Computer Capers

by Dan Kelly

  Chapter 4

  -Washington D. C.-

  “What the hell is going on?” It’s the second day of the power outage and President Weinstein has called an emergency cabinet meeting and he’s not a happy camper. “You people are the crème de la crème in the areas of your expertise and not one of you has a reasonable explanation for what is happening. How can that be? The communications disruptions out West and the current power outages along the Eastern seaboard reek of malevolence on somebody’s part and nobody here has the remotest idea who the culprit or culprits might be. It is incomprehensible to me that not one of the organizations that have been created to defend our nation from this kind of perilous turmoil has had any advance warning, not even a whisper, of something like this being in the works. That scares me to death. Last night my son almost bought the farm on an operating table at the hospital from a burst appendix because the lights went out at a critical moment.”

  From the reaction of everyone in the room, it is evident that what had happened to Jacob was news to them. Vice President Cromwell asked, “How is Jacob now? How did they finish the operation?”

  “Fortunately, some quick thinking nurse remembered he had a mag flashlight on his key chain and they used that to finish the operation. A lot of poison from the burst appendix got into his system so they pumped him full of antibiotics to fight infection, but he’s lapsed into a coma and now we’re in a wait and see mode. Damn it, how could something like this come down the pike and we not have any warning?”

  Bill Demerit the head of Homeland Security spoke up somewhat sheepishly. “I’m embarrassed to admit that my Assistant Regional Director of our West Coast Region, Paul Wesley, did have some warning from an organization that we use fairly often, Sentry, but I didn’t take it seriously. At the time, I believed a more mundane reason for the communication failures would be uncovered.”

  “Sentry, that’s Hank Aldridge’s outfit isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Damn it, Bill, that guy is uncanny when it comes to sniffing out trouble? He also has quite a reputation for snuffing out trouble as well. He’s someone that’s not smart to ignore.”

  “I know that now sir.”

  “Well, I want you to call him personally and get him on board. Give him my encrypted number and tell him he is to relay his hunches, findings and recommendations directly to me. His involvement is not to leave this room and I expect everyone in this room to fully co-operate with him. I want no territorial prejudices to rear their ugly heads. Is that clear?”

  Everyone in the room nodded their head in agreement and then the President addressed his press secretary. “Sam, call a press conference and acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and state that a multi-agency task force is engaged in an investigation to determine the cause of these disruptions and to develop remedies. Phrase your comments in language that will convey that the administration is doing its utmost to resolve the crisis and is confident of its success in the endeavor, but be careful not to say anything that will cause folks to panic.

  “I want the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and anyone else who has the resources and the expertise to find out who is behind this and how they’re doing it to pull out all the stops to do so. Once we know the who and how, we can put a plan together to end this nightmare.

  “This power outage is resulting not only in the loss of many amenities we take for granted like radio, TV, refrigeration, lights to see by, traffic control, internet commerce, etc., but also in the tragic loss of life. We’ve got to find a way to put a stop to it and do it quickly or be prepared for things to get a lot worse. Let’s adjourn for now and reconvene at three this afternoon. I expect all of you to have some ideas about how we should proceed.”

  As the cabinet members file out of the conference room with Sam Ferguson bringing up the rear bearing a subtle smile on his lips, the President calls out to him and the smile quickly vanishes. “Sam, until this mess is cleaned up I want you available 24/7, understood? You can sleep over here in the White House. Have one of your staff pick up what you’ll need from home. Keeping the American people timely informed without creating a panic is going to be a major challenge and I want you ready at all times to meet that challenge.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “That’s all for now.”

  As Sam turns and leaves the conference room, the subtle smile has been replaced with an angry frown. “Damn it! Now I won’t be able to participate in any of the upcoming meetings of The Last Resort. I’m going to have to come up with a way to communicate with them without getting caught. If I can’t leave the White House and don’t dare use a phone or a computer here, how the hell am I going to keep them in the loop? It would be too risky to use my personal cell or land line. I’m sure they’re tapped because of my function in the Administration.”

  Walking back to his office he sees a FEDEX guy delivering mail to some of the other offices and is thinking that this may be the answer. He’d have to be prepared to come up with a reasonable explanation if he was asked why he was using FEDEX so much. He could use James Hollingsworth as his intermediary, using a spurious commercial real estate investment as a cover. Those kinds of deals usually require a lot of paperwork and therefore use of FEDEX for a short while shouldn’t raise any suspicions. His explanation could include not wanting to use government equipment or services for personal business. “Yeah, that should work.”

