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“Go with the flow.”
Morgana frowned. “Go with…?” For a moment her alarm showed on her face. “Chaos.”
Soraya inclined her head. “In a manner of speaking, yes.” Her large, luminous eyes would not let Morgana go. “The brief is still of interest to you.”
It didn’t seem to be a question, nevertheless, Morgana answered. “It is.”
“Saying good-bye to your very ordered life.”
“I’m feeling claustrophobic. In a manner of speaking.”
“Also frustrated, I imagine.”
Morgana blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The bit of code General MacQuerrie sent you.”
Morgana opened her mouth to ask how Soraya knew about the piece of the cyber weapon but thought better of it. That she knew, reinforced Morgana’s decision.
“Frustration, too. Yes.”
Soraya favored her with a smile. “Then it’s settled.”
“Okay, but…go with the flow.” She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
“Not at this point, at any rate,“ Soraya said. “But, trust me, to tell you more would be a mistake.”
“All right.” It wasn’t all right, but what else could she say. “I do trust you.”
“Or else you wouldn’t be here.” Another slight pause. “Events will be moving quickly now. No matter. Do whatever you have decided to do. Do not alter a thing.”
“I understand.” Morgana cleared her throat again. “Is that all?”
“Just—”
“Go with the flow.” Morgana smiled now. “Got it.”
As she made to leave, Soraya said, “One more thing.”
Morgana raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”
“It’s highly likely that at some point you’ll think I’ve thrown you to the dogs.”
“But you haven’t.”
“Further along, you’ll be able to judge for yourself.”
There was a distinct note of finality in the comment. The interview was over.
—
Ten minutes later, Morgana showed her credentials to security. She might not be government, but there were enough occasions when she was required to be at HQ that Mac had had a Dreadnaught clearance created for her. No one inside NSA had ever heard of Meme LLC, and that was just the way both she and Mac wanted it. NSA was PURINT, pure intelligence, meaning surveillance was done from the remove of satellites, wires, remote chatter interceptors. No one in the field. Whereas the CIA dealt in HUMINT—human intelligence—agents in the field reporting back to their controls. Mac believed in PURINT; otherwise he wouldn’t have been in NSA. But he also believed in enforcement and interdiction intervention, hence his creation of Dreadnaught neatly hidden inside NSA. She was waved through, directed to park the car in Mac’s designated section of the lot.
Morgana was stopped at another security post just inside the front doors. Then she was required to put her handbag through an X-ray and to pass through a metal detector. Even after that she was patted down by a muscular, grim-faced woman who seemed to be channeling a prison guard.
When the woman’s hand rose to her crotch, Morgana said, “Try it” with such ferocity the woman froze. “Go on,” Morgana said. The woman shrugged, backed off, turning away as if she had more important things to do than fondle Morgana.
The vast lobby was deliberately intimidating—high-ceilinged, hard-walled, and filled with people on missions far more important than yours, whatever that might be. Morgana laughed to herself as she crossed to the bank of elevators.
Yet another security checkpoint reared its ugly head as soon as she stepped off at the fifteenth floor. Passing through without difficulty, she went down the thickly carpeted corridor, passing doors with only inscrutable designations in a number-letter code. Like an aircraft carrier, you had to know your way around the place in order not to get hopelessly lost.
Righteous fury was a deadly thing, she knew this. It was more likely to defeat you than to bring you victory. Nevertheless, it was righteous fury that had brought her from her station at Meme LLC to Dreadnaught’s door—designated NCN-113, for who knew what arcane reason.
Now, at the threshold, she paused not only to slow her heart rate down but to give equal consideration to rational thought. “Collect your thoughts,” her father used to tell her when she was a kid and would get flummoxed at school. “Put ’em all in a basket, then rummage around in there until you pick out the best one.” Damn, if it didn’t always work. But then everything her father taught her was of use to her later on as an adult. He was a twice-decorated former Navy SEAL. Everything he knew about guns, about knives, about hand-to-hand combat he taught her as furiously, as completely as if she were a boy. “I love that you take to your training like a fledgling to the air,” he said to her one balmy spring evening. And so did she. What would he think of her now? she wondered. Would he be proud of her or disappointed that she hadn’t taken the steps necessary to become a field agent? She’d never know; he’d died ten years ago in a fiery multiple-vehicle accident on the New Jersey Turnpike. Her mother lasted six weeks without him before something inside her—possibly her will to live—failed. Morgana was an orphan; nothing between her and the grave.
With the image of her father as teacher vivid in her mind’s eye, she collected her thoughts and drew out the best one, knowing that striding into Dreadnaught half-cocked—or, the way she had been feeling, fully cocked—was definitely not the way to get what she wanted.
And then another voice entered her consciousness: Events will be moving quickly now.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she turned the knob, pushed the door open, and found herself inside Dreadnaught.
Not that it looked much different than what she imagined any other office inside NSA would be like: there were programmers, analysts, many, many computer terminals, the massed whirr of small fans, like moths fluttering against a windowpane, and the hot, metallic smell of electronics firing away at full throttle.
