Chase sat in his office in the impressively modern and aggressive building that was the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade. Built of unremarkable concrete, it appeared to be nothing more than an afterthought of a maintenance shed on the grounds of Fort Meade, the base for Marine training. Both impenetrable and electronically shielded from radar and surveillance, it bore little resemblance to the massive statement that was the Federal Building in D.C. When the sun struck it at certain times of the day, it looked as if it were the storage facility for everyday garbage.
The building was a small bump above ground with the rest a warren of passages and rooms underground. It was as impregnable as the inner core of the Pentagon. Biometric scanners, retinal and electronic cards, fingerprint analyzers all controlled access into and out of the building. Armed guards and metal detectors searched those that made it inside the lobby. Even to approach the grounds was a non-starter, its perimeter bordered by electrified fences, Dobermans, video surveillance, IFR scanners and armed soldiers from the Marine Base at Quantico.
So, it was with utter astonishment that the second-floor surveillance team agent came out of the Mens’ room and found a teenage boy walking down the hallway, holding in front of him an object that looked to have been a cell phone before someone had hacked at it.
“Stop!” he yelled and the boy turned around to point the cell at him.
His eyes were huge pools of electric blue and stood out against the pale skin of a child that looked as if he had been and still was seriously ill. His hair was sweated to his skull and a rich blonde.
“How did you get in here?” he demanded, coming forward. His feet felt as if they weighed more with each step until they weighed a ton apiece. He plodded down the hall and the closer he came to the boy, the more lethargic he felt until he found himself on his knees. He let his upper body fold over his legs to rest his forehead on the cool tiles of the floor. He felt fingers inside his jacket removing his gun, handcuffs, ID card and keys. The handcuffs were snapped around his wrist and one ankle, effectively keeping him from moving.
“Stay here,” the boy’s voice was a low whisper, an order to obey and he barely had the energy to agree. He listened vaguely to the footsteps as they faded down the hallway until he couldn’t hear anything at all.
I left the agent hunched over, immobilized by the low-frequency jammer which interrupted the brain waves that regulated the sleep state, tied up with his own cuffs knowing that he would be incapacitated only for five minutes but unable to move for an hour or more. Unless someone came along and found him and had a key to the handcuffs. I had removed his along with the Sig Sauer 9 mil which was tucked into the back of my waistband. I could have killed him, but he had nothing to do with my case and in any case, I didn’t really want to leave a trail of dead bodies in my wake.
I had used the scanner to access the database inside the building, had an image of the floor plans in my head and knew exactly where Chase and Cameron were, where their offices were and the Conference room which was in use for the next hour. All the agents were inside being briefed on the next mission and reports were being generated and reviewed.
His office was on the 1st floor, a corner office with its own windows and a view of the woods and the long driveway in. He had a utilitarian desk of gray metal, a comfortable swivel chair and bookcases lining the walls with novels, law books, and reference tomes. I saw manuals on computer design, language, and programming. On the desktop was a PC, a top of the line with its screensaver blinking on the NSA seal, much like the CIA’s shield on the lobby floor of that building. His office was empty, the door locked but my scanner opened the electronic key code in seconds.
I shut the door behind me and sat in his chair, hacking into his case files. Downloading what I needed, it still took fifteen minutes because it was over 10 terabytes of material and I didn’t bother to booby-trap anything. I really didn’t want to hurt the US security system or become any more of a threat to the NIA or Homeland than I already was.
One of the things I accessed was where Chase had last swiped in his ID card. According to the data, he was in the Conference room on seven with his directors going over the latest intel. He hadn’t yet heard that I was missing but I saw the email come through on his PC. Most of which had to do with me and my situation. Right now, he was convincing the Assistant Secretary of Defense that acquiring me was essential to the security of the United States; even if it was only to keep me out of foreign hands.
I wiped out every mention of me in their database, sending in a worm that would hunt down and destroy anything even remotely related to me including the names of the people that had helped me. Sure, it would make their lives hell but the same program would kick in a week later and give them all new identities.
I heard a knock on his door and a woman’s voice outside. “Director Chase? Hello? Is someone in there?”
