To: Madhumeha
Re: Laptop Project
Compromised. All activity suspended. Absolutely no contact permitted between any participants. Resend all ops data to new location using updated encryptions. No returns to any known locations. Await further instructions.
Murali wanted to slam his fist into the internet cafe computer. He had waited a solid week before resurfacing in the States, expecting to receive confirmation of his intel and his retirement. He had also intended to hear Karin’s answer and was optimistic enough to be ready to make plans with her. Quickly he packeted and resent his intel and also another request for confirmation of his retirement.
What was this all about? How could the laptop be compromised? Christmas was one week away, and he couldn’t even talk to her. What must she think? He knew very well how compromised projects were handled. She would have been cut off cold with nothing more than a canned message.
Murali retrieved some old files he had gathered when the Laptop Project had first begun. He glanced over Karin’s dossier and immediately remembered what her financial situation had been before the project.
It was the one thing that had been brought up as making her participation risky – how little income she had. Murali had practically shouted down the objections and assured the agency that a woman of her character would not respond to bribery attempts.
This glaring irony was not lost on him. She’d never have taken money to break her confidentiality agreement. Still, she’d have come to depend on the project money. But she’d receive nothing until the compromise issue was cleared up. Not even what she was owed. It was intolerable.
He went to four automated teller machines on multiple buses and, using some very deeply protected accounts, withdrew a thousand dollars in cash. He stopped in a stationery shop and bought security envelopes and stamps. Inside five envelopes he placed 200 dollars and scribbled a crabbed, arthritic note nothing like his own handwriting that said, "Pay it Forward. Merry Christmas."
Sealing the envelopes, he wrote on the outside, "Please deliver in time for Christmas," and dropped them in different mailboxes with three first class stamps on each one. He didn’t even know what the US postage rate was now, but it didn’t matter. He just prayed somehow some of the money would get to Karin in a hurry.
Next, he bought a burner phone and made a call. Three times it went to a voicemail that has not yet been set up. The fourth time, when he said, "This is Madhumeha," someone answered with, "Do the words no contact have any meaning to you?"
"You know it’s a special case. I need you to hand-deliver a message for me to Ex Libris."
"I can’t."
"Yes you can, and you will. Here’s the message. December 24th, 6 pm, 3327 North Poplar Street." Murali added the city and state where Karin lived.
"This is most unwise," the voice replied.
"By the time we get to that date, I’m sure it will all be cleared up and turn out to be a big misunderstanding."
"I’m not so sure. Whoever committed this breach knew all the correct email addresses. The only way we even discovered it was because the communication went into their spam folders. We managed to wipe those before anyone opened them, but our emails announcing the project termination went to spam also."
"Spam folders?" Murali repeated, tensing. "Did you trace them?"
"Of course we tried. But you know it didn’t go anywhere. That Spamalot Worm – Our techs never cracked it or tracked it. No one was supposed to know –"
"Someone does know, obviously. Look, my life has been on hold for more than a decade. I have to do this. I’ll be careful, but I have to see her."
"I’ll try to have your back. I’ve already tried, but you know no one will have mine. It’s a good thing I agree with you that she’s worth the risk and that you deserve a chance."
"Kiss your significant other for me. Merry Christmas."
"Bah Humbug."
***
Murali had been walking the entire time he talked, and, when he finished, he pulled the phone’s battery and threw it and the phone into separate trash cans. Jumping on another bus, he politely asked the driver how soon they would get to the train station. Suppressing a groan, he settled back to wait out the two hours of the driver’s not-so-polite reply.
***
Murali had loved trains since he was a child in India. Between his chafing to get to Karin, however, and his inability to suppress the nagging suspicion that something had gone seriously wrong with the Laptop Project, hard thinking crushed his enjoyment. He had been an analyst and an operative far too long to let it go. His mind turned over scenario after scenario but none of them fit the facts as well as a betrayal from the inside.
Next he ran through his mental Rolodex of the "students," agents like himself, and dismissed them. He knew them all personally. Not that they were perfect, but they were not traitors, either. Who was left? Those desk-huggers at the agency wouldn’t be able to hide the source of the breach in such a narrow-focus project. Perhaps it was an insider at the library. The idea seemed preposterous, given that they were all middle-aged sedentary woman. He got up from his private sleeper car’s roomette and wandered toward the dining car.
