Zimmerman's Algorithm

3.04 Fri. Mar. 26

B Y the time Fitzsimmons had fully digested the contents of Tischler's little gift, and had reviewed the records on Agent Christoffel, it was time for his daily briefing with President Rayburn. It was scheduled in the morning, right after a Rose Garden speech about U.S.-Indonesian relations. Fitzsimmons came early and spent his time waiting in the Oval Office, sitting and looking over the files he had printed for Rayburn over the past two hours.

His hands were shaking.

Rayburn's booming voice interrupted his train of thought, almost making him drop the files he carried. "Larry, you look like shit."

Fitzsimmons stood and nodded, "Mr. President."

Rayburn stood in front of the door, closing it. He seemed to tower over Fitzsimmons. "Okay, what is

it?"

Fitzsimmons took in a breath and said, "I think you'd better take a seat."

Rayburn scanned the room and realized that they were alone. A look of concern crossed his face as he took a seat across from Fitzsimmons. "No expert witnesses?"

"No, I need to bring this to your attention before anyone else hears it." Fitzsimmons handed the files to Rayburn.

Rayburn took the files and said, "This is about Zimmerman, isn't it?"

"Not just Zimmerman, though."

"All right, let's hear it."

Fitzsimmons gave an abbreviated account of Tischler's meeting with him this morning. Rayburn frowned as he listened. "Christ, they have us monitored that well?"

"The fact that the Israelis were willing to let us know that marks the gravity of what they gave us. They sacrificed a lot of U.S.-Israeli goodwill, as well as their assets in this country, to hand this over to us."

Rayburn nodded. "What is it, and how do we know that it isn't some piece of disinformation?"

Fitzsimmons stood and walked over to a table that held a pitcher of ice water. He poured himself a glass and drank, wishing it was scotch. "It isn't, Mr. President. I've confirmed a number of isolated facts from our own records."

"What is this they gave us? What does it have to do with Zimmerman?"

"Zimmerman is most likely in the hands of the International Unification Front, a State-sponsored independent umbrella organization that is interested—allegedly—in a pan-Arab, pan-Islamic union in the Mid-East. They organize terrorism, intelligence, espionage, and paramilitary training for dozens of smaller groups. Needless to say, the Israelis have the most complete records on them outside the IUF itself—" Fitzsimmons sucked, in a deep breath.

"What the Israelis just handed us, is those records. All of them."

"What?" The note of disbelief in Rayburn's voice hung in the air, an almost physical thickening of the atmosphere.

Fitzsimmons drank his water, trying to keep his throat from drying out completely. "Tischler handed over a copy of the Israelis' complete file on the IUF. Uncensored, unedited, straight from the Mossad computers."

"Holy shit." Rayburn flipped through the top file, which was a pre-made abstract of the information on Tischler's CD. Fitzsimmons had printed it raw from the disk. "Why would they just hand us this? We've cooperated with them before, but they don't let go of any information without a reason."

"Zimmerman, in the hands of the IUF, is much more a threat to them than it is to us. And they know that, once we have this file, the IUF will cease to exist."

The President of the United States looked up from the abstract as if he could hear the nerves behind Fitzsimmons' words. "You better explain that, Larry."

"It's in the abstract."

"I want to hear it in your words."

"We've been wrong about what State actually sponsors the IUF."

Rayburn just stared at him.

"The IUF—we've traced Syrian backing, Libyan involvement, ties to several Islamic republics from the Soviet break up. All of it is camouflage. The IUF is, whole cloth, the result of a runaway covert operation managed by the CIA, an operation that began in the mid-eighties."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Fitzsimmons shook his head. "Remember William Casey and his dream of an 'off-the-shelf CIA?

Remember all the hostage negotiations? There were a hell of a lot of Mid-East contacts made back then. A hell of a lot more assets developed than the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee ever discovered."

"Are you saying that we created the IUF?"

