firing position above him. Oscar and the two men from the chase car chambered their weapons and formed a tighter perimeter around Weber’s Escalade.

Five minutes later there was a wail of sirens and a kaleidoscope of flashing lights as a Federal Protective Service emergency response team arrived in three cars. They were joined by two cars each from the Park Police and the Secret Service, who had picked up the emergency calls, along with a D.C. ambulance that had followed the parade. Officers rushed toward Weber, weapons drawn.

“We need you out of here now, sir,” said Fong, eying the gathering fleet of cars and onlookers. He pushed Weber toward the lead FPS vehicle, an armored Chevy Suburban. A second member of Weber’s detail evicted the FPS man who had been sitting in the front passenger seat and took a firing position.

“Move, now, to CIA Headquarters.”

The Suburban roared off from the circle and up the George Washington Parkway, the muzzles of two automatic weapons just visible over the bottoms of its front and rear right windows. Weber’s communications were still down, so Fong took the driver’s cell phone and reached the Office of Security command post. Weber gestured for Fong to hand him the phone.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Weber.

“We don’t know, sir, except you’re under attack. Every system we have on you is down.”

“Has anyone else in the government been hit? White House, or DOD?”

“Negative, sir. We just checked. Everything else is up. You look like the only target.”

“This is a diversion,” said Weber.

“We’re not calling it that way, sir. This is a Tier One red alert. Whoever is going after you is punching every button. We have to get you locked down at Langley now. We want you to use an alternative office on the fourth floor until we’ve run this to ground.”

The watch officer asked to speak to the head of Weber’s detail, and he handed the phone over to Fong, who grimaced as he listened to the situation report. He turned to Weber.

“Sir, you need to be out of sight,” he said. “Right now.”

“Too late for that,” said Weber.

“I’m serious, Mr. Director. I have to order you to lower your head so it is not visible through any of the windows.”

Weber did what Fong asked. They were all following procedure.

The Chevy was traveling nearly eighty miles an hour up the parkway that hugged the ridgeline above the southern bank of the Potomac; its siren was wailing so loud that frightened drivers veered their cars onto the bare shoulder to get out of the way.

As the SUV neared the agency, it made a power turn onto the ramp that curved up toward the CIA front entrance. The metal barrier lowered just in time to let the screaming car through. They raced past the bubble and the main entrance and veered right, into the driveway into the underground garage. The driver relaxed only when the metal gate closed behind them.

A welcoming committee from the Office of Security was there to meet them, including Marcia Klein, the deputy director who ran Support.

“What’s the story, Marcia?” asked Weber, sitting up straight again in his seat.

“We don’t know,” said Klein. “My guys are taking apart your car now, looking for disabling devices. They’re still working it. We asked the Bureau for help five minutes ago. I hope that’s okay.”

“This is a cyber-attack,” said Weber. “It’s an inside job. It has to be. They got into the electronic system in my car and shut everything off. They did the same thing with the comms.”

Klein nodded and then shrugged feebly. She was embarrassed to have so little information.

“We really don’t know, sir.”

“Well, I do. It’s cyber, and you won’t find anything. They’re too good for that.”

“Maybe, Mr. Director, but right now we have to get you to a safe room. We have one predesignated on the fourth floor. Nothing gets in or out without our say-so. We pipe all the systems in separately, air, water, power, and every wire into the room is clean.”

Weber shook his head.

“That’s just where they want me,” he muttered. “Isolated and inoperative.”

“Sir?” asked Klein. She was prodding the director to move toward his private elevator now. It was pointless to resist. They were trying to protect him, even if they didn’t know what, why or how.

“I know you’re just doing your job, Marcia, but I’m telling you, this is an inside job. You’re doing just what they want.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

They entered the small elevator with Klein in front and the omnipresent Jack Fong following up behind. Klein pushed “4,” and with a slight jerk of the cables the director’s private elevator began to rumble upward in its shaft.

Between the second and third floors, the elevator came to a sudden stop and the lights inside the cab went out.

“What in God’s name just happened?” exclaimed Weber.

“Get down, sir,” said Fong, in the absurd momentary belief that lower in the elevator cab would be safer. Fong began to draw his weapon but Klein stopped his hand.

“Not here,” she said.

Klein had a flashlight in her pocket and she shone it on the controls, looking for the alarm bell. She pushed it but no bell rang. She took the emergency phone from its cradle but it was dead.

“This isn’t funny anymore,” said Weber.

“Roger that,” said Klein. She took her own communications device from her pocket, which fortunately was able to transmit and receive in the metal housing of the elevator.

“We have a Code Red in the director’s private elevator,” she said into the phone.

Weber could hear the anxious squawk of the voice on the other end, a watch officer who apparently thought the agency was under attack.

“Slow down and listen to me,” said Klein. “The elevator cab just stopped between floors two and three. Send an emergency team to get us out now. I mean right now.”

“How do we get in?” asked the watch officer on the other end of Klein’s phone. They were on speakerphone, and you could hear the shouts of confusion in the background.

“Force the doors above and below,” said Klein.” When you get into the shaft, come down the elevator cable. Bring the emergency fire team. They’ve practiced this. Call them, right now, while I’m waiting.”

