CHAPTER 6

Roy Sing was not much to look at. A little light on muscle, a little pudgy around the middle, a carefully trimmed beard—substituting for actual manliness, Constantine assessed. Entirely ordinary, he knew, but he still found it distasteful. The facility, though, was everything he would have expected: a grand marble lobby, glass offices, heritage displays—and of course a great deal of security. As a special operator, he veritably lived in limited-access areas, so being privileged to enter one did not strike him with the same sense of awe and novelty that it might a member of the public. His experience, rather, was one of curiosity: he was always interested in places to which even he, with his credentials, would not ordinarily be invited.

They had run a check on Constantine’s clearance eligibility while he waited for Sing, and when Sing had arrived he had been carrying Constantine’s nondisclosure agreement already printed out and neatly prepared in a red folder. “Mr. Constantine?” They had shaken hands and with that token sealed first impressions.

“Rob Constantine. You’re Roy Sing?”

“Yeah, pleased to meet you. Welcome to the Agency.”

“Thanks. It’s my first time. Impressive place.”

“Yeah, well, you haven’t seen my office, yet.”

“Yeah?”

“Prepare to be disappointed.”

Constantine had chuckled as he signed the NDAs. (The list of covered programs was impressive: Spotlight. Ardent Scout. Razor. Codenames that meant nothing to Constantine but which certainly sounded interesting under the circumstances.) But Sing would prove correct: Once one passed through the grand entrance, it was just another commercial office building, albeit with dire security warnings in place of motivational posters. Where a mining company’s corporate headquarters might have hung framed photos of men in hard-hats standing before their dump-trucks, here there hung framed photos in black and green of men like Constantine at work.

Well, to be fair, the people in these photos were probably tier-one guys. They had finally given Agency-sourced work to a white-side outfit, and look where that had gotten them. Though the disaster had been no fault of the team’s, it still no doubt would be a long time before anyone around here wanted to try that experiment again.

“There’s a lot of respect around here for what you guys do,” said Sing when he noticed Constantine looking at the photos in passing. “It’s always a privilege to get to work with you guys directly.”

“Thanks,” said Constantine, trying not to let his cynicism show in his response.

“Right in here.” Sing led him into a cubicle farm, and to an entirely unremarkable cubicle. Gray textile barriers surrounded Sing’s workstation on three and a half sides. He had a couple of file drawers, a couple of overhead cabinets, and some desk space. The only things he might claim as being other than depressingly ordinary were a height-adjustable desk, which allowed him to work standing up when he wished—all the rage in corporate health and safety—and a bank of three high-end, wide-screen computer monitors. The banners on his screens were specific to his organization, but they made the point: The two on the left were “high side,” connected to a machine on the classified network, and the one on the right was “low side,” connected to a computer on the ordinary, unclassified network.

Sing stole a chair from a neighboring cubicle to supplement his own. “Have a seat, Mr. Constantine.”

“Seriously, Rob is fine,” said Constantine, sitting.

“Rob, yeah, sorry. So, just let me get logged in, here.” Access cards went into their respective slots, followed by pin codes on each system, and presently his desktops appeared. Sing was clearly in the middle of a lot of work, but Constantine could not discern at a glance what any of it meant. On the righthand monitor was a browser window with various Internet news websites open in tabs. On the left, documents. SECRET, they said. REL WILDFIRE, and REL ARDENT SCOUT. Constantine skimmed the text while he waited for Sing to speak. The documents seemed to be intelligence reports, of the sort that rarely filtered down to SOF units. Not raw intel, but initial reports based on raw intel.

“So, let’s get one thing out of the way,” said Sing, still clicking on folders and files, pulling up documents and photos. “I’m not talking about aliens—I mean, not space aliens. What I’m talking about is technology. Technology our enemies shouldn’t have.”

“Okay,” said Constantine, remaining reserved.

Sing swiveled around in his chair to face Constantine. “Before we continue, I want to go back to our conversation on the phone. What you saw in the woods. When we were arguing about it, you said, ‘What do you want me to say? I saw an alien? A ghost?’—Or something to that effect.”

“I remember.”

“The point being, I really want to know: did it look like a ghost? No judgement, here. This is just you and me talking. Me pursuing a theory.”

