but not remarkably so, especially given their dealings with U.S. intel folks. The rest was a matter of elision, shall we say."
"But the WEF security people wouldn't just take your word for it, would they?"
"Of course not. They called Langley, reached my office through the switchboard-that's standard, as I say, the callback procedure-and had a second discussion with my assistant. I gather he intimated things about how it would be a 'special favor' to the DCI and the Secretary of State, that sort of thing. Then he provides them a zero-knowledge pass code for purposes of verification. See, there's a system for limited-access intranet verification, developed for collaborative operations with other nations. Upshot is that they can get an abbreviated personnel listing a stub is the term-which provides C-level confirmation of what they've been told. My office then transmits a digital photograph for the security card-there's a JIS pic on file-and we're in like Flynn."
"You know, I almost understand what you just said." Ambler tilted his head. "But hang on. You agreed the security system here was foolproof."
"Pretty much foolproof, yeah. Do I look like a fool?"
"So can you do the same for me?"
"Um, let me think. Are you on the employee rolls at the CIA?" Caston's lids fluttered with a suppressed eye roll. "Do you have a personnel record with the Joint Intelligence Services division? If they call the switchboard at Langley to verify your employment and rank, what are they going to be told?"
"But-"
"Harrison Ambler does not exist," Caston snapped. "Or have you forgotten? Hate to be the one to break the news, but they erased you, all right? The World Economic Forum traffics in data, bits and bytes. It's a world of digital signatures, digital records, digital confirmation. I'd have an easier time getting a WEF security badge issued to Big-foot or Yeti or the goddamn Loch Ness Monster. They don't exist, either, but at least you can find them on the Internet."
"You finished?"
"My fear is, we're allfinished." Caston's eyes blazed. "All this time I figured you were holding back some grand scheme you had. The hell of it is, you're even more reckless than I'd imagined. You race pell-mell into a potential disaster area without a plan!
You don't think ahead-hell, you don't think, period. From the outset, our chances were between slim and none. Well, slim's just left the house."
Ambler felt as if the force of gravity had suddenly doubled; his limbs felt like lead. "Just break it down for me-tell me how the badge system is organized physically."
"You can't bullshit your way in, if that's what you're thinking," Caston grumbled. "And you can't get in by doing whatever the opposite of bullshitting is, that peephole-to-the-brain trick you do. The system is very simple, and damn near impossible to spoof." He unbuttoned his gray wool-and-polyester suit jacket-Ambler noticed a faint smell of mothballs about it-and showed them the identification badge he was wearing on a white nylon string around his neck. It was deceptively simple: a white plastic rectangle, with a photograph of Caston to the left of his name; there was a silvery square hologram below, a blue color stripe above. He turned it around, exposing the magnetic stripe on the back.
"Mine's the same," Laurel put in. "Doesn't look like much. Couldn't you just steal one and alter it?"
Caston shook his head. "When you enter, you swipe the card through a reader. The card encodes a digital signature that calls up a guest record from the computer. Now, that computer at the door has the most powerful kind of cyber-security you can ask for: it's 'air-gapped.' In other words, it's a stand-alone, not connected to the Internet, so you can't hack into it. And there's a guard stationed at a monitor, and every time a card is read, the name and photograph from the computer record get displayed on the screen. Point is, if you're not already in the computer, you're shit out of luck."
"That the technical term?"
"And then there's a metal detector you've got to pass through, like at the airport," Caston went on. "Jackets, keys, and such go through a conveyor belt."
"Enough to keep out an assassin?" Laurel asked.
"We're talking about someone who has been planning this for months, maybe longer," Caston replied. He glanced at Ambler. "You've got about two hours."
Ambler wandered over where Laurel had been standing and peered out the window into the gloomy afternoon again. Snow was drifting down, lazily but steadily.
What were his options? He felt a rising