Jackson turned to Kennedy. “Well? What do you think?”
Kennedy studied Zander with grudging admiration. “I think it’s bloody brilliant, sir.”
I SPENT MY DRIVE TO Ft. Meade rehearsing how I would find and get close to the four SPOs to insert the nanobug arrays into them. I parked in my usual area and made my way to the Repository. It would be my first day without Macy’s coaching, and I already missed her. Not the coaching so much, but her friendship.
Guess I needed to exert myself and get to know my team better.
“Morning, Sherry. Morning, everyone.”
“Morning, Jayda. If you need any help today, please ask Neville.”
Neville waved from his workstation. “Just give me a holler.”
“Hey, Neville. Thanks. I will.”
Not likely. I’d had the job locked from the second day; I just couldn’t let Macy know it. Now that she wasn’t looking over my shoulder, I could speed up, finish my tasks early, and “go” with the nanomites into the Repository to view their take.
The nanomites had “borrowed” an encryption key from one of the classifiers in the department, but it had taken them until last Thursday to break the encryption itself—encryption the NSA swore was unbreakable. I had been too preoccupied with tracking Wayne Overman’s movements to give my attention to what they’d found, but today would be different . . . in several ways.
“Nano, dive into the Repository and begin looking for references to former Vice President Harmon, especially files designated for his eyes.”
On it, Jayda Cruz.
I busied myself with my work—and finalizing my plans. Lunchtime couldn’t arrive fast enough.
“Don’t make the same mistakes today that you made last week, Jayda,” I whispered.
When noon rolled around, Lynn and Chantelle invited me to lunch with them.
“We’re hungry for sushi. There’s a little sushi bar on the other side of the Parkway. Want to come?”
My stomach voted for sushi with a roar so loud that my teammates heard. When their laughter died down, I smiled and patted my belly.
“As you heard, my tummy would love to go with you guys. Sadly, I have an errand to run. I think I can just get there and back in an hour. Next time?”
“Sure, Jayda. Would you like us to pick something up for you? We have a menu.”
“Yes; that’s perfect!”
I chose a dragon roll and handed some cash to Chantelle.
“We’ll see you later, then,” Lynn said.
“Hey, I’ll walk out with you guys.”
We chatted while crossing the breezeway into the next building and down the long hall toward the exit to the parking lot. I even left the building with them. I waved and split off toward my car. Halfway there, I walked between two cars and “dropped” my keys. When I stooped over to pick them up, I had the nanomites cover me. I turned around and reentered the building.
It was nicely done. By “walking out” with Chantelle and Lynn, I’d avoided the rest of my team. No one would expect to see me for a solid hour. And I’d had the nanomites shut off my badge’s tracking device when I turned around. As far as anyone watching my badge’s movements would believe, I had left the building and had not yet returned.
In less than an hour, I needed to locate the four SPOs and tag them with nanobugs. If enough time remained, I would go in search of the Deputy Director, Lawrence Danforth.
Since it was lunchtime, the halls were busy with noisy, lunch-going employees, busy enough to mask my soft footfalls as I jogged toward the Safety and Security Department, zigging around the clusters of personnel headed out or toward the cafeteria. I made it to my destination in four minutes and tiptoed into the department.
It looked like the receptionist was at lunch, which made my job a snap. I placed my hand on her workstation.
Jayda Cruz, two of the officers of interest are on duty. The other two are scheduled at 3:30 p.m.
“The two who are on duty? Show me where they are.”
Talk about Mission Impossible. One SPO was in a police car. He and another SPO were cruising the campus fence line and parking lots. The second SPO was posted on the fourth floor.
Same floor as Danforth’s office.
“Huh. Nano. Is Deputy Director Danforth in the building?”
He is in his office, Jayda Cruz.
“Two for the price of one. Guess that settles it.”
I didn’t want to use the elevator, so I closed my eyes to recall where the building’s stairwells were located and where the stairwell opened on the fourth floor. Moments later, I was sprinting through the hallways.
The door to the stairwell was alarmed and watched by a blinking video camera. The nanomites disabled the alarm and paused the camera while I pulled the door open and slid through. Then it was up four flights of empty, echo-filled stairs to the Executive Suite.
Adrenaline was shooting through my veins, so running those stairs felt good.
Zander and I need another trip to the dojo.
When I arrived at the fourth floor, the nanomites had the video camera skim the exit area for us before they paused it and disabled the door’s alarm.
You may exit now, Jayda Cruz.
I slid noiselessly from the stairwell. My eyes cut across the floor, probing for danger. Most of the personnel were absent, probably at lunch like so much of the campus.
My first target, the SPO, stood his post adjacent to the bank of elevators. He looked bored. Danforth, I presumed, was behind the closed door to his office.
I crept toward his office first and placed my hand on the door.
Jayda Cruz, Deputy Director Danforth is on the phone.
“Can you insert the array from here?”
No, Jayda Cruz. We must be in closer proximity.
“Can you . . . can you cut off his phone call?”
Done, Jayda Cruz.
I heard muttering through the door, and, after more seconds, a receiver slammed onto its cradle and a chair scooted from a desk.
