Spyder Web

by Tom Grace

  ‘Keep looking,’ Parnell added while pouring another gin and tonic. ‘I don’t believe one of Moy’s computers would be suitable for our needs.’

  Roe continued paging through the log entries until one for the Michigan Applied Research Consortium caught her eye. ‘Hmm, this MARC installation looks interesting.’

  Parnell walked over from the bar. ‘Have you found something?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Roe clicked on the file icon and pulled up the detailed information of the order. ‘It says here that MARC is a semi-public venture that serves as a conduit between basic research at the university level and industrial applications. According to this narrative, they’re being backed by many of the top technology corporations in the world.’

  ‘How are they going to use their Gatekeeper?’ Cole asked.

  Roe paged through the narrative to the order specifications. ‘It appears that MARC will be using their Gatekeeper as a means to control the flow of information between their existing Cray supercomputer and a new type of processor they’re testing. The new processor design is based on optics, rather than the conventional electronics used in standard computer chips.’

  ‘Sounds rather exotic,’ Parnell opined.

  ‘Does it say what else that Cray is connected to?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Roe replied as she clicked on the icon for the MARC network. A new window opened with graphic depiction of the entire MARC’s network, including the proposed placement from the Gatekeeper. ‘Will that do, Michael?’

  Cole studied the image intently, imagining the flow of information over the network described on the screen in lines and symbols. ‘Yes, it’ll have access to the outside world. Let’s take a look at the external networks.’

  Paging down through a list of other computer systems that were considered part of the MARC network, Roe discovered a list of scientific and corporate entities with the privileges on the MARC computer network.

  ‘Ian,’ Roe said, her voice quivering slightly, ‘I think you’ll want to take a look at this.’

  Every major university, think tank, and corporate research center in the United States was tied into MARC. The thought of all that brainpower being accessible from one location brought a satisfied smile to Parnell’s face; his avarice was nearly palpable.

  Roe glanced at the two men peering over her shoulders and laughed. ‘I believe we’ve found a home for our Spyder. Let’s find out when they want it.’

  Clicking over to the production schedule, Roe learned that MARC’s Gatekeeper had already passed final testing and was scheduled for shipment in the first week in January. Roe made a note of the MARC Gatekeeper’s serial number and exited the order system.

  ‘Now that we have our site,’ Roe said, ‘it’s Michael’s turn to upgrade MARC’s Gatekeeper.’

  Moy Electronics had spent a great deal of money during the last few years perfecting their automated production facility. The flexible factory was capable of switching product lines in a matter of days, where traditional factories might take weeks to retool for a new product. Dull, repetitive tasks had been handed over to industrial robots, allowing experienced factory workers to become the brains behind the tireless machines.

  On Christmas Eve, only a skeleton crew of security officers and operations personnel were on duty; anyone who might be needed during an emergency was on call at home. The machines, which never slept, were in the middle of a preprogrammed production run when Cole and Roe loaded a new series of instructions into their memory.

  Material-transport robot 43 had just finished delivering a pallet of components ready for shipment to the loading dock when it received new orders via the network of overlapping communication ‘cells’ mounted throughout the factory. Robot 43, an industrial robot that bore a strong resemblance to a metal footlocker, glided along the smooth concrete floor on four high-density rubber rollers. Its long, squat form was designed specifically to roll underneath freestanding storage carts and to carry those carts on four internal hydraulic jacks.

  Forty-three’s new orders called for it to return to the warehouse and retrieve a package for the testing lab. As it stopped at the designated point in the warehouse, another robot fitted with a hydraulic double-jointed arm removed a box from a shelf twelve feet above the floor. With the package securely held by its fork-and-mandible collecting apparatus, the arm carefully lowered it onto 43’s back.

  The warehouse central computer then instructed 43 to proceed to the testing laboratory with the crate.Many people would find such a fully automated factory disturbingly dark and quiet, even more so on the night before Christmas, but these thoughts never bothered robot 43. It simply received and executed commands from the warehouse computer, interrupting its day only to recharge its batteries.