Quietly, I went to the desk and angled the video camera in the hall so that I could see who was standing there. A pretty lady stood there in a neat pantsuit of dark gray, blonde haired and wearing an ID badge with her name on it, Rissy Carpenter, Administrative Assistant. She was Chase’s secretary. She waited, her head cocked towards the door and then she strode off down the hallway shaking her head. She knew that Chase wasn’t in his office but at a meeting, knew no one was supposed to be inside. I wasn’t sure what she had heard, I’d been quiet and had left the computer in silent mode.
My scanner buzzed in my hand, a text warning me that the system had sensed my presence and alerted security. I was surprised, my program and worm should have stopped any alarm before it got that far.
I checked the hallway, it was clear so I opened the door stepping out onto industrial grade indoor/outdoor carpeting in a pleasant blue-gray. Heading for the door at the end of the hallway to my right that led to the elevators and the lobby, I reached it just as an alarm broke the expectant silence of Spook Central.
The elevator I was using was a private one, geared to the Director’s personal use. Since it was coded to his retina scan, keycard, and fingerprints, no one would be checking egress on it simply because on one could imagine how anyone could get access to all three of Chase’s locks.
I rode it down to the subbasement, an incredible fifteen stories below ground and found the sewer system just as the schematics had suggested. An old main that had been re-routed because of the driveway construction led me to a grated drain in the woods. It took me over an hour to climb from the basement up to the tunnels outside. From there, I changed my damp and smelly clothes, hopped on the mountain bike I had liberated from the nearest neighbor and rode slowly through the trails into the deep woods.
The trails folded around me and even though I knew that I was leaving a trail a blind man could follow; I wasn’t worried about them following me. None of their cameras worked, nor the motion sensors, infrared or any other of their high-tech gadgetry. The only thing I had to worry about was whether I was running into one of the wandering patrols or dogs and I’d sent them all on different routes to ensure that it wouldn’t happen.
I took the shortcut down a small gully of rock, bypassing the longer, safer route. The new way was quicker, cutting off a good half mile of winding switchbacks that I’d done earlier on the way up. Although longer, it had been easier on my still healing body.
I came down after a ten-foot drop and sat back as the shock transmitted through the handlebars into my neck and shoulders making a sharp pain reverberate in my chest. I rubbed at it until the ache went away.
Once on the flat, I skidded to a stop and checked under the bandage. Nothing was bleeding although it still looked an angry red and the flesh around it all shades of green and sickly yellow. No one had expected me to be up and mobile let alone able to ride a bicycle for as many miles as I had. My day’s activity would have taxed a healthy man let alone a recovering gunshot patient.
I sat for ten minutes to catch my breath studying the woods around me. As always, the sights, scents, and sounds of the forest were the very beat of my heart and soul, the elixir that fixed whatever was wrong with me and my world. I could appreciate the way the sunlight broke through the trees so that it seemed to be the fingers of God touching the marvels that he had created. I could rejoice in the muted laughter of water as it danced across the rocks in rain-swollen streams. I could feel my heart nearly stop as the songs of catbirds and mockingbirds serenaded me and the blue jays scolded my arrogance. How the sunlight glittered on mica in the rocks and the dew made diamond spider webs hang from the trees as if wearing Tiffany earrings. White quartz teased with fool’s gold and the air smelled of lemon, old leaves, pine and fresh mint.
I saw dogwoods blooming in the promise of spring, oaks, and maples as green as any newcomer and the funny looking shoots of burgeoning may-apples. Even saw a few striped Jack-in-the-pulpits between the rocks and the ruts of the trail. I smiled. For the first time in a long time. The woods were to me, the most potent drug I could find and totally free.
I was almost to the trail head and the paved road when I heard sirens and slammed on my brakes. I wasn’t going that fast but still, the wheels skidded enough on the dirt hitting a small rock and that was enough to knock me off. I landed in a clump of young briars, not hard enough to hurt anything but my pride and a few scratches from the emerging thorns. My clothes were faded and brown, duck so that they didn’t rip. I’d chosen them for that reason and because they would blend into the forest so that at a quick glance, eyes would not be able to pick me out as a human shape. So when the police cars and SUVs flew past, they didn’t see me. If I had been upright, they might have. Especially by the agents I saw scanning both sides of the state highway. I waited a good fifteen minutes after the last one went by before I climbed shakily to my feet. I left the bike down and pulled out the scanner from my backpack.
