by Jack Bowie
“Which one is our target?”
Braxton hesitated as a chill ran through him. “The Century.”
“Your old company, right? Can we get them to help?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I could try.” Further dealings with Century were not anything Braxton had ever wanted. “I’ll give them a call sometime. First let’s see what we can do with this data.”
“I think you ought to call them, Adam. They might be able to help.”
“I heard you, Paul.” His voice got a little louder. “We don’t know enough yet. This whole mole thing could just be a red herring. Century could be running some proprietary monitor and collecting their own statistics. I wouldn’t put it past them to leave it undocumented.”
“It can’t be that hard to find out.”
“I said I’d call them, okay? Just leave it!” And Braxton threw his notebook across the room, knocking a Sierra Club calendar off the wall.
“Sure, man. Right. Look, I think I’d better go.” Terrel stood up and headed for the door.
“Paul! Please stop.” Braxton’s voice fell and he hung his head over the desk. “I’m sorry. I really feel under the gun on this contract. If I can’t pull something off, I may never get another chance. And talking with Century is not real high on my favorites list. But I do need your help. Hang in a little longer?”
Terrel hesitated then said “Okay. Wallace won’t miss me for a while longer.” He walked over to the calendar and hung it back on the protruding nail. “But take it easy with my Christmas present.”
“I promise.”
They spent the rest of the morning going back over the original data and trying to discover any common aspects of the incidents. They weren’t successful.
Terrel finally left about noon. Braxton fixed a quick lunch and went into the dining room to work out his next steps. After his blowup, he had better contact someone at Century and try to enlist their help or Terrel would leave him on a mountain top their next trip.
He would give his ex-boss a call and try to get some time with him in the next day or two.
He also owed both Fowler and Flanagan a status report. CERT/CC would be happy with an email, but Fowler would probably want a call. Two calls and then back to the PC.
The call to Century was short. He hadn’t really expected to get through to his old manager directly. Florence Winters, secretary to Executive Vice President Warren Chamberlain, took the message that Braxton was consulting for CERT/CC and needed to speak with her boss on a network security matter. She promised to check with Chamberlain later in the day and get back to Braxton before five o’clock. Winters had always been helpful when he had worked at Century and her openness eased his anxiety.
The call to Fowler wasn’t quite so simple. The police operator transferred Braxton to the detective’s car phone. He could hear the sounds of traffic and police calls in the background.
“Fowler,” the detective barked into the microphone.
“Detective Fowler, it’s Adam Braxton. You said you wanted me to call.”
“Yeah. What did you find out from Goddard?”
“Not a lot. She was sure that Ramal kept papers and manuals in the apartment. They should have been there. Whoever killed him must have taken them to hide what Ramal was doing.”
“Anything else?” the detective said flatly.
“I got access to Ramal’s files at George Washington. I went back over them and found that someone had deleted everything back two days. There’s been a deliberate attempt to cover up what Ramal was doing. Can you get someone to check it out?”
The line went silent.
“Detective Fowler?” Braxton repeated.
“Look, Adam. I know you think all this missing stuff is significant, but it’s not going to mean shit to the department. Maybe Ramal deleted the files himself. Maybe he threw out a lot of old books. It’s still just circumstantial. I’ve got to have harder evidence.”
“What do you need?”
“I need proof of a third party’s actions against Ramal. Without it his death is still just an accident. Now can you help me or not?”
Braxton chose not to tell Fowler that he had confirmed Ramal’s suspicions about the gateway. It would be too hard to explain the technical details to the detective and it might not have anything to do with Fowler’s case.
“I don’t know,” he finally replied. “I’ve got a couple more people I need to talk to. If I don’t have anything new after that I’ll probably have to close the incident. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
Braxton hung up the phone before Fowler could object. The detective was going to be no help at all. He just wanted Braxton to do all his goddamn work for him.
It was time to get back to the study and draft the update for Flanagan.
Half an hour later he had composed a short note on the status of his case and sent it off. It didn’t say much. Just enough to keep her off his back until he had a chance to talk with Chamberlain.
He went back and reviewed the logs from his monitor program. They were as frustrating as ever. After another half hour he gave up.
He shut off the system in disgust and grabbed his coat. Maybe a walk around the Square would clear his mind.
* * *
Fowler squirmed behind his desk and tried to get his head into the morning’s knifing in Rock Creek Park, but his mind kept coming back to Braxton and the Ramal case. The consultant had verified everything that Fowler had suspected, but there still wasn’t enough to ask the Captain to reopen the case. He needed Braxton to find some kind of electronic smoking gun; a trail that the killers had left. It didn’t look as if that was going to happen. Whoever pulled off the murder had been very careful. It was a professional job and that frustrated him even more. He didn’t like pros operating in his city.
Fowler flipped open an ancient plastic and paper Rolodex and looked up the number of a friend who might be able to help.
“Forty-two twelve.” A pleasant female voice repeated the extension number.
