Emily Bright                                                                         

Surveillance

Marcus Balls boards the blue line headed for the city at precisely 8:06 each morning. The trip takes him under the Potomac and stops at the Pentagon before reaching Navy Memorial. The men and women who get off at the Pentagon stop do not look any more important than he is. That, Marcus knows, is part of their disguise. Disguise is something Marcus Balls knows well.

At the Navy Memorial he climbs up the stairs into the blinding sun or rain or current temperature and walks two blocks to the Spy Museum, where he works. He carries a leather briefcase with a combination lock which may contain important documents. Or, it may contain his daily tuna fish sandwich, potato chips, and orange soda. Or both, carefully wrapped so that the files (if they exist) are not dampened by the sweat of a cold refreshment, which he drinks (if he has it) every day during his 1:15 lunch break. His administrative office is small and plain, tucked behind the ticket counter. He was once heavily involved in creating the Cloak and Dagger rooms of the museum.

There are entire libraries filled with things Marcus Balls does not know. To whit: the origins of his last name (Czeck) and why the Ellis Island patrol who let his great-grandfather in saw fit to saddle him with such a snickering moniker. Also: the number and precise migration pattern of the geese that have been flying over the inconsistently kept lawn of his condo, leaving the sticky white remains of their past meals for him to smear all over the metro, unable to scrape them off his shoe.

He thinks he knows (but he does not) why Jessica Idrisi has not returned his phone call. He thinks it has to do with the coffee he knocked all over the front of her lavender blouse on their (third) date last Saturday, followed by his clumsy though well-intentioned attempts to sop her off. In reality, Jessica had always felt the blouse made her look fat and was happy for an excuse to get rid of it.

Marcus enters the Spy Museum through the side door between 8:40 and 8:44 each day, depending on the weather. The security cameras focus in on his person, recording the clothes, the briefcase, the final attempt to scrape his left shoe clean. All of this is recorded and saved, as it has been for the last five years. It can and will be used against him.

On this particular day, which is a Wednesday in October, 2012, the cameras record Marcus pausing just before the door to scratch behind his left ear. An itch? A signal? This motion will be rigorously questioned this afternoon. Then he enters and greets Jessica Idrisi, who runs their PR. He gives her a wave and shy smile that look both foolish and endearing on a man of his stature. They exchange a few words, which are meant to be professional but hint at sexual chemistry despite the non-returned phone call. Marcus is, based on what Jessica told her jogging partner, Sue Jong, a surprisingly sensuous kisser.

Marcus steps into his office, closes the door, and enters the passwords necessary to engage his computer. The budget is not due until 4 p.m., which should be plenty of time. He knows not to expect that everything will go as planned.

At 9:10 a.m., the Spy Museum experiences a power surge that causes Marcus’s computer screen to blip suddenly to black. The machine begins to reboot immediately. Marcus rises and paces over to the coffee pot, which requires him to pass by Jessica’s open door. Normally, he does not take a coffee break is not until 10:30. Marcus returns to his desk empty-handed, nearly colliding with the new web designer, a pale chain-smoker named Drew Harris, on his way back.

When the swarm comes at 10:52 a.m., Marcus has just sat down at his desk with properly timed coffee (black) in a black museum mug which reads I Spy. He is on his feet before Jessica screams. When two men in suits barge through his door, Marcus appears to be sitting casually behind his desk, waiting. He complies with their request to walk into the car, where he finds Jessica Idrisi and Drew Harris. When he tells them to be calm, his voice waivers only slightly.

Things Marcus Balls prefers not to reveal but will if necessary, stringing them out before questioners (hostile or intimate), like nuggets of personal gold: he speaks better Urdu than Jessica Idrisi, whose immigrant parents allowed her to answer their numerous and cloying questions in English. Also: Spanish, Italian, and Russian, though his accent is not quite good enough to pass as a native of St. Petersburg. (“I’m a language dork,” he told Jessica Idrisi, adding a self-depricating laugh.) An injury in his late 20s means that he is only comfortable in silk boxers. He never bites directly into fruit but slices it with a knife, a habit which drove his (long ago) ex-girlfriend crazy. At 42, he has now been trying for nearly half his life to lose 20 pounds.

