Tom Clancy Support and Defend

42

The Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva sits overlooking the Rhone River next to the Mont Blanc Bridge. From her sixth-floor suite, Gianna Bertoli gaze out at the view, a cup of coffee in her hand and a placid smile on her face. Switzerland felt so much more secure and civilized than Panama. Even more than Washington, D.C. She was glad to have the experiences of those cities behind her, in all her time with the ITP she’d never done anything at all “in the field,” and now she doubted very much she ever would again.

It was good to be home in Geneva, safe among friends. She turned away from the view, stepped off the balcony, and sat back down with Ethan. He’d just poured himself his first cup of coffee of the day, and she regarded him while he sipped.

He looked terrible, as if he had aged a decade in the week she had been around him. Even though he had a suite as large and comfortable as hers just across the hall, it was obvious he hadn’t slept, she saw veins in his eyes, dark circles under them, and his hands seemed to have developed a tremor she hadn’t noticed before.

“Ethan, why don’t you have some orange juice? You need the vitamins.”

He sipped coffee with a jittery hand and ignored her comment. “When we got here last night we had the entire floor to ourselves. This morning there were a dozen people moving luggage into their rooms. Who are all these people?”

“Colleagues with ITP. I’ve called everyone in Europe here.

A show of force, let’s say. They are staying four or five to a suite, by the end of the day we will have twenty-five friends close by. Journalists, hacktivists, attorneys, human-rights proponents, university professors.”

Ethan put his cup down. “And they all know about me?”

“No. Absolutely not. None of them do. They know I am here, and I invited them. When we arrived from Panama I decided we needed to wrap ourselves in the organization. It is best for you right now. We have the entire floor to ourselves.”

“Not exactly. I noticed Mohammed had more men with him. There are the four who pulled us out of Panama, and now two more guys that look just as dangerous as the first four have showed up.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Who are they?”

Gianna said, “Mohammed told me they were friends of his who could help us with security.”

“Why does a computer hacker have friends who can provide security?”

“As I understand it, they are part of his organization.”

“His Lebanese organization?”

Gianna sipped coffee. “Yes. Why do you say it like that?”

“The four on the plane. They were speaking Arabic,” Ethan said, but did you hear what they called each other?”

“I did not understand them.”

“Shiraz, Isfahan, Kashan, Ormand. They are cities in Iran.

I don’t know about Mohammed, but those guys are Iranian.” Gianna shook her head. “I’ve been to his offices in Beirut. I know who he is. I don’t know about the other men. What does it matter? They saved us from the American assassins. I, for one, am grateful.”

“We don’t even know the men who attacked in Panama were Americans.”

“Who else could they be? Who else wants you dead? The Israelis, maybe, but does it really matter? We know they work together.”

Ethan conceded the point. “The question remains, what do I do now?”

“I’d like to talk to you about just that. I hope you will listen to me, and continue to put your trust in me.”

The two of them spent the morning discussing Ethan’s future, and by eleven a.m., Ethan had reluctantly agreed to Gianna’s plan. He went back to his suite, and soon Gianna knocked on Mohammed’s door. She found him working in his room, on his phone with his laptop in front of him. Four of his six colleagues were here as well, but they were just sitting around. Gianna did not have the impression they were computer hackers themselves.

She sat with Mohammed at a table just inside his closed balcony. She said, “I have spoken to Ethan, and together we have come to a decision. The Americans have gone to great lengths to kill him. There will be no détente. He realizes this now. The only way he can save himself is to get out in the open.” Mohammed did not understand. “What does that mean, ‘out in the open’?”

Gianna said, “Ethan and I have decided we will go public.

Very public.”

Mohammed shook his head with an apologetic smile. “You can’t do that.”

“We will hold a press conference here in the hotel, tomorrow at noon. I will reveal myself as director of the Project. This is of no consequence to me, as I will not return to the field. I prefer to remain here in Geneva, and to work as a figurehead promoting our work. Ethan will detail the events that brought him here, including America’s attempts to kill him, both on the streets of Washington and in Panama.” Gianna smiled. “By the Monday news cycle both the work of the Project and the Crimes of America will be on the lips of every journalist in Europe.” Mohammed stood, crossed around the table and in front of the Swiss woman. “Gianna, that is a very bad idea.” She put her hand on his shoulder. He looked at it awkwardly, and she pulled it away. Recovering quickly, she said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but publicity is not your area of expertise. We will make an announcement that Ross was a prisoner of conscious working for the American government, he was chased out of the country by assassins, assassins who killed his girlfriend, and then he was pursued by the Americans in Central America. Once we go public like this, he will be safe. He will be surrounded by people here in Europe who will protect him, and the Americans won’t dare try anything once the word gets out.”

