Secondhand Sorcery

“’Numenate Lt. Colonel Harry Chen, 43, KIA, along with Second Lieutenant Andre Rockwell, Master Sergeant Joshua Reeves, and an unconfirmed number of civilians including all medical staff,’” Hamp finished reading from his phone, then tossed it down. “Don’t think I ever met Chen. What was a lieutenant colonel doing there?”

“His job,” Dr. Gus said from the backseat, beside Keisha. “He was an emissor.”

“No shit?” Ethan’s eyes shot up to the rear-view mirror. “Who’d we just lose?”

“Pangu. One of Helen Duvall’s proteges. It is perhaps fortunate that she passed on two years ago. Few of her students remain, and she never took it well.”

Ethan shook his head in disgust. “And they stuck him on ride-along? Hell of a waste.”

“There wasn’t much else they could have done,” Keisha reasoned. “Leaving her totally unsecured wasn’t an option, and the move should have been secret in the first place. Blame their OpSec for this.”

“Oh, I do,” Ethan growled. “Did the little prick get away clean, then?”

“As of this morning?” Hamp scrolled through his phone again. “Looks like it.” Ethan slapped the steering wheel with both hands; the car swerved in response. “Hey! Control yourself, operative!”

“We didn’t crash, did we?”

Keisha ignored the ensuing argument to read the updates herself. A door-to-door search of a city the size of Ankara was an ambitious job, even after a quarter of the population had run for it. If they’d hit before the encirclement was complete and everyone was ready, it was no surprise that the kids had slipped through. Scroll, scroll, scroll … “Snowdrop hit again,” she announced.

Hamp broke off in the middle of Ethan’s dressing-down. “Didn’t see that. What is it this time?”

“Nothing of ours, strictly speaking. A checkpoint at the south end of the city. Norwegian army with Swede support, twenty-two dead plus civilians. About two hours after we lost Fatima. I’m seeing some speculation that it was timed to help them break through, either to create an opening or as a diversion for a breakout somewhere else. But Snowdrop’s been striking often enough that nobody made the connection right away.”

“Not while everyone was losing their minds over the Fatima disaster,” Hamp concluded. “So, the Russians might have two Marshall kids to work with now.”

“Ruslan obviously didn’t find out where Fatima was by himself. It’s a bigger question whether he actually rejoined them once he’d rescued his sister.”

“You think he’d have the nerve to ditch them?” Ethan said.

“No. But Fatima might, and she’s a lot more stubborn. I could see her goading him into desertion.”

“Huh. Ruslan’s the wimpy kid, right?”

“Yes. Extremely passive. I don’t think the Russians would have any difficulty controlling him.”

“Okay.” Ethan drove on a little longer, then abruptly and without warning pulled a u-turn to head back toward the town they’d just left.

“Hey!” Hamp shouted. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find a pizza. Or a burger. Or anything hot. Why? Where were we going before? Did anybody know?” Silence. “Didn’t think so. We’re going to get some real food, and then we’re going to hash out a new plan, because what we’re doing now ain’t accomplishing a damn thing.”

There were no objections, and an hour later they were eating döner kebab, making a mess of the car in the process. It was, as promised, blessedly hot, and Keisha felt the stress of the past few days fall off her shoulders as her stomach filled up with lamb.

“Well,” Hamp announced, sucking sauce off his thumb, “I’d say that was a good call by Major Honoré. At least the first part. As for the second, does anybody have any bright ideas?”

“We have multiple quarries to consider,” Dr. Gus said slowly. “The surviving Marshalls are presumably split three ways. The eldest, Fatima and Ruslan, will be somewhere in the vicinity of Ankara, some distance from here. By the time we regained the city, they would be some distance away, and very likely invisible. We are unlikely to spend our time well pursuing them, whether they are under Russian control or not. Agreed?”

Nods from all around. “Very well. Miss Nadezhda has remained admirably concealed, with no reports of Ézarine anywhere that we can determine. She might, by this juncture, be in another country. She is thus ruled out as well, for the time being. And we have seen the futility of attempting to bring Yuri to justice with our current resources.”

“Sounds like we’re out of targets, then,” Ethan said.

“No. There are also the Russians. They are the most pressing issue in any case, from a strategic perspective. Yuri is actively dangerous, but in a grossly uncontrolled way; he is very nearly a literal loose cannon. Fatima and Ruslan are unlikely to make trouble if they are not under Russian command—or so I think. Keisha?”

