Palm Sunday (4 page)

“They wouldn’t know.” Norbert smiled.

“We’ll consider it as an option, but for now let’s make due with what we have.”

“Okay, but we’re really over-extending our capacity. If we crash, recovery won’t be easy.”

“Then don’t crash.” Even Mason had his limits, and the look he gave Norbert made it clear he was there. “Field Services, what do you have to report?”

“We’re short an implementer,” said George Pampas. His dual role included security and field operations.

“Yes,” acknowledged Mason. “Mr. Slocum is unfortunately engaged in a high priority project at the moment. Is it setting you back?”

“Some of our people are doubling up. The extra miles could leave a paper trail, but we’re careful. One person, for a short time, can be covered.” He emphasized the short.

“I don’t expect Mr. Slocum will be otherwise engaged for long. Is that your only concern?”

“Right now my only concern is getting the next profile implemented. We’re on schedule with the preliminaries. There are some minor equipment issues in the greater Philadelphia area, but we have people on it.”

Mason liked Pampas. He didn’t dwell on the problems, but cut through the crap to solve them.

“Okay, George. As far as the next profile goes, if the numbers hold up we’re going to do it next week, as scheduled. If the results are as expected, it will be on to bigger things.” He looked at the heads bobbing enthusiastically, and was pleased. The inner circle was completely on board. “Any questions?” There were none. “Until next Tuesday, then.” 

Although he was a programmer, not a technician, Stanley had always retained a curiosity for how things worked. That’s why he now sat before a disassembled assortment of electronics, each component of the palmtop carefully extracted and placed on a piece of paper. He had even drawn a picture of how it looked before he took it apart, in case he forgot how to put it back together. He had removed everything he could, even unsoldering some connections, and had no more idea of what he was dealing with than before. He scratched his head and reached for his cup of tea.

The back door slammed and Bobby walked into the kitchen.

“Hi, Dad. Whatcha doin’?” He strolled over to the table.

“I took it apart.” Stanley indicated the palmtop with a nod of his head, cup held to his lips.

“Why?”

“I wanted to see how it works,” said Stanley. He slowly put the hot cup on the table.

“So…how does it work?” Bobby looked skeptically at the tabletop.

“It…well, I’m not exactly sure. I think that,” he pointed to a flat, square module, “has something to do with communications; maybe a transceiver of some kind. Otherwise,” he shrugged his shoulders.

“Can you put it back together?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Will it still work?”

“You doubt my ability?”

“Uh uh. Can I watch?”

“Of course.”

It took the better part of an hour, but he finally got all the pieces put back together. Bobby sat silently the entire time, fascinated by the internal workings of the palmtop. His father held it up triumphantly.

“Now for the test,” said Stanley. He pressed the power button and the unit came to life. It seemed to be functioning normally.

“It works.” Bobby stared at the device.

“I still need to find out who this thing belongs to. I’m not having much luck in that department.” Stanley picked up the palmtop and brought it over to his computer, once again attaching the cable. “I think I need to focus on decoding the menu system itself.”

He spoke out loud, but no one was listening. Bobby had left the room. 

It was the third electronics store he had visited that day, and the last one within reasonable distance of the spot where the palmtop had been thrown out by Chico and Bobo. Slocum was going on the assumption that whoever had found it and had subsequently downloaded the file sent by the agency would have purchased the interface cable close to where the device was discarded. It was a long shot, and there were variables that could nullify the premise, but it was all he had at the moment. He walked into the electronics store.

“Can I help you, sir?” The attention was immediate, as Slocum was the only customer.

He smiled disarmingly. “Yes, I hope so. A friend of mine was going to have a cable made for me, for a palmtop. It was kind of unusual–it had to be specially prepared.”

“Yes, I remember,” said the clerk. “He came in last Saturday with his son. Is there a problem with it?”

“No, not at all. Actually, I was hoping you might be able to whip me up a second one. You can’t exactly buy them off the shelf.”

