Behind me, the suits were chattering. “We made a full sweep of his office. A few files, some extra wires and stuff. Nothing on his desk but a bunch of maps.”
“Nothing?” They weren’t expecting me to speak. They looked at me as if they’d thought I was part of the computer. “There was nothing else on that desk? Not even a book? In the upper-right-hand corner?”
A few glances were exchanged. “No, nothing. Was something there before?”
“
Silent Spring.
Paperback. Green cover. It’s not valuable. I mean, it’s a weird thing to take with you when you are running for your life. Think of how much more money he could have carried on him if he’d left that book here.” I was on to something. And they were looking at me like I was
on
something.
I thought of my dad. And
Go, Dog, Go!
No, I was not having my long overdue nervous breakdown. I just had a feeling that my dad and
Go, Dog, Go!
were going to help me. This may seem off topic here, but I absolutely hated kindergarten. Preschool had been fine, because I was fascinated by the new environment and all the kids in my class. But in kindergarten they were teaching us our numbers, like which numbers friends got together to add up to five. Let’s just say I was bored out of my mind. So as a sort of bribe, my dad would place a coded message in my lunch box every day. It delighted me so much that I stopped complaining about school.
His codes were based off a single text—
Go, Dog, Go!
—which was my very favorite book. My favorite pages of my favorite book were pages 28 and 29, which are the most symmetrical pages in any picture book I have ever seen. The center of the Ferris wheel lies perfectly on the seam of the two pages, and even the words are balanced in either direction. Anyway, page 28 begins: “The dogs are all going around, and around, and around . . .” They just keep going around in this circle, no beginning and no end. This still relaxes me when I think about it. My dad always used the first lines of that page to encrypt his message.
So, let’s say he gave me a cipher text like JCEDALLUGSJSTA. I would translate it into a series of numbers, based on their order in the alphabet: 10, 3, 5, 4, 1, 12, 12, 21, 7, 19, 10, 19, 20, 1, and then subtract it from the numbers that corresponded to my key stream, which in this case was only THEDOGSAREALLG because it was a short message. Here, that number stream is 20, 8, 5, 4, 15, 7, 19, 1, 18, 5, 1, 12, 12, 7. You just subtract them, so the first would be 10 − 20 = −10. If the answer is negative or zero, you have to remember you are working off of a mod 26 clock and add back 26. So that first one would really be 10 − 20 + 26 = 16. The second would be 3 − 8 + 26 = 21. The third is 5 − 5 + 26 = 26. Keep doing this until you have a new stream of numbers, all 26 and lower, and then convert them to letters to get your message. So, 16 is P, and that’s the first letter of your answer; 21 is U. (This message read PUZZLESTONIGHT and it was my favorite, because it promised lots of time with my dad and probably popcorn.)
I think we’ve established that I had an unusual childhood and an awesome dad. And do try this at home.
“John, get my laptop.” John did as he was told. I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, but it’s really nice how he takes me seriously in these situations. Note to self:
Try to avoid these situations from now on and find other situations to be taken seriously in.
I stared at my page of numbers. “Go to Amazon. How many pages are in the paperback version of
Silent Spring
?”
“Okay . . . Rachel Carson, Houghton Mifflin, 1962 . . . here it is, four hundred. Why?”
Huh. Jonas Furnis was using a cipher text as his password. And I was guessing that it changed every five minutes to the first line of a different page of
Silent Spring.
That’s what the number at the end of the code was all about. “Can you find a PDF of the book? It has to be the paperback edition, so I know where the pages begin and end exactly.”
“Looking, looking . . . yes. Here it is. What page?”
I looked up at the code just as it was changing: RGFJHPWOL170. “Page one seventy. Read me the first line on that page.”
John read, “The presence of any pesticide . . .”
The countdown began.
I
HAD TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES ON THE CLOCK
, which meant that I had five tries to get this right. I had to take the letter part of the code on the box and convert it to numbers and then take the first nine letters on page 170 (THEPRESEN) and convert them to numbers. Then I had to subtract the
Silent Spring
stream from the coded stream to get a new set of numbers, which I would then convert back to letters and enter into the keypad. I started and was too late. I was getting so close that I was getting flustered.
