“Not something I’ve ever said,” I snarked. My jibe earned me a dig in the ribs—where I’m most ticklish.
“Hey!”
“You earned that.”
Recommencing program, Zander and Jayda Cruz.
Once the acute sensation of free fall had passed and I had swallowed down my stomach from where it had lodged in my throat, a trail of blue footsteps appeared, overlaid on the first-floor blueprints. A date and time stamp blinked off to the side of the rendering so that we could tell when Overman’s movements took place.
The footprints entered the elevator—and the elevator shot up. The first floor dropped away, and the second floor rose in its place.
I was a bit more ready for the rollercoaster ride, but Zander moaned. This time I squeezed his fingers.
The blue footprints crossed the floor and stepped into what we knew was Overman’s office—two levels below the Director’s suite. Sometime soon, I wanted to visit Overman’s office in person, but that foray would require forethought and planning. I doubted any helpful trace would remain in his office, but it was worth a try.
We soon recognized Overman’s day-to-day routine—arrival at 7:00 sharp each morning, regular visits to conference rooms and other offices, hours spent in his own office, lunch at 12:30 each afternoon (frequently eating in the cafeteria, other times leaving the campus), and his daily departure time, around 5:00 or 5:30, once as late as 6:00.
“Long hours,” Zander noted.
What we couldn’t see were the activities Overman engaged in—phone calls, emails, meetings, conversations. The nanomites would scrub through those logs for us, and we would study them together another evening.
Day followed day of similar movements. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary—not until the evening Overman disappeared. He returned to his office from a meeting at 4:30. Five o’clock came and went, then 5:30 and 5:45 without his leaving for the day. At six o’clock Overman had still not left his office. The minutes ticked off until it was 6:15. 6:30. 6:45.
“Why is he still in his office?” I whispered.
With no warning, the blue footprints signifying Overman’s badge left his office and walked to the elevator. Overman’s badge descended the elevator. The elevator stopped on the first floor. Overman got out, proceeded to the front entrance as usual, then exited the building.
You have watched the current badge tracking to its end, Jayda Cruz. We recommend overlaying the movements of other badges within ten feet of Wayne Overman’s badge.
“Play the last hour, overlaying the badges of other personnel who come within ten feet of Overman.”
Rendering now, Jayda Cruz.
The nanomites played the footage on fast-forward. There was Overman, ostensibly sitting in his office. The timer off to the side showed an hour passing in five minutes. Again, we had no idea what was actually happening in his office. Was he on the phone? Reading or sending emails? Overman may as well have been Schrödinger's cat. We knew he was in there, but was he alive or dead?
At ten after six, two sets of footprints appeared in Overman’s office.
“Wait. Back that up and pan out to the entire floor,” Zander demanded.
The nanomites pulled back and reran the last few minutes at normal speed. Two sets of prints got off the elevator, walked directly to Overman’s office, and entered.
“Pull back again, Nano,” I asked. “Rerun from the time the two people get off the elevator. This time I want to see every badge on the floor.”
The nanomites zoomed out and reran the simulation. No other badges showed up on the floor.
“He was alone.” Zander and I spoke at the same time.
“Nano, can you tell us who those two people are?”
They are members of the security team, Jayda Cruz. Security police officers.
“What happens next?”
Zander and I watched as the officers’ footprints moved away from Overman’s office while he remained in it. The officers entered the elevator and descended to the first floor where they exited and returned to the Safety and Security Department.
Zander and I were silent for a minute. Finally, I said, “This tells us nothing other than Overman stayed late the night he disappeared and that two SPOs briefly visited him.”
Yes. Nothing to suggest anything amiss. Although his normal departure from work occurs between 5:00 and 5:30, tracking records for the past year show Mr. Overman staying beyond six o’clock seven times. You have watched the current badge tracking to its end, Jayda Cruz.
“You said that already, Nano.”
