The streets were worse. The climatic changes that graced much of North America were exaggerated in Washington. The heat was hot- ter, the humidity wetter. Sweat was no longer a five letter word, it was a way of life.
Union Station, the grand old train station near the Capitol Building provided little relief. The immense volume of air to be cooled was too much for the central air conditioners. They were no match for mother nature's revenge on the planet for unforgiv- ing hydrocarbon emissions. As soon as Tyrone Duncan detrained from the elegant Metroliner he had ridden this morning from New York's Penn Station, he was drenched in perspiration. He discov- ered, to his chagrin, that the cab he had hailed for his ride to headquarters had no air conditioning. The stench of the city, and the garbage and the traffic fumes reminded him of home. New York.
Tyrone showed his identification at the J. Edgar Hoover Building wishing he had the constitution to wear a seersucker suit. There is no way on God's earth a seersucker could show a few hours wear as desperately as his $1200 Louis Boston did, he thought. Then, there was the accompanying exhaustion from his exposure to the dense Washington air. Duncan had not been pleased with the panic call that forced him to Washington anyway. His reactions to the effects of the temperature humidity index did not portend a good meeting with Bob Burnson.
Bob had called Tyrone night before, at home. He said, we have a situation here, and it requires some immediate attention. Would you mind being here in the morning? Instead of a question, it was an unissued order. Rather than fool around with hours of delays at La Guardia and National Airport, Tyrone elected to take the train and arrive in the nation's capitol just after noon. It took, altogether just about the same amount of time, yet he could travel in relative luxury and peace. Burnson was waiting for him.
Bob Burnson held the title of National Coordinator for Tactical Response for the FBI. He was a little younger that Duncan, just over 40, and appeared cool in his dark blue suit and tightly collared shirt. Burnson had an unlikely pair of qualities. He was both an extraordinarily well polished politician and a astute investigator. Several years prior, though, he decided that the bureaucratic life would suit him just fine, and at the expense of his investigative skills, he attacked the political ladder with a vengeance.
Despite the differences between them, Burnson a willing compatri- ot of the Washington machine and Duncan preferring the rigors of investigation, they had developed a long distance friendship that survived over the years. Tyrone was most pleased that he had a boss who would at least give his arguments a fair listen before being told that for this or that political reason, the Bureau had chosen a different line of reasoning. So be it, thought Duncan. I'm not a policy maker, just a cop. Tyrone sank into one of the government issue chairs in Burnson's modern, yet modest office ringed with large windows that can't open.
"How 'bout that Arctic Chill?" Burnson's short lithe 150 pound frame showed no wear from the heat. "Glad you could make it."
"Shee . . .it man," Tyrone exhaled as he wiped his shiny wet black face and neck. He was wringing wet. "Like I had a choice. If it weren't for the company, I'd be at the beach getting a tan." He continued to wipe his neck and head with a monogrammed handkerchief.
"Lose a few pounds, and it won't hurt so bad. You know, I could make an issue of it," Bob poked fun.
"And I'm outta here so fast, Hoover'll cheer from his grave," he sweated. The reference to the FBI founder's legendary bigotry was a common source of jokes in the modern bureau.
"No doubt. No doubt." Burnson passed by the innuendo. "Maybe we'd balance the scales, too." He dug the knife deeper in refer- ence to Tyrone's weight.
"That's two," said Duncan.
"Ok, ok," said Burnson feigning surrender. "How's Arlene and the rest of the sorority?" He referred to the house full of women with whom Tyrone had spent a good deal of his life.
"Twenty degrees cooler." He was half serious.
"Listen, since you're hear, up for a bite?" Bob tried.
"Listen, how 'bout we do business then grab a couple of cold ones. Iced beer. At Camelot? That's my idea of a quality afternoon." Camelot was the famous downtown strip joint on 18th and M street that former Mayor Marion Berry had haunted and been 86'd from for unpublished reasons. It was dark and frequented by government employees for lunch, noticeably the ones from Treas- ury.
"Deal. If you accept." Bob's demeanor shifted to the officious.
"Accept what?" Tyrone asked suspiciously.
"My proposition."
"Is this another one of your lame attempts to promote me to an office job in Capitol City?"
"Well, yes and no. You're being re-assigned." No easy way to say it.
"To what?" exclaimed Tyrone angrily.
"To ECCO."
"What the hell is ECCO?"
"All in good time. To the point," Bob said calmly. "How much do you know about this blackmail thing?"
"Plenty. I read the reports, and I have my own local problems. Not to mention that the papers have picked it up. If it weren't for the National Expos printing irresponsibly, the mainstream press would have kept it quiet until there was some con- firmation."
"Agreed," said Burnson. "They are being spoken to right now, about that very subject, and as I hear it, they will have more lawsuits on their doorstep than they can afford to defend. They really blew it this time."
"What else?" Bob was listening intently.
"Not much. Loose, unfounded innuendo, with nothing to follow up. Reminds me of high school antics or mass hysteria. Just like UFO flaps." Tyrone Duncan dismissed the coincidences and the thought of Scott's conspiracy theory. "But it does make for a busy day at the office."
"Agreed, however, you only saw the reports that went on the wire.Not the ones that didn't go through channels."
"What do you mean by that?" Duncan voiced concern at being out of the loop.
"What's on the wire is only the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more."
"What else?"
"Senators calling the Director personally, asking for favors. Trying to keep their secrets secret. A junior Midwest senator has some quirky sexual habits. A Southern anti-pornography ball- breaker happens to like little boys. It goes on and one. They've all received calls saying that their secrets will be in the news- papers' hands within days."
"Unless?" Duncan awaited the resolved threat.
"No unless, which scares them all senseless. It's the same story everywhere. Highly influential people who manage many of our countries' strategic assets have called their senators, and asked them to insure that their cases are solved in a quiet and expedi- ent political manner. Sound familiar?" Burnson asked Duncan.
"More than vaguely," Tyrone had to admit. "How many?"
"As of this morning we have 17 Senators asking the FBI to make discreet investigations into a number of situations. 17! Not to mention a couple hundred executive types with connections. Within days of each other. They each, so far, believe that theirs is an isolated incident and that they are the sole target of such . . .threats is as good a word as any. Getting the picture?"
