by S L Shelton
“Ow!” he complained.
Jo, who had been quiet the entire time, suddenly cleared her throat before piping up.
“Are they going to continue to rely on the section for analyst work?” she asked without any detectable emotion.
I nodded. “You’ve impressed a lot of people over there,” I confided to her. “They’ll continue sending projects to you the whole time I’m gone.”
“What if we need extra help?” Anna asked. “No offense to anyone else in the room, but you do the work of six people sometimes. I’m not sure how we’ll operate as a section without you.”
I smiled at the comment. “You exaggerate,” I replied. “But we are a very profitable organization. If we need more help, then we can hire more help. I would expect the section to be much larger by the time I return.”
“No level five or level six jobs, I hope,” Jo said with a slight smirk on her face.
I grinned in return and shook my head. “No. They’ll save those until I’m back.”
“So you are coming back,” Storc confirmed.
“Yes,” I replied firmly, though to be honest, I knew that a year was a long time and that the plan might change…but I wanted to be as optimistic as possible. “The plan is to use TravTech as a cover for my other work.”
He nodded. “Okay… What do you need from me?”
“Just what you’re already doing. Nothing will really change except I won’t be here while I’m being trained.”
Everyone nodded in acceptance of my inevitable absence. By the time I was saying my good-byes, even Bonbon had calmed down and was wishing me well.
When I got home to close up my condo, I felt like I was saying good-bye to an old friend. I tossed everything out of the refrigerator and freezer, turned off the water to everything, and sat in my favorite green chair one more time, staring out the window.
My first house, I thought to myself. I’ll miss you.
**
Thursday, September 9th, 2:55 p.m.—Langley, Virginia
I arrived at the security check-in and was surprised to see Nick leaning against the wall on the other side.
He motioned me toward him after I signed in.
“Let’s go up this way,” he said, opening the door to the staircase.
“What’s up?” I asked, following him up the stairs.
“I’ve been asked to take you up to Burgess’s conference room as soon as you showed up.”
“Why the stairs?” I asked.
He grabbed me gently by the arm as he looked up at the stairwell camera and guided me into the corner beneath it.
“The NSA is here,” he whispered in my ear. “They’ve come to give the old man a piece of their mind for your dad’s record being accessed twice in a month.”
“I didn’t access the file,” I stated honestly.
“I know,” Nick said. “John did it both times; the first time when he was setting up your security clearance and the second time when he went to the deputy with the information.”
John knew!
“Why do they want to see me?” I whispered back.
Nick shrugged. “Maybe they think you are using Agency resources to find out about your dad,” he said. “That would be my first assumption as well. They don’t know you are smarter than that and probably already have it from another source.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t,” I replied. “But I’d be very interested in seeing it.”
He looked at me for a second, measuring my response to see if my physiological responses confirmed my statement. After a moment, he nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go get this over with.”
He turned and continued up the stairs. I followed silently.
We entered the conference room, and John motioned for me to sit. Around the table was John, Director Burgess, a suit I recognized from the Agency—though I didn’t know his name or position—and three others I didn’t recognize.
“Good morning, Scott,” Director Burgess said as I entered. “These gentlemen are from the NSA and here to ask a few questions. It shouldn’t take long, and we’ll have you back to your training.”
By his simple statement, I knew I was to reveal nothing and confirm my presence there as a trainee.
I love working for spies…sneaky as shit.
“Yes, sir,” I said as I sat next to John.
“Go ahead, gentlemen,” Burgess said to the three men on the other side of the table.
“Thank you, Director Burgess,” one of them said. He was an average-looking fellow; the other two were more heavily built—muscle—and had the bright look of predators. I wondered if they were there for the protection of the first guy or to apprehend me.
I guess I’ll find out, I thought.
“Are you Scott Wolfe?” the NSA representative asked—I don’t guess I’m getting your name.
“Yes. I am,” I replied.
“What is your relationship to Henry Wolfe?” he asked.
“He was my father,” I replied.
“Are you aware that access to information concerning Henry Wolfe is considered need-to-know, for Top Secret Compartmentalized clearance only?” he asked me.
“I am now.” I replied with a bit more disdain than I should have. “I have some family photos at home, should I hand those over to you as well?”
“Scott,” John said with a warning tone.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I honestly don’t care about his classified information or why it’s classified. I just want to know more about him. I have almost no memory of my father and that seems strange, considering I was ten when he died.”
“The NSA is not a genealogical service,” the man replied in a mechanical timbre. “His file is classified for good reason and needs to stay that way. You will cease and desist all attempts to access classified information regarding your father.”
“I’m sorry,” the CIA suit said from the other end of the table. “I thought it had been made perfectly clear that the file was queried by Agent Temple and the Deputy while clearing Mr. Wolfe, uh, Scott, for entry into the Agency. There is no need to threaten him as he isn’t responsible for the request.”
