Hidden Agendas

seconds to get the door open. He closed it quietly behind him.

That's Gridley. Jay Gridley…

* * *

From a thousand feet above Jay Gridley, Platt watched, holding slow and level the little helicopter he'd found himself flying in when he'd dialed into Gridley's scenario. Kind of neat, the rocket thing the guy wore, and the backgrounds were all sharp and laid in thick too. The little half-breed gook had some skill.

Of course, Platt had a little skill himself. Plus he had access to all kinds of secret crap that a U.S. senator could put his hands on. Anything that White could touch, Hughes could touch, and whatever Hughes had, Platt could play with. There were real advantages to knowing top-secret codes. Platt could rascal stuff from the folks who built Net Force's computers, folks who had done the original hardware and programming, and who knew where all the back doors were hidden.

You hired a guy to build you a castle, he was gonna know where the secret compartments were, ‘cause he put them there.

Platt watched the Net Force operative settle toward the orange roof of the Wong Electronics truck on the freeway below. The man dropped his jet pack, opened the truck's door, and climbed inside.

This was gonna be as much fun as goin' upside somebody's head. This little gook with his jet pack didn't have a clue who he was dealin' with. Not a fuckin' clue. He was gonna get his ass kicked, and Platt was gonna love doin' it too.

He let the helicopter sink a little.

When he was over the truck and maybe sixty feet up, he opened the copter's window and leaned out, a twenty-five-pound barbell weight in one hand. He extended the weight, lined up, and let it drop.

The steel plate fell, hitting the cab. The driver swerved into the car in the lane next to him. He slammed on his brakes and skidded to a halt. Nobody got hurt, but it ought to rattle little Jay pretty good.

Platt hit the copter's throttled, rose, and veered away. By the time Jay-Jay got his shit together, Platt would be long gone.

We havin' fun now, ain't we?

Chapter Twenty

Friday, December 31st, 4 p.m. Quantico, Virginia

It was Jay Gridley who was the bearer of the bad news.

Alexander Michaels was feeling pretty good that there hadn't been any more top-secret leaks into the net for the entire workweek. He was about to go home and enjoy a quiet beer or two on New Year's Eve. He planned to be asleep by the time midnight rolled around, and with it the year 2011 and whatever joys and griefs it would bring. But as he was getting ready to leave his office to beat the traffic, Jay came in with a couple of sheets of hardcopy in his hand.

'I think you ought to take a look at this, Boss.'

'It can't wait until Monday?'

'I don't think so.'

'Why don't I like the tone of that?'

Jay tendered the hardcopy. Michaels looked at it. He started to read it aloud:

'Overlord Beasts of America:

'Know you Beasts that your days are numbered. Know you Oppressors of the Disenfranchised People, that the Number of the Beast is 666, and that the Number fast approaches. We, the Representatives of the People, we, The Frihedsakse, will bring Low You Despoilers of Earth, You Masters of Tyranny.'

Michaels looked up from the hardcopy at Jay. 'Fried socks? Freed sex?'

'Close enough. Our universal translator says it's Danish. Means ‘axis of liberty.' '

'Danish? I never heard of any Danish terrorists! Denmark is a peaceful, civilized country where you can let your old grandma go for walks alone at night without worrying she'll get mugged.'

'Sure. She won't get mugged, but she might slip and freeze and maybe turn into a granny-sicle,' Jay said.

Michaels shook his head and continued reading:

'For Your Wicked Ways are Manifest and Myriad, and we Shall Reveal your Sickness to All. All Shall Know You for your Evil, and the Weapons of your Sinful Ways Shall be used Against You, for the Power of Knowledge is the Light that All Demons Fear and the Power of Knowledge is given to the People.'

'Brother,' Michaels said. He looked at Jay again. 'So why didn't you add this one to the pile of other whackaloos claiming responsibility for the leaks?'

'Read on, McDuff.'

'You cannot Hide from the Light of Justice, nor can You Run from the People's Retribution, nor will Fortresses save You, for you are Hated by the People.'

'A kind of loose interpretation of Machiavelli, that part,' Jay said.

'Against You the People will throw All that is needed to Defeat you. The End is Near. Prepare for your Doom.'

It was signed 'The Frihedsakse.'

Michaels looked at Jay yet again.

'Next page,' Jay prompted.

On the next page was a list of numbers.

'As nearly as we can tell, those are the original posting times and dates for all the major leaks we've been running down. There are a couple there we missed. We went back and strained a lot of stuff posted then, using the Super Cray Colander. We found a posting of the master list for last month's new American Express customer names and numbers. The other posting we found reveals the codes for all the computer-controlled railroad safety lights and switches on the main commuter line between Washington and Baltimore. A bright hacker could use those to pile half-a-dozen trains up into big heaps of smoking scrap before somebody figured out what was going on. We called American Express and Amtrak.'

'Jesus.'

'Unlikely anybody would know those specifics unless they posted them in the first place, Boss.'

Michaels looked at the number. The last one in the sequence read:

/31/10-1159.

'That's tonight? December 31st, one second before midnight?'

'Yes, sir. If these are the guys, they are going to leak something just as the New Year arrives. Be my guess it won't be a recipe for mulled wine.'

'Shit.'

'I hear that, Boss.'

'Any way to trace this?'

'Sure. We already did. Posted on a public BBS from a pay phone in Grand Central Terminal, New York City, at 3:15 p.m. today. Rush hour, New Year's Eve. No sig, no ID, no residual DNA from the modem jack on the phone, no fingerprints. A six-phone bank next to a coffee shop. Phones are in a dead zone, no security cams watching ‘em. Records show thirty-seven calls were made at those six phones between 5 p.m. and 5:20 p.m. Good luck trying to find whoever sent it.'

'Better tell your shift they won't be partying tonight.'

'Already done,' Jay said. 'We're scanning all the major nets we can, we've turned all of our search engines on, have squealbots roaming, and we've informed all of the big commercial services to grab anything coming in from 11:55 p.m. to 12:05 a.m. I expect we're going to get real sick of reading ‘Happy New Year!' but if he posts anything on a major board or node, we should get it pretty quick.'

Michaels said, 'Good work, Jay. I guess I'll be in my office.'

'Happy New Year, Boss.' 'Yeah. Right.'