|
7
David Gordon was just starting his second week at the 915th Inspector General Detachment, whose commander, Colonel Lionel Jankowsky, answered to the Inspector General of Composite Force, a Major General. The 915th occupied the long, narrow second floor in a brownstone building in Georgetown.
Life is getting a little better every day, David thought as he drove to work with the top down. I am a free man, hopefully a little wiser, he thought. He had just finished Inspector General Officers’ School and felt enthusiastic about righting wrongs and maybe uncovering shady dealings. He had a brief but bitter marriage and divorce behind him, and was healing.
He lived four blocks from Maxie in Alexandria, and he was sure he’d make more friends. In fact, he had Maxie’s number on his fridge, and intended to call Tory Breen soon. It was just a matter of figuring out what she’d like to do together—maybe jog around the Smithsonian?
It was a straight shot in to work, beating traffic if you left before six a.m. Thank God he wasn’t in the Atlantic Hotel & Convention Center, where CON2 was in progress. There were 20,000 troops in the city—regulars in the hotel’s three towers; National Guard troops in the streets outside the hotel; reservists and regulars camped in Rock Creek Park. By contrast, the 915th I.G. Detachment’s leased offices were on a quiet side street with just the right mixed zoning to have small, quaint shops on the first floor and office space on the upper floors of the buildings. Several officers, ten enlisted persons, and two civilian secretaries worked for the I.G., Colonel Jankowsky. Actually, David was a bit puzzled by the nature of this unit, since the Composite had its own large I.G. staff, and the units in the Atlantic Hotel & Convention Center undoubtedly had theirs. Jankowsky ostensibly worked for the general staff of the Composite. Maybe it was detachment they were after, in the true sense of the word, David wondered as he drove slowly down the graveled alley behind the 915th’s offices. Objectivity, he thought, looking for a parking space, physical separation from the objects of inspection. To his right was a long wooden fence with tree crowns overhanging. To his left were the backs of shops fronting Ann Street, and on the second floor was a really pretty row of stained glass windows. He wondered what was in there. Looked like a Shakespearean tavern, almost, with dark cross beams over tan stucco. David parked in a large parking lot at the end of the block, opposite the buildings housing shops and the 915th. The parking lot had belonged to a supermarket that was boarded up and looked as if nobody had used it in several years. Blue peeled from the stucco walls along the bottom, with large gray gashes of exposed concrete blocks higher up. The good part, he thought guiltily, was that nobody would ticket him for illegal parking. He walked the 200 feet diagonally across the gravel drive to the back entrance of the 915th’s rented store frontage.
On the first floor were a florist shop and a hat maker’s shop. David climbed the back stairs. His office was last in the back. The uniform of the day for everyone was fatigues and combat boots. For officers, it included a pistol belt and holstered sidearm. David hung up his cap and field jacket, but kept the sidearm on. He walked down a narrow, carpeted corridor toward the front. He passed several open doors, and exchanged greetings with uniformed enlisted persons. It was a fairly spacious property, and even the privates were not doubled more than two desks to an office. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly by military standards. Every person here was happy to be here rather than in a tent or crowded into hotel rooms at the Atlantic.
David poured himself a cup of coffee and poked his head into Colonel Jankowsky’s office. Whenever a complaint came in that was judged worthy of further attention by the senior NCO, a junior enlisted person prepared a formal folder that would be saved for two years after resolution. Because David was new, Jankowsky personally reviewed his cases before assigning them. David would find the assigned cases in his in-box, study the pertinent Army Regulations, make calls, and report on the issues. Pretty soon, he expected to have cases requiring him to make field investigations, to see the involved parties. He looked forward to being able to travel around the city. CON2 was making history, and he was curious for an overview of how the spectacle was unfolding.
Colonel Jankowsky was a quiet, thoughtful man, tall and graying with a youthful face. Like all the officers in the Composite, Jankowsky wore fatigues and carried a sidearm. “Hey there! How’s it going?”
“Fine, Sir. Just came by to say good morning.”
