Severe Clear

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Scott Hipp turned off I-295 South in Fort Meade, Maryland, at the dedicated exit entitled “NSA Employees Only” and drove to the mirrored black building that is the headquarters of the National Security Agency. The NSA was that part of the United States intelligence community responsible for communications surveillance and code-breaking, and Hipp was its deputy director for cryptology, so he could park in the underground garage instead of in one of the eighteen thousand parking spaces surrounding the building.

Feeling smug that he would return to a cool automobile instead of those baking outside, he inserted his ID badge in the elevator panel and rode up to his office on the top floor, which he entered at the stroke of eight A.M., as he did every day. Four people awaited him at his conference table, drinking his coffee.

Hipp set his briefcase on the conference table and sat down. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said without preamble.

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