“That’s not all they’re demanding.” She showed him the subpoena from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“I see we’re scheduled for the same day. I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I warned you. We’re going to want you to push back hard with testimony about the need for even stronger national anti-terrorism standards. The agency’s legal counsel will prep you. Oysterton’s a prime example of that, but we’re going to have to fight this battle with facts, not anecdotes, which is what they’re doing with stories about good old boys holding down the fort. That’s what they’re going to hit you with. Me, too. We’ll coordinate our testimony.” He handed her back the subpoena. “I want you to try to attack our files again. Use that Bortnik woman instead of Jensen this time.”
“Really?”
“A fresh perspective. Just try it. Indulge me. See where Bortnik’s forensics take you.”
She realized he wanted Galina to search for the footprints of the hacker who’d succeeded where Jeff had failed. If Galina could find the hacker’s trail, it might reveal the weaknesses in the NSA’s network that had led to the release of those embarrassing documents — and ultimately lead to the identity of the cyber culprit.
Bob lowered his voice. “I suspect we’ve got a mole in this operation.” He looked out his window at the wide expanse of NSA facilities. “There are thousands of possibilities here. A mole’s the only way we could have been penetrated.”
“A Snowden?”
“No, someone who’s probably still working on the inside, passing it along to an openly declared enemy.”
“Well, Galina’s very good. She’s excellent, in fact, at detecting patterns in metadata.”
“Meantime, be very careful out there, Lana.” Bob had returned his gaze to the window. “You’re an open target now.”
“When do I meet the security detail?”
“Anything else you want to talk about first?”
“No.”
“Then the answer is now.” Bob picked up his phone. “Donna, send in Robin Maray.”
The deputy director hung up. “He’s one of the three agents who’ll cover you every day.”
Holmes rose as a tall, broad-shouldered man walked in. “Robin, meet Lana Elkins.”
She turned, working hard not to show her shock. Lana knew the agent, though they’d never exchanged more than first names.
And hers had not been Lana.
Chapter 6
Vinko’s most inspired thinking came when he first awakened. Lying under the sheet, eyes still closed, he’d revisit whatever had been nagging him before going to bed. He’d grown to depend on the answers provided by the unconscious mind. But this morning brought only more questions about his mysterious guardian angel, the most grating of which was whether the creature who’d put him back online was the same person who’d taken him down.
He needed to suss that out quickly and make absolutely sure Lana Elkins was responsible. Not because he had any qualms about calling for her death, along with the murder of her daughter and her black Muslim boyfriend. Hardly. Vinko couldn’t have cared less if a prominent member of the cybersecurity state, much less her spawn, were gunned down, run over, or had their damn throats slit with a gutting knife. The sooner the better, in fact. What he cared about was whether he’d become an ox with a cyber ring in his nose to be led here, there, and everywhere at the whim of another hacker. One rule of cyberspace was you never surrender control because you never know whom you’re surrendering it to.
It had even crossed his mind that the guardian angel might have forged his path to those NSA files, acting as the cyber equivalent of a machete-wielding jungle guide. But why would anyone want to bolster his standing? If they supported his beliefs, why not come on board directly? More questions without answers.
As he opened his eyes to the daylight, all he knew was that the guardian angel had an agenda. Everybody did. And it was rarely so selfless as the heavenly name might suggest.
Vinko eyed his digital alarm clock: 10:35 a.m. He avoided using the alarm, spurning ranchers’ hours. He liked to work late and sleep in. The goats adjusted to his schedule. They weren’t like cows. At all.
Biko understood. He already had his eyes on his master, ready to obey the orders of the day. The border collie was a smart workaholic.
“Isn’t that right, Biko?”
The dog stood as soon as he heard his name and stared intently at him. Biko had a vocabulary of about four hundred words. More than a lot of humans in Vinko’s experience.
He rubbed Biko’s scruff, rose, and threw on a pair of Levi’s before letting his dog out. He watched him bolt to the barn, sniffing the door. Then Biko backed up a few steps and barked. The goats bleated. Biko began to circle the barn, checking for trouble. An uncanny animal.
Vinko headed into the bathroom for his morning ablutions before carefully combing his boot-black hair straight back.
He was back in his bedroom reaching for a shirt when Biko started barking. Vinko heard a car pulling around toward the barn.
He slipped his short-barreled .357 Ruger revolver into the back of his jeans and threw on his shirt, then headed to the back door. He couldn’t believe it: a black man and white woman in a Porsche 911 Carrera. His first impulse was to reach for his weapon so he could shoot out the rakedback windshield and the pair perched behind it. They had to be tourists. Nobody local would have dared intrude. But they weren’t tourists. He saw that with his next breath.
Is he out of his mind?
With his gun still hidden, Vinko pushed open the screen door and whistled Biko to his side.
Bones Jackson uncurled himself from the Carrera’s driver’s seat. “If it ain’t the white man’s white man. How you doin’, Stinko?”
Bones actually waved at him, as if they were old friends. Then he had the temerity to close the Porsche’s door, as though he planned to stay longer than the few seconds it would take Vinko to jam his gun into Bones’s black face and send him packing.
The white woman climbed out the other side in a skirt shorter than an old man’s memory and tighter than a drug dealer’s fist. She looked like a supermodel, with blond hair smartly cut to an inch above her distinct collarbones. Her face had a vaguely Asian cast. No, Russian, he realized a moment later.
So Bones had landed himself a beauty. Vinko figured that was one of the perks that came when you’d started for more than a decade for the San Diego Chargers and made the NFL Pro Bowl seven of those years. His career having ended four seasons ago, Bones was a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.
“What do you want?” Vinko moved with deliberate speed toward his former tight end. Bones had lost some weight, some muscle. Vinko smiled at the man’s reduced stature. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot him. Maybe he’d just beat the shit out of him.
“I wanted to see what the white man’s white man was up to. Ludmila and I were in Coeur d’Alene, and I remembered my old QB lived within striking distance on his family’s land or compound or whatever it is. Jesus, you got more warning signs out there than a nuclear plant.”
“Which you ignored.”
“I figured you’d be glad to see me.”
Bones wasn’t serious, Vinko could tell, but that made him feel toyed with, teased in front of Bones’s girlfriend or wife, whore or hooker. Bones had teased him plenty back at Boise State, nicknaming him Stinko as soon as he’d found out the quarterback was chilly toward any shade of skin darker than a tan line. Pretty soon, the whole school had picked up on it, the moniker following him right through graduation.
“You figured wrong. Get back in your car and get the hell out of here. And take Lugnut with you.”