Al Andalus

December 26

I'd just settled down to my morning coffee and an extreme Sudoku when my phone rang. I always do one of the puzzles before work to limber up my mind, and I'd gotten so accustomed to the exercise that I did it even on the days when I wasn't working.

I guess you could say that solving puzzles is my profession. The group I'm in gets suspicious computer code from various sources and we have to figure out what it does, where it came from and how to counteract it. That kind of work suits me fine. I'm a bit of a nerd and I like solving puzzles. If someone wants to pay me to do it, so much the better.

Anyway, the display on my cellphone told me it was my boss calling. I uttered a curse when I saw that. The last thing I wanted was a call from the office over the Christmas break. But when the boss calls, I answer.

He was all business - no "Hello, how are you," no Christmas or New Year's wishes. All he said was, "I need you in the office right now, Thomas!"

"For real?" I whined. "It's the day after Christmas!"

"It's a matter of national security, Thomas, so you need to get moving."

I shook my head in disgust and hastily scribbled a note to Ginny to let her know where I was in case she came home and found the house empty. She'd gone over to be with one of her girlfriends who was going through a bad break-up. I thought that was a lot to ask of her, especially during the holidays, but that was Ginny: always looking out for her friends. It was one of the qualities that endeared her to me.

After I'd written the note and gotten on my heavy coat, I piled into my car and headed out toward the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. "What can be so damned important at this time of year?" I wondered, but when the boss said "national security" you really couldn't question it. And he probably wasn't exaggerating for effect, or at least I didn't think he was. You see, we work for the NSA, the National Security Agency, and we deal with national security issues all the time.

As I headed toward Fort Meade, where the NSA is headquartered, I wondered if my boss's "emergency" had anything to do with the project I'd been working on. Three or four weeks ago he'd sent me a doozy of a puzzle to solve: a lengthy piece of code that didn't seem to do anything. It appeared to be a worm, a nasty form of virus that infects computers and makes them do things you don't want them doing. But this code turned up its nose at everything we plugged it into, so we hadn't a clue what it was supposed to do if it did find its target.

I love puzzles like that. I love matching wits with some hacker who thinks he's smarter than everyone else. He'd fooled us so far, I had to admit, but I felt like we were closing in on him, and soon we'd crack the code.

When I got checked in through security they told me to go straight to my boss's office, something I rarely did. When I got there, I found him talking in low tones to his director. This was definitely outside the norm.

Ben, my manager, was clearly uneasy about something. He hemmed and hawed for a little while, then looked at his director and shrugged. Turning back to me, he said, "Thomas, there's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to spit it out. Your wife is having an affair."

I had had no clue why he had called me in. This announcement was about the last thing in the world I could have imagined, and it felt like a knife stabbing me in the chest. "No!" I yelled, jumping to my feet. "That's a lie! How can you say such a terrible thing?"

He had pulled back from his desk when I jumped up, but after he realized that I wasn't going to assault him he settled back in his chair and looked over to his director for help. The director stood up and began to pace around behind Ben. "Thomas, I know this comes as a shock, but it happens all the time. You've got to face it like a man."

"No I don't," I said angrily, "because it isn't true. You're wrong, you've made a mistake."

The two of them looked at each other and then the director shrugged his shoulders. "We didn't want to get into the gory details, but I guess there's no other way to convince you." He gave a signal to Ben, who began calling up a file on his computer.

The director went on, "This call was actually recorded on Christmas Eve, but because of the holidays we didn't get around to analyzing it until early this morning. After we heard it, Ben called you to come in." He nodded at Ben, who had the file ready to play. Then he looked at me again. "You better sit down to hear this."

Ben clicked his mouse and Ginny's voice filled the room. Between the quality of the cellphone she was using and the computer playback, the sound fidelity wasn't high, but there was no mistaking whose voice I was listening to.

"I hate it that we can't be together these next two days," she said in a tone of voice I hadn't heard in a long time.

"What's the matter, baby, didn't I give you enough loving to tide you over last time?" a male voice asked.

"No, never," she said with passion. "Making love to you has just the opposite effect. Every time you do me I wind up wanting even more. You're like a drug to me."