“Good morning. Hey, close the door and sit down.”
David closed the door and pulled up a chair.
Jankowsky held two file folders. “Got your coffee? Good. David, I’ve got two new ones for you today. One’s a grim one. The other seems just plain whacky.” He showed David the two file folders. David caught the jacket names: Corcoran, Mary; Shoob, Ibrahim.
“These two cases are important to me, and I know you’ll handle them right. I want to get a feeling for how you work in the field, as I start slipping you more and more important cases.” Jankowsky looked up and boomed. “You ready to go to work?”
David grinned back. “Ready and rarin’.”
“Good.” Jankowsky opened the Corcoran folder and skimmed aloud: “This woman is a 38 year old U.S. Army staff sergeant, E-6, assigned to the Composite, with duty in the enlisted mess in Tower 2. That’s the middle tower at the Atlantic, and they’re using it to house and feed military support personnel. She’s a chief cook slash dietary supervisor, in other words. Plans the day’s meals, supervises the cooks, sticks the thermometer in the turkey, that kind of thing.” David noted a photo of a heavyset woman with dark skin and oriental eyes, a patient face with a slight smile. In another photo, she sat with a tired looking man with kind eyes. They looked like hard-working people who got few breaks in life. In a third photo, three beautiful young children sat smiling confidently on a couch—eloquent tribute to that hard work, David thought. Jankowsky continued: “Two days ago she approached the chaplain and said one of the enlisted men had been bothering her. The chaplain referred her to Colonel Bellamy, the Provost Marshal at the Atlantic, but she preferred to turn to us. That was yesterday, and our duty sergeant spoke with her over the phone. Made an appointment, but she never showed up. This morning, one of our clerks called her commanding officer who told her Mary Corcoran was raped by that enlisted man last night. He’s in custody and she’s in the hospital for observation. It’s become a police matter, but I need you to follow through, see the people.” He enumerated, pressing the thick fingers of one hand against those of the other. “See Corcoran. See her commanding officer. See the Provost Marshal. See the suspect’s commanding officer. See the suspect. Get a copy of the MP report. Get copies of any medical records, at least a summary. Write a memo, wrap it up, and we’re done. We’ve followed through, and it goes to the JAG Office.”
“Yessir.”
“Oh, and then there’s this.” Jankowsky flipped open the Shoob file. David glanced through the folder, noting the contactee was a senior Coast Guard enlisted man. “Sounds like a flyin’ saucer case. But this guy Shoob’s got 25 years in, so let’s listen. He’s one of the computer jockeys from the Naval Observatory. They’re a hotshot systems security outfit in the basement there, called NSSO. National Systems Security Office, falls under D.o.D. Shoob said he would only speak with me, in person. Kept refusing to say what it’s about over the phone, but extremely important, something about a file he found. Let’s humor him until there’s a punch line, then let’s hit the gong, flush the guy, and get on with serious work.”
A while later, David sat in a private room with Master Chief Ibrahim “Ib” Shoob, a middle-aged, overweight computer specialist. Shoob looked as if he hadn’t passed a physical in ten years. Shoob had brought a cup of coffee, in which he stirred several sugars. He smelled of cigarette smoke, and had grayish skin and poochy eyes.
“Chief, what’s troubling you that you called us?”
“When is Colonel Jankowsky coming in?”
“He’s tied up, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t want to speak with anyone else.”
“I’m sorry, Chief. I’ll have to do for now. But I work for Colonel—”
Shoob looked as though he’d been kicked in the gut. Within the sickened, angry look, David read the lightning-quick calculations of a chess player; brilliant, if eccentric. Laser-sharp eyes raked David with irony as he conceded. “You’ll wish you hadn’t heard my story, Captain.”
“I’ll take my chances.” David looked at his watch. He had to be at Walter Reed by noon to interview Mary Corcoran, then go to the convention center to request an interview with the rape victim’s company commander.
“Well Sir,” the NCO began in a slow, burry voice, “you might have noticed in that folder there that I work at NSSO.”