Mohamed banged his fist on the table. “And the data in his possession? Our entire objective was to get control of that data.

Have you forgotten?”

“Relax. Of course I haven’t forgotten. You’re plan was brilliant, and it worked almost flawlessly. When you told me you had software that could raid the U.S. government’s top-secret databases, I knew Ethan Ross could serve as our inside man, if only we created a situation desperate enough for him. But we never counted on people dying in the process.”

Mohammed did not reply.

Bertoli’s chest heaved. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? In our efforts to portray America as a lawless nation, we have found ourselves surprised by their capacity for lawlessness.”

“Nothing has surprised me to date, Gianna. Except for the astonishing fact you want to tell the entire world about Ross.

I’m sorry, but the moment you do that we will be swept to the side as the world’s intelligence agencies begin to muscle in.

The Four Seasons will be crawling with spies from all over the planet. They will all have their sights on Ross and his data.”

“We will protect him. Hotel security will protect him. The canton police will protect him. When we go public with the news of the assassinations and their attack in Panama, America will be embarrassed, and we will capitalize on that. Ethan will, in his own time, allow the ITP access to the cache.”

“When America learns he is here, we won’t have any time!” The Swiss woman cocked her head slightly. “You do want to help the ITP, yes? Your allegiance is to us, is it not?” Mohammed said, “Of course. Why do you ask?”

“Ethan seems to think you are working for Iranian intelligence. I told him this was crazy, I’ve been aware of your operation in Lebanon for years. But I have to admit, you are acting strangely now, as if you have some other objective for the American files.”

He took a calming breath before saying, “I simply believe you are making a mistake.”

Bertoli eyed the small man across the table for a long moment. Finally, she replied. “The decision is made. We’ve notified the media.”

Mohammed stood and stormed out of the room without another word.

Ethan Ross sat at dinner in a private banquette room in the Four Seasons, surrounded by more than two dozen prominent hacktivists, human rights lawyers, journalists and other hangers on of Gianna Bertoli and the ITP. A ring of security officers, all provided by the hotel, stood just outside the door to the banquet room.

While the American NSC employee had made no statement today — that would come tomorrow — the ITP members present had been putting the pieces together themselves. This American in their midst obviously came from Washington, Bertoli’s major announcement would detail who he was and what exactly he had done. Bertoli herself had leaked out a little to some of her guests. It was publicity 101, she knew she needed to create a buzz before tomorrow’s big reveal.

Wine and champagne flowed throughout the meal, any excuse was a good excuse for a celebration among the members of the Project on those few occasions when they all got together, but tonight’s revelry seemed to be in keeping with the magnitude of Bertoli’s announcement.

Mohammed was noticeably absent tonight. He’d been on his telephone all day. Ethan had seen him in the lobby, up on the fifth floor, and even standing out on his balcony. His colleagues stayed close to him at all times, almost like some sort of bodyguard detail.

Throughout dinner, the toasts and the revelry, Ethan sat quietly, his misgivings growing by the minute. The celebratory nature of the evening seemed out of phase with everything that had happened.

And more than this, he had another concern. He just couldn’t shake the sensation that this entire affair had been orchestrated to lead him to this point. Like he had been coaxed and prodded and manipulated into the decisions he had made, the actions he had taken, the path he had traveled.

The sense of being a pawn ran completely counter to his self-image, but the dinner party convinced him the International Transparency Project stood to gain mightily from his misfortune. That said, he hadn’t met a single person in the ITP, Bertoli included, who he thought capable of pulling his strings the way they had been pulled to cause all of this. He could not help wondering if some other entity was involved.

It was too much to contemplate, so he didn’t. Ethan reached for the closest bottle of champagne and filled his water glass with it, telling himself he needed to relax to be able to think clearly in order to deal with what was still to come. He’d get shit-faced drunk tonight, and tomorrow he would deal with tomorrow.