Tyrone whistled to himself. "They're all the same?"
"Yes, and there's something else. To a man, each claimed that there was no way the blackmailer could know what he knew. Impos- sible." Burnson scratched his head. "Strange. Same story everywhere. That's what got the Director and his cronies in on this. And then me . . .and that's why you're here," Burnson said with finality.
"Why?" Tyrone was getting frustrated with the roundabout dia- tribe.
"We're pulling the blackmail thing to the national office and a special task force will take over. A lot of folks upstairs want to pull you in and stick you in charge of the whole operation, but I told them that you weren't interested, that you like it the way it is. So, I struck a deal." Burnson sounded proud.
Duncan wasn't convinced. "Deal? What deal? Since when do you talk for me?" Tyrone didn't think to thank Bob for the front line pass interference. Keep the politicos out of his hair.
"Have you been following any of the computer madness recently?"Burnson spoke as though he expected Tyrone to know nothing of it.
"Can't miss it. From what I hear, a lot of people are getting pretty spooked that they may be next."
"It gets more interesting than what the papers say," Bob said while opening a desk drawer. He pulled out a large folder and lay it across his desk. "We have experienced a few more computer incidents than is generally known, and in the last several weeks there has been a sudden increase in the number of attacks against Government computers."
"You mean the INTERNET stuff and Congress losing it's mind?" Tyrone laughed at the thought that Congress would now use their downed computers as an excuse for not doing anything.
"Those are only the ones that have made it to the press. It's lot worse." Bob scanned a few pages of the folder and para- phrased while reading. "Ah, yes, the NPRP, National Pretrial Reporting Program over at Justice . . .was hit with a series of computer viruses apparently intentionally placed in VMS comput- ers, whatever the hell those are." Bob Burnson was not computer fluent, but he knew what the Bureau's computer could do.
"The Army Supply Center at Fort Stewart, Georgia had all of its requisitions for the last year erased from the computer." Bob chuckled as he continued. "Says here that they have had to pool the guys' money to go to Winn Dixie to buy toilet paper and McDonald's has offered a special GI discount until the system gets back up."
"Ty," Bob said. " Some people on the hill have raised a stink since their machines went down. Damn crybabies. So ECCO is being activated."
"What the hell is ECCO?" Tyrone asked again.
"ECCO stands for Emergency Computer Crisis Organization. It's a computer crisis team that responds to . . .well I guess, comput- er crises." Bob opened the folder again. "It was formed during the, and I quote, ' . . .the panic that followed the first INTER- NET Worm in November of 1988.'"
Tyrone's mouth hung open. "What panic?"
"The one that was kept under absolute wraps," Bob said, slightly lowering his voice. "At first no one knew what the INTERNET event was about. Who was behind it. Why and how it was happen- ing. Imagine 10's of thousands of computers stopping all at once. It scared the shit out of the National Security Council, remember we and the Russians weren't quite friends then, and we thought that military secrets were being funneled straight to the Kremlin. You can't believe some of the contingency plans I heard about."
"I had no idea . . ."
"You weren't supposed to," Bob added. "Very few did. At any rate, right afterward DARPA established CERT, the Computer Emer- gency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon, and DCA set up a Security Coordination Center at SRI International to investigate problems in the Defense Data Network. Livermore and the DOE got into the act with Computer Incident Advisory Capability. Then someone decided that the bureaucracy was still too light and it deserved at least a fourth redundant, overlapping and rival group to investigate on behalf of Law Enforcement Agencies. So, there we have ECCO."
"So what's the deal?" asked Tyrone. "What do I have to do?"
"The Director has asked ECCO to investigate the latest round of viruses and the infiltration of a dozen or so sensitive and classified computers." Bob watched for Ty's reaction, but saw none yet. He wondered how he would take the news. "This time, we would like to be involved in the entire operation from start to finish. Make sure the investigation is done right. We'd like to start nailing some of the bastards on the Federal level. Besides you have the legal background and we are treading on some very new and untested waters."
"I can imagine. So what's our role?"
"Your role," Bob emphasized 'your', "will be to liaison with the other interested agencies."
"Who else is playing?" asked Tyrone with trepidation.
"Uh, that is the one negative," stammered Bob. "You've got NSA, CIA, NIST, the NSC, the JCS and a bunch of others that don't matter. The only rough spot is the NSA/NIST connection. Every- one else is there just to make sure they don't miss anything."
"What's their problem?"
"Haven't heard, huh?" laughed Bob. "The press hasn't been kind. They've been in such a pissing match for so long that computer security work came to a virtual halt and I don't want to spoil the surprise, ah, you'll see," he added chuckling.
Tyrone sat back in the chair as he was cool enough now not to stick to it, closed his eyes and rotated his head to work out the kinks. Bob never had gotten used to Tyrone's peculiar method of deep thought; he found it most unnerving.
Bob's intents were crystal clear, not that Tyrone minded. He had no desire to move to D.C.; indeed he would have quit instead. He wanted to stay with the Bureau and the action but in his comfortable New York existence. Otherwise, no. But, if he could get Bob off his back by this one favor. Sure it might not be real action, watching computer jockies play with themselves . . .but it might be an interesting change in pace.
"Yes, under a couple of condition." Tyrone was suddenly a little too agreeable and smug after his earlier hesitancy.
"Conditions? What conditions?" Bob's suspicion was clear.
"One. I do it my way, with no, and I mean, absolutely no inter- ference." Duncan awaited a reply to his first demand.
"What else?"
"I get to use who I want to use, inside or outside the Bureau."
"Outside? Outside? We can't let this outside. The last thing in the world we want is publicity."
"You're gonna get it anyway. Let's do it right this time."
"What do you mean by that?" Bob asked somewhat defensively.
"What I mean is," Tyrone spoke up, sounding confident, "that the press are already on this computer virus thing and hackers and all. So, let's not advertise it, but when it comes up, let's deal with it honest."
"No way," blurted out Bob. "They'll make it worse than it is."
"I have that covered. A friend of my works for a paper, and he is a potential asset."
"What's the trade?"
"Not much. Half day leads, as long as he keeps it fair."
"Anything else?" Bob asked, not responding to Ty.
