The Sigma Protocol Page 4

  Anna loved her work, knew she was good at it. She didn’t require praise. All she wanted was not to have to spend her time and energy trying to hang on to her job, clinging by her fingernails. Again she kept her face a mask of neutrality. She felt the tension localize itself in her stomach. “I’m sure you did your best to make them understand.”

  A beat of silence. Anna could see he was debating how to reply. Dupree glanced at his beloved whiteboard, at the next item on his agenda. “We’ll miss you,” he said.

  Shortly after the meeting broke up, David Denneen sought her out in her tiny cubbyhole of an office. “The ICU wants you because you’re the best,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Anna shook her head wearily. “I was surprised to see you at the meeting. You’re in operations oversight now. Doing great, by all accounts.” Word was he was on the fast track for a position in the AG’s office.

  “Thanks to you,” Denneen said. “I was there today as divisional representative. We take turns. Got to keep an eye on the budget numbers. And on you.” Gently, he placed a hand on hers. Anna noticed that the warmth in his eyes was mixed with concern.

  “It was good to see you there,” Anna said. “And send my best to Ramon.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said. “We’ll have to have you over for paella again.”

  “But there’s something else on your mind, isn’t there?”

  Denneen’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “Listen, Anna, your new assignment, whatever it is, isn’t going to be like getting a new call sheet. What people say around here is true—the ways of the Ghost are mysterious to man.” He repeated the old jest with little humor. The Ghost was an in-house nickname for the longtime director of the Internal Compliance Unit, Alan Bartlett. During closed hearings before the Senate subcommittee on intelligence, back in the seventies, a deputy attorney general had referred to him, archly, as “the ghost in the machine,” and the honorific had stuck. If Bartlett wasn’t ghostly, he was a legendarily elusive figure. Seldom seen, reputedly brilliant, he ruled over a rarefied dominion of highly classified audits, and his own reclusive habits made him emblematic of its clandestine ways.

  Anna shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met him, and I don’t think I know anyone who has. Rumors thrive on ignorance, Dave. You of all people know that.”

  “Then take a word of advice from an ignoramus who cares about you,” he said. “I don’t know what this ICU thing is about. But be careful, O.K.?”

  “Careful how?”

  Denneen just shook his head, uneasily. “It’s a different world over there,” he said.

  Later that morning, Anna found herself in the immense marble lobby of an office building on M Street, on her way to her appointment at the Internal Compliance Unit. The unit’s workings were obscure even within the department, and its operational purview was—or so certain senators had occasionally charged—dangerously undefined. It’s a different world over there, Denneen had said, and so it seemed.

  The ICU was located on the tenth floor of this modern office complex in Washington, isolated from a bureaucracy it was sometimes obliged to scrutinize, and she tried not to gawk at the splashing indoor fountain, the green marble floors and walls. She thought: What kind of government agency gets fitted out like this? She got on the elevator. Even that was trimmed with marble.

  The only other passenger on the elevator was a too-handsome guy around her age in a too-expensive suit. A lawyer, she decided. Like just about everyone else in this city.

  In the mirrored elevator walls she saw him giving her The Look. If she caught his eye, she knew he’d smile and say good morning and strike up a banal Elevator Conversation. Even though he was no doubt well intentioned and probably just wanted to flirt politely, Anna found it mildly annoying. Nor did she respond well when men asked her why a woman as beautiful as she was had become a government investigator. As if what she did for a living were the special province of the homely.

  Normally, she pretended not to notice. Now, however, she threw him a scowl. He looked away hastily.

  Whatever it was that the ICU wanted from her, it had come at a damn inconvenient time; Dupree was right about that. Maybe you are the assignment, he’d said, and though Anna had shrugged off the suggestion, it nagged at her, absurdly. What the hell was that supposed to mean? No doubt Arliss Dupree was in his office right now, gleefully sharing his speculation with some of his drinking buddies on the staff.

