The Switch

62

Tanner’s entire digital existence had been wiped out. As if the whole Internet had been hit by a power surge. Or someone had flipped a switch.

How was this possible?

He had to get money soon, if he was going to stay “out here,” as he thought of it — outside the ambit of his regular life. And he had a queasy feeling that the NSA might have gone even further than erasing him online. What if they’ve seized my assets? Did they have the power to do that?

Heart thudding, he looked up his bank’s customer service number and entered it into his phone. Then he walked back out to the library’s hallway and out the front door. A series of voice-mail prompts came up, telling him to listen carefully “as our menu options have changed.”

He barked out, “Customer service,” and after a few minutes of advancing through the phone tree, a distracted and squelched young male voice asked how he could help.

“My online account isn’t working,” Tanner said. He explained.

It took a long time for the distracted kid to understand, but he finally decided to bump Tanner’s call up to a supervisor.

A woman came on the phone who sounded much sharper. “This is Audrey Jones, may I help you?”

Tanner explained.

Audrey answered without hesitation. “Certainly, sir, it looks like there was some sort of a security breach on your account, but I’m sure we can straighten this out easily. You just need to come into our offices on Boylston Street in Boston.” She gave a street address.

Tanner hung up immediately.

Come into our offices. That sounded wrong.

They thought he was simpleminded and trusting, and that he’d surface in order to walk into an NSA ambush, a setup.

No sooner had he punched off the burner than it rang again.

“There he is,” said the smooth baritone, that hard-to-place southern accent.

“What do you want?” Tanner said.

“Sucks not having the Internet, doesn’t it? I mean, I always hear people complaining about the tyranny of the Internet and I feel like saying, Try going without it. You know?”

“The bank idea was great, by the way. I almost fell for it.”

Earle laughed, a smoker’s hoarse laugh. “We had a deal, you and me. By my watch, it’s more than twenty-four hours. What happened?”

“Let me be clear,” Tanner said. “I know there’s classified documents on that laptop, but I haven’t looked at them. Because I knew I’d gotten this computer by mistake. Okay?”

“Good citizen, we like to hear that.”

“I’m not another Edward Snowden, I’m not a whistle-blower, and I have no interest in giving it to The New York Times. But I will if I have to.” That wasn’t just some bluff. It was leverage. Probably The New York Times would require the actual laptop, not just e-mailed files. Go to them with only the files and you’re just another tinfoil-hat crazy.

“And you think The New York Times will do anything with it? You think they’re gonna put it online? Times like these, newspapers are a lot more circumspect about what they print. Those few newspapers that still exist, I mean.”

Tanner wondered: Did they have some way to locate him physically via the burner phone? He didn’t know, of course. But it didn’t seem likely. Not with a disposable mobile phone. Anyway, if they could have found him that way, they’d have found him already. So maybe he was safe talking on this burner after all.

“That’s not all I got,” Tanner said.

“I’ve seen the video. You got nothing, my friend.”

“Oh, yeah? According to the NSA charter, you guys aren’t allowed to operate domestically.”

“It’s not that simple, Michael.”

“We’ll see how simple it is when the ACLU gets a copy. And The New York Times. That video captured at least three faces very clearly. This is evidence you are operating within the US in violation of your charter. Plus, if any of them are undercover guys, their cover is now blown. Or burned, or whatever you say. I could post it myself, on YouTube.”

“And it would disappear within seconds, I promise you.”

“Not if I give it to a journalist. It’s a big story.”

“I don’t know if there’s a newspaper ballsy enough to damage our national security by running it. Anyway, the video is no longer in your inbox.”

“That’s not the only copy,” Tanner took pleasure in saying. “There are plenty of backups.” There was one, anyway, in his new Yahoo e-mail inbox. They still hadn’t gotten to that one yet.

Earle sighed noisily. “I wish to hell you wouldn’t do that. But what does it show, really? A bunch of guys in the woods? Are they geocachers? Are they Pokémon Go fanatics? Who’s to say? Oh, maybe you’ll spark some subreddit conspiracy group, with the kinda guys who believe that pizza parlors in DC keep child sex slaves. But what you’re peddling to the ACLU and The New York Times? Hate to break it to you, Michael, but it looks more like an outtake from The Blair Witch Project 2 than, I don’t know, the Pentagon Papers.”

Tanner didn’t know how to reply, so he didn’t.

“We’re going to find it, you know,” Earle said. “We found your company safe, by the way. In the kitchen. Clever.”

“Thank you.”

“Sorry we had to break it to get it open. We’ll reimburse you. Anyway, you didn’t leave it there, which was smart. We’ll find it soon enough. And you too, Michael. It’s actually not possible to hide from the government anymore. The longer you stay out there, the more we’re gonna have to push, and you don’t want us to push, believe me. Maybe we freeze Tanner Roast’s assets, right? You know, with all the importing and the sales trips around Central America and Africa, your business might well be an entity of concern. And when we—”

Tanner disconnected the call. He’d heard enough. He had to get out of here.