“I’d like to speak to Roger Slattery please.”
“Just a minute.”
Ten seconds later a voice came on the line.
“Slattery.” The new voice was deep and resonant with a touch of a southern accent.
“Roger, Sam Fowler. How’s it going?”
“Sam. Haven’t heard from you in ages. Have they put you out to pasture yet?”
“Not yet. Still fighting the bad guys. How about you? Still getting paid for sitting around on your butt?”
“You betcha. This cushy government life is great. What’s up Sam?”
Roger Slattery, or at least that was the name Fowler knew him by, was easily as old as Fowler, and even less likely to retire. He was the Central Intelligence Agency’s resident expert in terrorists and terrorism. Fowler had met him on an assassination case a couple of years before and the two had discovered they shared a passion for hot Mexican food.
Normally a very reticent spook, Fowler had also found that Slattery became a little more talkative after a six pack of Dos Equis. He hadn’t disclosed anything very specific, but it was clear he had seen his share of field work. Now apparently tied to a desk in Langley, he didn’t seem to mind an occasional call from the detective.
“Did you happen to see something about a bomb explosion Sunday night?”
“Yeah. I did notice that. Some Arab student blew himself up. You involved?”
“It’s mine.” He didn’t think it would hurt to stretch the truth a bit. “What little hard evidence I have points to a terrorist connection, but the rest of the picture doesn’t fit.”
“That little bee in your ear again? You want me to take a look for you?”
“I’d appreciate it. Unofficially, of course.”
“Of course. You have anything I can look at?”
“I can fax a few things over. That okay?”
“Sure,” and Slattery gave the detective a number.
“Thanks Roger, I owe you.�
�
“Give me a few days and I’ll get back to you. As for owing me, how about a Baja Combination sometime?”
“You’re on. Soon as I get this case wrapped up.”
Which could be real soon if he didn’t come up with something fast. He opened one of the desk drawers, pulled his private copy of the Ramal file from under a pile of papers at the bottom, and headed for the fax machine.
* * *
The man scanned the log of intrusion alerts. Someone new was monitoring the gateway.
There had always been the chance, however slim, that someone would recognize the imbalance in the network statistics and realize the gateway was initiating messages. There had been a few over the years and all had been easily identified and neutralized. Including the latest from GW.
Now it was happening again. And much more aggressively.
Proof of the scanner’s existence would cause a cyberspace witch hunt that would seriously reduce his flow of information. And he needed that information now more than ever.
Once he had identified the intruder, he would need to place another call to his friends.
Chapter 22
Northern Virginia
Thursday, 6:00 p.m.
GREYSTONE REVIEWED THE latest competitive intelligence documents as his limousine cruised down the Dulles access road. He had heard that Hawthorne Systems was working on a new generation of command and control systems. They had heard rumors that they were hiring computer science grads from Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Stanford by the dozens, starting previously unheard-of salary wars. What he had in his hands validated the gossip and provided a solid foundation to the actions. He pulled a few pages from the sheath and replaced them in his briefcase, then folded the remainder and stuck them in his jacket pocket. No use making his colleague’s job too easy.
The limousine suddenly swerved and the briefcase fell, spreading its contents over the carpet.
“What the hell are you doing, Enrico?” he cursed to his driver as he repacked the case.
“Sorry, Señor Greystone. That loco pickup driver cut me off. I had to turn to avoid an accident. You wouldn’t want to have to stop and identify yourself would you?” The heavy Spanish accent was laced with poorly disguised sarcasm.
“Be careful, mi amigo. I keep you employed because of the benefits of our understanding. But I will not put up with any of your macho crap. I would hate to think of what might happen if certain agencies discovered your family was here illegally. They could be deported back to Cuba. You will take care of the records as usual?”
“Of course, Señor.” Enrico Santana’s bravado quickly vanished under Greystone’s withering tone. “As always, the records will show we drove to the Capitol for an evening conference.”
The chauffeur had a temper, but was not about to do anything that would disturb his client. When Santana had joined the limousine service, Greystone had done a background check. It had been easy enough to find that he and his mother had escaped from the Castro regime in 1990 to start a new life in the US. They had migrated to D.C. to live with relatives, but Señora Santana had taken ill and been unable to provide for her small family. Enrico had been their only source of support. Santana had worked mostly odd jobs for bare subsistence, but five months ago he had been accepted at the limousine service. He had thought it was a dream come true. Unfortunately, his first client had other plans. Santana had been indentured to the man ever since.
“Good. Now get us back on schedule for the District, and no more surprises.”
* * *
Flanagan returned to her office at 6:30 tired and frustrated. She had been in an operations meeting all afternoon reviewing the status of her team’s projects. The certification activity had become significantly more complicated, and time-consuming, than any of them had thought.
Valuable resources had to be spent contacting vendors, debugging network hookups, and arguing with lawyers. She was already pulling people off other projects to help, which caused their work to slip. She finally just collected all of the team’s inputs and promised to work out a revised timetable based on the priorities as she understood them. Rydell and Candela would have to deal with the result.