  The testing lab’s doors swung open as motion sensors detected 43’s approach. The robot glided in and stopped at the laboratory’s designated delivery station. An articulating robot arm swung around from the diagnostics bench and collected the package from 43’s back. New commands flowed over the cellular network and 43 rolled from the lab toward its next objective.

  Inside the lab, several robotic arms, mounted on a ceiling track system, moved into place above the box. They removed the protective packaging, revealing a black cube-shaped chip mated to a 256-pin receptacle. A thin articulating arm, fitted with a pair of hooked nose pliers, swung down from the ceiling and extracted the black cube from the receptacle. The arm then set the cube into the socket connection on the face of a chip encoder.

  Prior to his vacation, Cole had customized the original Spyder program instructions to include the contact points where it could reach Parnell and Roe in the outside world. This revised program now resided in the internal memory of the chip encoder.

  On Cole’s command, the encoder ran a low-voltage signal across the chip’s internal memory, wiping the old program away. Once the internal memory was purged of the Gatekeeper code, a second signal began to flow through it, this one carrying the Spyder program.

  After five minutes of loading and another ten of confirmation testing, the transfer was successfully completed. The articulating arm retrieved the chip and placed it back on the shipping receptacle. The other arms repacked the Gatekeeper and, right on cue, robot 43 returned to pick up the package.

  ‘The Spyder is on its way to Michigan,’ Cole said as he issued the command that sent 43 back to the warehouse.

  ‘Now we just need to tidy up a bit,’ Roe added. ‘Bring up the activity log for the lab robots.’

  Cole clicked on a few icons and a spreadsheet list of time intervals and activities scrolled out onto a new window. The lab had been quiet tonight, other than their little memory transplant. Cole modified the lab robots’ work logs to list them as running self-diagnostic routines.

  ‘That should make it look like those robots have been sleeping all night. Now let’s see how 43 is doing.’

  Robot 43 had completed its task and was heading back to a charging station in the warehouse.

  ‘Michael, I think 43 was feeling a little ill about the time we logged in,’ Roe suggested. ‘See if you can’t send it over to the maintenance shop with a malfunction.’

  ‘I think I can handle that,’ Cole replied.

  Cole brought up robot 43’s maintenance history and noticed a recent failure of its hydraulic system.He copied the old entry into the current time slot, indicating that 43 had sensed a partial system failure and reported to the maintenance shop twenty minutes prior to their entry into the Moy computer system. Then he commanded the robot to report to the maintenance shop, where it would power down and wait for the day-shift mechanics to arrive.

  ‘Robot 43 is down with the flu.What next?’Cole asked.

  Roe ran through a list she’d compiled while Cole was manipulating the automated factory. ‘The testing reports for the MARC Gatekeeper order; make sure they’re finalized and that the unit is listed as ready to ship.’

  Cole punched through the order log, checking off the quality
-assurance checks. On Friday, when the lead shipping clerk ran a report of items ready to ship, MARC’s Gatekeeper would be among the many items on the list.

  ‘That’s it,’ Roe commented. ‘All we can do now is cross our fingers and hope it works.’

  ‘It’ll work,’ Cole said, proud of his creation.

  ‘I believe that tonight’s efforts deserve a toast,’ Parnell announced triumphantly as he uncorked the champagne.

  Cole, too, felt the glow from successfully stealing a Spyder.As Parnell poured out three flutes of champagne, Cole retrieved from his briefcase an envelope containing a printout of the Cormorant file. From day one at the CIA, he was told that information is power; tonight, he felt that power as he accepted the glass from Parnell.

  ‘To a prosperous New Year,’ Parnell offered.

  Cole clinked his glass. ‘To the Spyder, may it make us all rich beyond our wildest dreams.’

  Parnell,Roe, and Cole drained their glasses in the spirit of the moment; then Cole laid the envelope on the bar.

  ‘What’s this?’ Parnell asked as he refilled the glasses.

  ‘Something I picked up from the CIA that may have some bearing on the structure of our business relationship. Alex, why don’t you look it over first while I discuss profit sharing with Ian.’

