The IRIS Algorithm, page 15
On cue, the devil called.
CHAPTER 35
The caller ID read Unknown Caller. Between the first and second rings, Jason’s courage and bravado, his deal-making audacity deserted him. Between the second and third rings, his palpitating heart stuck to his throat with wet viscera in tow. Between the third and fourth rings, right before the call went to voicemail, against all reason and instinct to survive, Jason’s thumb pressed the green call button.
The devil doesn’t do voicemail.
“Hello?” Jason’s voice crackled with phlegm. He cleared his throat and tried again. “This is Jason Glunt.”
Except for the faint, low frequency oscillation of electronically processed white noise, the line was silent. Jason struggled to find words. The plan had seemed sound, now it seemed weak and useless, suicidal. His panic attack was rudely interrupted by the low warbling sound of words vomited from the caller.
“You’ve failed each task we’ve given you. Now you’ve burned one of your five one-time email addresses to request a call. For your sake, I hope this is worth it.”
Jason clenched his teeth and tried to find his spine. He could do this. Simone said it was a woman behind the Darth Vader voice. Some sissy bitch hid behind an electronic toy trying to sound tough. She’d probably cry if he slapped her across the face a good one. He manned up.
“With all due respect, you’ve got your facts wrong.” It felt good to say the word respect in such a disrespectful way. “I was making very good progress,” he lied, “and then you got impatient and decided to move things along. I successfully managed to switch the laptops, and I would have gotten Rachael, I mean Simone, to crack the code and key log her work so we had the algorithm, but you decided to kidnap her son. Nobody ever said anything about kidnapping.” He paused for effect. “That made my job a hundred times more difficult.”
“You no longer have a job in this operation. Your services are no longer required.”
Yes, it was definitely a woman. No negotiation skills. Goes straight to: “I’m mad. You hurt my feelings, and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Blah, blah, blah. She was probably about to cry.
“Look, don’t be upset.” He paused. “There’s a way to get this deal done so everybody gets what they want.” There was only the rhythmic swishing, maybe heavy breathing, made mysterious by the voice processor. “I’ll mediate this deal. You get the algorithm, she gets her son, and everybody goes home happy.”
“You’re such a funny little man.” The sardonic laughter sounded like emphysema through the processor. “We have the boy. Soon we will have the algorithm. We do not need you, though I may other activities that would suit you.”
He considered telling her about Logan to turn up the heat, gain some leverage, but thought better of it. Save that for later. “You don’t understand Simone. She doesn’t care about the algorithm or money or much of anything for that matter. She would have handed it to me on a silver platter if you’d been patient.” He stopped in front of the DeFuniak Springs’ Chautauqua Hall of Brotherhood, a two story domed wooden structure, built in 1880 according to the plaque. “You stepped way over the line by taking the boy. Now she’ll never give it to you, because she knows it’s her only leverage to assure her son’s safety.” His manliness in full blossom, he added, “That was a very stupid move on your part.”
Now that he had regained some control over this deal, taken techno-babe down a couple of notches, he felt more comfortable. He left Darthette Vader to stew a little while he re-read the plaque.
It didn’t take long.
“What are you proposing, Mr. Glunt?”
Perfect. He’d definitely gotten under her skin. “A trade. You agree to return the boy and take me for collateral. That takes the tension down a notch; you show good faith in the deal. She gives the algorithm to me with a cipher key that only I can unlock. When she tells me she has the boy safe and sound, I’ll unlock it for you.”
“I don’t think we can depend on your abilities. I prefer to be directly in touch with the source of information. Very directly in touch.”