“Um, hold on,” Zander interjected. “You said, ‘the current badge tracking.’ What do you mean by ‘current’?”
We found that the tracking records have been altered, Zander Cruz.
I huffed in exasperation. “And you’re just now telling us this?”
It was necessary for you to view the tracking footage released to base security and the police who investigated Mr. Overman’s disappearance.
“And said tracking footage indicated nothing out of the ordinary.”
Exactly, Jayda Cruz.
“Nano,” Zander said, “Tell us more about the altered tracking records.”
The alterations were quite sophisticated, Zander Cruz; however, we noticed that the logs were off by two milliseconds. A human would not have detected such a discrepancy.
“Two milliseconds?”
Yes. Two one-thousandths of a second. When the records were spliced, the resulting timeline of the events lost two milliseconds. It was, we are certain, an unintentional error, but an error nevertheless.
“Video footage,” I whispered. “Show us the video footage of the elevator at the time Overman supposedly exited.”
We can, Jayda Cruz, however the video is a repeat from August two years ago.
“A repeat?”
We scanned video footage of the elevator, beginning with the night of Overman’s disappearance, going backward in time. We discovered that Wayne Overman wore the same suit, shirt, and tie on August 4, two years past, as he did when he arrived the morning he disappeared. Someone spliced footage of him leaving on that date two years ago into the feed from the night of his disappearance. The police and base security have not discovered this manipulation of the video footage. They have not realized that the briefcase he carried that evening is not the same one he arrived with. Although the differences are subtle, we noted them. They are further proof that the video footage of his exit the night he disappeared was falsified.
I shivered. “Whatever happened, happened right there, at the NSA.”
Yes, so we have discovered.
“You have more to show us?”
We recovered bits of the deleted badge tracking files, Jayda Cruz, and have recreated what we could. It provides a more accurate picture of the events that night.
Zander cleared his throat. “Show us, Nano.”
The layout of Overman’s floor reappeared, with Overman’s badge in his office. The two security police officers entered his office. Moments later, they left his office. Overman’s badge remained behind.
“What? Isn’t this what we’ve already seen, Nano?”
Continue watching, Jayda Cruz.
The SPOs got into the elevator but, rather than going down, they went up two floors . . . to the executive suite. The officers’ prints led to a large office where they joined three other sets of prints.
The five badges remained in the office for nearly fifteen minutes. After ten minutes had passed, I started fidgeting.
“What’s going on, Nano?”
Patience, Jayda Cruz.
Another four minutes ticked by on the timeline before anything happened—before things started to become clear.
Four of the prints exited the office at the same time. They walked two abreast to the elevator. They entered the same way, two ranks of two badges.
“Curious,” I murmured. “They look like they’re marching or something.”
“Not mar
ching,” Zander whispered. “Carrying.”
I looked at him and back to the nanomites’ rendering, not understanding.
The elevator with the four badges went down but did not stop at the ground level. It descended into the basement where the four badges, still maintaining their odd formation, walked to what the nanomites had labeled “loading dock.”
After a minute, two badges disappeared from the screen. We watched the remaining two return to the elevator, go up, and step off at Overman’s floor—where Overman’s badge continued to blink inside his office.
The two SPOs entered Overman’s office. Seconds later, Overman’s badge blinked off.
“What just happened?”
“They broke or somehow shorted out his badge,” Zander replied.
“But . . .”
“Didn’t you get it?”
“No. I . . . I’m lost.”
“Nano, the four badges leaving the executive floor. They were all SPOs?”
Yes, Zander Cruz.
“They carried Overman down the elevator, Jayda. Put him in a vehicle parked in the loading dock. Two SPOs drove off with him. Two returned to his office and deactivated his badge.”
I stared at the layout again. “Nano. Zoom in on the executive suite.”
The basement layout faded and gave way to the fourth floor.
“Zoom in on the office where the five badges were.”
