The Leviathan Effect (20 page)

Quinn managed to speak into the microphone as the water prepared to receive them: “Caught in a tornadic downdraft … not sure what we’re seeing … faces … figures … structural failure … something huge … waves … not getting out of this.”

D
R
. J
AMES
W
U
listened to the final transmission from Captain David Quinn and he felt his arms break out in goose bumps. He’d been monitoring the stream of data coming in from the hurricane hunter plane every thirty seconds and had no idea what might have gone wrong.

Dr. Wu knew and admired David Quinn. He had worked with him for two years at the University of Colorado. Later, he had flown with Quinn into two North Atlantic hurricanes. He’d felt comfortable calling him to ask a question or to share a story. Had even visited Quinn and his family at their home in North Carolina’s Outer Banks once for a weekend. Dr. Wu did not much believe in religion. But sometimes, he prayed anyway. This was one of those times.

Afterward, Dr. Wu picked up his phone and called the Oval Office. “I need to talk to the President,” he said to Gabriel Herring. “Directly,” he added. “And as soon as possible. I’m sure he’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

P
RETENDING NOT TO BE
doing so, Charles Mallory took a quick inventory of Catherine Blaine as he approached the treadmills: hair up, clasped in back; high cheekbones; determined eyes; long legs in black tights.

She turned, caught his eye and gave him a slow smile. Mallory waved. He was dressed in the only set of workout clothes he’d brought: cutoff sweat pants, a wrinkled charcoal gray T-shirt, and basketball shoes.

“Taken?”

“Nope.”

He stepped onto the treadmill next to hers and began running. It took him a few strides to figure it out and a few more to find his rhythm.

“I met you years ago, didn’t I?” she said.

“You did.”

“You remember.”

“Of course.”

Mallory looked at her again. He knew a little about Blaine. Her dad had been a military man, a general, her mother a teacher of some kind. She was not someone he imagined would ever want the job she now held. Not in a million years. She was smart, tough and self-protective, he could tell, driven by an altruistic sense of purpose—although he wondered what that purpose was, exactly.

He noticed one other thing: she was in good shape, better than he was.

Blaine’s Achilles heel, supposedly, was loyalty. Her father had been
a three-star general who was retired now, living on the beach in South Carolina. Maybe North Carolina. She had set high standards for herself, but also nurtured a stubborn rebellious streak.

Was it a coincidence that she would be contacting him now? Possibly. But Mallory had always been suspicious of coincidences.

“You were part of a committee on cyber security,” he said. “You came to Langley to question a group of us. We were in a conference room on the sixth floor. It was 2006, I think. Our group was not terribly receptive. I was working for Richard Franklin then. Special Projects.”

“Yes.”

“He’s in prison now.”

“I know. You had something to do with that.”

“Mmm hmm. You talked with me afterward.”

“I did.” Blaine looked at him quickly. Occasionally, her green eyes took on a wild, impatient look, which he kind of liked.

“I could tell you weren’t happy with your committee.”

She said nothing.

“Or with us.”

“I wasn’t.”

They ran for a while in silence, then Mallory said, “Why here, by the way?”

“What?”

“Why meet here?”

“Oh.” Blaine laughed to herself. “I made a request when I took this job. I didn’t want security people with me around the clock. I asked that I be allowed two instances when I’m not watched—when I work out in the mornings and when I meet with my son. It makes him very nervous. To my surprise, they agreed.”

“They’re outside, though.”

“Oh, I’m sure. They park on the street outside my house, too, at night. All night long. It’s okay.” She looked at her distance on the monitor. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.”

“I think I need the workout, actually.”

Blaine glanced over. “Aren’t you curious why I called??”

“I guess I should be.” He waited, then said, “Am I supposed to ask a question now?”

Blaine ran several beats in silence. “Any conversation we have has to be in confidence, though.”

“What conversation?”

She smiled and ran through another silence, Mallory trying to keep pace. “I guess I’m just sort of looking for an opinion on something at this point,” she said finally.

