by Tom Clancy
“And what do you have to say about that ‘Net security-leak business’?” Leif asked.
Again, Symonds quirked his lips in his version of a smile. 4 ‘That whoever is behind it seems to be in the same business as you imagine me to be—although they seem far less picky and far too public for my taste. Too much hoopla, not enough profit out of it, if you get my drift.”
“No, I’d guess your taste would lean more toward someone slippery and venal, but somewhat discreet,” Leif said. “Say, the late Nick D’Aliso.”
“Mr. D’Aliso might once have done some work for us,” Symonds said. “At the time he died, however, I believe he was an employee of Hardweare.”
“Yet he came to these offices just days before he was murdered.”
Symonds shrugged. “Perhaps he was trying to make a corporate sale of his client’s product.”
“Yeah,” Leif said. “He’d have an open market around here.”
As he said it, Leif realized something he should have noticed before. Neither Symonds, nor any of the other Forward big shots that he’d seen in the offices he’d passed, wore the current executive status symbol—the Hardweare vest. Whatever was going on at Hardweare, these guys knew something that the rest of the corporate world didn’t.
more mysterious guys in suits turning up around your dad?”
“No,” David admitted. “But that could be from Captain Winters passing on the okay for Dad’s pals to hold them for questioning—or even from them tapping Dad’s calls to his friends.”
Leif grinned, looking not at David, but somehow past him. It made David look over his shoulder at empty air . .. until he heard the nonsense Leif was spouting. “Hey, you. YOU! That’s it! Out of here! You’re making my friend paranoid. I don’t particularly like your looks myself, you big bug—”
“Oh, knock it off!” David burst out.
Leif continued to talk past him to an imaginary holotap operator. “All right. To make my friend feel better, we’re going to pretend you’re not there.”
David rolled his eyes. “Did you give the folks at Forward a taste of your unfortunate sense of humor?”
First Leif pretended to look offended, then he shrugged. “I did ask them a few leading questions.”
“And what sort of answers did you get?”
Leif sighed. “I got squat. Bottom line, I’d hate to play poker with these guys.” Over David’s shoulder he shouted, “You hear that?” to his imaginary listener. Then he turned to David again. “They barely said anything, except for a few choice bluffs. At least,” he said uneasily, “I hope they’re bluffs. Or else my dad may shortly be out of a company to run.”
“Leif!” David interrupted. He was really looking worried.
“Look,” Leif told him, “I didn’t expect them to break into tears and confess every wicked thing they’d done since fourth grade. Heck, I just wanted them to know we knew they were responsible, and that we were watching.” He gestured, trying to get David to understand. “It’s a start—and I needed a sense of the place. Tell you one thing, though—they’re the ones messing with your dad. This guy didn’t even flinch when I brought up the subject. He didn’t ask what or why. He knew exactly who you were and what I was talking about. They’re interested in you—otherwise this Symonds wouldn’t have wasted his time with me in that office. He made a speech to the contrary—even a threat to the contrary—but that was simply a distraction.”
“Exactly what are they interested in me for?” David said uneasily.
Leif shrugged. “That they didn’t say.” He grinned. “Maybe they think you’re executive material. You may have a future at Forward. They do deal with the hottest technologies.”
“Yeah,” David said sarcastically, “when they’re not trying to run the world.”
“So? Work hard, and maybe they’ll put you in charge of your own continent.”
David laughed. “With my luck it would probably be Antarctica. The weather stinks”—he looked at his dark complexion—“and I wouldn’t go with the general color scheme.”
Turning serious, he asked, “What did you get from this Symonds?”
“From his words? Nothing,” Leif answered. “But there was a lot he didn’t have to say. For instance, I didn’t see a single Hardweare vest in the Forward offices. Not one. When was the last time you saw a hotshot executive who wasn’t wearing one? Now, as a company, they haven’t commented on the leaks everybody seems to think are coming from Hardweare—but the executives seem to act as though the vests and leaky security are linked, somehow. Regarding Symonds’s interest in you—I challenged him about it, saying that was the only reason he’d let me in his office. Symonds denied that. In fact, he made a little speech, showing he’d checked my background, made little threat against my dad’s company. It was the most effort he put into our meeting. You see what I’m saying?”
