Ruthless.Com pp-2 Page 26

  OCTOBER 1, 2000

  The surviving member of the pair that got into the Sacramento vault hadn't talked — not to the Sword detail that apprehended him, not to the Feds after he'd been given into their custody. And it was anybody's guess whether he was going to talk.

  Gordian, however, wasn't sure that was essential to determining who had been behind the act.

  The main question for him, then, was of motive.

  Back in San Jose now — he had booked reservations aboard a commuter flight while the A&P mechs continued their inspection of the Learjet in Washington — Gordian sat at his desk opposite Chuck Kirby, trying to put the pieces of a complex and profoundly troubling puzzle into place. They had already run through the whole thing a couple of times, but neither man felt it would hurt to bounce it around once more.

  "Let's try it back to front," Gordian said. "Starting with the break-in at the Sacramento facility."

  "Sure, why not," Kirby said. "Doing it the other way hasn't nailed it."

  "I don't know whether it can be nailed, not with the fragmentary information we have," Gordian said. "But we can get closer, make some more important connections."

  Kirby nodded. "The disc they took off the dead man, then," he said.

  "The disc," Gordian repeated, sighing. "The key-codes are used in communications systems UpLink has designed for a wide range of naval vessels. Obviously they would be of enormous value to any number of interests, both foreign and domestic."

  "Allies and enemies, for that matter," Kirby said. "Everybody spies on everybody else. It's wide open until you look at how the thieves penetrated the vault."

  "Exactly." Gordian's face was sober. "And if not for the surveillance videos capturing what happened after they killed poor Turner, the techies might've taken weeks, even months to find out. The wicked beauty of it is that the system defeated itself."

  "And that's still the part I can't quite grasp," Kirby said.

  "It probably isn't vital that you do.. although the concept isn't really that difficult," Gordian said. "It involves basic computer file architecture, the way hard drives are set up. There's a minimum amount of space allocated for every file on a hard drive… the larger the drive, the larger the allocation. Regardless of how much data you have in a file, the computer reserves that minimum space." He thought a moment. "Imagine a department store that only has gift boxes of a single size for their merchandise, no matter whether you're buying a ten-gallon hat or a gold forget-me-not for your wife's necklace. Since the box needs to be pretty big to contain the hat, that tiny charm's not going to be too visible when it's placed inside. In fact, it may even get lost."

  Kirby nodded. "The data-strings that let the thieves through the system's backdoor… you're saying they were too small to be noticed. Like the charm. And they slipped past your whiz kids when the software employed by the biometric scanner system was examined for backdoors prior to installation."

  "And the techs can't even be held at fault," Gordian said, nodding. "Do a careful diagnostic of any hard drive, and you'll find the percentage of file-space being utilized out of whack with the actual number of stored bytes. You store one word-processing file with a couple of words on it, another with several pages of text, and it's probable both are grabbing the same amount of space. When the technicians are looking for Trojan horses, they typically sniff around for long, complex algorithms such as the type needed to match fingerprint or voice characteristics. In this case, the backdoor key was short and sweet… a basic geometric pattern… a small item in a big box."

  "The star on the sapphire," Kirby said. "Incredible."

  "To me, what's more incredible is that our security system's primary biometric software was produced by— and acquired from — Monolith Technologies, of all goddamn outfits under the sun," Gordian said. He shook his head. "Talk about an incomprehensible oversight…"

  "Don't beat yourself over the head with it, Gord," Kirby said. "Their stuff's the best being made. And the system was implemented a while before the problems between you and Caine started brewing. Viewed as an isolated incident, the break-in wouldn't even necessarily place Caine under suspicion. There could be rogue hackers within his company—"

  Gordian's face tightened.

  "It isn't hackers who tried to steal UpLink out from under me. Nor was it hackers who used Reynold Armitage as a point man in advance of the raid, or had my plane's landing-gear system sabotaged, or made Max Blackburn vanish into thin air."

