"Got me, but it looks like trouble in paradise. Something big is happening on the net. I hate to cut the lesson short, but we need to jack out of this scenario see what RW scans show."
"Yes, ma'am. You're the expert."
"Standby—"
Saturday, January 15th, 3:30 p.m. Quantico, Virginia
Fernandez came back to himself in the computer room, sitting next to Joanna. She was waving her hands at her computer station, calling up a rapid blur of images and words and numbers from the holoproj in front of her. And she was cursing like a sailor while she did it.
"God dammit! How the hell can this be happening?"
She waved her hands again, then tapped furiously at the keyboard on the desk.
Fernandez kept quiet, knowing this was not the time to fill her ears with foolish questions.
Whatever was going on, though, it didn't look good.
"No, no, no, you bastard! Don't route there, you'll crash the—dammit, dammit! Stop!"
Jay Gridley came running into the room, and excited as he was, he must already know what was going on.
"Winthrop, you see what the hell is happening?"
"I got it. Jesus Christ!"
Gridley slid into a chair in front of another workstation. "Man, oh, man! The kickouts at FedOne just blew."
"We need to scramble some programmers, Jay—"
"Already did it. Boss is on the way in, so is everybody else who can warm a seat."
"You call Fiorella?"
He spared her a glance from the flashing holoproj in front of him. "Didn't need to. I bounced her virgil's location. It's within a couple of feet of the boss's. She's with him." He waggled his eyebrows. "Isn't that interesting?"
"Old news," Joanna said. "You need to pay more attention to RW around you, Gridley."
"Screw you, Winthrop."
"In your dreams, monkey fingers."
"In my nightmares, you mean."
Fernandez felt like a fifth wheel. He didn't know what was going on, and he wasn't gonna ask, but whatever it was, it was bad.
"The blast doors on FedTwo just slammed shut," Joanna said.
"See ‘em," Gridley said. "Maybe we can reroute the—ah, piss! FedThree just rolled over too. We got a major infection here!"
"A virus?" Fernandez said.
"Not a virus, a goddamned plague," Gridley said. "Somebody got past the best antivirals we have and threw a replicant bomb. The bugs are reproducing and going through the federal financial systems like water through a fire hose. The only way we're gonna stop it is to shut down everything it's contaminated and flush it one system at a time."
"Crap," Joanna said. "Crap, crap, crap!" She leaned back, watching the screen flash stuff that was meaningless to Fernandez.
"Well, I'll say one thing," Fernandez said, "you sure know how to show a boy a good time."
"Hold up, hold up," Joanna said. "I got something."
"You can stop it?" Julio said.
"No, I can't. But I think I can find where it came from. Jeez, I can't believe the guy is that dumb. Jay?"
"I see it, I see it! I've got a lock! How'd you do that, Winthrop?"
"I found a ghost on my station from when he broke in here. There wasn't anywhere to go with it, it petered out, but just in case, I set up a scan-and-match."
"What does that mean?" Fernandez asked, despite his resolution not to ask stupid questions.
"It means that even if our perp bounces his signal, we can backwalk it—if we hurry, and if the sig is a match."
"Good work, Winthrop!" Gridley said. "You ready to run him down?"
"I'd like to kick his ass personally, but much as I hate to say it, you're better at this part than I am, Gridley. Go get him."
Gridley smiled. "You know, you're not so bad after all—for a white girl. I'm gone."
When Toni and Alex arrived, there was a lot of commotion in the computer center. Jay, Joanna, and half the regular programmers were there, stations lit and working. Julio Fernandez stood next to the doorway watching.
"Julio," Toni said. "How is it going?"
"I'm not the guy to ask. I'm catching about one word in twenty. It's nasty, this thing. Gridley calls it a replicant bomb."
"Oh, shit," Toni and Alex said together.
"But Jo and Gridley apparently got a lock on the bomb thrower. Gridley is running him down somehow. I didn't understand most of that part."
