Unpopular Science

Chapter 27

The President of the United States of America had a killer headache. It wasn’t about to get any better and he knew it. He was watching the clock on the small display on his desk telephone, a small titanium device supplied by the Department of Defense and said to be bug proof and EM-blast proof. The phone clock was synchronized automatically by the U.S. Navy’s atomic clock, which was said to be the global standard for time-keeping. The President didn’t know why the fighting folks needed a clock that was that precise and he didn’t want to ask. He hated having technology explained to him. He wasn’t stupid, but he had a hard time listening to techno-rambling or electro-babble or whatever they called that kind of talk.

He was about to get an earful of it and he was not looking forward to it.

The whizzing hundredths of a second closed in on the top of the hour. When the time came he would get a phone call. The call would not be late. The President would be mildly disappointed if the call was late.

At 08:59:57:96 the phone rang and the President was startled, which was silly—it wasn’t as if the caller was sitting there staring at the atomic clock. Was he? The caller was just maniacally punctual. Right?

He grabbed the phone. Not the titanium one, but the bright red one with the dedicated line.

“Good morning, Mr. Smith.”

“Mr. President,” Smith replied.

“How is everything out your way?”

“Our enforcement arm has arrived on-site with the ill-advised accompaniment of the victim of the attack. She will be contained. The threat to my assistant and my enforcement arm remains—”

“I wasn’t asking for a debriefing, Smith ” the President growled. “I was saying hello.”

There was a wait, then Smith said, “I see. Hello, Mr. President.”

The President should have known it was a waste of time to try to engage the head of CURE in small talk. But the President thought of himself as a people person, a down-to-earth man, who liked to get to know human beings on a personal level. The whole official side of being President was just a little too dry, too official. What was the harm in loosening things up a little?

But not with Smith. Never with Smith.

“Okay, then, give me the debriefing.”

“Yes, sir,” Smith said with respect but without a hint of deprecation. “As you know, the recent technology thefts from our military operations have severely undermined our superiority in military security and offensive automation systems.”

“Not yet they haven’t,” the President corrected him. “Only if the blueprints are distributed.”

“Most of the systems will be distributed in the form of CAD files. That’s Computer-Aided Design.”

“I know what CAD means.”

“CAD files can be sent electronically. In all likelihood, the party that has come into possession of those files will have stored encrypted copies in multiple sites around the world. Retrieving them all successfully would be highly unlikely, even if we apprehended the perpetrator and received his cooperation.”

“But it could happen,” the President said, yanking the desk drawer open and finding it entirely empty. Would it hurt to keep a bottle of Tylenol in the Oval Office?

“Regardless, it would be foolish to have confidence that we had, in fact, retrieved all copies. Servers of all types automatically duplicated their stored data remotely, for replacement in case of catastrophic failure such as fire or flood. Those copies sit on servers that might then make remote copies. At any point in the process, data mining software of various benign and malicious types can channel the data elsewhere for other uses.”

“All right. Smith.”

‘I think it is safe to say that, at the moment that the data escaped our control, we could never again expect to have it fully under our control.”

“Yes. Yes. Hold on.”

The President stabbed a button on the titanium phone, but he squeezed his eyes shut at that moment. He hit the wrong button. It wasn’t his office assistant who answered.

“Yes, Mr. President?” said an alarmed British man.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Mr. Prime Minister. Hit the wrong button.”

There was an exasperated sigh. “Again?”

“I said I was sorry.”

“You know my popularity in the polls goes down every time I even talk to you on the phone.”

“Isn’t this a secure line?”

“Oh, they know. Somehow they know,” the Prime Minister said, low and full of suspicion. “Don’t you call here anymore.”

The President heard a click. He punched the phone again. The correct button this time. After his assistant brought him a couple of Extra Strength Tylenol he got back on the line with Smith.

Smith was still there, which was a mild surprise. He continued. “The Department of Defense has transferred most of their highly sensitive systems to new locations as a precautionary measure. They have not moved the Full-spectrum Environmental Monitoring Robots, however.”

“Yes, well, the system is designed for the White House. Moving it would be the same things as shutting it down.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“Wrong. It’s a defensive system. Smith. It is designed to keep intruders out, even if the intruders are there to take the system itself.”

“Not these intruders. Remember, they have assimilated some of the great achievements in stealth technology we developed ourselves. There has not been time to reconfigure the White House defenses to accommodate those technologies. Also, the intruders will likely be deposited into the White House from the air. The full-spectrum robots don’t cover the airspace over the White House.”

“We’ve got lots of security that does, however.”

“You also have a spy in the highest levels of military security.”

The President forgot his headache. “Say again?”

“A spy.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But it is the only explanation for the events in recent weeks. The intelligence needed to stage the various threats came from multiple sources. Their only communality came in their being reported to the highest levels of military and intelligence command. Possibly they gleaned some intelligence on CURE through whatever source they have.”

“But I’m the only source of intelligence on CURE,” the President complained. “Are you saying I may be bugged?”

“No, Mr. President. You have never possessed some of the intelligence the thieves have had on security measures around the research sites. It’s someone closer to the research. One of the Joint Chiefs, perhaps.”

“What?”

“It might be the secretary of defense.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“It could even be the secretary of homeland security.”

“Smith, you’re way out in left field. I know those men. I respect those men, even if I disagree with some of their political views. They are loyal Americans.”

“I think one of them is not.” Message delivered, Smith returned to the unresolved issue. “Do you intend to order the dismantling of the Full-spectrum Environmental Monitoring system at the White House?”

“No. I see no need. Is there anything else, Smith?”

“Perhaps it would be best, then, if my enforcement arm performed security watch on the White House, at least until I have another course of investigation.”

“Sure. Fine. Send them on up. They won’t get halfway across the lawn.”

Then the President hung up on Smith. For a change. He frowned at the red phone, then put it away. He had become too defensive, but Smith had stepped over the line.

On the other hand, Smith was usually, annoyingly, right.

Maybe it would be better to have Smith’s muscle on hand, just to keep an eye on things.

The President grabbed his titanium desk phone.

“Sandra? Get me the man in charge of the U.S. atomic clock. No, I’ll hold.”

It took surprisingly little time to find him. “Yes, Mr. President?” answered the secretary of the Navy.

“Ronald, your clock’s slow.”

The head of the U.S. Navy said, “Who told you this, sir?”

“Is it true?”

“Well, yes. I just got the communique myself. There was a malfunction in the processor that coordinates the synchronization. But it is just a few seconds from true.”

“Fix it.”

“We’ll have it right in minutes, Mr. President. My understanding is that the master synchronizing clock—”

“Not another word. General. Just fix it.”

“But how did you know, Mr. President?”

“Guess I just know some folks with a better clock, General,” said the President.

The general chuckled nervously. “With all due respect, sir, there is no better clock. The Navy’s hydrogen maser and cesium chronometers are the most precise…”

But he was talking to himself.