“We know Lucky could have done it, but we need proof,” said Dr. Roberts, wanting to believe, but unconvinced. He needed evidence, something tangible; he needed a copy of the virus program.
Grabbing the security director by the arm, Art murmured quietly, “Take me to Lucky’s office. You run interference.” Weaving and bobbing through the gauntlet of well-dressed executives, Art followed the large security director out the door.
Pay Dirt, 12/11/2014, 1434 Zulu, 6:34 A.M. Local
Gate 2 Security Guard Shack,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
Livermore, California
Bone-weary, Dr. Tristan Roberts sank down onto a hard straight-back chair with a quiet groan. Surveying the office, he found Art, the security director, and a guard taking Lucky’s computer workstation apart, piece by piece. Judging from the looks on their faces and the parts scattered around the floor, Roberts concluded that things could have been better.
It was still dark, and the bright lights inside the guard shack bothered his bloodshot eyes. He’d just come from a meeting with his top-level executive staff. They were tired, angry men and their sense of bewilderment was surpassed only by a profound sense of betrayal. Believing Cheyenne Mountain had sold them up the river, they felt like lame-duck politicians whose hands were tied until the subsequent administration moved in. They were angry at Cheyenne Mountain for demanding that they bypass their standard quality controls in the first place, and they were angry at Washington for demanding so much in so little time. Since no one from Cheyenne Mountain or Washington had been present at their early morning meeting, Dr. Tristan Roberts became the focus of their deep-seated animosity.
How was our computer security compromised. Dr. Roberts? How did they do it? How did they plant this virus?
Can you guarantee this won’t happen again, Dr. Roberts?
Why was this allowed to happen, Dr. Roberts?
Why wasn’t someone guarding the store, Dr. Roberts?
Who is the mole inside your organization, Dr. Roberts?
What will the DEWSATs do next, Dr. Roberts?
Leaning back, rubbing his eyes, Roberts allowed himself a moment of reflection. Maybe I should back off and let Superman solve this one. He’s got all the politically correct answers. Hold on here. Who am I trying to fool? He’d turn this virus into a career.
The tension in Guard Shack 2 could not have been strung any tighter as the circuit board innards of Lucky’s computer lay carefully spread across the floor. Art gently pried the boot Read-Only Memory chip out of Lucky’s computer and replaced it with his own, custom-built part. The operation was tedious and one slip of the screwdriver could foul up the electronic works. After the part swap was complete, Art began putting Lucky’s computer back together again.
Dr. Roberts looked over Art’s shoulder and asked, “So how’s it going?”
Not one for small talk, Art replied, “Lousy, Doc. Lucky knew a hell of a lot about security. It’s going to be a bitch just to log on. Everything on his computer is password protected, and only he knew the passwords.”
“Nothing’s ever easy,” Dr. Roberts sighed, picking up the Read-Only Memory device. “What’s your plan?”
“The short of it is this, Doc. That little chip you’re holding was Lucky’s boot program and I replaced it with a specially built editor program of my own. I’m going to clear out his passwords, all of them, then log on and take a look around.”
“You’ve done this before?” Roberts asked apprehensively. He wanted to hear that this sort of thing was routine.
“I’ve done it before.” Art made eye contact with Roberts, followed by a protracted pause. “Once.”
“Is there a chance you could fail?”
“Sure, there are no guarantees. Navigating around the disk takes time, and a lot of patience.”
“Should we call in an expert?”
Kneeling over the open carcass of Lucky’s computer, Art carefully inserted the last of the computer circuit boards. Exasperated, he looked at Dr. Roberts. “Listen Doc, I know you’re tired, but we’re all tired here, so loosen up. I’ve thought this thing through and I need your help, but I don’t need you telling me how to run my business.”
“Art’s right, Dr. Roberts,” the security director said softly. “Let the man do his job. It’s up to you, but you might consider cutting him a little slack.”
“But I only ... uh ...” Roberts was taken aback. There were times to concede and times to press. Roberts knew this tiny team represented his only real hope for a fast solution; this was a time to concede. “All right, Art, how can I help?”
