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  13 | LAST LINE OF DEFENSE

  Sam settled down into the chair and looked at the three large monitors in front of him.

  An ergonomic keyboard, one of those oddly angled ones that were supposed to be better for your wrists, and a wireless wheel mouse were the only things on the desk in front of him, although a standard microphone headset hung on the side of the central monitor.

  He had never got the hang of that style of keyboard and wondered if he could get it changed. It crossed his mind that a neuro-headset could be useful, but it was a little early for that. It was only his first day.

  He looked at Dodge, seated to his right. Not so much seated as embedded in the soft leather of the high-backed chair. He looked like a part of the furniture. Like he belonged.

  Sam shuffled his backside around a bit, getting used to the chair, which was larger and more comfortable than he was accustomed to. No doubt he was going to end up spending long periods of time in it.

  To his left and to Dodge’s right, fabric-covered partitions separated them from the teams on either side. Dodge’s was adorned with stubs from rock concert tickets, including a few backstage passes, while Sam’s was empty, although several pinholes and indentations in the fabric showed that some items had recently been removed. He wondered who had owned this seat before him.

  “Fire ’er up, and we’ll go for a dive,” Dodge said, glancing over at him. “I’ll show you around.”

  Dodge put on his headset, and Sam followed suit, adjusting the microphone to the level of his mouth. A feeling of trepidation—would he be up to this?—was balanced by tremendous excitement at the thought of a whole new world that was about to be revealed to him.

  Dodge’s voice sounded strong and clear in his ear. “Everything you say is recorded and monitored by both our guys and Swamp Witch in the middle there.” He nodded at the raised octagonal office with the reflective windows in the center of the room.

  “Swamp Witch?”

  Dodge laughed. “She’s got a proper handle, but nobody ever uses it. Just hope that you don’t get to meet her. Official-like, that is.”

  “Swamp Witch?” Sam asked again.

  “Oversight officer. Permanent representative of the Congressional Oversight Committee. The sort of power we have around here, someone’s got to make sure we don’t abuse it. Know what I mean?”

  Sam glanced up at the office, wondering if he was being watched right now.

  “Right, follow me,” Dodge said. “We’ll head out on a short patrol, just to give you the feel of things. I’m on your left screen. Everything I see, you’ll see there. Center screen is you, and your right screen is your overview—your ‘navigation map,’ some like to call it. Also has most of your scanners, scopes, and weapons systems. We’re going to head over to the Pentagon, run a sweep through their networks. It’s serious stuff over there, so no mucking about, right?”

  “We’re going to hack into the Pentagon?” Sam raised his eyebrows.

  “Hack?” Dodge laughed. “You’re on the other team now, mate. We’ve got a backstage pass. Access all areas.”

  Sam looked at his row of monitors, then back at Dodge. “Before we start, Dodge.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to sound stupid, but I don’t even know what my job is yet. What do I do here?”

  Dodge raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, Sam, mate. I thought Jaggard had already run through that with you. You’re my new wingman.”

  “Wingman,” Sam said, nodding as if he understood.

  “I’m on point. You back me up. I go after the bad guys, and you stop them from going after me. Got it?”

  Sam nodded again.

  “After three months, if it works out, then we’ll pair up officially until you move on to take point and get your own wingman.” Dodge grinned and continued, “Or until one of us burns out. Whichever comes first.”

  That sounded a little ominous, but Sam didn’t pursue it.

  “So my only job is to protect you,” he said for confirmation.

  “I’m the quarterback; you’re the lineman. It’s your job to keep the bogeys off my arse while I make the play. Okay?”

  “Okay …,” Sam said cautiously. “I’ll try my best. What about training?”

  “This is the training,” Dodge said. “On the job. Let’s head over to the Pentagon. I’ll explain more as we go.”

  Sam kept an eye on his left screen, watching what Dodge did and copying him as they slid, undetectable, through the firewalls and outer defenses of the country’s central military command post.

