"c301" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)
NOONTIDE NIGHT - Chapter 30.1
Chapter 30.1
3:27 P.M., Friday, March 3, 2000
Washington, D.C.
The gray rain fit Morgan's mood. Gray clouds, gray thoughts.
The drops spattered sadly off the HUMVEE the CyberCorps had
sent to pick Morgan up at Andrews Air Force Base. He gave
passing thought to how small a HUMVEE was in the front seat,
compared to its massive size. More cramped even than the
transport plane. He'd sagged against the door, pretending to
sleep, his thoughts turned inward again. As they'd driven up the
beltway and I-295 toward Fort Meade he'd peeked a couple times
to see the capitol, where the army held it secure like some foreign
dictator's palace. In theory the public were still allowed in on
tours, but since the Januaading. "It's from the
landlord..."
vastly tighter restrictions than before. With the power and
sanitation systems still not functioning in most of the city, and the
police constantly quelling riots in some quarter or other, there
weren't that many tourists. Nonetheless he looked, but all he
could see from the wet-blackened highway were trees, trees, and
more trees. They squeezed the highway like pressed hands.
His mind kept spinning back to his deal with the universe: By
uncovering Iraq's electronic aggression, fate would, so went the
deal, spare his son from Morgan's stupidity in programming. He
focused on how he'd present his material to the CyberCorps
bigwigs Sam had sent him to brief. He couldn't help feeling proud
that he'd found something so important. Within hours after
reporting it to his commanding officer, Sam checking in with his
own CO's, Sam had sent him to D.C. on the next available flight.
But pride didn't fit in with his deal. Sure, he'd personally
found proof that Saddam Hussein's minions were taking
advantage of the U.S., and presumably world, situation, and trying
to keep the West from standing up. Saddam had tried something
similar during the Leonid meteor shower in 1998, hoping the
shower would cripple the world's command-and-control satellites.
It hadn't, but it all made sense.
Yet the discovery itself meant nothing in the grand scheme of
Morgan's world. He'd made the deal. Stay humble. Help the
world. And Jeremy would be okay. It didn't matter that whatever
horrible consequences his program would cause would have
happened already. It was like the infamous quantum mechanical
experiment with Schrödinger's cat: Jeremy's fate wasn't decided
until Morgan knew about it.
He'd be crushed—Desiree would be crushed—if he didn't
uphold his end of the bargain.
He should have gone Mitnick, snuck off-base in Halifax, and
found someone with a ham radio to warn Desiree about the leap
year bug in his program keeping the hospital generator running.
No, bad thought. He had a deal. Jeremy was fine. He was
probably off the ventilator by now anyway.
If he'd killed Jeremy—no, wrong thought. No bad thoughts.
He looked out the rain-bleared window at the trees; always the
trees. He wanted something else to look at besides a few lonely
cars and trees. But it distracted his thoughts for a few seconds.
Jeremy was fine. Still, he'd have to make it up to Desiree for
having screwed up the program. That wasn't forgivable.
Look at the trees, Morgan. They were probably well north of
D.C. by now. Definitely not going to see the capitol from here.
"Hey," the driver said as Morgan sat up and pretended to have
just awakened, "you're one of them super-hacker fellas, huh?" The
driver was a compact, dark, Italian-looking fellow, with his shirt
sleeves rolled up to reveal a nasty scar on one of his hairy arms.
He gave the impression he'd worn his sergeant's stripes forever.
Morgan looked at the CyberCorps unit patch on his fatigues
self-consciously. "Yeah. Gonna save the world."
"Hey, that's great. World needs savin'." He licked his lips.
"But sometimes a guy needs a little something extra. Know what
I mean?" He winked. "So if you was to find yourself in the
officer's mess, and a little extra something were to leave with
you—could be anything; baked potato, slice of black forest torte,
peppermint candies—you never know what your friend in the
motor pool could do for you." He stuck his right hand out,
awkwardly bending his arm to reach sideways. His left arm
remained where it was, idling on the window frame; which was to
say, not on the wheel. "Name's Rizzuto. Your friend in the motor
pool."
Morgan shook his hand quickly, mostly hoping he'd get it back
on the wheel sooner that way. "Fine, sure thing, Rizzuto." He
didn't add that the chances of him getting into the officer's mess as
a measly two-striped corporal were pretty minuscule. But it
wasn't wise to argue with a crazy man.
Rizzuto kept up a running monologue the rest of the way,
detailing from his privileged view in the motor pool the inner
workings of Fort Meade, the top-top-secret National Security
Agency, and the other lesser known agencies and military units
stationed there. Morgan wished he had the nerve to fake falling
back asleep.
"Got the best spooks here, you know? Best of the best. Thing
is, they don't even know we got this racket going, see? Some
super-spies, huh? Can't even see under their nose hairs. Thirty-five thousand of 'em! People on base, that is, not nose hairs.