"I’ve lost my cellphone," he said when a server came to his table. Any way I can buy one to use temporarily?"
"Certainly, sir," the man said. "I can’t promise bells and whistles but we do have some basic emergency phones."
"I’m a big fan of basic," Murali replied with a smile.
The server took his order and returned a few minutes later with his hot tea and a packaged phone.
"Yes! You’re a lifesaver," Murali exclaimed. He set up the phone, ate his dinner, and went back to his roomette.
This is Madhumeha," he said when the person at the other end finally answered. "Who received the Spamalot message? I need a complete list."
"I told you we deleted it. No one actually received it."
"You know what I mean."
"Everyone who was copied in on the Laptop Project."
"While you’re stalling I could be getting traced."
The person on the other end ticked off a list.
"And who got the emails shutting down the project?"
Murali’s reluctant conversationalist ticked off another list. One more name was on it.
"And all of them went into the spam folders?"
"Yes, all of them. But they were clean. Even the one you made us hold onto for a week because you were underwater or wherever you like to be when you go dark. I do not understand why no training exercise or location team has ever located you. Do you spend a week underwater?"
Murali smiled. "You delivered my message, right?"
"I did. She was skeptical. I assured her it would be in her interest to go."
"You make it sound like David Copperfield meeting his uncle at the top of the tower with no floor!" Murali protested.
"That’s what you get for sending a complete unromantic to deliver a romantic invitation. I think she’ll come. She did that little thing where she chews on the inside of her cheek."
"I do envy you your eight years of observing her every charming …"
"If you don’t hang up, I’ll start a trace on you myself. Believe me – unless you really are underwater, I will find you. But first, what do you make of the lists?"
"I’ll make more of them when I have some time to think it over. Right now what I’m thinking is nonsense."
"You think nonsense like I talk romance. Never. Anxious to know what comes of your thinking."
"You’ll be the first to know."
***
After leaving the train Murali spent a night in a motel with an indoor pool. He begrudged the time spent finding one. Submerged was the only place where he never failed to find true clarity. He needed a deep and still state when thinking through the laptop security breach and what to do about Karin.
This time, however, all he could think about was the latter. Is she in danger? Have I put her in greater danger by insisting on the meeting at that house I leased from snowbirds in her hometown?
Surely those who had inserted the Spamalot Worm could already trace her. Surely they could follow her if she broke her homebody routine and went out on Christmas Eve. He knew she made her family visits at Thanksgiving and usually spent Christmas alone. Time to change that.
Murali surfaced and breathed for a few moments, glad he was alone in the pool. If people ever thought about identifying him as a spy, paying attention to how long he could hold his breath on the bottom of a pool would surely "out" him. Great. Now I’m not only becoming romantically obsessed, I’m paranoid. I do not have time for this. Focus!
What if Karin is the problem? A voice nagged him. What if she is the cause of the breach? Murali climbed out of the pool, dried off, and headed back to his room. This was the devil in his ear, but it was a question he had to answer.
He had two lists that differed only by one name. He had to discover the reason for that. He had to discern whether it was even important. Easy enough to say the guilty party slipped up. What if it was a deliberate misdirection? The Spamalot Worm creator was too clever by half. Surely clever enough to frame an innocent party while seeking to infect a supposedly infection-proof computer. Even ignoring the difference between the lists could be dangerous.
His mind twisted back to Karin as he stood in the shower. Was it wildly inappropriate to invite her to the house? They were not children. Still, should he have suggested a chaperone? Would he be upset if she showed up with someone else? Would she need to contact him to make certain of his intentions? Was it true that she even wanted or intended to come?
Murali dropped down onto his knees with water running hard over him. God, I have not been so full of conflict since I was a child. What is wrong with me?
A favorite Christmas song slid past his tumultuous thoughts. The second verse leaped to life in his mind.
Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from the Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.
"Serenity … that’s what I need. And only the light of faith can give it to me. Mother used to joke that I was going to be the wise man from Orient land … coming from India to point the world to Christ.
"I don’t want it to be a joke, Father. In all my trials Christ has been my friend. Don’t let me push Him away in this one. Light my heart with Your Spirit. Send Your Prince of Peace to me, and to Karin."