by JM Addison
*
On the drive over to the Sequitus facility, Mara sat silently in the back of the van. She was hoping she made the right choice. They both seemed non-threatening. It was Annette that made her feel most comfortable. It seemed so utterly unlikely that she could in any way be linked to those running the subversive operation. Mike broke through her distant reverie by asking, “So we can’t just go to the local cops with this, eh?” Her head swam with a million reasons why not to go to the cops.
“Well, for one thing, I’m still a suspect in my mother’s murder,” she said bitterly. “Then the last time I trusted the cops, it almost got me killed. The one investigator that I did trust told me quite frankly that the police received direct orders via political pressure to back off this case. And there was the other incident some months back where another scientist disappeared from Viiradium and the police dropped that case as well.”
She thought about Dell after bringing him up in the conversation and felt confused, baffled in fact. Why? Why did he set her up? Here she thought she was actually falling for the guy and as soon as he finds out where she’s staying, he doesn’t waste any time. She’s viciously attacked and another attempt made to kill her. Could it be that the Spanish or Puerto Rican (or whatever he was) assassin was lying to her? Why would he do that? He had every intention of killing her, so why lie if he thought she would be dead shortly anyway? What a combination, she felt both heartbroken and betrayed at the same time, by the same guy!
Mike was about to ask her about some of the people who might be involved at Viiradium, but stopped himself short when he caught a glimpse of her in the rear view mirror and saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. Instead, he just said, “We should be there in about 5 or 10 minutes.”
They pulled into the lot of an older but very well kept building. Mara hadn’t really been paying attention to where they were driving, but she thought they were somewhere along the I128 technology corridor. Perhaps Burlington? Not too far from Bedford.
She was shown into Mike’s office and treated like a special guest. She really appreciated their kindness. Annette showed her where there was a shower across the hall from the company exercise room. They didn’t have much for a cafeteria, more of a kitchen really, but they offered to include her in a take-out order of Chinese food for a late lunch and as a setting for which to discuss plans over.
She accepted their hospitality and quickly showered and put her clothes back on. She actually felt refreshed and for the first time in a while, relatively safe. By the time they sat down to lunch it was midafternoon and the three of them staked small claims to a portion of Mike’s desk to eat at – shoving any papers and such out of the way. The food smelled great and she was starving.
There was not much talking during the meal, but as Mike finished up, he announced, “It’s time we planned what to do next.”
Annette began, “Well, we don’t have too much more on I-Data, but working with Viiradium equipment and filling in details with information that Mara has supplied, now it’s beginning to make a lot more sense. I can see how a software ‘agent’ unknowingly installed in the firmware on any of Viiradium’s data handling equipment could forward any type of traffic to some location anywhere in the internet. Then the information, if it were encrypted, could be decoded by this ‘tomb’ discovery. All information could then be stored in a large data warehouse for sorting, organizing and reporting. The finished product is an individual and unique information package of all sorts of secret information on your competitors. To some people that package could be worth millions and they probably produce a lot of these ‘packages’, so there’s probably a lot of millions of dollars involved in the whole scheme!”
Mara sad, “It’s incredible… No wonder they wanted to be sure I stayed silent. Poor Chris just discovered what they were doing somehow and they found out about it. They had to keep him quiet and be sure that I didn’t say anything in case he talked to his big sister who worked at the same company.”
“Mara, we believe that a company called I-Data is key to this whole thing,” Mike continued. “We discovered that they are the source of some of the information that should never have been made available. We originally thought that they must be using more conventional means like stealing the garbage from the dumpsters outside or even planting bugging devices or phone taps to spy on behalf of their customers. But with what you have told us, that puts the issue in a much different light. I think you are right, Annette, there’s lots of money at stake here and it’s much bigger than we had originally thought. I don’t know how a potential customer of I-Data finds out about their services or how they market themselves knowing they are involved in illegal activity.”
Annette replied, “It may not be all that difficult. First of all, data transmitted across public networks, especially the internet is always open to the dangers of theft. But is it really theft if you send it over a public connection? I’m sure that’s an interesting legal debate. But no matter, because everyone knows there is danger, so they take steps to protect themselves by encrypting the data and then sending it. However, it’s still the same public network and I’m sure their lawyers are well prepared to argue any of these points in court.
“Besides, there are all sorts of companies out there that will do discreet background checks just like the one we used to investigate I-Data. Most of these are legitimate and I-Data probably markets and promotes itself as a legitimate information services company. Perhaps they even promote themselves has high tech private eyes.”
Mike answered, “I’m sure our friends at the US Government, especially Justice and Commerce or the National Security Agency would not view the actions of I-Data as ‘legitimate’.” Then he looked at Mara and added, “Especially when you throw in murder, assault and kidnapping.”
Mara said, “What do we know about I-Data? I remember the sketch I found at my brother’s made reference to it…” She began to rummage through her bag. “Here it is. See. It just never occurred that it was another company. I’m glad I didn’t send them an e-mail like I sent you. I could have been baiting wolves.” She pushed the sketch across the desk towards Mike.
Mike shared a look at the drawing with Annette and after a moment said, “Wow, this is very close to the way you just described it Annette! Looks like the data is copied by various data points, sort of like distributed ‘listening posts’ during the transmission and redirected here.” He indicated the box that said ‘I-Data’. “Then the information goes through the ‘Tomb’ to be decoded and ends up with the customer, that is, the competition or enemy.”
