I watched for another five minutes past the RV time; if I didn't walk over to meet him he would wait another twenty-five minutes before leaving, then try again tomorrow at the same time. Nothing that I could see told me the RV was compromised. I got off my stool and binned the rest of the coffee and Danish, checking that my weapon wasn't about to clatter onto the floor. I hated not having an internal holster; I'd already lost my weapon twice because of it. I walked outside and checked once more as I crossed the road. Nothing. f.u.c.k it, there's only so much checking you can do.

As I pulled the door toward me I saw his back in line at the counter. The place was still packed. I walked past him and did my surprised, "Hi! What are you doing here?" He turned and smiled that happy I-haven'tseen-you for-a-while look, and we shook hands.

"Great to see you, it's been ... ages." He beamed.

"Join me for a coffee and something sinful?"

I took a look around. All the seats were taken.

"Tell you what," I said, "the place across the street isn't so full, let's go there." His smile got even bigger as he agreed. When we got out onto the street he slapped me on the shoulder.

"I'm sooo glad you said that. It's like that every lunchtime, you know. I don't know why I bother going there."

To my surprise, he didn't make as if to cross the street, starting instead to walk toward N. I fell into step beside him and shot him a quizzical look.

Mickey put his arm around my shoulder and said, "We'll go to Sarah's, it's a bit more private." He patted his computer bag.

"I've even brought some milk to go with the Earl Gray. Do you know, there's a little shop in Georgetown that gets it straight from Sir Thomas Lipton himself!" He was very pleased with himself; maybe he was hoping I'd take special note of his initiative when I filed my report. f.u.c.k the milk; I wanted to see what was next to it.

As we walked along 23rd, I carried on playing the part of best mate in nice-to-see-you mode. I couldn't decide whether he was really good, or away with the fairies. Either way, I was glad I could run faster than him and had a weapon.

"I'll leave the clearing to you now," he said.

"You're probably much better at it than I am."

I laughed and nodded in response, so that anyone watching would a.s.sume he'd just made a joke.

"By the way," he grinned, "the man sitting on the corner? He's always around here; he works in the apartments. I know you'll be keeping an eye on him."

I looked around and saw Green Shirt, sitting on the wall to the right of Sarah's apartment, smoking.

"Just in case you started to worry. You may have seen him on your area clearing I certainly did on my drive-past; in fact I always look out for him. It makes me feel better to know he's there." He gave me a cherubic smile.

We reached the entrance and the water system was still drowning the flowers. Wayne was behind the desk, leaning back in his chair and reading a newspaper. It was like watching an action replay; they both had the same clothes on and even the dialogue was the same: "h.e.l.lo, Wayne, how are you today?"

Wayne put down his paper and grinned like an idiot. He was obviously having a really good day again.

"I'm very good. And how are you today?"

"I'm just Jim Dandy." The corners of Mickey's mouth were almost touching his ears. As we walked toward him, Wayne turned his fall attention to me. I really felt as if I was being welcomed to the asylum.

"How are you today? Do you still need that car s.p.a.ce? If you want it, you got it!"

I said, "I'll certainly bear it in mind. Thanks."

He put his hand up.

"Hey, no problem."

We reached the desk and Metal Mickey switched his camp game-show host's voice into overdrive: "Wayne, I bet if you looked in the delivery drawer you'd find a large UPS envelope addressed to Sarah."

Wayne had a look, rummaged around for a moment and handed it over.

"Why, thank you, Wayne, I hope you continue to have a very nice day!"

We said our good-byes and walked to the elevator. He saw me looking at the envelope; as the elevator doors closed he raised an eyebrow.

"Why, Mr. Snell, you didn't expect me to carry the material around with me, did you?"

Sarah's apartment was just as I'd left it. There was even the faint aroma of burned food hanging in the air. Metal Mickey wrinkled his nose.

"Cooking--the other night," I explained, closing the door behind us.

"Ooh, that's what it is." He walked toward the kitchen.

"I'd ask for the recipe, but..." He twitched his nose again.