  15

  December 26

  Kilkenny scanned the deserted stretch of beach, looking for anything that might get in the way of his squad’s departure from Haiti. After three weeks in the jungle, it was good to see the ocean again.

  Gates and Darvas finished a last sweep of the surrounding jungle and flashed a thumbs-up to Kilkenny. The beach was secure.With a nod, the SEALs began exhuming their buried diving equipment.Kilkenny checked his watch; they were right on schedule. At the prearranged time earlier that day, they’d radioed the submarine to be prepared for tonight’s pickup. A brief exchange of code words set in motion the plan that would take them home.

  Each man carefully checked his dive gear for damage from the time it had spent interred. The dry-wrap bags had done their job, keeping everything free of water, dirt, and any of the tropical insects that might have tried to take up residence. Inhaling a beetle under sixty feet of water is not recommended.

  Once their weapons were stowed and his squad was ready, Kilkenny ordered his men into the water. After three weeks in a tropical rain forest, none wasted any time plunging into the surf. Once they reached the calm water beneath the waves, the squad swam in a loose formation, with Gates taking the point. The digital locator on Gates’s wrist zeroed in on the SVD’s homing beacon, leading them straight back to where the camouflaged minisubs lay on the seafloor.

  The SDVs displayed no ill-effects from their long rest on the bottom. Each started right up and the batteries showed no appreciable loss of charge. The homer in each of the SDVs found a strong signal coming from the Columbia, about eleven miles out to sea.Kilkenny rotated his finger, signaling that it was time to move out.

  The ice rattled in Parnell’s drink as the thirty-six-foot cabin cruiser bobbed in the light swells of the Caribbean. Parnell leaned back in the captain’s chair and sipped on the iced gin, his mind on neither the sea nor his thirst.

  Damn that Michael Cole! His thoughts raged. How dare he blackmail me into renegotiating our deal.

  Two days earlier, on Christmas Eve, he had embarked on a promising new venture with the acquisition of a Spyder device. He had come to Santo Domingo believing that the arrangement with Cole had been finalized. Cole was to resign from the CIA and open a consulting business whose sole client would be one of Parnell’s well-shielded corporations. As a consultant, Cole would earn generous fees for the services that he provided for this client—namely, running the Spyder.

  But Cole had surprised him, and Ian Parnell didn’t like being surprised. The computer engineer had made a play for a greater share of the Spyder profits, backing his bid with the threat of blackmail. The leverage that Cole claimed to possess confirmed something Parnell had long suspected, that Alexandra Roe had once worked for the KGB.

  Parnell really didn’t care where Roe had learned her trade; as a freelance spy, she was one of the best. Unfortunately,Cole’s threat posed a very real danger.Even if all of his consultation work was completely legitimate, Parnell knew that any hint of an espionage scandal would destroy his business. He took another sip of gin and ran the scene with Cole through his head for the hundredth time.

  He was alone on the bridge, a solitude paid for by a small bribe to the Barahona harbormaster, who’d rented him the Hatteras. Eighty feet below the boat, Cole and Roe explored a spectacular reef that a local dive-shop owner had recommended. They’d spent the morning deep-sea fishing off the western shore of Pedernales, near the Haitian border, catching nothing, and Parnell now sat back and enjoyed the quiet as he decided what to do about Michael Cole.

  ‘Ian, we’re up!’ Roe called out as she broke the water’s surface behind the boat.

  The shout interrupted Parnell’s brooding. Cole and Roe were already climbing onto the jump deck when he opened the stern rail. The divers handed their gear up to him before climbing aboard.

  ‘Alex, do you mind tending ship for a bit? I think it’s time Michael and I discussed the revised terms of our deal.’

  Roe nodded and continued checking her scuba equipment while Cole toweled off and accompanied Parnell below.

  ‘I’ve laid out the revised proposal on the galley table. Why don’t you have a look while I use the head?’

