The boardwalk curved east, and the lights of Georgetown and downtown DC were coming on, visible through the dense foliage. Audrey stopped and sat on the secluded bench designated as the meeting site, looked at her watch, sat back, and listened. The creeks and pops of the deciduous forest were muffled by the drone of the evening traffic on the nearby Key and Roosevelt Bridges. Otherwise nothing. Audrey had been making clandestine meetings for a long time, and was accustomed to the jittery stomach and damp palms that came before making contact with her GRU handler or, more recently, with SUSAN, the illegals officer from New York. Meeting with this creepy bitch was a lot safer than meeting someone from the Russian Embassy, but Audrey didn’t like her. There was something superior about her attitude; she didn’t acknowledge Audrey’s rank or importance. Audrey already had resolved to tell Uncle Anton that she wanted a different commo system, and she was sure the Russians would comply, especially since she was two days away from Senate confirmation as the new Director of the CIA.
The confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill had been a joke: legislators read rambling prepared statements and asked extraneous questions off lists handed to them by spotty staffers just out of college. Audrey played the professional navy vice admiral, and the scientist preeminent in technology, weapons, and communications, advances in which would mean less spending and reasonable budgets for the navy while continuing to ensure national security. The addlepated senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, liked the fact that Admiral Rowland was an outsider, a sexless woman, obviously apolitical, and would steer CIA in the right direction, away from profligate spending and away from nefarious covert actions and similar extralegal behaviors.
Audrey’s scalp moved when she heard a thump-thump coming toward her out of the darkness on the boardwalk. In the fading light, the indistinct shape of a hunched-over human form gradually became clear, and Audrey thought of the irony of being accosted by an estuarine swamp creature while meeting her Russian handler in downtown Washington, DC. More likely it would be a paunchy Schedule C contractor, out at twilight looking for a young tug-mutton. She relaxed when a fogey in a floppy hat and flannel shirt approached. The old man was using a walker, and the thump of the padded legs of his appliance echoed hollowly off the planks. Audrey nodded pleasantly as he passed, but just got a harrumph in return from the miserable bastard, who was clearly hurrying to get off the island before it closed. After the man had disappeared around the bend there was no one else around, no sounds. All she had to do was wait for SUSAN to ghost up to her out of the dusk. Audrey patted her jacket pocket to make sure the thumb drive and two discs with the latest Office of Naval Research secrets were secure. She’d pass the drive and discs, verbally brief SUSAN on her confirmation, and listen to the Center’s ideas about communications options when she became DCIA and had a full-time security detail.
What Audrey Rowland did not realize was that the senior citizen fishing off the causeway, and the two biddies looking for birds, and the irascible crusty-pants hobbling behind a walker were all part of Simon Benford’s ORION surveillance team, a collection of retired CIA officers who were so adept, and patient, and effective, that they outperformed the crack FBI surveillance team known as the “Gs” who followed trained foreign intelligence officers for a living. The ORIONs’ skill was to anticipate where a target would go, get there ahead of the rabbit, and undetectably witness a clandestine act without the intelligence officer (and his American agent) ever having an inkling that they were covered. Benford once famously said that the difference between ORION surveillance and the FEEBS was the difference between a cat watching a bird, and a dog chasing a car. The ORIONs had been leapfrogging ahead of Admiral Rowland all day, totally unseen, anticipating her route-of-march—the overall vector of her travel—and logging her general direction, and when, near the end of the day, Theodore Roosevelt Island became a possibility, four of the dozen ORIONs covering Audrey had flooded the zone and were in place before she even pulled into the parking lot. The geriatric team—the two bird-watchers were grandmothers—reported that target demeanor indicated an imminent meeting. That was good enough for Simon. Benford had alerted the FBI arrest team to deploy accordingly, as the ORIONs had no arrest authority and could not detain a suspect by flashing their AARP cards.
Days before, the rendezvous had been made twenty-one nautical miles off the Black Sea coast of Russia. The USV had performed flawlessly, making contact with DDG-78, the USS Porter, an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer of the 6th Fleet, a little after 0100 in calm seas. The USV was hoisted aboard the helo deck by a specially fitted stern hoist, and rolled on a dolly out of sight into the aft helo hangar by bridge crane. Sailors who opened the USV hatch had been surprised to see a busty middle-age woman in a wet T-shirt emerge, holding a waterproof pouch. They had been further surprised to see the shrouded figure of an elegant gentleman in a suit sleeping in the second reclining chair who, on closer inspection, was determined to be dead. The executive officer on the Porter cleared the hangar of crewmembers at the behest of a short rumpled man wearing a navy peacoat who was accompanied by a taller civilian with salt-and-pepper hair, and a nervous young man with fogged-over spectacles.
Agnes had shaken hands with Benford and Westfall, hugged Forsyth, repeated “chalice, chalice, chalice,” until they told her to stop, they got it, and handed them the pouch with the thumb drive. They had all sat in the empty wardroom, sipping coffee, reading the thumb-drive report on a laptop. A plate of toast slices smothered in a white sauce with chipped beef, the navy staple known as “S.O.S.,” was put in front of her by a grinning steward. Agnes took a cautious sniff, tried a forkful, then had devoured the whole plate. She had not eaten in twelve hours. As she ate, she told them the rest about Dominika and Gorelikov. Forsyth reached over and squeezed her hand. Westfall had hurried away to send flash cables to Langley.
“Alex Larson is in small measure avenged,” said Benford, grimly. “MAGNIT will be arrested, and Gorelikov becomes CHALICE. Line KR in SVR, kontravietka, counterintelligence, will be doing damage assessment for years.” He patted Agnes’s hand and congratulated her. “DIVA will be able to tie up Russian intelligence—internal and external—for a decade, especially since she has consummated her relationship with Putin, and there is no longer a competitor for the president’s confidence. I wish Alex could see it all.”
Agnes had whipped her white forelock back, and looked at him with a murderous look Forsyth remembered from the old days. “How nice for DIVA,” she spat. “You are content to let your asset get on her back whenever that pig wants? And what of your officer languishing in a Russian prison? What is so fortuitous? Your brilliant trap worked but what will you do to repay Nash for your betrayal?” Benford glowered at her, red in the face.
Forsyth had pulled her out of the wardroom and out onto the afterdeck where they stood against the aft rail as dawn broke, watching the ship’s yeasty wake trail behind, straight as a pencil. Both of them wore too-large peacoats against the morning chill.
“If you think he’s not going through hell over this, you’d be wrong,” said Forsyth. “But catching the mole is Simon’s first priority, his only priority. He would have used any of us to identify MAGNIT, including himself.”