“First. There was no threat,” the other man said with a thin, false smile. He turned to look at me. “Second. The NSA files are not the only classified information concerning Henry Wolfe.”
This is no inter-agency reprimand. This is damage control from my visit to GGP Labs, I thought.
“Again. I am not on a hunt for classified information,” I said sincerely. “I just want to know more about my father.”
“I recommend you ask family members about your father and leave his work out of your research,” the man warned.
I looked at him for a moment, assessing his position. I concluded he didn’t know anything about my father, his NSA file, or the other classified information—he was a messenger.
“Perhaps if someone could just tell me the unclassified bits, there may be less chance of me stumbling into forbidden territory,” I offered.
“One doesn’t just stumble into classified material,” he responded coldly and then looked at Burgess. “You know, I’m not completely convinced Mr. Wolfe is going to abide by this request. I’ve been asked to judge if I feel he is going to be a continuing problem. I’m certain his security clearance and training could be negatively impacted by a formal reprimand.”
“That won’t be necessary,” John said. “Scott’s schedule has him removed from service for training beginning tomorrow morning.”
“There is no need for concern,” Director Burgess added, bolstering John’s statement. “As we’ve stated, Scott had neither knowledge nor involvement in the query of his father’s NSA file. In fact, it was your meeting that confirmed its existence to him.” I noticed that John shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
I wasn’t satisfied. I needed to know why a search concerning my father had created such a stink. “I promise that if I come across any information which is or should be
classified, I will notify the chain of command immediately,” I said.
“Mr. Wolfe. You won’t come across any classified information because you will not continue to pry into your father’s past. You are not to ask about nor gather information concerning your father from the period of June 1979 to September 1996,” he spat. “And if you do, the next time we show up here will be with a warrant for your arrest.”
Until 96! Five years after he left GGP, and the year he died. Thank you!
It was a bluff. I could see the insecurity on his face as he spoke the words. He spoke them louder and with more emotion than if he had the authority to make such a claim.
“Are you kidding?” I asked incredulously, pushing his weak stance to the limit. “That includes the entire time he was alive after my birth! So you are saying that because my father worked for a company that contracted to the government, I can’t know anything about him?”
“Scott,” Director Burgess said calmly, quietly.
I needed to reel it back in—I had just been reprimanded by a Deputy Director of the CIA and the Director of the NCS.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said sincerely. “I just think it’s bullshit that the NSA thinks it can tell me I’m not allowed find out my dad’s favorite vacation spot or who his friends were without violating national security.”
“I don’t think that’s what he is saying,” John inserted.
“Oh. That’s exactly what I’m saying,” the NSA rep said, pushing his bluff further. “He is forbidden from searching for information concerning his father from June 1979 to September 1996.”
He looked at his notes. “If you have personal questions about your father, I suggest you ask your mother. I see she’s still living,” he said.
The blood rose in my face. I had to focus to stop myself from launching my body, projectile-like, across the table. He clearly saw the change in my demeanor and tensed.
“My mother is institutionalized. She was committed the night my father died,” I spat. “Ironically…both my mother and my father appear to have been the victims of some latent genetic defects that just happened to manifest on the same night in September 1996—coincidently the very same night that both my sister and I suffered a massive memory loss of the time period.”
“Perhaps your father was working on something on his own and exposed himself and his family to it,” the man said with a sneer on his face, clearly realizing he may have just opened a can of worms.
“Aside from the fact he had no lab on the farm, you just confirmed that all of this is related when you forbade me from seeking information up to September 1996,” I sneered right back at him. “He left GGP in 1991. By including the month of his death, five years later, you revealed that his death—and probably my mother’s condition—were related to his work for the government. Thank you for your assistance, by the way. That’s more information than I’ve been able to ascertain on my own”
John and Deputy Burgess turned and looked at the man, who had suddenly turned very pale.
“As you can see, you don’t even have to have knowledge of circumstances surrounding classified material to be able to accidentally disseminate classified information,” Director Burgess said with a grin. “I would recommend a more targeted ban on the information.”
“You don’t understand,” the man snapped indignantly, regaining some of his fury. “There will be no information concerning Henry Wolfe released, reviewed, or shared at all. If there is, for any reason, accidental or otherwise, I’m authorized to inform you that the offending party will have their clearance immediately revoked followed by a full investigation into the impact on national security.”
I was done arguing with this guy. The only thing he was here to do was to threaten. He had no information about my father, and I realized we would get no satisfactory answers from him.
“I understand. I’m sorry for the trouble my search has caused,” I lied. “I’ll limit any further questions to family only.”
John and Burgess looked at me and flashes of surprise danced across their faces in microexpressions. The man across the table smiled. He, at least, seemed satisfied.
“Very good. I hope this brings an end to the whole business,” he said, looking back down at his notes.
