Silent Warpath (Sean Quinlan Book 1)

by Dominic Conlon

  He opened a booklet on his desk. ‘I’ve got a list of our servers here and each one has a series of tapes coded to it. Let me see’ he said running his finger down the list.

  He looked up. ‘I’m beginning to get an idea. This doesn’t look like he was searching for one particular file - it’s too systematic for that. It looks like he was trying a selection of backup tapes from all the servers to see what the results might be. It’s like he was doing an audit of the backup tapes.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  John made a face. ‘I’ve no idea. It does look as though some of the tapes weren’t good backups. Maybe he was trying to get to the bottom of that? But if so he would have talked to Jack Langham. He’s in charge of backups and archives and anything to do with security. You should try him.’

  ‘Thanks John. I might just do that.’

  Back at home Natasha opened up her laptop and wondered if she could still access the network at work. Although some staff had been told to leave she thought the company’s server farm might remain accessible for the time being.

  She found the USB token located on her key ring and pushed it into a slot on the side of her laptop. The computer would not log onto the network without it. She typed in the eight digit number that was currently showing on the token and the laptop went through a long rigmarole of assigning her a computer profile and granted her the permissions she needed in order to access her workspace. Eventually she was in and Natasha breathed a sigh of relief.

  She created a new folder to contain all the log files from Cetus. Then she began the process of finding them and copying them into it to make it easier to search through them. After two hours Natasha’s eyes were beginning to droop and she started thinking of going to bed. She forced herself to concentrate and complete one more test before shutting down her laptop. She had run several scans on the files already but this time she configured the program to list the names of the modules together with the time they took to upload to Cetus. Privately she hoped that one of the modules had somehow miss-loaded.

  But the long list that scrolled down her screen told her nothing. Everything looked normal and each module had loaded correctly. She decided to look at one more aspect before going to bed. Copying the list into a spreadsheet, she sorted them in alphabetical order. Sometimes modules did not load properly and needed to be reloaded. If that was the case she would find a duplicate.

  But there were no duplicate lines to see. Then her eye leapt to a summary line at the end of the report which showed that the total loading time for all the modules was 37min and 45 secs. Rubbing her eyes Natasha checked the total loading time from the master list. This showed 32 mins 40 secs. For some reason the upload took over five minutes longer, but there were no reloads which might explain the extra time it took.

  Bed beckoned but Natasha knew that the puzzle would keep her awake. She made another coffee and came back to her computer. If no extra modules were loaded and each one took its allotted time, then there should be no difference. There was nothing for it but to look at how long each module took to load and compare this with the master list.

  Natasha groaned. There were over 700 modules and it would take her forever to check the loading times for each one - that was if she had to finish the task manually. She knew from experience the quickest way would be to load all the information into a database which she could create just for this particular task.

  Half an hour later she had the answer. The database had compared the loading times of all the modules with the actual time they took. Every single module loaded within one second of its specification, except for one called SM_itinerary_pack. This took 5 min 22 secs and accounted for the difference in total time barring a second or two.

  Natasha now had the bit between her teeth. What made the itinerary module take much longer to load? She used her own filter software to find the detail in the upload log. The size of the file was 4,532,784 bytes in length but normally the modules were around 20,000 bytes long. Puzzled, Natasha looked up the correct file size from the master list. This showed that it should be 25,476 bytes.

  But that was as far as she could go. The logs gave no clue as to why it was nearly 200 times its normal size. Waves of exhaustion crashed over her and she just made it to bed before her eyes closed.

  She woke four hours later and sat straight up. Her subconscious must have been at work while she was asleep because now she knew the answer to the problem that had been troubling her.

  She reached for the bedside phone and rang Stan’s home. It picked up after the fifth ring.

  ‘Hi, Stan - it’s Natasha. I think I’ve found something.’

  ‘Nat, what time is it?’ Stan sounded tired.

  ‘Seven thirty. Listen, I think there was a problem. I’ve been going through the logs and I’ve found an anomaly.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just before Cetus launched there was a hitch.’

  ‘What sort of hitch?’ Stan sounded intrigued.

  ‘Well, one of the packages took a long time to upload. I’ve been going through all of them and one of them was much bigger than it should have been.’

  ‘How could that happen?’

  Natasha collected her thoughts. ‘Stan, I think I’ve discovered a virus.’

  Chapter 9

  Twenty metres below the surface of the southern Atlantic, Cetus’s computers ran a full system check. Starting with the nuclear plant, moving on to the engines and then the condition of the hull, sensors in each section reported a healthy status. Next it inspected the sonic cannon running along the keel of the boat. Whenever the cannon was fired nearly all of the energy went into the sound waves it produced. An unfortunate side effect was that a small amount of the energy caused the cannon to heat up. Although it had been fired just three times it was necessary to pump cooling sea water into the heat exchangers.

  Lastly the computers turned their attention to themselves, churning through long checklists to ensure they all were operating optimally. The whole process took less than 5 seconds.

