The God's Eye View

CHAPTER 5

Daniel Perkins jerked awake as the bus lurched to a stop. He looked out the window, and through the spatter of gray rain saw the concrete and glass of AŞTİ Station, crowds lined up under umbrellas to board the dozen or so buses in the terminal parking area.

He cleared his throat and checked his watch. Almost noon. Christ, he’d slept practically the whole way from Istanbul. He hadn’t even heard the announcements the driver must have made about their imminent arrival in Ankara.

He waited while the other passengers — a few European backpackers, but mostly Turks without the money to fly from Istanbul or to take the high-speed train — stood to collect their bags from the overhead racks. His own bag had remained nestled on his lap during the entire five-hour drive, except during his one trip to the bus’s restroom, when of course the bag had accompanied him.

He scrubbed his eyes, feeling almost drugged. When was the last time he’d really slept? Not since he’d first contacted Hamilton, which meant… almost three weeks. In all his preparations before that, he’d never been worried. He knew NSA’s capabilities as well as anyone, which meant he knew how to avoid them. But once he’d made contact, he was only as secure as Hamilton’s precautions. And though the kid had been security savvy to begin with, and was even more so now that Perkins had briefed him, the contact itself was still a risk, a new vulnerability. Electronic countermeasures were the same as physical ones: you could run the best countersurveillance route in the world, but if the asset you were meeting was less careful and got himself tailed, you were as fucked as he was.

A wave of anxiety coursed through him, and he worked to will it away. Hamilton had the information. By now, he’d be flying to Frankfurt, and from there back to DC. If Perkins was going to get caught, it would have happened already. And if it happened now… well, at least the information would come out. At least it wouldn’t have all been for nothing.

He thought of his ex-wife, Caryn, and how many times she had told him his career was eating him like cancer, estranging him from their children, estranging him from her. What she hadn’t known was, he’d already been estranged. His obsessive devotion to the job was as much consequence of that as it was cause. He’d married young, and by the time he had known better, there were children, and expectations that had hardened like concrete, and responsibilities he couldn’t ignore. He was trapped in a life he didn’t want with a woman he didn’t love, not the way he could love, not the way he needed to.

And then he’d met Aerial, a systems administrator marooned in her own unhappy marriage. Well, Nicole was her real name, Nicole Chambers, but she’d been going by Aerial, or Aer, since acquiring the nickname as a surfer growing up in Santa Cruz. He’d see her in the same headquarters cafeteria, getting to work early, staying late, just like him. Small talk became a friendship. Friendship became an affair. The affair blossomed into love. They’d planned to wait until all their kids were in college, and then they’d divorce their spouses and finally be able to have a relationship in the open instead of just stolen moments in a series of out-of-the-way hotels.

Not that those stolen moments weren’t wonderful. Sometimes he thought they were all that kept him going, all he really lived for.

One night, Aerial had told him about a program she had devised on orders from the director, something the director had dubbed God’s Eye. It was supposed to have filters that would keep it focused on terrorists and deny access to domestic traffic. But Aerial had created a backdoor for herself, and when she’d checked, the filters had all been turned off. She was horrified to see how the program was being used, she’d confided to him, and she felt like she had to do something. But she was terrified at the prospect — look how they’d tried to ruin Bill Binney and Thomas Drake, to name just two — and for a long time, Aerial did nothing more than talk, as though confessing guilt about her inaction could somehow expiate it. And Perkins, at least as terrified as she was, made no attempt to encourage her.

But eventually, she started siphoning off information from and about the program, encrypting it and storing it on a Darknet site she had created in such a way she was confident even God’s Eye couldn’t see it. She showed Perkins how to access the information in case anything happened to her. He had told her she was being ridiculous, that nothing was going to happen, that they weren’t living in a spy novel.

After Snowden, the director had Aerial reengineer all the God’s Eye security protocols. In retrospect, Perkins knew, that was the moment to go public with the information if she was ever going to. But Aerial said the new protocols wouldn’t prevent her from creating a new backdoor, so she would be able to continue to gather the proof she needed. Perkins didn’t push. In fact, he secretly hoped she would continue to use her need for more proof as a kind of excuse to not act.