Fitzsimmons nodded. "I've backtracked a lot. The quality of our Middle-East intelligence started gaining a lot of credibility right after the IUF formed. Even when the IUF was still a secret society, not publicly known. We knew more about the World Trade Center bombing than we should've. There's even a chance that the site to park the truck was a piece of misinformation that we fed the terrorists—I mean their goal was to bring the building down. If the truck was in a better spot they might've. Oklahoma City, we seem to have known it was a domestic bombing within twelve hours— Days before anyone else. Ever since the overt formation of the IUF, there's been Arab terrorism, but their efficacy against U.S. targets has been remarkably reduced."

"My God . . ."

"It gets worse." .

Rayburn looked up at Fitzsimmons.

"Emmit D'Arcy was in the CIA then, a Mid-East analyst. He was one of William Casey's protégés."

Rayburn was shaking his head.

"D'Arcy's been in a prime position to develop the IUF, and deflect any inquiry. Look at the damn Daedalus theft. Look who was in on the theft, two live CIA agents and a handful of freelancers from the Iran-Contra days. Even though their capture was securely under wraps, someone tipped Zimmerman, the IUF, or both, that we were running a trap for them. D'Arcy's been playing the angle that Zimmerman has compromised everything, casting her as pretty much omniscient— How better to cover up a mole in our own ranks?"

"What are you saying? That D'Arcy engineered that whole warehouse fiasco on purpose?"

"No," Fitzsimmons said. "I'm saying that those computer thieves were never meant to be caught. D'Arcy's a genius at improvisation. Within an hour of the capture he had his people there claiming National Security, and was setting up shipment of the Daedalus to DC, and drafting press releases on how the computer was yet to be recovered. He had us believing that it was a carefully calculated plan to capture Zimmerman—so much so that I provided the manpower to take Zimmerman in—and it was all a charade."

Rayburn shook his head. "But that means that D'Arcy planned Zimmerman's disappearance. Why?"

"I don't know." Fitzsimmons could hear the nerves in his own voice. "But I don't think we have much time to find out. I can't find the Daedalus."

"What?"

"The computer, D'Arey, and one of my agents, Christoffel, all seem to be missing."

"Christoffel?"

Fitzsimmons nodded. "He worked the same Mid-East desk that D'Arcy used to. He was also in charge of Morris Kendal. I've looked at his debriefing of Kendal, again. It now strikes me as much too brief."

"What a fucking mess." Rayburn shook his head and put a hand to his forehead, "D'Arcy?"

"D'Arcy."

Rayburn's voice became a shallow monotone, drained of most of its regional character. "You know he was on the short list of people to replace you, once you retired." He looked over at Fitzsimmons and said, "Now I have to have the fucker's head on a plate."

"I know, sir."

"None of this shit is going to stick to this Administration." Rayburn stood. "None, understand?" Rayburn's voice had regained his character, and anger was leaking in. It wasn't directed at Fitzsimmons, but he still felt it, and it was frightening. "This is the news, Larry. This is not a rogue operation. This is a mole."

"What are you saying, sir?"

"The United States does not sponsor terrorist organizations. The only other interpretation is that the IUF turned D'Arcy while he was in the CIA, probably others as well."

"Sir?"

"The IUF created D'Arcy, not the other way around. Do you understand?"

Fitzsimmons nodded.

The day had lengthened until Gideon thought that their captors might have forgotten about them. It seemed to be mid-afternoon before the door to their dark little Victorian room opened. Gideon stood as the door started opening, expecting Volynskji or another armed-guard type.

What he got, instead, was a tall white guy with a buzz cut. It took him a moment to recognize the man

from the group picture of the Evolutionary Theorems Lab.

The other Michael, Michael Gribaldi.

Mike wore a white turtleneck and a pair of blue jeans. He must have been in his late thirties, but he looked like a grad student. Gideon didn't know exactly what it was, something in the posture or the facial expression. There was an odd—for this situation—sense of repressed excitement, a sort of "gee whiz" look to the man that seemed more appropriate for a teenager.

