Palm Sunday (28 page)

They would correct the problem, he knew, and probably fairly quickly. But just when they cleaned up the mess, his program would again overwrite the configuration file, putting them right back where they’d started. The cycle would be repeated for five hours, or until they discovered the real problem, whichever came first. Before any of that could happen, though, his program had to be delivered.

Norbert talked as he worked the keyboard. “I can get through their firewall pretty easily. By watching traffic that gets in I’ve been able to construct bogus data packets with seemingly valid headers. It’s actually good that they have the firewall; gives them a false sense of security.”

Within seconds he had penetrated the data center’s system and connected to a computer known to belong to one of their programmers. Identifying this node had been another great success. Programmers typically have extensive access privileges, and generally seem to be less careful about security–an odd combination, but fortuitous in this case. The file was copied. The process took less than fifteen seconds.

Norbert leaned back in his chair with a look of smug satisfaction.

“Is that it?” asked Mason.

“That’s it. I just have to sever my connection now, and…” Norbert stared at his monitor in surprise. “Crap.”

“What? What’s happening?”

Norbert banged away at the keyboard. “Not sure. I think we’re okay.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah, the operating system hiccupped at the end, but the file was already inside.”

Mason watched suspiciously as Norbert leaned back again. “Are you sure? Is it ready now?”

“Not quite. I need the OS to make a call for the dynamic link library file that

I wrote, which is part of what I just planted. Once that happens, my DLL will replace the original, and then replicate itself across their network.”

“How will you know when all that’s happened? Or if it’s happened?”

“It will happen, but it will take some time; a couple days, at least. Then when we send our activation signal, any affected machine will go into spasms.”

“What about the mainframe?” asked Mason. “Will that go down?”

“It doesn’t have to. We only need to prevent them from seeing what we’re doing on the Net, right?”

“I suppose that’s true. How long will it take?”

Norbert shrugged. “Once we send the signal, things should happen pretty fast. Could be a matter of minutes. The real question is how long will it take them to recover.  That’s what determines our window for bringing the new equipment on line.”

Mason was satisfied with what he had seen. “Okay. Keep in touch with Pampas. He’ll be coordinating the installs with the field techs. Once they’re finished doing their thing, we’ll put the blinders on the Bureau.”

“Just say when, Chief.”

Mason gave Norbert a look of warning. “And stop calling me ‘Chief’”. 

At the FBI regional data center, Justin was about to end his shift when his screen flickered, then turned an ugly light blue–the characteristic behavior of a PC crashing. He quickly went through his re-boot sequence, waiting impatiently for the series of password requests and messages to complete. Finally the main screen came back, and Justin launched a security program to ensure that no harmful viruses or other malicious programs had entered his system. He looked around at the other operators, but saw no sign of trouble.

“Hey guys. Anyone notice a blip just now?”

Several heads shook back and forth in the negative. Justin nodded his acknowledgement and turned back to his monitor, as his security program concluded its run. Nothing unusual was found.

Satisfied that he had been the victim of nothing more serious than an operating system general fault, he made a note of the event in the log, shut down his computer, and left the center. 

Slocum’s apartment seemed to be deserted. The decision to return to this place had been carefully considered, and the building was approached only after observation from a safe distance for nearly an hour. Katherine pulled the car around back, out of sight of the street, and the group slowly approached the side door to the apartment.

“Easy now,” said Slocum, as he took the lead, checking for any signs of disturbance. After closely examining the door and nearby windows, he announced that it was clear.

Katherine took stock of the surroundings as they entered the apartment. “Looks just like when I left.”

Slocum looked at her. “When you left?”

“Yes. After the agency thugs kidnapped Stanley and Bobby, I came back here.”

“Are you sure you weren’t followed?”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “They didn’t even know I was with Stanley.”

Slocum looked at Kayoko. “Is that true?”

