by Tom Clancy
Whatever it was they were doing in that canyon, Howard needed to find out. Once the patrol was past, they’d get to it.
One of the Iraqi soldiers wandered off the road in their direction.
None of the Net Force squad moved. They were statues, hardly even breathing.
The man drew nearer. He came to an outcrop of rock no more than three meters in front of Howard, and rounded it, out of sight of the road, and unzipped his pants.
His back was to Howard, but the noise of his urination was loud in the dark.
Great. Guy had to take a leak, and he picked here to do it.
Howard drew his knife. It was a Loveless-style hunter with a short, stubby, drop-point blade no longer than his middle finger. It was the kind of knife used to skin and gut game, but it would cut a throat just fine. The steel had been blackened with a baked-on powder coating, a flat, matte black that reflected no light.
Howard gathered himself to move. All the man emptying his bladder had to do was to turn slightly and he would see an American trooper prone in the night behind him. If that happened, Howard and his group were in big trouble. But if Howard moved first, he could get to the man before he realized what was happening. A stab to the brainstem at the base of the skull would do it. He didn’t like that, having to kill some poor soldier whose only crime was answering the call of nature, but it was too risky. Better one of them than four of us.
Three regular steps, two long ones, less than a second to get to the man, grab his mouth with one hand, drive the blade in with the other.
Howard came up from his prone position carefully, onto his hands and knees, then to a squat. He leaned forward to push off—
The Iraqi, warned by something, looked over his shoulder as Howard leaped. The man screamed, already reaching for his rifle.
Uh-oh. They were in for it now—
“General Howard?” the computer said, interrupting the VR scenario. “You have a Priority One call.”
Net Force HQ Quantico, Virginia
Howard dropped out of VR and pulled the headset off. “Who is calling?” he asked.
“Commander Michaels,” the computer said.
“I’ll take it. Put it through.”
Though it probably wasn’t anything drastic, Howard had put Michaels on his Priority One list a long time ago. He wasn’t going to snub his boss while he played war games in VR.
“Commander.”
“Hello, General. We have a small problem here. Tommy Bender is in my office, and he wants to talk to you about the good ship Bon Chance.”
“The lawsuit,” Howard said.
“Exactly.”
“I’ve already been deposed, sir,” Howard said. “A young woman came by on Friday.”
“I know. I met her, along with the big gun lawyer a little while ago, for my own deposition. Apparently there is some additional information about one of the dead security men our lawyer thinks we need to know about.”
“I see.”
“That is, of course, if you aren’t too busy,” Alex said. “I can put him off if need be.”
“No, sir, Commander. I’ve got the time. It’s been pretty slow around here. I’ll be over in about ten minutes.”
“Thanks, John.”
“No problem.”
* * *
Howard showed up three minutes early and exchanged greetings with Alex and Tommy.
“All right,” Michaels said, “what’s this all about, Tommy?”
The lawyer smiled. “You’re going to love this,” he said. “Richard A. Dunlop, as near as we can tell, was the man John shot and killed during the raid.”
“The man who shot me first,” Howard said. He touched his side, low. “Right in a gap where my borrowed vest didn’t cover.”
“Yes, well, we’ll certainly point that out. Did you know Mr. Dunlop before you shot him, General?”
“No, sir. The moment he shot me was the first time we’d ever met.”
“Ah.”
“Why?” Michaels said. “What’s this all about, Tommy?”
“Well, it seems that Mr. Dunlop was a member of the WAB.”
“Which is…?”
“The White Aryan Brotherhood,” Howard answered, beating Tommy to it.
“So?” Alex asked. “I’ve heard of them. They’re a prison racist group. How does this affect anything?”
“Well,” Tommy said, “if General Howard — who, I must point out, is a black man — knew that Mr. Dunlop was a racist, that might have given him motivation to shoot Mr. Dunlop beyond simple self-defense.”
Michaels shook his head. “You know, Tommy, that might be the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
Tommy shrugged. “Have you ever been to Las Vegas, General?”
“Yes, I have.”
“And were you in Las Vegas on April 3, 2011?”
Howard thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I believe I was. As I recall, that was just before we mounted an operation in the desert nearby. Our unit was on hold, waiting for a computer glitch in the surveillance sats to be resolved. We were holed up in Vegas while we waited for the go order.”
Tommy nodded. “And did you have an altercation with Mr. Dunlop while you were in Las Vegas, General?”
“Of course not. Like I told you, I never met the man.”
“But the plaintiff’s lawyer can produce records showing that Mr. Dunlop was, in fact, in Las Vegas on that same day.”
Howard frowned. “So what? So were a million other people.”
Tommy leaned back in his chair and smiled. “But you didn’t shoot a million other people, John. You shot Dunlop. Here’s what Ames will do: He’ll show that the two of you were in Vegas at the same time. He’ll postulate a hypothetical meeting, in which you and Dunlop met, and got into an altercation over the man’s racist behavior. He bumped into you on the sidewalk, called you a name, and you nearly came to blows over it. Then he’ll link it to the shooting on the ship, implying that you killed Dunlop because of your earlier meeting.”