“Fire team is already here, Ms. Klein,” said a voice through the speakerphone.

“Good. So remember: There’s a trapdoor above the cab, but bring along a blowtorch to burn through, just in case. And I’m serious when I say move it. Whoever stopped this elevator could crash it. It’s on you.”

“You mean that, about crashing the elevator?” asked Weber in the dark of the small cab.

“Roger that,” repeated Klein. “I have to assume right now that someone is trying to kill you.”

“They just want me out of the way,” said Weber.

“Maybe permanently, sir.”

Already they could hear the rescue teams banging on the door above and below, squeezing a crowbar to force the metal doors open. When the doors banged open, the alarms went off on two and three both, creating a din. Somebody shut off the alarm on the second floor, but the one above kept beeping annoyingly.

It was getting stuffy in the little cab, as they waited for the rescuers to make their way to the box and cut them free.

“It stinks in here,” said Weber.

They heard a thump on the roof as one the rescuers put his feet down, and they could feel the cab sway slightly from the weight of the additional body.

The fireman pulled at the trapdoor, and specks of paint fell on them from above. The rescuer tugged some more, and still it didn’t give, and ten seconds later they heard the hiss of a blowtorch. After a few more seconds, a blue-white flame seared through the metal. The rescuer tugged again at the trapdoor, and this time it opened.

The intense beam of a floodlight spotted above the third floor illuminated the cab as if it were the inside of a microwave oven.

“Get the boss out of here, now,” shouted Klein up through the newly opened hole.

A rope dangled through the opening. It had a webbed seat attached.

“Step into the harness, please, Mr. Director,” said Klein.

Weber put his legs through the webbing as instructed, and Klein called for the rope to be lifted. It was an awkward fit through the escape door at the top, and they had to push and pull him, top and bottom, to get him through. But finally his form was winched up the half floor to the open elevator door on three. Arms reached out to pull the director into the open doorway and help him remove the harness.

“That was exciting,” said Weber deadpan, as someone handed him a glass of water. He was still dressed in the suit he had put on for work, but it had become dusty in the ascent through the elevator shaft, and his tie was askew.

Security officers were hustling him down the hall now.

“What’s the rush?” said Weber, trying to slow the pace. “I need to freshen up.”

“We’ve got to get you out of the building now, sir,” said a man Weber recognized as Klein’s deputy. “Someone is trying to kill you.”

“I doubt that very much,” said Weber, shaking his head. But he wasn’t about to convince the agency security people, whose worst nightmare was coming true.

They were almost to the stairwell. Weber turned to the leader of the group.

“Is this necessary?” Weber asked. “I need to be someplace where I can monitor things.”

“We can’t risk that, Mr. Director. We’ve got to get you to a secure remote location, immediately. That’s orders.”

“Whose orders?” Weber asked as they prodded him down a stairwell. Nobody answered.

Weber was between armed men, above and below him on the steps. They moved as if they expected a firefight around every turn of the stairwell. They exited through an emergency door just to the right of the main entrance and out into the sunlight. One of Weber’s escorts pointed to a large vehicle parked just below in the VIP lot.

“That’s your car, Mr. Director,” he said, leading Weber toward the armored limousine. It looked like one of the backup presidential limousines, heavy enough to resist an antitank missile.

Klein, the deputy director for Support, had made it outside now and was standing near the vehicle. A ring of men in paramilitary gear surrounded the lot. Weber had never seen their uniforms before. They weren’t from Ground Branch or any of the agency security details Weber had ever seen.

“Where is the secure location you’re taking me to?” asked Weber. “Does it have communications?”

“I don’t know, sir. They are going to disclose the destination when we’re en route, for security.”

“We could be heading for Oregon,” said Weber.

Klein didn’t laugh, nor did any of her colleagues. This was their business, and for them, professionalism meant operating autonomous of the person they were protecting.

“Empty your pockets, please, Director.”

“Why?” asked Weber. “All I’ve got is my wallet and some personal communications gear.”

“Keep the wallet,” said Klein, “but we need to leave any communications devices with the techs, so they can make sure you’re not carrying any GPS trackers or bugs so someone could find you in the secure remote location.”

“Is this necessary?” asked Weber.

Klein nodded, and Weber understood. The security director was doing her job.

The door of the armored limousine was opened. It was as thick and heavy as the door of a bank vault. A paramilitary officer stood next to the open door, weapon at the ready. Weber looked at the officer’s unusual uniform, searching for some marking.

Weber finally saw on his shoulder a small patch that read ODNI.

“Who ordered this operation?” Weber repeated his question. “I want an answer, goddamn it, or I’m not leaving.”

This time, through fear or pity, Klein responded.

“Director Hoffman at ODNI is the command authority, reporting to the White House,” she said. “They just want to make sure you’re safe.”

“Of course they do,” said Weber.

They were in the car now, and the door slammed closed. The vehicle surged out of the parking lot, down the access road and toward the parkway. No sirens this time; just high-speed driving, with motorcycle outriders fore and aft.

When the car turned onto the Beltway and then up Route 270, Weber guessed that they were heading for a destination in the woods near Camp David, and that it might be a while before he had any normal communications again.