Dark Zone

20

Johnny Bib got up from his desk, took three steps to the side — precisely three — and placed his pencil into the sharpener. Working on a problem without a sharp pencil was a waste of time. He had seen this proven over and over. He had a theory that the type of pencil was also critical — but working out the various permutations would require considerable research, and he didn’t care to spend the energy. It seemed better to just muddle through with a variety of pencils, such as those he had collected in the cup at the front of his desk, marching on through time like the point on a Euclidian line.

The metaphor wasn’t exactly right, was it? Points did not march. Someone — a mathematician — might imaginatively trod over the points, but they wouldn’t get up and walk by themselves. Not in Euclidean space, at least.

Johnny considered this as he went back to his desk. The metaphor wasn’t right; the numbers weren’t right; the conclusions were nonexistent. Kensworth did not exist in the time and place called London, and this person named Vefoures was a French pensioner who also didn’t seem to exist, at least not lately.

Which told him something. But what?

Johnny Bib had been working on this question since nine or ten in the morning, and it was now past five in the evening. If there was an answer — and surely there must be an answer — he couldn’t see it.

Perhaps some music would help. Johnny Bib sprang from his chair as the thought occurred to him and went back over to the credenza — three steps — and turned on the stereo. He selected the Thelonious Monk disk and went back to his seat, hoping to be inspired.

Inspiration did not knock. William Rubens did.

“What do you have for me, Johnny?” asked the Desk Three director, leaning in the open doorway. “Anything?”

“Numbers,” said Johnny Bib. “Vefoures’ bank account. Very nice digits: five-four-five euros.”

“Only five hundred and forty-five euros?”

“Lives on a pension.”

Rubens went over to the table in front of Bib’s desk, where the data the rest of the team had been sorting through had been carefully assembled. Johnny had sent most of them home for a break; the relief team had taken a break for pizza and would be back in a half hour or so.

“Nothing at all?” said Rubens.

“Little,” said Johnny Bib.

“You’ve checked the servers on the Web sites?” Rubens asked. He was standing over the pile of information on the disk arrays in the servers, so obviously he knew the answer as well as Johnny. Johnny therefore declined to answer.

“The list we were given — did they check out?”

“There are only two computers. One was compromised by the French several months ago. The other is off-line and has been for the last day. Nothing of note.”

Rubens pulled over one of the two laptops on the table and tapped into the team’s dedicated computer. The NSA had used a special program to infiltrate computers used as servers in a network. The program could read what was stored on the disk arrays that fed into the computer and in fact could reveal just about everything on any drives accessible from the local network. The trick was to do it without being noticed, which at times could be complicated.

“The computer that’s off-line — where is it physically?” asked Rubens.

“We’re not sure,” said Johnny Bib. “Clearly, it’s part of another network.”

“And you can’t trace it?”

“We are working on it. It doesn’t appear to have been used in a while. We think they swapped computers every three to six months. It fits other patterns.”

“This model here. What does it do?”

“Predicts ocean wave patterns,” said Johnny Bib. “It had been erased. Most likely it was put there by a geology student. They say it relates to earthquakes and tsunamis. I doubt that was used.”

“But it’s in the area of the computer that was hidden from the local user.”

Johnny Bib looked at his boss. Rubens could be so linear at times. Just because the program was there now didn’t mean that it had been there when the terrorists or whoever had hijacked part of the computer started using it. It had clearly been erased, probably before the computer was taken over. It was difficult to tell without having the physical disk. And even then, it might not be knowable.

Of course it would. If you could come up with the right formula.

The drives had been accessed remotely and used for several purposes. One was to store programs and information that had mostly been erased and overwritten; the simulation was among the few things that remained more or less intact. There was a collection of photographs and a fractal generating engine that were probably both part of an encryption program. The computers had also been used to redirect requests on the Internet, making it difficult to trace where a particular query or e-mail, say, had come from.

Johnny Bib’s team had been able to recover a list of Web sites that the two computers were used to access, looking for similarities. Statistically, the most common hits were of a weather site. Though this was perhaps to be expected, the analysts had nonetheless checked the weather site carefully in case it was being used to pass messages. One of Johnny’s team members believed the forecasting systems might be a sophisticated means for encrypting data; so far, they hadn’t been able to come up with a plausible model on how this could be true.