Howard shook his head. “That’s unbelievable,” he said. “None of that happened.”
“That doesn’t matter, John. He doesn’t have to prove it. He just has to make a jury believe that it might have happened that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, you and I both know that he will be able to find a lowlife Las Vegas wino who, for the price of a bottle of cheap bourbon, will swear he saw you with Dunlop. The jury might very well recognize this man as a liar. They might very well not believe a word that he says. But they won’t be able to forget what he says, either. The judge can direct them to disregard it, of course, but that’s like not thinking about the elephant in the living room.”
“I still don’t get it,” Howard said.
Tommy rubbed his eyes. “If you blow enough smoke and wave enough mirrors, you can dazzle an audience,” he said. “Ames is a master at this kind of illusion. He is a magician. He can make people think they saw something they couldn’t possibly have seen. Trust me, Ames will manufacture all the mud that he can, and then drag everybody involved right through the middle of it. Even if none of it is legit, some of it can stick. Remember, this is a civil case, not a criminal one. Reasonable doubt doesn’t apply in the same way. All he really needs to do is to get the jury to doubt, even just a little bit.”
Howard frowned again.
Tommy sighed. “You’ve shot a few other people in the line of duty, haven’t you, John?”
“Yes. But every one of them was justified.”
Tommy shook his head. “Not necessarily. And certainly not in the eyes, ears, and minds of a civil jury. Any Net Force operation in which any person was severely hurt or killed will be fair game for Ames. He will haul every one of them out and do a body count. He will show morgue pictures, offer testimonials of the families, whatever he can get past the judge.
“Ames is going to paint the picture that every Net Force op who ever stepped into the field was a bloodthirsty killer who c
ouldn’t wait to go out and shoot, stab, or stomp somebody. More than that, he is going to show that these ops were not only directed by, but led by a commander and general who love to go out and get their own hands bloody. He’ll have us looking like the Mongol hordes, murdering and plundering for sport.”
“My God,” Howard said. “Can he really do that?”
“If he can convince a judge that such things go to establishing a pattern of behavior, or that a particular incident can be linked directly to his case, yes, indeed. As I’ve said, civil law is not the same as criminal, and the standards are not as high. And for Ames, no stoop is too low. When he’s on a roll, he has to jump up with his arm outstretched to reach a snake’s belly.”
“My God,” Howard said again.
“If you have an in with Him, I’d pray for intervention,” Tommy said. “Ames stepping into an open manhole or suffering a fatal heart attack would be good. Anything less won’t slow him down. He’ll spin fantasy so thick it’ll seem like you’ve been dropped between Sleeping Beauty’s castle and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride… ”
Michaels shook his head, too. How could somebody do stuff like this and get away with it?
“There’s another thing you need to know,” Tommy added after a moment.
“What is it?” Michaels asked.
“You have to be very careful in your ongoing investigation of CyberNation. Every ‘i’ needs to be dotted, every ‘t’ crossed.”
“We do that in all our investigations,” Michaels said.
Tommy nodded. “I know, but understand this: If you bend the smallest rule, it will cost you. Ames obviously knows about the investigation, and you can be sure that he will wave it back and forth like a flag in a Fourth of July parade. He’ll claim Net Force is harassing his clients because of the suit, that there is no other reason to have such a procedure going since they are all law-abiding and upstanding corporate folk just trying to make an honest living.”
“But our investigation predates this suit.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Tommy said. “Remember, Ames deals in perception, not reality. And as far as your normal investigations, can you honestly say that there have never been any instances where you or one of your people didn’t step outside the lines, even a little bit, in order to crack a case or put away a bad guy? Well, Ames will have copies of all your files — everything that isn’t classified, anyway — at his fingertips, and he’ll be going through them looking for any sign, any hint, of anything he can wave in front of the jury.”
He turned to Howard. “For example, General, every time you got tired of being a desk jockey and went into the field yourself, Ames will use that to show that you like to be personally involved. That you like waving guns around and shooting people.”
“But that’s my job,” Howard said.
Tommy shook his head. “Generals don’t lead the charge into battle anymore. They sit back and direct from afar.” He turned to Alex. “And it’s even worse for you,” he said. “You’re not even military. By being hands-on, you demonstrate a certain zeal, which can easily be fanned up to look like full-blown fanaticism.”
Michaels leaned forward. “Are you suggesting we drop this whole CyberNation investigation? And has it occurred to you that this whole lawsuit might be nothing more than an attempt to get us to do that? Stop our inquiry? Or force us to back off enough so CyberNation can do whatever illegal activity it wants without having to look over its shoulder?”
“Of course it occurred to me, and that’s not what I’m suggesting. I wouldn’t object if you put it on hold until this was over, but you don’t even have to do that. What you need to do is exactly what I said: Proceed very carefully and pay extra attention to all the little details here.”
Michaels looked at Howard. Neither of them had anything to say.
