by David Capps
“And they can’t tell?”
“No. The phone will perform normally. It’s a function we had built into the chip that controls the phone. All phones now have that capability. As long as the phone is plugged into the phone line, we can listen through it. We send the access code, and it’s ours.”
“And cell phones?” Jake asked.
“Even easier.”
Jake thumbed his cell phone in his pocket, wondering who had been listening to his conversations. “So potentially, you could record every phone conversation in the country?”
“With Echelon, we have the capability to record every phone conversation on the planet. The problem isn’t with the technology, it’s with people.”
“I’ve heard of Echelon. What does it do, exactly?”
“Echelon was created as a global system of antennas for the interception of all private and commercial communications, what we call Signals Intelligence. It’s the result of the UKUSA Security Agreement between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, and dates back to 1946.”
“And it’s limited by people?”
“Yes. We have a limited number of surveillance technicians. Nobody can listen to 18,000 phone conversations an hour. The computer system breaks all the words down into text, and sorts the text according to key words. It flags all conversations that contain any keywords, just like a search engine would do on the Internet.”
“So what happens if someone substitutes an ordinary word for what they suspect is a keyword in their conversations?” Jake asked. “And all the people they talk to know what the substitute word means? ‘Bomb’ has to be a keyword, right? What happens if someone substitutes, say, ‘banana’ in place of ‘bomb’. Then what?”
“Encoded conversations are our biggest problem,” she said. “We know who talks to whom. If we can identify the substitute words, we can tag the conversations and listen to what is being said. But that’s a big if.”
“E-mails?”
“Same deal, it’s all keyword driven. We don’t have enough people to look at everything. Just knowing how much information can fall through the cracks scares me. We know what we know, but what we don’t know is so huge, we can’t even get an estimate as to how big it might be.”
“I know the keywords help us catch criminals.”
“And terrorists. But only the stupid ones. The smart ones, the tech savvy ones, never even show up on our radar.”
“The people we’re looking for aren’t stupid,” Jake said.
“Which is why you have me.”
* * *
“So, this is where you live?” Honi asked as she carefully stepped from the dock onto Jake’s 40 foot sailboat. The deck was smooth Teak wood. The boat was white fiberglass with medium blue trim.
“This is home,” Jake said as he descended the narrow set of steps from the center console down into the cabin.
“Isn’t it a little cramped?” she asked as she navigated the steep steps.
“It’s homey.”
“And it moves. How do you get used to that?”
“Hadn’t noticed.”
Honi looked around. Dishes were stacked in the small sink, clothes strewn around the main cabin. She sniffed the air. No lingering smoke, perfume or stale beer. That was a positive sign, but so far, the only one. “Your place could use a good cleaning.”
He stared back at her. “You volunteering?”
She scoffed. “Do I look like the domestic type to you?”
He didn’t answer.
She pulled her secure phone out of her jeans pocket and dug deeper for the earbuds. She picked a crumpled shirt up between her thumb and forefinger with the other fingers extended into the air. She gently tossed the shirt at him and sat down at the small table.
He grabbed the shirt from the air and set it down next to him.
She accessed the secure database at the NSA, punched in the search parameters and looked at the screen. “No recognized keywords in the recordings.”
“I have tea or coffee.” He opened the small refrigerator and peered inside. “I can warm up some egg rolls.”
“How old?”
“Last night?”
She pursed her lips as she considered the egg rolls. “Sure, and tea would be fine.”
He started warming the egg rolls and heated some water for tea.
“This is going to take a while. I’ve got 14 hours of recordings to wade through.” She placed her notebook and pen in front of her on the table. Identifying hidden code words was a tedious process. People using the code words tried to put them into a context that said one thing, but meant something else. She had to listen to the phrasing several times to decide if there was a real context, or a contrived one. A contrived context indicated the presence of hidden code words.
As the afternoon slowly dragged into evening, Jake went out and picked up some Italian dinners and brought them back to the boat.
“Anything yet?”
She shrugged her shoulders. They ate while she listened.
The clock had crept past ten at night when Jake suggested they quit for the night and continue in the morning. She suddenly looked up at him, her interest and attention piqued at what she was hearing.
“What?” he asked.
She scribbled down several words. 15:47, VB?, Benji, cars.
“What does it mean?”
She shrugged, shook her head and continued listening.
Four hours later she was still analyzing the recorded conversations. Jake had fallen asleep on a padded bench and she needed to stretch her legs. She quietly climbed the steps to the main deck of the sailboat, ducked under the wrapped sail and walked slowly toward the bow.
Her family had immigrated to the U.S. from Baden Baden, Germany after World War II. Her grandparents, being less than a hundred yards from the French border, had been active in the resistance movement against the Nazis, helping to pass Jews and downed pilots out of Germany and spies back in. Her grandfather had been recruited into the Office of Strategic Services during the war, and her father had joined the CIA after he graduated from college. Her parents had trained her in tradecraft and surveillance techniques from the time she was a small child, so when the opportunity arose, she was a natural for the NSA. She was now Head of Section for Covert Surveillance and loving every minute of it.
