The Second Ship (16 page)

Chapter 33

Mrs. O’Reilly’s desk sat at a right angle to the entrance to Principal Zumwalt’s office, facing directly out toward the door that opened into the hallway. Most days, as students waited for their respective turns to see the principal, they stared directly across at the spot where Mrs. O’Reilly pecked at the keys of her keyboard, occasionally peering out at them over the narrow rims of her spectacles, her wispy red hair making her head look like it was on fire.

For the moment, that spot was vacant, as was the office of the principal. The space was deathly silent except for their breathing, which, in stark contrast, seemed preternaturally loud, like the huffing of a dinosaur sniffing around for some hidden animal to eat. Unfortunately, it seemed Jennifer and Heather were the animals about to be eaten.

Inside Heather’s head, she had a clear mental image of a digital display counting rapidly down toward zero. How had the NSA made such a big jump in tracking down the source? There must have been something that Heather had overlooked, some hidden pattern in the virus that the supercomputers at Ft. Meade had spotted, enabling them to accelerate the trace.

That was the problem with not being a computer expert herself. She could only make accurate estimates of things she thoroughly understood. While Jennifer understood the computer world very well, Heather must have missed something in what her friend had described to her about the network configuration of the Internet.

She glanced over at Jennifer, who sat beside her with her head in her hands. There must be something they could do besides give up. Think, Heather. Think.

The mental countdown in her mind stood at one hour, thirty-two minutes, fourteen seconds, and counting, accounting for the nonlinear acceleration she observed in the trace data.

“Jen, you hanging in there?” Heather asked, although her own desperation had her near hyperventilation.

Jennifer looked up at her numbly. “Heather, I was so close. I had started uplinking the virus when Ms. Gorsky caught us. I barely had time to throw the PDA into screen saver lock before she grabbed it from me.”

Heather’s heart sank even further. “So you didn’t get it uplinked?”

Jennifer shrugged hopelessly. “I don’t know. I left the uplink going when I locked the screen saver. If she didn’t turn it off, then the uplink would go ahead and finish, but that doesn’t do us any good. I have to get on the Internet to activate it.”

Their chances of activating the Counter Trace Virus, or CTV, in the remaining amount of time did not look good. They needed to activate it as soon as possible to give the virus a chance to work its magic before the NSA got so close that there would be no masking the trail.

If they could just get the CTV going, it would act like antivirus software, but with one huge advantage. It knew the original virus pattern and could hop around rapidly eliminating all traces of the agents, even slightly modifying information in the appropriate Internet routing tables.

Actually it would leave behind a subtle trace, designed to lead the NSA to a false source, on selected routers.

One hour, twenty-nine minutes, forty-six seconds.

Heather glanced around desperately. Suddenly the nucleus of a plan formed in her brain. Standing up, she walked to the doorway and peered out into the hall. Except for an occasional passerby, it was empty. There was no sign of Mrs. O’Reilly, Principal Zumwalt, or Ms. Gorsky.

Glancing from the open doorway to the computer on Mrs. O’Reilly’s desk, Heather shook her head. There were just too many people passing in front of the office to make it possible for Jennifer to hack her way into the secretary's computer. Closing the door wasn’t an option. That door was never closed during school hours.

Heather glanced at the door beside Mrs. O’Reilly’s desk, the door into Principal Zumwalt’s office. It stood open awaiting his return. As Jennifer watched, wide-eyed, Heather walked over to the office and peered inside. There on the corner of the principal’s massive oak desk sat his computer keyboard and monitor, the screen saver showing an aquarium of colorful swimming fish, which seemed to peer out at her suspiciously.

With a deep breath, Heather walked back to check the hallway door once more. It was all clear, at least for the moment.

“Jen, can you hack into the principal’s computer?”

“Are you insane?” Jennifer looked as if she were debating making a run for it.

“Probably. But we’re out of time. Can you do it?”

Jennifer shook her head. “If I had enough time, but they could return at any second.”

“I’ll watch the door to the hall. You get in there and try. I’ll signal if someone comes.”

Jennifer’s hands began to shake.

Heather placed a hand on Jennifer’s shoulder. “Jen, I can’t do it. I need you. Mark needs you.”

At the mention of her brother’s name, Jennifer’s back straightened and the muscles in her jaw clenched.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

Seeing her gentle friend push her glasses higher on her nose and boldly stride into the office of the principal almost brought tears to Heather’s eyes. But she didn’t have time to cry now. With one more glance toward Jennifer, Heather moved to the hallway door and peeked out.

The minutes dragged by. Each time someone rounded the corner or came out a doorway and walked toward the office, Heather held her breath, moving back to her seat until they had passed.

A sudden exclamation from the principal’s office caused her to glance inside.

“I’m in,” Jennifer exclaimed. “I just need a couple more minutes to access the CTV and activate it.”

“Thank God,” Heather gasped, then, realizing that she was no longer watching the hall, moved back over to that doorway.

Just a little luck now, she thought. Just give us a little luck. Those thoughts splattered against the pavement of her mind as Ms. Gorsky rounded the corner of the hall fifty feet away, shaking a plump finger pointedly at Principal Zumwalt, who walked beside her.

Out of time. Heather’s knees nearly buckled as she lunged forward, racing down the hallway, crashing directly into Ms. Gorsky, then ricocheting off to stumble sprawled out on the floor.

“What in the name of all that is holy?” Ms. Gorsky gasped, having almost fallen herself. A look of stunned surprise quickly changed to one of fury as she rushed toward where Heather lay grasping her ankle.

As the large teacher reached her hand toward Heather, Principal Zumwalt stopped her.

“What?” Ms. Gorsky almost screamed.

