The Crimson Code

by Rachel Lee

  She shook her head. "I am not ill. But just as your God speaks to you, the jaguar speaks to me. I have little time left. Let me use it wisely. Just listen, Padre."

  Steve closed his eyes. This was what he had been sent to discover, yet if he carried the Codex out of here, as the Stewards wished, he would be abandoning these people. He could not do that.

  He opened his eyes and looked squarely at Paloma. "Don't tell me."

  She smiled faintly.

  "I'm serious, Paloma. Don't tell me. If you tell me I'll…have to disobey my orders, and I took a vow of obedience."

  Her smile deepened. "Is your vow of obedience more important than your true calling?"

  His heart was thumping in his chest. He looked downward, as if his hands held the answer, but all he could see in the flickering light of their one candle stub was the dance of shadows.

  "Listen," she said. The same commanding Oye she used when she wanted the attention of the villagers. This was Paloma the shaman speaking now, not Paloma the friend.

  "I have known that I would need to pass this on. To pass on the care of these people. Since we fled from our village, you have repeatedly proved that you are the one. You have cared for my people as I would have cared for them. You have nourished their hearts and souls as well as their bodies. Never once have you complained about the burden. You are truly a priest. You are our leader, the one my people can rely on."

  "But…"

  "Silence, Padre," she said flatly. "I have had ample time over the years to search out the one who will follow me. You are the only one I have ever found. And under these circumstances, my people cannot be left to fend for themselves."

  He wanted to argue with her further, but he could see the steely resolve on her face.

  "When the time comes, you will know who to share the secret with," she continued. "But first, let me tell you why it is so dangerous."

  Almost in spite of himself, he leaned forward so he would not miss a word.

  Frankfurt, Germany

  Of course…the room is shielded, Lawton thought. It made perfect sense. Computers, like any electronic equipment, released faint radio signals as their components operated. Sophisticated listening devices could detect and decode those signals, and track the data being processed as efficiently as if the listener were standing over someone's shoulder.

  The solution—adopted by the military, most major corporations, law enforcement agencies and all financial institutions—was the same TEMPEST shielding they were using for their own computers. It was simply a fine copper mesh laid into the walls, a Faraday cage that blocked incoming and outgoing radio signals. The bank used it to prevent outsiders from listening to its computers. But now it was also preventing Lawton from communicating with the rest of his team.

  Like the others, he was so accustomed to operating with TEMPEST shielding that he no longer thought about it. That, he realized, was why none of them had considered that he would not be able to communicate from this room. After all, he reasoned, we don't think of gravity…until we drop something.

  Rationalizing the oversight served to calm his nerves. They had, after all, anticipated that there might be some kind of communications failure. That was why Assif had printed out the instructions that now lay open on the desk, and why he and Lawton had rehearsed this part of the operation. They had prepared for this as well as they could. Now that preparation would be tested.

  Lawton drew a long, slow breath and read the first paragraph of instructions, hearing in his mind Assif's voice in every word. Step one: See if the computer operators left their consoles active overnight. If not, Lawton would have to power one up, and Assif had given him detailed directions for how to do that.

  He pressed the space bar on the keyboard, and the monitor sprang to life. Just as Assif had hoped, the operators simply put their consoles into sleep mode when they left for the day. It saved time when they arrived in the morning. And it made Lawton's task that much easier.

  He paged past the now unnecessary instructions for powering up the console and compared the display on the monitor to the diagram Assif had drawn. While it was not exact, it was close enough. Forcing himself to relax, he clicked the mouse and began to type.

  * * *

  In the tunnel beneath the bank, Assif studied the dim screen of his laptop. A four-inch-wide flat cable emerged from the side of the computer like a tongue, then split into dozens of tiny wires, each of which was connected to the junction box by means of tiny alligator clips. If any signal passed through that box, the laptop display would show which line was active. The plan had been to track the signals at the exact moment that Lawton said he was sending a message. Now he would have to hope that he could detect which signals were Lawton's transmissions and thus which cables carried the bank's SWIFTNET transactions.

  A flicker across the monitor was followed almost immediately by an echoing flicker. A SWIFTNET e-mail sent to a nonexistent address, followed by the automated error response message? If it happened three times in rapid succession, Assif would know.

  * * *

  Once again, Lawton typed in the message and the fictitious e-mail address. Once again, he clicked the send button. Once again, he quickly got the error notification. Then, again, for the third time.

  * * *

  "I've got it," Assif said, as the third set of impulses flickered across the screen. "Damn good job, Lawton."

  "He can't hear you," Renate replied, the relief in her voice evident, even over the walkie-talkie. "But I'll be sure to tell him when he gets out of the computer room. So we're done?"

  "Almost," Assif said. "Now he has to erase the logs of his entry and the logs of the bogus e-mails."

  "And that part is simple, yes?" Niko asked.

  "It is, if they're using the standard operating system software," Assif said. "If not…well…that was when I was going to talk him through it."

