Page 60 of Turn the Tide
Before going home to Langley, she had to transmit the stolen data. She went to the wall unit and pressed a false wooden panel inside, opening the hidden storage compartment.
She retrieved the classified laptop with secure satellite uplink and her backpack with passport, extra euros, and the address of another safe house in Strasbourg, France—a four-hour drive away, where she’d be exfiltrated.
While the satellite link booted up, she shed her brown wig, removed the blue contacts, and changed her clothes, putting on sneakers.
She plugged in the USB drive. A prompt to begin transmission popped up. Once she hit enter and the upload was completed, the memory stick would be wiped clean.
Sanborn’s voice—his firm, fatherly tone and the last commandment he’d given her—filled her ears.For OPSEC, it’s critical that you don’t open the thumb drive for any reason. Complete the upload. Come home.
Going against Sanborn’s orders was a cardinal sin, and the importance of operational security had been drummed into her right after she joined the Agency, but if she ever wanted to know why the CIA was willing to destroy an entire company, this was her only chance. BGA stock would tank, marriages would implode, and the livelihood of thousands would be ruined.
Intense curiosity had gnawed at her since day one of the mission and spurred her on now. To be this close, with the carefully guarded secret at her fingertips, and never discover what this was all about would be like living with a splinter embedded under her fingernail.
She had to know. Langley was willing to lose an operative over it. To sacrifice her life. She’d earned the right. Hadn’t she?
Ashley opened the files. There were only three hundred megabytes worth of data. Compared to a terabyte, that was like saying she had one tree full of leaves when the drive could’ve held a forest. It was still a ton of data in terms of documents, about thirty volumes worth of anEncyclopedia Britannica. The files had been systemically categorized, making it easy for her to pinpoint an answer to the one question burning on her mind for nine weeks.
What was the game-changer Hoffmann had been working on?
Her heart stopped when she found the answer.Oh my God.
The lead compound demonstrated revolutionary advancements in genome sequencing and oligonucleotide synthesis. Hoffmann was using it to solve agricultural problems for farmers without creating genetically modified foods that were banned in parts of Europe. Rather than engineering disease-resistant plants by altering their DNA, he found a way to inoculate crops.
His first success was making apple and pear trees resistant to fire blight—a contagious disease capable of destroying an entire orchard in a single season. He used the genes from a resistant spinach plant and combined them with a virus that he modified using the compound. The virus acted as a vector—a delivery system for the genetic material from the spinach—enabling the trees to produce their own bacteria-killing proteins against the disease, without genetically modifying the tree. There was even promising exploration in developing a vaccine against pests.
Ashley delved deeper. The implications were staggering. But not for the greater good.
Hoffmann called the project Ianus, the Latin name for the two-faced Roman god of duality. The compound could also weaponize a variety of crop viruses to destabilize regions and drive profits from the sale of remedies—something the BGA board was eager to pursue.
An ugly sensation rolled in Ashley’s gut. The potential applications were far worse than Hoffmann’s proposal. If the compound weaponized viruses infecting plants, the same could be done to human pathogens, opening a dangerous door to a new type of biological warfare.
The CIA’s concerns were justified, but passing this research from a corporate demon to a government devil wasn’t the answer. The Agency engaged in psychological, economic, and cyber warfare for political influence, dirtying their hands with the removal of governments, toppling regimes, interfering in foreign elections, and, at times, starting conflicts. Everything done was covert, often illegal, and if revealed on the world stage, it’d be condemned.
On occasion, Sanborn had voiced qualms about some of the darker Agency practices, but ultimately, he was one cog in a powerful machine, trying to tip the scales toward good.
The CIA held itself above the law and morality and steamrolled over division chiefs. Without a doubt, if they got Ianus, the fallout would be dire and become her cross to bear.
She dug in her backpack to check her go-bag that contained her passport and money. Where was it? Shoving clothes and toiletries aside, she fished deeper. Why couldn’t she find it?
Every time she came to the safe house, she always checked the bag, and it was always sitting at the top of her pack—but not now. Her go-bag was gone.
A chill crept over her skin, and her soul went numb.
No, no.She shook her head as if in a daze, unable to understand how this was possible.
A car door slammed. The neighborhood was residential, quiet, and the sound echoed. She went to the window and peeked out the curtain to look two floors below. Nothing. The street was empty.
Despite her heart thumping hard in her chest, she was about to dismiss her paranoia. But from the corner of her eye, she spottedhim, standing in the shadows of an alcove between two apartment buildings on the left. The same man she’d seen four times in nine weeks. Reddish-brown hair the color of rust in a corroded drainpipe. Ivory skin. Glasses.
An internal warning sounded like a death knell.
Munich was a small city, compared to London and New York. It might be coincidence he was here now. But Munich wasn’tthatsmall, and there were no coincidences in this trade.
The man looked up at the window. Their eyes met. Dread spilled through her.
Her gaze dropped to his hand, to a gun with an attached suppressor.
He took off like a fired bullet for the front of the building. Ashley spun, slapped the laptop shut, and shoved it in the backpack. Snatching her coat, she bolted to the fire escape.