  The elevator opened onto a lavishly appointed, marble-lined hall that could have been the executive floor of a high-priced law firm. Off to the right she spotted the seal of the Department of Justice mounted on one wall. Visitors were instructed to buzz for admittance. She did so. It was 11:25 A.M., five minutes before her scheduled appointment. Anna prided herself on her punctuality.

  A female voice demanded her name, and then she was buzzed in by a handsome dark-skinned woman with a squared-off haircut—almost too chic for government work, Anna thought to herself.

  The receptionist assessed her coolly and directed her to take a seat. Anna detected a very faint Jamaican accent.

  Within the office suite, the trappings of the swanky building gave way to a setting of utter sterility. The pearl-gray carpet was immaculate, like no government carpet she’d ever seen. The waiting area was brightly lighted with an array of halogen bulbs that left virtually no shadows. Photos of the President and the Attorney General were framed in lacquered steel. The chairs and the coffee table were of hard blond wood. Everything looked brand new, as if it had been freshly uncrated, unsoiled by human habitation.

  She noticed the foil hologram stickers on both the fax machine and the telephone on the receptionist’s desk, government labels indicating that these were secure lines, employing officially certified telephony encryption.

  At frequent intervals, the phone purred quietly, and the woman spoke in a low voice using a headset. The first two calls were in English; the third must have been in French, because the receptionist responded in that language. Two more in English, gently eliciting contact information. And then another in which she spoke in a language, sibilant and clicky, that Anna had a hard time identifying. Anna glanced at her watch again, fidgeted in the hard-backed chair, and then looked at the receptionist. “That was Basque, wasn’t it?” she said. It was something more than a guess, but less than a certainty.

  The woman responded with a fractional nod and a demure smile. “It won’t be much longer, Ms. Navarro,” she said.

  Now Anna’s eye was drawn to the tall wooden island behind the receptionist’s station, which extended all the way to the wall; from the legally required exit sign, she realized that the wooden structure concealed the entrance to a staircase. It was artfully done, and it allowed ICU agents or their guests to arrive and depart unnoticed by anyone in the official waiting room. What kind of outfit was this?

  Another five minutes went by.

  “Does Mr. Bartlett know I’m here?” Anna asked.

  The receptionist returned her gaze levelly. “He’s just finishing up with someone.”

  Anna returned to her chair, wishing she’d brought something to read. She didn’t even have the Post, and clearly no reading material would be allowed to soil the pristine waiting area. She took out an automatic-teller-machine slip and a pen and started making a list of things to do.

  The receptionist placed a finger on her ear and nodded. “Mr. Bartlett says he’ll see you now.” She emerged from her station and guided Anna down a series of doors. No names were posted; only numbers. Finally, at the end of a hallway, she opened a door marked director and took her into the tidiest office she had ever seen. On a far table, stacks of paper were perfectly arrayed in equidistant piles.

  A small, white-haired man in a crisp navy suit came out from behind a vast walnut desk and extended a small, delicate hand. Anna noticed the pale pink moons of his perfectly manicured nails and was surprised by the strength of his grip. She noticed that the desk was barren, save for a handful o
f green file folders, and a sleek, black telephone; mounted on the wall just behind it was a velvet-lined glass display case containing two antique-looking pocket watches. It was the one eccentric touch in the room.

  “I’m so terribly sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. His age was indeterminate, but he was probably in his early sixties, Anna decided. His eyes were owlish through his glasses, large round lenses in flesh-colored frames. “I know how busy you are, and you were so very kind to have come by.” He spoke softly, so softly that Anna found herself straining to hear him over the white noise of the ventilation system. “We’re very grateful for your making the time.”

  “If I may speak candidly, I didn’t know we had a choice when ICU called,” she said tartly.

  He smiled as if she had said something amusing. “Please do sit down.”

  Anna settled into the high-backed chair opposite his desk. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Bartlett, I’m curious about why I’m here.”

  “You weren’t inconvenienced, I hope,” Bartlett said, interlacing his small fingers in a prayerful tent.

  “It’s not a matter of inconvenience,” Anna replied. In a strong voice, she added, “I’m happy to answer whatever questions you may have.”