This was why he hated to negotiate with women. She probably wanted to cuddle when this was over. “Listen to me. Give me your whole mind.” The rasping noises increased. “You are never, and I mean never, going to get that algorithm from Simone while you have her son. She likes me, but I’m not her son. She will risk trading the algorithm while you’re holding me. If you don’t honor the deal, she doesn’t risk losing her son. She has no idea we are, more or less, on the same side.” The pulsating hiss filled the dead air, wind in an electronic desert. “You just want the algorithm, right? You don’t really need a little boy. I’m giving you a way to get what you want. Everybody goes home happy.” He paused, hoping for a sign. “It’s a win, win, win situation. “You get your algorithm. Simone gets her son. I get an additional fee for closing this deal successfully for everybody.”
“What sort of additional fee?”
“I think $250,000 would be fair.”
There was a laugh or a cough, an obnoxious sound. “I disagree. I don’t think $250,000 would be fair. I think $500,000 would be a more adequate payment. You need to work out the details and communicate them to us before three o’clock this afternoon. That’s when we’ll call Simone.”
The line went dead.
Dealing with the devil, as it turns out, was far more satisfying than bickering with that cheap prick, Martin Stafford. In his prior dealings with these people—whoever they were—the money was always paid promptly to his Cayman Islands account. It would be no different this time.
Except he had to actually deliver something.
CHAPTER 36
When Jason returned, I suggested we meet on the back patio. Being back in the beige box of my childhood had stirred some forgotten pool of sentiment I thought dried up long ago. I longed for the hot thick scents of summer: honeysuckles in the fencerow, ancient, gnarled magnolias flouting creamy white blossoms that smelled of lemon amid their dark green waxy leaves, the fragrances of Earth. Fragrant. Alive. Dependable.
Perched on the rotting lawn chairs, I recounted details, as I knew them: laptop, phone calls, IRIS Project, and backdoor to NSA’s IRIS servers, which may not still be operational. It was supposed to feel good to confess these things aloud. It did not.
Logan already knew all this from our earlier conversations. Jason knew most of it. I could not think of a good reason not to tell him everything. Jason was in it as deep as the rest of us. Logan disagreed. As I talked, his silence screamed a trembling string of voiceless obscenities. I did not like Jason, but I did not hate him the way Logan did.
I had forgotten how hot ninety-five humid degrees in the shade at one-thirty in the afternoon felt. It was life draining to the pale office worker I had become. It did not take much to convince Logan and Jason to go inside.
“I wondered how long y’all was gonna bake out there.” Lester considered his own statement and seemed to have an answer, but did not share. “Got plenty of iced tea. Just made.” He pointed to two squat pitchers, sweating from the tea line down, square iced cubes from plastic trays floating quietly in the dark brown elixir. The pitchers were from my mother’s green, Depression glass collection, one of the few things I recalled her buying just because she wanted to. I was surprised my father kept the dishes. He always complained about them. It was not what I expected. None of this was.
We each poured a tall glass of tea over more square ice cubes—the kind I had not seen in twenty years—and sat in the living room under a wobbling ceiling fan cranked to high and struggling against the thick air.
“All right, we’ve got to get our act together and fast.” Jason spoke with such unusual command and clarity it required attention. “I’ve been thinking about this deal a lot, and now that I understand the pieces of the puzzle, I think it’s time for us to change the game plan. Time to take a more offensive posture.”
Logan coughed up a laugh so soaked with disgust it sounded like he needed to spit. “Change the plan? I don’t think you have any idea what the current plan is, much less how it should be changed. Did you drop by the liquor store for a bottle of courage while you were out?”
“With all due respect, Logan, I think I know basically how your plan would go.” Jason said. “A meeting is set up to close the deal. You trade the algorithm, or at least pretend to, and they hand over Samuel. Except they don’t trust you to really give them the algorithm, and you probably don’t, or Simone put in some Easter egg virus that renders it useless after we scamper away.”
Jason turned to me with his big, baby blues under his perfectly groomed brows. “And because they don’t trust you, Simone, they’re never going to give you Samuel. And because you don’t trust them, you’re never going to give them the one piece of leverage you have in this deal.”
“The deal? Is that what this is to you, Jason?” Logan was on the edge of his seat, a cocked loaded gun. “Let me tell you how this deal is going to go down. People are going to die. People have already died. I’m going to make sure Samuel does not die.”
