30

 

The helicopter ride to Seattle had been uneventful except that Kate leaned on his shoulder most of the way…wiping tear tracks from her cheeks a few times.

He could guess what her tears were about, their apologetical discussion that ended without apologies and without being brought to a satisfying conclusion for either of them. But one conclusion he had reached, a very satisfying conclusion, was that Kate cared very deeply for him, or there would have been no tears, only the flames of her hot temper.

After they landed at Boeing Field, Kate took Josh’s hand as Peterson led them to a van parked on the tarmac. He opened the side door and waved them in.

When the van left, the driver turned south instead of north toward the city.

Josh sat up in his seat. “Peterson, would you mind telling me where we’re going?”

“Jennifer’s research lab. It has everything we need, including Jennifer.”

“So Dad’s stuck at home with the twins. How did Mom like being called at 3:30 in the morning?”

Peterson looked back at her. “She liked it as much as I did getting your call at 1:30.”

“I finally get to see inside Mom’s lab. I’ve been in the office part, but never where the real work is done. Speaking of real work, Josh, do you have any estimates of the run time for your program?”

“We don’t know how much data we have to crunch until we find one of the lines of communication. Once we find one, we can probably find the rest in less than two hours, provided the people are communicating.”

Peterson chuckled.” I have an idea that they will be communicating like crazy until everything has been coordinated. If we’re lucky, they’ll stick around and give status.”

Josh sighed. “Finding that first line of communication could take anywhere from an hour to seventy-five hours, depending on how much data we have.”

“You will have all of it, Josh,” Peterson said. “But don’t tell anyone that. In fact, at the lab there are some documents waiting for you and Katie to sign. If you violate these contracts, to the federal pen you go.”

“Kate, you heard Peterson. Are you sure you want to work for the FBI? Maybe you and I should get married, moved to some island in the South Pacific, and live off coconuts and fish.”

The wide-eyed stare from Kate quickly morphed to something much warmer. “I could go for that. Snorkeling every day…but, Josh, are you…”

“It was only a hypothetical suggestion. I wasn’t—”

“Would you two quit your romantic sparring in the backseat? In about five minutes, you need to hit the ground running. Can you access your files from Jennifer’s lab, Josh?”

“Yeah. I can use our VPN to get them using Kate’s netbook. It has our VPN client loaded.”

When the van drove into the lab parking lot, the entrance door flew open and Jennifer’s petite form stood in the doorway.

“Mom is ready to roll, Josh. Be prepared. This might actually feel like trying to take a breath inside NASA’s supersonic wind tunnel.”

“You know her, so what do you recommend, Kate?”

“Just tell her exactly what you want, your algorithm accessing the NSA data, running on the fastest machine available. She’ll get you there.”

After they crawled out of the van, Kate took his hand and pulled him toward the open lab door.

“Kate, Josh, are you both all right?” There was concern in Jennifer’s eyes.

“We’re fine, Mom. But Josh needs—”

“Peterson told me. Now, FTP your code using that laptop.” She pointed to a machine on a desk near the doorway. “And meet me in the vault. Katie said you’ve been coding in C++, so I wrote a database access method. It’s ready to drop into your code. We can compile and be running in five or ten minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He sat at the desk and looked up at Kate. “I’m beginning to see what you mean.”

“Josh, don’t talk. Work.”

“The FTP client is already up on the laptop and pointed at the computer science department’s big UNIX server. How did she—”

“Don’t ask. Just login, Josh. Grab your code and anything else you need and let’s go.”

In fifteen minutes they had all moved into the vault.

Jennifer brought Josh’s code up in a VI-like editor, pasted her method into his database class, modified a couple of variables, and compiled it. The compilation was clean. “Now, show me how you look for these guys, Josh.”

Amazing didn’t begin to describe the speed of Jennifer’s mind. It was his code, but one glace and she understood it.

Katie stepped beside Jennifer. “Mom, they’re running an open-source chat client using HTTP. We know one person is in British Columbia. Well…we think so. Some are around Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle. The rest are scattered around the Western states.”

Jennifer patted a chair in front of a UNIX workstation.

Josh sat in it and began typing. “I’m entering the IP address ranges, ports, and protocol now. I’ll start the run in a couple of minutes.”

“Hurry up back there,” Peterson spoke loudly. “We’ve started the video conference with DHS, NSA, and part of the National Security Council.”

Josh looked up at Jennifer. “Did he say the National Security Council?”

“Yes. Get used to it. They’re just people, Josh. People with important jobs. But at the moment, yours is more important than theirs.”

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

Jennifer put her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. What we’re trying will either work or it won’t. We know it’s not a sure thing. Besides, I’m praying for you.”

