Point of Contact

by Tom Clancy

“This is where we write our own proprietary software for GPS navigation, autopiloting, image correlation, and so forth,” Singh explained.

  “What’s proprietary about any of it?” Jack asked. “Lots of people are writing software like that.”

  Singh’s eyes shifted to Lian. She nodded.

  “It’s the artificial-intelligence software we’ve written, and the means by which we’re applying it to each phase of the other software and hardware components that make Steady Stare a unique product,” Singh said.

  “AI? That’s what Google and the other big boys in Silicon Valley are trying to figure out. You’re facing some stiff competition.”

  “We believe we’re holding our own.”

  He led Jack and Lian over to a computer-aided design station. “And here is one of our hardware design platforms. We use CAD to create and build our own devices—optics, sensors, communications, and the Steady Stare unmanned aerial vehicle itself.”

  “And you manufacture all of these components here in Singapore?” Jack said.

  “The proprietary ones,” Singh said. “We utilize a lot of off-the-shelf technology, too. Some of that we import from trusted sources.”

  “Trust is hard to come by these days.”

  “Rarer than the rarest earth element,” Lian said. “But we have our sources.”

  Singh then introduced Jack to several of his top programmers and designers, all young. Like everyone else in Singapore, they were all fluent in English, no matter their ethnicity or mother tongue.

  Jack quizzed them on the particulars of the projects they were working on, but they answered in technical jargon, pointing at the CAD diagrams or lines of code on their screens. He could follow their trains of thought, but he didn’t have the engineering or programming expertise to drill down further. It was clear they all knew their stuff, though. He thanked them and pushed on.

  Dr. Singh then led Jack to the second part of the floor that was separated by a glass security wall—again, just like downstairs, but a blackout curtain was on the other side of it. Singh explained that his designers and programmers didn’t need access to the operations room, and that some of what was going on in there was strictly off-limits. “Privacy concerns,” he explained, as they passed through the curtain.

  The operations suite was dark and laid out like a mini mission control room with workstations and video monitors all manned by technicians watching their screens and speaking into headsets.

  At the far end of the room was a nearly wall-to-wall video screen displaying what appeared to be a live overhead shot of Singapore. It looked like a satellite video. There was a lone control station facing the screen, unmanned. Singh led them to it.

  “This room is the heart of the Steady Stare operation,” Singh said. “Our Steady Stare UAVs remain on station for twelve hours at a time, and we put two in service every day, providing twenty-four-hour coverage.”

  “What powers your drones?”

  “Solar.”

  “You’re able to fly for twelve hours on solar power?” Jack was incredulous.

  “In theory, Google’s unmanned solar-power plane can fly continuously for five years without landing. Of course, theirs is a much larger platform. Our small airplane relies on our own solar cell and lithium battery storage designs—another example of the value we bring to the project. There is also a backup battery on board, and a small petrol engine for emergency use.”

  “So the idea is that these drones fly over the city for twenty-four hours a day and provide video monitoring.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How do you manage that during monsoon season?”

  “It’s a challenge for sure. We launch the planes with their batteries precharged, but even on cloudy days there can be a good deal of radiation.”

  Jack frowned. “Why is your system of aerial observation particularly useful or unique, especially in civilian applications?”

  Singh cleared his throat and shifted his attention to Lian.

  “Aerial observation has many advantages,” Lian said. “But we provide a highly efficient, low-cost aircraft to perform it.”

  “Do you have any idea how many hundreds of low-cost, high-capacity drones have been or are being developed?”

  “We’re aware,” Lian said.

  “Then you know you can’t make money in that business.”

  “We’re not idiots.” Lian smiled.

  Jack pointed at the video monitor. “Then what is it that your system does that would make me believe this is a revenue generator?”

  Lian crossed her arms, thinking and clearly conflicted. Finally, she nodded toward Singh. “Go ahead.”

  Relieved, Singh smiled. “Do you believe in time travel, Mr. Ryan?”

  26

  Time travel?” Ryan shook his head. “I like sci-fi as much as the next guy, but no. It’s not logically possible.”

  “Actually, it is possible. Let me show you.”

  Singh led Ryan to the back wall, then picked up a tablet from the nearby empty control station. The screen at the control station was a mirrored image of the wall screen.

  “What you’re seeing on the screen is a live video feed of Singapore from five thousand meters—approximately sixteen thousand feet.” Singh tapped a virtual key and performance data appeared for altitude, speed, latitude, longitude, and the like.

  “Can you fly your bird from this control station?” Jack asked, pointing to the one he was standing next to. There was a joystick, a keyboard, dual monitors, and a wireless mouse on the desk.

  “In theory, we can fly our UAV from any of the stations you see in this room. In the future, we plan to fly multiple UAVs from each station. For now, the Steady Stare vehicle that’s aloft is being run from a control station at Seletar Airport—”

  “At the Dalfan hangar?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack turned to Lian. “I’d like to see that facility when we’re done.”

