State of War

11

Perched in a large old oak tree, Jay Gridley studied the castle in front of him. It had all the usual features: a wide moat, a high stone wall, an iron portcullis raised just beyond the drawbridge. He could see large iron pots between the crenellations at the top of the walls, pots that he knew could be filled with boiling oil. There were also dozens of firing slits in the thick walls. Those narrow, protected openings would allow long- and crossbow men to loose a rain of shafts and bolts on any who attempted to storm the castle.

But Jay had no plans to storm the castle. He had something far different in mind.

He smiled. What was it that Saji had said about not being able to see the forest for the trees? And here he was, looking from a tree in the forest.

He sobered, then, thinking about Saji, and how much he appreciated her help. It had taken her comment to get him thinking. She had been right, too. He hadn’t been looking at the entire bank when he’d tried to follow the money here. He had been focusing on the area where wire transfers were sent, and that was a mistake.

The vault was, of course, heavily armored. Banks protected their customers’ money, after all. If they lost it, they would be out of business. Which meant that trying to get to where the money was would be practically impossible, even for him.

He smiled again at the thought. He knew himself well enough to realize that the phrase “practically impossible” was like a challenge to him. There was a part of him that was still tempted to go that route, just to prove that he could.

He shook his head, laughing at himself. No, he needed the information, and he needed it fast. He needed to do this the easy way.

Besides, he could always come back later and crack the vault.

He climbed down from the tree and went over to a leather-covered chest near the base of the old oak. Opening the chest, he took out a brown robe. His forest green doublet, which worked well to hide him in the trees, wouldn’t be suitable for what he was about to attempt.

Before changing, he unstrung the longbow he carried and laid it on an oiled skin. A pity he couldn’t bring it with him, but it just wouldn’t fit with his disguise. He admired the carefully worked and sanded wood before wrapping the oilskin around it.

Amazing things, longbows. With their superior range and penetrating power, they’d given the English the Battle of Hastings, which had pretty much kept the entire nation from having thereafter to speak French.

He pulled on the brown robe, picked up a heavy wooden quarterstaff that leaned against the oak, and moved toward the small settlement outside the castle.

As he neared the village he smiled and nodded at people who nodded back.

Just another friendly friar going to pay respects, that’s me.

As Saji had said, once he revised his view to look at the entire aspect of the problem, he’d seen openings. Once he’d spun this VR scenario with the bank as a castle, he had noticed something interesting. Toward the back, and outside of the main fortified walls, was a smaller building, a humble village chapel. Many people came here, including townspeople, clergy, knights, and merchants. Which meant Jay could get in there, too.

It hadn’t taken him long to identify the real-world equivalent of the building, and he realized that it was indeed a part of the computer he was trying to penetrate.

Banks strived very hard to provide convenience to their customers. These days, convenience meant access. They couldn’t make the access to the money itself too easy or the money wouldn’t be safe. That was the very problem that Jay had been fighting. They could, however, make it easy for customers to access things like bank balances and account histories.

This chapel housed that information, behind a much less daunting firewall.

If he was right, this chapel would give him access to the information he was after. It wouldn’t be in the same form, necessarily, and it wouldn’t have as much information as he would have liked, but it should have enough for his purposes.

He hoped.

Jay walked toward the small gate in the side of the castle wall. A pair of monks sat at a table outside, welcoming people. As he neared the table, he heard people giving their passwords to the friars. The silver-haired one on the left would nod if the password was right, and the person would be allowed to go inside the chapel to pray — although in the real world they were accessing their banking records. Not withdrawing their money, just checking on its status.

This whole process of finding the security hole had been a perfect example of why VR worked better than just peering through a flatscreen or at a holoproj. His instincts, his eyes and ears, all worked better in an environment like this than in one of pure text.

He stepped up to the table.

The older monk spoke. “And your account number, my son?”

Jay gave him the number of the account he was tracking.

“Your password?”

Jay spoke the Sanskrit word “om,” drawing it out as Saji had taught him. She had told him once that some Zen masters believed that the word contained all the sounds in the universe happening at once.

In the real world, tens of thousands of passwords slammed into the on-line banking program simultaneously.

In the VR world, time stopped. The monks froze, and everyone in the village stood motionless. A woodcutter near the smithy paused in mid-stroke, splinters of firewood to the left and right of his axe, hanging in the air. The flames in the blacksmith’s forge stood out as sharply as a three-dimensional marble statue.

Only Jay could look around. Only Jay was free to move.

And then time clicked back in, reality’s hiccup over.

The silver-haired monk nodded, as though nothing had happened.

“You may pass, my son. God be with you.”

Jay bowed his head, a smile on his face. “And with you as well, brother.” He entered the small gate to the chapel within the castle.