Mike stood at the door and looked at the two of them, half-smiling. "Welcome to Chez Zimmerman. I see you've met the help."

Ruth didn't take Mike's glibness very well. "Who the hell are you? What right have you got to hold us prisoner?"

Mike backed off and held up his hands. "Hey, don't hold me responsible for the government hacks, I just work here."

Gideon stood up and stared into Mike's face, looking for any sign of duplicity. He didn't see any. The guy's face was almost too open. And what he said started the wheels turning in Gideon's head, and the resulting thoughts weren't encouraging.

He stepped forward, between Mike and Ruth to prevent another angry exchange. He held out his hand and said, "You're Michael Gribaldi?"

Mike took his hand and nodded. "And you are?"

For a moment Gideon found himself stymied by anyone who didn't already know who he was. "Gideon," he said. "Gideon Malcolm."

Mike nodded. "I'm sorry if the boys don't know how to treat guests. Sometimes they act as if they run the place." Mike gave Gideon such a broad wink that Gideon was certain that the man had no clue about what "the boys" had been up to.

"Guests!" Ruth's voice cracked on the word. "We were taken prison—"

Gideon shook his hand violently behind his back, and Ruth quieted. He asked Mike. "You mind telling me who 'the boys' are?"

"No problem, Gideon." Mike lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Though it's probably classified. Since you're here, at ground zero, I can probably tell you." He leaned forward and whispered. "They're NSA."

Gideon was gripped by a sick feeling that he had fallen down the rabbit hole. He had suspicions ever since their too-convenient-for-the-terrorists capture. The whole episode was staged. The reason Volynskji never questioned him about the Colonel's debriefing was because he knew what he and Ruth had told the government. Zimmerman didn't walk into the arms of any terrorists—she had walked into the arms of a covert operation run by her own government.

Shit.

"Let me guess," Gideon said. "This is one of Emmit D'Arcy's operations."

Mike gave him a fraternal push on the shoulder. "You've been leading me on. You know what's happening."

He gave Gideon a grin that reminded him of the conspiratorial smirk of two children reading a third's diary.

"Emmit. . ." Ruth asked.

Gideon turned around and faced her. "He was the guy who escorted us from the Colonel. The guy with the glasses, looks a little like Peter Loire."

Ruth nodded and said, "But—"

Gideon was going to motion her to be quiet again, before she started to say that they'd been kidnapped from D'Arcy's little escort. He didn't have to, because Mike interrupted. "He does look like Loire, doesn't he?"

Ruth looked at Mike, then at Gideon again, and asked, "Who the hell is Emmit D'Arcy?"

"He's the National Security Advisor for President Rayburn," Gideon said.

Ruth stared at him for a few long minutes before she said, "Oh."

"He had a reputation back in the eighties for engineering covert operations—" Gideon looked at Mike.

"—Like this one."

"Well, you got something on the ball there, Gideon." He stepped inside the room and held out his hand. "And you, I don't think we've been introduced."

Ruth was having problems. It was clear that she now realized that she and Mike had very different opinions of what was going on, but she still had obvious problems reining in her emotions. Gideon stepped in. "Michael Gribaldi, let me introduce you to Ruth Zimmerman." After a pause, Gideon decided to add, "The good Doctor's sister."

"I know." He gave her a polite little bow that seemed utterly out of character. "I was sent here by Madame El Presidente to fetch you."

Ruth stood, finally and took Mike's hand. "She's here?" There was a slight breathless note in her voice. Gideon felt a dark envy, Ruth was going to get her sister back. Rafe wasn't coming back . . .

Mike continued, apparently oblivious to how his comments affected them, "It's been a real honor to work with your sister again. Especially now that we've gotten back to the real work."

Gideon nodded, as if he knew what was happening. "The New Pythagorean Order."