  “I’ll see what can be arranged.”

  Singh tapped more virtual keys on his tablet. “Now let’s focus in more closely.” The camera zoomed in like a dive-bombing hawk. The image finally resolved on the Dalfan building in the center of the giant screen.

  “There, do you see that delivery van that just pulled up at the security gate?” Singh asked.

  “Yeah, but I can’t make out anything except that its roof is blue,” Jack said.

  “Imagine if that van was loaded with explosives and it was driven by terrorists. Imagine further that it passed through the Dalfan gates and onto our property—just like it’s actually doing right now—and say twenty meters in, it exploded, killing whoever was in the van and completely destroying the vehicle.”

  “Okay.”

  “In a situation like this, how would you normally set about trying to determine the identity of the killers and the location of their hideout?”

  “Usually, the investigating authorities would look for forensic evidence on the scene—fingerprints, photo IDs, VINs, a license plate—any kind of physical evidence that would begin to provide a clue.”

  “Correct. But the likelihood of discovering usable physical evidence from a catastrophic crime scene like this one is extremely remote. However, if a police department or government agency had a time machine, it wouldn’t need any of the things you mentioned. All they would need to do is travel back in time to a point before the explosion.”

  Singh tapped a few more virtual keys and the blue van suddenly reversed direction. He tapped another key and the van sped up 2x.

  “Please observe.”

  The van backed out of the Dalfan driveway and onto the main boulevard—the street name clearly identified on the screen now, just like a Google map—and drove away in reverse, along with the rest of the traffic. The clock on the video monitor was also running backward as the van sped through the indus
trial park area, pulling in and out of a few more driveways until it finally arrived at a warehouse some five miles away, where it stopped in front of a loading dock.

  Singh froze the image. “So, this is the origination point of our theoretical ‘terrorist’ van. But we still don’t know who our theoretical ‘terrorists’ are.” Singh resumed the reversing image and two men exited the van and walked backward, climbing the stairs to the loading dock in reverse.

  “All of this data is stored on your mainframe?”

  “In this case, yes, because we’re still analyzing the data from our field testing with our first client.”

  “Who is that?”

  “The Singapore Police Force. They’re also storing all of this data on their cloud storage server. Anyone who leases the program from us in the future is free to store it on their own servers, in the cloud, or wherever it suits them. Storage is the easy part.” Singh held up the tablet. “It’s the software that powers the aircraft, cameras, and the surveillance packages we’ve developed that really counts.”

  “How hard is it to use?”

  “Quite simple, really.”

  “Then show me.”

  “No,” Lian said. “Dr. Singh has already shown you everything you need to know about the system to understand its profit potential.”

  “Ease of use will be a key factor in your ability to sell it to public agencies. If it isn’t easy to use, you won’t make any money from it. So I need to see how easily it works.”

  Lian glowered at him. “Fine,” she finally said, throwing a dismissive hand up.

  Jack was troubled by her hostile reaction, especially given the fact he probably saved her from a gang rape last night, or worse. He knew she was no damsel in distress, but most people would be more grateful under the same circumstances.

  A thought occurred to him. Unless she knows I didn’t save her at all. Maybe the incident was all a setup by her to scare him off or test him. She seemed capable of such a thing.

  But he had no reason to believe that. She kicked the shit out of that one guy. If she had hired that poor toothless bastard, she owed him a bonus, or at least a dental plan.

  More likely, she might have just been embarrassed by the whole evening. She did, in fact, flirt with him and he didn’t respond in kind. Not because he wasn’t interested, but only because he was raised to be a gentleman, and she was a little drunk. But she wouldn’t know that about me, would she? And technically she was the security last night, but he was the one who saved her. Yeah, she’s embarrassed for sure.

  Or not. Who the hell knew? Sometimes he felt like he knew how to handle guns better than he did people, especially women.

  Singh handed Jack the tablet. “The video manipulation is completely intuitive. See for yourself.”

  Jack took the tablet and hit the play-button icon. The video image began running forward. He paused it again and ran it in reverse with a slider, back to the point where Singh had stopped it before.

  “So I want to follow these guys back to their original locations. How do I do that? Just run the image backward until they get there?”

  “You can do that manually exactly the way you were doing, but that might take minutes, hours, or even days, depending on your target. The easier way is to let the program’s tracking and facial-recognition software do the work for you.”

  Jack handed him the tablet. He watched closely as Singh tapped a few more icons. On the big screen, both delivery men were surrounded by boxed target reticles, one red, one yellow. The men separated. One fell into a car, the other climbed onto a motorcycle.

  Singh zoomed out, clicked more icons, and the virtual camera lens zoomed back out so that the entire city could be seen again. The two men were just yellow and red dots. A moment later a red line and a yellow line sped away in different directions from the warehouse, snaking through the city streets. Both lines ultimately landed in two separate locations on either side of the city. It took less than a second for the Steady Stare software to accomplish the feat. Singh paused the program.