"One last thing," Tyrone said sitting up straighter. "After this one, you promise to let me alone and work my golden years, the way I want, where I want until my overdue retirement."
"I don't know if I can . . ."
"Then forget it," interrupted Tyrone. "I'll just quit." It was the penultimate threat and bluff and caught Bob off balance.
"Wait a minute. You can't hold me hostage . . ."
"Isn't that what you're doing to me?" Touch<130>!
Bob sat back in thought. To an event, Duncan had been right on. He had uncannily been able to solve, or direct the solution of a crime where all others had failed. And, he always put the Bureau in the best possible light. If he didn't go with him now, lose him for sure.
"And, I may need some discretionary funds." Duncan was making a mental list of those things he thought he needed. His sources of information were the most valuable. Without them, it would be a bad case of babysitting sissy assed bureaucrats staking out their ground.
"Yes to the money. Ouch, but yes to hands off your promotion.Maybe, to the reporter. It's my ass, too, you know."
"You called me," Tyrone said calmly. "Remember?"
I can't win this one, thought Bob. He's never screwed up yet. Not big time. As they say, with enough rope you either bring in the gang or hang yourself. "I want results." That's all Bob had to say. "Other than that, I don't give a good goddamn what you do," Bob resigned.
"One more thing," Tyrone slipped in.
"What is it?" Bob was getting exasperated.
"It happens out of New York, not here."
"But . . ."
"No buts. Period."
"Ok, New York, but you report here when I need you. Agreed?"
"Agreed," said Tyrone agreeably. "Deal?"
"Yes, except no with the press, this reporter of yours. Agreed?"
"Whatever," Tyrone told Bob.
* * * * *
From his hotel room, Tyrone Duncan called Scott Mason at his home. It was after 11P.M. EST, and Ty was feeling no pain after several hours of drinking and slipping $10 bills into garter belts at Camelot.
"RCA, Russian Division," Scott Mason answered his phone.
"Don't do that," Tyrone slurred. "That'll trigger the monitors."
"Oh, sorry, I thought you wanted the plans for the Stealth Bom- ber . . ."
"C'mon, man," Tyrone pleaded. "It's not worth the paperwork."
Scott choked through his laughter. "I'm watching a Honeymooner rerun. This better be good."
"We need to talk."
* * * * *
Thursday, October 15Washington, D.C.
The stunning view of the Potomac was complete with a cold front that brought a wave of crisp and clear air; a much needed change from the brutal Indian Summer. His condo commanded a vista of lights that reflected the power to manipulate the world. Miles reveled in it. He and Perky lounged on his 8th. floor balcony after a wonderfully satisfying romp in his waterbed. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sex in a water- bed meant the expenditure of the least energy for the maximum pleasure. Ah, the beauty of applied mathematics.
Over the last four years Perky and Miles had seen each other on a periodically regular basis. She was a little more than one of Miles' sexual release valves. She was a semi-sorta-kinda girl friend, but wouldn't have been if Miles had known that she re- ported their liaisons back to her boss. Alex was not interested in how she got her information. He only wanted to know if there were any digressions in Miles mission.
They sipped Grande Fine from oversized brandy glasses. The afterglow was magnificent and they saw no reason to detract from it with meaningless conversation. Her robe barely covered her firm breasts and afforded no umbrage for the triangle between her legs. She wasn't ashamed of her nakedness, job or no job. She enjoyed her time with Miles. He asked for nothing from her but the obvious. Unlike the others who often asked her for solici- tous introductions to others who wielded power that might further their own particular lobby. Miles was honest, at least. He even let her spend the night upon occasion.
At 2 A.M., as they gazed over the reflections in the Potomac, Miles' phone warbled. He ignored the first 5 rings to Perky's annoyance.
"Aren't you going to answer?" Her unspoken thoughts said,
"Expecting a call?" Miles asked. His eyes were closed, convey- ing his internal peace. The phone rang again.
"Miles, at least get a machine." The phone rang a seventh time.
"Fuck." He stood and his thick terrycloth robe swept behind him as he walked into the elegantly simple modern living room through the open glass doors. He put down his glass and answered on the 8th ring.
"It's late," he answered. His 'I don't give a shit' attitude was evident.
"Mr. Foster, I am most displeased." It was Homosoto. Miles curled his lips in disgust as Perky looked in from her balcony vantage.
Miles breathed heavily into the phone. "What's wrong now?" Miles was trying to verbally show his distaste for such a late call.
"Our plans were explicit. Why have you deviated?" Homosoto was controlled but forthright.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Miles sipped loudly from the brandy glass.
"I have read about the virus, the computer virus. The whole world in talking about it. Mr. Foster, you are early. I thought we had an understanding."
"Hey!" Foster yelled into the phone. "I don't know where you get off calling me at 2 in the morning, but you've got your head up your ass."
"Excuse me Mr. Foster, I do not and could not execute such a motion. However, do not forget we did have an agreement." Homosoto was insistent.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Miles was adamant.
"Since you insist on these games, Mr. Foster. I have read with great interest about the so called Columbus Day Virus. I believe you have made a great error in judgment."
Miles had just had about enough of this. "If you've got something to say, say it." he snorted into the phone.
"Mr. Foster. Did we not agree that the first major strike was not to occur until next year?"
"Yeah," Miles said offhandedly. He saw Perky open her eyes and look at him quizzically. He made a fist with his right hand and made an obscene motion near his crotch.
"Then, what is this premature event?" Homosoto persisted.
"Not mine." Miles looked out the balcony. Perky was invitingly licking her lips. Miles turned away to avoid distraction.
"Mr. Foster, I find it hard to believe that you are not responsi- ble."
"Tough shit."
"Excuse me?" Homosoto was taken aback.
"Simple. You are not the only person, and neither am I, the only person who has chosen to build viruses or destructive computer programs. We are merely taking a good idea and taking it to its logical conclusion as a pure form of offensive weaponsry. This one's not mine nor yours. It's someone elses."
The phone was silent for a few seconds. "You are saying there are others?" The childlike naivete was coming through over 12,000 miles of phone wire.
"Of course there are. This will probably help us."
"How do you mean?"
