Palm Sunday (40 page)

“But he can’t be there all the time.”

“That’s true, but if he suspects that we’re messing around, Norbert won’t be leaving his post.”

“Then I think we should go in now,” said Katherine. “Either he knows we’re out here, and he’ll be trying to stop us, or he doesn’t know, in which case we still have the element of surprise. Either way, time is of the essence.”

Stanley finally relented. “Okay. This time we’ll go in full throttle. No trying to hover below their radar. A full frontal assault.”

“Ready on the frequency generator,” said Katherine.

“Palm unit activated.”

“Stand by for maximum output.” 

The list of street addresses that Justin put together was shorter than expected, as many were outside the geographical region where the event was known to occur, and others were no longer associated with an in-service phone number. Over four thousand remained, which was still a lot, but at least they were closing in.

Justin called out to Sharon. “Final list is ready, sir. Street address and partial telephone number are listed side by side. You can look at it on that station.”

Sharon sat down at the indicated console and looked through the columns of business and private residences. There were too many. As Sharon scanned the list, Justin called out from his workstation.

“Something interesting is happening.”

“What?”

“Someone’s paying another visit to the data stream.”

Now Sharon stood up. “Same as before?”

“Yes, but there’s still some interference. The signal is constant, but I can’t get any definitive readings from it.”

“See if you can tell where they go–what servers they hit, web sites, anything.”

“They aren’t going anywhere.” Justin peered into his display. “I don’t get it. There’s no packet signature, no source data, and no destination address. I can’t even tell what, if any, router they went through.”

“That should be impossible,” said Sharon.

Justin shrugged. “Yet here they are.”

“Keep watching. Let’s see what happens.” 

“We’re in the stream,” said Stanley. “The palmtop is functioning normally.”

“Has anyone tried to trace us?” asked Katherine.

Stanley smiled. “Unfortunately, we won’t know that unless they succeed. The mask is designed to prevent them from seeing us, but it also prevents us from seeing them, at least not with any clarity. I could decrease the masking output, which would increase our sensitivity to other signals.”

“But that would make us more vulnerable.”

Stanley nodded. “Unfortunately that’s right, but I’ll have to do it anyway to enable our outgoing signal.” He turned his attention back to the console. “I’m going to activate the palmtop’s menu, and see if we can get into the agency.”

Katherine manipulated the palm unit. “The interface is engaged. I’m bringing the menu up on the main screen.”

The console’s command line was replaced with a split screen image, the top part displaying a duplicate of the palmtop’s native menu, while the bottom retained a command prompt for the Alpha’s operating system. The interface, primarily Katherine’s creation, would translate a subset of the Alpha’s command language into code usable in concert with the palmtop.

“Initiating conversation,” said Stanley. “Slocum, I may need your help with this, come stand next to me.”

Slocum moved to his side. “What do you want me to do?”

Stanley explained. “We’re going to try to penetrate the agency’s system. I have a nasty surprise waiting for them if I can get past a couple layers of security, and you may have information that will help us. But if I ask you a question and you don’t know the answer, don’t guess. I have subroutines that can do that much better than you. Only tell me what you know. Understand?”

“Got it.”

“Stand by.” 

“They’re running some kind of program now, I think,” said Justin.

“You have to do better than that,” said Sharon.

“Sorry. The signature of their transmission is increasing in complexity. If they are running another process, I might be able to break through if I run traces from multiple locations. I’ll need help, though.”

“Use the Professor’s system. Walthrop, did you hear that?”

“I’m on it.” He initiated trace commands from either end of his east-west and north-south lines. The result was immediate.

“Got ‘em!” said Walthrop. “Justin was right–they’re using a phone line. You might be able to match it to one on the list.”

Sharon took the information that Walthrop quickly scribbled on a piece of scrap paper and ran a search on the computerized file that Justin had provided. “Here it is. It’s a private residence. Looks like it’s an apartment.”

“What next?” asked Justin.

