At least once a month, George, as division supervisor, addressed the company’s team of cybersleuths or, as he preferred to call them, his Internet Forensic Specialists. It was always the same old pep talk about how their programs were helping to keep cyberspace safe for the innocent. Most of them no longer listened to the plethora of words and lack of action. George could never explain why, as the accounts grew, budgets shrank. Morale dropped accordingly.
When Gil first came to the company, fresh out of graduate school, it had been a different place entirely; full of excitement and hope. These were the crème de la crème; young men and women, not necessarily tops in their classes but independent in their thinking and dogged in their persistence.
Every one of them was a loner, content to work in some tiny windowless office for days on end, hacking into “unbreakable” data bases and Internet sites, in order to track down a target, find proof of the cyber crime, and present enough solid evidence to back up an arrest and conviction.
“You get paid to break into top secret files?” Lucy asked incredulously on their first date. “Can’t you be arrested or something?”
No, he couldn’t be arrested. He was registered with the National Securities Administration, the only organization that hired more forensic investigators than CyberNet. And, no, he wasn’t being paid the big bucks, such as they were, to break into systems; he was paid to figure out how identity thieves had made their way into the systems and to make sure that no one else could ever do the same.
The truth, however, was that like every other cybersleuth, it was “nailing the target” that Gil loved. Once he had proof positive of a crime and the identity of the perpetrator, the task of making the system secure for the future didn’t run anywhere near a close second. It was the very love of the hunt and his dislike for the cleanup that ended up being Gil’s salvation.
While looking for a shortcut in order to patch up the FBI’s payroll system, he’d written a set of computer instructions designed to sniff out the gaps in the original program. He called his subprograms Dobermans because, once set in motion, they hunted down their prey and pounced on it, holding it at bay until he gave them the okay to obliterate it. A single tap on the return key and the security breach in the system was literally gobbled up.
At the time, George had been beside himself with joy. He predicted that, with Gil’s Dobermans in action, the world would be beating a path to CyberNet’s door. Which it had, though the money never seemed to find its way beyond George’s office on the top floor. Gil looked around at his own small, windowless office.
Well, so much for the Trickle-Down Theory of Economics.
Gil swiveled to face the largest of his three computer screens and settled back to savor his morning bagel and cream cheese as he perused his e-mail. It was early, George wouldn’t be in for a couple of hours, and Gil would have plenty of time to figure out how he was going to play down last Friday’s dinner fiasco with Ludlow.
The familiar “You’ve Got Mail” alert interrupted Gil’s final sip of coffee.
Jesus! What’s he doing in this early?
Obviously, someone had already informed George of the problem. Nothing but a potentially lost source of income would get the big guy in at this hour.
A piercing alarm proclaimed that Gil’s main computer had gone down and the rest were about to follow. He rushed to delete George’s message. He was too late. The screens on his two alternate computers and the lights on his Internet server went dark. Gil held his breath as he waited for the whirr that would confirm that the backup system had kicked in. He sighed with relief. The backup system’s welcome drone promised that, within a few minutes, everything would be up and running and more than seven terabytes of information would have been saved from oblivion.
Until recently, George’s e-mail would have simply meant yet another pain-in-the-ass communication that required Gil’s attention. For the past two weeks, however, any incoming e-mail bearing George’s screen name sent Gil’s computer network crashing.
Gil had warned George that if he continued to refuse to incorporate RSA security codes, they were inviting a major hacking catastrophe. George refused to discuss the matter. Gil offered to brave George’s maze of computers to try and tease out the problem. George refused. Finally, they came to a truce. Gil agreed to drop the whole thing with the promise that George would phone, rather than send any e-mail until Gil figured out a workaround. The cease-fire lasted two days. By the third day, the big guy was sending e-mail messages as if there had never been a problem.
Each time an incoming e-mail shut Gil down, George would claim, as if for the first time, that he was doing his best to remember. “After all,” he would add with a shrug and an innocent smile, “I guess I’m just a creature of habit.”
Gil pulled his chair in close to the largest of the monitors and rapidly typed in a series of commands. Line by line, he examined the high-end security program he had designed for himself only days before the trouble had first begun.
What was triggering the goddamn thing to crash? And why, only with George’s e-mail?
Even his Dobermans couldn’t find the source of the problem. Gil grabbed the phone and dialed George’s extension.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” Gil said as he continued to type. “And for Christ’s sake, don’t send any more e-mails.”
Gil shook his head. What a waste. A brilliant mind like George’s imprisoned in a four-hundred-pound body. With the maturity of a preadolescent, to boot. Nobody at work had ever seen the mountain of a man with a friend or had ever known him to go out socially. George simply shuffled from home to the offices, eating and sitting in front of one computer or another or playing with his latest tech toy. Though George had no one to blame but himself, still, it was a pathetic waste of a life.
