I look at Carolyn’s face on the split screen. She shrugs in response, agreeing with me that it’s worth telling the acting director.
“The code word ‘Dark Ages,’ Liz. Only eight people in the world know that code word besides me. It’s never been written down, on my order. It’s never been repeated, outside our circle, on my order. Right?”
“Yes, of course, sir.”
“Even the task force of technicians trying to locate and neutralize the virus, the Imminent Threat Response Team—not even they know ‘Dark Ages,’ right?”
“Correct, sir. Only the eight of us and you.”
“One of those eight people leaked it to the Sons of Jihad,” I say.
A pause as the acting director takes that in.
“Which means,” I say, “that the person did more than leak.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Four days ago,” I say, “Monday, a woman whispered those words into my daughter’s ear in Paris, to relay to me. That woman is Nina—the one shot at the stadium by the sniper.”
“My God.”
“She approached my daughter and told her to say ‘Dark Ages’ to me and to tell me that I was running out of time and that she’d meet me Friday night.”
The acting director’s chin rises slightly as she processes the information.
“Mr. President…I’m one of those eight,” she says. “How do you rule me out?”
Good for her. “Before I tapped you as acting director, ten days ago, you weren’t in the loop. Whatever outside actor is doing this to us, whoever among our eight is helping them—this would have taken time to develop. It wouldn’t happen overnight.”
“So I’m not the traitor,” she says, “because I wouldn’t have had time.”
“The timing rules you out, yes. So besides you, Carolyn, and me, that leaves six people, Liz. Six people who could be our Benedict Arnold.”
“Have you considered that one of those six might have told a spouse or friend who sold the information? They’d be violating your directive of confidentiality, but still…”
“I have considered that, yes. But whoever’s betraying us did more than leak a code word. They’re a part of this. Nobody’s spouse or friend would have the kind of access and resources to do that. They’d need the government official.”
“So it’s one of our six.”
“It’s one of our six,” I say in agreement. “So you understand, Liz, that you’re the only one we can fully trust.”
Chapter
39
When I finish with Acting Director Greenfield, Carolyn tells me my next call is ready.
A moment later, after some fuzz and screen garble, the image of a man, thick-necked and deadly serious, with a manicured beard and bald head, comes onto the screen. The bags underneath his eyes are a testament not to his age but to the week he’s had.
“Mr.…President,” he says. His English is perfect, his foreign accent almost imperceptible.
“David, good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you as well, Mr. President. Given the events of the last few hours, that statement is more than a mere pleasantry.”
True enough. “The woman is dead, David. Did you know that?”
“It is what we assumed.”
“But the man is with me,” I say. “He calls himself Augie.”
“He told you his name is Augie?”
“He did. Is that the truth? Did you get a shot of his face?”
After I received the ticket to the Nationals game from Nina, I called David and told him where I’d be sitting in the left-field stands. He had to scramble, but his team got tickets to the game and positioned themselves so they could get an image of Augie’s face that they could run through facial-recognition software.
“We were able to get a reliable image, yes, in spite of the baseball cap he wore. We believe that the person sitting next to you at the baseball game is Augustas Koslenko. Born in 1996 in Sloviansk, in the Donetsk province, in eastern Ukraine.”
“Donetsk? That’s interesting.”
“We thought so as well. His mother is Lithuanian. His father is Ukrainian, a laborer in a machine factory. No political affiliation or activism that we know of.”
“What about Augie himself?”
“He left Ukraine in middle school. He was a mathematics prodigy, a genius. He attended boarding school in eastern Turkey on a scholarship. We believe—we assume that this is where he met Suliman Cindoruk. Before then, we know of nothing he did or said in the way of activism of any kind.”
“But he’s the real article, you’re saying. He was part of the Sons of Jihad.”
“Yes, Mr. President. But I am not confident I would use the past tense.”
I’m not, either. I’m not confident of anything when it comes to Augie. I don’t know what he wants or why he’s doing this. Now, at least, I know he gave me his real name, but if he’s as smart as we think he is, he probably figured I’d learn his identity anyway. And if his whole basis for legitimacy is that he was affiliated with the Sons of Jihad, he’d want me to know his name, he’d want me to confirm that fact. So I’m no further than I was before with Augie.
“He said he had a falling-out with the SOJ.”
“He said. You’ve obviously considered the possibility that he is still in their employ? That he is doing their bidding?”
I shrug. “Sure, of course, but—to what end? He could have killed me at the stadium.”
“True.”
“And somebody wants him dead.”
“Apparently so. Or they want you to believe that, Mr. President.”
“Well, David—if that’s a fake, it’s a pretty damn good fake. I don’t know how much your people saw outside the stadium, and I assume you didn’t see anything on the bridge. They weren’t pretending. We could have easily died either time.”
“I do not doubt what you are saying, Mr. President. I only offer the thought that you should remain open to other possibilities. In my experience, these individuals are brilliant tacticians. We must constantly reassess our position and thinking.”
It’s a good reminder.
“Tell me what you’re hearing out there,” I say.
David is quiet for a moment, measuring his words. “We are hearing talk of America being brought to its knees. We are hearing doomsday prophecies. The end of days. We often hear such things in generic chatter from the jihadists, of course—that the Great Satan’s day will come, the time is near—but…”
“But what?”
“But we have never heard a firm date placed on such things. And what we are hearing now is that it will happen tomorrow. Saturday, they are saying.”
I take a breath. Saturday is less than two hours away.
“Who’s behind this, David?” I ask.
“We cannot know for sure, Mr. President. Suliman Cindoruk answers to no official state actor, as you know. We are hearing a multitude of suspects. The usual suspects, I suppose you would say. ISIS. North Korea. China. My country. Even your country—they say the event will be propaganda, a self-created crisis to justify military retaliation, typical conspiracy-theory nonsense.”
“Your best guess?” I say. But I’m relatively sure I know the answer. The tactical spread of chatter, the communication of clandestine information that in fact was intended all along to be overheard by intelligence intercepts. Counterespionage at its most devious, tradecraft at its finest. It bears the mark of one country over all others.
David Guralnick, the director of Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations—Mossad—takes a deep breath. For dramatic measure, the screen cuts in and out before his face becomes clear again.
“Our best guess is Russia,” he says.
Chapter
40
I click off the transmission with the director of Mossad and gather my thoughts before I talk to Augie. There are many ways to play this, but I have no time for subtlety.
Saturday, David said. Ninety minutes away.
I push myself out of the chair and turn for the door when a wave of vertigo strikes me, like someone is playing spin the bottle with my internal compass. I grab hold of the desk for balance and measure my breaths. I reach into my pocket for my pills. I need my pills.