Drew Harris looks to be on the brink of seizure. Jessica Idrisi’s lips are pressed tight, and she spins her ring (right hand, which she got from her mother) around in circles fast enough to leave a mark. She and Marcus do not touch each other, do not speak. The two men in the back of the car with them are white, American. CIA. The one in glasses watches Jessica with an appreciation that is male and universal. Marcus keeps a cold eye on him.

Of course they are brought to separate rooms. The proper protocol is followed. Marcus’s interrogator, a big blonde Minnesotan, judging by the ways he punishes his vowels, gives Marcus ample opportunities to confess why he was brought in. The captors have done their homework. They know about the briefcase, the ear-itch, the geese. Jessica’s name is brought up, as are the names of several former colleagues with whom Marcus’s phone records imply he has not maintained contact.

How is he passing information onto the terrorists, the Minnesotan wants to know, and what is their next move?

What terrorists? Marcus asks. He means, from which part of the world, with which motivations? They’re not all Al-Quaida, he says. He’s worked on that exhibit, too.

Things Marcus Balls will tell no one, even on pain of torture:

Let’s cut to the chase, Minnesota says, smashing his “a” as flat as asphalt. We’ve got the records, Agent Balls.

I’d like to talk to the guy in glasses, says Marcus, thinking of Jessica. He knows (we all know, don’t we? having watched any of a dozen popular crime shows) that sometimes interrogators pretend to have information in order to get a confession. Sometimes they make things up.

Minnesota ignores him. “At 9:22 this morning, there was an attempted hack on certain encrypted CIA files maintaining to Operation Black Mambo. We were able to trace the hackers back to a computer in Peshawar. As I speak, our operatives are linking that computer to a known terrorist organization. But you already know that.”

Marcus blinks. There are three million people in Peshawar, he says, and a big university.

Minnesota slams his hand down on the table between them with the force of a small cannon. It was a botched job, Marcus, he shouts. We’ll get them, and we’ll get you, too, if you so much as sneezed in their direction. How else would they find out about Black Mambo?

Marcus imagines there are a number of ways a clever and motivated hacker can discover classified information. He suspects he was asked a rhetorical question, and stays quiet.

One of the encrypted files that the hackers attempted to (and perhaps managed to) access indicates that an agent referred to only as “Balls” led Operation Black Mambo in Peshawar, Pakistan in 2006. Said agent resigned shortly thereafter. For understandable reasons, there was no picture in the file.

Minnesota leans in close, his body hunched over his elbows in a move that is probably supposed to look confiding. Why’d you do it, Marcus? he says quietly. You get disillusioned with the 9-to-5 American dream? You been planning this since Mambo, waiting for the right time?

Marcus sighs, mumbles something.

What’s that? presses his interrogator.

Marcus slumps slightly. I really wanted to get that budget in on time today.

Marcus pictures his morning as the cameras would have seen it: the power surge, his aimless stroll down the administrator hall, his brief interactions with both of his apprehended colleagues. He does not fault the CIA for checking all the possibilities, laughably tenuous though this connection might be. They are laying a story over his life like tracing paper.

I like my job, Marcus insists. I have a condo. I have a cat.

What you have is a girlfriend with a radical cousin in Peshawar. You two plan this together? Does treason get her hot, Marcus?

Marcus opens his mouth, perhaps to insist he’s more old-fashioned than that, after only three dates, but he stays quiet. The camera records him rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants. Is it nerves? An act?

Minnesota frowns theatrically. He says, Let me paint you a little picture, former-Agent Balls. Stop me when I get warm. You cut out of Opps five, almost six years ago. All that special training’s gone up in smoke, and all you have to show for it are a couple of little rooms with posters. (Here Marcus does try to protest and is silenced.) You know we’re watching. You’re not dumb enough to make a call or take a trip. Our agents are combing the museum now, and I assure you we will find that encryption code.

