The Darkfall Switch (12 page)

‘Like what?’ They already knew where he worked, so what else was needed?

‘Well, we are a wee bit puzzled about what he does.’

He went on to confirm what Margaret Andrews had said about the man: that he seemed to be a shadowy figure. Then he added, ‘But he seems to have a degree of influence….’

‘Influence?’

‘Aye. And perhaps you could find out how, or why, he has such a powerful pull with the Administration.’

Foster exclaimed, ‘Look. I’m an engineer. Not a politician. And I don’t like acting as a sort of undercover agent.’

‘Och! Of course you don’t. I can appreciate that. But all I’m asking is for you to keep your eyes and ears open and to tell us if you discover anything about him. Like who his superior is.’

Foster wasn’t comfortable with this, but he finally agreed to do what he could, and they ended the conversation.

He sniffed thoughtfully. He wasn’t at all happy about the strange direction his investigation was taking; it had moved from being purely technical to quasi-political. He was also concerned about Worzniak being around while Janet was there. He decided that it would be best
if the American was unaware of her visit to Denver; he could just imagine the dirty smirk he’d give, and his gleeful delight in reporting the news back to Forsyth, with insinuations that Foster was milking the coffers by flying his girlfriend across the Atlantic and putting her up in the finest hotel. Although he was covering all her costs himself, Foster suspected that any hint of her presence would raise questions, about his objectivity if nothing else. No, it was best that nobody should know.

It was mid afternoon when he made the call to the Brown Palace Hotel. He doubted there’d be any problem accommodating another person; the skiing season was still far off and with the start of the new school year most of the summer visitors would have now gone home. When he got through, the reservations clerk looked up his booking and then said, ‘I’m sorry, Dr Foster. I do have your reservation, but I’ve been told to refer any questions to our General Manager, Peter Halligan. Please wait and I’ll put you through to his office.

Foster was pleased. He knew Halligan of old and he was sure he would be able to discretely deal with the matter of Janet’s accommodation.

‘Dr Foster!’ Halligan said, when they were connected. He sounded as urbane as ever. His accent was British, though Foster knew he was American born and bred – a New Yorker from the Bronx, in fact. ‘It’s really good to speak with you again,’ he continued. ‘I understand you’re visiting us again next week.’

‘Yes, and that’s what I want to discuss. The booking’s been made by my client. I want to make a change, and I’ll be quite happy to pay the difference.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘I’m bringing my partner with me. She’s never seen Denver or the Rockies, and I thought it would be nice to have a little holiday while I’m here.’

‘Of course, sir. Very pleasant indeed at this time of year. But don’t worry: you are already booked into a double room and there’ll be no problem in accommodating Mrs Foster—’

‘Not Mrs Foster,’ Foster interrupted, ‘Ms Coleman. Janet Coleman.’

With scarcely any hesitation, Halligan took it in his stride. Like any good hotel manager he could deal with these things with calm aplomb.
‘No problem, sir,’ he said, with quiet understanding in his voice. ‘And don’t worry about the room reservation. Your check will show only your own name.’

Foster thanked him and asked him to make arrangements for Janet to be met at the airport. He told Halligan that he would email Janet’s flight details to him as soon as they had been confirmed.

After hanging up he returned to the computer. There was a message from her on the screen, with her flight selection.

He made the booking on line and emailed Halligan with the details.

He was feeling content and quite pleased with himself. With the necessary contacts being set up with PPD in Denver he would be able to at last make headway. And with Janet coming to join him in the
mile-high
city he felt his life was coming together again.

But then, a few minutes later, his pleasant reverie was broken by his phone ringing. It was long-distance: Joe Worzniak. ‘I hear that we’re scheduled to meet again,’ the American said after introducing himself. ‘In Denver.’ Without a pause he rushed on, ‘Neat trick, Foster. The Rockies are great. Where’re you staying? I’ll take a room there.’

After telling the American his plans, Foster stared at the desk in front of him and shuddered. He was not pleased at the prospect of Worzniak’s presence in Denver, or at his insinuation that he had wangled some sort of luxury vacation for himself – all expenses paid. He had been looking forward to spending time alone with Janet. He briefly wondered if his own influence with the Brown Palace would extend to them telling the American that there were no vacancies, but then he decided it would be far too complicated. He’d just have to live with it. As soon as his business was finished he could wave goodbye to the unpleasant man and concentrate all his attention on Ms Coleman!