She was packing her briefcase for the evening’s work when she noticed new mail in her account. Checking her in folder, she saw a report from her consultant.
It was about time, she’d been waiting three days for him to get back to her.
She opened the message, expecting to only give it a cursory review before heading out. What she read was anything but ordinary.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Status Report, Saracen Incident
After traveling to George Washington University on Tuesday, I identified Saracen as Mohammed Ramal, a graduate student in computer science researching network traffic patterns. His message to CERT/CC may have been a result of experiments performed on GW gateways.
Mr. Ramal was killed in his apartment last Sunday, just after his transmission, purportedly as a result of an accident with explosives. It is thought he may have been involved in some type of terrorist activity.
I have contacted GW officials and District of Columbia police to secure further information on Mr. Ramal. Neither was of substantive assistance in clarifying Ramal’s activities relative to his message.
Based on Ramal’s original note, I have been able to independently confirm his report of anomalous behavior in the gateways.
I will update you on further developments in a day or two.
Regards,
Adam Braxton
Their contact was dead? He was a terrorist?
The consultant’s report made her shudder. She couldn’t believe that his death had anything to do with the Incident. It had to be a coincidence.
God, what will Rydell say?
She didn’t have the time to worry about this now. It was only Thursday. The report didn’t need immediate attention and Braxton said he’d get back to her in a few days. That was enough time to prepare her story for the staff meeting on Monday.
She moved the message into her actions folder and printed a hardcopy for filing with the other Incident papers.
Unfortunately, it didn’t look as if the Incident was going to be the high visibility event she had hoped it would be. More like a small footnote on their monthly report. At least the consultant had been able to confirm the anomaly. Hopefully he’d resolve it without spending too much more of her budget.
Flanagan still had to work through the staffing plan, and she really needed to sweat off the stress with a trip to the gym. She left the Center offices at 6:45.
* * *
At exactly 7:00, the limousine pulled up at 739 Wilson Street. The side door of the car opened and Greystone emerged into the fading twilight. He took a deep breath; the clear, crisp air refreshed him as he mentally prepared for the meeting. Tonight would solidify his relationship with Akira Hajima, CEO of Takagawa Communications. The small pieces were coalescing into the bigger mosaic. A few more weeks and he would be able to reveal the masterpiece.
The blinking neon sign proclaimed “Mount Fuji Grill”. Garish colors spilled onto the sidewalk as Greystone approached. It hardly seemed a fitting location to meet his contact, but the executive was used to surprises from the Japanese.
As soon as he walked in the door he was assaulted by pungent smells from the oriental dishes and irritating sing-song music played through the audio system. His disorientation was another reminder of how uncomfortable he always felt in Eastern surroundings. He also knew that this was exactly why Hajima had insisted on meeting here.
It had taken Greystone years to understand the Eastern philosophy behind Japanese business, and another decade to develop even the beginnings of a workable strategy for dealing with them. He had religiously studied Sun Tzu, Miyamoto Mushashi, and Gao Yuan. Logically, he understood the history and the cultural traits, but emotionally he wasn’t prepared to adopt the life style and th
e teachings. Their feigned politeness and incessant bowing drove him crazy. He was a man who liked to get to the point and get on with business. Greystone didn’t have to like someone to do business with them, and didn’t care whether they knew it or not. Business was about mutual benefit, not companionship. The Japanese, on the other hand, had hundreds of years of ritual that they brought into all their dealings. To do business with them was to do it their way.
At least Hajima was a more modern samurai. He was of Greystone’s generation with no direct memory of the war. The executive had been born in Japan, but had moved to the United States in the seventies with his father, a senior manager for Honda. He had attended Stanford, eventually receiving degrees in both Electrical Engineering and Business, before returning to Japan to take up his career.
He was a clever, aggressive manager who was determined to make Japan, and his current employer, Takagawa Communications, a leader in battlefield telecommunication systems. Greystone had met Hajima at a conference and had singled him out as a key participant in his plan.
Over the years they had known each other, Greystone had sensed cracks in Hajima’s rigid facade. He could still be the inscrutable Oriental when dealing with his bosses, the leaders of the powerful Takagawa Industries keiretsu, a huge business conglomerate, but when he was the senior manager, as he would be this evening, Greystone would find a more moderate personality.
Moderate in dogma, but certainly not in acumen. Hajima was the toughest negotiator Greystone had ever met. Their meetings left him completely exhausted. It was also not beyond Hajima to play psychological tricks; this location would only be the first.
He introduced himself to the tiny, exquisite hostess. She recognized his name immediately, bowed deeply, and asked if he would accompany her upstairs. Greystone nodded appropriately and followed her up the stairs.
The dark green silk kimono clung tightly to her body, accentuating her small breasts and slim waist. Her hips swayed gently ahead of him as she walked up the stairs. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. How much nicer it would be if she were his evening companion.