  Kirby released a breath. "We can't prove Caine's direct involvement with any of that"

  "It's just the two of us here, Chuck. This isn't about what I can prove, but what I know," Gordian said. "Over the past seventy-two hours, the A&P team in D. C. has traced the plane's entire hydraulic circuit for leaks a half-dozen times. And found nothing. Also, the mechs here at home have paper checklists verifying they conducted the full preflight a day before we left, including eyeball inspections of the system's gauges and connections." He paused. "Somebody tampered with that plane after it was prepped. And the guard at the airport, a man named Jack McRea, fessed up to having left his post for several hours a couple nights ago."

  "And has since been released from your employ, I hope," Kirby said.

  Gordian nodded. "Far as he's been willing to admit, he was lured off to a motel by long legs and a miniskirt. Suckered into leaving the hangars wide open."

  The room was silent a few moments.

  "The logical jump still bothers me," Kirby said. "Tying Caine to an attempted murder without evidence, for godsakes."

  "Murders, plural," Gordian said. "You were on that plane too, Chuck. As was Megan and Scull."

  "Gord, my point is—"

  "I know what it is. And again, I'm not talking about specific evidence, but getting a handle on the totality of events that have been wheeling around my head. Max is investigating Caine's business operations in Asia, Max drops out of sight. I take on the Morrison-Fiore Bill, Caine jumps into the ring as a challenger, then as a person who wants to devour my corporation. Somebody breaks into my encryption facility, they do it using a backdoor in Caine-designed software. And so on and so forth. There's too much coincidence. And now the whole thing seems to have taken on a sense of acceleration… almost desperation…."

  "Or urgency," Kirby said. "If we're going to walk the road you're inclined to lead us down, the keys on that disc they tried to snatch are at the heart of this."

  Gordian nodded, his hands steepled under his chin.

  The two men sat there quietly a while, thinking everything through.

  Five minutes passed, then several more.

  More thought, more silence.

  Suddenly Gordian sat forward, his eyes widening.

  Chuck looked at him. "Something the matter?"

  "That word you used," he said. "Urgency. It's just that…"

  He let the sentence trail off, moistened his lips.

  Chuck kept looking at him.

  "Oh, my God, how could I not have seen? That's why it's come to a head now. My God, the ceremony… the maiden run is today!"

  "Gord, what the hell's wrongT'

  Gordian shot his hand across the desk and gripped Kirby's wrist.

  "The Seawolf," he said, speaking rapidly. "Its command and control systems… the systems that run the sub… they use UpLink encryption software. And the spare keys, the keys are on that disc."

  Kirby was staring at him incredulously. "Gord, I'm not sure I'm reading you, or want to be reading you. But even if I am, the thing to remember is nobody got hold of them—"

  Gordian sliced his right hand through the air to silence him, still digging the fingers of his left into Kirby's wrist.

  "They aren't the only keys, Chuck," he said abruptly, his face white as a sheet. "You understand? We're talking about a nuclear submarine, a boat the President's going to be aboard. And they aren 't the only keys.''

  Watching his team ready themselves on the transportable dock, Omori was convinced he had done well, bo
th in selecting his divers and finding a suitable launching area for the insertion. Notched into the coast of Pulau Ringitt— a small island less than five kilometers south of Sentosa— the saltwater inlet was protected by a zone of mud and marsh that made it the sort of place few people wanted to go sloshing around in.

  Omori checked his watch. Not much longer now. Not much longer before his men climbed into the underwater delivery vehicle and the time for preparation was over at last.

  He was eagerly looking forward to that moment.

  Invisible beneath its camouflage netting, the delivery craft rested on a floating dock amid the thick rushes near the bank. Its bullet-shaped, fiberglass hull was windowless, and though this aided in reducing its detection signature, it also meant Omori's team would be navigating solely on their instruments once they lowered the canopy.

  He regarded them from the stern of the speedboat which had towed the dock into position twenty-four hours earlier, and with which he would soon guide it back into deeper water. The four divers had already slipped into their wetsuits and Oxy-57 breathing apparatus. While these had not been designed for the depths at which they would be operating, Omori had been assured the closed-circuit gear would provide breathable air for the limited time their use would be required.