Constantine sat back, considering his reply. Even in the confidence of an unofficial conversation with a credulous interviewer, he was reluctant to admit anything so fanciful. After all, memory was faulty, malleable. He could remember what he had seen any number of ways, at will. Which one was truly accurate—or even closest to accurate? It was likely that his mind had never taken a truly accurate record of the moment, in the wake of two concussions. Where did that leave him?

“All I can say is, it could have. It’s impossible for me to say for sure, anymore. I think, at the time, I had an impression like a bit of the woods kind of… shifted? Like a wave, but shaped like a person.”

“That interesting. Would you say it was like a cut-out? Like someone took a piece of the picture, duplicated it in place, and then began moving the duplicate? Do you know what I mean?”

“Not really.”

“Here, let me show you.” With a few deft strokes on his low-side computer, he found a stock image of some forest via the Internet and opened that image in an editing program. He drew a rough shape of a person with his mouse, converted that into a selection, copied that bit of the forest, and then pasted it into a new layer, in the same position. He then moved the layer about, so that a person-shaped bit of forest moved, yet behind it the forest backdrop remained intact. Constantine’s primary reaction to all of this was to be reminded that he could barely get his email to work on his office computer.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Though… not really. Not quite like that. More like a wave, like I said. Like it was made of glass. Can you do that?”

“Uh, I don’t think so,” said Sing. He sounded bemused, and even a little disappointed. “Well, anyway, let me tell you what I’m working on. And this is—well, you’ve had the training. You’re TS-SCI eligible. But humor me.”

“Sure,” said Constantine, waiving his hand.

“Everything we talk about here falls under one or more special access programs and is classified either Secret or Top Secret. Most of it is SCI.” Sensitive, compartmentalized information. “Do not speak about this material, even with other SCI-eligible people, unless you’ve verified that they’re already read-in and have signed the NDA.”

“I understand.”

“That includes your, um, teammates. Other people who were on this mission. Information can go to a higher classification when aggregated.”

“I’m familiar.”

“Okay, so, yeah. What I’m working on—Basically, I’m pursuing a theory. It’s kind of on my own time. Approved work, don’t get me wrong, but not an official line of inquiry. The official line of inquiry is the technology… You know what? Let’s talk about that, first. Look here.”

He pulled up another photograph of the unidentified flying object which Constantine and a few others had seen during the mission. “This thing has been photographed in a number of places around the world over the last couple of years. It’s not ours. It does not match any known peer-nation UAS. It looks, frankly, like an RCA jet.”

“RCA?”

“Remote controlled aircraft. I’m talking, like, hobby RC planes. There are small jet models for high end enthusiasts. But this thing has been credibly observed at low speed and even in a hover. Most of the sightings have been on social media, but because of where it’s popped up, we don’t think it’s a commercial unit. We’re not sure whose it is, but the shape indicates it may even be low-observable.”

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“You mean stealth?”

“To radar, yes.”

“Okay.”

“Right. Most of our peers are making stealth drones these days, or trying. I’m not saying this thing is off the charts advanced. It’s just—well, it’s pretty sophisticated, given the way it maneuvers, and it’s obviously new.”

Constantine nodded. “No argument here. I’ve never heard of a drone like that.”

“Yeah, so there’s that. Next: optical camouflage.”

Constantine lifted his chin a touch. “Like, invisibility?” That was true science fiction, albeit an attractive fantasy amongst special operators.

“Well, obviously not. You saw it. But adaptive pigmentation, at least. Cameras embedded in the device on one side capture background imagery and process it, and pigmentation on the other side of the device changes to create a pattern that best matches that background.”

“This is something we have? Or they have?”

“It’s something everyone’s working on, but you see it in college labs and stuff. It’s not feasible, yet, in any kind of fieldable formfactor. It’s an idea, but no one knows yet how to do it in a useful way.”

“Except…”

“Yeah. I think you saw one in the field.”

“So you think someone got this working? One of our enemies?”

“Well, if it’s one of our friends, they haven’t told us.”

“But—” Constantine hesitated. Sing nodded for him to continue. “So, if this was one of our enemies, why was he shooting at his own guys, instead of us?”

