Palm Sunday (6 page)

“Listeners are active,” he called out. “The database has been purged, indices are refreshed, and parsing algorithms are on standby.” A voice-activated microphone transmitted his narrative to the profiling division, where a group of psychologists and statisticians waited to analyze the anticipated data. “Ready countdown,” he continued. “Internet bridge in twenty seconds.”

“The matrix is clear. SP quotient at zero,” responded Tom Snelling.

“Data infusion in three seconds. Two, one…data streams are active!” For a moment nothing seemed to happen, but then the indicators on Norbert’s console came to life.

Mason stood well back from the equipment, silently taking everything in.

“We have positive tracking,” said Norbert. “Secure interlocks have been established and repositories are populating. Engaging parsing algorithms…now!” He watched as his screen indicated a surge in processor usage. The twelve individual units being used for the profile pegged at nearly eighty-five percent. “Procs are at eight five and climbing. Algorithms are nominal.”

“The matrix is receiving data,” said Snelling. He watched as the quotient indicator went from zero to four, held steady there for a minute, and then jumped to nineteen.

Norbert called out more numbers. “Processors at ninety per cent. Repository is at one-third capacity. Nine minutes until process termination.” He nervously scratched his ear. It was going too smoothly.

“SP quotient at forty-seven per cent,” said Snelling. “Norbert, can you push the data through any faster?”

“The processors are at ninety-four per cent. I can tweak the input buffer, but if we exceed processor limits we’ll collapse the data stream.”

“Tweak it, Norbert.” Mason’s tone left no doubt who was really in charge.

Norbert moved to his main console. “I’m paring down the safety margin. Input buffers are now maxed out. That’s as fast as she’ll go, boys and girls.”

Several more minutes passed as the torrent of data percolated into the massive repositories. Then it hit the parsing algorithms, the real workhorses of the project. This series of highly sophisticated programs sifted through the mountains of data, breaking it down into discreet bits of information. Meaning was culled from thousands upon thousands of Internet-based communications. Phrases or words too ambiguous to quickly evaluate were dispatched to subroutines dedicated to more arcane usages. A certain percentage was discarded, gibberish even to humans. But the vast bulk of data made its way through the algorithms and into the matrix.

The matrix was what the psychologists and statisticians cared about. This was akin to a large and rather complex spreadsheet. While complicated, it was a computer medium that they understood, and could manipulate. It would take them several hours, but using the information in the matrix they would determine whether there were any discernable societal trends, and if the SP quotient was high enough to validate the findings.

A trend simply represented a common theme that people were concerned enough to be communicating about. It could be a war, social upheaval, the appearance of a comet, political scandal–anything. It simply had to be an identifiable common thread at the societal level.

The societal profile quotient, or SPQ, was a confidence indicator, derived through a complex series of formulas. The main variable in the quotient was the value assigned to any identified trend, which was a product of the parsing algorithms.

For accuracy as well as security the process had to suck in an enormous amount of data in a terribly short time. Failure to meet these stringent guidelines could invalidate the profile.

“How are we looking, Norbert? Window’s closing.” Mason was watching the clock like a hawk.

“Repositories at ninety-five per cent. Another two minutes.”

“You’ve got one fifty.” Mason knew that Norbert padded his margins.

“It’s gonna be close. Ninety-seven.”

There was silence as the seconds passed. If they failed to collect a sufficient sample it could be weeks before another profile could be set up.

“Thirty seconds. Norbert?”

“Ninety-nine…buffer three is shutting down! I have to kill the listeners or we may loop back to the outside!” His fingers flew across the keyboard, terminating the processes that allowed the massive databases to connect to the data streams pumping in from cyberspace. “That’s it. We’re down. Disabling external interface, and preparing for final scrub.”

Mason was incredulous. “Norbert!”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing? I didn’t order the shutdown.”

“Couldn’t wait. Another three seconds and we might have been announcing our presence. Don’t want that, now do we?”

Mason was about to go ballistic, but he controlled himself. He knew these computer types could be temperamental. “Did we get enough, Norbert?” His voice was measured, deliberate.

