by Blake Banner
I sucked on my cigarette and gazed into the dancing flames again, watched how the light from the fire fought against the darkness, casting the wavering, diabolical shadows back. It was, after all, the chaotic, destructive force of the fire that brought the light, and the darkness that standardized everything into an obscure, uniform anonymity.
“Enough philosophizing, Jim. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Omega Two controls the European Union, U.K., Turkey, Norway and Iceland. The heads are Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota and Kappa.”
Njal grunted. “Yuh, you know who these people are?”
“Yes. I have a list. Zeta is Jean-Claude Timmerman.”
“Of the European Commission?”
“Yes. If I can get him, I can get access to the others.”
Njal was shaking his head. “You kill one man, you kill two or five. They will be replaced. Old time organizations were made of people. Now they are made of software, and they are running on algorithms. Yuh, I agree, we take Timmerman, but we are using him to get to the Omega mainframe in Europe, and we are putting in a virus.”
I stared at him for a long while. “What kind of virus?”
He made a face like I had said something absurdly obvious. “Yuh, well, there are like a million possibilities, but the one I am liking for this job is the neutron bomb.”
“The neutron bomb?”
“Uh-uh, in 2012 the shamoon virus was targeted at the largest oil producer in the world, in Saudi, Aramco. The shamoon was crude weapon. It just destroys data. It deletes everything it is finding. In this case, it destroyed thirty thousand computers before it was contained. You can imagine what it could have done if they do not contain it, right? So, the neutron bomb is a similar principle, but it is much more deadly because it is spreading through whole networks before it is becoming active. It will keep on spreading until it can spread no farther, and when every linked and associated network is infected, then it will strike. Until then, it is invisible, and when it becomes visible, it is too late, it has deleted all the data on the networks.”
I frowned at Njal awhile. “Does this thing exist?”
He nodded slowly. “Sure, I think so. But there are problems.”
“Like what?”
He burst out laughing, looking at Jim. Jim started to laugh too.
“What’s the joke?”
Jim answered. “It’s theoretical, for one thing. The other is that it can only be used in a contained network. If that network goes online, or connects with any other network, it will instantly spread into the other networks or, theoretically, infect the whole of the World Wide Web. The damage could be incalculable.”
Njal said, “We would have to find somebody who can make this virus, and we would have to be sure the Omega computer was insulated. And there is one more problem. If the network is insulated, and I am pretty sure it is, right? How do we get the virus in?”
I sucked on my cigarette and watched the smoke trail away on the night air. “I might have just the guy for the job. I’ll talk to him.”
Jim said, “You’re serious.”
It wasn’t a question so I didn’t answer. I said, “I go to Brussels, abduct Timmerman, take him to a safe location, use him to gain access to the Omega mainframe, and to lure the other four to a meeting. Kill them all and destroy the network.”
“It’s going to take a lot of planning. A lot of preparation.”
“Can you help me?”
He gazed into the flames and his face was washed with wavering orange light. Far below, I could hear the surf colliding with the cliff. Around the warm circle of light, the darkness was dense and pressed in. He smiled. “Oh, yes, Lacklan, we’ll help you. What do you need?”
“It needs to be a very low key operation. The smaller, the better. I don’t want to blip on anybody’s radar.” I thought for a moment, flicking ash. “I want Njal. We snatch Timmerman. We take him in Brussels. We transfer him to Paris by car. There, I want a change of car waiting for us. From Paris we take him to Spain. I know a place there we can use. It’s remote. There we interrogate him and set up the second part of the plan.”
Njal was nodding. “OK. I will go ahead. I will study his movements.” He turned to face Jim. “Day after tomorrow I go, OK? I watch him and I gather data.” He turned to me. “You join me in a couple of weeks. Based on what I have found, we make the concrete plan to snatch him, where, how, et cetera. His security will be tight. Maybe we need more help.”
“No, just us. We’ll find a way. I know a place in Cadiz, south of Spain. It’s up in the mountains, about as remote as it gets without going to Africa or eastern Europe.” I looked at Jim. “OK, so you’re giving me this help. What do you want from me?”
He shook his big head. “Just exactly this, Lacklan. All I want is for you to bring Omega down, and if you can pull this plan off, my God! You will cripple them completely, and give humanity a chance again.”
“Maybe, Jim. All I want is for them to leave my family alone.” I turned back to Njal. “You’re flying out to Brussels day after tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “London, train and ferry to Calais, then train to Brussels. No credit cards, all cash.”
“Good.” I stood and moved away into the darkness, pulling my phone as I went. I came to a stone parapet. Beyond it was a steep cliff that fell down to the sea. Below, the foam was luminous where it crashed, slow and rhythmic against the shore. I searched in my phone book and found Philip Gantrie’s number[9]. His reply when I called him was typically cautious.
“Yes?”
“Philip, it’s me, Lacklan.”
He was silent for a moment and I knew he was running my words through voice recognition. Eventually, he said, “Hello, Lacklan. How are you doing?”
That was my cue to answer, “All’s well in Minas Tirith,” which meant I was not calling him under threat or duress. I went on, “Listen, can you make a neutron bomb?”