Mike put a finger to his lips and gave an exaggerated, "Shhh." He looked around and said, "We don't want to let the heathens in on our little secret." Mike smiled, "Shall I escort you two to the lab?"

Gideon was now almost certain that he and Ruth were here, and alive, because of Julia Zimmerman's intervention. Mike's presence here all but confirmed it.

"Yes, please," Ruth said. "I want to see Julie."

Mike smiled. "As the lady wishes." He turned to Gideon. "The Doctor wants to talk to you, too. Come on, I'll give you the grand tour." Mike shook his head. "You're here at a great time. It's all being prepped for zero hour now."

Mike gave them a broad wink as if they knew exactly what he was talking about.

Mike led them through the farmhouse, saying, "Well, you've already seen the dorm. Ain't much, but it's home." He waved his hand around, taking in the cracked plaster and the boarded-up windows. Gideon kept an eye out for their keepers. Gideon noticed that they were being shadowed by one of the rifle-toting guards. Mike was either pretending not to notice the guy, or just took his presence for granted.

Gideon wondered exactly how many people were here, and how many were guards, and how many were misplaced academics like Mike.

"It's about an hour's drive to the nearest pizza," Mike was saying. That was something that Gideon had already suspected. They weren't going to get out of here on foot.

As Mike started leading them down the stairs, Gideon decided to press this opportunity for all it was worth, before the guards, the IUF, or the NSA decided to withdraw their implicit approval for Mike's little tour. He asked Mike, "You've been working on this since MIT, right?"

Mike laughed. "Since before that, most of us. Some of us were working on little viral programs in the eighties. But, yeah, you're right—the Aleph project has been around since the late, unlamented Evolutionary Theorems Lab."

Aleph project. . .

They stopped on a landing whose window was intact. Ruth took the opportunity to step between the two of them, to look out. The window overlooked the barn, about two hundred yards away. Mike tapped a finger on the glass. "There she is, Ground Zero, the lab."

Gideon looked out over the barn and tried to understand what was going on here. If this was really a government operation, why did Zimmerman have to leave the NSA to run it? "I can't make sense of it," Gideon whispered.

Mike nodded, misinterpreting him. "I know, I sometimes can't get my head around it myself. Awesome, ain't it?"

Gideon shook his head. "What can she do here that she couldn't do at Fort Meade?"

Mike chuckled. "And why couldn't we let MIT know what we were doing? Fear. I mean, we all know what we're doing here. We've gone through I don't know how many fail-safes and tests before we let the rabbits out into the field. But what do you think the administrators at MIT would do if they knew about it?" Mike shook his head. "People would panic—people are panicking. People panic when someone e-mails them about a phony virus. How'd they react about a real one?"

"Is Julie over there?" Ruth asked. Her breath fogged the window.

Mike nodded. "Overseeing the final stage. It's all just oversight now, monitoring the pipeline to the machine. I'm a programmer, not much for me to do now but watch."

Gideon did feel a wave of awe. Not at the project, whatever that was, but at finally reaching this point. Here it was, the crux of everything, the why. . .

Julia, Gideon thought, can you give me a reason for Rafe’s death?

Gideon tried not to let his emotions into his voice, he still needed to know what was happening. "I would think," he said after a moment, "that the NSA would have more freedom for this kind of thing than MIT."

Mike laughed and waved them down another flight of stairs. "You'd think, wouldn't you? But when it comes down to it, they're free to do what they want when it comes to information warfare, targeting some enemy of the state, but once you get into pure research—especially stuff in the field—the reaction is something like people get when they hear that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was injecting plutonium

into people."

Ruth sounded surprised, "You mean that this isn't an official Government project?"

For once, Mike's expression faltered. Gideon could glimpse some of Mike's doubts about what was going on. Gideon wondered if he knew that people had died because of this thing, whatever it was.

Mike spoke slowly now, obviously choosing words with care, "This is D'Arcy's project. He believes in Aleph, and once we gather the final programs, we'll all be proved right."

