Apparently they had.
Brad sipped his coffee, then placed the hot mug on his desk and glanced at his calendar. As a national security counsel in the Office of Records and Access Management, he and his superiors were vitally interested in the Y2K problem. Then again, these days every government agency was crucially concerned with the state of their computers. The old mainframes that had run everything from Social Security to the IRS were in danger of being rendered obsolete as of midnight, January 1, 2000. Their millions of code lines made First Manhattan Bank’s problem look puny in comparison.
But Daniel had found an answer.
Brad picked up a pencil and tapped it on his desk. He had felt a stab of guilt when he assigned a pair of agents to Prentice Technologies, but the feeling passed when he considered that he had assigned agents to twenty other innovative software companies as well. Everyone desperately needed an answer to the Y2K dilemma, and, entrepreneurs being what they were, the creative souls who came up with the answer wouldn’t be likely to share it without at least a little coercion. These computer whiz kids talked about charity and improving the world through their gifts, but thus far their largesse had been generally limited to free games, redundant productivity software, and programs that hooked the user to some larger and more expensive operating system.
Brad smiled to himself as he thought of his friend. Daniel Prentice was a nice guy, generally altruistic, but he hadn’t become a multimillionaire by giving away the store. If he had a Y2K solution, he’d charge handsomely for it, maybe even start a bidding war when the world was desperate and options were limited. Of course, he’d be taking a risk that someone else would hit upon a similar solution, but Daniel wasn’t afraid to take a chance. Daniel wasn’t afraid of anything in the corporate world.
Well, Uncle Sam would have to take a risk, too. The Washington bureaucrats would have to offer Daniel Prentice more than the private sector ever could, and they’d have to move before Daniel grew comfortable with the idea of upping the ante.
Brad scratched a digit beneath the message, then added an absurd number of zeroes and a dollar sign. The figure was more than the operating budget of the NSA and the Treasury Department combined; but if Daniel could save the government’s computers from disaster, he would, in effect, be saving the nation from disaster. Not everyone would see it that way, of course. The sharks would come out in full force when this figure began to be bandied about in committee meetings, since such an amount would take a slice from every budget in Washington. But if Washington wanted to keep the nation together, it would have to pay the price . . . whatever Daniel Prentice demanded.
Brad stared at the message a moment more, then fed it into his shredder. “Danny, my boy, I hope you’re open to negotiation. You’d be cheaper to kill than to employ.”
He waited until the shredder stopped churning, then stood and tugged out the wrinkles of his jacket. Straightening his shoulders, he moved out into the hall, dreading what he had to do next.
FIVE
10:04 A.M., Monday, November 9, 1998
“GOOD MORNING, MR. PRESIDENT.”
The greeting came in near-perfect unison from more than a dozen throats as Lauren Mitchell walked in the wake of the looks of awe and respect directed at President Samuel Stedman. As the president moved around the oval table, giving each member of his cabinet a smile and a handshake, Lauren found an empty chair against the wall. As the president’s executive assistant, her position was almost as significant as any cabinet member’s, and she felt no need to wrangle for a seat near her boss. After all, she had known the president and first lady since Sam Stedman was a freshman senator from the great state of North Carolina. Her genuine friendship with the first couple involved far more than mere politics.
“Good to see you, Hank.” The president moved easily through the group, enchanting his cabinet members as easily as he had charmed the voters when he defeated Bill Clinton in the ’96 election. Standing as tall as any man in the room, his thick, dark hair gleamed in the artificial light. At sixty-three, Samuel Stedman possessed a younger man’s energy and an older man’s wisdom. Tired of the hip attitudes and faltering moral leadership of the previous administration, the voters had flocked to cast their votes for Stedman—a staunch Republican, loyal American, and traditional southern gentleman. On the campaign trail, not one reporter had dared ask what kind of underwear the candidate preferred.
