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  Dropping the thumb drive in her bag, she shouldered it and headed out. Even with a stop for food, Cassandra made it home in record time. Probably the only benefit of working late—she never had to worry about being stuck in rush-hour traffic.

  She made a beeline for the kitchen, set the bag with the cardboard container on the island counter, and kicked off her shoes. Jessica had buzzed earlier to see if she wanted to go out, but Cassandra had begged off, using lack of sleep as an excuse.

  It was the truth—she was beat. Being beat was also the reason for the cardboard container. Not having the energy for grocery shopping, she had stopped at her favorite bar and grill on her way home instead. She had ordered a steak sandwich to go, which was even now tempting her with its delicious aroma. Pulling the thumb drive from her bag, Cassandra slid it into her pocket before taking a plate from the cabinet and loading it with the sandwich and house fries.

  She grabbed the Guinness from the fridge, popped the top, picked up the plate, and carried both to her office in a fluid motion. She set the plate on the desk and booted the computer. While waiting for it to start, she took a swig from the beer and enjoyed the smooth nutty flavor as it flowed over her tongue.

  Once logged in, she pulled the thumb drive from her pocket, plugged it in, and quickly opened the project file for Bristol. Her plan was to work until she could no longer keep her eyes open. Maybe the late hours would mean a dreamless night.

  ****

  Over the next few hours, in between bites of her sandwich, she beefed up the project file. Rubbing her eyes, Cassandra marked a comment in the file to search for video and pictures of the employees listed. She would add a study of their expressions to the file later.

  Cassandra had developed her skills in the psychology of facial expressions as part of her training and work with the CIA. So much goes unsaid, but every facial movement could be associated with an emotion. Between the current information added to the project file, background checks initiated that evening, and the base-line facial-expression analysis, her team would have plenty of information on which to base their approach for safeguarding Bristol’s data.

  She yawned, hoping it meant she’d finally get some sleep. Deciding to head to bed, she closed all browser windows, saved her project file, and copied it to the thumb drive. She took her plate and beer bottle back to the kitchen, turned on the house alarm, and shut off the lights on her way to her bedroom.

  While waiting for sleep to overtake her, Cassandra stared into the darkness and ran through the information she had collected. Many minutes later, still wide awake, she blew air out her mouth in frustration and rolled over on to her side. Looking at the clock on the nightstand she checked to make sure the alarm was set. She didn’t want to be late for work again. Worried the alarm wouldn’t wake her, she grabbed her cell from the table and quickly sent a text to Jessica asking her to call when she was up—just in case. Satisfied she had covered all bases, Cassandra buried her head in her pillow and wished she could just turn off her mind like she had the lights. Eventually her breathing slowed and eyelids grew heavy. She finally drifted to sleep in the midst of reviewing the contingency plan for the fourth time.

  Chapter Two

  Hidden identities

  Trevor Bauer swam the last of his laps in the Olympic pool located in his housing complex. When he’d finished his daily mile, he climbed out and headed for the locker room to shower and change into his regular work clothes—a faded pair of jeans and a t-shirt that usually sported a geeky joke or statement. He hung the lanyard with his keycard and ID around his neck and tucked it in his shirt. He was ready for the quick ride to work.

  Leaving the private facility, he blinked against the bright light as he stepped outside. The summer day was sunny and the air fresh. A slight breeze blew through the surrounding trees, swishing softly through the branches. Trevor mounted his bike and pedaled off toward his work place, the National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade. He rode the short distance to the gates at a fast clip, like he did every morning, his muscles accustomed to the burn provided by the twists and turns of the road.

  Born to a brilliant Irish software engineer and an Irish-American mother, Trevor, a prodigy in mathematics and science, had graduated from high school earlier than the average student. He was sixteen when he arrived in the United States, fresh from his native Sligo, a Northwestern county in the Republic of Ireland where his parents had taken residence, and from where his father had run his biometrics software and hardware development company.

  Trevor’s father, Conor Brennan, an ace in the biometrics field, had hoped Trevor would follow in his footsteps and attend the Dublin Institute of Technology, but Trevor had other ideas. In order to distance himself from his father’s company, Brennan Enterprises, and pave his own way in life, Trevor had decided to take his mother’s maiden name and start his studies in his mother’s country of birth at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  His father had not quite understood his drive to succeed on his own two feet when he could easily have used the family name and reputation to help him climb the career ladder, but Conor and his wife Maeve had admired Trevor’s drive and had given him their blessings and the space to take the challenge head on.

  Every holiday and vacation Trevor would fly home and spend time with his parents, enjoying the dichotomy of their lives—so simple and grounded in a small town full of history and tradition, yet simultaneously so ahead of their time with all the research and development effort being put into applications that would be used years into the future.

  Conor was always interested in Trevor’s progress, projects he had gotten involved in, things he’d learned that could be used in interesting applications. His dream of making a difference and creating something unique that would benefit many was always at the forefront of their conversations. Talking to his father about those projects had given Trevor a wonderful sense of accomplishment.

