when it came to her upper-echelon staff. It engendered a sense of trust and camaraderie

that-as she’d told Soraya-had been sorely lacking at CI in the past. In fact, from the vast amount of electronic data she’d pored over the last couple of days it was becoming

increasing clear to her that the previous DCI’s bunker mentality had led to an atmosphere

of cynicism and alienation among the directorate heads. The Old Man came from the

school of letting the Seven vie with one another, complete with duplicity, backstabbing,

and, so far as she was concerned, outright objectionable behavior.

Hart was a product of a new era, where the primary watchword was cooperation. The

events of 2001 had proved that when it came to the intelligence services, competition was

deadly. So far as Soraya was concerned that was all to the good.

“How long have you been at this?” Soraya asked.

Hart glanced out the window. “It’s morning already? I ordered Rob home hours ago.”

“Way past morning.” Soraya smiled. “How about lunch? You definitely need to get out

of this office.”

She spread her hands to indicate the queue of dossiers loaded onto her computer. “Too

much work-”

“It won’t get done if you pass out from hunger and dehydration.”

“Okay, the canteen-”

“It’s such a fine day, I was thinking of walking to a favorite restaurant of mine.”

Hearing a warning note in Soraya’s otherwise light voice, Hart looked up. Yes, there

was definitely something her director of Typhon wanted to talk to her about outside the

confines of the CI building.

Hart nodded. “All right. I’ll get my coat.”

Soraya took out her new cell, which she’d picked up at CI this morning. She’d found

her old one in the gutter by her car at the Moira Trevor surveillance site, had disposed of it at the office. Now she texted a message.

A moment later Hart’s cell buzzed. The text from Soraya read: VAN X ST. Van across

the street.

Hart folded her cell away and launched into a long story at the end of which both

women laughed. Then they talked about shoes versus boots, leather versus suede, and

which Jimmy Choos they’d buy if they were ever paid enough.

Both women kept an eye on the van without seeming to look at it. Soraya directed

them down a side street where the van couldn’t go for fear of becoming conspicuous.

They were moving out of the range of its electronics.

“You came from the private sector,” Soraya said. “What I don’t understand is why

you’d give up that payday to become DCI. It’s such a thankless job.”

“Why did you agree to be director of Typhon?” Hart asked.

“It was a huge step up for me, both in prestige and in pay.”

“But that’s not really why you accepted it, was it?”

Soraya shook her head. “No. I felt a strong sense of obligation to Martin Lindros. I was

in at the beginning. Because I’m half Arab, Martin sought out my input both in the

creation of Typhon and in its recruitment. He meant Typhon to be a very different

intelligence-gathering organization, staffed with people who understood both the Arab

and the Muslim mind-set. He felt-and I wholeheartedly agree-that the only way to

successfully combat the wide array of extremist terrorist cells was to understand what

motivates them. Once you were in sync with their motivation, you could begin to

anticipate their actions.”

Hart nodded, her long face in a neutral set as she sank deeper in thought. “My own

motivations were similar to yours. I grew sick of the cynical attitude of the private

security firms. All of them, not just Black River where I worked, were focused on how

much money they could milk out of the mess in the Middle East. In times of war, the

government is a mighty cash cow, throwing newly minted money at every situation, as if

that alone will make a difference. But the fact is, everyone involved has a license to

plunder and steal to their heart’s content. What happens in Iraq stays in Iraq. No one’s

going prosecute them. They’re indemnified against retribution for profiting from other

people’s misery.”

Soraya took them into a clothes store, where they made a pretense of checking out

camisoles to cover the seriousness of the conversation.

“I came to CI because I couldn’t change Black River, but I felt I could make a

difference here. The president gave me a mandate to change an organization that was in

disarray, that long ago had lost its way.”

They went out the back, across the street, hurrying now, down the block, turning left

for a block, then right for two blocks, left again. They went into a large restaurant boiling with people. Perfect. The high level of ambient noise, the multiple crosscurrents of

conversations would make their own conversation undetectable.

At Hart’s request they were seated at a table near the rear where they had excellent

sight lines of the interior as well as the front door. Everyone who came in would be

visually vetted by them.

“Well executed,” Hart said when they were seated. “I see you’ve done this before.”

“There were times-especially when I was working with Jason Bourne -when I was

obliged to lose a CI tail or two.”

Hart scanned the large menu. “Do you think that was a CI van?”

“No.”

Hart looked at Soraya over the menu. “Neither do I.”

They ordered brook trout, Caesar salads to start, mineral water to drink. They took

turns checking out the people who came into the restaurant.

Halfway through the salads Soraya said, “We’ve intercepted some unconventional

chatter in the last couple of days. I don’t think alarming would be a too strong a word.”

Hart put down her fork. “How so?”

“It seems possible that a new attack on American soil is in its final stages.”

Hart’s demeanor changed instantly. She was clearly shaken. “What the hell are we

doing here?” she said angrily. “Why aren’t we in the office where I can mobilize the

forces?”

“Wait until you hear the whole story.” Soraya said. “Remember that the lines and

frequencies Typhon monitors are almost all overseas, so unlike the chatter other

intelligence agencies scan, ours is more concentrated, but from what I’ve seen it’s also far more accurate. As you know, there’s always an enormous amount of disinformation in

the regular chatter. Not so with the terrorists we keep an ear on. Of course, we’re

checking and rechecking the accuracy of this intel, but until proven otherwise we’re

going on the assumption that it’s real. We have two problems, however, which is why

mobilizing CI now isn’t the wisest course.”

Three women came in, chatting animatedly. The manager greeted them like old

friends, showed them to a round table near the window, where they settled in.

“First, we have an immediate time frame, that is to say within a week, ten days at the

outside. However, we have almost nothing on the target, except from the intercepts we

know it’s large and complex, so we’re thinking a building. Again, because of our Muslim

expertise we believe it will be a structure of both economic and symbolic importance.”

“But no specific location?”

“East Coast, most probably New York.”

“Nothing’s crossed my desk, which means none of our sister agencies has a clue about

this intel.”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Soraya said. “This is ours alone. Typhon’s. This is why

we were created.”

“You haven’t yet told me why I shouldn’t inform Homeland Security and mobilize

CI.”

“Because the source of this intel is entirely new. Do you seriously think HS or NSA

would take our intel at its face value? They’d need corroboration-and A, they wouldn’t