"Thanks, Sergeant," Toni said.
"No problem, Commander."
Alex moved to where Joanna sat, and as Toni started to head for her office to assess damage reports, Fernandez's smile stopped her. "Something funny I'm missing?" she asked. "I could use a good laugh."
"No, ma'am, nothing funny."
"Why the grin?"
"Oh, I was just, you know, musing."
"About what?"
"You and the commander."
Toni felt herself color. "Me and the commander?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Oh, God, does it show? We haven't even done anything yet!
"What about us, Sergeant?"
"Nothing, ma'am. Just lucky how you both get here so quick."
"You're a poor liar, Julio."
"Yes, ma'am. Probably I need more practice."
"I need to go," she said.
She hurried down the hall. He knew. How? How could he know? That little slip of the tongue, when Alex said "we," instead of "I"? That couldn't be; he hadn't even been talking to Fernandez, he'd been talking to Jay.
Well. Worry about that later. Right now, they had a crisis to weather.
One thing at a time, girl, one thing at a time…
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Two
Saturday, January 15th, 3:40 p.m. Marietta, Georgia
Platt was feeling damn good about his latest caper on the net. It was amazing what you could do when you had a bunch of secret codes and passwords, courtesy of somebody who had access to a U.S. senator. Like screw up a major segment of the entire United States electronic banking system, blap! just like that. Those poor feebs were running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off, going bugfuck crazy trying to keep the money systems from crashing. Wasn't gonna stop it, though, not without shutting down a bunch of it, and that was the point. Because part of what was going down was a big ole safe that kept the net cowboys from robbing the bank. Once that was out of the way, things were gonna get real interestin'…
He was in the bathroom when he heard the alarm go off. At first, he thought it was the smoke detector, but after a second, he realized it was coming from his computer, on the kitchen table.
"What the hell—?!"
He jumped up and ran into the kitchen.
Sure enough, the little speaker on the portable was wailing away.
For a second, Platt just stood there, staring at the beeping computer. It wasn't supposed to happen, but unless there was some kind of software malfunction, somebody had somehow accessed his primary input signal. The only way they could have possibly done that was to have caught it at the satellite before the bounce, and only way that was possible was to have been waiting for the signal, and to know what to look for when it got there.
Couldn't be. He hadn't left any clues that big.
He moved, fast. Tapped in the confirmation code. Maybe it was just a software error, a glitch that tripped the audible—
Aw, shit! It wasn't an error!
They had traced his signal. And if they knew where he was, they'd pretty damn quick figure out who he was, and they'd be on their way to have a little talk with him.
Platt shut the computer off. He had to get out of here, now!
How the hell could this have happened? What did the damned Net Force boys know that he didn't? Some kind of new technology? Crap!
Worry about it later, hoss. Right now, you get your ass in gear and lay tread, or you're gonna be speculating about it in a federal cell somewhere!
Saturday, January 15th, 9:15 p.m. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau
Hughes smiled at Domingos across the table and raised his wine glass in salute. They were alone in the formal dining hall, Hughes and the President, working their way through the third course of a seven-course meal. The room would comfortably seat a hundred, and there was a hollow feel to it with just the pair of them at the end of a large oval table, one of half-a-dozen other tables just like theirs.
Fish was up next, some local catch, and so they'd switched to white wine, an Australian Pinot Gris, vintage 2003, that was as good as any Hughes had ever tasted. Domingos was proud of his cellar and his cook, and rightfully so.
Hughes made complimentary noises.
"You are too kind," the President said, but he was obviously pleased.
They sipped their wine, watching the waiters clear away their plates and reset for the next course.
"So, everything goes well, does it not?" the President said.
Hughes glanced at his watch. "Even as we speak, Excellency, my agents are finalizing matters. In a few days, we can make the transfers. I anticipate no problems, none at all."
"Excellent!" Domingos raised his glass. "To the future!"