David just shook his head in wonder at how his friend could read people.
I guess this is how Dr. Watson felt when Sherlock Holmes started making his deductions about people, he thought. Of course, old Sherlock was fictional. The author could always work things out so Holmes was right.
David was only too aware that this was real—and deadly earnest. Leif might be betting his life—both their lives—on his reading of a corporate operator who deleted inconvenient people the way David deleted buggy computer files.
Is that how Nick D’Aliso felt at the end? David wondered. Was his death the result of some sort of computer order? “Batch process. Delete all files with these wild-card tendencies. ‘ ‘
Leif s voice interrupted his thoughts. “How has your end gone?”
”It hasn’t,” David admitted. “Maybe I lack your nerve, but I haven’t had much luck cracking the inner sanctum. Luddie seems to be spending all his time on the Net Force investigation—and Sabotine doesn’t return my calls.”
“Maybe she’s just being shy,” Leif suggested. “The beautiful princess is supposed to reward the warrior after he saves her life. It’s traditional.”
“Just shut up now,” David advised, embarrassed. “Besides, I’d think she was more your type. You know, the beautiful, exotic—”
“No way,” Leif protested. “She’s too high-strung. I like being able to feel comfortable around a girl.” He grimaced. “And that’s without even thinking about the way she had to grow up.”
Leif thought for a second. “That’s not to say we can’t put our little bit of gallantry to use. You’re going to have to go and check a few things—stuff that should be easy enough to find out there in Washington.”
David looked at his friend narrowly. Leif was back in scheming mode. “Stuff like what?”
“For starters, the name of that lovely boutique we walked her to after those two clowns tried to stuff her in a sack,” Leif suggested. “We only saw the back door, but you should be able to spot the name up front. And speaking of names, maybe you could get one for that salesgirl who helped her. The identity of the owner of the joint would be good, too. And the manager of the Musket House Cafe—although there you might be able to fudge.”
He thought for a second. “Oh. And definitely, you need the name of the bodyguard who drove her that Sunday.”
The more he heard, the less happy David became. “What for?” he asked.
“So you can put them together and exert a little pressure on Princess Sabotine,” Leif replied patiently. “Something along the lines of ‘Hey, if you can’t speak to me, I guess your driver Joe Doakes will have to get an anonymous E-mail about what happened while he was sitting up front in Madame Frou-Frou’s. Are you sure Suzanne Shopgirl can be depended on to keep her mouth shut? And which side of the bread you spend there will Madame find the butter on? Yours? Or Lud-die’s?”
He grinned heartlessly. “Then there’s Ms. Eatendrink. She’s sure to remember you. After all, we made a pretty dramatic exit to stop that little altercation you were in. She thought we were skipping without paying the bill.”
David grimace
d. “So, you’ll probably get the salesgirl fired, and maybe the bodyguard, too. For what? What are you going to get out of a girl we both know is deeply unhappy right now? You want me to pull a whole bunch of strings, and I don’t even think we need to check out Hardweare! You said yourself that you thought those guys in suits came from Forward.”
“But the basic problem—the leaks—those do seem to come from somewhere in Hardweare,” Leif said. “I don’t suppose you follow the business newsgroups on the Net—” He made an astonished sound as David nodded. ‘ ‘No real need for you to know. But put together items in there, and you’d see that Hardweare is in real trouble. If an army marches on its stomach, a business survives on cash flow and credit.” Leif looked concerned. “From what I can see, credit is drying up for Hardweare. Whether it’s Forward, the whispering campaign, the official investigation, or plain concern about how Hardweare is going to come out of all this, banks have turned off the money taps. In fact, they’re calling in loans they already made. Luddie borrowed to get his robot factories up and running. The banks could kill him if too many of them call in the loans now—and someone with deep pockets could come in and pick up Hardweare—lock, stock, and technology.”
