and went through a control room and across a catwalk inside a huge room to the simulator, a cockpit mounted on hydraulic rams. “So just make yourself comfortable here in the hot seat,” Jenks said in summary, “and well move right on into the hardware.”
Toad looked slowly around the cavernous room at the three other simulators. Then he looked into the cockpit. Like every mili- tary cockpit in the electronic age, it was filled with display screens, computer controls and information readouts in addition to all the usual gauges, dials, knobs, switches and warning tights. “I have a question,”
“Shoot”
“How long is the normal syllabus to train a bombardier-naviga- tor?”
“Eight months.”
“And you’re going to cram all that info into me in one weekT’
“You look like a bright guy. That captain in Washington said you were motivated as hell.”
“Grafton?”
“I didn’t talk to him. The skipper did. Sit down and let’s get at it” Jenks turned and shouted to the technician in the control room; “Okay, Art, fire it up.”
People were streaming out of Jefferson Plaza at 4:30 when Jake passed through the main entrance on the way in. He was still in civilian clothes. He waited impatiently for the tardy elevator.
The secretary was still in the office along with several officers. What was her name? “Hi. What’s happening?”
“Hello, Captain. Didn’t expect to see you today.”
“Yeah. Didnt think I’d make it back. Seen Commander Judy?”
“Oh, he was in for a little while this morning, then he said he had a meeting. Said he’d probably be gone the rest of the day.”
Jake paused near the woman’s desk. “Did he say where the meeting was?”
“No, sir.”
“Was he here when you arrived this morning?”
She tried to remember. “Yessir, I think so. Oh, by the way, the computer wizard stopped by this afternoon to give you your brief on the office system. He said he was going to be working late, so if you’re going to be around a while. I’ll call him now and see if he can come over and do the brief.”
“Sure. Call him.”
Jake greeted the other officers and walked across the room to his office door. Two of his new subordinates stuck their heads in for a few pleasantries, then shoved off.
A pile of documents lay flat in the in basket. Jake flipped through the stuff listlessly. There was enough work here to keep him chained to this desk for a week, or maybe a month since he didn’t know anything about most of the matters the letters and memos referred to. He would have to use the staff heavily.
The secretary appeared in his door. “The computer man will be here in a little while. His name is Kiemberg- Good night. Captain.”
“Did you lock up everything?”
“No, sir. I thought you might want to took through some files.”
“Sure. Good night”
Jake waited for the door to click shut, then went out into the room. He found Judy’s desk and sat down. He stirred through a small pile of phone messages. Just names and numbers. A thin appointment book with a black cover. He flipped through it slowly.
The days up until now were heavily annotated. Today’s page was blank. He held the book at arm’s length over the desk and dropped it. It fell with a splat.
Damn! He felt so frustrated-
Well, at least he knew most of Henry’s once-upon-a-time story was true, though where that got him he had no idea. And he knew that Judy made a trip to West Virginia today. Why? To see Trooper Keadle or the prosecutor? To search Strong’s cabin? Well, Judy was certainly going to be surprised to hear that Jake knew he was there. Or was he? Maybe he would tell Jake himself in the morning.
Jake turned on the office copy machine and while it was warm- ing up stood and read the entries in Judy’s calendar again care- fully. Smoke seemed to have made a lot of notes about Karen. Karen who? Karen 472-3656, that’s who. Why did he write her phone number down so often? Aha, because she had different phone numbers — at least four of them. And this guy Bob — lunch, tennis on Saturday, reminders that he called, to call Bob. Call DE. Call from RM. Drop car at garage. Commode broke. Smoke Judy seemed to jot down everything out of the ordinary. He was a detail man in a detail business.
When he had his copies. Jake put the appointment book back on Judy’s desk and went back to his little office. In a few moments he heard a knock on the door, so he heaved himself up and walked across the room to admit the visitor-
The man in civilian clothes who came in was slighty below me- dium height, built like a fireplug and just as bald. “Hi. Name’s Kleinberg. From NSA. Computers.” His voice boomed. Here was a man who could never whisper. In his left hand he carried a leather valise.
“I’m Grafton.”
“Beg pardon,” the man said as he reached out and tilted the bottom of Jake’s security tag. He stared at it a few seconds, then glanced again at Jake’s face. “Yep, you’re Grafton, all right. Can’t be too careful, y’know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Let’s look at the patient.”
Jake led the way to his desk. “I don’t know much about com- puters.”
“No sweat. I know enough for both of us. When we’re through, you’re going to be able to make this thing sing and dance.” Klein- berg turned on the computer. “See this prompt here? That’s the sign-on prompt and you have to type in your secret password. This is a code that identifies you to the machine, which allows you access to certain files and only certain files- Security, y’know. Here’s your password.” He used a pencil on a sheet of paper and wrote, “Reverberation.”
“How come I can’t pick my own word?”
“We tried that on the second go-around. Everyone wanted to come up with something cute, except for the aviators, who all wanted to use their nicknames. You’d have thought they were or- dering vanity license plates. So … Now type in your password.”
Jake did so. The computer prompt moved from left to right, but the letters failed to appear.
“Now hit ‘enter.’ Uh-oh, the computer won’t take it- So type it again and spell it right.” This time the computer blinked to the next screen. “You only get two tries,” Kleinberg advised. “If you are wrong both times, the computer will lock you out and you’ll have to see me about getting back in.”
“How can it lock me out if I haven’t told it exactly who I am?”
“It locks out everyone who has access from the bank of monitors in this office.” Kleinberg wrote another password on the paper:
“Fallacy.”
‘This is the password that allows you access to files relating to the ATA, which is what I understand you are working on here in this shop. Type it in and hit ‘enter.’ ” Jake obeyed. “Now, to call up the directory of the files you have access to due to your security clearance and job title, you have to type one more password.” He wrote it down. “Matriarch.”
After Jake entered this code, a long list of documents appeared on the screen. “Of course, if you already have the document num- ber, you can type it right in and not bother calling up the directory with the matriarch code word. Got it?”
” ‘Reverberation,’ ‘fallacy’ and ‘matriarch.’ What was the first go-around on the code words?”
Kleinberg laughed. “Well, we used computer-generated random series of letters. They weren’t words, just a series of letters. But people couldn’t remember them and took to writing them down in notebooks, checkbooks and so forth. So we tried plan two. This is plan three.”
Kleinberg took a lighter from his pocket and held the flame under the piece of paper on which he had written the code words.
It flared. Just before the fire reached his fingers, he dropped the paper on the plastic carpet protector under