“I assume you are not referring to the nuclear device.”
“That would be a safe assumption, Philip.”
“Yes. It’s considerably more complex than the shamoon. It has to be invisible, for one thing. There are elements of AI involved, as it has to learn from experience, and it has to be self replicating.”
“But you can do it.”
“I’m one of the few who knows how.”
“How long would it take you?”
“Lacklan, we need to discuss this before we go one step further.”
“I’m aware of the risks.”
“Are you? Do you know what would happen if this thing spread through the Web?”
“It has just been explained to me.”
“No, Lacklan, money is electronic these days, do you understand that? All the money on the planet would be wiped out from every bank on Earth… Do you realize what that would do to world trade? Every electronic contract ever drawn up, every trade agreement, every email, every payment, every invoice—the entirety of twenty-first century world trade would collapse within a matter of minutes. And that is just the beginning. Then there is communication, travel, the entire global telephone system, traffic control for thousands of planes…”
“Philip, I understand the risks. We are looking at a hermetically sealed network.”
“Omega?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be sure it’s hermetic?”
“A, it has to be, B, I will make sure before I introduce the virus.”
“How?”
“I can’t tell you that, but trust me, I will make sure. I have as much to lose as eight billion other people. How long?”
“We are talking about people dying, Lacklan, starving to death. Millions, perhaps more…”
“How long, Phil?”
“I already have it, locked in my safe.”
I went cold all over and for a moment I felt the skin on the back of my neck crawl.
“This is more lethal than a nuclear device, Lacklan. This will cripple both mass production and mass distribution. It will lead to famin
e and disease on a scale you cannot imagine. It will put us back in the middle ages. Do you know what that means for a population of eight billion people?”
“Yes…”
“It means that ninety percent of them will die of starvation and disease. Do you know how long that will take?”
“No.”
“Less than six weeks.”
“I understand, Phil.”
“I really hope you do.”
I hesitated. There were questions beginning to crowd in on my mind. “How can I get hold of it?”
“Where are you?”
“California.”
“You ever hear of Dateland?”
I smiled to myself. “Is that where they make the calendars?”
“I’m not real good with jokes. It’s on Interstate Eight, sixty-five miles east of Yuma. Can you be there tomorrow?”
“What time?”
“I’ll see you in the travel center at three P.M.”
His voice told me he was about to hang up. I said, “Phil, before you go…”
“What?”
“Why did you make it?”
He was quiet so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer, then he said, “Partly because I wanted to know if it was possible. But mainly because your father asked me to.”
“What?”
“You don’t really want me to repeat it, do you?”
“Did you ask him why?”
“Of course. I also told him I wouldn’t do it.”
“So…?”
“He told me it was none of my damned business and if I didn’t make it, he would have me lynched with my own intestines.”
“That’s a pretty persuasive argument.”
“Yes, also I was curious.”
“Will it work?”
“Yes, Lacklan, it will work. And if I stay on the line any longer, this conversation will become compromised. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I returned to the fire where Jim and Njal were talking quietly in a language I didn’t recognize, but sounded Scandinavian. I refilled my goblet with wine and pulled a Camel from my pack, then threw the pack to Njal. I lit up, sat back and stretched out my legs.
Jim said, “So?”
“We have it.”
The fire crackled and spat, the light wavered and the deep, black shadows danced in a silent frenzy, and the moon sank relentlessly toward the black ocean.
FIVE
Dateland wasn’t so much a town with a gas station and a travel center as a travel center with a gas station and a town, in that order. It was in the middle of a flat, red-gray desert dotted with desultory palms, sparse shrubs and, far off, the occasional saguaro. I came off the I-8 straight into the Texaco gas station, left the Zombie charging and went into the rest center.
I found him at the Date Shake cafeteria sitting at a table with a cup of coffee and his laptop. I ordered a coffee and sat opposite him.
“Hello, Philip.”
He didn’t shift his eyes from the computer. “I am really very uncomfortable with this.”
“I understand. I hope you’re not planning to go back on the agreement.”
“There is no agreement. There was no exchange of consideration. I made no promise. But no, I don’t intend to go back on what I said.” He closed his computer and looked away, at the wall. “If I give you this, and it goes wrong, I will be as responsible as you.”
“Would it make you feel better if I stole it from you?”
He sighed and finally met my eye. “Don’t be absurd. You’d have no idea how to make it work.”
He reached down beside him into a black shoulder bag and pulled out a black, USB pen drive. He handed it to me and said, “That is the most dangerous weapon on the planet. I hope you fully understand what that means, Lacklan.”
“You’ve made it clear, Philip.”
“You select any terminal within the network, insert the drive and when it asks you what you want to do, you select ‘run’. A window will pop up offering you two choices, ‘Silent Running’ or ‘Crash and Burn’. You select ‘Silent Running’. It will take five minutes to install on that terminal. Remove the drive and it will then start to spread. From that moment on, there is no way of stopping the spread. If there is a single terminal in the network that connects to the Web, it will spread to every computer on the Web, and any network that is connected, even via a single terminal, to the Web.”