He hoped that there would be no difficulties in getting Grant to accept his request for a few days’ holiday. He imagined that he would be able to get the information he needed in a day or two at the most, and he could then email a report to London – complete with any supplementary information that he had been able to discover about Worzniak. That should complete his assignment: his vacation would incur no delay to the resolution of the matter, and the need for him to take a break would be understandable, if only to get over the jet-lag. After all, by then he would have made two trips across the Atlantic within a few days of each other. He was sure that in similar
circumstances lawyers, accountants and politicians would expect to be allowed considerable rest periods. In fact, there were probably reams of standing instructions to the effect that such breaks were mandatory.

Zak Beckermann was young: a medium-height, well-built man, his dark wavy hair was long enough to touch his collar at the back of his neck and his baby-like features were exaggerated by the very round spectacles that he was wearing. But he was very expensively dressed, in the fashion of the high-tech world of computers, with a smart pink shirt open at the neck and tan moleskin trousers. He stood up as his personal assistant brought Foster into his palatial office, smiled and said, ‘Good morning, Dr Foster.’ As they shook hands he grinned and nodded in a direction behind Foster as he added, ‘I believe you already know Joe Worzniak.’

Foster looked behind, to see Joe standing there. They shook hands and Beckermann gestured towards a low, glass-topped table surrounded by four very elegant antique armchairs.

‘Coffee for everybody?’ he asked, and when they nodded agreement the PA left them.

‘Can I call you Dan?’ Beckermann said. ‘I’m Zak.’

Foster nodded his acceptance as he sat down in his chair and wondered about the things that had been very apparent on his initial appraisal of the place. From the moment he had arrived at the luxurious new office complex it had been clear that this was the real centre of all of PPD’s enormous worldwide operations. This was the hub of a great empire. The architect-designed stainless-steel and glass building, the Ferraris, Jaguars and Porsches in the parking lot outside, the staff wearing Armani and Chanel, everything shrieked of money and power. Compared with this, the tiny office at Birdlip had been like a very small
annexe, Hugh Burnett very much a minor underling. It was probably the same in every country in which PPD had offices: all the underlings in those satellite spin-offs paying obeisance to the fresh-faced king-emperor enthroned at his eyrie in the Rockies.

Foster wondered about Beckermann. He looked far too young and inexperienced to wield such power: there was something almost geeky about him. Yet somehow, he had undoubtedly managed to become master of this massive empire.

‘Joe’s been telling me about you,’ Beckermann said. ‘It sounds like you’ve led a very interesting life.’

‘It’s had its moments.’ Foster admitted. Then he waved his hand to indicate the office. ‘You have a pretty nice operation here,’ he said. ‘I’m impressed!’

‘Thank you.’ Beckermann simpered at the compliment. ‘Would you like to take a look around? I think you’d be even more impressed, being an engineer yourself. We’re all very proud of our outfit.’

‘Yes, I’d like that very much,’ Foster said. ‘In fact, I’d like to do it first, before we start on the things I want to discuss, so that I have a clearer understanding of the background.’

‘Sure.’

The PA came back in at that point, carrying an elegant silver tray. As she put it down on the table, Foster was amused to see that she had included a plate bearing an enormous pile of iced doughnuts. Having eaten his breakfast when his stomach had been screaming for lunch, he saw this as a nice teatime snack, although the local time was just after 10.

‘Diane,’ Beckermann said as she was about to leave, ‘Dr Foster would like to see the plant and offices before we start our meeting. Set up a tour for him, will you?’

She seemed amazed at the command. ‘Sure. But what about your lunchtime meeting?’ she asked.

Beckermann waved his hand in an impatient, dismissive gesture. ‘Get Walt to deal with it.’

She stared at him for a brief instant, and then with an almost imperceptible shrug she left the room.

‘I had a meeting with some suppliers,’ Beckermann said, as he started to pour out the coffee. ‘They’re trying to screw us on prices. Can’t think why they needed to see me at all: my manufacturing VP will handle them just fine.’

Foster recognized the situation: suppliers of some component parts or services were desperate for work and Beckermann’s attitude indicated that they would be getting short shrift from the company.

This was a hard, dog-eat-dog world.