Lauren’s gaze moved around the oval table, mentally checking the list of attendees. The secretaries of the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Education, Transportation, the Treasury, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development flanked the right side of the table, mirrored on the left by the heads of the Departments of State, the Interior, Justice, Labor, Health and Human Services, Commerce, and Veterans’ Affairs. Like a referee in a volleyball game, John Miller, the vice president, stood at the far end of the table, his hands clasped at his waist, his head bowed in a posture of polite and patient waiting.
Lauren sank into a chair by the door, opposite Tom Ormond, the White House press secretary. As soon as the preliminaries were observed, Tom would slip out and get back to writing press releases about everything from foreign policy to the president’s new litter of puppies. Lauren knew he’d buzz by her desk later to pick up a copy of her notes from this meeting.
John Harper, the official White House photographer, knelt at the edge of the table and got a few shots of the president pressing the flesh. After a few bright flashes, John grabbed his gear and scooted out of the room, much to the dismay, Lauren noticed, of the officials who hadn’t been in the right place at the right time.
She tilted her head and studied the line of suits and uniforms. The lucky recipient of today’s photo op was General Adam Archer, secretary of the Department of Defense and special assistant to the president for national security affairs. He’d probably call tomorrow and complain that having his picture sent over the AP wire violated his privacy and national security, but that hadn’t stopped him from barreling his chest for the camera.
Once the photographer left, the president sank into his chair, and the other bureaucrats sat, too. The formal atmosphere softened slightly as the president leaned forward and rested his arms upon the gleaming conference table.
“I appreciate you all for taking the time to come out on a Monday morning,” he said, his voice reverberating with southern charm. “But you know that I signed an executive order back in February directing each department to move on this Year 2000 Crisis.” His brows knitted in a frown. “I want to hear what we’re doing to solve this computer problem. I’ve received some troubling reports, and it’s time we made this a top priority before we run out of time.”
The secretaries looked at one another, and Lauren felt a rush of sympathy for the poor soul who would have to report first.
“I recently read in Newsweek,” the president went on, a suggestion of annoyance hovering in his eyes, “that the American people might be wise to celebrate the millennium by candlelight next to a mattress stuffed with greenbacks—and we can’t have people hoarding money. One of the reasons we have not talked publicly about Y2K is the fear that we might trigger a panic that could result in a stock market crash or even a run on the banks. But time is working against us. Representative Stephen Horn recently evaluated the problem and handed our administration a report card on our year-2000 efforts. Our overall grade, I’m sorry to say, was D minus. The departments of Defense and Transportation received an F.”
A flurry of nervous coughing seized the cabinet members as the president peered around the table, then nodded at Dr. Anna Hall, Secretary of the Department of Energy. “Why don’t we start with you, Dr. Hall. Surely your people have known about this problem for a while.”
“Of course we have.” Dr. Hall, a brilliant woman who rather looked like she’d been middle-aged since birth, opened her leather portfolio and drew out a sheaf of papers. “And we are most concerned about the repercussions. The so-called Millennium Bug could, for i
nstance, paralyze the offshore oil industry in the North Sea. In a worst case scenario, oil platforms would be forced to shut down simply because their automated systems fail to recognize the year 2000. Companies such as Royal Dutch/Shell and British Petroleum are racing to check millions of microprocessors— computer chips with the programs embedded, or burned into them—but we fear smaller firms have not yet taken the necessary precautions to ensure the oil supply.”
“Why on earth haven’t they?” the president demanded.
“Well, sir,” Dr. Hall went on, her face clouding, “a single offshore oil platform may contain over ten thousand microprocessors, and some are deep below sea level. And, to put it into perspective, there are over one hundred oil platforms in the North Sea alone.”
“Are you saying,” the vice president asked, “that somebody’s got to check one million little computer chips—some of them underwater— before next year so we can ensure our oil supply?”
Dr. Hall opened her mouth as if she would say something else, then snapped it shut and simply nodded.
