Chapter Twenty-Six
CANDACE KIM
NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland
Candace caught Slash’s eye as they were walking out of the director’s weekly stand-up meeting. He gave her an imperceptible nod. After chatting with a couple of assistants, she returned to her office and waited. Ten minutes later, Slash sat in her visitor chair.
“You’ve got news?” he asked.
“Yes, and not the good kind,” she replied. “We have a problem. The terrorist networks given to us by Sinclair in his last communication have suddenly vanished. They stopped returning to the two hideouts they were using and faded away. We were following one individual who took a sudden flight to São Paulo and then eluded our contacts there. The others were going about their normal business and never returned. They were tipped off.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know, but people are speculating it was Sinclair.”
“Why would he do that?” Slash frowned. “That makes no sense. He wouldn’t jeopardize the immunity deal when he’s so close, and he’s never done anything like that in the past.”
“I know, but people are arguing this is proof that they can’t trust him, and with the evidence of good faith gone, we should cancel the deal. The Justice Department is getting jittery about the latest development. It’s taking everything I’ve got to calm everyone down. What do you think?”
“I think it stinks.”
“I agree. Someone is purposely sabotaging our efforts to bring him in, and my number one suspect is Isaac Remington. Did you come up with anything involving the Ahab/pope connection?”
“Nothing.” Slash rubbed his hand against his stubbled jaw, thinking. “Would you send me the transcripts of all the correspondence we’ve had with Sinclair? He’s a cryptologist by training, so we should think like one when we’re trying to decode whatever message he might be sending.”
“I’ll have everything to you by tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you. When’s the next communication scheduled with him?”
“Four days. I don’t even know if I should tell Sinclair what’s happened. Right now, I’m leaning toward keeping it quiet and seeing if he brings it up. It may give us some insight as to his mind-set.”
“Sinclair isn’t behind the leak.” Slash expression turned grim. “Our problem is in-house. I’m more convinced of that than ever. We should trust Sinclair until he gives us reason to doubt him.”
She liked that their thinking matched on this issue. It didn’t often work that way when she worked with other colleagues. “I concur, but staying the course will be hard with the others arguing to the contrary.”
He fell silent for a moment, thinking. “See if you can stall them. In terms of this investigation, I’ve got a much lower profile than you. If you’re in agreement, I’ll do some investigating behind the scenes.”
“I’d appreciate that. Thank you.”
He stood, crossing his arms against his chest. “Just keep in mind, if I don’t find anything, we’ll have to rely on Sinclair to flush them out on his own. That could be dangerous for him.”
“I know.” She’d considered that, and knew it was a risk, but they’d have to take it. They didn’t have any other choice. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”