It was on his data base; therefore, it was on the NCCI data base. Such files are not erased, only moved into inactive memory or stored on tape drives for later referencing.
Smith pulled down a program of his own devising, initiated a brute-force search of the original NCCI data base and settled back into his chair for what he expected to be a protracted search.
In his concern he had forgotten the power of his new hybrid system.
The program executed in less than ninety seconds. It had scoured the NCCI data base for any file name that included the three component names in Roger Sherman Coe's name, in any combination, in any variant spelling and even allowed for the absence due to clerical error of any one of the three names.
Smith expected a long list of variants and a difficult night of culling out the variables.
Instead, at the end of ninety seconds he got a single name.
When it came up, he blinked twice, thinking somehow the system had made a mistake. The file had come up after all, impossible as that was.
Then Smith looked again. And he saw what he'd missed the first time.
A low groan escaped his tight lips. It might have been pulling his very soul out through his teeth. In a way it was. The cry of despair was Harold Smith's faith in life and, more importantly, in his own computer system, escaping forever.
On the screen glowed a name. It mocked Smith. Mocked his logic, his faith in the logic of mathematics, the reliability of computers and the subroutines and algorithms and binary codes that governed them.
The name was: ROGER SHERMAN POE.
Harold W Smith sat frozen in his chair, a stricken expression on his bestubbled, phosphorescence-spattered features, his red-rimmed eyes boring holes into the monitor screen as if by an act of sheer will he could change the one thing that mocked his trust in his computers.
The common consonant P.
The letter remained P. It was not C. The file name remained ROGER SHERMAN POE. Not ROGER SHERMAN COE.
A nervous laugh escaped Smith's parted lips. It was an impossibility. If he had seen a blue elf emerge from the screen to gulp down his tie, it could not have been more mind-boggling.
And because he was a logical man, Harold Smith downloaded the Roger Sherman Poe file onto the WORM drive dedicated to the NCCI data base. Once he had captured it, he set it off on the right-hand side of the screen with urgent keystrokes.
Then he called up the Roger Sherman Coe file from his version of NCCI.
The two files sat side by side on the glowing screen. Several days ago they had been identical. Now they were not.
One listed Roger Sherman Coe. The other, Roger Sherman Poe. Their Social Security numbers were completely different. Other particulars did not match.
There was only one logical explanation, he knew. A clerk had updated the file in the past few days. Smith went to the bottom of the Roger Sherman Poe file, looking for the date of the last update.
In the fleeting seconds when the file scrolled before his eyes, the lines a greenish blur, hope rose in Harold Smith's battered soul.
Then it died. The last update had been posted three months ago. The date was identical to that of the Roger Sherman Coe file. The NCCI computers were programmed to automatically record the current date on the day a file was changed or altered in any way.
According to the NCCI file, the Roger Sherman Poe file had not been altered since Harold Smith had first downloaded it days before.
Smith groaned once more-a short, mournful sound. It was the sound of a man in intense; uncomprehending pain.
"This is not logical," he said aloud. "This makes absolutely no sense. Files do not change themselves." And yet it had. Somehow, during the transfer the Roger Sherman Poe file had become Roger Sherman Coe.
The instant the thought crossed his mind, Smith was forced to dismiss it. Computers are dumb, brute machines- superfast digital calculators. Give them numbers-and in the binary language of computers, all data is reduced to numerical equivalents-they will always and invariably add, subtract, multiply or divide in precise ways. Computers cannot think. They cannot correct factual data. They hadn't that capability. Even computers driven by artificial intelligence had so far attained at best a dumb, mulelike reasoning power.
Computer error likewise could not be blamed. A transmission glitch might omit data or add data-usually nonsense strings.
Smith looked at the Social Security numbers. He knew that the first three digits corresponded to the geographical region in which a person first obtained his Social Security card.
Roger Sherman Coe's area number was 220. That signified Maryland. It matched Smith's information that Roger Sherman Coe had been born in Chevy Chase.
Roger Sherman Poe's first digit cluster was 447, which designated Oklahoma. This, too, matched up. Poe had grown up in Tulsa.
Had there been a transmission error, the odds that the numbers would make sense were astronomical. Add in the fact that with twenty-six letters of the alphabet, the last name Poe might as easily come out Toe or Xoe-or even Roe.
No. There was no escaping it. Something had gone awry within Smith's new system after he had captured the Roger Sherman Poe file.
And because of it, an innocent man had died. Smith made one last desperate stab at solving the mystery. He ran the computer-virus scan program. It was the only possible explanation.
The program ran. It checked every data string on every tape drive, disk and microchip in the massive and complicated CURE hybrid system. Each time the system came up clean. Smith ran it again, with the same result. And again.
Normally one scan would have satisfied even the supercautious Harold Smith. Because he no longer trusted his system, he scanned it four times for errors or problems.
Other diagnostic programs reported the system checked out clean.
Under the circumstances, it was the worst news he could have received.