The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Jeff Stock, lifted a finger. “Excuse me, Mr. President, but that’s not the worst of it.” Stock cast an apologetic look toward Dr. Hall, then continued. “We should be more immediately concerned with the power grids. Within the United States there are six thousand electrical generating units, half a million miles of bulk transmission lines, and twelve thousand major substations. They are all linked together on a complex grid by computer mainframes, and few of those mainframes are year-2000 compliant. Each of those six thousand generating units has its own computer system to regulate the amount of electricity generated by hydroelectric dams or an oil-burning or nuclear generator; but if one of those computers, just one, is not compliant, the entire network could go down.”
“Those power plants have embedded computer chips, too,” Dr. Hall added, her voice low. “Just like the oil platforms. There might be up to ten thousand embedded chips in a single power plant, and most of them are so buried in mechanical hardware that we won’t even be able to find them. And if we do find them, some of them are so old the original programming information has been lost.”
President Stedman leaned sideways in his chair and laced his fingers together. “I am beginning to understand the depth of the problem,” he said simply, his eyes drifting from one secretary to another. “Go on. Let me have it all. Lay it out, ladies and gentlemen, and let’s figure out what has to be done to escape the darkness that will descend on this nation if we don’t lick this problem.”
Emboldened by the president’s openness, the others began to speak freely. Lauren gripped the arm of her chair as the facts and figures began to blur together. The news was far worse than she had anticipated—the secretaries spoke of an approaching stock market crash, widespread catastrophic bank failures, telecommunications blackouts, and crucial miscalculations in Social Security, Medicare, and the Internal Revenue Service.
“I don’t even know how we will get food to grocery stores,” the secretary of the Department of Commerce said, his face brightening to the shade of a cherry tomato. “Food travels by rail and truck, and the railways are controlled and monitored by computer. The old manual switches are gone, entirely replaced by computerized switching systems.”
“Air traffic is another nightmare.” Steve Aldridge, secretary of transportation, cleared his throat. “Earlier this year, IBM announced that they will not certify a single FAA air traffic control system after January 1, 2000. Planes, trains, buses, trucks, autos, boats, red lights, radar systems— everything will be affected, sir. Almost overnight, the friendly skies over America are going to become the empty skies.”
Dr. Carolyn Wilt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, spoke up. “Mr. President, I will confess that I did not realize the extent of this danger until I began to investigate.” The blue in her eyes went as cold as ice, though her lips stayed curved in a professional smile. “Every individual in this country may be affected, some in drastic ways. A recent report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated that computer software used to calculate the dose of radiation treatment—for cancer, for instance—may not recognize the turn of the century, which could lead to incorrectly calculated doses or exposure times for treatment.”
Dr. Wilt’s blue eyes darkened as she looked around at her colleagues. “Would you like to be the doctor who’s responsible for poisoning a sick child with radiation? Or perhaps you’d like to live in the neighborhood where in 2005 all the children are developing cancer as a result of a year-2000 nuclear accident. Our nuclear power plants are extremely vulnerable. If the computer problems are not fixed, we will either have to shut them down or risk another Chernobyl.”
“But even if a system is Y2K-compliant, it could be shorted out by an overload in an improperly programmed power grid,” Dr. Hall added. “The entire system must be repaired or all systems are vulnerable.”
“That’s the worst aspect of this entire dilemma.” David Whitlow, secretary of the State Department, waved a finger at the president. “Even if by some miracle we manage to get all our computers and embedded chips repaired or replaced, we are still connected to the world in a thousand different ways. And one single bug in the system might bring us all crashing down.”
“I think I can offer a good analogy for the situation.” Every eye turned toward Dr. Hall, who tented her hands upon the table. “Let’s suppose that a train—without brakes—is thundering down a mountain toward a bridge with four spans missing. You know the train can’t be stopped or slowed. And you only have time enough to fix three of the four spans.” A look of intense, clear understanding poured through her eyes. “Mr. President, even if we fix three spans, that train will still crash. Unless every computer is fixed, every noncompliant chip replaced, we will experience devastation. How much, we can only guess.”
