“This is home,” Jake said as he descended the narrow set of steps from the center console down into the cabin.
“Isn’t it a little cramped?” she asked as she navigated the steep steps.
“It’s homey.”
“And it moves. How do you get used to that?”
“Hadn’t noticed.”
Honi looked around. Dishes were stacked in the small sink, clothes strewn around the main cabin. She sniffed the air. No lingering smoke, perfume or stale beer. That was a positive sign, but so far, the only one. “Your place could use a good cleaning.”
He stared back at her. “You volunteering?”
She scoffed. “Do I look like the domestic type to you?”
He didn’t answer.
She pulled her secure phone out of her jeans pocket and dug deeper for the earbuds. She picked a crumpled shirt up between her thumb and forefinger with the other fingers extended into the air. She gently tossed the shirt at him and sat down at the small table.
He grabbed the shirt from the air and set it down next to him.
She accessed the secure database at the NSA, punched in the search parameters and looked at the screen. “No recognized keywords in the recordings.”
“I have tea or coffee.” He opened the small refrigerator and peered inside. “I can warm up some egg rolls.”
“How old?”
“Last night?”
She pursed her lips as she considered the egg rolls. “Sure, and tea would be fine.”
He started warming the egg rolls and heated some water for tea.
“This is going to take a while. I’ve got 14 hours of recordings to wade through.” She placed her notebook and pen in front of her on the table. Identifying hidden code words was a tedious process. People using the code words tried to put them into a context that said one thing, but meant something else. She had to listen to the phrasing several times to decide if there was a real context, or a contrived one. A contrived context indicated the presence of hidden code words.
As the afternoon slowly dragged into evening, Jake went out and picked up some Italian dinners and brought them back to the boat.
“Anything yet?”
She shrugged her shoulders. They ate while she listened.
The clock had crept past ten at night when Jake suggested they quit for the night and continue in the morning. She suddenly looked up at him, her interest and attention piqued at what she was hearing.
“What?” he asked.
She scribbled down several words. 15:47, VB? Benji, cars.
“What does it mean?”
She shrugged, shook her head and continued listening.
Four hours later she was still analyzing the recorded conversations. Jake had fallen asleep on a padded bench and she needed to stretch her legs. She quietly climbed the steps to the main deck of the sailboat, ducked under the wrapped sail and walked slowly toward the bow.
Her family had immigrated to the U.S. from Baden Baden, Germany after World War II. Her grandparents, being less than a hundred yards from the French border, had been active in the resistance movement against the Nazis, helping to pass Jews and downed pilots out of Germany and spies back in. Her grandfather had been recruited into the Office of Strategic Services during the war, and her father had joined the CIA after he graduated from college. Her parents had trained her in tradecraft and surveillance techniques from the time she was a small child, so when the opportunity arose, she was a natural for the NSA. She was now Head of Section for Covert Surveillance and loving every minute of it.
She looked up at the night sky. There was no moon, but the stars were obscured by the lights in the sky. She stood, mesmerized, by the colorful display of red, green and blue swirls of soft light that filled the black canopy above her. She had seen the Aurora Borealis as a child, but the northern lights were just that, confined to the top of the world. These lights covered the entire sky: shifting, blending, fading and strengthening. The panorama of hues and the slow-motion dance had her enthralled. She paused the recording and sat on the forward section of the main cabin, leaning back so she could take in the entire spectacle at once. It was the most unusual thing she had ever seen.
A cool breeze drifted off the water. She felt slightly chilled, but she couldn’t drag herself away from the lights in the sky. She continued to listen to the recording as she watched the silent performance taking place above her.
Jake woke up at 6:21 a.m. and looked around. She wasn’t there. He checked the small bathroom to no avail. He found her sitting on the top of the sailboat cabin, still listening to the recorded phone conversations.
“You were awake all night?” he asked.
“Some people don’t waste their time. Besides, you missed quite the show last night.”
“Show?”
“The lights in the sky.”
“What kind of lights?”
“You know — the wavy curtains of light high up in the night sky.”
“The Aurora Borealis?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “You know what they are?”
“Astronomy, minor in science in college. Kind of a hobby now. So the lights were in the north?”
“That was the odd thing. The lights were directly overhead. They covered the entire sky.”
Jake felt the blood drain from his face. “We aren’t supposed to have any lights in the sky. We’re at a sunspot minimum. No sunspots, no solar storms, no northern lights. How long did they last?”
“I don’t know. They were still there when the sky started to get light, just before dawn.”
Jake looked out over the water. “That shouldn’t have been happening. We need to see an old friend of mine.”
“Now? What about the investigation?”
“It can wait, this is important.”
“It’s another waste of my time, and my agency!”
Jake took a quick shower and dressed. He drove her to her apartment west of Alexandria, Virginia where she reluctantly showered and changed.
Thirty minutes later they entered the Space Studies Board on Fifth. The board was the central collection and distribution point for all information relating to the sun and space weather. The SSB was also the US National Committee to the Committee on Space Research, referred to as COSPAR.
“We’re here to see Dr. Spencer,” Jake said.
“He got your call, and he’s waiting in his office,” the secretary replied.
“Jake,” Dr. Spencer said, a warm smile on his face. “What can I do for my favorite godson?”
“This is agent Honika Badger, NSA. She tells me we had an aurora last night. What happened?”
Dr. Spencer breathed out quickly and glanced down at the floor. He wasn’t smiling any more. “It’s not good, Jake, not good at all.”
“I thought we were in a sunspot minimum period.”
“Sun spot minimum?” Honi asked.
“Sun spots are caused by huge magnetic storms on the surface of the sun,” Jake explained. “They gradually build up to a maximum every eleven years, or there about, and then they suddenly stop. For the next three to four years, there aren’t any sunspots, and then the whole cycle runs all over again.”
“So we’re in a time where there aren’t supposed to be any of these magnetic storms on the sun?”
“We are,” Dr. Spencer replied quietly. “That’s why the storms are, well, troubling.”
“Troubling? How?” Jake asked.
“First, we aren’t supposed to be having any storms for another three to four years. Second, the storms aren’t normal. They’re Coronal Mass Ejections, where the surface material of the sun is thrown off into space, not the usual magnetic storms or flares. Third, they are ejected on a path that comes directly at us, which is relatively rare.”