Buzzworm (A Technology Thriller): Computer virus or serial killer? (4 page)

The man who greeted Roger Strange
in the front foyer of the CIA’s Navy Yard center in Washington D.C., was definitely military. Or at least ex. He was also tall, over six feet, broad across the chest with just a hint of hair on his wide head, nothing more than a hard shadow.

He also had a light pink scar that ran across the bridge of his nose as if the frame of a pair of sunglasses had been evaporated there during a nuclear flash.

Strange held out his hand. The military dude looked away and turned. Roger followed him, having a tough time concentrating. He had spent the entire flight and cab ride here in a dazed state. His lawyer had dropped a bombshell on him and his ears were still ringing. Sure they had offered him amnesty. But there was a price.

"Follow me," the tough guy said. Strange shrugged, put his beat-up laptop case in his other hand and tried to keep up. They walked a dozen steps, and then turned into a room only marginally bigger than a closet, an interview room where two people could sit across from each other at a white plastic table, their knees almost touching.

Roger kept going back to the deal, believing now he should never have taken it. As if he had a choice? Sure, finding a virus no one else could track down might be a kick. But he doubted it would be that easy. And if he didn’t find it and deliver the perpetrator like a prize specimen to the powers-that-be within a week – his life would be in jeopardy.

The arrangement was simple. Solve the problem and you're a free man. Screw up and you’re going to be sharing a cell with your ex-partner, the psycho.

"My name is Dodge," the giant said, shutting the door hard. "I’m head of Security here." He nodded for Strange to take a seat, and then stiffly lowered himself into a plastic chair. "You want to tell me what's going on?" Dodge didn’t look happy. Roger took his glasses off and wiped them with his shirtfront. He needed time to think, besides he was sweating so hard he'd fogged the lenses.

Roger was seriously considering just walking out and catching a taxi back to the airport. Where he’d go from there, he had no idea. Could he hide from them? He doubted it. He’d be better off running from organized crime. He put his glasses back on and focused on the hulk in the blue uniform. He had expected to be greeted by people from the computer division, not the Marines.

The security officer was clearly holding back his anger. "I know you think this is a big joke. But your childish game just backfired." Dodge pushed his thin lips together. "There are two soldiers outside this door right now," he pointed, "sworn to the duty to keep your ass out of the sunshine for as long as it bloody takes to end this bullshit. And not some fancy low-security
Holiday Inn
where they change the sheets everyday. When the time comes, you'll be prayin' for a real jail cell. So talk!"

Strange straightened his glasses again hoping they would help bring this new cockeyed universe into adjustment. He looked at the locked door, then back to Dodge. “I’m just here to look at your virus.” Dodge cocked his head. Strange guessed he didn’t understand. “Computer virus.”

Dodge's complexion was swiftly moving through a range of colors culminating in meltdown crimson. Roger added, “Is it possible you have me confused with somebody else?”

Dodge narrowed his eyelids and slid his elbows across the table, moving his big head towards Strange. It took everything Roger had to hold his ground and not flinch.

"You nerdy little fuck. Your punk game killed a man." Dodge waited for a sign from Strange, maybe a blurted confession. Strange said nothing. He blinked several times. "And he was a good man. A patriot. So you're goin’ down.”

Strange crossed his arms, a new thought coming to him. Was he going to be blamed for this viral breakthrough? Locked in the slammer for creating less than the perfect security system? Was this a set up right from the beginning? Now he was pissed off. "Dodge. My security exceeds yours by a country mile. That means I get to say shove . . ."

Dodge moved fast for a man built like the back end of a Caterpillar tractor. He had his hand on Strange's neck when the door flew open. A short woman in a blue smock looked in. There were two MPs in uniform, crowding around her for a look inside.

"Dodge? Remember what I said? Let's try to keep him alive long enough for de-programming." She looked at Strange like he was a dog who just tipped over and tore through her trashcans. "This your idea of recreation, young man?"

Dodge let go. Strange rubbed his throat. "I wasn't expecting a stress interview. Would have brought my neck brace,” he croaked, feeling like Dodge’s meaty hands were still squeezing his windpipe.

The woman glared at him while an alarm went off in Strange’s brain.
Screw four hundred an hour and a quick parole
, he thought. An army of lurching, paranoid, type-A fanatics populated the CIA. And what sounded like the end of the world was probably just their dinner bell.

