by David Walton
My dad’s mouth split into a big smile. “The NSA, eh? Say hi to Richards. And tell Masterson that ten-dimensional Kalman filter of his is never going to work.”
“I will,” I said, though I had no idea who those people were. My father had worked for the NSA for three decades before Alzheimer’s cut short his career, and people and memories from those days sometimes popped up in his conversation without context. He had been only fifty-six when he was diagnosed, quite young for the disease, but that didn’t save him.
The symptoms had come on slowly. At first it seemed like nothing much. He would forget his keys or his jacket, or mix up names. Apparently the change was noticeable enough in his work, however, that the NSA had encouraged him to see a doctor. The diagnosis was like hearing the word guilty at a murder trial. There was no way to take it back. And there was no cure.
He lost his skill with higher math first, followed by an inability to make new memories reliably. He forgot words, forgot experiences we’d shared. Each week, it seemed, something new was lost, made all the more painful by the fact that he knew it was happening. In his final months at the NSA, he had endured psychological evaluations, revoked security clearances, and going-away parties, and then he was out the door.
After several disastrous college experiences, I had moved in with my dad, both as a place to stay and to take some of the burden of caring for him off my mom. But there was something terrifying about Alzheimer’s that seeing it all the time hadn’t taken away. I didn’t even drink anymore, because the thought of giving up control of my mind, even slightly, made my chest tighten. Little by little, it robbed him of his identity, turning a brilliant, decisive, passionate man into a hesitant and confused shadow of his former self, like a horror movie played out in slow motion.
My dad studied his letter tiles, his huge gray eyebrows furrowed, and I remembered how intimidating those brows had been when he hoisted them at me as a boy. Think, his eyebrows would say. Dig deeper. There’s more to discover. And he was always right. Now, there seemed to be only struggle behind those lowered brows, as if combining seven letters to form a word was the hardest thing he had ever attempted.
Once, my dad had dominated all comers in this game. He used to say that a cryptologist who couldn’t anagram was no cryptologist at all. He regularly produced words like tersion and matzoon, sending us scrambling for the dictionary, only to find that he was—of course—correct.
Ever since we were small, the letter magnets on our refrigerator were a continuous family challenge. What messages could we leave for each other when we were limited to only one of each letter in the alphabet? My father was king of the game, and triumphs like “PUT BACK MY ENGLISH WORD” had been passed down in family lore. He loved word games and puzzles of every type. The family joke was that he had fallen in love with my mother—whose first name was Hannah—simply because her name was a palindrome.
My dad chose three tiles from his tray and made the word stix, using the letter X that I had placed previously. He peered at it, uncertain, but eventually leaned back and left it there. I made no comment and recorded eleven points on the score sheet.
I had grown up knowing that my father was a cryptologist but not much more—the details were classified, and we were always left in the dark. In truth, I doubt he did much actual code breaking himself, but there was no way to know. There were no take-your-family-to-work days at the NSA.
Most of his thirty-four years had been spent at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, but we had also spent a decade living in Brazil when I was a child. He had been a spy—not the James Bond kind with exploding pens and sexy femmes fatales, but the real kind, officially assigned to the diplomatic corps and unofficially an NSA liaison to Agência Brasileira de Inteligência, the Brazilian intelligence service.
For most of my growing up years, I had wanted to be just like him. I wanted to work for the NSA, perform mathematical and linguistic magic to break enemy codes, and make the world safe for democracy. It was a dream I had never really left behind.
And now I would get my chance. I had an interview—a real, live interview—with the NSA on Monday morning at nine o’clock. The time couldn’t go fast enough. I knew I would get the job. I had to get it. It was like destiny. My only regret was that my dad would never really know.
“Neil!” My mom strode into the room, agitated. She was a small woman, but energetic, always juggling three activities and excelling at all of them. She wasn’t actually married to my father anymore—hadn’t been for fifteen years—but she had moved back in when he was diagnosed and took care of him even more than I did.