I thought for a second that I was going to be sick. Ben shot me an anxious glance and gestured toward the computer, offering to shut off the recording. But I waved him away - I had to hear it.

The man's recorded laugh startled and enraged me. "When do you think we can we get together again?" he asked.

"Well, Christmas Day is definitely out," Ginny's voice said, "but I'll find a way to get out of the house the next day. I'll tell Thomas my girlfriend has the blues and needs comforting. That always works on him."

That little revelation made me grind my teeth.

"What would you want me to do to you if we could be together now?" the man's voice asked teasingly.

Ginny's voice grew huskier. "If you were here now, I'd want you to play with my nipples. I'd want you to pinch them and bite them until they're about to burst."

"Then what?"

"Oh, baby, I'd like you to stick your big cock in my mouth and let me lick it and kiss it until it's as hard as my nipples."

"And then . . ." he asked suggestively.

"I'd like you to rub your cock all up and down my little pussy until it gets all slippery and wet for you. And then when I couldn't stand it anymore I'd want you to hold my hips and slide it into me so slow and nice. And I'd be trying to buck up against you and make you drive it into me, but you'd keep holding me and teasing me until I was about to scream." I heard a shudder in her voice. "Oh, baby, I'm starting to get all creamy just thinking about it."

"Turn it off!" I yelled, startling Ben. To hear her talking like some sort of sex-crazed slut to another man was simply more than I could bear. My Ginny, the woman I'd loved and worshipped, had betrayed me! Without that recording I would never have believed it. Having to listen to it in front of my boss and his director made the whole thing just that much more humiliating. I closed my eyes, wishing I could crawl under the desk and hide.

Ben looked at me with concern. "Are you alright, Thomas? Can I get you anything?"

"No," I said quietly, shaking my head, still trying to process what I'd just learned. "Just give me a minute - I'll be alright." Then a thought popped into my head and my pain turned into anger. "Wait a minute! What were you doing tapping my wife's phone calls? You had no right to do that!"

The director stepped forward, his hands held up placatingly. "Things are not that simple, Thomas."

I interrupted him. "Yes they are that simple. You had my wife under surveillance. She's a citizen and she doesn't even work for the government. You had no right to do that!"

"Thomas, we didn't have Ginny under surveillance. Our computer got a hit on the voice pattern of her, um, partner, and that's why we grabbed the conversation."

I looked at him and shook my head in confusion. The director ran his hand through his graying hair. "Thomas, I don't know how to tell you this, but your wife's lover is on our terrorist watch list. We think he's an agent of Al Qaeda or ISIS - these days it's hard to tell them apart."

I thought I'd already had the worst shock of my life; now I realized that conclusion was premature. "Ginny may be a cheater but she isn't a terrorist!" I gasped. "She'd never help those people. When the news about the latest terror attack came out, she was outraged. We talked about it several times."

"Relax, Thomas, no one thinks Ginny is directly involved with any terrorist organization. We think this fellow targeted her."

At first I felt a little better. It wasn't Ginny's fault; some Middle Eastern James Bond had set out to seduce her. But I couldn't get around the fact that she'd given in to him. Why was she seeing this guy, why was she flirting with anyone but me? I thought we had a strong marriage; when did she stop loving me? But I put that problem aside to try to comprehend everything else I'd just been told. "I don't understand - why would some terrorist group target Ginny. It doesn't make any sense."

Ben gripped my shoulder. "Think about it, Thomas. They don't care about Ginny, they want to use her to get close to you."

"Me? Why would anybody want to get close to me?"

"We can't be sure, but we think they want to use Ginny to get to you, and to use you to gain information about the NSA. It's the only thing that makes sense."

I slumped in my chair and glanced idly around the office as if something there might make sense of this madness. I spotted a Christmas wreath hanging from Ben's window and the sight seemed incongruous to me. Christmas was a thing of the past now, in more ways than one. I didn't think there would ever be "peace on Earth, good will to men" for me again.

Ben's director put both hands on the desk and leaned over to peer at me. "Thomas, I have to ask you an important question now."

I stared at him blankly.