Sharon was headed for the door. “You keep watching. I’m getting the posse.” 

Stanley nodded with satisfaction. “We’re in the front door. So far I don’t think we set off any alarms.”

Katherine watched the top part of the screen, waiting for the expected prompt. It appeared as expected. “First menu selection. We want to transmit a message, correct?”

Slocum nodded. “That will be followed by a request for an identifier that corresponds to a user, or an account that you have access to.”

“There it is,” said Stanley. “Very good, Robert.”

“Sure, when I do good, I’m ‘Robert’.”

“You prefer Slocum?” asked Stanley.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Stanley looked at him quizzically, and turned back to his display. “How many tries will we get to enter it correctly?”

“Three. If you mess up you have to wait thirty minutes for the system to reset it before trying again.”

“What account would you normally use for a non-secure transmission?” asked Stanley.

“There’s no such thing,” said Slocum. “But the lowest level of security would be for a status report. They’re generally required every twenty-four hours, and if not encoded as high priority, it would be treated as a routine message. But won’t they be on the lookout for any transmissions associated with this palm unit?”

“We’ve made some modifications to the identifier string. Hopefully we got the sequencing right, otherwise yeah, it could be a problem. Let’s find out.” The appropriate menu selections were chosen, and a new screen immediately popped up, requesting a password.

“This is new,” said Slocum, as he watched the screen.

“Time for the Alpha to contribute,” said Stanley. At the command prompt on the lower half of the screen Stanley typed in the name of a program. Over thirty million strings were generated and fed to the agency submenu before one was accepted. This was recorded for later reference.

“How did you do that?” asked Slocum. “I would only get three chances.”

“We’re not playing by normal rules,” said Stanley. “Our programs are running at a much lower level than what you’re accustomed to. I tricked the security interface into repeating its request for a password, so it continually thought it was asking for the first time. The Alpha kept responding with a different password, until finally one was accepted.”

“But there had to be millions of possibilities. How could it happen so fast?”

“What can I say–computers are fast. Also, I had an idea of what it should look like based on what you told me.” Stanley again turned back to the console. “We’re almost there. Let’s deliver the message.” 

Norbert was so intent on watching the data stream, that he almost missed it. He actually saw the attempt to access the message system, and was momentarily puzzled when it took so long to complete. He assumed that it was an implementer who had forgotten his password. He kept telling them to commit these things to memory, and they kept forgetting. After a while, though, the system cleared. As he watched his display, a nagging thought caused him to stop and check the message log more closely.

“What…” The log indicated that the messaging subsystem’s resources had pegged at maximum for several seconds. That wasn’t possible. It only took Norbert a second to realize that his system had been compromised. Even now someone was trying to initiate a direct connection to his core processor, and they were using the messaging subsystem to do it.

Time was of the essence, and his console was littered with open files, dialog boxes, and running programs. His panic only slowed him down, as he frantically tried to close one thing after another, only to have his keyboard temporarily freeze when he interrupted a running program. The intruder, whoever it was, had won. 

Justin looked up as Sharon walked back into the computer center. “Should we just keep watching?” He had detected only minor fluctuations over the past ten minutes, and had been able to garner no further information. Whoever was out there was doing something, but what?

“The local police have been notified,” said Sharon. “The apartment should be surrounded by now. I don’t know what harm they might be doing, so let’s give them another taste of Walthrop’s revenge.”

The Professor looked at Sharon with a smile on his face. “Walthrop’s revenge. I like that.”

Sharon smiled. “Fire for effect, Professor.” 

“No!” At Stanley’s uncharacteristic outburst, Kayoko came running.

“What happened?”

“I was in. My program was halfway in; then it happened again. That pulse, or whatever it is, knocked us out of the data stream.”

Katherine was in shock. “That didn’t come from the agency, Stanley. It couldn’t have.”

“No,” he agreed. “But where?”

As if to answer his question, from outside the apartment a voice reverberated over a bullhorn.

