The German said, "The woman beside me, my co-leader Karin Doring ..."
Applause rolled from the mob spontaneously, and the man waited. The woman bowed her head but didn't speak.
"Karin has sent emissaries to Hanover," the man shouted as the applause quieted. "In just a few minutes we will all go to the city, to the Beer-Hall, to announce our new union to the world. We will invite our brothers there to join the movement and together we will show civilization its future. A future where sweat and industry will be rewarded ..."
There was more applause and cheering.
"... where perverse cultures and faiths and peoples will be segregated from the heart's blood of society ..."
The applause and cheering built. It remained strong.
"... where spotlights will play across our symbols, our accomplishments."
The applause grew to a torrent and Herbert used the cover of the din to yell at Jody.
"Come on," he said, pulling at her hand again. "These people will fall on you like dingoes."
Jody looked out at them. Herbert couldn't make out her expression in the dark. He had the urge to shoot her in the foot, throw her across his lap, and start wheeling back.
The speaker yelled, "And if the authorities in Hanover turn on us, let them! Let them! For over a year I have been personally harassed by Hauptmann Rosenlocher of the Hamburg police. If I drive too quickly he is there. If I play music too loudly he is there. If I meet with my colleagues, he is there. But he will not beat me. Let them target us individually or together! They'll see that our movement is organized, that our will is strong."
Jody stared out at the rally. "I don't want to die. But I don't want to live pathetically."
"Jody, you won't--"
She wrenched her hand from Herbert. He didn't try to get it back. He wheeled after her, cursing the stubbornness which had stopped him from getting a goddamned motor. Then he cursed this kid who he understood and had to respect even though she didn't listen to reason. Any more than he did.
As the applause died, Jody's footsteps seemed quite loud to Herbert. Also, apparently, to the sentry nearest them, who turned. He saw them in the light of the fires and shouted to the young men and women who were standing nearest to him. A moment later the sentry was moving forward and the others were forming a line behind him with the clear intention of letting Jody and Herbert nowhere near the front of the crowd or Karin Doring or Jody's goal.
Herbert stopped. Jody did not. With a snort of disgust, Herbert wheeled after her.
FORTY-EIGHT
Thursday, 8:36 P.M., Southwest of Vichy, France
"There was never any question that I would know how to fly."
Paul Hood stood behind Richard Hausen as he piloted the Learjet through the skies over France. He was speaking loudly to be heard over the two powerful turbofan engines. Lang's full-time pilot, Elisabeth Stroh, sat beside him. She was a handsome young brunette about twenty-seven, whose French and English were impeccable. Lang's instructions to her had been to fly in with them, wait with the jet, and fly out with them again. Her conversation had been limited to communication with the tower in Hamburg and now in Toulouse, and remarks to the passengers about their flight plan. If she was interested in what Hausen was saying, she didn't show it.
Hood had been sitting in the cabin with Stoll and Nancy. After nearly ninety minutes in the air, he needed to get away from them both: Stoll because he hadn't stopped talking, and Nancy because she didn't want to start.
Seated in one of the plush sofas which lined the walls of the cabin, Stoll had been saying that he never thought of himself as a team player. He went to work for Op-Center because he was a loner, because they needed a self-starter who liked to sit at a desk and write software and troubleshoot hardware. He pointed out that he wasn't a Striker and was not obligated to go into the field. He was doing this out of respect for Hood, not courage. The rest of the time he spent complaining about possible glitches in the T-Ray. He said he wasn't offering any guarantees. Hood told him he understood.
Nancy, on the other hand, sat looking out the window for most of the time. Hood asked what she was thinking about, but she wouldn't say. He could guess, of course. He wished that he could comfort her.
Nancy did offer some information about the layout of the Demain facility. Stoll dutifully morphed her descriptions with the floor plan. It had been sent from Op-Center via a remote-access software package designed by Stoll. Thanks to the Ultrapipeline capacity of the NRO's Hermit satellite, mainframes at Op-Center were able to communicate wirelessly with computers in the field. Stoll's patented software boosted the data transfer capacity of the Hermitlink from two- to five-kilobyte blocks using elements of Z-modem file transfer protocol and spread-spectrum radio transmission in the 2.4- to- 2.483-gigahertz range.
Not that the link helped. There wasn't much Nancy could tell them. She knew the setup of the manufacturing and programing areas, but knew nothing of the executive suites or of Dominique's private quarters.
Hood left Nancy with her thoughts and Stoll in the relative comfort of a multiuser Dungeon computer game which he used to relax. Venturing into the cockpit, Hood listened while the eager, almost buoyant Hausen told him about his youth.
Hausen's father Maximillian had been a pilot with the Luftwaffe. He'd specialized in night fighting, and had flown the first operational sortie of the Heinkel He 219 when it shot down five Lancasters. Like many Germans, Hausen did not speak apologetically of his father's war-time exploits. Military service could not be avoided, and it didn't diminish Hausen's love or respect for Maximillian. Still, as the German spoke about his father's activities, Hood found it difficult not to think of the families of the young crew members of those downed Lancasters.
Perhaps sensing Hood's discomfort, Hausen asked, "Did your father serve?"