The current code changed to HXVDQXLZB197. “John, read me the first line of page one ninety-seven. Hurry.”
“And deceived the government chemists.”
“
I
before
e,
or
e
before
i
?” This always baffles me, and if I was going to have to explain that question further, my head was going to implode.
“
E
before
i.
” So the nine letters were ANDDECEIV. Those letters translate into 1, 14, 4, 4, 5, 3, 5, 9, 22. The current code on the black box was HXVDQXLZB, which in numbers is 8, 24, 22, 4, 17, 24, 12, 26, 2. If I subtract that from the first stream of numbers, remembering to add back 26 when it’s negative, I get 7, 10, 18, 26, 12, 21, 7, 17, 6. The answer is GJRZLUGQF, and I was thirty seconds too late to save Manhattan.
By this time John was completely onboard. The next code was YDYEEUISJ48. John immediately got to page 48. “The first word is
predators.
It’s nine letters. Go.” And I started again. The room was completely silent, or at least it was to me. The camera angle in the movie version of my life was so tight on that piece of paper that there could have been an explosion in the room and I wouldn’t have heard it. As soon as I had it, I typed ILTADATAQ into the keypad. Three beeps and a green light. Disarmed.
I sat back in my chair, with the adrenaline still raging through my body. I wasn’t sure if I could move or cry or even regulate my breathing.
Mr. Bennett pulled me up out of my chair and hugged me. “You are an amazing girl. We’ve just got to get you working for the right people.”
John was standing behind his dad, impatient.
“Mr. Bennett, if you don’t mind, could I . . . ?” He let me go and I fell into John’s arms.
Danny joined us. “Group hug! Not bad, Digit. Now I’m going for a walk. Anywhere.” As he went upstairs, I heard him ask Adam, “Who gets all that cash?”
John led me out of the commotion, up the creepy staircase, through the now-ransacked first floor, and outside. I hadn’t been outside in three days. The light stung my eyes and the cool air overwhelmed me. I took several deep breaths and took off my boots. I had to feel the dirt under my feet. I became aware of a loud noise above me and started to duck before I realized it was just the birds.
“I think I need to sit down.” We sat at the base of a giant sycamore tree. The roots were spaced perfectly to fit us, like a love seat. John took my right hand between his two. “How’d you get away?”
“Knife in the sole of my shoe. Those guys are total rookies.”
We both laughed, a little nervously. “So I’m starting to think maybe I need to get my act together.” I turned to look at him and got a smile. “Tone it down a bit.”
“Maybe if you need to get your teenage rebellion out of the way, you can just dye your hair pink or pierce something or smash people’s mailboxes? Isn’t that what they do on TV? I feel like the whole felony hacking thing isn’t really working for you.”
“It was stupid. And impulsive. Normal people just wait for stuff.”
John started to say something and then shook his head.
“What?”
“It’s just . . . I think that’s what I was trying to tell you. I was upset and scared and so far in over my head in our relationship. I didn’t say it right. I want to wait for you. I want to wait until we’ve got things figured out and can be in the same place, building a real life together. Not just having two lives that we’re half living and trying to describe to each other.”
“What if you meet someone else?”
“I won’t. You might, but I won’t. My dad would kill me.” He smiled and put his arm around me.
“Am I going to go to jail?”
“We’ll figure it out.” Just then Danny walked outside, and the breeze caught his grass skirt and blew it straight up. We all laughed and the birds kept singing and the fresh air kept being fresh.
Don’t you wish the story ended right here?
I
N WHAT I NOW LIKE TO
think of as my big Katniss moment, I realized when I got to Langley that a lot was going on while I was underground. My parents had moved into a Holiday Inn Express minutes from CIA headquarters. Mrs. Bennett had acted as their host, escorting them to the CIA every day and keeping them informed. When I arrived at Langley (uncuffed, thanks to Mr. Bennett), I found them waiting outside the director’s office with Mrs. Bennett and my uncle Bob.
