“But the possible combinations are in the millions,” Caitlin said.
“Quite,” Louie agreed.
“What is it? Something like ten to the twenty-sixth?” John asked.
“Modern passwords also use the extended ASCII character set. It’s more like ten to the one hundred and twenty-sixth.”
“Good God, that could take months,” Caitlin moaned.
“Probably not. I’ve set a mini-program to try the basic alphanumerics. If those don’t fit then, it will farm out portions of the task to some of my contacts on the Web. If we don’t have immediate success, then we’ll have at least twenty computers working on the task by midnight. I’d say we’ll have the password by early tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”
“And no one else will realize what the password is for?” John asked.
Louie nodded. “Right. By separating off the password identifying the portion of the code no one will have any idea what the program itself does.”
“We’d better be going now. You know how to reach me when you learn something,” John said.
“Sure thing,” Louie responded.
He led them out and followed them to their car.
“Be careful with this one Louie,” John said as he opened the car door. “There are too many parties involved, and I have a bad feeling in my gut.”
“Anything you say. I’ll play it tight.”
“Goodbye and thanks, Louie,” Caitlin said.
“Glad I could help. You take care of her, John,” Louie added with a nod of his head.
John returned the nod and got into the car.
Louie waited until they pulled out of the drive, then gave a final wave, and turned back toward his house.
As they accelerated toward highway 101, Caitlin looked at him. “What now?”
“Now we find another motel and hole up for the night. By tomorrow, we should have something on this disk, and you can decide what you want to do with it.”
“What I want to do with it?”
John nodded. “Yeah, are you going to turn it over to the Feds, sell it to the Japanese, or what?”
Caitlin turned toward the windshield and for a moment watched the headlights on southbound one oh one flash by. “You know, I haven’t really thought about it. I mean, what do I do with it? Do you think giving it to the NCIX will stop this killer?”
“It could. Unless it’s one of those situations where they want everyone dead who’s seen the information. In that case, we’re both going to need to disappear.”
Caitlin looked at him. After a couple of seconds, he turned to face her. In the constant glare of oncoming headlights, she could see his face was nearly expressionless.
“Tell me you’re joking,” she said.
“I wish I could.”
“But that’s so –”
“Cold hearted?”
“I was going to say Oliver Stone-ish. I never thought you’d be an Ollie. The government doesn’t really bump people off just because they accidentally learn something.”
“Oh? And your belief is based on what?”
“Everything. I mean, look around you. This country is built on openness and freedom of information. Sure, there are secrets, but those are military or commercial secrets. There are legal methods to silence anyone who has access to them. There are no secret agendas, no gunman on the grassy knoll, no X-Files cover-up.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s that look for?” she asked.
“What look?”
“That superior look that says: ‘Oh you poor naive young thing. You’re just a woman who’s been protected from the evils of the world. There’s no way you’d really know just what people are capable of.’“
“Really? You got all that from one look?”
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe I was thinking of how naive you sounded. I can’t help it. You sound almost like I remembered you.”
That was a surprise. It was the first indication he had remembered anything about her.
Caitlin felt the car moving and noticed John exiting the freeway. She was silent for a minute. “You remember me that well?”
“Sometimes, it depends on what you’re saying. It’s like little flashbacks, little bits keep surfacing.”
“After a dozen years, I’m surprised you remember anything about me. I know it sounds trite, but it seems like it was a lifetime ago. I look at the college kids now, and I can’t believe I’ve changed. I still feel the same now as I did twelve years ago. Sure, my taste in some things have changed, but they’re just incidentals. My id, ego, or whatever is the same now as it was then.”
They turned right onto Del Mar. The car accelerated smoothly and joined the flow of traffic.
“How can everything feel the same and yet feel like a lifetime ago?” John asked.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No. I’m just curious.”
“I don’t know if I have an answer to that. I just know it seems so very long ago.”
“Yeah.”
A moment passed. “John, I need to contact my parents.”
“Out of the question.”
“Why?”
“If the government is involved in this then they have the manpower to cover all eventualities. They’re sure to have a wiretap on your parent’s phone and any calls to them would be traced back.”
“But I wouldn’t have to stay on long enough for a trace.”
John gave her a sideways smile.
“What?”
“You really think you can hang up before they can trace the call?”
“Well, sure, they do it all the time.”
“Yeah, in the movies. Caitlin, do you have caller ID?”
“Sure, everyone has it nowadays. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“How long does it take to identify the caller?”
“One ring ... oh.”
“Right, the information is automatically transferred between the first and second ring. Anyone tapping the phone can receive the same information and cross-check the phone number location anywhere in
