White: A Novel by Christopher Whitcomb Read Free Book Online Page B

“One of the systems auditors discovered a suspicious shadow about four o’clock this morning.”
    “A shadow?” Sirad shrugged. “Systems auditors find probes all the time—everything from wiseassed kids hacking in from Encino to European competitors. All futile. What makes you think any of them can legitimately compromise our system?”
    “They made it all the way to the mainframe firewall,” Ravi said. The soft-spoken Indian wore a sky-blue Members Only jacket and a cheap oxford shirt buttoned to the top. No tie. “This shadow suggests a very sophisticated cloaking protocol that is designed to look like one of our own audit incursions. It’s no kid from Encino.”
    Sirad ran the towel over her face.
    “To get to the firewalls, they must understand our encryption protocols,” she said. “That means it’s possible that they know our ability to tap consumer data streams.”
    “That’s right,” Mitchell said. He opened the breech of his Dremmel and looked down the pyramid-stacked barrels. “Unfortunately, there’s something else. You haven’t heard the worst.”
    NINETY-TWO . . .
    Jeremy’s arms had begun to burn with the push-ups. The pain gave him focus, but nothing could keep his mind from traveling back to that Irian Jaya jungle.
    Once GI Jane turned toward French, things had happened very quickly. The Delta sergeant stepped up behind one of the Americans, pushed the muzzle of his Mark IV up behind the man’s head, and pulled the trigger.
    BOOM!
The .223 caliber rifle had echoed through the clearing.
    One of Mahar’s Indonesian buddies jumped up and ran as if his feet were afire, stumbling with his hands cuffed behind his back and the burlap bag over his head. He took four or five steps before slamming into the satellite dish and knocking himself back to the ground. One of the SEALs walked over and grabbed him by the arm, but the man struggled, pleading in a language that made no sense to Jeremy.
    One hundred five . . .
    The SEAL dragged the man back to his original position. Jeremy could see through his scope that the captive had wet himself. A dark splotch spread out through his crotch and down his pant legs.
    “Caleb?!” the American on the left called out. There was no mistaking his nationality now. Jeremy recognized the accent as Deep South, Alabama or Georgia.
    “Sit still, Frank,” the albino said. He spoke calmly, almost indignant.
    “I think these bastards are gonna ki-ll us,” Frank squealed. “You gotta do somethin’, man! They’re gonna kill us.”
    GI Jane knelt next to him and said something too quiet for Jeremy to hear. The man shook his head violently back and forth and tore at his flex cuffs.
    “Run, boys! They’re gonna kill us all!” Frank yelled. He tried to gain his feet but tripped and fell facefirst into the dirt.
    One hundred twenty . . .
    One of the Indonesians leaped up, too, but he made it just a couple of steps before tripping over one of the dead dogs and crashing back to earth.
    BOOM!
    French shot Frank where he lay on the ground. Then all hell broke loose.
    “THE WORST?” SIRAD lifted an eyebrow. “What could be worse?”
    “Our inner perimeter firewall is a quasiphysical backstop,” Ravi reminded her. “Deliberately discrete from other fail-safes. In order to get to it, the intruders must already have compromised our keystone algorithms, which means they have cloned or stolen blueprints for our number generators.”
    Sirad sat back in her chair. Algorithms—the armor that protected Quantis’s entire encryption system—were based on what in the past had always been randomly generated prime numbers, very large prime numbers of up to 155 digits. Until recently, randomness—the great limitation of encryption theory—had been “made up” by computers using stochastic variation in physical noise from sources such as office keyboards, city traffic, and wind. Despite their best attempts, however, no computer had produced true randomness. Borders