"There are a hundreds of viruses, but none as effective as the ones which we use. A lot of amateurs use them to build their egos. Jerusalem-B, Lehigh, Pakistani, Brain, Marijuana, they all have names. They have no purpose other than self aggrandizement. So, we will be seeing more and more viruses appear that have nothing to do with our efforts. I do hope you will not call every time you hear of one. You know our dates. "
"Is there no chance for error?"
"Oh yes! There is, but it will be very isolated if it occurs. Most viruses do not receive as much attention as this one, and probably won't until we are ready. And, as I recall we are not ready." Miles was tired of the timing for the hand holding session. Ms. Perkins was beckoning.
"I hope you are right. My plans must not be interfered with."
"Our plans," Miles corrected. "my ass is on the line, too. I don't need you freaking every time the press reports a computer going on the fritz. It's gonna happen a lot."
"What will happen, Mr. Foster?" Homosoto was able to convey disgust with a Japanese accent like no other.
"We've been through this before."
"Then go through it again," Homosoto ordered.
Miles turned his back to Perky and sat on the couch inside where he was sure he could speak in privacy. "Listen here Homo," Miles scowled. "In the last couple of years viruses have been become techno-yuppie amusements. The game has intensified as the stakes have increased. Are you aware . . .no I'm sure you're not, that the experts here say that, besides our work, almost every local area network in the country is infected with a virus of one type or another. Did you know that?"
"No, Mr. Foster, I didn't. How do you know that?" Homosoto sounded unconvinced.
"It's my fucking job to know that. And you run an empire?"
"Yes, I know , and I hope you do, Mr. Foster, that you work for me." Condenscention was an executive Oriental trait that Miles found unsettling.
"For now, I do."
"You do, and will until our job is over. Is that clear Mr.Foster? You have much to lose."
Miles sank deep into the couch, smirking and puckering his dim- ples. He wanted to convey boredom. "I a job. You an empire."
"Do not be concerned about me. Good night, Mr. Foster."
Homosoto had quickly cut the line. Just as well, thought Miles. He had enough of that slant-eyed slope-browed rice-propelled mother-fucker for one night. He had bigger and better and harder things to concern him.
* * * * *
October 31, 1989Falls Church, Virginia.
"What do you mean gone?"
"Gone. Gone. It's just gone." Fred Porter sounded panicked.
Larry Ferguson, the Senior Vice President of First National Bank did not appreciate the news he was getting from the Transfer Department in New York. "Would you be kind enough to explain?" he said with disdain.
"Yessir, of course." Porter took a deep breath. "We were running a balance, the same one we run every day. And every day, they balance. The transfers, the receipts, the charges . . .every- thing. When we ran them last night, they didn't add up. We're missing a quarter billion dollars."
"A quarter billion dollars? You better have one good explanation, son."
"I wish I did," Porter sighed.
"All right, let's go through it top to bottom." Ferguson knew that it was ultimately his ass if $250 Million was really miss- ing.
"It's just as I told you."
"Then tell me again!" Ferguson bellowed.
"Yessir, sorry. We maintain transfer accounts as you know."
"Of course I know."
"During the day we move our transfer funds into a single account and wait till the end of the day to move the money to where it belongs. We do that because . . ."
"I know why we do it. Cause for every hundred million we hold for half a day we make $16,000 in interest we don't have to pay out."
"Yessir, but that's not official . . ."
"Of course it's not you idiot . . ."
"I'm sorry sir."
"As you were saying . . ." Ferguson was glad he had moved the psychological stress to his underling.
"When we got to the account, about 9:00 A.M., it was empty.That's it. Empty. All the money was gone."
"And, pray tell, where did it go?" Templeton said sarcastically.
"We don't know. It was supposed to have been transferred to hundreds of accounts. Here and abroad. There's no audit of what happened."
"Do you know how long it will take you to pay for this screw upPorter?" Templeton demanded.
"Yessir."
"How long?"
"A hundred lifetimes," Porter said dejectedly.
"Longer. A lot longer." Ferguson really knew that Porter would- n't pay any price. As long as the computer records showed he wasn't at fault, he would continue to be a valued employee. Ferguson himself was bound to be the scape goat.
"What do you want me to do, sir?" Porter asked.
"You've done enough. Just wire me the records. I need them yesterday. I have to talk to Weinhauser." Ferguson hung up in disgust. It was not going to be a good day.
****************************************************************
Wednesday, November 4The Stock Exchange, New York
Wall Street becomes a ghost town by early evening with the night population largely consisting of guards, cleaning and maintenance people. Tightly packed skyscrapers with their lighted windows create random geometric patterns in the moonless cityscape and hover ominously over dimly lit streets.
Joe Patchok and Tony Romano worked as private guards on the four to midnight shift at the Stock Exchange on Cortland Street in lower Manhattan. For a couple of young college guys this was the ideal job. They could study in peace and quiet, nothing ever happened, no one bothered them, and the pay was decent.
They were responsible for the 17th. and 18th. floors which had a sole entrance and exit; controlled access. This was where the central computers for the Stock Exchange tried to maintain sanity in the market. The abuses of computer trading resulting in the minicrash of 1987 forced a re-examination of the practice and the subsequent installation of computer brakes to dampen severe market fluctuations.
Hundreds of millions of shares exchanged every day are recorded in the computers as are the international, futures and commodi- ties trades. The dossiers on thousands upon thousands of compa- nies stored in the memory banks and extensive libraries were used to track investors, ownership, offerings, filings and provide required information to the government.
Tony sat at the front guard desk while Joe made the next hourly check through the offices and computer rooms. Joe strolled down the halls, brilliantly lit from recessed ceiling fixtures. The corridor walls were all solid glass, giving the impression of more openness than was really provided by the windowless, climate controlled, 40% sterile environment. There was no privacy working in the computer rooms.
The temperature and humidity were optimized; the electricity content of air was neutralized both electrostatically and by nuclear ionization, and the air cycled and purified once an hour. In the event of a catastrophic power failure, which is not un- known in New York, almost 10,000 square feet was dedicated to power redundancy and battery backup. In case of fire, heat sensors trigger the release of halon gas and suck all of the oxygen from the room in seconds. The Stock Exchange computers received the best care.