Two SPOs had removed Overman’s badge from him and left it in his office. They had escorted him upstairs where he had either been killed or knocked unconscious. Four SPOs carried him to the basement and placed him in a vehicle. Two SPOs drove him away—and Overman was never seen again.
The office where Overman had met his fate was, like the rest of the NSA schematics, clearly labeled. My breath caught as I read the label: Deputy Director, National Security Agency. Senior civilian leader of the NSA. Responsible for guiding and directing the NSA’s operations, studies, and policy.
The honorable Lawrence Danforth.
“Oh, Zander. We need to call Gamble. Right away. The President . . . he needs to know.”
“HAVE YOU MET THE REPOSITORY’S new hire? Jayda Cruz?”
“You mean the gal who stole your job?” Rob snickered as he said it.
“Shut up, Rob. There’s something off about her.”
“Agree. She brought a dead key fob to the Help Desk this morning and played out some flirty little scene with me.”
“Flirty? Doesn’t sound like Cruz.”
“Yeah? Well, she really laid it on thick. It was about all I could do not to laugh in her face. It was kind of fun, pretending to be taken in by it.”
“Somehow, I doubt you did much pretending, Rob.”
“You don’t need to be so nasty. It wasn’t my idea to dress and act the part of a geek.”
“Rob, you are a geek. You were placed in IT to be our eyes inside the network—not to be cool.”
“And you were tasked with getting access to Repository information requests, so I could trace those back to the requestors.”
“Don’t act smart, Rob. I was prepped for that job. You pulled the interviews and hiring recommendations yourself. I had the highest interview scores out of all the candidates . . . and then they hire this Jayda Cruz out of the blue and it turns out she’s a nobody with zero intelligence background?”
“You did have the highest scores—until Cruz interviewed.”
“How is that possible without any intelligence experience? Someone had to have manipulated the data.”
“I’ve looked at the logs. Nothing. There’s no evidence of tampering with the files.”
“I don’t know how they did it, but this Jayda Cruz is not what she appears to be. She’s smart but, like I said, something’s off. And if someone planted her here, that means there’s another player in the game.”
“I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“You do that. She didn’t return from lunch today with her team. Macy mentioned she was going outside for a walk, but when she came back to our department she was fresh as a daisy. In this humidity? Not likely. She should have shown some signs of perspiration. I want to know where she really went.”
“I’ll track her badge movements when I get into work tomorrow and let you know what I find.”
“Check the video feeds, too. I’ll call you again tomorrow evening, same time.”
OUR SESSION WITH THE nanomites—walking through their renderings of the NSA complex and reviewing Overman’s badge tracking data—had taken hours. It was well after midnight before Zander and I spoke to Gamble. It took another hour to explain what the nanomites had uncovered to Gamble’s satisfaction.
When he understood what the nanomites had found and could repeat it back to us, he said, “I’ll pass this along ASAP.”
Chapter 8
I COULDN’T REALLY SLEEP the rest of the night, so when I arrived at work Friday morning, I was jumpy and on edge. It didn’t help that the oppressive late-June heat seemed to dog me no matter where I was, even during my commute. I ran my car’s air conditioner on high at seven in the morning and still perspired like I’d run a marathon at noon.
Macy noticed.
“Hey. Everything okay?”
“Yup. This heat. Just didn’t sleep well last night.”
Macy’s expressive brows jutted toward her hairline. “Huh. You. You didn’t sleep well? Girl, you ever try sleeping with two kick boxers going ten rounds in your belly? Don’t tell me you didn’t sleep well.”
I snort-laughed, slapped a hand over my mouth, and shook with stifled hilarity. When I could talk, it was only between gasps. “Oh, man . . . Oh, Macy. That . . . that’s . . . I’m sorry, but that’s . . . that’s hysterical.”
“Hysterical? Uh-huh. Really? Those boys’ shenanigans have bruised my kidneys and permanently displaced ribs. They have stomped my bladder so flat it won’t hold more than a teaspoon anymore—and every time I sneeze, it lets go.”
