End of Secrets Read online

  Tonight, though, she did not intend to track him all the way to Brooklyn. At a spot she’d picked for its lack of HawkEye coverage, she closed the gap between them and came up beside him a block short of the subway. He didn’t notice her until she spoke.

  “We need to talk. Can I buy you a drink?”

  He seemed more pleased to see her than she’d expected he would be. Maybe he’s just lonely, she thought. Maybe he’s in love with me. Then he grew tense, and she knew he was thinking of the cameras.

  “This way,” she said. The sidewalk on Forty-Fifth Street was covered for construction for a full block. This allowed them to skirt west with little risk of being picked up by HawkEye.

  They found a bar on Ninth Avenue. The place didn’t really matter, only that it wasn’t too loud or too bright. Jones ordered a scotch. Kera could tell he’d gone with the eight-year because she was paying; she told the bartender to make it a twelve-year. She ordered a vodka with soda for herself and paid in cash.

  “Jones, I have to ask you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why did you come to Hawk?”

  He looked both relieved by and suspicious of the question. “I assume it’s the same reason you’re here. I was asked to serve my country.”

  “That’s it? That was enough?”

  “Enough to quit my fourteen-bucks-an-hour job so I could work in that Control Room for ten times the pay? Yeah, it was more than enough.”

  “Before Hawk, why were you working in Austin?”

  “I told you. I was married. I was trying that lifestyle out for a little while.”

  “ ‘That lifestyle’? Installing security software you could have cracked in under a minute? You seem like the kind of guy who needs more of a challenge.”

  He studied her. “If you’re implying something, why don’t you just come out and say it?”

  She stuck her tongue in her cheek. She was asking him to level with her; it was only fair that she do the same. “OK. Why were you fired from NSA?”

  Jones’s eyes sharpened with caution, warning her off. Seconds earlier, he had seemed relaxed. The contrast was stark. Kera forced herself to return his gaze, growing more uncomfortable by the second. But then, just as suddenly, something new came into his eyes. An exhaustion. She recognized it immediately: he was tired of all the secrets.

  “So that’s why we’re here,” he said. He tipped his glass on one edge, gazing down into it as he rolled the ice cube around.

  “Why were you forced out?”

  He hesitated, but finally answered. “I broke the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “All of them I could. I took that to be the purpose of my job. That’s what a hacker is supposed to do, isn’t it? Question everything. Disrespect boundaries. Live by the idea that security doesn’t come through self-congratulation; you’re safe only if you catch your flaws before anyone else does.” Jones shrugged. “They didn’t like how good I was at exposing their flaws.”

  “What broken rule, specifically, got you fired?”

  He shrugged. “I used NSA equipment to hack into the e-mails of executives at a private security contractor.”

  “That have anything to do with your brother?” Kera said.

  His eyes darkened in a way that made her wonder what he was capable of. But it was brief, only a reflex. He seemed to have brought it under control a moment later when he released an amused chuckle. “Some other time you’ll have to tell me how it is you know so much about me.”

  She smiled. “We all leave a trail, right? Isn’t that the premise that makes HawkEye possible?”

  “You didn’t use HawkEye on me, though.”

  “That’s true. I had to go much more low tech than that. I took advantage of your weakness: the world that can’t be controlled with keystrokes. So, your brother?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, it had something to do with my brother.”

  “What happened?”

  “You weren’t able to learn that?”

  “No. I know the outcome but not the reason. I’m not doing this for my entertainment, Jones. I need to understand your motivations here.”

  He took a long pull of scotch. “Sean was working for this contractor over in Afghanistan. I’d been e-mailing with him regularly. And then suddenly his e-mails stopped. I had a bad feeling about it, so I went looking for answers.”

  “And that’s how you found out he’d died?”

  He nodded. “I found out he shot himself when I read it in an e-mail between his commander and the firm’s CEO. You should see the e-mails these fuckers write. Men like my brother aren’t soldiers to them; they’re business expenses. After he died, they just wrote him off and passed his weapon along to the next vet fresh off the PTSD plane from Afghanistan. That’s their business model. They put guns back into these guys’ hands, pump them full of steroids, and profit off the fact that war had turned them into monsters. They killed him, Kera. He might have pulled the trigger. But they killed him.” Jones stopped himself, embarrassed by the state he’d worked himself into. “Sorry.”

  “It’s OK,” Kera said. She wondered if he’d ever talked about this to anyone. “And you got caught stealing these e-mails?”

  “Sure. I wanted to get caught. I wanted to expose a flaw in the way we were fighting our wars. Clearly, they weren’t amused.”

  Kera sucked back a large gulp of her drink to keep pace with Jones, then ordered them another round.

  “How did you first get into the NSA?” she asked.