Hood said, "My father was a medic. He was stationed at Fort McClellan in Alabama setting broken bones and treating cases of"--he looked at Elisabeth--" various diseases."
"I understand," Hausen said.
"So do I," Elisabeth put in.
The woman gave him a half-smile. Hood returned it. He felt as if he was back in Op-Center trying to walk the tightrope between political correctness and sexual discrimination.
"And you never wanted to be a doctor?" Hausen asked.
"No," Hood said. "I wanted to help people and I felt that politics was the best way. Some people of my generation thought revolution was the answer. But I decided to work with the so-called establishment."
"You were wise," Hausen said. "Revolution is rarely the answer."
"What about you?" Hood asked. "Did you always want to be in politics?"
He shook his head. "From the time I was able to walk 1 wanted to fly," he said. "When 1 was seven, on our farm near the Rhine in Westphalia, my father taught me to fly the 1913 Fokker Spider monoplane he'd restored. When I was ten and attending boarding school in Bonn, I switched to a Bucker two-seat biplane at a nearby field." Hausen smiled. "But I always saw beauty from the air turn to squalor on the ground. And like you, when I came of age, I decided to help people."
"Your parents must have been proud," Hood said.
Hausen's expression darkened. "Not exactly. It was a very complicated situation. My father had quite definite ideas about things, including what his son should do for a living."
"And he wanted you flying," Hood said.
"He wanted me with him, yes."
"Why? It isn't as though you turned your back on a family business."
"No," Hausen said, "it was worse. I turned my back on my father's wishes."
"1 see. And are they still furious?"
"My father passed away two years ago," Hausen said. "We were able to talk shortly before his death, though much too much was left unsaid. My mother and I speak regularly, though she hasn't been the same since his death."
While he listened, Hood couldn't help but think back to Ballon's comments about Hausen being a headline grabber. Having been a politici
an himself, Hood understood that good press was important. But he wanted to believe that this man was sincere. And in any case, there wasn't going to be press coverage in France.
A politician's Catch-22, he thought wryly. No one to report on our triumphs if we succeed, but no one to report on our arrest and humiliation if we fail, either.
As Hood was about to return to the cabin, he had an urgent summons from Stoll.
"Come here, Chief! Something's happening on the computer!"
There was no longer a frightened tremolo in the voice of Op-Center's technical genius. Matt Stoll's voice was thick, concerned. Hood made his way quickly across the soft white carpet.
"What's wrong?" Hood asked.
"Look what just hacked its way into the game I was playing."
Hood sat beside him on the right. Nancy moved from her seat on the other side of the cabin and sat on Stoll's left. Stoll pulled down the window shade so they would have a better view. They all looked at the screen.
There was a graphic of a vellum-like scroll with gothic-style printing. A white hand held it open on the top, another on the bottom.
"Citizens, hear ye!" it read. "We pray you will forgive this interruption.
"Did you know that according to the Sentencing Project, a public-interest group, one third of all black men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine are in prison, on probation, or on parole? Did you know that this figure marks a ten percent rise from just five years ago? Did you know that these blacks cost the nation over six billion dollars each year? Watch for us in eighty-three minutes. "
Hood asked, "Where did this come from, Matt?"
"I have no idea."
Nancy said, "Don't break-ins usually occur through interactive terminal ports or file-transfer ports--"
"Or E-mail ports, yeah," Stoll said. "But this break-in isn't originating at Op-Center. This scroll came from somewhere else. And that somewhere else is probably very well hidden."
"What do you mean?" Hood asked.
"Sophisticated break-ins like this are usually done through a series of computers."
"So can't you just follow the trail backwards?" Hood asked.
Stoll shook his head. "You're right that these boobs use their computer to break into another, then use that one to break into another, and so on. But it's not like connect-the-dots where each stop is a single point. Each computer represents thousands of potential routes. Like a train terminal but with hundreds of tracks leading to different destinations."
The screen cleared and a second scroll appeared.
"Did you know that the unemployment rate among black men and women is more than double that of white men and women? Did you know that an average of nine out of the ten top records of the country this year were performed by blacks, and that your white daughters and girlfriends are purchasing over sixty percent of this so-called music? Did you know that only five percent of the books in this country are purchased by blacks? Watch for us in eighty-two minutes."
Hood asked, "Is this appearing anywhere else?"
Stoll's fingers were already speeding over the keyboard. "Checking," he said as he typed "[email protected]." "This is a group that discusses Hong Kong action films. It's the most obscure E-mail address I know."
After a moment, the screen changed.
"I happen to think that Jackie Chan's potrayal of Wong Fei Hong is the definitive interpretation. Even though Jackie's off-screen persona is visible in the characterization, he makes it work. "
Stoll said, "It's safe to say the interlopers only went after the gamers."
"Which makes sense," Nancy said, "if they're going to be offering hate games to that market."
"But they wouldn't be offering them aboveboard," Hood said. "I mean, one wouldn't find their ads in the Internet Yellow Pages."
"No," Stoll agreed. "But word spreads quickly. Anyone who wants to play would know where to find them."
"And with the Enjoystick providing an extra kick," Hood said, "kids who didn't know any better would certainly want to play."
