The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [111]
In fact, Mary Patricia Foley had posted her own highly satisfactory recipe for French apple pie, along with a photo her elder son had taken with his Apple electronic camera. Doing so hadnt been so much a case of establishing a good cover as womanly pride in her own abilities as a cook, after spending an hour one night looking over the recipes others had put on this bulletin board. Shed tried one from a woman in Michigan a few weeks previously and found it okay, but not great. In coming weeks she wanted to try some of the bread recipes, which did look promising.
It was morning when Nomuri uploaded his e-mail to Pats Bakery, an entirely real and legitimate business three blocks from the statehouse in Madison, Wisconsin, as a matter of fact, owned by a former CIA officer in the Science and Technology Directorate, now retired and a grandmother who was, however, too young for knitting. Shed created this Internet domain, paying the nominal fee and then forgetting about it, just as shed forgotten nearly everything shed ever done at Langley.
"Youve got mail," the computer said when MP switched on her Internet mail service, which used the new Pony Express e-mail program. She keyed the download command and saw the originator was cgoodjadecastle.com. The username was from Gunsmoke. Marshal Dillons crippled sidekick had been named Chester Good.
DOWNLOADING, the prompt-box on the screen said. It also gave an estimate for how long the download would take. 47 MINUTES … !
"Son of a bitch," the DDO breathed, and lifted her phone. She pressed a button, waiting a second for the right voice to answer. "Ed, better come see this … "
"Okay, honey, give me a minute."
The Director of Central Intelligence came in, holding his morning mug of coffee, to see his wife of twenty-three years leaning back, away from her computer screen. Rarely in that time had Mary Pat ever backed away from anything. It just wasnt her nature.
"From our Japanese friend?" Ed asked his wife.
"So it would seem," MP replied.
"How much stuff is this?"
"Looks like a lot. I suppose Chester is pretty good in the sack."
"Who trained him?"
"Whoever it was, we need to get his ass down to The Farm and pass all that knowledge along. For that matter," she added, with a changed voice and an upward look to catch her husbands eye, "maybe you could audit the course, honey-bunny."
"Is that a complaint?"
"Theres always room for improvement—and, okay, yes, I need to drop fifteen pounds, too," she added, to cut the DCI off before he could reply in kind. He hated when she did that. But not now. Now his hand touched her face quite tenderly, as the prompt screen said another thirty-four minutes to complete the download.
"Whos the guy at Fort Meade who put the Ghost programs together?"
"They contracted a game place—a guy at a game company, I guess," Mrs. Foley corrected herself. "They paid him four hundred fifty big ones for the job." Which was more than the Director of Central Intelligence and the Deputy Director (Operations) made together, what with the federal pay caps, which didnt allow any federal employee to make more than a member of Congress—and they feared raising their own salaries, lest they offend the voters.
"Call me when you have it downloaded, baby."
"Whos the best guy we have for China?"
"Joshua Sears, Ph.D. from U-Cal Berkley, runs the China desk in the DI. But the guy at NSA is better for linguistic nuances, they say. His names Victor Wang," the DCI said.
"Can we trust him?" MP asked. Distrust of ethnic Chinese in the American national-security apparatus had reached a considerable level.
"Shit, I dont know. You know, we have to trust somebody, and Wangs been on the box twice a year for the last eight years. The ChiComms cant compromise every Chinese-American we have, you know. This Wang guys third-generation American, was an officer in the Air Force—ELINT guy, evidently worked out of Wright-Patterson—and just made super-grade at NSA. Tom Porter says hes very good."
"Okay, well, let me see what all this is, then well