Yes. It was.
A man like Jay Gridley, even if he couldn't be persuaded to your side of the argument, could be outmaneu-vered, could be defeated, using the tools that would eventually be society's redemption. Deep in his heart, whether he would admit it or not, Gridley knew that the old rules, the old ways, had to move aside. Progress marched on. It always had, and if you stood in its path, you got run over, that was the way of it. The question was not if, but when. The choice was between evolution and revolution. Even Gridley would admit to that. He was for evolution, a status quoist, but he had not always been so inclined. Neither, for that matter, had the country. Had not the United States of America been born of revolution, guns against outmoded laws? Could they not see that such cycles would come again? That the fast wheel was sometimes better than the slow one?
People who were comfortable had a selective kind of blindness. They saw what they wanted to see, and ignored the things they did not wish to notice. Like a horse with blinders on, they had no vision save straight ahead.
Now and again, somebody had to come by and pull the horse's blinders off, cut his traces, and slap him on the rump. Run free, my friend! The future awaits you out there!
The drone of the big jet engines lulled him. Here he was, on a craft bigger than the ships that had crossed the seas from Europe to open up the Americas, a flying vessel that was so big and so heavy that no one on Earth would have taken a bet that it could fly, even a hundred years ago. The jet could travel thousands of miles without refueling, cover a distance in a few hours that would have taken the wind-blown sailors months in their wooden ships with canvas sail. The electronics in this bird would boggle the minds of the creators of Univac. You didn't turn back from such wonders. The future ran only one way, and the next revolution was not going to be in machines, but in knowledge. The global community would be one, together, able to reach out and touch each other faster than thought itself.
Once that happened, men like Santos would be superfluous. They could be quietly eliminated. The strongest man could be brought low by a bullet to the head. The hand that pulled the trigger need not be any stronger than that of a child. As the mammoths had fallen before the technology of the spear and fire, so, too, would men like Santos, who flexed their muscles instead of their brains, eventually join the ranks of the extinct beasts who were strong, but stupid.
The mind was more powerful. Brain won over brawn.
At least in theory. Given his recent experience with Santos, Keller realized there was going to be a transition period before the thugs and mugs went the way of the dodo. And during that period, it would be smart to stay out of the way of the brutes as they flailed about in their death throes. Yes, indeed.
Washington, D.C.
In bed next to Saji, both of them reading, Jay sighed.
"What?"
"This biz with this guy," he said. "I feel like somehow I'm missing something I shouldn't."
She put her book down and looked at him. "Oh?"
"Yeah. There's something, some kind of, I don't know, familiar feel to the traps and touches. Like the Fuji thing. Why appear as an old Thai? Why come and sit next to me and then give it away like that?"
"He knows you're part Thai," she said. "He's playing with your head."
"Yeah, yeah, but something is weird about it. I feel as if I should know this guy."
She sat quietly for a moment. Then said, "What else is bothering you?"
"Me? Nothing. Work is all."
She said, "Are you sure?"
"Sure I'm sure." He looked at her. "What are you getting at?"
A short time passed before she spoke. Then she said, "Are you really ready to get married?"
He blinked. The question that had been on his mind for weeks sounded terrifying when it came from her. "How can you ask that? Of course I am!"
"Okay."
"What—are you having second thoughts?"
She sighed. "Yes."
"What? Really?" He sat up straighten His gut churned with sudden cold, as if he'd swallowed a cup of liquid nitrogen. "Why?"
"You know the Four Noble Truths," she said.
He shrugged. "Yeah. There's suffering in the world. There's a reason for this suffering. There's an end to it. There's a way to learn how to end it, using the Eightfold path."
"Close enough. And the Eightfold path?"
"What is this, a bedtime quiz?"
She shrugged. "You asked."
"Okay, we're talking, ah—right understanding, right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right, uh, effort. Lemme see, ah, right mindfulness, and—don't tell me, I got it—right concentration."
"Yes. And the Middle Path is the way many of us seeking enlightenment choose. Staying away from the extremes."
"Okay. So? What's this got to do with you having second thoughts about us?"
"I fear that my desire for you is sometimes too strong," she said. "That having a desire this powerful, that being so attached to it, will ultimately be the cause of suffering.
Not being with you, but wanting to be with you too much."
"Listen, I've tried to plug into this, but I've never really understood it. What does that mean?"
She smiled at him. "Admission of ignorance is the first step on the road to wisdom."
"Yeah, right."
"It's not that we can't be together, married, and happy. Each moment should be what it is, and there is much joy to be found in each moment. But the idea is to not be attached to that, not to want the joy so much that you can't experience it. You can… get in your own way. You can spend all your time trying to live for the future, full of expectation, or living in the past, full of nostalgia. Either will cause suffering, because you can have neither. The past is gone, the future never arrives."