“Yeah. That’s a significant question,” said Sing, “and I’m coming to that, but there’s more we have to talk about first. At least, one more thing.”

“And that is?”

“The most disturbing thing. Are you aware that we’ve had to roll our crypto three times in the last six months?”

Constantine was no expert on cryptography and secure comms, as the expression on his face probably indicated in that moment. He knew enough to key his radios in a pinch—TEK 4174, and always use today’s date—but that was about it. He was aware that if someone compromised a key—i.e., lost track of a keying device or lost track of a keyed radio—that all of the potentially compromised keys had to be discarded, and every device (in every allied country) using those keys had to be rekeyed with uncompromised keys. It was a big deal.

“Have people been losing radios?” he asked.

“No. And that’s the point. We found out that the keys were compromised because we found out that certain organizations were fuckin’ listening in on one. We were lucky to find out that much, too. We only did because—well, sources and methods. Anyway, so there was a quiet investigation, and we couldn’t find anyone who had lost anything. We assumed that someone had, and they just weren’t fessing up. We put out the message—I say we. Obviously this was all happening in other offices, but we as a country. We put out the message, rolled the codes, and kept watch. A couple of months later, they’re listening to the new codes. We run another investigation, this time for a mole. Nothin’. We put out another message claiming lost keys, rolled ‘em again. A month later?”

“Someone’s got your number,” observed Constantine.

“Our number. Someone’s got our number, in a big way. So now we’re in a situation. If we keep rolling our codes, they’re going to know that we know. They probably already do, but it’s going to confirm that we’ve got sources, which puts our guys at risk. If we don’t keep rolling codes, though, we’re compromised. And even if we do, we can’t keep doing this forever, right?”

“Sounds like a problem.”

“It is a problem. And it’s a problem for you, too. It means you have no secure comms right now. When was the last time you ran an op comms-out?”

Constantine only grunted. The idea of actually running an entire mission without secure comms did not appeal to him at all. They talked about it all the time, and occasionally worked drills during training, but actually doing it? In combat? There was no denying that it would be a disaster. Several other phrases circled through his mind as alternatives to “disaster.”

“Yeah, so, here we are, then.”

“So what’s going on? Do they have a mole, or what?”

“I don’t think so. Most people are saying that’s what it’s got to be. They’ve got a source. But I think they cracked our encryption.”

“How hard is that?”

“How hard is that? Cracking 256-bit-key encryption? It’s impossible. With our technology, it could theoretically be done, in, like, a billion years or something.”

“With our technology.”

“Exactly. The only way that people crack 256-bit encryption is by inventing a new kind of computing, like quantum computers.”

“What’s that?”

“Basically—well, okay, I’m no expert in quantum computers. I’m not even really a computer guy. My degree is in finance. Everything I know about computers I learned on the job. But as I understand it, basically the idea is a computer that, like, so…” This was obviously a struggle for him. “So, a normal computer, let’s say, has two hundred and fifty-six bits of storage. It can store one piece of information, a single combination of two hundred and fifty-six ones and zeros. As I understand it, a quantum computer would be able to store—and work on—every possible combination of those two hundred and fifty-six ones and zeros, simultaneously. Don’t ask me how that works, but that’s what I read somewhere. Anyway, the theory goes that if anyone ever got a quantum computer working, all current encryption schemes would become obsolete. I think that might be a little strong, but… Well, there you go.”

“So you think that’s what they’ve got?”

“I don’t know what they’ve got, but I do think they’re breaking our codes. In a matter of months. Something that should be impossible—is impossible with any technology we have or know them to have.”

“So what does all of this mean? You think they’ve suddenly got all kinds of advanced tech that no one’s ever seen before. Where are they getting it? And why would they have used it to help us?”

Sing nodded. “That,” he said, raising a finger, “is what I’m working on. So, my background is finance, but my job here is strategic communications analysis. My theory is that there is an alliance forming. That people and nations that never worked together before are now, very secretly, combining their resources, and they’re getting ahead of us.”

“This far ahead of us? This fast?”