He looked into Jennifer’s eyes. They were brown, her hair was dark, and she was a small woman. But other than the physical differences, it seemed like it was Kate sitting beside him. How could two unrelated people be so much alike? They belonged in the same family. But what, or who, had brought them together?

Josh turned his focus to the workstation’s monitor, entered the command-line parameters at the UNIX prompt, and then pressed enter.

“The vice president just joined the National Security Council group.” Peterson said as he sat in a chair in front of a big flat-screen monitor with a video camera mounted on it. The screen was sectioned into four different views. “He wants to know what measures we’re taking to stop the attack and the probability of success.”

Jennifer met Josh’s gaze. Her penetrating look might normally have unnerved him, but in this situation, the feeling that she was reading his mind had the opposite effect.

“Josh, I can brief the NSC, but…”

That she was leaving the door open for him to address security leaders of the entire nation filled him with excitement. But…now I know I’m going to puke.

“The president just joined us,” Peterson said. “One of you needs to explain what we’re doing. Jennifer, would you please—”

“Josh should do it.” Kate’s voice.

Jennifer smiled at him. “I agree.” She nudged him toward the monitor.

When he stood, Kate was at his side. She leaned close and whispered, “It’s your algorithm. You can do this, Josh, better than anyone, here. Just tell them what you’re trying to accomplish with it.”

He looked at Kate’s face hardly a foot from his. What was she up to?

She put her arms around his neck. “You look a little green. Maybe I can help you.” Kate pulled his lips to hers.

She didn’t realize the danger of doing that at this moment.

“Katie?” Jennifer’s voice.

Kate’s kiss was a sweet diversion that, for a few seconds, stole his thoughts of the audience, the pressure, and the doubts about his own abilities.

She slowly pulled her lips from his. “I know what I’m doing, Mom.”

“That’s what I’m concerned about.”

Josh cupped Kate’s cheek. “You are lucky, Kate.”

“No, I am blessed by God.” She gave him her warm smile.

“I mean…I might’ve barfed—”

Her nose wrinkled as she pressed her fingers over his lips. “That would’ve been more than payback. How do you feel now?”

“Better. There are some things I need to tell you, Kate. I—”

“Later. First, you’d better tell something to the president. Look at the man. He’s nervous. Help him, Josh.” She pulled him to his seat centered on the big monitor, gave him a smile, and then a nod.

Josh sat, took a calming breath, and looked up at the camera above the screen, then stood again. “Mr. President, members of the Security Council, and others involved in our attempts to stop this imminent attack. I’m Joshua West—”

The president spoke. “Mr. West, how imminent is this attack?”

“It could be launched at any moment. Almost certainly within the next twenty-four hours.”

The president pressed his fingertips together. “How are we being attacked?”

Josh explained the three components of the attack, forest fires, biological warfare, and cyber warfare, and then explained the unusual cooperation between the terrorists groups. This led naturally into the subject of the command and control center and the communications being used.

Grim faces looked at him from each of the windows tiled on the big display.

“Mr. President, my algorithm is built upon the work of Jennifer Brandt. I carried her work forward, providing a very powerful way of finding communication between organizations on the Internet. But this is the first attempt to use my approach.”

“What’s the probability of success and how long might it take to locate the terrorists?”

“The probability of finding them is nearly 100 per cent.”

There were audible gasps, and then smiles from the various audiences.

“But we don’t know how long it will take to find the first line of communication. Once we find that, we can, within an hour two, locate anyone else involved, provided they are communicating during the time interval we are scrutinizing them.”

Kate stood. “I’m Josh’s partner in this research effort. Your best chance of thwarting this attack is to let Josh proceed.”

Jennifer stood. “I’m Jennifer Brandt and my daughter is right.”

“Your daughter?” The president gave them a puzzled frown.

“Yes, my daughter. It’s a long story. One for another time.”

Peterson stood. “I’m Special Agent Peterson, and I can vouch for these two young people’s abilities, persistence, and bravery. They, Mr. President, are the cream of the crop. We do have a backup plan, but if you want to minimize loss of life and property, Mr. West and his partner, Katie Brandt, are our best hope. Jennifer will assist them as necessary.”

Josh sat down. The others in the room followed his lead while the National Security Council members muted their audio and had an animated discussion.

When the hand waving, head shakes, and nods ended, the president’s voice returned. “Mr. West and those assisting…keep pressing on, but I want a progress report every hour on the hour. Now, I want someone to brief me on the backup plan to stop this attack.”

Jennifer pointed across the room toward the UNIX workstation. “I believe we’re excused. Back to work, you two.”

As they walked back to the UNIX workstation, behind them, Peterson opened the presentation of the backup plan.

The display on the workstation’s monitor indicated that Josh’s program had terminated and had written ten records to the output file. “Kate, Jennifer, we’ve got something. Let’s check it out.”