Prisoners of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan Read Free Book Online

codes, which was to be expected, since it contained relatively insensitive information. As another line of code appeared, opening the executive level of the file manager, she breathed a silent prayer of gratitude for Magician’s presence of mind in choosing this system to hide the file in. Or had it been simply because he worked in the maintenance department? Breaking into one of the higher-security systems, such as the research department’s, or the information bank kept by Tereshkova ’s branch of the KGB, would have been impossible in the time available.
    She attempted a direct request for the file. It failed. The initiating address pointer had been erased to make it invisible. She obtained a sector table, located the header she wanted, and commanded a forced read. The system acknowledged that it had the file, but demanded an access validation to release it. She supplied the code she had been given. There was a pause. Then a new line appeared, requesting an output-destination spec. “I think we’re getting there!” Paula hissed up at Earnshaw.
    He turned and hunched down to peer over her shoulder. She entered another line and sat watching the screen tensely. A delay of perhaps two seconds dragged by. Then a confirmation appeared. In the same instant a line in English appeared below:
    gp700 “tangerine”; stat ok: ready to read. mem des? file des? read acc?
    Paula shifted the keyboard from Cyrillic alphabet to English and complete the dialogue. A final, single-word line confirmed:
    copying
    She sat back, closed her eyes, and exhaled a long, silent breath of relief. Earnshaw’s fingers closed around her arm and squeezed reassuringly. She blinked and peered at the screen again, as if to make sure. The word was still there, glowing solid and jubilant. It meant that Magician’s file was being copied through to create a duplicate inside the high-density memory-crystal arrays contained in their portable device. The copying would take just a matter of seconds, and then the original inside the maintenance department’s databank would be destroyed. All that would be left then would be to get the copy home.
    copying completed and verified
    confirm source erasure?
    Paula leaned forward to enter a reply . . .
    She wasn’t sure what it was that registered—a sound, something glimpsed from the corner of her eye, an unconsciously perceived sense of movement? Earnshaw was still down next to her, watching the screen. She turned her head suddenly to look up past him . . . and gasped out loud in sudden dismay.
    “Remain as you are!” the Russian officer snapped, pointing his pistol. Earnshaw’s head jerked around. Paula could do nothing but stare up numbly.
    There were four more uniformed guards behind, two of them holding leveled submachine guns. The officer moved a pace forward to the edge of the bay, and looked down. He had a Tartar face beneath the peaked cap, olive-skinned, with narrow eyes and high cheekbones. “Keep your hands in sight,” he instructed. “Now, back slowly against the far wall. Make no sudden moves.”

CHAPTER FIVE

    The night’s rain had freshened the air after a week of early summer heat that had become oppressive, and the scattered clouds left over Washington, D.C., by morning promised a spell of cool relief. Bernard Foleda let the drape fall back across the bedroom window with a satisfied “pom, pom, pom, pom, pom-pom-pom-pom-pom” to the tune of Mozart’s overture to The Impresario, and finished knotting his tie. He took the jacket of his suit from the closet, and, draping it over an arm, pom-pommed his way in a gravelly bass-baritone downstairs to breakfast. There was no reason for him to be humming to himself, considering the disaster that had befallen the department in the past week—it was simply a habit born of years. And besides, he had learned a long time ago that when people in his profession started letting the job get to them personally, they tended not to last very much