I stood. “What is it?”
She swept the remote off the coffee table and pointed it at the TV, which burst into sound, breaking the tranquility of the quiet room. It was a news channel, and the banner across the bottom of the screen read, “Fourteen Dead and Two Missing in Amazon Massacre.”
My stomach clenched into a painful knot. “What happened? Is it Paul?” Mom just shook her head, eyes glued to the screen.
The newscaster described a scene of horror: twelve Americans, two Canadians, and one Brazilian pilot had been gunned down on a riverboat somewhere on the Amazon river. The names of the victims were not being released until the families could be contacted. Two other passengers were missing, possibly kidnapped, or else their bodies were floating down the river and had not yet been found.
We watched, numbed. I didn’t know how much my father understood, but he sensed our agitation. Until the families could be contacted. I stared at my parents’ house phone, willing it not to ring. Surely there were many American travelers in the Amazon basin. There was no reason to think that Paul had been on that particular boat. Then my cell phone rang, startling me so much that I nearly tripped on my chair. I spotted it vibrating on the coffee table and lunged for it, answering on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, little brother,” Paul said. “Is Mom there? She must be worried sick.”
“You’re . . . alive,” I said, my tongue like rubber.
The voice on the other end was serious. “It was a near thing.”
“It’s Paul,” I said to my mom. “He’s okay. He’s alive.” She let out all her breath in a rush. “What happened?” I said into the phone. “Were you on that boat?”
He gave me a brief overview, until my mom snatched the phone and took up the conversation where I’d left off. He had been inches from death, by the sound of it. When I finally got my phone back, I said, “How did you get back to Manaus? I missed that part.”
He hesitated. “I don’t remember.”
“Were you hurt?”
“No . . . I don’t think so. I just can’t remember. We walked for a long time . . . and that’s it. We must have found our way to a road.” He coughed violently.
“Have you been to a doctor? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I’m fine. Just some infection I’m fighting off.”
Paul confirmed that he would be home on American Airlines on Monday evening and would meet me there. The police had interviewed him for hours, but he was a victim, not a suspect, and they couldn’t keep him in the country.
He spoke to my father briefly, who seemed more like himself for a time, recognizing Paul’s voice and teasing him about a girl he’d apparently met on his trip. When he handed the phone back, however, his smile disappeared, replaced with the increasingly familiar expression of fear and panic as some part of him realized that there were critical things he couldn’t remember. It tended to happen whenever his mind made a brief connection to the person he used to be, enough that he could recognize that something was missing. He sat down again and studied his tiles.
“Now I don’t know what to do,” my mother said. “We were supposed to visit Julia this weekend.” Julia was my sister, older than Paul by a year, and she had just given birth to my parents’ first grandchild, a girl named Ash. My parents had driven up to see her the day she was born, but my mom had been anxious to ret
urn.
“You should go,” I said. “I’ll be here to pick up Paul. Julia needs you more than he does.”
She sighed. “I’m already packed. We just need to get in the car and go.”
“Enjoy,” I said. “Give them both a kiss for me. Honestly, it’ll probably be easier on Paul not to have a crowd worrying about his well-being.”
“All right. But you call if he needs me, okay?”
“I will.”
I sat across from my dad again. After a few minutes, I placed the word perjury on the board and quietly recorded my points. Dad would get upset if I didn’t keep score, so I always did. He would also get upset if he thought I wasn’t playing my best.
While Dad and I finished our game, Mom collected the last few things she needed and brought them out to the car. I used the last tile, and then subtracted Dad’s remaining letters from his total. “What’s the damage?” he said.
I folded the score sheet so he couldn’t see it. “It’s time for you to go,” I said. “Can you believe you’re finally a grandfather?”
“What’s the score?” he said. “Don’t tell me you won.”
“It was a good game. Let’s go find your coat.”
