Spyder Web (24 page)

‘I’m going to bring down the internal network, leaving only our line from here to campus up. If he’s inside MARC, we’ll know it real soon.’ Grin typed furiously, entering the commands that would sever the communication links between the mainframe and every PC inside the MARC complex. With MARC’s internal network down, the hacker could only be coming from the outside.

‘Is he gone yet?’ Grin asked as MARC’s internal network shut down.

The hacker was still cycling through their computer down to the university’s Main Computing Center. ‘Nope, he’s still there.’

‘Excuse me, Mr Grinelli,’ Harbke called out from across the lab, ‘but could you explain something to me?’

Grin turned to face Harbke, who stood in front of the MARC network connections. ‘Sure, but only if you call me Grin. What’s your question?’

‘The network line you’re tapped into is part of that bundle feeding into the back of the mainframe’-Harbke pointed to the orange-coated fiber-optic cables-‘and from there you can access campus or the outside world, correct?’

Grin’s eyes followed the cable bundle from the end connected to the mainframe until it disappeared into a floor tray. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

Harbke then crouched down and pointed to a wellinsulated cable bundle that emerged from the floor. ‘Then what’s this super-cooled connection used for?’

‘You want to field that one, Kelsey?’ Grin asked.

Kelsey walked over to where Harbke stood looking at a spaghetti tangle of cables. ‘That’s a TBpS cable, which we use to carry-’

‘Terra Bytes per Second,’ Harbke completed the sentence. ‘But what’s it doing here? These are still experimental, and the fiber lines should be more than adequate to service this equipment.’

‘Adequate for what’s inside this room.’ Kelsey then turned toward the glass wall separating the main lab from her own. ‘Our TBpS cable connects the Cray to an experiment of mine in the next room.’

‘Where are you coming from?’ Grin’s frustrated shout drew everyone’s attention.

Nolan walked over and stood behind Grin’s chair to watch the screens over his shoulder. ‘What’s up?’

‘This guy is really good. I don’t have a clue how he’s getting over the network and through the Cray. I’ve isolated every communications feed I can find and he’s still out there. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was here in the lab.’

‘That’s what I’m getting at,’ Harbke answered from beside the ITC line. ‘You’ve isolated the outside phone lines and campus network ties and come up empty. Grin has shut down the building, and we still have nothing. Your laptop is wired into this line, and it still says that the hacker is out there. If I read your wiring correctly, I’d say the only cable we haven’t looked at is this one.’

‘It can’t be the ITC cable,’ Kelsey argued. ‘It only goes from here to there. We can see the entire thing.’

Harbke didn’t look convinced, and she continued playing devil’s advocate. ‘Maybe, and maybe not. Did you put that cable in yourselves, or was it contracted out?’

‘We had the professionals install that cable,’ Grin replied. ‘I went to school for two weeks on it, but I wouldn’t want to try and put one in.’

Harbke knew she was grasping at straws and could sense the doubt in the others’ minds. ‘I know it’s a long shot, but we have to eliminate every possibility, no matter how remote.’

‘All right, we’ll give it a shot.’ Nolan slapped Grin on the shoulder. ‘Let’s get to it.’

Grin and Nolan spent the next ten minutes tapping into the ITC cable.

‘Here goes nothing,’ Nolan said.

The laptop displayed two windows, side by side. One depicted the information flowing through the Cray; the other reported on the ITC cable.

‘Nolan,’ Kelsey said with a touch of concern, ‘this shows the hacker’s on our ITC cable.’

‘Can’t be,’ Nolan said, ‘I must have gotten the wiring ass-backward.’

Nolan rechecked the laptop; he’d programmed everything correctly. ‘This is weird. The laptop thinks that it’s picking up our hacker on the ITC cable, but that’s impossible. I must have screwed this program up somehow.’

‘Well, let’s prove it once and for all.’ Grin reached down and yanked the monitor wires from the Cray’s network.

The first window on the laptop suddenly went blank and an error message appeared, indicating that the signal had been lost. To Nolan and Kelsey’s surprise, the remaining window still showed the hacker hard at work.

‘I feel sick,’ Kelsey said, massaging her temples.

‘I’m seeing, but I still don’t believe.’

