“This is all fun stuff, I’m sure,” DeSantos said, “but we really should go.”
But Meadows had already grabbed the collar of the coat and was peeling it off Uzi’s body.
“What’s the problem?” Uzi asked as he pulled his hand through the sleeve.
Meadows turned the jacket around and continued to wand the inside lining, watching the LED patterns change. “What have you got in here?”
“Just my phone.”
“No, it’s not your phone. See, this is your phone here.” He wanded the right pocket and the pitch of the alarm changed. “And this is the resin block I gave you.” Again, the sound changed. “Here,” Meadows said as he glanced over his shoulder at the laptop, “is something else.”
“Something else?”
Meadows pulled a Leatherman from his pocket and opened the knife.
“Whoa,” Uzi said, “wait a minute. What are you doing?”
Meadows sliced through the lining of the jacket, along the lower seam.
“Jesus, Tim, that jacket cost me five hundred bucks—”
“Here, look.” Meadows prodded and poked at the silk lining with his fingers and produced a plastic disc the size and thickness of a dime. He held it up between thumb and forefinger, then brought it close to the wand. The shrill beep sounded, the wand vibrated strongly, and the lights flickered and flashed as if it were a Geiger counter passing over uranium.
Uzi squinted at the small device. What the hell is that?
Meadows contorted his brow. “Jesus, Uzi, you didn’t tell me you had a spare phone battery in your pocket.” He put his index finger to his lips, then nodded across the room where his PC sat.
Clearly, Meadows felt the small device was a bug, and until he proved or disproved his theory, they had to operate as if it was. “My Nokia sometimes goes into roam and drains the battery in forty-five minutes,” Uzi said, hoping to make the conversation seem realistic. “Hasn’t happened in a while. Sorry. Forgot I had it in my pocket.” Why didn’t my own sensor pick up the bug?
Uzi and DeSantos watched as Meadows pulled a microscope from the shelf below the computer and plugged it into the PC’s USB port.
“Not a problem,” Meadows said. “But I told you this thing worked.”
“When do you apply for a patent?”
“Already applied for.” Meadows turned the knob on the microscope and an image appeared on the screen. “Takes a while to get a number. That’s why you always see ‘Patent Pending’ on products. But I think it’s too sensitive.” Meadows found the area of the device he was looking for, then pointed at the monitor. “I need to make some refinements in the design. Mind if I take down a few notes? Only take me a minute.”
“Go ahead,” DeSantos said, squinting at the hyper-enlarged image.
Uzi pulled out his smartphone and pressed a couple of buttons, then moved it over the device Meadows was examining. Nothing.
Meadows double-clicked the Word icon on his desktop. He typed at the cursor:
This is a very sophisticated listening device. It contains no magnetic parts. Its components appear to be resin and gold. Nothing that would be detected by conventional sensing equipment.
Yeah, no kidding. Uzi moved in front of the keyboard and typed:
I’ll bring it by the lab in the morning. We can’t disable it or we’ll tip them off. Can you examine it without destroying it?
Meadows:
Yes.
Uzi leaned over the keyboard:
There could be others. Does the Bureau have anything that can detect these things?
DeSantos nudged Uzi aside and typed:
NSA’s got a handheld unit, the NX-590. I can make a call, have one waiting for us by the time we get there.
DeSantos rooted out his BlackBerry and moved off to the far corner of the room.
Meadows said, “Almost done with these notes. Give me another minute,” as he typed to Uzi:
I know that unit. Not as good as mine, but it can pick up gold and other weak metallic conductors.
Uzi tapped out:
We should let NSA take a crack at this thing, see what they can figure out.
He clapped Meadows on the back. “We’ve really gotta go, Tim. Always a pleasure.” Uzi winked. “If you find anything more on that ammo, let me know.”
Meadows removed the listening device from the microscope and handed it to Uzi, who dropped it into his intact jacket pocket.
“Wish I could’ve done more.”
“Hey,” Uzi said, “you earned yourself an appetizer.”
Meadows’s face brightened considerably. “Oysters?”
Uzi threw a protective hand over his wallet. “You’re killing me, Tim.”
Meadows indicated Uzi’s jacket pocket and said, “I think that may be someone else’s job.”
The drive to Annapolis, Maryland, was strained. Uzi had removed his bugged coat and placed it in the rear compartment, then turned on the stereo and faded it to the back of the SUV as a cover.
“I’ve never been here,” Uzi said. “Tell me about the NSA. Behind the scenes stuff.” He turned onto the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and accelerated. Noting his partner’s questioning eyes, Uzi explained: “We’ve got at least another half hour to kill.”
“I signed a nondisclosure agreement.”
“Give me the abridged version. Nothing classified. Just some highlights and background.”
“Highlights and background.” DeSantos pursed his lips. “Don’t you know this stuff?”
“Probably some of it. But our agencies aren’t exactly best pals. Assume I’m a blank slate.”
“Okay. Let’s start in 1919.”
“We’re talking serious background here.”
“It was called The Cipher Bureau, or The Black Chamber, in those days. I think it was a one-room vault that held all the intelligence we had at the time, stuff we’d collected by cracking codes we intercepted from the Japanese and Russians. But the Chamber didn’t exist, at least not as far as the government was concerned. Know why?”
“Uh, because it was a secret?”
DeSantos chuckled. “You’re being a wiseass, boychick. But you’re close. The Cipher Bureau operated out of New York and was a front business for The Black Chamber’s real work, which was breaking codes. They were doing some great work until the secretary of state found out about it and shut it down because he didn’t believe in reading others’ letters and mail.”
“You’re joking.”
“No joke. The Chamber closed up shop. The data they’d collected was thrown into a vault and remained on ice until 1930 when the Army realized it needed an advantage over unfriendly governments. They asked their chief cryptanalyst, a guy named William Friedman, to build the Signal Intelligence Service with the help of three of his math teacher buddies. He hid the SIS, its employees, and its budget from everyone. And we were back in the spy business.”
DeSantos turned away. He seemed to be lost in thought, but then said, “Just like the Black Chamber was a closet, the NSA is literally the size of a city.” He turned the stereo up a bit more and leaned closer to Uzi. “Crypto City’s got 10 million square feet of offices, warehouses, factories, labs, schools, and apartments. Tens of thousands of people live and work there — and no one outside its walls knows what they do for a living or that the place even exists.”
“Tens of thousands?” Uzi had known it was a lot, but that was a number far exceeding even his highest guestimates.
“Bigger than the CIA and FBI. Combined, by a long shot. And growing.”
DeSantos continued his dissertation for another twenty minutes, until they arrived in Annapolis Junction. Uzi turned off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway onto a hidden exit ramp bounded by berms and dense foliage, then drove through the maze of barbed-wire fences, where yellow signs warned against taking photographs, making notes, or drawing sketches.