She looked up at the night sky. There was no moon, but the stars were obscured by the lights in the sky. She stood, mesmerized, by the colorful display of red, green and blue swirls of soft light that filled the black canopy above her. She had seen the Aurora Borealis as a child, but the northern lights were just that, confined to the top of the world. These lights covered the entire sky: shifting, blending, fading and strengthening. The panorama of hues and the slow-motion dance had her enthralled. She paused the recording and sat on the forward section of the main cabin, leaning back so she could take in the entire spectacle at once. It was the most unusual thing she had ever seen.
A cool breeze drifted off the water. She felt slightly chilled, but she couldn’t drag herself away from the lights in the sky. She continued to listen to the recording as she watched the silent performance taking place above her.
* * *
Jake woke up at 6:21 a.m. and looked around. She wasn’t there. He checked the small bathroom to no avail. He found her sitting on the top of the sailboat cabin, still listening to the recorded phone conversations.
“You were awake all night?” he asked.
“Some people don’t waste their time. Besides, you missed quite the show last night.”
“Show?”
“The lights in the sky.”
“What kind of lights?”
“You know—the wavy curtains of light high up in the night sky.”
“The Aurora Borealis?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “You know what they are?”
“Astronomy, minor in science in college. Kind of a hobby now. So the lights were in the north?”
Jake felt the blood drain from his face. “We aren’t supposed to have any lights in the sky. We’re at a sunspot minimum. No sunspots, no solar storms, no northern lights. How long did they last?”
“I don’t know. They were still there when the sky started to get light, just before dawn.”
Jake looked out over the water. “That shouldn’t have been happening. We need to see an old friend of mine.”
“Now? What about the investigation?”
“It can wait, this is important.”
“It’s another waste of my time, and my agency!”
Jake took a quick shower and dressed. He drove her to her apartment west of Alexandria, Virginia where she reluctantly showered and changed.
Thirty minutes later they entered the Space Studies Board on Fifth. The board was the central collection and distribution point for all information relating to the sun and space weather. The SSB was also the US National Committee to the Committee on Space Research, referred to as COSPAR.
“We’re here to see Dr. Spencer,” Jake said.
“He got your call, and he’s waiting in his office,” the secretary replied.
“Jake,” Dr. Spencer said, a warm smile on his face. “What can I do for my favorite godson?”
“This is agent Honika Badger, NSA. She tells me we had an aurora last night. What happened?”
Dr. Spencer breathed out quickly and glanced down at the floor. He wasn’t smiling any more. “It’s not good, Jake, not good at all.”
“I thought we were in a sunspot minimum period.”
“Sun spot minimum?” Honi asked.
“Sun spots are caused by huge magnetic storms on the surface of the sun,” Jake explained. “They gradually build up to a maximum every eleven years, or there about, and then they suddenly stop. For the next three to four years, there aren’t any sunspots, and then the whole cycle runs all over again.”
“So we’re in a time where there aren’t supposed to be any of these magnetic storms on the sun?”
“We are,” Dr. Spencer replied quietly. “That’s why the storms are, well, troubling.”
“Troubling? How?” Jake asked.
“First, we aren’t supposed to be having any storms for another three to four years. Second, the storms aren’t normal. They’re Coronal Mass Ejections, where the surface material of the sun is thrown off into space, not the usual magnetic storms or flares. Third, they are ejected on a path that comes directly at us, which is relatively rare.”
“You’re saying there was more than one storm?” Honi asked.
“This is the second storm,” Dr. Spencer said. “The first occurred seventeen days before this one. The first storm was a near miss, so nothing showed up in the news about it. This one was a direct hit. Thankfully, it wasn’t very strong. So far the powers that be have managed to keep it out of the news.”
“What about the earth’s magnetic field?” Jake asked. “That has been changing so much lately. What’s up with that?”
“As you are aware, the earth’s magnetic field has been decreasing in strength for the last ten years or so. A polar shift is underway.”
“You mean where the north and south poles flip?” Honi asked. “Isn’t that extremely dangerous?”
“Not normally,” Dr. Spencer replied. “It’s happened dozens of times over the last several million years. The last magnetic pole flip was the Matuyana-Brunhes reversal, 786,000 years ago. Pole flips happen every 200 to 250 thousand years, on average, so we’re actually long overdue. We originally thought pole shifts took place over several thousand years, but based on core samples, it’s hard to get a real perspective. The size of the rock sample is decidedly thin, so a thousand years is…”
“And now?” Jake asked.
Dr. Spencer looked up at him. “Oh, yes. Now we know a pole shift can happen during one’s lifetime, much less than a hundred years. In fact, the earth’s magnetic field is diminishing much more rapidly than we anticipated. It’s had a strange effect on the ozone hole over Antarctica. With the weakening of the south magnetic pole, the hole in the ozone layer is healing. Seems like it wasn’t hydrofluorocarbons after all. It was the intensity of the magnetic field that created the hole. We just made certain assumptions that we had created a problem that turned out to have an entirely natural cause.”