He made his way to a vast array of pigeonholes alongside one wall of the chapel. Huge Roman numerals marked the account numbers of each of the bank’s members.

Way to go, Jay, he thought. Outsmarted yourself again, didn’t you? You know you hate Roman numerals.

He paused the scenario for a second and made an adjustment.

There, he thought. That’s better.

The account numbers were now in Arabic numerals. Much easier to follow. He located the pigeonhole with his account number. Within lay a single sheet of parchment that contained a summary of all the account activity for the last few months.

He picked it up and scanned it. There was the name of the account holder: Otis E. Levator.

He smiled at the name and turned his attention back to the details. It sure looked like Mr. Levator had been getting some serious cash from CyberNation over the last few months.

Jay grabbed the parchment and headed for the exit of the chapel. Time to change scenarios and track down old Otis. He left and headed out beyond the castle wall. Once he was back in the forest, he modified the virtual world around him.

One of the joys of being a net demigod was the ability to wave one’s hand and change reality. Too bad it only worked in VR.

This new environment was also a forest, but one far different from the majestic old oaks of Sherwood. Jay had also traded in his Robin Hood outfit for a frayed flannel shirt, a pair of raggedy denim overalls, and worn combat boots. A pack of six bloodhounds bayed beside him, straining at the leashes he held in his hand.

Jay took a handkerchief from his pocket. It looked a lot like the parchment from the previous scenario. He waved it under the dogs’ noses, giving them the scent.

The hounds sniffed the handkerchief, whuffled, and got more excited.

“Let’s git ’im, dawgs,” Jay hollered, and set them free of their leashes.

The pack took off, following the scent, with Jay chasing after the baying hounds.

This scenario was an old favorite of his, running through the Alabama backwoods like some old moonshiner chasing white lightning thieves from his still. He smiled at the image.

After a few minutes, the dogs’ barking changed in pitch.

He moved faster, pushing through saw-grass plants and low bushes. Ahead he could see the dogs surrounding a small shack.

He called up the ID program for the shack and frowned. Someone had been clever. This little shack wasn’t Otis E. Levator’s home after all. It was a mail delivery box at a Postal Plus — one of the tiny commercial post offices at mini-malls everywhere. They were all sterile, with a built-in irradiator that was guaranteed to keep your letters germ-free.

Another cutout.

“Thanks a lot, Otis.” To the bloodhounds, he said, “Okay, pups, you can shut up now.”

The dogs obeyed.

So what he had was some clown’s idea of a clever pseudonym. Elevator. Probably something to do with moving up in the world. But that was all that he had.

Now what?

Jay left the dogs behind and went into the shack. He did a VR shift—

Jay didn’t bother loading one of his custom scenarios. Not much point in it. He was pretty sure there was nothing to be found here. Instead, he just ran a standard VR website visual of the place, and tapped into the security on the shipping store’s computer.

The address left by the mysterious Elevator was also a post office box, only this one was U.S. Mail.

Well, that was just great. All that work seeing the forest for the trees, all that time hacking a bank to get this—

He looked up and noticed something. Hello?

A security cam hung down from the ceiling. The operator of the mail place must have had some problems with people vandalizing mailboxes late at night. That was pretty typical of a place like this. Whatever the reason, he had installed a video surveillance device.

Jay recognized it as a pretty standard device. The cam took a mid-ranged resolution video of the lobby, capturing images of everyone who came in. Usually the files were stored for a week or so before being either destroyed or archived.

Now if only the data was kept on this hard drive…

Jay went past the boxes and into the shop proper. The clerk was busy with some customers. Jay saw the door behind the vidcam and eased over toward it. When the man behind the counter went into the back with a package, Jay tried the door’s handle. It opened, and he quickly slipped into the little room where the monitor and hard drive for the cam were. He closed the door behind him and crossed over to the computer.

It only took a couple of commands to start the playback. In the background of the video Jay could see a few parking spaces to the right of the wall of boxes. He narrowed the picture and located the box he wanted. There it was. He then sped through the data, hoping the owner of box 1147 had been in sometime within the past week.

Movement caught his eye and he slowed the recording.

A tall, dark-haired young man in a very nice business suit — Armani, it looked like — opened the mailbox, pulled out a parcel, and left.

Jay widened the frame. The man headed to a vintage Porsche Boxter parked just in front of the place.

Jay froze the image, narrowed the focus again, and got the license plate of the vehicle. He could just barely make it out: LAWMAN9.

Jay frowned. A cop? That didn’t make sense.

He made a quick copy of the video, sent it to his own e-mail address, and then bailed from the scenario—

In his home office, Jay checked the time. Almost midnight. Saji would be asleep; she was an early riser.