No one spoke—all communication in this place was made through emails, IMs, texts—even in this day and age when, as Morgana knew better than most, all electronic communication was among the most insecure. NSA personnel maintained absolute faith in the imperviousness of their firewalls and anti-malware software. It was naïve, even childish, in Morgana’s view, but that was what came of investing yourself in quasi-religious beliefs. It was their hubris; she had no doubt it would be their downfall.
Heads popped up when she appeared. Nerds these guys might be, but they weren’t neutered—not yet, anyway. A young man rose from his workstation to intercept her. He was blond, blue-eyed, square-jawed, and as magnetic as a movie star of the fifties, a time of pink flesh and innocence. She imagined the smell of the corn husks he must have been born into. He didn’t disappoint her.
“Lieutenant Francis Goode. How may I help you, ma’am?” he inquired in that flat Midwestern accent she knew well.
Flashing him her creds, she said, “I have an appointment with Mac.”
“Who?”
“Ah.” That’s right; he wouldn’t know. “Your boss, Arthur MacQuerrie.” The blank face remained, affording her a moment of amusement before she pitched herself into the fray. “The general.”
His eyes narrowed, which made him look like a kid. “And what would your business be with General MacQuerrie?”
“I’m afraid that’s above your pay grade, Lieutenant. What are you, a GS seven?” She saw that she had struck pay dirt. “Far, far above.”
He scowled, which made him seem more handsome. But she could see that he was also intimidated. “Above your pay grade” was a trigger phrase that never failed to strike fear into the hearts of GS eights and below.
And then she thought, Why am I pissing on this guy? He’s been nothing but polite to me. So she smiled until his scowl melted like ice in sunlight. “My apologies, Lieutenant Goode, but need-to-know is need-to-know. I should have phrased it another way.”
He grinned hugely.
“No problem, ma’am.”
She matched the wattage of his smile, making it more than a veneer. “Call me Morgana.”
“I don’t think I can, ma’am.”
She ducked her head. She could be coquettish as well as the next doll—probably a whole lot better. She regarded Goode from under sooty lashes; men liked that. “Not even between us?”
“Well, I suppose…” He gave her a goofy grin, as if it were a present.
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“May I ask you a question?” And he hastily added, “It’s not about your appointment with General MacQuerrie.”
“Of course.” She nodded. “Fire away.”
“Do you really call the general ‘Mac’?”
She caused her laugh to be high and fluty, like a teenager’s. “Yes, Lieutenant, I do.” She raised a finger in mock warning. “But that’s only between you and me. If I go before a Senate subcommittee I deny all knowledge of the nickname.”
They chuckled together. He was on her side now.
“Hold on a moment,” he said. “The general has been in communications all day. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Morgana nodded as he turned away. Luck was with her. Mac could have been at the Pentagon or Capitol Hill or anywhere else, but he was right here where she needed him to be. And now she knew why he hadn’t answered any of her three calls.
It was only several minutes later that Goode returned and, with that innocent smile of his, ushered her back to Mac’s inner sanctum. He was going to see her even without an appointment—a sign of her worth to him, even though she had never been here before.
He was sitting at the far end of what looked like a football field, but that might have been an illusion caused by the eerie violet lighting that was part of the electronic security net that enclosed the space.
The lieutenant vanished as soon as Morgana stepped across the threshold, closing the door soundlessly behind him. Halfway to Mac’s imposing desk, which surely wasn’t government issue, was a conversation area, complete with matching leather sofas and easy chair and an inlaid glass-topped coffee table, also not government issue.
“Morgana,” Mac said, smiling and extending a warm, dry hand. “To what do I owe this visit?”
Someone must have cleaned up the remnants of the meeting or else it had taken place elsewhere, as the conversation area was spotless enough to eat off of. Mac gestured for Morgana to sit, which she did on one of the sofas. The general chose the easy chair. He sat back, crossed one leg over the other, showing off the knife-edged crease down the center of each trouser leg.
“I tried calling you, but—”
He spread his hands. “I wasn’t available.” And smiled. “But I am now. I’m all yours.”
“I appreciate that, Mac.”
“How are you coming with the Bourne Initiative?”
“You mean the Karpov Initiative.”
“The general’s dead, as we’ve discussed,” he said flatly. “It’s Bourne’s now.”
She nodded. “Right. Of course.” She swallowed, appalled to discover her mouth was suddenly dry. It was one thing talking to Mac over their private line or having lunch with him at one out-of-the-Beltway venue or other, quite another to be sitting in his office in the middle of the NSA wasp nest. She didn’t like it here; she didn’t like it one bit. She felt as if she were about to break out in hives at any moment. She scratched at her forearm.
“The fact is it’s Bourne I’m here to talk to you about.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand. How does Bourne concern you?”
“First, I want to know if you have even linked Bourne with Keyre.”
MacQuerrie grunted. “We have, and it’s simple enough. He was spotted last year in Moscow with a female operative known only as the Angelmaker. She’s a deadly assassin.”
“And?”
