Kenner and Evans stood outside, in the hallway. Evans was pleased that he felt steady enough to stand. His strength was coming back quickly.
"It hasn't been easy," Sanjong said to Kenner. "The procedure here is to give each Weddell researcher private storage space and also direct radio and Internet connections. And these three guys knew how to take advantage of it. Apparently the third man with Brewster was the computer guy. Within a day of his arrival, he got into the system as root, and installed back doors and trojans all over the place. We're not sure how many. We're trying to get them out."
"He also added a few dummy user accounts," the technician said.
"Like about twenty," Sanjong said. "But I'm not worried about those. They're probably just that--dummies. If this guy was smart--and he was--he'd have given himself access to the system through an existing user, so he'd go undetected. We're looking now for any users who have added a new secondary password in the last week. But this system doesn't have a lot of maintenance utilities. It's slow going.
"What about the trojans?" Kenner said. "How are they timed?" In computer slang, a trojan was an innocent-looking program installed in the system. It was designed to wake up at a later time and carry out some action. It derived its name from the way the Greeks won the Trojan war--by making a huge horse and presenting it to the Trojans as a gift. Once the horse was within the walls of Troy, the Greek soliders who had been hiding inside it came out and attacked the city.
The classic trojan was one installed by a disgruntled employee. It erased all the hard drives in a business three months after the employee was fired. But there were many variations.
"Timing on all of the ones I found here is short," Sanjong said. "One day, two days from now. We found one that is three days from now. Nothing after that."
"So. Just as we suspected," Kenner said.
"Exactly," Sanjong said, nodding. "They intended it to happen soon."
"Intended what?" Evans said.
"The calving of the big iceberg," Kenner said.
"Why soon? They would still have been here."
"I'm not sure they would have. But in any case the timing was determined by something else."
"Yes? What?" Evans said.
Kenner gave him a look. "We can go into it later." He turned back to Sanjong. "And what about the radio connects?"
"We disabled all the direct connects right away," he said. "And I assume you did work on the ground at the location itself."
"I did," Kenner said.
"What did you do on the ground?" Evans said.
"Random disconnects."
"Of what?"
"Tell you later."
"So we're redundant," Sanjong said.
"No. Because we can't be sure there's not someone else embedded in this place who will undo our work."
"I wish," Evans said, "I knew what the hell you guys were talking about..."
"Later," Kenner said. This time the look was sharp.
Evans was silent. He felt a little wounded.
MacGregor said, "Ms. Jones is awake, and getting dressed."
"All right," Kenner said. "I believe our work here is done. Wheels up in an hour."
"To go where?" Evans said.
"I thought that was obvious," Kenner said. "Helsinki, Finland."
EN ROUTE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8
6:04 A. M.
The plane flew back through the dazzling morning light. Sarah was sleeping. Sanjong was working on his laptop. Kenner stared out the window.
Evans said, "All right, what did you disconnect randomly?"
"The cone charges," Kenner said. "They were laid out in a precise pattern, four hundred meters apart. I disconnected fifty at random, mostly along the eastern end of the line. That will suffice to prevent the standing wave from being generated."
"So, no iceberg?"
"That's the idea."
"And why are we going to Helsinki?"
"We're not. I only said that for the benefit of the technician. We're going to Los Angeles."
"Okay. And why are we going to Los Angeles?"
"Because that's where the NERF Conference on Abrupt Climate Change is being held."
"This is all related to the conference?"
Kenner nodded.
"These guys are trying to break off an iceberg to coincide with the conference?"
"Exactly. All part of any good starburst media plan. You arrange an event with good visuals that reinforces the point of the conference."
"You seem awfully calm about it," Evans said.
"It's the way things are done, Peter." Kenner shrugged. "Environmental concerns don't come to the public's attention by accident, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, take your favorite fear, global warming. The arrival of global warming was announced dramatically by a prominent climatologist, James Hansen, in 1988. He gave testimony before a joint House and Senate committee headed by Senator Wirth of Colorado. Hearings were scheduled for June, so Hansen could deliver his testimony during a blistering heat wave. It was a setup from the beginning."
"That doesn't bother me," Evans said. "It's legitimate to use a government hearing as a way to make the public aware--"
"Really? So you're saying that in your mind, there's no difference between a government hearing and a press conference?"