Terminal Compromise

by by Winn Schwartau

  Scott leaned over to the side of the couch and picked up the two items he had retrieved from the Exchange.

  "This," Scott said handing a piece of ceramic material to Ty, "is superconducting material. Real new. It can superconduct at room temperature. And this," he handed Tyrone a piece of red glass, "is a piece of a high energy ruby laser."

  Tyrone turned the curios over and over in his hands. "So?" he asked.

  "By driving the output of the laser into a High Energy Static Capacitive Tank, the energy can be discharged into the super coil. The instantaneous release of energy creates a magnetic field of millions of gauss." Scott snapped his fingers. "And that's more than enough to blow out computer and phone circuits as well as erase anything magnetic within a thousand yards."

  Tyrone was now ignoring the football action. He stared alternate- ly at Scott and the curious glass and ceramic remnants. "You're bullshitting me, right? Sounds like science fiction."

  "But the fact is that the Stock Exchange still isn't open. Their entire tape library is gone. Poof! Empty, thus the name EMP-T. It empties computers. Whoever did this has a real bad temper. Pure revenge. They wanted to destroy the information, and not the hardware itself. Otherwise the conventional blast would have been stronger. The Cemex was used to destroy the evidence of the EMP-T device."

  "Where the hell do these bombs come from."

  "EMP-T technology was originally developed as part of a Top Secret DARPA project for the DoD with NSA guidance a few years back."

  "Then how do you know about it?"

  "I did the documentation for the first manuals on EMP-T. Nothing we got from the manufacturer was marked classified and we didn't know or care."

  "What was the Army going to do with them?" asked Tyrone, now with great interest.

  "You know, I had forgotten all about this stuff until the other night, and then it all came back to me," Scott said mentally reminiscing. "At the time we thought it was a paranoid joke. Another government folly. The EMP-T was supposed to be shot at the enemy to screw up his battlefield computers and radar and electronics before the ground troops or helo's went it. As I understand it, EMP-T bombs are made for planes, and can also be launched from Howitzers and tanks. According to the manufactur- er, they can't be detected and leave a similar signature to that of a conventional nuclear blast. If there is such a thing as a conventional nuke."

  "Who else knows about this," Tyrone asked. "The police?"

  "You think the NYPD would know what to look for?" Scott said snidely. "Their bomb squad went home after the plastic explosive was found."

  "Right. Forget where I was."

  "Think about it," Scott mused out loud. "A bomb that destroys all of the computers and memory but leaves the walls standing."

  "Didn't that asshole Carter want to build a nuke that would only kill people but leave the city intact for the marauding invaders? Neutron bombs, weren't they?"

  "There's obviously nothing immoral about nuking computers," Scott pontificated. "It was all part of Star Wars. Reagan's Strategic Defense included attacking enemy satellites with EMP-T bombs. Get all of the benefits and none of the fallout from a nuke. There's no accompanying radiation."

  "How easy is it to put one of the empty-things together?" Tyrone missed another 49'er touchdown.

  "Today?" Scott whistled. "The ones I saw were big, clumsy affairs from the 70's. With new ceramics, and such, I would assume they're a lot smaller as the Stock Exchange proves. A wild guess? I bet that EMP-T is a garage project for a couple of whiz kids, or if the government orders them, a couple hundred thou each." Scott laughed at the absurdity of competitive bid- ding for government projects. Everyone knew the government paid more for everything. They would do a lot better with a VISA card at K-Mart.

  "I think I better take a look," Tyrone hinted.

  "I thought you would, buddy. Thought you would." Scott replied.

  They returned to the game 12 seconds before half time. The gun went off. Perfect timing. Scott hated football. The only reason in his mind for the existence of the Super Bowl was to drink beer with friends and watch the commercials.

  "Shit," declared Tyrone. "I missed the whole damned second quar- ter." He grabbed another beer to comfort his disappointment.

  "Hey," Scott called to Tyrone. "During the next half, I want to ask you something."

  Tyrone came back into the Music Room snickering. "What the hell is that in your bathroom?"

  "Isn't that great?" asked the enthused Scott. "It's an automatic toilet seat."

