The Phoenix Affair

  *****

  In Riyadh, at the central telephone exchange, a computer noticed the call because of the key words “Brigadier,” “Americans,” and “border”. The brief message was recorded digitally, along with the 03-number in Dhahran, the number of the cell phone that dialed it, and the location and identifier of the antenna transponder that originated the call at al-Kaf on the Jordanian border. The entire packet then went into the cue for “special interest” attention of the Ministry of the Interior and Saudi Intelligence. The computer that received this dutifully recorded it on its own disk drive, and updated its counter of messages with the same attention flag—the new total was 10,358.