Palm Sunday (12 page)

Boyd looked from one to the other. “For security purposes I can’t do what you’re asking, but I will put my notes in a protected section of the server. In the event of my demise, you’ll be given access to that area.” He could tell they weren’t satisfied. “It’s gonna have to do.”

“We’ll deal with it later,” said Stanley. “For now, how about making the modifications so we can re-initialize the interface.”

Boyd hesitated, then nodded and left. He didn’t want to share his empire, but it was clear that a certain level of cooperation was unavoidable. The issue would no doubt resurface. 

After work Stanley swung by to pick up Bobby from his after school program. He parked at the end of the walkway that led from the main entrance of the school, and Bobby soon made his way out of the crowd of young students. He got in the passenger side of the car and fastened his seatbelt as Stanley carefully pulled away from the throng of kids. The two rode in silence for several minutes as they headed for Slocum’s apartment.

“How was school today?” asked Stanley, with a quick glance at his son.

“The usual.”

“Did you learn anything new?”

“I don’t know.” Bobby had been looking out the side window, but now turned towards his father. “Dad, why can’t we just go to our house?”

“I’d like to, but for now we’ll stay with Mr. Slocum.”

“But why?”

“It would be better to stay there while we try to figure out what’s going on with the palmtop.”

Bobby again looked out the window. “Is it because you think those men will come back?”

They were treading on dangerous ground, Stanley knew. He didn’t want Bobby to have to deal with any more issues of fear or security, and yet he couldn’t expose him to what seemed to be potential danger.

“Honestly Bobby, I’m not sure what those men wanted. But until we straighten things out, I don’t want to take any chances.”

Bobby considered this. “Do you trust Mr. Slocum?”

Stanley smiled. “Good question. How about you?”

“He seems okay. He doesn’t laugh much.”

“My guess is he’s had a hard life, or at least a life without much cause to laugh.”

“Doesn’t sound very nice,” said Bobby.

“No.” They continued without speaking for several minutes.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

Bobby turned from the window. “I’m sorry I found the computer.”

Stanley alternated between watching the road and looking at his son. “Bobby, none of this is your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. Okay?”

“Sure.” Bobby said nothing further, and seemed content to look out the window in silence. A short time later they pulled up outside Slocum’s apartment.

Stanley turned to his son before they got out of the car. “I only expect we’ll be here a few days, so let’s make the best of it, okay?”

Bobby nodded, and they got out of the car and walked up the steep set of stairs leading to the front door of the apartment house. They knocked twice before Slocum opened the door. He was wearing an apron and carried a wooden spoon in his left hand.

“Come in. I’ve got dinner on.” The house smelled of spaghetti sauce.

“Smells good. You cook?” asked Stanley.

“Enough to get by. I figured you’d be hungry, and I don’t want to be out any more than we have to. You guys get washed up and I’ll put some plates out.”

Stanley and his son looked at each other and shrugged. This wasn’t the Slocum they were used to.

“Sounds good,” said Stanley, and led the way to the bathroom. Ten minutes later they sat around the small kitchen table, eating. Bobby was doing his share.

“You like it?” Slocum gestured with his head in the boy’s direction.

“Mmm.” He took a gulp of milk.

“So what do we do now?” asked Stanley.

Slocum swallowed before answering. “Keep a low profile, leave no fresh clues for the agency to use to find us, and figure out that thing.” He pointed at the palmtop, which sat next to Stanley’s computer.

“After we eat I want to take a hot shower,” said Stanley. “Then I’ll work on the palm unit.”

“Good. I’ll wash the dishes,” said Slocum.

“Bobby, you help Mr. Slocum.”

“Okay, Dad.” He looked at the former implementer. “I’ll dry.” 

Norbert didn’t like George Pampas. He reminded him too much of the bullies he’d had to deal with for so much of his life. Mason had said to work together, though, so Norbert put together a schedule for teaching the field agents how to implement the hardware modifications required for phase two. Pampas now stood next to Norbert’s desk, obviously dissatisfied with the result.