  "Now just what the devil is an automatic toilet seat? It pulls it out and dries it off for you?" He believed that Scott was kid- ding with some of his half baked inventions. That Scott subject- ed any of his guests to their intermittent functioning was cruel and inhuman punishment according to Tyrone.

  "You're married with girls. Aren't they always on your case about the toilet seat?"

  "I've been married 26 years," Tyrone said with pride. "I con- quered toilet seats on our honeymoon. She let me know right then that she was boss and what the price of noncompliance was."

  "Ouch, that's not fair," Scott said in sympathy. "I sleep-piss." He held his hands out in front. "That's the only side effect from too much acid. Sleep pissing."

  Tyrone scrunched his face in disgust.

  Scott spoke rapidly and loudly. "So for those of us who forget to lower the seat after use, for those who forget to raise the seat; for those who forget to raise the lid, Auto-Shit." Ty had tried to ignore him, but Scott's imitation of a hyperactive cable shopping network host demanded that one at least hear him out. Ty's eyes teared.

  "Make that woman in your life happy today. No more mess, fuss or or morning arguments. No more complaints from the neighbors or the health department. Auto-Shit. The toilet that knows your needs. The seat for the rest of us. Available in 6 designer colors. Only $49.95, Mastercard, VISA, No COD. Operators are standing by."

  Tyrone fell over on his side laughing. "You are crazy, man. Sleep pissing. And, if you don't know it, no one, I mean no one in his right mind has five trash compactors." Tyrone waved his hand at Scott. "Ask me what you were gonna ask me."

  "Off the record, Ty," Scott started, "how're the feds viewing this mess?"

  Tyrone hated the position he was in, but Scott had given him a ltoe recently. It was time to reciprocate.

  "Off?"

  "So far off, so far off that if you turned the light "On" it would still be off."

  "It's a fucking mess," Tyrone said quickly. He was relieved to be able to talk about it. "You can't believe it. I'm down there to watch a crisis management team in action, but what do I find?" He shook his head. "They're still trying to decide on the size of the conference table." The reference caught Scott's ear. "No, it's not that bad, but it might as well be."

  "How is this ECCO thing put together? Who's responsible?"

  "Responsible? Ha! No one," Tyrone chuckled as he recounted the constant battles among the represented agencies. "This is the perfect bureaucratic solution. No one is responsible for shit, no one is accountable, but they all want to run the show. And, no one agency clearly has authority. It's a fucking disaster."

  "No one runs security? In the whole government, no one runs security?"

  "That's pushing it a little, but not too far off base."

  "Oh, I gotta hear this," Scott said reclining in the deep plush cloth covered couch.

  "Once upon a time, a super secret agency, no one ever spoke the initials, but it begins with the National Security Agency, got elected by the Department of Defense to work out communications security during the Cold War. They took their job very seriously.

  "Then along came NIST and IBM who developed DES. The DOD formed the Computer Security Initiative and then the Computer Security Evaluation Center. The DOD CSEC became the DOD Computer Security and then after NSA realized that everybody knew who they were, it became the NCSC. Following this?"

  Scott nodded only not to disrupt the flow.

  "Ok, in 1
977, Carter signed a bill that said to NSA, you take over the classified national security stuff, but he gave the dregs, the unclassified stuff to the NTIA, a piece of Commerce. But that bill made a lot of people unhappy. So, along comes Reagan who says, no that's wrong, before we get anything con- structive done, let me issue a Directive, number 145, and give everything back to NSA.

  "That pissed off even more people and Congress then passed the Computer Security Act of 1987, stripped NSA of what it had and gave NIST the unclassified stuff. As a result, NSA closed the NCSC, NIST is underbudgeted by a factor of 100 and in short, they all want a piece of a very small pie. That took over 4 years. And that's whose fault it is.

  "Whose?"

  "Congress of course. Congress passes the damn laws and then won't fund them. Result? I get stuck in the middle of third tier rival agency technocrats fighting over their turf or shirking responsibility, and well , you get the idea. So I've got ECCO to talk to CERT to talk to NIST to talk to . . .and it goes on ad nauseum."

