Chương 5
“It was not public.”
“Apparently it was public enough for everyone except you.”
Rachel did laugh then, once. The sound startled both of them.
Caroline rubbed her thumb against her index finger.
“My father was going to recommend Daniel for a competitive assignment,” she said. “Daniel knew that.”
“I assumed.”
“I thought he liked me.”
“He may.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“No.”
They stood beneath an air vent that clicked every few minutes. Someone in the kitchen rolled a metal cart across tile. The ordinary sound made the ballroom feel briefly like any rented hall after a wedding had gone badly.
Caroline looked toward Daniel.
“Did he really take your operation?”
Rachel considered the question.
“He took the version of it that could be printed.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the important parts were classified. He knew I couldn’t correct him in public.”
“And tonight?”
“Tonight he brought the classified parts into public.”
Caroline’s face tightened. “Why would he do that?”
“To prove the story he had already told.”
Daniel was released from the ballroom at two eleven in the morning under orders not to access government systems, contact potential witnesses, or leave the installation area without permission. His promotion packet, phone, and personal laptop were retained. He left in a staff car because investigators took possession of his vehicle to search it under the consent provisions he had accepted after speaking with counsel.
Victoria went with him.
Before entering the car, she looked back at Rachel across the circular drive.
Warm ballroom light spilled through the high windows behind her. The white flowers inside were being thrown into black trash bags.
Victoria said nothing.
Rachel remained at Fort Kingston until dawn.
The investigators asked the same questions in slightly altered forms. Who had first known about the operational report? When had Daniel gained access? Had Rachel ever given him her password? Had she taken notes home? Had the couple shared devices? Had classified discussions occurred in their residence?
“No,” she said to the last question.
Then, after a pause, “Not intentionally.”
The agent looked up.
Rachel described the night in Landstuhl when she had awakened from a medication-heavy sleep and spoken fragments of the extraction while Daniel sat beside her. She did not know how much she had said. She remembered the recorder on the table but had assumed it belonged to the medical review team.
“Was the recorder government-issued?” the agent asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see him activate it?”
“No.”
“Did you consent to being recorded?”
“I don’t remember.”
That answer followed her out of the building.
At six twenty, she sat in her car in the nearly empty parking lot and found one of Daniel’s old coffee cups in the rear holder. The paper had softened around the rim. His name was written as DAN with an unnecessary smile under it.
She should have thrown it away months earlier.
Instead she carried it to the nearest trash can, discovered the liner had been removed, and stood there holding the cup while a grounds employee drove past on a small utility cart.
“Morning,” he called.
Rachel looked at the ruined ballroom flowers piled behind him.
“Morning.”
She took the cup back to the car.
Her director called before she reached the gate.
Evelyn Shaw had spent twenty-four years in intelligence work without learning to sound gentle, though occasionally she attempted it.
“Are you secure?” she asked.
“I’m alone in my car.”
“Then you are not secure. Drive to the annex.”
“I’ve been awake all night.”
“Have someone drive you.”
“There is no one here.”
A pause.
“Stay where you are.”
“I can drive.”
“That was not an invitation to debate.”
Rachel rested her forehead against the steering wheel.
Forty minutes later, a government sedan arrived. Shaw was in the back seat, still wearing the navy suit from the previous day. She stepped out carrying two coffees and a paper bag.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“So do you.”
“I’m older. It’s less interesting.”
She handed Rachel the bag. Inside was a dry blueberry muffin.
Rachel looked at it. “You remembered.”
“I read your emergency file.”
“My muffin preference is not in my emergency file.”
“It should be. You’re impossible after low blood sugar.”
Rachel ate half before speaking again.
Shaw watched the installation gate. “The report recovered from the packet is authentic.”
“I know.”
“It includes the restricted annex.”
“I saw the cover sheet.”
“The print mark traces to a secure review room at Fort Belden. It was generated eleven days ago under a temporary authorization assigned to your husband.”
Rachel stopped chewing.
“He had an authorization?”
“For a sanitized record review supporting his promotion citation. Someone widened the permissions for twenty-three minutes.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“He couldn’t do that himself.”
“No.”
“Then he had help.”
“Yes.”
Shaw sipped her coffee.
Rachel looked at her. “You’re not surprised.”
“I am past the age when surprise improves my work.”
“You knew there was an access problem before last night.”
“I knew there was an anomaly. I did not know a restricted annex had left the facility.”
“You let me walk into that ballroom.”
“I told you not to confront him.”
“You told me not to discuss the audit.”
“That is not the same sentence.”
“It was close enough.”
Shaw’s mouth tightened. “You chose to go.”
Rachel looked down at the muffin in her hand.
There it was: the simple fact beneath every institutional failure. Someone had warned her. She had gone anyway.
“I thought he might tell me the truth,” she said.
Shaw waited long enough that Rachel regretted speaking.
“About the report,” Rachel added.
“Of course.”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Shaw set her coffee on the roof of Rachel’s car. “Your clearance is not suspended. Your operational access is temporarily limited because you are both a reporting official and a material witness. You will not participate in the technical investigation.”
Rachel stared at her.
May you like
“How limited?”
“You remain deputy director. You do not access Six-Delta records without written authorization. You do not contact Daniel. You do not contact his mother. You do not discuss the matter with General Hayes or his daughter.”
