Night School

Chapter 7

They took Lufthansa in the early evening, sitting together among mostly young people traveling mostly alone, some of them scruffy, some of them weird, some of them like a postgraduate field trip. The flight got them back to the States two hours after they left Germany, in the middle of the evening, eight hours in the air minus six time zones, and they collected the old Caprice from the short-term garage, and drove it through the dark to McLean, and parked it next to the newer Caprices, which looked like they hadn’t been moved. Next to them were two black vans. They went inside and found everyone including Ratcliffe and Sinclair crammed in the office. Waiting for them. But they hadn’t been waiting long. Rank had its advantages. Ratcliffe said, “You’re right on time. The FAA kept us informed about Lufthansa, and the police kept us informed about the traffic.”

Reacher said, “What have we missed?”

Ratcliffe said, “A piece of the puzzle. What do you know about computers?”

“I saw one once.”

“They all have a thing inside that sets the date and the time. A little circuit. Very basic, very cheap, and developed a very long time ago, back when punch cards were the gold standard and data had to be squeezed into eighty columns only. To save bits they wrote the year as two digits, not four. As in, 1960 was written as 60. 1961 was 61. And so on. They had to save space. All well and good. Except that was then and this is now, and before we know it 1999 is going to change to 2000, and no one knows if the two-digit systems will roll over properly. They might think it’s 1900 again. Or 19,100. Or zero. Or they might freeze solid. There could be catastrophic failures all around the world. We could lose utilities and infrastructure. Cities could go dark. Banks could crash. You could lose all your money in a puff of smoke. Not even smoke.”

Reacher said, “I don’t have any money.”

“But you get the point.”

“Who designed the circuit? What do they say?”

“They’re all either long retired or long dead. And they didn’t expect the programs to last more than a few years anyway. So there’s no documentation. It was just a bunch of geeks standing around a lab bench, trying to figure things out. No one remembers the exact details. No one is smart enough to work it out again backward. And there’s a feeling they might have misunderstood the Gregorian calendar. They might have forgotten 2000 is a leap year. Normally anything divisible by a hundred isn’t. But something divisible by four hundred is. So it’s a real mess.”

“How does this relate?”

“The world is increasingly dependent on computers. The internet could be a big thing by the year 2000. Which would multiply the problem, because everything would be connected to everything else. So the stakes are getting higher. People are starting to worry. They’re waking up to the dangers. In response smart entrepreneurs are trying to write software patches.”

“Which are what?”

“Like magic bullets. You install their new code and you fix your problem. There’s a lot of money to be made. The market is huge. Millions of people all around the world need to get this done ahead of time. It’s urgent. So urgent we anticipate people will install first and think second. Which leaves them vulnerable.”

“To what?”

“Another fragment of conversation. We picked up a whisper there’s a finished patch for sale. Supposedly it looks good, but it isn’t. It’s a Trojan Horse. Like a virus or a worm, but not exactly. It’s a four-digit calendar, but it can be paused remotely, on command. Through the internet. Which gets bigger every day. Computers all over the world will crash. Government, utilities, corporations and individuals. Think of the power that gives a person. Think of the chaos. Think of the blackmail potential. Someone would pay a hundred million for that kind of capability.”

“That’s a stretch,” Reacher said. “Isn’t it? People would pay a hundred million for a lot of things. Why assume this thing in particular?”

Better to hear the pitch all the way through.

Ratcliffe said, “It takes a certain type of talent to write a thing like that. A certain type of mind, too. A kind of outlaw sensibility. Not that they see it that way, of course. It’s more of a hipster thing with them. Not an uncommon type, they tell me, among software programmers. And about four hundred of them just got together at an overseas trade convention. Four hundred of the hippest geeks in the world. About half of them were Americans.”

“Where?”

“The convention was in Hamburg, Germany. They were there while you were there. The convention broke up this morning. They all left town today.”

Reacher nodded. “I think we saw some of them on the plane. Young and scruffy.”

“But the convention was still in full swing on the day of the messenger’s rendezvous. There were two hundred American programmers right there in town. Maybe one of them slipped away for an hour.”

Reacher said nothing.

Ratcliffe said, “Our people tell me such conventions in Western Europe have a different flavor. They tend to attract the oddballs and the radicals.”

–

Ratcliffe left after that, with his bodyguards, in his black van. Sinclair continued the briefing. She said the focus would switch to computer programmers. She said the FBI had a new unit dedicated to such matters. Waterman would liaise with it, but only through her or Ratcliffe or the president, or with anyone else who might be useful, but again, not directly. White would identify all two hundred Americans, and start background checks. Reacher would have no immediate role, but should remain on the premises. Just in case. The Department of Defense had computers, and programmers, and in fact the first real concerns about the date issue had come from there. Maybe the bad guy had been drumming up demand ahead of arranging supply.

