At the best of times, John Harker’s job required late hours.
A typical review of a GCHQ personnel file involved deep-dig background checks. By the time he had finished with each of them, he would know not only their Internet search history, but the reading material on their nightstand for the past five years.
His mind was foggy with sleep. But he couldn’t quit for the day yet, as one more search needed to be complete for him to have his daily quota. He called up the employee report from today’s staff intake on to his system and scrutinized it with a professional eye, taking a sip from a second cup of coffee.
The standard criminal and general history checks had been complete when the employee had first enrolled. These were keyed off fingerprint and other biometric scans and had revealed nothing of significance.
But since Waterman had increased the internal security controls, an additional layer of screening had been added. It was a highly secret and controversial one, borrowed from the surveillance techniques used on suspected homegrown jihadists returning from training camps in Syria or Afghanistan. To apprehend them, RAF aircraft with sensitive listening equipment circled the skies above English cities, seeking voiceprints captured by spy planes flying sorties overseas. GCHQ employed a similar method, monitoring each new employee’s phone calls and seeking voiceprint matches from existing terror and criminal databases.
Harker needed to use the bathroom, so initiated the voiceprint search, pushed his seat back and was about to head to the toilet when he heard a ping.
His computer function was set to let out an audible alert when there was a discrepancy on a name under review.
Harker leaned forward to get a better look at his screen.
The voiceprint had failed. The voice was of someone else.
He put his coffee down and began typing, programming a wider search based on the voiceprint.
Two more pings came back in quick succession.
He pulled them up: two other false identities now matched to the same voiceprint.
He stood, confused for a second. He had sat through procedures for how to deal with this event. But it had never happened before.
GCHQ’s biggest fear, that a mole could get access, had remained only theoretical to date.
He hesitated, then forced himself to start moving, walking quickly along the row of cubicles towards the centre of the hall and his supervisor’s desk.
Before Harker left his station, he switched on the mute function on his computer.
The pings from his loudspeaker had become so frequent that they had become one long continuous siren.