phone rang once, and if he picked it up there was no one there, merely a dial tone. One minute later it rang again, once. Then a minute after that it rang one, two, three or four times. The number of rings that third time was the message. He was to check dead drop one, two, three or four, and he was to do it as soon as possible. He usually left the house immediately, cruised for at least an hour in his car to ensure he wasn’t being followed, then headed for the dead drop. And the information would be there. Spelled out in block letters on the back of an empty, torn cigarette pack would be the file name he was to photograph, the classified computer codes necessary to gain access and a telephone number to call the evening he was ready to transfer the disks, when the whole sequence would begin again. No one saw him, he saw no one, all very slick.
He chuckled. The cigarette packs on which he received his in- structions were always Marlboro Gold 100s, and it had occurred to Terry Franklin that someone had a subtle sense of humor. As he worked now and thought about the money, he savored that sar- donic twist.
They must be watching the house to see when he was home alone. Of course someone was servicing the drops. But how were they getting the computer codes and file names? Oh well, he was getting his piece of the pie and he wasn’t greedy.
“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” Terry Franklin muttered as he removed the final disk from its slot and tucked it into its own little envelope. He grinned at the monitor screen, then tapped keys to exit the file.
Now came the tricky part. Three years ago, when he had first been told by the Soviets that they wanted copies of documents from the computer system, he had written a trapdoor program for the software of the main computer. The job had taken him six months; it had to be right the first time — he would get no second chance. This program accomplished several things; it allowed Franklin to access any file in central memory from this terminal here in the repair shop, a permanent secret “doorway,” thereby defeating the built-in safeguards that gave access to classified files only from certain specific terminals; it erased the record of his access from the 3-W file, which was a security program that auto- matically recorded who, what and when; and finally, it allowed him to access the 3-W file to see that his footprints were indeed not there.
This trapdoor program was his crowning achievement. He had once seen a written promise from the software designer that unre- corded access was an impossibility. What a load! It had been damn tough — he would give them that — but he had figured out a way in the end. There’s always a way if you know enough. That contrac- tor, he really sold the brass a sow’s ear when he told that fib. Ah well, the contractor had gotten his and now Terry Franklin was making his own score.
He had loaded the trapdoor program in the main computer one day while fifteen technicians loafed and sipped coffee and watched him work on a sticky tape drive. Not a one of them saw what he was doing. Nor, he told himself with glee, would they have under- stood what he was doing even if they had noticed. Most of them were as ignorant as they were trusting.
Tonight the 3-W log looked clean as a virgin’s conscience. Franklin exited the program and turned off his terminal. He stood and stretched. He felt good. Very, very good. The adrenal excite- ment was almost like a cocaine high, but better since there was no comedown. He was living on the edge and it felt terrific.
After straightening up the office, he turned off the coffeepot and put on his coat. With a last glance around, he snapped off the tights and locked the door behind him.
Getting past the guards at the building exits carrying the disks was a risk, though a small one. The civilian guards occasionally selected people for a spot search and sooner or later he would be chosen. He knew several of the guards on sight and made it a habit to speak to them, but inevitably, sooner or later … It didn’t happen this evening, but be was clean just now anyway. The disks were still back in the office, carefully hidden. He would bring them out some evening next week at the height of the rush-hour exodus when the probability of being searched was the smallest Minimize the risk, msmmim the gain.
As he rode the escalator up to the bus stop for Virginia suburban buses, Terry Franklin buttoned his coat tightly and turned the col- lar up behind his neck. from a pocket he extracted his white sailor’s cap aad placed it carefully on his head, exactly one finger width above his eyebrows.
The cold, wet wind at the top of the mechanical stairs made him cringe. He quickly climbed aboard the Airedale bus and made his way to an empty window seat He stared through the gathering dusk at the looming building. People in uniform and civilian clothes kept pouring from the escalator exit, trying to hide their faces from the wind, scurrying for buses. These poor snooks. What they didn’t know!