Waterman and White went to work, but Reacher stayed in the office. Him and Sinclair, all alone. She looked at him, top to bottom, and said, “Is there a question you would like to ask me?”

He thought: Did you eat dinner yet? She was in another black dress, knee length, shaped to fit pretty tight, with more dark nylons and more good shoes. And the face and the hair, the unaffected style, combed with her fingers. And no wedding band.

But he said, “You really think this is something that guys who climb ropes in Yemen would like to buy?”

“We don’t see why not. They’re not unsophisticated. In a way the price tag proves it. That’s either a rogue corporation’s support, or a rogue government’s backing, or access to a very rich family’s capital. Any of which would suggest familiarity with modernity, certainly including computer systems.”

“That’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. You’re talking yourself into it.”

“What’s your point?”

“Improvisation is a good thing. But panic is a bad thing. You’re clutching at straws. You might be wrong. What happened to leave no stone unturned?”

“Do you have another viable line of inquiry?”

“Not as yet.”

Sinclair asked, “What happened in Hamburg?”

“Not much,” Reacher said. “We saw the apartment. How’s the Iranian?”

“He’s fine. He checked in this morning. Nothing doing. Some local excitement four streets away. A prostitute was murdered.”

“We saw it,” Reacher said. “We saw a lot of things. Including way too many destinations. We can’t start at the far end. We’re going to have to follow the messenger from the apartment to the meeting.”

“Too risky.”

“No other way.”

“You could find the American before the meeting even rolls around. That would be another way. And probably a better way for all concerned.”

“You’re getting pressure from above.”

“The administration would be very pleased to wrap it up soon, yes.”

“Hence it feels good to narrow it down. It feels like progress. Two hundred feels better than two hundred thousand. I understand that. But what feels good isn’t always the smart play.”

Sinclair was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “OK, when the others don’t need you, you’re free to work on your own.”

–

Which was a restriction of a different sort. The gravity squeezed out the freedom. It felt like one strike and you’re out. One attempt at a theory.

Neagley said, “Every avenue comes back to the exact same question. What is the guy selling?”

Reacher said, “I agree.”

“So what is it?”

“You wrote the list.”

“I didn’t. The list is blank. What kind of intelligence would they want from us? What’s worth a hundred million dollars to them? They already know what they need to know. They can read it in the newspaper. Our army is bigger than their army. End of story. If it comes to it, we’ll kick their ass. Why would they spend a hundred million dollars to find out precisely how and how bad? What good would that do them?”

“Hardware, then.”

“But what? Things are either too cheap and plentiful or else they need a whole regiment of engineers to make them work. There’s no middle ground. A hundred million is a weird price point.”

Reacher nodded. “I said the same thing to White. He thought tanks and planes.”

“What hardware would they want from us? Give me one good example. Something designed for use in the field, obviously, in the heat of battle, by an average infantry soldier. Because that’s the standard they must be aiming for. Something simple, rugged, and reliable. Something with a big red switch. And a big yellow arrow pointing forward. Because they don’t have specialist training or a regiment of engineers.”

“There are lots of things.”

“I agree. Man-portable shoulder-launch ground-to-air missiles would be useful. They could bring down civilian airliners. Over cities. Except they already have thousands. We gave thousands to the rebels and the Soviets left thousands behind. And now the new Russia is busy selling the thousands they brought back. And if that’s not enough they can get cheap knock-offs from China. Or North Korea. It would be physically impossible to spend a hundred million dollars on shoulder-launch missiles. They’re too common. Too cheap. It’s Economics 101. It would be like spending a hundred million dollars on dirt.”

“What, then?”

“There’s nothing. We have no theory.”

Ten o’clock in the evening, in McLean, Virginia.

–

Which was half past seven the next morning in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The messenger was once again waiting in the antechamber. Early sun was coming in a high window, catching motes of dust, and stirring newborn flies. Tea was brewing in the kitchen.

Eventually the messenger was led to the same small hot room. It too had a high window, with a shaft of morning sun, and dancing dust, and waking flies. The same two men sat below the sunbeam, on the same two pillows. Both bearded, one short and fat, one tall and lean, both in the same plain white robes and the same plain white turbans.

The tall man said, “You are to leave today with our answer.”

The messenger inclined his head, respectfully.

The tall man said, “The way of the world is to bargain. But we’re not buying camels. So our answer is simple.”

The messenger inclined his head again, and turned it a little, as if presenting his ear.

The tall man said, “Tell the American we will pay his price.”