I heard the words but it took a moment for my brain to accept the data. I played it back. Same words. “Wait a minute,” I interrupted Jason. “You said people have already died. What are you talking about?”
Logan’s shoulders dropped as he willed himself back from the edge. He stopped glowering at Jason, looked down briefly, then at me, eyes not soft but softer. “I got an update a few minutes ago from my team. Rosalita Hernandez was found shot to death in Juarez Mexico, an apparent victim of drug violence.”
My throat twisted closed. Rosalita was so kind, so good with Samuel. So good to me. Rosalita always tried to mother me, and I always refused. I wanted to let her, but could or would not. Rosalita was a mother and a grandmother with the gift of nurturing. A gift I did not have. She died trying to protect my son. She died because of me.
“There’s more.” Logan sighed. His eyes were tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of living. Tired of me and the problems I brought. “We are still confirming this information, but it appears that over the past six months, everyone who worked on the IRIS Project was either involved in a fatal accident, the victim of a homicide, or is currently missing.”
“Even Dr. Yu?”
“Not Dr. Yu. Just the lower level personnel who worked directly on the project.”
So this was what the term siege mentality meant. Martin frequently used it when he was in command and conquer mode, especially when he got wind of some new and potentially disruptive technology. He began the global company webcasts by explaining the serious challenges the organization faced then reiterated that every employee’s duty was to work harder to stay ahead of the murky phantom he’d created. The evil competitive monster hovering over us. The bogyman waiting in the dark corners. The angry wicked dragon breathing fire on a child’s tree house castle. Confidential internal emails with a secret tracking software attached were occasionally sent to key company personnel to allow Martin to see who forwarded them. The emails were clearly marked DO NOT FORWARD. To the inner circle, Martin gleefully confessed that creating a siege mentality was critically important for technology companies.
And religious cults.
I finally got my mouth to work. “Jason, I want to hear your plan.”
Logan protested. “Simone, this is a waste of time.”
“I want to hear the plan. If you do not want to hear it, take a walk, get some air.” Logan started to get up, but sat back down.
Jason stood, rubbed his whiskerless chin, and slowly paced in the tight confines of the living room. “It’s just a deal to them. They don’t appear to care about human life, but we know they do care greatly about the algorithm. They don’t care how they get it; they just want it. That fact, oddly enough, plays in our favor.”
“You said I shouldn’t trade the algorithm for Samuel. You said it’s my only leverage.”
“Yes, I did say that.” Jason furrowed his manicured eyebrows and drew a deep meditative breath. “The next part of this plan, mind you, I’m not real comfortable with, but I think it will work. It’s just that I’m, uh, well, not like super spook over there.” He tilted his head toward Logan.
I held my breath.
Jason cleared his throat. “When they call, we’ve got to convince them that you’ll never do a straight trade, the IRIS algorithm for Samuel, because you don’t trust them. You’ll only trade if they substitute me for Samuel.”
“What?” Logan and I spoke in sync.
“We’ll use a two key system. I’ll have one key and Simone the other. Simone puts the algorithm and supporting code on the laptop. We arrange to trade me and the laptop for Samuel. Once Samuel is safe, Simone transmits her key. This will partially enable the algorithm. Enough to show it works. Then somehow—I’m not clear on this yet—I negotiate to get a safe distance away before I transmit my key, which fully unlocks the application and the algorithm.”
Because the plan came from Jason’s lips, it was a non-starter for Logan. He shook his head, clearly signaling Jason’s idea won the dumbest-plan-ever-conceived award. “What makes you think they won’t just stick a cattle prod up your ass until you give them your key?”
“Because I think it’s just a deal to them. Simone’s not going to chance it and trade straight up for Samuel. I don’t blame her, but she’ll take the chance to trade it for me. If we don’t do this, you and Simone are going to concoct some kind of tricky plan that will get us all killed.”
