The Director

4

K. J. Sandoval was waiting behind a polished teak table when the walk-in arrived upstairs, gangly and frightened, escorted by the security officer. The “K” stood for “Kitten,” her given name. The base chief was a handsome Latina woman in her late thirties, lips freshly glossed, appropriate black suit. She was nearly ten years into her career as a CIA officer, in that awkward period between just getting started and waiting it out until retirement. She knew how to be patient: She was the oldest daughter of a Mexican immigrant from Monterrey who had joined the Marine Corps and risen to gunnery sergeant, E-7, before retiring to Tucson. Her mother had been a waitress until she got her high school equivalency certificate; now she worked for an insurance company. Sandoval had made her way in the agency by hard work and a friendly smile but she was stuck.

Rudolf Biel was buried in the hood of his sweatshirt when he entered the room, but he lowered it when he saw Sandoval. He looked even less healthy close up than he had on camera. Under the fluorescent light of the conference room, his pale, blemished skin had the mottled look of an albino lizard.

“I’m Helen Sturdevant,” she said, giving him a card with her alias name and a phone number and email. He rolled his eyes and made a slight jerk of his head, as if to say, Right! She motioned for him to sit down and took a chair opposite. She looked at his passport.

“You’re from Zurich, right? What do you do there?”

“I am a hacker. Okay? Hakzor. Sometimes Zurich, sometimes Berlin, sometimes Saint Petersburg. If you knew, well, you would know.”

“Do you want to talk German? Ich spreche Deutsch.”

“I like English. Hakzor spreche English.”

“What do you hack?”

“Everything. With banks, I am the best. I am Swiss, what else? I am expert in ACH hack. Automated Clearing House. You know what that is?”

“No. Explain.”

“Too complicated. No time.”

“I have plenty of time.”

“No, you don’t, lady. You have a problem, and no time.”

She looked at the passport again, and then at his face. He was smart, whoever he was.

“You said you wanted to meet Mr. Weber, our new director.”

He nodded. “Yes, only Graham Weber. He needs me. It is worse than he thinks at CIA. I can help.”

Sandoval suppressed a smile. Who did this kid think he was, marching into the consulate and demanding to see the director? He looked to be stoned, from the redness of his eyes. Download him and get rid of him.

“What you ask is not possible. Mr. Weber is in Washington. I’m his personal representative here in Hamburg. You can give me your message, and then I’ll tell Mr. Weber. How’s that?”

He shook his head. Under the stubble of hair, you could see the bones of his skull. It wasn’t just that he was unshaven; he was dirty. He pointed a long finger at Sandoval.

“Excuse me, miss, you don’t have time to be wasting it. They are coming for you.”

“Who is coming for us?”

“That’s what I must tell Mr. Weber. How will you deliver my message? If it is in person, this is okay. Otherwise, no deal.”

She studied him. He was cocky, for a beat-up kid in a smelly T-shirt, demanding to talk to a new CIA director who had been in the job less than a week. He must think he had something important; either that or he was tripping. She wanted to throw him out, but she had already messaged Headquarters about the meeting.

“What does it say on your T-shirt?” she said, playing for time while she thought about what to do.

“‘DEF CON.’ It’s where hackers go to show off.”

“Sorry, never heard of it. Where is it?”

“Las Vegas.” He smiled. “One of my friends gave it to me.”

Sandoval nodded, though what he said didn’t make sense: Why would a hacker go to a convention in Las Vegas? She looked at her watch; it was still morning in Washington. She had never handled a walk-in before, but she knew she needed to establish some kind of control and figure out what intelligence, if any, this dirty weirdo possessed.

“Look, Mr. Biel, let’s get serious, okay? Otherwise we’ll never trust each other. So I’ll explain it to you. First, I’ll send Mr. Weber a message, maybe later if he’s interested I’ll talk to him by phone. And then, maybe, if he’s really interested, we can both talk to him in person. But to get started, I have to know why you’re here. What’s this message that’s so special that it has to be delivered to Mr. Weber? You tell me that, and then we’ll see what we can do.”

