Deep State Stealth

by Vikki Kestell

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

  “Jayda.” Mrs. Jackson held out a plastic container. “These are for you and Zander, dear. Know they come with our love and gratitude.”

  Humbled, I accepted the container of cookies. “Thank you, ma’am. We will enjoy them.”

  WE HAD SCARCELY QUIT the White House grounds before Zander pressed me. “We’re going to ‘invade every nook, crack, and cranny of their lives’? ‘Our scrutiny will be pervasive, relentless, and inescapable’? You sounded like a secret agent from a B movie—a bad B movie at that. And don’t we need warrants or something?”

  “We’re long past warrants, Zander. We’re operating under the President’s direct orders, utterly in the black.”

  “Does that make us any better than Cushing’s team?”

  I slowed to a stop and blew out a breath of frustration. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I want to stay within the law, but . . .”

  “But the President’s enemies aren’t affected by such scruples?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

  “It’s a slippery slope, babe.”

  “I know—and I don’t like it. Whatever happens, when this threat is over, we cannot go on using the nanomites in this way.”

  “Agreed.”

  BLAKE MORNINGSIDE, U.S. Secret Service Deputy Assistant Director, entered his condo, locked the door behind him, and set the alarm. Seconds after, he heard the muffled ring of a phone. The man unlocked his desk and eyed the burner phone with disquiet. The caller ID showed no name, but he recognized the number.

  Pull yourself together, he told himself.

  He put the phone to his ear. “Yes?”

  “I really would prefer that you reported to me with more regularity.”

  The breathy voice on the other end never failed to make his skin tingle. It was both seductive and intimidating at the same time. While he and the woman saw each other in public with some regularity, they never interacted; however, Morningside knew her quite well. He knew, too, that her requests were not to be ignored.

  “I have nothing new to report. My agents tell me that the President hasn’t made a vice presidential selection. He has an uncanny ability to see how the parties would react to each candidate. At this point, we surmise that he may have put the selection process on hold.”

  “You surmise? What do his conversations tell you?

  “That he is considering waiting until the election to choose a running mate.”

  “That is entirely unsatisfactory.”

  Morningside scrambled for something further to report. “The President, uh, did mention the name of the governor of Utah in passing today. He thought she stood a chance at confirmation.”

  “A woman. You’re saying the President cannot find a male candidate to satisfy our increasingly divided Congress?”

  “I’m saying he mentioned her name.”

  “And why not a woman—as long as we control her? Control being the objective, of course.”

  She turned inward. “Hmm. A woman, indeed. Too many variables. Lest Jackson select a candidate we cannot easily manipulate, I believe I must take matters into my own hands.”

  Chapter 10

  ZANDER AND I ARRIVED late for the morning service at Grace Chapel. We were bleary-eyed from a long planning session with the nanomites that had lasted much of the night and from the three hours’ sleep we’d snatched on the couch at Gamble’s rental early this morning that were not entirely restful.

  More on that later.

  We’d raced home at nine this morning, showered and changed, grabbed breakfast at a drive-through, and beat it to church. The worship service was well underway when we pulled into the parking lot.

  What we caught of it was wondrous. I might not have a great voice, but I loved singing praises to God. I sank into the worship and gave it all I had.

  After service ended, we kept our lunch date with the pastor and his wife. We met them at the door of a local steak house where Zander and Pastor Lucklow managed the introductions.

  “Thank you for inviting us to lunch, Pastor Lucklow. This is my wife, Jayda.”

  “Delighted to meet you, Jayda. And this is my wife, Karen.”

  We settled into a booth and were, within a few minutes, comfortable with Brian and Karen Lucklow.

  “I allow myself a less-than-healthy lunch once a week,” Pastor Lucklow confided, “and I can assure you that the ribeye here is first-rate.”

  “That sounds great.” I was thinking, I’ll take two—and two loaded baked potatoes, but Zander and I had agreed to keep our lunch portions within normal limits.

  As I scanned the dessert list, I regretted our decision.

  After we’d placed our orders, Pastor Lucklow and his wife focused their attention on me, asking me about myself, my work, my interests. For work I replied with the nonspecific “project manager for a government contractor” and the Lucklows, acquainted with others who worked in classified settings, did not press me further. We did live in the shadow of D.C., Ft. Meade, and the Pentagon, after all.

  At one point in our conversation, Pastor Lucklow mentioned the church’s Celebrate Recovery program.

  Zander replied, “I apologize for missing the meeting Thursday, Pastor. Something came up that I had to attend to. We’ve been praying about the program and plan to attend this coming week.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that. I’ll let the assistant leaders know you’re coming.”

  We passed a delightful hour and a half with the Lucklows. We exchanged the many details people do when getting to know each other, and the Lucklows proved to be a happy, humorous couple with a wealth of experiences in the Lord. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with truly mature Christians, but I loved our time with them and appreciated that Zander and I came away feeling replete in body and soul.

  Well, replete in soul anyway.

  We watched and waited as the Lucklows’ car pulled out of the parking lot before we zipped back inside. After drooling with indecision over the restaurant’s pie case, we came away with two selections: Zander picked the blueberry sour cream pie; mine was fresh strawberry.