"So are you saying you don't want to get married?"
"No, idiot, you're not listening. I do. Maybe too much, that's all I'm saying. I don't want to make you responsible for my happiness, because if I do, sooner or later, I'll be disappointed and unhappy."
'That's real comforting, sweetie."
"It's the truth. Reaching outside yourself for happiness is the big cause for suffering. I want to stand next to you, but not depend on your shadow to protect me from the sun. Suppose I put all my life into you, into us. And it works great, you give me back all I give you and more."
"Sounds right to me. What's the problem?"
"You change your mind in ten years, decide you don't want to be here."
"I won't—"
"Okay, better example—you get hit by a bus in six months. You don't have the choice to stay or go, your number is up."
"Are you saying you don't want to miss me if I get hit by a bus?"
"No. I'm saying that I want to be happy on my own, so that what I bring to us is real and true. Marriage is a partnership. If I don't come to the table with my half, it's not fair to either of us."
He shook his head. He really didn't understand. She was worried that she might want him too much? How was that a bad thing? His fear was that he would lose something of himself by marrying her. That was different.
Wasn't it?
He felt her hand slide across his leg. "Whoa. What have we here?"
"The moment, Jay. No past, no future, just right now."
He grinned. Okay. He could deal with that. Oh, yeah. Definitely.
But it bothered him that she was worried about the marriage thing. Given how he had felt lately, that shouldn't bother him at all, but it did. Was that a double standard? Probably, but—ah!
She overrode his thoughts with her actions, and in the moment, he stopped worrying and was happy.
On the Bon Chance
Santos was satisfied, at least for the moment. He had made Missy do some things she ordinarily did not do—and that was saying something. She would be sore in new places tomorrow. He was not done punishing her, and Jackson would not get off just because he had run away to Germany, but he could wait. All in good time.
As he showered, lathering himself with her hard-milled soap, he hummed a little tune. The next part of the project was about to start. There was only so much they could do with their computers and advertising, and soon it would be up to him and men like him to make things really happen.
He stepped out of the shower and dried himself with one of the huge towels Missy kept. He should go and practice his moves, now that he was relaxed. The ship's gym had room once you moved all the equipment back out of the way. Making love, having a hot shower, those were things that made a man want to go to bed and take a nap, but discipline must be maintained. He worked out every day, no matter what, no matter where he was, he found a way to do something. The fighting edge was one that grew dull if not sharpened frequently. It would be easy to justify a day off now and then. But if you could do that, you could justify two days off. Then four. There was no end to that, and the next thing you knew, you were fat and lazy, meat for some lean and hungry player who did not fool himself into thinking he still had the moves when he had let them rust away.
He found his striped workout pants and rubber sandals, grabbed a clean towel, and headed for the door.
Lying naked on the bed, Missy saw him. "You're not going to work out?"
"I am."
"But you must be tired."
"Yes. That does not matter."
"Why don't you come back to bed? You can work out later."
"I could. I will. But I am also going to work out now."
She shook her head, and he left. She could not understand. She was a woman. Women did not know the ways of men, not in the important things. Oh, yes, they knew about what a man wanted in bed, but about honor and discipline and what made a man a man? No. They knew nothing of these things. How could they? No more than a man could know about bearing children. It was just not in them.
24
Net Force HQ Quantico, Virginia
In the conference room bright and early, Michaels listened to his team give their reports. Toni was here, Jay, John Howard, and Julio Fernandez.
Toni said, "Police are certain that the car that rammed Senator DeWitt's vehicle did so deliberately. There were no skid marks before the impact, and the hit-and-run car, which has been identified from paint and chrome chips, has been located, only a few miles away. Area residents got a glimpse of the driver, but he was wearing a helmet and heavy gloves, so no one got a look at his features. He could be white, black, or even a woman."
Michaels said, "And Jay thinks this ties to CyberNation. Jay?"
Jay nodded. "Yep. Just one more log on the circumstantial fire, boss, but it's burning pretty good right now. I've been poking around and have found some interesting stuff out about their gambling ship. It never puts into port anywhere, at least it hasn't since it was refitted and went to sea more than a year ago."
"That's unlikely. How does it resupply and refuel?" Howard asked.
"Fuel, mail, food, everything comes in either by helicopter or by special cargo ships that show up once a month. Since the ship is in international waters, nobody can bother it. There are no plans for the rebuilding and refitting on file, nothing since the original vessel was chartered. Libyan registry means nobody pays any attention to it as long as they pay the fees. There are webcams online, but only of the main casino and the outside. We don't know what all is on the ship. I've culled reports from various web pages, posts by tourists, and if you put them altogether, you come up with a composite picture that is missing a lot."
"Such as?" Michaels said.
