A Learning Experience

Chapter Nine

Washington DC, USA

“That’s odd,” Jürgen Affenzeller muttered.

It was a largely unacknowledged fact that the Department of Homeland Security kept an eye on military veterans. The rationale for the policy had never been fully codified and, indeed, had started out as a sop to political correctness. Besides, veterans were trained in using weapons, they often had experience in urban combat and they sometimes suffered from PTSD and other problems after their service. It was just common sense, the DHS had argued, to keep an eye on them.

Jürgen had never really believe in the logic, if there was any logic in the decision. Indeed, it made much more sense, to him, to keep an eye on radical Islamic groups operating within the United States. But the simple truth was that any hint of racial profiling would cause a political shitstorm, while veterans had far fewer people willing to go to bat for them. It made little sense, but politics rarely did. Besides, he had a wife and two small daughters to feed and raising a stink about it would have cost him his job.

He’d never seen much of anything to convince him that there was a real danger. Sure, some veterans were politically active, proud members of the Gun Community and very opposed to any threats to the Second Amendment, but few of them seemed dangerous. Indeed, veterans were often stanchly patriotic, unwilling to consider using violence against their own countrymen. Compared to some of the noises coming from radical groups — and they had expanded rapidly in the wake of the economic crisis — there was no strong reason to worry about the vets. But he didn’t seem to have any choice.

But now there was something odd flowing into the system.

It was hard, almost impossible, to move around the United States without leaving some kind of electronic trace. The DHS — and NSA and several other government organisations — monitored human traces, looking for patterns that might signify trouble. It was, in many ways, a flawed replacement for having men and women out on the beat, but it did have the advantage of causing almost no disturbance at all for the suspect to pick up on. Quite a few criminal cases had been blown, Jürgen knew, because the suspect had seen the FBI agent shadowing him and panicked.

He looked down at the list of reports, trying to put them together into a coherent whole. His instincts told him there was a pattern, even if he couldn’t see it clearly. But what did it signify?

A large number of veterans claimed benefits of one kind or another from the government. Over the last three weeks, a surprisingly high number — over three thousand — had stopped claiming benefits. It was an odd pattern, made all the odder by the simple fact that most of those veterans seemed to have vanished. They weren’t dead, as far as he could tell; they’d just dropped out of sight. And then he’d cross-referenced the data and discovered that half of the veterans in the list were crippled. They had been unable to return to a normal life.

So where had they gone?

A call to a handful of residence homes revealed that the men had been transferred, without notice, to another residence home in Montana. Jürgen had frowned, then checked with Montana and discovered that there was no such residence home. But when he did yet another cross-reference, it became clear that the veterans who weren’t crippled had also gone to Montana. And then they’d dropped off the grid.

He shook his head in disbelief, then started poking around the data. A man called Kevin Stuart had visited thirty of the nursing homes, then he’d been replaced by several other men… all of whom were included on the list of disappeared veterans. And veterans weren’t the only ones. Keith Glass, a writer of military science-fiction, had also vanished… and so had a large percentage of the Space Settlement Society. Some of them were vets, others were civilians who had been very involved with NASA and civilian space programs… there was a pattern, Jürgen was sure. But what did it all mean?

Shaking his head, he put a brief report together and emailed it to his superior officer. Maybe there was nothing going on, maybe it was just a false alarm. But he honestly couldn’t see how nearly four thousand men, some of them crippled, could fit into a relatively small ranch. They wouldn’t have anything like enough water, for starters, or food… unless they were shipping it in by the truckload. But why would anyone do that?

Five minutes later, he received two emails in return. The first one, from his boss, ordered him to cooperate with the second email. Puzzled, he opened the second email and discovered orders to report to Fort Meade, ASAP. The NSA? It made no sense to him at all. What would a number of missing veterans have to do with the National Security Agency?

“Thank you for coming,” the NSA agent said, when he arrived at Fort Meade. He hadn’t bothered to give his name. “Your investigation has crossed paths with one of our investigations and we need to share information.”

Jürgen kept his opinion of that to himself. The NSA wasn’t known for sharing information with anyone, unless someone with real authority got behind them and pushed. It was far more likely, he knew, that they’d take what he’d found and then order him to keep his mouth shut in future. It would annoy his boss — the Department of Homeland Security desperately needed a big win, something they could use to justify their existence — but crossing the NSA was considered inadvisable. They could end his career with a word or two in the right ears.

“For the moment, you are being seconded to my team,” the agent continued. “You’ll be given papers to sign later, but for the moment keep your mouth shut outside the team, understand?”

“Yes,” Jürgen said, tightly. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”

“No,” the agent agreed. “You don’t.”