"What about laws?" Nancy said. "I thought there were restrictions on what you could send through the Internet."
"There are," Stoll said. He returned to the scrolls on Multi-User Dungeon and sat back. For the moment, his fears were clearly forgotten. "They're the same laws which govern other markets. Child pornographers are chased and caught. Advertising for hit men is illegal. But rattling off facts like these, facts you can find in any good almanac, is not illegal. Even when the intent is clearly racist. The only crime these people have committed is breaking into other people's rooms. And I guarantee this message will be gone in a few hours, before network officials can get close to locating them."
Nancy looked at Hood. "You obviously think this is Dominique's doing."
"He has the capability, doesn't he?"
"That doesn't make him a criminal."
"No," Hood agreed. "Killing and stealing do."
Her eyes held his for a moment, then dropped.
Apparently oblivious to the others, Stoll said, "There are touches on this scroll which remind me of the game in Hausen's office." He leaned forward and touched the screen. "The shading under the curl at the bottom of the scroll is blue, not black. Someone with a background in publishing might have done that out of habit. During color separations, deep blue shadows reproduce richer than blacks. And the molded colors of the vellum, giving it a solid look here"--he touched the still-scrolled section at the top--"is similar to the texture of the deer skin in the forests of the other game."
Nancy sat back. "You're reaching."
Stoll shook his head. "Of all people, you should know the kinds of flourishes designers put in their games. You probably remember the early days of video games," Stoll said. "The days when you could tell an Activision game from an Imagic game from an Atari game because of the designers's touches. Hell, you could even tell a David Crane game from the rest of the games at Activision. Creators left their fingerprints all over the screen."
Nancy said, "I know those early days better than you think, Matt. And I'm telling you Demain isn't like that. When I program games for Dominique we leave our personal vision at the door. Our job is to pack as many colors and realistic graphics into a game as possible."
Hood said, "That doesn't mean Demain wasn't behind the game. Dominique would hardly produce hate games which looked like his regular games."
Nancy said, "But I've seen the portfolios of the people who work up there," she said. "I've been sitting here thinking about their graphics. None of them work like this."
"What about outside designers?" Hood said.
"At some point, they'd still have to come through the system," she said. "Tested, tweaked, downloaded--there are dozens of steps."
"What if the entire process were done outside?" Hood asked.
Stoll snapped his fingers. "That kid Reiner, Hausen's assistant. He said he designed stereogram programs. He knows computers."
"Right," said Hood. "Nancy, if someone did design a game on the outside, what's the fewest number of people who would see the diskettes at Demain?"
She said, "First of all, something that dangerous would not come in on diskettes."
"Why not?" Hood asked.
"It would be a smoking gun," she said. "A time-encoded program on a diskette would be proof in court that Dominique was trafficking in hate games."
"Assuming they didn't erase it once it was uploaded," Stoll said.
"They'd keep it until they were sure everything went off as planned," Nancy said. "That's how they work here. Anyway, an outside program like that would have to be modemed to a diskless workstation."
"We've got those, Boss," Stoll said. "They're used for highly sensitive data which you don't want copied from the file server--the networked computer--onto a local diskette."
Hood was at the limit of his technical know-how, but he got the gist of what Stoll was saying.
Nancy said, "The only people who have diskless workstations at De
main are vice-presidents who deal with information about new games or business strategies."
Stoll erased the program on his laptop. "Give me the names of some of those high-ups who have the technical chops to process game programs."
Nancy said, "The entire process? Only two of them can do that. Etienne Escarbot and Jean-Michel Horne."
Stoll input the names, sent them off to Op-Center, and asked for a background report. While they waited, Hood addressed something that had been roiling around inside him ever since he'd spoken with Ballon. The Colonel had been less than enthused about Hausen's participation. He'd called him a headline-grabber.
What if he were worse than that? Hood wondered. He didn't want to think ill of someone who seemed a good man, but that was part of the job. Asking yourself, What if? And after listening to Hausen talk about his Luftwaffe father he was asking himself, What if Hausen and Dominique weren't enemies? Hood only had Hausen's account of what had transpired in Paris twenty-odd years ago. What if the two were working together? Christ, Ballon said that Dominique's father had made his fortune in Airbus construction. Airplanes. And Hausen was a goddamned pilot.
Hood carried his thinking a few steps further. What if Reiner had been doing exactly what his boss wanted? Making Hausen look like a victim of a hate game in order to sucker Op-Center, Ballon, and the German government into an embarrassing incursion? Who would ever attack Dominique a second time if the first assault turned up nothing?
Stoll said, "Aha! We've already got some potential rotten apples here. According to Lowell Coffey's legal files, in 1981 M. Escarbot was charged by a Parisian firm with stealing trade secrets from IBM about a process of displaying bit-mapped graphics. Demain paid to settle that case. And criminal charges were filed and then dropped nineteen years ago against M. Horne. Seems he received a French patent for an advanced four-bit chip which an American company said was stolen from them. Only they couldn't prove it. They also couldn't find the person who supposedly ripped off the ..."
Stoll stopped reading. His white face turned slowly toward Hood, then toward Nancy.
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