Palm Sunday (29 page)

“I’ve been at the agency since its inception. I believed in the mission from the start, and I still think it’s a good idea.” She paused. “But for some reason things have changed recently. I’m not sure when it started–maybe with all this concern over the missing palmtop.”

“Those are important,” said Slocum. “It’s how we communicate securely with the agency from out in the field.”

“It’s also the agency’s weakest link,” said Stanley. “It let us access the data stream that the agency uses.”

“Anyway,” continued Kayoko, “its loss caused quite a stir. The whole profiling effort nearly came to a standstill while they tried to find the palmtop, and then they went a step too far.”

“Kidnapping,” said Katherine.

“Yes. What you may not be aware of, though, is that they had no intention of releasing Stanley or Robert.”

“What about Bobby?” asked Katherine.

Kayoko shook her head. “He would have been sent to a foster home, told that his father had died. In reality both he and Mr. Slocum would have been committed to a mental hospital, staffed by doctors on the agency payroll.”

Everyone except Slocum seemed shocked. “The beloved agency values nothing so much as secrecy. You must know that, Kayoko.”

“Yes, which is why I had to tread lightly at the end. We were very lucky to get out, you know.”

They silently pondered what could have been a much less fortunate outcome. Kayoko cleared her voice before continuing, obviously having a hard time bringing up a difficult subject.

“Listen, guys. After what you’ve been through, I don’t blame you if you want to get as far away from the agency as possible. I want the same thing, frankly. But I think we have to consider a different course.”

“What did you have in mind?” asked Katherine, crumpling the remaining papers from her meal.

“We have to take the agency down.”

Slocum softly chuckled. “Kayoko,” he said. “Do you realize the resources the agency has at its disposal? They’re into everything. You and I were on television, wanted for a crime that we didn’t commit–that wasn’t committed. We have no place to turn for help.”

“I know,” said Kayoko. “That’s why we have to do it ourselves. Somehow we have to disrupt what the agency is doing, either by hacking into their computers and destroying them, or by revealing them to the rest of the country. I don’t know how, but somehow we have to bring them down.”

“We’ll never do it by going public,” said Stanley. “That would just alert them to our location, and anyway, we’d all be arrested, you and Robert for supposedly killing that man, and the rest of us for harboring fugitives. How long would it be before the agency had us back in their clutches?”

“Not long,” confirmed Slocum. “That’s how they got me. I was in jail and they sent in a couple of guys posing as federal agents. They took me straight out of the slammer, right to the agency, no problem.”

“Then it’s a technical matter,” said Kayoko. “I understand you two are some kind of experts?” She motioned towards Stanley and Katherine.

“Sort of,” said Stanley. “We’re probably the world’s leading authorities on penetrating the agency’s data stream. At least, we were good enough to make them think we’re a threat.”

“Excellent. How did you do it?”

Stanley explained. “Without the palm unit it would have been impossible. In fact, without it, none of this would ever have happened.” He looked at Katherine. “Speaking of that, where is our favorite handheld device?”

“In the flour jar, on the counter. I put it in a baggie and covered it before I came to get you.”

Stanley smiled at her. “Pretty creative.”

“Thanks.”

“So how did you two manage to tap into the agency’s data stream?” asked Kayoko.

“We used the palmtop in conjunction with some equipment from the company we used to work for,” said Stanley.

“Used to?”

“When the agency raided it, we took off. At that point we knew you had Robert, and figured you’d take us as well, so we beat it.”

Kayoko had a confused look on her face. “You lost me.”

“Our company–ScanDat–you raided it, remember?”

Kayoko shook her head. “No, we didn’t. That was the FBI, I think.”

Stanley and Katherine looked at each other. Now it was their turn to be confused.

“But why?” asked Katherine. “Only the agency knew of our intrusion into the data stream.”

“Apparently that’s not the case,” said Kayoko.

“Could it be we have another player?” asked Slocum.  

