“Correct. The device consists of goggles punctuated by near-infrared LEDs emitting at roughly eight hundred fifty nanometers, which can be found in common motion sensors. This light is invisible to the human eye but matches the spectral sensitivity of CMOS or CCD cameras or other silicon-based photo detectors. When placed around the face, these make it impossible to obtain accurate measurements on the spacing and shape of a subject’s facial features.”

Hedrick turned back to Morrison meaningfully. “Grady’s obviously received assistance. There is something going on at Hibernity.”

Alexa looked between the two of them. “What makes you think that?”

“Mr. Morrison will handle it, Alexa. You just concentrate on locating Mr. Grady.”

“Without facial recognition, it’ll be difficult.”

“What about this Agent Davis?”

“From the moment of her fingerprint match on Grady, she’s been under surveillance by AIs—microphones in her laptop and cell phone, the works. Apparently Mr. Grady requested that she meet him in the Columbia University Mathematics Library a week from today. I took the liberty of using AIs to instruct her through official channels to meet with Grady in New York. She’s to report to a special task force.” Alexa swept her hand through the air and dropped a virtual document onto Hedrick’s desktop.

He examined the document—an email from the deputy director of the FBI ordering Denise Davis to report to a task force safe house. “If we know where Grady is going to be, why involve her?”

“Grady might not show if he doesn’t see her.”

Hedrick looked up from the document. “But why New York?”

Alexa closed all the holographic windows. “Back when Bertrand Alcot was a physics professor at Columbia, he took Mr. Grady under his wing—mentored him. Grady never attended, but he spent time there. I’m guessing he still has friends in the area—or he knows of someplace there where he can go to ground.”

“Set AIs loose on any communities of interest his past activity might generate. See what they turn up. Past addresses, run geolocation on his phones for the past ten years. I want anyone he’s ever been with under surveillance.”

Hedrick then turned to Morrison. “Prep your people to become this FBI unit. Grab him when he shows.”

Morrison nodded. “You still need him alive?”

“Yes, damnit!” Hedrick looked back to Alexa. “Excellent job.”

“I’d like to go on that operation, Graham.”

He looked surprised. “That’s not up to me, Alexa.” Hedrick turned to Morrison.

“No.”

“I feel I’ve earned the right to go on this operation. Mr. Grady represents a grave risk to the BTC and society at large. I think he’ll listen to me.”

“Ah, you’re going to charm him, like you did to so many in the old days?”

Hedrick shook his head vigorously. “You’re too valuable, Alexa. It can’t be risked.”

Morrison added, “And we don’t need your help.”

Hedrick took her by the elbow. “I need your people monitoring Agent Davis’s every move. Look how well you’ve done so far on the intelligence side.”

Morrison gave Alexa a sly smirk.

Alexa focused on Hedrick. “I was a top field operative. It’s what I’m good at. Why won’t you let me do what I’m good at?”

“You’re much too valuable.”

She studied him and then turned to exit.

His words followed her. “You’re dismissed.”

CHAPTER 17

Rogue Agency

The Raven Rock Mountain Complex was intended to deal with end-of-the-world scenarios. For that reason it always put Bill McAllen on edge. Known officially as Site R, it was a continuity of government (or COG) bunker complex in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania, not far from the Maryland border. One of many such bunkers built during the Cold War, it had been augmented and expanded over the decades. It was now sometimes called the Underground Pentagon because it served as an emergency command center for various U.S. defense agencies, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the event of a major national crisis.

As McAllen drove down what seemed like miles of concrete-lined tunnels in an otherwise empty, chauffeured twelve-seat electric cart, he couldn’t stop thinking that this was where some of the last humans might remain alive in the event of global thermonuclear war. Or an asteroid strike. Or a pandemic—name your Armageddon, they probably had a standard-operating-procedures binder for it on a shelf somewhere down here. But the four times he’d been here in the past had been for COG training.

Today wasn’t training.

The cart stopped in the tunnel next to an open three-foot-thick steel blast door, flanked by armed sentries. He stepped off and was met by a female army lieutenant from the U.S. Army’s 114th Signal Battalion. “This way, Deputy Secretary.”

Without waiting for him, she moved quickly through bunkeresque office corridors devoid of people. He hurried to keep up. After walking past dozens of identical metal doors marked with numbers and letters, she finally turned a corner where a podium with the Pentagon seal stood on a dais before dozens of chairs. Several generations of television broadcasting equipment were mothballed against the back wall, but sitting in the chairs were lots of sharp-looking young men and women in suits, tapping away at laptops. None of them so much as glanced up.

The lieutenant gestured for McAllen to follow her as she approached a conference room flanked by two more armed sentries. She knocked and after a moment entered, moving aside for McAllen.

“Deputy Secretary McAllen is here, Madam Director.”

“Bill!”

In the concrete-walled boardroom McAllen could see several senior representatives of the DHS, NSA, CIA, and Defense Department sitting around a huge and absurdly durable-looking oak table. At its head sat their penultimate boss, Director of National Intelligence Kaye Monahan, a petite woman in her sixties who nonetheless had a commanding presence. McAllen was well aware this small woman had, as U.S. ambassador, more than held her own in brass-knuckle dealings with the Chinese senior leadership. She’d been in the intel community long before that. And she was principled—which McAllen found appealing in a longtime D.C. political player.

The army lieutenant departed, closing the door behind her. There was a vigorous debate already under way around the conference table.

Director Monahan motioned for him to sit in an open seat next to her. “Come here and help me talk some sense into these guys.”

McAllen took his seat while the raucous discussion continued.

“Kaye, you know damn well no one has the complete picture. That’s what compartmentalization’s all about.” The deputy director of the CIA was a jowly Virginian in his sixties, sipping a Diet Coke as he scowled across the table.

“Compartmentalizing an SAP is one thing, but a whole goddamned bureau?”

A gaunt, intense man, whom McAllen remembered from his days at the NSA, spoke from the far end of the table. “It wasn’t a bureau back when it started. It was a project. And in any event, it was the Company that launched it.”

The CIA guy cast a look at him. “It could just as well have been any of us.”

Director Monahan added, “I never heard anything about it while I was at Langley. I knew we had black tech, but . . .”

The CIA guy gestured to the walls. “Look around you. This is what they were doing in the Cold War—big stuff. Do you realize how much two hundred billion a year for half a century buys you? The president himself doesn’t have the clearance to know about half these programs. There are a million people with top-secret classifications in this country, Kaye. And some of those folks live in a completely different world—even from us. It’s the nature of the covert sector. Back in the ’60s someone put the BTC in charge of regulating advanced technologies, and it snowballed. It looks like they left us all behind.”