Eileen Wu was frustrated. The four a.m. drive from her Annapolis apartment to Fort Meade hadn’t bothered her, at least not until she got to Meade. The post was still bottled up tight, and with all the NSA recalls plus the continued arrival of military and government investigation teams, she hadn’t actually made it through the gate until 6:35.
The NSA parking lot was a nightmare. The parking garage that concealed the Ice House had been sealed off, forcing everyone out into the huge exterior lot, and, despite the early hour, Eileen had been forced to cruise the full rows until she found a slot to squeeze her car into a half mile from the facility.
Her mood didn’t improve when she got to the building and discovered she would not be allowed down to her lab until after the forensics teams had finished the crime scene investigation. Worse, they hadn’t even started the actual investigation yet. The security folks had refused to allow the investigators and medical examiners access until their clearances could be confirmed. Even after their security credentials were verified through the Joint Personnel Adjudication System, JPAS, security again refused to grant access. Yes, they had top-secret clearances, but they weren’t cleared for SCI, sensitive compartmented information, and the Ice House was an SCI facility.
As for Eileen, no amount of reasoning, arguing, or even ranting and raving made the slightest bit of difference. She wasn’t getting access until the forensics teams were finished. She’d even tried the old “I’m doing the electronic forensics investigation” ploy. Nope. The cone of silence had descended, and nobody was listening.
Even a direct appeal to General Wilson hadn’t helped. He was already involved in forcing through security waivers to get the crime scene unit access to the Ice House, and she just wasn’t at the top of his priorities right now. She’d get her chance at figuring out how someone had penetrated the facility’s electronic control systems, but only after all the dead bodies were removed.
By the time she was allowed into the building, it was already four thirty in the afternoon. She paused in the foyer to take in the scene. The building was a mess. The tile floor was littered with chunks of concrete, broken glass, and wood from walls and furnishings riddled by bullets and explosive ordnance.
Eileen wound her way to the stairwell through a maze of yellow tape designed to keep people out of the areas where investigators were still working. The bodies had been removed, but the smell remained, the stench of death clogging her nostrils. Everywhere she looked the standing water was red.
Looking away, Eileen shifted her focus to making it to the stairwell without throwing up. If anything, the stairwell was worse, indicative of the pitched battle that had raged inside as the Delta team fought its way down to the bottom.
At the first sublevel, Eileen stepped through the open stairwell door and breathed a sigh of relief. The corridor between the labs was still wet, but the water wasn’t colored with blood. The doors to the labs had been propped open to let the halon gas dissipate, and although this had allowed some of the water from the hall to run down through the raised flooring, water damage to the electronics should be minimal.
Turning into her lab, Eileen made her way directly to the workbench that held the dissected Gregory laptops. At first glance it appeared undisturbed. Then she noticed it. One of the USB dongles was missing from where it had been connected to the electronic breadboard. Glancing to the other side of the table, Eileen muttered a curse through clenched teeth. Both dongles were gone.
Without thinking, she lifted the phone from its cradle. Shit. No dial tone. And she’d had to leave her cell phone outside the secure area.
She thought about walking back outside to call in a report, then discarded the idea. First she needed to do a thorough inspection to see if anything else was missing or had been tampered with. She had no intention of being unable to give complete answers to the questions that were going to be thrown at her. As busy as Balls was trying to figure out exactly what the hell had happened here, he wouldn’t be happy about getting a bunch of half-assed information.
Sliding into her chair, Eileen began the methodical analytical work for which she was famous. And as she worked, the disturbing imagery and smells from the rest of the building finally slipped from her head.
“Jack’s been busy,” Jennifer said as Mark and Heather stepped into the office.
“Nothing surprising about that,” Mark replied, noting the clarity in his sister’s eyes, something that was very good to see.
“Remember the Navajo cop who hid Jack and Janet on the Santa Clara Reservation?”
“Tall Bear.”
“Right. Apparently he’s become a real player in the Native People’s Alliance, a new federation fighting for tribal autonomy. With all the crap that’s going on out in the country, the NPA has declared independence. Tall Bear, as recently elected president of the Navajo Nation, pulls some serious clout. There’s talk of him becoming the first president of the NPA.”
Heather shook her head. “What’s this got to do with Jack?”
“He’s hooked us up with the American equivalent of the French Resistance. If we can make it to a reservation, the NPA has agreed to take us under its wing.”
Mark moved over to the window, glancing down the empty driveway, his mind on Jennifer’s words. “Why hasn’t the US government already stepped down hard on the NPA?”
“Things were getting out of hand even before we got ourselves captured. The government’s been able to establish good security in the Northeast corridor and in the major metropolitan areas, except for Detroit, which is pretty much a no-man’s-land. Most of the rest of the country is hit or miss. Some areas are well organized. Others not so much. It’s making it hard to get food and supplies around. The NPA’s a minor annoyance.”
“The chaos should help us.”
“Once we get out of the Northeast corridor,” said Heather.
“Our best bet seems to be the Seneca Nation in western New York. They’re a large, well-funded tribe that generates over a billion dollars a year from their casinos and retail operations. Heavy NPA ties.”
“We’re going to need some funds and IDs.”
“Taken care of. I’ve arranged for delivery of three of the identities we prepared in Bolivia. Passports and driver’s licenses will be express-mailed tomorrow. We just have to get to the Mail Boxes Etc. in Harrisburg, where I’ve set up mailboxes in those names. We also have bank accounts at Bank of America, Citibank, and Chase. I’ve transferred sufficient funds for our near-term needs. Good news. Our new selves have excellent credit histories.”
Jennifer reached over and grabbed a stack of pages from the printer, passing them to Mark and Heather.
“Here’s your new backgrounds. Take a second to scan them. You two can pack up the laptop. By the way, I replaced our digital fingerprints and DNA records in the federal databases with those of known criminals.”
Heather nodded. “We need this to look like a routine break-in. I’ll bag the jewelry on our way out. Then we’re going to need a car.”
“They’ll wonder about the clothes.”
“It won’t matter. By the time they figure it out we’ll be long gone.”
Mark glanced at the clock, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Eleven twenty-four a.m. As good a time to start the rest of their lives as any. “OK. Let’s do it.”