In so many words, that was what the enemy had said, Lana realized.
And maybe that was what had flustered the president most: that the enemy had infiltrated the most critical circuits in the country — the ones that kept the White House at the center of world power.
CHAPTER 9
Agent Candace Anders sat in her office at the FBI’s training center in Quantico shaking her head as she watched the president walk out of the Briefing Room.
She felt so discouraged when the phone rang that she could scarcely pick it up. Only a stalwart sense of duty prompted her to answer. A woman said that the deputy director of the NSA, Robert Holmes, wished to speak to her.
Candace sat upright, smoothing the creases in her slacks and shirt, as if she were about to Skype or appear before the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But this was just a call, if anyone could ever say that having one of the most powerful people on earth on the line was “just a call.”
“Agent Anders?”
“Yes, this is she.”
Holmes identified himself formally, and then asked how she was doing with a genuineness that surprised her.
“I’m fine, Deputy Director Holmes.”
“Please, Bob is fine when we’re just talking between the two of us.”
Just talking? “Yes, sir.” She could not call him “Bob.”
“I wanted to express my deep appreciation for the work you did on the Mancur case.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Your great courage has been noted. I cannot think of a single instance in my fifty-plus years of service in the intelligence field where an individual agent’s heroism was more important to the country than yours was in the Mancur case.”
“That’s very kind, sir.”
“It may be a lot of things, but it is not kindness, Agent Anders.” Perhaps he was taking a cue from her in remaining formal in his manner. “It is an accurate summation of what you did, and while the media are still trying to figure out who did what to whom, your enduring silence is appreciated as well.”
“Of course, sir. I wouldn’t think—”
“I know you wouldn’t, and that’s why I want to talk to you about Ruhi Mancur. Just you and me. Face-to-face. What’s your schedule look like?”
“When, sir?” She could scarcely imagine any appointment that she wouldn’t be expected to cancel to respond affirmatively to the deputy director’s request.
“Right now.”
“I’m available, sir. Certainly.”
“I thought so. I checked with your superiors to make sure that you would be. There’s an NSA helicopter waiting on the pad that you can see right outside your window.” She stood, as if commanded, and opened the blinds, spotting a Chinook, its rotors already turning. “Let’s go for a ride.”
Candace hung up, caught her reflection in the dark glass of the window, and considered freshening up — for no more than a second. Surely he knew exactly how much time she would need to make it to the bird.
But she did pause. She couldn’t help herself. She thought of her brother, Liam, lying at rest in Arlington Cemetery, one of thirty-three funerals at the national shrine on the day he was buried. He’d been a Marine, fighting in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. Killed by the insurgents in a grim firefight that had also taken the lives of two other jarheads.
That was another reason Candace had gone ROTC at Indiana U. She didn’t talk about it much, had never mentioned it to Ruhi Mancur, but the thought of her bloodstained brother never felt more than a breath away.
She wondered what Liam would have thought, seeing his little sister all grown up now, grabbing her shoulder bag to run off and meet with the deputy director of the National Security Agency.
He’d think you’re doing good. He’d say, “Go get ’em, girl.”
And he’d tell you to wipe that tear away, she said to herself when she felt it rolling down her cheek.
As soon as she stepped from the building, a dark-suited man identified himself and escorted her to the chopper.
Deputy Director Holmes shook her hand when she climbed in.
The copter’s long rotors whirled faster. Holmes handed her a headset. She belted in and put on the device, placing the mic in front of her mouth.
Candace had been in helicopters plenty, but never with such widely esteemed company. Other than the two pilots, they were alone, rising quickly into the smoky night.
She had flown into and out of the nation’s capital countless times, but she had never crossed its airspace in a chopper maintaining such a leisurely pace. She quickly spotted the Washington Monument, Capitol Dome, White House, and the cheerful glow of D.C.’s commercial districts, which appeared to be coming back to life.
Then she spotted the arson fires that she’d glimpsed on the ground in Georgetown, still burning not more than a mile and a half from the apartment she’d taken at the Bureau’s behest. She had already relocated to a building near Dupont Circle.
“There are more fires over there.” Holmes pointed out his window. “That’s Anacostia,” he noted as they began flying in a wide circle high above the city.
The Anacostia blazes had begun within hours of the cyberattack and consumed much of the capital’s poorest neighborhood.
“What a mess,” she said.
“Yes, it’s a mess,” he agreed. “And it doesn’t much matter about the socioeconomic strata, now, does it.”
She knew it wasn’t a question. He went on:
“People always like to blame the ‘other’ when things go wrong. Usually the poor. But what we’re seeing across the country is that what we have to fear most are our own worst selves. Our behavior, as a people, has been sorely tested. We have failed.”
She wondered if it was really that bad. But the countless tongues of flames offered a brutally blunt answer.
Candace nodded at him, sickened by the panic of her fellow citizens. It made her think the whole country could use boot camp and a year or two in the military.
“But I didn’t bring you up here to comment on the loss of American resolve, Agent Anders. I brought you up here to remind you of the war we’re fighting now. It’s not just against a cowardly enemy, but our people’s greatest fears and the war they make on themselves.”
He sat forward, weighting his big broad upper body on his forearms, which pressed down on his knees. He looked like the lineman he’d once been at Notre Dame.
“You know Mancur better than anyone in the intelligence services. I need your most honest assessment of him. So what was your first take on him?”
“Smart,” she said without hesitation.
“What else?”
“Moderate. I don’t mean politically, though I sense he’s also moderate that way, too, despite the accusations. I mean emotionally moderate. He reminds me of another person of color who…”
She stopped. You’re way overstepping here, she told herself. He didn’t ask for your opinion of the president.
But Holmes wasn’t going to let her off easy:
“I need all your thoughts, Agent Anders. Please continue.”
With a deep breath, she did. “He reminds me, temperamentally, of the president. Both are men who seem to me to have reined themselves in so they don’t fulfill any cultural stereotypes.”
Holmes stared at her. Candace felt queasy. But it’s true, she almost blurted.
He waved his hand as if to say, “Go on.” So she did:
“Mancur was measured in how he spoke to me. How he treated me.”
“Maybe he was hiding something. Maybe he was hiding all this.” Holmes glanced down at the fires. He must have directed the pilots to keep the flames in view. It felt tightly choreographed to Candace.
“That is possible,” she said. “But that’s not what I believe.”