‘Believe it, Nolan,’ Grin replied, the other cable dangling from his hand. ‘The laptop is taking only one feed, and it’s coming off the ITC cable.’

Kelsey just shook her head in disgust. ‘Only one thing we can do now, Nolan. Let’s open the floor.’

Grin slipped a toolbox out from under his desk and pulled out a small flat pry bar and a pair of suction cups.

‘What are you going to do?’ Ullrich asked.

‘Open the access floor,’ Nolan replied. ‘Like Kelsey said earlier, the ITC cable only goes from here to there. By physically inspecting the line, we can see where our hacker made his tie-in.’

Tile by tile, the access floor came up, revealing a tangle of wiring that serviced all the equipment in the computer lab. In five minutes, they’d exposed the entire length of the ITC cable. They searched the thick umbilical from one end to the other and found it intact and uninterrupted.

‘This guy’s some kind of magician.’

‘I hear you, Grin,’ Nolan replied. ‘I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s getting on this line. Kelsey, could you please disconnect the laptop and bring it over here with the cables?’

Kelsey gathered up the small computer and handed it to Nolan.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Ullrich asked.

‘We know this guy’s on our line somewhere, right? I’m going to eliminate where he’s not. Kelsey built in a lot of checkpoints for this prototype, so that we could gather data anywhere in the experiment. By moving from point to point, we should be able to isolate any breach in the cable.’

‘That still leaves Kelsey, you, and me as the prime suspects,’ Grin commented dryly.

‘First things first. Let’s find out how our hacker got in here.’

Nolan clipped the monitor cables at another point of the ITC line; the monitor showed the intruder was still there. When he tapped into the next two points along the line, both showed the presence of the intruder.

Nolan then lay flat on his stomach, resting his chin on his arms, which were folded flat against the floor. His eyes followed the ITC line in the open floor duct below him.

‘That’s interesting. I was half-expecting to find some kind of transmitter embedded in the line somewhere, hidden by all the insulation, but we’re at the end of the line, so to speak.’ Nolan stood up and brushed the dust from his clothes. ‘Time to take a look at the equipment on the lab bench.’

Nolan unplugged the laptop and carried it into Kelsey’s lab. ‘Here’s where the ITC cable ends and the processor begins.’

Grin and Kelsey watched the laptop as Nolan snapped the monitor cables into place. Before Nolan could even ask, Kelsey just shook her head; the hacker was still on-line.

Grin scratched his goatee as he looked at the lab bench. ‘Kelsey, you don’t suppose that this brilliant experiment of yours is the hacker?’

‘Not for a minute-it’s just a machine.’

Nolan knew the hacker had to be tying into the system from somewhere. ‘Let’s move to the next point.’ He clipped the cable to a receptacle placed between the Gatekeeper device and the optical processor.

‘he’s gone,’ Grin announced as the signal disappeared from the laptop screen.

‘Quick,’ Nolan barked, ‘the other set of cables. Let’s see if he’s still down-line.’

Grin clipped the second set of cables to the last point they’d checked; the hacker was still on-line. The wires leading from the laptop were fitted into connectors on either side of the Moy Gatekeeper, effectively watching everything that went in and out of the device. Nolan had already isolated the optical processors’ signal traffic to the Cray, leaving only the hacker’s signal unaccounted for.

‘It would appear that this small black box bearing the name Moy Electronics is our culprit.’

‘What is that?’ Harbke asked.

‘Special Agent Harbke,’ Kelsey announced, ‘I would like to introduce you to our Gatekeeper.’

Nolan and Grin both stifled a laugh.

Sean Kilkenny glowered at the pair; he found nothing amusing about this situation. ‘Mind letting the rest of us in on your joke.’

‘Sure, Dad. This little black cube was designed to be a security guard of sorts for the government’s computer systems-something to keep people like our hacker out.’

‘Which it seems to be doing just fine. Our hacker hasn’t reached the optical processor,’ Grin added.

‘Not that a hacker could do much once he got there,’ Kelsey added.

‘This device is strictly for governmental use. Why do you have one?’ Ullrich asked.

‘Moy Electronics is a substantial backer of MARC, with a strong interest in this project,’ Kelsey explained. ‘They’ve provided me with aid on a variety of levels. This device is one of their contributions, and it’s here with the government’s blessing.’