  “The way my brother and I were raised, if there’s a war on, you fight it. I thought that’s how everyone in America was brought up. It wasn’t until I got out in the world a little more that I understood that most Americans don’t even know a single vet from the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. Most of the country just goes about their lives as if the wars aren’t even happening. Not in our house. I’d grown up thinking that I’d be army like my father. But the truth is, I wouldn’t have been much help to anyone on a battlefield. I was a wimp. A geek. Sean knew that and so did my parents, even though no one would say it. I didn’t want to let everyone down—most of all myself. So, out of desperation, I guess, I took some tests for the NSA. Turns out they were the only people in the world who thought the hours I spent alone in my room throughout junior high and high school were well spent. They hurried me off to Fort Meade like I was late to the party.”

  “And you were there for six years?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then you were forced out and went back to Texas to live the American dream?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Who recruited you to Hawk?”

  “One of Branagh’s guys. I led them right to my doorstep. Mind you, I had a lot of free time back then. My days consisted of coasting through a bad marriage and showing up for my menial job. I spent every second of my spare time on my computer, mostly fucking with the NSA. Finally they noticed. The surprise was that instead of sending FBI agents to haul my ass to jail, I was at a coffee shop one day, and Branagh’s guy just sits down across the table from me.” Jones smiled. “They were a little pissed that it was me.”

  “They didn’t know?”

  “No. When I hack, I stay anonymous.”

  “What was Branagh’s pitch to you?”

  “I was getting a second chance to serve my country. It was going to be elite, top-secret stuff, vital to national security, blah, blah, blah.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  Jones shook his head. “In retrospect, I should have been suspicious that they wanted me back. I wanted it too bad.”

  “Given your past at NSA, they knew it was a risk to take you,” Kera said. “And yet they still wanted you more than you wanted them.”

  “Yes. But Hawk is being more careful with me this time. They’re watching closely. That’s why it’s taken me so long to figure out their connection to ONE. And don’t kid yourself, Kera. They’re watching you too.”

  “T
hen we’ll just have to do this right under their noses.”

  He shot a hopeful, questioning glance at her.

  She nodded. “I’m in. I’ll help you take down Hawk. If we can.”

  He nodded but did not thank her. There was no reason for that; they both knew that she wasn’t doing it for him. This would only work if they were each looking out for themselves.

  “But just so we’re clear,” Kera said. “We’re in agreement that Hawk has become a rogue operation of the CIA and the NSA. I still have a contact at the agency I trust and who trusts me. I’m guessing you’re no longer on good terms with your former colleagues at NSA?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “OK, then we’ll feed whatever we can get on Hawk back to my guy at the agency, and let them clean it up internally.”

  “Kera, I—I don’t think it’s that simple. What if they don’t clean it up internally? What if it’s too messy for that, and they opt to do nothing?”

  A part of her knew that Jones was right. Lionel didn’t want her and Jones to succeed at exposing Hawk any more than Gabby, Branagh, or ONE did. That was the problem with classified secrets that were kept classified for the wrong reasons: only the people who were keeping them knew if they were the sort that ought to be revealed. But if she couldn’t bring this to Lionel, who she hoped could help her get her job back at Langley, then she couldn’t even imagine what she would do next.

  “What other choice do we have?” she asked. “Everything related to Hawk is classified. If we take it to anyone else, we’ll violate our security clearances, and our careers in the intelligence community will be over.”

  Jones thought about this, though she suspected he’d already thought about it plenty. Finally he nodded. “OK. We can give it a shot your way. But I won’t let this just disappear. If the agency tries to bury it, I’m going public. I don’t think I was cut out for an intelligence career anyway.”

  “Fair enough,” Kera said. “One more thing. It isn’t just Gabby and Branagh who are watching us. It’s ONE too.”

  Jones eyed her. “Since when?”

  “A few days ago. When I contacted Bradley, I was careful to slip past HawkEye, but ONE has men on Bradley. They made me. And then yesterday Parker was asking questions about my job.”

  Jones looked away, and at first Kera thought he was angry. But he just nodded, and she realized he’d only been thinking about how this changed things. “It’s better that they’re watching us. Let them. Allow them to think that they’re a step ahead. Parker, though,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I need to know right now. Will he be a problem?”

  Kera had already made up her mind about Parker—perhaps she’d made it up weeks or even months ago. But it was still difficult to actually take the next step. “No,” she said. “I’m going to handle that.” Then she moved the conversation forward to more practical matters. “We’ll need to keep working ATLANTIS until we walk out of that Control Room for the last time.”

  “Of course. It would look suspicious to Gabby if we didn’t.”

  They went over the remainder of the evidence they would need to collect on Gabby, Branagh, and ONE, and how they would collect it without being detected. It was not a long conversation. What they needed to do was remarkably simple, given the consequences. When they had covered everything, Jones looked at her.

  “Kera, why are you doing this?”

  “It’s like you said. The other option is to keep working for them.” She got up and, in a tone softer than she was accustomed to using, she said, “Jones? I’m sorry about your brother.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  Kera had not been to Parker’s new office, and she looked around when she entered. It was nicer than she might have imagined. The furniture was attractive, if cold. Film posters for several ONE-produced movies hung on the walls, which seemed like a quaint touch for someone so dedicated to digital media. But Parker was sentimental; that wasn’t a revelation. His desk showcased framed pictures of the two of them and, amusingly, of his parents. There was not a single photograph of his parents at Kera and Parker’s apartment. If he’d perceived that she didn’t care for his parents, well, he would have been right, but she wouldn’t have objected to his hanging a picture of them. None of this, of course, mattered. It only confirmed for her how little of her own attention she’d devoted to her fiancé.