“And, the Angelmaker was made a freak of nature by Keyre, then Bourne somehow got hold of her and put the finishing touches on her assassin’s tradecraft. Just in the last five years, she’s been linked to the deaths of no fewer than eleven businessmen, politicians, and the like. A board member of a multinational in Munich, a diamond tycoon in Joburg, a warlord in one of those constantly fomenting African nations, a rising right-wing pol and his two mistresses in Paris, a reclusive cyber-billionaire in Manaus, in the fucking Amazon, no less. Then there was Palermo, where she took out twin brothers, one a Mafia don, the other his high-powered lawyer—that was a doozy. And let’s not forget the murder aboard a billionaire banker’s yacht off the beaches of Ibiza. How she pulled that off… Well, you get the idea. She’s a fucking menace and another reason Bourne needs to be eliminated.” He cocked his head. “Is there a second reason Bourne concerns you?”
Morgana ignored the hint of sarcasm in his question. “So far we have been unable to crack the code you gave us.”
Mac’s frown deepened. “That’s not good news.”
“No, it’s not.” Her forearm was itching again; she resolved to ignore it. “Which is why I want to interrogate Bourne.”
The general blinked. “I beg your pardon.”
“It’s now the Bourne Initiative. You said it yourself, Mac. He’s the only one who can give us access to the—”
“Let me stop you right there.” MacQuerrie held up a hand. “Morgana, you’re a terrifically talented software engineer. The cyber weapons you’ve devised for me, the ones you’ve managed to dismantle before they carried out their nefarious missions, are legion. You’re at the top of your field. But that field is a narrow-beam affair, do you understand me?” He went straight on, not waiting for a reply; she would have to be an idiot not to understand him. “Your expertise in one field does not qualify you as expert in any other.”
“I understand that, Mac, but—”
“This clandestine service—any clandestine service—is, by definition, highly compartmentalized. You understand why this must be.”
“Of course I do.”
“Then let me say you are not qualified to understand what Jason Bourne would or would not do. So allow me to enlighten you. A man like Bourne—if, in fact, we were ever able to capture him, which is highly problematic—would never give us the secret to this cyber weapon. Even if we used the most extreme forms of persuasion, even if we waterboarded him for—”
“Good God, Mac.” She was shaken to her core. “I would never encourage anything like that!”
He smiled thinly. “Of course you wouldn’t. And neither would I.”
“I’m relieved to hear that.”
He regarded her for a moment, as if he was in the process of reassessing her. “What you are asking is quite out of the question.”
He hadn’t yet mentioned the termination order he had given. Could she no longer trust Mac? Had they become adversaries in a weird form of cold war? Only one way to find out.
“I know.”
Mac shook his head. “Know what, precisely?”
“That you sent a team to kill Bourne—”
“What?”
“That the team blew up the boat he was on, only he wasn’t on it.”
“Morgana, I don’t—”
“Bottom line, Bourne is still alive. I want him.”
Color had rushed into Mac’s face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I need him, Mac. We need him if we’re to crack the Bourne Initiative, as you call it.”
“Morgana, I don’t understand. I did not order anyone to blow up a ship anywhere in the world.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that you have not put out a termination order on Jason Bourne?”
He spread his hands. “Why is a cyber jockey like you talking about termination orders?”
“You didn’t answer my question, Mac.”
The general sighed. “This is eyes-only intel, so…” He made a pained face as if he had a sweet in his mouth that had an unexpected sour core. “It was a Russian team that blew up the boat. General Karpov’s
boat. Out of sheer bloody-mindedness, I shouldn’t wonder. Nothing whatsoever to do with Bourne.” He seemed to swallow the sour taste. “Now. Stick to your patch of the woods, Morgana. That’s my advice to you.”
“You made Bourne my patch of the woods when you gave me my marching orders for this cyber weapon.”
“Then you misunderstood me.” He shrugged. “These things are bound to happen from time to time.”
He said this in such a condescending tone that she sat perfectly erect, as if coming to attention while seated. Her entire body tensed like a pulled bow string. She took a beat to reset. “You gave me the impression that this cyber weapon—the so-called Bourne Initiative—is your highest priority.”
He nodded. “And so it remains.”
“Then you can’t tie one arm behind my back. You have to give me all the tools I need to—”
“I have to? I don’t have to do anything.” The thunderclouds arrived with frightening swiftness. “Have you forgotten to whom you’re speaking? Not to be overly melodramatic, but, dammit, I set you up in your job, I made sure you got every damned piece of equipment you asked for, even your Italian coffee thingy.”
“Espresso maker,” she corrected foolishly.
He glared at her. “I can take it all away, including your fucking espresso maker.”
“And who will that hurt the most, General? Me or our country?”
“Morgana, Morgana, Morgana.” He shook his head, his expression now mournful. “It’s clear to me now that you have risen too far, too fast. You’ve reached the sun; your wings have melted. I gave you freedom. You mistook that freedom for power. You have no power, not now, not ever. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal clear, General.”
He rose, turned his back on her, returned to his seat behind his desk, picked up his phone and began to dial. “Get this done, Morgana,” he said, putting the receiver to his ear. “Or I’ll find someone else who will.”
Her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her hands were shaking, her knees felt like Jell-O, and her heart was on fire.
There is no one else, she wanted to tell him. But of course, this wasn’t true. There was no one else he knew of—but that wasn’t the same thing.
