William Tyree: The Fellowship

Carrying a bag full of pricey foils, the younger analyst had entered the gym bragging about his exploits fencing on a championship team at Princeton and, later, with the U.S. National Team. Carver had also come to fencing in college, although his experience was hardly Ivy League. After failing to make the swimming team at the University of Arizona, the swim coach had waved his hand at the bronzed hardbodies chatting each other up in tight speedos around the sun-drenched pool. “These aren’t your people,” the coach had told the future intelligence operative. “Go on over to the rec center. The fencers practice in the basement. You’ve got the wingspan for it.”

It was true that Carver’s arms were freakishly long in comparison with the rest of his body. “Orangutan Arms,” his sisters had called him. So against his better judgment, Carver had followed the coach’s advice. But upon seeing members of the fencing club, he instantly resented the notion that these were “his people.” They had been, without exception, engineering students with bad skin and worse social skills. Nevertheless, it had taken him only one private lesson to get hooked. He found fencing simultaneously cerebral and physical, like chess with swords.

He had only recently had time to come back to the sport after a 15-year hiatus. One of the only positives to a situation that had found him tied to a desk. It wasn’t going so badly today. He had now scored eight touches in a row on the younger man with the fancy pedigree, and the analyst’s mounting frustration would only continue playing to Carver’s advantage.

“Again,” the analyst said wearily. He was stiff now, standing nearly straight up. He had a bad habit of moving his blade in a predictable semi-circular oval pattern while preparing an attack. Carver had knocked the foil out of his hand a few minutes earlier, and now the analyst clutched the grip hard, decreasing his flexibility.

Carver bided his time, waiting for the next offensive. When it came, Carver angled his body away from the lunge, pivoting with his rear foot while simultaneously bending down and thrusting. A well-executed inquartata .

The analyst went into a rage, ripping off his mask, hurling it across the room.

“Agent Carver?”

The voice belonged to Arunus Roth. The skinny kid in the secondhand suit standing in the doorway was the last person Carver expected to see in the gym. Roth was 100 percent geek. His idea of a workout was an all-night hackathon with friends.

Roth scurried over to him. “We need you in the NCC,” he said. “It’s Crossbow.”

Carver removed his helmet, running his fingertips through his gentleman’s haircut and down his sideburns, which had always been slightly too long for conservative Washington. He stuffed his blade into the oblong gray sports bag containing his work clothes and headed for the door. It was drizzling as they made their way, walking and talking, across the sprawling campus. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, was located, along with the National Counterterrorism Center, in one of the most modern complexes in the agency system. Its lone downside was its physical location, which was far from downtown D.C. and even farther from CIA headquarters.

“What’s happening?” Carver said.

“Zhu’s team was attending the opera,” Roth said.

“Was?” Carver said, checking his watch. “It shouldn’t be over yet.”

“I’m getting to that.”

“Is Callahan there?” Their man on the ground in Rome, Thomas Callahan, had only last night managed to infect Zhu’s phone with malware that would allow them to both intercept his communications and track his location.

“Yeah, Callahan was there. His seats were about 10 meters behind Zhu’s. He’d just called in saying Zhu and his partner had stepped out for intermission. Then all of a sudden, I get an alert that Zhu’s on the move.”

Carver walked faster. “What do you mean, on the move?”

“He was suddenly moving at 60 miles per hour, or about 96 kph.”

“Stop converting everything to metric.”

“Sorry. Okay, so then Callahan calls in. He says there was just a hit and run outside the Caracalla Baths. He has no idea where Zhu is.”

“Great.”

“At least we can still track his location.”

“Don’t be so sure. You said Callahan didn’t see where Zhu went. For all we know, he tossed the phone into the back of a truck, and it’s zipping along the freeway right now while Zhu is busy watching the third act.”

The two men entered the National Counterterrorism Center, a massive X-shaped structure. Carver stood for a moment on the concourse, looking down on the pods of analysts dutifully going about their business. Immense screens on the room’s outer walls displayed feeds from websites, TV stations, satellites and cameras around the globe.

“Are we getting any data from Zhu’s phone?”

“Already intercepting data,” Roth said. “We have full touchpad monitoring on his device, so we can see anything he does, bro.”

Had the kid really just called him “bro”? He took a deep breath, reminding himself that Arunus Roth was only 21 years old. Like many of the agency’s newest geek recruits, he hadn’t even finished college. The American university system wasn’t producing nearly enough computer science degree holders these days, and venture capital-funded companies were out-recruiting the federal cybersecurity teams.

Last year, Roth had been expelled from an Albuquerque community college for playing an elaborate prank. Roth had used his burgeoning hacker skills to infiltrate the school’s vocational aptitude software, which several thousand new students were required to take each year. During the college’s busy enrollment week, the administration office had been flooded with complaints after the guidance software recommended that students pursue a variety of unusual occupations, including Alpaca husbandry, buffalo slaughter and gang thuggery.

Roth may not have been disciplined enough to stay in school, nor was he brilliant enough to head out on his own and create the next Facebook. But in this talent-starved environment, he was good enough to groom for cybersecurity work. As a first step, he was on track to spend one probationary year doing technical mission support, which meant doing pretty much anything Carver asked of him.

Now they proceeded down the stairs toward Roth’s pod. “What about voice monitoring?” Carver asked. “I want a recording of everything he says.”

“I’m trying to make that work. Should be able to get it done tonight.”

Carver checked his watch. The timing of this couldn’t have been worse. He was due to give a briefing on Crossbow in an hour.

Rome

The Range Rover’s velocity took Adrian Zhu’s breath away. He hung on as the vehicle weaved in and out of the rows of headlights racing toward the suburbs. Zhu cast a sideways glance at Lars. Although the two men had met numerous times during Lars’ trips to China, he hardly recognized him tonight. The security specialist had dyed his hair black and styled it into a short, fashionable cut. He was clean-shaven now, and he had gotten some sun on his face. He could have easily passed for a local.

He didn’t know what title Lars held in the organization, or how he had joined. He only knew that the Shepherd himself had entrusted Lars to deliver him safely.

A few minutes later, Lars swerved the Range Rover abruptly into the parking garage of a large hotel. His black shirtsleeves had receded, revealing a set of thick, veiny forearms.

“The Shepherd is here?” Zhu said.

Lars didn’t answer. He took a ticket at the parking gate, then drove quickly up the second-floor r amp, then the third, and finally to the fourth, where there were no other cars. He pulled into the middle of the otherwise empty row and kept the vehicle idling.