Blood of Others (24 page)

Vryke heard
the wail of the siren, saw the
flashing red lights in his rear-view mirror, and shifted his grip on the wheel.

His right foot spasmed on the gas
pedal. Instinct urged him to flee. But he reconsidered, pulled his rented car
off of the road. The unmarked police cruiser inched up behind him, its radio
crackling in the tranquil mountain air. Vryke swallowed hard. Hands visible on
the wheel.
Stay calm.
It was pretty here. The sun was setting. He
studied his rear-view mirror. A young cop in his cruiser. Talking on his radio.
Calling in the plate of Vryke’s rental.

Easy. Take it easy.

The cop was listening, waiting
for a radio response. Vryke had left his hotel in Banff earlier that day,
deciding to go east to Highway 22, then south on the ribbon of road that
parallels Alberta’s Rockies. He then went west, taking the Crowsnest Pass,
which becomes Highway 3, the breathtaking southern route across British
Columbia that threads through the mountains and stays close to the U.S. border.
He had just entered British Columbia when this cop materialized from nowhere.
Now he was stepping from his cruiser, adjusting his cap, approaching Vryke’s
car.

“Evening, sir.”

The officer was in his late
twenties. Six feet. Athletic. Dressed in navy pants with a wide yellow seam stripe,
a khaki shirt, and over it, a blue
kevlar
vest. A brass
name plate reading: CONST. ALLAN KRELL. Vryke noticed the gun holstered in his
leather utility belt. He could see from his shoulder patch the letters
RCMP
GRC.
Beneath the brim of his cap, the Mountie had quick, intelligent eyes
that met Vryke’s. Not even a flicker at his scars.

“Hello, Officer.”

“Could you turn the ignition off,
please.”

Vryke did.

“Where you headed?”

“Vancouver. Is there a problem?”

“Did you just come from Alberta?”

Vryke nodded, noticing the cop’s
gold wedding band.

“The speed limit changes when you
enter B.C.”

“Oh, I’m from the U.S., I didn’t
know.”

“That miles-to-kilometers thing
can trip you up.” A white-toothed smiled. “Sir, I’m going to need your driver’s
license and registration, please.”

Driver’s license.
Vryke’s
pulse quickened. He had his authentic Maryland license. The several fake ones
he used for his mission were hidden in the lining of his luggage, in the trunk.

“Sir. Your license and
registration, please?”

“Sorry. Long day. The car’s a
rental.”

“Should be in the glove
compartment, or on the visor. I’d like to see the rental contract as well,
please.”

Vryke found the rental agency’s
registration, realizing the rental agreement was in yet another false name. He
hadn’t prepared for this scenario. He passed the registration along with his
actual license to the officer.

The Mountie unfolded the
agreement, looked at Vryke’s license. “Who rented this vehicle?”

“A friend.”

“It lists only one insured
driver. Where’s your friend?”

“He had to fly ahead. I’m going
to meet him in Vancouver.”
Careful not too much information. Liars give too
much information.

The Mountie was thinking. “Sir
you have the right to refuse, but would you mind opening your trunk for me?”

The saliva in Vryke’s mouth
dried. Open the trunk?
Don’t hesitate. Cooperate.
“I don’t mind.” He
popped the latch.

The officer stepped around to
take a look at the luggage and computer bags.
Oh, Jesus!
The luggage
tags! Did they match his license or the rental contract? Vryke’s mind raced.

Thud! The trunk closed.

“Be right back, sir.” The Mountie
returned to his cruiser.

Vryke studied his mirror, reading
every tick and reaction on the Mountie’s face. The cop radioed Vryke’s data to
his police dispatcher, who would run it through the CPIC, the Canadian Police
Information Center, which provides data on crimes, criminals, and alerts.
Do
not turn around. He could have a camera going.
It sounded like a female
dispatcher from the radio conversation spilling into the still twilight. Vryke
saw the Mountie smile at a shared joke. Then he wrote something on his
clipboard. Should he run? Vryke distinctly heard the dispatcher say, “…no hits,
Al.”

