Back in San Jose now — he had booked reservations aboard a commuter flight while the A&P mechs continued their inspection of the Learjet in Washington — Gordian sat at his desk opposite Chuck Kirby, trying to put the pieces of a complex and profoundly troubling puzzle into place. They had already run through the whole thing a couple of times, but neither man felt it would hurt to bounce it around once more.
'Let's try it back to front,' Gordian said. 'Starting with the break-in at the Sacramento facility.'
'Sure, why not,' Kirby said. 'Doing it the other way hasn't nailed it.'
'I don't know whether it can be nailed, not with the fragmentary information we have,' Gordian said. 'But we can get closer, make some more important connections.'
Kirby nodded. 'The disc they took off the dead man, then,' he said.
'The disc,' Gordian repeated, sighing. 'The key-codes are used in communications systems UpLink has designed for a wide range of naval vessels. Obviously they would be of enormous value to any number of interests, both foreign and domestic.'
'Allies and enemies, for that matter,' Kirby said. 'Everybody spies on everybody else. It's wide open until you look at how the thieves penetrated the vault.'
'Exactly.' Gordian's face was sober. 'And if not for the surveillance videos capturing what happened after they killed poor Turner, the techies might've taken weeks, even months to find out. The wicked beauty of it is that the system defeated itself.'
'And that's still the part I can't quite grasp,' Kirby said.
'It probably isn't vital that you do.. although the concept isn't really that difficult,' Gordian said. 'It involves basic computer file architecture, the way hard drives are set up. There's a minimum amount of space allocated for every file on a hard drive… the larger the drive, the larger the allocation. Regardless of how much data you have in a file, the computer reserves that minimum space.' He thought a moment. 'Imagine a department store that only has gift boxes of a single size for their merchandise, no matter whether you're buying a ten-gallon hat or a gold forget-me-not for your wife's necklace. Since the box needs to be pretty big to contain the hat, that tiny charm's not going to be too visible when it's placed inside. In fact, it may even get lost.'
Kirby nodded. 'The data-strings that let the thieves through the system's backdoor… you're saying they were too small to be noticed. Like the charm. And they slipped past your whiz kids when the software employed by the biometric scanner system was examined for backdoors prior to installation.'
'And the techs can't even be held at fault,' Gordian said, nodding. 'Do a careful diagnostic of any hard drive, and you'll find the percentage of file-space being utilized out of whack with the actual number of stored bytes. You store one word-processing file with a couple of words on it, another with several pages of text, and it's probable both are grabbing the same amount of space. When the technicians are looking for Trojan horses, they typically sniff around for long, complex algorithms such as the type needed to match fingerprint or voice characteristics. In this case, the backdoor key was short and sweet… a basic geometric pattern… a small item in a big box.'
'The star on the sapphire,' Kirby said. 'Incredible.'
'To me, what's more incredible is that our security system's primary biometric software was produced by— and acquired from — Monolith Technologies, of all goddamn outfits under the sun,' Gordian said. He shook his head. 'Talk about an incomprehensible oversight…'
'Don't beat yourself over the head with it, Gord,' Kirby said. 'Their stuff's the best being made. And the system was implemented a while before the problems between you and Caine started brewing. Viewed as an isolated incident, the break-in wouldn't even necessarily place Caine under suspicion. There could be rogue hackers within his company—'
Gordian's face tightened.
'It isn't hackers who tried to steal UpLink out from under me. Nor was it hackers who used Reynold Armitage as a point man in advance of the raid, or had my plane's landing-gear system sabotaged, or made Max Blackburn vanish into thin air.'
Kirby released a breath. 'We can't prove Caine's direct involvement with any of that'
'It's just the two of us here, Chuck. This isn't about what I can prove, but what I know,' Gordian said. 'Over the past seventy-two hours, the A&P team in D. C. has traced the plane's entire hydraulic circuit for leaks a half-dozen times. And found nothing. Also, the mechs here at home have paper checklists verifying they conducted the full preflight a day before we left, including eyeball inspections of the system's gauges and connections.' He paused. 'Somebody tampered with that plane after it was prepped. And the guard at the airport, a man named Jack McRea, fessed up to having left his post for several hours a couple nights ago.'
'And has since been released from your employ, I hope,' Kirby said.
Gordian nodded. 'Far as he's been willing to admit, he was lured off to a motel by long legs and a miniskirt. Suckered into leaving the hangars wide open.'
The room was silent a few moments.
'The logical jump still bothers me,' Kirby said. 'Tying Caine to an attempted murder without evidence, for godsakes.'
'Murders, plural,' Gordian said. 'You were on that plane too, Chuck. As was Megan and Scull.'
'Gord, my point is—'
'I know what it is. And again, I'm not talking about specific evidence, but getting a handle on the totality of events that have been wheeling around my head. Max is investigating Caine's business operations in Asia, Max drops out of sight. I take on the Morrison-Fiore Bill, Caine jumps into the ring as a challenger, then as a person who wants to devour my corporation. Somebody breaks into my encryption facility, they do it using a backdoor in Caine- designed software. And so on and so forth. There's too much coincidence. And now the whole thing seems to have taken on a sense of acceleration… almost desperation….'
'Or urgency,' Kirby said. 'If we're going to walk the road you're inclined to lead us down, the keys on that disc they tried to snatch are at the heart of this.'
Gordian nodded, his hands steepled under his chin.
The two men sat there quietly a while, thinking everything through.
Five minutes passed, then several more.
More thought, more silence.
Suddenly Gordian sat forward, his eyes widening.
Chuck looked at him. 'Something the matter?'
'That word you used,' he said. 'Urgency. It's just that…'
He let the sentence trail off, moistened his lips.
Chuck kept looking at him.
'Oh, my God, how could I not have seen? That's why it's come to a head now. My God, the ceremony… the maiden run is today!'
'Gord, what the hell's wrongT'
Gordian shot his hand across the desk and gripped Kirby's wrist.
'The Seawolf,' he said, speaking rapidly. 'Its command and control systems… the systems that run the sub… they use UpLink encryption software. And the spare keys, the keys are on that disc.'
Kirby was staring at him incredulously. 'Gord, I'm not sure I'm reading you, or want to be reading you. But even if I am, the thing to remember is nobody got hold of them—'
Gordian sliced his right hand through the air to silence him, still digging the fingers of his left into Kirby's wrist.
'They aren't the only keys, Chuck,' he said abruptly, his face white as a sheet. 'You understand? We're talking about a nuclear submarine, a boat the President's going to be aboard. And they aren 't the only keys.''
Watching his team ready themselves on the transportable dock, Omori was convinced he had done well, both in selecting his divers and finding a suitable launching area for the insertion. Notched into the coast of Pulau Ringitt— a small island less than five kilometers south of Sentosa— the saltwater inlet was protected by a zone of mud and marsh that made it the sort of place few people wanted to go sloshing around in.
Omori checked his watch. Not much longer now. Not much longer before his men climbed into the underwater delivery vehicle and the time for preparation was over at last.
He was eagerly looking forward to that moment.
Invisible beneath its camouflage netting, the delivery craft rested on a floating dock amid the thick rushes near the bank. Its bullet-shaped, fiberglass hull was windowless, and though this aided in reducing its detection
