Spyder Web (26 page)

‘Good morning,’ Kelsey said with a lilt in her voice.

‘You ready to head downtown for our meeting?’Nolan asked.

‘I guess so. After yesterday, I’d put that part of my brain on hiatus. I think that masseur removed my bones. I feel like I’m made out of Jell-O.’

Nolan slowly turned his head, rotating it from side to side. There was an audible snap as he leaned forward. ‘I could use a little of that right now.’

‘Allow me.’

Kelsey stood behind Nolan’s chair and began kneading his neck and shoulders. Nolan let his head sag forward as she released the tightness from his sore muscles.

‘Hey, Mo,’ John called out as his wife entered the kitchen, ‘how about doing me?’

‘No way. The last time I did that, I ended up pregnant.’

‘Can’t blame me for trying,’ John replied while studying the National League box scores.

‘Did you tell Nolan about the dress you bought?’ Maureen asked, prompting Kelsey.

Kelsey hesitated for a minute. ‘Maureen took me to this fabulous dress shop down on Michigan Avenue and I found this stunning blue silk dress.’

‘It’s the same color as her eyes.’ Maureen was many things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. ‘Our next project is to find some accessories.’

‘Now all I need is a reason to wear it.’

‘Kelsey, when was the last time you had a date?’Nolan asked.

‘That would be Scott, so about seven months ago.’

Nolan closed his eyes, enjoying the healing magic Kelsey was performing on his neck. ‘We might have to do something about that.’

Kelsey glanced over at Maureen, who stood grinning by the refrigerator. Maureen gave her a thumbs-up before reaching in for the orange juice.

Nolan and Kelsey arrived at the Moy Electronics complex, both hoping to find an answer to the Gatekeeper problems they were experiencing by talking with the man who had designed it. Tall and rumpled, Bill Iverson met them in the main lobby and proceeded to give Kelsey and Nolan what he called ‘the nickel tour’ of the facility. Iverson showed them nothing classified, but the public spaces, research labs, and the automated production facility were enough to make Kilkenny consider updating his resume. After the abbreviated tour, they settled down in a conference room to discuss their situation.

‘So, this is the dump you ran Wednesday?’ Iverson asked rhetorically as he slipped Kilkenny’s disk into the computer. ‘You got me thinking about something that I need to check.’

Iverson loaded a split-screen editor onto the conference room’s computer. He then loaded the current generation of the Gatekeeper code on the left side and placed Kilkenny’s code on the right.

‘I’m going to run a simple text comparison of these two versions of the Gatekeeper program,’ Iverson explained. ‘This one on the left is the one our computer claims it installed on your device before it was shipped last January. I can understand someone goofing and forgetting to update the header, but let’s see what we’ve really got here.’

Iverson issued the commands and the computer began a line-by-line comparison of the two programs. Four hundred lines into the comparison, Iverson halted the procedure. ‘I think I’ve seen enough to know that the program you got wasn’t what our computer says it sent you. Excuse me while I make a phone call.’

Iverson dialed an inside line and asked the person on the other end to come over to the conference room.

Kilkenny looked over the comparison with Newton while Iverson finished his phone call. ‘Bill, does this version of the program have any bearing on my hacker problem?’

‘This program by itself? No, not at all.’ Iverson joined Kilkenny at the wall monitor. ‘In fact, if your Gatekeeper was running this program, I expect you would have called us months ago to ask for your money back.’

‘What do you mean “if”?’ Newton asked. ‘This is the program our Gatekeeper is running, isn’t it?’

Iverson shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. This version was flawed, prone to crashing the system two or three times a day at the data-transfer rates you’re using. I checked around, and the only current use we have for the beta version is as a decoy to protect a similar device.’

Before Iverson could elaborate, the conference room door opened and a heavyset older man in a gray suit entered, followed by a younger man in a dark blue suit.

‘Good morning, Professor Newton, Mr Kilkenny. My name is Cal Mosley and I’m with the CIA. My associate here is Dan Harmon of the FBI. The fact that Mr Iverson has asked us to join you means that your problem has just gotten a lot worse.’ Mosley then turned to Iverson. ‘Before we go any further, I think I should brief them on security with regard to the device.’

