Will stopped his rental car and checked his watch. He exited the vehicle and stood on Sycamore Road in Baltimore’s desirable Cedarcroft residential district. He wore a British-purchased Gieves & Hawkes suit and a raglan overcoat, and he carried in one pocket an American-lent Beretta M9A1 pistol. He pulled up the collar of his coat to help shield against the icy early-morning rain and then thrust his hands into the pockets. He could see fourteen spacious houses on this two-hundred-meter-long road, and the house he needed was toward the end of the route. He lowered his head and walked quickly forward. Within a minute he was standing before a Dutch Colonial–style building. He rang the bell. A man opened the door, and Will instantly kicked him in the stomach, then stepped over the man’s shuddering body. He closed the door behind him and listened. There were no other noises coming from inside the large family home.
Will returned to where the man lay and crouched. He placed a hand around the man’s jaw and said commandingly, “Breathe.” Then he stood, ignoring the man’s moans, and walked through the front foyer and into a large kitchen. He turned and walked back to the man. He gently cradled a hand under the man’s head, pulled him through to the kitchen area, and placed him on the floor but in a seated position. The man wheezed, clutching his hands against his chest.
Will sat on the floor next to him. He prodded the man’s forehead and asked, “Has Hubble been compromised?”
The man inhaled deeply several times and then shook his head. “Whoever you are, go to hell.”
Will crossed his legs and interlocked his fingers. “A silly response.”
The man held a hand up to his mouth as if he were going to vomit. He screwed his eyes shut, and his breathing began to slow. Then he removed his hand and looked at Will. “If I don’t report in to work, armed men will come looking for me.”
“Because you’re a senior NSA officer?” Will smiled. “I doubt that anyone will come, but if someone does, then I’ll kill him just after I’ve killed you.”
The NSA officer shook his head again. “Who sent you?”
Will leaned back against the breakfast table. “Well, you can probably tell from my accent that it’s unlikely I work for one of your agencies.”
“Then how do you know about Hubble?” The man’s breathing seemed to be recovering from Will’s blow.
“Because you stupidly send Hubble reporting to everyone you deem to be an ally.”
The man took his hands away from his chest. “I doubt you’re my ally.”
Will grinned. “Maybe not. But I represent an affiliation of intelligence interests who are allies of Hubble’s insight. And we think you have a problem.”
The officer’s eyes narrowed. “You’d be crazy to think I’d tell you anything about how we get Hubble intelligence.”
“I’m not here to learn about Hubble itself. I’m simply here to ascertain whether you believe that Hubble reporting has been corrupted during the last fourteen days.” Will glanced around the kitchen and saw two used adult-size and two child-size cereal bowls beside the sink. He then looked back to the man. He hated the lie he was about to speak. Yet he knew that it was vital. “And I’m prepared to stay here with you all day to get my answer. But I swear to you that I will shoot dead the first person who interrupts our little chat.”
The man said nothing.
Will nodded. “I know how important the Hubble operation is to you personally. After all, the inspiration and the technology behind the Hubble technical attack was yours. As a result, Hubble has quite rightly given you praise and promotion within the National Security Agency. So”—he opened his hands and drummed his fingers on his leg—“it must be difficult for you to accept that your greatest achievement has been identified by hostiles and manipulated to their advantage.”
The officer sat in silence for nearly one minute. Then he, too, glanced over at the sink area before looking back at Will. He closed his eyes a little, rubbing a hand over his belly. He shook his head. “Two weeks ago we did start receiving a new stream of reporting from the Hubble source. Over the course of a few days, it became clear to me that the style of these new reports was nearly identical to the old stuff, but with content that was forcing us to chase after bomb plots across the West without results. I formed the opinion that someone had breached Hubble and was feeding us false information.”
“How could that happen?”
The man peered at him before repeating, “I won’t tell you how we get Hubble intelligence. Whatever you think you can do, my masters will be able to do worse to me if I betray Hubble.”
“I understand, but hear me out. What would you say if I told you that a person or persons unknown had discovered a technical attack against Iranian military communications and other data systems, that the person then realized that his operation to strike a massive blow against the West had been discovered, that the man then decided that instead of shutting down the breach he would manipulate it in order to try to cast doubt over his operation, that the man then manipulated Hubble by sending certain e-mails, making certain telephone calls, and sending certain text messages? You don’t have to tell me about Hubble, but what would you say in response to my little hypothesis?”
The man lowered his head and said nothing.
Will smiled and pushed himself up from the floor. “Then that’s all I need to know.”
The NSA officer looked up at him. His eyes had watered. “You’re wrong about one thing. When I decided we had a breach, I immediately brought it to the attention of my superiors. But it was them, not me, who decided to ignore it.”
“Why would they do that?”
The man sighed. “My Hubble operation is as comprehensive as it gets. The breach accounts for less than one percent of the Hubble attack. The rest remains intact and undiscovered. The NSA decided that to do anything about the breach would compromise the whole setup. So they chose to ignore it in order to save the wider operation.”
“But why then distribute the reports from the breach when you know them to be false?”
The man shrugged. “Our intelligence customers believe wholeheartedly in the Hubble project because we tell them it’s completely accurate. For us to withhold any of its reporting could prompt them to question the entirety of it.” He smiled a little, but the look on his face seemed bitter. “Hubble alone has secured an extra two hundred million dollars of funding for the NSA this year.”
Will nodded. “I see.” He observed the man for a moment before speaking again. “You will go to work now and make sure that the breach continues to go unchallenged. You will also ensure that NSA never learns about our conversation this morning.” He glanced one last time around the kitchen before looking back at the NSA officer. He thought the man seemed honest and honorable, like a decent father and husband who didn’t deserve to be threatened in the way that Will had been forced to do to him on this day. He hated the actions he often had to take and the lies he often had to speak. He pointed at the man. “Do this, and you and your loved ones get to live. Fail, and everything you love will die.”