He put his stubbly head in his hands, scratching the tiny hairs as if he could help the brain inside to think. He looked up and leaned toward her, so the tattoo on his neck was in front of her face.

“You do not understand.”

“No, I don’t. That’s why I want you to explain it to me.”

“You see my tattoo?” He pulled back the sweatshirt so she could see the dotted lines on his neck. “It means, ‘Cut here.’ The people who wrote that on me, they will do it, yes, in a minute, and nobody will know. That’s why I communicate in person. No email. No message. Direct.”

She reached out and tried to take his hand. Empathy, rapport: That had worked with a young woman from the Iranian Embassy in Madrid. But this one was too skittish; he pulled his hand back.

“Why is it so dangerous, Mr. Biel? You have to help me out. Otherwise, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

He closed his eyes. He thought a long moment. Fifteen seconds, maybe twenty, a time that feels like forever when you’re waiting for an answer. Then he spoke, slowly, knowing the weight of his words.

“People are inside your system. Your messages can be read. They are not secret. That is what I need to tell Mr. Weber.”

Kitten Sandoval sat back in her chair. Now he had her attention.

“What do you mean, they’re not secret? I assure you, Mr. Biel, our communications are very secure. The most secure in the world.”

Now there was a trace of a smile on his lips. He had power.

“That is what you think. But you are wrong. You have been hacked. Your messages can be read. People are coming at you. They are planning something. That is what I know, which I must tell to Mr. Weber.”

“But why to him? He’s only been on the job a few days.”

“They are afraid of him. Weber is the clean one. Not scared of anybody. That is why they are rushing. That is why I had to come now.”

“We have a secure website, Mr. Biel. You can send him a message that way.”

“Poof! Not so secure. I looked at it. Secure Socket Layer. What a joke! For my friends, it is an open book.”

“How do you know all this? You must tell me that, or I won’t believe you.”

He pointed a finger to his head, as if to the brain inside.

“Hey, are you stupid? I know it because I am a hacker man. I know the ones who have stolen the key. ‘Swiss Maggot,’ you know that name? That is me.”

He wrote it down in Leet, the hacker-beloved mix of letters and symbols: 5W155 ma99O7.

“Sorry, that’s a new one for me.”

“Okay, ‘Friends of Cerberus,’ you know who they are? You need to make this connection. I tell you. How about ‘the Exchange’? Eh?”

“No. What are ‘Friends of Cerberus’?” You’ve got me there. And I don’t know any ‘Exchange.’ Help me out.”

He threw up his hands and sat up tall in his chair, his spindly, half-shaved body like a giant bug. He glowered at her.

“You don’t know anything. That’s why I need to talk to Graham Weber. He will understand why these people are, what is it you say? Your ‘worst nightmare.’”

“I don’t have nightmares, Mr. Biel. Now calm down and explain: Why are you coming to us now with this information about our communications? Do you want money?”

“No!” he scoffed. “I could make more than you as a simple carder stealing your Visa shit, believe me.”

“Then what do you want?”

He gripped the table, as if holding on for life. “I want protection. I want to get out. I need to escape.”

“Do you have anything you can show me? So that I will know that what you say is real?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, pallid lids folding onto the gray pouches below.

“Bona fides.” He took a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was folded and creased, and discolored from the grime of his jeans. He handed it to her.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“This is a list of your agency officers in Germany and Switzerland. You look at this, then tell me what you think.”

She opened the piece of paper and scanned the list. Midway through the list she found her own name. Her face lost color. The carefully painted nails fluttered slightly at the edges of the paper. She put it down and looked him in the face.

“This is impossible,” she said.

“No, it is real, Miss Sturdevant. You are inside us and we are inside you.”

“Do you know how this is done? How this information was obtained?”