  Chapter 5

  -Chicago-

  On Thursday at four in the afternoon, the various intense conversations going on between members of Sentry come to a halt when Hank Aldridge enters the conference room from his office, steps to the head of the table and clears his throat. “I just received a phone call from Homeland Security in Washington D. C. We are now officially on board to assist Uncle Sam in identifying and crushing the vermin who have infested us with this mysterious epidemic. This will provide us with additional resources which should make it a little easier for us to do our thing. The boxes you see on the floor along the wall contain battery powered lanterns, so we’ll have light to work by if we are the next target for a power outage. Also, as we expected the computer problems the banks in Charlotte and the Fed in Richmond were having mysteriously disappeared. Okay, what have you people come up with? Joel, you start things off.”

  “My research and queries have produced the names of sixteen people that warrant a closer look. Each one of these individuals has the financial resources, the intelligence, the power and the type of personality to make him an ideal player for the other team. There were others that came up who had some of the characteristics we are looking for, but only these sixteen had all of them.

  “I haven’t had a chance to compare the names on my list with any Tania might have come up with yet.”

  “I didn’t come up with as many possibles as you did, Joel, but I did come up with six names that fall within our profile requirements and a couple of them have really piqued my interest.”

  Hank turns to Sandy and says, “Scan their lists into the computer and put them up on the screen so we can all have a look.”

  Kirk Dodson is the first to spot the solitary match. “Well, well, well. What do we have here boys and girls? George Palmer. Who is this guy and what’s his game?”

  Tania responds with, “He’s quickly becoming one of the big boys in pharmaceuticals. He’s the major stockholder and CEO of Pinnacle Pharmaceuticals, a leader in cancer research and through its wholly owned subsidiary, Four Winds Apothecaries, a major distributer of medical supplies to hospitals and families all over the world. From what I’ve been able to determine, he’s cleaner than Mr. Clean.”

  Joel adds, “Cynic that I am, almost too clean. It’s extremely difficult for anyone to rise to the top of the heap in today’s world economic climate without getting a little dirty. Barbara, check out Mr. Palmer’s background and see what you can dig up.”

  “Will do.”

  Rubbing his hand over his bald
dome in a somewhat frustrated manner, Hank amends Joel’s instructions to include everyone on the two lists. “I know some of the men on these lists and I’m having some difficulty accepting the possibility that any of them could be behind what is

  happening, but we would be remiss if we didn’t check out all of them. Okay, let’s hear from the rest of you. Kirk?”

  “Nothing’s showing up on my radar yet, but I’ve reopened some channels of communication all over the country which in the past have proven to be very reliable. If anything unusual shows up in any of the areas covered by my contacts, I’ll know about it within minutes.”

  “Perry?”

  “This guy Palmer, if memory serves me right, was involved in a major law suit a few years back involving patent infringement. I don’t remember all of the details, but one of the big players in that arena, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Hoffman-La Roche, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Merck, I don’t remember which one, filed a mega-bucks lawsuit which generated very little interest on Wall Street until Palmer filed a counter-suit claiming that it was their patent that had been infringed upon. Things heated up real fast then, but just as quickly died down amidst rumors that a very influential party had intervened and mediated a settlement which was satisfactory to both parties.

  “My curiosity has now been aroused regarding who this influential party is and what part the two of them might be playing in this nefarious plot against the United States. I’d like to take some time to nose around to see what I can uncover.”

  “Make it a priority, Perry. You might be on to something.

  “Barbara, Collette? What did you two come up with?”

  Barbara starts off with, “Collette and I came up with a lot of possibles at first, but upon taking a closer look eliminated most of them for one reason or another. This doesn’t mean that we won’t revisit them if all other avenues turn into dead ends. We wound up with three people who meet our criteria and have raised the hackles on the backs of our necks. What really freaked us out was we came up with these same names independently. Collette, why don’t you take it from here?”

  “Okay, Barbara. Be prepared to be a little shocked people. We were. The first name on our list is James Hollingsworth, a commercial real estate kingpin who doesn’t hesitate to tell anyone who will listen that he is. The word ‘braggart’ was created to describe guys like him. He’s got the Midas touch when it comes to matching projects with demand. His wealth, power, intelligence and mindset definitely qualify him as a possible player in what is going on.

  “The next on the list is Ronald Baltzinger, interstate railroad and trucking magnate and a high stakes gambler who frequents the major casinos all over the world and loves to shoot craps. He’s been overheard a number of times making comments like ‘What our country needs is a benevolent dictatorship to rid us of all the political deadwood and claptrap surrounding us.’