"Can I get you some tea?" He threw the envelope onto the settee and unzipped his bag.

I walked over and sat down beside it, checking my watch. The envelope looked quite thick, but I had plenty of time before my RV with Sarah.

I heard the kettle being filled as I ripped open the UPS plastic outer. Inside was a brown envelope, sealed with Sellotape.

Metal Mickey came back into the room.

"They're printouts, and they are now your responsibility." He couldn't help looking rather pleased with himself.

"How did you get all this?" I asked.

He gave an impish smile and his eyes twinkled.

"Ask no questions, you'll be told no lies; that's what my dear mother always used to say." He came over and sat down next to me.

"However, I have a friend," his fingers mimed quote marks "who has access to Intelink." He clasped his hands together between his legs and did a pretty good impression of a Cheshire cat. It was the most pleased I'd seen him, and he had every reason to be.

Intelink was switched on in 1994. The need for real-time intelligence had never been so acute, as the Gulf War demonstrated when General Schwarzkopf very loudly complained that the spooks had failed to produce satellite imagery fast enough. The network was soon being used as a central pool by all thirty-seven members of the United States Intelligence Community, from the CIA to FINCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), plus other groups connected with national security and the military. I knew that at least 50,000 people had pa.s.swords, with varying levels of access.

We both heard the kettle boil and click off. Mickey jumped up.

"Tea!

Milk, sugar?"

"Strong. Shaken, not stirred."

I heard him giggle as I pulled out the wad of paper, filed in three clear-plastic sleeves. It was definitely stuff off Intelink. On the top file I could see the META tagging:

The information available is nearly half a million electronic pages; just over 80 percent of all the National Security Agency's output can be accessed in two hours.

The rest of the t.i.tle went on to give its level of security. This doc.u.ment was tagged Intelink-P--in other words, managed purely by the CIA and top secret, available only to policymakers.

Mickey came back with the tea. I had just finished skimming through the rest of the tags. This was looking good. There was another IntelinkP and an Intelink-TS--cla.s.sified secret, about a third of the intelligence community have access at this level. I was quite looking forward to having a read. I looked at Mickey as he held a sugar lump on a spoon for me.

I shook my head.

"How on earth did your friend get this stuff?"

He sat down and proceeded to put four lumps in his cup.

"Well, the objective is the eventual flow down, or up, of information as various security cla.s.sifications impose themselves. Right now, standard COTS tools are used, but they're not specially augmented with multilevel security.

These tools don't provide the right hooks, so for now different levels of security are provided by different physical levels of security, so there's an issue regarding upgrading and downgrading information between security levels."

I gave up listening to him halfway though his waffle.

"What the f.u.c.k are you on about?"

His spoon fought a battle with the amount of sugar in his cup.

"If they say something is an 'issue," it means they haven't got that sorted out yet.

Now and again you can confuse the system. Especially when it's new and is taking a while to sort itself out."

He went back into Cheshire-cat mode and took a sip of what must have been very sweet tea. I was waiting for his teeth to drop out as he spoke.

"The only one that can't be got into at the moment is a new, fourth level. It hasn't even got a name that I know of. Maybe it's only for the president and a few of his best buddies, who knows?"

I didn't touch my cup, just kept flicking through the pages, looking for things I understood. I heard him slurp another mouthful of tea, and then a loud swallow.

"There will be a lot in there that is of no use to you whatsoever.

He just pulled down any doc.u.ment containing information that might be relevant. He's such a nice boy. Drink your tea, Nick, it'll get cold."

I nodded and didn't say a word. He got the hint; I heard the cup go down on its saucer. Mickey stood up and went back into the kitchen, then returned with his laptop bag.

"Nick, I hope you find it interesting reading.

I've left the milk and tea for you."

I looked up at him.

"Thanks, mate."

"Of course, you'll destroy all the files before you leave?"

"No problem."

He got to the door and turned, dangling the apartment keys between his thumb and index finger.

"By the way, send my love to Sarah. Tell her, if she needs these, I'll be leaving them with Wayne."