‘Now is as good a time as any,’ Iverson agreed.

‘It’s an understatement for me to say that everything you’re about to hear is classified.’Mosley then pulled out a copy of Kilkenny’s service record from his briefcase. ‘Actually, I was quite surprised to discover that you hold a security clearance almost as high as mine.’

‘I held a fairly high clearance as a SEAL,’ Kilkenny admitted modestly, ‘but I’m a civilian now.’

‘Nolan’-Mosley thumped the cover of the service record-‘your clearance, with all its privileges and responsibilities, has been reinstated to allow you to assist us in this investigation. Professor, your Department of Defence security clearance has been upgraded, as well. We’re going to tell you only what you need to know about the Spyder Project, and you are both bound by law not to reveal any of this information.’

Security clearances, particularly high ones, weren’t the easiest credentials to come by. Kilkenny and Newton nodded to each other. ‘We understand our obligations,’ Newton replied, speaking for them both. ‘What does this Spyder Project have to do with our hacker problem?’

Iverson slid two color product brochures across the table. Each bore a nearly identical photograph of a black cube; one was titled Gatekeeper, while the other read Spyder.

‘Think of the Gatekeeper and the Spyder as opposite sides of the same coin. Both devices operate from the same basic kit of parts, but they use those parts a little differently. The Gatekeeper was designed to maintain a clean flow of information through a computer network, for legitimate users, while keeping undesirables off the system. For that latter aim, we built in a variety of tools the Gatekeeper could use to track and identify unauthorized users.’

‘I selected the Gatekeeper for its I/O handling capabilities,’ Kelsey added. ‘It was the only thing that could keep up with my processor.’

‘And that part seems to be working fine,’Nolan agreed.

Iverson nodded and continued his explanation. ‘The Spyder takes this scenario one step further. The CIA is concerned with illegal technology transfers to nations considered unfriendly to the United States. Every once in awhile, a high-end computer mysteriously finds its way across the borders of one of these nations. A Spyder placed inside one of these computers would do everything the Gatekeeper is programmed to do, and more. Using the same algorithms, the Spyder could track its way out of the hostile computer network, looking for a way to call home and tell us what its host computer is up to. Once the Spyder made contact, it could be programmed to do all sorts of interesting things.’

Kilkenny took in everything Iverson had said while studying the pictures of the two sibling devices; the black boxes were outwardly identical. ‘And you believe that one of these Spyders is sitting on our lab bench, hacking through the university network?’

‘After looking at this file you brought in, I’m sure of it.’

‘Just great.’ Disbelief rushed through Kilkenny’s mind as he massaged his forehead. The whole situation had given him several headaches over the past few weeks, and today’s revelation wasn’t helping matters.

‘Gentlemen,’ Kelsey said with just a touch of annoyance, ‘how is it that a highly classified piece of hardware can just be shipped out of here?’

‘Well, Ms Newton, that has become a long and interesting story,’Mosley replied.’One that has occupied much of Dan’s and my attention over the past few months.’

‘We’re investigating the murder of a CIA technician that occurred last December. This technician’s involvement in several classified projects, including the Spyder’-Harmon pointed to the brochure-‘left us wondering just what he was up to. We’ve been able to link him to a pair of suspected industrial spies, and your discovery strengthens the likelihood that he helped these people acquire control of a Spyder.’

‘This just keeps gettin’ better and better,’ Nolan said in disgust.

‘You can say that again,’ Kelsey agreed.

‘We understand your frustration, but I think we’ve reached the point where we can go on the offensive.’ Mosley had read Kilkenny’s service record and guessed that he didn’t like being limited only to reacting against an opponent. ‘Bill is already hard at work on a couple of little toys for us.’

Iverson sat up in his seat, resting his forearms on the conference table. ‘The program dump you ran told us a lot, but it also told our opposition that we’re looking at the Spyder. Before you two head back to Ann Arbor, I’m going to provide you with another little black box that’ll let you bypass the Spyder’s internal security. This will give us a clear picture of what they’re doing without tipping our hand. Once you get it in place, we’ll dump the real operating program to see what’s what.’