“No problem, just bring in the unit and we’ll make another one.”

“That’s great. I was just on my way over to his house, and…say, do you know this area?”

“Sure, I live about a mile away.”

“He told me how to get to his place,” said Slocum, “but I got all mixed up, stopping here and all. Could you look up his address and point me in the right direction?” It seemed a natural request.

“No problem, Mr. Whipple’s a regular customer. Let’s see.” He punched a few keys on his register, and soon had the address. “One-fourteen Sycamore. If you take a right out of the parking lot, go out on the main drag, two streets up take another right. That’s Warren Road. The tree streets run perpendicular to Warren. I think Sycamore is about the fourth one up.”

“Thanks very much.” Slocum offered a quick wave as he turned and left the store.

The directions were good, and Slocum easily found the Whipple residence. He parked his car across the street from their house, observing from a short distance away.

He sat there for an hour, watching the pattern of lights and the comings and goings inside. The occupants of the two-story dwelling seemed to settle into an upstairs-downstairs routine. He considered whether he should barge in and bully them into returning the palmtop, or wait for an opportune moment to break into the house and steal it. The trouble with both approaches was that he didn’t know for sure that they even had it, and he didn’t want to attract undo attention. Had he simply knocked on the door and asked for it, Stanley Whipple would have been delighted to give it to him, but of course Slocum had no way of knowing this. After watching and thinking about it for another twenty minutes, he started his car and pulled away from the curb. He would come back in the morning. 

The lights in the Whipple household burned long after Slocum had left. Stanley, on the verge of giving up, had stumbled upon a clue. It happened when he started playing with the date and time settings on the palmtop. He had simply been trying the various features, having tired of all his previous failures. As he toggled through the settings, the regular menu suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a peculiar logo that nearly filled the screen. A pair of wheat plants formed an arch, encompassing the initials NC.

“Bobby, check this out.” Stanley excitedly looked up, and only then realized that he was alone. He looked at his watch. Ten forty-five. He glanced at the palm unit, then pushed his chair back and walked upstairs. The light was on in Bobby’s room, so he gently knocked and opened the door.

Bobby was stretched out on his bed–sound asleep and fully clothed. Stanley walked over and covered him with a blanket, then stood watching him for several minutes. He recalled how he and his wife had stood together like this many times when she was alive. He smiled at the fond memory.

He left Bobby’s room and went into the bathroom to splash some water on his face, and it was then that he caught himself staring into his own reflection. The face that looked back wasn’t old looking, but it was old, he knew. Not in years, perhaps, but experience can find ways to age a man that don’t necessarily find their way into wrinkles and creases. Stanley’s clean-shaven skin and bony features defied easy assignment of age, but in the eyes it was there, and Stanley couldn’t hold his own gaze. He was grateful for the towel that broke the moment, and softly closed the door and went downstairs to resume work on the palmtop.

He sat before the strange display. NC. What did it mean? Beneath the logo was a line with a flashing cursor, obviously waiting for some input. A user name perhaps? He was reluctant to even touch it, fearing that even this bit of progress would slip away. He decided to take a guess, to put something in and see what happened, and racked his brain for the right word. What did he know that might make sense to the device?

The only thing he could think of was NC, the logo that now stared at him. He had picked up the stylus to enter it, but then changed his mind. He did have one other word. Pascua, from the text he had downloaded earlier. He had florida, too, but pascua seemed more likely. He input the six letters, and tapped Enter. The logo disappeared and the screen went blank.

At first he thought he had lost everything, but after ten seconds the screen refreshed and a menu system appeared, numbered one through five. He checked the interface cable attached to his computer and studied the menu.

Option one read ‘New Contacts’. He scanned the rest, but none made any sense except the last one, number five, ‘Download’. He selected this option and watched as a light blinked on the palmtop, while his hard drive once again went crazy.

