The Faithful Spy

Joey took the check and a vacation. Even before he signed over the building, a combat engineering team had arrived to reinforce the walls and ceiling around D-2471 with six-inch-thick lead-and-steel plates. By the end of September the entire building would have a new roof and walls thick enough to trap the fallout from an explosion. along with a new ceiling, Capitol Area Self Storage got a new workforce. None of the previous staff complained about being fired; they had all received severance checks bigger than they’d expected. The Delta Force commandos who replaced them were unfailingly polite to customers, though their mid-South accents didn’t quite fit in upstate New York. Meanwhile, FBI and CIA technicians engaged in a not-very-subtle competition to see who could install fancier surveillance equipment in the center. Because of the rules preventing the CIA from operating on American soil, the agency should have left the job to the Feebs. But that restriction had been lifted by the presidential order that created Earnest Badger, or so Duto insisted. The dueling teams of techies had locked up Capitol Area Self Storage tigher than — tighter than any cliché imaginable, Exley thought. Four hundred cameras, heat sensors, and motion detectors had been installed in and around the building. A roach couldn’t get within twenty feet of the bomb without setting off silent alarms. And God help the person who opened, asked about, or even looked too long at locker D-2471.

Too bad the Joint Terrorism Task Force had no idea who that person might be. The room had been rented two months earlier by a man who had called himself Laurent Kabila, the name of the late and unlamented former president of the Congo. “Laurent” had paid in advance and in cash for a three-year rental. He hadn’t come back since his initial visit. Not surprisingly, neither the locker nor the bag had revealed any fingerprints or traces of DNA. Anyone capable of smuggling nuclear material into the United States was presumably also capable of wearing gloves.

So Duto and Kijiuri had decided that whoever came for the bag would be arrested only if he removed it from the center. Otherwise he would be allowed to leave and would be tracked. Of course, by allowing the courier into D-2471 instead of arresting him immediately, the task force ran the risk that he would blow up the bomb inside the storage center. But if they arrested the courier right away, the trail to the rest of the cell would end. And they desperately needed more information about al Qaeda’s operations in the United States. On the other hand, they couldn’t risk allowing the bomb outside the center. Exley understood the decision. As an analyst, she wanted as much information as possible. But if her family lived in Albany, she’d have wanted to try the president for treason if he allowed al Qaeda even an outside shot at taking control of a dirty bomb. e x l e y h a d r e s o lv e d to leave the office before dark at least once this week, give herself a chance to get some exercise outside, maybe walk down the Mall. Not today, though. She wanted to read Farouk’s transcripts again, cover to cover. At that moment she realized that something really bad was happening to her. No point in lying to herself. Since coming back from Diego Garcia she had turned a mental corner. She had always been obsessed with her job, but as the stakes rose she was enjoying it more, enjoying the chance to see what no one else saw and hear what no one else heard. Even the interrogation — the torture; she’d say the word — of Farouk. Her revulsion had faded all too quickly as she watched Saul at work. He was just so good at breaking Farouk, and part of her enjoyed seeing genius in all its forms. You’re just a cog, the little voice in her head told her. You gave up your life to be a cog. Now you’re giving up your morals too. But for once she ignored the voice. Fine, I’m a cog, she thought. But I’m a cog in the most powerful machine in history, a machine that reaches everywhere in the world, that can snap you off a roof in Iraq and make you disappear before anyone knows you’re gone, that can see through clouds and hear through walls.

Ugh. What nonsense. What shit. And yet her pride was real. At least now I know how it happens, she thought. I know how power corrupts.

a k n o c k o n her door startled her. She looked up to see Shafer twisting his little body inside her office.

“Ellis. I was just thinking about you.”

“Only happy thoughts, I hope.”

“Always.”

“Qué pasa?”