by David Walton
Incredibly, the ability to cook was a skill my father still retained, although my mother always watched him carefully while he juggled hot pans over the stove. He had cooked for so many years that making familiar dishes was automatic to him, requiring no recipe or measuring cups. Somehow, those neurons had escaped the strangulating plaques and tangles so far, though I had no doubt they would eventually succumb.
When I finally came home from the hospital, my parents were there, having driven back from New York when they heard about Paul. It was, by then, one o’clock in the morning, but everyone was famished, so Dad heated up some shrimp bobó over rice and we all shoveled it down.
“So Paul’s going to be okay?” Mom said.
“Physically, I think so,” I said. “The doctor said the worst was past. Emotionally, I don’t know. He tried to call Maisie while I was there. Apparently she got the same infection he did, only she died of it.”
Mom gasped and put a hand over her mouth.
Dad looked confused. “Who’s Maisie?”
“The other survivor,” Mom said. “The young woman Paul rescued and brought safely through the wilderness.”
She said it patiently, matter-of-fact, with nothing in her voice to suggest that my father should have remembered that detail.
“Paul’s taking it pretty hard,” I said. “He says it’s not a big deal, that she didn’t really mean anything to him, but I don’t believe him. He’s having trouble coming to terms with the fact that she’s dead, and he’s still alive. Out of all the people on that riverboat, he’s the only one who made it.”
“We’ll go visit him in the morning,” Mom said. “There’s no worry, then, for Paul? That he might . . . ?”
She meant that he might die, too. “The doctor I talked to didn’t seem too concerned. She said we should take it seriously, make sure he took his antifungals. But I don’t think his life is in any immediate danger.”
“Well, then.” Mom slapped her hands on her knees, closing the subject. “Enough talk of death, then. Charles, we should show Neil pictures of his new niece.”
Dad looked startled. “Did you take any?”
“No. That was your job.”
“I don’t have a camera,” Dad said.
“You have an iPhone, dear. And you did take pictures; I saw you do it.”
I scooped another helping of shrimp. “Julia sent me some pictures of Ash already,” I said. “She’s a cutie.”
“Bald as a ping-pong ball,” Dad grumbled. “And what kind of name is Ash? Ash? That’s the black stuff you dig out of a fireplace. It’s no name for a child.”
“It’s a perfectly lovely name,” Mom said. “Girls named Ashley are called Ash all the time.”
“But her name isn’t Ashley,” Dad said. “Ashley wouldn’t be strange. There are thousands of good names out there; why does she have to get creative?”
“Be nice,” my mother said. “She’s your granddaughter.”
“It’s my daughter I was complaining about.”
Mom was beaming. She had a granddaughter, and Paul was safe, and Dad was actually responding appropriately, bantering with her like he used to do. I finished the last of my shrimp bobó and eyed the serving bowl, wondering if I would regret taking a third helping. I decided to risk it. “I was hoping to visit Julia this weekend,” I said. “But my car . . .”
“You can take mine,” Mom said.
“Are you sure? You don’t need it?”
“Your father and I can make do with one car for one weekend. Take it. Julia will be happy to see you.”
My father argued good-naturedly with me about the best route to take from Baltimore to Ithaca. It was about a five-hour trip regardless, but my dad was convinced you could shave a few minutes off if you went up Route 81 through Wilkes-Barre and Binghamton. It was the sort of argument he excelled at—meaningless and impossible to prove—and even before his Alzheimer’s, he had loved to debate a subject endlessly without worrying about reaching a resolution. The fact that he could actually remember the names of the roads made me smile. It was always surprising what things he could bring to mind and what things seemed out of reach.
I drove up to Ithaca and met my new niece. Julia’s husband was Japanese, which gave Ash an intriguing blend of genetic features. When I looked into those complex dark eyes, I had to admit that Ash was, for some reason I couldn’t explain, the perfect name for her. On my return to my parents’ home, I announced as much, leaving my dad as the only remaining malcontent.
The next day, Shaunessy Brennan called.
“How’s your brother?” she asked.
“On the road to recovery,” I said. “He has pneumonia. Some weird fungal thing he picked up in the Amazon.”
“I’m glad to hear he’s okay.”
“Thanks for helping us out. I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. Look, I called to tell you that my boss, Melody Muniz, is offering you a job. The formal letter is in the mail, but I thought you’d like to know.”
My grin was wide enough to split my face. “That’s good news. That’s very, very good news. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Though I had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t my choice.”
“I appreciate the call, anyway. Thanks for thinking of me.”
“It’s just part of the job.”
Her tone was stiff, maybe even a little resentful. “You don’t like me much, do you?” I asked.
She didn’t respond for so long that I wondered if she’d hung up. Finally, she said, “It’s your type I don’t like. Young whiz kids with entitlement coming out their ears who think the rules don’t apply to them. Fine, you’re smart; I get it. But here, everybody’s smart. And the rules are there for a reason.”
“I can follow the rules,” I said. “And I’ll be good at the job. You’ll see.”