  “The last name on our list, Basil Halkias, almost didn’t make it because, unlike the others, very little is known about him. He stays out of the limelight. His exceptional business acumen and astuteness are made manifest in his extraordinary acquisitions and the growth of his shipping empire, but are only noticed by the elite in the business community. The only other publicity he gets is when, on a very rare occasion, one of his sizeable contributions to many charities around the world gets leaked to the media. His business interests appear to take up most of his time, leaving little for personal relationships. He’s never married and would never be considered a social butterfly. For someone as prominent and successful as this guy is in the international business community, it’s highly unlikely that he would be largely ignored by journalists and newscasters unless he’s working very hard at keeping a low profile. We’re wondering why he would so diligently avoid the free publicity that would only enhance his public image and be good for business. Why the reluctance?”

  Barbara adds. “He appears to be a very unassuming individual on the outside, but the rumors we’ve picked up indicate that his public persona is a cover up for a very arrogant control freak underneath.

  “I’m surprised that not one of these names appears on Joel’s or Tania’s lists.”

  Joel responds with, “Well, none of these three men is involved in manufacturing, so it would be highly unlikely that Tania would come across them. As for my list, your resources are obviously better than mine and that’s one hell of a good example of why teamwork is usually better than flying solo. I’m still looking though.”

  “Good work you two. Sal?”

  “Like Kirk I’ve primed my channels and given a heads up to people I know are plugged into a broad spectrum of news sources. Nothing yet has come into my crosshairs. Believe it or not, Halkias’ name came up a few times, but I immediately ruled him out because he doesn’t sport any of the usual trappings of someone who is driven to lock horns with the powers that be. He doesn’t seek notoriety, he’s not on record for making disparaging remarks about anyone or any governing body, he appears to be apolitical and isn’t even registered to vote, he’s not part of any ‘good old boy’ network that I’ve been able to detect and disburses a lot of his income to numerous charities around the globe. He may have a bad temper or other faults behind the scenes, but I’m not sensing anything about the man that alarms me.”

  “Thanks, Sal. You, Barbara and Collette have equally reasonable arguments for your impressions and we’re going to have to dig deeper to shed more light on Mr. Halkias.

  “Okay, Ashok, you’re up. What kinds of electronic wizardry are these lunatics using and is there any way we can neutralize them?”

  “Since normality has been restored as far as communications are concerned, I haven’t been able to find any residual evidence that might give me a clue as to the nature of the methods being used, but after reviewing all of the incident reports I’m convince that the usual jamming methods aren’t being used. The lack of any of the usual noises associated with electrical disturbances, the crackling, hissing or whistling noises, is leading me to believe that something else is involved here. Some kind of electro-magnetic barrier is being employed that blocks out all signals of any kind coming into or leaving an area. Without having one to examine and analyze, I’m at a dead end as to how to proceed. A special transmitter would be required to create such a barrier and it would have to be something small and light enough to be easily transported to a desired location and in a manner that would not arouse suspicion. These are my best guesses, but I’m afraid they’re not much help.

  “As for the hacking of selected computer systems, to be more precise we are dealing with crackers not hackers. The difference being a hacker breaks into a system looks around and leaves. There is nothing illegal about this. A cracker breaks into a system for personal gain, stealing data, modifying data, distributing viruses, etc. which, of course, is highly illegal. In other words, all crackers are hackers, but not all hackers are crackers.

  “Can hacking be prevented? Theoretically, yes, realistically, not in all instances. Consistent prevention requires a lot of knowledge, time and effort. Apathy, fatalism, budget concerns frequently get in the way of common sense when it comes to addressing hacking issues. There are seven things that can be done that, if done diligently and correctly, can stonewall hackers indefinitely.

  “I’ll cover them briefly here and recommend that they be relayed to everybody responsible for the systems being accessed or those systems that could create public havoc if accessed.

  Implement the latest firewalls.

  Install up-to-date anti-virus software.

  Frequently upgrade computer operating systems.

  Don’t run unnecessary network services, eliminating some access portals.

  Develop a corporate security policy which includes password parameters and user name and password deletion when an employee leaves.

  Hire an outside computer consulting firm to periodically conduct access vulnerability tests.

  Keep informed about the latest developments in network securityr />
  “All Sentry can do is strongly urge those responsible for these computer systems to implement these items as quickly as possible. Well, that’s not quite all. I’ve developed a software program that will detect an unauthorized access attempt and send a devastating virus back to the source.”