The Mountie returned. Gave Vryke
his documents.

“I’m just going to caution you to
watch the posted speed and your speedometer, sir. It measures miles and
kilometers.”

“No ticket?”

“We’ll save it for next time.”
The Mountie smiled, returned to his cruiser, killed his lights, and roared off.

Vryke sat for several minutes
before starting his car and driving for a few more hours.

Outside of some hamlet, he
checked into a motel that was nearly hidden in the alpine mountain forest. He
called Vancouver to confirm the arrangements which would help him enter the
U.S. It wouldn’t be much longer, he thought in the shower, the hot water
melting tension from his close call with the cop.

Later he found solace in his
computers, his visions, and the woman awaiting him. Eternity with her would be
magnificent, he thought, caressing her words to him.

Pure love can defeat any
darkness.

A million little
worries were working
overtime, keeping Olivia up. Did she have everything for the dinner she was
making for Ben? Yes. She was flying to Chicago soon to see her relatives. Did
she forget anything? Reservation? Ticket? That was it. She had forgotten to buy
her ticket.

She would take care of it now.
Put her mind at ease. Otherwise, she would be awake all night.

Olivia sighed. Sat up. Her feet
found her slippers. She padded down the stairs in darkness, the ticking
grandfather clock keeping her company as she went to the kitchen. She warmed
some milk for hot cocoa to help her sleep, grabbed her purse, returned to her
bedroom, switched on her computer.

Sipping her cocoa, she logged on
to the airline’s secure site and felt into her purse for her wallet and credit
card. Maybe she could get a deal. She reviewed the schedule of flights to Chicago,
selected the times she wanted for departure and return, requested a window
seat, entered her credit card number, name, telephone address. Destination
contacts in case her luggage was lost. In a short time she was finished and
relieved. But not yet drowsy.

Sitting before her monitor, warm
mug in her hands, Olivia thought of her aunt’s voice, her smile, so much like
her mother’s. She thought of how good it was going to be to visit her, her
uncle, her cousin. Her
family.

Olivia thought of Ben. How she
liked being with him. They got together whenever they could, to go to
restaurants, a movie, a jazz club, a walk. It felt good. She no longer counted
their dates. When he came for dinner, it would be her first time making a meal
for him. She was a good cook, everything should be fine. But there was
something else about his upcoming visit. Olivia lost herself in his handsome
face, his deep voice, broad shoulders; how his strong hands felt so good when
he took her in his arms to kiss her good night. She loved his long, soft
kisses. They left her desiring more. But she wasn’t ready and Ben never pushed
things. He was gentle, patient, letting their relationship follow its own
rhythm.

Olivia looked upon her bed, her
hand caressing her neck, thinking of his soft eyes, the pain hidden deep behind
them over his partner’s shooting. Ben’s tragedy weighed heavily on her heart.
Maybe she could help him come to terms with it. Resolve it, lessen the sorrow
he carried. She believed he was telling the truth about what had happened that
terrible day, but she knew nothing more of the case. After Ben had told her
about it, he never spoke of it again.

Olivia’s keyboard began clicking
as she called up the Web sites for the Bay Area’s major papers, to search their
archives. She submitted her credit card number, then entered the terms
Ben
Wyatt police.
She found nearly two dozen articles of varying length about
the incident. If she knew more about what had happened to Ben and his partner,
she would have a better understanding of what he was going through. Then she
could help him.

The printer hummed.

The way the traffic hummed that
night on the bridge when she stood at the edge of her world, ready to step from
it.

But she hung on. Somehow and for
some reason she had been saved. Her life had purpose. She had connected with
her family. She had Ben and she could help him, as she could help the others
who had helped her.

