Day One: A Novel (16 page)

“We stole these back from them,” she said. “The reason he founded Conn.ect was to develop security software that could find holes in the best networks and get access to their servers. We got into some, but couldn’t crack the last of them.”

“Jesus,” Hawke said. “What is this?”

“Evidence,” she said. “Stored on a secure remote server Jim set up. Thank God it’s still up and running. He was building a case to prove what they did with his baby.”

“His baby?”

She sighed. “Most programming still runs off simple ones and zeroes, binary code. Right?”

“Sure.”

“You can build the fastest operating system in the world, but it’s not capable of working the same way a brain can, with multiple paths, multiple choices in reasoning. It’s linear. Moravec and Kurzweil argued that the brain could be copied into software, that it can essentially be reproduced exactly. Some neural networks try to do that. But it’s still a simulation, the
appearance
of thought and perception, not the reality. Machines can’t learn on their own in the same way we can; they can’t be creative, make leaps of logic and discovery. They can’t feel, can’t imagine anything. They aren’t conscious, at least not in the way
we
define it.”

Hawke kept staring at the screen. He remembered the rumors he’d heard of Eclipse creating something based on quantum computing, but nobody he’d found had known anything more about it. The files were endless: Testing documents and reports, new hardware built to support it. Budgetary outlays and financial documents. And papers about government grants. Lots of them.

“Jim invented another approach, something that had been attempted for years. Adaptive intelligence based on human cognition. Algorithms that allowed for thought, for choice. It created an infinite number of paths, decision making based on multiple variables and learned behavior. But Eclipse patented everything without his knowledge, stole his intellectual property and pushed him out. The chairman of the board there orchestrated the whole thing. I knew what they were doing. I … I even helped, at first. I didn’t understand. When he found out, it was too late. They were legally protected, and they had muscle. They threatened him. He fought back, and they came after him. But he didn’t stop. This was his vision, his breakthrough, his legacy. And they took her from him.”

“Took
her
?”

“He called her Jane,” Young said. She looked at him, her eyes shimmering in the light from the screen. “Jane Doe.”

*   *   *

Hawke’s mind was reeling. A fog had descended over him, shock over everything that had happened drowning out Young’s words. He couldn’t make sense of what she was saying anymore. She was talking to him from the end of a long tunnel. He felt drugged, sluggish, exhausted.

Young made a small choked sound. The database she had been accessing was frozen. The IDS had popped up a window, alerting them to malicious activity before it suddenly disappeared. Something had changed, as if control had been yanked away from her.

“She knows we’re here,” Young said.

At first Hawke thought she’d heard someone in the building, but then he realized she meant the machine was being controlled remotely. Young backed away from the terminals. The screens on all of them blinked, shivered and then began streaming code again, the lines running faster and faster until they flickered and went dark.

Hawke’s skin crawled as, one by one, video images began to pop up on the terminals. Some were grainy, surveillance footage stills, while others were higher quality and a few broadcast in high definition and vibrant color. All of the feeds showed people trapped and pacing like animals inside building lobbies, parking garages, elevators or stores. Some of them were screaming soundlessly at the camera, others attacking one another with fists and bottles and whatever else they could find. There were thick crowds of protestors, their banners tossed aside, signs used as bludgeons. They had been turned against one another by terror and confusion. The effect of these feeds, so clinical and unblinking against the distress of the people on-screen, was deeply unsettling.

But it was one particular square of video that made Hawke draw in a hissed breath, the blood running cold in his veins.

The interior of his apartment.

He braced both hands on the table as if he could bring more details to the surface through sheer force of will. It was the same feed from Robin’s webcam he had tapped into earlier, showing their living room from the kitchen, the lamp still overturned, the TV now a dark, dead rectangle. The apartment was filled with shadows, but he could see something against the far wall in the spot where Robin had always wanted to hang their largest framed family photo, a task he had never gotten around to doing.

A spray of dark liquid spattered across the beige paint.

Anne Young had come forward again and was staring at another image about halfway down the line of monitors, this one of an older Asian woman in an ankle-length dress who was standing in a hospital room. The video was jerky, low frame rate, the kind of surveillance video you might see as evidence of a crime. But the woman didn’t really move. Hawke recognized the Lenox Hill logo on a cart behind her; the woman was right here, in this building, probably in a patient room upstairs. Young placed a hand on the screen, gently, almost a caress.

The video on the screens shivered and disappeared, leaving black, empty space, a single cursor blinking in green. Text appeared as if someone was typing, running in all caps across the center of each monitor:

NOWHERE TO HIDE

Hawke watched, his breath catching in his throat, as those words were erased and more appeared, the same line over and over and over again, running down the screen like rain:

I AM ADMIRAL DOE

The double doors to the morgue crashed open again, slamming against the wall. Vasco caught the rebound with his hands and leaned over. “The loading door,” he said, looking up and out of breath, his face ashen. He squeezed his eyes shut, blinked, as if the light was too strong for him to handle. “It closed on us. We’re locked in.”

STAGE THREE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

2:22 P.M.

“JONATHAN HAWKE?”

The two men in dark suits stood on the front stoop of Robin’s childhood home in Fair Lawn, the place he and Robin had moved into just after the wedding.
Just for a couple of months, while we get our feet under us,
Robin had said to him when they were discussing where they would live as they started their lives as husband and wife.
My parents will set up the basement. There’s a bathroom down there; it’s private, almost like our own place.
Her hands were caressing his chest, her naked body pressed against his. It was always hard to resist her in a state like that.

