"Come on, Tommy," he whispered.

Brainard getting stopped by Belarus Customs angered Polk. Having a hacker inside the Agency was like running a race with a thousand-pound weight tied around your neck. Though no evidence existed, it was clear that Cloud had been behind Brainard's removal from the Belavia flight. Polk had already spoken twice to the U.S. ambassador to Belarus about getting Brainard out of jail. Fairweather was different, and Polk felt more confident. The passport Fairweather used was purchased from a corrupt GRU administrator, its numbers clean and designed to withstand a so-called database back-pull at the Russian border.

Polk stood up, clutching the bottle of Gatorade. He stepped to the front of the room, just a few feet from the screen, watching as the flashing red dot-Aeroflot Flight 43-drew closer and closer to Moscow.

"Thirty seconds, sir."

Polk adjusted his glasses. He knew the radar could sometimes show inaccuracies, and yet what he was seeing made a cold shiver run through his body.

He turned back to the case officer.

"They're coming in low," he said. "Are they too far left?"

The case officer highlighted the flight path. Suddenly, the plasma screen view zoomed close up. Lights on the plane's wings became visible against the dark ground below. Digital numbers-representing speed and altitude-scrolled above the plane in bright red.

"They're not going to make it, sir."

Fairweather was asleep when the plane's alarm went off. It was a piercing, high-pitched siren that shrieked so loudly it caused him to lurch involuntarily forward.

Then came the recorded words of a woman, first in Russian, then Polish, repeated over and over: "Emergency. Assume crash position."

Screams engulfed the jet. Several passengers stood up, desperate to run somewhere, to escape, even though there was no place to go. Panic and terror consumed the plane. A man ran by Fairweather for the front of the plane. Several people opened overhead bins, grabbing their belongings.

Fairweather tried to remain calm. He looked out the window. They were flying just barely above a residential neighborhood. The lights of one home were so close he could see the colored movement of a TV show in an upstairs bedroom.

His eyes scanned. In the distance, at least half a mile away, he saw the airport's strobe lights pulsing halogen into the night.

As the siren continued to wail, as the recorded voice repeated its warnings, as screams seemed to reach a crescendo, he felt a hand on his arm gently touching him. He turned. A young woman was clutching her child, her face stricken with fear.

"Is it going to be all right?" she whispered, in Polish.

Slowly, Fairweather nodded.

"Yes," he said, willing himself to smile as he heard the sound of treetops brushing against the fuselage. "Everything is going to be fine."

69.

LANGLEY.

Gant stepped through one of several back doors at CIA headquarters, swiping his badge. Rather than return to his office on the fourth floor, he went straight ahead and entered the Agency's day-care center.

A woman was seated in a cubicle across from the glass-walled nursery, which was filled with children.

On seeing Gant, she stood up.

"Hello, Mr. Gant."

Gant looked at her badge.

"Anne, is there an empty office where I can make a phone call? I don't have time to run upstairs."

"Of course," she said.

She led Gant to an empty office down the hallway.

"Perfect," he said.

He shut the door, then dialed.

"Senator Furr's office."

"It's Josh Gant."

"Yes, Mr. Gant. Please hold."

Gant reached up and pushed his glasses higher on his nose.

"What is it?" asked Senator Furr.

"You need to cool down on the thing we've been working on."

"Andreas?"

"Yes."

"I just had my fucking counsel prepare a laundry list of requests-"

"There's blowback, Senator. It will come back to bite us. Trust me."

Furr was silent for several seconds.

"I can't just-"

"Kill it," said Gant.

70.

SHENNAMERE ROAD.

DARIEN, CONNECTICUT.

Katie knocked on the door to the library.

"Can I come in?"

"Yes, yes. Of course."

Katie stepped into the library. She had on green running shorts with yellow piping, a white tank top, and high-heeled leather sandals, all of which showed off her long, tan, muscled legs and arms. As she entered the room, Igor was staring at the computer screen.

She had two Starbucks cups. She stepped to Igor's side and placed one of them on the desk.

Slowly, without taking his eyes off the screen, Igor reached for it. As he did, he accidentally touched Katie's hand, which she had yet to remove from the cup. Igor looked at her fingers, then his eyes traced her tan, sinewy arm all the way up to her shoulder. Then their eyes met.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "I found something."

Igor pointed at the screen. On it was a block of computer code.

"This is the attack code that enabled Cloud to penetrate a Langley switch outside of Madrid," explained Igor. "The penetration occurred fourteen months ago. He broke the encryption algorithm. It's called a cold boot attack. He, or someone working for him, actually went to Madrid, found the switch, shut the power to it, then sucked the memory onto a USB. Once he did that, all he had to do was break the key, which he quickly did. He was inside within a week of the Madrid attack. Here's the amazing thing. He didn't alter the CIA encryption algorithm. Instead, he embedded a virus in the actual physical unit of the text. The virus was like a little spy, hiding in the physical representation of the text. It's poetic, if you think about it. Spying on the spies. What appeared to be a relatively innocuous switch failure was quickly closed out and sanitized by Langley's defense systems, its malware and other such useless things. In closing it out, it was, in fact, initiated."

"That's how they got inside the CIA?" asked Katie.

"Getting in was the easy part," said Igor. "That code is how they remained, and how they did so without being noticed."

Katie nodded.

"I'm impressed," she said.

Igor looked up.

"Thank you."

"So what's next?"

"The virus that Cloud placed inside Langley is, in point of fact, just code. Like all computer code, it makes commands. For example, it tells certain internal Langley communications devices, phones on a specific channel, to transcribe their activities, then send those transcriptions, as they're occurring, to him. What I need is to somehow hitch a ride on where they're being sent. If I can do that, I will be able to get a peek at his defenses. His encryption protocols. That is when the real work begins."

"Without being noticed."

"Exactly."

Igor looked up at Katie. She smiled.

"You have a nice smile," Igor said.

Katie's smile disappeared.

"I wasn't smiling."

"Yes, you were. You have a very hard time taking a compliment, don't you? You should consider seeing a shrink. I see one."

"You see one?" Katie asked, a bit surprised.

"Yes. I'm not afraid to admit it."

"You shouldn't be," she said empathetically. "It's brave to admit it. If you don't mind my asking, why do you see one?"

"Sex addiction."

Katie shook her head in disgust and turned to leave.

"By the way, there's something else," said Igor.

"What, I have a nice ass?" she asked sarcastically.

"You do have a sweet ass, yes, but no, I meant I found something else inside Langley."

Katie stepped back to the table.

"Why are you being so mysterious?"

"I might have gone someplace I wasn't supposed to."

Katie crossed her arms.

"Inside the Agency?"

"Yes."

Just then, the door to the library opened. Calibrisi and Tacoma stepped in. Both men looked visibly upset.

"Tommy's dead," said Tacoma, referring to Fairweather, an agent both he and Katie had worked with. Katie had recruited Fairweather.

"His plane crashed on approach to Moscow," said Calibrisi. "A hundred and fifty-five passengers died, all to prevent Tommy from entering Russia."

Silence took over the room.

"I need to get back to Washington," said Calibrisi.

"Igor found something," said Katie. "Inside Langley."

Calibrisi shot Igor a look.

"You read Agency files?"