Palm Sunday (19 page)

“That was close,” said Stanley.

“Let’s get out of here.”

They wasted no time, and soon were out the door. They walked towards their parked cars together, and stopped when they reached Stanley’s Chevy.

“I have to pick Bobby up at his after school program,” said Stanley. “Are you going straight to Slocum’s?”

Katherine fumbled for her keys. “I have to run home first, and I want to pick up a few groceries. I’ll meet you at the apartment.”

“About an hour.” He hesitated. “Katherine…”

“Yes?” She had found her keys, and clutched them tightly.

He looked into her eyes. “I just wanted to…you know.” He stopped.

“You have to get Bobby,” she said. “We can talk later.” She smiled at him, and he looked at the ground.

He lifted his head, and was about to say something, but she had walked away, and was almost to her car. He fished his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the Chevy. A minute later they both left the parking lot, turning in opposite directions.

Slightly more than an hour later, they were back at Slocum’s apartment, but he was nowhere around. His unexplained absence was troubling.

“I don’t understand,” said Stanley. “He wouldn’t just take off–not without leaving a note, something.”

They looked around the apartment. Nothing was missing, but it seemed empty without Slocum. They felt like they shouldn’t be there without him. Katherine stood in the kitchen, where the two bags of groceries she had purchased sat on the counter.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” she said. “It could be that he just went on an errand.” She didn’t sound very convincing.

“Dad, I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?”

Stanley looked at Katherine, who looked at Bobby. “Sandwiches okay?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Stanley, why don’t you get the palmtop ready, and I’ll work on dinner.”

He nodded, and moved towards the desk that served as a work area. “I’m going to need your help with the analyzer.”

“Get everything else set up,” she said. “Then I’ll splice the analyzer into the mix. The next time we trigger a download, we should get a decent look at what’s coming across the wire.”

“How will we use that to reverse the flow?” asked Stanley.

Katherine had finished unloading the groceries. “I’m not sure yet. Once we figure out how to open an outbound link to their data stream, maybe we can saturate the conduit with a full spectrum burst. If one of our packets finds whatever they’re using as a portal, it may show us how to configure our transmissions.”

Stanley had just finished booting up his computer, and switched the palmtop on. “Smart girl. You want to combine the two devices with the palm unit to form a ground-based positioning system. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

She smiled. “Yes you would, but it would have taken longer.” She took out some bread and started making the sandwiches. When she had finished she brought a plate over to Bobby.

“You want one?” she asked Stanley.

“No, maybe later. I want to get this hooked up.”

She went to his side and started untangling a bunch of cables she had brought with her from work. Using a razor knife she carefully sliced through the channels that separated the individual strands of a length of ribbon cable, then meticulously scraped a small section of each one down to the wire. It was delicate work. She spaced the cuts so that none were directly next to each other, to prevent short circuits. Next, she took the covers off of the network analyzer and Stanley’s PC, and placed alligator clips on each strand of the ribbon cable, with the opposite ends running to various pins on the analyzer and the PC. One end of the ribbon cable was plugged into the PC, the other left dangling. There was no need to plug in the free end of the cable, as all necessary connections had been made with alligator clips.

She double-checked the wires, satisfied with her handiwork. With any luck they could now both provoke a download, and monitor and record all subsequent activity. Whether or not this would yield any useful data was another question.

She looked at Stanley. “Ready?” she asked.

He nodded once. “Yeah. Just let me get this wire out of the way.” He moved a stray bit of cable away from the palmtop. “Good to go.”

“Activating the analyzer.” Katherine threw a switch, and a light on the analyzer turned green. “I’m setting the frequency generator to initiate a download.” She applied power to the device, making sure it was set to the same frequency that had been successful earlier. “We should see something soon.”

Stanley responded immediately. “Yes, the palmtop is doing something. I’m getting some strange numbers here.” His voice was uncertain. “I’m directing it to a log file.” His fingers flew across the keyboard.

“Was it a download?” asked Katherine.