  His parents had been the perfect couple, the ones his friends had praised, the ones never seen with a frown. Although he had been a precocious child, he couldn’t remember any occasion when his mother had lost her patience or had raised her voice at his antics. Both had always guided him with love and fostered his inquiring mind, feeding his curiosity and answering his questions truthfully and factually. Trevor always had a deep-seated sense of belonging to Sligo, where all his childhood memories were solid and happy. Although he enjoyed his time at MIT, there was a constant pull back home. Whenever he could take any time off, he would head there.

  He had been working his way through MIT when he was approached by NSA recruiters. Impressed by his grades and dissertations on digital communication analysis, they had offered him everything he had always wanted—the thrill and satisfaction of working for the NSA, the opportunity to work with one of the most important intelligence agencies in the world, and the chance to make a difference in millions of people’s lives at a much higher level than he had ever imagined—more than enough to lure him to sign up without hesitation. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

  Trevor had graduated with honors from MIT at nineteen and moved immediately to the NSA—a job requiring the curiosity of a detective and the persistence of a pit bull, both of which Trevor had in spades.

  His work involved the highest technology available in the world and he loved being in the midst of top-secret projects of all kinds. NSA employees were ghosts living in silent obscurity. Someone once joked about what it meant to be an NSA employee: “You do not exist; you do not have a job. Any questions? Don’t ask questions.” It was a comical yet fairly accurate way to describe the life of an NSA employee.

  Trevor merged into morning traffic, mostly composed of NSA employees rushing to work. It was always tricky, but he managed to get to one of the four lanes without being run down by any cars. He waited patiently behind the car ahead of him so he could walk his bike to the gate to get clearance. There was no easy way to access the perimeter of the building. All employees and
visitors were required to have IDs in order to access the premises. With time, the act of showing their IDs at checkpoints, sliding cards in readers, and keying pin codes had become second nature.

  Trevor approached the window, pulled the keycard out from his shirt, and smiled amicably at the guard on duty as he flashed his ID. “Hey Mark! Did you finish that round of Medal of Honor online on Saturday?”

  “No Trev, Cathy wanted to watch a chick-flic on TV and I had to give up the big screen, man.” The guard shook his head, his expression indicating he believed that was the biggest sin someone could ever commit.

  Laughing, Trevor climbed back on his bike and rode off. “See you tomorrow, Mark!”

  Later that evening, Mark would be replaced by a new shift of guards. Although the rotation was constant, Trevor’s open attitude and Irish friendliness made him well known and liked by all the guards at the gates and main entrance. Trevor was always the one they came to when they needed help with their computers or gaming consoles, or even to just learn more about programming in general—and he was never one to say no to a friend.

  Trevor followed the road to the front of the larger mirror-faced building. Smoothly maneuvering it into a bicycle parking slot, he left without bothering to lock it. If a thief had the guts and means to steal a bike from the NSA Headquarters parking lot without being noticed or caught, they deserved to keep the damn thing.

  Entering the building, he headed to the stairs he used every morning. He climbed them two at a time until he reached his floor and walked confidently in the direction of the control room he shared with the several men and women of his team, crossing paths and calling good morning to those he knew along the way. Working in the same building for the last eight years, Trevor had made many friends.

  Trevor completed the strict detailed security procedures—fingerprint scan, key generation, and storage of any personal items with security personnel—to gain access to the control room where he spent most of his work days.

  “Hey Trev! How was the ride?” his good friend George Miller asked as he approached his desk.

  Trevor and George had both joined the NSA within a week of graduating from MIT. Although they’d seen each other around campus sporadically, they were never close until both came to hold jobs at the NSA. Working together day in and day out, they realized they had very similar goals and temperaments, even if under completely different personalities. During their years at MIT, Trevor had been the all-star student liked by everyone, while George had been the introspective genius easily forgotten. But they were both bloodhounds when it came to digital data analysis and server infiltration.

  Within the first few weeks of working at the NSA, they had developed a kindred friendship and, when the opportunity arose to share a rental close to work, they had jumped on it. Five years had passed and they still didn’t regret that decision. It was convenient to live that close to the massive building complex, easily reached by car, bike, or foot. It was a good thing that they lived so close; between the two of them, they couldn’t seem to be able to keep a functioning alarm clock in the house, and had to scramble most mornings.

  Another perk of sharing a house was that it gave them some freedom around the strict rule enforced by the NSA of not discussing any work outside of Crypto City, as employees fondly referred to the NSA complex. Since they worked together in the Computer Systems Security and Signals Analysis group on the same cases and were equally dedicated to the job, they often discussed their projects and enjoyed bouncing ideas off each other.

  George and Trevor had different work schedules but their times in the office overlapped. While George usually arrived at daybreak and left around midafternoon, Trevor was on a nine-to-five stint, but most days he could be found working late into the night on complex or puzzling projects.

