CyberNation
Page 21
"Oh, yeah. The line was Aaron's: 'If there be devils, would I were a devil, to live and burn in everlasting fire, so I might have your company in hell, but to torment you with my bitter tongue!'"
"Must have been an interesting character, your teacher."
"Oh, yeah. He went to work for State a few years after I graduated. One of the China hands now, I think."
"Well, I'm impressed with your knowledge of the Classics. You want to go on this trip or not? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have any trouble finding volunteers if you don't."
"Yeah, I heard Jay."
"Well, I certainly wouldn't force you. It's up to you. But you can't say I didn't offer."
She nodded, and thought about it.
"If we can get enough stuff to be sure CyberNation is the guilty party," Alex said, "and that they are doing it from that ship, then we can maybe do something about it ourselves."
"How do you mean?"
"John Howard's boys and girls are bored, so he tells me."
"The director would kill you."
"Not if we were right. It's within our charter, sort of—at least we won't be sneaking into some foreign country. We have as much right to be out on the ocean as anybody, right?"
"That's real iffy, Alex."
"Not as bad as some we've done and gotten away with. Remember the trips to Grozny? And to Guinea-Bissau?"
'That's how you justify it? Making it the least of several evils?"
"Why not? I remember situational ethics from college, too."
She shook her head.
"Besides, it's all vaporware right now. We don't know for sure that Jay is right. Maybe after we gather a lot of little pieces, we can puzzle it together."
"And you'd really be okay with me going?"
"As your husband and the father of your child, not so much. As your commander, I am more sanguine about it. You are a trained operative, you can take care of yourself, and the level of danger is very low."
"And leave my husband with a toddler?"
"I have Guru to help. And you've been griping about being cooped up in the house or office, worried that you might turn into a woman who talks about baby poop at social gatherings. Go. Take a couple days, lose a few dollars of the government's money in the slot machines, get some midwinter sun—properly skinblocked, of course." She smiled. "Okay. I'll do it. Thanks, Alex."
"We live to serve. Guess I better give John Howard a call."
"You're sending him, too?"
"No, but he might want to start thinking about ways to sneak onto a ship in the middle of the ocean."
On the Bon Chance
In the lowest hold behind locked and guarded doors were the EMP bombs. They wore wooden frames, made from two-by-four fir boards, and sat on big pallets, also made of wood. They smelled faintly of something spicy, and that and a seawater-and-oil odor drifted about in the damp hold. Santos knew vaguely how they worked, these devices, but they were not his thing.
He had made the mistake of asking. The explosives expert practically peed himself as he talked happily about overlapping radiation pattern lobes and capacitors, coaxial this and coaxial that, of hardened components and planes of radiation.
Santos listened with half an ear, nodded, and murmured from time to time, so that the bomb man believed, perhaps, that he had some idea of what the man was talking about.
"We're talking fifteen, twenty megajoules in ten-hundredths of a microsecond," the man said, his face ecstatic with pleasure at having an audience.
The man pointed at the nearest bomb, which looked to
Santos like nothing so much as a torpedo in an old submarine movie. A little smaller and thinner, maybe. More pointed.
"This particular model uses PBX-9501. The armature is surrounded by a coil of heavy-gauge aluminum wire, that's the FCG stator. The winding splits into halves, to increase induction. It's cased in a heavy block of tightly wound Kevlar and carbon fiber, so it doesn't blow apart before it generates the field—"
A bomb that didn't blow things up. How odd.
Well, yes, it did explode and destroy itself, but its primary purpose was to fry sensitive components with a powerful electromagnetic pulse generated by the explosion. Very complicated. It seemed easier to him just to drop a blockbuster on the target and take it all out, but apparently magnetic radiation could go through concrete better than explosives, and besides, they didn't want to lose the infrastructure altogether, they would need it themselves later.
Like a biological weapon that killed people, but left the buildings standing, an EMP bomb was designed to kill computers, but allow the people to remain. A bloodless weapon.
"Not as good as the Vircators," the bomb man continued, "which are electron beam/anode devices that will vibrate at microwave frequencies. They can get forty gigs out of this design in the lab, but they are heavy and much more complicated—"
It was all just so much useless technical babble to Santos, who cared only that these giant finned silver turds would blow up when and where they were supposed to blow up, and do the job they were intended to do.
These looked big and heavy, but the bomb man had assured him they could be easily transported by common aircraft. Even though they had come via supply ship, they could, in fact, be carried on one of the big passenger helicopters, no problem. Each one only weighed as much as, say, four or five big men, and on a craft that could carry thirty or forty people, half a dozen of these devices would ride quite nicely.
The bomb man started off on some new techno-rant, but Santos waved him quiet. "Yes, I understand," he said, lying through his smile. "I need merely be certain you understand where and when they must be delivered."
"Oh, yes, I know."
"Good. Attend to that. I will check back with you as we go."
Santos strode away, his footsteps upon the steel grating echoing slightly in the warm, dank hold. You'd think it would be cooler down here, right next to the water and all, but it was not.
