Borderless Deceit (3 page)

“Huang?”

“St. Petersburg. Doing the new treaty on arctic pollution.”

“Just us then,” he announced to the five around the table. He took his time to examine each one. Heywood was the last. “My machine is dead,” des Étoiles said in a voice tinged with regret, “and my secretary no longer has my schedule. Why is that?”

Heywood came forward and filled his chest. Somewhere near his centre he felt sick, but outwardly he challenged. “We know the following…so far,” he said, planting hands on the High Council table and staring directly into the lazy, brooding half-closed eyes of the High Council Head.

A two-minute briefing on the meltdown from Claude, chief of technical operations, was all Heywood had, and much of it was gibberish. Closed-system vulnerability, integrated software suites, geometric arrays
of servers, spokes and hubs and mega-baud lines linking macro and micro missions: technical hocus-pocus, meaningless words, all of it passing through Heywood's mind as water does through gravel. When he finished, Claude searched for a sign he'd been understood, but all he saw was the Czar rising, fixing his gaze on the door, and initiating the long slow trek to the High Council chamber. Half into the hallway Heywood hesitated. “What's really going on, Claude?” he asked quietly. “What's causing it?” The network engineer shrugged. Heywood pressed one last time. “And what happens now?” Claude looked blank. He had no idea.

But Heywood did. Blackness descending on ten thousand computers had a cause which, once known, would demand sacrifice. And in the eventual rite he could end up being the one supine on the altar waiting for the knife. From experience he also knew – with the disaster still breaking – that he might find some toehold with which to turn events to his advantage. That required authoritative answers to tough questions and, with Claude struck dumb, the Czar was only too aware that he would live or die by his wits alone. By the time Irving Heywood walked into the High Council chamber his opening lines were honed.

“At approximately seventeen-twenty Greenwich Mean Time, a bit past the noon hour here, the watch in Network Overview noticed a couple of overload lights flashing on the board. Only one technician was on duty…the lunch break…and he wasn't responsible for network overload, so he waited. I ought to say, network overload is not necessarily regarded as dangerous. It shows everyone around the world is busy. That's good. It's what we want. The main impact is that when you click a ‘send' button the response is a bit slower. So it's no big deal.”

This, more or less, was fact.

A soft rhythmic sound had started up. Des Étoiles's fingers were drumming the table. He half turned to one of the assistants, but checked himself and sent a combative glance at the electric clock on the far wall. Heywood pressed his palms down harder, glowered at the drumming fingers and picked up speed. More facts, some passably true: network overload spreading, the first signs that network overload was cover for network annihilation, the fact –
absolutely remarkable from a
technical perspective
– that merely being on-line was enough to be invaded, no need to open an attachment for the malignancy to spread –
a first, we think
.

There was silence around the table as the implications of the invasion's ease sank in.

“There had to be an entry point,” Heywood added, sounding competent. “We're not yet sure where that was, but we'll find out.”

“An unfriendly visit would you say?” Hunt intervened sarcastically. “Something inconsistent with the laws of physics. A visitation?”

Heywood did not play. He stayed focussed on the lines his inward self was writing and his conscious self could read out loud.

…once inside, the virus travels to the first server in its path, impounding the files, holding them hostage, incapacitating them to emit alarm signals, preventing the deployment of automatic anti-viral systems…

“Like capturing the body's immune system,” said Abbie MacAuley brightly.

“You got it,” growled Heywood.

…the work stations attached to the server are seized next. With this beachhead, the invader sends an instruction to replicate itself in the next server, thus duplicating the operation. Steadily it moves towards the peripherals, to the e-mail accounts, and to the main files. The process repeats itself, again and again, taking hold of, but not yet obliterating, not yet, the whole network and its contents…

The Czar explained that all this looked so much like network overload that it threw everyone off.

“Well, the symptoms of a light flu will mask malaria,” asserted Abbie MacAuley, “which is then often fatal.”

“Precisely,” boomed Heywood.

