Spyder Web (31 page)

‘Earlier this year, the Michigan Applied Research Consortium received a Moy Gatekeeper for use with the optical processor that we are developing. Shortly after we connected the processor to our computer network, we discovered some unusual signals on our communication lines. Since we’re using a lot of new equipment, we didn’t know quite what to make of the signals until we isolated one and discovered that a hacker was working through our network. When we discovered that the hacker was trying to steal information from companies tied into our network, we called in the FBI. With the help of Special Agents Ullrich and Harbke, we tracked the hacker back to our own facility. Our search ended when we reached this device.’ Kilkenny held his hand up against the image on the screen. ‘Last Friday, engineers from Moy Electronics verified that our Gatekeeper is, in reality, a Spyder.’

Barnett returned to the podium and thanked Kilkenny. He waited until Kilkenny seated himself beside Mosley before continuing. ‘Mr Kilkenny’s discovery has added yet another element to the mystery surrounding Michael Cole’s death. Cole was our resident expert on this device. If anyone could have made use of a Spyder for illegal purposes, it would have been Cole. Now, unlike our human spies, who can operate on their own, a Spyder is completely lost without a controller. If it receives no new instructions from a controller, it will just sit there and operate like a Gatekeeper. As Mr Kilkenny has pointed out, the Spyder inside his computer was installed after Cole’s death and it is very active. Someone else is directing this Spyder’s actions. We are now certain that the MARC Spyder is being run by Parnell and Roe.’

Barnett paused for a moment while the slides were being changed. Kilkenny refilled his cup of coffee from one of the pots on the conference table. A large cloud of steam rolled from his cup as he poured; the brew was hot and black. On the screen was a grainy photograph that had been taken with a telephoto lens through an office window. The picture showed two men and a woman seated around a conference table; one of the men was seated with his back to the camera.

‘Two of the people seated here are Parnell and Roe. A new concern has arisen regarding this third person, a Chinese intelligence officer named Kang Fa.’

Kilkenny’s coffee was still hot and the steam floated around his eyes as he sipped from the cup. The flash of the changing slide caught his attention, and he looked over the rim of his cup to the screen. The new image, clouded by a thin veil of steam from the coffee, was somehow familiar.

‘This photograph of Kang was taken by British Intelligence at Heathrow Airport. Background assessments on Kang indicate that he is highly intelligent, skillful, and ruthless. The British have attributed the deaths of several operatives, both in China and Hong Kong, directly to Kang Fa.’

Kilkenny sipped at his coffee again, still puzzling over why this man looked familiar. Once again, the steam from the coffee formed a light haze against his eyes. Kilkenny wiped the mist from his eyes and suddenly remembered. What he had thought was a shadowy illusion in the smoke and haze of the highway attack had been real. Kilkenny slammed his fist down on the table and brought the conference to a stunned halt.

Barnett glared over at the source of the disturbance. ‘Mr Kilkenny, do you have something to offer?’

‘Nolan,’Mosley whispered out in a low growl, ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing? This is the top brass here.’

Mosley’s reprimand and firm hand on his shoulder brought Kilkenny out of his anger and back to what was going on in the conference room.

‘I’m okay, Cal.’ Kilkenny stood at ease and faced Barnett. ‘Sir, I’d like to apologize to everyone for my outburst. It was unacceptable behavior on my part. I would like to add, however, that I have recently seen this man. He was there last Sunday, when I was attacked.’

‘You didn’t say anything about this before,’ Mosley said, questioning the revelation.

‘That’s because I didn’t believe what I’d seen was real. Right after I killed the assassin, I thought I saw a man standing in the road, glaring at me. The look of hate I saw in his eyes was something I’ve seen only once before. I didn’t mention it because I honestly thought I was hallucinating. My face was smeared with blood and sweat at the time, and, after he disappeared, I had more important things to worry about.’

‘You sure about this?’ Mosley asked.

‘Absolutely. That man was there.’

