The Term Sheet | Wattys 2016 Winner

Chapter 3

There was a pop on the line.

"Shawn, how are you?"

"I am doing very well, Mr. Stephenson. How can I help you today?"

"Can you please take care of Marnie this weekend?"

"Mr. Stephenson, with all due respect, I am in the middle of tracking leads on a potential threat for next month's Election Day events. Can't I have one of my men take care of it?"

"Shawn, this is a direct request from the president. He doesn't trust Marnie with just anyone, you know that. Her usual caretaker is on vacation and we're going to Martha's Vineyard this weekend. She needs to stay because she is pregnant and due any day now. I know you're mainly behind the desk these days, but it would mean the world to the First Lady."

"But I'm working on something big right now."

"Richard told me your hunch. Frankly, based on what little you're going off, it sounds like a wild goose to me. He has already agreed to letting you watch Marnie."

Shawn was getting angry, but this wasn't the kind of man you lose your temper with. "I have a hunch there's something bad going on."

"You're out on a limb by yourself on this one, Shawn."

Shawn slammed his fist on his desk. A coworker at a nearby desk looked over with a puzzled and disapproving look.

The Secret Service used to be part of the Treasury, but had moved to the Department of Homeland Security a year earlier. This gave the Secret Service a huge new treasure trove of tools and information. They were now working with databases from the FBI, CIA and NSA. Most of the people in the Secret Service were luddites, but Shawn had spent extra time every day learning the new systems. About four months earlier, he found his first abnormal activity. But when colleagues reviewed the data, they unanimously, and conclusively wrote it off as unimportant. Shawn's gut told him not to let go.

"Mr. Stephenson, forgive me, but I think forty-one years buys me some leeway on a hunch. How long ago did you appoint Richard? Three and a half years? He's so new that he still counts his time in half years."

"Shawn, you will not speak that way about your boss and you will take care of Marnie. You will call me if she gives birth and I'll hold you personally responsible if anything happens to her."

"Yes, sir." He bent a Bic pen in half and threw it in the trash. Shawn had found the anomaly by flagging some keywords. The government tools constantly scanned public sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google and Bing. When the terms popped up, as much information as possible was gathered about the person who used the keyword for review by Shawn. Even if that person was using the websites without logging in, it would still leave traces. Sometimes an email address in one service, a browser plugin in another service, and an IP address in yet another. Shawn rightly considered IP addresses as the fingerprints of a computer on the Internet. The fingerprints didn't inherently tell anybody your personal information, but if you could gather that fingerprint from enough places, you could start putting a dossier together around it.

About six months ago, Shawn got a hit on a keyword that had been dormant since he'd originally set up the search. His team had been investigating this hit for the last week.

* * *

"What's an ashcat again?" whispered Brandon. Wherever he went, he always took a black moleskin notepad and a chrome pen, holding them up high near his face like a security blanket.

"Assistant railroad operator," said Abigail with a hiss. Brandon scribbled it in his pad.

"That's right, I knew that. Hey," said Brandon, already blushing. "Are you free this weekend? Maybe we could go to the arcade?"