…once the first branch of the network is fully secured, an instruction – now replicated inside the next branch – loops back to the first and issues the order for localized self-destruction…

“My God,” Harry Berezowski said softly, beginning to understand the virus's chilling efficacy. “Not a visitation, more like an infestation.”

“A deadly one too,” Heywood said harshly. He fell back in his chair which rocked and squeaked a bit. Fingers intertwined over his round gut and in this pose of self-assurance he continued. “The virus moved fast. The central servers were gone in twenty minutes. The ones
at the embassies were next and got fried just as bad. Dead now. Gone to hell. No time for counter measures either. Pestilential it was, I tell you. A plague. I'll find out who did it. I swear. They won't get far.” In the ensuing pause, he began twiddling his thumbs.

Étienne des Étoiles broke the spell. “That may not be quite good enough.” The intonation was colourless. “A global operation erased? Not a finger lifted?”

Heywood readied himself. Many great battles have been lost in minutes. He came forward, once more planting his hands on the table. Would the attack come straight from des Étoiles? Or from a proxy? Or from them all?

Claire Desmarais was first. She could not contain herself. “Indeed, she said, “not a finger lifted,” and raised hers to make a point. “I want to say that I haven't heard here what I came for. Yes, I've heard a description of a problem. But, no, I haven't had an explanation.”

This unleashed hell itself, des Étoiles doing nothing to contain it. Snide digs from Ron Hunt; more biological concern from Abbie Macauley; reprimands, not entirely unfounded, from Claire Desmarais. Demands for damage assessment, claims about flimsy system design, laments about the catastrophic losses of sacred information, howls of pain over setbacks to global democratisation in accordance with the national vision; and above all…fear…fear that the Service would be ridiculed.

This tearing of cloth and showering of ashes went on and on until Claire's fleshless lips ended the discussion by bringing it full circle: “An explanation,” she said. “If it is beyond our capacity to find one, we should seek outside help.” Her admonishing index finger had once again ascended and she was wagging it, as if to signal that the end of God's creation was near.

Throughout the meeting, so the reconstruction went, Heywood fought the battle of his life. Sometimes he retreated nimbly. Then he'd stand his ground as if he held a pike. Occasionally he attacked. Once, loudly indignant, he metaphorically climbed up his banner, shouted out defiance, and said he'd stand by and for his troops. Afterwards he confided – not to Claude, but to Claude's fresh assistant Jaime – how he survived. His jowls shook reliving it.
Experience counts
, he
explained.
You fall back on it. I tell you, Jaime, they were surrounding me. I know the macabre ritual, sabres out, first some prodding before the wild swinging begins. They want you to dance to your death. But I refused. I pitied them, you know. I sat and watched and shook my head
.

Jaime didn't know it then – how could she? – that Heywood had been confronting sabre-swinging ghosts long before the Transylvanian plague. It was later, when she and Heywood were meeting often – she to create and he to glorify their common cause, the one they esoterically called Zadokite Port – that he began to share his confidences with her. A troop of ghosts had been landing brutal blows on him for years. Irving's wife Hannah, always a sunny woman, had become bedridden at home with cancer. She was recovering, or maybe not – it was too early to know. Their second son, after thirty-five years of roaming and seeking, had recently phoned from out west to say that he'd just married a cowboy and had found true happiness at last. The eldest son had a child with dyslexia, definitely not a Heywood gene. The third son had gone bankrupt four times as a book seller in western ski resorts. And the youngest one, wildly successful professionally, was living in deep poverty because he was in the middle of a third marriage, which too had hit the rocks. And then there were his little personal miseries: haemorrhoid attacks; an enlarged prostate making peeing a hassle; hip joints so stiff that some days he pined for a wheelchair. As for his mind, well, twice already he'd caught himself leaving the kitchen with the tap water still running.
Life, Jaime, is one endless fight
.

“Irv,” Jaime had said, “The first hundred years are the toughest, so think of the good times ahead.”

Heywood had sniffed. “My attitude exactly,” he had replied.