Shaken, Harold Smith closed out the two files, and for the last time sent the CURE terminal slipping back into its desk well. The folding keyboard retracted as the screen automatically winked out and the entire unit dropped below desktop level. A much-scarred oaken panel clicked into place, showing no seam or trace of its existence.
Woodenly Harold Smith stood up and removed his gray coat and vest. He hung them on a wooden coat tree and walked over to the one concession to comfort in his Spartan office, a couch.
He turned off the overhead lights and went to sleep on the couch. He was too shaken to risk the drive home, and he desperately needed sleep.
It was well after midnight, too late to call the President with the horrible news. But Smith resolved to do it first thing in the morning. He would have to. The President must know that CURE's data-gathering arm was no longer reliable.
Without it, CURE had been maimed, perhaps crippled.
Harold Smith dropped off to sleep almost instantly. And for one of the few times in his life, his sleep was troubled by vague, inchoate nightmares.
They took no concrete form. That was beyond Harold Smith's subconscious powers. To have vivid dreams and terrifying nightmares would require imagination.
Chapter 8
The first week of September is the slowest time of year. The beaches are crowded. Air flights are packed. Business and government slows to a lazy crawl, and the stock market sleeps.
In workplaces short-staffed offices and factories try to struggle through to Labor Day. Projects are put off. Other tasks are done slowly and not finished until after Labor Day.
Enjoying the last dwindling days of a summer that it will never see again, America is at its most relaxed. And most vulnerable.
While the three people who comprise the supersecret agency called CURE slept fitfully, concerned about their future, four seemingly random and unconnected events were taking place.
In Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island, money began flowing out of the Grand Cayman Trust in a torrent. The vault remained shut, its time lock undisturbed. Its burglar alarms failed to sound. In f
act, its night clerks continued updating transaction files all through the looting, oblivious to the catastrophe that was silently, invisibly, inexorably throwing them out of work.
An electronic red flag appeared on an active computer file in the vast IRS data bank in Arlington, Virginia. No human fingers placed it there. It simply appeared.
A Consolidated Edison supervisor posted an innocuous work order, instructing a crew to connect a Harlem office building to a long-dormant Con Ed gas line, after first being assured by DigSafe that no phone, cable or electrical lines were threatened by the excavation.
And on the North Korean frigate SA-I-GU, somewhere in the Yellow Sea, a telephone rang.
Captain Yokang Sako of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Navy was asleep when it rang. The phone was a portable satellite unit, smuggled into North Korea by the captain's cousin, Yun, who regularly travelled to Japan on the cruise liner Mankongbong. It was a very useful item to have, especially on patrol.
One could call almost anywhere and receive calls from almost any spot on the globe without one's superiors knowing of it.
Captain Yokang lifted the receiver and said, "Yes?"
A warm, generous voice answered in impeccable Korean, "I have a proposition for you, Captain Yokang."
"Who speaks?"
"One who is willing to offer you as much gold as your crew can carry away."
"Gold? Whose gold?"
"Does it matter whose gold?"
"It matters if someone is trying to give it away."
"Of course, I wish something in return for this information," the voice said with calm assurance.
"Hah! What can I, a captain in the North Korean navy, offer in return for such gold?"
"Half the gold."
"Half?"
"I will tell you where the gold can be found, and you will seize it. Contact me then, and I will provide you with instructions as to where to ship exactly one half of the amount. The remainder is yours."
"Hah! So there is a catch."
"Not a catch. I am trading information, and you are trading the brute force needed to seize this cargo."
"The risk is all mine," Captain Yokang pointed out.
"The gold is half yours."
"How much gold?"
"Five million. Pure bullion."
Captain Yokang clucked thoughtfully. "This is enough to pay off my crew for their silence."
"There is no need to inform your superiors, either," said the smoothly reassuring voice.
"If this can be done safely, I will do it," said Captain Yokang.
"A United States submarine is steaming toward the West Korea Bay. It carries the gold."
"I cannot commandeer a United States submarine!"
"You can once it enters Korean territorial waters illegally."
"Why is it doing that?"
"It is better that you not know."
"Better or safer?"
"Both."
"Understood. Tell me where this submarine can be found."
As he listened over the satellite telephone, the smooth voice related everything. Course, speed and the exact position at which the USS Harlequin intended to surface.
Captain Yokang looked at a map as he took down the information. The area was off one of the most industrialized portions of west North Korea. An area of steel mills and coal mines and rice paddies. Along the coast lay only rock and a few fishing villages. Nothing of importance.
Yokang noticed a broad three-lane highway that swept up from the capital of Pyongyang to a certain point on the western coast. The highway went right to the edge of the water and stopped dead. There seemed to be no purpose in this. The map showed nothing but a blank area where the highway terminated. No doubt it was one of the Great Leader's many extravagances. North Koreans were not permitted to own motorized vehicles, yet the state boasted of its progressive highway system.
After he had all the information he needed to make himself fabulously rich, Captain Yokang asked the voice a reasonable question. "Who are you, comrade?"
"Call me Comrade," said the smooth voice.
IT WAS just after dusk in the West Korea Bay when Naval Commander John Paul Seabrooke was interrupted by the voice of his executive officer coming over the boat's intercom system.