That frightened Gideon because that meant, as far as anyone outside this farm was concerned, this was some international terrorist operation. That meant that it would be too easy for him and Ruth—not to mention Zimmerman and Mike and everyone else here—to just disappear. D'Arcy had a pre-made explanation for anyone who turned up dead.

Mike led them outside, through a door that bypassed the room full of abandoned furniture. There was no porch on this side of the house, and Gideon stepped out into the snow after Mike and Ruth. Here they faced the barn a few hundred feet away.

Gideon stood in the snow, breath fogging in the sharp, cold air. Gideon looked around and saw the guards moving out there by the treeline. Mike led them toward the barn, oblivious.

He followed Mike and Ruth, turning his attention to the barn. It appeared worse off than the house. The sides had been weathered to an uneven gray, and the roof was shot through with missing shingles, and bowed in the center. There was a shed adjoining the rear of the barn, which might have once housed tools, a tractor, or cattle, but it was now little more than a roof supported by apparently random two-by-fours planted into the ground.

Under the shed's roof stood a cluster of sleek metallic antennas and a small dish. Mike saw Gideon looking and said, "That's our uplink, can't get a high volume ground line in here without someone noticing."

Gideon shook his head, still trying to understand exactly what was happening here. Mike had dropped some broad hints about viruses and from the sound of it, what was going on was a domestic experiment in information warfare. That's the only thing that Gideon thought would require this kind of rogue operation.

Mike led them around to the front of the barn. As they closed on the entrance, a small door set next to the huge barn doors, Gideon began to hear a noise, like a car idling. It got louder as they approached the barn.

Then Gideon started to feel a slightly warm wind brush against his face. He stopped, suddenly still, and looked up at the wall of the barn.

The door they faced was new construction, a pre-made vinyl-coated door, set rather abruptly into the weathered gray wood. That wasn't the only modification. Gideon could see a series of new metal vents set high up, above the top of the barn door, set in a line across the front of the barn. That's where the warm breeze came from, Gideon was certain. The wind shifted and the warmth left him.

Why would they be venting warm air? The only thing that Gideon could think of was a refrigeration system of some sort. . .

There was only one thing that Gideon knew of that would require refrigeration in this climate, but he didn't think it could be possible.

Mike led them through the door, and Gideon saw, immediately, that it was possible.

Behind the barn doors, sitting on a platform that was adjusted to give a level surface on the dirt floor, was a Daedalus supercomputer. Gideon recognized it immediately, even when it was half-hidden by silvery vents that led up into the gloom of the barn's loft, venting the waste heat, keeping the superconductors from frying while the machine operated.

From under the platform came a twisted mass of cable snaking back into the bam. The end of the bam without the Daedalus looked as if someone had decided to transplant someone's office pool. There were more leveling platforms set up, the cables snaking across the dirt to disappear under them in a half-dozen places. They had set up partitions making a half-dozen cubicles. And hanging from the rafters above were long fluorescent light fixtures.

The idling sound came from two generators that sat on the dirt floor of the bam, between the computer and the office area, snaking their own cables to both.

"Welcome to Project Aleph," Mike said.

The people back in the office weren't guards. Gideon could tell because all the people were more interested in what was going on on their desks than they were in the door. Gideon could tell the guards by their Kalishnikovs, and by the fact that they started straight toward the door from their positions flanking the generators.

Ruth called out, toward the cubicles, "Julie!"

Everything stopped.

The guards looked off toward the office area. The people in the office area turned and looked off toward the intruders.

One woman separated herself from a terminal where she'd been looking over the shoulder of some guy about Mike's age. She took a few steps toward them. She was taller than Gideon had expected. Her hair was loose and hung down around her shoulders, and her depthless gray eyes stared at all of them with what seemed to be a cold curiosity.

"Thank you, Gribaldi," she said. "Both of you should come with me. I suppose you have some questions."