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Guy Fawkes Day

Page 92

by KJ Griffin


  Chapter 43: Oxford, 2:00 p.m.

  Dave Cohen logged off and ran through his little ritual of office maintenance, tidying away papers and carefully wiping the waxy leaves of the indoor plants that surged towards the ceiling in between the posters of Verdi and Puccini. He had been complaining of a headache since he had arrived in the office that morning, and he could no longer be sure that his excuse for an early departure had not actually materialized into objective fact, so strong was the blood pounding through his veins as his D-day hour approached.

  He would be home long before 3:00 p.m., from where he could monitor via television and internet the impact of his latest super worm that had been insinuating itself for more than three months now into the servers of stock exchanges, banks, insurance companies, electricity and telephone companies, transport systems and government offices around the world. 3:00 p.m. London time: 10:00 a.m. on Wall Street, hopefully just in time to catch some heavy trading both sides of the Atlantic. If they had found his work on the air traffic controlling mainframes bad, just wait till they tried the Guy Fawkes super worm!

  Outside the office, Cohen treated himself to the scenic walk across the University Parks. The cool air was soothing, calming his nerves. Cohen knew his skills were about to be put to the ultimate test, and his confidence in the tricks and refinements he had added to his work wavered up and down as 3:00 p.m. approached. It could end up being either spectacular or spectacularly unsuccessful. He checked his watch. In fifty minutes' he would start to find out.

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