Sea of Fire

Chapter Forty-Four

Matt Stoll was the only other person in the operations level when Paul Hood arrived. That was not unusual. It was a Saturday morning.

Hood came in on Saturday mornings now because he had nowhere else to go. He would get an update from Herbert or Coffey wherever he was. One thing on his to-do list was to call Daphne Connors and see if she was free that night. If he did not push himself, no one else would.

Stoll usually came in on weekends to write or try out software he did not get to use during the week. Unless there was a technology convention in town, the computer genius did not have an active social life. He had no interest in socializing with women who did not speak his language.

"She doesn't have to know gate propagation in high-res temporal resolution, though that would be heaven," he once said. "But she should know how many megabytes there are in her PC and what that means. If I have to explain it, then the sex is never very good."

Hood was not clear on who the sex was not good for or why. He was glad he was not on the need-to-know list.

As it turned out, the cherubic-looking Stoll was not here to tinker with a new program. He said he had gotten a call from Bob Herbert. The intelligence chief told him he needed something very specific.

"Bob wants me to rig him a Hoover," Stoll said in his joyless monotone. Excitement, whenever Stoll showed it, was in the speed his fingers moved on a keyboard. Right now he was typing very rapidly.

"Which is what?" Hood asked. He suddenly felt very sorry for any woman Stoll had ever met.

"A Hoover is a data vacuum," Stoll replied. "Bob wants to use his wheelchair computer as a drop zone for an external source."

"You mean we plug into Bob, and Bob plugs into something else," Hood said. "He serves as a conduit that allows us to read the 'something else.' "

"I couldn't have said it better," Stoll said.

"What is Bob planning to plug into?" Hood asked.

"Well, he called right before his chair was loaded into a helicopter, so he didn't go into a whole lot of detail," Stoll said. "Apparently, Bob's going to try to get into Jervis Darling's estate. He wants to jack into his phone system."

"Why? I thought we already hacked the Darling phone records."

"We did," Stoll said. "If he's using his own uplink for secure calls, they wouldn't show up on his public records. But if Bob plugs in directly, he's accessing the origin point of the calls. That will give him access to all the numbers in the telephone's memory."

"What if those numbers aren't programmed in?" Hood asked.

"Most phones retain the information somewhere," Stoll assured him. "The redial function usually stores ten to twenty numbers. It costs less to build a chip that eliminates numbers by attrition. They get scrolled from the system rather than erased. Most people don't know that."

"What about incoming calls?" Hood asked. "We need to ID them."

"If Darling's phone has caller ID or whatever the Australian equivalent is, those numbers will also be stored," Stoll said. "If he doesn't, we'll have to settle for the outgoing calls."

"Did Bob say how he intended to get access to Darling's private line?" Hood asked.

"For the record, it's not the line he needs to get access to," Stoll said. "It's the phone itself. Bob can't just splice into the fiber optics. That would put him outside the scrambler. Any data he got would be useless."

"I see. Okay. How does Bob plan to jack into the phone?"

"He didn't say," Stoll replied. "I'm sure Darling has an office phone with multiple lines. That would mean there's a data port. All Bob has to do is plug his computer into that. That will give us access."

"That's all Bob has to do," Hood said. "I'll give him a call."

"He said he was turning his phone off," Stoll told him. "He doesn't want it beeping while he's in with Darling. If it helps, Lowell told him the only legal risk would be invasion of privacy. Lowell is also pretty sure Darling would not press that issue. He said the reasons for the investigation would come out, and the publicity would be bad for Darling, even if he were innocent."

"The legal options are not what worries me," Hood said. "If Darling's into nuclear trafficking, he's probably also in bed with some ugly characters. They may not bother with lawyers."

"I don't blame them," Stoll said.

Hood scowled.

"I guess we could call Lowell to try to stop him," Stoll suggested.

"No," Hood said. "We need facts to support our theory, and this is probably the best way to get them. I take it Lowell is not going along."

"Right," Stoll said. "It was Bob, a fire warden, a lady officer from Singapore, and a koala."

"A koala? An animal?" Hood asked.

"Yeah. Search me what that's all about." Stoll smiled as he finished writing his program. "It's like the cast of the Wizard of Oz. And they're in Oz. Pretty ironic, don't you think?"

That it was. Right down to the big, blustering wizard spewing fire. Only this Oz was no dream.

Stoll activated the program. He ran a test on an Op-Center phone line just to make sure it was working. It functioned perfectly. They had all the numbers Lowell Coffey had phoned the day before he left. Hood looked away and ordered the list purged from Stoll's computer.

"I'll bet you didn't peek in the girls' locker room in high school, either," Stoll said.

"As a matter of fact, I didn't," Hood admitted. "I don't mind being a spy. I never liked being a voyeur."

"Interesting. We'll have to discuss the distinction," Stoll said.

"I can give it to you in two words," Hood said as he clapped a hand on Stoll's rounded shoulder. "National security."

"The voyeuristic instinct is a doorway to intelligence, and intelligence is the spy's basic unit of data," Stoll said. "Unless you look, how do you know Lowell's not working for the Chinese or some terrorist group?"

"He believes too strongly in the rule of law. Tell me, do you routinely check on all of us?" Hood asked.

"Nope. I'm not a voyeur. I was only asking you."

Hood felt like kicking himself. He should have known better than to take one of Matt Stoll's infamous buggy rides. They took you slowly around the park without getting you anywhere. Hood did not have the time or focus for this kind of discussion.

Stoll told Hood he would not know anything else until data started coming in. Hood asked his computer wizard to let him know the moment that happened, then left to go to his office. It was disconcerting to see the corridors so empty. It was like a manifestation of his own hollow life. Maybe that was something Bob Herbert had learned after losing his wife. You mourn, but you don't sit still. You fill that empty hall with anything you can. Even if it isn't necessarily good for you.

Of course, there's a difference between recreational and reckless, Hood thought. He was certain that Bob had considered the risks. He was also sure of something else. Herbert was probably enjoying the hell out of them. Hood only hoped that the intelligence chief was aware of the greatest danger.

Complacency.

A quiet, seaside estate was not war-ravaged Beirut or a skinhead stronghold in Germany. Those were the kinds of environments where Herbert was accustomed to waging war. They were unstable regions where instinct kept the mind and body on high alert.

Hood had to trust that his colleague knew what he was getting into. He also hoped that Herbert would come up with something else. Something that quickly sketched plans did not always allow.

An exit strategy.