of her AIS signal but they must have turned it off, because she wasn’t showing up on anybody’s radar. But about an hour ago, the ship’s signal popped up in the Gobi desert. Some joker must have pulled the box, put it on a plane, and then shipped it by camel out there just to shoot us a big middle finger.”
“That’s just great.” Jack took a long pull of his beer, lost in thought.
Clark saw the wheels grinding behind the younger man’s eyes. “So, what’s the plan now?”
“I’ve got something I’ve got to do. I gotta prove to myself I can keep a promise and not fuck it up.”
“Does Gerry know about this?”
“He knows I was planning on this trip before he sent me to Poland.”
“When do you plan on leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“A day down. A day there at most. A day back. Three days, tops.”
“You need any of us for backup?”
“No. This isn’t an op. It’s a favor for an old friend who died just two weeks ago. But I need to do it.”
“So you’ll do a friend a favor but you won’t do the right thing by your mom?”
“I just can’t talk about anything right now. I need to process it.”
“Makes sense. But you can still call her and tell her you’re okay and will see her in a few days.”
Clark had a way of making a suggestion into an order without seeming to.
Besides, he was right, Jack admitted to himself.
He would call his mom, then finalize his trip plans. A visit to the “Parsonage”—his dad’s name for the free public housing known as the White House—would have to wait until he settled his account with Cory and got his head screwed back on straight.
After that, he’d go hunting.
68
WASHINGTON, D.C.
It was late. Ed was fast asleep, and Mary Pat Foley’s raging headache only worsened as she reread Jesse Benson’s report freshly arrived over the digital transom fifteen minutes earlier.
She took no comfort in the realization that her instincts were spot on, but it had taken a CIA supercomputer with AI analytical software to confirm her gut sense with hard data.
Benson’s report took it one step further. He believed a fifth incident preceding the other four was part of the mix—the liquidation of a Chinese asset working in the quantum satellite program at Hefei.
The statistical analysis of the five attacks revealed a nearly imperceptible pattern. All five were connected to a single CIA comms satellite managed by the NRO. Access to this satellite was, in effect, access to the entire Western intelligence community—or at least, any communication that transmitted through this particular bird.
Equally disturbing was the company that put it into orbit: Elias Dahm’s SpaceServe. Even more troubling was the fact that its parent company, CloudServe, had secured the satellite’s connection to the IC Cloud. Clearly, they had dropped the ball.
But what to do about it?
The IC had moved all of its data and communications into the cloud in order to improve its cybersecurity. Now the cloud was proving to be the avenue of this particular security breach. Sounding the general alarm would put the entire IC Cloud program in jeopardy or, worse, put the IC itself into a general state of paralysis. The only way to prevent a flooding ship from sinking was to dog the doors between compartments in order to contain the damage to the smallest possible location and stop the flow of water.
The same would apply here. IC departments would want to lock down to prevent further data leakage, but that would defeat the purpose of the cloud—namely, to increase the flow of information throughout the community.
The other challenge was the lack of specific data. Benson’s analysis had strongly suggested—but not proved—that the comms satellite was the common link and therefore the “leak” in the system. But who was accessing the satellite? How did they do it? How long had it been going on? Did others have access? Were other satellites at risk? Was the Cloud/SpaceServe connection a coincidence? Was the satellite breached or the cloud itself?
A hundred other questions flooded her mind, but without specifics there was nothing actionable. If there was a leak in the boat, they had to find its exact location and determine its size in order to plug it.
Foley needed more information, and the best person to provide it was the head of the IC Cloud security team, Amanda Watson. Watson had made a hell of an impression on Foley: a smart, patriotic young woman who was