Edge of Tomorrow

by Wolf Wootan

  Syd had asked Marty for help in tracking down possible candidates for Hatch’s attacker. She had mentioned Tessitore—without giving any reason for suspecting him—and Lucchese, also giving no particulars except that he was killed by Tessitore, but the Catena di Morte organization still existed. She did mention that they were involved on the periphery of the Monterra conflict. She also told him about the partial number she got off the assassin’s chopper.

  “Well, Syd,” he said as coffee was served, “you obviously need access to various files—law enforcement, FBI, CIA, and who knows what others. I, of course, have no such access.”

  “Shit!” exclaimed Syd.

  “Don’t get discouraged! Remember, I told you I am sort of the traffic cop around here. I can’t know all the details in Hatch’s vast empire, but I can direct you through the various mazes. I suspected you would need something like this, so I set up an appointment for you with Cornelius Campbell, called ‘Soup’ by most of his associates.”

  Sara laughed, “Soup Campbell! Campbell Soup! How quaint!”

  Marty went on, “That may be the reason for the nickname, but I’ve heard him referred to as ‘Super Nerd’ and ‘Super Hacker,’ so it’s not clear how he got tagged with it. In any case, his IQ is off the chart. He is—among other things—the system architect of our computer and communications systems here. He spends a lot of time in Arizona with Dr. Robert Mills, Director of Research and Development at LRD, but you’re in luck—he’s here today. You’ll meet with him at 3:00 P.M. For security reasons—and maybe legal ones as well—Sara and I will not attend that meeting. After your meeting, you will have to make an assessment as to what—if anything—you want to share with anyone. Mr. Campbell was reluctant to meet with you at all, even after I informed him of the Power of Attorney. I had to play him the recording Hatch made when he gave me the document. It essentially orders everyone to treat you, Syd, as if you were Hatch. That’s why he agreed to meet—but only with you, Syd.”

  Syd shook her head in amazement. “What a strange company! Everyone has secrets from each other! You don’t know what Sara does, Sara can’t know what Soup does! Soup can refuse an order from you, Marty! Who in the hell is driving?”

  Marty peered at Syd and said, “Hatch. Or at least he was. Now you are.”

  “Shit! Nobody really believes that!” spat Syd. “Especially not me! I guess Hatch is the bridge that spans a lot of mysteries. Well, let me go and find out what Mr. Soup knows that no one else does! I need help!”

  • • •

  Soup Campbell was shorter than Syd. He was 5 feet 6 inches tall, 140 pounds, 42 years old, had brown eyes, and had bushy, brown hair. At least, Syd noticed, he did not wear thick glasses like most of the nerds she had known in high school and college. Marty had introduced them, then left them alone in Soup’s office, which had a desk and three tables, all covered with computer screens, keyboards, and other assorted equipment that Syd did not recognize.

  Soup said in a pleasant voice, “Pleased to meet you, Syd—may I call you that?”

  “Of course, Soup. I want us to be comfortable with each other,” replied Syd. “Do you know what it is I’m after?”

  “Briefly. Marty gave me an overview. You want to catch the bastard who shot Hatch. Right?”

  “Absolutely! Can you help?”

  “Maybe. First, let me warn you that if I decide that I can help, everything you see me do cannot be talked about. Understand? The other way is for you to give me a list of things you want to know, then leave the room for awhile.”

  “I will keep your secrets, whatever they are. I don’t want to cause anybody any trouble. Hatch would kill me if I did! I just want to catch an assassin!”

  “Then welcome to the Con—the Control Room for the Good Ship Lollipop,” he said as he motioned for Syd to sit in a swivel chair in front of one of the consoles. He sat down in a wheeled swivel chair, then faced the computers on one of the tables. His hands moved swiftly over switches, then a keyboard.

  “I can monitor and control the systems in the sub-basement from this room. It’s like being in the conning tower of a submarine,” he laughed.

  Syd was finding him to be quite pleasant for a nerd. “Hence, the Good Ship Lollipop?”

