“If you’re feeling so damn rambunctious, why don’t you use those martial arts skills of yours to take out a couple of these guys?”
Manning snorted. “Don’t fall for your own hype, buddy. Breaking boards in a dojo is a far cry from facing down a bunch of armed men.”
“But you could do something,” Sol pointed out. “You have more skills than the rest of us. Act like a man.”
“Please, Sol. Let the fascists take these bums down.
Better the LAPD break out their guns here than in some oppressed neighborhood like South Central.”
9:09:16 P.M. PDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Milo Pressman continued struggling with the CTU’s infected mainframe, using the only isolated computer. He’d restored a modicum of functionality by running various virus dump protocols. The work was slow, inefficient, and minimally effective. To top it off, his focus was off. Thoughts of Richard Lesser continuously overran his concentration.
Chappelle had told Milo what had happened less than an hour before: “Lesser said he’d tasted Paradise. He didn’t care what he we did to him. He’d found religion and said he was ready to die. Then he committed suicide.”
Milo’s jaw had gone slack at Chappelle’s words. “You’re saying Lesser’s… dead?”
Chappelle had nodded. “A button on his shirt was actually a cyanide capsule.”
“But Lesser’s a secular, agnostic iconoclast, not some kind of religious fanatic.”
“Hasan managed to turn him into a believer. Used drugs to dull Lesser’s mind, broke down his will. Call it mind control. Brainwashing. A coerced religious delusion.” Ryan shrugged, “I didn’t believe it was possible either, until I saw it for myself.”
Ever since that conversation, memories of Lesser had crashed over Milo in waves — the arguments, the insults, the struggle for one pretty classmate’s attention that neither ended up getting. Even back in grad school Lesser had displayed a vicious anti-social streak. Twice he’d sabotaged the Stanford University computer labs, reveling in the chaos he’d caused for others. Just when students were sure their projects were ruined beyond repair, Lesser would sweep in, tap a few keys, restore everything.
Just then, Milo’s fingers paused over the keyboard. “Wait a minute.”
“What?” asked Doris.
“Is the mainframe still up?”
“It’s up, but it’s ignoring all commands.”
Milo spun in his chair, rolled across the floor and muscled Doris out of the way at her station.
“What are you doing?” Doris cried. “If you shut it down, it will take me twenty minutes to get it up again!”
“I have a hunch,” said Milo.
“A hunch! This is no time for a hunch!”
Milo ignored her, entered a series of commands.
“What commands are you issuing?” Doris asked, afraid to look.
“It’s something Lesser used back in grad school.”
Doris was aghast. “And you actually think that will work?”
Milo launched his hunch and held his breath.
For a moment nothing happened. Then every system, every monitor came back on line — fully functional — as if it had never gone down in the first place. Cries of surprise, joy, relief and scattered applause exploded all over the situation room.
Milo heard the sound of pounding feet. Ryan Chappelle rounded the corner at a run. He stopped so quickly he skidded on his Oxfords.
“How?” he asked.
Doris pointed to Milo. “Ask him.”
“Pressman, you know what? It doesn’t matter how. You’re a genius!”
Milo sighed. “Good enough for government work.”
Minutes after Tony Almeida lost all contact with CTU, two Chechen technicians pulled up in front of the house in a late-model Ford. The men climbed out of their car, chatting in their native tongue as they walked to the front door.
Tony waited for them to enter the house, then finished them off with the Glock he’d given Fay for protection — rough justice, but earned in Tony’s estimation.
The last of the wet work wrapped up, Tony had spent the next two hours scanning the contents of the computer database. Fortunately for Tony, the Chechens had been careless — they’d left the system running, the security protocols bypassed, allowing Tony full access to the mainframe and all of its contents.
Using the computer’s log, Tony opened the active files in reverse order, one at a time. Occasionally he would cross-reference a name or address, to uncover another rich cache of intelligence. After an hour of fitting together seemingly unconnected data, Tony began to grasp the bigger picture.
He learned that Richard Lesser had created the Trojan horse in this very house. After burying the virus inside the movie, he’d sent it into cyberspace using the server ticking in the corner. Inside that Gates of Heaven download, Lesser had hidden an overlord virus that took control of a program called CINEFI. Hugh Vetri, who had an office in the Summit Studios complex, found the pirated version of his yet-to-be released film on the Web and downloaded it — releasing the Trojan horse into the studio’s computers, where it lay dormant until a couple of hours ago. At that time the virus woke up, took control of Chamberlain Auditorium. Fire doors were closed, the telephone system was shut down, the hostages locked inside.
But that was only phase one. Richard Lesser had not been lying about the midnight virus or its potential to wipe out the World Wide Web’s infrastructure. That virus was to be released from this facility by the two Chechens who were currently staring at the ceiling with dead eyes.
Tony sighed with relief. At least he’d thwarted that part of Hasan’s plan.
Clearly, Lesser had never intended to hand that virus over to CTU as he’d claimed — he’d been a living Trojan horse, sent to wreck CTU’s computer system. Judging by the agency’s silence, Tony assumed Lesser had accomplished his mission.
Continuing to mine data, Tony came up with the names of people who were either accomplices or dupes of Hasan — Nawaf Sanjore, Valerie Dodge, Hugh Vetri.
It was architect Sanjore, or someone in his firm, who had provided Hasan with plans for the auditorium. It was ex-supermodel Valerie Dodge, or someone inside her modeling agency, who placed Hasan’s assassins at Silver Screen Awards in the guise of ushers.
From the files in the computer Tony learned about Hugh Vetri. The producer had accidentally stumbled onto part of Hasan’s plot — not much, but enough to recognize a threat. So Vetri and his family had to be silenced before Hugh went to the authorities.
After two headache-inducing hours there were still dozens of files unopened, but Tony’s time had run out. Before he left, he decided to fill every blank disk, pen drive, and removable memory chip he could find with data culled from the system.
In the middle of the process, his cell chirped. It was Jamey Farrell. “Tony? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. What happened?”
“Lesser infected the mainframe,” Jamey replied. “But the problem’s been corrected.”
“What about Lesser?”
“That problem’s been solved, too. He’s dead.”
Tony didn’t ask how. He didn’t care. “Listen, I think the Chamberlain Auditorium is a target for terror—”
“Too late, Tony,” Jamey interrupted. “The place has already been seized. There are hundreds of hostages.”
Tony cursed. “Look, I want to send you the contents of Lesser’s computer. There are dozens of files.”
“Fine, I’ll open a secure line, you transfer the data. Dump it all in Cache 224QD.” Tony and Jamey worked together and Tony quickly dispatched the files.
“I’ve got them,” Jamey said a moment later. “Ryan wants to know when you’re coming back.”