Page 3 of Eleven Numbers

“Fort Meade, sir.”

“Oh,” Tyler said. He had been expecting the White House. He asked, “What’s at Fort Meade?”

“Many things,” the guy said. “It’s a multipurpose facility. Including a hundred acres to store the overspill from the Library of Congress.”

“Can you tell me specifically?”

“The west gate, specifically. We hand you off to a second team of agents.”

The same as the pilot.It’s called need-to-know. Basic security. This is a classified operation.

Tyler got in the car.

Fort Meade’s west gate had a wide blacktopped area in front of it. Waiting there was a black Suburban identical to the example Tyler was riding in. He got out of one and into the other. There were two men in the front of the new vehicle, wearing blue suits like the first pair, but with earpieces and curly wires running under their collars. They pulled up at the security booth and the driver showed a pass. A striped barrier rose up and they drove on through.

“Where are we going?” Tyler asked, not expecting an answer. But he got one. The driver pointed ahead. A huge black building stood alone in an endless parking lot.

“What’s that?” Tyler asked.

“NSA,” the driver said. “The National Security Agency.”

“They record people’s phone calls.”

“Among other things.”

“Is this about some call I made?”

“No, sir, we were briefed that you’re here to assist with a project.”

“What project?”

“Clearly something important,” the driver said. “I was supposed to play golf today.”

They parked at an inconspicuous personnel entrance set in an otherwise blank wall. This time Tyler was not handed off like a courier package. The two agents got out with him and escorted him inside, where he was asked to step through a metal detector and submit to a pat-down search. He did the first and said yes to the second, and then the agents led him onward through a long white corridor, to a wide low spacethat hummed with complex equipment. The lighting was dim. The air was cold. AC on max. Like a server farm.

Dead ahead in the end wall was a set of double doors, with an agent on the left and another on the right, both standing easy, relaxed but still threatening. Guarding some kind of inner sanctum beyond them. Tyler was led in their direction. One of them said into his cuff, “Professor Tyler is here.”

The answer in their earpieces must have beensend him right in, because the agent on the left opened the left-hand door and the agent on the right opened the right-hand door, as if choreographed, like a royal house in Europe. All four agents stayed outside. Tyler stepped inside. The doors closed behind him.

In the room were desks and cables and keyboards and flat-screen monitors. And four men. Tyler didn’t know two of them. Or maybe he did, a little. Maybe he had seen them in the background, while someone else made a statement on TV.

He knew the other two. That was for sure.

The third man was Oliver Bailey, the greatest living American mathematician. Certainly the most famous, the most prominent, the most visible. The go-to guy, not that anyone went to mathematicians very often. But if they did, Bailey was their man. Richly deserved, Tyler thought. Justified by a spectacular body of work across an absurdly wide range of interests. Really a historic figure.

The fourth man in the room was the president of the United States.

The president radiated charm and charisma and power. He stepped over to where Tyler was standing and said, “I’m Jacob Ramsey.” Which was unnecessary, because Tyler knew his name. The whole world knew. Ramsey said, “We appreciateyou being here, Professor,” and held out his hand. Tyler shook it, numb. Then Ramsey made the introductions. He pointed and said, “John McGinn, my national security advisor. Matthew Cash, the NSA director. And I’m sure you already know Professor Bailey. He’s in the same line of work as you.”

Tyler said, “I know of him, of course. It’s a pleasure to meet face-to-face.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Bailey said. A confident voice. Famous, prominent, visible. “I’m an admirer. I read your PhD thesis.”

“Really?” was all Tyler could say.

“I was impressed,” Bailey said. “I have my own copy. I like to dip into it from time to time.”

“Really?” Tyler said again.

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