estranged since childhood. I know for certain that he wants the data I’ve been working on in this office. I hate the prick every bit as much as he hates me. Make no mistake…he’s at the bottom of this,” Conrad seethed. “Now, if you’ll kindly get your ass out of my chair, I’d like to see for myself the extent of my cousin’s latest affront.”
“I beg your pardon,” Sal Palatino said defensively. “I can appreciate you’re upset, Doctor. But, I’m here to help.” He stood reluctantly to let Conrad take his seat in front of the terminal.
“Well, if you want to help, maybe you can explain how my cousin was able to hack his way past our security protocols on the IBM mainframe. This isn’t some simplified network that a novice could hack, let alone my incompetent cousin. Quantum has a massive firewall in place.”
“I haven’t been able to access the mainframe yet,” Sal replied. “My first priority was to investigate the extent to which your work station was compromised. The only thing I can tell you so far is that the last person to access this machine used the password. Since I obviously don’t know the password, I’ve been searching the backdoor.”
“Wait a second…you’re telling me whoever was in here also had my password?” Conrad asked incredulously. “That’s impossible. I’m the only one that knows the password.”
“Well, then…good news,” Sal replied sarcastically. “Like I said, the last person to get into the files of your work station had access through the normal interface protocol. That means you were the last one to access your machine-about ten-fifteen last night, according to the internal clock.”
“That’s ridiculous. I wasn’t in the lab last night…and none of my colleagues or graduate students has the access code. So where does that leave us?” he asked, trying to comprehend how anyone could have identified amerigodevina as the proper password.
“If you’ll allow me to search your system directory,” Sal answered, watching the screen come alive as Conrad opened his files, “maybe I can discover the answer to your question. If the hacker’s as sharp as the guys who planned the breach, my guess is they knew their way around your system without needing the password. There are guys out there that could manage this.”
“Okay, give me a minute to check my files…then you’re free to do whatever’s necessary,” Conrad replied, punching the keyboard. He drilled down to a file in the subdirectory entitled SUT, opened it, and slumped forward in his seat. The super unified theorem files normally contained in this directory were missing. His face became ashen, his hands trembled, and a groan emitted from under his breath. In a frenzy, he tried to access the mainframe for the backup files. He froze in panic as a startling realization hit him like a thunderbolt.
“ Nooo! ” he shrieked. “Where are my files? He’s taken my files!”
Everyone in the room turned, startled by the raging scientist’s angst and loss of composure.
Lieutenant Morris rushed to his side, fearing he might need restraint. “Easy, Dr. Conrad…I’m sure there’s an explanation. Let Sal back in there. Give us the password so he can see what happened. He’ll find something…I promise you.”
Conrad stood awkwardly after scribbling his password on the notepad next to his desk. He was shaking his head, mumbling softly to himself: “I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch…I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch…” Finally, he slumped onto the leather sofa at the center of the office, burying his face in his hands, totally dejected.
“Dr. Conrad, is there something we can do for you?” Morris asked, looking for anything that might quell his despair.
“Yes,” Conrad replied, without lifting his face from his hands. “You can bring me Ryan Marshall’s head on a silver platter.”
“Holloway,” he snapped, answering the call. His PDA phone scrambled the transmission to protect his voice from identification and prevent tracing the call. “A mite eager, are we?” he asked, recognizing the caller’s incoming number from the Quantum Building.
“Just wanted to confirm you’ve received the data and that everything is in order,” the caller said. “You assured me no one would be hurt. Apparently, you overestimated your men getting safely out of the building. Any more surprises I need to know about?”
“Don’t lecture me,” Holloway spit back. “It’s none of your concern. I’ve already handled it. Why are you calling?”
“I want to know when to expect my money,” the man replied. “The death of the security guard changes everything. Under the circumstances…I’ll expect your full payment immediately.”
“I don’t give a damn what you expect. You’ll get your thirty pieces of silver as soon as I verify that the contraption you sold me works this time…not a moment before. Is that clear enough for you, or do you need more forceful convincing?” The threat sounded much more menacing through the scrambled, computer-generated voice.
“Threaten all you like, Mr. Holloway,” the man replied. “You seem to forget, however, that I can identify you as the mastermind of this crime. You would be wise not to bully me, sir. That would be foolish.”
“I do not repeat myself,” Holloway replied, infuriated by the caller’s insolence. “Our terms have not changed a whit. And for your edification, Doctor, no one has ever threatened me and lived to tell the tale.”
The phone line went dead.
SIX
Jarrod Conrad had hurried from the Quantum Building in the early morning hours following the burglary of his office. He was exhausted but too amped up to sleep, an overdose of adrenaline still coursed through his system. He was stunned by his cousin’s audacity in actually stealing the equations he had spent his career developing. He knew that Ryan was no stranger to vindictiveness, but he never thought in his wildest dreams he had the balls to actually break the law. It was clear he had grossly underestimated his cousin’s resolve-he meant to settle the score for losing his wife, after all. Jarrod thought the divorce from Sarah had finally broken his spirit; there had been no hint of retaliation after the New York City scam. This misjudgment aside, he would now have to deal with the consequences of Ryan’s foolhardy actions. The renewed escalation of their embittered rivalry would not go unchallenged.
Jarrod wasn’t at all worried about losing his research data. He had every theorem, equation, and technical drawing for his gravity research backed up on multiple computers for just such a contingency; he was never comfortable keeping all his data in one basket. What did bother him was that his antigravity equations were in the hands of another engineer prior to the publication of his breakthrough discovery. Anyone involved at this level of corporate espionage was unscrupulous enough to capitalize on the discovery, without hesitation. This, he could not abide.
Jarrod was relieved he had the foresight to imagine this worstcase scenario. He never kept all the information for the machine in one location; the construction design was kept separate from the operational equations. Neither were the schematics kept on the same computer with the equations to produce a flow of gravitrons. And, finally, the system equations triggered a termination sequence for anyone who tried to use them without his personal laptop computer. Niles Penburton was the only other person who knew where everything was stored.
Any proficient researcher could easily build the device from his schematics, right down to the detail of the microwave dish required to focus the gravitron beam. But without the laptop to synchronize the current with the nuclear core, the machine couldn’t levitate a walnut. Not even Niles knew about this little detail. These built-in safeguards should protect his invention until he uncovered what Ryan had planned for the machine.
Jarrod imagined his cousin was feeling pretty smug after pilfering his research, but Ryan had another thing in store if he thought this was the end of anything. The fool just doesn’t get it. He can’t beat me.
Following the questioning from Detective Morris, Jarrod immediately returned to his home at the campus and retrieved the data backup he kept on his personal computer. Even though he was confident the IBM laptop was secure in the hidden wall-safe, he was in no position to take anything for granted. The laptop didn’t have the computing power of the Quantum mainframe, but it did have sufficient memory to store the various complex equations to make the gravity machine functional.
Thankfully, the laptop was secure. No one had been in his house. He would simply upload this data back at the lab and continue to complete his research for publication before Ryan could capitalize on his discovery. There