  Cetus began to move slowly, unreeling a long towed sonar array aft. The array contained two hundred and fifty six sensitive microphones that picked up the sounds of the ocean. Cetus could ‘hear’ the Tribune as she made her way to the bottom. The sound of internal bulkheads collapsing, boilers exploding, even pockets of air that found their way out of the stricken vessel could be detected. Cetus followed her progress through crush depth where the pressure from the ocean depths squeezed the hull, forcing out any remaining air.

  Now that the first part of its mission was complete and all three ships in the flotilla had sunk, Cetus turned its attention to the wider submarine environment. There were the usual noises from marine life but Cetus could also detect the tiny splashes made from the oars of the lifeboats as crews struggled on the surface. Now that there was no immediate threat, Cetus loaded the next part of its mission plan and set a northerly course.

  Two hours after taking to the lifeboat Louis shivered with the cold and wet. Where was the Tribune and the Arabesque? The crew blew their whistles and waved flashlights but there was no sign of rescue.

  The waves had been growing in strength and height for over an hour now and Long John and several others started to bail water from the scuppers. One of the sailors tied a flashlight to the spare oar and lashed it upright to the gunwale. Two other lifeboats had done the same and they could see each other’s lights bobbing up and down in the darkness.

  Slowly the three lifeboats crept closer and at last Long John was able to throw the nearest a line. The remaining lifeboat eventually did the same so all three were roped together. About an hour afterwards a fourth lifeboat appeared and soon it too had a line securing it to the rest. As there was little hope of an immediate rescue they decided to turn off the flashlights for now to save batteries.

  Then the nightmare really started. The wind began to blow in strong gusts bringing frequent bursts of rain. It was pitch black. The wind
strengthened again, mixing rain and sea spray and driving it horizontally across them. The combined wind and current pushed them further from the mainland. Louis relieved one of the sailors and began to row. He shivered constantly but despite the cold he settled down to the steady rhythm.

  He heard thunder and ten seconds later jagged lightening flashed on the horizon. During the brief time it lit up the boat Louis caught a glimpse of his missing gold watch, the gold expansion band glimmering for a split second in the light. He feathered his oar and looked hard at the man wearing it. It was impossible to make out who it was in the dark.

  A hundred thoughts crowded through Louis’ head. Surely it couldn’t be the treasured watch he had lost when he first came on board the Mosquito? He stood up suddenly, intending to make his way towards the man. He staggered, almost fell and was grabbed by several sailors who pushed him back into his seat.

  Louis shook his head, disbelievingly. But the image of the gold band burned in his brain. He had to make sure. He stood up again and weaved his way unsteadily down the boat. The man saw him coming and hunched against the gunwale. But Louis would not be stopped when he was so close. He grabbed the man’s sleeve and jerked it up, uncovering the man’s wrist. There was no doubt now – that was his watch. He clutched the strap and started to pull it off the man’s hand but a large wave rocked the boat, throwing Louis against the side. The man heaved and Louis was in the water.

  The shock of the cold water caused Louis to inhale and he gagged, ingesting a mouthful of seawater. He was under the waves and didn’t know which way was up. He lashed out with his fists in a blind panic as the terror of imminent death took hold.

  At the end of his strength a calm descended over his mind and he stopped thrashing. He felt himself ascending and as soon as his head cleared the surface he coughed violently and gulped a huge lungful of air. He coughed again, sucked in more air, grateful he still wore the life jacket he was given on board the Mosquito. Still coughing, he looked around.

  There were no lights anywhere.

  ‘Over here!’ he yelled.

  He was barely a minute in the water and his voice held a note of fear. He felt his heart hammering away and he knew with certainty that if he was not found soon he would die.

  For a second he stopped shouting and tried to relax. He felt something hard in the palm of his hand. With his other hand he explored the band that circled his fist. In a brief flash of lightning he saw gold. Turning it over he realised he was still clutching the watch that had been stolen from him.

  The discovery gave him new strength and he slipped the watch over his wrist. He explored his life jacket with stiff cold hands. His fingers slithered over a hard plastic dome which turned out to be an emergency beacon. When he gave it a twist it began to flash. Next he found a whistle dangling by a short chord. The first few tries were dismal, but after shaking out the water it gave a piercing sound.

  Louis began to feel hope.

  ‘Is the sub still at large?’ Clarke never wasted any time.

  Schaeffer sat in the nearest chair as ordered. ‘Sir, that part of the operation was successful - the sub is still at large and it is completely under our control.’

  ‘Good – but what do you mean by “that part of the operation”?’

  Schaeffer shifted in his seat. ‘You remember we had to send someone in to finish off Campbell?’

  ‘I remember - you thought he was dead.’

  ‘Our man Mike did kill him. But I didn’t get a chance to explain on the phone that he was interrupted.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He was jumped as he was smothering Campbell. There was a guy waiting in the bathroom. Mike managed to get free from him and escape without being seen.’

  ‘But Campbell is dead?’

  ‘Yes, definitely. There’s to be a funeral for him on Thursday.’

  ‘Any clues as to who the guy was?’

  ‘No sir. That’s the most puzzling thing. He fought hard. If he was from the local police or FBI he would have stopped Mike with a firearm.’