“Report to FANX III again next Monday, 9:00 sharp. Don’t be late. You’ll join a group of new hires in what we call the Tank, where people go to wait for their clearance tickets to come through.”
“The Tank?”
“It’s officially the Awaiting Clearance Pool. But informally, it’s the Tank. We verified your lapsed tickets, so, as you said, they should be able to turn yours around quickly. You won’t be there long. In the meantime, you’ll take a few orientation courses.”
“Good,” I said. “Does this mean I’ll be on the same team as you? Will we be working together?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “But I hope not.”
Ouch. I winced as I hung up the phone, but I couldn’t keep the grin off my face for long. The NSA! After a lifetime kept in the dark, I was finally going to be on the inside. I would know things. I would be allowed to learn all the secrets my father could never tell me. Who cared what Shaunessy Brennan thought? She’d done her worst, but she couldn’t keep me out.
After a little dance of triumph, I went to find my dad to tell him the news. I discovered him in the living room, reading from a thick book of collected short fiction. He liked short stories because he could finish them in a single sitting, unlike novels, which he tended to lose track of before he reached the end. He was crying as he read, tears running down his face unchecked.
I looked to see what story he was reading. It was “Flowers for Algernon.”
I gave his bony shoulder a squeeze and kept my news to myself.
CHAPTER 6
NSA agent Benjamin Harrison looked nothing like his presidential namesake. He was large and bald, with crimson cheeks that turned an even brighter red when he spoke. He seemed out of place in a suit and tie, and his tight collar left an impression against his wide throat. His normal speaking voice seemed to be a shout as he addressed the newest employees of the National Security Agency.
“This is the largest intelligence agency in the world,” he said, his booming voice filling the room. “And most of the country’s intelligence comes from right here at FANX or our sister location at Fort Meade. We give our troops
a decisive advantage in war. We stop terrorist attacks before they happen. We locate chemical and biological weapon factories, track troop movements and missile programs, and slow the traffic of narcotics into the country. We are the nation’s first and last line of defense.”
I wondered if Agent Harrison could be the voice actor from the video in the lobby, but I dismissed the idea. His delivery wasn’t trained enough, though he seemed to be drawing from the same basic script. Did they have a cadre of professional writers on staff just to produce this stuff? Come to think of it, in an organization the size of the NSA, with the kind of public relations problems they had, they probably did.
I sat in a training classroom with a dozen other new hires, listening to Harrison preach. The room was organized with rows of long tables, each of which had three computer stations. The monitors were recessed into the tabletops, angled upward, and blocked by panels on each side to prevent any student from seeing another student’s screen.
“The biggest battle we fight is an invisible one,” Harrison said. “We have been fighting it for decades, and it never ends. It’s the battle of cyber warfare, in which our enemies try to discover our secrets by infiltrating our computing systems, and we try to return the favor. It’s a battle where everything we know is at stake—the designs of our fighters and missiles and carriers, the locations of our defenses, our vulnerabilities. Every war ever fought in the history of the world has been won or lost by information.”
Most of the class was listening with rapt attention, though two or three were doodling or using the computers. Harrison didn’t seem to notice. At least half of the incoming class were young women, and I entertained myself by guessing their names. The tiny brunette with short hair and a cute face I decided was Maggie. The tall freckled one with red hair like a sunrise was Kathleen. Megan had wide eyes and cracked her fingers, neck, and knees compulsively, and Diane was the one looking around the room like me and missing nothing. Our eyes met for a brief moment, and I winked. She looked away. The men were less interesting to me, but I assigned them names, too: Ronnie and Argento and Goddard and Max.
Then I noticed that everyone else was typing and staring down at their recessed monitors. Agent Harrison had stopped orating and had given the class some kind of instruction, which I hadn’t heard at all. I looked up at the front of the class, a flood of adrenaline kicking into my system. I didn’t want to make a bad impression on my first day.
“You’re all hackers now,” Harrison said. “Breaking into this enemy system could mean the difference between life and death for American citizens. Let’s see which of you can be the first to crack it.”
I looked down at my monitor. It showed a training website, with links to different courses and online resource texts. It was an unclassified network, connected to the internet and presumably with no connection whatsoever to any of the NSA’s secure systems. One of the links said “Introduction to the NSA course exercise.” I clicked it. A new screen appeared with a username and password. This, presumably, was the “enemy system” that we were supposed to crack.
The other students were intent on their work, fingers moving quickly. They probably all had computer science degrees, maybe with courses in cyberespionage or web security. I hadn’t the first clue how to hack into the site. But that didn’t mean I was going to give up.
I sat there, staring at the login screen, trying to think. Guessing passwords wasn’t likely to get me very far. I didn’t have the chops to make any kind of technical assault. I would have to do this my own way. I went back to the original website and pressed a few links until I found the phone number for technical support.
I raised my hand. “Agent Harrison,” I said. “I have to use the bathroom.”
“This isn’t middle school,” he said. “Get up and go.”
