73
Near Vientiane
Laos
WE’RE FOLLOWING UP on the cargo plane that took off from Colombia, but we haven’t been able to track it or confirm that Smith and Russell were on board,” Deuce Brennan said.
Dresner gripped the arms of his chair, feeling the pain of increasingly arthritic fingers. “So it would be fair to say you have nothing.”
“I don’t know much about Smith, sir, but I can tell you that Randi’s no amateur. If she goes to ground, she’s going to be damn hard to find.”
“Keep me informed,” Dresner said and then cut the connection.
He remained seated, looking around the nearly empty room—the white walls, the single terminal in the corner, the sliding door cutting him off from the rest of the world. What now?
It was possible that Smith and Russell had gone into hiding, correctly surmising that he was having them hunted. But it seemed unlikely. Had they informed their superiors about the hidden subsystem? About his plans? About his offer of a partnership? If so, he would expect to have been contacted—the Americans would want to negotiate the most favorable deal possible.
There was no choice now but to assume that they were going to attempt to stop him. But how? He was watching every network and power grid. Next-generation algorithms were tracking the Merge connections of every person of consequence on the planet, looking for any pattern that might suggest someone moving against him. The Internet and media were being constantly scoured for the vaguest hint that his plan had been discovered.
But there was nothing.
It would be easy to tell himself that he had planned for every eventuality, that they were acting entirely out of desperation. But Jon Smith was a more formidable opponent than that. If he was acting, he believed he had found an exploitable weakness.
Dresner activated his usage application and a set of graphs appeared in the air ahead of him. Units online were moving upward on their daily cycles and would peak in another few hours. Five and a half million people would be active at that point, approximately 1.3 million of whom were targeted by LayerCake. It wasn’t enough—he was convinced of that. But could he afford to wait? Was it possible that Smith had found some flaw that he hadn’t considered?
A quiet alarm began to sound, answering many of the questions and suspicions plaguing him. He rushed to the terminal against the wall, resenting having to use such a clumsy device, but forced to acknowledge his technology’s inability to process complex inputs.
A screen displaying Merge networks came up and showed that the military’s satellite links had all gone down simultaneously. There was little question that Smith was to blame, but why? Only about nineteen percent of America’s soldiers were served by that network—mostly young, low-level infantry who wouldn’t have been targeted by LayerCake anyway. What could he possibly hope to accomplish that would justify the risk he was taking?
The alarm varied in pitch and another window sprang to life on his monitor—this one showing some kind of virus attacking the servers in Canada. The system was rerouting traffic through excess capacity in Mexico but there was still a two percent slowdown worldwide. How could a virus have worked its way that deep into his system?
Another change in alarm pitch was accompanied by a screen showing a T-Mobile network in Southern Europe crashing, along with a number of independent Internet service providers throughout North America.
System security would be tracking the source of the disturbances and he pulled up the list, staring at it for a moment in disbelief. This wasn’t a coordinated effort by the NSA and their foreign counterparts—the entire assault was coming from two terminals in Javier de Galdiano’s office.
Dresner tried to shut them down, but found himself locked out as disturbances kept appearing all over the globe. Two cable companies went down in California, increasing the slowdown to twelve percent and disconnecting more than forty thousand users. A server farm in Kansas went offline as the power grid began pulsing beyond the capacity of its surge protectors. The temperature of a critical switch in Arizona suddenly went outside of parameters and began its shutdown sequence.
Dresner closed the windows on his monitor and brought up the videoconference software that connected him to de Galdiano. He didn’t expect it to work and was surprised when the screen was immediately filled with the image of the man’s office. In its center was Jon Smith, standing directly behind the Spaniard as he typed furiously on his keyboard. At the other terminal, working even more manically, was a bearded man whom he suspected was Martin Zellerbach. Standing at the nearly opaque glass wall was Randi Russell.
“Javier! What are you doing?”
He expected to see fear in the man’s face—some hint that he was acting under threat—but there was none in evidence when he looked up at the camera. He was doing this voluntarily.
“They told me you’re going to use my algorithm to kill people, Christian.”
“And you believed them?”
“If they’re lying then I’ve made a bad mistake and you should fire me. But they’re not lying, are they?”
A server farm in Thailand was overwhelmed but the Canadian virus had been isolated and that capacity was coming back online for a net increase in bandwidth. Worldwide, the average slowdown was hovering just under thirty percent; total users were sixteen percent below nominal levels.
“No one screws with Marty Zellerbach!” the bearded man suddenly shouted. “I once key logged the computer of God himself!”
Wild-eyed and obviously mentally ill, Zellerbach was nonetheless one of the best hackers in the world. With Javier’s cooperation, could he really threaten the entire network?
Dresner moved to reset the servers in Thailand but found that the control system would now read out only in that language. Finally, he took a step back and used his Merge to connect to the head of the Granada campus’s security detail.
“Yes sir, Mr. Dresner,” the man said, obviously shocked to be contacted directly by the founder of the company he worked for. “What can I do for you?”
“There are people in Javier de Galdiano’s office trying to sabotage LayerCake. It appears that Javier is working with them—or perhaps even leading them. I need you to take control of those terminals at any cost.”
There was a disconcerting silence before the man responded. “I understand, sir. But the elevators have shut down and the locks on the doors leading to the stairs have frozen.”
Dresner slammed a fist down next to his keyboard. Of course Javier would have access to the computer controlling the building.
“How long?”
“We’re working on the locks now, sir. Less than five minutes to get a team to his floor.”
“Five minutes?” Dresner repeated, taking another hesitant step backward. How much more damage would the system suffer in that time?
“Do it,” he said and then shut down the connection.
When he looked at the computer screen again, Smith was staring directly at him through the camera in the ceiling.
“I’m almost there!” Zellerbach shouted, the spit flying from his mouth visible even with the marginal resolution of the image. “Once my new virus is uploaded, it’s lights-out. I guarantee you, Dresner’s never seen anything like it. No one has!”
The beginnings of a smile played at Smith’s lips. And while it was nearly imperceptible, the look in his eyes was easy to read: Victory.
There was no way to deny what was happening any longer. Dresner had to face the fact that he wouldn’t have the time necessary to change the world in the way that he’d dedicated his life to. A simple army physician had put an end to that dream. But he could still act. And he could pray that it was enough to give humanity a chance to save itself.
Dresner met his adversary’s gaze, examining the smug expression for longer than he should have before expanding the icon that activated the Merge’s concealed hardware.
“You have no idea what you’ve done, Colonel.”