“Is the earth’s magnetic field going to disappear?” Honi asked.
Dr. Spencer looked at her. “Well, not entirely, at least we don’t think so. There are new north and south poles emerging, weak, but emerging. The overall field will be very weak, I’m afraid, especially in various places. The new poles are moving rapidly, well from a planetary aspect they are moving rapidly. If you were standing there you wouldn’t notice it at all.”
“How weak?” Jake asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, it’s so hard to predict these kinds of things accurately.”
“Ball park? Fifty percent? Thirty percent?”
“Oh nothing that high,” Dr. Spencer said. “We’ve already dropped by more than fifty percent. We’re probably looking at something in the three to five percent range.”
“The magnetic field will be only three to five percent of what it was ten years ago?” Honi asked.
“Yes, yes,” Dr. Spencer replied. “But that shouldn’t last more than a few years. The new poles should strengthen by the time the next sunspot maximum takes place,”
“But we’re having solar storms now!” Jake said.
“Yes, yes,” Dr. Spencer said. “I just don’t know why. It’s not natural.”
“How do we know the magnetic field will return?” Honi asked.
“Well, scientists originally thought the magnetic field was generated by the iron core in the center of the planet, but we’re much too far away from the core. The magnetosphere is produced by the flow of massive electric currents in the outer magma layer, just thirty miles or less below us. Normally, the Coriolis Force, a twisting action created by the rotation of the earth, keeps the magma flow even and the electric flow forms a geomagnetic dynamo that generates the earth’s magnetic field. Right now the magma and the electric current flows are chaotic, so the magnetic field reflects that chaotic state. But chaos is the exception. Chaos is unbalanced. Nature always seeks balance. When balance returns, so will the magnetic field.”
“And until then?” Honi asked.
“Pray we don’t get hit with a big CME,” Dr. Spencer said as he looked down at the floor.
“Thank you, Dr. Spencer,” Jake said as he and Honi turned to leave.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Dr. Spencer said. “I know you are fascinated by science things like this. There’s a bright young engineer over at George Washington University. You’re going to love what he has come up with. Here’s his card. Go and see him. Such an exciting development.”
Jake took the card. “Thanks. I’ll visit him, I promise.”
* * *
Jake checked the computer back at his office while Honi waited impatiently for him, pacing around his office. The central plains of Canada now had the north arm of compasses pointing due west. A second North Magnetic Pole was developing in the northern Pacific Ocean south of the Aleutian Islands. The South Magnetic Pole, instead of being opposite the North Pole, was moving toward the new North Pole. Magnetic South was now in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Chili and New Zealand. To top things off, a new Magnetic South Pole was developing over Mongolia. None of it made any sense.
“This is stupid,” Honi said. “I’ve had enough.”
“What?”
“I’m done. I stayed up all night digging out essential information for your important investigation and you’re chasing phantom lights in the sky and sunspots. You have no respect for me, my time or my agency. We’re done!”
“But these are critically important things.”
“Not to me they aren’t.”
“The
solar storms may not be evidence in the investigation, but they have the potential to adversely impact what we’re doing, so they’re important.”
Honi just shook her head.
I’m losing her, he realized. “I do respect you,” he said as an opening to an apology.
“No, you don’t, or you wouldn’t waste my time. Respect isn’t about words, it’s about actions. Respect is earned. I’ve gone out of my way to earn your respect, and you aren’t interested. In fact, you haven’t done a single thing to earn my respect, and without that respect, we can’t work together.”
She’s right, Jake thought. He felt the flush of embarrassment fill his face. “I still need you to work with me. I still need your help. Is there something, anything, I can do to help earn your respect at this point?”
She turned and walked to the door, stopped briefly and turned to face him. “Anything?”
“Anything,” he replied.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is for a woman to get respect in a man’s world? I have to be better, faster, stronger and smarter than every man I encounter, and I am. But I still don’t get the respect I deserve. Not from you, and certainly not from other people just like you. I’m sick of it, but I am prepared to earn your respect, on your turf, in the only way men seem to garner any respect at all. Are you into martial arts?”
“At the FBI, we all are.”
“You have a gym in this dilapidated rat trap of a building?”
“Down stairs.”
“If you can take me in hand-to-hand combat, you can earn my respect.”
* * *
Jake changed out of his street clothes and into his workout sweats. Each agent had a locker located next to the gym. He entered the gym and proceeded to strap on the ankle pads used to keep from breaking bones in your opponent. The gym was sixty feet by one hundred twenty feet, with a hardwood floor. Exercise machines and weight sets were placed around the outer walls. In the center was the martial arts mat where, in addition to fighting, suspect take-downs and control moves were taught and practiced. He slipped the padded gloves on as he bounced toward the center of the mat.
Other FBI agents working out in the gym stopped their routine and moved to the edge of the martial arts area. Agent Honika Badger stood calmly in the center of the padded section of the floor wearing her street clothes.