Grin grabbed the phone. ‘Please, somebody, still be there,’ he pleaded as the line rang.
He got a fast busy signal and slammed the handset in the cradle. Seven more files were now gone.
Suddenly, the window displaying his link to the Preservation Lab server closed – the connection cut.
‘Red alert! Red alert! All hands to battle stations!’ a voice clip of Patrick Stewart from Star Trek shouted out from Grin’s workstation. Whoever was erasing files down on campus was now attacking Grin’s machines.
Grin swiveled to view the large monitor just as the screen went blank and a new window appeared. In the upper-left corner was a white square that held a black spider graphic.
‘All right, Spyder, sic ’em,’ Grin commanded, as if the computer were listening to him.
Nested deep within the MARC network was a Spyder, a black chunk of artificial intelligence that a year earlier had nearly cost Nolan and Kelsey their lives. The device was the offspring of a similar piece of computer hardware designed by Moy Electronics to defend computer networks against hacker attacks. The Spyder carried all the tools of its parent, the Gatekeeper, and several offensive weapons designed by the CIA for use in gathering intelligence. Following the Spyder incident, Nolan and Grin worked out a deal with the CIA that allowed them to retain the device and work with Moy on improvements.
Grin watched as a graphical depiction of the affected computers appeared on his screen. From MARC, the trail led back to the Preservation Lab server on campus, through the university’s central server, and then out into the world.
‘You may be good,’ Grin said with grudging admiration, ‘but your ass is mine.’
System by system, Spyder followed the hacker’s electronic trail, identifying each step along the way. The hacker had covered his tracks well, snaking his way through dozens of Internet servers to create a labyrinthine trail that was nearly impossible to follow.
Grin reset the window view from a schematic line drawing of the hacker’s route to one superimposed over a map of the earth. The hacker blazed an impressive path across the globe, even managing to penetrate a Web server at a research station in Antarctica. Ten minutes later the trail reached Moscow.
‘Say cheese, you asshole,’ Grin said, knowing he’d nailed the malevolent intruder.
The map of the world faded and was replaced by the image of a black IBM server tower. Just as the window containing the machine’s schematics and serial numbers started to appear, the window went blank.
‘What the fuck do you mean the connection has been lost?’ Grin screamed as the Spyder reported its status.
Grin instructed the Spyder to show him a network diagnostic. A graphic depiction of the MARC network appeared, followed by one of the university’s network. The Spyder showed him every machine it could touch. Both networks appeared fine, except for the hole in the picture where Grin knew the Preservation Lab server should be. The server was physically in the basement of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library on main campus but, from Grin’s point of view, it was gone.
31
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Leskov looked down at the broken remains of the beige network server, its thin metal shell stripped open to reveal the delicate circuitry. Five minutes into their assault of the Preservation Lab, he’d received a panicky report from Orlov’s electronics group in Moscow about some difficulty they were experiencing with the MARC network. Apparently, their attempt to penetrate that network had met with an effective resistance and retaliation. Leskov answered their request to break the connection by destroying the lab’s network server.
‘Moscow confirms that contact with the MARC network has been terminated,’ the young man in charge of communications reported.
‘Obviously, Misha,’ Leskov said, laughing. Although his solution to the possible security breach might be considered crude, it was decidedly effective. ‘Hand me the magnet.’
Misha, a lanky twenty-five-year-old with ice-blue eyes, slipped the backpack off his shoulders and extracted the electromagnet.
Leskov kicked several pieces of broken plastic away from the exposed metal supports to reveal the server’s stack of hard drives. He flipped the switch on the powerful magnet and began slowly waving it over the stack. A strong electromagnetic field bathed each of the sealed drives, obliterating the organized patterns of information stored on the thin disks within. In seconds, the drive stack was wiped clean.
From the rear of the lab, Josef, the thickset Georgian who’d been part of the team that struck Sandstrom’s lab a month earlier, walked quickly toward Leskov.
‘I have the notebooks,’ Josef said as he zipped his backpack closed and slipped it over his shoulder. ‘The technician was very helpful.’
Leskov glanced back at the small room that Josef had just left and saw a pair of legs lying on the floor. The technician was either unconscious or dead. Leskov checked his watch – in a few minutes he would know for certain.
‘Time, everyone.’
Josef and two other men, Kiril and Grigori, moved out into the hallway where Evgenii, the point man, stood watch.
‘Burn it.’
Misha nodded, held out a plastic squeeze bottle, and squirted a clear golden fluid throughout the room. When he reached the door, he capped the bottle and slid it into his pack.
‘Ready,’ Misha announced.
Everyone backed away from the door as Misha, using a handheld spark igniter, set a nearby puddle of the fluid aflame.
32
Ann Arbor, Michigan
As he reread the message that the Preservation Lab server was off-line, Grin remembered that Nolan was in town with Kelsey at the Art Fair. Two of the annual fair’s three venues bordered the university’s main campus and were a short walk from the lab. Grin punched in the number of Kilkenny’s phone.
‘Kilkenny here.’
‘Yo, Nolan. It’s Grin. Something bad is happening down at the lab where they’re keeping those notebooks.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was just loggin’ on to download the latest pages and I waltzed right into someone swiping the Wolff directory. I tried to grab what was left, but they locked me out. When I called the Preservation Lab to find out what was happening, the phone line went nuts. Then somebody tried to take a run at my machines.’
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yeah. The Spyder slammed the door, then went after ’em, but that’s why I think you need to check on the lab. I was just about to nail the hacker when the lab’s server went off-line. I got a funny feeling about this. I think somebody’s trying to ace us out of those notebooks. Are you anywhere near the Grad Library?’
‘Kelsey and I are down near West Engineering. We’ll head over and take a look.’
Nolan ended the call and located Kelsey at a nearby booth haggling with an artisan over an inlaid wooden box.
‘We’ll have to come back,’ Nolan announced as he put his arm around Kelsey’s shoulders, guiding her away