"I will certainly drink to that."
Hughes smiled as he sipped the wine. Right about now, his agent Platt would be feeling an unexpected heat. He was useful, Platt was, but not the only operative that Hughes employed. And while Hughes was certain that the trick he'd played on the Southerner wouldn't result in his capture by the authorities—Platt was too canny to be caught that easily—certainly the cracker would sit up and take notice. He surely didn't want Platt in custody where he might spill everything he knew about this deal. But he did want the redneck off balance, a little edgy, and looking to his employer for some reassurance.
If a man thinks you're reaching a hand out to help him climb from a pit, he might not notice the knife in your other hand.
Platt was expendable—more than expendable, he had to go—and his usefulness was nearly at an end… but not quite yet.
The fish arrived, a single platter with what looked like a twenty-pound sea bass, cooked whole, upon the serving tray. The smell was wonderful.
"It's the French roasted hazelnut butter that does that," Domingos said. "You can understand why I'll be taking Bertil with me to Paris when I go, yes?"
Hughes smiled. Taking a chef to Paris might be gilding the lily, but if that was what he wanted, Domingos would certainly be able to afford it…
Saturday, January 15th, 4:30 p.m. Washington, D.C.
After he'd bought the boomerang, Tyrone had spent a couple of hours at the park playing with it. It was a little trickier than it looked, but it had taken him only a few minutes to get the thing working well enough so he didn't have to run and chase it. Well, not too far anyhow. A couple of times, it had come back close enough so he had been able to catch it without taking more than a step or two.
He'd never been real big on physical stuff, but he could definitely get into this.
By the time his arm was tired and he was ready to go home, he had figured out a lot of stuff about how you stood relative to the wind, and how to figure out which way the wind was blowing. He'd watched other throwers pick up bits of dry grass or dirt and then drop them, watching to see which way they drifted. He also had a fair idea of how much wrist action a basic throw needed. This was really fun stuff.
His phone cheeped. Tyrone pulled it from his belt clip. "Hello?"
"Hey, son. How are you doing?"
"Dad? I thought you were out in the middle of snowland or somewhere."
"I am. Only guy around for fifty miles."
"You okay? You don't usually call during these things."
"Yeah, I'm fine."
There was a pause, and Tyrone sensed his father wanted to say something else, so he stayed quiet.
"Actually, I had a little excitement today. You have to promise not to tell your mother, okay?"
Uh-oh. What did that mean? "Sure, Dad. What's flowin'?"
"A tree fell on me."
"A tree? Are you all right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Thing snapped under the weight of a lot of snow. I was lucky, but it got me to thinking, maybe I should give you call. How are you doing?"
"Geez, Dad, a tree falls on you and you're worried about me?"
"It's what fathers do, Ty."
"Well, I'm flowing fine. I just got a boomerang."
"Really? War or sport?"
Tyrone felt his eyebrows rise. "You know about boomerangs?"
"A little. They're hunting devices or weapons, depending on the kind. I wouldn't want to be clonked on the head with one, even one of the birding models."
"Birding?"
"The sport models, that's what they were used for. If you hit something with it, it doesn't come back, but an expert can knock a bird out of the air forty or fifty yards away at a right angle to where he's standing. We played with them some in military camp when I was a kid. Been years since I've seen mine. I think it's in the attic at Grampa's."
Amazing. His father seemed to know something about everything. And he had a boomerang. Amazing.
"Well, I got one, a sport model. There's this tournament not far from our house, I checked it out, and I got one."
"Great. You can brush me up on how to use it when I get home. I'm out of practice."
"Yeah, that would be DFF."
"It's been good talking to you, son. I'm going to give your mother a call and say hi. And Ty? Let's keep the falling-tree thing between us."
"Right. Take care, Dad. Thanks for calling."
When he discommed, Tyrone smiled. His father had called him before he had called Mom. He'd shared a secret with him, something in confidence. And his father had played with a boomerang as a kid.