"Bring him," she ordered, and held open the door. Stepping into the hallway only made the blaring klaxons seem to ring louder. Strange shrank from it, his head ready to split open, Dodge’s hand firmly on his shoulder guiding him forward.

They loped down the hall to a glassed in work area. Dodge pushed an ID card into a slot, and the automatic door slid sideways. Then they pushed him into an elevator, dropped three floors and bundled him off at march-speed down a long bare hallway. He felt like he was back at Overton, only the walls were cleaner.

The room they ended up in was cluttered and narrow, glassed in on all sides and filled with computers of varying sizes. Roger recognized an older Cray III on the left, several SGI animation computers with massive plasma monitors beyond it and what looked like some very expensive modeling technology he didn’t recognize. They passed several cubicles; all of them peopled by operators in the same blue lab coats worn by the woman who led them here. They stopped at one station. Four people were clustered around a monitor. They parted when they saw Dodge. Roger looked at the computer screen and swore under his breath.

"Here's your hacker genius," declared Dodge. Heads turned to Roger, curious and angry, but Strange couldn't take his eyes off the screen. It was him. At least it looked like him. The screen was bathed in a dark red glow. A figure was standing in the center of a room that had been ransacked, his hands on his hips, his body shaking with laughter. At his feet was a body, awash in blood, most of the face and head buried in gore. The corpse had a distended gut stretched over a white T-shirt that read
The Grateful Dead
. The point of view kept circling the scene lazily like the perspective from a shaky handheld camera on an MTV music video. Excellent detail. Very life-like. The sound of laughter and a Metallica tune were emanating from small speakers below the desk.

Dodge turned to Strange, his hand on the programmer’s arm. "You’re telling us that isn't you?"

Roger shrugged. "You guys have obviously gone to a lot of trouble to make me feel at home... " Dodge exploded. He shoved Strange hard against the next cubicle where the corner struck him just above his right ear.

Roger went down in a heap. Someone applauded.

CHAPTER 5

When Strange came to
, he looked up into the face of the woman who had dragged him down into the computer center. He winced. It wasn't a dream after all. He had a bandage taped to his temple and his head hurt like hell. He was lying on a foldout cot.

“How come I’m still alive?” he groaned.

The woman frowned, ignoring his question.

"My name is Jobime. Vienna Jobime. I run IT here." Her gray streaked hair looked like she had just rinsed it — the CIA wet-look — with bangs so short, they must have been styled by the US Marines. She was chewing gum at high speed. Clearly another type A.

"We decided to save you for questioning. You're in the infirmary," she said.

"Getting me fixed up for round two?"

She lifted her eyebrows. "That could be arranged."

He felt his bandages. A clock was ticking so loud somewhere it made his head hurt. Then he realized there was no clock in this antiseptic little cell. It was his personal clock ticking — the one that told him he had a week to find
Buzzworm
or he’d be getting his room and board in a state facility again.

"Just so I can get this straight, do I start billing you from the time I entered the building or as soon as I lost consciousness?"

She looked away from him, picked a cigarette from her breast pocket. "Why did you do it? For kicks? Just to prove you could?"

He found his glass case in his jacket pocket and removed his reading glasses. "You obviously think I have something to do with that video from Hell you were watching. Did it occur to any of you to just ask me if I hacked that?" He put on the glasses, which were bent slightly out of shape. One lens was scratched. "You're going to pay for these. My lawyer will give you the rest of the details of my suit against you and your staff as soon as I get out of this asylum."

She juggled the cigarette between her fingers. "What makes you think you'll ever get out?" Roger guessed she was playing games with his head, something he would describe as a wasted effort considering the shape his brain was presently in. He also guessed that they didn't allow smoking in the computer area and this was slowly driving his captor crazy. Jobime was either playing with the cigarette to calm herself or was so stressed out she was toying with the idea of breaking the rules.
If she lights up,
he thought,
I'm going to puke
.

"You're saying it wasn't you?" Vienna asked.

"On that screen? I saw enough hardware out there to run
Star Wars.
And you and I both know how easy it is to manipulate a video sequence with the right software. Someone could have pulled my face off the photo ID data you have in your system.” He wasn’t sure if she knew where he was from, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to volunteer that he was fresh out of prison.

She sat down near his cot and folded her hands in her lap, the unlit cigarette still in her fist. She stared at him. "So we don’t have him then?"

