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Author:\376\377\000s\000s\000i\000n\000e\000w
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

SEVER TEEn

The president's national security adviser sat across the burnished

mahogany conference table from Bryson, tension creasing his high

forehead.

For over twenty minutes Richard Lanchester had listened in rapt

absorption to Bryson's account, nodding, taking notes, interrupting

only for occasional clarifications. Every question he asked was not

only pertinent but incisive, piercing through layers of ambiguity and

confusion right to the crux of the issue. Bryson was impressed by the man, by his brilliance, his quick intelligence. He listened closely,

concentrating deeply. Bryson spoke as he would debrief a handler or a case officer, just as he used to brief Waller after a field operation: calmly, objectively, coolly assessing probabilities while not injecting conjecture without basis. He tried to provide a context in which the

revelations could be meaningfully placed.

It was difficult.

The two men sat in a special secure facility located within the NATO

secretary general's command-and-control center, an acoustically

insulated room-within-a-room known informally as the "bubble." Its walls and floor were actually one module separated from the surrounding concrete walls by foot-thick rubber blocks that kept all sound

vibrations from emanating

2G1

ROBERT LUDLU111

outward. Technical surveillance countermeasures were employed daily to ensure that the bubble remained secure, free of any taps or listening

devices. Security officers swept the room and its immediate environs

daily. There were no windows, and thus no risk of laser or microwave

bounces that could read the vibrations from human voices. Then there

was an elaborate system of fall backs a spectral correlator was used at all times to detect surveillance using a spectrum analyzer, and an

acoustic correlator used passive sound-pattern matching to

automatically detect and classify any listening device. Finally, an

acoustic noise generator was constantly on, generating an audio blanket of pink noise designed to defeat wired microphones inside walls,

contact microphones, and any audio transmitters located in electrical

outlets. Lanchester's insistence that they meet within the

extraordinarily secure walls of the bubble was testimony to the

seriousness with which he regarded Bryson's urgently imparted

information.

Lanchester looked up, visibly shaken.

"What you're telling me is preposterous, the sheerest madness, yet somehow it has the ring of truth. I say that because bits and pieces

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The Prometheus Deception

of what you say precisely confirm what little I know."

"But you must know about the existence of the Directorate. You're chairman of PFIAB; I'd have thought you'd know all about it."

Lanchester removed his rimless spectacles, polished them thoughtfully

with a handkerchief.

"The existence of the Directorate is one of the most closely held secrets in the government. Shortly after I was named to PFIAB I was

briefed about it, and I must say at first I thought my briefer -one of those nameless, anonymous, behind-the-scenes intelligence officers who are part of the permanent establishment around Washington-had taken

leave of his senses. It was one of the most fantastic, most

implausible things I'd ever heard. A covert intel agency that operated entirely out of sight, without controls, without accountability or

oversight--outlandish!

If I'd dared to suggest the idea to the president, he'd have had me

committed to St. Elizabeth's immediately, and quite justifiably so."

"Then what is it you find so implausible? You're referring to the true nature of the Directorate, the deception within the deception?"

"Actually, no.

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