  Clarke leaned over and selected a cigar from a humidifier on the desk.

  ‘See what you can find out about him. Anything else I should know?’

  ‘We intercepted a call from one of the women techies...’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And now she suspects a virus.’

  Clarke studied his cigar and lit it. ‘How come they got onto that so fast?’

  ‘We don’t know. It’s only a suspicion at the moment - it’s impossible that they could know what the virus is actually supposed to do.’

  ‘Really’ muttered Clarke, puffing a cloud of smoke across the desk. ‘And why do you find it impossible to believe?’

  Schaeffer considered his reply carefully. ‘Because it happened so fast - they wouldn’t have had the time to get into any detail. And in any case they have no access to the source code so they couldn’t even begin to guess what it was supposed to do.’

  ‘So what are you doing about it?’

  ‘Don’t worry, we will see to her. We know from the phone tapes she has a minor personality disorder - she’s depressive. So it should be easy enough to drive her away.’

  ‘I want her dealt with permanently. Nothing comes back to me.’

  ‘OK, I’ll sent a unit round to deal with her.’

  ‘Not the same bungling crew that failed to nail Campbell the first time?’

  Schaeffer heard the alarm in the man’s voice and moved to placate him. ‘No sir. But don’t worry, I will see to her personally.’

  ‘Be sure that you do. Report back to me when you have finished.’

  ‘Morning’ said Stan. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this Natasha, but you look like you need a good night’s sleep.’

  Natasha flopped into the seat opposite Stan’s desk.

  ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind, Stan.’ She glanced at him. ‘You know, having to arrange the funeral, the missing ships, not to mention all the turmoil at work..’.

  Stan held up his hand. ‘I know, Nat. ‘I’m not saying that to criticise. I just think you need some time off, that’s all.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right Stan. I’ve got some leave owing. I might get away after the funeral.’

  ‘Good idea’ said Stan shuffling some papers. ‘Now what’s all this about a virus on Cetus?’

  ‘Stan, I think I know what happened out there. I’ve been checking through the upload logs, just before the Mosquito went off the air. One of the packs Louis transferred was much larger than the spec.’

  Stan pursed his lips. ‘Could be some last minute changes Louis made. You know how it works - he makes some changes and then forgets to send back a copy.’

  Natasha shook her head. ‘This was the Itinerary pack. It’s nearly 200 times larger than it should be. Louis couldn’t possibly have made that number of changes!’

  ‘Sounds like it might be a corrupted file to me. If there was some problem with the transmission the receiving end just keeps adding zeroes to the file until the glitch is resolved. The receiver picks up the end of the file so it looks like it finished the transfer correctly.’

  Natasha shook her head. ‘I checked that. I looked through all of the binary code.’

  Stan gave her an appraising look.

  ‘Really, I did Stan. I ran anti-virus over the whole file - nothing. I also ran some specific searches and none of that code has any padding in it at all.’

  Stan was apologetic. ‘I’m sorry Nat, that still doesn’t prove a thing. Could be the transfer was over a noisy line. It doesn’t have to be padded with a long string of zeroes - it might be just random noise.’

  Natasha sighed. ‘Then how do you explain what happened to those three ships?’

  ‘I can’t Natasha. Nobody knows what happened out there except the survivors. By the way, they were going to drop some communication packs for the lifeboats. I wonder if they’ve picked them up yet?’

  They walked to the large communications room. Stan saw a tec
hnician wearing a pair of monitor headphones. ‘Any contact yet?’

  The young man looked up, then leaned forward to flick a switch. Immediately the overhead speakers burst into life.

  ‘Hello SeaTek. Did you receive my last transmission?’

  Stand reached for the mike. ‘Hello, this is Stan. Who are you and what’s your status?’

  The speakers crackled. ‘Excuse me a minute, they’re retrieving a man from the water in the next lifeboat.’

  Stan glanced at Natasha and they waited a minute.

  ‘Sorry about that - they’ve just pulled a man out of the water. Looks like he’s suffering from hypothermia - they’re using some of the survival gear the plane dropped earlier. When are we being picked up?’

  ‘A ship is on its way to you now.’ Stan glanced at his watch. ‘It should be there in the next hour.’

  ‘OK, thanks. We’re pretty exhausted out here. It’s nice to hear that someone will be with us soon.’

  ‘Can you give me your name?’ Stan asked.

  ‘Tod Frazier, comms team.’

  ‘Listen Tod, we’re very concerned about what’s happened. We need to understand how your ship came to sink. Can you tell me anything about that?’

  The speakers were quiet for a minute, then a burst of static obscured the first words.

  ‘... peculiar. We all heard a kind of high pitched note. It got so loud you had to shut it out. Then the deck plates started to quiver. It was like the ship was shaking itself to death. The captain ordered us to abandon ship and that’s when we made for the lifeboats. The ship started to list and by the time we were hauling away the ship was going down.’

  ‘How many in the lifeboats Todd?’ Stan looked at Natasha.

  ‘Fifty four. We thought we’d lost one overboard a few minutes ago, but he’s back now.’