Lockout

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

NSA, Ft. Meade, Maryland (7:30 p.m. EST / 0030 Zulu)

“Gotcha!”

The latitude and longitude figures Jenny Reynolds had finally distilled from working through a hunch were in bold now on the screen, but she pulled out a notepad and wrote them down just in case the fruit of her labors should suddenly disappear. Jenny glanced at the piece of paper and folded it, stuffing it in her purse as she glanced at the time. Eight minutes since Seth had called and ordered her to go home, this time without even a hint of humor or friendliness.

“Why, Seth?” she’d asked, “I don’t understand. You told me it was okay to stay and work.”

“And now I’m telling you it isn’t. Get your stuff and go home. Leave the building. Now. You understand that’s not a request; it’s an order.”

“Do you have to sound so mean?”

“I’m not being mean. There are things we just can’t discuss on the phone. I’m not mad at you, there’s just a… change in plans. Trust me, Jenny. Go home. Call no one. I’m going to call security in a while to make sure you’re out, okay?”

“Okay.”

She’d punched the phone off in a mix of anger and hurt and apprehension, and turned back to the computer determined to finish her search.

It had turned out to be far easier than she’d expected, tracing the so-called “mother burst,” and now she found herself torn between wanting to superimpose the lat/long coordinates on a map or run for the door. The coordinates might just be able to shed light on the mystery of who and why strange programming signals had been sent in the blind and apparently accepted by an airborne airliner.

The blinking symbol signifying a news bulletin appeared on the left side of her screen and she clicked on it as she stood and gathered her iPad and purse. Several new paragraphs about the hijacking came into view, and she skimmed them, sitting back down in her chair to focus on the verbiage. The fact that Pangia Flight 10 was headed in the wrong direction was old news, but the information that the pilots couldn’t disconnect the autoflight system was something entirely new. How on earth… oh my God, that’s what the answering burst was all about. It disconnected them!

A noise in a far corner of the cavernous room made her jump slightly, and she hurried to collapse and save the lat/long page information to a secure drive before standing up to look around. There were always a few other analysts working away into the evening in their various corners of “cube-ville,” but she could see no one, and even her last foray to the coffee machine had turned up no fellow late-nighters. That, in itself, was a bit unnerving.

The noise reached her again, this time like metal on metal at a distance, and an old feeling of impending terror that she had worked so hard to keep at bay began to settle around her shoulders like a dark cloak. Lifelong experience with anxiety attacks had taught her the symptoms all too well: tightening stomach, sudden sweat, a creepy feeling of coldness and impending attack, hands shaking, and a cascade of thoughts accelerating into a blind panic which would only intensify if she did nothing but sit still and try to reason with herself.

Jenny leaped to her feet and headed for the door, forcing a look over her shoulder to verify that no one was behind her. There were, of course, only imaginary footsteps following in her mind, spurring her to run. But even though she knew there was nothing really closing on her from behind, her imagination propelled her as she shoved through the double doors and slammed into the chest of a very large uniformed guard.

“Oh!” Jenny staggered back, eyes wide, breathing hard, as the guard caught her elbow to steady her.

“Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t see you coming out of there. You okay?”

“Ah… yes. Yes, I’m… you just startled me. I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s cool! I’m still standing. Were you leaving for the night?”

“What?” She looked closer at the man, his large dark face beaming a sympathetic smile as he released her elbow. He towered over her, maybe six feet four, a wall of uniform.

“I just asked if you were leaving for the night?”

“Oh! Yes, I was. I am.” Jenny shook her head and took a deep breath, her hand up in a stop gesture. “I’m sorry to sound flaky, it’s just… I don’t work nights much and this place gets spooky.”

The requisite exit search and clearance procedures at the NSA’s entrance hall behind her, another guard waived her out of the parking lot and she checked the address she’d preloaded on her iPhone before merging into traffic southbound, then just as quickly pulled to the shoulder and braked to a halt.

The need to know where those “mother burst” coordinates were on the face of the planet was suddenly irresistible, and she pulled out her iPad and triggered a map program, entering the lat/long coordinates before pushing the button.

The center of the satellite map picture suddenly coalesced on a series of buildings set in a sea of parking lots. The image looked vaguely familiar, and she zoomed the picture, noting the expected satellite antenna farm on the roof before zooming back out and looking at the adjacent map in increasing disbelief.

No, that’s not possible! I hit the wrong button.

She re-checked the coordinates on her slip of paper against what she’d entered. They matched perfectly. There was a highway running adjacent to the building complex with the number “295” showing on the map adjacent to the target, and she looked up and out of her windshield now into real life to see the very same number on a highway sign no more than twenty feet away.

Her eyes went back to the screen, the recognition now inescapable: If the mother transmission had come from those coordinates, they had come directly from the heart of the National Security Agency complex at Fort Meade.

Her building.

Right under her nose.

Oh dear God! No wonder Seth wanted me out of there! We ARE involved!

The steady stream of traffic whizzing by mere feet from the side of her little Prius came into focus, and she clicked off the iPad now and eased herself back into traffic, mind whirling, hands shaking.

Somewhere half a world away from her, there was an out of control airliner plowing through the night with what had to be frightened people aboard, and the radioed order that apparently triggered the whole impending disaster had come from her building!

She thought of the exit process minutes before as she left the building and the guard’s careful examination of her purse for flash drives or any other storage medium. Thanks to that traitor Snowden such a search was now routine. The presence of a simple scribbled note in her purse shouldn’t have alerted him, but with her fears rising exponentially, she wondered now whether taking even that information out of the building was a violation. Would there be a security team even now coming after her? Surely, she wasn’t supposed to know that the originating programming signal she’d discovered so many hours ago—the same one that had apparently caused an airliner to change course—came from their own building. How could she erase what she knew? It would be like un-ringing a bell.

Oh God, what do I do now? Who do I tell? I have to tell someone.

The electronic warble of her smart phone caused her to almost lose control of the car, and she struggled to stay on the road while fumbling for the instrument. There was a strange phone number on the screen. She knew not to answer it, but the longing for deliverance won out, and her finger found the green button.

“Jenny Reynolds?” a male voice asked. It was somehow familiar, but she was far too scared to coalesce the memory.

“Yes.”

“This is Will Bronson. You remember? From this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you, Jenny?”

“I’m…”

“Are you still at work?”

“No. In my car.” And scared to death, she wanted to add.

“Good. Were you going home?”

Why would he want to know that? she wondered, trying desperately to stay ahead of the conversation but losing the battle to sheer panic.

“Jenny?”

“Uh… yes… no… I was, I was going to go drop in on my boss, at his home. He’s over by…”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Jenny, I would like you to change course and meet me. Tell me approximately where you are, and I’ll arrange a place to meet.”

“Why?”

“Because…” he hesitated. “Because I want to take you out tonight, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

As much as she wanted that to be true, she knew it was a dodge for anyone eavesdropping, and she had barely a split-second to decide whether to trust him.

A split-second was all she needed.

“Okay. You won’t have to take no. I’d… like to see you, too. I’m just a mile south of my building on the Parkway, heading south.”

“Take Greenbelt Road exit west. You know the Beltway Plaza Mall?’

“Yes.”

“Pull up in front of JCPenney and turn on your four-way flashers. You’re in a red Prius, right?”

“Yes, but how did you…”

“I’ll find you. Don’t call anyone.”

“Will?”

“Yes?”

“How… how do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t. I’ll need to prove it. Dinner and a movie, to start with?”

“Okay. Wait, to start with…?”

“See you in ten.”