  * * *

  The same thought passed through Lawton's mind as he studied the final pages Assif had given him. If the bank's computers had used the software Assif's research had indicated they would, this next part would have been easy. But, in the manner of geeks the world over, Jürgen Hausmann had modified the software for the specific needs of Berg & Tempel.

  And those modifications affected exactly the processes Lawton now needed to access. He was sure that a handful of commands, had he known them, would have erased all evidence of his having been there. Assif would have known how to do it. Lawton did not.

  At that moment he heard the faint melodic whistle in the corridor outside. Someone was coming.

  14

  Guatemalan Highlands

  Miguel Ortiz awoke facedown on the forest floor. The rich smell of loam and rotting leaves filled his nostrils, but he hardly noticed. His head throbbed as if someone were hammering on it, and he struggled to remember what had happened to him. What he had been doing. And why it was dark.

  Slowly, cautiously, he sat up. The night was thick, unbroken by the glimmer of either moon or stars. He wished for night-vision goggles so that he could at least see his surroundings.

  It hurt. Gingerly, he reached up and touched the back of his head. Some crustiness indicated he had bled from his scalp, and the lump and tenderness there filled in the rest of the picture.

  All of a sudden he remembered. The Hunter. The man must have circled back behind Miguel. The young man felt shame at his failure, but the shame didn't last long.

  The Hunter now had hours on him, hours that Miguel would not be able to recover in the pitch darkness of the night.

  He was struck then by another thought. Why hadn't the Hunter killed him? Why had the man merely rendered him unconscious? What was going on here?

  Frightened for Paloma and his fellow townspeople, Miguel pushed himself to his feet. The world reeled, and he almost fell again. But he could not afford weakness. Not now. If ever he'd had an opportunity to redeem himself, this was it. If he caught the Hunter in time, he would save a life, perhaps several live
s.

  He could see nothing at all, but he was accustomed to nights as dark as this, nights when, if heavy clouds moved in, there was no light at all except what man could make to hold back the shadows. Darker than dark, his American trainer had once described it.

  But the night brought its advantages, too. The night hunters and their prey were moving in these woods, making sounds, however quiet, that could cover any he himself made. From time to time something screamed, signaling that some hunter had found his meal.

  The ground beneath him began to shake. He was already unsteady on his feet, so all that kept him from falling was a tree he found when he threw out his arms.

  "¡Madre de Dios!"

  The exclamation was drawn from him not by the shaking of the ground beneath his feet, nor by his near fall. Instead it burst forth as he looked up in terror at the mountain above him. The volcano peak now broadcast an orange glow bright enough to drive back the night. And his people were climbing toward that very horror.

  Almost before he knew it, his feet were running along the path they'd cut only days before. He had to reach them as swiftly as possible.

  Because, hiding in the caves, they might not realize the peak had come to glaring life.

  * * *

  Deep within the cave, Steve felt the ground shudder violently beneath him. Around him, he could sense the others coming awake. He himself could not sleep. What he had heard tonight had become a heavy weight on his soul. What Paloma had said flew in the face of many of his lifelong beliefs—if he believed her. If he didn't, then he was engaged in an act of disobedience so grave that he would have said it was not within his nature.

  But the rumblings of the mountain shook him from his thoughts and back into the here and now. He wondered if he should move everyone out of the caves right away. This was the hardest and longest tremor they had yet experienced, and from what little Steve knew of volcanoes, it boded no good.

  He was worried, too, about the two other parties who had split off from them. He had wanted to travel with one of them, but Paloma had insisted he stay with her. The others, she had said, would know how to care for themselves. They had set a rendezvous point where they would meet in four days' time.

  But still he worried about them. Would they fully understand how dangerous this mountain was becoming?

  Then he scolded himself. These people had lived with this volcano all their lives. They knew what it could do, if not from personal experience, then from stories handed down to them. Indeed, they probably knew even better than he the dangers of this place.

  He pressed his hands to the cave floor and felt a warmth there that worried him. At this point, he didn't know whether they were safer in here or out there. It would depend on the kind of eruption, he supposed, and whether this lava tube had ever been sealed off by previous eruptions.

  The truth was, he had no idea what their best course of action would be.

  "Paloma?" He called out her name, since the others were all awake now, and fussing babies were being put to their mothers' breasts. "Paloma?"

  "She went out," said one of the men. "To look at the mountain."

  "Gracias."

  With care, he pulled out a prized flint and lit the candle stub that remained to him. Using it to light his way, he edged around people until he could see the cave opening.

  He saw Paloma's slender figure in the mouth of the cave. Her silhouette would have been welcome but for one thing: it wasn't dark, but orange.

  His heart slammed, and he quickened his pace. Before he could reach her, however, a crack resounded, cutting across the mountain's rumbling, and Paloma fell to the ground as if she were a puppet suddenly cut loose.

  The Hunter!

  Steve started forward, realizing he had to try to save her. But even before he had completed his first step, two men ran out before him and quickly dragged her back into the cave, barely missing being shot themselves.

  "Está muerte," one of the men said. "¡Ay Dios, ella está meurte!"