Joe tested the handle on the door of each darkened room through the myriad glass hallways. Without the computers behind the glass walls, it might as well have been a House of Mirrors. He noticed that the computer operators who work through the night were crowded together at the end of a hall next to the only computer rooms with activity. He heard them muttering about the cleaning staff.
"Hey guys, problem?" Joe asked.
"Nah, we escaped," a young bearded man in a white lab coat said pointing into the room. "His vacuum cleaner made one God awful noise, so we came out here til' he was done."
"New cleaning service," Joe said offhandedly.
The dark complexioned cleaning man wore a starchy white uniform with Mohammed's Cleaning Service emblazoned across the back in bold red letters. They watched him, rather than clean the room, fiddle with the large barrel sized vacuum cleaner.
"What's he doing?"
"Fixing that noise, I hope."
"What's he doing now?"
"He's looking at us and, saying something . . ."
"It looks like he's praying . . ."
"Why the hell would he . . ."
The entire 46 story building instantly went dark and the force of the explosion rocked Tony from his seat fifty yards away. He reached for the flashlight on his belt and pressed a series of alarms on the control panel even though the video monitors were black and the emergency power had not come on. Nothing. He ran towards the sound of the blast and yelled.
"Hello? Hey?" he yelled nervously into the darkness.
"Over here, hurry," a distant pained voice begged.
Tony slid into a wall and stopped. He pointed his flashlight down one hall. Nothing.
"Over here."
He jumped sideways and pointed the beam onto a twisted maze of bodies, some with blood geysering into the air from their necks and arms and legs. Tony saw that the explosion had shattered the glass walls into thousands of high velocity razor sharp projec- tiles. The corpses had been pierced, stabbed, severed and muti- lated by the deadly shards. Tony felt nauseous; he was going to be sick right then.
"Tony." A shrapnelled Joe squeaked from the mass of torn flesh ahead of him.
"Holy shit . . ." Tony's legs to turned to jelly as he bent over and gagged.
"Help me!"
The force of the blast had destroyed the glass partitions as far as his light beam would travel. He pointed the light into the room that exploded. The computer equipment was in shambles, and then he saw what was left of the cleaning man. His severed head had no recognizable features and pieces of his body were strewn about. Tony suddenly vomited onto the river of blood that was flowing his way down the hallway.
"I gotta go get help," Tony said choking. He pushed against the wall to give him the momentum to overcome the paralysis his body felt and ran.
"No, help me . . ."
He ran down the halls with his flashlight waving madly. The ele- vators. They were out, too. Maybe the phone on the console. Dead. He picked up the walkie-talkie and pushed the button. Nothing. He banged the two way radio several times on the coun- ter in the futile hope that violence was an electronic cure-all. Dead. Tony panicked and threw it violently into the blackness.
Neither the small TV, nor his portable radio worked.
* * * * *
"I know it's almost midnight," Ben Shellhorne said into the cellular phone. He cupped his other ear to hear over the commo- tion at the Stock Exchange building.
"Quit your bitching. Look at it this way; you might see dawn for the first time in your life." Ben joked. All time was equal to Ben but he knew that Scott said he didn't do mornings. "Sure, I'll wait," Ben said in disgust and waited with agitation until Scott came back to the phone. "Good. But don't forget that beer isn't just for breakfast."
He craned his neck to see that the NYPD Bomb Squad had just left and gave the forensics team the go ahead. No danger.
"Listen," Ben said hurriedly. "I gotta make it quick, I'm going in for some pictures." He paused and then said, "Yes, of course after the bodies are gone. God, you can be gross." He paused again. "I'll meet you in the lobby. One hour."
Ben Shellhorn, a denizen of the streets, reported stories that sometimes didn't fit within the all-the-news-that's-fit-to-print maxim. Many barely bordered on the decent, but they were all well done. For some reason, unknown even to Ben, he attracted news whose repulsiveness made them that much more magnetic to readers. Gruesome lot we are, he thought.
That's why one of his police contacts called him to say that a bunch of computer nerds were sliced to death. The Cheers rerun was bringing him no pleasure, so sure, what the hell; it was a nice night for a mutilation.
"It's getting mighty interesting, buddy boy," Ben said meeting Scott as he stepped out of his filthy Red 911 in front of the Stock Exchange an hour later. His press credentials performed wonders at times. Like getting behind police lines and not having to park ten blocks away.
The police had brought in generators to power huge banks of lights to eerily light up the Stock Exchange building, all 500 feet of it. Emergency vehicles filled the wide street, every- thing from ambulances, fire engines, riot vehicles and New York Power. Then there were the DA's office, lawyers for the Ex- change, insurance representatives and a ton of computer people.
"What the hell happened here?" Scott asked looking at the pande- monium on the cordoned off Cortland Street. "Where are all the lights?" He turned and gazed at the darkened streets and tall buildings. "Did you know a bunch of the street lights are out, too?" Scott meandered in seeming awe of the chaos.
"This is one strange one," Ben said as they approached the build- ing entrance. "Let me ask you a question, you're the techno- freak."
Scott scowled at him for the reference but didn't comment.
"What kind of bomb stops electricity?"
"Electricity? You mean power?" Scott pointed at the blackened buildings and streets and Ben nodded. "Did they blow the block transformers?"
"No, just a small Cemex, plastic, bomb in one computer room. Did some damage, but left an awful lot standing. But the death toll was high. Eleven dead and two probably not going to make it. Plus the perp."
Scott gazed around the scene. The dark sky was pierced by the top floors of the World Trade Center, and there were lights in the next blocks. So it's not a blackout. And it wasn't the power grid that was hit. A growing grin preceded Scott shaking his head side to side.
"What is it?" Ben asked.
"A nuke."
"A nuke?"
"Yeah, that's it, a nuke," Scott said excitedly. "A nuke knocks out power. Of course."
"Right," Ben said mockingly. "I can hear it now: Portion of 17th. Floor of Exchange Devastated by Nuclear Bomb. News at Eleven."
"Never mind," Scott brushed it off. "Can we get up there?" He pointed at the ceiling. "See the place?"
