“It’s Çölasan.”
“Mr. Murat Chorlashan”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
She had the feeling he was only flattering her, but if she had just butchered his name, at least he was polite about it.
“Did you have a nice stay in London?”
“A bit on the wet side, but other than that, absolutely delightful.”
He looked up at the clock on the wall. It was 16:00 hours. He would be safely out of the country in less than three hours. The officer stamped his passport and slid it back to him underneath the glass partition.
“Have a pleasant flight to Istanbul and do come back for a visit.”
“Thank you.”
Zeki put his sunglasses back on, kept his head down and made his way to the THY concourse. He picked up a Wall Street Journal on the way. Then he found a seat in the corner directly under a security camera, unfolded the paper and turned to page three.
><><><
Dr. Jones sat in his office drumming his fingers on the desk, looking blankly at the bookcase across from his desk and waiting for Cathy Davenport. He was more than a little peeved at the question mark hanging over the rest of conference program.
Ian’s lecture will take the place of Dr. Bennet’s, but if he is ill and can’t make his presentation, then what?
He looked down at the list of contributors to see if any of the breakout session topics seemed worthy of a more prominent place at the conference, and he swore softly when he saw that at least two breakout sessions that very afternoon had been related to the research Ian was presenting and were supposed to have expanded on the theme.
Beads of sweat had formed on his brow in the last five minutes. It had turned into an exceptionally muggy day and with the extra pounds he was toting around, it would be late October before he could get through a day without drenching his undershirt. He loosened his tie. Exercise was anathema to him, so, inevitably, every year he had grown a year older and a few pounds heavier. He had hoped there would be a note from McIntosh on his desk when the afternoon session was over. There wasn’t, and now he was sitting at his desk, wondering what had happened. He had just started an internal debate as to whether or not he should go over to Ian’s apartment when the phone rang. He had the receiver to his ear before the first ring ended.
“Hello.”
“Dr. Jones?”
“Good afternoon, Superintendent.”
“I don’t know how to break the news to you, but I’m afraid Professor O’Brien is dead, sir.”
“Dead?”
“I’m sorry. I have a team over there now with forensic experts. They are in the process of preparing their report, but the medic I talked to said he suspected a heart attack in his sleep. I don’t have any further details. A full report should be ready first thing in the morning. I’m very sorry. We will need to notify next of kin. Can you help us with that?”
Dr. Jones stared blankly at the wall and struggled to control his voice.
“Yes, of course, the department should have contact information for next of kin. I’ll have that sent to you right away.”
He hung up the phone in disbelief.
CHAPTER
19
W
ASHINGTON
, DC,
12:30
PM
Gilbert pushed the door open and began undoing his trousers. The meeting had lasted three and a half hours without a single bathroom break and he was about to burst. He wished he could relieve his stress as easily as his body disposed of water. Before he boarded the plane last night, he had known that it was going to be serious, but this was way bigger than he had ever imagined. Jim Ross, Director of Operations, had picked him up from the airport and given him a foretaste of what was coming.
Select company directors and the technical team from McLean, Virginia had come in for the meeting at corporate headquarters in DC. Gilbert’s company, Data Security International, provided security services to the world’s largest firms, including law firms, banks and government institutions. DSI was an elite company. There had even been a rumor that the FBI was its largest shareholder, not directly, of course, but through intermediaries. So far, he had not been able to confirm the claim. He suspected it was true but in the shadowy world of intelligence, evidence was hard to come by. Maybe it was just a rumor started by the FBI as a decoy to provide cover for whatever other company it really did use.
The door opened, and Gilbert turned his head to see Mike Tate take his place at the next urinal. At six-foot-six and two hundred and sixty pounds, Mike was as physically daunting as he was intellectually intimidating. He was the company’s most senior analyst, and resident pain in the ass.
“Hell of a deal, isn’t it? The biggest blunder in the history of the company wrapped around Ross’ neck like an albatross.”
“He’s going to blame it on software development for leaving a backdoor,” answered Gilbert. “And the Director of Development will say the problem is the customer’s failure to comply with the terms of the service contract to regularly implement upgrades and new releases.”
“It’s all bullshit. We don’t even know how it happened.”
“Well, Ross made it clear that he expects me to find out,” said Gilbert, zipping his pants and walking to the sink. “Finch and Moreland’s case before the International Court for the Settlement of Investment Disputes is worth 400 billion dollars. The investment consortium who brought the case against Libya is one of their biggest customers.”
“With stakes that high, I think the company should have done a better job of protecting their data,” replied Tate.
Gilbert sighed, “You would think the case is cut and dried. The Libyan government seized oil and gas wells, refining capacity and a pipeline network worth almost sixteen billion dollars.”