  He glanced at his watch again, his frequent reading of its face the only outward sign of the pressure he was feeling. The act to which he had wholeheartedly committed himself would boost the Inagawa-kai to unchallenged dominance over competing Yakuza syndicates, and would guarantee him a personal status to surpass that of Oyabuns and Emperors. But even that did not begin to describe what it would mean. Nothing like it had ever been done. Nothing. It would be remembered forever.

  The prospect of future glories pushing any thought of failure from his mind, Omori switched on his minicomputer and waited for Kersik's electronic message to appear.

  The show was not turning out to be quite what Alec Nordstrum had expected.

  No, scratch that, he thought. As a writer, it was his job to use language precisely. And as a member of the press, he had an ethical obligation to be fair.

  The show was fine. A tour of the Keppel Harbor area, much fraternal camaraderie between President Ballard and his fellow heads of state, a beautifully organized and executed military parade composed of American, ASEAN, and JMSDF forces, and now the speechifying phase of the ceremony, held on the dock against the sleek, dark shape of the Seawolf. Soon Alex would be invited aboard the sub with the small party of invited journalists, and off they would slip into the octopus's garden for the signing of SEAPAC.. at which point he'd probably be forced to sit in with the bilgewater.

  And that, he supposed, got to the crux of his complaint.

  The show was fine, but his seats were lousy. Whereas he'd thought he'd be getting a backstage pass, and had planned to watch the action from the wings, thus far he'd gotten the equivalent of general admission at a rock concert.

  He stood in the crowded press area on the waterfront, listening to the Japanese Prime Minister's remarks, getting bumped, jostled, and elbowed by scores of his rude and disorderly international colleagues, thinking this was surely just the first foul taste of Encardi's revenge, and that pretty soon he would be made to drink long and deep of its bitter waters. Already the President had snubbed him. The President's coterie of advisors had blown him off. Perhaps he was being oversensitive, but once or twice he'd even thought that some members of the President's Secret Service detail — men Nordstrum knew by name, and in some cases worked out with at the gym — were shooting dirty looks his way.

  He had dared to go with his conscience, to stand with Roger Gordian, and for that had become a marked man, banished from grace, cast among the rabble.

  Politics, he mused. Always politics.

  Nordstrum sighed, trying his best to follow Yamamoto's speech… which was not easy with some reporter from an Italian news organization shouting and blowing kisses across his face to a female news anchor from a French television show. Questa sera, mi bella.

  Dear God, the price one paid for holding to convictions in this world.

  He glanced disconsolately at his watch. Another forty minutes or so before he'd be able to make his path to the ramp with the others getting into the nuclear-attack submarine. Even if he was restricted to the waste-processing facilities, he'd be grateful to be aboard. Damned grateful.

  As far as he could see, his situation couldn't get any worse than it already was.

  The Chinese hovercraft had arrived at the atoll under cover of darkness, transported in the well decks of two civilian tankers that had been refitted for military usage. Nearly ninety feet long and half as wide, each amphibious landing craft was powered by four sixteen-thousand-horsepower turbines — two of which fed the shrouded airscrews that would thrust it along at better than fifty knots, the others driving the centrifugal fans that provided vertical lift, allowing the craft to float above sea and strand on a smooth cushion of air. Their decks bristled with pintle-mounted 12.7mm Type 77 machine guns and 40mm grenade launchers.

  Standing on the beach of the lagoon, General Kersik Imman watched his men board their vessels in preparation for the Sandakan raid, most of them filing up the ramps onto the four lozenge-shaped flotation craft assembled at the tide line, the rest climbing into a swarm of slender aluminum-hulled cigarette boats. All were suited as he was, in woodland fatigues, their faces veiled by cammo netting, their rucksacks and load-bearing harnesses laden with combat equipment. In strict adherence to Kersik's specifications, the light-assault rifles slung over their shoulders were factory-new, and would make effective personal weapons. Zhiu Sheng had delivered as promised, and for that — as for many other qualities — Kersik deeply respected him.