Ben pulled a few strings and spent a couple of hundred of Scott's dollars but succeeded in getting to the corpse-less site of the explosion. Scott visually poked around the debris and noticed a curved porcelain remnant near his feet. He wasn't supposed to touch, but, what was it? And the ruby colored chunks of glass? In the few seconds they were left alone, they snapped a quick roll of film and made a polite but hasty departure. At $200 a minute Scott hoped he would find what he was looking for.
"Ben, I need these photos blown up, to say, 11 X 17? ASAP."
The press conference at 4:15 in the morning was necessary. The Stock Exchange was not going to open Thursday. The lobby of the Stock Exchange was aflood with TV camera lights, police and the media hoards. Voices echoed loudly, between the marble walls and floor and made hearing difficult.
"We don't want to predict what will happen over the next 24 hours," the exhausted stocky spokesman for the Stock Exchange said loudly, to make himself heard over the din. "We have every reason to expect that we can make a quick transition to another system."
"How is that done?"
"We have extensive tape vaults where we store everything from the Exchange computers daily. We will either use one of our backup computers, or move the center to a temporary location. We don't anticipate any delays."
"What about the power problem?" A female reporter from a localTV news station asked.
"Con Ed is on the job," the spokesman said, pleased they were picking on someone else. "I have every confidence they will have things up and flying soon."
"What caused the power outage?"
"We don't have the answer to that now."
Scott edged to the front of the crowd to ask a question. "What if," Scott asked the spokesman. "if the tapes were destroyed?"
"Thank God they weren't . . ." he said haltingly.
"Isn't it true," Scott ventured accusingly, "that in fact you already know that every computer in this building is dead, all of the emergency power backup systems and batteries failed and that every computer tape or disk has been completely erased?" The other reporters stood open mouthed at the unexpected question.
Scott spoke confidently, knowing that he was being filmed by the networks. The spokesman nervously fumbled with some papers in his hand. The press pool waited for the answer that had silenced the spokesman. He stammered, "We have no . . .until power is restored a full determination of the damage cannot be made . . ."
Scott pressed the point. "What would happen if the tapes were all erased?"
"Uh, I, well . . ." he glanced from side to side. On his left were two men dressed in matching dark blue suits, white shirts and sunglasses. "It is best not to speculate until we have more information."
"Computer experts have said that if the tapes are erased it would take at least thirty days to recreate them and get the Exchange open again. Is that correct?" Scott exaggerated. He was the computer expert to whom he referred. Journalistic license.
"Under the conditions," the spokesman said trying to maintain a credible visage to front for his lies, "I also have heard some wildly exaggerated estimates. Let me assure you," the politician in him came out here. "that the Exchange will in no way renege on its fiduciary responsibilities to the world financial communi- ty." He glanced at his watch. "I'm afraid that's all the time I have now. We will meet here again at 9:00 A.M. for a further briefing. Thank you." He quickly exited under the protection of New York's finest as the reporters all shouted their last questions. Scott didn't bother. It never works.
One of the men in the blue suits leaned over to the other and spoke quietly in his ear. "Who is that guy asking all those ques- tions?"
"Isn't that the reporter the Director was talking about?"
"Yeah. He said we should keep an eye on him."
* * * * *
Thursday, November 5Tokyo, Japan
<<<<<
Ahmed heard his computer announce that Homosoto was calling. He pushed the joystick on the arm of his electric wheelchair and proceeded over to the portable computer that was outfitted with an untraceable cellular modem. Even if the number was traced through four interstate call forwards and the original overseas link, finding him was an entirely different matter. Ahmed entered the time base PRG code from the ID card he kept strapped to his wheelchair.
yes.
yes. we were well served by martyrs. they are to be honored.
8 more.
1 month.
done.
<<<<<
* * * * *
Friday, November 6New York City
The Stock Exchange didn't open Friday either.
Scott Mason had made enough of a stink about the erased tapes that they could no longer hide under the cover of computer mal- functions. It was finally admitted that yes, the tapes were needed to verify all transactions, especially the computer trans- actions, and they had been destroyed along with the entire con- tents of the computer's memory and hard disks. Wiped out. Totally.
The Exchange didn't tell the press that the National Security Agency had been quietly called in to assist. The NSA specializes in information gathering, and over the years with tens of bil- lions of dollars in secret appropriations, they have developed extraordinary methods to extract usable information where there is apparently none.
The Exchange couriered a carton of computer tapes to NSA's Fort Meade where the most sophisticated listening and analysis tools in the world live in acres upon acres of underground laboratories and data processing centers. What they found did not make the NSA happy. The tapes had in fact been totally erased. A total unidirectional magnetic pattern.
Many 'erased' tapes and disks can be recovered. One of the preferred recovery methods is to use NMR Nuclear Magnetic Reso- nance, to detect the faintest of organized magnetic orientations. Even tapes or disks with secret information that have been erased many times can be 'read' after an MNR scan.
The electromagnetic signature left remnant on the tapes, the molecular alignment of the ferrous and chromium oxide particles in this case were peculiarly characteristic. There was little doubt. The NSA immediately called the Exchange and asked them, almost ordered them, to leave the remaining tapes where they were.
In less than two hours an army of NSA technicians showed up with crates and vehicles full of equipment. The Department of Energy was right behind with equipment suitable for radiation measure- ments and emergency responses.
DOE quickly reached no conclusion. Not enough information. Initially they had expected to find that someone had stumbled upon a way to make highly miniaturized nuclear weapons. The men from the NSA knew they were wrong.
* * * * *
It took almost six weeks for the Stock Exchange to function at its previous levels. Trading was reduced to paper and less than 10,000,000 shares daily for almost two weeks until the temporary system was expanded with staff and runners. Daily trading never was able to exceed 27,000,000 shares until the computers came back on line.
The SEC and the Government Accounting Office released preliminary figures indicating the shut down of the Exchange would cost the American economy almost $50 Billion this year. Congress is preparing legislation to provide emergency funding to those firms that were adversely affected by the massive computer failure.
The Stock Exchange has said that it will institute additional physical and computer security to insure that there is no repeat of the unfortunate suicide assault.