David nodded. “Yes, I looked through the file. Over in the Naval Observatory complex.”
“That’s right. The Government builds computer systems, data bases, logic engines. Our job is to break into them before the bad guys do so we can really make them secure. I’m what they call a head walker. Know what that is?”
David nodded. He had a kind of eerie picture of head walkers, wearing thick lenses like ski goggles that offered complete visual virtual reality, as though they were in another world. Headphones and a mike let them talk with the core brain. This, in state of the art systems—no keyboards, glorified TV monitors, tape heads, none of that early DP hardware borrowed from typing and entertainment media.
“That’s right, Captain. I’m a Clearance One, which means I can go anywhere, any time, of course on a Need-to-Know basis. Sometimes I have to make a decision about that. All my moves are stored in memory, so I can’t fool anyone. My decisions can be reviewed afterwards, so I think twice.”
“Let me guess. You stumbled on something big.”
“Yessir, I did. I would rather forget all about it, but I’m afraid it’s my duty to inform somebody.”
“Did you inform your superior officer, Chief?” David held a pencil poised over a sheet of loose canary note paper in the file.
“I did, Sir, and she referred me here.”
“She?” David glanced into the file. The name floated up at him:Victoria Breen, 1LT, MPC. Maxie’s roommate? David swallowed hard, and his mouth was suddenly dry. “Lieutenant Breen is your superior officer?”
“She’s the XO. We’re an oddball unit, sort of a composite in our own right, been over in the Observatory for years before this CON2 circus started. General Montclair wanted every uniformed person in Washington under his control, so they assigned us to his chain of command along with various other cats ‘n dogs units.”
David hadn’t really caught what it was Tory Breen did for Uncle Sam, just something top secret involving computers. “This woman is an MP officer?”
“Yessir. Nice gal, between you and me. She’s pretty brainy.” (And attractive, David thought, looking at this fat NCO who couldn’t lift six french fries at once). “She referred me to Colonel Bentyne—the field-grade over in the Atlantic Hotel who’s temporarily in charge of us—and Bentyne got cold feet the minute I started talking.”
“I’ll get my foot warmer out,” David said. At least now he’d have an excuse to call Tory. Maybe to chew her out for throwing this curve ball.
“Sir, you remember the Vice President was murdered last year?”
“Yes?”
Shoob’s big yellow teeth looked cadaverous. “Sir, he wrote a memo to his boss before he died, and I found it.”
“His boss?”
“The President.”
“And you found it.” David stared at Shoob and felt like asking if he’d had his head examined recently. “Oh really?”
“Colonel Bentyne said the same thing. I’ve got 25 years of excellent service, and I’m risking my good name sitting here, Captain.”
David softened. “I’ll hear you out.”
“Thank you. It’s all I ask. Then my duty will be done and I can go back to my obscure safe little life.” Shoob faltered. “Can I smoke?”
“Sure.” David had him move by an open window, and a fan took the acrid blue-gray smoke outside. Shoob trembled as he spoke, and the cigarette shook in his mouth. David had his first tremor of uncertainty. Either this man was a good actor, or he was really scared. “I was chasing an international hacker, and I cornered him. I’m a pro. I don’t use an icon or a logo. I try to stay invisible, especially when I’m tailing someone like that. It’s just like a city inside the net, only it might be cartoon-like in one area, or Picasso somewhere else; maybe the sponsor likes Breughel or Goya or Tissot; whatever it is, you move through dream worlds like that.”
“Sounds enjoyable.”
“I used to think so, but it’s a job now.” He grinned with those spade-shaped caramel-colored teeth and his voice rasped on. “They even got a Pigalle inside, Sir, you know, Pig Alley? These ladies wag a leg at you from a doorway, try to lure you inside to show you more, and it’s amazing how many people get suckered. They roll you, literally—it’s a hundred bucks a minute in one of those—” His grin faded as he remembered what the conversation was about and why his job was no longer fun. The cigarette started waving up and down again. “I chased the sombitch and he went underground on me, but I stayed on his tail.”