"Such as, half the ship. Here, take a look at the graphic." Jay touched a button on his flatscreen, and a line drawing wireframe holoproj lit the air above the projection port. "There are passenger cabins here and here, on these decks." Part of the 3-D schematic lit up in red.
"The casino is here. This is the pool, here is a gym, over here a big dining hall, and an entertainment hall."
More of the image came to life in different colors.
"If this area is crew quarters, and you allow for these decks to be dedicated to engines, supplies, miscellaneous storage, fuel, all that"—more colors flashed on—"then you throw in a couple more big spots for the hell of it, you still have a fair amount of the ship that looks to be empty. And none of the reports can fill in those unused decks."
"Maybe they are building more casinos?" Fernandez ventured.
"Nope, no signs of construction, no construction stuff delivered on the supply vessels for at least the last six months—I was able to get those manifests."
"So, what exactly are you trying to say here, Jay?" Toni said.
He shook his head. "I dunno enough about ships to be sure, but it seems to me you wouldn't leave all that space empty."
"That's generally true," Howard said.
"So, if that's the case, what is on these decks? I'm betting it's something connected to CyberNation and not to gambling per se."
"Such as?" Michaels said.
Jay shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe computers. Some kind of production facility, for all those ads they run. They do those themselves, I found out, no outside agency involved."
"Which means what, even if that's so?" Toni said. "Nothing sinister about that. They had some extra room, they put it to good use."
Jay shook his head. "They don't need the room. CyberNation HQ is in Switzerland. They have a twenty-story office building in Geneva, and a big honkin' warehouse there, too. What's a ship half full of slot machines and card tables compared to that?"
"You have a theory, though, don't you?" Michaels said.
"Yes, sir, boss, I do. See, if they were up to something illegal, the Swiss police could go and knock on their door and check out that building in Geneva. But what if they had something going on down in the Caribbean? Who has the power to go and check it out?"
Howard nodded. "Legally, nobody."
"Exactly."
"So you're saying you think the net attacks originated on that ship?" Toni said.
"I can't say that for sure. But if they did, how would anybody be able to find out about it? Or do anything if they could find out? Why does CyberNation have a gambling ship anyhow?"
"Maybe we better find some answers," Michaels said.
"I'm working on it," Jay said.
• • •
After the meeting broke up, Jay found himself alone with Julio Fernandez.
Julio said, "Sounds as if you have your work cut out for you on this thing."
Jay smiled. "Maybe not. I might be able to crack their personnel database. If I can find out who is working for them, maybe I can locate those people by other e-trails. You know, get hits on where they used their credit cards, made long-distance phone calls, like that. If they've got some crack programmers working on that ship, that would point another finger in their direction."
"You think you can blow past firewalls for a place like CyberNation?"
"Well, yeah, if I had a lot of time and a couple superCrays to play with. But there's an easier way. Social engineering."
Fernandez smiled. "I remember you talked about that," he said. "But is that legal?"
"Not in the strictest sense," Jay said.
"In what sense is it legal?"
"Well, okay, not in any sense," Jay admitted. "But let's say, for instance, that I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who has access to the files, and I can trade him something for the information. That doesn't cost us anythin
g."
"Not to put too fine a point on it, but isn't that exactly the kind of thing we are here to stop? Doesn't sneaking into somebody's computer system and stealing information constitute a crime?"
"Technically, yes."
Fernandez gave him a wry grin. "Uh-huh."
"But look, we're not talking about some honest citizen whose house we're breaking into to steal his TV. I'm pretty sure these are the guys who cost nations around the world millions and millions of dollars. People died as a result of the net going down in places. These guys wear eye patches and carry cutlasses. They're crooks."
"Slippery slope there, Jay. Blows right past the Fourth Amendment. Fruit of the poisoned vine and all like that."
"Since when did you become a constitutional scholar, Lieutenant?"
"I'm sworn to uphold and protect it. You are, too, given Net Force's charter. Once you start breaking the rules to get to the really bad guys, how long before you bend 'em to get to the plain old bad guys? And then the ones who are maybe not so bad, but that you don't like?"
Jay sighed. "Yeah, well, you have a point. There is probably another way to get to the information without doing anything illegal. Be harder though. And what if while I'm doing that, they hit again, shut down a hospital and kill off a bunch of patients or something?"
"That would suck. But still."
"You obey all the traffic laws, Julio, all the time?"
"Nope. And if I get caught, I don't kick, either, I pay the fine. But running a red light in the middle of nowhere at midnight when nobody is around is not the same thing, is it?
"Suppose you get the stuff you need and we use the information to nail these guys. No harm, no foul, right? But then one of their lawyers finds out what we did? The bad guys, who are guilty, get off, and you wind up looking for work, or maybe spending quality time in a cell in some country club federate, doing the warden's taxes for five years. It's the Rule of Law, Jay. It's what separates the good guys from the bad guys. We toss that out, we're no different than they are."
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