I looked at him, trying to look confused.

"Er, what?"

His eyes twinkled.

"Oh, you are so transparent, Nick! PV? Pants, that's what it is, a load of frilly old pants. I'm not that mad, you know. I bet they told you I was, didn't they? Well, let's just let them think it. Pension, that's what it's all about, my absolutely gorgeous disability pension." Still highly amused with the whole thing, he turned to leave.

I said, "Michael, thank your friend for all his help."

He looked back with a smile that suggested it had already been taken care of.

"Been there, done that. Now remember, say a special h.e.l.lo to Sarah for me. Byeee." The door closed behind him. I got off the settee and turned the lock. If anybody decided to hit the place, it should at least give me enough time to get the papers down the toilet.

I checked out Baby-G. An hour to go before the RV with Sarah. I pulled out the papers that were tagged Intelink-P: Executive Order 12958.

I turned the pages, but they meant nothing to me, just lots of directions on security of doc.u.ments. Maybe Mickey's friend had a sense of humor.

Next was Executive Order 12863 on the PFIAB (President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board) and Executive Order 12968: Access to Cla.s.sified Information. I thumbed through acres of stuff that was full of abbreviations and acronyms. I understood ziff.

Then I saw the reason I had been given it. One of the subparagraphs was ent.i.tled, "Yousef." I felt a jolt of adrenaline.

I read slowly, making sure I understood every word.

Since 1995, several senior officials in Clinton's administration had been under surveillance by the FBI. At first they suspected that one of them was spying for the Saudi government, but more recently that information was being leaked to Bin Laden. According to this report, the hunt for Yousef had narrowed to include a senior official on the National Security Council, the 1,200-strong body that advises the president on intelligence and defense-related matters. Its office is in the White House.

I picked up my lukewarm tea. It tasted s.h.i.t; I'd have to make a new brew. I went to the kitchen with the files. There was plenty of jargon and junk, but it was clear that the hunt for Yousef had begun after the interception of a message between Washington and Bin Laden's farm in the Sudan that hinted about an agent who might be able to get a copy of a secret letter signed by Warren Christopher, then secretary of state, that spelled out American commitments to the Palestinians in the Middle East peace process.

The handler in the Sudan had replied, "That is not what we use Yousef for."

The report carried on to say that they believed there was little chance of discovering Yousef's ident.i.ty after the intercept, because he would have been one of the first to learn about it on Intelink. All communication between him and his handlers would have ceased. I had a quiet laugh to myself.

Maybe that was what the fourth level of Intelink was all about: trying to keep people like him out of the loop.

There were references to other doc.u.ments relating to Yousef, but Mickey's friend hadn't included them. I placed the cup on the floor and picked up the other Intelink-P file. Its tag told me it was a CIA doc.u.ment, ent.i.tled simply, "Counter-terrorism Center." It wasn't the whole doc.u.ment, just the introduction, but even that ran to fifteen pages. I definitely needed more tea.

When the Clinton administration endorsed the idea of specialized units to infiltrate terrorist operations and disrupt them, the CIA established the Counterterrorism Center as a central clearing house for intelligence. Its aim was to "give the president more options for action against foreign terrorists to further preempt, disrupt and defeat international terrorism."

These options included covert operations designed to prevent terrorism, or to take revenge for successful attacks on Americans. New cadres of undercover CIA officers were sent overseas, and the use of CIA teams was expanded to a.s.sess and predict threats against United States military personnel deployed abroad.

Part of this strategy was a new level of cooperation between the intelligence agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, its traditional rival.

Senior FBI agents stationed overseas held long and successful meetings with CIA station chiefs the first at the United States Emba.s.sy in Rome, the second at the emba.s.sy in London to work out ways to cooperate against terrorists and other international criminals.

The kettle boiled and cut out. I left it for a while; this was getting interesting.

I knew that such a meeting would have been unthinkable as recently as two years ago, when the two agencies were at each other's throats over their conduct in the investigation and arrest of Aldrich Ames, a spy for Moscow inside the CIA.