The Merchant of Secrets Read Online Free Page A

limited to smaller scale bombings
throughout the world mostly at U.S. outposts, hotels and various destinations
popular among Westerners. But the persistently rising tensions on the African
continent led to embassy bombings, and the company determined that staying
there was too risky and brought me back to the States.
     
    Back in the U.S. while I was driving to work one morning
a truck raced down the road from the cross-street on the right, slamming
straight into my car with enough force to push it clear across the road and
into oncoming traffic. I escaped death by arriving in the path of this
trajectory a fraction of a second too late for it to kill me. I never knew why
or by whom my vehicle was struck, but that experience filled my mind with an
acute awareness of my own mortality and a fear of death which has reverberated
mercilessly in my brain ever-since.
     
     
     CHAPTER 5
     
     
    In early February the snow blanketed the streets in a
sort of breathtaking natural beauty rarely seen in urban landscapes. The whole city
had come to a silent stop and the roads and sidewalks lacking the usual cars
and pedestrians, were so hollow that if you shouted down the street your voice
would be heard from blocks away. I was comfortably sitting in a restaurant
which overlooked the Potomac River with Sara, soaking up a gin and tonic.
     
    Our office had just had a briefing on Operation Shady
R.A.T., or “Remote Access Tool”, an investigation into the hacking of global
organizations using a software developed by the
intelligence agency of a foreign government. The hacking scandals just rolled
along without a break one after the other and the situation was getting more
critical every year.  On the brighter side, we  learned  that
the year-earlier  capture  of Taliban leader Mullah Baradar by the Pakistan military spy agency  had
provided  enough information to pursue a larger targets, including (as we
would find out later) a certain house in the center of a town called
Abbottabad.    Baradar’s capture had been
the biggest success the C.I.A. had in Afghanistan for almost a decade, but a
greater success was about to come in May with the capture of Bin Laden.
     
    Elsewhere, a populist
movement had toppled the government of Tunisia and its Prime Minister; Ben Ali, had fled the country. Similar protests were spreading
like wildfire through Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Libya. Particularly in Libya and
Syria, the bloodshed was something awful. The blood of  
citizens flowed in the streets while murderous tribes of uniformed
security men loyal to Gaddafy and Assad unleashed
terror and violence without constraint, creating humanitarian and diplomatic
crises, and sending thousands of refugees across territorial borders into
neighboring countries.  Wary of the opportunities this upheaval presented
for our adversaries, the President ordered increased CIA surveillance to
monitor Iran’s influence over the multiple countries now in turmoil. The
surveillance was to be conducted mostly by the RQ- 170 Sentinel drones
transmitting photos over satellite links which need to be protected from
hackers. And that involved our office.  Drones had been launched in the
skies over Iran from bases in Afghanistan successfully for quite some time
taking photographs of  Iran’s  growing nuclear facilities  as
part of the administration’s strategy to squash  Iran’s  development
of   nuclear weapons, but the new and shockingly unexpected
uprisings  in the Middle East  brought other crises to the forefront
of our national security and along with them a decision to bring more drones
into the arsenal, to  launch more drones into flight, especially over
Egypt, Libya and Syria, and with that, the need to protect more intelligence
data.
    Sara’s guest list for dinner consisted of a mixture of
old and new friends but by 9 p.m.   she and I were
the only ones who had braved the elements to arrive for dinner. The wait had
left us hungry and we