Man. Would wonders never cease?
Saturday, January 15th, 6:30 p.m. Quantico, Virginia
Michaels was in his office, worrying about twelve different things, when one of those things came in.
"Alex?"
"Toni. What's up?"
"FBI and the Georgia state boys ran down the address outside Marietta. An old house, belongs to a family named Platt. Father hasn't been around for thirty years, mother died, left the place to her son."
She put a thin sheaf of hardcopy on his desk, including a photo. "That's him, the son."
Michaels looked at the image. The kid in the picture was big and muscular, in a white T-shirt and jeans, but he also looked about sixteen. "Kind of young, isn't he?"
"Only image we could find. It's about fifteen or sixteen years old. This guy Platt would be in his early thirties now. We can age the image, and we're straining him through the Cray Colander now. Neighbors say he lives at the house, but he's gone a lot."
"Seems to be something of a stretch, doesn't it?" he said.
"From Danish terrorists to a Georgia cracker?"
"Okay if I sit?"
"Jesus, you don't have to ask. Sit, sit!"
She did, and gave him a small smile.
He felt an erotic heat start to smolder low in his belly. Or thereabouts.
"I've been thinking about that," she said. "It seems kind of odd that nobody ever heard of this Frihedsakse before all this started."
"What do you mean? Jay has dug up all kinds of references to the group predating the manifesto they sent, going back years."
"Well, not exactly. I had Jay recheck. What we can absolutely confirm are bits here and there as old as six months. Before that, the etiology of the information is, as Jay puts it, ‘somewhat ambiguous.' "
Michaels leaned back in his chair and considered that for a few seconds. "Why would that be, I wonder."
"There's the jackpot question."
"What do you think?"
She shook her head. "I don't know for sure. But just for the sake of argument, let's say these Danish terrorists didn't exist until six months ago. Why would they bother to plant information that said they were a lot older? What would be the point? I mean, so they're only six months old, what differenc
e would that make to anybody? Are they looking for prestige? Some kind of validation? They want to be the Elks or the Masons of terrorists?"
Michaels nodded. "Good point. Why would they bother?"
"Maybe they didn't," she said. "Maybe it was somebody else."
Came the dawn into his head, a few bright streaks painting the dark sky of his mind. "Oh, man. Yeah, I can see that. Maybe there isn't any such group as Frihedsakse. Maybe it's somebody who wants us looking for a terrorist group that doesn't exist. They leave just enough clues for us to think we're finding something, to stay interested, when in fact we're spinning our wheels and not getting anywhere. Maybe it's not terrorists at all."
"It's just a theory," she said.
He shook his head, suddenly angry at himself. "But we should have checked this out before. We didn't look for another target because we had this big fat turkey plopped right down in front of us. It was too easy."
Toni said, "The thing is, if it's not terrorists, who is it? And what do they want? Somehow, I have a lot of trouble believing some lowbrow high-school-dropout jock from a little town in Georgia has the wherewithal to pull all this off."
Michaels said, "Let's put Frihedsakse on the back burner. Check on what systems were hit, and who might benefit from them being damaged or down."
She stood. "I'll go talk to Jay and Joanna."
"Good."
She started to leave. He couldn't let her get to the door without saying something else. "Toni?"
She turned. "Yes?"
"About that… thing in the Miata…"
"Do you want to forget it ever happened, Alex? Because I can't forget it, but I can pretend nothing happened, if that's what you want—"
"No," he said. "I don't want to forget it. If we survive this, I think we should lie down—I mean, we should sit down—and discuss it."
Jeezus, man! That was lame, Michaels. Lame, lamer, lamest. I cannot believe you said that. You are a moron!
Toni's smile, however, told him she had not only caught the Freudian slip, but wasn't in the least offended by it.
Bad idea, Michaels, a really bad idea. You don't crap in your nest. You never sleep with the enlisted women, his father had told him. It's always a mistake.
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