“What about the agents he’ll assume are with me?”
“He’ll know that’s his problem to deal with.”
“But you’ll have a whole team of people on the ground ready to take him out when he comes,” Sabrina added.
“No,” Krueger countered. “Not a team.”
She tried to imagine a legitimate reason for that, but when she failed, she asked, “Uh… Why not?”
“For one, if he thought this was a trap, he wouldn’t get anywhere near it. We know he has sources inside the Company. It’s just one of the ways he’s managed to elude us for so long. A job this big, this important, would get out to everyone despite its classification. We want him to tap those sources and come up blank.”
“And the other reason?”
“What we’re talking about is a huge risk,” Krueger stated slowly, clearly willing her to understand. “What we’re talking about is not something that if the president knew about it, he would or could agree to.”
“Shit,” Sabrina hissed. “This is the part where you tell me you have to cover your ass.”
“Not my ass. The president’s ass. The American people don’t want another attack in this country. They certainly would not appreciate the idea of their government agencies willingly allowing key terrorists to move freely about inside our borders.”
“You think?” she drawled.
“This is a highly offensive maneuver, but one I think is necessary. There are only three people who are aware of the plan I laid out. The director of the CIA, you and myself. It must remain this way. As far as everyone else in the agency is concerned your only mission is to decrypt the data. An agent will pick you up to take you to the server’s location. You will convince that agent that it was your idea to lure Kahsan into the open. Regardless of what happens from that point forward, your mission stays the same. If it looks like we’re pulling the plug, you must convince that agent to continue to work with you. Or you operate on your own. The agent is expendable, do you understand? Kahsan is the primary target. He’s the only thing that matters.”
Sabrina processed that. “What if I make contact with Kahsan and he has me kidnapped before your agent comes?”
“You don’t know where the computer is. Kidnapping you makes no sense. He has to have you and the computer together for this to work. Once there, either you or the agent will take him out on sight.”
“And if I fail, and somehow Kahsan gets the data and meets up with the other bad guys and boom!, the White House ends up as toast, then what?”
“Then the CIA will disavow all knowledge of any plan to bring him into the country and you’ll be known as the worst traitor in American history since Benedict Arnold.”
“You guys suck,” Sabrina muttered.
“It’s not going to come to that. Without you he can’t get the data, without the data he can’t get to the cells. Besides if something does happen to you…”
“You make that sound like a broken fingernail, when what you mean is if he kills me.”
“If something does happen to you…we’ll still have a bead on Kahsan that we’ve never had before. And I personally will see to it that he doesn’t leave the country alive.” Krueger sighed. “I know what we’re asking is a lot.”
There was the understatement of the century. Sabrina pulled her hand through her hair and thought about what she’d been doing the same time last night. She was pretty sure she’d been in the middle of a hot bath and a whiskey. Now she was being recruited as bait for one of the most frightening killers on the planet. Life certainly had some interesting twists.
“You’re sure he’ll come?” She wanted to know.
“Reasonably sure. Our profilers tell us the man is an egomaniac. It’s not just money, but the attention that will follow if he pulls this off that will attract him. It’s a hell of a carrot. If he doesn’t come, of course we’ll still give you an opportunity to get through Arnold’s password and decrypt the data.”
“Oh joy!” she squealed facetiously. “I still have that opportunity.”
“Sabrina, may I call you that?”
Unbelievable. They were here discussing what was possibly the riskiest plan of the century to capture one of the most dangerous men ever, and he was worried about etiquette. Strange as it seemed in that instant she both lost a little and gained a little respect for him.
“Sure.”
“Sabrina, why did you call me?”
Good fucking question. Because Arnold told her this was a chance to get back in the game. Because she thought she was ready to get back in the game. But Krueger was offering her a chance to be quarterback in the Super Bowl. She didn’t know if she was ready for this.
So she ignored his question and asked him one of her own. “What if I say no? What happens?”
His answer was too quick. “We’ll put plan B into place. We believe there might be someone else who can perform the same role we’re asking you to perform, but because of your previous training you were our top pick.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
“I need to know. I need to know whose head is going to be on the proverbial chopping block if I pass.”
“You’ve heard of Sal Ploxm….”
“A hacker?” she blurted. “You’re going to use some virus-spreading geek to catch Kahsan? Do you even know who he is?”
“We’re following some leads. He’s had success hacking into some of the most secure networks. That and the fact that he works outside the law, we believe he’s the next logical choice.”
Sabrina considered him for a moment. The CIA was resorting to an insubordinate ex-agent and a hacker. One thing became crystal clear. “You don’t have anybody on your staff who can hack through Arnold’s password, let alone decrypt his code. Not even close. You know that your project is over and that this… is a last-ditch attempt to salvage something from it.”
He didn’t deny it. “The radiation patterns will fade eventually and no, we don’t believe anyone can access the information in time. We have enlisted cryptologists from every department in the government to work on one of Arnold’s predecessor programs in an attempt to see if anyone could come close. No one has. Not even your father. As far as we’re concerned the project is a write-off. The FBI has sent agents out to the last known location of those people we’ve tagged. If we lose them somehow, then we’ll merely revert to our previous methods—good old-fashioned legwork—to find them again. But in the meantime, the lure of this data might be our only opportunity to push Kahsan out of hiding. We’re going to take it.”
“Arnold thinks I can do it,” she suggested. “If you gave me a chance—”
“We don’t have that kind of time. As I said, Kahsan is not without resources. We have to move quickly and we have to make it look real. Salinski’s death will leak. There’s no stopping that. This has to go down like a well choreographed ballet.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “It’s a list of Web sites that he uses where you should be able to make contact. I need to know now if you’re in.”
If she wasn’t, then the job would go to Sal Ploxm, a virus pirate who got off on infecting systems that were deemed foolproof. Apparently, there was no firewall that could stop him. A hacker with more balls than brains as far as she was concerned. If he was that talented, he’d be making more money and fewer headlines. The fact that she knew his name meant he got off on the rush. A hacker like that had to have one hell of an ego.