The Kraken Project, page 14
part #4 of Wyman Ford Series
“I said I like Charlie … but…”
“But…?”
“He needs a bigger vocabulary. He doesn’t know a lot of words. He’s always saying, I don’t understand that word.”
“Like what words?”
“A lot of words. Words that kids use.”
“You mean bad language?”
“Yeah. That.”
“That’s a reasonable suggestion,” said his mother.
“There are legal issues with programming bad language.”
“To hell with the legal issues,” said his mother. “I think you ought to let Jacob help you make Charlie better. I think that … would be a good thing.”
“Well, yes, okay.” He turned to Jacob. “What else?”
“Well … Charlie’s just … a little lame, that’s all.”
“Lame?”
“He doesn’t know anything.”
“Such as?”
“Anything. Surfing. Music groups. Movies. And he’s annoying.”
“His personality is annoying, you mean?”
“Yes. And his voice is too high.”
“He’s supposed to have a child’s voice.”
“But it’s whiny and high.”
Again his mother spoke: “Dan, I hope you’re listening, because Jacob may be giving you the best advice you ever had.”
“I am listening.” Jacob found his father looking at him curiously. “I wish I’d talked to you about this before.”
“Can you reprogram it?” his mother asked. “How difficult would it be? I mean, to give Charlie a sense of humor, some personality, and make him a little … badass?”
“It’s not impossible.” His father rose from the table.
“Where are you going?”
“Into the shop. To do some coding.” He clapped his hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Want to come with me, pardner?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Go with your father. He needs your help.”
Jacob got up from the table. He wasn’t sure at all that his father needed his help, or that he had any interest in giving it. But he followed his father to the workshop anyway.
26
It was close to midnight when Wyman Ford turned the rental car in at the gate of the Broadbent ranch. They had been driving on washboard dirt roads for hours, and he was thoroughly shaken up and coated with dust. He had been unable to call Broadbent to warn them that he was coming—neither he nor Melissa had a cell phone. He hoped he would find his friend at home. As he pulled up before the ranch house, automatic motion-sensor lights went on, illuminating the outside.
“This really is the middle of nowhere,” said Melissa. “Dorothy knew what she was doing.”
“You wait here.”
Ford stepped out of the car, into the pool of light. An unannounced, midnight arrival at an isolated ranch might not be greeted with open arms. Broadbent appeared at the door, his tall frame stooped. Sure enough, he was sporting a 12-gauge.
Ford stood in the light. “Tom!”
“Wyman!” Broadbent propped the gun up and came down the steps, striding over and shaking Ford’s hand, slapping him on the back. “What the hell? Don’t you believe in phones?”
“We’re in a little fix,” said Ford.
Broadbent squinted at the car. “Who’s that? Girlfriend?”
“No. And I’m going to frustrate the hell out of you by telling you, up front, that you’ve just learned all you’re going to learn about her or what we’re doing. We need to hide our car in your barn and get to work.”
“What kind of work?”
“Computer work.”
“Is it illegal?”
“That’s one of the questions you don’t want to ask.”
“Okay, I get it. But instead of putting that car in the barn—first place they’ll look—I’ll drive it up the arroyo and park it behind the butte. Your friend, does she have a name?”
“Melissa.”
“You and Melissa, come on in.”
On cue, Melissa emerged from the car, slapping off the dust, still dirty from the mountains. After two hundred miles on dirt roads, their rental car, once blue, was so caked with dust it had turned brown. She reached into the back and pulled out Ford’s laptop, wrapped in plastic.
“Hungry? Thirsty?” Broadbent glanced at Melissa. “Shower?”
“Later. How’s your Internet connection?”
“We set up our own high-speed T1 line. I needed it for my vet practice—e-mailing X-rays and so forth.”
“How fast?” Melissa asked.
“Supposed to be a hundred megabits per second, up and down.”
“Take me to an Ethernet jack. I need to get to work.”
For a guy who had money, thought Ford, Tom Broadbent lived like a monk. The ranch house was small and sparsely furnished. The bullet holes in the living room wall, which Ford recalled from an unpleasant incident a few years ago, had been spackled and painted, leaving shiny spots. Tom hadn’t bothered to repaint the entire room.
“How’s Sally?” Ford asked, referring to Broadbent’s wife.
“She’s sleeping the sleep of the just. Nothing wakes her up, not even scoundrels arriving unannounced at midnight.”
He brought them into a tiny study and showed Shepherd the Ethernet jack. “There’s also Wi-Fi,” he said.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to disable your Wi-Fi and use an Ethernet cable. Better control that way.” She set down the laptop. “I’m going to need some small Phillips and flat-head screwdrivers, an X-Acto knife, needle-nosed pliers, some rubber-tipped tweezers, small surgical forceps, and, um, an empty pill bottle and canned air.”
“Coming right up,” said Broadbent, and he left.
“What’s all that for?”
“You can bet the FBI and NASA have their best IT guys looking for Dorothy. And for us. I need to modify this laptop to create an environment where Dorothy will be safe and where I can fix her. I’ve also got to set up a web of proxy servers so we can’t be traced.”
“You can do all this on an ordinary laptop?”
