"This is not logical," he said aloud. "This makes absolutely no sense. Files do not change themselves." And yet it had. Somehow, during the transfer the Roger Sherman Poe file had become Roger Sherman Coe.
The instant the thought crossed his mind, Smith was forced to dismiss it. Computers are dumb, brute machines- superfast digital calculators. Give them numbers-and in the binary language of computers, all data is reduced to numerical equivalents-they will always and invariably add, subtract, multiply or divide in precise ways. Computers cannot think. They cannot correct factual data. They hadn't that capability. Even computers driven by artificial intelligence had so far attained at best a dumb, mulelike reasoning power.
Computer error likewise could not be blamed. A transmission glitch might omit data or add data-usually nonsense strings.
Smith looked at the Social Security numbers. He knew that the first three digits corresponded to the geographical region in which a person first obtained his Social Security card.
Roger Sherman Coe's area number was 220. That signified Maryland. It matched Smith's information that Roger Sherman Coe had been born in Chevy Chase.
Roger Sherman Poe's first digit cluster was 447, which designated Oklahoma. This, too, matched up. Poe had grown up in Tulsa.
Had there been a transmission error, the odds that the numbers would make sense were astronomical. Add in the fact that with twenty-six letters of the alphabet, the last name Poe might as easily come out Toe or Xoe-or even Roe.
No. There was no escaping it. Something had gone awry within Smith's new system after he had captured the Roger Sherman Poe file.
And because of it, an innocent man had died. Smith made one last desperate stab at solving the mystery. He ran the computer-virus scan program. It was the only possible explanation.
The program ran. It checked every data string on every tape drive, disk and microchip in the massive and complicated CURE hybrid system. Each time the system came up clean. Smith ran it again, with the same result. And again.
Normally one scan would have satisfied even the supercautious Harold Smith. Because he no longer trusted his system, he scanned it four times for errors or problems.
Other diagnostic programs reported the system checked out clean.
Under the circumstances, it was the worst news he could have received.
Shaken, Harold Smith closed out the two files, and for the last time sent the CURE terminal slipping back into its desk well. The folding keyboard retracted as the screen automatically winked out and the entire unit dropped below desktop level. A much-scarred oaken panel clicked into place, showing no seam or trace of its existence.
Woodenly Harold Smith stood up and removed his gray coat and vest. He hung them on a wooden coat tree and walked over to the one concession to comfort in his Spartan office, a couch.
He turned off the overhead lights and went to sleep on the couch. He was too shaken to risk the drive home, and he desperately needed sleep.
It was well after midnight, too late to call the President with the horrible news. But Smith resolved to do it first thing in the morning. He would have to. The President must know that CURE's data-gathering arm was no longer reliable.
Without it, CURE had been maimed, perhaps crippled.
Harold Smith dropped off to sleep almost instantly. And for one of the few times in his life, his sleep was troubled by vague, inchoate nightmares.
They took no concrete form. That was beyond Harold Smith's subconscious powers. To have vivid dreams and terrifying nightmares would require imagination.
Chapter 8
The first week of September is the slowest time of year. The beaches are crowded. Air flights are packed. Business and government slows to a lazy crawl, and the stock market sleeps.
In workplaces short-staffed offices and factories try to struggle through to Labor Day. Projects are put off. Other tasks are done slowly and not finished until after Labor Day.
Enjoying the last dwindling days of a summer that it will never see again, America is at its most relaxed. And most vulnerable.
While the three people who comprise the supersecret agency called CURE slept fitfully, concerned about their future, four seemingly random and unconnected events were taking place.
In Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island, money began flowing out of the Grand Cayman Trust in a torrent. The vault remained shut, its time lock undisturbed. Its burglar alarms failed to sound. In fact, its night clerks continued updating transaction files all through the looting, oblivious to the catastrophe that was silently, invisibly, inexorably throwing them out of work.
An electronic red flag appeared on an active computer file in the vast IRS data bank in Arlington, Virginia. No human fingers placed it there. It simply appeared.
A Consolidated Edison supervisor posted an innocuous work order, instructing a crew to connect a Harlem office building to a long-dormant Con Ed gas line, after first being assured by DigSafe that no phone, cable or electrical lines were threatened by the excavation.
And on the North Korean frigate SA-I-GU, somewhere in the Yellow Sea, a telephone rang.
Captain Yokang Sako of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Navy was asleep when it rang. The phone was a portable satellite unit, smuggled into North Korea by the captain's cousin, Yun, who regularly travelled to Japan on the cruise liner Mankongbong. It was a very useful item to have, especially on patrol.
One could call almost anywhere and receive calls from almost any spot on the globe without one's superiors knowing of it.
Captain Yokang lifted the receiver and said, "Yes?"
A warm, generous voice answered in impeccable Korean, "I have a proposition for you, Captain Yokang."
"Who speaks?"
"One who is willing to offer you as much gold as your crew can carry away."
"Gold? Whose gold?"
"Does it matter whose gold?"
"It matters if someone is trying to give it away."
"Of course, I wish something in return for this information," the voice said with calm assurance.
"Hah! What can I, a captain in the North Korean navy, offer in return for such gold?"
"Half the gold."
"Half?"
"I will tell you where the gold can be found, and you will seize it. Contact me then, and I will provide you with instructions as to where to ship exactly one half of the amount. The remainder is yours."
"Hah! So there is a catch."
"Not a catch. I am trading information, and you are trading the brute force needed to seize this cargo."
"The risk is all mine," Captain Yokang pointed out.
"The gold is half yours."
"How much gold?"
"Five million. Pure bullion."
Captain Yokang clucked thoughtfully. "This is enough to pay off my crew for their silence."
"There is no need to inform your superiors, either," said the smoothly reassuring voice.
"If this can be done safely, I will do it," said Captain Yokang.
"A United States submarine is steaming toward the West Korea Bay. It carries the gold."
"I cannot commandeer a United States submarine!"
"You can once it enters Korean territorial waters illegally."
"Why is it doing that?"
"It is better that you not know."
"Better or safer?"
"Both."
"Understood. Tell me where this submarine can be found."
As he listened over the satellite telephone, the smooth voice related everything. Course, speed and the exact position at which the USS Harlequin intended to surface.
Captain Yokang looked at a map as he took down the information. The area was off one of the most industrialized portions of west North Korea. An area of steel mills and coal mines and rice paddies. Along the coast lay only rock and a few fishing villages. Nothing of importance.