  “What are you doing here?” Parker said, standing. He seemed anxious as he watched her take in the room.

  “I figured you would still be here,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Not after—”

  “I know. I’ll only be a minute.” She heard the quiver in her own voice. Parker must have heard it too because he stopped midsentence with his mouth agape. “Parker,” she said. The room swayed. She felt outside her body, as if she were hearing herself speak. Just a little while longer, she thought, and the worst will be over for both of us. “I can’t marry you.”

  All he said was, “What?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t know it sooner.” Strangely, it was not Hawk or ONE or the agency that had pushed Kera to this point. They were factors, of course, along with the lying that was required just to avoid losing her job. But the real shift had occurred in the basement of that auto body shop when she’d first seen Rafael Bolívar. Even if she had never seen him again, his existence had shown her that Parker was not enough. It was a brutal realization, coming out of the blue like that, but there was no denying it. There would be no kind way to explain that to Parker, even if she’d wanted to. Nor was there any way to explain what she and Jones intended to do to Hawk and that, whether they succeeded or not, her life as she knew it was about to flip upside down.

  She couldn’t just walk out on Parker, though. She owed him this conversation. Whether she owed him more than that was not something she could consider right now.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Can we talk about it?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “I mean, if you’re questioning things—”

  “I’m not.”

  “What I meant was it’s OK to have doubts. About the wedding, I mean. We don’t even have to set a date right now. We can wait until it makes sense.”

  “No, Parker. I’m sure.”

  Parker sat down and was silent for a full minute. Kera imagined that he was thinking, beginning to understand that perhaps they both should have seen this coming. But then he said, “This has to do with what I brought up the other night, doesn’t it? I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, not really.”

  “They have no right coming between us like this.”

  “Please, Parker. It’s not that simple. I’m sorry I didn’t know any sooner. I’m telling you now because now I know. It’s over.”

  A horrible sadness came into his eyes then, and she knew that his powerlessness had finally sunk in. It was the worst moment of the conversation for her, seeing that. She felt sorry for him. She felt sorry that something he’d wanted so badly had come within sight and then slipped away, out of his control.

  “What will you do?” he said.

  “I’m going to the apartment to pack things. I’ll find a hotel tonight.”

  “No. I mean after that. What will you do? What do you want to do with your life, without me?”

  She wanted to tell him not to do that to himself. But what was the use? He would do it, sentimental Parker. Instead, she told him the truth. “I’m probably going to have to go away for a while.”

  And then, within a few seconds, she was gone.

  Later, at their apartment, Kera was in the bedroom gathering the last of her things. She had tackled the chore systematically, like a one-woman evidence-collection team, beginning in the kitchen and working through the living area to the bedroom and bathroom. She had not meant for the packing to be so thorough, but with each drawer opened, with each new item she touched, she became more powerfully drawn into the
task. It was now eleven and Parker, to her relief, had still not come home. She pulled her large suitcase from the closet, the oversize kind she had used only once or twice, for moving, never for travel. She had believed it was the last of her stored possessions in the closet, but as she freed it, she saw a file box pushed back into the farthest dark corner. Seeing it was enough to remind her of what it contained. She had to get on one knee and duck under the thick, soft row of Parker’s work shirts in order to slide it out.

  She opened the box on the bed, ignoring the dust that smeared on the comforter. Inside were some effects from college, a diploma and a few essays she thought at the time were worth saving but that now embarrassed her to reread. She had no intention of going through the entire box now. This wasn’t that kind of cleansing, reflective move. She already knew that this box would be packed into storage with her other belongings and she could sort through it later, or perhaps never see it again. But there was one thing in this box she wanted. She found it quickly, pressed between manila file folders that contained tax returns and bills from a time when such things were printed on paper.

  The adoption file contained detailed information about Kera’s adoptive parents and the date they had taken her into their possession. There was very little documentation of her journey into existence. An agency form listed the name of a coastal town in El Salvador. A crude birth certificate bore a doctor’s illegible signature and a date she had taken as her birthday, though the agency paperwork stated clearly that they could not independently verify the precise day she had come into the world.

  What she was after was the photo. And there it was, almost to her surprise. It seemed remarkable to her that so much about her origins were unknowable, including the most basic details about her birth mother. And yet here was this photo, a fading four-by-six, the only copy in existence. Paperwork seemed natural; the existence of the photo, though, seemed miraculous. A single photo of an infant in a faceless woman’s arms. So much could have gone wrong. The film could have been exposed or never developed. The print could have been left on a table or shelf in her mother’s small house. Everyone who had touched it might have had a conceivable reason to throw it away. Except her. Except now. It had survived, and it had found her.