Mark of Evil (47 page)

Ethan ducked under the box dangling from the end of Galligher’s fishing pole and started down the ladder first, lugging the big roll of fiber-optic cable that was connected to the computer. Chiro was beginning to climb after him when Galligher called out to him with a cocky grin, “Hey, Chiro, I thought you said this wouldn’t be that easy.”

Chiro nodded as Galligher announced that the box at the end of the line felt like it weighed about ten pounds and his arms were getting tired. He asked exactly when he could put the fishing rod down. “You can’t,” Chiro called back to him with a smile and then he disappeared down the ladder.

Two miles away, in the security control room in the National Data Center, the Alliance staff was receiving an operational crash-course from a National Security Agency advisor from Washington. The NSA official had to respond to all of their questions, even if it meant answering through gritted teeth.

“What about the signal here,” one of the Alliance technicians asked. “It says that the infrared LED system out there in the desert is showing an anomaly: the system protecting the outside bypass hatch is reading
Low Power
on the PWM pulse. Maybe there was an intrusion into the exterior data vault out there. Someone could be accessing the fiber-optic core switches. Perhaps we should send out a squad of droid-bots to check it out?”

The NSA man gave a nonplussed shrug. He had read the most recent top secret memo—the one that was now circulating through the FBI, Homeland Security, the NSA, and the CIA. It described the status of the formal investigation into the assassination of President Hewbright and the nefarious ties between the now president Darrell Zandibar and Jessica Tulrude, the regent for Global Alliance Region One. And the obvious partnership between Tulrude and Alexander Colliquin. With no vice president yet named, the next in line of succession—the Speaker of the House, a former head of the CIA himself—was demanding that President Zandibar surrender his executive powers until the investigation was completed. The memo also described the link between Alexander Colliquin and the assassin Vlad Malatov, aka agent Ted Booth. The death of President Hewbright had all the makings of an insidious White House coup, and the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies were siding with the Speaker.

The last thing the top secret memo had mentioned was “a heroic attempt to countermand the handover from the U.S.A. to the Global Alliance of the Bluffdale computer data center, spearheaded by a former air force special-ops pilot who is a loaned asset of the CIA.”

The NSA man, just like his superiors in the intelligence agencies and like the Pentagon brass, had no intention of giving in to the Alliance until every last question about Hewbright’s murder had been answered to their satisfaction. Until then, the orders of the late president Hewbright to treat the data center and every other inch of American soil as free of Alliance control were considered reinstated.

As the NSA official looked at the blinking signal light on the computer console, he remarked casually, “Nothing to worry about.”

The Global Alliance technician kept insisting that something was wrong. But the NSA man simply replied, “That PWM system in those infrared LEDs is the newest design model.” He grinned. “I never trust the newest model off the assembly line—whether it’s a car from Detroit or an infrared security system. Don’t worry about it.”

The Global Alliance tech guy still looked unconvinced. After glancing down at his Allfone watch, he said, “An Internet shutdown is scheduled to occur soon. But we’ll be down only for a short time. Then I’ll launch our droid-bots to check out the perimeter. Just in case you’re wrong.”

SIXTY-THREE

As Ethan walked through the long, cement-floored computer vault, he carefully unrolled the fiber-optic cable that was connected at the other end, above ground, to Chiro’s C-Note quantum computer. The underground hall was lined on both sides with data racks; each rack was nineteen inches wide and just under two inches tall, and rows and rows of them were stacked one on top of each other from floor to ceiling. Together, they created a tunnel of blinking lights that looked like a Future World ride at Disney World.

At the end of the vault were two big machines on the left. “Routers,” Chiro announced in the green illumination of the safety lights as he pointed to them. There was a smaller data machine on the right with yellow, black, and purple cables running out of it. Chiro pointed to it and, in a whisper of hushed awe, said, “This is it. The core switches. If we can access this, we can override everything.”

