want a few minutes to think about it—”
“I’ve been thinking about it my whole life.”
* * *
Irlov encouraged him to show Rebecca bits of the app before he sold it so the deal wouldn’t come as a surprise. But the first time he mentioned it, she sighed like he’d said he was going to invent an electric-powered jetpack. Somewhere along the way she had decided he was a loser, and even the Tailored Access job hadn’t changed her mind. He didn’t say anything else until he told her he was going to Vegas for a couple of days.
“You know the app? The casino thing?”
“Sure.”
He waited for her to ask more, if she could look at it. She didn’t. She pecked his cheek, turned out the light. She fell asleep almost instantly. Becks had always been a good sleeper. Absolute self-assurance was the best pillow.
He lay in the dark, listening to her breathe. Did he hate her?
He didn’t, he decided. But he hated what she’d done to him.
* * *
He’d thought the Russians would take it slow with the debriefs. He was wrong. In their second meeting after the Marriott, Irlov asked him about the NSA effort to break into the Russian military Internet. One of TAO’s crown jewels, a compartmentalized project called OAKLEAF. Brian hadn’t seen much. Irlov wasn’t pleased.
“Brian. We are honest with each other. In Bethesda, you say how much you want, I agree.”
“You haven’t paid me anything yet.”
“You think, Feodor, he doesn’t want to burn me, he won’t ask anything hard. It’s true, I want to protect you. But first I have to know you didn’t go running to your bosses, the Russians trapped me—”
“Not my style.”
Irlov nodded. “Yes, I agree. I don’t think you have the patience to triple. Too many lies to keep straight. I’m your mistress, what’s the point if you have to lie to the mistress? Enough lying to your wife, the mistress is for the truth.”
Brian had never quite thought of it that way, but okay, sure.
“So, I tell you the truth,” Irlov said. “I want to protect you, but I need to know you aren’t playing with us.”
“I’m not read in for OAKLEAF—”
“Okay, you tell me what you’re working on.”
“Right now we’re trying to crack this bank in this Chinese city called Xiamen—we think there’s a military satellite program for Iran the Chinese are funding through there—plus, there’s a laser company there we’re looking into—”
“Satellites and lasers. An offensive program? For Iran?”
“I don’t see the output, you know that. Only the questions we’re asking, the tools we’re using.”
Irlov nodded. “All right. And try finding out what you’re doing about Google now that Snowden messed everything up for you, told everyone how much access you have there. Start with that.”
“Two million dollars.”
“Yes.”
* * *
Brian still liked to cook after all these years. Rebecca was getting home in time to eat with the kids more often these days. Sometimes he wondered if she was planning a divorce, she wanted to be sure a judge wouldn’t think of her as an absentee parent.
He decided dinner would be the place to tell everyone.
“I sold my app.”
“What app?” Tony said.
“Your dad was writing something about Las Vegas,” Rebecca said.
“Casinos, the casino industry. Guess how much they paid.”
“I thought you were just watching porn all that time,” Kira said.
“Hot young teens.”
“Seriously, Dad, that is not funny,” Tony said.
“How much?” Rebecca asked.
Eyes on the prize, that’s my girl.
“Fifty thousand?” Kira said.
Brian lifted his thumbs.
“One hundred? Two hundred?”
“Two—”
“Two hundred thousand, Dad?” Tony said. “Not bad.”
“Two million.”
“Two million dollars?” Rebecca said. “For an app? Oh my God.”
“Been downloaded twenty-one thousand times already.” True. Nice trick from the Russians.
Rebecca came to him, hugged him, looked at him in a way she hadn’t since—he couldn’t even guess. Philly or maybe even Charlottesville. Her eyes proud and wanting, not the tired curdled lust of the last few years, I want what you can do for me, but the real thing, I want you.
She kissed him.
He almost laughed. All he’d needed to reclaim his manhood was two million dollars.
* * *
She didn’t question the windfall. Why would she? Brian thought. She was Rebecca Unsworth, and good things happened to her. Over the next year, they paid off the bills, bought a house, put money away for the kids to go to college.
* * *
Stealing the NSA’s secrets wasn’t easy. After the Snowden fiasco, the agency had tightened its audit trails. Nobody walked out with USBs anymore. Brian had to do more sitting back and