The God's Eye View Read Free

new dimensions—but the director’s failure ever to even sneak a glance was a little weird. Was he gay? She knew he was married, with four grown daughters, but that was no guarantee; even in the twenty-first century there were plenty of closeted people in the military, especially among the higher-ups. She’d wondered from time to time what he would do if she ever showed up with an extra button undone and leaned across his desk to point something out . . . would he be unable to resist a look? But she’d never tried. He wasn’t the kind of man you’d want thinking you were messing with him.
    He gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk and said, “What is it?” The question was a kind of challenge, a suggestion that if she was taking advantage of the direct access, of course she would have something important to bring to his attention. That she’d better have something important.
    She sat, her feet pressed firmly against the carpet. Like the waiting area, his office was over-air-conditioned, but she could feel a slight slick of perspiration under her arms and was glad she’d worn deodorant.
    “Sir, my system threw up a flag—a match for two faces on the watch list. A reporter with the Intercept named Ryan Hamilton. And the SUSLA in Ankara. Daniel Perkins.”
    The Special US Liaison Advisor was NSA’s senior representative in Turkey, reporting directly to the director. There were only five others in the world—in Germany, Italy, Thailand, Japan, and Korea. If a SUSLA had gone rogue, it was a major breach, and she watched the director closely, curious about his reaction.
    But there was nothing beyond that slight narrowing of the eyes. “What did you observe?”
    “Well, as you know, sir, we’re tapped into CCTV networks all over the world. The feeds run through a facial recognition system and a Convolutional Neural Network analyzing other biometrics like height, stride length, and walking speed, and when certain people are observed together, the system sends out an alert. There are a lot of false positives that have to be screened out, but this one is confirmed. I’m pretty sure Hamilton and Perkins met in Istanbul.”
    The director’s expression was so impassive it looked momentarily as masklike as Remar’s burned profile.
    “You have them face-to-face?”
    “No, sir, not face-to-face. But I’m pretty sure I know where they met—a Bosphorus commuter ferry. I was able to go back and track them taking separate routes, though there’s no camera on the ferry itself.”
    The director leaned back in his chair, the casualness of the pose, like his initial What is it? question, a kind of challenge. “How do you know it’s not a coincidence?”
    “Well, sir, I can’t prove it’s not. But the ferry feels like tradecraft to me. And you told me to err on the side of inclusiveness, especially when one of the principals is NSA.”
    If her statement came across like an admonition, he did nothing to show it. “When did this possible meeting occur?”
    “Two hours ago.”
    “And they’re still in Istanbul?”
    “Presumably. I’m guessing . . .” She paused, thinking better of it.
    “Yes?”
    “Well, I know that as SUSLA Turkey, Perkins is your direct report. I’m guessing . . . you didn’t know he’s in Istanbul.”
    The director raised his eyebrows. “Why do you guess that?”
    “Because of the way you just asked if they were still there, sir. If Perkins were traveling on official business, I’d guess you would know.”
    The director looked at her silently, and she wondered whether she had said too much. But she wanted him to know she could do more than just hack networks and create monitoring systems. She wanted him to know she had good instincts, too, and that she deserved more responsibility.
    “Anyway,” she went on, “I’d recommend checking customs records to determine when Hamilton arrived, and I’d look at their mobile phones, too. If the phones were turned off, or left