Stephen Cannell - Runaway Heart

"We, Doctor you, that is, have clearance to work from home, sir, but you cannot copy secure files off-site to your home computer."

"I'm not working. I'm sleeping. I've got to be on the damn six-A.M. flight to L.A. today for that silly butterfly trial, so leave me alone, you idiot!"

"You're not at your computer right now?"

"No, dammit. Stop bothering me!" And Jack Sasson hung up.

In his hotel room Roland now had the Ten-Eyck Chimera file up on the screen. The entire fifty-two-page program was completely encrypted.

Roland knew that if the Gen-A-Tec systems administrator was on his toes he'd certainly be aware of the security breach by now and would be trying to run a back-finger search program to trace Roland to this computer site. He had to get out of the system pretty soon. He downloaded the fifty-t\yo-page encrypted file, wondering what could be so important that the file would be in code inside an already secure system… secure that is, to anybody but Roland Minton.

Once the file was downloaded Roland logged off the Gen-A-Tec system. He knew he hadn't been back-fingered, because the alarm in his hard drive, set to detect such nastiness, hadn't gone off. He shut down his laptop and lay back again, lacing his fingers behind his head. "Chew me, dickhead," he said to his opposite number in the control room back at Gen-A-Tec. But he had developed some respect for the guy. Whoever it was, he was pretty

good. He just wasn't the best. He wasn't the "master of the game."

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Lincoln Fellows knew he had been breached and knew he was about to get toasted for it. He launched a back-finger program to try and trace the cracker, but, as he feared, the guy was already a ghost.

Lincoln knew he couldn't call Vincent Valdez at DARPA with a bag full of apologies. His only chance of saving his job was to come up with some counterintelligence to give to Mr. Valdez, some critical piece of the puzzle. He turned to the Gen-A-Tec exterior security cameras and accessed the video tape decks, starting with the late-afternoon shift change. He ran the four camera platforms high-speed, fast-forward, scanning all four screens. There were three cameras on each platform: one regular, one light-enhanced, one infrared. There were also two front gate camera positions. Lincoln figured that in order to phreak the system so effectively the cracker must have, at some time, been working from the telephone company junction box up the street. He watched as cars and trucks zipped past the gate in fast-forward. After twenty minutes he saw him a figure moving past the front gate, a telephone repairman with a white hat and tool belt. Lincoln froze the tape with the man in midstride.

"Is that you, Clarence?" he said to the dark image of the man whom he had frozen, his left heel down, right toe pointed up.

In the shot the sun had just disappeared behind the hills, throwing the street into shadow. The picture was too dark to get a good look. He switched to the infrared camera. It didn't improve the shot much, so he went for the light-enhanced. Instantly, the shadowy shot lightened. Lincoln could now see what the guy looked like rail-thin, with wisps of hair escaping from under the brim of the white hard hat. A geek-a-thon. Lincoln released the

tape and fast-forwarded. He saw the guy driving away in a white Camry, hat off, purple hair blazing. Lincoln froze the shot with the car still in frame. He looked hard at the rear license plate, couldn't quite read it, but he figured this was all he was going to get. His security command sheet said any breach on DARPA projects had to be communicated first to the DARPA A.D. in Washington.

With a shaking hand he called the emergency number. It was 2:45 A-M-here, which meant 5:45 A.M. in Washington, D.C., but he had been told that Mr. Valdez always got in before sunup.

"Agency," a voice said after two rings.

"I need to speak with the assistant director. This is Lincoln Fellows," he said.

"Is this an emergency?" the secure operator replied. Line could hear a beeping sound indicating that his call was being taped.

"I'm afraid so. Tell him it's the Night SA at Gen-A-Tec in San Francisco and that the secure computer has been breached. We have downloads."

While he waited for Valdez, Line made a digital transfer of the cracker's image and drive-away, copying from the security tape to a backup, then loaded it on the sat-link to send to DARPA in D.C. He knew it was the first thing Mr. Valdez would ask for.

The assistant director came on the line. Line had only met him once, a swarthy, dark-haired spook with black eyes and the cold disposition of a desert reptile.

"This is Valdez."

"Sir, our secure computer has been compromised. A cracker penetrated our shadow system and completed some downloads."

"What did he get?" Valdez's voice was calm. That was the thing about Mr. Valdez, he never seemed to be alarmed, as if he always had a tight rein on himself and the situation. It was his one overriding personality trait; that, and a reputation for utter ruthlessness.

"He got the program on engineered food. Corn mostly, some test results, some e-mail…" Lincoln's heart was beating harder against his chest, "and the entire encryption for the Ten-Eyck Chimera project."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"You're joking," was all Valdez said.

"I think I have him on a security camera," the trembling SA inserted quickly. "A shot of him and his car pulling past the gate. I'm going to sat-link it to you right now."

"While I'm dealing with that, I want you to look through the entire hack and see if he left any electronic clutter behind."

"I will, but I don't think so, sir. He was pretty damned sharp."

"Right. Of course he was. But I thought you were sharp. That's what you said when we hired you. Obviously, we were both wrong."

Before Line could present his alibi, Valdez hung up.

Line hurried across the room and hit the satellite SEND button. A secure channel on a scrambled frequency shot the digital image into space, where it bounced off a platform a mile up, then streaked down to the windowless DARPA headquarters inside the beltway in Washington, D.C. Elapsed time: fifteen seconds.

Vincent Valdez quickly scanned the tape when it arrived, then sent it down to Video Enhancement with instructions to digitally enhance the license plate.

Fifteen minutes later he had a hard copy printout in his hand. It was a blowup of the back bumper on a white Camry, with California plate IGI 378.

"And?" Valdez said softly to his assistant, Paul Talbot, who had just handed him the photo.

"The car came from the concierge at the new Fairview Hotel in San Francisco," Talbot said. "It was rented to a guest there. A Mr. Roland Minton, Room 3015." Talbot survived in close proximity to Valdez because, like the male black widow spider, he had

learned to interact with his poisonous mate by appearing innocuous, moving fast, and staying out of range. Talbot's bland personality masked a shrewd mind that was always scheming.

Vincent Valdez stared at the photo. He hated screwups. But, he reasoned, at least the ball was still in play. He looked at his watch. It was currently 3:07 A.M. in San Francisco.

"How fast can we put a response-retrieval team in play?" he asked Talbot.

"We can scramble a team from Ten-Eyck and have them ready in less than an hour."

"That puts 'em there before five A.M. Daylight Savings out there gives us an extra hour of dark. So do it." Victor leaned back. A second thought crossed his mind… dangerous, ironic, but maybe exactly right. They were ready for a field test on one of the D-units, so why not now? He spun around and stopped Paul Talbot before he left the office. "Tell Captain Silver to send a DU along with the team."

"You sure you want to do that?" his assistant asked, turning and wrinkling his pale brow.