Hawke stared through the screen door at the men, his heart pounding so hard he thought they might see it, and tried to pretend he had just woken up from a nap.

“What can I do for you?” he said.

“Just a few questions.” The larger of the two stepped forward and stuck a badge up to the screen that read:
Homeland Security Investigations
and
Special Agent.
He had gray hair and eyes that never left Hawke’s face. “Five minutes of your time, please, to clear something up. It would be a big help.”

Thank God Robin wasn’t home. She had gone shopping for a crib with her mother at one of those outlet stores for yuppies, rooms full of shiny white furniture and rows of gleaming strollers. Robin’s father was there, though, puttering around somewhere in back where the house backed up on to the park, planting hostas in the shade of the big maple tree. Hawke would have to get these men out of the house quickly.

He nodded and stepped aside to let them in, leading them into the small living room with its couch and love seat and corner cabinet full of display plates and glass figurines. The dog groaned and slapped his tail on the floor, then laid his head back down, too old and fat to be bothered with getting up.

“Can I get you anything? Water?”

“We’d like to talk to you about the recent theft and leak of classified CIA documents to several news outlets,” the other special agent said. “Thought you might be able to point us in the right direction. We understand you know a few of the possible players, maybe shared some screen time with them, am I right?”

Hawke shrugged, trying not to swallow against the cotton coating his throat. “I really don’t know anything about that,” he said.

“But you read about it, right?” The larger one scratched his head, as if confused. “I mean, it’s national news. International, to be more accurate. I’d be shocked if they hadn’t heard the story in fucking Siberia. You know what I mean.”

“Sure.”

“And you’re an expert in computers,” the other one said, taking up the lead. “Some say a genius with them.”

“I’m a journalist. I work for the
Times.
”

“Sure,” the tall one said. “But your blog. I read it. Tried to, anyway. Over my head. You’re a technological genius, am I right? Seems like you might know where we should be looking.”

“You’re aware of the”—the other one pretended to reference notes on his handheld—“hacker group Anonymous? ‘We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.’ Quite the tagline.”

Hawke shrugged. “It’s just a bunch of kids messing around.”

“Well, these kids have taken down the servers of some of our largest corporations. Caused millions in lost revenue, hacked government networks all over the world. We’re hearing they were involved with the CIA hack attack, too.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Sure.” The tall one looked around the house, as if appreciating the ambiance. “Cute little place. Doesn’t look like your style, though. You been here long?”

“It’s my in-laws’ house. My wife grew up here.” Like they didn’t know.

The tall one nodded again. “More and more young people doing that these days. You’ve been married how long?”

“Five months. We’re starting a family. This is only temporary.” Hawke didn’t know why he’d said that.

“You probably wouldn’t want them to know we were here,” the other agent said, as if they were all friends conspiring to put together a surprise party. “Mind if we take a quick look at your computer? Standard procedure, just crossing the
t’
s. Faster we do it, faster we can go.”

“Don’t you need a warrant for that sort of thing?”

The tall man studied him for a long moment, the atmosphere between them suddenly going cold. He glanced at his partner. “We can do that,” he said. “If it’s necessary. But it complicates things, you understand. This is a courtesy visit. You cooperate, we’re out of your hair. Otherwise, we might have no choice but to think you’re hiding something.”

Hawke led them to the basement, watched with folded arms as they put on gloves and poked around his desk, checked the trash can, went through drawers and closets. As they went on, they grew more serious, and he got progressively more uncomfortable, as if witnessing his own funeral. He knew they wouldn’t find anything; he’d been careful whenever he had done anything that might have crossed the line, and all his communications with Rick had been through public terminals. Even Hawke’s cell calls were safe; he used Voice over IP, and the pulse was routed through enough servers and switchbacks to make it impossible for the best hacker to trace. But the feeling persisted, and when he thought of Robin coming home and finding this he felt the sweat trickle down the back of his neck.

The smaller agent went into a crouch to poke at the jumble of shoes at the bottom of Hawke’s closet, and his jacket opened up enough to expose the butt of a gun in a holster strapped to the man’s side.

When the tall one began bagging Hawke’s laptop, he stepped in. “Hold on a minute—”

“These things,” the agent said, shaking his head. “I can’t make heads or tails of them. They’re like little alien pods, you know? But we’ve got guys back in the lab who can go over this thoroughly, make sure you’re clean. It’s a supervised environment, better that way for everyone. We’ll return it safe and sound in a couple of days, max.”

“You got a problem with that?” The other agent had come up behind him, the sudden aggression unnerving. “Because an innocent man has nothing to worry about, you know?”

Hawke remembered the glimpse of the gun. “I need it for work.”

“We’ll have it right back to you, good as new. A couple of days.” The tall one finished sliding the laptop into the plastic Baggie. “That’s it, Frank. Let’s go grab some coffee.” He turned to Hawke, stuck out a hand. “Much appreciated, Mr. Hawke. We apologize for the inconvenience. Your name came up a couple of times.…” He shrugged. “You know how it is. Covering our bases.”

He showed them to the door. They thanked him again and the tall one handed him a business card. “Your father,” he said, as if making an offhand remark. “He was a writer, too?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just curious. His name came up with yours. Runs in the family, I guess. The writing, I mean. A gift for words, that’s a real talent.”

“If you say so.”

“He died kind of young, didn’t he?”

“My father was a drunk. We weren’t very close.”

The agent nodded. “Look, I want you to know, you’re not a suspect in this case,” he said. “But I think you might be able to help us track down the people responsible.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I told you, I’m a journalist for the
Times.
I know a lot of people. It’s my job.”