“Norbert, you have got to be kidding me. We have several hundred installations to do if we’re going to make this work, and you’re telling me each of my people will need a week’s training? There’s no time.”

“It can’t be helped,” said Norbert. “If a transceiver is incorrectly installed, it can make more noise than a submarine with a broken propeller. We have to get it right the first time.”

“Then the timetable has to be pushed back. My men won’t be able to visit that many sites in what little time remains.”

“Take it up with Mason,” said Norbert.

At that moment Mason walked into the computer center. “Take what up with me?”

Both men looked at him. Pampas spoke first. “This training thing. Norbert says each man will require a full week. I told him there won’t be enough time to install all the devices with that kind of delay.”

Norbert quickly added his side of the story. “And I told Mr. Pampas that without the training, there’s liable to be a very serious incident.”

Mason looked from one to the other. “Norbert, lengthen the training days, double the class size, and cut the total to three days each. George, have each team double their practice runs prior to field ops. Anyone who fails repeats the training. I don’t expect anyone to fail. Questions?”

“No,” said Norbert.

“No, sir,” echoed Pampas.

“I came down here to see how things were going,” said Mason. “I hope this isn’t an indication that the situation is out of control.”

“Not at all,” said Pampas. “In fact, other than the tight deadlines, and the missing palm unit, oh yeah, and Robert Slocum, things are just dandy.”

Norbert’s eyes widened. No one spoke to Mason like that.

“Good. Then get back to work.” Mason gave each of them a final appraising glance, and left the room.

Pampas took a deep breath and turned to Norbert. “When exactly will the profiling system be shut down? It has to be deactivated when we bring the new equipment for phase two online, right?”

“Yeah, right. We’ll have to switch the SP system off during the transition. Once all of the new installs are complete, we’ll activate them in batches.”

“Geographically?” asked Pampas.

“For the most part, yes, but that’s only because the infrastructure generally lines up that way. Technically they’ll go according to which major backbone they reside on,” said Norbert.

“So what exactly do you need from me?”

Norbert shuffled through some papers. “For now just a list of your implementers and their area of specialization. The training will be tailored based on what equipment they typically work with.”

“I’ll get started on the list,” said Pampas. “Should be ready by tomorrow.”

“Good. Once I have that I’ll complete the training schedule.”

Pampas left, and Norbert went back to his work on the technical aspects of phase two. With the distraction of dealing with Pampas behind him, he was free to immerse himself in the more comforting world of bit manipulation and logic flow. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he created a digital work of art–a master and his canvas. Soon the nation would experience his genius. 

The palmtop was more stubborn than ever. It switched on, and seemed to have plenty of power, but there was no getting beyond the initial menu.

“They must have found a way to lock us out,” said Slocum, as he stood behind Stanley, looking over his shoulder.

“No, I don’t think so. I can’t even establish a link with the external interface. It’s as if something is broken on the inside.”

“Maybe it’s the cable,” said Slocum.

Stanley looked up at him. “You have the original, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll get it.”

In moments they had switched cables. A link between the palm unit and the PC was immediately established.

“I guess a pin must have broken on mine. Let’s see what’s out there.” Stanley activated the secondary menu and initiated a download. It went smoothly, running even faster than it had at his house. He said so.

“It was probably the cable,” said Slocum. “They always told us to treat them carefully.” He nodded towards the palmtop. “What have you got on the download?”

Stanley punched a few keys. “Looks like some more garbage, and one encoded file.”

“Work on the file. That other stuff is probably just what you said–garbage.”

“It will take some time to decipher it,” said Stanley.

“We’re not going anywhere, right?”

Stanley nodded and gestured to Bobby. “How are you doing, son?”

“Good,” said Bobby. “Can I watch?”

“Sure,” said Stanley, indicating for the boy to come stand next to him. “See this file? The one with all the words that don’t make any sense?”

Bobby squinted and leaned forward. “Sure.”

“Well, we want to try to make sense out of the words.”

“How?”

“The letters mean something, but they’re in the wrong order. For example, see this ‘k’?”