  Bartlett nodded encouragingly. “That’s rather what I’m hoping. But I’m afraid these answers won’t be easy to come by. In fact, if we could even frame the questions, we’d be halfway home. Am I making any sense to you?”

  “I return to my own question,” Anna said with banked impatience. “What am I doing here?”

  “Forgive me. You’re thinking that I’m being maddeningly elliptical. Of course you’re right, and I apologize for it. Occupational hazard. Too much time shut away with paper and more paper. Deprived of the bracing air of experience. But that must be your contribution. Now let me ask you a question, Ms. Navarro. Do you know what it is that we do here?”

  “The ICU? Vaguely. Intragovernmental inquiries—only, the classified kind.” Anna decided that the query called for reticence; she knew a little more than what she volunteered. She was aware that behind its bland title was an extremely secretive, powerful, and far-reaching investigative agency charged with highly classified audits and examinations of other U.S. government agencies that couldn’t be done in-house, and which involved highly sensitive matters. ICU officials were deeply involved, it was said, in scrutinizing the CIA’s Aldrich Ames fiasco; in investigating the Reagan White House’s Iran-Contra affair; in examining numerous Defense Department acquisitions scandals. It was the ICU, people whispered, that had first uncovered the suspicious activities of the FBI’s counterintelligence agent Robert Philip Hanssen. There were even rumors that the ICU was behind the “Deep Throat” leaks that led to Richard Nixon’s downfall.

  Bartlett looked off into the middle distance. “The techniques of investigation are, in their essentials, everywhere the same,” he said, finally. “What changes is the bailiwick, the ambit of operations. Ours has to do with matters touching on national security.”

  “I don’t have that kind of clearance,” Anna put in quickly.

  “Actually”—Bartlett allowed himself a small smile—“you do now.”

  Had she been cleared without her knowledge? “Regardless. It’s not my terrain.”

  “That’s not strictly the case, is it?” Bartlett said. “Why don’t we talk about the NSC member you did a Code 33 on last year?”

  “How the hell do you know about that?” Anna blurted. She gripped the arm of her chair. “Sorry. But how? That one was strictly off the books. By the direct request of the AG.”

  “Off your books,” Bartlett said. “We have our own way of keeping tabs. Joseph Nesbett, wasn’t it? Used to be at the Harvard Center for Economic Development. Got a high-level appointment at State, then on to the National Security Council. Not born bad, shall we say? Left to his own devices, I suspect he’d be all right, but the young wife was a bit of a spendthrift, a rather grasping creature, wasn’t she? Expensive tastes for a government employee. Which led to that lamentable business with the offshore accounts, the diversion of funds, all of it.”

  “It would have been devastating had it come out,” Anna said. “Damaging to foreign relations at a particularly sensitive moment.”

  “Not to mention the embarrassment to the Administration.”

  “That wasn’t a primary consideration,” Anna retorted sharply. “I’m not political that way. If you think otherwise, you don’t know me.”

  “You and your colleagues did precisely the right thing, Ms. Navarro. We admired your work, in fact. Very deft. Very deft.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said. “But if you know so much, you’ll know that it was far from my usual turf.”

  “My point remains. You’ve done work of genuine sensitivity and displayed the utmost discretion. But of course I know what your daily fare consists of. The IRS man guilty of peculation. The rogue FBI officer. The unpleasantness involving Witness Protection—now, that was quite an interesting little exercise. Your background in homicide forensics was indispensable there. A mob witness is killed, and you single-handedly proved the involvement of the DOJ case officer.”

  “A lucky break,” Anna said stolidly.

