The Zul Enigma (43 page)

‘Lasers?’

The barman finished
their order and rushed off to serve the organiser of the hen party, who was
waving her empty glass in the air.

Joseph raised his drink.

‘
¡Salud!
’ Carlos
said.

‘You see,’ Joseph rested
his forearm on the counter so he could lean in closer to Carlos and be heard
above the hubbub, ‘it’s possible to construct a laser signal and beam it from
another building, or even from outer space, through your office window and
provide your virtual keyboard with a stream of data that could create any type
of file onto the network file space attached to your terminal.’

Carlos opened his arms
wide. ‘So
that’s
how they did it.’

‘They intercepted the
sessions at your apartment the same way. The beauty of this method is there’s
no need for any sophisticated hacking or decryption of local network protocols
– just a knowledge of the signals accepted by the virtual keyboard input
device.’

‘Brilliant,’ Carlos said
clapping him on the shoulder, making him spill his drink.

‘But,’ Joseph went on,
‘there was one possible flaw.’

‘Which was?’

‘Zul’s first two e-mails
came in at night and you can’t beam a laser through window coverings.’

‘Hey!’ Carlos said,
‘that’s not a problem because I never close the blinds in my office. Ask
anyone.’

‘And at your apartment?’

‘Same.’

‘That confirms what your
assistant said.’

‘How about the holovideo
calls? Did they send them in the same way?’

‘Not exactly. The
bandwidth of the input device, the virtual keyboard, is too low. It couldn’t
inject the high bandwidth data required by a holovideo.’

‘So…?’

‘All the unlogged calls
came in directly after you finished holovideo calls with someone else, right?
And that’s the key. In all three cases, holovideo conference sessions were
already running, so whoever did this intercepted the network packets with their
external device as the calls were being closed down and took over the sessions.

‘In this way they could
affect the interception either at the source where the calls were initiated, as
with the case of Zul, or at the destination where they were received, as with
the baby and the woman. That’s why the logs show the time the original calls
ended and there’s no record of the second calls coming in.’

‘It’s genius!’

‘And that’s not all.
Because the bandwidth didn’t change when the existing sessions were hijacked,
the bandwidth management systems didn’t detect it as an anomaly and red flag
it, which is yet another reason how the calls were snuck in without anyone
noticing.’

‘But you still don’t
know where they came from?’ Carlos took a sip of his drink and held it in his
mouth for a second before swallowing.

‘No. The only way to
find that out is to catch it happening. And even if we did, it would only lead
to the device that contains the laser, not to the operator.’

Carlos stared at his
glass. ‘And what do you think, Joseph?’

‘To set this up and
execute it requires specialist resources, equipment and expertise – and
why would anyone go to all that trouble unless there was a big prize at the
end? No one’s claimed responsibility and we have no idea what motive the person
who masterminded it has. Someone’s invested all this effort and expense –
but why? What are they going to get out of it?’

‘The same questions
– and still no answers. So?’

‘So… to my mind, logic
says we should at least
consider
the possibility that the contact
originated from a non-human.’

‘That’s what I thought
too, until the Americans convinced me I was responsible.’

Joseph looked at Carlos.
‘Well, they don’t believe that any more. And the Dryden boys aren’t ruling out
the possibility that the contact’s genuine, nor are some of the guys from the Ministry
of Defense.’

‘What’ll Anderson do
now?’ Carlos laughed.

‘He’s still trying to
keep a lid on it but the word usually has a habit of slipping out and if it
does, he’ll become a laughing stock.’ Joseph shook his head, ‘but nobody can
persuade Bob Anderson other higher intelligence beings exist. He thinks he’s
the only one.’

Carlos smiled. ‘Thing
is, it doesn’t really matter. All we have to do is…’ and Carlos leaned in
closer to Joseph’s ear to tell him about the idea he’d discussed with Greg on
the plane.

‘Another drink, gentlemen?’ the barman asked.

Joseph raised his brows
and Carlos nodded.

‘You know I admire you
for what you’re about to do, Carlos.’

‘Hey, don’t talk like
I’m a saint.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far.
But the hard part will be selling it to Anderson. Let me know how the meeting
goes tomorrow morning. How about lunch after?’

‘Okay.’

‘Call me when you’re
through.’

Carlos nodded and
drained his glass.

‘Carlos, there’s
something else,’ Joseph said, ‘something I want to ask. If Zul and Astraea aren’t
human, what if they’re not as benign as they claim? What if they told you a
pack of lies? What if they’re planning to take over our planet?’

‘I thought about that
too,’ Carlos said. ‘Thing is,’ he shrugged, ‘there’s no way to know. So we
might as well raise our consciousness. It can’t do us any harm.’

‘And how are you?’
Joseph asked, appraising Carlos. ‘You look well.’

‘I am well. I feel
great. Now I realise how bad I was before.’

‘You were so withdrawn
in Vienna. Not like I remember you at all.’

‘Then when the Americans
accused me of making the Zul story up? It was the last straw. It nearly
destroyed me. You said it when you called, I lost my passion for life –
my passion for everything. And I want to apologise about what I said.’

‘What was that?’

‘About never liking you.
It’s not that I never liked you – thing is I never really knew you.’

‘Come on… don’t even
think about it.’

‘You
were
very
opinionated and aggressive back then,’ Carlos said, nudging Joseph’s arm, ‘but
you’ve changed. You’re different now.’

Joseph stared at the
fresh drink in front of him. ‘I’d only just got out of the army. I had to learn
to lighten up.’

Carlos swivelled himself
around on the stool. ‘Anyhow, what you did? Getting me away from the Americans?
I can’t thank you enough.’

‘You already did,
Carlos. On the phone.’

‘But I want to say it in
person.’

