The God's Eye View Read Free Page A

behind somewhere else, it sure would look as though they’re trying not to be tracked. XKeyscore could tell us a lot, too. I would have looked into it myself, sir, but I’m not authorized.”
    It was a subtle hint that she could do her job better, more efficiently, if she had more tools.
    But he ignored it. “That’s good thinking. Send me the raw data. I want to know exactly where and at what time they were picked up by the cameras.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    He removed the reading glasses and placed them on his desk, then looked at her closely. “Tell me, Evie, you designed the camera system, didn’t you?”
    She blinked, surprised he had used her name. Surprised he remem bered it.
    “Uh, yes, sir. Well, I mean, we already knew that these days most CCTV cameras are wired into networks, meaning remotely exploitable by us.”
    “Yes, but you were the one who led the team that got us into the networks and tied them together. You were the one who automated the system, exploiting new networks as they went online, like that one Harvard secretly installed in its classrooms ostensibly as part of a study on attendance at lectures. You were the one who proposed using the access not just for directed tasking, but for passive surveillance, too, by tying it all together with the facial recognition technology and the Convolutional Neural Network.”
    “That’s correct, sir.”
    He nodded. “If this Perkins thing does turn out to be a breach, it’s exactly the kind of problem we would have overlooked if it hadn’t been for you. Very good work.”
    She recognized she was being dismissed. If she was going to bring up what had been bothering her, it was now or never.
    Just do it , she thought. Or it’s never going to stop bugging you.
    “Sir, can I . . . there’s one other thing I wanted to ask about, if that’s all right.”
    He raised his eyebrows and said nothing.
    “Sir, remember last month, the CIA sysadmin I discovered was in contact with Marcy Wheeler, the journalist at Emptywhee l ?”
    “Scott Stiles, of course.”
    “Yes, Stiles. Well, as usual, all I can do is confirm by access to the network that a meeting took place. I’m not supposed to otherwise task anything. So . . . I never know what the follow-up reveals.”
    She waited, hoping again that maybe he would take the hint, agree that she could do her job better without the blinders. But he said nothing. Just that unnervingly neutral expression and the penetrating stare. She almost decided to drop it. But she’d come this far. The hell with it.
    “So, well, just a few days after I flagged the Stiles/Wheeler connection, I came across a news item in the Post . Stiles had been found hanged in his McLean apartment.”
    “Yes, I’m aware of it. Very sad.”
    “Yes, sir, it was. And I was just . . .”
    She couldn’t finish the sentence. What the hell was she doing?
    The director offered her the trace of a smile. “Are you asking, was that a coincidence?”
    “Uh, well, yes, sir, I guess that is what I’m asking. It just seemed—”
    “You want to know whether we had anything to do with Stiles’s death.”
    She swallowed. She couldn’t deny that, yes, that was precisely what she wanted to know. But she couldn’t say it out loud, either. Even just having suggested it seemed suddenly crazy. The idea itself, and mentioning it besides.
    A silent moment spun out. Then the director chuckled. “The answer is no.”
    She looked at him, but his gaze was inscrutable. After another awk ward, silent moment, she nodded and stood. “Thank you, sir. I . . . I feel silly that I asked.”
    He shook his head. “I’m glad you asked. It’s exactly the kind of question, the kind of connection, each of us should be trying to make. It just happens that in this case, the connection was a coincidence.”
    “So . . . Stiles wasn’t involved with anything . . . untoward with Marcy Wheeler?”
    There was a pause. “I didn’t say that.”
    “No, sir, but you said