Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

Tibbert really did bear a remarkable resemblance to Jefferson Jones, thought Cowley. “How long?”

The man gestured uncertainly. “Couple of days from now. I ain’t in no hurry.”

“I don’t want you to be.” Looking at the solid mass of people lining every edge of the cordon he said, “If there is something in there the size of New Rochelle, those people going to be safe?”

“The monument’s marble. Hard. If there’s a blow it’ll most likely be brought down, but the force will be contained. Maybe make their ears ring a little. Could do some damage to the White House glass.”

A throwaway line to be taken seriously, recognized Cowley. “You got any kids?”

Tibbert frowned. “Four. Why?”

“Don’t want any more orphans.”

“Don’t plan for there to be any more.”

“You and me both,” said Cowley. He stood on the knoll upon which the monument was built, looking around again, guessing the faraway crowd had to be a thousand strong, maybe more. Where was it? Where the fuck, what the fuck, was it that had to be as obvious as the arrow-straight marble dart pointing up into the clear morning sky but which he couldn’t see, couldn’t realize?

He accepted the offered ride from the crew of the police car on the perimeter, forcing himself into a gossiping conversation about bastard lunatics and agreeing it was good New York State had reintroduced the death penalty for crimes like New Rochelle and promising to take care when he got out at the J. Edgar Hoover building. He felt the sweep of dizziness as he walked into the enclosed forecourt dominated by the inscription of the bureau’s credo. He grabbed the wall and covered the stumble by feigning problems with a shoe, lifting and easing his foot experimentally. The moment passed almost immediately, and he continued on to more glad-handing in the foyer.

Pamela was already in the conference room, waiting. He said at once, “Who are the Watchmen?”

She shook her head. “Not listed in any of our records. Got a help call out. What about you?”

“Our guys got all they wanted inside the monument apparently.”

“The director’s asked forensic to attend if they’ve got anything this soon.”

“Who else, additionally?”

“Poulson, the parks guy who was in the truck with us. A general from the Pentagon with one of their computer guys. Some people, I don’t know who or how many, from D.C. police. Al Hinton, our public affairs guy. That’s all I know.”

“Anything from Moscow?”

She shook her head.

“We’re missing something, Pam. I know we are.”

“What you’re missing is the night’s sleep you never got and the week extra you should have stayed in hospital.” She paused, deciding not to let it go. “I called you because you’re the case officer, not to come to the scene. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Couldn’t sleep after I woke up.”

The rib strapping made it difficult for Cowley to lean forward sufficiently to wash his beard-rasped face over the toilet washbasin. He did so frowning at his own reflection in the mirror. He did look like shit on a plate. Worse. He’d always had a heavy beard, and the unshaven growth made a black-and-white comparison against his deathly pallor. His eyes were sunk into his head and black rimmed, and the clothes he’d hurriedly grabbed-a sweatshirt and jeans-hung on him, sweat-wrinkled and baggy. Two cups of cafeteria coffee didn’t give him the lift he’d hoped for, but they made swallowing the Tylenol easier.

The hastily arranged conference room-normally the biggest lecture hall in the building-was already filling. He was curious at what had been discovered forensically so quickly for Paul Lambert to be already there. The Pentagon general wore his uniform, complete with the name plate identifying himself as Sinclair J. Smith. There was a thin, nervous civilian with him. The bureau director’s assistant bustled around the table, seating everyone, putting Cowley and Pamela together. From the arrangement Cowley saw that on FBI territory Leonard Ross was assuming the chairmanship.

Pamela leaned close and said, “We stink.”

Cowley said, “That’s what all the papers say. You want to bat first?” She smelled and looked early-morning fresh, not like someone who’d been up all night.

She turned more fully toward him. “You feel all right?” A genuine offer of a place center stage or a curve she couldn’t see?

“You know as much about it as I do. I’ll pick up as we go along.” Cowley wanted to listen, hear what other people said, still searching for the trigger.

Leonard Ross was the last to enter, with the secretary of state and Frank Norton, the president’s chief of staff. Al Hinton, the fat and balding public affairs chief, was in attendance, shepherding the three men ahead of him. Cowley realized gratefully that today’s media coverage was limited to a press pool of one television and one still photographer and a solitary reporter. Cowley was conscious, too, of far less-in fact, scarcely none-posturing than before. The identification of Cowley was even quicker this time and the concentration on him just as immediate, but again he refused all questions beyond saying he’d recovered more than sufficiently to resume as case officer. As Hinton led the pool away, Norton said it was good to see him back and Cowley thanked him, conscious of the director’s frown.

Leonard Ross showed no surprise, though, when Pamela responded to the update request, which Cowley at once decided she did brilliantly. She smoothly took everyone through a selection of still photographs of the scene inside the monument, even itemizing the electrical circuits and boxes that the disposal team had initially cleared, but stressed that the examination was continuing.

“And we’ve drawn a total blank on any protest or radical group calling itself the Watchmen. We’ve already asked friendly services-England and Israel-to check. Nothing back yet.”

She looked invitingly at Cowley, who remained silent, although he was conscious of another frown from the director.

It was the president’s chief of staff who spoke. Frank Norton said, “You got anything to tell us about this computer intrusion, General?”

“Too soon,” said the soldier, who had a shaved marine haircut and a face that looked as if it had been carved from something very hard. He nodded to the civilian beside him. “Maybe you’d better hear from Carl.”

“I’m head of Pentagon computer security, Carl Ashton,” the man introduced himself uncomfortably. “We’ve got more than a thousand computers, terminals, and VDU stations, all at various levels of security, purpose, and program. If someone infects a system with a virus-the most common is one that replicates information until the file is totally filled, when it jams-then the problem’s obvious. But if someone gets in a back door simply to use our machines and our servers as a conduit-giving themselves their own entry code and password-it’ll take time to find them. It’s possible we never will.”

“Have I correctly heard what you’ve just said?” demanded Norton, spacing his words in incredulity. “A bunch of terrorists have gotten into the communications system of the military headquarters of the United States of America actually to attack us, and we’re not going to be able to find them! Is that what the Pentagon is going to tell the president and the people of this country?”

“I think I should explain more fully-” tried Ashton.

“I really think you should,” cut in Henry Hartz. “I don’t like what I’m hearing at all, after last year. Neither will the American people.” Irritation made the secretary of state’s Germanic accent more pronounced.

Ashton’s color rose and his hands fluttered nervously over the table. “No computer system can be declared totally beyond intrusion. There’s always a back door, either left there by the installer for his personal gratification and amusement …” The man paused at the looks of fresh astonishment around the table. “Yes,” he insisted, “even at the level of people who install at the Pentagon. More so, even: At the highest level of computer expertise a universal arrogance exists: they’re Captain Kirks with their own Enterprise space ships, able to go where no man has gone before. There are websites-clubs-on the Internet where such people gather. Not physically or using their own names-pseudonyms by which one recognizes the other. Entry codes and passwords are swopped. All it would have needed in this case is for a disgruntled Pentagon employee to belong to such a club and the door’s open.”