His face changed to confusion, anger. “Don’t patronize me, Neil. What’s the score?”
I sighed. “Four hundred and twenty-two,” I said, pointing to myself, “to seventy-eight.”
“What are you talking about, seventy-eight?” His eyes radiated anger. “Are you messing around with me? Tell me my score.”
Mom reappeared. “What’s wrong?”
“Your son won’t tell me my score,” Dad said. “Seventy-eight points, what kind of a score is that?”
“He meant four hundred and seventy-eight,” Mom said. “It was a close game, but you always come out ahead.”
I winced. I didn’t like to lie to him. It felt like disrespect to treat him like he was a two-year-old throwing a tantrum about losing in Candyland. Mom could often handle him better than I could, though, and sometimes a lie would turn aside a problem before it made him really upset. I couldn’t really fault her.
My dad wore a magnanimous smile. “Well played, Neil,” he said. “Sometimes the right letters just aren’t there for you.”
I nodded and smiled half-heartedly. “Have a good trip to New York,” I said.
Dad stood and shook my hand. “Good luck on your interview.”
I was surprised he’d remembered. “Thanks,” I said. “It’ll be a snap.”
“Good for you,” he said. “I always wanted to work for the NSA.”
CHAPTER 2
When I drove my battered Nissan through the NSA gate the next morning, I felt hopeful but nervous. I knew I had a lot to overcome. My school record wasn’t exactly stellar, and although I hadn’t been convicted of any felonies, or anything else that would directly interfere with a security clearance, there were some things in my history that were hard to explain.
The screening and interview process took place at the Friendship Annex, a surprisingly jolly name for a complex that housed thousands of employees ranging from cyber espionage experts to signals intelligence analysts in the world’s largest intelligence agency. The Friendship Annex, or FANX, was a twenty minute drive away from NSA headquarters at Fort Meade. It had been named after the nearby Friendship International Airport, which had since been given a more dignified title. I thought they should have renamed the NSA complex, too. The Crypto Annex, perhaps, or the Annex of Cyber Warfare.
Two armed MPs scrutinized my driver’s license and application letter. They took so long checking their list that I started to get nervous, but eventually they waved me on. At the next checkpoint, I was asked to step out of my car while a K-9 agent and his German shepherd checked it for explosives. Nobody smiled. It was a serious place, for a serious purpose. It was a place I wanted to belong.
My upbringing gave me an appreciation for the importance of good operational security. Even 256-bit encryption didn’t keep your message safe if the enemy had access to your private key. A password wasn’t secure if you told it to someone who said they worked for the data center. In a world more and more governed by computers, people were often the weakest link.
I pulled up to FANX III at 7:00 a.m., two hours early. They let me in, which was fortunate, because it was one of the coldest days of the year, and my Nissan’s heater didn’t work anymore. The security guard watched as I untangled two scarves, gloves, a hat, and a coat, and put them on the conveyor belt to be X-rayed. My wallet and keys followed them, and I stepped through the metal detector without a hitch. Finally, they gave me a bright red-and-white striped badge with “Visitor—One Day Only” stamped on the front in two-inch high letters.
I sat in a molded plastic chair next to a vending machine. I was hungry, having skipped breakfast to make sure I had time to find where I was supposed to go, but the vending machine ate my dollar bill without relinquishing my chosen candy bar. The metal spiral turned, but the bar clung tenaciously to its position, refusing to fall. The next customer would probably get two for his money, but I was out of cash. I thought about shaking the machine, but I thought that might not give the right impression to my potential employers.
I slouched in the chair, watching a flat-screen television mounted on the wall that was set on endless loop. It showed a two-minute video extolling the virtues of the NSA. It was called Information Is Power, and it featured clips of high-tension battle scenes and a deep male voiceover saying things like “Intelligence saves lives on the battlefield,” and “We protect our nation’s borders through global cryptologic dominance.” The first time, I thought it was awesome. By the fifth time, I had it memorized. By the tenth, I had fallen asleep.