In an underground communications substation in downtown Philadelphia, a pair of men in coveralls worked to quickly disassemble a nondescript gray box that enveloped a fiber optic bundle. Careful not to disturb the access point into the jacket itself, they first removed the outer protective cover of the box, ignoring the prominent lettering that read ‘Property of Phone Company. Do Not Disturb’.

The optical regenerator, placed here two years earlier, was now visible. With a nod at his partner, one of the men removed a panel, revealing a series of short fiber bundles, and an enclosed module into which the bundles disappeared. He depressed a recessed switch on the side of the module, temporarily deactivating the laser inside. After he removed the entire unit, his partner handed him a new one, which was installed in its place. The fiber cabling was reconnected, the access panels replaced, and twenty minutes later the team was en route to their next location.

After three days of similar activity by this and numerous other teams, the agency completed its ambitious effort to upgrade its external hardware. Now it only remained to switch on the new equipment. 

Agent Sharon was once again at odds with Dave Roberts. Ever since the raid on ScanDat the system set up by Professor Walthrop had failed to detect any further intrusions into the Internet infrastructure. Sharon’s boss insisted that the plug be pulled on the project.

“With all due respect,” said Sharon, “we never found the mechanism by which they accessed the data stream, and whoever was behind this remains at large.”

“Then find them using more conventional means. Professor Walthrop’s services are no longer needed, nor are they authorized. Thank him for his efforts and send him on his way.”

“But why, sir?”

“It’s a resource issue. Walthrop’s system did what it was supposed to, right? So let’s mark it down as a success and move on.”

“But…”

“That’s all.”

As Sharon turned to leave, the lights went out. A moment later the backup generators kicked in, and lighting was restored.

“Power failure,” said Sharon. He looked at the ceiling, and remembered his computers. “Gotta go!”

He ran for the stairs, not trusting the elevators in this situation, and within minutes he was at the computer center. Justin was inside the glass enclosure, feverishly working at one of the consoles. Sharon punched in his security code and grabbed the door handle. It remained locked. He entered the code again, this time more deliberately, with the same result. He rapped on the window, and when Justin turned around, beckoned for him to open the door. He jumped up from his seat and turned the handle from the inside.

“Did you forget your code?”

“No, it wouldn’t work. What’s going on here?”

“I’m not sure. All the systems started going haywire.”

“All?”

“Well, most,” said Justin. “The main CPU is on line, but we aren’t having much luck reinitializing the internal network. The lights keep going on and off because they’re tied into the environmental control system, which is functional, but flaky.”

“Virus?”

“If it is it’s a bad one. Nothing I’ve ever heard of would do something like this, unless…”

“We were targeted.” Sharon finished his sentence.

“That’s what I think.”

“Go to alert three; complete sanitation of all internal processors. Dump the logs and then restart everything.”

“Yes, sir.”

Justin immediately started the emergency process, and in short order the majority of the data center’s computers were in a state of maximum purge. They would be restarted with nothing but the bare requirements needed to run, and even this minimal set of files would be scanned for unwelcome visitors.

“Preliminary scrub complete,” said Justin. “The main server is free of unknown elements.”

“Are the buffers clear?” asked Sharon.

Justin watched the log scroll by on his secondary station, now used only for the purpose of manually initializing the primary systems. “Yes.”

“Initiate secondary scrub,” said Sharon.

Justin rapidly entered commands. “All disk and memory caching is clean.”

“Very well. Continue with the process.” Sharon was like a captain on the bridge of a ship, and that’s how he wanted it. When he gave an order, he expected it to be followed. He was pleased with how Justin responded.

“Everything’s been cycled except the mainframe, sir.”

“Hold off on that,” said Sharon. “I want to see where we are. Give me a status report on the security subsystem.”

“Local network?”

“Yes.”

Justin punched in several commands, and waited for a response. “Green board, sir. No warnings.” But there was a hesitation in Justin’s voice.

“What?” asked Sharon.

“I’m not sure. I activated the sniffer in promiscuous mode, so I could see all the network traffic.”

“Are you seeing anything?”

“Yes. But there should only be local traffic, since we’re only online internally.”

“And?”

