“Did you commit these acts against America?”
He spoke to himself as he imagined some central figure would in the plot against him. He saw the man not as an American jurist but, bizarrely, as a British officer of the court in a white wig.
Where do I get this crap from? And when will I get to see a lawyer?
Under the terrorism laws, he could vanish into the American version of the old Russian gulag — but with the added, all-American patina of patriotism and torture.
Ruhi thought-felt-feared all of this over and over. He lay back on his simple bunk and stared at the ceiling, knowing that somewhere a lens stared back at him from whatever impregnable material kept him incarcerated.
Maybe Candace, too. Is she watching?
She’d worked him like a puppet, and he’d bought into her. Oh, God, had he ever. More than that, he’d fallen for her. He thought she was so honest. The most honest woman he’d ever met. He cringed when he remembered saying that to himself. But when the FBI came calling at his apartment, the only way agents could have known that he’d had a bureau in front of his door was if they’d had one of their own right next to him during the terrifying encounters of the previous twenty-four hours. At that very instant he’d known who Candace really was. All her gunplay, bravado, and coolness under fire had come from Quantico as much as Kabul — if her stint at the embassy were even true.
And yet, if she hadn’t defended him, he’d be dead. She’d put her own life on the line to save his. That had to mean something, right? Or was he deluding himself once more? Forgetting that protecting him was her duty. She was paid to do it.
But wasn’t there something between them? He couldn’t forget the moment on the love seat when they’d stared into each other’s eyes. One second longer, a half inch closer, and they would have kissed. They would have.
He closed his eyes now, tried to measure his breath. Sweat trickled down his checks.
Ruhi felt lost, like Josef K. in Kafka’s The Trial. He’d read it in Honors English at the University of Vermont. What was happening to him was different, but strangely similar. Only it was worse because when he’d read the book, he’d only glimpsed the horror of accusation. And while it had etched itself into his memory, it was nothing compared to this. Now he knew the horror firsthand.
Kafka’s book had ended with a knife. Ruhi could feel cold, sharp steel coming for him. Sooner or later it would find his heart, and — worst of all — Ruhi could imagine how he, too, would say, “Like a dog,” as his last words. Yes, he would also die like a dog, but only after screaming anything they wanted to hear.
He lay there, eyes closed, thinking, It’s only just begun.
He had no idea.
Lana made it into CyberFortress by midafternoon. Jeff Jensen reported that he expected to have CF’s systems clean in twenty-four hours.
“Do you think you’ll ever be able to confirm that it was the Chinese?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to rest till I do.” It sounded like a vow.
“Make sure you let people get a breather around here. There are lots of personal challenges that everybody’s facing, and you’re going to be running things for the foreseeable future.”
Jensen was a good one to leave in charge while she worked with the team at NSA. The sober-minded Mormon had a like-minded wife who ran their house full-time, with the same efficient friendliness that her husband showed at work.
“All right.” She rose from her desk. “I’m going home to spend the evening with Emma. I hope she’s okay. I feel like a totally negligent mother.”
She’d tried calling and texting Emma, but her daughter wasn’t responding, which meant she was either feeling too crummy, which was scary, or so good that she was too busy texting her friends to bother with her mom. That would be irritating — to the extreme.
“Audrey asked Irene Johansson if she’d please go back.”
“She did?” Audrey was Jensen’s executive assistant. Another Mormon.
“Irene’s in her ward.” A Mormon administrative district. “She pointed out that it was vital to national security that she help Emma for you.”
Jensen spoke with just the lightest hint of irony.
“That’s good news, I think,” Lana said, wondering how Emma was responding to these machinations. “I’m going to head out.”
“Audrey says it’s working out just fine with Irene and Emma.”
And it was. When Lana walked in the door, Emma was curled up on the couch, meds on the end table. Irene sat next to her in an armchair. The television was on — horrific aerial shots of the huge forest fire near Denver that had started after a pipeline explosion.
“The president’s going to be on, Mom,” Emma said drowsily.
“When did they announce this?” Lana asked. She’d heard nothing about it, and she’d been listening to NPR until she pulled into the garage.
“Just like a minute ago,” Emma said. She slurred her words but seemed to speak with little discomfort.
Lana greeted Irene, mouthing “Thank you” when Emma’s eyes returned to the TV.
She shifted the girl’s feet and sat down, then placed them on her lap. Emma practically purred. She sure seemed agreeable.
The station switched to the White House Briefing Room, where the president was walking to the lectern. He looked, in a word, shaken, as if he’d been rushed from the Oval Office to make a statement. Maybe they were doing it on such short notice to prevent the cyberterrorists from shutting down his address to the nation. Nonetheless, she thought the president’s makeup team could have spruced him up for his first public words since the attack.
“Good evening, my fellow Ameri—”
Right then the power went out and came back on almost immediately. It did that two more times in rapid succession. Then three more times — but slowly. The president looked around, as if lost.
Don’t look weak. Don’t!
The power came and went three more times quickly, before coming back on for good.
Lana slumped back into the couch when she recognized the pattern. It was the international distress signaclass="underline" · · · — — · · ·
SOS. Save Our Ship.
Of state, Lana realized.
Her faced reddened. Her hands curled into fists.
Mocked by a murderous unseen enemy.
The president persevered with his short speech, but not impressively. The great orator, who many had said was a throwback to another era with his magnificent metaphors, uplifting language, and ringing intonations, sounded flat — all fizzed out. He told his “fellow Americans” to stay calm, even as he appeared defeated and bewildered. Then, after a few minutes of speaking — which proved painful to watch — he looked left and right of the lectern, as if bereft of direction, and walked away.
Reporters yelled questions at him. They were boisterous, maybe even outraged. But the president’s one good move, in Lana’s opinion, was to never turn back to face them. That would have been another mark of indecision. If he looked shaky before his exit, at least he proved resolute in his leave taking. Small consolation, she thought.
The Morse code — the SOS — appeared to have rattled him. Lana presumed the president had decoded it in the moment, as she had, or that someone had informed him almost instantaneously. The bald irony of the message itself was unnerving: using the earliest means of telecommunications to scuttle the first few words of a president’s address about the most sophisticated attack in world history.
We have you coming and going.