Palm Sunday (35 page)

Boyd was sweating. This was the moment he had feared, the precise instant when it was clear that he had screwed up. But the worst part was that only he knew. Had others been deriding him for his failure, he could easily have thrown up a technical smoke screen, especially for Klugman. But his torment lay in the fact that he alone knew the truth.

“Crash and burn.” One of the technicians made an entry in his notebook. The other shook his head.

“Must’ve been a glitch. I’ll check the logs,” offered Boyd.

“No, don’t touch them,” said the technician. “We have to maintain the integrity of the evidence.” He made it sound as though a crime had been committed.

Boyd nodded, and knew he was toast. The logs would reveal exactly what the problem was. He started thinking up excuses. In the conference room, Klugman was having his own problems.

“How do you explain that?” demanded Johnstone. She looked questioningly at Klugman, who turned to Stanley.

“Well?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Stanley. “We ran that simulation dozens of times in the past week and it always got trapped. I don’t know what happened this time; obviously we’ll have to evaluate the situation and make whatever corrections are needed.”

Johnstone watched Stanley with curiosity. “You seem remarkably calm considering the enormity of the screw-up.”

Stanley had temporarily halted the test. The display at the front of the room now showed a constant dark blue pattern. “As I said, we don’t know how serious of a setback this is. We won’t know until we run some tests. I suggest we continue with the demo and see if anything else crops up, then go on from there.”

Johnstone slowly bobbed her head–the queen permitting an indulgence. “Proceed.”

For the next hour Stanley carefully monitored his console as one event after another was thrown at the device. In all additional cases it performed flawlessly. One exception was when Johnstone insisted that Stanley cut power to the unit to test for an unexpected electrical interruption. When power was restored, the unit could not re-initialize without manual intervention.

“We’ll have to fix that,” said Stanley. “But I don’t think it will be difficult. Otherwise, it’s back on line and running within normal parameters.”

Johnstone stood up. “Does that conclude the demo?”

“That’s it,” said Klugman. “I assume you’ll want to go over the results?”

“Yes,” said Johnstone, her voice a mix of authority and curiosity. “Tell my technicians to come in here.”

Klugman hurried from the room, and within five minutes the device had been powered down, and everyone was seated around the conference table. Johnstone wasted no time getting the ball rolling.

She addressed her senior technician. “What were your findings?”

He knew she didn’t like fluff, and made his presentation brief and to the point. “The demo was successful with the exception of three areas. First, the test data we sent was not properly synchronized with the device’s hardware interface. This resulted in a failure to detect a critical invasive event, which could have proven catastrophic in real life. Second, the power coupling lacks an automatic re-initialization routine. This should be self-contained and incorporate triple redundancy. At present there’s nothing. Third, access to the internal hardware is not secure enough. The device needs to be re-engineered for anticipated use in physically hostile environments.”

Klugman took exception to the last point. “This is a prototype of a piece of computer equipment, not a tank.”

Johnstone held up her hand. “Yes, yes. I’m sure my technician is referring to anticipated field deployments. You don’t need to be concerned about that at this time.” She looked at the technician. “Anything else?”

“No, other than to reinforce that the test data has to be treated with greater seriousness.”

Boyd visibly cringed.

“So, when will we find out if we still have jobs?” asked Klugman, smiling.

Johnstone gave him a cold look. “I suppose that’s your cute way of asking if you passed the test.” She appraised the group from ScanDat. “You can thank this man,” she indicated Stanley, “that you still have jobs. I’m recommending that funding for the project continue.” 

The fallout from the death of the two Philadelphia agents had yet to reach Agent Sharon, but he knew it was only a matter of time. The fact that the two dead agents had been working on a case outside of their supervisor’s direct knowledge complicated the situation, and bought Sharon some much needed time to conduct his own investigation.

The only clue he had were the few components that he had recovered from the tunnel. He had brought them to a friend who worked in the small lab in his building, asking him to take an unofficial look. Impatient for results, he picked up his phone and called him a short time later.