Olivia peered into her computer
monitor, thinking of the very people who had encouraged her. She owed them. If
she could help just one. Her keyboard clicked and she went on-line to her
regular message boards and Internet e-mail.

Where was that guy who seemed to
be hurting? Olivia hadn’t heard from him in a while. He’d been hurt deeply by
someone. She searched her messages from her cyber-friends, site after site,
until she found an e-mail address for him.

Olivia scrolled through their
history. How did he put it in his latest plea? Ah, here it was:
Is there
really anyone out there who can truly forgive the sins of a past life?

Olivia began a new message to
him.

The Dead Horse Bar
was an East Bay dive near
the edge of Berkeley, a few blocks into Oakland. Far from the hill dwellers and
mall crawlers, it rose from a forgotten corner, white mortar stains running
down its cracked weatherworn bricks, its windows painted over and barred. A
growling air conditioner bleeding rust-colored water over a dented metal door
punctured by several bullet holes dared you to enter. A Harley backfired,
sounding like a gunshot, sparking Wyatt’s nerves for half a second.

If he had had any doubts Gricks
wanted to meet here, they ended when he spotted his lime-green VW beetle parked
in the littered lot. Inside, Wyatt removed his sunglasses, his eyes adjusting
quickly to the darkness, his nose assaulted by the smell of beer and many
unpleasant things. The requisite large TVs were muted on the ball game over a
wooden horseshoe-shaped bar. Some sorry-looking souls atop swivel-seat stools.
One guy looked legless. The main floor had an assortment of saloon-style wooden
chairs, tables and a jukebox. Along the walls, high-backed booths offered
privacy. Gricks waved to him from a dark one in the back, where he was talking
on his cell phone.

Wyatt ordered a Coors from the
bartender, a tall man with a pock-marked face, greased back hair. Prison
tattoos on his forearms. He set the bottle on the bar for Wyatt, who left a few
bills.

“Thanks. Keep the change.”

The bartender’s head nodded
slightly. No smiles.

Gricks finished his call. “My
father lives in Berkeley. Retired professor. Nuclear physics. Got Alzheimer’s
now. I try to see him as often as I can. This place is on my way.”

“Nice joint. Must really cheer
you up.”

Gricks and his thoughts were
elsewhere. He took a hit of his beer, then tugged thoughtfully at his beard.

“So what can you tell me, Randy?”

Gricks continued stroking his
beard. “We’re just two guys talking at a bar.”

“Yes.”

“I am in a very difficult
position because of my job at the lab. National security laws. You have to
understand. I could find myself in a shit storm, major shit storm, because I
have not been cleared to consult.”

“Makes two of us. We never had
this conversation.”

“All right.”

“So tell me what you think
happened to my disk.”

“Well, I stayed late a few nights
working on it, that’s why I called you in the wee hours. Sorry.”

“Can we get to it, please?”

“I’m going to tell you a story.
Think of it as possibly hypothetical.”

“Possibly hypothetical.”

“Remember years ago, it still
happens, but years ago when the first sensational stories surfaced of how
computer hackers were intruding into defense computer networks, major civil
grid networks?”

“Sure, the kids and Pentagon
stuff. There were movies.”

“Yeah, well, not long after that,
the U.S. government initiated a highly classified computer defense strategy. At
that time, I was with NSA working on developing Intelink, one of the
government’s most secure communications networks. The CIA uses it and it’s
linked to the White House. Then I got pulled from Intelink to a special
program.”

“What was it?”

“It was called INFERNO. Back
then, it was feared that our most sensitive computer systems, those critical to
the security, the very survival of the nation, were vulnerable to intrusion,
attack, and destruction by foreign governments hostile to the U.S. or terrorist
groups.”

“Or teenagers alone in their
bedrooms.”