Jürgen gritted his teeth, then followed the agent down through a series of security checks and into a SCIF facility deep under the building. It was less impressive than he’d expected, he decided, as he looked around; there was a large table, a handful of comfortable chairs and a simple projector and computer terminal. But it would be secure, he knew, as he took the seat he was offered and waited. No one outside the room would be able to eavesdrop on them, nor would any recording devices work within the room’s field. It was as secure as human ingenuity could make it.

“We will be briefing a handful of very high-ranking officials on the progress of a monitoring program,” the agent added. “Say nothing until I call on you to speak, then stick to the facts alone.”

Jürgen sighed, then pasted a blank expression on his face as the officials filed into the room and made themselves coffee before sitting down. Two of them wore military uniforms, the remainder civilian suits; he discovered, not entirely to his surprise, that he recognised a handful of the civilians. But then, the National Security Advisor was a well-known political figure. And yet… why was he here?

“Over the past month, there have been several investigations into odd technology appearing from overseas,” the agent said, opening the briefing. “Our investigations eventually collided with a DHS investigation, which made the entire problem considerably more worrisome.”

He tapped a switch, activating the projector. A picture of a USB stick-like device appeared in front of them. “This, gentlemen, is a Wilhelm Tech Wireless Internet Dongle,” he said. “The devices were introduced two weeks ago in a low-key manner, mainly through internet forums and tech sites, then sold from Switzerland through mail order. On the surface, these devices are nothing more extraordinary than any other form of internet connection system. However, they have various… attributes that made them potentially very dangerous.”

Jürgen frowned. An internet dongle? How was that related to missing veterans?

“The dongles have what is probably best described as an extreme range,” the agent continued. “To put it in perspective, they are capable of reaching access points located within thousands of miles of the dongle — we don’t know where — and logging on. Once they have logged on, they have a very high rate of transmission and access to the internet, allowing downloads to be completed faster than ever before. Finally, the signals they use are almost completely undetectable except at very close range.”

He paused for effect. “What this means,” he said, “is that anyone using one of these systems can browse the internet without being traced or monitored by our systems.”

“Anyone,” one of the unnamed officers said.

“Anyone,” the agent confirmed. “The packaging claims a considerable degree of improvement over previous designs, but some tests have revealed that the claims are… well, understated. Heavily understated. But the geek communities have already figured out how to use the dongles to surf the internet without any restrictions at all. The results have been interesting — and quite worrying.”

“I see,” the National Security Advisor said. “Where are these things coming from?”

“Wilhelm Tech,” the agent said. “They’re a small company, incorporated in both the States and Switzerland, with a good reputation for producing pieces of advanced technology at reasonable prices. We’ve asked the Swiss to investigate, but they’re stalling. They see no reason to enforce our laws for us, nor to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. By being incorporated in two places, they evade most of our laws governing technology transfer.”

He hesitated. “Something like this should have been born secret,” he said, referring to the government’s rule that certain pieces of technology, no matter who produced them, were automatically considered classified. “Instead, the news is out and spreading.”

One of the unnamed civilians leaned forward. “Can’t you duplicate the technology?”

“Not so far,” the agent admitted. “So far, we have acquired two dongles and tried to take them both apart. They both shattered on the table, leaving us with a pile of debris and a mystery. But we can tell you some odd things about the tech. For a start, while Wilhelm Tech is on the cutting edge of computer software, these devices seem an order of magnitude more advanced than anything known, even to us.

“This led to an investigation of Wilhelm Tech,” he continued. “We discovered that they purchased a considerable amount of supplies from various produces in the States…”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” The civilian asked. “It’s far better to plough the money back into the States than send it to China.”

“It may be,” the agent said. “But their shopping list is rather odd… and it’s all being shipped to a ranch in Montana. The same ranch where a number of veterans seem to be going — and then vanishing from sight.”

He nodded to Jürgen. “Tell them what you told us.”

Jürgen took a breath. He’d never had to brief such a high-ranking group before; hell, he’d never had to brief anyone more senior than his boss. His throat felt dry, but there was no time to take a sip of water.

“To summarise a complicated issue,” he said, “a large number of veterans, some of whom should have been unable to move, have transferred themselves to the Stuart Ranch in Montana. Since then, there has been no trace of their existence on Earth, nor does there seem to be enough facilities on the Ranch to take care of them. We have been unable to determine what might be happening there.”

He sat down. The agent stood again.

“We researched the ranch extensively when we realised that it was involved in the growing mystery,” the agent said. “There were some worrying signs. Steve Stuart, the current owner of the Ranch, resigned from the Marine Corps in 2013, following an… incident in Afghanistan. Since them, he has been a regular commenter on conservative and liberal blogs, arguing in favour of the Second Amendment, small government and consistent law enforcement. He was involved, politically speaking, in a successful attempt to recall a local politician and force him out of office.