"Thomas, can you face Ginny tonight and pretend like none of this happened? Can you act like you're unaware of everything you've just learned?"

I looked at him like he was crazy. "Not a chance," I said flatly.

He glanced at Ben. "That's what I thought," he said. "I know I wouldn't be able to if the situation was reversed. So here's what we're going to do: we're going to send you out of town for a few days, get you out of the line of fire until we can have a handle on exactly what's going on."

"What's the problem?" I demanded hotly. "Just go pick the bastard up and interrogate him. If you need somebody to waterboard him, I'll be glad to volunteer," I added.

The two of them glanced at each other. "That's the thing, Thomas: Ameer has disappeared, and he may have left Washington. In any case, his cellphone signal is off the air and he's not in the apartment where he was living."

A thought struck me, and after what I'd just learned it felt strange to ask, but I did anyway. "What about Ginny? Is she in danger?"

"I don't think so," the director said. "She wasn't Ameer's real target, only a means to an end. But don't worry, the FBI will keep a close eye on her."

I felt a little better. What Ginny had done had left a gaping wound in me, but I still couldn't bring myself to want any harm to come to her. I'd cared too deeply for her too long; I just couldn't turn that off on such short notice.

I looked up at the two men. "So what do I do now?"

"You need to get home right away so you can pack a bag. Then get down to Washington National right away. We're going to send you to Oak Ridge. Your reservations have already been made," the director said. "The first flight available is a Southwest flight to Nashville at noon. We'll have somebody meet you at the airport and drive you to Oak Ridge."

While I tried to take that in, the director added, "Be sure to leave Ginny a note so she won't be suspicious, in case Ameer gets in touch with her again."

When I got home to our little bungalow and went inside to pack, everything seemed changed. All the furniture and decor that had been cozy and familiar when I woke up now seemed foreign to me. Our home had been full of dreams and aspirations for me; now none of those remained.

When I wrote my note to Ginny, it took everything in my power not to say the things that were in my heart. But I remembered what I'd been told about her lover, and the last thing I wanted to do was to alert him that we were onto him. So I kept my message simple and direct, and I didn't make any dramatic gesture like leaving my wedding ring on top of it. But I did take my ring off and slip it into my pocket. The bond it symbolized was broken beyond repair the moment I heard that recording.

During the two-hour flight I tried to divert myself with the Sudoku in the in-flight magazine but I just couldn't concentrate. My hand kept slipping into my pocket to finger the ring lying there. If only it were a magic ring I could use to go back in time before all this started. But then I remembered that whatever urge or vulnerability that had led Ginny into infidelity would still be there, ready to arise when the opportunity came. Damn, I was so fucked up that I couldn't even generate a decent fantasy!

As I came off the jet bridge at Nashville International, a very large man with a prominent bulge under his sports coat sidled up to me and asked, "You Thomas Selfridge?" I started to answer, but realized that I didn't know who this guy was. "Do you have any identification?" I asked.

He sighed, pulled out his wallet and flipped open an FBI badge. I nodded and fell in beside him. "How did you know it was me?" I asked.

"They told me to look for the saddest-looking guy on the plane," he said without even a smile. I fell in beside him, depressed to think that my misery was obvious to everyone.

"Um, I didn't catch your name on your badge," I said, trying to be a little sociable.

"Henry," he said as he walked on down the concourse.

"Er, is 'Henry' your first name or last?" I asked, hurrying to catch up.

"Yep," he said, still walking.

I shook my head. Between my melancholy and Henry's taciturnity, the drive to Oak Ridge ought to be a barrel of laughs, I thought dejectedly.

I'd checked the Google map in the airport before I'd left, and I knew Oak Ridge was slightly over 150 miles almost due east from Nashville on I-40. That meant we had a two-hour drive ahead of us.

As I'd expected, Henry kept his silence for most of the way. But when we passed the exit to Harriman, he unexpectedly nudged me and nodded out toward the left. I glanced up and did a double-take. There poking up through the low ridges and trees were two of the largest smokestacks I'd ever seen. Even with the winter afternoon shadows darkening the surrounding area, the towers were still tall enough to catch the light. The view was surreal, almost like something from a De Chirico painting.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Kingston Steam Plant," Henry said. "It generates 1.7 gigawatts of electricity, most of it for your NSA guys and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory."