  “People make their own luck, Ms. Navarro,” he said, and his eyes were unsmiling. “We know quite a bit about you, Ms. Navarro. More than you might imagine. We know the account balances on that ATM slip you were writing on. We know who your friends are, and when you last called home. We know you’ve never padded a travel-and-expense report in your life, which is more than most of us can say.” He paused, peering at her closely. “I’m sorry if any of this causes you disquiet, but you realize that you relinquished any civil rights to privacy when you joined the OSI, signed the disclaimers and the memoranda of agreement. No matter. The fact is that your work has invariably been of a very high caliber. And quite often extraordinary.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “Ah. You look surprised. I told you, we have our own way of keeping tabs. And we have our own fitness reports, Ms. Navarro. Of course, what immediately distinguishes you, given our concerns, is your particular combination of skills. You have a background in the standard ‘audit’ and investigative protocols, but you also have an expertise in homicide. This makes you, may I say, unique. But to the matter at hand. It’s only fair to let you know that we’ve done the most thorough background check on you imaginable. Everything I’m going to tell you—anything I state, assert, conjecture, suggest, or imply—must be regarded as classified at the topmost level. Do we understand each other?”

  Anna nodded. “I’m listening.”

  “Excellent, Ms. Navarro.” Bartlett handed her a sheet of paper with a list of names on it, followed by dates of birth and countries of residence.

  “I’m not following. Am I supposed to contact these men?”

  “Not unless you’ve got a Ouija board. All eleven of these men are deceased. All passed from this vale of tears within the past two months. Several, you’ll see, in the United States, others in Switzerland, in England, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Greece… All apparently of natural causes.”

  Anna glanced at the sheet. Of the eleven, there were two names she recognized—one a member of the Lancaster family, a family that once owned most of the steel mills in the country, but was now better known for its foundation grants and other forms of philanthropy. Philip Lancaster was, in fact, somebody she’d assumed had died long ago. The other, Nico Xenakis, was presumably from the Greek shipping family. To be honest, she knew the name mainly in connection to another scion of the family—a man who had made a tabloid name for himself as a roué back in the sixties, when he’d dated a series of Hollywood starlets. None of the other names rang any bells. Looking at their dates of birth, she saw that all of them were old men—in their late seventies to late eighties.

  “Maybe the news hasn’t reached the ICU whiz kids,” she said, “but when you’ve had your three score and ten…well, no one gets out alive.”
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  “In none of these cases is exhumation possible, I’m afraid,” Bartlett continued implacably. “Perhaps it’s as you say. Old men doing what old men will do. In those instances, we cannot prove otherwise. But in the last few days, we’ve had a stroke of luck. In a pro forma way, we put a roster of names on the ‘sentinel list’—one of those international conventions that nobody seems to take any notice of. The most recent death was of a retiree in Nova Scotia, Canada. Our Canadian friends are sticklers about procedures, and that’s how the alarm was sounded in time. In this instance, we have a body to work with. More precisely, you do.”

  “You’re leaving something out, of course. What is it that connects these men?”

  “To every question, there’s a surface answer and a deeper one. I’ll give you the surface answer, because it’s the only one I have. A few years ago, an internal audit was conducted of the CIA’s deep-storage records. Was a tip received? Let’s say it was. These were non-operational files, mind you. They weren’t agents or direct contacts. They were, in fact, clearance files. Each was marked ‘Sigma,’ presumably a reference to a codeword operation—of which there seems to be no trace in the Agency’s records. We have no information as to its nature.”

  “Clearance files?” Anna repeated.

  “Meaning that some time long ago each man had been vetted and cleared—for something, we don’t know what.”

  “And the source of origin was a CIA archivist.”

  He didn’t reply directly. “Each file has been authenticated by our top forensic document experts. They’re old, these files. They date as far back as the mid-forties, before there even was a CIA.”

  “You’re saying they were started by OSS?”

  “Exactly,” Bartlett said. “The CIA’s precursor. Many of the files were opened right around the time the war was ending, the Cold War beginning. The latest ones date from the mid-fifties. But I digress. As I say, we have this curious pattern of deaths. Of course, it would have gone nowhere, a question mark in a field full of question marks, except that we began to see a pattern, cross-checked and correlated with the Sigma files. I don’t believe in coincidences, do you, Ms. Navarro? Eleven of the men named in these files have died in a very short interval. The actuarial odds of this happening by chance are… remote at best.”