  Dead. Paloma was dead. Steve hurried to her, reaching for the pouch of sacred oils he kept strapped to his chest. He must do the anointing and do it swiftly.

  His hands trembled as he brought out the vials and began to murmur prayers that were all too familiar. As he spoke them, he realized that while he should have been reflecting on the sanctification of the dead in Christ, all that filled his mind was the realization that he and these people were trapped between an erupting volcano and a merciless hunter.

  God help them all.

  Frankfurt, Germany

  Lawton looked around the computer room. It was notably lacking in hiding places. The hum of a buffing machine told him that the janitorial crew was working in the hallway. Looking around, he realized that the computer room was spotlessly clean. Perhaps they'd cleaned it the night before and wouldn't need to do it again tonight. Or perhaps they cleaned it every night. Given how carefully the bank guarded its computers, he doubted the janitorial crew would be allowed to work in it unattended, regardless.

  In the meantime, he needed to find out how to erase his presence. That was the critical task, and he tried to steady his nerves as he studied Assif's instructions.

  Since Hausmann had modified the operating system to Berg & Tempel's specific needs, Lawton realized he needed to put himself in Hausmann's shoes. The man was a computer operator who spent his days in the bowels of a bank, ensuring the data flowed smoothly. The photos on the console indicated a sense of territorial possession.

  This was not Berg & Tempel's computer. This was his computer. So whatever Hausmann had done, whatever changes he had made, whatever passwords he had added, he would not have locked himself out. Whatever Lawton needed to do, it could be done from this console.

  With that in mind, he began the steps that Assif had laid out. No, there were no visible files that looked like logs. But the files would be there. And if they were there, then Hausmann would have made sure he could access them.

  Lawton began to explore the various screen menus. Within minutes he found a menu item named "Show Hidden Files." Selecting it, he saw that the visible files were only the tip of Berg & Tempel's iceberg of data. Assif would have understood, and might even have explained in terms that Lawton could grasp, why computers needed so much hidden data in order to function. Perhaps later Lawton would ask him. For the time being, however, he focused on the massive list of files, most of which had names he could not even begin to fathom.

  Dates, he thought. Log files would be organized by date and time. There were hundreds of files with largely numerical names, but most of them had too many or too few digits to be dates. Reminding himself that the Germans, like most Europeans, recorded dates in day-month-year format, he scanned through the files for likely candidates. He found three that seemed to fit and opened the first. It appeared to be a transaction log, and after scanning it to ensure that it did not record e-mails, he closed it and turned to the second.

  It was filled with time-stamped entries, each of which seemed to have two coded names and a number. Perhaps e-mail addresses and the size of the e-mail? He scrolled to the bottom, and sure enough, there were six entries time-stamped only a few minutes before. The three bogus e-mails he had sent as a test and the three automated replies he had received. He selected the six lines and hit the delete key. The computer responded with that most annoying of messages, asking if he was sure he wanted to do what he had just done. He clicked the Yes button, and the six lines of data—the only record of his having used the SWIFTNET system—vanished.

  The third file also had time-stamped entries covering several days. These were far fewer and, for the most part, far more regular. While there were a few exceptions, there were regular entries at the opening and closing of business each day, and again during the noon hours. These were, he realized, the logs of key card usage. Once again, he scrolled to the bottom of the list and found an entry from an hour ago.

  Had he really been here for an hour already?

  The
computer insisted that he had, and he deleted the entry, after once again affirming that yes, he really intended to delete it. The single coded line—and the last trace of his presence—vanished.

  And then the computer room door opened.

  Guatemalan Highlands

  "Come, Padre," Rita Quijachia said quietly, pulling at Steve's arm. "There is another way out of this cave."

  "But…Paloma…" he began.

  "Paloma is with God now," Rita answered. "And the mountain will care for her burial. Miguel is still out there, and he will distract the Hunter somehow. We must leave now, Padre. We haven't much time."

  He knew she was right, and still he found it difficult to leave the woman there. He had dedicated his life to God, had spent most of his adulthood in the presence of those who purported to be spiritual. And yet, it was in the eyes of this woman that Steve had seen the truest face of the Almighty.

  Still, Rita was right. The eyes that had been mirrors of love and holiness were no longer alive. All that remained was a body, along with her presence in the memories of every man, woman and child from Dos Ojos. And the legacy she had left to Steve.

  Rising, he followed Rita back into the rumbling mountain, holding her hand as she led him through pitch blackness. Ahead, he could hear the footfalls of the others, faint slaps of handmade sandals on stone. He could see nothing, and he knew they could see no more than he, yet they moved with a calm certainty that infused itself into his own heart. God was leading them, Steve realized. Whether by memories of long-ago legends or by some divine presence, he knew that he was being guided to safety. He could not have led them, but he knew in his heart that he must trust them.

  His free hand trailed along the tunnel wall, to balance himself against the deafening shudders that passed through the rock. In the absolute darkness, with the ground so alive, he realized he was losing his sense of orientation. Only by an act of intense concentration could he discern up from down, and more than once Rita's strong arms caught him as he lurched against her.