We crossed over a bridge, and now I could see the entire structure. "How tall are those things?" I asked.

"Just over a thousand feet," he said, "taller than the Eiffel Tower."

As I digested that, I suddenly realized that this was the longest conversation that Henry and I had held the entire trip. "How come you know so much about all this?" I asked.

He glanced over at me. "I grew up around these parts," he said. Then he abruptly pulled off the interstate onto State Route 58 and headed north toward Oak Ridge. Shortly afterwards he turned into the parking lot of a roadside motel "Too late to go visiting tonight," he said. "We'll stay here."

He caught my skeptical look. "Don't worry. The rooms are small but they're clean," he said.

"Great," I thought. "A terrible day just got a little worse."

December 27

Actually, the motel turned out to be more comfortable than I expected, and the breakfast they served the next morning was delicious. I'd never had grits before, but to my surprise I liked them.

Afterwards we got back in the car and made our way to the gates of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Even though we were on their approved visitors list, the security was still very thorough.

The NSA's operation at Oak Ridge goes by the less-than-descriptive name of the Multiprogram Research Facility, but everybody there just calls it Building 5300. The team at Building 5300 works primarily on code-breaking. In today's world, that means throwing maximum computing power at encrypted data until it whines like a puppy and gives up its secrets.

My specialty is different: I try to analyze computer software of unknown origin and either eradicate or neutralize it. The Oak Ridge boys (and girls) specialize in decryption, so I hadn't had much to do with them in the past. But once they began showing me their toys, ideas began to flow.

In a nutshell, Building 5300 houses what may well be the world's largest and fastest computer. It's so massive that it fills an area the size of a warehouse and requires a tremendous cooling capacity to keep it from frying itself. And did I mention fast? The current iteration of their baby is an exascale computer, which means it can perform ten-to-the-18th power calculations per second. Even 128-bit encryption can't stand up to that.

What intrigued me was the idea of turning that kind of power loose on viruses, worms and Trojan horses. The hackers who write this stuff have their own style, their own way of solving problems. It occurred to me that it might be possible to identify who wrote a piece of malware by the way they wrote the code. "I get it: kind of like a linguist can tell where a text comes from and when it was written by the choice of words, spellings and phrases," the head techie said excitedly. "All we'd need would be enough samples so we could identify patterns and tendencies."

I was pretty pleased with myself at that idea and vowed to present it to my boss as soon as I got back to Fort Meade. Businesses and governments were coming under increasing numbers of cyber-attacks. This might be a way to identify who had launched the attack and where it had come from.

About that time I heard a grunt from behind me and I turned around to see Henry looking at his watch. He'd been patiently and silently following me all day, and now he was not-so-subtly letting me know that it was quitting time. I checked my phone and was surprised to realize just how late it had gotten.

That evening Henry drove me into the city of Oak Ridge and took me to Dean's Restaurant for dinner. The place wasn't much to look at - a converted pharmacy - but the fried catfish Henry ordered was delicious. "I might turn into a Southerner if everything is this good," I told him. He just snorted.

When I got back to my room at the motel, I turned on my cellphone and discovered that I had a voicemail from Ginny. My sudden "business trip" was unusual, and she was both surprised and annoyed, especially since I hadn't told her when I'd be back. "I guess I'm making it hard for her to arrange her next liaison with Ameer," I thought bitterly, and started to erase her message. Instead I replayed it so I could listen to her voice more closely. It was strange: her voice sounded like it always did, but I couldn't stop hearing the lascivious tone she'd used with her lover. How could she be so recognizable and so unfamiliar at the same time? Finally I shut off the phone and flopped back on the bed.

As I lay there, scenes from our life together kept flashing through my mind. Suddenly, I recalled the time Ginny had come home all upset because her best friend had caught her husband cheating. "I told her to kick that bum out and then find a hired-gun lawyer to take him to the cleaners," she said vengefully. "If he didn't want to stay married he could at least have filed for divorce. He didn't have to cheat."