While they sipped their coffee and munched the doughnuts, Beckermann outlined his company’s history. It had been formed by him and a partner just a decade earlier. The two entrepreneurs had been working for a large company in Cleveland, well known in the
power-generation
business, and had become disenchanted with what they saw as the old-world fuddy-duddy attitudes of their rather traditional and staid employer. They were both young men with a background in computers; both of them were highly motivated and enthusiastic, and when Beckermann had inherited a small pile of money from the estate of a grandfather he had persuaded his colleague to join him in exploring new horizons from a new base in the Rockies.

‘It was a good decision,’ he said. ‘What does your great William Shakespeare say? “Time and tide …”? Well, we took our tide at the flood, and we’ve been going great guns ever since.’

Foster gave a wintry smile, but his expression belied his inner feelings. Given the economic situation at the time, Beckermann’s reference to launching out at an opportune time was quite extraordinary: Foster knew all too well that the last ten years had in fact been extremely tough for the power industry everywhere, and for all the peripheral industries that served it. With growing international concern over the effect on the environment of the large, traditional coal-burning power stations, and with takeovers and crashes among the energy giants, the industry had fallen increasingly under the control of financiers who knew nothing about the engineering aspects of their operations and continually looked only to the bottom line.

And that bottom line was profit, always profit, with a thick,
bright-green
sugar coating to appeal to the environmental lobby. Engineering was a necessary evil, to be kept under tight control at all times. Investment had been steadily cut – except in the elaborate promotion of green credentials – and expensive new systems like those sold by Beckermann’s company had come to be seen as unnecessary luxuries. Unless compelling arguments could be presented to the financial gurus who were now running the industry, and done so in the very limited terms that they could understand, the engineering staff would always be
forced to patch up old equipment and keep it running as long as possible.

No, on balance, Foster thought, PPD’s obvious prosperity had to have been due to more than just catching the tide at the best point.

Perhaps Beckermann detected Foster’s inner doubt because he added, ‘That doesn’t mean it’s been easy. We’ve had to be pretty aggressive on pricing.’

They finished the coffee and set off on the tour, leaving a considerably depleted pile of doughnuts on the plate. Beckermann led them along long corridors and through vast grey, windowless offices where men and women pored intently over glowing computer screens. Towards the rear of the building, from a platform overlooking the manufacturing floor, they looked out over gleaming ranks of steel cubicles that stood, with many little lights twinkling on their panels, while white-coated people swarmed around them. Foster had to agree that it was indeed a very busy and successful operation.

From time to time he had stolen a glance at Worzniak, who seemed to be quite unimpressed by all that he was seeing. He had, however, taken interest whenever a pretty young woman came within range of his leering gaze. It was quite evident that the engineering operations of this building were not new to him: he seemed to know his way around before Beckermann gave any directions. And he asked no questions and showed no sign of taking any real interest in any of it. A well-turned ankle, on the other hand, was clearly a better thing.

After the tour they returned to Beckermann’s office. This time they sat round the central conference table and Foster explained the reason for his visit. He was very careful to avoid any reference to Luke’s pathetic last note.

‘What puzzles me,’ he said, ‘is how the hacker managed to shut down the power stations so very effectively.’

‘Just luck,’ Beckermann said, shrugging, his tone echoing Worzniak’s earlier view. ‘He just happened to hit on something. I’ve had my staff look into it: they say they’ve found what he did and they’ve plugged the hole. We’re just about to send out a patch to all our customers. Nobody else will be able to repeat what he did.’

Foster looked at him in amazement. The CEO was quite calm, seemingly forgetting the fact that his company had been responsible for unleashing on the world a computer system that had carried a major defect and, because of that defect, forty-seven people had died in
London. He probably thought of this – if indeed he thought of it all – as merely an unfortunate incident, one whose cause could be easily eliminated. Clearly, he saw his company as the victim of a crime, because he went on to say, ‘That kid was typical of the lunatics we have to deal with in this business. They think it’s funny,’ he added angrily, ‘to shaft a complex operation like this, and screw it up.’

Foster suppressed his anger: the kid, as he’d called him had been the only son of a nice, respectable couple; he’d been an isolated, vulnerable and misguided youngster who had died a lonely death in an old barn. And his death might even have been a murder. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But I’d still like to know precisely what he did. Shutting down a running plant involves several sequential operations that all have to be carefully
co-ordinated
, otherwise the whole thing trips out on its safety systems.’