‘Cal, I’m inclined to believe him,’ Barnett announced from the podium. ‘For Kang Fa to be present during a killing is completely consistent with his psych profile. It is also very likely that Kang is responsible for the bodies you found in the burned-out van. This further confirms our theory that Kang, Parnell, and Roe are in control of the stolen Spyder. Parnell and Roe originally planned to use the Spyder for industrial espionage, but now we’ve finally discovered what Kang Fa has in mind.’

Barnett then described Kang Fa’s visit to Phillip Moy and the price that he had demanded for the release of Moy’s uncle. As with most computer crimes, this one still lacked the evidence needed to arrest anyone. Even Cole’s murder and the attack on Kilkenny lacked enough physical evidence to prove a conspiracy. The only crime they could prove was attempted extortion by Kang Fa, and his arrest now would endanger the life of Moy’s uncle.

‘Jackson, I appreciate how difficult an investigation like this is to pursue,’ the President’s national security adviser began,’but, other than a lot of theory and circumstantial evidence, we’ve got nothing we can use legally to shut these people down. This situation has to be terminated, and I am willing to run any suggestions you may have to reach that goal past the President for his approval.’

‘Thank you, Kyle, but I think I have a solution that is both legal and expedient.’

May 7

Kilkenny returned from Washington late on Thursday evening, after a day and a half of meetings with representatives from the agencies involved in Barnett’s sting operation. Iverson and Kilkenny were the prized speakers at these briefings, providing both theory and real-world experience in dealing with the Spyder.

Kilkenny’s wounds were healing quickly, and five days after the accident, the soreness had eased greatly. He was still worried about Kelsey, despite the favorable reports his father had passed on about her condition. He’d spoken with her only once while he was in Washington. The sound of her voice eased his concerns a little, but it did nothing for the anger he felt toward those responsible for her injuries. The people who did this to you, Kelsey, Nolan thought, are no better than those monsters I killed in Haiti.

Since his Mustang was impounded and undrivable, Kilkenny borrowed his father’s Explorer and returned to MARC. In the computer lab, he found Grin hard at work on deciphering the Spyder program.

‘Ahem.’ Kilkenny coughed over Grin’s shoulder. ‘Whatcha working on there, big guy?’

‘Geez, Nolan!’Grin yelped as he bolted up in his chair. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘Sorry, just an old habit, I guess.’

Grin’s anxious expression quickly melted back into an elfish smirk. ‘So how was your trip to Washington? Meet any powerful movers and shakers?’

‘Nothing quite so glorious.’ Kilkenny took a seat next to his friend. ‘The President was out of town and things were quiet on the Hill.’

‘Too bad. I hear those state dinners are real nice. What did you find out about our problem?’

‘There are some very dangerous people on the other end of this Spyder, people who don’t mind killing anyone who gets in their way.’

‘So when are they going to arrest the bad guys?’

‘As soon as they get enough evidence to hang ‘em. To paraphrase the head of the CIA, we have to catch these guys in the act to build any kind of case against them. That, my friend, is where you and I fit in.’

It wasn’t quite the answer Grin was hoping for, but it would do for the moment. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘Sit, wait, and watch the Spyder do its thing. Speaking of which, has there been any action since I left?’

Grin shook his head. ‘It’s taken a couple of peeks outside, but it’s not playing around like it used to. Maybe it’s pouting.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Kilkenny laughed.

An audible fast-paced beeping began to emanate from the laptop computer connected to the Spyder. Grin clicked a mouse button and brought the monitor out of its screen-saver mode to display the Spyder’s status.

‘What’s with the alarm?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘You like it?’ Grin asked proudly as he scanned the laptop computer’s report. ‘It’s my Spyder early warning system. I wrote a little piece of code that ties into the bypass you brought back from Chicago. Every time the Spyder goes to work, the program signals me that something’s happening. Looks like it works.’

On the laptop’s screen, a graphic depiction of the Spyder’s penetration began to unfold. The first box on the screen was labeled Spyder. A line ran from it that connected to a box labeled MARC-Cray. From there, the Spyder passed through several other systems as the route grew across the screen. Eventually, the Spyder passed through sixteen networks, creating an electronic maze that would be difficult, if not impossible, to trace without Iverson’s bypass.