‘I couldn’t stand by and
watch you being shat on and do nothing about it. In any case, it wasn’t just
me. Drew was in on it too. He was the one who told me what was going on.’
Carlos’s face tensed at the mention of that name. ‘It was his idea to get you
away. And did you know he called Greg Howard? To get him to persuade the
Americans to bring you to Vienna?’

Carlos grunted and
turned away.

‘Look, I know it’s none
of my business, but all that bad stuff happened a long time ago. He doesn’t
want to lose you as a friend. He’s…’

Carlos raised his hands.
‘I… it… I can’t believe she did it. Not with him of all people. Some friend,
hey?’

‘Carlos, he thought your
marriage was over.’

‘
Sí
. That’s what
he said. Even so… he couldn’t wait a week? A month?’

Joseph shook his head.
‘You’re right. But you and Drew were always so close. Can’t you try… try and
forgive?’

‘I’m… I’m not wallowing
in it, you know? I’m trying to deal with it. Put all the negative things in my
life behind me. Take Elena out of the equation and – it’s true – I
don’t want to lose the friendship. It goes back a long way – long before
she ever came into my life. But… truth is… I’m a man and I’m Spanish. We don’t forgive
that kind of thing and we certainly don’t forget. So even after listening to
Zul and making the decision to be less selfish, I’m not ready to apply it to
sharing my wife. Okay?’

Carlos looked over his
shoulder and saw that the hen party was moving on. The women, swaying like
seaweed in a current, were huddled over the bill. After sharing emotional
embraces, they scooped up the bride from where she’d slid down the wall
dislodging her veil, and like a single organism with multiple legs, stumbled
out across the puddled pavement dragging after them what looked like a grubby
net rag skewered on one of the bride’s stiletto heels.

CHAPTER 5

Bob, in the Oval Office with his back to the fire, was seated on his favourite
mahogany carver chair while Anita, notebook placed on her lap as usual, perched
on the couch to his left with Barbara next to her.

‘Barbara,’ he said,
staring straight past her face and out through the window behind his desk at
the opposite end of the office, apparently fixated by the rain pouring down
from the heavy black clouds that looked close enough to touch, ‘what do you
have to report?’

Ever since Barbara got
back from Vienna, Bob had been terse and unable to look her in the eye. She’d
witnessed how he’d behaved with other staff members who had upset him in the
past, so his detached manner was nothing new. She knew given time the icy
irritation would melt away to be replaced by his customary composed veneer. At
least she hoped it would.

‘I’ve terminated
surveillance on Maiz now we no longer have anything on him.’

‘But are you
positive
?’
Bob asked.

‘I am. He’s had ample
time to go to the press, if that’s what he intended. Why wait till he’s back in
DC, on our turf?’

‘Because it will make a
bigger splash if he does it here, right under my nose.’ Bob growled, firing a
blistering look out of the corner of his eye as vicious as the lash of a whip.

‘You have a point, sir,
but if that was his plan, he’d also be taking a bigger risk of our apprehending
him. In any case, it’s a non-issue because the circumstantial evidence we had
before is no longer valid.’

Bob grunted, looking at
the rose garden. It was the first day in weeks that the leafless bushes weren’t
covered in snow. Instead there were puddles on the lawn, a result of the thaw
and endless drizzle that had been falling non-stop since the previous day.

‘You’d better be right
or I’ll have your ass in a sling.’ Barbara didn’t flinch, but Anita ducked her
head and stared at the pen she was twiddling between her fingers.

‘Knowing how the
messages got through,’ Bob continued, ‘is a breakthrough, but as far as
shedding any light on who’s responsible, it’s no damn use at all and we’re no
better off than we were a week ago. In fact, we’re worse off. At least then we
had a suspect in our hands.’ His gaze swept over Barbara. She knew he hadn’t
forgiven her for letting Carlos get away, regardless of how innocent he was.

‘Sir,’ Barbara said, ‘I
don’t see you need me to stay for the meeting. Until we collect evidence
pointing at who’s responsible for these communications, there’s nothing more my
agency can do.’

‘You implying you
already did something?’ Bob shot back and laughed. ‘No. You stay here. After
all, someone has to apologise to Dr Maiz.’

By the time Greg and Carlos arrived, General James Schwabe, Director of the
National Security Agency, had taken a seat next to Bob on the other carver
chair.

‘Barbara,’ Bob
commanded.

‘Dr Maiz, let me start
by saying we owe you an apology.’ Barbara shifted forward on the couch and
folded her hands in her lap. ‘Having seen the holovideo recordings and now
NASA’s explained how they came in, we no longer believe you imagined them or
sent the e-mails.’ She gave a small smile while inclining her head to one side,
‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Apology accepted,’
Carlos replied, suppressing the urge to make her grovel. Greg had warned him
not to do or say anything to upset anyone this time round but, although he’d
promised to comply, he couldn’t resist looking at Bob and adding, ‘Thank you,
sir,’ to push him into admitting some form of accountability. In response, the
President gave a curt nod.

‘That’s most generous of
you, Dr Maiz,’ Barbara continued. ‘I know how upsetting the past days must have
been for you and I am truly sorry for the distress we caused you.’

‘Hey,
de nada
,’
he conceded, waving his hand in the air.

‘General?’ Bob said. ‘If
you wouldn’t mind?’

‘Gentlemen and ladies,’
James Schwabe began, ‘although NASA has explained how the mystery
communications got in, unfortunately it’s led us no closer to discovering who’s
responsible. But even if we could catch the laser in action and trace it back
to its source, it would only lead us to the device that contained it. Although
that may give us a clue who’s behind it all, truth is right now we have no
idea.’

Barbara stared at her
hands and Anita drew daisies. Nobody spoke.

‘Dr Maiz,’ the General
continued, ‘do you think either this “Zul” character or the woman will contact
you again?’