“I told you this was going to be a big can of worms,” Tommy said. “And we don’t even have it halfway open yet.”
Michaels sighed and nodded. “I’ll pass the word along to be careful.”
“Good. Well, I’m off. Have a nice day.”
After Tommy left, Michaels looked at Howard. “I think we need to have a staff meeting.”
“Yes, sir,” Howard said. “I believe that would be a very good idea.”
16
There were four of them in the conference room: General Howard, Jay, Toni, and Michaels himself.
Alex said, “So that’s the situation regarding the legal stuff. Obviously we are not going to drop our investigation of CyberNation, or even put it on hold, especially in light of what Jay has turned up. We are, however, going to take Tommy Bender’s advice and make sure we are squeaky clean on this one.” He looked at Jay as he said that.
There was a moment of silence. Toni broke it by asking, “How sure are we about the clerk, Jay?”
“I’m positive about the money transfer. I haven’t been able to find any reason why a Supreme Court justice’s clerk should be getting any money from CyberNation. I’ve also gone through this guy’s files looking for anything to indicate that he might be a special case — like if he’d done some legitimate work for CyberNation and was still receiving payments from them — and I’ve found absolutely nothing. I am convinced this is a bribe.”
Howard said, “We had better be absolutely certain before we go public on this one. The judge will chop us all into tiny pieces if we are wrong. They don’t like even the smallest hint of improper behavior over there.”
“Amen,” Toni said.
Michaels looked at Jay. “Get us something bulletproof, Jay.”
“I will.”
“Anything else that we should know about coming down the pike?”
Jay shrugged. “Just about these worms and viruses that have been hitting the web recently. I am convinced that the same guy is doing them, and they are getting progressively worse — which means I think there is more to come. There is not much you guys can do to help with that, it’s pure net stuff, but I thought you should know.”
Michaels nodded. “Look, I know this lawsuit is a real pain, and that we all have better things to do. I also know that there is a very good chance this might all be a big smoke screen on CyberNation’s part to keep us from focusing on our investigation. Still, we have to pay attention to it. We’re under the microscope on this one, even more so than normal. Let’s not do anything that could come back to haunt us.”
He got a group murmur of assent.
Alex looked around the room at his team, the people he trusted most in the world. This was where he was supposed to say something inspiring, but he realized that he just didn’t have the words.
Besides, he realized something else as well: There was a reason why these were the people he trusted most in the world. Every one of them was a consummate professional, the best at what they did. They didn’t need inspiration from him. They just needed his confidence and support.
“All right, guys,” he said. “Let’s go get ’em.”
* * *
Jay was mad. Saji had called him as the meeting was breaking up, and now he felt like going out and killing someone.
He went into his office and sat behind his computer, still fuming.
It all started with the pictures. Saji had loaded their honeymoon pictures on her computer in the living room. Which was fine, of course; she wanted to share them with the family. He could understand that. But she had disabled their virus protection during the install.
That wasn’t what was bothering Jay, though. He understood how it had happened, and even understood why it had happened. Saji had spent some time editing the photos as she loaded them, and you usually wanted to turn off any virus checker while working on graphic-intensive programs. Even with power machines like he had at home, there was just too great a chance of conflicts if you didn’t.
But Saji hadn’t turned it back on.
Jay’s systems were protected behind a double firewall — including one that he had coded himself — but that only protected his machines from
hackers trying to break into them from the net. Firewalls didn’t work against viruses or other programs loaded — accidentally or otherwise — through e-mail, which was why he also ran the top-of-the-line virus checker, which constantly automatically updated both its code and its data files.
None of which meant a thing if somebody turned it off!
The software was even programmed to turn itself back on when the system was rebooted, but Saji hadn’t done that. She finished her uploading and editing just fine, with no signs of system instability, so she didn’t think to restart the machine.
The worst of it was that Jay had programmed his virus checker to restart itself anytime it had been turned off for more than half an hour. He had done that because he knew how easy it was to forget such things. Saji had spent quite a bit of time editing, however — far more than half an hour — so she had disabled its restart as well, which meant that her computer — and, consequently, his entire home network — was vulnerable to a virus.
And they got hit.
Jay hadn’t traced it yet so he didn’t know if it came from someone in Saji’s family or one of her friends or one of the listservs she belonged to. For that matter, it might have been a random e-mail generated by an infected system. It didn’t really matter where it came from. It only mattered where it started from.
The virus that hit them was the newest one, the crasher, the one that reformatted hard drives. It got their pictures, and her e-mail address book — after popping copies of itself to everyone in it, including Toni, Alex, and several of their other Net Force friends. And it got his machine, too, jumping the LAN connection and wiping out his hard drive as well.
Yeah they had back-ups of everything, even of the pictures, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that they got hit. The point was that Jay’s own machine, as well as his wife’s, had sent out copies of a virus to everyone in their address books. Jay Gridley himself, head techie and virus guru for Net Force, laid low by a simple virus.
He was not happy.
If Saji hadn’t shut off the virus checker, nothing would have happened, but she had, and it had, and she was very sorry.