“The true tragedy,” Dr. Gerald Wilkerson, secretary of the Department of Labor, added, “is that this situation could have been avoided. If we had begun to implement solutions as late as October 1997, we could have corrected the problem and kept our allegorical train on track. But we didn’t. We procrastinated, and now we will have to face the inevitable.”
“Well.” The corners of the president’s mouth tightened. “It appears that we may have to pay for our presumption that the experts would find a way to fix this thing in time. Everything seems to indicate that we are moving toward the first economic disaster in human history to arrive on a fixed schedule.” His eyes, alive with calculation, moved around the table. “So what do we do about it? How do we keep the Millennium Bug from inflicting a fatal bite?”
Dr. Wilkerson cleared his throat. “I guess that’s my cue.” He tried to smile at the president, but his features only flinched uncomfortably. “We’ve studied the situation thoroughly and estimate that finding, fixing, and testing all Y2K-affected software would require over seven hundred thousand person-years. The good news is that already the demand for fixes has created three hundred thousand jobs since 1996. The downside is that programmers’ wages are soaring with the demand for skilled workers, so Y2K has the potential to increase inflation.”
“Great,” the vice president muttered, twisting in his chair. “Greedy little twits are demanding too much.”
Ignoring the vice president, Dr.Wilkerson continued. “We estimate that the Y2K Bug will have a profoundly negative impact on the U.S. economy as companies shift their work forces from production to dealing with the problem. Y2K could shave half a percentage point off economic growth in 2000 and early 2001. All told, the bug could cost the U.S. as much as $119 billion in lost economic output between now and 2001. In addition, the respected Gartner consulting company estimates that Y2K will cost over $600 billion to fix the worldwide computer systems. To put that in perspective, in today’s dollars, that is more than the total cost of the Vietnam War.”
“Growth will decrease as inflation rises,” the Treasury secretary added. “That’
s a perfect recipe for a major recession.”
The president winced slightly, then shifted his weight in the chair. “So what do we do about it?” he asked, lifting his brows. “We are the leaders of the free world, ladies and gentlemen; we are the most powerful nation on earth. We must set our own house in order, and then we’ll reach out to the rest of the world. But how do we begin?”
General Archer lifted his chin. “I believe we may have an answer,” he said, his voice cutting through the silence like a steel blade.
Every person in the room leaned forward, and Lauren wondered why he had not spoken until this moment.
“It has recently come to our attention,” the general continued, spacing his words evenly, “that Daniel Prentice, of Prentice Technologies, has designed a program to solve the Y2K problem.”
“Daniel Prentice?” Anna Hall frowned. “I know that name.”
“People magazine.” The vice president snapped his fingers. “I read the article just yesterday. He’s some kind of entrepreneurial computer nerd. A multimillionaire by age thirty, the next Bill Gates.”
“He’s far more than Bill Gates, I assure you.” The general reached into his leather briefcase and pulled out a folder, then slid it across the polished table toward the president. “I’ve assembled a complete dossier. Our people believe he will cooperate, given the appropriate incentives. He has cooperated with us before.”
“When?” President Stedman’s dark eyes bored into General Archer. “Don’t be coy with me, General. I haven’t the time for games. You may speak freely, as this concerns all of us.”
The thin line of the general’s mouth clamped tight for a moment, and his Adam’s apple bobbed once as he swallowed.
“In Desert Storm,” he began, drumming the tabletop with his fingers, “we needed a stealth device the Iraqis would never suspect. One of the NSA chiefs had read about Prentice and brought him on board. While he worked for us, Prentice designed the first hardware virus, a deceptively simple-looking black box that slipped into a printer, yet had the power to scramble the Iraqis’ computers every time they powered up their air defense systems.”
Flee The Darkness Page 4