“Of course I do know. That is why I am here. It is because I know this secret that my life is in danger.”

“Why is your life in danger, Mr. Biel?”

“They think I have gone soft on them. So they try to kill me, already, in Saint Petersburg a week ago. That is why I come to you. Otherwise, I am a dead man. Maybe now you see?”

“Yes, now I see.”

“Okay, Miss Sturdevant. Even though I know you are really named Kitten Sandoval. What kind of a name is that? You sound like a stripper, but I know you work for CIA.”

She asked if she could make a call to Headquarters, but he said no, he didn’t trust any message, he needed an answer now. So she had to improvise. She said she would give him five thousand dollars immediately. She would contact Graham Weber’s office directly after their meeting, speaking only to his confidential assistant, not sending any message that could be intercepted. She would request an immediate exfiltration for Rudolf Biel and secure transportation to Washington, where he could tell his story and be paid.

“How much?” he demanded. “I cannot hack ‘black hat’ after this, too dangerous, so I need ‘white hat’ money.” He was bolder, now that he knew that his information had value.

“I can’t make that decision. But we will pay you enough that you won’t have to worry about money. You explain how our computer systems have been compromised, walk us through it and tell us about this attack that’s coming, and we’ll make you a consultant and you’ll never have to work for anyone again.”

“Okay, I stay here at American Consulate on Alsterufer until you get answer.”

“I’m sorry, that’s not possible. No visitor is allowed to remain overnight on the compound, ever. But we will put you in a safe house here in Hamburg, with food and beer and everything you need, and then when it’s time, we’ll come get you. How’s that?”

He shook his head.

“You did not understand me. Your safe house is not safe. They can find them. I can’t stay there.”

“Are you kidding? How can they know the location of our safe houses? Even I don’t know where all of them are. You’ll be okay there. Trust me.”

“GTFO.”

“What does that mean?”

“Get the fuck out.” He ran the words together in his German-accented English.

She was about to laugh despite herself, but the young man was already moving. He rose from the chair across from her and put his hand on his sunken chest, against the DEF CON logo.

“I will take care of myself. I come back in three days, on Monday morning, after the weekend. I will come at ten a.m. Tell your people to let me in right away, no waiting, no chances. If you are not ready to take me in then, forget it. I go away forever, and your systems can all be hacked and all your information out on the street, what do I care?”

“Can we give you a phone, so we can contact you?”

“No. I told you, they can read it. They can track the GPS. Safer to be a lone dog, with no electronic signals coming off me.”

“I’d be happier if we were protecting you.”

He laughed, in his fashion, a choked, mirthless little cough.

“Who do you kid, Miss Sandoval? You cannot protect yourself.”

He wanted to leave right away. She offered to transport him anywhere he wanted to go in Hamburg, in a secure vehicle without diplomatic tags. She offered a bodyguard to accompany at a distance, or watchers to see if anyone was following him, but he refused all that. Finally, she said she would send him out of the consulate compound through a tunnel with a hidden exit.

This last proposal he accepted. He took the money from her, and signed a receipt, though he wrote with such a scrawl it was impossible to read. Sandoval asked for an Internet address, a phone number, anything, but he refused. She thought of putting a GPS tracker on him, but the trackers were locked up in the storeroom.

Accompanied now by several security men, they walked down several flights of stairs and into a passageway that led to a tunnel under the back of the consulate property.

As Biel’s spindly body moved the last few yards up the tunnel incline toward the exit door, Sandoval had a tightness in her stomach. She wanted to call him back and tell him to stop, that it was too dangerous to leave, that she would find some way to let him stay at the consulate, regardless of what the rules said. But the lead security officer was already opening the door, and the Swiss had pulled up his hood to hide himself.

“Wait,” she said. But the Swiss boy was up the ladder and through the hatch and out onto the Warburgstrasse, which ran behind the consulate. She waved goodbye to him, but he didn’t look back.