Vastly content, Terry Franklin pursed his lips and began to whis- tle silently.
As the bus bearing Terry Franklin pulled away from the loading area, a senior naval officer, a captain, leaned into the wind as he crossed the lighted parking lot. He paid no attention to the buses queued for the freeway entrance and it was probable no one on the buses paid any attention to him. Terry Franklin was opening the sports section of a newspaper he had purchased during his lunch break. Franklin wouldn’t have recognized the captain out there in the rapidly emptying parking lot anyway, not even if they had passed in a corridor. They had never met. But Franklin would have recognized the officer’s computer security access password, for he had just finished using it.
Tonight the captain grimaced as the wind tore at his unprotected face and took the time to open the hatchback of his Toyota Corolla and toss his attache case in. Then he fumbled with the key to the driver’s door. Snuggled in with the engine running and waiting for the heater to warm up, Captain Harold Strong tried to relax. It had been another long week, as each and every one of them were in this gargantuan paper factory by the Potomac. He cast a bleak eye on the cars creeping toward the exit. Not too many now, well after quitting time. And he had wanted to get an early start this evening! God, he was tired.
He put the car in gear and threaded it toward the exit- He checked his watch. It was twenty-two minutes past six. At least the timing was right. He would reach the interstate just as the car pool restrictions ended.
On the freeway he headed north along the river, past the Arling- ton Memorial Bridge, under the ramps of the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge and out into the traffic snarl on 1-66 westbound. Here at the tail end of rush hour the traffic moved along fairly well at about forty miles per hour, only occasionally coming to a complete stop. Captain Strong listened carefully to an airborne traffic reporter tally the evening’s casualties. 1-66 westbound wasn’t mentioned.
Nearing Falls Church he stopped beside the road for a moment and removed his bridge coat. With the car back in motion and the radio tuned to a soft-rock FM station. Strong chewed over the week’s frustrations and disasters again. Oh crap, he thought, it’s Friday night and you have the cabin all to yourself for an entire weekend, so forget it. It’ll all keep until Monday, God knows.
Since the divorce he had spent most of his weekends in the cabin. His son was a junior in college this year, busy with school and giris. The captain wasn’t interested in female companionship, which was perhaps a good thing since he lacked both the finances and the time.
They want too much from that airframe, he told himself as he drove, reviewing the arguments of the week yet one more time. You can’t build a plane that will drop bombs, shoot missiles, hassle with MiGs, have a radar cross section so small it can’t be detected — haul the President back and forth to Camp David on weekends when it isn’t being used to save the free world — and still expect the goddamn thing to take a cat shot and make an arrested carrier landing- With so many design compromises it can’t possibly do any mission well.
A fucking flying Edsel, assuming that one way or the other it can be made to fly. He had used precisely those words this after- noon to that simple sonuvabitch from SECNAV and that slimy political hack looked like his wallet was being snatched. And what had he said to Vice Admiral Henry after the meeting? “It’s almost as if those idiots want to buy just one ultimate do-everything flying machine and park it in the Rose Garden of the White House to scare the shit out of the Russian ambassador when he comes to call.” Henry wasn’t happy with his blunt assessment. Well, he was right, whether Henry liked it or not. Those political clowns want to build something straight out of a Hollywood special-effects shop, a suborbital battlestar that will automatically zap anybody who isn’t wearing olive-drab underwear.
Why is it, over eighty-five years after Orville and Wilbur showed the worid how to build an airplane, that we have to keep explain- ing the basic laws of aerodynamics to these used-car salesmen in mufti?
Strong was still stewing when he reached the outskirts of Win- chester. Raindrops began to splatter on the windshield. He turned on the wipers. The road looked slick and the wet night seemed to soak up his headlights, so he slowed down.
He was hungry. He turned into the drive-through lane of a Me- Donald’s and was soon back on the road