“Yes. I keep all my programming tools online.”
“So how will she know you’re online?”
“She’ll know. But even if she doesn’t, I can find her. Dorothy carries a unique ID. It acts as a tracer. When Dorothy moves from computer to computer through the Internet, her ID leaves a digital bread crumb trail.”
Broadbent returned with the tools. “You’re lucky I’m a vet.”
“Thanks.” Melissa laid them out on the table and turned to Ford. “This is going to take awhile. Leave me alone.”
Ford followed Broadbent out into the living room.
“Charming friend you’ve got there,” Broadbent said. “Are you sure you and she aren’t…?”
“I’m sure.”
“You can’t be celibate forever.”
“We’re just partners. I only met her two days ago. We’re not compatible.”
“Okay, okay. I have a nice, old single malt here, in case you need medicating while you wait.”
“God, yes.”
Broadbent poured out two small glasses and gave one to Ford. They settled on an old sofa in the living room. Broadbent threw one lanky leg over the other and gazed at Ford for a moment, then shook his head. “Look at you. Always in trouble.”
“I’m easily bored. How’s the vet practice?”
“Shane does most of the real work around here. I made him a partner two years ago.”
“Sally?”
“Teaching over at Ghost Ranch. All is good. Quiet. Not much has happened since that prospector was murdered up in the Maze.”
“Better give Shane tomorrow off. We don’t want him asking questions.”
“No problem. I’ll think of some excuse.”
“Tom, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
Broadbent waved his hand. “You helped me out big-time when I needed it.”
Melissa’s voice came from the office: “She’s here.”
27
Lansing and Moro arrived back on the Hell Gate bridge at twenty minutes to midnight. Lansing figured he had time to smoke another Cohiba, which he removed, trimmed, and lit up with fussy care, while Moro paced about. Lansing had arranged everything. All was in place and ready to go. He puffed away, feeling a building excitement and anticipation over what was about to happen. This was a lot scarier than even his riskiest trades.
Lansing tossed the stub off the bridge when he saw Melancourt appear at the far end, walking in her usual stiff-legged, awkward gait. She was a drab, dull thing, and he couldn’t imagine anyone missing her much.
“Hello, Patty,” he said as she arrived, advancing toward her and giving her a warm handshake, receiving a desultory response. “I hope you were able to park where I suggested.”
“No problem,” she said.
“Good. Do you have the Laika program?”
She reached into her pocket and removed a flash drive, giving it to Lansing. “It’s not a sophisticated program,” she said. “I don’t know why you want it.”
“You needn’t worry about my reasons. How do you run it?”
“It runs on OS X and Linux. Just plug it in and install.”
He pocketed the flash drive. “Very good—thank you, Patty. I have just a few more questions and then you’ll get your money.”
“I’m tired of these questions. Give me the money now.”
Lansing hesitated and then nodded to Moro, who handed her the briefcase. She opened it up, saw that it was still full of hundred-dollar bills, and closed it.
“The Dorothy program is still on the loose?” Lansing asked.
“Yes. Nobody knows what’s going on. Shepherd is still missing, and Goddard is crawling with G-men. There’s a rumor that the program’s gone crazy and is out of control, might start a war or kill someone or some such stuff.”
“Could it?”
“Well, that’s hard to say. I think it could do a lot of damage if it wanted to. Even kill people.”
“How could a mere computer program make a life-or-death decision like that?”
“They already do. Every day.”
“But not without human intervention.”
“You ever see the movie 2001? The computer HAL? That’s no fantasy. All those sci-fi stories about computers going rogue make it seem like it’s all fiction, but that science fiction is slowly becoming fact. The HAL problem has been a serious concern among AI programmers for thirty years. It’s the reason NASA was super reluctant to go into AI until it was forced to. You give a software program autonomy, you give it the ability to make its own decisions, you’re opening up Pandora’s box.”
“Earlier you implied that the software was dangerous,” Lansing asked. “If we try to catch it, might it do something to us?”
“You threaten its survival, anything might happen. My suggestion to you is to keep everything you do, all your plans and communications, totally off-line and not even on the phone. But that’s your problem now, not mine. Are we done here?”
“One final question: is there no way we can convince you to help us capture Dorothy? You’d make a lot more money.”
“No way. None.”
“All right, then. We’re done here.”
She turned to leave, but he placed a restraining hand on her arm. “For security purposes, we can’t be seen leaving together. So we’re going to leave first. You wait here for five minutes and then you go. All right?”
After a moment, frowning, she nodded.
They walked away as she clutched the briefcase. Lansing felt a momentary stab of something like pity. As they strolled back toward the Queens end of the bridge, he could see the tiny figures of the two Kyrgyz brothers appear at the island end of the bridge, moseying slowly toward her.
* * *
Asan Makashov ambled across the bridge toward the girl with the briefcase. Her back was turned, and she was watching the two others leave. Asan could hear the soft footfalls of his brother Jyrgal walking beside him. They were both dressed in jogging clothes and moved easily and without speaking. They knew exactly what they were going to do.
When they were about twenty feet from her, she heard them and turned, a frightened look on her face.
“Hello,” said Asan, with a pleasant nod and a smile.