I stepped to the side before the door opened.
Deputy Director Danforth called to the SPO, “Johnson! Have the phones gone down?”
The SPO lifted his radio and spoke into it. When an answer came back, he replied, “No, sir.”
Swearing, Danforth strode back into his office and lifted the receiver of his phone. “Huh. Working now.”
Array inserted, Jayda Cruz.
“Excellent.”
Johnson, the SPO, didn’t sense me creeping toward him and never noticed a thing as the nanomites sent an array to him.
I checked the time as I reentered the stairwell. “Forty-five minutes still on the clock. Plenty of time to track down the other SPO, right?”
I raced down the stairs and back to the Safety and Security Department. Placed my hand on the receptionist’s terminal. “Find the other SPO, Nano.”
It took the nanomites a while to pinpoint the police car’s exact location using the campus’ external video feeds. It’s hard to describe the expanse of the NSA’s sprawling campus and the number of lots needed to serve more than thirty thousand employees. Acres of parking lots surround all sides of the campus and are scattered among the outlying buildings. Four security police vehicles patrol the lots continuously. I knew the nanomites could identify the right car; I just wasn’t certain how long it would take them or if, when they did locate it, I would have enough time to reach it, plant the nanobugs, and return to work on time.
After five minutes of the nanomites scanning live video feed without a word on their progress, I grew impatient.
“Nano?”
It took the nanomites another three minutes to answer me. They popped up a layout of the entire campus in front of my eyes. Two lines, one red, one a squiggly blue, appeared on the layout.
Jayda Cruz, the vehicle containing the SPO in question is, at this moment, traversing the southeast fence line heading east. The vehicle’s progress is marked by the solid red line; its projected pat
h is indicated by the dotted red line. We have determined that, should the vehicle continue at its present speed and if it turns north at the southeast corner of the complex as we anticipate it will, and if you leave now, running at 5.3 miles per hour, following the route we have computed—marked in blue—your path will intersect with the vehicle here.
The campus layout zoomed in with breathtaking speed and centered on an “x” three-quarters of the distance from the southeast to the northeast corner of the campus.
“That’s a lot of ‘ands’ and ‘ifs,’ Nano.”
You must leave now, Jayda Cruz. We will update the police vehicle’s route and your projected intersect point in real time.
I flew down the halls and back out into the sultry air, the nanomites’ route overlaid on the real world around me, a timer on the left counting down the time remaining before I was expected back at my desk. My projected route had me skirting parked cars, jumping short retaining walls, and dodging employee pedestrians returning from an early lunch—basically everything but leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
I was within fifty yards of the point of intersection when the “x” began to move. In fact, it jumped precipitously to the north, my route lagging far behind.
I was going to miss the intersect.
I poured on the speed. “Nano! What’s going on?”
The patrol car has sped up, Jayda Cruz.
“You don’t say. Tell me something I don’t know!”
I saw it, racing ahead, and I did the only thing I could to ensure that I reached it in time. With a flick of my wrist, I sent a bolt of electricity toward the vehicle’s left rear wheel.
The tire blew with a satisfying BANG leaving a trail of shredded steel-belted rubber.
Even more satisfying, the patrol car, its left rear wheel rim screeching on the asphalt, ground to a stop. Both officers bolted from the vehicle and crouched behind their respective car doors, sidearms drawn, scanning for danger.
Huh. Maybe they thought the tire had been shot out?
Even with the timer ticking down relentlessly, I hung back until the officers, not spotting a threat, holstered their sidearms, and emerged from behind their doors to study their car’s missing tire.
Well, the tire wasn’t missing, not exactly. It was strewn behind the vehicle for around twenty yards.
“What the *blank* happened?”
“Must have been a faulty tire. I’ll call it in. You get out the spare.”
The nanomites painted a big blue “x” on the SPO I was seeking. I breezed by him, dropped the nanobug array, and took off running. The nanomites routed me through several buildings I had no business being in, but they got me back to the parking lot before my lunch hour ended. I had the nanomites uncover me and activate my badge and (sweating like a pack mule) I walked inside.
With a minute to spare, I sat down at my desk. I was quivering from exertion and hunger and steaming like a baked potato fresh out of a microwave.
“Hey, Jayda. Here’s your order and your change.”
“Bless you guys. I’m starving.” My hands shook as I pulled the container from the bag they handed me. Through the transparent plastic lid, the dragon roll winked and beckoned like the gold of El Dorado. I fumbled to pry open the container.
“My, don’t you look all hot and bothered.”
Kiera leaned against the cubical wall at the entrance to our team’s area. Her expression was composed and noncommittal, but her eyes raked over me, missing nothing.
“Hey, Kiera. Yeah. I had some errands to run—and its sweltering out there.”
“Must have been a marathon of a lunch hour.
I poked a whole piece of sushi into my mouth and talked around chews. “You have no idea.”
I busied myself with eating, hoping the woman would leave, but she didn’t.
“I’m sorry. Here I am stuffing my face while you’re waiting on me. Did you need something?”
“No.” She pushed off the wall. “Just wondered if you’d heard anything from Macy.”
“Not yet. Want me to let you know when I do?”