“That’s an issue, I admit, but think of it a different way. They have gotten ahead of us this far, and this fast. The technology is in play. That’s our reality. We’re just trying to explain it. How do we explain it? Could any of these countries produce any of these technologies alone? Without us knowing? No.”

“But could they conspire and share tech, and make advances like this together, without us knowing? Wouldn’t that be even harder?”

“Harder to do without us noticing, yes, but I think we have noticed. That’s what got me into this. I think I’ve been tracking chatter for at least a year that suggests a… nascent mutual cooperation pact. Very quiet. It would have to be. The political obstacles to such an axis would be impossible to overcome openly. I think a few key people behind the scenes are making this happen. People with serious vision, and serious pull.”

“Okay, you’re losing me. This is starting to sound like a conspiracy. I’m pretty sure I saw this movie.”

“Yeah, all right, that’s fine. Laugh if you want, but you’re not the one analyzing everything. Comms. Political moves. Financial transactions and business deals. The case I’m trying to make is that there is a pattern, and that pattern makes the most sense if there’s a conspiracy. I’ll go one further, too. I think it’s more than just our enemies. More than just nations. I think it’s a conspiracy of powerful minds from government, business, tech—all over the world.”

“Oh, come on.”

Sing shrugged. “Like I said, you can laugh. You wouldn’t be the first. It was all just a crazy idea—honestly, even I was just pursuing it for fun. Call it an exercise in apophenia.”

“What?”

Sing waved his hand. “Not the point. The point is, it’s all just a game until somebody gets hurt, right? You’ve seen this tech, in the wild. And in what context? What was your mission?”

“To pull out a source…”

Sing nodded vigorously. “…who wanted to testify about a conspiracy.”

“You think he was in on it?”

“Oh, God, no. I think he stumbled on it, kind of like me. I think he stumbled on it and what he found was so big that he thought it was worth everything to get the news out.”

“And his talk about aliens?”

“He never actually said ‘aliens,’ according to your report. He said, ‘an alliance,’ and, ‘from the stars.’”

“Okay, sure. What the hell does that mean?”

“I have no idea.”

Constantine snorted. “And that still leaves the question of why someone would be using this technology to help us. Help George defect.”

“That’s easy: I think he wasn’t the only one who wants the news to get out. I don’t think George was part of this conspiracy, but I think they do have someone on the inside who wants to leak, someone who also wants the world to know and was trying to make sure Plitnik reached us. And whoever that is, that person on the inside: that’s the person we need to find.”

“Sorry, what? We?”

“Well, me, but you’re helping. Like I said, you’re the first reliable eye-witness I’ve actually been able to interview, that I can actually talk to about classified material.”

“Well, that’s great, but I don’t know how much more help I’m going to be. I’ve already told you everything I saw and heard.”

“Actually, I have a task for you, if you’re willing.” Constantine raised his eyebrows.

“I have a collection of photos and videos. I want you to go through them and see if any of them stand out to you. Similar to what you saw, or, you know, even if it just catches your attention, I want to know. Do you mind?”

“How many photos are we talking about? Is this surveillance footage, or what?”

“Oh, no. Social media. I had one of the guys down the hall write a program to scrub the major social media services for images and clips matching the kind of thing we’re talking about and archive them, and move them to the high side here.”

“How many?” asked Constantine again, feeling his heart sink.

“Right now, we’re sitting at about twenty thousand.”

“Oh, hell no.”

Sing laughed. “Don’t worry. That’s the raw pull. I think we can rule a lot of that out pretty quick. But that will still leave a lot of images and videos to look at. Look, I can’t make you do it. You can get back on a plane any time. But I’m asking for your help. You’ve seen some of this in the field. If anyone’s qualified to tell me I’m crazy, and it’s all bullshit, you are. All I’m asking for is a few days.”

Getting back on a plane and going back home did not strike Constantine as attractive. “You’d better be helping me with this.”

“Actually, I have another lead I want to follow, but when I’m not working on that, absolutely. I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself.”

Constantine rubbed his face. He already knew he was going to accept, though. His CO would approve a request from the Agency, especially if it had to do with learning the truth behind the Press Hook fiasco, and for Constantine it was an excuse to get away—or stay away, in this case, on the road. And besides: he had questions.