He did a quick check with the DMV databank and found a name for the owner of LAWMAN9: Theodore A. Clements.

Gotcha!

Jay pulled down a few more files, a basic search, and scanned them quickly.

Not a cop. A lawyer. Clements worked for the Supreme Court. He was a clerk.

Well, well, well. Why would CyberNation be sending money to a Supreme Court justice’s clerk? Not for anything legal, he’d bet.

Just wait till Alex heard about this one.

Commander Alex Michaels was not happy. It wasn’t even eight in the morning yet, and he needed another cup of coffee. Instead, he was due at a briefing session for a congressional committee.

The worst part was that there was nothing he could tell the Subcommittee on Internet Security that they couldn’t have gotten from a com or e-mail, nothing that an assistant couldn’t have delivered just as well. But of course, that wasn’t how things worked in this town. When a committee chairman wanted to be briefed, he didn’t want to hear it from some flunky, and he certainly didn’t want to actually sit down and read something. No, he wanted it from the lips of the man in charge.

It was just another part of the political gamesmanship that went on every day of life here. Who had to go where, and say what, was part of how clout was defined in the corridors of power. Alex knew all this. He also knew that the head of a small agency like Net Force couldn’t say no to six congressmen, no matter how stupid those congressmen were being.

He was supposed to meet Tommy Bender here first. Nobody from Net Force, or even the mainline FBI, went before committees without a lawyer at his elbow.

He checked his watch and looked around again before finally spotting Tommy. The lawyer was talking to a tall blonde in a gray power suit, low heels, and red silk scarf. The skirt was cut just above her knees. She was gorgeous, no question about it, and Michaels thought she looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place her.

Tommy caught his eye and motioned Alex to join him. “Hey, Commander,” he said when Alex came over.

“Counselor.” Alex nodded.

“This is Corinna Skye. She’s a lobbyist. Cory, this is Alex Michaels, of—”

“Net Force,” the woman said. “Yes, I know. Commander, nice to meet you, though I think we’re on opposite sides of an issue right now.” She gave him a small smile.

He took her hand. She had a firm grip. He caught the scent of some subtle musklike perfume from her, just a hint. Very nice.

“What issue would that be, Ms. Skye?” he said, releasing her hand.

“One of my clients is CyberNation. I hope you won’t hold that against me?”

Alex didn’t reply.

Tommy glanced at his watch. “Sorry, Cory, we have to run. We’re in front of Malloy’s committee in five. I’ll catch you later.”

She smiled again. “Go. The congressman hates it when you’re late. Nice to have met you, Commander. Maybe we might get together later this week? I would like to try to correct some misconceptions about my client, if you wouldn’t mind?”

What misconceptions? Alex thought. That they are evil scum who happily use terrorism to further their ends? That they are suing me and my department for a couple hundred million bucks?

But he didn’t say any of that. He only smiled in return and said, “Sure. Give my office a call.”

As they walked toward the committee meeting room, he asked Tommy, “What do you think that was all about? And why were you talking with a lobbyist for CyberNation, anyway?”

Tommy shrugged. “Hell, Commander, I’ll talk to anyone, even the enemy — no, make that especially the enemy. I’m not going to pass up any chance to gather some information.”

Alex frowned. “Don’t you worry that they might pick up some information from you?”

Tommy laughed. “About what? Our strategy is no secret. The guys on that boat were criminals. They fired first, your guys reacted in self-defense. We don’t have any secrets to give away.”

“So you think I should meet with her if she calls?”

“Oh, she’ll call, Commander. And, yes, I think you should meet with her. A word of warning, though: Corinna Skye has a reputation for doing anything to get what she wants. And I do mean anything. So be on your toes.”

Michaels just shook his head. He had the feeling it was going to be a long day…

His virgil beeped. Great. Now what?

“Excuse me a second, Tommy.” He stepped to one side and glanced at the ID. “Jay?”

“Hey, Boss. I have something real interesting here.”

“Can it wait? I’m sitting in front of a committee in two minutes.”

“I guess it can. The quick version is, I traced a nice chunk of change from CyberNation to a clerk for a Supreme Court justice.”

“What? That’s incredible!” Michaels said.

“Yeah, I thought you’d think that. I’ll fill you in when you get back to HQ. Have fun at your committee thing. Discom.”

Michaels thumbed the virgil off. CyberNation was sending money to a Supreme Court clerk? If Net Force could prove it and backtrack the money, it would be a huge victory for them. Assuming, of course, the money was for something illegal, but it just about had to be. Jay had been working this one. If the money was legit, Jay would not have had so much trouble tracking it.

“Alex? We’ve got thirty seconds.”

Michaels nodded. “We can make it. The door is right there.”

They hurried to do just that.