“Well, once it was clear that
hacking in was child’s play, many computer security systems emerged around the
world in industry and governments. But INFERNO was unlike anything ever
conceived. It was so secret and powerful it didn’t exist, really. It’s an
ongoing process, developed in some secret buildings near Fort Meade, Maryland,
with the best computer minds from the CIA, NSA, Defense, the industry, you name
it. All working on a classified project aimed at defending America’s most vital
computer systems from penetration. But it had many other aspects. Some might
alarm people.”

“Such as?”

“It attempted to secretly link,
for monitoring, every form of telecommunications, telephones, computers,
radios, for the security of the nation.”

“Sounds like a sword, not a
shield.”

“There were those in the program
who had Big Brother concerns. Keep in mind Y2K was coming. A million nightmares
could have been unleashed.”

“I’ll bet.”

“But imagine a scenario where
someone could override our nuclear missile command strategy and hold the world
hostage? Or crash planes, or cause the world’s nuclear plants to malfunction?”

“That’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible, Ben. Still
is. We’re only human. Under INFERNO, the goal was to create the world’s
ultimate computer and telecommunications emergency security system, to
safeguard our most important computer systems from intrusion and attack.”

“When was INFERNO being
developed?”

“At the dawn of the Internet.
Some top-level security types envisioned what could happen.”

“What kinds of things did INFERNO
unleash?”

“We were developing abilities
whereby a period or the dot on a letter
i
could trigger a monitoring
system on all computer systems, even those off-line if they were within a
thousand yards of a telephone, radio, or television. We were developing
programs whereby everyday phrases, like ‘hello’ and ‘hi’, and a digit on the
keypad, could activate monitoring of any telephone conversation, land line or
cellular. These were the precursors to sniffers and the FBI’s carnivore
program. They evolved from some of the early work the CIA and NSA developed in the
Cold War era. You know, word recognition, character recognition. And we had
developed the technology of reverse TV and radio whereby viewers and listeners
could be viewed or heard through INFERNO.”

“You’re talking about anyone,
anywhere, any time?”

Gricks nodded. “We’re talking
about someone plotting to harm the nation, murder the nation, unleash weapons
of mass destruction.”

“You worked on such things?”

“Hypothetically speaking, yes. I
was there when we conducted theoretical field tests on some aspects. Believe
me, they worked. Hypothetically.”

“I don’t understand the grand
plan. How would you get the INFERNO system installed? Tap every TV, radio, and
phone in America?”

Gricks was silent. He had
finished his beer. He declined another from the bartender. So did Wyatt.

“This is hypothetical?”

“Sure, Randy, we’re developing a
movie.”

“Federal legislation would be
drafted to have computer, radio, telephone and television makers install
certain frequency ranges, or components, or some specifications. It would also
require imports to do the same, under new U.S. telecommunications law, et
cetera. INFERNO’s people could activate the program at the security end. But
the new law would have been low-key, simple to enact and be very cheap to
comply with. It would be sweetened with tax relief initiatives. The law would
have effectively and surreptitiously made all the equipment compatible, or
vulnerable to INFERNO, it would have been so subtle and hidden. Then the U.S.
would have leaned on friendly countries to require similar legislation. Believe
me, it was all being done.”

“But we’re speaking
hypothetically?”

Gricks smiled.

“What else can you tell me about
INFERNO and how it relates to our unsolved murder?”

“When I left years ago, they were
refining the search and computer destroy element of INFERNO. It was extremely
sophisticated and this aspect alone could do many things with computers.”

“Such as?”

“Key among them was the ability
to defend against cyber- or on-line attack. But it could also set traps, allow
an intruder in so far, then turn him back, foil him, or lock on to him and
trace his point of origin. It could also launch a counterstrike and destroy his
program, his system timed to happen immediately or at any desired date, time,
second, while pinpointing his location.”

“Why haven’t these cases emerged
in the press?”

“Because the government does not
go to court on the cases involving attacks that just scratch the surface of the
highest-security areas. It does not want the attention. The intruder is simply
taken out of commission.”

“What do you mean?”

