Recker arrived at the NSA building at Fort Meade, and just like he had done the last time was there, walked into the main lobby. He saw Maggie standing there, much like she had done the previous time. Only this time, she didn’t have a stack of books and papers in her hand.
“So what’s this urgency?”
Recker handed her the note. “Wanted to try and get an analysis done on this.”
“Well, it’s a start. I don’t know if it’ll give the answers you’re hoping for, though.”
“Like you said, it’s a start.”
“It is, but what do you hope to accomplish with this?”
“Hopefully getting the name of the person who wrote it?” Recker replied.
“I know that part. But I hope you don’t have your hopes set on this.”
“You think it’s worthless?”
“I didn’t say that. But it’s important to set expectations.” Maggie looked at the note again. “I mean, this note is five words. Do you know how thorough most handwriting analysis is?”
“I’ve heard.”
“In most cases, most cases, we try to acquire at least twenty to thirty samples. And that’s on the small end. And then it can take several weeks at that.”
“I know all that,” Recker said. “But this is what we have. I wish he would’ve written me a long love letter, but he didn’t. I wish we had a couple more weeks to look at this. But we don’t. This is all we got. It’s better than nothing.”
“Well, I agree there. But… I just don’t want you to expect a miracle here.”
“I’m not looking for a miracle. Just a name.”
Maggie gave him a look. She could tell, no matter how much she warned him against hoping for something that may not be possible, he was still wanting that miracle.
“Well, let’s take it down to my guy in handwriting and see what he can come up with.”
Maggie led Recker through the building, and got on the elevator. This time, they only went up to the third floor. They went down a hallway, and into a room where there were a bunch of people sitting at desks. Maggie had one person in mind. The man she was looking for was in the back corner of the room. He was a handwriting expert that was used on many top assignments. They walked over to his desk and stood next to him, waiting for him to finish what he was doing before they said anything. After a minute, the man finally finished comparing the handwriting sample he was looking at and acknowledged them.
“Maggie.”
“Amrit.”
“What can I do for you?”
She handed him the note. “This is the sample I was telling you about this morning.”
Amrit smiled, eagerly taking it to look at it. He was intrigued by it. He loved a good challenge. When Maggie told him about the situation earlier that morning, he started moving some of his tasks to the side so he could concentrate on this. Shady business involving ex-NSA employees usually were one of the more important jobs that took priority.
“Five words,” Amrit said.
“Think you can do anything with it?” Recker asked.
Amrit looked up at him. “I may be able to manage something.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Maggie said. “This is John Smith. CIA.”
Amrit smiled, though he was more interested in the handwriting sample that was in front of him. “Pleasure. And what time frame are we looking at?”
“Preferably within twenty-four hours.”
Amrit raised an eyebrow. “We’re certainly on a time-crunch, aren’t we?”
“Think you can do it?” Maggie asked.
“All I can do is my best. Where are the samples I need to compare it to?”
“Didn’t you get the box I sent down?”
“Box?” Amrit looked confused. “Box? Oh, is that what this was?” He swiveled his chair around, sliding out a box that was tucked under the desk behind him.
“Anything stick out about that note on first glance?” Recker asked. “Any unusual characteristics?”
Maggie gave Recker a look, thinking he was already asking for that miracle. “He just got…”
Amrit interrupted her before she could continue. “Actually, there are a few things I’ve noticed at first glance.”
“Really?” Maggie asked. “Like what?”
“Mind you, I reserve the right to change my mind on anything after I’ve studied it further.”
“Understood.”
“Anyway, look at the way this person writes this. ‘I’m way ahead of you’. The capital I is not in cursive like the rest of the words. And then look at the A in ahead, and the O in of. There is no slant that leads into those letters. It almost looks like it starts on the opposite side. Very unusual. Most people, when they start a word with those letters, there is that little upward slant to start it off. Now look at the Y’s. There’s almost a full loop at the bottom on both of them. Very pronounced.”
“Anything else you notice?” Recker asked.
“Plenty,” Amrit answered. “But I hesitate to say more until I’ve done a more thorough analysis.”
“Fair enough.”
Amrit opened the box and started pulling out some of its contents. There was nothing but file folders, and mountains of information. Mostly writing samples of the two hundred names they wanted him to comb through.
“Is this everything?” Amrit asked.
“Most of it,” Maggie replied. “If you need more, there’s more.”
“Sounds ominous. How many of these am I going through?”
“All of them.”
Amrit gave her a look that suggested he wasn’t ready for that. He then looked inside the box. “There has to be hundreds of folders in here.”
Maggie grinned. “That’s right.”
“And when did you say you need this by?”
