The God's Eye View

CHAPTER 32

Evie left work before six, frustrated and scared. She hadn’t gotten anywhere with Hamilton’s thumb drive. NSA had formidable decryption capabilities, she knew, but the people she asked to take a crack at the thumb drive told her it was protected with a robust, open-source program. No backdoors, no weakened standards, no shortcuts. Even brute force via NSA’s full suite of supercomputers would be iffy at best, and that access was tightly controlled, not something just anyone could manage outside protocol, LOVEINT or otherwise. She wanted to make a duplicate for safekeeping, but even that turned out to be impossible — Hamilton had used a copy protection program she couldn’t get around.

It was maddening, to feel she was in possession of exactly what she needed and yet unable to use it. Plan B looked like the Intercept, but she didn’t know how to communicate with anyone there securely. She’d have to buy a computer for cash, download Tails from an anonymous location, set up encrypted chat… and then hope someone would get back to her quickly. Where she was going to find time — for all that, and probably for the face-to-face follow-up, too — she had no idea. But right now, it looked like her only option.

It had been a week since she’d visited her father, and she needed a few things from the Safeway, too, so she parked in the supermarket side lot, an easy walk to the back of the senior center. Her father was relatively lucid when she saw him, looking and sounding a bit like his old self, and so obviously glad to see her that she felt guilty for not staying longer. But Digne was waiting and Dash would be hungry, and she still had so much she needed to think through. Maybe she could visit the Apple or Microsoft store in the mall and buy a computer or tablet for cash. She wished she had spent more time thinking through security before she’d really needed to. But she’d always been comfortably on the inside. She’d never done anything wrong. She’d never expected NSA’s penetrating gaze to turn on her.

She stopped in the women’s room on her way out and used the toilet. And then, washing her hands, she was suddenly gripped by paranoia. All day long, she’d been carrying around the thumb drive in her purse. She’d even brought it into headquarters. How had she persuaded herself that was a safe thing to do? She realized that she had so few alternatives, she must have been rationalizing the danger. And now that the danger was past, she could see how reckless she’d been. True, no one else had any reason to know of the thumb drive’s existence. But… she’d asked several colleagues to take a crack at decrypting it, hadn’t she? And though of course she hadn’t told them what the drive really was, allowing them to believe instead it was something from her personal life, if someone told someone else, and word got back to the director that she had a thumb drive and was trying to get it decrypted…

She looked around the restroom. She supposed she could just hide the thumb drive here. Temporarily, until she figured something out. It would feel safer than keeping it on her person. Assuming she could find the right spot.

Under the garbage can? No, the first time a cleaning person picked up the can to empty it, they’d see it. Maybe get some tape and secure the drive to the underside? But no, it would still be visible if, say, someone knocked the can over or dropped it while emptying it. Behind one of the toilets? That could work, though again, still some danger of discovery by a cleaning person.

She looked at the sinks in front of her. Four of them, all in a row in some sort of faux granite countertop. The back of the countertop was secured to the wall under the mirror, but the front rested on four metal legs. She squatted and examined the leg furthest to the left. It was circular, with a finish of what, polished nickel? It must have been hollow — why would the facility spend for solid nickel fixtures in a public restroom?

She gripped the leg and rotated it counterclockwise. There was a moment of resistance, and then it turned ninety degrees. She tried turning it more, but it wouldn’t budge. She pushed it. Nothing. She pulled — and it slid smoothly off its fastening. Suddenly she was holding a three-foot metal tube, open at the top end, closed with a rubber stopper at the bottom.

She glanced at the door, then reached into her purse and took out the thumb drive. She dropped it into the tube, hearing a slight ping as it hit the bottom. She upended the tube, and the drive slid right back out.

She dropped the drive in again, pushed the leg back into place, and rotated it clockwise until it was secure. Then she stepped back to examine her handiwork. Perfect. Technically, she wouldn’t have access during nonvisiting hours, but she didn’t expect anyone would deny her if she really pressed.

On the way back to the Safeway, she noticed a white Sprinter van parked next to her Prius. Which was a little odd, because the side lot was mostly empty. Someone else visiting the senior facility, maybe? Still, something about it was making her uneasy, and she started edging away as she went past, toward the opposite side of the lot.

“Evie,” a voice called from behind her. She turned and saw Marvin. What was he doing here? Well, shopping, obviously, it was a supermarket and he lived in the area. But still, why was he parked around the side—

Something hit her hard in the back of the head. She staggered. An arm shot roughly across her throat and dragged her backward. She struggled but couldn’t find her balance. She was choking, she couldn’t breathe. Panic surged through her. She tried to bite the arm but it was too tight, she couldn’t get her chin under it. She tried to scratch, but encountered a thick sleeve and a gloved hand. She felt herself jerked sharply up and back, her heels smacking into the edge of something. Then she was shoved facedown onto the floor, the floor of the van she’d seen. She turned her head to scream, but a knee landed on her back, knocking the wind out of her. A hand clamped over her mouth. She felt a sting in the side of her neck, a spread of heat. Suddenly everything was heavy, heavy, as though someone had covered her with a lead blanket. Her vision swam, and as the world faded out, she saw Marvin, standing outside, looking away and sliding the van door shut.