Timing on all this would be critical. His part was easy enough to accomplish, but a failure on the parts of others could be fatal to the mission. They had only a week, and everything must be in place and synchronized exactly by then. It was not much time when you had to deploy men, transfer bombs, and make certain you know exactly where and how to strike each target. But, it was what it was, and he was happier to be going into the field than sitting around waiting.
Moving was better than waiting, almost always. Once you got moving, to hesitate at the wrong moment, to look away from the goal, that could get you killed. Yes, you had to plan in advance, know your tactics so that you did not make a stupid mistake, but once you started rolling, hesitation was a killer. The man who blinked first lost. And that would not be him.
26
Crawfish Point Galveston, Texas October 1957
It was raining hard. There was a tropical storm offshore, maybe a hurricane, still far enough away so it wasn't any real danger to the state yet, but close enough to bring lots of rain and choppy seas in the Gulf. Yet, there Gridley came, in an old-fashioned wooden shrimping boat, arrogant as always, secure in the knowledge that he was invincible.
Lack of confidence had never been one of Jay's problems.
Keller, wearing a black slicker and hiding in a mangrove tangle at the edge of the estuary, with a scoped 30-30 Winchester deer rifle, watched Gridley maneuver the boat through the shallow water as he headed for the Gulf, checking for roots or half-submerged logs he might hit with the boat's propeller. Or did they call them "screws" on boats this size?
Once again, the scenario was over the top, much more than necessary to troll for the kind of information Jay wanted. The man never let one simple vision serve when he could do nine visions complicated. And even the public scenarios he chose were major sensory sims, like that stupid climb up Mount Fuji. Please.
Keller grinned at that memory. That had shaken old Jay up some, when he'd gone over in persona and sat down right next to him. Old Jay hadn't expected that.
He managed to put the first round into the wheelhouse side window, shattering it, but missing Jay by a good foot. He worked the bolt and fired again, aiming at the hull just below the normal waterline when the boat came up on a wave. He ejected the empty shell and chambered a third round, which he fired at the life preserver hung next to the wheelhouse. Must have missed that completely, he didn't see it hit.
The boat chugged on, no sign of Jay, who must be ducked down inside the wheelhouse, wondering what the hell was going on.
Enough. He had other business to which he needed to attend. This was fun, pulling Gridley's chain, but Omega was coming, and they had less than a week to get ready. Not nearly enough time. He was going to have to let this go. Too bad.
In this scenario, which was Jay's, Keller had a small boat hidden behind the mangrove island in the swamp flats just short of the Gulf where some nameless river emptied into it. Probably it had a name, come to think of it, since Gridley did stuff like that.
Keller dropped the rifle, for which he had no further use, and worked his way to his boat. Might as well check things out as he left. Gridley wouldn't have come here if he hadn't been looking for something in particular, and maybe Keller could spot it.
He reached the boat, and started to untie the line that kept the craft from drifting away. When he did, a monstrous figure rose from the water like the creature from the Black Lagoon.
Keller froze.
The monster said, "Surprise!" and Keller realized it was a man in scuba gear and a wetsuit. Behind the face mask, he recognized Gridley's basic persona, which looked pretty much like the real man.
Gridley had a big knife in his hand. He smiled and moved awkwardly toward Keller, his flippers slapping the water noisily—
Keller bailed.
Cybernation Train Baden-Baden, Germany
Keller came out of the scenario cursing. Dammit! He had underestimated Gridley again! He should have known better! He threw the wireless sensory gear down hard, and regretted that instantly. These headsets weren't cheap. If he broke it, the replacement would come out of his budget.
He picked up the set, touched the test button. The diodes lit up green, one after another.
Thank God for small miracles. He put the set down more carefully, hanging it on its rack.
Overconfidence had been the downfall of a whole lot of programmers, and he had seen it happen enough to know nobody was immune, even him. Gridley might have opted for the status quo, turned into a fedhead, fat and happy, but he still had some moves. Keller was better than they'd been in college, but it wasn't smart to think that the Old Thai had stayed where he'd been. He was, after all, the head of Net Force's computer operation. He might not be as good as Keller was, but he wasn't a total lube-foot, either.
It was too bad he didn't have time to call Jay out for a full wrangle. To make it a one-on-one, no-holds-barred. To show Jay who was better now.
Well. There was no help for it. And no real harm done. Keller's net persona was a mule, a Joe-average construct that didn't look like anybody in particular, certainly not his real self. Even if Gridley had seen him, he hadn't seen anybody he could put a face to.
And even if he had known who it was, well, so what? Knowing who and figuring out where he was, finding him and doing anything about it before Omega launched wasn't going to happen. And afterward? Jay wouldn't be able to do much to him then, either.