Unless you keep it on you. Minnesota pauses, scanning Marcus’s face for a reaction. Marcus’s briefcase was confiscated along with its owner.

In the ensuing scenes painted by his interrogator, Marcus becomes a steel-willed double agent with the patience of a nurse shark, positioning himself to leak sensitive information at the most critical time for our national security. He did it all for money (“We’ve seen your condo, Marcus. You could use the dough.”). He did it for spite. For love of Jessica Idrisi and her bad-sheep cousin (who didn’t raise any flags when she was being vetted three years ago). Maybe Jessica Idrisi was the mastermind who seduced him  for information.

Face it, sneers Minnesota. Why else would a fine piece like her want to be with you?

Marcus has rubbed his palms over his thighs enough times to turn the material soft and moist. Minnesota presses on, smiling broadly enough to reveal the taint of his legal addictions. He’s hitting his stride now. “That power surge was awfully convenient timing this morning, wasn’t it? Just enough to transmit the code untraced? Now, who could have done that? You’re not a computer man. Your game’s languages. Encryption. Disguise.” Distain is smeared across his face as he takes in the desk-job softened specimen before him.

So, says Minnesota again, let’s cut to the chase. The two men stare at each other in silent expectation.

There are four options currently available to Marcus Balls. He could lie. He could tell the truth. He could clarify that “Balls” is hardly a unique nickname for a man in what is undoubtedly an adrenalin-soaked position. Option four: he could stay silent.

Just then, the door opens, and a second agent calls Minnesota out for a word in the hall. Through the split timing of an open door, Marcus hears sobbing that may or may not be Jessica’s. It could even be Drew Harris, whose voice is pitched high. Drew Harris came to the office on Jessica’s suggestion about the time she and Marcus started seriously flirting. On paper, he seemed qualified. Records show that the two men’s interactions have been professional and brief. In short, the records are subject to a person’s imagination.

In the other room, the men have finally cracked open the briefcase. They have searched extensively for microchips and transmitters, for tech new and old. What they’ve found is half a tuna fish sandwich, a plastic bag of ruffled potato chips, and an orange soda wrapped in paper towel. I got hungry, Marcus admits when questioned. He is allowed to eat the rest of his lunch.

The cameras record the three colleagues at the moment they are released. Marcus does not—even once—look at Drew Harris, who looks like he is trying to memorize the chips in the linoleum for a very important exam. If words are spoken, they are not overheard.

Marcus checks his newly returned phone. 5:04 p.m. The three colleagues are given the dubious honor of an escort back through D.C. rush hour traffic. We’re watching you, the agent in glasses says to all three. Marcus wonders which of his colleagues managed a call to a very powerful lawyer.

Jessica shoots him a half-smile. It is clear she is shaken. If he makes the right move, Marcus realizes, he can be the one to comfort her this evening. The shared experience can bring them closer. There will be expressions of indignance and relief shared over a bottle of wine in her apartment, the revelation of a few intimate memories, and then, with any luck: sex. Perhaps they will even call in sick tomorrow to extend the proverbial moment. Give Agent Glasses a phone call so he knows just where they are.

But Marcus knows it will not last. A seed of doubt has been planted. It does not matter what the truth is, nor how firmly they each attest to it. What matters is the story, laced with enough nuggets of reality to be swallowed. Once it’s lodged inside you, Marcus knows, it is nearly impossible to get out.

Emily Bright is a host and radio producer at Minnesota Public Radio, and host of the podcast "Ask a Bookseller," which features recommendations from a different indie bookstore each week. She holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her fiction has been published by in Whispering Pines Press, and my poetry appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies. Her poetry collection "Fierce Delight: Poems of Early Motherhood" is forthcoming next spring from North Star Press. @emilykbright on X