But Ethan wasn’t next to him; he stood a distance away, down the
corridor from Chiro, and he had a distressed look on his face as he held the end of the fiber-optic cable. It was clear now that the length of cable was too short to reach the core switches. “It won’t reach,” Ethan said.

Chiro pulled out his digital measuring tape, held it at the face of the box containing the core switches, then focused it at Ethan’s feet. “Maybe I can fix this,” he said. But after reading the little meter he said with a groan, “We still need twenty-three feet.”

“Is there any more cable?”

Chiro shook his head. Ethan bit his lip. “I thought you just said you could fix this?”

Chiro pulled a small red box from his pocket. “I could,” he said, “with this signal extender. Only . . .”

“What?”

“It only works up to
twenty
feet.”

“Lord,” Ethan prayed, “You extended the length of a day during the life of Joshua. We need You to extend the capacity of this device by three more feet.”

When Ethan was done praying, he noticed Chiro’s anxious face in the ghostly illumination of the green lights. The young Japanese man was a genius, and Ethan was tempted to believe that his word on matters of digital technology was always final. Except for one thing: God was God. Ethan was now banking everything on that single fact.

Chiro connected a fiber-optic signal receptacle to the core switching box and then attached his red signal extender to the end of the cable, which lay twenty-three agonizing feet from the core switches, nothing but empty air between the two. He reached his hands out toward the core switching box as if he were trying to somehow make the distance disappear between it and the end of the fiber-optic cable connected to his C-Note computer above ground.

Ethan touched Chiro on the shoulder. “Faith is the evidence of things not seen,” he said, paraphrasing from the book of Hebrews,
“the substance of things hoped for.” He pulled the reluctant Chiro away from the dead end of the corridor and urged him toward the other end of the hallway and the ladder leading up to the ground level. “So we walk by faith. But
quickly
.”

MASTER CONTROL STUDIO—ALLIANCE COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

New Babylon, Iraq

Alexander Colliquin stood alone in his New Babylon penthouse, studying himself in a full-length mirror. In the Internet headquarters of the Alliance, Colliquin’s digital engineers had sent their state-of-the-art denial-of-service signal through the Internet, aimed at every root server address across the planet. It was now just a matter of time. As soon as the Internet went down, the new 3-D holograph program would be imbedded and then the global system would reboot. That’s when they would call Colliquin and invite him over to the studio to begin his first 3-D global image transmission to the human race.

Thirty minutes later it started.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

In New York, the software-controlled lights of the huge Jumbotrons that filled the sides of buildings along Time Square started to blink off, along with the digital stoplights in the intersections. On Wall Street, inside the New York Stock Exchange, the electronic trading boards went dark. Subway trains running on Internet-driven schedules and directional systems ground to a halt. The radar screens in airport control towers shut down as jets circled, waiting for clearance to land.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

In Las Vegas, Dillon Ritzian was sitting next to Darlene, who had reluctantly returned to the apartment when the nail salon didn’t pan out. The two of them were watching Internet television together as he tried to explain the whole back story to her—about how Henry Bender had pressured him for information about America’s central web hub in the data center at Bluffdale, Utah, and how sorry he was he’d gotten involved. Especially when he finally figured out somebody was trying to take over the entire Internet, or shut it down, and maybe use all of that against America. And how he’d decided to put a stop to it and had placed a call to a television studio and tracked down an ex-senator he’d seen on TV. That is how he—Dillon Ritzian—had blown the lid on the whole conspiracy.

Darlene flashed a skeptical expression, the kind usually reserved for stories about alien abductions.

“I’m just sayin’,” Ritzian said, “I was actually trying to save America. I think something heavy is goin’ down on the Internet.”

She shook her head. But just then the image on the TV in front of them disappeared. They both noticed that the electricity in the apartment was still on. Simultaneously they pulled out their Allfones. Both devices showed no signal. Darlene looked at her boyfriend. “Okay, so, tell me this again . . .”