“Nothing’s cut and dried, O’Brien. How long do you think it’ll be before they have a team of lawyers subpoenaing us for records?”
“That is what we are here to prevent, Mr. Tate. You’re throwing in the towel a bit early, don’t you think?”
He punched the silver knob on the hand-dryer and started rubbing his hands together. Mike had to raise his voice to be heard.
“They’re going to want hard evidence about how and when this happened, a chain of discovery.”
“Yeah, wanting it and getting it are two different things, but we’ll do what we can.”
“According to your report today, even after poring over system analysis reports for hours, no one knows how it happened. Your guys said there’s no evidence that the client’s security was breached. No spyware was detected and no files were erased. All of the traffic on every port has been reviewed and there’s no sign of suspicious activity. Seems like Finch and Moreland have a mole.”
“Or we do,” remarked Gilbert dryly.
He knew Mike’s assertion would be the angle DSI would take because it absolved them of all responsibility. Yes, they were responsible for background checks on employees. Yes, they monitored all of the employees’ personal Internet activity. Yes, they provided the hard disk encryption for company computers, but at the end of the day, they could not be held responsible for a rogue employee. Mike zipped up and joined him at the adjacent dryer. Gilbert’s dryer switched off, and he moved to the mirror.
“Do you believe their story?” asked Mike.
“Which part?” responded Gilbert, trying to sound matter-of-fact.
“The part about them discovering the leak because one of the lawyers on the opposing team left a disk in a folder of exhibits.”
Gilbert kept looking at the mirror, brushing a stray hair or two back into place with his hand.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Sounds like too much of a lucky break to me.”
In the mirror, Gilbert could see Mike leaning against the wall at the door.
“Listen, Gilbert, I know you play your cards close, but you seemed to be hedging a bit with Ross in the meeting. Does your team have a lead?”
“To be honest, all the system analysis is clean. But, I found some curious stuff in my analysis of the metadata in some of our files that they had decrypted.”
“Curious in what way?”
“I’d rather not say until I’ve finished the analysis.”
Gilbert turned back to the door only to find Mike blocking it.
“Couldn’t you at least tell me what your hunch is?”
Gilbert didn’t like the look in his eye. Mike had worked his way up in the security business by staying one step ahead of his opponents, and he had a reputation for ruthlessness.
“I’m sure that Ross wants me to keep the circle tight on this.”
Mike reached over and punched the knob to turn on both hand-dryers. He walked forward until he stood just inches from Gilbert’s face and said in a voice so low he could barely make it out above the hot air blowing in the background.
“I know what you found. DoD decryption shadows in the metadata on those files. I already know what you suspect. The boys at the FBI were sloppy. Just let it go. DSI is in no danger, and we wouldn’t want your part in Finch and Moreland’s lucky break to become public knowledge, now would we? ”
Gilbert couldn’t believe his ears.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m sure you wish that were true. I’ll admit that I had pegged you for a play-by-the-book type. Never thought you’d break the law. You’re frugal too. I wouldn’t have thought you could pull it off for a mere 29K.”
“Tate, an Islamist government illegally seized the assets of private companies invited to invest in their infrastructure. That is a breach of international law. And we knew the French had evidence to prove it. They refused to hand over subpoenaed documents or produce the witnesses Finch and Moreland called. All they wanted was proof that the other side wasn’t acting in good faith.”
“So, you organized a third-party heist to steal their data. Not exactly legal though, was it? See, I didn’t think you had that pragmatic the-end-justifies-the-means attitude. I took you for an idealist.”
“And I didn’t know you were moonlighting for the FBI. Are you telling me the US government has betrayed an American law firm to protect a corrupt state, ignoring the legitimate claims of investors?”
“I know this comes as a bit of a shock. Still, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. You are quite the conspiracy theorist.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you think I don’t know about your research into DSI shareholders and possible connections with the FBI? I know every lead you follow. You got that part wrong by the way, but you’re too close to the truth for your own good. Curiosity has killed more than cats, Mr. O’Brien.”
“So, it’s the CIA that sold them out?”
“You already know more than it is safe to know. I like you, O’Brien. I’m providing this warning off the books and as a professional courtesy. Let’s see a clean analysis from your team. What do you say?”
Gilbert took a deep breath and turned his head away to look at the reflection of the two men in the mirror. He had to make a decision.
“Fine,” he said finally, “but I expect . . .”
“There are no conditions, Mr. O’Brien. “I’ll see you around.” And, with that, Tate turned abruptly and left the room.
Gilbert turned back to the mirror. He hardly recognized the face he saw there. His skin was pasty white. One question kept racing through his mind.
Is Tate a guardian angel or the angel of death?
He didn’t know what to make of the warning, but the revelation that Tate knew about his part in procuring contractors to steal information from the French left him feeling naked. Ross had assured him it was a circle of two.