  “Yes. Childish, eh? I’ve always been a kid at heart. And look at all my toys! OK, let’s start with something easy. Give me that partial ID from the chopper.”

  Syd got out the list she and Sara had compiled and showed him the ID. “This is easy? If the cops have figured it out, they sure haven’t notified me.”

  “And they probably won’t. We don’t need them, however. Some of the files I need, I can access legally, because Triple Eye has agreements with many agencies so we can access their files for a transaction fee. I assume you are authorizing payment of such fees?” He laughed.

  “Stop fucking with me, Soup!” Syd chortled.

  “The file I’m going to access now is one such file: the FAA file that holds the IDs of all aircraft. I’ll search for all IDs that contain ‘HG23' and see how many hits we get. I’ll further restrict the search to choppers,” Soup explained to Syd as he typed.

  He swiveled around to face Syd and said, “This will take a minute. Their system is not as fast as ours. They should upgrade, but they’re always having budget problems.”

  Ten minutes later, Soup had identified the chopper as one at a rental company at Miami Airport.

  Syd said, “That was amazing, Soup! The friggin’ cops have to know that, too! Wonder what they’re doing with that information?”

  “Who knows? I know what we’re going to do with it. This next step,” he said, “is to find out who rented it on the day in question. You may want to leave the room, because this step is definitely not legal. Even the cops would need a subpoena to get this data.”

  “I’m not leaving! I’m with you all the way!” exclaimed Syd, remembering that her life as an assassin had been borderline illegal, and some of her activities in the past few weeks would not pass the legal litmus test. “Go for it! And tell me what you’re doing. This is interesting!”

  “OK,” he chuckled. “What I want to do now is take a peek at the files of Palm Rental and see who rented that chopper. You know about computer viruses being sent via email?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “I’m going to send Palm Rental my snatch-a-file email message. It’s a program attached to the email message that—without causing damage like a virus—grabs the files I want and transfers them to me here. Then the program self-destructs, leaving no trace. Understand?” he smiled with a wink.

  “I think so. The concept, I mean. Not how to do it. Doesn’t the file access leave a trail of some sort?”

  “No, I use the FAT—File Allocation Table—directly to find what I want. I don’t use their file system. It‘s really a little more complex than that, but that‘s the gist.”

  “Duh! I’m sorry I asked!”

  “OK, here goes. Let’s hope they are online. If we have to wait too long, I’ll move onto something else.”

  • • •

  It was twenty minutes later when they knew that the chopper had been rented by a John Jones, an obvious alias. Cash was paid and the renter did not require a pilot—he would fly it himself. All the appropriate credentials had been presented and extra insurance paid for.

  “Well,” mused Syd, “this doesn’t help too much, except we know there are two of them, at least. The pilot and the shooter. No credit card info.”

  Soup replied, “This is only one data point. One mosaic tile of a larger picture. We need to gather more. This was obviously a professional assassin with a large source of cash. Let’s focus on that for a moment. Tell me more about this Catena di Morte and this Tessitore guy.”

  Syd gave Soup a thirty minute dissertation on the things going on in Italy, Sicily, and Monterra. He listened closely, making notes as she spoke. He did not comment or show any emotion when she described some of the violence involved.

  At one
point, he interrupted, “It seems as if you were the target of these catenari goons, not Hatch.”

  “That’s true, but he did get deeply involved after their attacks on me, as I described. Actually, this doesn’t feel like any of those people are involved, but I guess I shouldn’t dismiss them completely. Who else could it be? Someone in the business world?” asked Syd.

  “If it were a business thing, Marty would be the logical target. He’s the one who informs people of corporate decisions. Who else could it be? I don’t know. I do know Hatch has had his thumb on Gramble at the CIA for years.”

  Syd said, “Isn’t he the one who betrayed Hatch and Kat?”

  “Yes. There’s no love lost between Gramble and Hatch. Personally, I think Gramble has outlived his usefulness, but I’m only an analyst. I leave decisions like that to others. So, let’s look in the CIA’s super secret files of known assassins. They—and the FBI—track these guys pretty well. It’s a long shot, but who knows? We need another data point.”