“What?” David asked. “How?”
Leif sighed at the expression on his friend’s face. “Hey, that’s business. My dad would be interested in Hardweare if he knew what I know. And he’d probably give Luddie a better deal than, say, the Forward group would.”
“Aside from affecting my feelings of job security, why should this make me want to do what you want?” David asked.
Leif grinned. “What a guy! Less than a month on the job, and chock-full of company loyalty!”
But his bantering expression faded as he went on. “I want you to press Sabotine … because I want to speak with Luddie MacPherson.”
“And do what?” David wanted to know.
“I talked with Symonds to get a look at Forward—and some sort of sense of what they were like. I’d like to do the same with Hardweare. And that means a chat with Luddie.”
“You can’t think he’s involved in the leaks,” David said flatly.
“All I know is what I see in the newsgroups,” Leif replied. “Luddie MacPherson is fighting tooth and nail to keep Net Force out of his business. Does that strike you as the action of a totally innocent man?”
“It strikes me as the action of a guy who doesn’t want his ideas looted,” David came right back. “I know you’d like to forget the whole thing, but Captain Winters made a scary suggestion when Cetnik got killed. Remember? He wondered if somebody inside Net Force gave out the information that got Cetnik… deleted.”
Leif nodded, looking slightly sick.
“Think how much more the inside dope on the Hardweare vests would be worth,” David said.
“You make a case for the guy,” Leif admitted. “But I still want to talk to him.”
David sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
It took David all the blackmail Leif had suggested, plus considerable arguing, before Sabotine even agreed to speak to Luddie.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” she said, blinking tears away.
“My friend Leif helped save you,” David reminded her.
“He knows more about business than any six people I know— and that includes Net Force agents. Even though he’s up in New York, he knows about your situation—he had to learn, with foreign agents trying to put the screws to him. Most important, he wants to help Luddie—and Hardweare. It can’t hurt to talk to him.”
“All right,” Sabotine said slowly. “I’ll talk to Luddie. That’s all I can do.” She sighed. “He’s been so… distant lately. It’s like he’s fighting a war, hunkered down in the trenches, and doesn’t have the time or energy to talk to me anymore.”
“Just give it a try,” David urged.
And if Luddie turns Leif down, what does that mean? David wondered. It could be what Sabotine said — he’s putting his heart and soul into defending his company.
But David had been checking the newsgroups, designing a search engine to assemble Hardweare news. Every day there were more items, even though the program was designed to kick out the most ridiculous stories.
Net Force didn’t believe in trying cases in the media, and Hardweare wasn’t a big enough company to cause a stampede of reporters. But stories were getting out, and they didn’t paint a flattering picture of Luddie. The stone wall he’d asked his lawyers to create was just short of—or perhaps even beyond— obstruction of justice.
Breaking his usual custom, he’d actually allowed himself to be interviewed, aiming some angry blasts at Net Force in general and at Jay Gridley in particular.
Put it all together, and you begin to get an impression of a brilliant, arrogant … and for some reason, desperate … man.
David didn’t like even toying with the thought. But could Luddie somehow be connected to the leaks?
“So, you’re the guy who got Net Force on my back.” Luddie MacPherson sat facing the hologram pickup as if he were confronting an enemy. It was a four-way connection, Luddie and his sister in their Maryland mansion, David in Washington, and Leif in New York. Things were off to a roaring start.
“I stirred up things to get a little more Net Force activity around Hardweare,” Leif carefully admitted. “But I didn’t tell them that there was a foreign spy looking for ways into your company, which is what was happening at the time.”
“No,” Luddie replied. “You waited for that until the spy was killed and you were in the clear. But since Net Force learned about it, I’ve had their agents all over Hardweare like flies on a cow flop.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Leif replied, “as long as Hardweare is a bit more savory than a cow flop.”
