Alex leaned his muscular frame over the table and fixed his stare on Preston.
“So what do you know about this?”
Preston shrugged. “Nothing more than what’s written on that page. As you can see, Agent Coleman believes there are messages hidden within the letters. But I don’t believe he has any more information, or any proof beyond that. Personally, I wouldn’t give it too much credence.”
Connolly suddenly looked up from the notes and gave Preston an incredulous expression. “Am I correct in understanding that the primary suspect in this investigation has been sending letters to Agent Coleman’s source?”
“Yes.”
“And that source is a… a bartender in Flagstaff?”
“Correct.”
“How long have you had this information?”
“Less than twenty-four hours, Richard,” Preston replied dismissively. “Hardly enough time to fully absorb everything.
Alex looked over at Connolly. He could immediately tell something was wrong. “Why do you ask?”
Connolly spun the page towards Alex and pointed to a list of statements that were repeated in the letter. “Do you notice how this man uses the term ‘don’t order dog’ in almost all of the letters?
“Yes,” Alex replied curiously, wondering what the frail-looking Intelligence Director was getting at. “He ends every letter with that statement.”
Connolly shook his head. “No, he ends almost every letter with that statement.” He slid his nicotine-stained index finger down the column to the last entry on the page. “In his last letter, he says ‘go ahead, order dog.”
Alex ran a quick hand through his hair. His patience was coming to an end.
“Yeah, so… does that mean something to you?”
Connolly considered the question for a moment before finally nodding. “I’m afraid it does.” He sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes as if suddenly exhausted. When he looked up at Alex, his expression was grave. “But what I’m going to tell you is not to be repeated… and for purposes of National security, I don’t want this recorded.”
Alex looked at his agent sitting in the corner. “Stop recording and give us a few minutes.”
Connolly waited until the agent was gone before leaning forward and speaking in a low voice. “I’m sure you’re aware that I spent over twenty years with the National Security Agency before taking my position with the Department of Homeland Security. But I doubt you have the faintest clue what I did for the majority of my early life in that agency. You would probably assume I was a code breaker. After all, that’s what everyone believes you do when you’re in the NSA, correct?”
Alex grinned slightly at Connolly’s sarcastic remark.
“Well, let me tell you… with enough patience and determination, nearly anyone can break codes. There’s no magic to cryptology. It’s all just protocols and formulas. Once you understand that, defeating codes simply becomes a matter of resources. But for the NSA – the agency designed to be the cornerstone of US intelligence gathering – that ability in itself isn’t enough. Not by any stretch of the imagination. You can’t just spend your time scribbling down conversations of interest and deciphering their meaning.” Connolly paused to release a deep, wheezing cough. “No…you’ve got to be more proactive than that.”
“So…” Alex said, prodding him along.
“So you take the next step, of course,” Connolly replied with a smug grin. “You start focusing less on breaking your adversary’s codes, and more on making their codes for them.”
Both Alex and Jack Preston looked at Connolly quizzically.
“I don’t think I follow you,” Alex replied.
“Of course you do,” Connolly responded. “Your own CIA has deep-cover operatives in the field who exist to provide your team with intelligence on the groups or governments they’re entrenched in. And I have no doubt those operatives seed just as much information as they harvest – correct?
“Perhaps, but–”
“The thinking of the NSA was no different,” Connolly continued. “We began creating cryptographic protocols – basically encrypted language formats – that were then fed to our operatives in the field. The operatives would then introduce these formats to their various contacts and, with any luck, they’d begin using them.”
“So… did they use them?” Preston asked.
“Let’s just say that our success rate was quite high.”
Alex nodded his head. “This is all very interesting, Director, but what does this have to do with our letter-writing terrorist?”