* * * * *
Sunday, November 8Scarsdale, New York
"You never cease to amaze me," Tyrone said as he entered Scott's ultra modern house. "You and this freaking palace. Just from looking at you, I'd expect black lights, Woodstock posters and sleeping bags." He couldn't recall if he had ever seen Scott wear anything but jeans, t-shirts or sweat shirts and spotlessly clean Reeboks.
Scott's sprawling 8000 square foot free form geometric white on white home sat on 2 acres at the end of a long driveway heavily treed with evergreens so that seclusion was maintained all year long. Featured in Architectural Digest, the designers made generous use of glass brick inside and out. The indoor pool boasted sliding glass walls and a retractable skylight ceiling which gave the impression of outdoor living, even in the midst of a harsh winter.
"They're in the music room." Scott proceeded to open a set of heavy oak double doors. "Soundproof, almost," he said cheerily. A 72 inch video screen dominated one wall and next to it sat a large control center with VCR's, switchers and satellite tuner. Scott's audio equipment was as complex as Ty had ever seen and an array of speaker systems flanked the huge television.
"Toys, you got the toys, don't you?" joked Tyrone.
"The only difference is that they cost more," agreed Scott. "You wanna see a toy and a half? I invented it myself."
"Not another one?" groaned Tyrone. "That idiot golf machine of yours was . . ."
"Capable of driving 350 yards, straight as an arrow."
"And as I remember, carving up the greens pretty good." Scott and his rolling Golf Gopher had been thrown off of several courses already.
"A few modifications, that's all," laughed Scott.
Scott led Tyrone through the immense family-entertainment room into a deep navy blue, white accented Euro-streamlined automated kitchen. It was like no other kitchen he had ever seen. In fact, other than the sinks and the extensive counters, there was no indication that this room was intended for preparing food. Scott flipped a switch and suddenly the deep blue cabinet doors faded into a transparent tint baring the contents of the shelves. The fronts of the stoves, refrigerator and freezer and other appliances exposed their function and controls.
"Holy Jeez . . ." Ty said in amazement. Last month this had been a regular high tech kitchen of the 80's. Now it was the Jetsons. "That's incredible . . .you invented that?"
"No," dismissed Scott. "That's just a neat trick of LCD panels built into the cabinets. This was my idea." He pressed an invisible switch and 4 ten inch openings appeared on the counter top near the sink. "Combination trash compacter re-cycler. Glass, plastic, aluminum, metal and paper. Comes out by the garbage, ready to go to the center."
"Lazy son of a bitch aren't you?" Tyrone laughed loudly.
"Sure, I admit my idea of gardening is watching someone mow the lawn." Scott feigned offense. "But this is in the name of Green. I bet if you had one, you'd use it and Arlene would get off your ass."
"No way," Tyrone objected. "My marriage is too good to screw up. It's the only thing left we still fight about, and we both like it just the way it is. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm old fashioned."
Scott showed Tyrone how to use the kitchen and he found that no matter what he wanted, there was button for it, a hidden drawer or a disguised appliance. "I still buy dishwashers at Sears. How the hell do you know how to use this stuff," Ty said fumbling with the automatic bottle opener which automatically dropped the removed caps into the hole for the metal compactor.
Tyrone had come over to Scott's house for a quiet afternoon of Sunday football. An ideal time because Arlene had gone to Boston for the weekend with his daughters. Freedom!
They made it to the Music Room with their beers as the kickoff was midfield. "So how's the promotion going?" Scott asked Tyrone in half jest. Over the last few weeks, Ty had spent most of his time in Washington and what little time was left with his family.
"Promotion my ass. It's the only way I can not get a promotion."Tyrone added somberly, "and it may be my last case."
"What do you mean?" Scott asked.
"It's gotten outta hand, totally out of hand. We have to spend more time protecting the rights of the goddamned criminals than solving crimes. That's not what it should be about. At least not for me."
"You're serious about this," Scott said rhetorically.
"Hey, sooner or later I gotta call it quits," Ty replied soberly."But this computer thing's gonna make my decision easier."
"That's what I asked. How's the promotion?"
"Let's just say, more of the same but different. Except the interagency crap is amazing. No one commits to anything, and everything needs study and nothing gets done." Tyrone sighed.
He had been in Washington working with NIST, NSA, DoD and every other agency that thought it had a vested interest in computers and their protection. Their coordination with CERT and ECCO was a joke, even by government standards.
At the end of the first quarter, the 49'ers were holding a solid 10 point lead. Scott grabbed a couple more beers and began tell- ing Tyrone about the incident at the Exchange. The New York Police had taken over the case, declaring sovereignty over Wall Street and its enclaves.
"They don't know what they have, however," Scott said immodestly.
"The talk was a small scale nuke . . ."
"The DOE smashed that but fast," Scott interrupted. "What if I told you that it was only the computers that were attacked? That the deaths were merely incidental?"
Tyrone groaned as the 49'ers fumbled the ball. "I'd listen," he said noncommittally.
"It was a classified magnetic bomb. NSA calls them EMP-T."
"Empty? The empty bomb?" Tyrone said skeptically. "Since when does NSA design bombs?"
"Listen," said Scott trying to get Ty's attention away from theTV. "Have you ever heard of C-Cubed, or C3?"
"No." He stared at the San Francisco defense being crushed.
"Command, Control and Communications It's a special government program to deal with nuclear warfare."
"Pleasant thought," said Tyrone.
"Yeah, well, one result of a nuclear blast is a terrific release of electromagnetic energy. Enough to blow out communications and power lines for miles. That's one reason that silos are hardened - to keep the communications lines open to permit the President or whoever's still alive to shoot back."
"Like I said," Tyrone shuddered, "pleasant thought." He stopped suddenly at turned to Scott. "So it was a baby nuke?"
"No, it was EMP-T," Scott said in such a way to annoy Ty. "Electro Magnetic Pulse Transformer." The confusion on Tyrone's face was clear. "Ok, it's actually pretty simple. You know what interference sounds like on the radio or looks like on a TV?"
"Sure. My cell phone snaps, crackles and pops all of the time."
"Exactly. Noise is simply electromagnetic energy that interferes with the signal. Right?" Scott waited for Tyrone to respond that he understood so far.
"Good. Imagine a magnetic pulse so strong that it not only interferes with the signal, but overloads the electronics them- selves. Remember that electricity and magnetism are the same force taking different forms."