“Why was the page with the Paris weather updated ninety-seven times on the seventh and the twelfth?” Rubens asked. “Every other day is ninety-six times.”

Johnny Bib looked up from his desk. “The actual site?”

“Yes, the site. Not the computer that accessed it. The actual Web site.”

How he had missed that? And with a prime number as a clue, no less.

He all but grabbed the file out of Rubens’ hands. “We’re trying to figure that out now,” he told his boss. “Right now.”

It was some measure of Rubens’ dread of the process that he showed up at the attorney’s office a full half hour before the appointed time. The lawyer, a specialist in elder care law, had been recommended by Rubens’ personal attorney, whose own expertise did not extend to that area. Used to law offices that were nothing short of palatial, Rubens had been shocked the first time he came here. Located in a two-story building that had only recently been converted from a house, the lawyer’s office consisted of two rooms. The waiting room featured an L-shaped couch covered in corduroy so worn that the couch’s support springs showed through. Across from it sat a desk that Rubens supposed a receptionist was meant to use, except that he had yet to see or speak to one.

The door between the reception area and the lawyer’s office was as thin as it was flimsy. Even if she’d had a quieter voice, it would have been impossible not to overhear her talking with the people inside — clearly a violation of lawyerly ethics as well as common sense, thought Rubens as he sat down.

And yet his personal attorney called Ellen McGovern one of the best elder law practitioners in the state.

McGovern certainly had a steady stream of clients. The couch sagged with three middle-aged women, each wide enough to fill a cushion by herself. A young man in his early twenties hovered by the door. Rubens folded his arms protectively and tried to smile as he declined an offer from one of the women to share her bit of the couch.

Rubens tried very hard not to overhear the story unfolding inside, but he would have had to stuff his ears with wax not to. A woman in her sixties had been granted custody — it sounded more as if she had been stuck with it — of her two grandchildren when they were two and three. She’d raised them for ten years, then had a stroke that left her paralyzed. Who should take care of them now? A foster family appointed by the court? A nephew and niece who had volunteered? The grandmother?

As dire as the circumstances seemed, Rubens realized they weren’t all that far from the tangled arrangements that had governed his own childhood — albeit with the great difference money might make. He pretended not to have heard anything as the people left. Everyone seemed to be engaged in a similar conspiracy, the women on the couch casting their eyes on the carpet as each one was called in and exited in her turn.

“So, Mr. Rubens, how are we this evening?” asked McGovern when it was finally his turn. He checked his watch as he sat; amazingly enough, it was only five minutes past the appointed time.

McGovern pushed a small box of cough drops toward him as she pulled out the file. “Want one?”

“No thank you.”

“Diet?”

“Hardly.”

McGovern laughed, then reached for the cough drops.

“How is the General?” she asked, turning to him.

“As poor as he’s been,” admitted Rubens.

McGovern nodded. She swung around in the chair, facing him. “Do you mind if I speak, well, still as a lawyer, but maybe one who’s taking a broad look at things?”

“Don’t you always?”

She smiled and reached to her head, poking a strand of her long hair back behind her ear. Rubens decided that she had been pretty in her youth. There were glimmers of it left in her forty-something-year-old face. But it had to poke through considerable fatigue. The brown knit sweater and gray pants she wore did little to define her body, and she gave no evidence that she cared to have it defined. Her desktop was covered with photos beneath a layer of glass; Rubens surmised that the children there were hers, though there were no photos of a husband and she did not wear a wedding ring.

“Alzheimer’s is a very difficult disease,” she told him. “It’s very hard for a patient’s family to deal with, extremely frustrating. People want to make their peace with someone and they’re prevented from doing so. That’s not easy to bear.”

“Rebecca had her chance a long time ago.”

“I meant you.”

“Me?”

“When someone we’re close to — someone we love and respect — is sick, our judgment clouds. This case, the whole procedure really, when it goes to court it’s going to seem very… antiseptic at best.”

