by Guy Garcia
“Will you e-mail me a copy of those maps?”
“Sure thing, Agent Duggan. Just give me a few minutes to compress the files …”
But Duggan was already typing into his phone, heading toward the exit.
An hour later, as Duggan was logging in to the NCSD secure conference line with his boss and JT, a file popped up in his secure in-box. It was a government photo of Kenneth Ulrich. He was younger than Duggan expected, with cropped blond hair, steel-rimmed spectacles, chiseled features, and a meticulously trimmed beard. He walked JT and Koepp through Eric’s map and waited for their reaction.
“This is very interesting, Jake,” Koepp said. “But we were hoping you were going to tell us that you’d found Ulrich and had him in custody.”
“Not yet,” Duggan said. “I think I know where he is. I think I know what he’s been doing. If I can find him, then I’ll know what he’s planning to do next.”
Even over the video screen, Koepp was visibly disappointed. “Do you think you could be a little more specific, about Ulrich’s location, I mean?”
Duggan realized it was going to be a harder sell than he expected.
“I get that you suspect Ulrich has been using the stolen DOD software to cause the Raver’s Plague,” JT said, trying to sound supportive. “Meanwhile, the Austin-based DJ who was questioned by the FBI, Xander Smith, has left the country with no forwarding address. But you don’t think he’s Swarm, because you think Swarm is still in Austin. Is that right?”
“It’s mainly circumstantial at this point, but yes,” Duggan admitted. “I think I know a way to smoke Swarm out, but I can’t do it alone.”
“Is the Meta Militia based in Austin too?” Koepp asked.
“Impossible to say since it communicates via slave PCs and encrypted IRC channels on 4chan/b/,” Duggan said. “The militia base, if there is one, could be anywhere. I’ve been working with an evolutionary biologist at UC Berkeley. One of her people made those maps I just showed you. But we need to move on this guy before he changes tactics or disappears again.”
“Ulrich, you mean.”
“No, a flash mob blogger named Swarm, who’s working with Ulrich and who’s probably also connected to the militia and several other cyber-anarchist groups.”
“Let me make sure I’m following you,” Koepp said. “You think an attack is imminent, but you have no material proof except for some threatening blogs by the Meta Militia and someone who calls himself Swarm and who may or may not be Ulrich, or associated with Ulrich, but you have a biology-based theory that he’s hiding out somewhere in Austin, Texas?”
Duggan fought to tamp down his impatience. He knew the case was still half-baked, but his gut told him that every hour of delay increased the chance that Swarm would slip away. He was also annoyed that JT seemed to be playing devil’s advocate by taking Koepp’s side against him. He took a long breath, choosing his next words carefully.
“When I came back from Afghanistan and said the DOD was hiding something about the Westlake shooting, nobody believed it,” Duggan said. “My report was blacked out and put in my boss’s bottom drawer. But my hunch turned out to be right, didn’t it?”
“Sure, Jake,” Koepp allowed, “You were absolutely vindicated. But Kenneth Ulrich is an actual person, and the zeph.r signal really exists. This Swarm character is pretty nebulous. There’s just not enough tangible evidence. You’re asking us to ignore the CDC, sound the alarm to the director, and put all our credibility on the line for a hunch.”
“If you’re wrong, it won’t be just your neck on the chopping block, Jake,” JT added.
There was a lull, and Duggan sensed he was about to get shut down. He knew the prudent course was to submit to reason and err on the side of caution, live to fight another day, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Let me put it this way,” he said. “As officers of the National Cyber Security Division, I think you would have to agree with me that Stuxnet, Olympic Games, and Conficker are real; the blackouts in New York, India, and Rio were real; tthe cyber-attacks on Google, Sony and Apple were real; and WikiLeaks and Anonymous are real; and the unprovoked massacre of allied Afghan troops by a US drone pilot named Donald Westlake really did happen.”
“Of course,” Koepp said.