  “It’s like the Dark Ages out there,” Dodge was saying in his ear. “And we’re the knights in shining armor. Everybody builds these highly secure networks, like big castles, for protection, right? But a castle is just a big lump of stone unless there’s someone to defend it. We’re the soldiers patrolling the battlements.”

  A vivid picture came into Sam’s mind of himself standing atop the high stone parapets of a castle, smoke billowing behind him, heroically resisting the invaders.

  “Firewalls, antivirus programs, network spiders, all that is what we call ‘passive defense,’ like the walls of the castle. What we do is called ‘active defense.’ You remember that old Will Smith movie Men in Black?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, that’s us. We’re the first, last, and best line of defense against the worst scum of the universe.”

  Dodge’s “short patrol” took the rest of the afternoon, touring around the servers in the massive Pentagon complex. They spent the time examining and testing security systems, prodding and poking everything that could be prodded or poked, to make sure the system was watertight. They were constantly looking out for signs of anything that wasn’t as it should be. Watching out for invaders. For people like Sam.

  “What’s going on at the moment?” Sam asked at one point. “Mr. Jaggard said something about raising the alert level.”

  Dodge nodded.

  “There’s something big in the wind. A rotten smell in the air. We had some intel from the Easter Bunny that some kind of attack is in the offing. All pretty sketchy at the moment but we got scouts out in all directions looking for signs.”

  “Hang on,” Sam said. “You get your intel from the Easter Bunny? Why? Was Santa Claus busy?”

  Dodge laughed. “The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, call ’em what you like. They don’t exist.”

  “I’m not getting you,” Sam said. “Who doesn’t exist?”

  “In football,” Dodge said, “and I don’t mean soccer, each side has two teams, right?”

  Sam nodded. “Offense and defense.” He didn’t play or even watch the game himself, but he knew the rules from school.

  “Right,” Dodge said. “Well, we’re the defense.”

  Sam took his eyes off the screen and looked over at Dodge. “There’s an offense?”

  “What do you reckon? Do you think the U.S. of A. ain’t ready to knock over the computer and communications systems of any country it might happen to get into a punching match with? Do you think that bombs and guns are the only kind of warfare there is?”

  Sam considered that. “So what you’re saying is that there’s another unit, a bit like us, but their job is to attack, hack into networks and destroy systems.”

  “Nope,” Dodge said. “They don’t exist.”

  14 | LOCKDOWN

  The phone woofed, startling him. Sam was lying on the emperor-sized bed in his suite. The television was on, and he had almost dozed off in front of a game show. No, not dozed off, just zoned out, his mind free-falling, weightless.

  Getting to the hotel from the CDD building had been a surreal experience. They had finished their shift at three o’clock. A gray van had been waiting for them. A large man in a dark suit with a curly wire coming out of his ear drove the van, and his twin rode shotgun beside him.

  The van drove out from the underground parking lot of the oddly shaped building that was his new workplace, across to the other side of the road, and down into
the underground parking lot of the hotel.

  He could have walked there faster.

  Another of the curly-wired gentlemen was standing outside the elevators on his floor and nodded to him curtly when he stepped out.

  Vienna got out on his floor also, but she turned left where he turned right.

  “See you tomorrow,” Sam had said cheerfully, but other than a quick glance back over her shoulder, she had ignored him.

  The phone woofed again, and Sam reached over to answer it, his brain slowly coming back online.

  Jaggard had given him a cell phone, and, stuck in the hotel suite, Sam had played around with all the features on it. The phone had a variety of sounds, ranging from buzzes to birds to Mr. Spock from Star Trek saying, “It’s a call, Jim, but not as you know it.” Sam had chosen a barking dog, for no good reason.

  “This is Sam,” he said cautiously.

  “Sam, ya muppet,” Dodge boomed in his ear. “Feel like a swim? We’re going up to the pool.”

  “I don’t have a bathing suit …,” Sam started to say, but Dodge had already hung up.

  The pool was on the roof of the hotel, protected from the wind by a heavy glass wall that ran around three sides. The fourth side was a plain-faced concrete structure that offered shade to one end of the pool and housed the elevators and washrooms.