Principal Zumwalt turned his stern face toward her, his stare silencing the outburst, although Ms. Gorsky’s face looked like an oil well that was about to blow.

As he turned back toward Heather, his eyes locked her own, robbing her of her voice.

“What is the meaning of this, Ms. McFarland?”

Heather gulped. “Ow. I’m sorry, Principal Zumwalt. I was running for the bathroom. I held it so long I didn’t think I could make it.”

The desperation in her face was more real than either Principal Zumwalt or Ms. Gorsky could imagine, even though the reason behind it hardly matched her excuse. Heather let go of her bladder, a wet spot spreading rapidly across the floor beneath her.

She began to sob, something that took no effort whatsoever. “I’m so sorry. And I think I hurt my ankle too. I’m so sorry.”

For once both Principal Zumwalt and Ms. Gorsky were rendered momentarily speechless.

Principal Zumwalt was the first to recover. “Ms. Gorsky, go get the school nurse. Quickly now.”

As Ms. Gorsky sped off back down the hallway, the principal leaned down.

“Heather, look at me a second. Can you move your ankle?”

Heather wiggled it. “Ow. It hurts, but I don’t think it’s broken. I’m so sorry about peeing on your floor.” She began sobbing again.

The principal smiled down at her tenderly. “It happens to all of us at some time or other. I can see why you were running. Can you stand up now if I help you?”

Heather stood, gingerly testing her right ankle before putting weight on it. Her jeans were soaked from crotch to knees, and now she had pee on her tennis shoes. With a hand on Principal Zumwalt’s shoulder, she took a couple of hopping steps away from the puddle, her face a bright beet red.

Just then Ms. Gorsky arrived with Mrs. Harold. The nurse took one look at the scene and then bent to examine Heather’s ankle. After several seconds of moving it around, drawing small gasps of fake pain from Heather, she stood once again.

“It’s Heather, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Heather.

“Well, Heather, it’s definitely not broken. I think you may have a slight sprain, though. Here. Take my arm and I’ll help you down to my office so I can wrap that ankle. We’ll retrieve your gym clothes while we run your wet things through the washer and dryer.”

“Thank you so much,” Heather said.

As Heather glanced back, she saw Jennifer peer briefly out of the waiting room, giving her a quick thumbs-up before disappearing back inside.

As Heather limped down the hall, the custodian walked past her pushing a mop bucket. As he reached the spot of the accident, the school bell rang, immediately filling the halls with young humanity.

“Stay clear of the pee spot on the floor! Stay clear of the pee!”

The custodian’s bellow, accompanied by the stares as students began to notice her soaked pants, brought a new shade of red to Heather’s cheeks before she could duck inside the nurse’s office.

As Mrs. Harold began wrapping the ace bandage around her foot, Heather moaned again. And this time the moan was for real. She knew she should feel lucky that Jennifer had been successful. But somehow, sitting there in soaking-wet pants, stinking of pee, her level of appreciation for her good luck failed to reach the appropriate level.

Chapter 34

“So, Dave, what have you got for me?” Riles looked over Kurtz’s right shoulder at the banks of computer monitors.

David Kurtz turned toward his boss and shrugged. “A whole lot of nothing as far as I can tell.”

“What do you mean? I thought the search was narrowing in on something.”

Kurtz nodded vigorously enough that if the floor had not been a static-free raised platform, Riles would have expected to see bolts of electricity arcing between the wild strands of his hair.

“Oh, we narrowed in all right. Right to a computer in the Russian Ministry of Transportation. This one is physically located in Terminal Two of the Sheremetyevo International Airport.”

“Moscow?”

“You’ve got it, sir.”

“One of the secure systems?” asked Riles.

“No—at least, not in any sophisticated sense of the word. This is just one of the standard tourist information terminals.”

“That could make it a little tough to lay our hands on.”

“More like impossible. The system was just taken off-line by Russian customs authorities. They received an anonymous tip that it was being used by foreign agents as an encrypted message server.”

“Were we able to trace the tip? Where did it originate?”

“Actually, we saw it get generated. You’re not going to like the answer to your question, though.”

“Look, I can’t dislike it any more than I’m disliking how long you’re taking to get to the point, Dr. Kurtz.”

“The e-mail tip was generated from that same airport computer.”

“And the tip was in Russian?”

“Flawless Russian, according to the boys downstairs,” said Kurtz.

“Shit! I don’t believe this.”

Kurtz grinned. “I didn’t either. No one is that good or that lucky. That’s why I started a complete analysis of the New Year’s Day Virus pattern from early-stage infection until the trace program was completed. When that analysis run finished, we spotted a very interesting anomaly in the data. Everything was consistent until about an hour before we identified the source computer in the Moscow terminal. Then it changed.”

Riles' gaze narrowed. “How so?”

“The agent programs left behind by the virus got cleaned from the net, leaving almost no traces. We barely managed to identify the trail back to Moscow. It looked like a really effective antivirus program swept the net.”

“Did you recheck the routing tables on all the Internet routers?”

“That’s how we found Moscow.”

Riles paused, rubbing his chin. “The tip was in flawless Russian you say? Maybe too good, as in textbook? I think someone is playing a little game with us.

“I want you to go back several hours before the trace completed. Figure out the key routers in the network pattern you were following and compare the most recent routing tables with those saved off on tape backup from the previous night.”

Kurtz nodded. “I’ll get right on it. We are going to need some subpoenas to get those records, unless you want Gregory's team involved again.”

“No, go through normal channels this time. Since we’ve hit a dead end, we have plenty of time to backtrack. Besides, I have other plans for Jack.”

Jonathan Riles turned and strode out of David Kurtz’s lab softly whistling the theme song to The Titanic.