  Perhaps one day they would meet again in some civilized place, a place far from this wretched island where the mosquitos were as fat as grapes from the blood on which they endlessly gorged, a place where they could sit at tables and chairs instead of hard straw mats that cramped their buttocks, a place where they could comfortably reminisce about all they had seen and done since they'd first met as younger men, one an Indonesian general full of pride and aspiration, the other a spirited Communist builder seeking to give shape to Utopia. Both holding dreams of Asian unity and greatness.

  Yes, Kersik thought, perhaps they would indeed meet at some future time, and discuss how their greatest dreams had been attained at stages of their lives when most men were snugly wrapped in soft blankets of contentment. And together they would recollect the monumental day the Japanese and Americans who sought to dominate the region — and the ASEAN wayang kulit puppets with whom they worked their intricate shadow plays — were swallowed by an underwater behemoth of their own creation.

  For now, though, there was only the certain prospect of the attack about to be launched, and the soul-heaviness of an old warrior who knew in his weary heart that the basic equation of war was always out of balance, the accretion of violence always beyond control, the smallest of gains always bought and paid for with the blood of far too many irreplaceable human beings.

  Adjusting his pack on his shoulders, Kersik strode across the sand and boarded the vessel that would carry him to battle.

  Khao Luan strode along the boardwalk toward his dwelling on the canal, popping fried, sugared pieces of tempe goreng into his mouth, thinking he'd been foolish not to have the canoe vender fill an extra container for him. At the rate he was going, there would be nothing left of the soybean cakes by the time he sat down at his table.

  Stress always made him hungry, and he had awakened famished today. With good reason, too. This business he'd gotten into… Sandakan… the hijack of a nuclear submarine… the hostage taking of the President of the United States…

  For him, it had all been about keeping the sea routes open for his trade. SEAPAC represented a threat to that trade, a solidifying of cooperation between regional governments in matters relating to the patrol of their waters, a substantial impediment to the f
low of contraband from Thailand and elsewhere. Disrupting the treaty signing, perhaps even suspending its implementation indefinitely, had seemed a reasonable and pragmatic aim, a sound business strategy for one intent on staying at the top of his game.

  Ah, though, how it had evolved.

  He walked on, tossing another bit of food into his mouth. Until this morning, he'd been able to concentrate on the particulars rather than the broad contours of the plan, doing his part, taking it a step at a time. Which was how he generally approached things. But with its realization at hand — less than an hour away, unbelievably— the full weight of what he and his allies had undertaken had begun pressing down on him. And while he'd decided that the best way to deal with that pressure was to pretend this was any other day… well, it was difficult, that was all.

  Luan reached the ladder that climbed to his door, paused at its foot, and looked into his box of tempe. Two pieces left. Really, really, he would have to send the men out for more.

  He shook both remaining cakes into his mouth, absently tossed the container over his shoulder into the water to his right, and gripped the ladder frame to hoist himself upward.

  Inches from where the cardboard box had joined the other refuse floating along the canal, a young female vendor in a loose-fitting sarong hunched forward in her canoe, her head lowering behind mounds of fruit, her hand slipping under a natty hank of cloth.

  When that hand reappeared a moment later, it was holding a flat, palm-sized radio.

  "Empire State to South Philly, do you read?" the vendor said in a quiet voice, transmitting over a trunked digital channel.

  "Loud and clear, Empire State. The rooster back in the barn?"

  "Just strutted in, big and nasty in life as in pictures," she said.

  A brief pause.

  She bent lower, waiting, holding the radio out of sight.

  "Sit tight, Empire State," the voice replied after a second. "We're on our way to pluck his feathers."

  Jointly sponsored by the ASEAN republics from its original blueprints to its funding and final construction, the Sandakan cryptographic key-storage bank was the largest in Asia, and the second largest in the world, ranking only behind a subsequently built facility of its type in Europe. In terms of proportion, it was to most of the world's other key-recovery banks what Citibank was to a small-town S&L. Sprawling across many acres of shoreline, the concrete-and-steel structure gave a fortresslike impression, and was protected by a sophisticated array of alarm systems and guard units of chiefly Malaysian and Indonesian composition. All this security was in place for a simple reason: The spare key-codes stored within its vaults were those of the region's largest governmental, military, and financial institutions.