The night she finished architecting the new system, she was supposed to meet Perkins at a hotel near Baltimore/Washington International Airport. But she never showed up. Perkins, guessing something had come up at home and that she couldn’t contact him about it in real time, was no more than disappointed. But the next morning, it was all over the news: area woman raped and murdered.

Initially, his denial had been so profound that he’d actually believed the reports. Aerial’s body had been found behind a strip mall in Laurel. Her car was in the parking lot of her gym, which made sense — if you could call it that — because her habit was to do an abbreviated workout before meeting Perkins so she could be seen at the gym and have a kind of alibi. The police had speculated that she’d been forced into a car or van and driven to a secondary location. The footage from nearby traffic cameras had been scrutinized, to no avail. Semen was recovered, and matched what had been found in five similar attacks. The same serial rapist who had struck up and down the I-95 corridor over the last several years.

But eventually, denial had given way to doubt, doubt to determination. What better way to guarantee the integrity of the new security protocols than to kill the very person who had designed them? Hadn’t the pharaohs done just that with the architects of the pyramids, the better to ensure that no one unauthorized could ever discover their riches? And what were the chances of a “random” murder mere hours after her redesign went live?

He’d been initially terrified that whoever had killed Aerial would come after him next, knowing they had been lovers, seeking to tie off all loose ends. But then he realized — if they had known, he would have been dead already. He was safe. He and Aerial had been careful. Maybe not as careful as they should have been, in retrospect, but careful enough, thank God.

Six months after Aerial had died, Perkins was moved to Ankara. It was a scheduled posting, and he’d been fighting it so he could remain at Fort Meade with Aerial. But now it was an excuse to be away from his family, to not have to hide his grief from the people around him.

For a long time, he steered clear of Aerial’s archived files, superstitiously afraid that going to the site she had established would somehow render him a target. But eventually, his rage at what had been done to her, his determination to do right by her, and his caustic shame at his own cowardice impelled him to act. The backdoor was closed, and he didn’t know whatever new one she had established. But her trove of explosive files was intact. He considered anonymously uploading everything to multiple news sources, but then decided that in the end, he would be safer, and the release more effective, if he could find the right journalist to use as a conduit. Gellman, Greenwald, Poitras… all were obvious choices, but they’d already made their bones and had gone on to other journalistic endeavors. Assange had been bottled up by the UK government, with WikiLeaks successfully positioned in the public mind as some sort of reckless espionage outfit. He wanted someone with courage and integrity, but with an organization the government hadn’t yet managed to vilify with propaganda. A young Intercept reporter would make sense — the Greenwald-Poitras lineage, and an outfit with the right reputation and resources. There were several possibilities, but he had settled on Hamilton because the kid had a computer science background that would enable him to understand the material and equip him to keep it safe.

God, he hoped he’d made the right choice. For himself. And for Aerial, too.

He stood and filed off the bus with everyone else, a few fat drops of rain spattering on his head and shoulders as he ducked under the overhang. It was unseasonably cold, and between that and the wet he was suddenly shivering.

He pushed through the crowds, found a restroom inside, and took a long, much-needed piss. As he shook off, he told himself again it was okay, the worst of the danger had passed. Still, he was afraid, badly afraid, of what would happen to him if he were caught. Chelsea Manning had been kept naked in solitary for almost a year and awakened every five minutes by guards to check that she was “okay.” And Snowden… Christ, he couldn’t imagine what they would do if they ever got their hands on him. But no matter what, at least now, the program he’d uncovered would be public. At least whatever might happen to him if he were caught wouldn’t be for nothing.

He headed back into the station, the noise of the bustling crowds and arrival and departure announcements headache-loud against the granite floor and high, vaulted ceilings. He realized he was starving, and stopped at a kiosk for a coffee and sandwich. He watched while the barista mixed and then heated the coffee powder, sugar, and water in a cezve, eager for the jolt the strong Turkish brew would provide, but glad the young man was taking the time to prepare it properly, heating it slowly, ready to pour it carefully down the side of a waiting demitasse the moment the coffee came to a boil. After that, it would need to sit for a few moments so the grounds could settle. He smiled, thinking that whatever happened next, he would miss Turkish coffee.