The train was moving. That very morning it had left the siding where it had been for days, and was now only a couple hundred kilometers northeast of Dijon, France. It would arrive at the border shortly, where it would turn around and head back toward Berlin. The powers that were in CyberNation did not want their three mobile centers anywhere near their headquarters in Geneva. The ship was in the Caribbean, the train went back and forth between Berlin and the French border, mostly, half-loaded with tourists who knew nothing of the high-tech gear on board the other half. The third station was on a barge ostensibly being rebuilt at a shipyard in Yokohama, Japan, though it could be hauled off at any time. If the German authorities being paid to ignore the train developed pangs of conscience, or if the Japanese harbor officials who were bribed not to worry themselves overmuch about the repairs on the barge suddenly went mad, the ship was the safety, the most secure backup. If something happened to the train or the barge, or both, the ship would be the base nobody could legally touch. But any one of them was enough by itself to get the job done. All three were similarly equipped, and what one did was quickly uploaded to the others, so that at any given moment the lead team was never more than a few hours ahead of the others. Major data transfers were done four times a day in all directions, so if the train or boat or barge was suddenly hit by a giant meteor, there wouldn't be more than six joint hours of work lost to the remaining two centers.
It was a good system. Not Keller's design, but good, nonetheless.
Well. As much as he'd like to square off with Gridley and kick his ass, he had to get on with it. Omega was coming, and his group wasn't going to be caught short. Maybe after it all came down he'd go find Jay and show him up, but that would just have to wait.
Washington, D.C. The Zoo
Jay and Saji walked along, looking at the tiger cage. It was cold enough so the big cats were inside their heated enclosure. A lot of the less furry animals seemed to be. For a long time after he had been mauled in VR by such a creature, it had been all Jay could do to look at the tigers. Now, he made a point to stop by the zoo every so often to remind himself.
He was only paying half his attention to the walk though, and, of course, Saji noticed.
"Where are you?" she said. "Not here."
"Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about the fishing boat scenario. I think I know who the shooter was."
"Really? How so?"
"Well, when I ran the lists of the best computer programmers graduated in the last ten years, I came up with quite a few I knew. Me, for one. A lot of guys I went to school with at CIT, others I knew from the net and web, conferences, like that. Some of them I've kept
in touch with, others kinda drifted away, so I tried to run down some of the guys I used to pal around with that I haven't seen in years."
They passed the brown bear compound. The bears weren't around. Hibernating maybe?
"Yes," she said. "And…?"
"A couple have died. One in a car wreck, one from cancer. Most of the rest of them went into the field and have done pretty well. A few dot-biz millionaires, some commercial software producers. Some got out of the field, went to work in other areas. One woman I knew who was an ace programmer opened a chain of daycare centers for school kids. One guy writes comic books and TV shows. A few did well enough to quit work and live in Hawaii or somewhere. A couple dropped out completely to raise organic carrots or whatever on dinky farms in Footlick, Missouri, or like that."
"Yes. And…?"
'Two are missing. No record of them. Didn't die, didn't get married or change their names, just dropped off the face of the Earth. One of them was a weirdo we all expected would go ballistic one day and assassinate somebody. The other was one of my best friends, a guy named Jackson Keller. We exchanged a couple of Christmas cards after school, and then lost track of each other."
"I see."
"The thing is, I can't imagine he would drop out of the biz. He was gung ho, like most of us. I figured they'd have to haul his body away from the console if he died. But there's no sign of him anywhere from about three years after we graduated. Poof."
The insect house was not far ahead. It was always warm in there, if kind of humid, but it was getting chilly, and Jay nodded at it. "Let's go look at the bugs."
>
Inside, small children darted from window to window, looking at giant cockroaches, horned beetles, and all kinds of scorpions from around the world. It felt like a jungle, warm and damp, though the lights were fairly dim.
"So you think maybe this weirdo is somehow part of things?"
He shook his head. "No. I think it's the other one—my old buddy Keller."
She looked at an albino beetle the size of a mouse as it lumbered over a floor of fine-grained sand. "What makes you think that?"
"A couple things. The weirdo—his name was Zimmerman—never had the chops to make me look bad in VR. Keller wasn't quite as good as I was, but he coulda gotten better. And I've been thinking about that climb up Fujiyama. When the old Thai guy came and sat next to me. That's what Keller used to call me, back in college. Jay, the Old Thai. He was a year or two younger than most of us, a child prodigy who finished high school at fifteen."
"You think the VR construct was a hint?"
"I think so, yeah. And you know what it really feels like? It feels personal. Like this guy knows me, wants to screw me up. And his stuff is like the stuff Keller used to do—he was always big on ambushes. He used to say if you are going to duel with somebody, shoot 'em in the back before they see you coming, it'll save you a lot of grief. Their fault if they weren't paying attention."
"Huh," she said.
"'Huh?' That's the best you can do?"
"What do you want me to say? Yes, you must be right, you brilliant stud!"
He grinned. "That would be okay, I like the sound of that."
She grinned back at him. "I bet." She looked back at the beetle. "So, if this is true, how do you find out for sure? And then what?"
"Well, to start, I can dig deeper in public records, see if I can find Keller anywhere. Maybe I'm imagining it, maybe he's got a job in Silicon Valley somewhere running some company and I missed him."
"Maybe he changed his name," she said.
"Why would he do that?"
"For all your smarts, you sometimes miss the easy stuff, Jay. What if he got into debt? Maybe some kind of white-collar crime? Needed a fresh start. Or just went bonkers and decided to start calling himself 'Ra, God of the Sun.'"