Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“There’s a check there!” interrupted the CIA’s John Butterworth. “We need a list-”

“Which we keep, of every Pentagon employee who is dismissed or who leaves in circumstances considered likely to create resentment.”

“This is absurd!” protested Butterworth. “Why don’t we hit these cockamamie clubs, round the bastards up?”

Ashton, embarrassed, looked sideways to the low-profile general, who shrugged. The computer security man said, “Sir, these aren’t places-buildings. They’re websites. They only exist in what you’ve heard described as cyberspace: They have no actuality. We don’t know where they are-how to access them. And if we did, we’d be committing a federal offense under the terms of the U.S. data protection legislation.”

Stunned silence spread throughout the room. The pragmatic Leonard Ross said, “So far you’ve told us what you can’t do. What can -are-you doing?”

“I talked about various levels of security,” reminded Ashton. “At its lowest administrative level we’ve got a lot of terminals without either a hard or floppy disk. They’re VDUs operated from a central server. They’re the most likely to have been breached. Those are the servers we’re sweeping now: If our terrorists are there, we’ll find them. Find the intrusion, at least. But we’re assuming that these guys are good, professionals, if that’s an acceptable description. They won’t just have broken in and established their own little cave. They will have established their own burglar alarm when a trace is locked on them. They won’t have come straight into the Pentagon. There’ll be several cutouts in other systems-systems that might be on the far side of the world-and there will quite literally be a burglar alarm that might even ring a bell they can hear. And when they do-before we get close-they’ll close down. That’s what I meant by saying we’ll probably never find them, not from putting on tracers.”

“This is terrifying,” said Hartz, almost to himself. “And I thought I had already used up all the terror I could feel.”

“It’s modern technology, Mr. Secretary,” said General Smith, judging the moment safe to come back into the discussion. “It terrifies me, too.”

“That’s the lowest level of security,” persisted Norton. “What else is there?”

“Machines with their own hard disks, their own programs. They’re all swept, automatically, every month-in the most sensitive areas, every week-but we’ve already overridden that time frame. We’re already sweeping every machine down to the war room itself. But even if we pick them up, they will have alarmed themselves, as I’ve just explained.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” said Norton, exasperated. “Anyone here realize what the reaction would be from the American public if they knew this?”

“Probably close to the reaction they’re showing at the moment to every other example of our helplessness,” said Hartz.

“Bill,” Leonard Ross said unexpectedly, “you got any point you’d like to make? Or would you like to sit this one out? You’re really not looking at all well.”

It was only then that Cowley realized he’d slumped down in his chair, even allowing his eyes to close as they’d been closed when the director spoke, although he’d heard everything. He said, “I was thinking-or trying to think-about something else.”

“That’s obvious,” said Ross. “And for the case officer that’s pretty worrying, as far as I am concerned. You’ve had a long day already. Why don’t you rest a little?”

“I don’t think the Pentagon break-in is our immediate consideration,” declared Cowley.

He felt Pamela’s hand on his sleeve and Ross said, “I think you’d better call it a day, Bill. My mistake, your mistake.”

Cowley shook his head in refusal. To Paul Lambert he said, “You must have found something obvious to be able to be here this soon?”

“It was Semtex,” said the bespectacled, crew-cut forensic scientiest. “Simplest thing imaginable: wrapped around a timer preset for one A.M. We’re still checking for prints, obviously. Source is either the Czech or Slovakian republics: Czechoslovakia is the only country in the world still producing the stuff. We’ll identify the timer before the day’s out. But if the bomb squad doesn’t find anything else, we’re not going to be able to help you very much beyond this.”

“They’re taking it slowly,” said Cowley. “Tibbert’s talking of another two days-there might even be something intact.”

“Two days!” protested David Frost, the diminutive police commissioner, sitting between two other uniformed officers. “It’s going to become impossible! The city’s already virtually gridlocked by that central area being closed just today. Even before I came in for this meeting I was getting reports of people coming in just to stand and look. If it goes on for two more days the city will have to close down, there’ll be so many tourists.”

“I don’t think traffic control is very high on our list of priorities at the moment, Commissioner,” said Ross.

“It is,” said Cowley, softly at first. Then, more loudly: “Jesus, of course it is!”

Everyone looked in bewildered astonishment.

To the forensic chief Cowley said, “The charge! How big was the charge?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe half a pound. Less, perhaps.”

“Easily carried? And timed to explode when there wouldn’t be anyone there to get hurt?”

“Sure.”

“Wouldn’t it have fit easily into a shopping bag or backpack?”

“Yes.”

“And easily fixed?”

“Sure,” Lambert agreed again. “Semtex is gray, same color as the steps. It was just slipped down the sides, against the outer wall.

“Bill-” Ross began sympathetically.

“Please!” demanded Cowley, remembering the stairwell gaps he’d looked at until his eyes ached earlier that day. “The gap between the stairs and the outer edge could have hidden much more than half a pound of Semtex, couldn’t it?”

Lambert shrugged his shoulders in another helpless gesture. “If they’d wanted to plant more …”

“That’s just it!” said Cowley, looking urgently to Leonard Ross. “They didn’t want to plant any more. This isn’t their speed, their way! They wanted to kill hundreds, certainly, with the warhead. Suckered us into the ambush at New Rochelle. Which is what this is! A decoy.” He stopped, remembering the thick, solid line of people around the Mall. Trying to control his rising panic, Cowley leaned toward the police commissioner. “There’s got to be a thousand people out there, all around the Mall. Two thousand. And there’s another bomb, another device. Get it cleared! Get the Mall, all the roads, clear of people. Don’t funnel them into the Smithsonian Metro. Close that. Just get everyone away as quickly as you can. Otherwise there’s going to be another massacre.”

No one moved. No one spoke.

Cowley looked imploringly at Leonard Ross. “Please!” he said. “I’m right. I know I’m right. This time they really do intend killing hundreds.”

“Anne! We’re talking seven bucks!” protested the Albany detective to whom Clarence Snelling had first complained.

“And forty-nine cents,” she reminded.

“And forty-nine cents. I thought you guys were kinda occupied by something else?”

“So what have you done?”

The man spread his hands without replying.

“Not spoken to the bank?”

“No,” said the detective. “I haven’t spoken to the fucking bank! When I arrest the son of a bitch who killed the Seven-Eleven night man with a sawed-off twelve-gauge to steal maybe twenty bucks and then catch the bastard who raped the twelve-year-old on the Saratoga Road turnoff I’ll really put my mind to Clarence Snelling’s precious fucking seven bucks and forty-nine cents.”