Support and Defend by Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney Page A

his building. He had his eyes open for any surveillance, but as near as he could tell he was in the clear. He considered himself something of a proficient amateur on matters of surveillance, and this stemmed from some training he received early in his career. In the seventies a young Harlan Banfield had enrolled in a five-day corporate security class in London. It was put on for executives and journalists traveling abroad, and Harlan found the course to be a mixed bag. The self-defense portion of the curriculum, in Harlan’s estimation, was silly and naive. He took the program before heading over to Lebanon to cover the civil war there, and he thought it unlikely any armed Shiite manning a roadblock he ran into would be much impressed by his ability to twist someone’s thumb or apply a knife hand to the groin.
    But there were some very helpful aspects of the training, none more so than the instruction on the basics of how to identify a tail and to spot other types of surveillance operations.
    Since London, Banfield had supplanted this training with decades of real-world experience, and in his years working secretly for the ITP, he’d fallen back on his training and practice to keep an eye out for anyone following him.
    He made it up to his eleventh-floor office confident no one was more interested in him this day than any other, and he locked himself in. He didn’t bother removing his coat or his fedora before sitting down at his computer; instead, he immediately logged on to an encrypted instant message service called Cryptocat, then typed a long alphanumeric code that he had committed to memory. This led him to a screen where he could select from a buddy list, but instead he typed in a recipient address from memory because he had not saved it into his list.
    Almost instantly the two-party encryption was authenticated. His fingers hovered over the keys. After a moment he typed: We have a problem.
    The response came back thirty seconds later. Which is? Ethan Ross. Yes.
    Banfield cocked his head. He typed: Yes? Yes, what? I only just learned the details of the attack in India. I expected to hear from you about our friend. He thinks we provided the information. He’s wrong. That’s what I told him. Please confirm I was correct in telling him we haven’t passed it on to The Guardian yet.
    You are correct. He will be polygraphed on Wednesday. How is his mood?
    Concerned. I’d say very concerned. I gave him the song and dance about how we do this all the time. I think he bought it. I will provide him with a cocktail to defeat the poly, but frankly, I don’t know if he can beat it.
    He doesn’t have to.
    Harlan Banfield did not understand the message. He typed: What do you mean?
    There was no reply for more than a minute. Banfield fought the urge to send a question mark over the messaging service. Instead, he cracked his knuckles and forced himself to wait.
    Finally a new line appeared on his screen.
    I’m on my way.
    Banfield sat up straighter at his desk, and his chest heaved.
    He had no idea what was going through the head of the person on the other end of the encrypted chat, but his concerns that ITP leadership would not see the importance of the event dissolved instantly, because Banfield knew the director of the ITP was in Switzerland.
    If she was on her way, then clearly she understood the magnitude of the problem that Ethan Ross had become.

8
    D OMINIC C ARUSO ROLLED SLOWLY and gingerly out of his bed and pulled himself up to his feet with the aid of a belt he’d wrapped around his bedpost for just that purpose. He walked on legs that felt lethargic from lying prone for an extended period of time, and the bright bulb in his bathroom made his head pound.
    Since arriving home he’d climbed out of bed only a few times to answer nature’s call or to grab a water bottle or some canned food from his kitchen. Adara Sherman had called him just hours after she dropped him off at his place; she offered to come by with