“Oh, the repositories clicked over to a hundred per cent just before I killed the stream. As for whether we got what we were looking for,” he shrugged. “We’ll have to wait for the people in SP to tell us.” Norbert was lucky that Mason couldn’t see the tiny smirk on the corner of his mouth.

“Okay, folks,” said Mason. “Everyone on your toes. We have some data to analyze.” 

After two hours of trudging around in the darkness, wet mud covering their shoes, they finally found the palm unit. It was actually Slocum who stepped on it, then bent down and picked it up. He indicated with a nod of his head and a wave of the gun to go back to the house. Ten minutes later they were there.

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to take your shoes off?” Stanley had already bent down to untie his Oxfords, and Bobby was doing the same with his sneakers.

Slocum looked down at the mud that was caked to his shoes. “I’ll wipe them off.” He motioned again with his head, and father and son walked into the house. Slocum carefully scraped the clumps of dirt off his shoes, shaking his head in disbelief at his own softness. He walked into the house and held up the palmtop. “Get me something to clean this off with.”

As Stanley went to the kitchen to get a cloth, Slocum never took his eyes off him. He accepted the towel and carefully wiped the mud off the device, checking the interface port for any stray chunks of dirt. It seemed okay.

“I want you to show me how you downloaded those files,” said Slocum.

Stanley nodded and went to his PC. Slocum held the pistol and the palmtop in one hand, and used the other to wipe some more dirt off the face of the handheld computer. He powered it on, and the menu instantly displayed. Several seconds later it flickered and died. He handed it to Stanley, who plugged the interface cable into his computer, then into the palmtop. Though he went through the same procedure that had previously yielded positive results, this time it was to no avail.

“I don’t understand. It worked before.”

Slocum reached over and tapped on the unit. “Try it now.”

Stanley did so, and his computer screen came to life, displaying line after line of encoded data.

“Is that what happened before?” asked Slocum.

“No, I only got a couple pages of readable data before. This is much more, and in a different format.” The symbols reflected off of Stanley’s glasses as he watched the lines scroll past.

“How do you call that readable? It doesn’t even look like a language to me.”

“Machine readable,” said Stanley. “It’s not a human language, it’s symbolic computer code. Machine code. I have routines that can make sense of it pretty quickly.”

“Save the file and run those routines. I want to know…”

Slocum saw the tiny red dot appear on the side of Stanley’s head, then transfer to his own body. Instantly, instinctively, he knew what was happening. The palmtop, the instructions to report back to the agency, the message that downloads had been disabled, and now the red dot. He pushed Stanley to the floor, falling on top of him, as two bullet holes appeared in the wall behind them, then a third. Slocum grabbed Bobby, shoving him next to his father.

Stanley saw the holes in the wall. “I don’t hear anything!”

“Silencers. Two, maybe three shooters.” Slocum was watching the front door. He knew they would be coming.

Stanley was aghast. “Why do they want to kill us?”

“Not us. Me. And I’m not sure why. Something to do with that.” Slocum pointed at the palm unit, which sat on the desk next to the computer. “I’m going to take it and get out of here.”

“What about us?”

“They don’t want you, and they don’t want you dead. Trust me on this, they don’t like publicity,” said Slocum.

“Who are they?”

Slocum was already on his way. He crawled towards the computer desk, and was within a few feet of the palmtop when the front door burst open. A man stood, his body outlined by the street lamp behind him. For a moment he didn’t see Slocum near the computer desk, and when he did it was too late. A shot spat out from Slocum’s pistol and the man in the doorway slumped to the ground. Bobby yelled and gripped his father tightly.

Slocum half stood and made a grab for the palmtop, but another man appeared in the doorway. His shot was too quick, but it forced Slocum to duck away. With no time remaining, he ran for the back door and disappeared into the night. Bobby and his father watched wide-eyed as two men ran through the house after him, also disappearing through the back door.

Stanley slowly got up and walked to the computer, cautiously glancing at the open back door. He rapidly entered some commands into his computer, clicked several icons, and scooped up the palmtop and its cable.

