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all that publicity, the distractions? That damn Greenwald, mocking NSA for being the only organization to lose the data we’ve been trying to get back?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “Not to mention how it’s going to make us look personally if it happens again.”
    Remar nodded.
    Anders sighed. “We don’t know what Perkins was up to. But we can assume if the SUSLA Turkey, of all people, thought it was newsworthy, it was going to be damaging. Exceptionally damaging.”
    Remar nodded again, seemingly mollified. “Who do you want on it?”
    “I’m thinking Delgado for Perkins. Manus for the journalist.”
    “Perkins is the finesse job, the journalist is brute force?”
    Anders shook his head. “Don’t misjudge Manus. Just because he can’t hear doesn’t mean he’s incapable of finesse.”
    “I don’t know about that guy, Ted. I can never tell what’s he thinking.”
    Anders looked at Remar’s ruined face, and refrained from noting that the same could be said for his XO.
    “It’s not what he’s thinking, Mike. It’s what he does.”
    “He doesn’t make you nervous?”
    “I know how to handle him.”
    “That’s not what I asked.”
    “It’s what matters.”
    “I know he’s loyal to you. Like a . . . I don’t know, an abused dog you rescued, or something. But a dog like that is damaged, you know? Down deep. You can never really trust it.”
    “It’s not a question of trust. It’s a question of utility.”
    It came out a little more bluntly than he’d intended, but on the other hand, could anyone deny the statement’s essential truth?
    Remar stood. “All right. What else?”
    Had he taken Anders’s words as commentary on their own relationship? The director hadn’t meant it that way.
    No, Remar was all right. As loyal as Manus—though sometimes with too many questions. But at least he always knew when it was time to swallow his objections and carry out his orders.
    “We’ll need a Turkish cutout,” Anders said. “Contact our guy. Manus will deliver the journalist to the Ergenekon people. They’ll smuggle him into Syria.”
    “A second cutout.”
    “Correct. Tell our guy Ergenekon gets paid in three tranches—when they take delivery, when they deliver to the Syrians, and when the Syrians complete the transaction.”
    “What Syrians are we talking about?”
    “Does it matter? We’ll describe them as ISIS.”
    “The ISIS brand is pretty well known at this point. Might be better to use something new.”
    Anders considered. “Well, we could attribute it to the Khorasan Group. You know, ‘too radical even for al-Qaeda. ’ ”
    “I don’t know. We claimed to have killed the group’s leader once the bombing in Syria began. Plus, the name never really caught on. Too much like ‘Kardashian.’ I’ve told you, names matter.”
    Anders ignored the gambit. God’s Eye was a perfect name, and he wasn’t inclined to change it—or anything else—to something less than perfect. “Keep it vague, then. But attach it to ISIS. ‘An ISIS splinter group,’ something like that. And as far as the Turks, start at twenty thousand US per tranche, but be prepared to go up to a hundred overall.”
    “They want hardware more than cash these days.”
    “Tell our guy if this goes well, next time we can talk about multiple grenade launchers. They’re hot for those. But don’t let him get greedy.”
    Remar headed to the door. “I’ll get Delgado. And your human dog.”

CHAPTER . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 3
    T wenty minutes later, there were two firm knocks on the door. Anders looked up and said, “Come.”
    Thomas Delgado entered and closed the door behind him. Five-five and fit as a ferret, he was wearing an immaculately tailored gray suit and white shirt, the absence of a tie his only stylistic concession to Maryland’s late August heat. As if in recompense, a half inch of white linen emerged from the breast pocket of his jacket. The outfit was ostentatiously stylish in the corridors