The initial chatter I was receiving from both Langley and the NSA headquarters was puzzling. I heard nothing about my break-in nor the reason why those government units were racing away from both the NSA building and where I’d sent them with a false sighting of me.
Instead of hitting the pavement back towards the rendezvous with Leon and Maiara, I shot across the state road and back onto the trail system.
The side of the trail I was on was designed more for horseback riding or extreme mountain biking. Some of the trails were so rocky that a fall here would break bones, had down hills so steep and winding that only the suicidal would take them at speed. Some areas were so swampy that my wheels were in essence swimming through them. While I pedaled, a sense of unease and urgency bit at my heels.
I came to a bridge over a deep ravine with a swift water creek that positively boiled under it. The bridge was made of three telephone poles spanning the space and 2x4s laid on edge all the way across. It was relatively new, still greenish from the pressure treatment that made such lumber capable of being exposed to years of outdoor conditions. I knew it was safe, yet some sense told me that I was in danger. I sat on the bike, one foot on the ground holding me upright and the other on the pedal so I could push off in an instant.
I pulled the scanner out in front of me sweeping it side to side in slow, gentle arcs watching the screen as it displayed---nothing. Just a blank gray image with an occasional flicker. Did the same behind me with the same results yet the hair on the back of my neck still lifted in primal terror.
I bolted forward, pedaling for all I was worth just as an ATV burst out of nothing in front of me. I didn’t think, I just reacted by jerking the handles so that the bike and I jumped off the trail and down the hill into the thicket of tree trunks so close that I barely made it through myself. The ATV was joined by more but were hampered in the trees by their wider wheelbase. They might be faster but I had the advantage of maneuverability as long as my legs held out. I also had a map in my head of every inch of my surroundings and would use that to my benefit.
I’d seen enough of the lead ATV driver’s face to recognize him. Aiken. Aiken was after me and he could track almost as good as I could.
I screamed. It echoed through the woods and captured my voice, my frustration, and anger and threw it back to me. This wasn’t supposed to happen; no one was supposed to have seen me inside or be able to track me. How had they hidden their presence from me and found my location in the woods?
Overhead, I heard the noise of a helicopter and I knew that it was equipped with FLIR. My own body heat was a beacon that stood out as an angry red glow and visible no matter where I went. I could cool my temp but that brought a corresponding slowness to both my reactions and thinking. And worse, wouldn’t keep the men on the ground from seeing me. I couldn’t use the scanner on more than one man at a time or while moving. Plus, I’d used the quipp so much that its battery was almost dead and even if I could charge it, I didn’t have the hour it would need.
I heard a thump and looked down to see a trank dart in the water bottle on the bike’s frame. Their marksman had missed my leg by a simple pedal stroke. I wheeled to the right dropping the bike into a small filled sinkhole which put me out of firing range. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her and stopped the bike in shock. Rachel stood on the bank dressed as I’d last seen her and the glow from an unearthly light made her image ethereal.
“Rachel.” I made her name as reverent, as full of longing, sorrow, pain and joy as I could express; all in that one word. She smiled and her head lifted to stare at the oncoming team of agents.
“Take my hand, Lakan,” she said and reached down.
“Rachel, I can’t enter the Spirit Realm.”
“Do you trust me, Lakan?”
“Yes, Rachel. Through this life and beyond,” I answered truthfully. “Is it my time now? Have you come to walk me through the door?”
“No, silly Boy Who Thinks Too Much. To give you a life that you were meant to live. Take my hand, they’re almost here.”
I reached up and as my hand touched her palm, I literally flew through the air so fast that I couldn’t breathe and the ground passed underneath me as if I were flying; so fast that I could only see the blurring movement of massed colors. Like a hi-speed camera followed the lights of cars on a super-highway. Just a blur of colored streaks and trails on a tableau of midnight black.
Time slowed. She let go of my hand and I stared in wonder at the shapes of buildings that soared over my head. Downtown somewhere. They coalesced into my brain and my memories translated the pictures of downtown D.C. When I looked back at her, she was gone, making me wonder if she was real or my mind had fractured at the thought of being re-captured.
“Rachel,” I whispered in despair. I wanted to be with her, not back in this world with her substitute.