“Come on, Bobby. Hurry.”

He grabbed his car keys, wallet, and laptop computer case, quickly shoving the palmtop and cable into a side pouch. They ran to the garage and got in the car. Two minutes later they were well away from the house.

“Where are we going, Dad?”

Stanley looked at his son. “I told you I’d take you fishing, right?”

Lights from other cars flitted across his face as they drove through the night. 

Slocum was gone, the house was empty, and one of the three agents sent to retrieve Robert Slocum was dead. It was a disaster.

“What now?” The junior of the two remaining agents looked around the living room.

“We better call in. Pampas is going to have our heads.”

“I didn’t think Slocum could move that fast.”

The other agent gave him a dour look. “Yeah, that’ll sell.” He took out a cell phone and put through the call.

“Pampas here. What’s your status?”

“Not good. We found Slocum at the address you gave us, but he made us before we could take him.” He hesitated before giving him the rest of the news. “Frank bought it.”

A long silence followed.

“How?”

“Slocum. One shot, then he ran out the back door.”

Pampas sighed. This thing was getting out of hand. “Okay. Bring Frank’s body back. Make sure no one sees you.” He had almost forgotten. “What about the palm unit?”

“What?”

“The handheld computer. Did you get it?”

“Oh. It’s right…” He looked at the computer desk. He was sure it had been there when he ran past earlier. He turned to his partner. “Did you pick up the palmtop?”

“No. I thought you had it.” The two looked around for a moment, but it was nowhere to be seen.

The senior agent closed his eyes as he informed Pampas. “It seems to be missing.”

“What do you mean? Does Slocum have it?”

“No. We chased him, and he absolutely did not have it.” He remembered the father and son. “But there were two other people here. They were gone when we got back.”

It was all Pampas could do to keep from shouting. “Just get back here. We’ll regroup and figure out how to handle this.”

“Yes, sir.” He clicked his cell phone closed, and turned to his partner. “Big fan, lots of crap–inbound.”

“Pappy ain’t happy, is he?”

“You could say that. Help me with Frankie.” 

Slocum was lying on his back, staring up at the stars. It reminded him of a time when he was a boy, probably about Bobby’s age, camping out in his back yard. He hadn’t lasted the night that time, frightened inside the house by a variety of unfamiliar noises. His current situation was rather more complex.

When he ran out of the house, his only intent was survival. He immediately headed for the spot where Bobby had tossed the palmtop, thinking that his limited familiarity with the terrain would give him an advantage. As he tried to put distance between himself and his pursuers, an unseen branch smacked him in the face, his leg twisting under him as he fell. He had managed to roll over a few times, gaining the cover of a huge lilac bush. The men chasing him had come close, but they missed him. He waited on the wet ground for the sound of their car leaving, and then carefully sat up and felt his ankle.

It wasn’t broken, but when he tried to put weight on it he could tell it had a bad sprain. He located his gun a few feet from where he had fallen, and hobbled back to the house, putting most of his weight on his good leg. When he reached the house he looked into the lower windows, and seeing no one, he went in.

Gun in hand, he quickly investigated the ground level, although he knew the men sent after him wouldn’t tarry here. It wasn’t their style. Still, one couldn’t be too careful. His search revealed that he was alone. Even Bobby and his father had fled, or had been taken away. Probably they left on their own, he mused, since their car was missing from the garage. He looked at the computer desk. The palmtop was gone, as was the cable used for connecting it to the PC. Slocum smiled, realizing that Stanley must have taken it. The agency wouldn’t need the cable.   

The PC was turned off. For reasons that he himself could not fathom, Slocum reached behind the computer, unplugged the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and power cables, and hefted the PC under one arm. Struggling along on his injured ankle, he limped across the street, placed the computer in his back seat, and got in and started the car. After a quick look down the quiet street, he put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. 

In the agency’s plush conference room, there was a buzz of eager anticipation. Analysis of the profile was complete, and the presentation of results was all that remained. Arriving after everyone else, as usual, Charles Mason walked into the room with several manila folders under his arm. He took his place at the head of the long oak table and called the meeting to order.