Springboard

Seurat nodded. Yes. Georges had a point. A hacker backed by a government would have many more resources than one sitting alone in his room using his personal computer. Now that he thought of it, such a premise made more sense, that the attacks were backed by such resources. But — who? Which country?

The most adept would be, of course, the United States. But if they were being attacked themselves, unless it was a clever feint designed to throw CyberNation off their trail, then that would seem to rule them out. They could be very devious, the Americans, but from what he had heard about the cost to their military due to their computer disruptions, that seemed too steep a price. Even if CyberNation knew the U.S. was responsible, they were in no position to start an all-out computer war.

Not yet.

This needed looking into further. Seurat had contacts in the States, people who ought to be able to find out more. Time to use these contacts. He did not like being a target, no matter who the shooter might be…

Locke sat in his rented truck — one that had been made to look like a plumber’s vehicle — and pretended to write a work order. The front door to CyberNation’s HQ was visible in the truck’s large, outside rearview mirror, and this was what Locke watched while ostensibly filling out the paperwork. The good thing about pretending to be a plumber — and he wore an old coverall with the word plombier stenciled on the back — was that people paid you little attention if your truck sat parked in a neighborhood for hours. With the French, if they saw you sitting in the truck doing nothing, they assumed you were goofing off, and dismissed that with a Gallic shrug. Lazy batard, oui?

Locke smiled at the image. He had little French to speak of, enough to have dinner or catch a taxi, and it would not have mattered if he was adept in the language — the French looked down their long noses at everybody who was not them, no matter how well they might speak their tongue. Them and their foolish quest to keep the language pure.

The CyberNation building had been a hive of activity since he had arrived, and the comings and goings of high-level employees had a certain frantic nature that Locke took to mean that Shing’s machinations had, at least to some degree, worked.

Plus he had bribed low-level employees — guards, secretaries, and the man who delivered lunches — and while the precise nature of the problem was not something upon which they could report, they could definitely confirm that something was going on — and that CyberNation’s leaders weren’t happy about it. No, not happy at all.

Locke had reports from the United States that the military had also suffered under Shing’s hand, and he would, in due course, travel there and check it out personally.

He had to give Shing credit, though. So far, it seemed as if he had been able to do everything he had claimed. Of course, that had to continue for the greater plan to unfold properly. If Shing was stopped, there was a backup plan, a more hands-on method that Locke would implement, but he hoped to avoid that. Not because he was worried that it wouldn’t work, but the risks entailed would require time and energy better spent elsewhere.

A policeman walked by on the sidewalk. He looked at the truck.

Locke smiled and nodded at the flick, then went back to his pretend paperwork. He was obviously not pure French to look at, and the policeman apparently did not wish to talk to him and suffer the expected butchery of speech by a low-life foreigner.

Arrogance was a pain, even if it was useful. Locke could hardly wait to get to the U.S. They were so much more easygoing over there.

He caught movement in the mirror. Ah. It was Seurat, the czar of CyberNation, emerging from the building. As he did, a limo pulled up and the Frenchman entered it.

Locked started the truck’s engine. From what he had learned, Seurat was an automobile buff — he liked to drive. That he was not in one of his sports cars probably meant he was, as Locke had also heard, traveling. A fan of fine cars did not leave an expensive vehicle in an airport or train station parking lot exposed to the elements and the possible dings from the carelessly opened doors of other drivers.

Company presidents traveled all the time, and probably this was no more than a business trip; still, given the problems CyberNation was currently facing, it was not a bad idea to at least check it out. Knowledge was indeed power.

The limousine pulled away from the curb, and Locke followed it into the afternoon’s commute.

6

The Pentagon

Washington, D.C.

Abe Kent had long ago come to terms with most of his fears. Not that he had lost them — there were still plenty of things that could worry him, if he let them: Going blind, or senile, or stroking out into paralysis, these were fears he still carried, but he had learned to control them rather than letting his fears control him.

The way he dealt with them was to pay attention and not deliberately do things that might cause them, at least as much as he could. He ate well, stayed in shape, and had routine physicals. He didn’t drink much alcohol, save for a little wine or beer now and then, and had given up smoking his pipe twenty years back. There were no guarantees, of course, and in the end something was going to kill him, but a quick and sudden end didn’t scare him. He had come close to that often enough that he had been, as far as he was concerned, living on borrowed time for most of his life.

He had been a good Marine. Would have made general by now if he hadn’t been quite as good — if he’d been prepared to let things slide in ways he hadn’t been willing to do. So, the worst thing that Roger Ellis could do to him was kick him out of his job, and when he looked back over his shoulder, there was not a lot he regretted. As a result, Kent wasn’t afraid of this meeting.

Still, there was a twinge of… unease… as he approached the door of the Pentagon office with his guard and guide, who was also a Marine. A kid, maybe twenty-eight, and a sergeant, who knew who he was.

It had started to drizzle on the way over from Quantico. Maybe that was an omen.

“Here we are, sir. I’ll be back to collect you when you are done.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Semper fi, sir.”

Kent grinned at the kid. “You know it, son.”

Ellis had put on a few pounds, and looked paler than when Kent had last seen him, about five years ago. Ellis had been a colonel then, making general a couple of months later. Kent had sent him a congratulations card.

Sent him a second card when he got bumped up another star a year ago. No point in being bitter about it.

“Abe, how are you?” Ellis asked.

“Fine, General.”

“Come in, have a seat.”

Kent did so.

Ellis liked to beat around the bush a little before he got down to business, and the two men exchanged did- you-hears and guess-who-dieds and such for a couple of minutes. Finally, Ellis arrived at the point:

“So, tell me about Net Force. The military arm.”

“We have some good people. Lot of regulars from the service. John Howard put together a sharp team. Good training, good gear, good support, both from the Guard and the Net Force Commander.”

“Never thought I’d see the day when you’d be in the Guard,” Ellis said.

“Well. I’d pretty much come to the end of the road in the Corps, hadn’t I? Another few years as a doddering, superannuated colonel, teaching at a college somewhere, running some logistics kiosk, that was how I was going to end my career. When John Howard called me, it seemed like a way to do something worth doing with the last of my active duty time.” He paused. “I never was much good as a desk commander.”

Ellis nodded. “You angered some very shiny brass, Abe. You know that. What did you expect?”

Kent shook his head. “I knew what would happen, General. It’s just that I couldn’t let the consequences