Conley squinted against the sunlight streaming through the trees and said, “As far as I can tell. We fight terrorists, tyrants, and criminals. We do things that the CIA and NSA can’t, or won’t, do. And I always get a choice. The right to refuse any mission.”
That was important. Morgan had always retained that right, even when working for the CIA. He’d never give up his own rights of conscience. “Does it worry you?” said Morgan. “That you’re the hand of an organization, and you don’t know where it keeps its head?”
“Was it different in the Agency?” asked Conley. “Did we ever know why they did what they did? The reason behind their decisions? Did we know that we weren’t supporting someone’s political career more than the American people? We did our best to choose whether or not to accept the mission. But ultimately, we had to trust that it all added up to something. That’s what I do now.”
It wasn’t satisfying, of course. But Conley was right. There was no better guarantee than this. There wasn’t always black and white in international politics, and the further you went into the spy game, the greyer things tended to become.
“Are you glad you’re in?” asked Morgan.
“I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t,” said Conley. His tone turned personal and sincere. “We could really use you, Dan.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Morgan. “That’s all I can promise right now.”
Conley nodded. “Think on it. Meanwhile, want a ride?” he asked, motioning to his Jeep.
“Nah,” said Morgan. “I think I need to take some time to reflect on my own.”
“Give me a call if you want to talk,” said Conley. “You could be doing a lot of good here.”
Morgan had begun to run, planning a long way back to his house. As his feet hit the pavement, he’d tried to keep a level head and weigh this decision carefully. But with the giddy excitement in his gut about his new prospect, it had been hard to think that this was anything but a foregone conclusion.
CHAPTER 7
Boston, December 28
Lincoln Shepard’s fingers hovered over his keyboard, and he took a deep breath. He was about to set his already considerably high personal bar just a little bit higher.
The name of the thing was Hong Yan. Satellite—Chinese military, top secret, and with a big, deadly high-powered laser strapped on its back. It had been built to swat ballistic missiles right out of the sky, although Shepard had done some back-of-the-envelope calculations and figured out that it could probably even take out a target on the ground, provided it moved slowly enough. It was one of the most advanced pieces of technology in the world, the result of a years-long research and development process that was kept tightly under wraps. Its existence had so far evaded the notice of the CIA, the NSA, and MI6. Nobody outside of the People’s Republic was supposed to know it even existed yet.
And he, Lincoln Shepard, was going to hack it.
He was in Zeta Division headquarters, which took up several levels below the parking garage of a skyscraper in downtown Boston. They’d only just moved into the new digs three weeks ago. Shepard wasn’t allowed to see all the facilities in the new headquarters, although it was obviously far too big for just the current members of Zeta. What he had seen was more spacious than any of their temporary sites had been, which meant that Bloch, and whoever else called the shots, had every intention of expanding. Shepard had his own little command center, with a dozen empty workstations waiting to be filled. For himself, he had his own multiple-monitor station connected to enough computing power to control the air traffic for the entire Western hemisphere. In the corner he had his only non-computer requirement for his workspace: a minifridge stocked with energy drinks and a cabinet filled to capacity with snack food. The walls were a nice dark maroon, which were not conducive to a tranquil work environment, but he was fine with that—he found that he worked a lot better when he was perpetually on edge. He already had his Space Invaders poster up next to his workspace. It had been rolled up and put away for a while. He had stopped bothering to personalize his space while they had no permanent offices, because they never seemed to stay in one place, and each successive move just made it seem more pointless.
“Walk me through this again, Shep,” came the severe voice of Diana Bloch, who was behind him, hunching over his chair. She was the boss, head honcho at Zeta Division. The one who had interrupted his normal intelligence duties to put him to work on this Chinese satellite. Once the intel had come in on it, dealing with it had become top priority. After all, it was able to render the threat of nuclear strike harmless by making China impossible to hit with ballistic missiles, which would upset the threat of mutually assured destruction in nuclear war. The thing could tilt the balance of power between nations and aggravate international tensions. China would be able to act unilaterally with impunity, and it wasn’t hard to see how far things could devolve from there. Naturally, then, the only answer was to bring it down as discreetly as possible.