He walked down the rest of the corridor and found that the door at the end slid back for him. He walked through and entered a modern-looking office setup, very military but very familiar to him. He’d worked at NSA for nine years and was used to such things.

A pudgy, gray-haired man in a brown, rumpled-looking suit waited for him, then came up to him and stuck out his hand. “You’re Moosic, I guess. I’m Riggs.”

He took the other’s hand and shook it. “Sorry we have to meet like this,” he responded.

“No, you’re not. Not really,” Riggs responded in a casual tone, without any trace of bitterness. “Not any more than I was when I took over the same way. It’s no big deal. I’ll be bumped to an eighteen, push papers for two years, then retire with over thirty. Short of running for President, it’s about as high as I ever expected to get anyway. Come on—I’ll show you around the place.”

They walked back through the central office area. Three corridors branched off the room, each of which was guarded by a very mean-looking Marine with a semiautomatic rifle. Moosic looked around and noted also the cameras and professionally concealed trap doors in the ceiling. Anyone who made it even this far would still be under constant observation by people able to take action. It was impressive, but it made the Air Force penetration even more so. As they stood near a corridor entry way, each of them inserting his gold photo I.D. into a computer and waiting for the red ones to appear in the slot at the bottom, the newcomer said as much.

“No place is totally securable,” Riggs replied. “You can say they were pros with some inside information, but any enemy trying the same thing will have those advantages as well. The big hole in the end was the centralized control of security within this installation, as I’m sure you know. If you got in, you could get out.”