After studying the sketch for a few more moments, Annette went on, “What we do know about I-Data is not that much. We know they are based here in the Boston Metro area. We have the regular public figures of worth, revenue and such as reported to the government, but they are not a public company, so there is no shareholder information. Even the financial data we do have is very limited since they have not even been in business for a whole year yet. We have the names of the members of the top leadership and just a general description of what they claim to be, a ‘Statistical Information Clearinghouse’, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“What we need is proof!” cried Mara. “I’m sick of fighting a giant that I have no chance of beating. Even the police are on their side. Obviously Viiradium is involved, but who at Viiradium?”
No one spoke for a few moments while Mara played with the last remains of her tin foil dish of take-out Chinese. Finally, Mike said, “I have an idea but it’s going to be risky. Don’t laugh at me when I say this.
“First, Sequitus Tech is, at this point, a band of designers and engineers with some great ideas working together to produce some revolutionary technology. We don’t have a whole lot of money simply because we have not marketed any products yet and we are using investor funds to pay the bills right now. Launching a big expensive investigation is going to cost us and likely will not produce the results we really need, but i
nstead just tip off the adversary. Just as Mara is being physically hunted down and is suffering abuse, this company is being systematically hunted and destroyed by the fierce competition at that hands of I-Data. We need to act quickly to defend ourselves and get Mara out of the woods while we are doing it.”
“What do you propose?” Annette asked.
“Well, we know the top executives at I-Data. They must know exactly what’s going on and are, in fact, likely the ones guilty of setting up the operation. Why not use the spyglass-project to monitor those executives and gather evidence to feed to our people at the US government?”
Annette faced him directly and gave him a long look. “The spyglass project? It’s never been used in the field. Would it work? Who is going to run it? How are we going to spy on several people at once? Isn’t the ‘evidence’ we gather simply hearsay?”
“Slow down a minute, Annette! The spyglass project has been lab tested and had gone through a lot of simulations. I’ll admit, it’s a little unrefined, but there is no reason why it shouldn’t work. As far as who is going to run it, I thought the three of us would be sufficient because I was going to go after the top executive at I-Data and I doubt we would have to go any further. The evidence we might gather wouldn’t hold up in court, but it would be sufficient to convene a Grand Jury and that would blow the case wide open. I also think the Feds would put Mara in protective custody, especially as her testimony would put these people away.”
Mara chimed in, “Excuse me, but what the hell are you all talking about? The ‘Spyglass’ project?”
Mike and Annette looked at each other a moment. Mike replied, “I mentioned before that we were working on the application of our discovery towards technology products that will revolutionize a lot of stuff. That’s why there is sort of a race going on to see who can get products to market first and why there is this whole issue of going to any lengths to steal data from us. Since it’s my company getting ripped off, I want to put an end to it if at all possible. I think we should go to the police, even though they may not be willing to assist, just as a formality to make the accusation known.
“At the same time, even if they do agree to help, it will take far too long and the bad guys would just get away. The spyglass project is one of those cool applications of our discoveries here. Basically what it does is give you the ability to literally ‘see’ through solid objects.”
Mara asked, “You mean like x-rays?”
“Well, sort of. It’s a bit more complicated than that. By using a pair of antennas spaced a little distance apart, we flood or ‘spray’ the target area with tiny bursts of radio energy. The Pico Timer enables us to precisely monitor the reflected return which is also picked up by an antenna receiver. Based on the exact timing of the reflections of the bits of radio energy, a powerful computer sorts out the received signals and generates both a 3-d appearing image and a simulated ‘video’ of what’s happening behind closed doors or even through most building materials.”
“How is this going to help us nail any of the bad guys?”
“We set up a pair of antennas near the location of say… the home of the chairman of I-Data to monitor the activities. While we’re monitoring, you call him on the phone and make some threats about going to the authorities because you have ‘proof’ of their little scheme. Then we just sit back and record what happens.”
“You mean you can listen as well as watch?”
“In most cases. Listening is actually a little harder. There needs to be a hard surface that will reflect the sounds being made in the room. Glass would work very well, except it doesn’t reflect radio energy. A metal file cabinet works best. If we can’t get good audio, a backup system we have works well. It uses a laser to pick up the sonic vibrations from the windows. The disadvantage is that the laser can be seen if the person being watched happens to look at the right place at the right time. The laser off the window thing is nothing new, it has been around a long time. We just synchronize it with the video to get a complete audio and video capture of what’s happening inside.”
“It sounds like it’s going to be a big deal to set all this up. Is this something we can do without notice? I mean, setting up antennas as such would draw attention.”
“Well, our eventual goal is to develop a one piece handheld unit – we all it the ‘spyglass’ – that someone like the police or the military could effectively use in the field. As it is today, the computer and antennas all fit into a couple of small duffel bags for transport and setup is pretty easy. The antennae are small and can easily be concealed. I planned on setting up and calling him right from his own backyard on a cell phone while we sat and watched and listened to the reaction inside. At least that was my idea anyway.”
“Sounds kind of far-fetched to me,” was all Mara could think of to say. It really did seem impossible. Was she teamed up with a bunch of science fiction crackpots? She felt a little disappointed after all of this discussion. She really thought that together, they could make some progress in the case. This idea of spying just didn’t seem to her that it would force any changes, especially where she was concerned. She would like to come out of hiding and live a normal life, whatever was left of it.
However, at this point, she might as well go along with this scheme to see how far it goes. What else was she to do? Go back to living homeless at the university campus? That would only last so long.