“Okay,” he said. “Should I give you one now, or do you want to suggest a topic first?”

“A topic,” she said. “A matter has come to my attention that I thought you might know something about.”

“All right,” he said. “I’m leery, though, about getting involved in any conversation that contains the phrase ‘a matter has come to my attention.’ ”

Blaine didn’t respond. She looked straight ahead, and seemed to run a little harder. “Sorry,” he said.

“We’re trying to find someone.”

“Okay. Someone I know?”

“Someone you know about. Or
knew
about.”

“Okay.”

“A former Chinese military officer named Xiao-ping Chen.”

“Oh.” He felt her looking at him. “Janus,” he said.

“Yes.”

Mallory slowed his pace slightly. “Why would you want to find him now?”

“Well, I can’t really go into details. But, hypothetically, based on what you know, where would you look if you wanted to find him?”

“Where would I look?” Mallory gazed across the gym at the television monitor: a bumper-to-bumper stream of traffic leaving a barrier island somewhere ahead of Hurricane Alexander. “I wouldn’t,” he said.

“No? Why?”

“I mean, there’d be no reason. He’s been inactive for many years, as you probably know.” He glanced at her, saw the steady expression. Added, “You’re implying he’s not inactive anymore?”

“Would that surprise you?”

“It would.”

“Why?”

“Because. He wouldn’t have any reason to get back in it.”

“Isn’t that what people do? They come back?”

“Some do. The wiser ones move on. They find something else.”

“And you’d put him in that category.”

“I would.” For a while, Mallory thought that he
had
known Xiaoping Chen. A man who had betrayed the American intelligence community. One of the government’s mistakes, long since covered up. He had warned Richard Franklin about Janus and his boss had largely disregarded him. The Agency had been
betting
on Janus. Franklin in particular.

“In the comic books,” Mallory added, “the bad guys always make comebacks. But not in real life. He’s a computer hacker, not a serial killer.”

“What if he needed money?”

“Not likely.”

“You seem pretty certain.”

“I am. I’m not thinking about what he did, I’m thinking about who he is. Frugal and socially uneasy. A man who did what he did because he planned to fade away. And to do so on his own terms. I kind of understand that, actually.”

“He’s not someone who would have any interest in retaliation? Who might hold a vendetta against the United States government, let’s say?”

“No.”

“Or who might work for someone who did?”

“No, not likely. But I’ll tell you what: I could give you much better information, and help you a lot more, if you told me why you’re asking about him.”

“I’m sure you could,” Blaine said. A faint glaze of sweat shone on her face. “I wish I was able to tell you everything. But, unfortunately, I can’t.”

“That’s too bad.”

Mallory knew that it would be a challenge getting her to open up. Blaine was loyal and careful. He decided not to say anything for a while. Besides, he was getting tired, and talking had become increasingly difficult.

Afterward, they sat on a green, paint-chipped wooden bench against the cinderblock wall. Mallory watched a young, heavyset woman lifting weights across the room. He counted seven other people working out.

“You do realize that something’s wrong with what you’re telling me, though,” he said. “I mean, I hope you realize that.”

“But I’m not telling you anything.” Blaine looked at him and laughed quickly. “I’m asking questions.”

“No, you’re telling me a lot, actually. You’re telling me that the government has been receiving threats of some sort from Janus, or, more likely, someone claiming to be Janus.” He glanced at her, saw her raise her eyebrows subtly, the equivalent of a nod, it seemed. “Meanwhile, there have been vague reports in the media over the last couple of days that someone’s been hacking into secret government websites and/or computer networks. Possibly threatening an attack on the nation’s SCADA network. The power grid.” Blaine’s eyes were watching his in the mirror now, he saw. “We both know that’s not likely. So the stories are probably false. Or incomplete. But they must have some basis in truth. Right? Therefore, there must be some sort of high-level hacking going on. But different from what’s being reported.”

Mallory took a deep breath, and glanced at his own reflection. “Using the name Janus would surely get your attention. I’m just guessing here, but if I were to speculate, I’d imagine that the threat you’re dealing with has something to do with the weather. And I sense it’s something fairly substantial.”