‘What’s the second little toy?’ Newton asked.

‘Before we knew that we were dealing with a Spyder operation, Harmon’s associates in Detroit were trying to trace your hacker the old-fashioned way.’ Iverson took some measure of pride in the success his creation had enjoyed to date, even if the Spyder was being run by criminals. ‘Now that Cal and Dan are tying their investigation to your problem, you can use some of our techniques. I’ve read the Detroit office’s report. The Spyder’s using anonymous E-mail addresses as deadletter drops, which prevents us from making a direct connection to the people controlling the device. That’s standard operating procedure for the Spyder. The FBI has gotten permission to install a Gatekeeper at each of the known Internet servers being used as Spyder drops. With a few modifications, we’ll be able to track these guys right back to where they live.’

‘I’d appreciate it if the two of you would clear your calendars for next week, from Wednesday on.’ Mosley’s suggestion was polite but emphatic. ‘The DCI is holding court at Langley with all the key players on this investigation. Due to your unusual involvement, you’ve been invited.’

‘We’ll be there,’ Kelsey replied for them both.

Kilkenny felt good about the direction things were heading and that they would finally start to track down the thieves who’d invaded his computer.

‘That’s Kilkenny’s car, and Newton is with him,’ Kang announced as the deep blue Mustang drove away from the old Hinsdale farmhouse.

Behind the smoked glass of the van, Vince Falk studied the car as it turned the corner and headed toward the tollway. The car and its passengers matched the information that had come with the retainer for his services.

When asked, Falk described himself as an independent contractor, a freelance troubleshooter of sorts. The kind of trouble he shot was exclusively human.

‘Let’s go,’ Falk said to his driver.

The van and a battered pickup truck pulled out of the parking lot, where they had waited most of the morning, and began following Kilkenny’s car.

Falk leaned back in his seat with a map, looking over the route between Chicago and Ann Arbor. Two days earlier, a valued client had contacted him with an urgent assignment. The client, an Asian with strong ties to the Far East drug trade, tripled his usual fee. He didn’t like rush jobs, preferring to set his own schedules, but the man was willing to pay and the assignment didn’t look too difficult. The only unusual aspect of this job was the observer, a man he knew only as Mr Deng, who sat quietly in the front passenger seat, watching the Mustang. Falk hoped that he would stay quiet and out of the way for the remainder of their trip.

The target was a young couple who were in Chicago at the time of the call and would be returning to Ann Arbor today. The client refrained from giving any reason for wanting the couple eliminated, and Falk knew enough not to pry into the man’s business affairs.

The drive east had been pleasant, with fair weather and light traffic easing the four-hour journey. Between Jackson and Ann Arbor, Nolan’s Mustang approached a stretch of road under repair on 1-94. A temporary road sign warned that the construction zone would start in four miles and that all vehicles should merge into the left lane.

Kent Smith and Joe Hooks were making good time today. The pair of short-haul truckers were ferrying another load of premium blended fuel to the gas stations along the Kalamazoo-Ann Arbor corridor. At this rate, they’d be done early today and on their way home while it was still light. A few weeks from now, during the Memorial Day weekend, they both knew they’d be lucky to finish this run by midnight. Hooks was riding in the passenger’s seat as he gazed at the deep blue Mustang.

‘Sharp car, huh?’ Hooks asked as their truck pulled ahead of the pony car.

Smith took another quick glance at the car in the truck’s right-side mirror. ‘I had one from the same year, but mine never looked that good.’

Hooks leaned out his window to study the car, and the stunning blonde in the passenger seat, as they passed. When he noticed the Mustang’s occupants looking back at him, he pointed at the car and nodded with respect. The Mustang’s driver threw a short, friendly wave. ‘Cute girl in there, too.’

‘Hadn’t noticed,’ Smith lied.

‘Oh, to be young again.’ Hooks sighed as he settled back into his seat.

Falk switched on his radio headset and called out to the driver of the pickup. ‘Jack, you awake back there?’

‘I’m up,’ the crackling voice answered Falk’s summons.