“Then you should know that what seems like impossible crackpot science fiction one day can all too suddenly become a hard cold reality the next. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed. You just haven’t accepted it yet because there isn’t enough tangible evidence.”
“Jake, Jake,” JT protested, “nobody is saying—”
“Let me finish,” Duggan growled. “I’m telling you on the record that Swarm and the Meta Militia is real, and if the zeph.r software that Ulrich stole from DOD is deployed, we’ll all be facing something a hundred times worse than any of those other incidents. And all I’m asking of you, as two fellow agency officials entrusted with protecting the nation from precisely this kind of threat, is to help me do everything in my power to stop it from happening before it happens.” Duggan paused. “This conversation is being recorded, right? I just want to be sure.”
Duggan’s colleagues looked at each other. Their flattened faces stared back through the screen and he could almost see the audio tape replaying in their heads.
“All right, Jake,” Koepp said. “Tell us what you need.”
The UC Berkeley campanile was the same building identified on Duggan’s campus map as Sather Tower. He could see why Cara liked it, a gray-stone spire that lorded over a grove of gnarly sycamores with a kind of monolithic grandeur, a good place to take a break from class, read a few pages of poetry, or wait for a surreptitious tryst. He spotted Cara heading toward him on the sloping path. In her skinny jeans and leather jacket, her head bent over a smartphone screen, she could easily be mistaken for a graduate student hurrying to meet her thesis adviser. She was almost on top of him when she looked up.
“Oh, you’re already here.”
“I’m very punctual,” he said.
“That’s good,” Cara said, “because the concert starts in ten minutes and we’ve got some climbing to do.” She took his hand and led him toward the base of the tower, pausing to fish in her purse for a key to the door that opened toward a small interior lobby with an elevator. “C’mon in—don’t be shy,” she said.
“Did you say a concert?”
“Never mind,” Cara faux scolded. The elevator doors shut, and the car began a slow climb to the observation deck. “Now pay attention because there may be a quiz. Please keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Duggan. There’s no groping the teacher during class. After dinner is another story.”
“Yes, professor.”
“Where was I? The campanile you are presently inside of is the third largest bell and clock tower in the world. It’s three hundred and seventeen feet tall and was built in 1914 and designed to resemble the famous clock tower in Venice. Have you ever been to Venice?”
“Not yet.”
“That will cost you half a grade, but you can make it up by taking me there someday.” The elevator doors parted, and Cara pointed the way up a steel-stepped staircase.
“There are sixty-one bells in the tower, the largest of which weighs ten thousand, five hundred pounds. Do you know why there are sixty-one bells, Mr. Duggan?”
“No idea,” he said.
“It’s because the top of this campanile is home to a full-scale carillon.”
They had reached a wooden landing and entered a chamber filled with church bells of every conceivable size. Duggan felt himself transported to a time when bells weren’t just for marking hours and announcing the next class period but also a means to alert populations to impending danger and amplify moments of profound significance. Something moved in the rafters, and he braced himself for a Quasimodo apparition.
“Hi, Agent Duggan. Glad you could make it!�
�� Eric waved to him from the raised platform. “I’m starting in about sixty seconds. I hope you like Philip Glass.”
“You should see your face, Jake,” Cara said, reveling in his astonishment. “A carillon is a concert instrument made of bells that can be played with a keyboard.”
“What’s Eric doing here?
“Eric is a fellow at CNMAT, the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. CNMAT includes the carillon in its curriculum and allows qualified students to perform concerts in the campanile several times a week. And tonight is Eric’s turn.”
The bells began to peel, a plangent, minimalist chord cycle. Two higher notes mitigated the melancholy and anchored it to a haunting, repeating progression. Duggan felt the mammoth chimes reverberating through his body, saturating his senses. During the stirring recital, he noticed some words engraved onto the biggest bell, a tone poem in every possible way.
The music stopped, and Eric emerged from the belfry to greet them. “What did you think?”