He finally looked at her reflection. She was suppressing a smile, he was pretty sure. Seeing him notice, she began to stretch out her right calf, then her left.

“And why would you think that?” she said.

“Is that a yes?”

“To which question?”

“All of the above.”

Blaine inhaled slowly. “I just wish I could comment.”

“Me, too,” he said. “The problem with Janus,” he went on, “is that this isn’t his MO. He wouldn’t be doing it this way. Also, there’s a distinct possibility that Janus is no longer alive.”

“Really,” she said, a new interest rising in her tone. She stopped stretching.

“Really. But inserting Janus into this—whatever ‘this’ is—would serve a purpose. It shifts attention to China. And to the Chinese military.”

“Yes, I know. But from where?”

Now Mallory smiled.
Shrewd
. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“Do you have a guess?”

“Not now. But if you were to provide me with just a little more information, I could probably give you a reasonably educated one.”

“Let me think on that.”

“Sure.” Mallory stood. He could tell that Blaine
was
thinking on it. Uncomfortable with the set-up and probably wanting an ally, as she had years before. But she was also beholden to protocol and law. It was probably something she wrestled with every day.

“It’s funny about this conversation, isn’t it?” Mallory said.

“Is it?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Why is it funny?”

“We’re doing exactly what the United States’ intelligence community does, aren’t we? We’re demonstrating its weakest link.”

“How so?”

They were walking toward the locker rooms now.

“This conversation we’re having. This sort-of conversation. I know something you want to know. And I suspect you know something I want to know. But neither of us is going to tell the other. Because of territorial concerns, on your part. On my part, I guess, just because of pure stubbornness.” Blaine creased her brow. “That’s been the story of US intelligence for the past thirty or forty years, hasn’t it? Then when someone recognizes that a problem exists, rather than try to fix it by opening up channels of communication, they enlarge the problem, creating a new agency to coordinate the other agencies. Like yours.”

She laughed a genuine laugh—easy, robust, surprising—which Mallory immediately considered a small victory. But she quickly turned serious again as they came to the entrance. “The trouble is, I’m bound by law from divulging classified information.”

“I know. A shame.”

“Yes, it is. I just wanted to hear your thoughts. If you’d like to share any others, though, I’d be glad to talk again.”

Mallory said nothing. He sensed that there were other ways in, just not today.

“Anyway, I’m going to hit the showers,” Blaine said. She reached to shake.

“Just keep your options open.” He pulled the business card
he’d brought from his pocket, a little worse for wear. “Here’s my number.”

“Okay.” She smiled. “And I will.”

T
HE FACT WAS
, Charles Mallory had begun to sense that something was going on even before Chaplin had contacted him. Sensed it like a subtle, irrevocable shift in the weather; unusual patterns beginning to interact in ways that he could feel without having any idea what they meant, where they came from, what they might become. There had been the unanswered messages from Langley. The media reports about cyber-security breaches. Then the emails from his brother. The list of names, and now Blaine contacting him. Converging forces, not yet forming a coherent pattern. But they would.

It wasn’t his business, of course, nor was it his responsibility, to try to figure out any of this. Except that it now involved his brother; that changed everything. So Mallory had begun working the puzzle in his head, knowing that he needed more information before it began to make sense. He thought of people who might be able to help him. People like his friend Patricia Hanratty, the former intel analyst who had worked on Project Cloudcover. In part it was a game, like working a crossword. Something he kept going back to, finding that each new combination made the earlier clues easier to figure. Blaine had just given him a lot more. As he pulled out his cell phone to call Chaplin, walking across the parking lot, he noticed that he had missed a call. And when he saw who it was, he sensed that he was about to learn another important piece. Patricia Hanratty had called back.

C
ATHERINE
B
LAINE SAW
the Suburban pull out behind her as she drove onto Wisconsin Avenue from the gym parking lot. Secret Service detail. Rain was still steaming off the pavement from the morning’s downpour and the air smelled of soaked lawns.