The Minotaur

1

Terry Franklin was a spy. This afternoon in February, in a small cubbyhole in the basement of the Pentagon, he was practicing his trade. It was tedious work.

He adjusted the screen brightness on his computer monitor and tapped the secret access code of the user he was pretending to be tonight. Now the file name, also special access, a classification higher than top secret. He had to be careful, since the letters and numerals he was typing did not appear on the screen. A mistake here meant the computer would lock him out and deny him the file. And he was not a good typist He worked with just two fingers.

There it was. The ATA File, the Advanced Tactical Air- craft. He tapped some more and began examining the document fist. Number 23.241, that’s the first one. He slid one of his high- density, 5.25-inch fioppies into the slot and hit the keys again. The little red light came on above the disk drive and the drive began to whir. Franklin smiled when he saw the light.

It was quiet here in the computer service shop. The only noise was the whirring of the disk drive and the tiny clicks of the key- board. And the sound of Terry Franklin’s breathing. It was ironic, he mused, how the computer silently and effortlessly reveals the deepest secrets of its owners. Without remorse, without a twinge of emotion of any kind, the screen lays bare the insights gained from man-years of research by highly educated, gifted scientists and the cunning application of that research by extraordinarily talented engineers. Pouring onto the floppy disk was a treasure more valu- able than gold, more precious than diamonds, a treasure beyond the reach of most of the human race, still struggling as it was with basic survival. Only here, in America, where a significant percent- age of the best brains on the planet were actively engaged in funda- mental research into the secrets of creation, were these intangible jewels being created in significant quantity, gushing forth, almost too fast to steal.

Terry Franklin grinned to himself as he worked. He would do his best. He called up the document list again, then changed flop- pies as he listened to the silence.

These three little floppy disks would earn him thirty thousand dollars. He had bargained hard. Ten thousand dollars a disk, whether full or partially full. Cash.

He had figured out a way to make computers pay. He grinned happily at this thought and stroked the keyboard again.

Terry Franklin had become a spy for the money. He had volun- teered. He had made his decision after reading everything he could lay his hands on about espionage. Only then had he devised a plan to market the classified material to which he had access as a navy enlisted computer specialist. He had thought about the plan for months, looking for holes and weighing the risks. There were risks, he knew, huge ones, but that was the reason the compensation would be so high. And, he assured himself repeatedly, he enjoyed taking risks. It would add spice to his life, make a boring marriage and a boring job tolerable. So he recruited himself.

One Saturday morning five years ago Terry Franklin walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington. He had read that the FBI kept the embassy under constant surveillance and photographed every- one who entered. So he wore a wig, false mustache and heavy, mirrorlike sunglasses. He told the receptionist he wanted to see an intelligence officer. After a forty-five minute wait, he was shown into a small, windowless room and carefully searched by the recep- tionist, a muscular, trim man in his early thirties. A half hour later — he was convinced he was photographed during this period by an unseen camera — a nondescript man in his fifties wearing a baggy suit had entered and occupied the only other chair. Without a word. Franklin displayed his green navy ID card, then handed the man a roll of film. The man weighed it in his hand as Franklin removed the sunglasses, wig and mustache. The Russian left the room without speaking. Another half hour passed, then another. No doubt he was again photographed.

It was almost noon when baggy-suit returned. He smiled as he entered and shook Franklin’s hand. Could he examine the ID card? Where was Franklin stationed? When had he exposed the film? Why? The Russian’s English was good but slightly accented.

Money, Terry Franklin had said. “I want money. I have some- thing to sell and I brought you a free sample, hoping you might want to buy more.”

Now, as Franklin worked the computer keyboard, he thought back to that day at the embassy. It had been the most momentous day of his life. Five years and two months after that day he had $540,000 in cash in a storage locker in McLean, Virginia, under an assumed name and no one was the wiser. He was going to quit spying when that figure reached a million. And when his enlist- ment was up, he was going to walk out on Lucy and the kids and fly to South America.