CNN International was playing on a television monitor mounted on the wall at the back of the kiosk. The White House spokesman was disputing Yemeni claims that a drone strike had killed twelve members of a wedding party. The spokesman was explaining, “There must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set,” and claimed the victims were “militants.” Perkins shook his head disgustedly at the lies, tired of it, tired of it all.

The chyron changed to Breaking News and a blow-dried talking head came on. “This just in,” the talking head recited in the grave tones of a trained news actor. “An American journalist is feared kidnapped by ISIS.”

Perkins watched, thinking it was going to be a busy day and that he’d gotten back just in time to avoid being missed. And then the announcer went on. “Intercept reporter Ryan Hamilton was apparently vacationing in Turkey when he disappeared somewhere near the Syrian border. Authorities fear the young man may have gotten too close to trafficking routes used by ISIS and related terrorist groups, perhaps hoping to cover a topic that has proven a source of contention between Ankara and the White House.”

Perkins felt the blood drain from his face. He’d left Hamilton not six hours earlier, in Istanbul, nowhere near the Syrian border. What the fuck was this about? Was he blown?

He dropped twenty lira on the counter and hurried through the terminal to the taxi stand. He had a backup phone and was desperate to turn it on, but didn’t want to risk it until he was away from the terminal. Because how the hell would he explain what he was doing at the bus station? He was supposed to have driven to Cappadocia, and yes, he’d already prepared cover for action in case he was spotted doing anything inconsistent, but he didn’t want to have his story tested, not ever, and especially not now.

The line for taxis was monumental. Everyone seemed to have an umbrella but him. He hunched his shoulders against the rain and tried to think.

It was almost certainly bad. He rated the chances of coincidence at about 4 percent. Meaning a 96 percent chance that this ISIS story was bullshit. He realized with a nauseous wave of terror that if they’d gotten to Hamilton before he left Istanbul, they might even have contained the information. Hamilton had wanted to transmit the files using the Intercept’s SecureDrop system, but Perkins had been so paranoid he’d prevailed on Hamilton not to do anything over the Internet. He could snail-mail a backup to himself if he had an anonymous means of doing so, Perkins had told him, but other than that the safest thing would be to just carry on his own person the encrypted thumb drive Perkins had prepared. The kid hadn’t wanted to keep the thumb drive on him—Look what the Brits did to David Miranda, he’d argued — and eventually Perkins had just told him, Fine, do what you think is best and it’s better if I don’t know anyway.

But now what? Would the kid give him up? James Risen had been prepared to go to jail rather than reveal his sources, but if they’d disappeared Hamilton, the kid was facing far worse than prison. And even if they couldn’t get Hamilton to talk, how long would it be before they started interviewing everyone he might have met in Turkey? Thank God he’d told the kid they had to do the meetings in Istanbul, not Ankara; that gave him at least a little cover, but not much. For a moment, he was ashamed that all he was thinking of was himself when the kid was facing who knew what. But Jesus, this must have been the kid’s fault. Perkins had briefed him on every goddamned possible vulnerability, but somehow the kid must have screwed up anyway.

He finally made it to the front of the line and ducked into a cab, his arms broken out in goose bumps. He had the driver take him to the nearby Gazi Park Hotel, where he’d left his car. He hadn’t wanted to park it too near the station and the hotel had seemed like a good compromise, but he realized now he hadn’t been seeing things as they would look if Hamilton were compromised. He’d been too optimistic. On the other hand, shit, if he’d allowed himself to be anything else, he never would have had the balls to do what he’d done. But now everything in his story was going to be checked, every inconsistency exposed and exploited. What the hell should he do? Probably he needed a lawyer, but contacting a lawyer now would be like sending up a giant beacon confessing his guilt. No. No, he needed to stay calm. Get back to the office, play it cool, check the cable traffic. Use the same backdoors that had allowed him to discover the program in the first place and get a better idea of what he was up against. And then decide what to do.