Grin moved the cursor onto the last box in the series and double-clicked the mouse on it. The box expanded, filling the screen with what the Spyder was seeing and doing.

‘The bypass program not only does everything we were doing before,’ Grin said excitedly, ‘but also lets us see what’s going on inside the Spyder’s twisted little brain. Check this out.’

Grin clicked on one of the icons that ran across the top of the screen. The screen split into two windows: one that showed a server’s user screen and one that illustrated a graphic depiction of the Spyder’s internal program calls.

‘That looks like a debugging tool,’ Kilkenny surmised.

‘Right. It’s what Iverson used to check the Spyder program’s stability. Good piece of coding, too-I was impressed. This tool’s helping me quite a bit in deciphering what’s going on in there. Very radical stuff.’

‘I’m pleased that you’re enjoying yourself.’

The lab’s phone rang twice, indicating an outside call coming directly to the lab. ‘MARC computer lab.’

‘Nolan, Kathy Ullrich from the FBI. Is the Spyder on-line?’

‘Yes, it is. Oh, wait a minute, Kathy. Grin’s shaking his head. I guess it’s finished and has closed the connection. Let me put you on the speaker.’

‘Grin,’ Ullrich’s voice called out over the phone, ‘did you get a list of penetrated systems?’

‘Yes, and I’m printing it out right now. What do you want to know?’

‘We know that the Spyder is using a handful of E-mail addresses as dead-letter drops. As soon as it accessed one of the drops, we began backtracking the connection. Here’s what we got.’

In reverse order, Ullrich read back the names of each network that the Spyder had passed through. Her list stopped three systems short of MARC.

‘It looks like we got a good match,’ Kilkenny announced.

‘This is good, gentlemen. We just need to keep the connection open a little longer to get a positive trace. Grin, have you and Iverson been able to figure out any pattern to its transmissions?’

‘According to Iverson, it’s completely random,’ Grin replied. ‘There’s no rhyme or reason governing when the Spyder opens a line or which route it takes to get wherever it’s going. The only thing it seems to like is having other traffic on the system. I guess it doesn’t want to be the only user on the network. Regardless, when it decides to jump, and how many computer systems it decides to pass through, is totally arbitrary.’

‘I guess that means we just wait until it moves again.’ Kilkenny sounded a little discouraged. ‘Are you having any luck with the other side of the drops?’

‘No, they haven’t stayed on long enough for us to trace it all the way back. We lost the last one at a Comsat over the Atlantic, so our hackers could still be anywhere. British Intelligence just got their Gatekeepers this morning, so they won’t be up and running until later today. Once they’re in place, we should have enough overlap to cover the whole trail from London to Ann Arbor. I have to go, so keep in touch if anything develops.’

‘You got it,’ Kilkenny replied.

Kang had returned to London early on Monday morning, following the disastrous attack on Newton and Kilkenny. The papers said three people were killed in the tragic accident with a fuel truck; his intended victims were listed among the survivors. Kang was bitter about that failure, but he could not make another attempt on the MARC researchers.

He thought about an exquisite tapestry that hung in his home in Beijing and the one flawed thread that marred its perfection. He dared not pull on this thread, or trim it, for fear of destroying the entire tapestry. Kilkenny and Newton were like that thread, marring the intricate weave of his current operation and threatening to unravel it.

Shortly after his arrival at Heathrow, Kang had caught a glimpse of an old adversary, Neville Axton. Axton was a formidable opponent, one who deserved Kang’s utmost respect. Kang had no operational intelligence on Axton’s current assignment, but he didn’t believe in pure coincidence, either. Seeing his rival in the airport had added another level of challenge to this operation.

Kang had run a wild chase through London that afternoon, making chaotic changes in direction to flush out the agents shadowing him. He’d been successful in uncovering two pairs of watchers, which were enough to confirm that Axton was now managing his surveillance. Once clear of the watchers, Kang had made his way to a safe house that the Chinese embassy maintained just outside London, and he hadn’t left since. He had kept his contact with the embassy at a minimum and had no contact at all with Parnell. With Axton in the area, it was foolish to take any unnecessary risks.