“His or her system can be fried,
he’s shut down. They never ever penetrate very far in any high-level government
system before they’re thwarted. The government can shut them down on other
charges too, diverting attention from the actual intrusion.”

“Where did the INFERNO name come
from?”

“From Dante’s
Divine Comedy.
Because the system had several realms, or levels of impenetrable security,
getting through them would be like going to hell because you would not escape.
An inside joke, so to speak.”

“So how does this relate to the
murder of a San Francisco office worker?”

Gricks pulled Wyatt’s damaged
disk from his pocket. “Your disk had an INFERNO style of signature all over
it.”

“Jesus.”

“It’s very rare but it appears
that somebody your victim communicated with on-line had demonstrated an
understanding of INFERNO. It’s not identical but it’s incredibly similar in the
malevolent way it defended itself against penetration then sought to destroy
the attacker. You. Hence your disk was destroyed when you attempted to find
him.”

“I didn’t know he was there in
the first place. How good is this person?”

“Dangerously good.  Remember
a few years back, there was the famous
I Love You
virus. Then came the
more powerful
Thank
You
virus, a simple e-mail ditty that
breached about ninety-one percent of all e-mail on earth within three days. Did
some major damage. Then came the
Code Red
threat.”

“Yes.”

“Relatively speaking, they were
harmless. But this guy, from my early read on things, has just demonstrated
that he has the potential, I stress the potential, to unleash a mass-mailing
worm with some sophisticated DDOS tools.”

“What sorts of Distributed Denial
of Service signatures are we talking, Gricks?”

“Potentially complicated frontier
stuff, the new super-potent DEMON configurations. Conceptually, they think for
themselves.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Well we’re getting into sci-fi,
applying the realities of doctored silicon. Anyway, your guy could have some
heavy-duty malicious activity planned, like exploration and reconnaissance for
widespread attacks. I stress
could.
He also seems easily able to launch
backdoor compromises with several intricate password sniffers, so he could
launch attacks in the future. I would rate him as one hundred times more
sophisticated than the
I Love You
and
Thank You
people. And I
don’t know what else he might be hiding in his bag of tricks.”

“Shouldn’t you be on to this,
alerting your cyber-detective friends with INFERNO? Help me find him, help me
take him out of commission.”

“It’s not that simple, Ben.”

“Christ, Gricks. Aren’t you
concerned?”

“We can watch, but can’t let
anyone know.”

“I don’t get it.”

“He’s demonstrated the
capability.
You can’t act on what he is capable of doing. You can’t arrest me because I am
capable
of a committing a crime. He has not expressed intent or conspiracy. Right. I
checked. He has not attempted to breach any federal, state, or local security
system.”

“What do you call what he did to
my disk?”

“An act of defense, albeit a
disturbing one, but it’s not a willful expression to threaten or conspire to
threaten the security of the United States. People do have rights, you know.”

“What am I going to do? Help me
find out if he’s a suspect or not. If I nail him you might get to see his
workshop.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Simplify it for me. A woman was
murdered.”

“All right. In simple terms, my
job is to defend against threats to the nation. So far, this guy has not moved
into my jurisdiction. So as horrible and cold as this sounds, Ben, I can’t play
my hand for one murder, or several murders. That’s your jurisdiction.”

“Whose side are you on?” Wyatt
shook his head. “National security shit.”

“I absolutely can’t be involved.
I told you that. I could face federal charges for talking to you. I could go to
prison.”

Wyatt sat back. Defeated.
Disgusted. “You married, Randy?”

“Yes.”

“Got kids?”

“Two girls.”

“What if he did what he did to
that woman to one of your daughters, then gives you the finger with this?”
Wyatt tapped the disk.

“I knew you would play this cop
crap on me. I knew it.” He looked away, swallowing his beer. He said nothing
and reached into his bag for a small padded envelope. Slid it to Wyatt. Inside
he found half a dozen unmarked disks and a small plain booklet that looked like
instructions.