Langley, Virginia
I n the basement below Mike McKinnon’s office the massive Cray mainframe computers hummed quietly, collecting and collating thousands of reports from all over the world. Reports from station chiefs in over a hundred countries; analysis from seismic listening devices and satellite imagery; results from bugs placed in embassies and offices and reports from dozens of other sources, both human and electronic.
Mike McKinnon’s initial views on being assigned to a presidential search for some ancient scroll had been unprintable, liberally sprinkled with a four-letter word for intercourse, but true to his years of training he had put together a plan that might turn up even the smallest clue. Kaufmann’s paper on the Dead Sea codes had been caught in the net, and now Echelon was producing results as well. Echelon was the codename for the National Security Agency’s system for intercepting phone calls, emails, faxes, telexes and any other electronic emission from anywhere around the globe, but the Echelon file on the Omega Scroll posed more questions than it answered.
Some things were not adding up, Mike mused. Why would the Vatican put out a surveillance contract on an internationally renowned expert in archaeological DNA? Her presence at some ruins was normal enough, but which one. ‘At the entrance to Cave One’ wasn’t much help. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. And why was Hamas involved? And who was this fellow Lonergan who kept getting a mention? McKinnon decided it was time to get a little closer to the action by relocating to Israel. He would be able to monitor the report collection from the CIA cell in the American Embassy in Tel-Aviv.