All computer and most telephone lines going in and out of ELISE space were encrypted and firewalled. The handset of each regular landline phone was affixed with a large red sticker that warned it was not a secure communication device. Cell phones — even Hendricks’s and Wallace’s — stayed in cubbies in the outer lobby with a plainclothes officer from CIA police whose job it was to run force protection. Even the cell-phone cubbies were enclosed with Faraday film to keep anyone with a scanner and a Yagi antenna from grabbing a list of the phones parked in front of the location. It didn’t seem like much, but that information formed another piece of the puzzle that Monica Hendricks did not want to give up.
The George Bush Center for Intelligence, AKA Langley, was less than ten miles up the George Washington Parkway. The White House was three miles to the north across any number of bridges. FBI HQ was just six blocks east of that. Crystal City was only two metro stops away from the Pentagon. Arlington National Cemetery was one more on the Blue Line. Joint Base Anacostia — Bolling, the now-not-so-secret second home of the HMX-1 (Marine One) presidential helicopters, as well as the headquarters of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was directly across the Potomac. You couldn’t hear them in the SCIF, but every few minutes, the walls of the ELISE office space gave a tremulous shake signifying the takeoff of a commercial aircraft from Reagan National Airport on Runways 1 or 33 to the north, a scant two blocks away.
Restaurants and shops in and around Crystal City were accustomed to military and civilian government types staying at one of the many hotels while on TDY to Washington. Some experts reckoned, correctly, in Hendricks’s estimation, that with all the government knowledge floating around, Crystal City was one of the most heavily trolled places in the United States by foreign adversaries. Amazon was buying up office space in several high-rises connected to the Crystal City underground, and now it was even odds whether the people in line at Starbucks or Ted’s Montana Grill worked for Jeff Bezos or Uncle Sam.
“First off,” Hendricks said, once everyone had arrived and the door was secured, “thank you all for participating. I don’t have to tell you what a sensitive matter this is.” She introduced herself, and then went around the table and had each person give a two-minute thumbnail of their background. When it got back around to her, she said, “You see that only six of you presently serve as counterintelligence officers. That is by design. If you do, we want your expertise. If you don’t, we want your different point of view. You’ve each been briefed individually on what we know about SURVEYOR — which is precious little, so there’s no need to go over that again at this point.”
She glanced at Wallace.
“Thanks, Monica,” he said. “I would only say that I’m from the FBI and I’m here to help—”
The two agencies’ rivalry went back to J. Edgar Hoover’s days and this brought a round of good-natured chuckles from the CIA officers in the room. Wallace took it in stride.
“Generally speaking, the Bureau would take the lead in a case of this sort, but the powers that be have decided that’s not the case this go-around. And I honestly understand why. SURVEYOR will undoubtedly be someone many of you know personally. Maybe you’ve had coffee with him, sat across from her at lunch or dinner. Your children may play together. Your spouses could be close friends. This will feel personal, because it is. SURVEYOR works among you. That is why you are the people to catch him or her. I know very few people at Langley. I am here to provide you someone with arrest authority on U.S. soil, extra bodies when we need them, and an extra point of view from someone in a gun culture. How many of you have fired a sidearm in the past year?”
Half of the hands went up.