  "Sorry I asked," joked Scott.

  "In other words," Ty admitted, "I don't have the first foggy idea what we'll do. They all seem hell bent on power instead of fixing the problem. And the scary part?"

  "What's that?"

  "It looks like it can only get worse."

  * * * * *

  Tuesday, November 11

  White House Press Room

  "Mr. President," asked the White House correspondent for Time magazine. "A recent article in the City Times said that the military has been hiding a super weapon for years that is capable of disabling enemy computers and electronics from a great dis- tance without any physical destruction. Is that true, sir, and has the use of those weapons contributed to the military's suc- cesses over the last few years?"

  "Ah, well," the President hesitated briefly. "The Stealth pro- gram was certainly a boon to our air superiority. There is no question about that, and it was kept secret for a decade." He stared to his left, and the press pool saw him take a visual cue from his National Security Director. "Isn't that right Henry?" Henry Kennedy nodded aggressively. "We have the best armed forces in the world, with all the advantages we can bring to bear, and I will not compromise them in any way. But, if there is such a classified program that I was aware of, I couldn't speak of it even if I didn't know it existed." The President picked another newsman. "Next, yes, Jim?"

  During the next question Henry Kennedy slipped off to the ante- room and called the Director of the National Security Agency. "Marv, how far have you gotten on this EMP-T thing?" He waited for a response. "The President is feeling embarrassed." Another pause. "So the Exchange is cooperating?" Pause. Wait. "How many pieces are missing?" Pause. "That's not what Mason's article said." Longer pause. "Deal with it."

  Immediately after the press conference, the President, Phil Musgrave, his Chief of Staff, Henry Kennedy and Quinton Chambers his old time ally and Secretary of State had an impromptu meeting in the Oval Office.

  They sat in the formal Queen Anne furniture as an elegant silver coffee and tea service was brought in for the five men. Minus Treasury Secreatry Martin Royce, this was the President' inner circle, his personal advisory clique who assisted in making grand national policy. Anything goes in one of these sessions, the President had made clear in the first days of his Administration. Anything.

  We do not take things personally here, he would say. We have to explore all options. All options. Even if they are distasteful. And in these meeting, treat me like one of the guys. "Yes, sir, Mr. President." The only formality of their caucuses was the President's fundamental need to mediate the sometimes heated dialogues between his most trusted aids. They were real free-for-alls.

  "Henry," the President said. "Before we start, who was that reporter? Where the hell did that question come up about the weapon stuff?"

  "Forget him. The story started at the City Times. Scott Mason, sir." Musgrave replied quickly. His huge football center sized body overwhelmed the couch on which he sat. "He's been giving extensive coverage to computer crime."

  "Well, do we have such a bomb?" he asked with real curiosity.

  "Ah, yessir," Henry Kennedy responded. "It's highly classified. But the object is simple. Lob in a few of the EMP-T bombs as they're called, shut down their communications and control, and move in during the confusion. Very effective, sir."

  "Well, let's see what we can do about keeping secrets a little better. O.K., boys?" The President's charismatic hold over even his dear friends and long time associates made him one of the most effective leaders in years. If he was given the right information.

  The President scanned a few notes he had made on a legal pad.

  "Can I forget about it?" the President closely scrutinized Henry for any body language.

  "Yessir."

  The President gave Henry one more glance and made an obvious point of highlighting the item. The subject would come up again.

  Chapter 12 Thursday, November 14

  NASA Control Center, Johnson Space Center

  The voice of Mission Control spoke over the loudspeakers and into hundreds of headsets.

  THE GROUND LAUNCH SEQUENCER HAS BEEN INITIATED. WE'RE AT T-MINUS 120 SECONDS AND COUNTING.

  The Space Shuttle Columbia was on Launch Pad 3, in its final preparation for another secret mission. As was expected, the Department of Defense issued a terse non-statement on its pur- pose: "The Columbia is carrying a classified payload will be used for a series of experiments. The flight is scheduled to last three days."