Kayoko flopped down in a chair, exhausted. “I think so. I mean, I wasn’t in on every meeting, but at the end they seemed to take me into their confidence. They made a big deal about Stanley. Bobby, too. I don’t recall anything about Katherine.”

Slocum pressed her. “They said nothing about this place?”

“No.”

He nodded. “Then we’re probably okay.” Slocum looked around at the group of people that filled his apartment. “What now?”

When no one responded, Bobby stepped forward. “Let’s eat!”

The simple honesty of the exclamation caused everyone to laugh. It provided a moment of relief after the stressful events of the past several days.

“Okay, son,” said Stanley. “What do you feel like?”

“Burgers.”

Stanley looked around at the others. “What do you say, folks? Anyone else up for burgers?”

Of course it was unanimous, and Slocum volunteered to get the food.

“I should go,” said Katherine. “If they’re out looking for us, they’ll have less chance of spotting me. They probably don’t even know what I look like, since the only time they might have seen me was during the accident today.”

Slocum was impressed. “You would have made a good implementer.”

“Thank you,” said Katherine. “But I’m more comfortable on the technical end of things.”

“Some of the stuff our tech people do would blow your mind,” said Kayoko.

“We have to talk about all this,” said Stanley. “After dinner we should compare notes.”

Katherine stood up to leave. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

With a wink at Bobby, she disappeared through the door. 

“Damn, George, what happened to you?”

Mason wasn’t easy to impress, but Pampas had done it with his appearance. Although the white bandage around his head seemed a bit melodramatic, there was no mistaking the fact that he had been in a fight–and it looked like the other guy had won.

“I got hit by a brick.”

“Looks more like a steamroller. I guess Slocum must have put up a fight.” It was one of those rare moments when Pampas was unable to look Mason in the eye. Mason caught it right away, and didn’t like the vibes he was getting. “What gives, George?”

“He got away. They all got away.”

At first Mason didn’t react, and when he did, it wasn’t what Pampas expected.

“She’s a fox.”

Pampas looked at Mason in confusion. “Who?”

“Kayoko. She duped us all. But we have work to do, don’t we?”

Pampas didn’t know whether to be relieved that Mason wasn’t having him shot, or concerned at his apparent indifference towards a dangerous situation.

“Sir, as head of security, I have to point out that now we’re missing not only a palmtop and an implementer, but one of our scientists as well. Not to mention the fact that a small group of outsiders has seen the inside of the agency.”

When Mason responded his voice was so low that Pampas could hardly hear him. “In the end, Pascua is the victor.” His voice trailed off as his eyes lowered towards the floor.

Pampas cleared his throat. His head was throbbing. “Do you want me to keep looking for Slocum and the others?”

“Yes, of course. Go find them, before they bring the whole agency down.”

Pampas gave Mason a final look of appraisal before shuffling slowly out the door. When he was gone, Mason went to his desk and turned on his computer, entered a series of passwords, and opened his favorite file. It was the computer code for the program to bring down the FBI data center that Norbert had sent him earlier. As line after line scrolled past, he hummed a tune known only to him, occasionally muttering just under his breath the phrase ‘pascua florida’. 

When Katherine returned with dinner, she found the others gathered around the television.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Kayoko motioned for her to come closer. “Trouble.”

Katherine walked up to the television in time to see a picture of Slocum’s face fill the screen, followed by that of Kayoko. The newscaster explained that the police were seeking the two in connection with the murder of a local man. Apparently in a case of road rage, the two criminals had dragged the man from his car and beaten him to death in front of several witnesses. Considered dangerous, and possibly armed, the police were asking that anyone seeing the pair call a number listed on the screen. The newscast then switched to the weather, and Stanley turned the set off.

“Wow,” said Katherine.

“Yeah,” said Kayoko. “I guess you were right about them not getting a good look at you, Katherine. Otherwise your face would have been on the tube, too.”

Bobby looked at his father. “What’s it mean, Dad?”

Stanley glanced briefly at Katherine before answering. “Well, son, the people who took us to that building aren’t very nice.”