Luddie’s face went white with rage. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” he demanded. “I built this company out of the sweat of my own brow. Try that someday, rich boy, and see how you like people sticking their noses in your business.”
“The problem seems to be someone using Hardweare to stick their noses in other people’s business,” Leif shot back. 1 ‘I checked the rumor and gossip newsgroups, where most of these famous leaks have been appearing. Today there was one about Jay Gridley’s son Mark. It was an accusation, really— that he’d been hacking into places no thirteen-year-old had any business looking at.”
Leif gave Luddie a humorless smile. “Now, I happen to know the Squirt, so I asked him. He admitted he sneaked into some of the sites mentioned—but Mark’s as slick a hacker as you could hope to meet. Even his dad can’t catch him unless he decides to confess. There’s no way he could have been caught.”
Leif paused. “Except that he did it while he was wearing a Hardweare vest. Nobody caught him fair and square, did they, Mr. MacPherson? Somehow, your vest leaked the information to somebody, and it showed up online. Besides, why would anyone else dig up a piece of dirt about the son of the man you’re going head-to-head with?”
Luddie MacPherson’s face was still white, but the color wasn’t from livid anger. David could hardly believe it, but the big guy looked … scared.
“I can’t explain how it’s being done,” he finally said. “But I can tell you why. There are people out there who want to pick my brains, steal my technology—and then pick my company’s bones.”
Luddie was blustering, but his words came faster as his voice got louder. “Well, I’m not going to let them. I’m not going to let a bunch of government shooflies paw through my designs. Or let their tame scientists dissect my computers and sell their secrets to the slime with the fattest wallet.”
Luddie was out of his chair stalking around. Behind him Sabotine cringed in her seat. “I’m going to fight, and it’s going to be a scorched-earth war. If anybody thinks they can take over Hardweare, they’re in for a nasty surprise. There are a few kinks in the design that only live up here.” He tapped the side of his head. * ‘And that may be the only inf
ormation to survive a takeover. I’ve got it all rigged. The computers are set to wipe, so there’ll be no trace of the design specifications. I’ve got demolition charges set in all the factories. Every production line will go up.”
Luddie bared his teeth at Leif, looking more like his wrestler father than ever. “Anyone who thinks he’s going to win the prize will get—nothing. You tell that to your rich papa, Anderson.”
“It’s the only outburst we’re going to get for a while. We might as well use it,” Leif said. “And Luddie knew what he was doing. Why didn’t he want to speak to us? Why didn’t he give us his side? He’s a big boy, runs his own company … and he’s banging heads pretty successfully with Jay Gridley, so he knows how to handle himself in an argument. But, instead of talking things out with us, he yells—and then runs. Why?”
“I don’t know,” David said.
Slowly Leif shook his head. “What it looks like to me is the conduct of someone who’s guilty.”
“You’re saying Luddie is using his own invention to spy on users?” David burst out. “That—that’s crazy!”
Leif gave him a sober look. “Interesting choice of words, there. We’ve both noticed that Sabotine is—how shall I put it? High-strung? Nervous? Fragile? Maybe we should be wondering if Luddie isn’t a few circuits short of a full board, too.”
David tried to argue, but feebly. “That’s—”
“Don’t say ‘crazy’ again,” Leif cut in. “We know that Sabotine had a lousy time growing up. She wound up as a mere marker in the power struggle between her father and her brother.”
“Hidden by her father, Battlin’ Bob, kidnapped and supposedly deprogrammed by Luddie.” David shuddered, thinking of trying to steal James or Tommy from his parents. “That’s got to be rough.”
“And we both feel sort of sympathetic toward her,” Leif said. “Of course, it doesn’t hurt that she’s a beautiful girl.” His eyes took on speculative glint. “On the other side we have bluff, tough Luddie, who divorced his family and lived on his own. What must his life have been like before he got away from his father?”
