“So this got sent out to which of our e-mail addresses?”
“All of them, from every computer in the house. The phones are ringing off the hook,” Mark said. “I've never seen anything this big or this bad. There's a massive freak- out going on that started with our clients and friends and families. The media is already calling us about it.”
“And our company's signature is on the outgoing e-mails. We closed off the system to the outside immediately,” Wolfe said. “It opens infected computers to outside servers and downloads compressed files, and those files replicate over and over so our server's memory keeps filling up, and as it does so it overwrites what's stored there. We back up everything nightly, so we won't lose anything we had before the invasion. I think it'll stop when it finishes filling the available memory, but who knows.”
“Call the police,” Ward said, feeling as though someone had dropped a waterbed on him.
“I called the cops right before you got here,” Mark told him. “This is illegal as hell. This will ruin us. I've called our PR firm so we can get in front of this.”
“I'll call…” Ward didn't even finish the thought. He just dialed Gene's number.
“Hello,” Gene answered.
“Gene, it's Ward. Get out here right now.” Ward couldn't control the anxiety, the fear, in his voice.
“I'm going into a meeting,” Gene replied. “What's up?”
“Have you looked at your e-mails from us this morning?”
“Tell him not to,” Paul Wolfe said.
“Just a second,” Gene said. “I'm looking. Okay, here's one from you. ‘You have to see this.’ Okay…”
“No, don't open it!” Ward yelled. “A virus has gone out to everybody in our address books and it's filling our servers with child porn. You open that and it will send it to all your e-mail contacts.”
Paul added, “Tell him to shut down his system. Or delete everything from us without opening anything. Any e-mail that is headed ‘You have to see this’ is going to contain the virus.”
Ward told Gene what Wolfe had said. “I need you here now,” Ward said. “Unk's already called the cops.”
“Relax, I'm on my way,” Gene said. “Don't answer any questions from the cops or anybody else until I get there.”
“I think this crap could be all over the country, hell, the world, in a matter of hours,” Paul Wolfe said, rubbing his eyes.
“Hurry,” Ward said to Gene. He hung up and noticed a teary- eyed Leslie Wilde sitting at the end of the table with a crushed tissue in her hand. “Leslie, are you okay?”
She looked up at him and shook her head vigorously “I'm sorry,” she said, sobbing freely, “Mr. McCarty I just turned on my terminal and it went crazy showing those images. I shut down the computer, but it was too late. I didn't mean… It's horrible. Those awful pictures
…”
“It isn't your fault,” Ward told her, sure that was the case. “We'll fix this,” he said to no one in particular, praying that it was even possible to fix. Thinking about their clients seeing these images made his heart sink.
“Mr. McCarty,” the receptionist's voice said over the intercom. “There are two FBI agents here to see you.”
Mark ran his fingers over his hair. “We're the victims here,” he told everybody in the room and nobody in particular. “Figure out a way to stop it immediately. Get it back or something. Remember, people, we don't make any statements until Gene gets here.”
Ward told the receptionist to direct the agents up to the conference room.
TWENTY-FIVE
The FBI agents looked to Ward like a pair of young stockbrokers dressed to call on a wealthy client. They introduced themselves as Bill Firman and John Mayes, though Ward quickly forgot which was which.
Despite what he had told the assembled seconds before the agents entered, Mark immediately started to explain to the pair what had happened, but as soon as they looked at the computer screen over the techs’ shoulders, Agent Firman said, “Sir, close the computer and move away from it.” To Mark he said, “Tell your employees to turn off their monitors. We'll have our techs here as soon as possible to take over.”
“Agent Firman, we can't operate without our computers,” Mark protested.
“I understand that,” Firman told Mark. “But someone here sent a virus of child pornography over the Internet. Whether or not you did it on purpose, it's a federal crime, so we'll need to interview any employee with access to your computers, see if we can figure out exactly who is responsible.”
“Our attorney is on his way,” Ward said. “You can work it out with him. Until he gets here to sort this out, he's advised us not to answer any questions.”
“Well,” Agent Firman said, “that's your right, Mr”
“McCarty Ward McCarty.”
“Ward is our CEO,” Mark said.
“Well, Mr. McCarty, until we get this sorted out, we're closing down your computers. No employee is to remove anything from the premises, or leave the building, until we say so.”
“You can't do that,” Ward said. “We called you.”
“Actually Mr. McCarty,” the agent said, taking a folded piece of paper from his suit pocket. “Certain recipients of your illegal pornography called us. I have a warrant on the way,” he said. “Your computers are closed down until we say differently. Are you still online?”
Paul shook his head. “We closed off the servers to the outside as soon as we saw what was happening.”
Agent Mayes said, “Just make sure all of the computers are turned off. Yours, too; it's illegal for you to look at that.”
“You can't be serious,” Mark said.
“You can't think we did this on purpose?” Ward asked, incredulous.
“Of course not,” Firman answered.
Ward's cell phone rang and he recognized Natasha's number. When he opened the phone, everybody in the room could hear the sound of his irate wife letting him have it with both barrels. Ward shuddered at the thought of the people on her e-mail list.
TWENTY-SIX
Gene Duncan's arrival made Ward feel better, but not for long. A contingent of no fewer than twenty FBI agents and other personnel arrived minutes before his attorney, moving through the building in ones and twos searching the offices. FBI computer techs, armed with laptops and other electronic equipment, hooked up to the RGI servers and sat typing as they stared intently at illuminated screens.
In the three hours since the virus's release, media vehicles had made their parking lot look like the streets outside the L.A. courthouse during the O. J. Simpson trial. The television viewing public was fast becoming aware that the virus had originated from a system serving a NASCAR- related business right smack on the buckle of the Bible Belt. The pundits descended.
As unnatural disasters went, this one was way off the charts, so RGI's name was fast becoming a household word, and not in a good way. Ward's suspicion was that someone was out to destroy his company, and this was probably going to accomplish just that. It was noon before it was Ward's turn with the interviewing agents, and Gene Duncan was at his side. The agents who'd arrived with the initial warrant, Mayes and Firman, were in charge. They interviewed Mark, Leslie, and the company's techs before they got around to Ward.
Agent Firman, whose expression was as unreadable to Ward as Chinese characters painted on a wall, was doing the talking.
