going to do a little motoring about. Perhaps you’d like to join us and do a bit of diving?’
‘Sure. I plan to spend a few more days in the DR before I move on. The dive master who took me out to the wreck told me about a nice reef just south of here, due east of the beach at Baoruca. Nice scenery, and the water isn’t too cold.’
Roe smiled pleasantly.’Looks like I’ll have to rent some gear.’
Conversation at the table throughout the evening remained purely social, avoiding the evening’s real purpose. Parnell continued to play generous host, with Cole as his pleasant guest. A few hours later, they left very pleased with the chef ‘s culinary skills; the restaurant’s five-star rating was clearly an understatement.
When they entered Roe’s bungalow, she noticed a magnum of Dom Perignon cradled in a vat of ice sitting beside three champagne glasses on the bar counter.
‘That’s for later,’ Parnell said, reading the question in her expression. ‘First, we have some business to attend to. Michael, are you prepared to go to work?’
‘Yes, I am.’ Cole walked over to the desk and pulled a notebook computer from his briefcase. ‘Alex, will you call the front desk and ask them to hold all your calls for the evening?’
‘Certainly.’
After Roe’s call, Cole plugged his modem cable into the suite’s data jack. He then powered up his computer and checked that everything was working properly.
‘Per our discussion a few weeks ago, I have regularly checked my E-mail at both Langley and Moy Electronics,’ Cole explained. ‘Tonight’s call will be a continuation of that pattern.’
As Cole spoke, he set the computer connection in motion. Upon receiving his command, the computer opened a phone line and began dialing the international prefix and phone number for Moy Electronics’ Chicagobased computer network. From the resort, Cole’s call was directed to the main telephone switching station in Santo Domingo, where a routing computer began looking for an open connection with a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the equator. From the satellite, Cole’s call continued to a U.S. telephone relay station, which routed it to a switching station in Chicago. The switching station then located the unlisted business line and connected the call.
‘Good evening, Moy Electronics,’Cole said, responding to the computer’s on-screen greeting.
Parnell and Roe watched as Cole passed through the network’s security and successfully logged on to the system.
Once the Moy network screen came up on the laptop’s monitor, Cole rose and offered Roe the chair. ‘Your turn.’
Roe sat down, pulled a disk from her briefcase, and slipped it into the drive slot on the notebook’s front edge. From the disk, she loaded two programs into the Moy network computer’s memory. The first sent Cole’s user ID off into a diagnostic loop, while the second created a superuser with systemwide access.
‘Gentlemen,’ she announced, ‘we now have complete access to Moy Electronics and, since it’s Christmas Eve, I’ll bet we have the place to ourselves.’
““Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house/Not a creature was stirring-not even a mouse,”’ Parnell recited, patting Roe on the shoulder. “‘The stockings were hung by the chimney with care/ In hopes that Saint Alex soon would be there.”’
‘I don’t think I’m quite the Santa that Moy Electronics hoped would slide down their chimney,’ Roe replied.
‘More like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas,’ Cole offered wryly.
‘Now now, Michael, Alex isn’t going to steal Moy’s Christmas. She’s just shopping for that perfect gift. ’ The combination of jet lag, a few drinks, and the promise of untold riches propelled Parnell into a seasonably good mood. ‘Please proceed.’
‘The first thing we need to do is find a good home for our Spyder.’Roe began probing the system for internal safeguards and found only a few layers of security among the different areas of Moy’s operation. ‘Here we are, the order logs. Would anyone like a supercomputer?’
‘That might be a bit too cheeky,’ Parnell replied. ‘What else have they got?’
Skimming through the main order directory, Roe located the log for Gatekeeper shipments. She clicked on the icon and a new window appeared, which contained a spreadsheet of orders, production dates, shipping dates, and product costs.
‘Somewhere on here is our lucky winner,’ Roe said as she studied the list of Gatekeeper sites.
The first fifty orders were strictly government-agency retrofits-Gatekeepers specifically geared to provide an existing computer system with a new layer of protection. Early on, Parnell and Roe had decided that they would avoid planting a Spyder in a government computer. Parnell was adamant that his work remain exclusively in the private sector; he did not spy on governments and he would not work from inside a government computer. The private espionage business was dangerous enough without risking any unnecessary official entanglements.
‘Michael,’ Roe asked as she studied the information on the laptop’s screen, ‘I’ve just come across several Gatekeeper orders for Moy Electronics. Have they installed any yet?’
‘No, or you wouldn’t be messing around inside their computer. The project called for the installation of Gatekeepers on computer networks as identified by NSA. Since the initial production run for the device is low, Moy Electronics pushed off upgrading in-house until late January.’
‘Keep looking,’ Parnell added while pouring another gin and tonic. ‘I don’t believe one of Moy’s computers would be suitable for our needs.’
Roe continued paging through the log entries until one for the Michigan Applied Research Consortium caught her eye. ‘Hmm, this MARC installation looks interesting.’
Parnell walked over from the bar. ‘Have you found something?’
‘Maybe.’ Roe clicked on the file icon and pulled up the detailed information of the order. ‘It says here that MARC is a semi-public venture that serves as a conduit between basic research at the university level and industrial applications. According to this narrative, they’re being backed by many of the top technology corporations in the world.’
‘How are they going to use their Gatekeeper?’ Cole asked.
Roe paged through the narrative to the order specifications. ‘It appears that MARC will be using their Gatekeeper as a means to control the flow of information between their existing Cray supercomputer and a new type of processor they’re testing. The new processor design is based on optics, rather than the conventional electronics used in standard computer chips.’
‘Sounds rather exotic,’ Parnell opined.
‘Does it say what else that Cray is connected to?’ Cole asked.
‘Yes,’ Roe replied as she clicked on the icon for the MARC network. A new window opened with graphic depiction of the entire MARC’s network, including the proposed placement from the Gatekeeper. ‘Will that do, Michael?’
Cole studied the image intently, imagining the flow of information over the network described on the screen in lines and symbols. ‘Yes, it’ll have access to the outside world. Let’s take a look at the external networks.’
Paging down through a list of other computer systems that were considered part of the MARC network, Roe discovered a list of scientific and corporate entities with the privileges on the MARC computer network.
‘Ian,’ Roe said, her voice quivering slightly, ‘I think you’ll want to take a look at this.’
Every major university, think tank, and corporate research center in the United States was tied into MARC. The thought of all that brainpower being accessible from one location brought a satisfied smile to Parnell’s face; his avarice was nearly palpable.
Roe glanced at the two men peering over her shoulders and laughed. ‘I believe we’ve found a home for our Spyder. Let’s find out when they want it.’
Clicking over to the production schedule, Roe learned that MARC’s Gatekeeper had already passed final testing and was scheduled for shipment in the first week in January. Roe made a note of the MARC Gatekeeper’s serial number and exited the order system.
‘Now that we have our site,’ Roe said, ‘it’s Michael’s turn to upgrade MARC’s Gatekeeper.’
Moy Electronics had spent a great deal of money during the last few years perfecting their automated production facility. The flexible factory was capable of switching product lines in a matter of days, where traditional factories might take weeks to retool for a new product. Dull, repetitive tasks had been handed over to industrial