“I don’t know what this is,” said Justin. “There are packets, but it’s almost like a random IP generator is pumping service requests across the line.”

“That’s impossible. We aren’t connected to the outside world right now.”

“I know, sir, but see for yourself.”

Sharon peered closely at the display. “We’ve got a big problem.”

“Sir?”

“This isn’t the work of a simple hacker.” Sharon folded his arms and turned away, deep in thought. He looked back at Justin with concern. “I think you should leave the room.”

Justin was shocked. “Sir?”

“I’m about to do something that may cost me my career,” said Sharon. “And I don’t want to bring you down with me. You’ve done an exemplary job so far, but you really should leave the room now.”

Justin stood up. “With all due respect, sir, whatever it is you have in mind, I trust you, and I want to stay.”

Sharon hesitated. “Very well.” He looked at the other operators, who were out of earshot. He gestured towards Justin’s workstation. “Log on to the mainframe in restricted mode.”

Justin sat down and quickly opened a connection to the center’s powerful main processor. “I’ll need a password for executive access.”

“Alpha345Omega,” said Sharon.

Justin completed the logon procedure. “I’m in.”

“Move to the root directory, and type ‘cset_crn’.”

Justin did as he was told. A command file executed, rapidly changing directories and setting additional security parameters. On three more occasions Justin was prompted for passwords, which Sharon supplied. Finally all that remained was a flashing cursor.

Justin looked at Sharon. “Now what?”

Sharon looked around the room. No one was watching. “Type in ‘OMNIVORE’.”

Justin’s eyes grew wide. Now he understood. The FBI had developed an Internet monitoring program called Carnivore several years earlier, but it was the subject of much controversy due to its potential for abuse. Omnivore was its new and improved younger brother, and the public didn’t know about it yet. Without the go ahead from his superiors, Sharon should not have been activating the program. In fact, he knew that such permission would not be granted, but at the moment precious seconds counted.

“I told you this was big,” said Sharon. “You can still leave.”

Justin hesitated for only a moment, then turned back to his keyboard and entered the command. The cursor blinked several times before a string of encrypted characters flew across the screen. Then it went black.

“Now what?” asked Justin.

“Now we wait.” 

In Slocum’s living room the group was divided over what they should do next. Kayoko thought that Stanley and Katherine should try to go back to work. Katherine was dubious.

“I don’t know, Kayoko,” she said. “We didn’t exactly leave in good graces.”

“Remember though, Katherine,” said Stanley. “We didn’t actually quit. Nor were we ever officially terminated.”

“We left without saying a word; do you think Klugman is going to welcome us back with open arms?” asked Katherine.

“There’s a bigger issue,” added Slocum. “What about the agency? They won’t stop looking for you–for us–and they’ll almost certainly know your place of employment.”

Kayoko shook her head. “No. Even if they do know, it will take them a day or so to find out that you’re back, and that will be enough.”

“Enough for what?” asked Katherine.

Kayoko smiled. “To get the equipment we’ll need from ScanDat.”

“You want us to ask for our jobs back so we can rob our former employer?” asked Katherine.

“You know what the stakes are,” said Kayoko. “And you said that you could only get at the agency’s system if you had access to your company’s equipment.”

Stanley shook his head. “It’s not as simple as that. The equipment we need is pretty big. It’s not like bringing home a laptop.”

“Then it will take some more planning,” said Kayoko. “In the meantime you should go back to ScanDat and see what you’ll need, and how to get it. You should also acquire whatever additional information you can about the agency’s data stream while you’re there.”

Katherine thought about it. “If we go back, we’ll be expected to do our normal jobs, which is a big enough challenge in itself.” She turned to Stanley. “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “It’s not so much the added work that concerns me, but the fact that others will be nearby, and concealing our actions won’t be easy.”

“Difficult, but possible?” asked Kayoko.

Stanley and Katherine exchanged glances. They had managed to do it once before.

“It’s possible,” said Katherine.

“Let’s not forget the wildcard,” said Slocum. He noted the puzzled stares of the others. “The FBI. They must have detected your efforts the first time. You’ll have to be more careful.”