Given that he was probably terribly lonely, or maybe because of it, George wasn’t half bad to work for. Though he was smart as hell, he wasn’t competitive. He spoke his mind when he didn’t like the way something was going but, in general, he appreciated Gil’s work and told him so quite often. George was okay and just self-conscious enough about his appearance to make him easy to get along with. All you had to do was tell George there had been a noticeable decrease in his ample middle, and he’d beam at you like a happy five year old. Just a big old puppy dog—a greedy but lovable big old puppy dog.
The last computer kicked in and, before George could send yet another e-mail, Gil headed for what could be loosely referred to as George’s office.
Chapter 8
A few minutes later
The top floor of CyberNet Forensics shuddered with the combined boom of two televisions and a radio. On-screen reporters offered details on the latest disasters against a background of country music.
Since George had come on board, two finance people who had been working in rooms adjacent to his office had been moved to other locations. Another had taken a leave without pay until the company could relocate him to a lower floor, and one of the bookkeepers had just up and quit.
Management had changed the location of George’s office twice before exiling him to the far end of the longest hall in the building. George couldn’t have been happier. The huge man simply could not bear to work in silence. Even normal levels of noise were not enough. Surrounding himself in the clamor was not a mere idiosyncrasy, it was a necessity. And one that afforded him some extra perks.
“What can I say?” admitted George with a devilish grin, when the last person on the floor finally fled. “It leaves all that extra space just for me.”
Gil approached the office and steeled himself for an even greater rush of sensory overload; a few minutes of audio abuse was all he could endure. He had given up on asking George to turn down the volume. His request always met with George’s self-analysis: “News, computers, and country music. Them’s all I know, them’s all I love.”
Gil knocked and, without waiting, walked in on the all-too-familiar scene of George stuffing his face with f
ood.
This morning, the big guy was polishing off the last of his high-fiber breakfast cereal. It was a daily ritual that never seemed to make any difference in his health, weight, or, as George so often explained in far too much detail, his regularity.
Gil entered. George did his best to rise to his feet. He looked as if he had been caught doing something quite obscene. In the ensuing confusion of dislodging his bulk from his rolling chair, George overturned his plastic bowl and spoon. The remainder of the soggy cereal and a half-opened container of low-fat milk flowed over the jumbled spread of computer printouts that were strewn across his desk amid research reports, memos, graphs, and journals that lay one on top of the other. All became potential blotters for the fast-spreading white liquid. In a half-hearted attempt to contain George’s most recent food-spill disaster, Gil reached below the soggiest section of paper and lifting it, turned toward the trashcan. George tripped over himself in an attempt to stop him.
Gil shook his head. “Why do you do this?”
“Do what, eat cereal?” George asked. He flashed Gil what was supposed to pass for an endearing smile and attempted to sop up the milk with a single paper napkin.
“I’m serious. This is nuts. You probably have two weeks’ worth of downloads here from every crackpot website in the world.”
“I know, but I haven’t had time to go over them yet. I spend a lot of time researching this stuff, you know, and some of it could be really important.”
Gil shook his head.
“You might be interested to know I’ve been saving one of these downloads for you!” George added.
Foraging through the pile, George carefully extracted one set of papers that had not escaped the sludge of cereal and milk.
“It’s about your Ludlow job…” George began.
“Look, about Ludlow. I think we ought to…”
George pulled one of the pages free. “Hold on. Where did I see it? Oh, yeah, here it is. Look at this. It’s a reprint of a Reuter’s news release from a while ago. It says that Ludlow, well, not Ludlow himself, but DeVris, the guy he works with in Israel, has one already.”
“One what?”
“One copper scroll, you putz. It says that they already have a copper scroll. So Ludlow, acting all academic and everything, isn’t just looking for this diary to lead him to any old scroll, he’s looking for the mate to one that the Museum already has,” George concluded. He rubbed his thumb and index finger together. “And, from what the article says, I would imagine the complete set could turn them a very nice profit.”
Gil shrugged noncommittedly. He had no clue as to what George was talking about. Gingerly, he took the soggy article by its corner and held it high. “Does this mean you’ll be raising Ludlow’s fee?”
George responded with unusual seriousness. “Maybe, but that’s not what I’m saying. There could be a lot at stake here, and you’re going to have to act like a professional for once in your life.”
Obviously, Ludlow had been in touch. Better to get it out in the open then. Gil summed up the low points of Friday night’s dinner meeting, stumbled over an apology, and explained that he had no problem with another consultant being assigned to the job.
“No such luck, goombah. Got an e-mail from Ludlow just a few minutes ago. He and the translator, what’s her name…”
“Sabbie,” Gil said glumly.
“Yeah, Sabbie. Seems like they still want you, though I can’t imagine why. Good thing you get by on your wits and good looks and not on your personality. You’re the only one for the job, they say.”
“For Christ’s sake, George! That makes no sense at all. Sabbie walked out on me and took Ludlow with her.”
George stared blankly.
Hadn’t Ludlow told George what happened? Now, that was odd.
“Look, George, just let me wrap up the project I’m working on. It won’t take more than a couple of days. That can’t make that big of a diff—”
“This afternoon,” George interrupted. “Got you booked on a red eye that’ll get you into Tel Aviv mid afternoon. You can head for Jerusalem and the Museum straight from the airport.”