  It looked more like a meandering curved pond than a swimming pool, surrounded by tall palm trees in wooden tubs. When Sam glanced in the pool, he was astonished to see dolphins swimming around, then realized that the bottom of the pool was actually a large video screen. From the surface, the dolphins seemed remarkably lifelike.

  The low afternoon sun hit his face the moment he stepped out onto the roof, and he blinked a couple of times against the glare.

  White wicker lounge chairs were arranged in small clusters around the edge of the pool, and it was in one of the clusters, near a barbecue trolley, that Sam found Dodge, Vienna, and Kiwi, lying in the sun, drinking soda. Dodge and Kiwi were shirtless, in board shorts, and Vienna wore a bikini top and shorts.

  The bikini top was a green camouflage pattern with a brass center ring and straps that—

  “Nice view?” Vienna asked, and Sam quickly averted his eyes.

  “Sorry, I was just—”

  “Yes, you were,” Vienna said.

  “Grab a lounger,” Dodge said. “What kept you?”

  “Didn’t have a bathing suit,” Sam replied. “Had to go buy one at the hotel gift shop.”

  “Shouldn’t have bothered,” Dodge said immediately. “We’re all going skinny-dipping anyway.”

  Sam looked at the others’ faces to see if Dodge was joking, but Kiwi’s face was expressionless, and Vienna’s held only a slight smirk that gave nothing away.

  Dodge was surely just joking, Sam decided. Although they were the only ones there.

  Sam slipped his shirt off as he clambered onto an empty lounge chair next to Dodge.

  Dodge gesticulated in the air, a vague hand gesture, and a waiter in a white dinner jacket appeared from a small gazebo.

  “What would you like, sir?” the waiter asked Sam.

  “Just water, iced,” Sam said, and the waiter retreated, returning a moment later with a glass brimming with ice and topped with a lime slice.

  Dodge raised his own glass. “To Sam’s first day,” he said with a big smile that crinkled the tattoo on his forehead.

  “To another day of keeping the barbarians at bay,” Kiwi said.

  Sam sipped at his water. “Do they ever get in?” he asked.

  “Sometimes,” Dodge said. “Little stuff here and there. We stamp on it right quick.”

  “Usually without too much damage and without Joe the Public ever getting wind of it,” Kiwi added.

  “Usually?” Sam asked.

  “Usually,” Dodge agreed. “There’s been only one serious breach in the last four or five years.”

  “Really? What was that?” Sam asked.

  There was a silence, and the leaves of the palm tree above them waved gently in a strengthening afternoon breeze. It was Vienna who finally answered the question.

  “You, Sam.”

  “Anyone for a swim?” Sam asked a little later, feeling that he had gone from medium-rare to well-done in a short space of time.

  “You go,” Dodge said. “I’ll join you soon.”

  That same smirk was back on Vienna’s face, and Sam wondered why.

  Sam walked to the edge of the pool and tested the water with his toe. It was pleasantly cool, not stomach-tightening cold, and he bent his legs, ready to dive in.

  In an instant, the playful dolphins disappeared, replaced by a swarm of writhing, circling sharks.

  “Whoa!” Sam yelled, jumping back from the edge. The others howled with laughter. In his hand, Dodge held some kind of remote control.

  Sam grinned and shook his head.

  He tested the water again with his toe, and immediately the sharks converged, thrashing and writhing in a feeding frenzy, right where his toe was, their white underbellies flashing. A redness spread from the center of the pack, rippling through the pool.

  He snatched his toe out again.

  “What’s wrong with ya?” Kiwi yelled with a grin. “They’re not real.”

  Sam looked again at the pool and decided to postpone his swim anyway. Real or not, it no longer seemed like a pleasant experience.

  Vienna made a clucking sound like a chicken as he walked back to the lounge chair. Dodge held up the remote device.

  “Reprogrammed the hotel pool system,” he said, laughing.

  “Then you go swim in it,” Sam said.

  “Right you are,” Dodge said, and jumped up, heading toward the pool.

