Blue Warrior

The service technician. He’d left twenty minutes before, after a service call. Her TV signal had been experiencing irregular glitches the last few days. She had called for service and the tech arrived today, to replace one of the circuit boards on the satellite dish.

“Forget something?”

“No, ma’am. Found this about a mile up the road.” He handed her an electronic device about the size of a tablet.

“What is it?”

“Not sure, ma’am. But it’s generating a radar signal. And it was pointed in the direction of your house.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m retired Navy. I just do this job to keep from getting bored. Radar is kind of a hobby of mine. I carry a homemade rig in my truck, picks up all kinds of radar signatures, especially wide-spectrum. About a mile north of here, my rig alarmed. It wasn’t one of the police bandwidths, for sure. So I pulled over. Looked around with my handheld. Found an all-weather box strapped to a tree. Kind of unusual, to say the least. Found that inside. Just thought you should know.”

She flipped the device over. No markings. “What do you think it was doing?”

“Can’t be sure, but I’d guess it’s some kind of surveillance function. You need to run it by your people, just to be sure.”

Her security chief, Roy Fox, was scheduled to stop by after lunch. She’d ask him then.

“Thank you for taking all of the time and effort to bring me this.”

He shrugged. “Glad to do it.” Then he added, “If you don’t mind my saying, ma’am, you were a damn fine president. I hated like hell to see you go.”

Roy Fox arrived on schedule after lunch. He was former FBI, a specialist within the communications exploitation section (CXS) of the bureau’s Counterterrorism Division. Fox easily identified the tablet-sized device in his hands as one of the next-generation PHOTOANGLO radar units.

“This isn’t good.”

“What’s the problem?”

He explained. Myers agreed. This wasn’t good at all.

The presence of a PHOTOANGLO unit meant LOUDAUTO passive room bugs, or their equivalents, were planted in her house. The LOUDAUTO units were nearly impossible to find, either by electronic detection or physical inspection, if they were properly inserted. The miniature microphones turned room audio like human voices into analogue electrical signals that were picked up by the PHOTOANGLO radar unit, rebroadcast to a relay station, then reconverted to audio files for analysis.

Fox went on to explain that similar passive bugs could record keyboard strokes, printer outputs, and even video cable signals.

“God only knows how long they’ve been in place.” His face flushed. “I’ll tender my resignation immediately, of course.”

Myers didn’t know what to think. She had hired Fox to protect her security. He’d obviously failed. But whoever had deployed these devices was world-class. Maybe she was at fault for not taking her security more seriously.

“Well, at least we know now.” She pointed a finger at an invisible room bug. “And so do they.”

“I just hope there isn’t another PHOTOANGLO out there still picking up this conversation.”

“Why don’t you and your team conduct a sweep. Yank out everything you can find.”

Fox pulled out his cell phone, scrolling for numbers. “I’ve got a few favors I can call in. I’ll get a team here right away. I won’t let you down again.”

He bolted out of the room with the phone in his ear.

Myers didn’t know what to do next. She knew that all of this equipment was standard NSA ANT spy craft — the kind of technology they deployed to spy on the European Union, the UN, and sometimes even hostile governments in its DROPMIRE program. Not that any of these devices were stamped NSA. But she herself had approved of their deployment when national security was at stake. At least, that’s what she believed at the time.

Now that she was being targeted by the very same technology, she began to doubt the wisdom of her previous decisions. She felt horribly exposed, even violated. She understood that sometimes people were targeted in order to eliminate them as suspects. Didn’t matter. Her privacy had been stolen from her, and no matter the reason, she resented it. Now she understood the rage of people like Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had been similarly bugged by her American “friends.” Was it possible that spying on allies caused more damage than it prevented? Spying, by definition, was illegal. Spying on allies violated trust, and alliances were built on trust.

Myers knew these surveillance units were also available to other federal agencies, and even state and local investigative units, including some of the larger metropolitan police departments. Undoubtedly, other national governments had access to similar technology as well. There was really no way to determine who might be behind these incursions. But she hadn’t committed any crimes. This couldn’t be an official investigation. This was a private affair — undoubtedly, the same people connected to Tanner’s death.