As usual, Foley was dressed as if she might have to rush off to the White House at any moment. Black pearl earrings accented the white silk blouse, open at the neck, and a gray gabardine A-line skirt. She was barefoot, but a pair of sensible black shoes sat akimbo beside a polished mahogany desk that held little more than a computer screen and a single file folder. She caught Monica looking and chuckled.
“The sign of an insane mind. Right?”
“It is an awfully clean desk, ma’am.”
Foley grabbed the file and then smoothed her skirt behind her with both hands as she sat down across from Hendricks at a small meeting table.
“All the clutter is on those desks out front,” she said.
“You do have a nice office,” Hendricks said.
It was large, though, Hendricks had to admit, certainly smaller than the seventh-floor sanctum of the D/CIA at Langley. And it was much less imposing than she would have imagined for the person in charge of the sixteen other intelligence agencies falling under the purview of the National Counterintelligence Center at the Liberty Crossing complex — a large X-shaped building located across the freeway from Tysons Corner, Virginia. White walls were detailed in mahogany and oak, with crisp blue carpet and a Persian rug. It was de rigueur for those in lofty government positions to display framed autographed 8x10s of them standing on the tarmac beside famous dignitaries during historical moments, presidents, world leaders, Supreme Court justices, even movie stars. Notoriously wary of the camera, Foley had only two photographs of herself that Hendricks could see. One with her family, the other with Jack Ryan, when they were younger, somewhere in Russia. There were, however, plenty of photographs of her boys over the years, playing hockey with a red Soviet flag in the background, graduating from high school, weddings, grandchildren — the vestiges of normal life that people who lived in the shadows clutched tightly in an effort to keep their heads above water.
Foley rested both hands flat on the table, on either side of the closed folder that presumably held Hendricks’s polygraph results. “I speak for the President as well,” she said, “when I say how grateful we are to you for doing this. Virtually begging you to stay, but then asking you to take a polygraph as a prerequisite.”
“It must be important, then,” Hendricks said.
Foley patted the folder without opening it. “You passed, by the way.”
Hendricks closed her eyes and gave a tired smile. “I know I passed, ma’am—”
Foley kept her hands on the table but raised her brow. “Mary Pat.”
“Right,” Hendricks said. “Mary Pat. Anyway, I hate polygraphs. They are embarrassing and dehumanizing even if you have nothing to hide. I mean, a pimple-faced kid half my age asking me if I have any deviant sexual tendencies that could embarrass me if they were made known. Can you imagine? For Pete’s sake, Mary Pat, I’m Southern Baptist. Talking to that kid about sex at all embarrasses me. I did confess to sometimes peeing a dribble or two when I sneeze. I think that tidbit put the little shit off-kilter.”
Foley smiled. “Putting people off-kilter is your superpower, Monica. Anyway, the flutter was a formality to ease the President’s mind.”
“You talked to President Ryan about me specifically?”
“Of course,” Foley said. “Apart from me and the President, only eight people know of the existence of this operation we’re calling ELISE. This mole has no idea we’re hunting him… or her.”
“So ELISE is a mole hunt?” Hendricks mused, half to herself.
“Exactly,” Foley said. “A traitor within the intelligence community, likely in the CIA. The Chi-Comms refer to him as SURVEYOR. Our computer spit out BITTER ARROW for a code name, but that sounds too much like what it is. The Chinese are wily, and since we’re looking for someone inside our intelligence community whom they’ve turned, we thought it better to choose something a little less on the nose.”
“I’m assuming you’ve snooped through my bank accounts.”
Foley gave a tired nod. “Among other things. I can compartmentalize a background check without the checkers knowing why you’re being vetted.”
“Surely the fact that there are leaks doesn’t come as a surprise to you,” Hendricks said. “We’re taught from the get-go to assume there is always someone leaking information, even without meaning to.”
“True enough,” Foley said. “But this particular leak is devastating, and intentional.”
“And we’re sure the Chinese aren’t running a disinformation campaign? Sowing mistrust in the ranks and making us chase our own tails?”
Foley gave her a thumbnail sketch of what they knew so far — including the fact that there was a Russian asset in Chinese intelligence.
Hendricks leaned back in her chair, mulling over what little information she had. “I’ve got to say, you have all kinds of aggressive young counterintelligence weenies who would love to run this kind of investigation. Why pick on a chubby woman about to retire? This kind of operation could make a career.”