“No, it was something else.” He stared at the screen. “Wait a minute, here we go. This is the download.” Five seconds passed. “It stopped now. That’s it.” Stanley closed the log file and prepared to shut down. Suddenly more numbers appeared.

“What’s that?” asked Katherine.

“I don’t know.” As he peered into his display, he suddenly realized what was happening. “Turn everything off!” He began reaching for switches.

Katherine powered down the frequency generator. “What’s going on?”

“Trace route. Someone was trying to find out who we are.”

“The agency?”

Stanley nodded. “Had to be.”

“Did you get any data from the trace itself?”

“I closed the log file just before it started,” said Stanley.

Katherine shook her head. “Too bad. Let’s have a look at what we did get.” 

“Sergeant…?”

“Donaldson. What can I do for you guys?” The police sergeant looked bored, yet curious about the suits standing in front of his desk.

“FBI.” A badge was offered.

The sergeant accepted the badge, examining it closely. “Yeah, so what brings you boys to our precinct?”

“You’re holding a prisoner, a Robert Slocum. We’re supposed to bring him to our office for questioning.”

The sergeant shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You want to talk to him–you do it here. Not that it matters. He doesn’t say much.”

“We have the paperwork. I’m sure you’ll see that it’s all in order. Prisoner to be transferred to the custody of special agents Lasik and Gerault.” The packet was presented.

Sergeant Donaldson looked at the papers. “See the Lieutenant. He’ll sign off on it.”

They thanked him, and after a brief meeting with the lieutenant, were given custody of Slocum. The three men–Slocum with his hands cuffed in front of him–left the police station and got into a dark sedan, which quickly pulled away from the curb. Slocum sat alone in the back seat.

“What does the FBI want with me?” He was ignored.

The man in the passenger seat looked at Slocum and smiled. Suddenly Slocum’s suspicion was aroused. This didn’t feel right at all. He noticed then that the man who had looked at him was holding something; a palmtop–one of the agency’s devices. Slocum looked out the window at the passing buildings. He would have been better off with Bobo. 

Professor Walthrop felt out of place at the FBI regional data center. Though he was doing his best to convince a pair of Sharon’s technicians that their method of isolating the Internet anomaly was ill advised, his academic demeanor gave the impression that he was talking down to them. The result was a high level of tension in the room, as the technicians basically ignored him and proceeded as they saw fit. Justin, sitting silently nearby, sympathized with his former professor, but didn’t want to risk alienating his co-workers. Then the event happened again.

“Spike on trunk three!” One of the technicians started a trace route.

“No, no, no!” said Walthrop. “That’s all wrong! You want to find out where the signal is originating, right? A trace is the last thing you should be doing.” It was as though he hadn’t spoken.

“We’ve got it, come on now…” The lead technician smiled as the trace started to return data. “You see, Professor, we do have some idea of what we’re doing. All we need now is to isolate the subnet, and…”

The other technician interrupted him. “Lost the signal. It was a dead packet. In fact, it was a bunch of dead packets.”

Justin could no longer contain himself. “Why don’t you hear the Professor out? If you don’t like his ideas, don’t use them, but at least listen to him.”

The lead technician glared at Justin. “You listen to this. I don’t have to…”

“No, you listen.” It was Sharon. “I’ve had enough of your attitude. Nothing you’ve done has gotten us any further. Now the Professor will have his say.” He turned to Walthrop. “Professor?”

Walthrop cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well, I do have some advice, if you’d like to hear it.” He looked at the two technicians, who glanced at Sharon, then grudgingly nodded. “Excellent.” He walked nearer to the computer console. “First I want to make sure that I completely understand the problem.” He smiled kindly at Justin. “You have no digital signature, no traceable packets–no data of any kind for that matter–just this indication that something is periodically impacting the normal flow of the data stream on a known fiber bundle. Is this correct?”

“More or less,” said the lead technician. “The flow isn’t interrupted. It continues, but it’s as if something is disturbing it, causing it to fluctuate.”