“Mark?”

“Yeah. Agent Sharon?”

“Uh huh. Got anything on the samples I gave you?”

The lab technician hesitated. “I do, but it’s a little odd. Can you come down here?”

Ten minutes later Sharon stood bent over a microscope, peering into the eyepiece. “I don’t see anything.”

“Look near the edge,” said Mark.

“I see a bluish coloring. Is that it?”

“That’s part of it. Follow it towards the center.”

Sharon shook his head. He wasn’t seeing anything unusual. Then he had it. “It looks like a straight line. What is it?” Sharon straightened his back.

“I’m not sure what the substance is yet, and it might not really matter. What does matter is that what you were looking at is the partial serial number of an IC.”

“An integrated circuit? A chip?”

“That’s right,” said Mark. “But the number has been chemically removed.”

“Who would go to that kind of trouble?” asked Sharon.

“I don’t know, but it would entail some effort.”

“Is there any technical reason to do that?”

Mark shook his head. “The only reason I can think of is security. Maybe even paranoia.”

Sharon gestured towards the rest of his samples, sitting next to the microscope. “What about these?”

“One partial that wouldn’t be traceable.”

“What was it?”

Marked picked up a tiny scrap. “The bottom half of one digit, probably from a serial number, on a piece of ceramic.”

“What kind of ceramic?” asked Sharon.

“It was used in a capacitor. The shape of the digit was curved, like it could have been a six, or maybe an eight or a five. It would have come from the second part of the string of numbers, based on its positioning. That’s all I’ve got. Want your stuff back?”

“Yeah. Thanks a lot, Mark. And if anyone asks, I was here to see if you wanted to go out for a drink some night.”

“Gee, a date. I’m flattered.”

Sharon laughed. “You should be.” 

Sharon was impressed with Justin’s abilities, but especially valued his obvious loyalty. The young man’s discretion regarding the use of Omnivore had proven his trustworthiness. Sharon told him about the electronic components he had found, but decided for Justin’s sake not to reveal the details about where they came from, or the events in the tunnel.

“We need to find the manufacturer of ceramic-based capacitors that look something like this,” said Sharon. He held up a picture of a sample that Mark had printed out for him. “The original was fried, but part of it was left behind, and someone doesn’t want us to find out where it was made.”

“So how will we find out?” asked Justin.

“In the second half of the serial number, one of the numbers is a six or an eight or a five.”

“That really narrows it down. Should I start canvassing the neighborhood?”

“Very funny. No, what I had in mind was something more computerized. Start out by creating a database of all manufacturers, globally, which make this sort of thing. Then generate a list of all serial numbers of all components manufactured by each company.

“Since when?” asked Justin.

“Good question. Go back five years. Once you have your database populated, you can begin eliminating candidates.”

Justin shook his head. “I have to tell you, boss, probably none of them are going to be eliminated.”

“It’s all we have to go on,” said Sharon. “At least we’ll end up with a list of names.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

Sharon put his hand on Justin’s shoulder. “This is important. It may be critical to finding out who’s messing with the Net. But I can’t tell you more than that.”

Justin was desperately curious, but knew better than to pry. “Like I said. I’m on it.” 

“Wow.” Norbert muttered the word under his breath. He had impressed even himself.

The program that Mason had him working on was ready, and the results in his test system had been mind numbing. He had thrown every conceivable obstacle in the path of his little monster, and in every case it neatly sidestepped the unexpected barrier. He even issued direct commands to delete the file, and it appeared to go away. Then, unexpectedly, it would come back under a totally different guise, but just as deadly. He made some quick notes before shutting down the system, and carefully removed the hard drive and locked it in the vault. This was one bug that he would have to be very careful with. As soon as it was safely locked away, he went to see Mason, who waved him into his office.

“I just wanted to let you know,” said Norbert. “The program is ready for your approval.”

Mason looked at him blankly. “The program?”