  “How do you get at that file?” asked Syd.

  Soup looked carefully at Syd’s face. Syd noticed that he always looked her in the eye when studying her. Most men spent a lot more time looking at her breasts instead.

  “I would repeat my former warning, but I think you would decline to leave, again,” he said.

  “You’re right.”

  “OK. Most all CIA files reside on Triple Eye’s computer systems. These files are protected by various levels of passwords, encryption methods, access levels, access audits, et cetera. If it wasn’t for this high level of security, Triple Eye would have never got off the ground. I even built in several levels of fire walls, so the system is hacker proof. After several years of no security breaches, they are completely happy and comfortable with security here.”

  “I feel a ‘but’ coming next,” laughed Syd.

  Soup chuckled and went on, “But—since Hatch and I designed and programmed the operating system—we felt it necessary to leave a way to debug and maintain the system without changing the way the system behaved. In asynchronous, multiprocessor systems, using debugging macros often changes the system behavior enough so that the bug you are looking for may never occur again.”

  “Say what?” interjected Syd. “Talk English, or Arab! Something I understand!”

  “Hatch and I left a way to access files without leaving a footprint.” He saw her eyebrows arch again. “That means they won’t know that I accessed their files.”

  “Oh! That’s good! We don’t want to end up in Federal prison!”

  “Now, let’s take a peek at assassin activity around the world,” he said.

  • • •

  While Syd and Soup searched for data points, Sara and Marty chatted in his spacious office. They made small talk, getting acquainted. Sara told him a little about her work in Florida and Arizona, without describing any actual missions. He described a little bit about what he did. They were both interested in something else, however.

  Sara said, “Do you know how long Syd will be?”

  “No, but it doesn’t matter. Soup will call Jensen when they are through and he will drive her to Hatch’s plantation outside of town. That’s where you two will be staying,” Marty replied, his eyes flicking to her breasts.

  “Then, what about me? I assume you have to get back to doing your thing,” said Sara, leading him coyly.

  “Well, actually, as I said before, it is Sunday, so you and I could go somewhere for a cool drink, unless you want to wait around all afternoon for Syd.”

  This was exactly the response Sara was looking for, so she replied, “I’m supposed to be watching Syd’s back, but I suppose she’s in good hands here. I’d love to go have a cold one with you.” She smiled.

  “I’ll call us a taxi. I want Jensen to stand by for Syd.” He smiled back.

  • • •

  Marty took Sara to McGillicuddy’s Pub, a place designed like an old Irish pub. The waitress had a southern accent, however, ruining the atmosphere. Sara ordered vodka and tonic and Marty ordered Irish coffee. Sara wondered how long it would take him to proposition her. Not long, she hoped. She could hardly wait to see his bedroom ceiling!

  Instead, he remarked, “Syd is quite a woman! You haven’t known her long, have you?”

  She was disappointed that he was talking about Syd instead of her, but she answered, “It seems longer than it’s really been. She’s my best friend. She saved my life a few weeks ago, you know. She’s a very talented lady.”

  “On one of your unmentionable missions, I assume.”

  “Yes. Just so everyone knows, anyone who fucks with her, fucks with me! Now, let’s change the subject. How come you never married, Marty?”

  “The job. I never knew where I would be, or for how long, or when I would come home. Ungodly hours! Nothing to share with a mate,” he replied. “How about you?”

  “Same reason. It made no sense at all when I was a Marine, and it’s not much better in LRD. I’m always on call. I’ve never been a one-man woman anyway,” she laughed. “Some of the tabloids I’ve seen your picture in represent you as being a great womanizer. How right are they?”

  He sipped his drink, then laughed. “I’m not married, and I date a lot of women. Call it what you want. Can I help it if I enjoy the company of beautiful women? Like now, for instance. I’m in the presence of a very beautiful woman!”