Cara and Duggan broke into heartfelt applause. “It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever experienced,” Duggan said. “I didn’t know much about Philip Glass, but I just became a fan.” “Well done, maestro. Bravo!”
Eric took a bashful bow. “So glad you liked it. The piece is adapted for carillon from his solo piano works—‘Metamorphosis One.’ It’s a reference to the novel by Franz Kafka.”
“Which is about a man who turns into a cockroach,” Duggan pointed out.
“Indeed it is,” Eric said.
“Eric has a fine ear for music and bio-irony,” Cara observed proudly.
“Now, I understand why bells are put in churches to summon the faithful,” Duggan said. “And the music they make is fantastic, but what’s their connection to advanced technology?”
“A number of things, actually,” Eric said. “We’re working with the Music Genome Project. It’s what powers that app on your phone that finds the name of a song you like that’s playing in a bar or a restaurant. Anyway, we’re working with them to identify the numinous elements of music, the common denominator in religious hymns, African slave spirituals, Handel’s Messiah. You know, the sound of inspiration and rapture.”
“The voice of God,” Duggan intoned.
“Yes, exactly!”
“Kind of like the poem inscribed on that bell over there.” Duggan pointed and enunciated the words:
We ring, we chime, we toll.
Lend ye the silent part.
Some answer in the heart;
Some echo in the soul.
Eric clasped his hands over his head. “Whoa, that’s freaking awesome. I can’t believe I never noticed it!” He retrieved his phone and took a photo of the inscription. “Anyway, the other project with CNMAT is about hooking up the bells to the Internet. See those magnets up there?” He pointed to several oblong contraptions mounted next to the bell clappers with motorized hammers and dangling wires. “Eventually they’ll be connected to a wireless remote control digital player. A church in Siberia already uses the same software to perform for masses and holidays. The priest loves it.”
“And the congregation too, I’m sure,” Duggan said. “So once it’s wired up and operational, a pianist in Russia could do a guest gig on this carillon without ever having to get on a plane and actually be here. You could hook these bells up to another keyboard, a laptop, anything.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Eric agreed.
“How about a DJ deck?”
“Ha!” Eric crumpled over, pointing to Duggan. “Dr. Park, this guy! This guy is too much!” Eric righted himself and took a breath. “Sorry, it’s been a long day,” he said, composing himself. He gathered his things and bounded for the stairs. “I gotta run. Thanks for coming, and enjoy your dinner. I hear the place is dope!”
Duggan turned to Cara. “That was an amazing surprise. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
He leaned in to kiss her, then caught himself.
Eric’s voice echoed up from the stairwell. “No worries. I already know, and I definitely approve. My lips are sealed—unlike yours.”
Duggan took her to dinner at one of the Bay Area’s new gastronomic hot spots. Bearded waiters in crisp striped shirts and wool waistcoats hovered vigilantly. Duggan and Cara sat at a dimly lit table for two and ordered a Santa Barbara Zinfandel and postmodern tapas made from organic ingredients grown at local farms. Duggan’s rising euphoria was tempered by his corresponding vulnerability. He felt like an emotional hemophiliac. One little scratch and he might bleed to death.
“Gee, a smart, beautiful woman, good food, and church bells—I must be in heaven,” he said.
“Or at a wedding,” Cara quipped. “You haven’t even tasted the duck yet.”
“Listen to me.” Duggan reached across the table and intertwined his fingers with hers. “You are an incredible woman. I’m ecstatic about this, about us. But I must confess that I have a terrible track record with relationships. The last thing in the world I …”
Cara held up her hand. “Wait. Before you go any further, I have my own confession to make. I am a total relationship-phobe. I mean, not partially but totally. Especially when I feel like this, the knowledge that there could be real emotion and connection, it’s like a self-destruct button. I start analyzing and second-guessing every move, yours and mine. I start thinking it’s all just chemicals and synapses firing, biology taking its course. Hormones, the genetic imperative, commanding us to have sex, to think we care.”