  “Wow,” Jack said.

  “I set a time limit of only two hours.”

  “How far back can you go?”

  Singh shrugged. “That depends completely on how much data you have stored. If a client keeps video records for a year, they could trace those two guys—or anybody else—for a year.”

  “Storage is the key, isn’t it?” Jack said. “Depending on what you want to do with the data.”

  “Storage is another profit center,” Lian interrupted. “Make sure you note that in your report.”

  “I will.”

  “Have you seen enough?” Lian asked.

  Jack studied Singh’s face. Singh’s eyes locked with his. A silent invitation.

  Jack shook his head at Lian. “I’m guessing there’s still more to all of this.”

  “Maybe there is,” Lian said.

  27

  Paul and Bai grabbed two cups of steaming-hot tea and settled into their seats back in his small office. Bai was on Paul’s elbow, as usual, and intensely interested in Paul’s every keystroke. Paul spent the first thirty minutes doing another random survey of the various subledgers, especially accounts payable and accounts receivable.

  He then turned his attention to the statement of financial position and pulled up the shareholders’ equity statements. After all, the overall purpose of this accounting exercise was to help assure both Dalfan and Marin Aerospace that the agreed-upon price for the stock purchase was a fair value for both parties. There were a few technical details and also terms in Mandarin script that Bai needed to clarify for him early on, but overall it was an uneventful exercise in due diligence as Paul plodded on, line after line, figure after figure.

  Though initially attentive and alert, Bai’s focus began to wane. The young accountant began pecking away at his own laptop hardwired into Dalfan’s LAN. Paul couldn’t see Bai’s screen, but he could see the reflections of an intense video game playing on the lenses of the young man’s glasses.

  What Bai couldn’t have suspected was that Paul was running a subroutine in his brain’s CPU while he was overtly working on his accounting assignment. Paul thought he might have found a way to override the encrypted electronic lock on the Dalfan computer he was using, but it would be a multistep process, and the first step in the process was wearing Bai down.

  So far, so good.

  From yesterday’s work session, Paul had learned that Bai had a fast metabolism and was nearly ravenous by the time lunch rolled around. Paul pushed on with his mundane accounting work until he could hear the boy’s stomach mewling like a drowning cat.

  “We have a problem,” Paul said.

  Bai’s attention was fixed on his laptop screen. “I’m sorry, did you ask me something?”

  Paul turned in his squeaking swivel chair. “I said, there’s a problem.”

  Bai’s eyes snapped up. “Problem?” He slammed his laptop shut.

  “Yes, a problem. I can’t do my job if I can’t connect my laptop to the mainframe.”

  “It’s not possible. You know the security protocols.”

  “It’s not possible for me to do my job if I don’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m finished doing my preliminary survey. Now it’s time for me to do my formal examination of your records.”

  “I thought that is what you were doing.”

  “No. That was only a survey—an overview. To give me the thirty-thousand-foot perspective. Now I need to drop down and hit specific targets.”

  “But why do you need to connect to the mainframe with your laptop?”

  “That’s where my accounting software is located.”

  “That’s not possible, sir.”

  “That’s why we have a problem.”

  “What kind of software do you use?”

>   “Analytical software.”

  “We have CaseWare IDEA analytical software already installed on our computers. If you don’t know how to use it, I can show you.”

  “IDEA is an excellent program and I’ve used it many times. But I prefer my own software.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s mine. I wrote it.”

  Bai blinked a few times, his face blank with confusion, his brain stuck in a continuous logic loop. Finally he blurted out, “I’m sorry, it’s just not possible.”

  “Then how else am I supposed to be able to download all of these data sets?”

  Bai shrugged.

  “Oh, I have an idea,” Paul said. “You can load all of the data points I need by hand into my computer within the next twenty-four hours. It’s probably not more than half a million numbers. And of course, you can’t make a single mistake while you do it. Would that work for you?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “How else can I get the data into my laptop?”

  “Let me speak with Mr. Fairchild.” Bai exited the office and headed across the suite to Yong’s office. Through the glass partition, Paul watched the two of them speak. A few moments passed and Yong glanced up, glowering at Paul. Paul waved meekly. Yong rose and crossed the suite, entering Paul’s office with Bai in tow.

  Paul remained seated.

  “Please explain your problem again, Mr. Brown?”

  “Please, call me Paul.”

  “The problem?”

  “I can’t do my forensic audit without my software. Bai has explained to me that I can’t download the encrypted security passcode onto my machine or have any other direct interface.”

  “Why can’t you use our analytical software?”

  “It isn’t as good as mine.”

  Bai whispered something in Mandarin. Yong nodded. “Would it be possible to upload your software onto our machine?”

  Paul shrugged. “Are you sure you want to do that? The whole point of not allowing alien machines to connect to your mainframe is to prevent malware from infecting your system. Call your IT person, but I bet they’d have a real problem with that.”