"Don't have who?"

"The author of
Buzzworm
."

Roger shook his head then lay back against the cinder block wall. "You thought I created a virus, then got myself hired to fix it? Meanwhile, I put my face on the Freddy Krueger character that stars in this computer mini-series, flaunt it all over your net space, and hope that no one will catch on when I walk in the front door?" He rubbed his head under the bandage. It was beginning to itch like mad. "You people really do need help."

Jobime was up now, pacing in front of him, her eyes on the ceiling, her hands linked behind her back. She seemed full of nervous energy. "That’s why we brought you in, Strange. You came highly recommended. Despite your present circumstances and a ridiculous hourly rate.”

"Which just went up," Roger added. Vienna didn't smile. She was off in thought. "What we saw in there? Is that what this virus looks like?"

She turned back to him. "One of its
many
forms."

“Have your IT people done a complete scan of your network?”

She gave him a look, like a child gives a clueless parent. “Numerous times. For several weeks. There is nothing there to find. Unless of course you know something we don’t.”

He thought about that for a moment. He had worked with a team of star programmers specifically chosen by the American government two years before. Young hackers with reputations for getting past everything. They came from everywhere. India. China. Canada. Their job was to create an impregnable wall around the organization’s systems and data. They were sworn to secrecy and for good reason. There was a lot of fear that if it became known who had worked on the project, they would become targets. The CIA had called him back for a reason. But what about the others?

“ And where did the name come from?
Buzzworm
?”

“You don’t know why?” she looked shocked. Like she was talking to the wrong person.

”I checked. No one in the virus community has ever heard of
Buzzworm
. You say it leaves no trace. So how do you know it even has a name?”

“Every intrusion has been by video, sometimes screen images. Like the video you saw. They’re branded with a logo like you would see when you watch a cable TV show. The word
Buzzworm
is always there. Bottom right corner. Red letters.”

“Do you know what it means? The name?”

Jo looked offended. She moved her round face up close to Roger’s. She was so close he could smell the tobacco on her breath, heavily masked by peppermint chewing gum. “Why are you asking me that?” she growled. “They told us you were the computer virus SME. The
subject matter expert
. Do you know how serious this is? If you don’t find this bug and exterminate it in the next few days, it could very conceivably change the balance of power on this planet. Billions of lives could be at stake. Billions.” Roger stared into her red-rimmed eyes for several seconds. He realized she wasn’t that different from Dodge — a dog defending its bone.

They eyed each other for several long seconds. Then Jo stepped back from the side of the cot.

“I’m told it’s another name for rattlesnake,” she finally offered.

“Yeah? Well there’s another meaning. An older one.
Buzzworm
is another name for Satan. The devil. It’s biblical.”

Jo frowned. “I’m not much of an expert on snakes or the Bible. But both seem appropriate.”

"How did you catch it? The video?"

"One of our systems people wrote a screen capture program.
Buzzworm
has been very busy all over the CIA, but especially focused on our group here at Division 213. We’ve been getting dozens of these very disturbing videos for months. We were able to grab most of yours this morning. Just got lucky. We were playing it back when you came in… when Dodge accidentally knocked you into that divider."

Roger caught Jo’s eye. He wanted her to understand that he thought Dodge’s actions bordered on criminal. That the guy was out of control. But he sensed she didn’t see it that way. Another sign that these people were different. He was beginning to miss the quiet of his jail cell.

“What do you do here at Division 213?”

Jo stopped pacing and crossed her arms. “Everything you see here is part of a special project. We’re very secretive for good reason. You signed a confidentiality agreement when you agreed to take this on. In case you’re curious, we don’t sue people who breach the contract. We just ship them off to a military prison.”

“I thought Guantanamo was being decommissioned?”

Vienna smiled at the joke, but there was no joy in here expression. “Mr. Strange, that would seem like a five-star hotel compared to what we would have planned for you.”

Roger rubbed his eyes. He needed to wake up and get started. He only had a few days. “I’ve done this before, Vienna. I get the drill. I’ll need a place to work and access codes to the network.”

“Everything is ready, Mr. Strange. You wait here, and I’ll go check to make sure Dodge has left. We don’t want anymore unfortunate accidents.”

That made Strange laugh. "Does Dodge always get this upset over viruses?"

She gave the cigarette a long loving look. "Only when they kill his best friend," she answered.