Blake and Sobel exchanged a quick glance. “We don’t have much time, son. We have to move on this fast.”
“Give me till tomorrow morning.”
“Midnight,” Sobel replied. “Call us by midnight. Don’t worry-I’ll be up.”
No doubt, Ben thought. He wondered if she ever slept at all.
“I’ll get back to you as soon as possible,” Ben said, rising.
“You do that, son.” The president rose and walked Ben toward the east door. “I don’t mean to scare you. But we’ve already gotten wind of at least three other terrorist plots against this nation. Against me and several other important governmental figures. Some random attacks against the general population. Anything to demoralize and terrify the people. Evil, cowardly plots.”
He put his hand firmly on Ben’s shoulder. “I don’t know how much more bluntly I can put it, son. We must act quickly, before it’s too late. And I don’t think I’m overstating things when I say the fate of this great nation may well rest upon your shoulders.”
15
Ben felt ridiculous creeping through the back stairwell that led to the rear door of his Senate office. He had discovered this private passageway when he was working on Senator Glancy’s defense-the murder had been committed there-but he had never expected to use it himself. He was a U.S. senator, for Pete’s sake. However junior or unelected he might be, he shouldn’t have to sneak into his own office. But he knew what would happen if he came through the front entrance in his usual manner, and he was in no mood to be ambushed by Christina. He needed some time to be alone. He needed to think.
He tiptoed through the rear door as quietly as possible and gently closed it.
“Got a hangover, champ?”
Ben froze.
“I can only assume your head was throbbing, given the way you’re tiptoeing around. Guess you and the leader of the free world hit the bourbon bottle too hard.”
Ben slithered into the chair behind his desk. Busted.
“So you know I met with the president?”
“That’s not the sort of thing you can keep quiet,” Christina said, hovering over his desk like a vulture scrutinizing its prey. “This whole wing of the Russell Building knows you met with the president. A minute ago, I heard it on CNN.”
“Hardly seems that newsworthy…”
“The President of the United States invites in a junior senator, a political opponent, the other politician who survived the April nineteenth attack, just after proposing a sweeping constitutional amendment that would dramatically alter the status of civil rights in America. You’re right-nothing newsworthy about that.”
Ben didn’t have to look up to know she was wearing her sarcastic face, which he knew many in these hallowed halls referred to as her “How stupid are you?” face. “I guess I’m not used to having people tracking my movements.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it, if you’re going to be hanging out with the president. Or running for reelection. What did he offer you?”
“Offer me?”
“In exchange for your support of his Nazi amendment. Some pork barrel project for the state of Oklahoma? Or maybe something you’d find even harder to resist. More money for education. Support for some version of your antipoverty bill. Maybe he even said he’d throw his weight behind the Protection of the Alaskan Wilderness legislation.”
“Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Depends on what it costs,” Christina said curtly. As if by sleight of hand, a report suddenly appeared in her hands. “I’ve been talking to Barry Koehler. You know who he is?”
Ben racked his brain. “Some sort of lobbyist…”
“Close. Works for the ACLU. Possibly the leading expert on American privacy-or the lack thereof.”
Ben clenched his eyes shut. Here we go…
“Did you know that the government has reconnaissance satellites that can take pictures all over the globe- pictures with a resolution rating of ten centimeters, which is good enough to read the title on the spine of a book?”
“I assume that’s for foreign intelligence gathering.”
“You’d think. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the spy satellites are also being used to track the activities of U.S. citizens. There’s a little-known federal agency called the National Imagery and Mapping Agency that collects, analyzes, and saves images taken by these satellites all over the world.”
“Isn’t that good for law enforcement?”
“Sometimes. The FBI and CIA use them to monitor security when various dignitaries are making public appearances. They were used at the Winter Olympics for the same reason several years ago. But why are they being used to observe the activities of ordinary Americans?”
“It’s probably just a temporary thing…”
She continued unabated. “Another hush-hush operation called Future Imagery Architecture recently launched another dozen spy satellites. They’re ramping up, not down. We’re looking at the possibility of constant, real-time surveillance of the entire planet.”
“They’d need a warrant to take pictures of private citizens.”
“You’re supposed to need a warrant to wiretap private citizens. But with a new intelligence program called Echelon, the NSA is now capable of intercepting three billion communications a day. Think about it. What are the odds that any given call you make might be recorded by the NSA? Pretty darn good, as it turns out.”
“Christina…”
“Needless to say, the government is monitoring Internet traffic in a big way. The FBI has a program called Carnivore that targets an ISP and scans all the information that passes through it-e-mail, Web surfing, anything they want. Carnivore can analyze and, if desired, record millions of messages per second.”
“Anybody who expects privacy on the Internet is delusional.”
Christina leaned in closer, the lines of her face tightening. “The Treasury Department has a program called the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.”
Ben folded his arms across his chest. “Good. Financial crimes are bad. Wreck people’s lives.”
“Don’t kid yourself. This is an excuse to collect and save financial data on private citizens, possibly matched with the digitized pictures taken by spy satellites and recordings of their telephone and Internet conversations. FinCEN requires banks to provide them information on private citizens whenever the Treasury Department issues a suspicious activity report-which they can do anytime they want.”
“I’m sure the bank would notify its customer.”
“To the contrary, banks are forbidden by law from notifying their customers. The whole process is totally invisible to the people being spied upon.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem quite kosher…”
“Did you know the government now has something called Forward Looking infrared cameras that can literally look through walls and take pictures? Did you know they can digitize your face, record it, and store it in a computerized database?”
“What could they possibly do with that?”