“No kidding.”

“You know that we have something they want.”

“The palmtop,” said Bobby.

“Right. But also, now we know where they’re located, and they don’t want others to find out.” Bobby nodded as Stanley continued. “You saw what happened today. Was it anything like what the news reported?”

“No. It didn’t happen that way at all.”

“Well, the people who we escaped from want the police to think that’s how it happened. That way both the police and everyone who saw the news will be looking for Mr. Slocum and Kayoko. That’s how they think they can find us.”

“Oh,” said Bobby. He took it all in stride, and asked if he could watch a rerun of a sitcom, which Stanley agreed to. The food was then quickly distributed, and as Bobby watched television, the adults discussed their situation.

“You know,” said Katherine, between bites. “You probably should fill us in on just what this agency is about.” The comment was directed towards Kayoko.

Kayoko was relishing her food. She hadn’t eaten since morning. “Yeah, well, it’s like this. Robert, feel free to chime in.” Slocum bobbed his head once. “About fifteen years ago the agency was created as a government commission, at the federal level, as a watchdog, of sorts.”

“What were you watching?” asked Katherine.

“Our way of life.” Katherine shook her head. She didn’t get it. “Think of it,” continued Kayoko. “Many of the major empires in history, like the Romans or even the Soviets, collapsed largely from within. Had they known that their demise was imminent, perhaps they could have taken measures to prevent their own downfall. Like it or not, America is also an empire–the last surviving superpower in the world. Our mission was to determine whether we, as a society, were facing any dangerous trends that might lead to our loss of status as the premier world power.”

Katherine was intrigued. “What then? Suppose you identified such a trend, what could be done about it?”

“That part wasn’t our mission. We were tasked to create a societal profile, a snapshot of what Americans were thinking–as a society–at any given moment. We were to use this profile as a tool to identify potentially dangerous trends, anything that might lead to destabilization. The intent was to make sure we knew when our own ‘empire’ might be headed down the tubes.”

Kayoko looked at Slocum. “Want to add anything?”

He shook his head in the negative. “I didn’t even know that much. They paid me to meet with clients and conduct transactions. Sometimes they were less than aboveboard. The transactions, that is.” He thought about it for a moment. “Well, maybe the clients as well.”

“But you didn’t know what the agency was about?” Kayoko was surprised.

“Nope. Not until two minutes ago.”

Stanley leaned forward. “How did you do it?”

Kayoko went on. “Prior to the Internet explosion, it was an exercise in guesswork. But once we could tap into the Net and monitor the vast amounts of data passing back and forth, it became a matter of statistical analysis.”

“You said that at first you were set up as a federal agency. Did that change?” asked Stanley.

“Yes,” said Kayoko. “We were made an independent commission. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but they lost track of us. Maybe someone wanted the work done, but didn’t want to be associated with us if the public found out what we were doing. I don’t know. At any rate, with our initial level of funding, and with other sources coming from I don’t know where, we became completely independent, and very hush-hush.”

“But how do you do it?” asked Stanley. “You must require vast amounts of data to create your ‘societal profile’.”

“To tell the truth, all I know is that we have some kind of hardware devices all over the Internet infrastructure. These somehow transmit data back to our computers, which use algorithms to extract identifiable patterns. My specialty is psychology, specifically applied social psychology. I see the data after the computer center has sucked it in, done some initial screening, and fed it into a matrix.”

Stanley nodded. “So you must have people in the field, technical people, who install or maintain the hardware that’s out there.”

“Naturally. I believe we even own several telecommunications companies.”

“So you read emails, stuff like that?” asked Katherine.

“No. We could, I suppose. But our interest is in what society is thinking or talking about, not what one individual is writing to another.”

“Why did you help us?” asked Stanley.

Kayoko sat back in her easy chair. There it was, the question she knew she would have to answer, and the answer that would lead to what she would have to ask them to do.