“Surely there are firewalls that can stop its progress. The NSA, CIA... Surely these guys have software…”
He was studying me and there was something close to contempt, even hatred in his eyes. “See?” he said. “This is why. This is why I don’t want to give it to you. Because you say, ‘Yeah Phil, I get it,’ ‘Yeah Phil, you made it clear,’ but you’re just humoring me to shut me up!” His cheeks had flushed red. “How stupid do you think I am, Lacklan?”
“Hey, take it easy.”
“No! Answer the damned question. How stupid do you think I am?”
“I don’t think you’re stupid at all…”
“I have an IQ of one sixty. Do you think, that with an IQ similar to Einstein’s and Stephen Hawking’s I would have overlooked the possibility of a firewall?”
“No.”
“Do you think I would have wasted my time creating this thing if it could be stopped by a firewall?”
“No. I’m sorry, Phil.”
His cheeks were still flushed and the tendons in his neck were standing out. His pale blue eyes were bright and I thought he might start crying with frustration.
“I need to know, Lacklan, that you fully appreciate what that thing can do. Don’t dismiss what I am saying as though you somehow know better than I do.”
I was nodding. “It was a stupid question and I apologize.”
He ignored me and went on. “I have used AI technology that is cutting edge…” His voice was settling. “It knows all the major firewall and antivirus technology and is capable of probing, testing and learning about the software it encounters. The more computers it invades, the more memory it has and the faster it learns. This thing is capable of growing and learning faster than any measures that can be brought against it. And more to the point, it will have spread throughout the entire Web, and every network connected to the web, before anybody knows it’s there. It will then delete all the data on the Web, or connected to the Web. Please do not dismiss what I am saying to you.”
“I understand, Phil. I do. You have my word.”
“You’re going to use it against Omega?”
“Yes.”
“That is the only reason I’m letting you have it. Be sure, for the sake of humanity, that the network is absolutely hermetic.” He stood suddenly and picked up his computer. Then he paused to stare at me. “This is one case where the cure truly is as bad as the disease.”
He walked out of the café and into the glaring desert light, where he became an oddly distorted silhouette, then vanished. I sat and finished my coffee, thinking about what he had told me, trying to wrap my brain around the fact that a minute piece of information could bring the world crashing to its knees and cause millions, perhaps billions of deaths, simply by shutting down computers. While I was thinking about that, I saw three people approach the till and buy dates. Each package had its barcode, which was read by the till. The price was presented on the screen and simultaneously a new pack was ordered from the warehouse.
I snapped out of my reverie, pulled my cell phone from my pocket and sat staring at it awhile, thinking about all the computerized processes involved in the call I was about to make. I sighed and called Marni.
“Hey, Lacklan. What’s up?”
I wondered for a moment how to answer and settled on, “A lot. Listen, I’m going to make this brief. Abi and I are splitting up.”
“Oh… I’m sorry to hear that. Are you OK?”
“I’ve been better. She thinks there’s something between you and me and she’s turned into a real bitch…”
I paused, g
iving her time to think. After a moment, she said, “That doesn’t sound like you, Lacklan.”
“Yeah. So anyway, she’s got her lawyers and she’s trying to screw me for everything I have. She’s not the woman I thought she was, Marni. I’ve learned you have to be damned careful, or the consequences can be dire.”
“You got that right, partner.”
“So, listen. I’m coming over in the next week or so. I thought we could catch up, shoot the breeze.”
“Sounds like a ball.”
“But, uh, Marni? Just you and me, OK? We don’t need the old man around. I was thinking we could discuss old times…”
She laughed. “Am I catching you on the rebound?”
I put a smile in my voice. “I’m on the rebound from the rebound. I’m getting dizzy.”
She went quiet. “Yeah, I know. Give me a call when you get here. I’ll cook a meal. Just you and me. I’ll even let you cry on my shoulder.”
“You’re a pal.”
“Yeah, you too.”
I hung up and sat staring at nothing in particular, wondering how much of what I’d said was true, and how much was an act for anyone who might be eavesdropping. I decided I didn’t know, and there was nothing to be gained from finding out. I stood and walked into the desert sun with the world’s most dangerous weapon sitting in my pocket.
* * *
I landed at Heathrow Airport ten days later at nine A.M., picked up my Aston Martin Volante from Hertz and enjoyed the drive up to Oxford, through an insane superabundance of green hills and green foliage that seemed to billow, like green smoke across the countryside, under heavy, gray skies.
I entered the city over the Magdalen Bridge and past Magdalen College, which for some reason the Brits call ‘Maudlin’ Bridge and ‘Maudlin’ College, and followed the High Street, among ancient, unpretentious buildings in white and ochre and salmon pink, that had seen the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires without undue concern; and great, sandstone colleges with tall, narrow leaded windows that were already ancient when Drake was giving Spain a hard time on the high seas. This was the city of the dreaming spires, that most ancient seat of learning, where streets get called things like Logic Street and nobody thinks it’s odd.