“And these fluctuations, this is what you detect as a spike in the data flow?”

“We refer to it as the event, and yes, it’s a very identifiable phenomenon, and we’re certain it’s artificially induced. We’ve dedicated substantial processing power to try to isolate it, but we haven’t been able to nail it down.”

“The problem is your approach,” said Walthrop. “The solution doesn’t lie in more powerful computers. In fact, that may obscure the very thing you’re seeking.”

“What do you mean?”

“This event, or anomaly–call it what you will–doesn’t respond to standard methods of data interrogation. The failure of your trace route is one indication of that.”

“It could be they were masking their IP address.”

Walthrop nodded. “Of course they could, and if that was the issue, I’d say use a sniffer or some comparable technology and look directly at the packets. You know how to do that; I suspect you’ve tried.”

The technicians exchanged glances. Of course they had tried. In fact, it had been one of the first things.

Walthrop continued. “But I think we all know that we’re dealing with something else.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t know.” Walthrop smiled.

“That’s very helpful,” said the junior technician.

“But I do know how we might find the point of origin, which is why I’m here.” Walthrop turned to his former student. “Justin, do you have a tablet, or a notebook?”

“Sure.” He handed him a pad and pencil.

“Look.” He drew a series of squares, one next to the other, bi-directional arrows between each set. “You need to set up a series of point to point communication stations along the event pathway.”

“But we don’t know where it is.” The junior technician was getting whiny.

“You know the beginning and ending points of the primary fiber route, don’t you?”

The lead technician nodded. “For the sector in question, sure. But that’s a lot of miles.”

“You’ll need a station every couple miles, to start with. Generate a signal to and from each station, and carefully monitor for fluctuations in attenuation–signal loss across the fiber. The event, as you call it, should cause a brief, but measurable delay. And that delay is your marker.”

“Marker for what?” The junior technician looked at the Professor in disdain.

The lead technician understood. “It marks the point in time when the optical signal is being momentarily diverted, which will allow us to calculate the corresponding geographical location.” He looked at the Professor with newfound respect. The concept was simple, yet inspired.

“Any signal loss caused by the event is going to be quite small,” said the Professor. “So there are likely to be errors in determining precisely where it’s occurring, but this can be minimized by increasing the sampling frequency.”

Justin had been largely silent, but now broke in. “Won’t that be determined by the frequency of the event itself?”

“Yes, and it also presumes that you detect every occurrence. So it would follow that the longer you run the process, the more accurate your results will be.”

The room grew silent as the information was absorbed.

Sharon was the first to speak. “These communication stations–how extensive of a project are we talking?”

“The equipment should be spaced as evenly as possible over whatever size area you decide to cover. The closer the stations, the more accurate your results will be.”

“What kind of equipment?” asked Sharon.

“Standard packet generators. You don’t want anything too complex, but you want to be able to measure each packet’s time on the line accurately. You’d also need a PC to act as the master clock, so everything is in sync. The key is the timing, so the stations all need a common clock reference.”

Sharon had heard enough. “Okay, Walthrop. Put it together. My team is at your disposal. If you need anything else, or if the cooperation level is unsatisfactory,” he looked meaningfully at the technicians, “let me know right away.”

“Very well, Agent Sharon. I’ll try not to disappoint.”

“Just find the leak.” 

Robert Slocum was in bad shape. The overdose administered by Bobo was nothing in comparison to the chemical onslaught induced by the agency’s doctors. He slipped in and out of consciousness, unable to discern the difference between reality and the nightmares that haunted him when he finally nodded off. The doctors had him so confused that even his attempts to give them what they wanted came out as nonsense. His interrogators interpreted this as resistance, but had they been willing to abandon their preconceived notions, they might have learned the truth that Slocum was offering.

“He’s a tough one,” said one of the doctors.

The pair of physicians stood with their arms crossed, watching the now immobile form of Slocum. The other doctor nodded, and walked around the table where Slocum was strapped down. He lifted one of his eyelids, examining the pupil.