“You said time is critical. The experts on Lucky’s workstation are outside Boston off Route 128. Well, they ain’t gonna be flying here, right?” Art checked his watch. “It’s about nine-thirty their time, and I plan to give them a call on their hot line. I need you to convince those big shots in Boston that our job is an urgent matter of national security, otherwise we could get stuck on hold for hours. Once you clear it with Sun’s top brass, we’ll work the technical details over the phone.”
Dr. Tristan Roberts knew exactly what to do and who to call. The U.S. government was one of Sun Microsystems largest customers and any matter of interest to Livermore was a matter of interest to the vice president of Sun’s Government Division. Within twenty minutes, Sun Microsystems had their top software, hardware, and firmware experts patched into Guard Shack 2 over a video conference call.
After spending an hour methodically combing through page after page of specially formatted data stored on Lucky’s disk, Sun’s experts recommended Art change the contents of a single eight-bit byte. Out of the millions and millions of data bytes stored on Lucky’s disk, Art changed only one and the deed was done. “It’s all in knowing where to look and what to look for,” Art said with a big smile. Once he’d removed the password protection from Lucky’s workstation, Art took the workstation apart and replaced the original Read-Only Memory device. After all the pieces were put back together again, he plugged it in and turned it on. Following an agonizing two-minute wait for the system to come alive, Art exclaimed: “Yes! Yes!” He logged on to Lucky’s computer without any security password. “Isn’t technology wonderful?”
Everyone at Sun, including the vice president of Sun’s Government Division, Dr. Roberts, and the security director sat up as though they’d all been goosed at the same time and burst into applause. Outwardly, Dr. Roberts felt ecstatic, something had finally gone right. This was real, forward progress and a renewed energy pervaded his body as an adrenaline rush kicked in. Inwardly, Dr. Roberts was dumbfounded, he couldn’t believe that this little bit-twiddling exercise had worked at all. After a few moments’ thought, he concluded, That Art doesn’t miss a trick.
Immediately, Art began looking through Lucky’s command history file. After looking over the record of Lucky’s last two days’ work, Art shook his head sadly and sighed. “Lucky was the mole, but I’m afraid we got here too late.”
“Whataya mean?” came an exasperated voice over the videophone.
“Early Monday afternoon, Lucky transferred a collection of programs named mother’s_best from his workstation to the SDI computer. That’s all the evidence I need to convince me that he’s the mole. About two o’clock on Monday, Lucky cleaned up his disk. He removed mother’s_best, and I expect any trace of the virus went with it.”
“Never lose heart,” came a reassuring baritone voice over the videophone. “Take an exhaustive look anyway. Even if Lucky cleaned his disk, with a little luck, we can reconstruct it.”
Art knew this was possible, but he’d never reconstructed one himself. He navigated from place to place around Lucky’s computer, then grimly confirmed that mother'sjoest was gone without a trace.
Following a long pause, the low, resonating baritone voice asked, “Your mole had some form of backup?”
“Backup? Yes, backup! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Unless he destroyed ’em all, there must
be backup copies somewhere.”
“Search the guard shack top to bottom,” Dr. Roberts barked as he frantically began opening drawers and file cabinets. “Backup copies must be somewhere!”
As Art discovered, somewhere was inside Lucky’s lower left file drawer—an unmarked gray metal box filled with tape backup copies of Lucky’s programs. Opening the metal box, Art read the labels on each tape, searching for the latest date. The good news was that Lucky was not only clever, he was methodical. Lucky backed up the programs on his computer every Friday afternoon. Art grabbed the tape containing the most recent backup, then loaded it into Lucky’s computer. He instructed Lucky’s computer to restore the collection of programs named mother’sjbest. The tape raced back and forth for a few minutes as the workstation searched for the program. To Art and Dr. Roberts, those few minutes seemed to drag on for an eternity.
Suddenly, the whirring sound of the tape drive hushed and Art’s eyes lit up. “Bingo! We found it! Mother's_hest is rolling in!”