“Yes, sir–the one that you asked me to create, so we have a defense if someone like the FBI gets too close again.” He was getting a bit upset at Mason’s apparent memory lapse. “I was just testing it, and…”

“Norbert, slow down. Let’s go to your lab and you can show me.”

“Okay.” Norbert was disappointed at Mason’s response. He had busted his tail on what had seemed to be an important project, and now Mason was acting like it was nothing. But he perked up at what came next.

“I have to say, Norbert, I’m impressed at how quickly you developed this program.”

Norbert shrugged, as if it was nothing. “Well, a lot of it was reusable code from the earlier projects against the FBI and the travel industry.” His excitement returned. “But what really sets this apart is its ability to adapt.”

“Tell me more,” said Mason.

“There are basically two modes. In delayed mode, it enters the host system in one of several ways, then waits for an activation signal before it begins shutting down processes and wiping out data.”

“Like a mole,” suggested Mason. “A spy who’s planted and is only activated when needed.”

“That’s a good analogy. The difference is that this would be like multiple moles, and when activated, they would raise hell.”

“So the system it resides on, in delayed mode, would be affected once the activation code was received?”

“That, or it could be set to go off at a predetermined future date. That way you would only have to worry about getting into the target system once. Of course, it couldn’t be recalled once it was delivered.”

Mason smiled. “Like an intercontinental missile.”

“Exactly. And like an ICBM, it’s very destructive. The host system would be totally wiped out. So you can see why careful targeting is critical.”

“Obviously.”

They arrived at the lab.

“The program is currently stored on a removable hard drive,” said Norbert, “which is only used in a closed environment. I don’t want to risk letting this thing into our own system.”

“Couldn’t you delete it?”

Norbert looked at Mason as if he had heard nothing he had been saying. “No, sir. At this time, I don’t know how to destroy it.”

Mason nodded and indicated that Norbert should proceed with the demonstration. After he had once again put the program through its paces, he carefully removed the hard drive and locked it up.

“I’m impressed,” said Mason. “What else remains to be done?”

“Right now it’s too dangerous to use, mainly because we can’t control it.”

“But I thought you said we could tell it where to attack?”

“We can, and that part of the design is pretty solid. What I worry about is its adaptability. It might escape back into the general population, possibly even into our own system if we aren’t careful. We have the poison, but we don’t have the antidote. Also, I need to refine the delivery system, and write the technical documentation.”

“I see,” said Mason. “Let me know when it’s completely finished.”

“Of course.”

Norbert’s earlier disappointment had vanished, and he immediately turned to the task of fine-tuning the new program. He smiled as he opened the file containing the computer code behind ‘Pascua’. Mason had insisted upon this name. Norbert had no hang-ups about secret names, though. Call it Barbara Ann for all he cared; he just loved to write code. 

Stanley and Katherine arrived at work early on the day following the demo, hoping to spend some time planning their campaign against the agency. They were surprised to see that Boyd was already in Klugman’s office, but their conversation didn’t seem to be a happy one. Klugman waved his arms, while Boyd occasionally shook his head vigorously. While this went on, Stanley and Katherine had a cup of coffee and discussed their plan to ‘borrow’ ScanDat equipment.

“I figure,” said Katherine, “that the disk arrays are going to be way too heavy.” She referred to the racks of storage disks, far larger than the main processor itself.

“Even the smaller one?”

Katherine shrugged. “We might be able to wheel one rack out on a cart, but getting it into a vehicle would be a nightmare.”

“We don’t really need the disks,” said Stanley. “There’s enough storage on the Alpha itself for our purposes.”

“Yeah, but we’d have to reinitialize it and load it with our own programming before we took it. That’s okay, assuming we can get it done under Boyd’s nose.”

“Which appears to be rather bent out of shape at the moment,” said Stanley, as he gestured towards Boyd, who was coming towards them.

“Hey, Boyd,” said Katherine.

He nodded and glanced back at Klugman’s office. “You two are early.”

“What about you and Klugman? Looked like a grudge match in there,” said Stanley.