I walked out, moving quickly. In the hall, I turned right—away from the bathrooms. I felt very conspicuous wandering the halls with my bright red visitor’s badge, and I was certain that at any moment someone was going to stop me and demand an explanation of where I was headed. In a few minutes, however, I found what I was looking for. Another training classroom, identical to ours, but dark and empty. I stepped inside.
The instructor’s desk had a phone on it. I dialed the tech support number. “Yes, this is Agent Benjamin Harrison,” I said, doing my best to imitate my instructor’s grandiose tones. “I’m teaching a course here, and I need a password reset on the unclassified network.”
“Name and badge ID,” said the bored voice on the other end of the phone.
“Benjamin Harrison,” I repeated. “And . . . hang on, I can never remember it. My badge is in my coat pocket. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up, denied but not discouraged. I went back to the classroom and put on an embarrassed, confused look. “Mr. Harrison?” I said.
He looked up. So did a few of my classmates.
“Um. Where is the bathroom?”
He was sitting behind the front table, and I still couldn’t get a good look at his badge, so I doubled over with a hand on my stomach. I tried not to overplay it. As I hoped, he stood and came around to put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right, son?”
I saw his badge. The number was printed small on the top right corner, but I memorized it quickly: 7014603. I straightened and gave him a sickly smile. “A little ill, sir. I’ll be okay. I just need the bathroom?”
“Out the door, to the left, then left again toward the lobby.”
“Thanks,” I said. I went out the door and turned left. I wanted to get back to the empty classroom, however, which was in the other direction. Our classroom had glass walls, and I didn’t want to be spotted going the wrong direction. I waited until a man and a woman walked down the hall the way I wanted to go, and then walked next to them, keeping them between me and the classroom with my face turned away.
Back in the empty room, I called tech support again.
“Benjamin Harrison,” I said. “Seven oh one four six oh three.”
I didn’t dare ask for the password to the student exercise to be reset, partly because I didn’t know what to call it, and partly because it might seem suspicious. Instead, I just asked for a reset to Harrison’s main unclassified account.
I heard typing in the background. “Okay,” said the bored voice. “You should be all set. Your new password is the first three letters of your last name, followed by the last four digits of your badge number. Change it within the hour, or the system will lock you out again.”
I thanked him and returned to my class. I nodded weakly at Harrison. A few of the women glanced at me as I made my way back to my seat. Maggie gave me a sympathetic look, but Diane eyed me suspiciously. I smiled at them both. None of the men looked up at all.
I sat down at the terminal and logged off, then logged in again using Harrison’s account and the temporary password. I held my breath, but no sirens wailed. The account welcomed me, and I was in. I brought up the training web site again, which now contained several new options like “Instructor Resources” and “Course Curricula.” I followed the curricula link and found the listing for the Introduction to the NSA course. As I had hoped, the course was given by various instructors, who were provided with a script. I scanned it quickly, until I found the student exercise. And there it was. Username: alanturing. Password: bletchleypark. I smiled.
Five minutes later, Agent Harrison checked his screen and looked up. “It looks like we have a winner,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s ever been cracked that fast before.”
The students all looked at each other, some in surprise, some in annoyance. I smiled at Diane and gave her another wink. She wasn’t as cute as Maggie, but I guessed she would be bright and opinionated. I wondered if she would be interested in going out for some Thai food afterward.
“Neil Johns,” Harrison said. “Please stand.”
I did so, with a flourish and my best winning smile. The expressions on the others’ faces ranged from resigned to disgusted. I g
uessed they were all pretty competitive and didn’t like to be beaten.
“Congratulations,” Harrison said. “You’ve got a great career in cyber espionage ahead of you. The rest of you, keep at it! Second place is still up for grabs.”
I was still looking around the room, basking in my victory, when three men pushed through the door. Two of them were dressed in very serious-looking uniforms with MP armbands and their hands on their sidearms. The third was in his thirties, bearded, wearing jeans and a striped shirt. The third man took the lead, scanning the computers. He walked down the aisle until he reached my place and tapped on the table next to my terminal. “This is the one,” he said.
One of the MPs eyed my temporary visitor’s permit. “Neil Johns?”
“Yes,” I said. “What is this?”
The first MP took me by the elbow, while the other drew a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “You’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER 7
FANX was essentially a large group of office buildings, not a military base like Fort Meade. This meant, presumably, that they didn’t have any proper cells to lock me in. They stuck me in a small room with a table and chairs—and no computer—with an armed guard to make sure I didn’t leave. The guard was shorter than me but looked as though she could rip my arms off and would be glad to do so given the chance.
She had no sense of humor. I couldn’t get her to crack a smile. In fact, I couldn’t get her to respond to me in any way. Attempts to engage her in conversation, to ask how long I would be kept there or to demand a lawyer all met with the same impassive gaze. I considered just trying to walk out the door, if only to get her to respond. I suspected that if I did, however, I’d regret it. The phrase “shot while trying to escape” had an unpleasant ring to it.