Quick-time, Dr. Roberts and the security director moved into position directly behind Art, looking over his shoulder. Art felt them breathing down his neck, but couldn’t blame them for wanting to see. The programs were encrypted, of course, but that was no real problem for Art. He copied the encryption key from Lucky’s command history file, then decrypted them in less than five minutes. Poring over the programs a page at a time, Art couldn’t believe his eyes. This was it, it had to be, but exactly what it was he couldn’t say. Art believed they’d found the program listing of the computer virus, but it was nothing like he’d expected. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected, but he was sure that this wasn’t it. Mother’sjbest looked like a huge collection of programs written by the CIA, Air Force, and Army. “Unbelievable!” Art muttered, not really knowing what to think. His mind felt numb, paralyzed.
Dumbfounded, Roberts rubbed his eyes. Like Art, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “If this is the virus, then the CIA, Air Force, and Army wrote it.” Roberts grimaced, pursing his lips. “That’s just great. Cheyenne Mountain is gonna love this.”
The security director stood silent, his jaw dropped to his knees.
“I could be wrong,” Art said with reservation. His mind couldn’t accept what his eyes were seeing. “But I think we got it.”
It had been a long and arduous journey. More than once, Roberts had thought they wouldn’t make it. But they did make it, they found pay dirt—big-time. Roberts patted Art on the shoulder and asked, “Recommendations?”
“Give me a minute, Doc. This is a bitter pill to swallow. Somehow, this doesn’t add up. The U.S. government doesn’t write virus programs to plant them in their own equipment. We’re missing some important data from somewhere.” “What you’re saying is true, but all that really matters now is that we believe we’ve found the virus.”
“Well then, Doc, I recommend we go for broke. Get a task force dissecting this thing immediately.”
“Size the job for me,” Dr. Roberts instructed, nodding agreement. “How many people are we talking about here?” Art clattered the keyboard of Lucky’s workstation, checking the number of program lines in mother'sjbest. A few moments later, he responded, “Give it two hundred of your best software folks; we’ll split up the program into modules, then take it apart line by line—it’s the only way. We’ll know what makes this baby tick by noon today, noon tomorrow at the latest.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, take Lucky’s computer off the lab network and isolate it in our SDI lab. Lord knows we don’t want this virus to spread over the network.”
“Done.” Roberts felt weakness pervading his body as his adrenaline rush wore off. He had to maintain his strength long enough to get the ball rolling. Light-headed, Roberts looked to his security director and began barking orders. “Order an autopsy on Lucky and find out what killed him.” “Already taken care of.”
“Find out who he was working for. Search his home. Interview his family and friends.”
“An FBI task force is crawling all over this case, Doc— top priority. If Lucky left a trail, they’ll find it.”
“Good. We’re not where we want to be, but at least we know how to get there!” Following a brief pause, Dr. Roberts rattled off additional instructions. “Get John Sullivan on the line, and General Mason. Let ’em know what we’ve got.”
Rifling through the gate guard’s desk, the security director found a pad of paper and began creating a To Do list.
“Superman, send me Superman,” Roberts told the gate guard as his peripheral vision began to fade. “He’ll round up the people we need.” How much strain could one m. take? Roberts collapsed like a house of cards onto a straight-back metal chair. Staring at the ceiling and dazed, he continued issuing orders like an automaton. “Washington, connect me to Washington.” With his bloodshot eyes open wide, he watched the bright lights around him fade to black, followed by a sense of dreamlike motion, as if he were falling into a bottomless abyss. The last thing Roberts would recall before losing consciousness was the sound of frightened voices, muffled and indistinct. They seemed to drone on forever, but he couldn’t respond. His mouth wouldn’t form the words.
22
Fifty-fifty Chance, 12/1112014, 1530 Zulu, 10:30a.M. Local
Inside Black Hole Prototype Hangar Designated Big
Blue,
Hanscom Field,
Bedford, Massachusetts
His Air Force colleagues called him Wild Bill, but back home in Mississippi they still called him Billy. A test pilot and Air Force academy graduate, he was the youngest of four sons, and had been hooked on flying nearly all his life. He’d wanted to fly since he was a boy and first saw the Thunderbirds perform at the Air Force pilot training base in Columbus.