‘That’s what he did then,’ Worzniak said drily, his tone showing his evident boredom at the British engineer’s continued curiosity about something that he himself saw as being quite simple and cut and dried.

‘No,’ Foster said firmly. ‘The safety interlocks of a power station are designed to prevent major damage occurring if anything goes wrong. But this time what the boy did just shut it down quickly. The interlocks normally act to protect the plant in an emergency, but their actions aren’t very graceful. What Luke did was.’

‘Graceful?’ Worzniak sneered. Beckermann, sitting beside him, seemed to be contemplating his fingernails with great interest.

‘Compare it with you driving a car and suddenly slamming on the brakes,’ Foster retorted acidly. ‘That’s one way of stopping, but you’d only do it in an emergency. Generally you come to a halt carefully and safely, so that you end up by the side of the road, out of the way of other traffic.’ He turned his attention to Beckermann and asked, ‘What I really need to know is whether the Generation 300 system includes any standard procedure for initiating a plant shutdown.’

There was an awkward silence before Beckermann responded. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but honestly, I don’t know. You may not believe it, but you have to see that, OK, I set all this up, but the technology’s moved on – it’s always moving on, as you probably know – and I can’t pretend to be up with all the latest gizmos. I’ll get our software manager to talk it over with you.’

He reached over to a phone on his desk, picked it up and commanded, ‘Diane, get Joel up here.’

They discussed a range of questions while they waited. Beckermann seemingly ever attentive and responsive, Worzniak silent and looking bored.

After a few minutes of this, the door opened to admit a tall, well-built young man with a thatch of bright-red hair. ‘Hi, Joel,’ Beckermann said. ‘Dan, this is Joel Matthews, my software development manager. Joel, this is Dan Foster, from England. He’s come to ask some questions about the 300.’

Foster stood to shake Matthews’ hand and then they both sat down.

‘Joel,’ Beckermann started, ‘Dan’s been asking about what happened when that guy hacked into the systems in England. He wants to know if we have a shutdown routine in the system.’

Foster’s ears pricked up at Beckermann’s use of the word ‘routine’. It was the first time it had been used in their discussions. Was this confirmation that the Darkfall Switch was indeed a subroutine, as he had guessed?

Matthews threw a brief look at his boss and Foster felt that he could detect a slight flicker of concern in his eyes as he did so. Beckermann gave a small tilt of his head and, clearly reassured, the software man turned to Foster and said, ‘No, we don’t. Though it’s something we are developing for one client – in Germany, I think.’

‘Will that be like the emergency shutdown systems they use on offshore platforms and in the process industries?’ Foster asked.

Matthews’ expression brightened. He nodded. ‘Yes. Very similar to an ESD.’ Then he added quickly, ‘But you must remember that it’s still in the development stage. We haven’t released it yet.’

‘But what happened in the UK had all the marks of such a system,’ Foster said. He watched Matthews’ face for any sign of a response, but there was none, so he went on, ‘Tell me, even though it’s no more than a development idea, is there any chance that this ESD system was included in the UK plants? Perhaps by accident?’

Again, Matthews looked at his boss and, again, he proceeded only after receiving a silent signal of consent.

‘No,’ Matthews said. ‘Absolutely not.’

There was a long silence. It was clear that this argument would get nowhere.

Foster decided to change tack. ‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘is there a subroutine in your system? Something called a Darkfall Switch?’

A thunderflash of shock exploded in the room. If he’d hit them all in their faces he could not have caused a greater jolt. But the effect was short-lived: the expressions of surprise were quickly erased. In Worzniak’s case the shock was replaced by thunderous, silent rage. Beckermann tried to look puzzled.

But Foster was particularly struck by Matthews’ reaction. It was stark fear. All the colour drained from his face and his eyes were wide open. He stared first at Beckermann and then at Worzniak, but, if he was looking for any sign of help or support from them, he received nothing of the kind. They seemed to have worries of their own.

‘Where did you hear that title?’ Worzniak asked, his tone aggressive and hectoring.

Foster decided to tell a lie. ‘I dug it out of the system at Queensborough,’ he said.

‘That’s impossible,’ Matthews started. ‘The Darkfall sub—’