“I-I-I—” It was all I could do to hold it together.
“Harrumph. Glad I could brighten your outlook, Jayda.”
I grinned at Macy. She grinned back.
It was her last day at the NSA.
“I’m going to miss you, Macy.”
“I’ll miss you, too, Jayda. Wish we were going to work together longer.”
“Will you let me know when the twins come? I’d like to bring you a hot meal and perhaps a few to put in your freezer for later. You know, for when, in those first weeks or months, everything gets to be too much, and cooking is the last thing on your mind?”
I could see that Macy was touched.
After Macy had assigned me a few tasks and returned to her desk, I slammed a protein drink and two power bars. Eventually, I felt a little energy seep into my bones. I even managed to yank my thoughts away from what the nanomites had shown us last night . . . I cringed every time I envisioned what had likely happened to Wayne Overman in Deputy Director Danforth’s office—only two months ago.
I was updating the project plan’s Gantt chart when I remembered Gamble’s warnings before I started my job.
Your first duty, the most essential of your tasks, is to keep a low profile. No, not a low profile, but no profile. Nada, zip, nil. We can’t have either of you even registering a blip on our adversaries’ radar. Do nothing to draw attention to yourselves.
Nothing.
We tracked Overman’s badge movements . . .
I swallowed hard. I should have left my badge in the restroom yesterday—hidden it in there. I shouldn’t have worn it to IT after lunch.
“Nano. We need . . . we need to go back and change my whereabouts yesterday in the badging software.”
We agree, Jayda Cruz.
At lunchtime, Macy and I again walked together to the cafeteria. When we reached the restroom I’d used yesterday, I touched Macy’s arm.
“I’ll catch up with you.”
“Sure, Jayda. I’ll save you a seat.”
I ducked into the r
estroom’s entrance and zipped back out under the nanomites’ cover. Ran all the way to IT. When I reached the doorway, I peered inside. Rob was seated at the help desk, typing furiously on his keyboard.
“Nano, I need you to amend my whereabouts yesterday and today in the badge tracking software. Make sure it doesn’t show me coming here today or a second time yesterday.”
When I crept inside the IT Department, a stream of nanomites left me for Rob’s workstation, their “in” to the main network. I was close to the row of chairs where people waited in line, so I eased myself into one of them. Unfortunately, the chairs sat on linoleum.
And the stupid chair creaked.
Rob’s fingers paused on his keyboard. His head came up. While I held my breath, he glanced around. Twice.
I sat as still as I could. “Nano. Find that creak and muffle it when I stand up.”
It would be easier for us to plug the man’s ears when the time comes, Jayda Cruz.
“Whatever works best.”
I waited, fidgeting, figuring the nanomites would finish in under five minutes, but it was fifteen minutes before they streamed back to me and I tiptoed from the room.
I jogged back to the restroom, in and out in seconds. When I reappeared, I held my hand to my stomach—just in case anyone was to notice that I had spent going on twenty minutes in the bathroom. By the time I joined Macy and the rest of my team at our table, they were almost finished with their food.
“Jayda, what happened to you?” Macy asked.
I grimaced a little. “Dunno. My stomach is acting up. Been in the restroom all this time. Maybe I caught a bug somewhere?”
Macy held her palm toward me. “Do not share your grief with me, woman. I want some stomach bug like I want another month of hauling these two Sumo wrestlers around.”
“Yeah. You’re right.”
I sat a few seats away and toyed with my food. The thing was, I didn’t feel all that great. I was alternately okay, then overheated. It seemed to come in waves.
“Nano, what’s going on? Am I sick?”
No answer.
I would press them on it later, but at the moment, I was content to sit quietly and worry over the fate of Wayne Overman. “Nano . . . can you come up with a way for us to find out what became of the President’s friend?”
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