It was typical of Terry Franklin that he intended to delay his departure until he received his discharge. When he entered his new life he would go free, clean and legal, with no arrest warrants anywhere. He would go in his fake identity. Petty Officer First Class Terry Franklin, the college kid from Bakersfield who had knocked up Lucy Southworth in the back seat of her father’s sta- tion wagon at a drive-in movie, married her, then joined the navy — that Terry Franklin would cease to exist.

It was a nice bundle: $540,000, plus $30,000 for these three disks. A lot of money. But not enough. He wasn’t greedy, but he had to have a stake big enough so that he could live on the interest.

He had been very, very careful. He had made no mistakes. He had never spent a penny of the money. The spying was going smooth as clockwork. These Russians, they were damn good. You had to take your hat off to them. They had never called or spoken to him after that last meeting m Miami almost three years ago, right after he received orders to the Pentagon.

The operation was slick, almost foolproof, he reflected as he inserted the third disk. The calls always came on an evening when his wife was out, sometimes with her bowling league, sometimes at a friend’s house. The phone rang once, and if he picked it up there was no one there, merely a dial tone. One minute later it rang again, once. Then a minute after that it rang one, two, three or four times. The number of rings that third time was the message. He was to check dead drop one, two, three or four, and he was to do it as soon as possible. He usually left the house immediately, cruised for at least an hour in his car to ensure he wasn’t being followed, then headed for the dead drop. And the information would be there. Spelled out in block letters on the back of an empty, torn cigarette pack would be the file name he was to photograph, the classified computer codes necessary to gain access and a telephone number to call the evening he was ready to transfer the disks, when the whole sequence would begin again. No one saw him, he saw no one, all very slick.

He chuckled. The cigarette packs on which he received his in- structions were always Marlboro Gold 100s, and it had occurred to Terry Franklin that someone had a subtle sense of humor. As he worked now and thought about the money, he savored that sar- donic twist.

They must be watching the house to see when he was home alone. Of course someone was servicing the drops. But how were they getting the computer codes and file names? Oh well, he was getting his piece of the pie and he wasn’t greedy.

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” Terry Franklin muttered as he removed the final disk from its slot and tucked it into its own little envelope. He grinned at the monitor screen, then tapped keys to exit the file.

Now came the tricky part. Three years ago, when he had first been told by the Soviets that they wanted copies of documents from the computer system, he had written a trapdoor program for the software of the main computer. The job had taken him six months; it had to be right the first time — he would get no second chance. This program accomplished several things; it allowed Franklin to access any file in central memory from this terminal here in the repair shop, a permanent secret “doorway,” thereby defeating the built-in safeguards that gave access to classified files only from certain specific terminals; it erased the record of his access from the 3-W file, which was a security program that auto- matically recorded who, what and when; and finally, it allowed him to access the 3-W file to see that his footprints were indeed not there.

This trapdoor program was his crowning achievement. He had once seen a written promise from the software designer that unre- corded access was an impossibility. What a load! It had been damn tough — he would give them that — but he had figured out a way in the end. There’s always a way if you know enough. That contrac- tor, he really sold the brass a sow’s ear when he told that fib. Ah well, the contractor had gotten his and now Terry Franklin was making his own score.

He had loaded the trapdoor program in the main computer one day while fifteen technicians loafed and sipped coffee and watched him work on a sticky tape drive. Not a one of them saw what he was doing. Nor, he told himself with glee, would they have under- stood what he was doing even if they had noticed. Most of them were as ignorant as they were trusting.

Tonight the 3-W log looked clean as a virgin’s conscience. Franklin exited the program and turned off his terminal. He stood and stretched. He felt good. Very, very good. The adrenal excite- ment was almost like a cocaine high, but better since there was no comedown. He was living on the edge and it felt terrific.

After straightening up the office, he turned off the coffeepot and put on his coat. With a last glance around, he snapped off the tights and locked the door behind him.

Getting past the guards at the building exits carrying the disks was a risk, though a small one. The civilian guards occasionally selected people for a spot search and sooner or later he would be chosen. He knew several of the guards on sight and made it a habit to speak to them, but inevitably, sooner or later … It didn’t happen this evening, but be was clean just now anyway. The disks were still back in the office, carefully hidden. He would bring them out some evening next week at the height of the rush-hour exodus when the probability of being searched was the smallest Minimize the risk, msmmim the gain.