Tyrone shook his head and curled his mouth. "Right. I knew that all the time." Scott ignored him.
"The EMP-T bomb is an electromagnetic explosion, very very short, only a few milliseconds, but incredibly intense." Scott gestured to indicate the magnitude of the invisible explosion. "That was the bomb that went off at the Stock Exchange."
"How can you possibly know that?" Tyrone asked with a hint of professional derision. "That requires a big leap of faith . . ."
Scott leaned over to the side of the couch and picked up the two items he had retrieved from the Exchange.
"This," Scott said handing a piece of ceramic material to Ty, "is superconducting material. Real new. It can superconduct at room temperature. And this," he handed Tyrone a piece of red glass, "is a piece of a high energy ruby laser."
Tyrone turned the curios over and over in his hands. "So?" he asked.
"By driving the output of the laser into a High Energy Static Capacitive Tank, the energy can be discharged into the super coil. The instantaneous release of energy creates a magnetic field of millions of gauss." Scott snapped his fingers. "And that's more than enough to blow out computer and phone circuits as well as erase anything magnetic within a thousand yards."
Tyrone was now ignoring the football action. He stared alternate- ly at Scott and the curious glass and ceramic remnants. "You're bullshitting me, right? Sounds like science fiction."
"But the fact is that the Stock Exchange still isn't open. Their entire tape library is gone. Poof! Empty, thus the name EMP-T. It empties computers. Whoever did this has a real bad temper. Pure revenge. They wanted to destroy the information, and not the hardware itself. Otherwise the conventional blast would have been stronger. The Cemex was used to destroy the evidence of the EMP-T device."
"Where the hell do these bombs come from."
"EMP-T technology was originally developed as part of a Top Secret DARPA project for the DoD with NSA guidance a few years back."
"Then how do you know about it?"
"I did the documentation for the first manuals on EMP-T. Nothing we got from the manufacturer was marked classified and we didn't know or care."
"What was the Army going to do with them?" asked Tyrone, now with great interest.
"You know, I had forgotten all about this stuff until the other night, and then it all came back to me," Scott said mentally reminiscing. "At the time we thought it was a paranoid joke. Another government folly. The EMP-T was supposed to be shot at the enemy to screw up his battlefield computers and radar and electronics before the ground troops or helo's went it. As I understand it, EMP-T bombs are made for planes, and can also be launched from Howitzers and tanks. According to the manufactur- er, they can't be detected and leave a similar signature to that of a conventional nuclear blast. If there is such a thing as a conventional nuke."
"Who else knows about this," Tyrone asked. "The police?"
"You think the NYPD would know what to look for?" Scott said snidely. "Their bomb squad went home after the plastic explosive was found."
"Right. Forget where I was."
"Think about it," Scott mused out loud. "A bomb that destroys all of the computers and memory but leaves the walls standing."
"Didn't that asshole Carter want to build a nuke that would only kill people but leave the city intact for the marauding invaders? Neutron bombs, weren't they?"
"There's obviously nothing immoral about nuking computers," Scottpontificated. "It was all part of Star Wars. Reagan's StrategicDefense included attacking enemy satellites with EMP-T bombs.Get all of the benefits and none of the fallout from a nuke.There's no accompanying radiation."
"How easy is it to put one of the empty-things together?" Tyrone missed another 49'er touchdown.
"Today?" Scott whistled. "The ones I saw were big, clumsy affairs from the 70's. With new ceramics, and such, I would assume they're a lot smaller as the Stock Exchange proves. A wild guess? I bet that EMP-T is a garage project for a couple of whiz kids, or if the government orders them, a couple hundred thou each." Scott laughed at the absurdity of competitive bid- ding for government projects. Everyone knew the government paid more for everything. They would do a lot better with a VISA card at K-Mart.
"I think I better take a look," Tyrone hinted.
"I thought you would, buddy. Thought you would." Scott replied.
They returned to the game 12 seconds before half time. The gun went off. Perfect timing. Scott hated football. The only reason in his mind for the existence of the Super Bowl was to drink beer with friends and watch the commercials.
"Shit," declared Tyrone. "I missed the whole damned second quar- ter." He grabbed another beer to comfort his disappointment.
"Hey," Scott called to Tyrone. "During the next half, I want to ask you something."
Tyrone came back into the Music Room snickering. "What the hell is that in your bathroom?"
"Isn't that great?" asked the enthused Scott. "It's an automatic toilet seat."
"Now just what the devil is an automatic toilet seat? It pulls it out and dries it off for you?" He believed that Scott was kid- ding with some of his half baked inventions. That Scott subject- ed any of his guests to their intermittent functioning was cruel and inhuman punishment according to Tyrone.
"You're married with girls. Aren't they always on your case about the toilet seat?"
"I've been married 26 years," Tyrone said with pride. "I con- quered toilet seats on our honeymoon. She let me know right then that she was boss and what the price of noncompliance was."
"Ouch, that's not fair," Scott said in sympathy. "I sleep-piss." He held his hands out in front. "That's the only side effect from too much acid. Sleep pissing."
Tyrone scrunched his face in disgust.
Scott spoke rapidly and loudly. "So for those of us who forget to lower the seat after use, for those who forget to raise the seat; for those who forget to raise the lid, Auto-Shit." Ty had tried to ignore him, but Scott's imitation of a hyperactive cable shopping network host demanded that one at least hear him out. Ty's eyes teared.
"Make that woman in your life happy today. No more mess, fuss or or morning arguments. No more complaints from the neighbors or the health department. Auto-Shit. The toilet that knows your needs. The seat for the rest of us. Available in 6 designer colors. Only $49.95, Mastercard, VISA, No COD. Operators are standing by."
Tyrone fell over on his side laughing. "You are crazy, man. Sleep pissing. And, if you don't know it, no one, I mean no one in his right mind has five trash compactors." Tyrone waved his hand at Scott. "Ask me what you were gonna ask me."
"Off the record, Ty," Scott started, "how're the feds viewing this mess?"
Tyrone hated the position he was in, but Scott had given him a ltoe recently. It was time to reciprocate.
"Off?"
"So far off, so far off that if you turned the light "On" it would still be off."