“Furthermore, his uncle was actually the target of an ATF investigation in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. Apparently, he and his family knew McVeigh personally, although the investigators concluded that they’d known nothing about the plot. The uncle in question was an army explosives expert, who would have made sure to produce a proper bomb that would have taken out the whole building.”

There was a pause. One of the civilians finally broke it. “Has Steve Stuart himself come to ATF’s attention?”

“Not directly,” the agent said, “but he’s on a watch list.”

Jürgen sighed. Anyone who supported the Second Amendment publically was on an ATF watch list. It didn’t matter how they supported it, or how many guns they possessed; hell, there were pro-gun campaigners who owned no guns who were still targeted for observation.

“He isn’t a member of the NRA, for what it’s worth,” the agent said. “He was a member, but resigned two years ago, claiming that the organisation had allowed politics to impede its primary purpose for existence. Some of his family are members, however, while others are members of other pro-gun groups. One of them is even a member of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

“He’s also a licensed instructor in small arms, particularly concealed carry, with an enviable safety record. So far, we have been unable to locate any complaints against him, save a report that he insisted on someone using a gun more suited to her hand. It never went any further than grousing.”

The agent looked from face to face. “But we are faced with a disturbing mystery,” he said. “We have a large number of men, experienced with weapons, who have vanished off the face of the Earth. We have pieces of technology that could easily be used against us, seemingly connected to the disappearing men. And we have a ranch owned by someone who cannot be counted a wholehearted friend of the government. I believe, sirs, that we should act quickly to counter this threat.”

But you don’t even know there is a threat, Jürgen thought. He had to admit it was odd — where were the men going? — but it didn’t necessarily mean it was a threat. Maybe there was a retirement home on the ranch for the veterans. Or perhaps there was a perfectly innocent explanation, one that might be lost if the DHS troopers charged in like stormtroopers and started a fight. Somehow, he doubted the ranchers would come quietly. There were too many horror stories about ATF task forces shooting the wrong people for anyone to be complacent about surrendering themselves to their custody.

He listened as the debate surged backwards and forwards. None of the senior officials seemed inclined to rule out a raid, even though a couple of them suggested talking openly to Wilhelm Tech first. After all, maybe a deal could be made. The technology could be controlled or put to work serving the government, if enough money was made available. But instead they seemed inclined to stampede towards a fateful choice.

They need a win too, he realised, suddenly. NSA had been entwined in scandals for the last five years, ever since Edward Snowden had fled the USA for Russia, carrying with him a whole series of uncomfortable revelations about the NSA’s domestic spying program. If NSA couldn’t keep itself relevant, Congress and the Senate might load new restrictions on its activities… or they might simply close the agency down altogether, throwing out the baby as well as the bathwater. No, whatever was going on with Wilhelm Tech and the Stuart Ranch — and the missing veterans — they couldn’t afford to talk. They had to be seen to be taking action.

“The Department of Homeland Security will be supplying the SWAT team,” the agent said, afterwards. “You’ll be riding along with them, as will I. We’ll drop a mass of troopers on top of the farm and take everyone into custody, then sort them out later. The warrants are broad enough to allow us to hold them for weeks, if necessary.”

Jürgen stared at him. Years of bureaucratic infighting had finally given the DHS teeth, without having to rely on the FBI, but the SWAT team had never actually been deployed for real. “Is this even legal?”

“We have a search warrant for the ranch, based on the information you supplied,” the agent assured him. “We even took a look at it through satellites and discovered no trace of any veterans. Indeed, there was hardly anyone in sight, apart from a handful of ranch hands. No kids, no women, no nothing. Between you and me, this is starting to look very sinister. It could even be another Branch Davidian compound.”

“Maybe,” Jürgen said, doubtfully. “What religion are these people?”

“Nothing registered, as far as we have been able to determine,” the agent said. He reached out and slapped Jürgen on the shoulder. “Whatever is going on, someone is trying to keep it a secret and that generally means trouble. And I really don’t like the presence of that advanced technology.”

He strode off towards the small jet that would be carrying them to Montana. After a long moment, Jürgen followed, gritting his teeth. What the hell had he started? Armed stormtroopers were about to crash into a ranch on suspicion of… what, exactly? They could have poked around the edges of the compound, sent in a couple of agents, or even walked up to the door and asked, keeping the SWAT team in reserve. Instead, they were about to attack with loaded weapons. It was far too possible that innocent civilians were about to be caught in the crossfire, further undermining the reputation of both the DHS and NSA.

The NSA will blame it on us, he thought, coldly. If this goes to shit, it will be our fault and our fault alone.

And he couldn’t escape the feeling that they were about to make a very big mistake.