The Fool's Run

CHAPTER 10

Monday night, while and LuEllen went to play in the District, I broke down the disks we'd taken from Ebberly and Durenbarger. The Whitemark code system was simple. When the central computer was called from the outside, it asked for a name and account number. After receiving those, it sent a code word back, directly to the home computer, and asked for a matching word from the code disk. The home computer scanned the list of words on the disk, found the match, and returned it. If the code was correct, you were in.

When I understood the code operation, I reviewed Dace's outline of Samantha Ebberly's sessions on the Whitemark computer. She had gone directly to a number of administrative files, and also called up a letter form. The format was standard. When I was sure that I knew what I was doing, I dialed one of our computers into the Ebberlys' to make sure she wasn't talking to the Whitemark system. She wasn't. I left the line open, in case she came on, then I dialed our second terminal into Whitemark.

Entry was routine. Inside, I found a typical mainframe administrative system, stuffed with files and forms. Using common techniques worked out by hackers over the past couple of decades, I spent four hours wandering through the system, opening files, reading, and moving on. There were no surprises, and there were some disappointments.

Security was a notch tighter than I hoped it would be. Key files were protected with personal passwords, and I had no way around them except laborious trial and error. I let that go for the time being. Whitemark programmers had also constructed programming barriers between the various sectors of the computer. Using Ebberly's codes I could wander at will through the open administrative sector, but I couldn't get down to the underlying programs. I couldn't get into the system itself.

I next checked the Durenbarger codes. Once again, entry was easy. On the engineering side, the computer was jammed with numbers and designs and ongoing work, with key files protected by personal passwords, just like the administrative side. And, as on the administrative side, access to the programming level was thoroughly blocked.

LuEllen and Dace came in late, saw me working, and tiptoed away. Much later, I went to bed and lay staring at the ceiling. By four in the morning, I'd decided there were no options. We had to get into the programming level of the computer. We had to crack another house.

At breakfast, LuEllen rambled on, sore, about the play they'd seen the night before. It concerned a street gang. The single scene was set in a basement, where the gang was waiting for a shipment of pistols.

"It was like one of those World War Two movies, where there's a Jew and a black guy and an Italian and the coward and this cool, white guy who's the hero. You know, one of everything," LuEllen said. "That's what this gang was like. But I know gang punks. I went to school with them. You don't find any Jews and blacks and whites together. You hang out with a white gang and it's nigger-this and nigger-that. If a Jew comes along it's fuckin' kike. In real life, these guys are assholes."

"It was supposed to be allegorical," Dace said dryly.

"Right. What really happened was, the guy who wrote it had his head up his ass." LuEllen trailed off and peered at me. "Why so glum? Something we should know about?"

"We have to hit the systems programmer's place," I said. "The head man's. There's no way around it."

"You knew we might." She was leaning on the refrigerator, munching a bowl of dry Honey-Nut Cheerios. The play was forgotten. "When do you want to do it?"

"We can cruise by this afternoon, see how it looks."

"Is this the last one?" Dace asked.

"Yeah. If he's got the codes. And he should."

"We're pushing our luck."

"I know. I sweat blood every time," I said.

While LuEllen and I had been scouting the homes of Whitemark employees, and hit the first two, Dace had worked out the tactics of the propaganda attack. After breakfast he produced a yellow legal pad with a list of notes, and outlined the plan.

"When you get the computer operation going, we'll start leaking stories about their production and design troubles. We'll get that out to the technical press. It'll scare the brass over at the Pentagon. They've been burned too often-they're gun-shy about design problems.

"But most newspaper and TV reporters don't care about that stuff. Whitemark might be able to sweep the whole thing under the rug. If we really want to nail them, we need raw meat. Corruption. If you tell a Post reporter that there's a ten-million-dollar cost overrun on a control circuit for a fighter plane, and anyway, the circuit doesn't even work, he'll say, 'So what's new?' But if you tell him the company president spent ten thousand on broads and booze for a couple of generals and you've got the pictures to prove it, he'll camp out on your doorstep."

"So where do we get the pictures?" LuEllen asked.

"We could make them up," Dace said mildly.

"Frame them?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Frame them." He looked sanguine about the prospect, sipping tea and watching us.

"Sounds risky," I said.

"There are advantages, too. If we frame them we can make the corruption as spectacular as we want, and we don't have to waste time looking for it. We can go in and out fast. Plant the documents, create the backup and supporting material, and call the papers. The biggest problem we'll have is getting somebody to listen to us."

Washington is overrun with crazies. The city desk receptionists at the major newspapers and television stations dealt with a dozen screwballs a day, by telephone and in person. There were letters from a dozen more. Some threatened to wipe out the Zionists, some the Arabs. Some reported the deleterious effects of fluoride on the nation's testicles. Others could prove that AIDS was a deliberate plot by the Russians, the Chinese, the gays, the blacks, the CIA, or the League of Women Voters, take your pick. Several hundred people knew of the island where a brain-damaged JFK was still living, sometimes with Elvis.

"If we can find or create something good enough, I can handle it. I can get us in, but it has to be good," he said. "Once we get in, the media will stay with it, especially if they get the credit. A big defense contractor paying off the generals, and caught in the act by a vigilant press? That's good stuff."

"What about the poor assholes who supposedly took the bribes? I mean, we could be killing these people," LuEllen said. "Look what happened to you."

Dace nodded. "That's not the only thing. If you frame someone, everything must be precisely right. If we say General Jones was getting laid on Bimini on March 4, and he can produce fifty witnesses who say he was in Boise speaking to the Mothers for Righteousness, the whole effort goes down the drain. If we frame them we'll have to make it a loose frame-slush funds, women, cash payoffs, but no names."

"Will that take? "I asked.

"We could rig something," Dace said. "But see where I'm headed? It would be better to find the real thing, if it's spectacular enough. The real thing always has a special flavor. You know it's real. And I'm sure it's in there, somewhere. All of these big companies do favors for the brass. Maybe it's not money or sex, but it's something. If you could get me into their general files, I could find something. But it might take time."

"I've already been in, so entry is no problem," I said. "And it seems like the payoff potential would be bigger."

"Yeah, it would be. I'll outline a frame, just in case. But we should take a run at their files and see what we can find," Dace said.

LuEllen and I looked at each other, and LuEllen said, "I don't like the frame."

I nodded. "Okay. We can't take more than two or three days to look, but let's try it. And first we hit the systems programmer's place, so I can get into the system."

"When are you going to Chicago?" LuEllen asked. I wanted one last talk with Anshiser, to get the final go-ahead.

"If I can get into the system soon-like tonight-I'll go tomorrow or the next day."

"Are you still planning to bring this Maggie back?"

"If she wants to come."

"It makes me nervous, another outsider knowing our faces. My face," LuEllen said. "I hope she's all right."

I shrugged. "No guarantees. There's not much choice, either, if we want to get paid."