  Cole leaned over the legal documents that Parnell had spread out for him, careful not to drip water on the papers.He skipped over the boilerplate defining the relationship between Cole’s professional corporation and Parnell’s corporate shell in the Caymans to the paragraph on fees and percentages. Cole’s heart skipped a beat when he read the breakdown of profits; the sliding scale was definitely skewed in his favor. After eighteen years at a mediocre salary and a disastrous divorce that had left him all but bankrupt, Michael Cole saw himself poised to earn a small fortune. The structure of the agreement hid the money well enough that his ex-wife would never see a dime of it.

  ‘Ian,’ Cole called out. ‘This looks—’

  Parnell drove the three-pound rubber mallet down on Cole’s skull like an ax, rendering the man unconscious. He grabbed Cole as he collapsed and dragged him to a hatch in the stern of the boat. Carefully, he hauled Cole down into the boat’s engine compartment and placed him between the twin diesels, securing his arms and legs with duct tape. He then disconnected the exhaust pipe from one of the diesel engines. Satisfied that everything was ready, Parnell closed the hatch and returned to the bridge.

  ‘How did it go with Cole?’ Roe asked when Parnell appeared on deck.

  ‘I think he found the revised terms agreeable. He’s not feeling too well, though; he seems to have a bit of a headache. I left him below to rest while we head back to port.’

  Parnell primed the pumps and started the engines. After checking the compass heading and the charts, he turned the boat around and headed back to Barahona.

  Both Parnell and Roe remained silent most of the way back, each deeply engrossed in their own thoughts. For Roe, memories of a past life, long buried, had resurfaced. The information that Cole had produced, details about her identity and her KGB career, could only have come from one source—her mentor, Andrei Yakushev. Yakushev alone had kept the files that linked his agents with their deep-cover assignments, but he was long dead.

  Roe had been in Moscow when the hard-line Communists tried to overthrow the Gorbachev government. Fearing the worst,Yakushev had altered her records in Lubyanka, listing her as ‘killed on assignment,’ and destroyed the operations files that identified her as Anna Mironova. She had last seen Yakushev during the opening hours of the coup, when he freed her from the KGB. The Soviet power struggle was one that Yakushev did not expect to survive.

  The sudden quiet brought Roe back to the present. They had been cruising at a leisurely pace for forty-fiv
e minutes when Parnell cut the engines and brought the boat to a stop.

  ‘That ought to about do it.’

  ‘Ought to do what?’ Roe had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘Cole. He’s dead, or should be by now. I knocked him out and left him down beside the diesels. I estimate threequarters of an hour should be enough to kill him.What do you think? Should I run it for another twenty minutes, just to make sure?’

  Roe’s mouth opened to form a question her mind was still trying to assemble. Parnell talked about killing Cole as if it were some kind of recipe he was trying to follow. ‘What have you done with Cole?’

  ‘I killed him.’ Parnell spoke in slow, measured tones, precisely delivering each word.

  Roe bolted from her chair and ran belowdecks, hoping that this was just a sick example of British humor. Parnell wasn’t laughing.

  ‘I wouldn’t go down there if I were you, fumes and all. Might get you, as well.’

  Cole was nowhere to be seen in the main cabin. Roe located the hatch panel to the engine room and opened it. It was just as Parnell had described; Cole lay prone and motionless along the beam of the boat, between the twin engines. The compartment was thick with heat and grimy diesel exhaust.

  ‘Yes, he’s dead,’ Parnell declared icily, looking over her shoulder.

  Roe found it difficult to suppress the violent shiver running down her spine. ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t give me that. It’s not like I’m Jack the Ripper. We don’t need him, and I won’t have a bastard like Cole holding a sword over my head for the rest of my life. The way I see it, I did both of us a favor. Now go get your scuba tank on.’ Parnell’s tone left no room for discussion.

  After Roe suited up, Parnell instructed her to take Cole’s scuba tanks into the engine room and, using a small electric compressor, dope them with monoxidetainted air. Should Cole’s body ever be recovered, Parnell reasoned, the fouled tanks would be the apparent cause of death. Once Roe finished with the tanks, she dragged Cole’s body up on deck. By this time, the sun was gliding down to the horizon and twilight was upon them.