Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗

National Security Agency.

Internal Affairs was looking for some clue as to why a successful

and highly talented analyst like Miles Foster would so abruptly

resign a senior analyst position. While Miles was more than

willing to tell them his feelings, and the real reasons behind

his resignation, they wanted to make sure that there weren’t a

few little details he wasn’t telling them. Like, perhaps gam-

bling debts, women on the side, (he was single) or women on the

wrong side, overextended financial obligations, anything unusual.

Had he suddenly come into money and if he did, where did he get

it? Blackmail was considered a very real possibility when unex-

pected personnel changes occur.

The files vindicated Miles Foster of any obvious financial anoma-

lies. Not that he knew he needed vindication. He owned a Potomac

condominium in D.C., a 20 minutes against traffic commute to Fort

Meade where he had worked for years, almost his entire profes-

sional life. He traveled some, Caribbean cruises, nothing osten-

tatious but in style, had a reasonable savings account, only used

2 credit cards and he owed no one anything significant. There was

nothing unusual about his file at all, unless you think that

living within ones means is odd. Miles Foster knew how to make

the most out of a dollar. Miles Foster was clean.

The walls of his drab 12 foot square prison room were a dirty

shade of government gray. There was an old map on the wall and

Miles noticed that the gray paint behind the it was 7 shades

lighter than the surrounding paint. Two of the four fluorescent

bulbs were out, hiding some of the peeling paint on the ceiling.

Against one wall was a row of file cabinets with large iron bars

behind the drawer handles, insuring that no one, no one, was

getting into those file with permission. Also prominent on each

file cabinet was a tissue box sized padlock.

Miles was alone, again. When the IAS people questioned him, they

were hard on him. Very hard. But most of the time he was alone.

Miles paced the room during the prolonged waits. He poked here

and there, under this, over that; he found the clean paint behind

the map and smirked.

When the IAS men returned, they found Miles stretching and exer-

cising his svelte 5′ 9″ physique to help relieve the boredom.

He was 165 lbs. and in excellent for almost 40. Miles wasn’t a

fitness nut, but he enjoyed the results of staying in shape –

women, lots of women. He had a lightly tanned Mediterranean

skin, dark, almost black wavy hair on the longish side but immac-

ulately styled. His demeanor dripped elegance, even when he wore

torn jeans, and he knew it. It was merely another personal asset

that Miles had learned how to use to his best advantage. Miles

was regularly proofed. He had a face that would permit him to

assume any age from 20 to 40, but given his borderline arrogance,

he called it aloofness, most considered him the younger. None-

theless, women, of all ages went for it.

One peculiar trait made women and girls find Miles irresistible.

He had an eerie but conscious muscular control over his dimples.

If he were angry, a frown could mean any number of things depend-

ing upon how he twitched his dimples. A frown could mean, “I’m

real angry, seriously”, or “I’m just giving you shit”, or “You

bore me, go away”, or more to Miles’ purpose, “You’re gorgeous, I

wanna fuck your brains out”. His dimples could pout with a

smile, grin with a sneer, emphasize a question; they could accent

and augment his mood at will.

But now. he was severely bored. Getting even more disgusted with

the entire process. The IAS wasn’t going to find anything. He

had made sure of that. After all, he was the computer expert.

Miles heard the sole door to the room unlock. It was a heavy, ‘I

doubt an ax could even get through this’ door. The fourth IAS

man to question Miles entered the room as the door was relocked

from the other side.

“So, tell us again, why did you quit?” The IAS man abruptly

blurted out even before sitting in one of the old, World War II

vintage chairs by the wooden table.

“I’ve told you a hundred times and you have it on tape a hundred

times.” The disgust in his voice was obvious and intended. “I

really don’t want to go through it again.”

“Tough shit. I want to hear it. You haven’t told me yet.” This

guy was tougher, Miles thought.

“What are you looking for? For God’s sake, what do you want me

to say? You want a lie that you like better? Tell me what it is

and I’ll give it back to you, word for word. Is that what you

want?” Miles gave away something. He showed, for the first

time, real anger. The intellect in Miles saw what the emotion

was doing, so his brain quickly secreted a complex string of

amino acids to call him down. Miles decided that he should go

back to the naive, ‘what did I do?’ image and stick to the plan.

He put his head in his hands and leaned forward for a second. He

gently shook and looked up sideways. He was very convincing.

The IAS man thought that Miles might be weakening.

“I want the fucking truth,” the IAS man bellowed. “And I want it

now!”

Miles sighed. He was tired and wanted a cigarette so bad he

could shit, and that pleasure, too, he was being denied. But he

had prepared himself for this eventuality; serious interrogation.

“O.K., O.K.” Miles feigned resignation. He paused for another

heavy sigh. “I quit ‘cause I got sick of the shit. Pure and

simple. I like my work, I don’t like the bureaucracy that goes

with it. That’s it. After over 10 years here, I expected some

sort of recognition other than a cost of living increase like

every other G12. I want to go private where I’ll be appreciated.

Maybe even make some money.”

The IAS man didn’t look convinced. “What single event made you

quit? Why this morning, and not yesterday or tomorrow, or the

next day, or next week. Why today?” The IAS man blew smoke at

Miles to annoy him and exaggerate the withdrawal symptoms. Miles

was exhausted and edgy.

“Like I said, I got back another ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’

response on my Public-Private key scheme. They said, ‘Not yet

practical’ and set it up for another review in 18 months. That

was it. Finis! The end, the proverbial straw that you’ve been

looking for. Is that what you want?” Miles tried desperately to

minimize any display of arrogance as he looked at the IAS man.

“What do you hope to do in the private sector? Most of your work

is classified.” The IAS man remained cool and unflustered.

“Plenty of defense guys who do crypto and need a good comm guy. I

think the military call it the revolving door.” Miles’ dimpled

smugness did not sit well with IAS.

“Yeah, you’ll probably go to work for your wop friends in

Sicily.” The IAS man sarcastically accused.

“Hey – you already know about that!” That royally pissed off

Miles. He didn’t appreciate any dispersion on his heritage.

“They’re relatives, that’s it. Holidays, food, turkey, ham, and

a bunch of booze. And besides,” Miles paused and smiled,

“there’s no such thing as the Mafia.”

By early evening they let him relieve himself and then finally

leave the Fort. He was given 15 minutes to collect his personal

items, under guard, and then escorted to the front gate. All

identification was removed and his files were transferred into

the ‘Monitor’ section, where they would sit for at least one

year. The IAS people had finally satisfied themselves that Miles

Foster was a dissatisfied, underpaid government employee who had

had enough of the immobility and rigidity of a giant bureaucratic

machine that moves at a snails pace. Miles smiled at the end of

the interrogation. Just like I said, he thought, just like I

said.

There was no record in his psychological profiles, those from the

Agency shrinks, that suggested Miles meant anything other than

what he claimed. Let him go, they said. Let him go. Nowhere in

the records did it show how much he hated his stupid, stupid

bosses, the bungling bureaucratic behemoths who didn’t have the

first idea of what he and his type did. Nowhere did Miles’

frustration and resultant build up of resentment and anger show

up in any file or on any chart or graph. His strong, almost

overbearing ego and over developed sense of worth and importance

were relegated to a personality quirk common to superbright

ambitious engineering types. It fit the profile.

Nowhere, either, was it mentioned that in years at NSA, Miles

Foster had submitted over 30 unsolicited proposals for changes in

cryptographic and communications techniques to improve the secu-

rity of the United