“The sooner the better,” Recker answered. “Whoever this person is, we’ve gotta find them soon, or else people are going to die.”
Amrit understood the gravity of the situation. “I’ll do my best to get done as soon as possible. But with everything that’s here, this could take weeks to properly analyze it all.”
“We don’t have weeks. We have days. And not many of them.”
“Is there a way you can speed it up a little?” Maggie asked. “We don’t need an exact match. Even if you can quickly discard something that clearly doesn’t match. Maybe set up different piles. A definite no pile, a maybe pile, a likely pile.”
Amrit’s face indicated that it was still a tall order. But he was willing to try it. Even if it wasn’t up to his usual extensive standards. “I suppose we could give that a try. It would probably speed things up a little.”
“Even if you can’t pin it down to one name. If you could just give us a handful, cut it down to ten, that would be extremely helpful.”
Amrit cleared his throat. “As I said, I can try.”
“Anything we can do to help?” Recker asked.
“No, it’s something I must do alone.” Amrit then looked around the room. “Unless one of these other fine ladies and gentlemen could be spared to assist me?”
Maggie looked at the others. “Done. I’ll pull someone else right away.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any good to sit here and wait for you to finish, would it?” Recker asked.
Amrit looked at him like he couldn’t believe he even asked the question. He shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t. I would suggest for you to get on with whatever it is that you do. If I have something, I’ll let you know.”
“You can get started on it now?”
“Right away.”
Maggie left for a second to go to another desk, pulling in another handwriting expert into the fold. She then explained the situation in detail to the new person.
“Everyone got it?” Maggie asked. “All we need is to find who in that box is the likeliest person to have written this note. Even if it’s not a hundred percent match. I’ll take anything at this point.” Everyone nodded. “Good. We’ll get out of your hair, then.”
Recker and Maggie left the analysts to their jobs and walked out of the room.
“Considering they work here, I guess I don’t need to ask how good these people are?”
“Amrit’s the best,” Maggie replied. “If there’s something to be found, he’ll find it. Until then, all we can do is wait.”
“Yeah. Seems that’s all I’ve been doing lately. Waiting.”
With nothing else to do there, Recker bid his host goodbye, and left the building. He was outside, on the way to his car, when his phone rang. He answered it, surprised to see that it was Malloy.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Might have something for you,” Malloy replied.
“Really? What is it?”
“I got a tip from one of my informants. He works maintenance at an apartment complex.”
“Yeah?”
“Anyway, he says he was doing some work in an apartment, fixing the heating and cooling system. Says it was a new tenant. Only been there a few weeks, maybe a month. Thought the guy was a bit strange.”
“Why?” Recker asked.
“Said the guy was very particular about the temperature in the room. And my guy said he noticed a bunch of computer equipment in the bedroom. Like an absurd amount. There were several folding tables set up along the wall, and there were about eight laptops on them.”
“Maybe he was fixing them for others.”
“Could be, I suppose. I dunno. But my informant said he asked about the computers, and the guy didn’t wanna talk about them. Like he quickly shifted the conversation to something else. My guy got the feeling the man was hiding something.”
“Interesting.”
“Not saying it is definitely something, but my guy said this person just gave off a bad vibe. Not very personable. A little irritable. Might be nothing, I guess.”
“Or it might be something,” Recker said. “Something to follow up on.”
“Anyway, figured you’d wanna know.”
“Thanks. Can you send me the guy’s information?”
“Sure,” Malloy said. “I’ll send it to you now.”
“I’ll have David start checking on it, see what we can come up with.”
“You want me to have someone sitting on the apartment, just in case?”
“If you’ve got the manpower and don’t mind wasting his time if it turns out to be nothing.”
“I don’t mind. If it turns out to be something, and you wanna hit it, let me know. I’ll do my part.”
“Thanks. I’m in Maryland right now. Making my way back now, so it’ll be a few hours, at least.”
“Just let me know. When you’re ready, I’m ready.”
“I’ll do that,” Recker said.
As soon as he hung up, he got a message from Malloy with the man’s name, and the address of the apartment. Recker immediately forwarded the information to Jones. Recker then called him.
“Hey, just sent you something. Malloy got a lead on this guy. Worth looking into it.”
“OK, I’ll see what I can do with it. How accurate is this supposed to be?”
“It’s accurate,” Recker answered. “Guy moved in a month ago with a lot of computer equipment. Don’t know if it’s who we’re looking for, but it sure beats sitting on our hands.”
“Still sounds like it might be the longest of long shots.”
“Well, you know what they say about long shots.”
“No, what do they say?”
“Sometimes they pay off. And they pay off big. Let’s hope this is one of those long shots that’s a winner.”