Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [86]
“That certainly doesn’t rule out your friend Kirilenko.”
“He’s not my friend,” Annika said sharply. “I hate his guts.”
“Part of a long line, I gather.” Jack nodded. “Look, he’s heading toward the airport facilities.”
“I wonder what he’s up to?” Annika said.
“Let’s find out.”
Jack rose, and the others with him. Staying within the clots of people, they followed Kirilenko as he entered a corridor with doors on either side. Hanging back, they saw him open a door on the left, halfway down the corridor, and as he went inside, they hurried along toward it.
“He’s gone into the CCTV control room,” Annika said.
“What does that mean?” Alli asked.
“He’s going to look at the closed-circuit video tapes of arrivals and departures,” Annika said.
“I’m willing to bet he has photos of us.” Jack rubbed his jaw meditatively. “We must have been picked up on the cameras at Zhulyany Airport in Kiev.”
Annika took an involuntary step back. “Which means he’s recognized me and has photos of the two of you.”
“Alli’s disguised,” Jack said, “but do you think he knows who I am?”
“Doubtful,” Annika said. “But even so it won’t take long for him to discover who you are.”
Jack eyed the closed door. “Then we’ll have to stop him from finding out.”
DENNIS PAULL had been staring at his computer for nine hours straight, scrolling through one restricted database after another in search of a chink in the cabinet members’ red, white, and blue armor. His bladder was full and he felt as if all the low-grade mozzarella he’d consumed had congealed in the pit of his stomach like a bocce ball. Pushing himself away from the screen, he rose and stumbled into the bathroom to relieve himself.
When he returned to his battle station he saw that a new piece of information had popped onto his screen. He’d just used his cursor to copy it when it vanished. Switching windows, he brought up a new Word document into which he deposited—he hoped, he prayed—what he’d snagged off the database. An instant later two lines of enciphered words appeared on a field of pristine white, followed by an echelon code Paull knew belonged to General Atcheson Brandt.
For a moment he stared at the gibberish, trying to place the cipher pattern, which seemed familiar to him. Then he had it: It was a particular NSA cipher used exclusively for Eyes-Only interdepartmental communications on its cell phones.
Switching to another Firefox tab, he logged on to the Department of Homeland Security site, then, using his proprietary ID code, accessed his department’s algorithm database. Once there, he fed the two lines of enciphered text into the algorithm engine, hit the Enter key, and sat back, waiting for the database to find the algorithm that would decipher the message Brandt had just sent.
While he waited he thought about the choices he’d made in his life, the people he had had to befriend, rely on, depend on, even though he knew that at some point, if the opportunity arose, they would betray him or denounce him in order to advance their own career path. With the possible exception of Edward Carson he was surrounded by a pack of sharks all too eager to take a chunk out of him the moment they smelled blood in the water, or even before, in some cases. And yet he’d gone ahead and forged these alliances, even, when the occasion demanded it, putting himself in these people’s debt. He forced himself not to see what he didn’t want to see, what would otherwise stop him from doing what had to be done in order to rise to his position of power within the current administration.
Was there nothing people like General Brandt wouldn’t do to gain power, he asked himself rhetorically. Was there really no line that these people—he among them—wouldn’t cross to keep accumulating power?
A moment later he had his answer. The two lines of gibberish were replaced by the deciphered text: XEX ANNIKA DEMENTIEVA AND JACK MCCLURE.
Jesus, he thought as he ran a trembling hand through his hair. Jesus Christ. At first he thought it must be a