“—And he led you—where—?”
“I can’t tell you that, Sir.”
David dropped the pencil. “Great.”
“The strategy was to keep him in the net long enough for the cops in Holland to arrest him. He was in there, and I guess he got greedy looking through all those files. All that personal stuff about people’s lives. To a real hacker, the ultimate thrill—to wipe out a murder rap on a prison conviction, or to eliminate an old lady’s pension—hackers are evil little losers who can’t make it in real life, and this is their way of getting even. So there we were. We were in an emergency backup area of the Washington Metro Grid. I got a glimpse of some files, and it was the date on one that got me. December 14, almost two years ago. Brought me to a screeching stop. Almost forgot Salty for a second, but the cops in Amsterdam were beating his door down by then and I wasn’t needed. I made one of those field decisions just then. I knew I could cover; I’d just say I was looking for Salty inside this place. I started reading and here I am.”
David held up the pencil. “The Vice President was murdered by private militia types.”
“That’s what I thought until this.”
“You make it sound like he had something to hide.”
Shoob took a folded sheet of paper from his inner coat pocket. “The Vice President dictated this. He must have e-mailed it to himself, but there was a transmission outage of some kind, and the local net automatically made a backup copy as the net went down. Nobody knew this, and the copy has sat there for 9 months, waiting to be overwritten by the next blackout or browndown. I made a hard copy.” He pushed the paper across the table. “Please read that.”
David leaned forward and read the document, looking for the giveaway that would tell him this was some sort of joke. It looked authentic enough, had a transmission slug with Cardoza’s name from somewhere in Washington—wasn’t that where the Vice President had been killed?—and the date seemed right. David skimmed through the text. Supposedly, Cardoza was going to leave for Washington D.C. that night to see Bradley about an emergency involving stopping CON2, and some ringleaders, something about a plot and a list of names of men who must be watched—
David looked at the back of the paper. “Is that it?”
“Isn’t that enough, Captain?”
David’s heart beat harder and his skin crawled a little. “He mentions a list of names. Where is it?”
“I have it. Not here though.”
“We’d have to get our hands on that list.” David hesitated. “Shoob, do your fellow system jockeys ever play tricks on you?”
Shoob shook his head. “I thought about that. No, it would end up costing someone their job. I don’t work with anyone that dumb.”
“This isn’t really proof of anything. I need the list of names. I need everything you’ve got, Shoob, and A.S.A.P.”
“I know that, Sir. I keep looking over my shoulder ever since I found that, and I guess from now on you will too.”
“I’m not the paranoid type.” Something tingled at his spine. There had been a lot of hysterical press about CON2, about the rewriting of the Constitution. David personally felt the Constitution should be left alone. Could there really be people—influential people—who thought they could do better than those guys back in 1787? “Naw,” he said, “this has to be a joke.”
“Wait until you’ve had time to think about this, Sir. Here is a man, the Vice President of the United States, involved with a bunch of military, business, elected, and religious leaders—a whole lot of power there—and one day he wakes up and realizes he’s square in the middle of a conspiracy to help us more than we feel we need to be helped. They think they have a patent on morality and values, and they’re going to make us eat their brand of baloney. I figured from the moment I touched that file, I have my neck out about one mile.” He stabbed a finger in David’s direction, and his voice took on a low, shaking enraged frustration. “I have a wife and kids, I’m working on my Ph.D. in Computer Science, and I’m about to retire. I’ve spent a lifetime setting up my ducks, and here I am caught up in this chicken shit. You think I made this all up?”
David stared at him. “I wish you had.” He swallowed hard.
“So do I. Now you do your part, Sir. You wanted to hear my story—” Shoob calmed himself a bit and toyed with his cup. “I was afraid to bring the list, in case—”
“—Someone stopped you on the way?”
“Frankly, yes. I have an idea, though. Will you meet me this evening, say at nine? At the Naval Observatory? I’ll take you inside, give you the tour, give you the list, and say goodbye to this whole thing. Let you handle it.”
“Deal.”
|
