Thirty
IT’S STATE-OF-THE-ART,” Gunter Mьller said. “Guaranteed.”
Both he and Moira were wearing hard hats as they walked through the series of semi-automated workshops of Kaller Steelworks Gesellschaft, where the coupling link that would receive the LNG tankers as they nosed into the NextGen Long Beach terminal had been manufactured.
Mьller, the team leader on the NextGen coupling link project, was a senior vice president of Kaller, a smallish man dressed impeccably in a conservatively cut three-piece chalk-striped suit, expensive shoes, and a tie in black and gold, Munich’s colors since the time of the Holy Roman Empire. His skin was bright pink, as if he’d just had his face steam-cleaned, and thick brown hair, graying at the sides. He talked slowly and distinctly in good English, though he was rather endearingly weak with modern American idioms.
At each step he explained the manufacturing process with excruciating detail, great pride. Spread out before them were the design drawings, along with the specs, to which Mьller referred time and again.
Moira was listening with only one ear. How her situation had changed now that the Firm was out of the picture, now that NextGen was on its own with the security of its terminal operations in Long Beach, now that she had been reassigned.
But the more things change, she thought, the more they stay the same. The moment Noah had handed her the packet for Damascus she knew she wouldn’t disengage herself from the Long Beach terminal project. No matter what Noah or his bosses had determined she couldn’t leave NextGen or this project in jeopardy. Mьller, like everyone else at Kaller and, for that matter, nearly everyone at NextGen, had no idea she worked for the Firm. Only she knew she should be on a flight to Damascus, not here with him. She had a grace period of mere hours before her contact at NextGen would begin to ask questions as to why she was still on the LNG terminal project. By then, she hoped to convince NextGen’s president of the wisdom of her disobeying the Firm’s orders.
Finally, they reached the loading bay where the sixteen parts of the coupling link were being packed for shipment by air to Long Beach on the NextGen 747 jet that had brought her and Bourne to Munich.
“As specified in the contract, our team of engineers will be accompanying you on the homeward journey.” Mьller rolled up the drawings, snapped a rubber band around them, and handed them to Moira. “They’ll be in charge of putting the coupling link together on site. I have every confidence that all will go smoothly.”
“It had better,” Moira said. “The LNG tanker is scheduled to dock at the terminal in thirty hours.” She shot Mьller an unpleasant look. “Not much leeway for your engineers.”
“Not to worry, Fraulein Trevor,” he said cheerfully. “They’re more than up to the task.”
“For your company’s sake, I sincerely hope so.” She stowed the roll under her left arm, preparatory to leaving. “Shall we speak frankly, Herr Mьller?”
He smiled. “Always.”
“I wouldn’t have had to come here at all had it not been for the string of delays that set your manufacturing process back.”
Mьller’s smile seemed immovable. “My dear Fraulein, as I explained to your superiors, the delays were unavoidable-please blame the Chinese for the temporary shortage of steel, and the South Africans for the energy shortages that is forcing the platinum mines to work at half speed.” He spread his hands. “We’ve done the best we could, I assure you.” His smile widened. “And now we are at the end of our journey together. The coupling link will be in Long Beach within eighteen hours, and eight hours later it will be in one piece and ready to receive your tanker of liquid natural gas.” He stuck out his hand. “All will have a happy ending, yes?”
“Of course it will. Thank you, Herr Mьller.”
Mьller nearly clicked his heels. “The pleasure is all mine, Fraulein.”
Moira walked back through the factory with Mьller at her side. She said good-bye to him once more at the gates to the factory, walked across the gravel drive to where her chauffeured car sat waiting for her, its precisely engineered German engine purring quietly.
They pulled out of the Kaller Steelworks property, turned left toward the autobahn back to Munich. Five minutes later, her driver said, “There’s a car following us, Fraulein.”
Turning around, Moira peered out the back window. A small Volks-wagen, no more than fifty yards behind them, flashed its headlights.
“Pull over.” She pushed aside the hem of her long skirt, took a SIG Sauer out of the holster strapped to her left ankle.
The driver did as he was told, and the car came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. The Volkswagen pulled in behind. Moira sat waiting for something to happen; she was too well trained to get out of the car.
At length, the Volkswagen drove off the shoulder, into the underbrush, where it disappeared from sight. A moment later a man became visible tramping out onto the side of the road. He was tall and narrow, with a pencil mustache and suspenders holding up his trousers. He was in his shirtsleeves, oblivious to the German winter chill. She could see that he had no weapons on him, which, she reasoned, was the point. When he came abreast of her car, she leaned across the backseat, opened the door for him, and he slipped inside.
“My name is Hauser, Fraulein Trevor. Arthur Hauser.” His expression was morose, bitter. “I apologize for the incivility of this impromptu meeting, but I assure you the melodrama is necessary.” As if to underscore his words, he glanced back down the road toward the factory, his expression fearful. “I do not have much time so I shall come straight to the point. There is a flaw in the coupling link-not, I hasten to add, in the hardware. That, I assure you, is absolutely sound. But there is a problem with the software. Nothing that will interfere with the operation of the link, no, not at all. It is, rather, a security flaw-a window, if you will. The chances are it might never be discovered, but all the same it’s there.”
When Hauser glanced again out the back window a car was coming toward them. He clamped his jaws shut, watched as the vehicle passed by, then visibly relaxed as it drove on down the road.
“Herr Mьller was not altogether truthful. The delays were caused by this software flaw, nothing else. I should know, since I was part of the software design team. We tried for a patch, but it’s been devilishly difficult, and we ran out of time.”
“Just how serious is this flaw?” Moira said.
“It depends on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist.” Hauser ducked his head, embarrassed. “As I said, it might never be discovered.”
Moira glanced out the window for a time, thinking that she shouldn’t ask the next question because, as Noah told her in no uncertain terms, the Firm was now out of ensuring the security of NextGen’s LNG terminal.
And then she heard herself say, “What if I’m a pessimist?”
Peter Marks found Rodney Feir, chief of field support, in the CI caff, eating a bowl of New England clam chowder. Feir looked up, gestured to Marks to sit. Peter Marks had been elevated to chief of operations after the ill-starred Rob Batt was outed as an NSA rat.
“How’s it going?” Feir said.
“How d’you think it’s going?” Marks parked himself on the chair opposite Feir. “I’ve been vetting every one of Batt’s contacts for any sign of NSA taint. It’s daunting and frustrating work. You?”
“As exhausted as you, I expect.” Feir sprinkled oyster crackers into the chowder. “I’ve been briefing the new DCI on everything from agents in the field to the cleaning firm we’ve used for the past twenty years.”
“D’you think she’ll work out?”
Feir knew he had to be careful here. “I’ll say this for her: She’s a stickler for detail. No stone unturned. She’s not leaving anything to chance.”