“If there’s nothing else—” Burgess asked the man.
“No. No. That’s all we had,” he replied.
“Something for us to sign?” John asked.
“No,” he replied, too quickly. “This is informal. Just a courtesy between agencies.”
Deputy Burgess looked at me. “Scott. You can go.”
“Yes, sir,” I said as I rose from my chair.
I nodded to the gentlemen from the NSA and exited. A moment later, John caught up with me in the hallway.
“That could have gone better,” John said without looking at me.
“Eh,” I replied. “They didn't know anything useful anyway.”
“But they didn't know that you knew that until you tricked them,” John pointed out.
I shrugged and kept walking. When we arrived at John’s office, Nick was waiting.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
I smiled. “I don’t know if I’m at liberty to discuss it or not.”
John shot me a harsh glare, but Nick laughed. “That well, huh?”
“Scott needs to close some loops at TravTech and pack a bag,” John said, derailing the inevitable NSA jokes. “You’re not to leave his side until he’s checked into Camp Swampy.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Nick said.
“And you,” John said, not even trying to hide his exasperation. “Leave the data alone.”
“First of all, I wasn’t looking for data,” I replied, weaving a better excuse than he had expected. “I was responding to a question about finances that you’d directed me to fix.
I paused, suddenly realizing that was why he’d put me onto the trail of my mom's trust fund to begin with. He knew he couldn't just tell me that my dad had a government-protected history, so he opened the door for me to find out on my own. He had no idea the NSA would be all over it.
You slick bastard…thank you, John.
“—And second. I couldn’t care less about any classified stuff. I just want to know about my dad. I want to know who he was. And I want to know why, on the same night that he died, my sister, my mom, and I were found on the scene unconscious and my mom had her psychotic break as soon as she woke up… effectively making me and Carol orphans.”
He stared at me for a long moment before responding. It would be hard for him to argue with that logic.
He shook his head. “Scott. You know that if I could get the information for you I would take it to the Director, sit there redacting all the classified stuff out myself and let you read the rest,” he said, trying to leverage me with reason. “But I don’t even have access to it. His records set off a watch-flag as soon as they were queried. I’ve tried.”
I nodded, grinning at his professed attempt to access the record.
“Don’t smile at me,” he said, with a combination of agitation and amusement. “I know you could probably hack your way right out of the Agency if you put your mind to it. But it would end your career before it started and put mine on shaky ground.”
“Which agency is the flag alarm going to?” I asked. “I mean, I know the NSA is playing guard dog for it, but what’s the origin agency?”
“I can’t tell you that without violating inter-agency agreements,” he said.
“Ah,” I said. “Okay, I’ll find out myself.”
“Stop it,” John said.
“You know, the thing that upsets me the most is that you knew there was a file for weeks and didn’t say anything to me,” I said, letting a little agitation slip into my tone. “You know how little I remember about my father.”
“Can you blame me?” he asked sincerely. “I knew what would happen. You’d go rogue on me.”
I shrugged and shot him a mischievous grin. I decided
to let him in on some of what I had pieced together while having a little fun with him.
“I could have his whole record in less than a minute from my phone,” I said.
“Stop it, Scott,” he said, sounding as if he no longer wanted to play this game.
I pulled my phone up to my face and began tapping on its surface.
“…and change this key, and then back-door this port,” I mumbled, pretending to hack the NSA mainframe. “Let’s see—what was that cipher? Oh yeah!”
“Seriously, Scott. Please stop,” he pleaded, but he was still grinning.
“…and I’m IN!” I said.
He squinted his eyes and stared at me through slits.
“Hmmm. Hmmm,” I said. “Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that.”
“Scott,” John said, sounding bored.
“It says here that Henry Wolfe, biochemist working on a project for the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1983, was accidentally bitten by a radioactive spider, giving him super powers and the ability to spin webs of any size, catching thieves just like flies. Having been the first recipient of the Apex gene therapy…” I said, then a memory hit me—it was an old memory with lots of emotion tied to it.
John shot me a worried look.
“What?” he asked. “Stop fucking around.”
“Not Apex,” I muttered as my mind pulled a verbatim memory playback into my ears. “… Ambux.”
“Cup?” Nick asked.
“What?” John and I asked at the same time.
“Ambux…It’s Greek for ‘cup,’” he replied.
“What’s Ambux?” John asked me.
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog around the time period from which the memory originated.
“Don’t try to force it. Let them organize on their own,” I remember my dad saying to me. When was that?
I relaxed my facial muscles and tried to stop filtering my thoughts.
“Second generation Ambux causes fractures too,” I muttered, repeating words I had heard…but when had I heard them?
“What the hell are you talking about?” John asked, rising from behind his desk. “How did you know that? Did you really just hack the DIA file on your dad from your phone?”