“My thoughts precisely. But we need to do it outside.”
They re-entered Colonel Jensen’s office, at which point Stafford and Jensen shut up, but maintained glaring at each other.
“Major Stafford,” Jake said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. We need to leave.” He tugged at Stafford’s arm and motioned with his head toward the door.
“This isn’t over,” Stafford said, anger still dominating his voice.
When they reached the parking lot, Jake said, “He didn’t do it.”
“How do you know?”
“We know,” Honi replied giving him a knowing look.
“NSA?”
“We could hear your conversation with the Colonel. You should watch what you say.”
“It’s the army — part of a standardized vocabulary.”
“Not really my point.”
Stafford closed his eyes and breathed out. “Now what?”
“Do you know anyone who can get the Colonel out of his office without raising suspicion?” Jake asked.
“I do.”
Ten minutes later they pulled to the curb in Officer Country, the residential section of the base reserved for high ranking army officers.
“Let me go get her. She knows me.”
Jake and Honi watched Stafford walk up the sidewalk and knock on the door. A moment later Mrs. Jensen appeared. Stafford didn’t speak, he just motioned her out of the house and down toward the car. Jake and Honi got out to meet them.
“Eleanor, these are friends of mine, FBI Agent Jake Hunter and NSA Agent Honika Badger.”
They shook hands. Jake and Honi showed her their IDs.
“Mrs. Jensen, I don’t quite know how to explain this, but we believe your husband’s office phone is bugged. Your phone at home may be, as well. We need to get your husband out of his office without whoever is listening knowing that we know about the bug. Can you help us do that?”
Eleanor grinned and her eyes lit up. “Really! Nothing this exciting has happened in decades. Howie and I have code words that we established right after we got married. Haven’t ever used some of them. Well, the serious ones. Where do you need him to go and when?”
“Just the parking lot in front of his office in, say, fifteen minutes?”
“Could I come along?”
“Jensen’s going to be expecting her to be there,” Stafford said.
Honi glanced at Jake. He nodded.
“Sure.”
Eleanor pulled her cell phone out of a small pocket in her dress and speed-dialed her husband.
“Hi honey. When you leave the office I need you to stop by the commissary and pick up a 15-ounce can of green beans for dinner tonight. Would you do that, please?” She waited. “Thanks, honey. I’ll see you then.” She clicked off.
Jake smiled. “Clever. What needs to be done — leave the office, a number for how many minutes and a color for the level of urgency? I assume the smallest size is for immediate action, and you normally don’t refer to each other using ‘honey’?”
Eleanor looked shocked. “I didn’t think our code was that transparent. Do we need better codes?”
“Not necessarily,” Honi said. “Doing that is kind of his thing.”
“Still…”
“Your code is fine, trust me.”
Fifteen minutes later Colonel Jensen walked out of the administration building and spotted his wife. His expression darkened when he saw who was standing next to her.
“What the hell is going on, Stafford?”
“I know you didn’t tell anyone, sir, I trust you completely.”
Colonel Jensen frowned.
“Colonel,” Honi said. “Someone is listening in on your phone.”
“Bullshit! That phone is checked every morning for bugs.”
“Colonel. Can you trust me that somebody is listening to everything that goes on in your office?”
Jensen looked at Honi suspiciously. She nodded.
“Home, too?”
“Probably.”
Jensen looked Stafford in the eyes. They nodded at each other.
“Okay. Now what?” Jensen asked.
“You and Major Stafford need to arrange for sensitive conversations to take place somewhere far away from any phones. That includes any cell phones. At least until we can find out who is doing this, and why,” Jake said.
Colonel Jensen looked at Stafford. “Wouldn’t be a bad policy from this point on, present circumstances notwithstanding.”
“Agreed.”
“We need to keep this need-to-know and as small a group as possible,” Jake said.
“And we still need to get into Fort Hood and examine those records,” Stafford said. “I’ll take an armored column in there if I have to.”
Colonel Jensen grinned. “You’ve learned the army way, Stafford — projection of power. But if you ever want to make Lt. Colonel, you need to learn projection of people. Eleanor and I will take care of the arrangements. I want you and the CID team ready to enter the front gate to Fort Hood at 0800 hours, tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Eleanor and I have to invite someone out to dinner.”
Jake and Honi entered area 4 of the sixth basement level of the NSA building.
“Damn,” Brett said with a strong hint of admiration in his voice. “You sure stirred up the hornet’s nest!”
“So what happened?”
“Three technicians failed their polygraph, plus one tried to run. He’s being held in the security office. One or more of them have broken security, so whoever is implicated as a suspect in our phone plot may know we’re on to them.”
Honi raised her eyebrows.
“Yes, it’s that serious. Our new project is now triple password protected, which rotates every hour through a manually disseminated list. Deputy Director Ellington personally delivers the list.”
Jake and Honi returned to the security office on the ground floor. As they entered, Sebastian Pettigrew stood, a grim expression on his face.
“FBI Special Agent Hunter. Somehow, I figured you’d be the one to show up. I’ve got two people in custody, each in a different interview room. One’s the technician who tried to run from the polygraph. The other is his old supervisor, who, according to Ellington, didn’t have access privileges to your new project, but got in, anyway.”
“You know about the new project?” Honi asked.
Pettigrew nodded. “You know how this place works. With the security shakeup, everybody in the building knows there’s a new project.”
Honi’s shoulders dropped and she furrowed her brow. “It would have taken longer if I’d simply painted a target on it.”
Pettigrew chuckled. “Agent Hunter, I assume you want to interview the technician first?”
“Yes. I need as much information as I can get before I confront the supervisor.”
Pettigrew handed Jake the files on the two people and led them back to the first interview room. Jake quickly reviewed the file on the first suspect, Giles Svensen, looking for anything he could use as leverage. He wasn’t married, no children, no family to speak of, so, many of the usual ways of emotionally leaning on people weren’t available with this guy. Jake and Honi entered and sat at the small table opposite the technician.
Jake flipped through Giles’ file again and studied his ID card, which was clipped to his shirt pocket. Jake pulled out his FBI ID and badge pack and plopped it down on the table in front of Giles, who stared at it and began breathing more rapidly. That’s a good sign, Jake thought. Fear.
“Mr. Giles Svensen, you are being held for violation of the National Security Act. Do you have any family we need to notify?”
Svensen shook his head.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
Svensen blinked twice before he shook his head.
So, a lie, Jake thought. He’s emotionally involved with someone. His supervisor, maybe?