"Captain, we're approaching Point Sierra."
"On my way," Seabrooke said. He wolfed down the last of his evening meal, wriggled his stocking feet into his spit-polished shoes and pushed his way past rushing seamen through the smelly steel innards of the USS attack sub Harlequin to the control room.
In his hand he clutched his sealed orders. Ripping as he ran, he extracted a single sheet of paper.
The orders were brief. They instructed him to look for a particular beach landmark and, once sighted, deploy his cargo on rubber rafts and simply leave it there on a beach.
The orders were signed, "Admiral Smith." Seabrooke had never heard of Admiral Smith. But the U.S. Navy was full of admirals. It was full of Smiths, too, and Seabrooke wondered why the man hadn't bothered to use his first name or at least his initials.
The instructions were simpler than he could hope for. With luck the boat could surface in utter darkness, do its duty and slip back through the Yellow Sea without being detected by North Korean gunboats.
"All secure, sir," the exec reported as Seabrooke entered the bridge. The Harlequin was running submerged at periscope depth. The periscope was down in its well.
Seabrooke ordered it raised.
A snap of a switch brought the viewer rising to meet him. He seized the handles and turned them. The scope rotated easily as Seabrooke moved his body around.
The viewer showed black water under a thin slice of yellow moon. He looked for the Horns of Welcome, as the landmark had been called in his sealed orders. It had not been described. Evidently, whatever they were, they would be hard to miss even in the dead of the North Korean night.
The thought of where he was sent a shiver through Commander Seabrooke's rangy body. North Korea was practically the only Communist holdout left standing these days. It was also the most insular and dangerous. Estranged from both Moscow and Beijing, Pyongyang was going it alone. The ruler, Kim Il Sung, was nearing the end of his life, and his son, Kim Jong Il, was anxious to take over.
It was well-known that while Kim Il Sung was a despot, Kim Jong Il was a dangerous megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur far beyond the petty vulgar dreams of his father.
There were rumors of food riots and insurrections all over North Korea. The long border with South Korea was tense. Intelligence reports predicted that when the elder Kim finally passed on, the son might make a grab for the south. Because only by involving his people in total war could he hope to hold on to his crumbling country.
No, it was not a good time to be in the West Korea Bay, Seabrooke mused. And it would be an especially bad time to be caught there.
Still, the U.S. Navy would not have sent the Harlequin into off-limits waters unless it was for a damn good reason and the odds of success were great. The Navy still remembered the Pueblo incident. Or Seabrooke fervently hoped Admiral Smith did.
They were running parallel to the coast. Seabrooke scanned the moonlit swatch of land. It was as forbidding as a moonscape. Mud flats and rock ledges. Nothing moved. Not even a sea gull flew. That meant the waters were bare of fish.
Then he saw them. Twin rock formations, one at either end of a particularly dead-looking stretch of mud flat. If they had been closer together, they would have made a pretty fair natural arch. Set apart as they were, they made Seabrooke think of the buried horns of some Precambrian dragon.
The Horns of Welcome. Had to be.
"Captain of the watch, rig controls for black and prepare to surface," Seabrooke barked, snapping up the periscope handles.
"Aye, aye, sir."
Instantly the order was repeated, and the red illumination lights were doused. The bridge became a claustrophobic space in which the tense faces of his executive officers
moved in and out of the creepy illumination of control indicators.
"Blow main ballast tanks."
"Blow main ballast tanks."
Air hissed in the tanks. The sub began to rise, its stressed hull plates groaning.
"Contact, sir!" a voice shouted. "Bearing mark 056."
"Belay that blow-tanks order," Seabrooke cried, running to the sonar.
The scope showed a large object cutting across their bow.
"A surface ship, sir."
"Looks like a damn gunboat or something," Seabrooke hissed.
It was. They realized that when the sub suddenly lurched in place. Everyone grabbed for something solid. Men were thrown about the control room.
"Depth charge!" Seabrooke cursed. "Dive, damn it!"
"Dive! Dive! All dive!"
But they were in less than one hundred fifty feet of water over an ocean floor choked with monolithic stones and sandbars. There was no place to hide, and everyone knew it.
A second charge detonated over the stern. The Harlequin bucked like a great horse stung by a hornet. Hull plates groaned and popped. Damage reports began coming in from all quarters. The lights winked out, coming back on only when Seabrooke called for backup generators. The screws refused to respond.
Dead in the water, the Harlequin crew waited, all eyes on the sonar scope operator.
"The contact is coming about, Captain," the sonar officer said nervously.
It was. In a long slow arc.
"They have us dead to rights, no question," Seabrooke whispered.
The battleship, whatever it was, slowed on the approach.
"Looks like they're going to take another whack at us," the exec muttered.
Captain John Paul Seabrooke watched the green blip on the sonar scope, his face like a death mask. He had two options, both grim. Try to run and risk North Korean battleships converging on his small boat, or surface and surrender.
His orders had contained no instructions for that eventuality. Now that he thought about it, that was unusual. It was as if COMSUBPAC had expected no problems.
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