All the brothers made good. One a physician, the other two made lawyers—and they all lived in Jackson, Mississippi—all but Billy. Wild Bill, Lieutenant Colonel William Boyd, had long wanted to return home to his family and friends, but had resigned himself to the fact that Mississippi didn’t need test pilots. Although he’d searched on numerous occasions, he’d never found any work within a day’s drive of his beautiful Magnolia State. Billy’s soul was in Mississippi, but Wild Bill’s heart had wings, and his mind was addicted to the glitter of high-tech. Wild Bill had to fly and he had to fly something special.
Billy dreamed of moving back to Mississippi. He hoped he’d live long enough to retire, but never really believed he would. He couldn’t imagine himself happy on the ground,
technically retired, put out to pasture. Wild Bill shuddered at the thought of life without flight and chose not to dwell on it. In his heart, he dreamed that one day he’d come back to stay, but in his mind he believed he’d make the trip in a pine box. He’d get back one way or the other. Retired or dead, it didn’t much matter.
Wild Bill didn’t like anything about Thomas Jackson but his last name. Lieutenant Colonel Boyd respected Jackson of MIT Lincoln Labs for one reason and one reason only: Jackson was almost as smart as he thought he was. Radar technology was Jackson’s expertise. He’d invented the DEWSAT counterstealth radar for the Allies and now they called on him once again to do the impossible. The Allies needed an airplane that Jackson’s radar could not see, an airplane that could fly undetected by the orbiting DEWSAT armada. Jackson wasn’t one to listen to the concerns of others, evidently because his own opinions were far too important; but then again, Jackson wasn’t paid to be thoughtful of others. He was paid to deliver a single prototype aircraft, invisible to the DEWSAT’s radar, and his reputation was on the line.
Jackson was no fool, Wild Bill had to admit that, but he lacked any feeling for teamwork. He was a loner in a large, team-oriented organization. Jackson was not an expert pilot nor did he care to be. He had a low regard for anyone, especially test pilots, who were not his technical equal. Lieutenant Colonel Boyd respected Jackson for his technical judgment and that was enough. Wild Bill was paid to fly Jackson’s protot
ype aircraft, not to love him.
One thing was undeniable. Jackson was a legend. His God-given technical instinct differentiated him from lesser men. Jackson could know, could feel the solution to a complex problem before solving the details. He was one of a rare breed of scientists who had become famous by producing a series of weapon systems, cloaked in secrecy, which continually leapfrogged the opposition. His secret was an inquisitive mind coupled with a cardsharp’s instinct for cutting through the technical muck which obscured most problems. He could see old problems in a different light and propose new solutions which worked (to the delight of the United States government). Jackson intuitively felt solutions before he thought them through, or justified them in theory. He claimed to know all there was to know about light, and many believed him. Others believed that he could actually see colors in the radio and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, that he could see color just as his radars saw color. Although he never made this claim, he never denied it. He saw complex solutions without letting the theoretical mathematics get in the way. He’d propose a solution to a specific problem, then if necessary, he’d prove his solution was correct after he’d worked out the details. He could punch through irrelevant detail which would choke a lesser man, then identify the essence of the solution after a quick knee-jerk analysis.
But Jackson’s greatest strength, his intuition, obscured one serious weakness. He’d never failed. In the past, he’d worked on only the most important problems and used his intuition to make sure the proposed solutions were feasible. Once he believed a problem could be solved, he threw government money, time, and people at working out the details. Time had never been a major concern of Jackson’s. His adversary was the scientific problem. His record of successes was unbroken. In the process he had become a millionaire and had achieved worldwide renown. He had become the leading expert on radar in the United States, debatably, in the world. He was oblivious of everything except unsolved technical problems. Although his projects were sometimes delivered late, they always worked. Over the past four days, the rules of technical problem-solving had changed. The time variable in the problem-solving equation had virtually disappeared. The Black Hole prototype aircraft must work—now. He’d always done what he set out to do because he had the intuition, time, and resources to see the job through. The taxpayers—those people who paid his bills—had patience and deep pockets, so he’d always gotten the resources he needed to get the job done—until now.
Virus Page 27