“Yeah,” said Bobby.

“Maybe it’s not really a ‘k’ at all. Maybe it’s a seven, or even a ‘b’ just pretending to be a ‘k’. Maybe it’s two or three letters pretending to be a ‘k’.”

“How can you tell which it is?”

“I can’t. It would take me a hundred years just to find some simple combinations. My hair would be white and I’d need a cane by then.”

“Dad–in a hundred years you’d be dead.”

“So I would,” said Stanley. “Then I guess I need a quicker way to solve the puzzle. That’s where my computer comes in. I have a program that can check every possible combination of characters until it finds words that fit the letters and numbers on the screen, and it does it very, very fast.”

“How fast?”

“Snap your fingers.” Bobby clicked his thumb against his middle finger. “As quick as you did that, it could check over ten thousand combinations.”

“Wow! So how come you told Mr. Slocum it would take a long time to figure it out?”

Stanley smiled. “Because there are millions of combinations to check, and that’s only the first step.”

“What happens next?” asked Bobby.

“I have to run the first program. You can watch, but you have to let me concentrate now.”

“Okay.”

Slocum had been watching as Stanley explained. “You want some coffee?”

“Please.” Stanley didn’t look up from the monitor as his bony fingers gracefully played across the keyboard, slowly at first, then more quickly. He flipped through several directories, calling programs and storing some result sets, while deleting others. After twenty minutes of constant activity, he stopped.

Slocum walked over with the coffee, setting a mug down on the table. “Finished already?”

“No. Just getting started. The first set of data is being processed right now. When that’s done I’ll start looking for any obvious patterns.”

“Would anything show up that soon?” asked Slocum, sipping his coffee.

“Probably not much, but remember, even though the file is heavily encoded, it still ultimately has to be read by humans. I don’t expect to get a complete translation, but even human language has definite identifiable patterns. That’s what I’m looking for.”

“Okay. You’re the expert.”

“I wish I was,” said Stanley. “What we really need is a linguistic encryption specialist. That’s not me.”

“But you figured out those other files.” Slocum gestured towards the palmtop with his cup.

“Parts of them.” Stanley hesitated. Something was bothering him.

“What’s the matter?” asked Slocum.

“It shouldn’t be this easy.”

“Easy?” said Slocum. “Are you kidding? If it’s so easy why can’t we read the file yet?”

Stanley picked up his cup and blew on the steaming liquid, then explained. “You have to understand that we’re dealing with two distinctly different processes here. The file that we downloaded isn’t directly readable, that’s true. But it’s in a format that I can manipulate with a computer program. The question is: how did it get into that state?”

“And what’s the answer?”

“I think the palm unit is helping us.”

“You mean like a decoder?” Slocum offered.

“Sort of. Actually, I suspect that it contains the hash value needed for the decryption algorithm being used.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Slocum.

Stanley set his cup down, gesturing with his hands as he explained. “To communicate securely over the Internet you need a security scheme of some sort, which usually includes the use of data values known only to the communicating devices. I think that information is somehow hardwired into the palmtop, which is why we’re able to see anything at all.” He picked up his coffee and sipped it.

“But you still can’t tell what it says.”

“That’s right,” continued Stanley. “The palmtop is providing a fairly low level translation. The file is still scrambled, probably as a secondary precaution against prying eyes. That part I can deal with. If the palm unit hadn’t performed the initial decryption, we’d be dead in the water. It’s really quite a remarkable device.”

Slocum considered this. “Why are they still sending files?”

Stanley shrugged. “Maybe they don’t know that we can receive them. It’s your agency, what do you think?”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter,” said Slocum. “As long as the line is open, let’s keep listening.” 

It took some time, and several hours of watching different trunk lines, but Agent Sharon’s approach finally paid off. As Justin watched his monitor, the event occurred. It happened exactly as on the previous occasions, with the brief flat line on the graph the only evidence that something was amiss. The only difference was that now they knew it was happening on trunk three. That still left a very wide area to cover, but it narrowed the possibilities to a workable geographical area.