  As the hostess boxed up our pies we eyed each other’s purchase.

  Zander broke first. “Split and share?”

  “Agreed.”

  On the way to our car, I said, “Y’know, I kind of feel like an addict sneaking off to meet my dealer.”

  Zander laughed. “I think the First Lady had it right. It isn’t fair that we get to eat whatever we like, as much as we like—but it is the best part of life with the nanomites.”

  “When you sit to dine with a ruler, note well what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony,” Zander Cruz.

  “Out of context, Nano.”

  The nanomites made a one-syllable noncommittal noise that sounded like, Pfffft.

  “Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive.”

  “Nano, I can’t help but wonder if you’re jealous because we said eating whatever we wanted was the best part of life with you.”

  Their reply was frosted with condescension: Zander Cruz, we are given neither to pettiness nor the flawed human emotions of envy or jealousy.

  Zander and I roared. I laughed so hard I lost control of the pie boxes on my lap. Half the whipped cream on the strawberry pie ended up on the box’s inside wall.

  Later, as I stuffed the first bite of strawberries (with whipped cream scraped off the inside of the box) into my mouth, I was certain I heard low-level nano-grumbling.

  “Mmmmmm,” I moaned, smirking at Zander.

  Zander bit into his creamy blueberry pie with exaggerated ecstasy. “Ohhhh, yeah. The best.”

  It was five minutes before we caught our breath and could take another bite.

  It was hours before the nanomites spoke to us again.

  WE MET GAMBLE AT HIS car that evening and escorted him to the rental house for our weekly meeting. Catching him up on the newest developments took the better part
of an hour.

  The grilling afterward took longer.

  “Let me get this straight. Zander, you’re going to report to the White House tomorrow and start identifying Secret Service agents and White House staff members who have been planted there to spy on the President and his administration?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And Jayda, you’re going to somehow surveil four SPOs and one NSA Deputy Director 24/7—all while holding down a full-time job, attending weekly tradecraft training and Zander’s Celebrate Recovery thing?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You guys are killing me.”

  “You look healthy enough.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, Ms. Cruz.”

  I giggled. “Listen, I won’t have to physically be with the surveillance targets to keep tabs on them. We brainstormed with the nanomites late last evening how best to accomplish our purposes.”

  “And?”

  “And then,” Zander answered, “we spent the remainder of the night here. Gotta say, you could’ve bought a more comfortable couch.”

  “Well, excuse me.”

  Zander grinned at Gamble. “Not a problem, but if we’re going to be spending more nights here, could you buy a bed for us?”

  Gamble ignored Zander’s request. “Why did you need to spend the night here in the first place?”

  “Before we tell you, we need to talk about confidentiality.”

  “Confidentiality?”

  “If we tell you how we’re going to surveil our targets, you must first swear that you will never disclose to another soul what we’ve done. No one, under any circumstances. If you cannot agree to secrecy, we’ll keep our means and methods to ourselves.”

  Gamble looked from me to Zander and back. He took a few minutes to consider our conditions. “Maybe it would be best if I didn’t know.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “But, then again, how can I provide proper oversight if I’m in the dark?” Shaking his head, Gamble muttered, “All right. I agree to your terms. Absolute secrecy.”

  “Okay, then. We spent the night here because the nanomites were making the ‘bugs’ we’ll use to surveil our targets, and they needed the 3D printer to do it. They designed and printed a set of specialized nanomites that we will insert into the targets.

  “I thought the nanomites didn’t like to be apart from the rest of the, um, cloud or swarm or whatever it is.”

  “They don’t. They hate it because it diminishes the nanocloud’s effectiveness and what might be called their ‘singular collectiveness.’ They don’t feel whole when they aren’t ‘whole,’ as in together. Knowing that, the nanomites they constructed are different. They aren’t part of the cloud. We call them ‘nanobugs,’ as in they’re the ‘bugs’ we’ll wiretap our enemies with.”

  “Nanobugs. Inferior nanomites? Second-class citizens?”

  “When you put it like that, I suppose they aren’t true nanomites. They are more like simple sub-nanometer microelectromechanical devices.”

  “Simple sub-whatever microthingamabobs. Right. Simple.”

  “Okay, maybe not simple, but vastly simpler than the nanomites. The nanobugs lack the nanomites’ extensive programming algorithms and storage capacity. They have limited and specialized skills and can only perform those few tasks they are encoded to do, which is to surveil their targets.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Although the nanobugs’ skills may be limited and specialized, that doesn’t lessen their effectiveness with regard to our needs. Think of them as sophisticated spyware, undetectable ‘listening posts’—a million freshly printed nanobugs to each array. All Zander and I need to do is come within close range of a target. The nanomites will do the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  “They will insert the array into our surveillance target.”

  “Into them?”

  “The nanobugs, like the nanomites, require a continual source of power, but since the array is quite small, their needs are low-level, not enough to drain the host. We could just stick the nanobugs under a lamp shade like one might leave an electronic bug, but we’re surveilling a person, not a place. With an inserted array, our surveillance goes with the target wherever he or she goes.