As he rode the escalator up to the bus stop for Virginia suburban buses, Terry Franklin buttoned his coat tightly and turned the col- lar up behind his neck. from a pocket he extracted his white sailor’s cap aad placed it carefully on his head, exactly one finger width above his eyebrows.

The cold, wet wind at the top of the mechanical stairs made him cringe. He quickly climbed aboard the Airedale bus and made his way to an empty window seat He stared through the gathering dusk at the looming building. People in uniform and civilian clothes kept pouring from the escalator exit, trying to hide their faces from the wind, scurrying for buses. These poor snooks. What they didn’t know!

Vastly content, Terry Franklin pursed his lips and began to whis- tle silently.

As the bus bearing Terry Franklin pulled away from the loading area, a senior naval officer, a captain, leaned into the wind as he crossed the lighted parking lot. He paid no attention to the buses queued for the freeway entrance and it was probable no one on the buses paid any attention to him. Terry Franklin was opening the sports section of a newspaper he had purchased during his lunch break. Franklin wouldn’t have recognized the captain out there in the rapidly emptying parking lot anyway, not even if they had passed in a corridor. They had never met. But Franklin would have recognized the officer’s computer security access password, for he had just finished using it.

Tonight the captain grimaced as the wind tore at his unprotected face and took the time to open the hatchback of his Toyota Corolla and toss his attache case in. Then he fumbled with the key to the driver’s door. Snuggled in with the engine running and waiting for the heater to warm up, Captain Harold Strong tried to relax. It had been another long week, as each and every one of them were in this gargantuan paper factory by the Potomac. He cast a bleak eye on the cars creeping toward the exit. Not too many now, well after quitting time. And he had wanted to get an early start this evening! God, he was tired.

He put the car in gear and threaded it toward the exit- He checked his watch. It was twenty-two minutes past six. At least the timing was right. He would reach the interstate just as the car pool restrictions ended.

On the freeway he headed north along the river, past the Arling- ton Memorial Bridge, under the ramps of the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge and out into the traffic snarl on 1-66 westbound. Here at the tail end of rush hour the traffic moved along fairly well at about forty miles per hour, only occasionally coming to a complete stop. Captain Strong listened carefully to an airborne traffic reporter tally the evening’s casualties. 1-66 westbound wasn’t mentioned.

Nearing Falls Church he stopped beside the road for a moment and removed his bridge coat. With the car back in motion and the radio tuned to a soft-rock FM station. Strong chewed over the week’s frustrations and disasters again. Oh crap, he thought, it’s Friday night and you have the cabin all to yourself for an entire weekend, so forget it. It’ll all keep until Monday, God knows.

Since the divorce he had spent most of his weekends in the cabin. His son was a junior in college this year, busy with school and giris. The captain wasn’t interested in female companionship, which was perhaps a good thing since he lacked both the finances and the time.

They want too much from that airframe, he told himself as he drove, reviewing the arguments of the week yet one more time. You can’t build a plane that will drop bombs, shoot missiles, hassle with MiGs, have a radar cross section so small it can’t be detected — haul the President back and forth to Camp David on weekends when it isn’t being used to save the free world — and still expect the goddamn thing to take a cat shot and make an arrested carrier landing- With so many design compromises it can’t possibly do any mission well.

A fucking flying Edsel, assuming that one way or the other it can be made to fly. He had used precisely those words this after- noon to that simple sonuvabitch from SECNAV and that slimy political hack looked like his wallet was being snatched. And what had he said to Vice Admiral Henry after the meeting? “It’s almost as if those idiots want to buy just one ultimate do-everything flying machine and park it in the Rose Garden of the White House to scare the shit out of the Russian ambassador when he comes to call.” Henry wasn’t happy with his blunt assessment. Well, he was right, whether Henry liked it or not. Those political clowns want to build something straight out of a Hollywood special-effects shop, a suborbital battlestar that will automatically zap anybody who isn’t wearing olive-drab underwear.