I studied Jason’s face, his dreamy blue eyes more resolute than I had ever seen them. “You understand how devastating it will be if they get their hands on this algorithm, right?”
Jason gave a sober nod.
“It will be impossible to create any kind of countermeasure in time to be useful,” I said. “It will take years to develop and deploy an alternative encryption scheme to secure global electronic transactions. Meanwhile, the entire world economy, the entire cyber infrastructure will collapse. It will be cybernetic Armageddon.”
Jason downed the remainder of his strong, iced tea. “Maybe. But if it’s me with that second key, I’ll give it to them. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. I’m going to give it to them and walk away.” Jason turned toward Logan, with a look of guarded triumph on his face. “Then I’m going to count on the big, bad, garbage collector over here to stop them before they can create cybernetic Armageddon.”
After a full minute of silence, maybe more, Logan spoke. “I think it’s a good plan, even the part where they put a bullet in your head after you give them the second key.”
CHAPTER 37
The flimsy screen door slammed behind Logan. He marched in the direction of the barn. He didn’t know why. It was just a destination, a target for his bloodshot eyes. He wanted out of this nightmare. He wanted to be back in Houston, slumped at his desk with an empty bottle of Stoli and the knowledge that this was a vodka-induced hallucination. He’d seen severely wounded men give up and die once they decided that what was left was not worth the fight. He didn’t agree with that philosophy, but he understood it, now more than ever.
Halfway to the barn, he heard the screen door creak then flap hard against the house. He didn’t turn around. He knew it was Simone. Fine. If she wanted to do this, then bring it on. With a thundering rumble, the sliding metal door to the barn pulled aside under Logan’s muscle. He stepped into the dim light of Lester’s barn.
Minutes later, Simone stood in the tall, bright rectangle of light formed by the partially opened door. In silhouette, hands on her hips, she was probably calculating the probability of whether or not this conversation would be worth the air. His own quick math said it wasn’t.
At last, she stepped into the barn and walked slowly toward him. Familiar with the workman, she lingered in front of the waist-high workbench covered with tools, oily rags, a million or so unidentifiable parts. Logan sensed distant memories floating within her, mingling with the smell of solvent and grease. Behind the bench, a brown pegboard attached to the wall held four different sized, crescent wrenches, an eight-piece screwdriver set with two missing, a giant red c-clamp, and a menagerie of pliers, wire cutters, and mysterious implements. In the center of the pegboard was a framed eight by ten black and white photo of the Dancing family. One word, Easter, was scrawled by a happy father’s hand in black ink across the corner. They were dressed for church. Simone held her little brother’s hand. Everyone smiled.
Simone wasn’t smiling now. “Do you hate Jason so much you cannot even listen to his plan? Some of it makes sense.”
“Jason doesn’t make sense to me.” Logan picked up a circular pressure gauge connected to a foot of rubber hose. “It doesn’t matter what his plan is. Something is wrong.”
Simone looked through the bright rectangle of light and floating dust motes. Suddenly, she turned back to him. “If you have a better plan, let’s hear it.”
He threw the gauge down on the bench. “Dammit, Simone! It’s not the plan. It’s him. I’ve had a bad feeling about him ever since I laid eyes on him. It’s only gotten worse.”
“Bad feelings do not mean anything more than good feelings.” Simone regarded him with curiosity, emotional instincts incomprehensible to her. “I cannot make a decision based on nothing more than your feelings—your instincts. “Where is the data, Logan? Data are numbers and the numbers do not lie.”
He pushed away from the bench and stepped into the deeper shadows. He spoke low without looking at Simone standing undeterred behind him. “My instincts have kept me alive so far. Not all data can be distilled to some number or formula for you to factor to a millionth prime number. It’s called informed intuition.”
His brain spun out of control every time he looked at her. It was the mad part about being madly in love. He died under the heel of this weakness once. He couldn’t afford to let it happen again. Steeling himself, he faced Simone and looked into her unblinking eyes.