“Sure. I’d appreciate that.”
KIERA RETURNED TO HER area and sat down at her workstation. She fingered her key fob and made a show of trying to log in for a few minutes before turning to her supervisor.
“I’m having a problem logging in. Okay if I run down to IT?”
“Go ahead, Kiera.”
She was deliberately going off script but reckoned she could pull it off this one time without arousing suspicions. When she walked into IT, Rob’s eyes widened momentarily.
“I’m having trouble logging in,” Kiera broadcast to whomever might be listening. “I was hoping you could help me.”
“You’re in luck. That’s what we do here. Just give me a minute.” He seated her at an IT computer with her back to the room’s video camera and pulled a chair up next to her so that his body hid her computer screen from the camera.
“I take it there’s nothing wrong with your login?”
“Of course not. Have you been keeping tabs on the Cruz woman?”
“Yup. And I’m glad you’re here.” He reached for the keyboard and accessed the camera system. “Watch this.”
Chantelle, Lynn, and Jayda exited the building to the parking lot. Rob switched to another camera. There they were in the lot, Chantelle and Lynn moving in one direction, Jayda in another. He changed cameras again, this one more distant, but it showed Jayda walking between two cars. An object fell from her hand and she stooped over to pick it up, the camera losing her between the two vehicles.
The feed rolled on—without Jayda reappearing.
“Where is she?”
“Exactly. Where is she? With all the employees leaving for lunch, a casual look at the feed might not have picked up on it, but I watched this scene six times. She bent over between those cars and never reappeared.”
“That’s not possible. Where’s her car? She ran errands during her lunch.”
Rob smirked. “Want to know what’s not possible? Running errands while your car sits in the parking lot.”
“What do you mean?”
Rob tapped the keyboard and the video zoomed in. “See that car? That’s Cruz’ car.” He tapped the keyboard again, zooming in on the plate. Then he toggled to another screen and pulled up the parking pass database. “See that pass? Jayda Cruz. Note the plate number.”
“So, that’s her car and?”
“And it hasn’t moved since she arrived this morning, but—” Rob toggled back to the video feed and advanced it an hour. Same view of Jayda’s car. A nearby vehicle had driven away and been replaced by another, but Jayda’s car had not moved.
“Rob—”
“Wait for it.”
The feed was stationary, unchanged. The next instant, there was Jayda, moving away from her car in full stride.
“What . . . did someone splice her in?”
“No. Note the time stamp.” Rob reran the scene.
“But, it looks like a glitch—”
“Keep watching.” Rob zoomed out and they saw Jayda moving toward the building entrance. Then he switched to the camera over the entrance and zoomed in.
“Notice anything?”
“She’s red-faced and sweating. Like she’d been out in the heat for the whole hour. And she was still perspiring when I saw her a few minutes ago.” Kiera lifted her eyes to Rob’s “If she didn’t get in her car, where was she during that hour?”
“I can’t tell you, because her badge went ‘out of range’ the same moment she disappeared and came back into range when she reappeared.”
“So, off the grid but . . . Did anything of note happen on campus during that hour?”
“A patrol car had a blowout. That’s it.”
“Not a flat but a blowout? At what—fifteen or twenty miles an hour?”
They stared at each other, frowning in concentration. Without a word passing between them, Rob pounded on the keyboard until he located
a camera that had captured the patrol car the instant its tire blew.
Rob zoomed in. The video framed a spectacular blowout—as far as blowouts go. Shredded tire flew in all directions.
“Back it up, Rob. Before the tire blew.”
Rob rewound the recording twenty seconds and set the feed in motion. An instant later, they both saw it—the streak of light that struck the tire before it exploded.
The video continued to roll while Kiera and Rob tried to understand what they’d seen.
“What the *blank* was that?”
“Wait. Stop the tape. Roll it back.”
“You know it’s not tape, right?” Rob griped. “It’s digital.”
“Shut up and wind it back—there. Did you see that?”
He rewound and played it again. “That flicker? Is that what you mean? That could be anything. Light bouncing off a car in the lot behind the camera.”
“And was it ‘light bouncing off a car’ that zapped the patrol car and destroyed its tire? That was a weapon.”
Rob was tired of her superior attitude. “Y’know, Kiera, you are a real pain in the *bleep* to work with. I tried to tell you last week that this Cruz chick was weird and up to something. You wouldn’t listen. I told you how she went into the women’s restroom and didn’t come out for six minutes—but her badge had her running to IT and back.”
Kiera studied him. “Okay, Rob, I’ll bite. You said you took screen shots. Did you keep them?”
He opened a file directory and navigated to the folders where he’d saved the Word doc he’d pasted them in. With a click, the document opened, and Kiera paged through the images, noting their time stamps.
“According to the video feed she was in the bathroom . . . but according to her badge, she came here.”
“Yeah. Like I said. Only later, the time stamps on the video feed and badge tracking changed.”
“Rob?”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to download video of everything we just looked at. Her disappearing and reappearing and the blowout. Especially the blowout and that . . . that bolt of lightning or whatever it was.”
“It’ll be tricky, covering my tracks. And what do I do with the files?”
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