“Wow.” Duggan retracted his hand and leaned back in his chair. “I’m just wondering who’s going to fight for this relationship, because it’s certainly not one of us.”
Cara shrugged. “Beats me. And I’m not into threesomes.”
“Me neither,” Duggan said, “for the most part.”
“Then I guess we’re screwed,” Cara said.
“Yep,” Duggan agreed. “So can I sleep at your place tonight?”
“Absolutely.”
They stared into each other’s eyes, and he refilled their glasses. Somehow they’d managed to sidestep the usual booby traps. Despite their personal baggage, so far it was a clean slate, a good start. The food, the wine, and the vibe all conspired to convince Duggan that this was the real deal. He put down his glass and waited for her attention. “There’s something else we need to discuss,” he said.
“Shoot.”
“I saw Eric’s maps, and I showed them to my bosses at the agency.”
“How did that go?”
“They’re giving me the federal and local authority to make an arrest. Now all I have to do is produce a suspect.”
“Jake, I get it. You need to find Swarm. And you will.”
Duggan took a long sip, steeling himself. “Cara, I have no right to ask you this, but I’m getting desperate.”
“I already said I’d sleep with you.”
Duggan smiled wanly. “I want you to go on TV and talk about your theory, just the way you explained it to me at the bar the other night. I’m asking you to make a public appeal to Swarm as a scientist, to tell him that what he’s doing has potentially disastrous effects that he doesn’t understand, that he can’t control.”
“That’s all true,” Cara said as she ate.
“And I want you to say that you’re willing to meet with him. I want you to pique his interest, make him come to you.”
Cara stopped chewing and slowly wiped her mouth. “You want me to go on TV and ask for a date with a cyber-terrorist?”
Duggan nodded. “That’s exactly what I want.”
“And you’re not even a little worried about my safety?”
“Of course, I am. That’s why when he contacts you, you’re going to insist that the meeting happens in a public place. You can let him choose the venue, but it has to be out in the open. That way I
can protect you.”
“And you can catch your mystery man, your elusive Swarm.”
“That’s the idea.”
She seemed stunned, appalled. He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away.
“What makes you think this sociopath you’re after will even talk to me?”
“Cara, he’s a techno-anarchist, not a serial killer. This person is extremely intelligent, a former Defense Department scientist who defected for personal reasons. Trust me—he’ll want to hear your theory. There’ll be a small army of agents and police on the scene. You know I’d never do anything to put you in danger.”
“The Rave Plague signal is military software?” Cara shook her head. “Jesus Christ, Duggan. And you guys wonder why the government gets a bad rap.”
“Cara, this guy is a public menace. Innocent people have already died, and if I can’t stop him, this is only the beginning. Because of you and Eric, we’re on the right track to get him. Nobody has your skills, and you’ve helped me get this far. Do this and you’ll have done your country a great service and saved many lives, including mine.”
“Okay, hold it right there,” Cara said. She picked up her glass and drained it. “I liked it better when you were asking me for a sleepover.”
“I still am,” he said.
Tom was blasting Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” as he hurriedly packed and reviewed his mental checklist. The song always cheered him up, which was arguably counterintuitive for an English band that had taken its name from the prostitution wing of a Nazi concentration camp. In a couple of days, he would be joining Xander in Berlin, but first he had some loose ends to wrap up, one of which was attending a meeting with an evolutionary biologist named Cara Park, who had appeared on local TV to appeal for an audience with Swarm.
“You don’t know me,” she said to the camera in a video clip that had gone viral on YouTube, “but if you really care about your followers, then you have to hear me out. There are dangers in what you’re doing, consequences and repercussions you can’t possibly anticipate. Please contact me before it’s too late, for your own sake as well as the millions who have heard and heeded your message.” The talk show host tried to get her to say more, but she insisted that only she could deliver the details of her warning to Swarm—in person.