CHAPTER TWENTY
Maria sat behind the desk in her office at the George Bush Center for Intelligence, the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and rubbed her tired eyes. On the desk before her was a hard copy of the photo, a black-and-white printout of the digital still image that Interpol had sent not twenty minutes earlier.
She hadn’t slept at all the night before, and the day had been a long one of meetings and phone calls and conferences. The higher-ups, among them the new CIA director (Maria’s direct boss) and the new Director of National Intelligence (Maria’s own father), were very concerned about what they called “this Zero situation.” They were worried about what might happen if a top former operative with a head full of national secrets turned on them. They were nervous that he