It took less than ten minutes to get to the hotel. Another ten for a valet to retrieve his car. And then he was off, heading to the office, fighting his fear, the heat blasting and the seat warmer a godsend against his shivering back.

He made a right on Beştepe and followed it until it became Alparslan Türkeş. The freeway would be crowded, so he went under it, following Bahriye Üçok and then going right onto Mareşal Fevzi Çakmak. He had just passed the Anittepe sports complex when he heard the door locks click. He glanced over, recognizing the sound but not sure what to make of it — had he pressed something by mistake? Maybe some electronic glitch?

And then, to his astonishment and horror, he felt the gas pedal press itself to the floor under his foot. The engine roared and his head smacked into the headrest as the car shot forward, the speedometer surging to the right.

He yelped in terror and stomped the brake. Nothing, no resistance. He overtook the car ahead of him and was about to plow into it when the steering wheel twisted left, then right, passing the car and rocketing past two others in front of it. He fought for control but couldn’t move the wheel. Terrified, he glanced at the speedometer and saw the needle surge past 150 kilometers per hour.

He stomped the brake again. Nothing. The car was still accelerating. He scrabbled at the electronic parking brake, ripping loose a nail and barely feeling it. Nothing.

Suddenly he understood. Understood everything. For one second, he felt overwhelming sadness, a tidal wave of regret. Then it vanished. He closed his eyes, took his hands off the wheel, and hugged himself. “Aerial,” he whispered. “I love you.”

Thomas Delgado used a finger to direct the car left, then watched as the screen of his iPad was consumed by the grille of a tractor trailer, the blare of its horn filling his ears through the headphones… and then, nothing. No sound. Dead screen.

He smiled, removed the headphones, and eased back in the desk chair. A good chance a head-on impact like that would have resulted in fire, but Delgado, not the kind of man to leave things to chance, had been sure to attach incendiary devices to the gas tank and alongside the camera he had mounted behind the car’s grille. The camera was the only possible evidence of any sort of foul play — the rest he had accomplished by hacking the car’s Bluetooth-accessible diagnostic system, and from there taking over whatever in the car was microprocessor controlled, otherwise known as everything. The antilock brakes and door locks were integrated with the accident-avoidance system; there was an omnidirectional microphone for hands-free cell phone use; even the steering wheel was controllable through the self-parking system. A lot of the newer models were incorporating front-facing cameras, too, and Hertz was even installing cameras in its vehicle interiors, so soon he’d be able to take full remote control of a car without having to install any of his own hardware.

He loved this kind of progress. Just a few years before, more often than not, causing an accident meant an exceptionally delicate black-bag job involving replacing the mark’s car with the identical make and model, customized for an exact match: idiosyncratic scratches and other signs of wear; gas level; odometer; swapped personal items; programmed radio stations; faked Vehicle Identification Numbers… everything. It took time; it cost money; it required a team rather than an individual. Worst of all, it left evidence, in the form of the additional mechanics that had to be installed to allow the necessary remote control, evidence that could be reliably obscured only through fires so intense they themselves could cause suspicion. But now? Christ, the carmakers were practically doing his job for him.

He cut the satellite link and shut down the application, then checked his watch. Past noon, but he’d called the front desk and arranged for a late checkout. Door double-locked, Do Not Disturb sign… everything was fine.

Jesus, that fear sound the guy had made had given him a hard-on. He didn’t usually get that from a man, or when he wasn’t working up close and personal, but yeah, that had been a really sweet sound. So… pure, or something. And what was the other thing the guy had said? “Ariel, I love you,” that was it. His wife? Didn’t matter.

Although… he could pay a visit to the grieving widow. A little risky, sure, but the thought of it was causing renewed stirrings down south. Hey, I worked with your husband. Such a good man. Wanted to express my condolences. All right if I come in? She’d be all fucked up with grief, not thinking clearly, vulnerable. Wouldn’t realize her mistake until the door was closed and locked behind him and he was pressing her up against the wall with a blade at her throat. And probably so ashamed and traumatized afterward she wouldn’t even report anything.

Fuck, that was actually pretty hot. He got up and went to the bathroom to jerk off to it.