Stephanie nodded. "That's right on the money. They could, except that whoever writes the program adds in something called a padding scheme to prevent exactly that. It injects random factors into the equation. That makes the message almost impossible to crack unless you have the private key."
"But you figured out how to do it," Lamont said.
"I did," Stephanie said. "It got me into a lot of trouble. When I was eighteen I hacked into the Pentagon just for fun. Two days later the FBI showed up at my door. Scared the hell out of me."
Everyone laughed.
Stephanie smiled. "Anyway, it worked out. Instead of throwing me in jail they gave me a job with NSA. That's where Elizabeth found me."
"That's a hell of a story," Ronnie said. "But I still don't understand how you do it."
"You can't expect a Marine to understand stuff like that," Lamont said.
Ronnie started to say something but Elizabeth cut him off.
"Shall we get back to the purpose of this meeting? Steph, I like Nick's idea. Can you do it?"
"I can get into Gutenberg's corporate computers," Stephanie said. "Those will be active all the time. His personal computers are a different story. I have to be able to intercept something when he's online. Then I can slip in a program that will let me access the computer any time it's turned on. From there I can break whatever encryption scheme that's running and read everything on it."
"You said intercept something. Like an email?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't we send our pal Gutenberg a message?" Nick said. "When he responds, you'll have him."
"That would work, but why would he respond?"
"I guess it depends on what you say."
"You could pretend to be someone he'd have to answer," Selena said.
Steph looked thoughtful. "Once I'm into his bank's server, I could send him a message from one of his executives. It would look right. Gutenberg would think it was legitimate and answer it. The computer he used would be mine after that."
"Keep it simple," Elizabeth said. "Once that's done, see what you can do about Krivi."
"So now we wait and see what Steph comes up with?" Nick asked.
"Now we wait," Elizabeth said.
CHAPTER 29
Stephanie bypassed the firewalls on Gutenberg's bank servers and sent an email to him. It appeared to come from the vice president of operations and required a reply. She'd tagged the message with an automatic alarm to alert her when Gutenberg answered. His response would be captured and traced back to his computer. He could hide his location in a hundred different ways, bounce the signal all over the world, but she would find him. Then she would only have to wait until he was online again to plant her Trojan horse.
As it happened, she got lucky. She was sitting in her office thinking about the problem of Krivi Dass when the alarm signaled a hit.
Got you, she thought.
She had to work fast, before he signed off. Her fingers flew over her keyboard as she backtracked the signal through a dozen false Internet addresses to the source. She tapped a key. Seconds later her lines of code had burrowed into Gutenberg's secure, personal computer. She entered another command. The contents of Gutenberg's hard drive began transferring to Virginia. She had almost all of it before he shut down.
She disconnected from the Internet and began looking at the files. A red warning notice flashed across her screen, triggered by a program she'd written to protect her laptop.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. CONTINUE? Y/N
The files she'd downloaded were isolated from any outside source. The security warning indicated an intruder on Gutenberg's computer, not hers. Someone else had been looking at the files at the same time she was.
She entered Y and thought about what the warning notice meant.
Given the level of security wrapped around Gutenberg's machine, whoever was watching him had to have a high level of experience dealing with sophisticated encryption schemes. Very few could do that. She could count the number of individuals who might be able to pull it off on one hand. The only other possibility was a government agency.
Sooner or later, whoever had the skill to break into Gutenberg's computer would discover the program she'd planted to monitor his communications. If they were really good, they would trace the program back to Virginia. They would never break through the encryption protocols Stephanie had created to protect the Project computers. But they would know where those computers were.
That was the bad news. The good news was that it worked both ways. With a little effort she could find out who was watching him and where they were, or at least where their server was located. She activated a digital hall of mirrors that would defeat any attempts to access her computer, went online and began following the trail. Ten minutes later she had her answer. She stood and went into Elizabeth's office.
"Got a minute? Something's come up."
"Come on in," Elizabeth said. "I was just thinking about Gutenberg and what we might do about him."
Dark shadows under her eyes stood out on Elizabeth's milk white skin. Her elfin features seemed stressed, as if she were listening to an unpleasant sound she couldn't avoid.
"Things just got a little more complicated," Stephanie said.
"How so?"
"I got into Gutenberg's computer and managed to download most of what was on it."
"And?"
"I don't know what's in those files yet, but I found a program a lot like mine. Someone else has the same idea we do."
"Someone else is spying on him?" Elizabeth said. "Who is it?"
"That's where it gets more complicated. It's someone working out of SVR headquarters in Yasenevo."
"The Russians." Elizabeth sighed.
"Yes. SVR is monitoring Gutenberg's computer just like I was."
"Do they know you were there?"
"They might," Stephanie said. "It depends on how they've got it set up on their end. I think we should assume they'll notice my trace. SVR will figure it out. They'll know it's us."
"You were right when you said it just got more complicated."
Elizabeth picked up her pen and began tapping it on the desk.
"If SVR is monitoring Gutenberg, they know he's the one who took those plague samples. Adam told Nick that it was Vysotsky's group that lost them. I know how Vysotsky thinks. He's going to want to get the samples back and extract revenge for his men. Plus his head's probably on the chopping block if he doesn't manage to contain this."
"He's got some shot at coming up with the samples," Stephanie said.
Elizabeth laid her pen down and pushed it away as if it might bite her. "Have you tapped into Krivi's computers yet?"
"Not yet. I was considering the best way to go about it when Gutenberg went online."
"We need to know what Krivi is doing," Elizabeth said. "I don't think AEON would release the plague without a vaccine to protect them. If any of the samples survived Zürich, he'll be manufacturing it. That would tell us it's still out there."
"And if it is?"
"We'll deal with that when we get to it."
"I'd like to go through the files I downloaded from Gutenberg before I do anything about Krivi," Stephanie said.
"All right," Elizabeth said. "In the meantime, I'll think about how we're going to deal with Vysotsky."
"Is there some reason why Selena doesn't like the Russians?" Stephanie asked.
"A lot of people don't like the Russians. Why do you ask?"
"It's just that every time we talk about Russia her face shuts down, like she's trying to hide her thoughts or feelings. I didn't think anything of it the first time but then it happened again, more than once. I just wondered if you knew anything about it."
"I can't think of any reason," Elizabeth said. "She was fine working with Korov."