  “I thought you were going skinny-dipping,” Sam called after him.

  “Right you are!” Dodge said again, stripping off his board shorts and letting them lie where they fell.

  He jogged naked toward the pool, then veered off to the left, bounded onto a lounge chair that was pushed up against the glass wall, and sprang onto the top of the wall.

  “Dodge!” Sam cried out, suddenly terrified. On the other side of that wall was a twenty-story drop. He glanced around at the others, but they seemed calm and relaxed.

  “Done this lots of times,” Dodge said, balancing, stark naked, on the wall. The glass was topped with a stainless-steel rail, Sam saw now, at least six inches wide. Even so, Dodge’s perch seemed precarious, considering the drop that was on the other side.

  “It’s a bit gusty up here,” Dodge said, waving his arms about for balance.

  “Dodge?” Sam said. “Dodge!”

  “Whoooaaa,” Dodge yelled, his arms now flailing as he fought for balance on the narrow top edge of the wall. His foot slipped. One moment he was vertical; the next he was on one leg, leaning backward out over the drop, far too far. Sam jumped up, rushing toward him but knowing with utter horror that he could never make it in time.

  Then, with a twist of his body, Dodge executed a perfect somersault into the pool, landing right in the middle of the shark feeding frenzy.

  He came up for air and took a bow in the water.

  Sam looked around at the others in shock.

  “He does that to all the eggs,” Kiwi said, and then explained, “Probationers. One day he’s going to kill himself.”

  “Why don’t you stop him?” Sam asked, his heart pounding.

  “If he dies, I get promoted to point,” Kiwi said. “In fact, one day I might just push him off the edge myself.”

  Sam opened his mouth to say something, then saw Kiwi’s grin and laughed. “You’re all mad.”

  “Goes with the job,” Vienna said.

  Two girls in bikinis emerged from the elevators and made their way to a couple of lounge chairs on the far side of the pool. One was about his age and the other slightly older. They appeared to be sisters with matching blond hair.

  Sam looked back at Dodge, who was still in the pool.

  “Now what
are you going to do?” he said.

  “Get out,” Dodge said, and did so.

  He walked straight past the two girls as if it was perfectly natural, picked up his board shorts, and pulled them on before flopping back down on his lounge chair.

  The two girls stretched out on their lounge chairs, and the younger one looked at them and smiled.

  “She just smiled at you, mate,” Dodge said. “Go on over and say hello.”

  “I don’t think it was me she was looking at,” Sam said.

  “Go on,” Dodge said.

  Sam just laughed and casually glanced over toward the younger girl, trying not to make it obvious that he was looking.

  “So how come we all live in this fancy hotel, anyway?” he asked.

  “We don’t live here,” Dodge said. “You’re here ’cause you’re on probation, and we just moved in for a few weeks ’cause of the threat level.”

  “I have an apartment over in Milpitas,” Kiwi said.

  “They keep us close at hand in a crisis ’cause it’s quicker, and also so they can protect us better,” Dodge added.

  “Protect us?” Sam asked.

  “If the bad guys got hold of you, it could compromise the whole CDD,” Kiwi said.

  Sam nodded. John Jaggard had said something similar that morning.

  “So how does this all work?” Sam asked. “CDD I mean. You’re from New Zealand, Dodge is English, and that Gummi Bear guy has got some kind of accent too. How’d you all end up working for the U.S. government?”

  “Ain’t no national borders on the Internet,” Dodge answered for him. “Best of the best. From around the world. That’s official CDD policy. They don’t care where you come from as long as they think they can trust you.”

  “Gummi’s from Zimbabwe,” Kiwi added.

  “And that whole story about robbing a bank in Nebraska. You made that up?” Sam asked.

  Kiwi shook his head. “That’s how they got me.” He laughed. “Next thing I knew, I was being invited to dinner at the White House.”

  “Yeah.” Sam nodded. “How about you, Dodge?”

  “They grew him in a tank,” Vienna muttered, but there was a smile in her eye.