  “Each array (again, think of them as stripped-down, micro-mini-nanoclouds) will provide location accuracy on the subject, will collect audio from him and his conversations—including both sides of phone calls—and will scan nearby phones and hard drives and gather digital data such as texts, emails, images, and files. They can also send data on the target himself—heartrate, respiration, temperature, etc.”

  I didn’t say it aloud, but I was thinking, The array can send us data on the target, and they can perform other, specialized functions. You might say that we put the “fun” in “functional.”

  I hid my mirth and continued. “The nanobugs’ hardware and software programming enable them to connect wirelessly to any network or cellular signal within a one-hundred-foot range and continuously transmit data to the two nanoclouds. Our nanoclouds will monitor and save the data as it is streamed to them.

  “As long as each array has a means to transmit data, it will remain in contact with our nanoclouds, providing real-time reporting. If an array is without a means to transmit data, it will store its collected surveillance and, when again able to transmit, upload data packets to the nanoclouds.”

  Gamble appeared thunderstruck. “But . . . it-it’s like Big Brother on steroids. Can you imagine what would happen if our enemies were to acquire and duplicate such technology? Can you imagine if our own intelligence community were to? Privacy as we know it would be over. Finished. Kaput. And the ethical and legal implications . . .”

  Zander and I nodded.

  “When the nanomites revealed what they had come up with, we held in-depth conversations with them over those very concerns. The nanomites’ stealth abilities are precisely why Cushing and her handlers wanted Dr. Bickel’s research in the first place, why they hunted me, thinking they could extract the nanomites from me. Our enemies planned to use the nanomites to ‘protect’ the safety and security of America by ensuring that nothing was ever secret again—that is, secret from them. In essence, they wanted to protect freedom by destroying it.”

  “And yet here we are, about to do that very thing,” Gamble objected.

  “Yes. It is horrifying. When you think about it, Zander and I, in conjunction with the nanoclouds, already ‘own’ and control the most advanced tech on the face of the planet. If we were super villains, we truly could take over the world.”

  “We’re not villains,” Zander whispered, “but that doesn’t mean that the age-old adage, ‘total power corrupts totally’ is any less plausible or possible. Jayda and I aren’t infallible. We’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. We, too, must heed the Bible’s warning on the unreliability of the flawed human condition when it says, If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall.”

  I added, “Even Jesus wouldn’t entrust himself to people, because he knew what was in their hearts. If no one can be trusted with such power, then we can’t be trusted either—which is why we have made a pact with the nanomites.”

  “A pact?”

  “Yeah. When this is over, when the President’s administration is safe, the nanomites will send a self-destruct command to the nanobugs.”

  “That doesn’t mean they won’t print more bugs in the future.”

  “The nanoclouds have promised not to.”

  “Furthermore,” Zander said, “only three of us will know about the nanobugs. We cannot disclose our surveillance methods to anyone, even the President. This, Agent Gamble, is what you agreed to.”

  Gamble ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, I get it.” He blinked a few times, then nodded. “All right. I’ll go along with you on this. But only because . . .”

  “Because our government hangs by a thread?”

  “Yeah. That.”

&nb
sp; Chapter 11

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Zander and I ran our five miles earlier than usual. Today I intended to plant nanobug arrays on the four NSA security police officers and, if possible, on the NSA Deputy Director. Meanwhile, Zander would stalk the West Wing and attempt to identify the traitors within the ranks of White House Secret Service detail and tag them with nanobug arrays.

  Tag—you’re “it.”

  Easy as pie, right?

  Maybe.

  We wanted—we needed—to spend more time in prayer before we left our apartment.

  “Lord,” Zander prayed over our clasped hands, “I need you. Jayda needs you. We cannot do this without your grace covering us the way the nanomites cover us. You warned us through Jayda’s dream to depend upon you more than we depend on the nanomites or their abilities. So, Father God, we confess right now: We need you. We lean on you. Lead us, Lord, and we will follow. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.”

  “Amen,” I echoed.

  Ten minutes later, I was on the road to Ft. Meade, and Zander was headed for the Greenbelt D.C. Metro station. He would park there and ride the Metro into D.C.

  ZANDER TRANSFERRED from the Green Line to the Red Line at Gallery Place and got off at Metro Center. He walked the rest of the way to 15th Street, cutting west on Hamilton Place. He used the visitor’s entrance on East Executive Avenue to slip inside the White House through the East Wing. He was grateful for his soft-soled shoes as he, unnoticed, passed busy White House staff and Secret Service personnel.

  At the prearranged time, he met up with Kennedy on the House’s second floor in what was called the Map Room. Kennedy walked into the room and thought himself alone.

  Zander appeared a few feet away. “I’m here.”

  Kennedy jerked and, instinctively, reached for his service weapon. “You about gave me a heart attack, Mr. Cruz.”

  “Please call me Zander—and this room is clean, by the way. No bugs.”

  “All right. Zander. Are you ready for this? Do you understand the weight of what you’ll be doing, how much hinges on it?”