  “That sounds like a line to me, but thank you! As much as I would like to get you to take me to an expensive night of dining and dancing, I really don’t think it would be wise. Syd will need me, whatever she decides with Mr. Super Nerd. So, in the interest of saving valuable time, do you have any etchings you want to show me?” said Sara, getting to the point.

  This startled Marty. He had never met such a blunt and forward woman before—at least, not one who was so gorgeous.

  “Are you saying what I think you are saying, Sara?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Sure. I want to show you my latest bullet wound, but I have to take my blouse off to do that. We should do that in private, don’t you think?” leered Sara with a wink.

  “By all means! Let me get the check and call a cab. My place is only a few minutes from here! I love looking at battle scars!”

  • • •

  By 5:00 P.M., Soup had searched several files, all requiring “spook” clearances, and had established that two known assassins had entered the U. S. just before Hatch had been shot. One was Boris Vlastok, a former KGB officer and enforcer. The other was Giuseppe Silva, an international hit man for the Mafia.

  Syd said, “Either of those could fit the profile we established. Or it could be someone not even in a file. Shit! Are we getting anywhere, Soup?”

  “These are just two more data points, Syd. We have to keep gathering, then things will fall into place. For example, here are two more facts: Silva’s file hasn’t been accessed for six months. Vlastok’s was accessed three weeks ago. Interesting, eh?”

  “Can you tell who accessed it?” queried Syd, becoming anxious.

  “With a little more snooping. I know the terminal ID and the user code. I’ll have to match those with the master indices. It will take a few minutes,” replied Soup. “Whoever it was, he’s CIA. That in itself is a data point!”

  Chapter 41

  Soup’s Computer Lab, Langley, Virginia

  Sunday, September 2, 2001

  6:00 P.M.

  By 6:00 P.M., Soup had established that the assassin file for Boris Vlastok had been accessed by James Gramble from the workstation in his private office. Furthermore, after an illegal search of U.S. Customs files, Soup downloaded a list of all people entering Miami from overseas in the last week. He did some sorting, eliminating U.S. citizens returning home. His list was still large, so he first looked for Vlastok by name. To his surprise, his name was there! He entered the U.S. on Friday, August 31, at 2:00 P.M. He accessed the CIA files again and downloaded Vlastok’s entire file.

  “More data points, Syd,�
�� he smiled as he explained what he had.

  “That’s great, Soup!” she exclaimed. “Now what?”

  “Well, his file says he was formerly a KGB assassin, and now hires himself out to the highest bidder. I’m surprised he used his own name when he entered the U.S. He must have a dozen aliases. Some known ones are listed here in his file. He’s 6 feet tall, 185 pounds, 51 years old. Hmm. He was active back when Hatch was. Too bad we can’t ask Hatch about him,” said Soup. “What I want to do now is see if we can find out where he is. Then I want to massage the rest of the list and see if anything pops up. Look, Syd, this is going to take hours. Why don’t you let Jensen take you to Hatch’s plantation and get some food and rest. Maybe I’ll have some more stuff in the morning.”

  Syd felt drained, but she did not want Soup to have to stay up all night alone doing work for her. She told him so.

  He answered, “I’m a night person, Syd, and I have a lot to do. I work faster alone. Don’t worry about me. I love this kind of stuff—I thrive on it! I haven’t had a good challenge in months! So, I’m going to call Jensen. You go. Please!”

  Syd shrugged. “OK. Thanks for this, Soup. You should have a raise.”

  “Don’t need one, Syd. I would do my job for free. But don’t fret it. I’m the highest paid nerd in the world already!” laughed Soup. “I just hope I can solve this puzzle for you.”

  • • •

  Earlier in the afternoon, at 3:22 P.M., Marty and Sara arrived at Marty’s house in the Virginia countryside. It was a small green farmhouse in the middle of three acres of land. It had three bedrooms and 2½ baths. Its greatest feature was a large den with a huge rock fireplace, and it was decorated with lots of leather-covered, comfortable furniture.

  They never made it to the comfortable master bedroom. Sara let him undress her in the den and take her on the leather couch.