I rushed over to my dad, and Danny rushed to my mom. We switched. My mom was pleased to see that I’d showered. We had each had a turn in Jonas Furnis’s rainwater shower, complete with homemade soap. I found several unused bars in his private chambers, each wrapped in burlap and seemingly uncontaminated by a lunatic’s DNA. Assured that we were alive and smelled okay, my mom started: “Darling, your new sweater. Danny, where are your pants?”
Mr. and Mrs. Bennett were hugging and whispering to each other until John approached, the third wheel. Mrs. Bennett said how proud she was of him, and I could see that she meant it. She looked really tired and uncharacteristically un-put-together. I imagine that this is probably as close as she’s ever come to losing her entire family. To my surprise, she came over and hugged me, a real hug. “Dear, I’m very happy that you are alive. No more trouble. We need you.” I nodded, resisting the temptation to salute.
I turned to Uncle Bob, trying to hide my “What in the world are you doing here?” expression. “Um, hi, Uncle Bob. Nice to see you.”
“Digit, I’m going to be representing you.”
“I need a lawyer?”
“This is more serious than you may think. The CIA cannot and will not sweep this thing under the carpet. There has been too much media coverage, too much unrest on campus.”
“Unrest? Why?” I hadn’t thought about anything at all going on at MIT. I only knew the students on my hall, so I figured most people wouldn’t even know I was gone.
“It started with a small group of hackers who see your arrest as a human rights violation. They think you’ve performed a service to the country by revealing a chink in its armor. Their enthusiasm has caught on, campus-wide. They’re demonstrating for TV cameras; they’re sleeping outside. That kind of unrest. The CIA is mortified, I think.”
I turned to Mr. and Mrs. Bennett. “But the director, I mean, is it up to him? Isn’t he your friend?” They were all staring at me, though slightly over my head. I turned around to see a very fit, very well-groomed man standing in the door to the office behind me. His face was so angular that I imagined his cheek slicing a tomato on an infomercial. With everyone behind me, he had to greet me first.
“Are you her?” He barked those words in a way that made me feel like he should have a clipboard in his hand and a whistle around his neck. The head coach of the CIA.
Go, team.
I nodded.
“In my office. Now. Bring your lawyer.” I took a step toward the office, and Uncle Bob, my parents, and John did the same. The director held up his hand. “You’re an adult. Leave your parents, leave your boyfriend. Just bring your lawyer.”
“He’s not . . . we’re . . .” I stopped myself from making a distinction that didn’t seem to matter here.
This guy is John’s godfather? Are you kidding? Mine is my mom’s cousin Jeffrey, who runs a summer camp and always has cookie crumbs in his pockets. Who’d pick this guy?
I glanced around to make sure I hadn’t said it out loud. All clear.
When we were all seated, the director behind his desk and Uncle Bob and me in unusually low chairs across from him, the director spoke a single word: “Thoughtless.”
Silence.
“Do you know what the word means?” Silence. “It means without thought. It does not mean that you were unable to think, which you most certainly are. It does not mean that you intended to do harm, which I have to assume you did not. It means that you acted without thought—without thought for the law, without thought for the consequences, without thought for your country. Thoughtless.”
Silence.
Now usually when someone is thoughtless (and I now had a fairly clear understanding of the exact definition of the word), it’s something like they forgot to write a thank-you note or they ate the last piece of cheesecake. These things can usually be fixed with a heartfelt apology. I gave it a whirl:
“Mr. Director, sir, I hope you can accept my apology. It was an impulsive thing to do, and I agree that it was thoughtless. I just wanted to get to a party because I had promised my roommate, who had a broken heart. And as you know, I was already granted access to the information, so it was kind of like a timing . . .”
“Please don’t say ‘timing difference.’ You hacked into the DOD—this is not to be made light of. You will be charged with a whole bunch of things that the lawyers will come up with. In my mind, you are on trial for felony thoughtlessness. Your trial begins in two weeks.”
Wait. What?
“Trial? Is this a joke? I’m a college kid. I did something stupid.”
“Again, you’re technically a college adult. And, yes, you did. Among other things, you have the right to a speedy trial. Now go.”
You’re probably wondering what I’m paying that crackerjack attorney of mine. You know, the one who doesn’t say a single word in my defense. I knew two things for sure: You get what you pay for, and it didn’t matter at all. I had no case.