“This is the police. The house is surrounded. Open the door and come out with your hands up. You have thirty seconds.”

Everyone froze, and Stanley and Katherine’s eyes locked. Bobby sidled up to his father; even he knew they were in trouble.

“The palmtop,” said Slocum. “That’s what they’ll want more than anything. Let me have it.”

“No!” Kayoko reached for the device, which was still connected to the Alpha. “You can’t give it to them.”

Stanley and Katherine started pulling wires apart.

“I don’t want to give it to them,” said Slocum. “I want to hide it so they can’t get their hands on it.”

Stanley yanked the last wire off and handed the palmtop to Slocum.

“They’ll tear this place apart until they find it,” said Kayoko.

Slocum shook his head. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing, but there’s no time to discuss it. I can get out of here, but I can’t take everyone with me.” He looked around at the others. “Maybe just one.”

“That’s real chivalrous,” said Kayoko. “Why only one, and why you? If you have a way out, let’s go.”

“You don’t understand,” said Slocum. “There’s no room, and I’m the only one who has a chance of freeing you guys later.”

“What do you mean there’s no room?” asked Katherine.

“Listen to me,” said Slocum. “I can take someone with me, but it has to be Bobby.”

Stanley looked at his son. “No. I don’t want us to be separated.”

“Do you think they’ll keep you together?” Slocum gestured towards the front door.

Stanley looked at his son, then back at Slocum. “You take care of him.” It was an order.

“Don’t worry. Everything will be okay,” said Slocum. “But we have to hurry.”

“Dad, don’t leave me!” Bobby grabbed onto his father. Stanley hugged him, and then gently removed the boy’s arms from around his waist. The last thing in the world he wanted was to leave his son, but he wouldn’t risk letting the agency get their hands on him.

“It will only be for a short time, Bobby. You’ll be safe with Mr. Slocum.”

His son looked up at him, suddenly seeming much older than his ten years. “But what about you?”

Stanley smiled. “I’ll be fine. You have to go now.”

Slocum slid the palmtop into his pocket, and took Bobby by the hand, leading the way into the basement, while Stanley and the two women headed for the front door.

“He’ll need some time,” said Stanley. “I’m going to stall the police as long as I can.” He opened the front door a crack, and could see several officers outside.

“Be careful,” said Katherine.

Stanley motioned for her to stand back. He opened the door a bit wider and stuck his head out. “Don’t shoot! We’re coming out, but we want some assurances. Is there someone in authority I can talk to?”

A voice responded from the darkness. “Everyone comes out now, or we’re coming in.”

“But we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Then just come out, and everything will be fine.”

“Just a minute.” Stanley closed the door and turned towards Katherine and Kayoko. “I don’t think they’ll wait much longer.”

“Every second counts,” said Katherine. “Let’s get the Alpha shut down, then wait for them to call us out again.”

There was no time for anything fancy. Stanley quickly disabled all system accounts, and Katherine switched a few of the cables. They had just finished when the police beckoned again.

“This is your final warning.”

Stanley looked at Katherine and Kayoko. “We’ll go out in twenty seconds,” he said. They stood near the door as Stanley counted down. At twenty, he opened the door and they slowly emerged.

“Remember,” he whispered. “Stall.” 

Norbert wouldn’t catch it in time, and he knew it. Whatever was being forced into his system, it couldn’t be good, and based on what he’d seen so far, it would also be thorough. He wasn’t totally helpless, but his options were quickly changing from prevention to recovery. Then came the pulse again.

It was as if he had called the cavalry, and just like a ‘B’ movie, they had arrived in the nick of time. The intruder was knocked out of the data stream, the download discontinued. Norbert was amazed, but could spare no time for celebration. He immediately shut down all his portals until he could figure out what was going on. With the system secured for the time being, he called Mason to report the incident.

Mason was not pleased. “I’m disappointed, Norbert. I thought you were the best.”

“I am the best,” he replied. “They failed,” he added, lamely.