Gil looked to see if the big guy was smiling. He wasn’t.
“You gotta be kidding! Pulling me off the project for who knows how long it will take, will send me back to square one. Five months’ work shot to hell.”
“Oh, give it up. It’ll do you good to not know exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow. Consider it an adventure.”
George picked up the Reuter’s release Gil had laid aside and thrust it back into his face. “This ought to change your mind. Read it.”
“Look, there’s no way…” Gil began.
“Read it,” George insisted. “Then tell me what you think.”
BURIED TREASURE:
FOUND AND LOST
Arnold Narin, AP, Jerusalem
“In Horebeh that is in the valley of Ahur, under the steps going eastward at 40 long cubits: a silver chest and its content of a value of 17 talents. In the funeral monument under the third course: 100 golden ingots. In the large cistern, which is in the yard of the small peristyle, in a hidden recess of its bottom blocked by the alluvial deposits, opposing the upper opening: 900 talents…”
So reads one of sixty-four entries of The 3Q15 Copper Scroll, commonly referred to as The Cave 3 Copper Scroll of Qumran. The Cave 3 Scroll has been described as one of the world’s most tantalizing mysteries and for good reason. The Valley of Ahur described in The Cave 3 Scroll is real, although contemporary historians cannot agree on its location. Many researchers are convinced that the treasures the Scroll described within are genuine; incredible riches from the Second Temple, rescued before its destruction more than two thousand years ago. Other scientists have been certain that the concealed fortune was the renounced wealth of an ancient sect whose members held themselves to a strict vow of personal poverty.
No matter what the source, however, the waiting treasure is said to add up to as much as 200 tons of gold and silver. Today, more than five decades since the discovery of The Cave 3 Scroll and after a remarkable state-of-the-art restoration, this priceless manuscript remains a mystery.
On special loan to the Israel Museum here in Jerusalem for the past year, it has been on exhibit at Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book, magnificent home to the Dead Sea Scrolls. This enigmatic piece of history will remain available for viewing to the public until March 20 of next year, the anniversary of its discovery. On that day, the Scroll and its promises of hidden treasure will be return to the Museum of Amman, Jordan, where it will be sequestered.
“The decision to place this priceless document in safekeeping is commendable,” noted Dr. Anton DeVris, Director of Acquisitions at Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book. “The thought that the Scroll will soon be secured where scholars may no longer have access to it, that is difficult to accept. Still, we are grateful to have had it here for this time,” added Dr. DeVris diplomatically.
One word of caution to all you would-be fortune hunters, however: Before you start packing your shovels and heading off to search for hidden treasure, you should know that since The Cave 3 Scroll’s discovery in 1952, scholars have been debating as to the authenticity of the Scroll, the treasures it describes, and even the intent of its author. Some have decreed the scroll to be “the work of a madman” or “a forgery.” Some have declared its creator to be “a charlatan” who had only a “passing knowledge of the Hebrew language.” Others believe the Scroll’s critics to be part of a sweeping cover-up.
Even more intriguing: some experts agree that the secret to The Cave 3 Copper Scroll lies not in its writings alone but in a yet-to-be-discovered mate to the Scroll; a second copper scroll that holds the key to The Cave 3 Scroll’s secrets and to the location of the vast array of priceless treasures that wait to be unearthed. Dr. DeVris described the possibility of the existence of a second scroll as “intriguing, but unlikely.”
And some final advice: If you want a clos
e up look at the unsolved 3Q15 (Cave 3) Copper Scroll, make plans soon. In only twelve short months, the exhibit at Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book will be gone—back under lock and key—perhaps forever.
Gil finished reading. “Yeah, so?”
“I can’t believe you don’t get it! Look, right now the Museum has the first scroll in their hands, and Ludlow has the diary that may show them where the second scroll is hidden. If they can get their hands on both of the scrolls at the same time, they should be able to figure out where the treasure is hidden. The problem is, that within a couple of months, the Museum’s got to return the first scroll. If you don’t help them find the second scroll before they have to return the first, they can pretty much kiss the treasure good-bye.”
George smiled with satisfaction and continued. “They’re caught between a rock and a hard place with all their contributors watching. If you can find some hidden message in the diary that leads them to a second scroll, you can just about write your own ticket.”
CyberNet’s ticket, you mean. Still, Gil had to admit it didn’t sound half bad.
“You said this Reuters’ article is how old?”
“Six months, more or less.”
“Which is it? More or less?” Gil asked.
“Ahah! Got your interest didn’t it? Knew it would. Actually, the article’s about eight months old. From what I can see, it was written before Ludlow and DeVris got their hands on the diary. Now, with the possibility that the diary might connect The Cave 3 Scroll with a yet-to-be-uncovered second scroll, they must be desperate. I’m telling you, we could get a bundle for this one.”
Shaking his head, Gil smiled at the big lovable manipulator he called boss. He was hooked and George knew it.
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