When a crack team of Russian agents blackmails and turns a gullible and promiscuous
NSA analyst to breach a super-secret program, it falls to the veteran Director of
the NSA to save America’s security before complete destruction of vital technologies.

SYNOPSIS:

CRANDALL BARTLETT, Acting Director of the NSA, investigates the suicide of an employee linked to defector ERIC SCHNEIDER, who has gone to Russia. Back at HQ, he summons DANIEL MILTON, an analyst, to discuss Milton’s vacation plans and his prior contact with Schneider. Milton discloses his wife’s M-S as a need for traveling to the sunny West Coast. And a possible job offer with Rand Corporation. Bartlett is satisfied that Milton’s contact with Schneider was low level and limited. He grants Milton’s vacation request.

In Santa Monica, Milton becomes the target of a tryst with a Russian agent, LANA LAYTON. The team includes VASILY MEREYEV and SERGEI KHARKOV. They ensnare Milton in a plot to destroy a super-secret program at NSA, “Project Mystic”, after first stealing the technology.

Upon his return to Maryland, Milton hides his inner distress, but does the dirty work of hacking into the Project Mystic website. Meanwhile, Crandall’s staff alerts him to LOVEINT violations from Milton. He places Milton under closer surveillance and writes him up for a warning. Milton makes contact with Lana, Vasily, and Sergei who coach him in fine tuning his efforts to breach Project Mystic. When Crandall gives a briefing at the Pentagon about Project Mystic, a general shares his reports of a mole in NSA. To complicate matters for Milton, Crandall orders his computers replaced and examined. This drives Milton to seek refuge with the Russians, who only fan the flames of his estrangement from NSA.

When Crandall learns from his subordinates of Milton’s strange behavior (he drove to a remote location and disappeared), he sets Milton up with phony intel about a new digital weapon in Project Mystic called “Jinxnet”. Milton slips away from his surveillance to rendezvous with the Russians, who supply him with a nano-chipped shirt that transmits data from inside NSA.

Milton attempts to implicate Crandall as the hacker into Project Mystic by using his login and clearance. Expecting to evade detection with the nano shirt, Milton is instead discovered when Security Staff detect unauthorized transmissions from HQ. NSA is put on alert. Milton escapes from HQ, but only after a skirmish with NSA Police. Crandall, Security Staff, NSA Police, and State Troopers track him down to the rendezvous location. There he is taken down and captured. But not before the Russians escape with a large share of Project Mystic technology.