I woke up at 9:05 with a stale taste in my mouth and sense of panic, which only intensified when I realized my name was being called. The lobby, which had been empty, was now full of candidates. I thanked the receptionist who was calling my name and rushed down the hallway she indicated. My interview letter said I would be interviewed in room thirty-two by a Ms. Shaunessy Brennan. I pictured a red-haired Irish woman, her fiery locks tied back and a merry twinkle in her eye. When I peeked into the room, however, a young black woman sat there with her arms crossed, wearing a scowl. “Um, hello?” I said.
“Neil Johns?”
I halted. “Yes.”
“You’re late.”
“Oh. My paper said a Ms. Brennan.”
“That’s me.”
“Right. Sorry, I just thought . . .”
“You didn’t think there were any black women in Ireland?” Her voice was steel, and I now realized there was a bit of an Irish flavor to her vowels.
“Apologies,” I said.
She stood to shake my hand. She was young and fit, dressed in black slacks and a loose green blouse, with long hair twisted into tight braids and pulled back in a silver clasp. Her handshake was businesslike and cold.
I sat down and tried a smile. “Shaunessy, that’s a lovely name.”
Her look impaled me to the chair.
After that, it only got worse. She asked me nothing about the WWII-era ciphers I’d invented in my spare time, nor did she quiz me on famous cryptologists of history, which I would have knocked out of the park. There’s a certain kind of person I can impress with charm and a winning smile, but Shaunessy Brennan was not one of them. Her baleful gaze didn’t falter, no matter how many witticisms I attempted, and soon I stopped trying. I sensed that my dream of following in my father’s footsteps was about to die.
Her accent was beautiful, light and musical, and soon I found myself listening to the sound of her voice instead of what she was saying.
“Mr. Johns?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I was thinking.”
“You do realize,” she said, “that you applied to the Computer Science division of Signals Intelligence? We do large-scale computing. Practically everyone in this division has advanced degrees in Computer Science. You don’t seem to have any formal c
omputing education at all.”
“I’m pretty good at math.”
“With three failed attempts at a degree to show for it.”
I shrugged. “Signals Intelligence seemed like my best shot. I don’t know anything about network security, and I haven’t really studied any foreign languages.”
She frowned. “Your resume says you know Portuguese.”
“Well, yeah. I kind of grew up in Brazil, so Portuguese is easy. I know a little Spanish, too. And I can get by in Tupi-Guarani.”
“But you don’t know any foreign languages,” she said, deadpan.
“I wasn’t counting those because I learned them as a kid. I haven’t learned any recently, as an adult.” She raised an eyebrow. “Which, granted, hasn’t been very long,” I pushed on, rambling now. “I mean, I don’t know any of the really important languages, like Arabic or Russian or Chinese. I’m guessing you don’t get much signals traffic in Tupi-Guarani.”
Her face was impassive. “Let’s talk about your school record.”
I would have rather not, but it didn’t seem helpful to say so.
“It says here that over the course of three years, you managed to be expelled from MIT, Princeton, and Carnegie Mellon.” She looked at me over the top of my resume. “An impressive feat, I suppose, but not in a good way.”
“I was young then,” I said. “It was a long time ago.”
She squinted at me. “How old are you now?”
“Twenty-one.”
She riffled through the papers in front of her. “You started at MIT when you were sixteen,” she said. “You were expelled a year later. Admitted to Princeton at seventeen, and expelled a year after that. Carnegie Mellon at eighteen, and that time you lasted only two months.”
Her eyebrows asked the question.
“That last one wasn’t my fault,” I said. “I thought the university president was embezzling funds. I did a probability analysis, based on the donation profile of similar schools, the number of attending students and the published scholarship numbers, and the report of available capital I happened to see on his secretary’s desk. But nobody was going to believe me without evidence. I had to break into his office to prove it.”