79

HANGAR NUMBER NINE, JOINT BASE ANDREWS—19 MAY

Noah opened his eyes and stared up at the cavernous ceiling.

He was lying on a cot, stripped down to his boxer shorts and covered with sweat. The air-conditioning unit had apparently blown a fuse, and the temperature inside the hangar had spiked during the day. Having no idea what time it was, but no longer able to sleep in this makeshift blast furnace, Noah forced himself to his feet, pulled on his jeans and T-shirt, then went back to the men’s room to brush his teeth and plunge his head into a sink full of cold water. He toweled off, went to the kitchen, made himself another cup of coffee, snagged the last piece of stale coffee cake left in a box on the counter, and headed back out to the floor and powered up the portable lights positioned at grid 34.

No one else was awake. He had the whole place to himself. He shrugged, donned a fresh pair of latex gloves, squatted down, and got back to work. Eyeing a new pile of garbage—most of it wholly unuseful and thus arguably not worthy of having been transported halfway around the world—Noah pulled out a walkie-talkie. It was covered in soot but in decent shape overall. He examined it, even pulled it apart, but found nothing of value. So he set it aside and kept hunting.

At first, the remains of a DVD player struck him as promising. But upon closer examination, he realized that it had been so melted by the missile-induced fires that even if there had been a DVD inside the device, and even if he could pry it out, it would be entirely unviewable. On he went, poring over a twisted pair of glasses, a scorched ammunition belt, and the remains of several wallets so badly burnt that none of the IDs, bills, or credit cards inside were legible.

Two hours later, soaked with sweat, Noah found a large, burnt steel box. He brushed off the soot and ash and used a bolt cutter to snap off the padlock. Inside, he found stacks of cash in four currencies—Iranian rials, Russian rubles, Turkish lira, and piles of euros, but curiously no U.S. cash of any denomination. As Noah methodically counted all of it, the overnight shift arrived. One of the FBI’s supervisory agents came over and helped him finish counting the money and put the currencies in separate evidence bags, marking and photographing everything and handing it all off to the appropriate team members. All told, the funds added up to more than a quarter of a million dollars. What did not make sense—not to Noah or the FBI agent, at least—was why Kairos had so much cash on hand and why more than two-thirds of it was in Russian, Iranian, and Turkish currencies.

Mopping his brow, ready for a break—and more importantly, a shower—Noah spotted under another pile of debris what looked like the remains of a computer. He pulled it out and found it was, in fact, a laptop. The problem was it was half-melted and, thus, fused shut. Rifling through a box of tools, he found a screwdriver and began trying to force the laptop open like an oyster. After repeated failed attempts, he gave up and walked it over to a metal cutting saw stationed on a large worktable not far from the kitchen. He donned protective eyewear and thick work gloves, then proceeded to slice into the laptop until he could pry what was once its cover from the motherboard.

On the left side was what remained of the cooling fan. Toward the front he found the optical drive connector and two speakers. Off to the right he was able to identify the power jack. And then Noah smiled, for there it was, the pearl for which he had been diving—the RAM memory cards.

Newly inspired, he forgot all about the shower.