This time the process was different from his earlier experiences. It more closely resembled the file transfers he was accustomed to, and there was even a status bar indicating what percentage remained. A few minutes later the process completed, and he was returned to the main menu. With nothing to lose, he now selected option one. The screen again went blank, flickered, then died. He tapped it lightly, causing it to flicker once more, and then he banged it harder and it went completely dead. He was unable to revive it. He shook his head in resignation.

“Okay my friend. Perhaps I’ve worn you out.”

Closing the lid, he unplugged the cable and placed it on the shelf under his computer desk. His back ached from sitting bent over for so long, and after turning off his computer he stood up and stretched, then went to bed. Tomorrow after work he would take a look at the download. 

Norbert looked worriedly at his screen, then up at Mason, who had recently acquired the habit of hanging around the computer center.

“Mr. Mason, something’s not right here.”

“What is it?”

“Slocum’s palmtop authenticated to our data stream,” said Norbert.

“I thought that was impossible with the security you have in place.”

“It is. Unless…” Norbert stared through the display. “I can only think of two scenarios in which security could be broken, and so quickly. Three.”

“I’m listening.”

“Number one, some other agency has the device and has figured out what we’re doing.”

“Continue.”

“Number two, the unit was somehow broken. It’s conceivable that if the logic module was damaged, it might be possible to bypass certain security protocols.”

Norbert seemed a little too sure about this.

“Certain security protocols? Are you kidding? How could that happen?” asked Mason.

Norbert nervously cleared his throat. “A small number of our palm units were known to have a susceptibility under extreme conditions.”

“What are you talking about? When did this happen?”

“Before you took over. It was only manifested during test regimens, and even then it was only under a very limited set of circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” demanded Mason.

Norbert shrugged. “Exposure to extreme temperatures, physical damage to the internal components, or some combination of these or other conditions. It’s a highly improbable scenario, but possible.”

“Why weren’t the units replaced?”

“The risk involved in acquiring new units was deemed too great. These things are custom built, and anyway, the chances of something like this happening are remote.”

“What was your third scenario?” asked Mason.

“We’ve got a traitor on our hands.”

“Any other theories?” As Norbert shook his head in the negative, Mason nodded towards the computer screen. “Then tell me what’s going on here.”

 “Simple,” said Norbert. “Someone used Slocum’s palmtop to tap into the Internet data stream and download one of our daily manifests.”

“Would that include any of my private transmissions?”

“Probably not, unless they were deliverable to external entities.”

For a brief moment Mason’s face lost its color. He quickly recovered. “If you know that the palm unit is doing all this stuff, why can’t you tell where the damn thing is?”

Norbert shook his head. “That part of the security is working. The palmtop is shielding its location. It’s built in, you know.”

Mason was becoming irritated. “Okay, okay. Just keep trying to get a fix on it.”

“What about the next profile?”

“Yeah, right. That has priority. Work on this when you can, but maintain the timetable for the profile. I’m going to investigate your other scenario.”

Mason left the computer lab and returned to his office. On the way he stopped at his secretary’s desk. “Get George Pampas. Tell him to come up here.”

“Right away, sir.” Ten minutes later Pampas walked into Mason’s office. Mason gestured for him to have a seat.

“George, I think we may have a problem.”

“Which is?” Pampas crossed his legs as he sat back on Mason’s leather couch.

“What do you know about Robert Slocum?”

Pampas shrugged. “Good man. Hard ass. Gets the job done. You know the type. Why?”

“He claims his palmtop was stolen, that much you know.”

“He’ll find it.”

“It’s being used.”

Pampas’s brow furrowed. “You told me that earlier–that someone had connected it to a PC.”

“Right, but it’s gone beyond that now. Norbert says that one of our transmits was accessed earlier today using that particular device.”

Now Pampas was concerned. “That’s no small feat. Security is–well, you know Norbert.”

“Indeed. He has a few ideas as to how this might have happened, but none of them gives me any comfort.”

“You think Slocum might be involved?”