“I’d say you’re right. Ruslan prefers hiding to fighting and Fatima would rather lay low and see how things shake out before committing herself. And Nadia’s done nothing for four or five days. But we don’t have a lead on the Russians, either. Everybody and their brother’s been scouring the city for Snowdrop for days now.”

“And now it turns out they have ears all through our organization,” Hamp added gloomily.

“That should not be surprising,” Dr. Gus said. “But the extent of their penetration is new and potentially useful information. We know they are listening. Therefore, we can send them a message—a thing we cannot reliably do for any of their erstwhile assets. Can we use this ability?”

Keisha smiled. “I do believe you’re right, Doctor. A trap?”

“I’d rather bait a trap and hold still than keep chasing shadows. I like my boy Song, but keeping him up for twelve hours wears on a man.”

“What’s the bait, though?” Hamp said. “And can we set it up alone? We don’t know where they have spies; the first request we send for help potentially compromises the whole ruse, and puts them on guard.”

“If we go through official channels, yes,” Keisha said, feeling her smile grow. She thought she was on to something now. “But that’s why we have you around, isn’t it, Colonel?”

“Depends who you need to talk to. You got something in mind?”

“Maybe. Do you know anybody high up in French command?”

The initial idea was the biggest hurdle. Once they had that, the rest of the details fell into place with only a little work. At Hamp’s insistence, they ran it by General Green, who agreed to keep his mouth shut and sit on any of their own people he caught sniffing at the bait. A brief GPS consultation later, they were headed east again, to a city called Bingöl. Hamp stayed in the passenger seat, begging for favors from some guy named Olivier, but Keisha took a turn at the wheel to give Ethan a rest. It was a sure sign of his fatigue that he relinquished control of the car without complaint.

“All right, he’ll send us some files,” Hamp announced as he hung up the phone. “Took a hell of a lot of sweet talk, though, considering it stopped being a matter of French security more than—“

“Don’t wake the baby,” Keisha softly chided. She nodded her head to the back seat, where Ethan snored, his head dangling against the seat belt. A tiny drop of drool glistened on the tip of his mustache.

“Right,” Hamp continued, more quietly. “Can’t have that. Anyway, he says to give him an hour, if we want this secure.”

“It’ll take about that long to get on-site anyway,” Keisha told him.

“Fine.” He stretched his legs as far as he could in the car, then said, “Dr. Gus, you still with us?”

“I find I need less sleep, at my age. What do you need?”

“Nothing urgent. Just … something that’s been weighing on me. About this whole Belvedere business.”

Keisha spared a glance for the rear-view—the road wasn’t all that busy—and found her mentor unperturbed. “What about it?”

“Chief Graham here tells me you were training emissors, without permission, or with ambiguous permission, or whatever, for years now. Is that right? How, in all that time, did absolutely nobody involved blow? There had to have been at least twenty people in on it.”

“More than twenty. But the intelligence community is quite insular. You know this, Colonel.”

“Yeah, yeah. I suppose what I’m asking isn’t the how, it’s the why.” He looked back at Ethan, then continued, still with his voice low, “Why was it that not one of those people, men and women who’d served their country for years, their whole careers dedicated to defending the Constitution … why didn’t even one of them speak up?”

“I cannot speak for all of them, Colonel. Only for myself. And I remained silent because, regardless of formalities, I believed and still believe that the continued training of emissors was the correct action to take.”

“Who gave you the authority to make that call, though?”

“God, if you like. Or myself, as a free human being, if that suits you better. I was not born under your Constitution, Colonel Hampton. I am no patriot. My country, as your Mr. Paine said, is the world, and my religion to do good. America is, at present, more a force for good than the contrary, and a suitably long lever with which to shift the world I aim to serve and protect.”

“A cosmopolitan,” Hamp sneered. “Nice.”

“A cosmopolitan,” Dr. Gus affirmed, “but not ‘rootless.’ My chosen vocation, and the experience it has given me, do not permit me any more limited perspective. As for the perspectives of others … you are familiar with the story of King Canute, and the waves?”

“Never heard of him.”

“A historical king, and an absurd legend. The story goes that, fed up with his flattering courtiers, he marched them to the sea and asked whether the waves would obey if he told them to stop coming in. The lackeys were puzzled, but assented, whereupon the King promptly proved them wrong, and told them to save their adulation for God.”

“Okay. What does that have to do with any of this?”

“It is a useful illustration, in conjunction with one other, from Shakespeare: King Lear. This king likewise gave an unwise order, but his subordinate and his own daughter spoke up and told him he was being a fool. As a consequence, both were ejected from court, leaving the king helpless in the hands of malignant actors. The kingdom was torn apart by civil war shortly after, and the king himself died. These two examples have served America’s intelligence officers well.”

