“You’re really not gonna believe this, Mr. Stone. It came from Fort Meade, Maryland.” With a slight nod to reassure me he was serious, he added, “You know what’s there, right?”

I closed my eyes and laughed. Of course. Of course. It was so fucking obvious. How could I of all people, me, how could I have missed it? The NSA, spy central, the nation’s top intelligence agency, was headquartered at Fort George G. Meade. It made perfect sense. Wrightman needed a fresh terrorist attack to scare Congress into supporting his request for war powers. And what could be better than this scenario? Unlike an attack on some distant city or even two cities, this one hit home with every American who ever got on an airplane. It sucked them into the middle of a real-life survival drama more exciting than a Jordan Peele movie, then left them feeling vulnerable. And no human beings were hurt in the making of this entertainment.

It had achieved the ultimate goal of all terrorism: it made people terrified that the next time, it … could … be … me.

Brain continued: After the hackers’ challenge was done, all the code providers had been identified and thanked. This sample was “courtesy NSA.”

“Brain, listen to me.” I made sure there wasn’t a quiver in my voice. “Have you told anybody else about this?”

He thought about that. He pursed his lips. “Just our faculty adviser, Mr. Calandros. And he warned us not to tell anybody else.”

“He’s a smart guy, Brain. Listen to me.” I lowered my chin and locked eyes with him. This was no joke. I wanted him to hear my urgency. “You and your friends, you can’t tell anybody about this. I mean it, nobody. If you’re right…”

“We’re right,” he insisted.

“Okay, whatever. But I’m completely serious. Do you understand? You can’t tell anybody, even your parents.” I waited until he nodded acceptance. I tapped the screen. “Have you got anything else to back this up?”

Brain responded with an “are you kidding me?” shrug. “Are you kidding me? We got all kinds of stuff. We compared them about twenty different ways. We got probability charts, formulas…” He smiled at the next thought. “We even made a tape of Judy’s band playing both of them. We overlaid them on the tape, so you can hear the two codes together.”

“Did you tell the band what they were?”

“Those guys?” He laughed at that thought. “Those guys wouldn’t understand it anyway.”

“Good.” I rested my left elbow on Mighty Chair’s arm and dug my chin into the well between my thumb and index finger on my left hand as I figured this out. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Go home. Send me everything you’ve got. Tell all your other people, tell them not to say a word about this to anybody. Tell them not to talk about it; don’t hum it, don’t even think about it if you can help it. I’m going to give you my email address and a good phone number. Give it to everybody and tell them to contact me right away if anybody comes to talk to any of you, or even if you get any weird messages.”