Reznick saw the woman finally get up from her seat and put on her coat. “Got a visual. This is her. She’s on the move.”
“You wanna do the talking?”
“Leave it to me.” Reznick waited until Dyer had stepped out of the coffee shop before he dialed her number. The woman had gotten about ten yards farther down the street, diagonally opposite from them, when she stopped. She reached into her coat pocket and took out her cell phone.
“Yes, who’s this?” Her voice was hesitant.
“Don’t be alarmed, Rosalind. You don’t know me. But we really need to talk. Urgently.”
“I’m sorry, who is this?”
“My name’s Reznick. Jon Reznick. I think you’re in danger, ma’am. We need to talk.”
The woman looked around as if she sensed she was being watched. “Are you the creep that’s been calling me in the middle of the night? Is that how you get your kicks?”
“Definitely not. Now you need to listen to me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Rosalind, you need to listen to me right now. This is not a game. I’m the guy who wants to save your life. So listen to what I have to say.”
“No, you listen. Don’t think you can intimidate me. It won’t work. So I’m going to hang up and call the cops.”
“Do not hang up. You hang up, I can’t help you. We believe you are at risk.”
Rosalind was looking around. “You said we . . . who is ‘we’? Who are you, for that matter? Is this some sort of joke?”
“This is no joke. Do you see the black Chevy across the street? Turn around, ninety degrees clockwise.”
The woman turned and stared across the street toward the car.
“Do you see it? Do you see us?”
“Yes.”
“White guy and black guy. I’m the white guy. The guy beside me is a computer-whiz kid who was passed sensitive information. It’s related to you. We know everything about you. And we want to help. But you need to trust us.”
The woman looked dazed.
“I know who you are, Mrs. Dyer. We know who you work for. And I want to get you and the computer nerd with me to safety.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I told you. My name is Jon Reznick. And I believe you’re in danger. That’s why I’m here.”
“Are you insane? What if you’re just trying to lure me into your car so you can murder me?”
“Rosalind, I’ve worked special operations around the world. So, no, I’m not insane. The kid here has worked with me before. He’s ex-NSA.”
“Sorry, I’m not buying it.”
“Think about this, Rosalind. If I intended to cause you harm, would I have called to warn you?”
The woman stayed silent for a few moments. The wind blew her hair into her face, and she smoothed it down behind her left ear.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t. But we need to talk.”
“So talk.”
“I work on a consultancy basis for the FBI. But they are not involved in this. At least not so far. Where do you want to meet? And we’ll be there. A place of your choosing.”
“To say what, exactly?”
“I’ll tell you everything we know.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
Reznick sighed. “There are people who want to assassinate you.”
From across the distance, Rosalind Dyer’s eyes met his. “I know.”
Ten
Later that night, Max Charles sat quietly as the three men took their seats in his office. He looked across the shiny mahogany table at his director of operations, Steve Lopez. Sitting on either side of Lopez were the firm’s associates, Carl Franklin and Don Darcy—both former Special Forces operatives who advised on such matters.
Charles glanced at the summary of recent events in front of him before fixing his gaze on Lopez. The man had been a close adviser since Charles had left the Agency. Lopez wore a dark-gray suit, white shirt, and navy tie. He had crew-cut brown hair and unfathomable black eyes that always made it seem as if he was lost in his own thoughts.
“Today, Steve,” Charles said, “I will get answers. I will not shout. And I will not scream. But I will get answers.”
Next to Lopez, Franklin and Darcy shifted in their seats.
“I’ve never known a chain of events to spiral out of control like this, let alone one that brings potential heat from the Feds or the cops. Something has gone very wrong. So, my first question to you, Steve, is, am I right?”
Lopez cleared his throat. “Things have gone very wrong.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s complicated. But we’re on it.”
“I didn’t ask if you were on it, Steve. I asked you if I am right that this is going very wrong.”
“It’s not a great situation, I agree.”
“It’s a fucking mess. I don’t like mess. You know that, right?”
Lopez nodded, face impassive.
“I like tidy. We had a plan. But the plan went to shit, and I need to know why.”
Lopez said, “Max, we are confident we will get on top of this.”
Charles stared at him. “Our clients at the Pentagon and the Agency always get what they want. No questions asked. They’re not interested in whether we’re encountering problems. It’s our job to predict and handle the unforeseen stuff. That’s why we get paid so well.”
Lopez nodded but stayed quiet this time.
“I distinctly remember I asked for this problem to be shut down. To be taken care of. And yet, here we are, playing catch-up.” He looked at Franklin and Darcy. “Maybe I just don’t seem to understand the intricacies of this particular operation. Maybe I’m getting too fucking old. Someone speak to me!”
Lopez sighed as his gaze fixed on Charles. “First, yes, it’s an ongoing problem, but we will deal with this, Max. Second, I’m taking full responsibility.”
Charles sat forward and gripped the armrests of his chair. “How did this file—this classified file—get into the fucking cloud at some facility in Rotterdam, when it was supposed to be locked down on our dedicated server upstate?”
Darcy said, “Our systems guy, who I know very well, said the access occurred via Tor, which, as you know, anonymously routes internet traffic. Nevertheless, our guys were able to trace the breach to a group of hackers that operates in Europe—Germany and the Netherlands, mostly. They accessed it but didn’t decrypt it, and they passed it on to a guy down in the Village.”
Charles spread his hands. “So how did it get from our secure server to Tor? How did it go from our dedicated server to the cloud and to Europe? I’m assuming that we’re using military-grade advanced firewalls and systems?”
Darcy nodded and winced. “This is where it gets fucking unbelievable.”
“I’m listening.”
“It was a bit of social engineering—”
“In plain English!”
“Basically, our head of cybersecurity at the Ithaca facility was approached by a girl in a bar. She stole his cell phone.”
Charles shook his head. “Are you kidding me? What a dumb fuck.”