The Switch

65

Tanner felt jolted by a shock of electricity.

They’ve found me.

But just as quickly, he thought: Don’t freak out, maybe the guy recognizes me from a trade show, a sales call, something like that.

The man on his left was soft and middle-aged, with a round belly under a loudly patterned, acid-trippy red-and-black-and-green sweater. He wore steel-rimmed aviator glasses, had deeply inset eyes like raisins and a bristly gray mustache. He did not look like one of the members of the NSA team he’d filmed in the woods. He was professorial, physically unprepossessing.

“Do I know you?” Tanner asked.

“Seattle, wasn’t it? The coffee expo?”

Tanner stared. He slowly shook his head. “I wasn’t there.”

“Too much of a coincidence?” The man shrugged. “When something seems that way, it usually is.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re a man who needs help,” the man said quietly, “and I’m offering mine.”

“What?” He felt the adrenaline start to course into his bloodstream.

“You’re a hunted man, Mr. Tanner. But you need to know I’m not one of the hunters. I’m your friend. I’m an admirer.”

Tanner sat back. “Who are you?”

“Call me Gregory.” The man spoke with a barely detectable accent of some unidentifiable kind. He flattened his A’s too much, a foreigner trying hard to mimic an American accent.

“But that’s not actually your name.”

“Close enough.”

What was the man’s real name? Gregorio, Grigor, Řehoř...? Where was he from? His American accent was extremely good. But he wasn’t American; of that much Tanner was sure.

“Mr. Tanner, you’re a man who, through no fault of his own, has made a lot of enemies. Now they’re trying to run you off the road. But I look at you and I see someone who’s incredibly brave. Someone who’s been given an extremely rare opportunity to change the world. And I want to help.”

The waitress refilled Gregory’s coffee mug and then Tanner’s, moving away quickly, discreetly. She could see the men were talking about something heavy.

“Help how?”

“You know, there’s a great tradition. Men of conscience who expose terrible abuses. Like it or not, you’ve been thrust by history into an extraordinary position.”

“To do what?”

“All you need to do is to share your documents with my people. They’ll know what to do with it. You know the saying, ‘Sunlight is the best disinfectant,’ yes?”

“And who are ‘your people’?”

“My associates, I should say. An organization devoted to that disinfecting sunlight. We believe that secrets, especially government secrets, must be disclosed whenever it’s within our power.”

“You mean like WikiLeaks?”

He nodded, smiled. “I work with them, yes.”

“You work ‘with’ them?”

“But let’s not get caught up with prepositions. With, from, of; the filaments can get pretty tangled. The bottom line is this: we want to help you. What I want you to know is, there are people who are rooting for you. People who care about openness and transparency.”

“And then what happens to me? Do I get killed?”

Gregory shook his head slowly, soulfully. “This is what I’m here to tell you. When it comes to threats on your life, we have some powerful assets. We can give you as much protection as you need — and I’m talking about the full resources of a rather powerful state.”

Now he understood. “You’re talking about Russia.”

Gregory didn’t reply.

“Wait, so you’re in a position to offer full protection of the Russian security services?”

“I am.”

“Are you Russian?”

He shrugged, said nothing: a simple acknowledgment.

“Are you WikiLeaks or are you — Russia? Which is it?”

“Do I have the support of certain Russian assets? Distinctions like that have become meaningless these days, really. There’s no clear line, and it doesn’t finally matter. It’s complicated, but the world is a complicated place. What does matter is — I can help you. I can protect you.”

“In Russia.”

“We’re talking a luxury apartment, a dacha — the life. You’re not going to be like Philby, drinking yourself into obscurity. We’re a capitalist paradise now. And I’ve had your coffee. It’s great. Your coffee could be huge over there — it’s an untapped market. Point is, we can protect you. You can have any kind of life you want.”

“And, what, I have to move to Moscow for the rest of my life?”

“May it be a long life. Which I wouldn’t put odds on over here.”

“I’m still alive,” he pointed out.

“I’m impressed; I really am. You’ve done well in the last few days, staying out in the cold as long as you have. You are an amateur, after all. Not a trained operative. Clearly, some combination of resourcefulness and luck has served you well. But how long do you think you can keep going? Even a hot hand cools eventually.”

Tanner shook his head.

Gregory picked up a fork and traced a pattern on the countertop. A windy sigh. “Mr. Tanner, listen to me, please. You go back out there, and they’ll grab you. It’s only a matter of time. Now, will they kill you, an American citizen? I don’t know. Then again, they have ways to do that untraceably these days.”

“Well, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“The wrong Michael Tanner?” Gregory asked with a glint of amusement.

“I’m not a whistle-blower, and I’m not a hero.”

He set down the fork carefully, like a surgeon handing off his instruments. “You know, Ed Snowden didn’t plan to be a hero either. One day he just woke up and realized, enough is enough. That’s all. He did the right thing. He listened to his conscience.”

“That’s got nothing to do with me.”

“You can decide to be a hero. And change the world. Do you realize how powerful you are? If we’re right about what you’ve got, this could change everything. Mr. Tanner, there are moments in history — hinge moments, they’re called — when the world suddenly changes. This is where we are, I think. Will America become a surveillance state, eventually a dictatorship? Or do you have it in your power to stop all that in its tracks? See, you can become the Nathan Hale of our time. Nathan Hale could have remained a schoolteacher, but he made a decision and he became a hero. To save the American Revolution.”

“Wasn’t he executed by the British?”

“Well, he’s probably not the best example. But you can become someone truly important. You probably think of yourself as just a common man, a small man now. But you’ve proven yourself to be a brave man — and a man of conscience. A righteous man who’s about to become someone truly important in the history of our world. You alone can stop the abuses. Turn over the rock and reveal the, the writhing maggots. Let the sun shine in. Save your country.”

“I’m not handing classified documents over to Russia. That’s not who I am.”

“Because, what, you love your country? Given what your country has done to you? Look, the Cold War was over years ago. Russia isn’t the enemy anymore.”

Tanner shook his head mutely.

“‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Someone wise said that once.” Gregory looked up, cocked his head. “Mr. Tanner, the time to decide is now. You have very little time left.”

Tanner said nothing.

Gregory turned away. Something in the window seemed to have caught his eye. He turned and looked outside, squinting. Tanner looked where Gregory was looking. He saw a black Chevy Suburban pull into the diner’s small parking lot.

“A Suburban weighs five thousand pounds,” he said. “An armored one weighs ninety-five hundred. It tends to sit low on its run-flat tires.” Suddenly the man sprang from his stool and stood. “Oh dear. I told you that you have little time. In fact, you have no time.”

Trailing behind the Suburban were two, no, three smaller black four-wheel-drive vehicles. Tanner heard the loud squealing of brakes.

Gregory put an urgent hand on Tanner’s shoulder. “There’s no time! I know a way. Come with me.”

Tanner glanced outside again, at the team that he knew was forming to apprehend him. He thought for a moment. “No, thanks,” he said.