Harbke studied the device closely.’I remember reading about this thing in a memo back at the office. The government is installing them everywhere. Word is that it can track hackers back to their own systems and nail them in the act.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Nolan offered, ‘it appears that our Gatekeeper is part of the problem, rather than the solution.’

‘He’s gone, everybody,’ Grin announced as the signal disappeared. ‘I guess that concludes our broadcast day.’

‘Well, gentlemen, I’m baffled,’Ullrich admitted. ‘Agent Harbke and I need to take this latest bit of information back to the office for a consult. This Gatekeeper is new territory for us.’

After the FBI agents departed, Kelsey, Nolan, and Grin began poring over every piece of documentation they had on their Gatekeeper. Several hours, a vegetarian pizza, and a large dose of diet Coke later, they were no closer to determining the magic that Moy Electronics had packaged inside their little black cube.

‘Well, guys, I’ve had enough,’ Kelsey announced, her frustration shared by all. ‘I’m heading back to my apartment to take a hot shower and get packed.’

Kelsey slowly stood up and stretched her arms upward; she was exhausted. She placed her hand on Nolan’s head and ruffled his hair. ‘See you in about an hour?’

‘I’ll be there.’

As Kelsey picked up her briefcase and walked out of the lab, Grin glanced over at Nolan.

‘What?’ Nolan asked, questioning the look on Grin’s face.

‘Nothing.’

‘Back to business, Grin. Bottom line, this thing is programmable,’ Nolan concluded after reading a dense listing of the Gatekeeper’s specifications, ‘so I guess the trick now is to find out what that program is. Chicago’s an hour behind us, so it’s only forty-thirty there. Let’s get somebody from Moy on the phone.’

Nolan made the call to Moy Electronics in Chicago, and after describing his problem, he was connected with software engineer Bill Iverson.

‘Bill, this is Nolan Kilkenny at MARC in Ann Arbor.’

‘What can I do for you, Nolan?’ Iverson sounded friendly and helpful.

‘I’m having a little trouble with one of your I/O controllers; it’s a Gatekeeper. Are you familiar with it?’

‘A little,’ Iverson answered modestly, ‘I wrote most of its code. What seems to be the problem?’

Nolan explained the situation, how the device was installed, and their problem with the hacker.

Iverson’s voice went from helpful to surprised. ‘Let me get this straight-you’ve isolated the Gatekeeper as the source of a hacker problem you’re experiencing?’

Nolan sat beside the lab bench, looking at the wire clips connected to either side of the Gatekeeper. ‘That’s the way it looks from here. What do you think?’

‘I’m stumped,’ Iverson admitted honestly. ‘What you describe is possible, if you knew how to program a Gatekeeper. There’s only a handful of people who know how to do that and they all work here. I agree with you-we should dump the sucker’s core program and see what’s driving it.’

Iverson talked Nolan through the procedures for downloading the Gatekeeper’s program. From the Cray, Nolan brought up the Gatekeeper control software and gained direct access to the device. A moment later, the Gatekeeper’s program began scrolling up Nolan’s screen.

‘It’s dumping, but I don’t have a clue as to what I’m looking at. Did you guys come up with a new programming language for this thing?’

‘Yes, it’s true, we’re gluttons for punishment here at Moy.’ A perverse sense of masochistic pride seemed to run through computer programmers and engineers, a character trait evident in Iverson. ‘Once you’ve finished the dump, I want you to load the file into a text editor and check a few things for me.’

The download finished and Nolan brought the program file up on the screen. Iverson walked him through a few key areas of the program, looking for any changes that would account for this Gatekeeper’s deviant behavior. Each of the major points matched the program Iverson was looking at in Chicago. Everything in the incredibly long file seemed to be in order, leaving them with no further clues. Nolan hit the Home key and the file jumped back to the beginning.

‘What you just ran past me checks out.’ Iverson sounded as puzzled as Nolan was. ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’

‘Looks like I’m back to square one.’ Nolan was disappointed that they’d come up empty-handed. Absentmindedly, he skimmed over the credits in the header of the Gatekeeper program. ‘Thanks for your help, Bill. I see your name’s listed here with the other programmers for version one point one. It’s nice that your company lets you sign your work.’

‘We’re proud of what we do and-’ Iverson stopped abruptly. ‘Can you read me that version number again?’