Why is it, over eighty-five years after Orville and Wilbur showed the worid how to build an airplane, that we have to keep explain- ing the basic laws of aerodynamics to these used-car salesmen in mufti?

Strong was still stewing when he reached the outskirts of Win- chester. Raindrops began to splatter on the windshield. He turned on the wipers. The road looked slick and the wet night seemed to soak up his headlights, so he slowed down.

He was hungry. He turned into the drive-through lane of a Me- Donald’s and was soon back on the road mechanically munching a burger as he headed west. The coffee was hot and black.

Passing through Gore he noticed headlights behind him. Not too dose, but glued there. How long had that guy been back there? A cop clocking him? Well, he wasn’t speeding, not on a night like this.

The road was a twisty two-lane and empty. Almost no traffic. That was one of the charms of coining up here. The glare of his headlights illuminated the black trunks of wet, naked trees as he cranked the wheel back and forth around the switchbacks up the mountain. The sign at the top said: “Welcome to Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.” And the radio reception would go on the other side of the signl Sure enough, on the second curve down the music faded to static. He switched off the radio. The headlights were still in the rear-view mirror.

At the foot of the mountain he went through the village of Ca- pon Bridge. Almost there, just a few more miles. He checked the mirror as they went by a sodium light on a pole by the little Texaco station, which was dark and deserted at this hour of the evening. It was some kind of pickup with a huge steel bumper welded to the front. Not too new. Mid-seventies maybe.

Impossible to make out the color- Then a camper passed him headed east and, curious, he glanced in the mirror again. The guy behind — blue, I think. Maybe blue.

Leaving the village the road began to climb and he was again in switchbacks at twenty-five miles per hour. The glare of the head- lights from the pickup behind him swept across the mirror going into and coming out of every curve, and he squinted. He turned the mirror so the lights wouldn’t blind him. Should’ve got the day- night mirror, he told himself, but he had saved twenty bucks pass- ing on that option.

Above the noise of his engine he could hear the rhythmic slap- slap of the wipers and the protests of his tires on the wet macadam.

He was almost at the top of this low mountain. He would build a fire in the fireplace when he reached the cabin in a few minutes. Maybe a shot of Irish whiskey while the fire was driving out the chill. Tomorrow he would—

He could hear the engine of the pickup behind roaring and the headlights spotlighted his dash and windshield. He squinted. What was that damn fool doing? Did he want to pass? We’re right at that overlook—

The truck behind smashed into his rear bumper and pushed him. Strong fought the wheel. His vehicle was accelerating. He applied the brakes. Wheel lock-up. He released the brakes and jammed the throttle down. He was trying to steer but the wheels wouldn’t bite on the slick pavement. Goddamn — the car was going across the road, straight for the overlook pulloutt

In the gravel the car skidded sideways and Strong glanced over his shoulder, straight into the pickup’s headlights. Then he felt the lurch as the pickup slammed on its brakes.

Panicked, he looked forward but saw nothing, still blinded from the headlights’ glare. He felt the car’s nose go down, then it began to roll, over and over and over.

The motion stopped suddenly with a terrific, smashing impact.

When he came out of his daze he was in darkness and the engine was silent. There was a little light, but it seemed to come from above and behind, from the road. Jesus… Something black and wet beside him. A tree trunk, where the passenger seat used to be.

The car was half wrapped around a tree. He had gone down over the edge and rolled several times and smashed into a tree. That asshole in the pickup… trying to kill him.

He wasn’t hurt too bad. Thank God for seat belts. Blood on his face, minute pieces of glass everywhere. He was still groggy. What’s that smell? Gasoline! A leak. He fumbled for the seat-belt release.

Someone was beside him, reaching in through the smashed win- dow- “Hey—“

He was being splashed with something wet “What—” Gas! It was gas! “Please, you gotta—“

Out of the comer of his eye he saw the lighted match come floating through the broken window. The roar of the gasoline ignit- ing was the last sound he heard.