  In reality, and most everyone knew it, the Columbia was going to release another KH-5 spy satellite. The KH-5 series was able, from an altitude of 110 miles, to discern and transmit to Earth photos so crisp, it could resolve the numbers on an automobile license plate. The photographic resolution of KH-5's was the envy of every government on the planet, and was one of the most closely guarded secrets that everyone knew about.

  T-MINUS 110 SECONDS AND COUNTING.

  Mission control specialists at the Cape and in Houston monitored every conceivable instrument on the Shuttle itself and on the ground equipment that made space flight possible.

  A cavernous room full of technicians checked and double checked and triple checked fuel, temperature, guidance, computers sys- tems, backup systems, relays, switches, communications links, telemetry, gyros, the astronauts' physiology, life support systems, power supplies . . .everything had a remote control monitor.

  "The liquid hydrogen replenish has been terminated, LSU pressuri- zation to flight level now under way. Vehicle is now isolated from ground loading equipment."

  @COMPUTER T-MINUS 100 SECONDS AND COUNTING

  "SRB and external tank safety devices have been armed. Inhibit remains in place until T-Minus 10 seconds when the range safety destruct system is activated."

  The Mission Control Room had an immense map of the world spread across its 140 feet breadth. It showed the actual and projected trajectories of the Shuttle. Along both sides of the map were several large rear projection video screens. They displayed the various camera angles of the launch pad, the interior of the Shuttle's cargo hold, the cockpit itself and an assortment of other shots that the scientists deemed important to the success of each flight.

  T-MINUS 90 SECONDS AND COUNTING

  "At the T-Minus one minute mark, the ground launch sequencer will verify that the main shuttle engines are ready to start."

  T-MINUS 80 SECONDS AND COUNTING

  "Liquid hydrogen tanks now reported at flight pressure."

  The data monitors scrolled charts and numbers. The computers spewed out their data, updating it every few seconds as the screens flickered with the changing information.

  T-MINUS 70 SECONDS AND COUNTING

  The Voice of Mission Control continued its monotone countdown. Every airline passenger is familiar with the neo-Texas twang that conveys sublime confidence, even in the tensest of situations.

  The Count-down monitor above the global map decremented its numbers by
the hundredths of seconds, impossible for a human to read but terribly inaccurate by computer standards.

  "Coming up on T-Minus one minute and counting."

  T-MINUS 60 SECONDS.

  "Pressure systems now armed, lift off order will be released at T-Minus 16 seconds."

  The voice traffic became chaotic. Hundreds of voices give their consent that their particular areas of responsibility are ship shape. The word nominal sounds to laymen watching the world over as a classic understatement. If things are great, then say 'Fuel is Great!' NASA prefers the word Nominal to indicate that sys- tems are performing as the design engineers predicted in their simulation models.

  T-MINUS 50 SECONDS AND COUNTING.

  The hoses that connect the Shuttle to the Launch Pad began to fall away. Whirls of steam and smoke appeared around portions of the boosters. The tension was high. 45 seconds to go.

  "SRB flight instrumentation recorders now going to record."

  Eyes riveted to computer screens. It takes hundreds of computers to make a successful launch. Only the mission generalists watch over the big picture; the screens across the front of the behe- moth 80 foot high room.

  T-MINUS 40 SECONDS AND COUNTING

  "External tank heaters now turned off in preparation for launch."

  Screens danced while minds focused on their jobs. It wasn't until there were only 34 seconds left on the count down clock that anyone noticed. The main systems display monitor, the one that contained the sum of all other systems information displayed a message never seen before by anyone at NASA.

  @COMPMEMO "CHRISTA MCAULIFFE AND THE CHALLENGER WELCOME THE CREW OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA."

  "We have a go for auto sequence start. Columbia's forward comput- ers now taking over primary control of critical vehicle functions through lift-off."

  T-MINUS 30 SECONDS AND COUNTING

  "What the hell is that?" Mission Specialist Hawkins said to the technician who was monitoring the auto-correlation noise reduc- tion systems needed to communicate with the astronauts once in space.

  TWENTY NINE

  "What?" Sam Broadbent took off his earpiece.