Dominic Conlon - Silent Warpath

Then it started to rise slowly until it reached a depth of two fathoms. A hatch opened quietly on the top of its short conning tower and a black buoy the size of a tennis ball slid out, rising rapidly to the surface. As it rose it trailed a thin wire connected to the communications centre in the submarine.

Bobbing on the inky waves in the dark of the night, the buoy was impossible to spot. Cetus sent its first broadcast back through the aerial attached. The electronic signal was encrypted and compressed and lasted no longer than three microseconds — too short a time for any surface ships to gain a fix.

‘Coming through’ yelled Chan.

‘Let’s see.’ Stan looked over Chan’s shoulder. ‘Yep — it’s the real thing. OK, send the pre-recorded recall sign’. Stan’s voice betrayed the tension they were all feeling.

Chan clicked the send button on his screen. ‘Signal sent!’ he reported a second later.

They waited impatiently.

‘Acknowledgement received!’ shouted Chan as soon as he saw the message appear on his screen.

The room erupted. Stan went round the technicians, shaking hands, hugging and backslapping.

‘Well done everyone!’ he shouted above the noise. ‘Well done!’

Natasha paced Stan’s office. ‘You remember I told you earlier I thought the sub had downloaded a virus?’

Stan nodded. How could he forget?

‘You know the main aim of all viruses?’

‘Replication’ said Stan without hesitation. They need to find another host, otherwise they die.’

‘Right Stan. Nearly 90 % of all code in a virus is written so that the virus can be sent to another computer and from there to another and another. That’s how millions of computers have become infected in the past.’

‘OK, we agree — but so what?’

‘Apart from that, what else do they do?’ asked Natasha.

‘Well, most also carry a payload. Usually a set of instructions that cause some problems for the computer that is playing host. Files could be deleted or renamed, or the registry is hacked — there are lots of nasty things a virus could do.’

‘Right again’, replied Natasha. ‘I think this virus carried a particular payload.’

‘Well, if it did, the sub is surely on the bottom’ replied Stan. ‘If it interfered with any of the on-board computers, the sub couldn’t last long. The operating systems would freeze up and with no control there would be no power and no navigation. The sub would sink.’

‘I don’t think this virus was like that. I think that the virus wasn’t meant to disable the sub, but to activate its weapons system.’

Stan thought for a minute. ‘Supposing that’s true, how did the virus come to be there in the first place?’

‘I think it was embedded in the Itinerary pack, but I don’t know how it got in there.’

‘One thing is for sure. Our systems are so highly customised, no ordinary virus would be able to affect them.’

‘Yes’, mused Natasha. ‘That’s probably why none of our anti-virus programs picked it up. They only catch viruses that are already known to exist. Which means…?’

‘Which means’ continued Stan, ‘that the virus was never released anywhere else. It was designed specifically for the project, for this one time only, and for one purpose only.’

Natasha agreed. ‘It’s more devastating than I first imagined. I just hope I’m not right. I keep thinking there is something else I’m missing, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.’

‘You’d better try and get some sleep’ said Stan. ‘You’ll need all your strength for tomorrow. I’ll inform the DOD.’ Stan started back to his office.

‘Oh Stan’, Natasha got up. ‘I’ve remembered.’

Stan turned back.

‘You agreed that nearly 90 % of virus code is there just so a virus can move from one host to another.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘You agreed that this virus could have only been meant for the sub’s computers — just the computers on board.’

‘Natasha, I don’t see what you’re driving at?’

‘Well, this virus doesn’t need 90 % of its code to infect millions of computers — only the few that are on-board.’

‘OK, but I still don’t see your point.’

‘Stan, if 90 % of the code is not needed to infect other computers, what is it designed to do?’

Stan halted at the door, stunned as the thought sank home.

‘Jack Langham?’

In the background the wail of a burglar alarm could be heard.

‘Yes, who is this?’

‘Police Officer Daniel White from the Patrol Division. Are you the key holder to 1170 Edes Street?’

‘Yes — why, is there a problem officer?’

‘Not really a problem, no. We were alerted by a neighbour that your burglar alarm had gone off. We’re at the property now, but there’s no sign that anyone was trying to break in. We think it’s just a fault on your alarm, sir. Problem is, we can’t switch it off. Can you come to the property?’

‘We’ve only just left on vacation.’

‘Well, you’ll have to turn it off sir, it’s disturbing the neighbours. When can you get back?’

‘Look officer, could you do that? There is a spare key under the plant pot in the drive. I can give you the alarm code.’

‘Well, that would be very unusual.’

‘I would be really grateful if you could officer.’

‘Very well, let me have the code and I’ll make sure we include your house in our patrols for the next week or so.’

When Langham gave him the code, Sean thanked him and closed the call. He signalled for DD to turn off the fake alarm.

‘Not a bad American accent’ said DD.

Sean grinned. ‘Looks like we’re on.’ He drove around the area slowly, noting possible escape routes, then parked two streets away from the house. They both slipped on dark rubber gloves before getting out of the car.

The house showed no lights and they crunched over the gravel drive as quietly as they could. A plant pot stood by the door with a fine spray of pampas grass. Lifting it up Sean found the key. An external security light came on before he could get the key in the lock.

They entered quietly and DD headed straight for the burglar alarm in the hallway. It was ticking like a grandfather clock. When DD pressed in the code, the ticking stopped.

Sean looked around in the gloom. All the curtains were closed, but light trickled from the street via the front door transom. He turned on a flashlight and started a search, going quickly from room to room. The kitchen and living areas didn’t take long to check. Off the hallway he entered a large room which looked much more interesting. This was an office, holding a desk, filing cabinets and bookshelves. High up in a corner of the ceiling opposite the door a web cam overlooked the room. It was possible that Jack had wired this up separately to the security system and Sean pointed it out to DD.

Amongst the collection of papers and pens on the desk was a desktop PC. The screen was blank, but DD could tell the PC was switched on because of the green tell-tale lights on the front. DD nudged the mouse and the screen lit up. Jack had not bothered to password protect the PC when waking from sleep mode. DD shook his head, sat down in front of the computer and turned on the desk light. He began by opening a browser and typed in the address of an Internet site. Immediately the site responded with one line of text.

Current IP Address: 84.12.141.72

DD made a note of the number and then cleared the browser history so that the owner would not suspect someone had been using his computer. From his rucksack he produced a hard drive which he connected into the back of the desktop PC.