EXFIL by Anthony Patton (best books to read non fiction TXT) 📗

one computer to avoid leaks or cross-contamination, and many of the new patches had been derived from modified versions of previous ones.

The more things such as the Internet and encryption shaped the way we lived and worked, the more often we had to resort to old-school solutions to protect our operations. Once something made it to the Internet, it was always going to be there in one form or another. In a previous age, we might have written our secrets on parchment with forge-proof calligraphy and stored them inside a cryptex, but in this case, the message was the medium in the sense that the digital code was functional and informative, understandable by both human and computer.

I returned to my car and drove an indirect route to a hotel in Maryland.

After confirming that no one had followed me, I did a drive-by of the place to get eyes on—all clear. I had half an hour to kill and parked behind a hotel on the other side of the road a few blocks down. The lobby bar with 1950s décor and jazz was like going back in time.

I was under no obligation to arrive to the meeting punctually.

In fact, the best strategy was to arrive a few minutes late, making them sweat.

“Scotch on the rocks,” I said as I sat on a leather stool. The bartender, a distinguished-looking gentleman with gray hair, wore a white dress shirt with a black bow tie and maroon vest. He set an ice-filled tumbler on the rail, poured the Scotch with flair, and slid it my way with a wink.

“Thanks,” I said and swirled the drink to melt the ice a little, downed it, and slid the glass back.

The bartender finished wiping a glass and poured me another, with an extra jigger.

“One of those days?” he asked, raising a brow.

“More than you can imagine.” I didn’t elaborate, and turned to see a beautiful woman in her mid-forties with pale skin and red lipstick, likely Eastern European. She wore a black satin dress, black fishnet stockings, and black heels.

She was sitting at a table with a laptop, next to an empty martini glass.

For reasons I couldn’t explain, I actually entertained the idea of ordering her a drink and striking up a conversation, but the absurdity of the plan hit me like a ton of bricks. So, we just made eye contact and exchanged smiles, which suggested she might welcome some company. In fact, she might welcome more than that, but something deep within warned me that enough was enough—full stop. Besides, I knew that Jade Envy was waiting for me.

A few minutes later, I confirmed the hotel’s room number on the paper and knocked on the door. I heard footsteps, saw the light through the peephole go dark, and waited for the door to open. Jade Envy made the right call, offering neither pleasantries nor a handshake.

He gestured for me to enter and glanced both ways down the hall to ensure the coast was clear.

Meanwhile, another Chinese gentleman had slid a kitchenette chair next to an end table in the living room for a makeshift polygraph station. One of the biggest challenges in intelligence, especially in sensitive cases like this, was vetting—taking systematic steps to ensure that the source was working for you, not against you.

The prime directive of intelligence was collecting no intelligence is better than collecting bad intelligence. In this case, the Chinese wanted to be sure I had given them the correct security patches before they loaded them onto their own computers for analysis and exploitation.

Ways of verifying whether sources were good or bad included monitoring their activities with technical collection or testing them, but the most direct way was to ask them point blank while strapped to a “box” and hope that the polygraph technician could interpret the resultant data correctly. I understood why they wanted to trust but verify.

The most nervous person in the room, however, was Jade Envy; his reputation was on the line.

“This gentleman is from our security office,” he said. “He will ask you some questions. If you are lying, we will release our information to your superiors. Do you understand?”

I nodded, sat, and allowed the technician to connect me to the machine. I had met enough Chinese to know that they could be brutally direct when they spoke English, so I knew he meant no disrespect. Back in the day, we had used polygraph machines with floating pens and paper rolls, which was why we referred to someone who did poorly as “spitting ink.”

Most intelligence services had switched to laptop computers with digital results. Everyone knew the polygraph was primarily an interrogation tool and not a foolproof way to detect lies, but trained technicians could achieve impressive results, to include provoking a confession.

I would have no reason to tell them anything but the truth, but I took a series of deep breaths to calm my mind and forget about the blood pressure cuff numbing my arm.

The technician looked up, ready to go. Jade Envy poured himself a drink and nodded in approval.

“Is your name Colonel Lance Reed?” the technician asked.

“Yes,” I said as he glanced at the computer and clicked the mouse a few times. He would do this each time, which would result in a five-second delay between questions.

“Are you a brigadier general in the U.S. Army?” he asked.

I could feel my heart beating. “No,” I said.

“Are you married to Beth Reed?”

My heart was pounding. “Yes,” I said.

The technician leaned closer to the laptop. He knew the answers to these questions and was using them to establish a baseline of what the truth and lies looked like, as a reference point for when he asked questions to which he didn’t know the answers.

He seemed satisfied with the results and gave a thumbs-up to Jade Envy, who sipped his drink and gestured for him to proceed. I leaned back and took a deep breath.

“Did the U.S. government direct you to work for us?”

“No.”

“Have you told anyone about