LANGLEY AND ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
Mark Flanagan slept badly the night before his first day as deputy to Assistant Deputy Director Denise Ford. There were circles under his eyes and a dull cast to his usual ruddy complexion. He didn’t like spying on colleagues, even when they were suspected of disloyalty to the agency. He looked out of place. He wore a gray suit instead of his usual rumpled tweed jacket and khaki pants. He didn’t know where to park. He went to the old Headquarters building instead of the new one. On the elevator, he couldn’t remember the names of two S&T colleagues he’d known for twenty years.
Flanagan had been assigned a small office just down the hall from Ford’s. When he unlocked the door, he found a little stack of books on his chair and a note from his new boss. “To get you started,” she had written. The books were about computing. The two on top looked almost accessible: Quantum Computing Since Democritus and Schrödinger’s Killer App: Race to Build the World’s First Quantum Computer. The rest were textbooks, filled with algorithms and equations that Flanagan couldn’t have read even when he was an engineering student at Cornell.
Denise Ford rapped on his door thirty minutes after he arrived, while he was setting up his computer profile. She might have been a middle-aged professor at a smaller Ivy League school, better dressed than her colleagues; the spark of intelligence in her eyes but a wariness, too. She was carrying two cups of coffee. She handed one to Flanagan.
“Settling in?” she asked.
“Totally,” he said, casting off his weariness. “I’ll have to brush up on my math and physics, though.” He nodded at the pile of books.
She picked up the top book in the stack and leafed through its diagrams of quantum rabbits and coins that were in two positions at once.
“I warned you I’m a quantum computing freak,” she said. “The world is about to be turned upside down. That’s why I left the books. So you can prepare.”
Flanagan took a sip of his coffee. How was he supposed to respond to that? He had been briefed about his mission by Miguel Votaw, the deputy director of the FBI, who had offered some general guidelines: Flanagan should shadow his new boss, monitor who she was visiting and calling, and report any sign that she might be planning to flee. He should pay particular attention to any activities that involved quantum computing, on which, it was believed, she was focusing her espionage on behalf of China.
Flanagan was perplexed. He had assumed that his target would be elusive. But here she was, on his first day in the office, confiding—no, advertising—her interest in the very topic that the investigators thought was most sensitive. Flanagan dangled a question.
“How did you get so interested in quantum computing? That’s more an NSA and IARPA thing, right? S&T is still the gadget shop, not the computer science lab.”
She took a seat on the arm of Flanagan’s guest chair. She wasn’t resisting his inquiry. She wanted to talk.
“I couldn’t avoid it! Part of my job is reviewing IC paperwork that doesn’t interest Grayson. And these quantum projects are everywhere. I just visited one last week in Seattle with Kate Sturm. I wanted to know everything about it because of all the other work we’re approving.”
“Was it interesting?”
“Fascinating! Maybe I overdid it, asking questions. But I want to, you know, spread the gospel. This stuff is important. My only worry is that with so many projects going black, we’ll kill the science.”
She was laying an alibi. That was Flanagan’s first thought, listening to her explain her interest in quantum computing. All these conversations could be cited later by a lawyer, if it ever came to that.
Flanagan kept the ball in play.
“There’s no way to stop stuff going black, is there? I mean, that’s what we do.”
“But it’s stupid. When we put things in compartments, it’s like trying to suck up the ocean with a soda straw. Quantum mechanics isn’t an intelligence compartment. It’s life. It’s the way the universe operates. We can’t own it. That would be like trying to own the air.”
She stopped, pushed a strand of her auburn hair off her forehead, and took a breath.
“Oh, well,” she said. “Don’t mind me. I do my job. If they say it’s black, fine, into the box it goes. But sometimes . . . .”
“Sometimes what?”
She laughed and flipped into a different gear.
“Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey. Did you ever read that? I did, in college. Wonderful book.”
“You were talking about quantum computing?”
“Was I? Maybe so. Well, I have to go to work. There’s a world out there, waiting for the competent woman. That’s what my father always said. How wrong was that? What are you doing later this week?”
“Nothing. I mean, anything. What did you have in mind?”
“How about a field trip? I have to go to California to talk to some of our grantees. They’re in the quantum space, too. They took government money, and now they’re unhappy about disclosure rules. I have a little rebellion on my hands. It’s one I sympathize with, but don’t tell anyone that. The thing is: I need a wingman. Grayson won’t come. Why not you? Come on! It’s a great boondoggle.”
Flanagan played coy. “I don’t know. I just got here. Where is it?”
“I’m meeting the scientists in Newport Beach. It’s ridiculously beautiful. I need some company, even if he’s an old has-been from S&T. Come on: You can listen to the rebels.”
“What’s the rebellion?” pressed Flanagan. “What are the scientists upset about?”
“Us! The government. They think we’re trying to fence off the world. Sometimes I think they may be right, but I’m a softie. That’s why I need an agency veteran to come along. To keep me inside the chalk lines.”
“Chalk on your cleats,” said Flanagan with a laugh. It was a line that had been used by a former CIA director. She was brilliant. All this talk about openness and sharing. She had made him as an informer the moment he walked in the door. She was weaving her tapestry of defense. Either that or she was innocent.
“Are you sure it’s wise for me to go?” asked Flanagan. He worried that he was falling into a trap, racing off with her to a meeting on the subject about which she was supposedly stealing government secrets.
“What a silly question. Of course, it is. We’re just doing our jobs.”
John Vandel nodded appreciatively several times when Flanagan recounted the conversation with Ford and her travel invitation. They met that night at the hideaway office on North Glebe Road.
“She’s good,” he said.
“What do you want me to do? I can bail on the trip.”
“Hell no. Fly out to the coast with her. Keep her talking. She’ll make a mistake, eventually.” He paused and shook his head.
“Smart lady,” said Vandel. “Her family were screwballs, from what I hear. But they weren’t traitors.”
Flanagan got up to leave, but Vandel, usually so quick to adjourn a meeting, was staring into space. He looked preoccupied. He hadn’t moved even when Flanagan was punching out on the cyber-lock.
“Anything wrong, boss?” asked Flanagan, turning back. “Something I can help with?”
Vandel came out of his bleak reverie. He waved his hand, dismissively.
“No big deal. Harris is late coming home from Mexico. He sent me a cable. I don’t know what to make of it.”
Flanagan had talked briefly with Chang before his trip. Chang had wanted advice on resisting interrogation, if it came to that.
“Is Harris alright? He said he was meeting a Chinese woman in Mexico City. What happened? I hope they didn’t mess with him.”
“No. That’s just it. Harris says nothing happened. He says every thing’s fine. An MSS man just talked to him for a few hours up in the mountains. He sent me an ops cable, but there’s nothing in it, really. That’s not like him. He’s usually meticulous.”
“How can I help?” asked Flanagan.
“Harris will be home tomorrow. After I debrief him, you should go see him. He likes talking to you. Find out what the hell happened to him in Mexico. I get nervous when people tell me that everything’s fine.”
Vandel remained seated, head in hands, after Flanagan let himself out the door. He was trying to put himself into the mind of someone else. Not Harris Chang, or even Denise Ford, but Li Zian, the Minister of State Security.