That evening, inspired by Jaime's youth and boundless energy, having returned to the family home on Ivy Crescent, a red brick house with a wooden porch from which the paint was peeling, he went upstairs to the bedroom to kiss his wife. He projected cheerfulness and hope. In a weak voice Hannah asked the same question that in earlier days had radiantly bubbled out:
How was it at the office, darling
?

His reply:
Wonderful, sweet. Inspiring. Thirty-five years…I'm still loving it
.

Yes, Heywood had fought. And he would fight some more, so as to get to the good times ahead.

But
good times ahead
was scarcely the issue at the High Council session. Claire Desmarais's absurd notion – to request outside assistance – had put the Czar's dignity on the block. Outside assistance? Good God! Good times ahead are nothing if the voyage there brings with it a sullied reputation. When Claire made that suggestion, Heywood's fight at the High Council session turned into one not so much for a better future as for an honourable past.

Deftly changing his bearing, discarding the veneer of authority, taking defiance off the table, placing clasped hands humbly under his chin, the Czar morphed into the role of supplicant. His comeback line to Claire was an invitation to the whole High Council to ascend to a higher level, to the one where charity begins.

We were caught unprepared, sure. And there was no antidote – a mistake from which to learn. But let's be realistic. We'll weather it. We're resourceful. For a while we'll communicate by telephone, as we always did. We can also start using the fax machines again. And let's not forget, everything is backed up on tapes. Reports, records, letters, memoranda – it's all still there. Even our schedules. We haven't lost that much. We'll rebuild the network, make it better. With a push it could be done in weeks. I'll find who's responsible too. I'll get an explanation. I'll make sure we'll fathom this. I swear it. If you want, I'll swear twice
.

This was Heywood's last shot, his ultimate lunge. Would he now stand or fall? Everyone waited for des Étoiles, but he showed no sign that he had made up his mind.

Harry Berezowski, the kid on the block, young enough to be able to spend a dozen years recovering were he ever to have a slip-up such as Heywood's, stepped courageously into the void. “What Irving says is wise,” he said. “The world hasn't ended. Let's get over it and on with it.”

More silence, but of a different colour. Étienne des Étoiles continued reflecting. Heywood stopped his squeaky rocking. Hunt began a methodical cracking of his knuckles.

Suspense built.

Des Étoiles, took a deep breath and…came down on Berezowski's side.
We have faith in Mr. Heywood's ability to get things done
. Then he summed up. He wanted a full explanation for the meltdown: who was behind it, how the virus had entered, where defences were lacking.
There were still more crisp orders to the Czar.
You believe you can find the authors. Do what you have to. Keep me in the picture. Report daily
.

Ron Hunt immediately winked at Claire. Report daily!

Des Étoiles was not finished. He also wanted an operational plan for mitigating the disaster's impact.
By breakfast tomorrow. And, ensure reasonable communications are restored worldwide within, shall we say, 48 hours
. He next demanded detailed design plans for a new network
– to be sanctioned only upon completion of a full peer review
. Finally, he dictated an entire overhaul of network operating rules: “If it's true,” said des Étoiles without emotion, “that blinking lights can't distinguish between system overload and a debilitating virus, then lights are useless. Sorry, Abbie, but there's no excuse for doctors that can't tell malaria from the flu.”

Heywood made a point of getting in the meeting's final comment. Once more rocking back and forth, he said, “Sounds reasonable to me.” He couldn't have made it sound more bland.

With a final short bow and a single knock on the table, his way of dismissing the session, Étienne des Étoiles got up and disappeared through the door in the wood-panelled wall. Harry Berezowski and Abbie MacAuley drifted away through the double doors. Heywood was still rocking back and forth when Claire Desmarais lifted her finger one last time. Her next appointment, she reminded him, was with the American ambassador. “I'll ask him what he knows,” she threatened.

Ron Hunt lingered at the door. “Ever seen that circus act, Irv,” he twirped brightly, “you know, the one with the dancing bear? Metal collar. Steel chain.”