“I realize that. I’m doing what I have to because the General asked me to. I’m doing what’s right.”

“If the court disagrees, can you deal with it emotionally?”

“I don’t know,” answered Rubens, surprised by the question and by his honesty. Not many people had ever bothered to inquire about his feelings.

“That’s an honest answer.” McGovern slid back in the chair. “What do you think Rebecca’s motives are?”

“Greed.”

“Not guilt?”

“Perhaps a little guilt at neglecting him. And causing him so much trouble when she was younger. Guilt, I suppose, yes. But mostly greed. She wants the cousin’s money. And may even think, despite the fact that I’ve given her copies of all his bank accounts, that he has more squirreled away.”

“Not love, though?”

“No.”

“You think she’s your enemy.” McGovem did not phrase it as a question. “Is there something I should know? No personal reason for a grudge?”

“Not in the least.” Rubens sensed that she didn’t believe him, but it was the truth; he had no grudge against Rebecca — except for the fact that she had broken her poor father’s heart.

That was personal, perhaps. But that wasn’t what the lawyer meant.

“OK,” said McGovern. “Fair enough. I just want to make sure we know precisely where we’re coming from.”

She dropped into her standard lawyer speech, telling him again that she was representing him, not the NSA and not the General. The court would have to appoint a lawyer to represent his interests. “It almost certainly will be one of three people,” added McGovern. “They’re all very good.”

“Yes. You said.”

McGovern picked up her box and fished out another cough drop. “Rebecca’s counsel has insinuated that they might ask for a jury. That’s very unusual, and I expect that it’s part of a plan to pressure you. Because your agency is against publicity, they think you’ll be pressured to stand back.”

“They think the agency is running the show,” said Rubens. “Are they going to tell the judge that?”

“Oh, they already have. Indirectly, maybe, but you don’t have to read too deeply to pick that up.”

“Will the judge believe them?”

“I don’t know. I suspect that may be one of the reasons he’s interested in meeting everyone tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” said Rubens. “Already? You said not until next week. Don’t they have to file their papers?”

“First of all, the papers have been filed. Second of all, this isn’t a hearing. It’s very informal. The judge is Jack Croner. Do you know him?”

Rubens shook his head.

“He’s good. You’ll like him. Very easygoing, very informal — a non-judge judge, if there is such a thing.”

“That’s good?”

“In this kind of case, a lot of times it is, yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I am telling you. His office called a little while ago. I would expect a hearing perhaps the next day, or the day after that. These proceedings move very rapidly, unless there’s a reason to slow things down.”

“And you said it was all right to meet tomorrow?”

“I said I would get back to him. But I am inclined to agree if it’s all right with you. You have to remember, Mr. Rubens, that the schedule is not going to be one hundred percent in our hands.”

Actually, it wasn’t in their hands at all.

“What’s going to happen?” Rubens asked.

“I suspect that the judge will subtly suggest that everyone ought to shake hands and come up with a good solution without starting a food fight,” said McGovern. “And then he’ll look around the room and go from there.”

“There won’t be an agreement. Then what happens?”

“He’ll appoint a lawyer and order an examination.”

“Quickly?”

“Probably. Croner likes to move ahead. He might even decide by the end of the week. Unless the General’s lawyer moves for a jury. That’s very unusual, and I doubt it would be done under these circumstances. But it’s not my call. Now, if the suit happens to be withdrawn or there seems to be a meeting of the minds—”

“That’s not going to happen.”

McGovern got up. “Remember, I represent you, not the General,” she said.

“He wanted me appointed guardian.”

“He specified custodian. We’re claiming that it’s reasonable to assume he would have extended the responsibilities. It’s possible the General’s attorney may not agree. And we know Rebecca already doesn’t. I have to get going, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, well, so do I. Thank you,” said Rubens. He waited while she pushed some files into a briefcase.

“Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease,” McGovern said as they walked to the door.

“Yes,” said Rubens. “But I’ve been speaking to the doctors. There’s a great deal of work being done. It’s always possible that there’ll be a cure.”

“Are you hoping for a cure?”

“Hoping? Yes.” He held the door open for her. “Do I expect one? No.”