A system, method, and program code are given for secure communication. Multiple geographic cells are arranged in a hierarchical tree having a root node and internal nodes. The root node and each internal node in the tree have an associated node cryptographic key for secure communication with lower nodes in the tree. Each cell is associated with a leaf node of the tree and a cell cryptographic key for secure communications with devices located within the cell. A key management center is at the root node for determining an anticipated cell path of a mobile device from a current cell to a destination cell. The key management center distributes to the mobile device a set of cryptographic keys from the tree. This set contains a minimum number of cryptographic keys necessary to permit secure communications for the mobile device within each cell along the anticipated cell path, but no other cells.