  “Good. Nobody tried to run me down today,” Trevor replied with a smirk as he sat at his desk. He immediately turned his attention to his screen and initiated the iris identification process that authorized him to use his computer, and proceeded to open the queue with the latest logs generated by the many supercomputers, containing lists of flagged conversations to be screened by flesh-and-blood analysts like him.

  “So, what do we have here?” he asked out loud, looking through the data scrolling up on his screen. He became fully engrossed in the transcripts from one of his latest taps and proceeded to analyze the incoming data, taking down the necessary information acquired from the log files that would be forwarded to the operative contact for each case.

  Trevor’s general responsibilities were the same as any other employee’s, but his specialization in data tracking and analysis, server infiltration, and digital surveillance made him a priceless asset to the Agency. Working for the NSA was a dream job for anyone in his field—a dream that came with the added bonus of having access to tools nobody else had, and the highest technology on the planet.

  The NSA, in addition to being responsible for most of the United States’ eavesdropping satellites, was also in charge of the American surveillance share of Echelon, the mother of all surveillance networks. Every word in every message within frequencies and channels picked up by the many antennas and satellites owned and operated on behalf of Echelon were automatically screened, sorted based on keywords—a list containing not only its parent agency’s chosen keywords, but also those provided by each of the five agencies which made up the UK–USA Security Agreement—and either discarded or redirected for further analysis. In addition to screening for words on the red-flag list, Echelon was also responsible for targeted surveillance, which made it possible for a known terrorist’s communication to be screened, potentially uncovering a plot or hideout.

  Being part of a group that actually found clues and evidence which in turn put bad guys behind bars and saved lives made Trevor feel like a hero, even when it was accomplished from behind the shield of his computer screen. Secretly, he wished he was out in the field, but his highly specialized skills in finding those elusive digital clues marked him as a desk jockey, albeit a very competent and successful one. Most days, content to be the ghost behind the screens, he was happy to help several different US defense departments reach their goals from the safety of his chair.

  His work at the NSA also included the screening of high-level data acquired via geolocation surveillance satellites. The targets were determined by requests from several government agencies, but most of the requests came directly from the CIA and FBI, whose lists were never short.

  Trevor loved his job. Every single day was an adrenaline rush, filled with excitement and tension. The only dark spot on his bright horizon was the disappearance of his parents. As he watched the data scroll on the screen, his nightmare from just three months back flashed in Trevor’s mind. It still had the power to make him shiver and break into a cold sweat. The idea that they could still be alive somewhere, held captive—or that they had been murdered and not victims of a freak accident on the high seas was even more sickening. Since that night, he had scoured all possible means to acquire more details on the case, but so far he hadn’t come across anything that could be considered a solid lead.

  His mind travelled back to that summer four years ago, when his parents had disappeared while sailing, caught in the throes of a tropical storm in international waters off the coast of Northern Africa. He had taken a month away from work and had flown to Ireland as soon as he’d received the news, and had stayed in Ireland keeping tabs on the investigation into their case.

  The Irish authorities had not taken him seriously when he had continued to refuse to believe his parents were dead, unconvinced by the Gárda’s theories of what had taken place on their yacht that night. His angry, at times desperate words had been interpreted by the investigators as grief and desolation.

  At the time, he had relied on case details provided by the Gárda and on what Stephan had passed on to him based on information acquired through private investigators Stephan had hired, but it still failed to paint a full picture
of what could have happened to them.

  Trevor had never taken the reins of the investigation, mostly due to denial and shock, but also for fear of what he would have found if he had dug in. After the fire of his anger had burned down, Trevor had closed off and locked away his feelings. He had refused to accept that his parents were gone, especially since there were no bodies to bury or mourn. There was no big Irish wake to host. No family or friends to join him in remembering their lives and laughter. No closure.

  Still unwilling to accept the reality of their disappearance, once his leave of absence had been up he had left his father’s company in Stephan’s capable hands and returned to the United States. Back at the NSA in his position as team leader, he had trudged on with his usual persistence to complete his responsibilities, numbing himself to it all.

  Not once had he disclosed or discussed the details of his parent’s case with George. Not because he didn’t trust George—he knew he could count on him like he would a blooded brother—but he just couldn’t get past the fact that his mother and father were no longer an email or phone call away. So, after Trevor had returned home, he had only shared the official information about them: they had died in a boating accident. The memories were still too raw and talking about it would make it too real to bear.

  To add to his anguish, the fact that they couldn’t be declared legally dead divided him. Part of him wanted to move on with his life, even though it would forever be empty without his mother’s humor and his father’s brilliance to push him ahead; the other part, the questioning and rebellious part, couldn’t quite accept the Gárda’s feeble explanations and theories.

  Now that he was actively searching for clues, his mind kept running through the possible outcomes of his search—his quest, as he referred to it. His mind also ran through those plausible scenarios and theories listed in the official inquest results.