The Director: A Novel (44 page)

Weber dialed the cell number of his friend Walter Ives at the Justice Department. He asked if there had been any changes in the Jankowski case, including any new evidence about Earl Beasley, the chief of the Clandestine Service. The case was still on track, Ives said. The letter to Beasley’s attorney informing him that he wasn’t a target still stood. But there was one interesting development: Beasley’s attorney had called the day before to set up a meeting the following week, where he said his client might have some new information that would further implicate Jankowski.

“How sweet,” said Weber. Beasley was gift-wrapping his cooperation. The evening at Lucky Ladies and the conversation afterward had accomplished that much, at least.

“One more thing, Walter,” said the CIA director slowly. “We are conducting an espionage investigation of one of our employees. His name is James Morris, and we think he has been leaking information with help from the Russians. I’m going to ask Ruth Savin to make a quick criminal referral to Justice. You should have it in a day. Get the Bureau to arrest him.”

“So you found your mole,” said Ives. “It’s real.”

“I think so.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ives.

“Yeah. Pretty bad.” Weber rang off.

Weber had to finish ruling out his other suspects. He next called the three people he had chosen as his hidden scouts: The first was an Army brigadier general who worked as the deputy chief of the Central Security Service at the NSA. Weber asked him for the results of the project he had described a week ago: Had the NSA picked up any signals, through telephone or Internet messages, which would connect Ruth Savin to anyone on the watch list of known Israeli intelligence officers or agents in the United States?

“She’s clean,” said the Army brigadier general. “If someone’s in contact with her, they’re using a carrier pigeon.”

Weber had never really doubted Savin. The swirl of Israeli influence in Washington touched everything and anyone connected with politics; it was the most successful political-action program in history. But once Savin had come to work at the CIA, she had only one overriding loyalty. People who impugned her were ignorant, or anti-Semitic, or both.

Next Weber asked the brigadier general about Earl Beasley, the chief of the Clandestine Service. Had Beasley been in contact with any Russian asset—an FSB or SVR officer, an agent of influence, a facilitator or banker? Again, the answer was no, but the general noted one interesting development: Beasley had asked NSA for any information on a Russian moneyman named Boris Sokolov; he was looking specifically for derogatory information involving Sokolov’s contacts with Ted Jankowski.

Of course Beasley was gathering incriminating information; that was the gift for Walter Ives that Beasley was assembling for delivery by his lawyer. Beasley was a player; he was betting with the house this time, and laying on some extra insurance.

Weber called his second contact, who handled intelligence liaison in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This man saw all the sensitive paper that zinged around the E-Ring. Weber asked him the same questions: Had he seen any monitoring or other data that mentioned either the CIA general counsel or the chief of the Clandestine Service? Here again, the slate was clean.

Weber polled his last counselor, the one who worked in the FBI’s National Security Branch and had the most sensitive information of all. He had been looking all week for anything that might implicate Ruth Savin or Earl Beasley. The Bureau had informants and wire surveillance in so many places: It was like shaking a tree; if something was stuck up in the branches, it was bound to come loose and fall to the ground. But again, from the FBI contact, there was nothing.

Weber was satisfied that his two colleagues were clean: Ruth Savin, whatever her actions when she was a staffer on the Hill, had no discernible contact with Israeli intelligence; Earl Beasley might have a truckload of dirty laundry from Russian mobsters and spies, but he wasn’t working for them.

Weber asked the FBI man a last question that was so delicate he had refrained from querying his other two informants. Had anything passed across the screen of the FBI National Security Branch that suggested any unusual activities or contacts with foreign governments by the director of National Intelligence, Cyril Hoffman?

The FBI deputy director coughed awkwardly. He fumbled for words.

“That’s my boss, sir,” he said quietly.

“I know,” said Weber. “But I need the truth. If you’ve seen anything, I want to know it.”

The FBI director paused a long moment. Then he asked Graham Weber to meet him, alone, at the tennis courts in East Potomac Park at four that afternoon.

At Weber’s insistence, they went in Jack Fong’s own car, a Chevy Blazer. Fong left him at the entrance to East Potomac Park. The FBI man was standing next to the bubble that covered the tennis courts in winter. He looked cold and uncomfortable. He motioned for Weber to follow him to a space behind the bubble where they wouldn’t be seen.

They talked for less than fifteen minutes, and then the FBI man returned to his office atop the FBI fortress on Pennsylvania Avenue. Weber went back to the CIA and told Marie that he had been out shopping. He rattled around the office late that afternoon and into the night, wondering what he should do with the information that he had obtained about unauthorized travel.

37

WASHINGTON

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.