'Course you squeal, I'll just deny it. Ain't nothing they got on
Rizzuto. But just to show you what kinda guy Rizzuto is, so you
know he's your friend, I can offer you a special deal. You're
probably too late to get tickets to Bob Hope tonight, right? They
don't think nothing's too good for you cyber guys." He studied
Morgan for an instant. "You didn't know Bob Hope was doing a
USO show tonight. Am I right? See? Rizzuto's a regular tree of
knowledge. But Rizzuto can go one better." He wagged a finger.
He waved his hand and suddenly a ticket was in it. "Fifty bucks
gets you in. That's half the going rate on the secondary market."
Morgan rubbed his eyes. He should have kept up the sleep
act. "Thanks, Rizzuto, but I think I'll pass. Pretty tired."
"Bob Hope, did you not hear me? Bob Hope! USO! Show
girls!" He sniffed the ticket like it was a glass of fine wine.
Morgan let him drone on. Fort Meade was built for the first
world war... The NSA was established in 1952...
They turned off I-295 onto a smaller highway through an
doorway of ancient trees, armored cars, and a huge green highway
sign advertising "National Security Agency." It seemed odd to
shout out where the spies lived.
Fort Meade was like a city unto itself. Rizzuto gave him a
quick tour. Residential streets, shopping, industrial buildings, golf
course, high school, elementary schools. Elementary schools
plural! Many of the buildings looked new; '80s-style houses, '90s
red brick federal style stores. He'd somehow expected crumbling
colonial era buildings. It looked so Suburban USA. Even some
streetlights wastefully shone in the rainy gloom, just like last year
when everyone had power to spare. Rizzuto pulled up and let
Morgan off at a red brick building with the by now familiar white-columned, triangular portico. "I'll take your bags to Abrams Hall,
get you set up with a room. A nice one." Rizzuto winked. "You
change your mind about the ticket for tonight? No? You do, you
gimme a call." He handed Morgan a card with his number.
He reported in at a counter. The clerk first said, "Have a seat,"
and Morgan began to head for one of the hardbacked stacking
chairs, when the clerk looked up in a doubletake, and said, "No,
wait, sir, let me escort you to the CyberCorps lounge." He opened
his mouth to remind the clerk that he wasn't an officer, just a
private; or as everyone but Littlefield put it back in Halifax, "I
work for a living." But he took too long framing the thought, and
was then awed into silence by the lounge. Hidden behind a card-swipe security door and currently empty, the lounge boasted half
a dozen crinkly deep leather seats and couches. Fresh coffee
steamed on an antique sideboard, chocolate-chip, peanut butter,
and sugar cookies neatly arranged on a platter. A newspaper rack,
though skimpily outfitted, had the latest newspapers published.
Why had they gone out of their way to have him wait here?
Three TVs displayed assorted news channels. "Here's the
remote, sir, and there's a channel list on the coffee table. I'll
process you in and be right back with you."
He flipped channels, many static-filled, ultimately settling on
channel 141, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's satellite
broadcast. Other than news seeming to take a few days to filter out
to the public, rather than the instant on-the-spot camera work he
was used to, Australia seemed to be recovering gracefully. They'd
had power for weeks now, he learned.
Then lightning struck.
"When the juice ran out, the robots moved in," blared the
sensationalist reporter's headline. "This is Aaron Kent reporting
near Auckland. Just when you thought it wasn't safe to trust
computers, robots based on Mars mission technology rescued
hostages here at Middlemore Hospital in a daring pre-dawn raid."
The scenes cut to show squat robotic vehicles prowling the halls of
a hospital Morgan knew so well. "The Nation of the Strong
terrorist group, weakened from an as yet unidentified epidemic,
were taken by surprise when their generator cut out early
Wednesday morning. Police had been preparing for the assault for
days, and took advantage of the fortuitous event. These little
robots were outfitted with tear gas, tranquilizer guns, metal
detectors, and night vision gear. Controlled remotely from the
safety of a van outside, these little buggers stalked the halls looking
for human heat signatures carrying metallic objects—guns—and
put them to sleep on the spot. Casualties—"
"Sir, the Colonel's ready for you, if you'll follow me," the clerk
interrupted from the door.
What had they said about casualties? Morgan missed it.
Jeremy! What had happened? His generator fix had clearly failed.
That it had proven the impetus to resolve the hostage situation was
good, but what about Jeremy? He paused to hear more, but they'd
move on to another story. Maybe somebody taped these things.
This was spook central; surely someone did. Rizzuto would know.
The clerk led him down a corridor to a well-appointed office
where a Colonel and two Majors sat. Morgan nearly dropped his
printouts, and his prepared presentation on Iraq's hacking was all
a jumble now in his brain. One of the Majors provided the
introductions. Morgan fumbled his handshakes, trying to hide his
trembling hand. He had to know about Jeremy.
The Colonel sat back down as Morgan took an offered chair.
"Welcome," the Colonel said. "Welcome to the CyberCorps Elite,
Lieutenant Hyland."
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