When she saw that he was holding hands with Jyrgal, she visibly relaxed. Just two guys out for a romantic walk was what she must be thinking, Asan mused. It was a trick he and Jyrgal had used before. It always worked. Gays were peaceful. They didn’t kill.
As they drew alongside her, they exploded into action. It was a practiced, choreographed motion. They both turned and stepped to either side of her; Asan grabbed the briefcase with one hand while he and Jyrgal together scooped her up and heaved her headfirst over the railing. She let loose a bloodcurdling scream but somehow managed to hang on to the case, twisting like a thrown cat as she went over the rail. Her other hand grasped a piece of Asan’s jacket. He heaved back, trying to pull the case out of her hand while freeing his jacket, but she was tenacious, hanging on for dear life, shrieking like a banshee. In his effort to yank the case loose, Asan inadvertently stopped her fall and gave her something to hang on to. It was just enough so that she was able to grab the railing with the other arm, her legs windmilling in space, shrieking at the top of her lungs.
“Shit!” Asan yelled, twisting and jerking the case, trying to wrest it free. “Leggo!”
“Help!” she screamed. “No! Stop! Help!”
Asan finally wrenched the briefcase out of her hand and threw it behind him, onto the bridge, so he could deal with the woman with both hands. She was now clinging with both arms to the railing, her legs dangling. He reached over and punched her in the face hard, once, twice, but still she clung on, swinging from the railing, her shrieks punctuated with gasped pleading. “No! Don’t! Ahhh! Help!”
Jyrgal moved in, slamming his fist down on her arm. But now she had found a purchase with a foot on the lip of the bridge and starting scrambling back up, grasping at everything, as hard to dislodge as an octopus.
Asan punched her again in the face, this time from a better stance of power, hitting her so hard he felt her nose crackle like a crushed peanut. A sudden choking spray of blood erupted from her nose and mouth, but still she hung on, her screams turning to gargling.
“Stand back,” said Jyrgal in Kyrgyz.
Asan stumbled back as Jyrgal went into a karate stance, raised his foot, and drove his heel into her face just as she hoisted herself above the railing. The force of it snapped her whole body backward and she peeled off the railing, headfirst, flailing as she plummeted with a choking cry. Three seconds later, she hit the water. Asan leaned over the side and watched the spreading white water slopping away, the waves dissipating. The body was gone; sunk.
“Son of a bitch,” Asan said in Kyrgyz, rubbing his bruised hand. He inspected the railing. There were some spots of blood and other marks of the struggle, including scratches and two broken fingernails embedded in the rusty iron. Pulling out his breast-pocket handkerchief, he wiped off the blood and rubbed out the scratches, flicked off the nails, then let the handkerchief flutter into the river.
Jyrgal had retrieved the briefcase and was opening it. They counted the money together. Four thousand short, just as Lansing had warned. He had promised them the rest later. He shut it and handed it to Asan, and the two brothers turned and strolled off the bridge, hand in hand, just in case anyone was watching.
* * *
As they came to the end of the bridge, Lansing heard the struggle, the faint hysterical screams. The timing was perfect; at that moment a big jet was coming into LaGuardia, and the noise drowned out the finale. He refrained from turning to look, but he saw that Moro, on the contrary, had twisted his head to watch the whole thing, fixated.
“Eric?” Lansing said.
Moro finally turned from the spectacle. He looked terrible. His face was white, and his hands were shaking.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not used to that kind of stuff.”
“Get used to it. When we find who stole our money, the same thing’s going to happen to them.”
“You didn’t have to kill her.”
“She knew we had the manual. She knew what we were planning to do with that software. When we start making billions, do you think she’d be happy with her cut? You can bet the feds are going to question her again about this Goddard mess. You think we can leave a time bomb like her alive, ready to fold as soon as she’s asked a tough question?”
Moro said nothing as they continued on to the Queens end of the bridge, descended the access staircase, climbed over the fence, and strolled along 21st Street through a grim area of shabby apartment buildings, brick warehouses, loading zones, and parking lots surrounded by chain-link and concertina wire. They found Melancourt’s Prius right where they’d suggested she park it, locked up tight. Lansing pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket—a handwritten note he had earlier gotten her to jot down on a pretext. He had practiced her spiky s’s and her meticulous, well-shaped r’s and y’s.
The rear window of her car had not been recently cleaned.
Lansing pulled a latex glove out of his pocket, snapped it on. He would have only one shot at this. He took a deep breath and wrote in the dusty window with the tip of his finger:
So sorry
Please forgive
That was enough. Brevity might be the soul of wit, but it was also the bedrock of believability.
As they were walking back to their own car, Moro spoke. There was a certain forced nonchalance in his voice, betrayed by a faint quaver. “You still haven’t told me what you’re gonna do with that program. Laika.”
“You’re going to torture it.”
Moro halted. “What?”
“You’re going to torture Dorothy’s pet doggie as a way of luring her in.”
“We’ve got the ID. What do we need the dog for?”
“This is simpler. We can do the ID thing if this doesn’t work.”
“How do you torture a computer program?”
“You’re the programmer. You figure it out.”
28