“Great. A cosmopolitan, and a cynic.”

“I did not say this was my own philosophy, only that it was common. The times are challenging and frightful, and the men in command appear to be committing errors? It is best to shut one’s mouth, and remain loyally in place, prepared for whatever disaster may come. Canute’s men were censured but kept their positions, and his story ends happily. Indeed, one imagines the king was most pleased, utterly self-satisfied, to have shown his subordinates up as blockheads. Have you not seen this same attitude at work, in the military?”

“All right, fair enough,” Hamp grumbled. “But all you’re really telling me is that they were a bunch of cowards.”

“We are speaking of professional spies, Colonel, and the difference between cowardice and prudence is largely a matter of framing. The underlying actions stay the same. Only the story we tell about them is different. That is what interests me.”

Hamp crossed his arms and looked out the window. Keisha kept driving.

The promised files arrived a few minutes after they crossed Bingöl city limits, but took a while to download. They’d chosen the city purely for its size—more than a hundred thousand people—and proximity. It was up in the hills, cold and dry, and absolutely swarming with soldiers considering how small it was. Five surly-looking uniformed Turks in a light truck accosted them as they drove in, but lost interest when they saw Keisha and her American ID.

“You sure this is a good spot to do this?” Hamp asked as they drove on. “There’s a lot of civilians, and those boys looked tense.”

“It’s less plausible outside of a population center,” Keisha reminded him. “This is about as small as we can get.”

They still had several hours until nightfall, when shooting conditions would be best. Ethan and Hampton spent the time finding locals of various ages willing to provide dramatic readings of lines in exchange for hundred-lira bills. They also needed to dump a much larger sum to purchase a teenager’s local-model phone. Keisha, meanwhile, looked over the files Hamp’s friend had sent: several minutes of video footage, taken with a very long zoom, of Ézarine. Every government kept these files—there were probably some of her own Adesina buried somewhere—but getting them to share was a near miracle. Hamp couldn’t have done it at all if this particular familiar wasn’t gone past hope of recovery.

It shouldn’t be too hard, she decided. Ézarine’s appearance varied so much with each summoning anyway, any goofs could just be passed off as more of the same. And simple free-form illusions were a basic exercise, one that didn’t even need a full-sized VRIL to make provided you didn’t need the illusion to do anything special. Or be very large.

The hard part came after sunset, when they got together at a deserted spot on the edge of the city to effectively invent an entirely new form of special effects. Their “Ézarine” had to be small, to look like it was shot with a phone’s zoom from outside halo range, but Keisha couldn’t fake it clipping behind buildings. Getting the perspective right was a cast-iron bitch. After more than two dozen failed takes, tempers ran hot, and they had to take a break.

“I don’t suppose one of us knows a discreet professional video editor?” Hamp proposed.

“Won’t work,” Ethan said at once. “Video editing leaves telltales, and every analyst knows to look for ‘em. Internet’s flooded with fakes. The edge of a halo creates totally different artifacts, and those aren’t advertised. A VRIL mockup will do the same thing, so it’s an in-house job.”

They were at it for another hour and a half before they got it just right: the phone wobbled and lurched dramatically, then zoomed in on Ézarine appearing to rush across the road and disappear near a sign advertising Bingöl’s university, while audio clips of authentic Turkish exclamations and a single gunshot played in the background. The whole finished file lasted less than eight seconds.

“I still think the audio sounds tinny,” Ethan said. “Fake.”

“Low-quality doesn’t mean fake,” Keisha told him. “It could be a crappy microphone. The effect itself will hold up as real, and that’s what matters.”

“Will it hold up, though?” Hamp worried. “We’re not professionals.”

“Yeah, I thought of that too,” she said. “Thing is, even if it isn’t believable to the Russians or their guys, it’s still not a totally wasted effort.”

She sent the finished file to Renee Baker, who did payroll work and wasn’t remotely well-placed to be a spy. Renee passed it up the chain of command as an anonymous submission, and also discreetly sold it cheap, on Keisha’s instructions, to a minor Turkish social media news startup. By midnight it was all over the internet as well, and new versions with excited overlaid commentary, or clumsy dramatizing edits, were popping up every few minutes. There to be seen by the Russians … or any other, less discriminating audience. Including anxious teenagers looking to reunite with family.

“All right, the hook is set,” Ethan said, rubbing his eyes. “Now can we please get to bed?”