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CHAPTER 12 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER [AUTHOR'S NOTE ADDED TO THIS EDITION: Much of the technical stuff in this chapter about computer networks has been rendered obsolete by the internet.] They were sitting in the sports centre cafeteria again. They had gone to the far corner well away from the other customers. There weren't many other customers anyway. Steve said, ‘What we want to know is - is this a bit of local enterprise or is it a world wide conspiracy?’ He lifted the top off his beefburger and shook the ketchup over it. ‘You see Allan - it's possible that someone at the plant has found a way of spiking these chips, but it is also possible that the secret passage is built in to them at source. That would mean - do you see what it means?’ Allan bit into his egg roll and took a mouthful of tea. ‘You've got enough to re-open the case. Why don't you have a word with your Fiscal? Then we could drop all this secrecy. I've got enough to think about.’ ‘That's the problem,’ said Steve. ‘It was the Fiscal who stopped the enquiry an' we don't know why. Maybe he was leaned on by someone above him, maybe he was told by Special Branch that they had the matter in hand or maybe he is part of the conspiracy himself. We just don't know and we'd like to know before we take your stuff to him. The crucial thing is - is it local or is it global?’ ‘And you want me to find out. If it was Special Branch aren't you in danger of getting in the way of an official investigation?’ ‘It can't be an official Special Branch enquiry or we would have been told. We just want some information. Could the secret passage be built into the chips right at the start.’ Allan shook his head. ‘No. At least I don't think so. That would mean that the circuitry would be changed physically. You can take a chip and grind the surface off it and look at it under a microscope and actually photograph the circuitry. If you do that layer after layer you could re-draw the circuit. That's what the Soviets used to do to Japanese and American chips to copy them. It's laborious but when there is a lot of money at stake it's worth it. Anyway, if someone did that they'd find the circuitry of the secret passage so I don't think anyone would take the risk. It is much more likely that the modification is inserted when the chip is customised. Then the modification would be undetectable. The only way to find it would be at the testing stage before burn-out. After that the customization is fixed and not even the testing programs could get at it. Incidentally .... ’ He took another sip of tea. ‘That's why MCI have been able to put the encryption function on to the processor itself. For a long time the US Government wouldn't let any American computer company sell a machine outside the USA with an encryption chip in it. Then MCI came up with this way of making chips secure. So now it can be built right into the chip. That's the laugh. It's supposed to be good for security but it makes the whole secret passage thing possible. The operating system just presents two strings to the processor, one in clear and one scrambled and the processor says `Bingo!' if the scrambled string is the encrypted version of the clear one. It's a one way system. You can't use it to get back to the clear string if you know only the scrambled one.’ ‘And I suppose,’ said Steve, ‘if you put in the special password in the clear register it will say it says `Bingo' no matter what the other string may be.’ ‘You've got it.’ ‘And if the testing program was modified as we now know it was?’ ‘Then you've got an undetectable secret passage.’ Steve thought about that for a while, looking round the cafeteria as though fascinated by the mural of sporting heroes. Then he said, ‘Where do the testing programs come from?’ ‘From America - No, sorry, from South America. The company headquarters are in Ocean Springs in Chile. Except for the little extra bit we do in Gairnock.’ ‘How do they come? On tape? In the post?’ ‘No,’ Allan shook his head. ‘MCI has a global computer network. All company software and notices and things are shipped around on the network.’ ‘Do you have access to the network?’ ‘Yes, but you can just forget that idea. I'm not going to hack into the network for you.’ ‘I didn't mean that. What I am getting at is this. If you have access to the network then so had Tommy Harkness. Could that be where he got those tapes you gave us?’ Allan shrugged and took another mouthful of tea. He hadn't told Steve about Jack. He had just let them think he had found the stuff in Harkness's directory. ‘Tell me more about the network.’ ‘We have a network within the plant. The filing system is a network system. If you ask for a file you don't need to know which computer it is actually stored on. You can if you want but it does a lot of work for you and just delivers up the stuff on to your screen without telling where it got it. But it's different if you want to access stuff on a computer outside the plant, in America of Europe or wherever. Then you have to open a channel and use a password and make a connection to the computer you want. There are directories to help you find the machine you need but you have to name it yourself. Then once you have made the connection, you just start typing in the normal way and your stuff goes from the local machine to a network node to a microwave relay station to a satellite to a receiver to another node and into the machine at the other end. It's all very straight forward. I imagine your police network is very similar.’ Steve nodded. ‘And what kind of data can you access?’ ‘Noticeboards mostly. Files where people dump information of general interest like bugs which have been found in operating system commands and how to avoid them. And people can send messages to one another so long as it is company business. Of course some people have a funny idea about what is company business and so you get friends chatting away halfway round the globe at company expense.’ ‘So the official testing software would come to Gairnock via the network.’ ‘I guess so. Most new bits of software come that way. Of course once it's here it's stored on the local machine but that kind of access needs special passwords.’ ‘Who has those passwords?’ ‘Not me.’ ‘But who?’ ‘The assembly line manager I imagine.’ ‘Who is that?’ ‘A guy called John Seaton.’ ‘Would the managing director have the right kind of access?’ ‘Halpern? ... Suppose so. But he wouldn't be doing that kind of thing for himself. He'd get a flunky to do it for him.’ ‘Is Seaton a flunky?’ ‘We're all flunkies.’ ‘Can I get you something else?’ Steve pointed at the counter of the cafeteria where a disconsolate waitress was laying out a trayful of cups. ‘No thanks.’ ‘Aye, It is pretty awful isn't it?’ He sat back with his hands in his pockets, feet flat on the ground and wide apart. ‘What it boils down to is this. To do this thing you would need to modify two kinds of program - the program that customizes the chip and would put the secret passage into it, and the program that tests the chip for mistakes and would find the secret passage if you didn't nobble it. Is that right?’ Allan nodded. ‘Right. Both programs come to Gairnock via the company network and both could have been modified at source. Right?’ ‘Aye.’ ‘But both could have been modified after they reached Gairnock. Right?’ ‘Yup.’ ‘So either there is a very large conspiracy going on and it is completely out of our league, or there are some smart Alexs at Gairnock building themselves a little nest egg on the side. Right?’ ‘Aye.’ A lad in a red track suit and a girl in a green leotard were bringing trays in their direction. ‘And there are no other alternatives. Right?’ ‘Wrong.’ ‘Why so?’ ‘It could be both.’ Steve's eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘How come?’ ‘There could be a global conspiracy going and some locals could have found out about it and used the set up for themselves.’ The couple sat down at the next table. The girl was angry. She banged her tray down and spilled milk. The lad was looked anxious. He scurried back to the counter for tissues. ‘Shall we go then?’ said Steve. In the car park he said ‘That's an interesting idea. Perhaps we should bring Bob Chalmers in on that.’ ‘It's just an idea. It's a possibility. I didn't say it was likely.’ ‘There is one thing we badly need to know,’ said Steve. ‘Did the tape you gave us come from Gairnock or from the network. I mean did Tommy Harkness lift it locally or from source. We need to know if the program on that tape is being used locally at Gairnock.’ Allan froze. He hefted the keys of his bike padlock in his hand. Then he said, ‘It is in use at Gairnock.’ Steve looked at him accusingly. After some thought he said ‘You haven't leveled with us. Not completely. have you?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why not.’ ‘I don't want to involve other people. Just believe me, the modified program is in use at Gairnock.’ ‘That's not good enough Allan.’ ‘It's all you're going to get.’ ‘You're in this too deeply to pull out now. Who is it? Rosa Telman?’ ‘No.’ He was walking towards the cycle-rack but Steve was in pursuit. He grabbed Allan's arm and swung him round. ‘It is. Rosa's in this with you. Isn't she?’ ‘No. It's not Rosa Telman.’ ‘I have to know Allan.’ They stared at each other for a long time and then Allan said, ‘It's Jack Thornley. The tape I gave you came from Harkness's directory but Jack nicked another from the assembly line and it is the same program.’ ‘Jesus Allan! You should have told us.’ ‘Maybe I should've. But Jack got his girl friend Alison to help him. She didn't mean to. He tricked her into it. I reckoned she didn't deserve to get dragged in.’ ‘Jack's in danger - does he know?’ ‘Aye. Although sometimes I think Jack's stone deaf to good advice.’ ‘Maybe we should let Bob Chalmers persuade him.’ Of all the people who visited Burnside Cottage it was Bob Chalmers who found himself most at ease with his surroundings. ‘My Granny had a range just like that,’ he said. He moved round the kitchen picking things up, running his hand over them and smiling as though he had found a long lost friend. ‘I used an iron like this once.’ He held it flat side uppermost and slapped his free hand on to it as if he was swearing an oath. ‘I went to stay with my Granny when I was twelve and she let me help her about the house. But I never thought I would handle a thing like this again.’ ‘I found it in the back room when I moved in,’ said Allan. ‘Look after it well,’ said Chalmers. He had settled into the arm chair by the fire. Jocylin McCarrie was there too, the remaining third of the Chalmers' team. She was very business-like with hair pulled back severely, sitting on the edge of her chair with notebook at the ready. Jack arrived later. His 2CV bounced up the track like a mobile trampoline. Jack told them the whole story begining with the copying of Harkness's files from under the noses of the computer manager and Steve McElroy. He sat cross legged on a stool with his back against the table, Steve was perched on the window sill. Chalmers sat in the armchair and gave Jack the penetrating stare treatment. Chalmers shook his head ruefully. ‘You're lucky to be still alive,’ he said. ‘Ok lad, what you did was foolish but it has helped us a lot. Just promise me you won't go doing anything more like that without consulting us. Steve. Will you sum up the technical stuff as we see it?’ When he had heard Steve out, Jack was keen to hack straight into the network. ‘Have I been talking to myself?’ said Chalmers. ‘We don't want you hacking in anywhere. This has got to be a well planned operation with no chance of either of you two being identified.’ ‘We don't have the right kind of access,’ said Allan. ‘So who has?’ There was some scratching of heads. Allan and Jack looked at one another. ‘John Seaton,’ said Allan. ‘He's the assembly line manager. He's the only one I can think of at the moment but there must be others.’ ‘Yea Seaton's the guy,’ said Jack. ‘We only need one. We could try a Trojan Horse.’ Chalmers looked mystified. ‘Steve?’ ‘A Trojan Horse,’ said Steve, ‘is a program which carries another inside it or tacked on to it. The idea is just like the Trojan Horse the Greeks used. The victim sees a harmless program and loads it into his own directory and runs it himself without realising that he is also running the extra bit of program that's tucked inside it. That way you get the victim to run the program himself so you don't need to know his password.’ Jack said, ‘If Seaton is a special user he doesn't even need to use a password to get into the network. He would have special privileges.’ Jocylin was taking shorthand. She flipped a page. Allan said, ‘So if we wrote a program which copies the files you want from the network on to a tape drive on a machine in our department, we would only have to insert that program into another and get him to run it for us. Problem is, where do we get the Trojan Horse? What kind of program would he load and run himself? The usual way is to give someone a present of a new computer game but Seaton doesn't strike me as the type of guy who enjoys zapping space invaders.’ ‘I don't want any risks taken,’ said Chalmers. ‘We'll think of something,’ said Jack stoking his chin. ‘What kind of program would he not be able to resist loading and running?’ ‘It doesn't need to be a program,’ said Allan. ‘It could be mostly data with a small program for retrieving the data. There must be some data somewhere he'd like to get a look at .... most people would like to see their own personnel records.’ He and Jack looked at one another and the lightning struck simultaneously. ‘Henry Quinn!’ they said in unison and laughed. Jack clapped his hands. ‘Want to share it?’ said Chalmers. Allan explained. ‘Henry Quinn is the personnel manager who has files on everyone. It is all supposed to be open under the data protection act so that every employee can get access to his own records but everyone suspects that that's eyewash. There will be other records we don't see. So if a tape of personnel records marked 'Personnel Records - Senior management - Highly Confidential' should happen to fall Seaton's way, well ... He's the same as everyone else at MCI. He's paranoid. He'll just have to see what's on it.’ ‘I can get a suitable tape off Henry's directory any time,’ said Jack. ‘I've got his shell.’ Chalmers was looking back and forwards like a puzzled spectator in the Centre Court. ‘The difficulty will be making the drop in a plausible way,’ said Allan. ‘This is all way out of line,’ said Chalmers. ‘Even if it was an official enquiry this would be illegal.’ There was a long silence. Steve and Jocylin looked at each other. Allan and Jack looked at Chalmers. Chalmers said, ‘I want you both to be very careful,’ Getting the data file was easy. Jack lifted the data from Henry Quinn's directory by copying it to a tape-drive on his own console. Later he walked out of the building with the tape in his pocket. Allan covered for him by going ahead through the metal detectors with a load of scrap iron, keys, pen-knife etc, in his pockets. If he had set off the alarms Jack would have suddenly remembered something he had forgotten about in the office. Writing the program was harder. Allan did that but he had to involve Hamish, Allan's climbing pal at the Department of Economic Forecasting and Statistics. Jack said, ‘What a mouthful.’ Hamish was not too happy about it because they had had to sit all night in the department building while Allan bashed out the code. ‘This is criminal,’ he said. ‘I don't think I want to be involved.’ ‘It's your civic duty,’ Allan told him. ‘You're helping to solve a murder mystery.’ And that was how Hamish got sucked into the ‘Circle of Friends’ as they called themselves. The program was designed to access the network with all the rights of a privileged user. It would copy the basic customizing program and the basic testing program and dump the stuff on to the tape-drive on Jack's console. All that was needed was the unwitting cooperation of John Seaton. There was a danger however. Once the progam was planted they could not be sure that it would not fall into the wrong hands. They had discussed the problem over several pizzas at Alphonso's. Allan found the conspiratorial atmosphere was becoming infectious. They had hit on a strategy that seemed foolproof. The program would check the identity of its own user and would not work at all if the user was not John Seaton. So if Seaton was an honest man, which they doubted, and just handed the tape back to Quinn, Quinn would not be able to run the program properly. It would instead just delete itself. They were worried, however, that in these circumstances the evidence would still remain on the tape. There is a thumb-turn knob on each tape cartridge which if turned into the right position will prevent the contents of the tape being deleted or overwritten. So Jack modified the thumb-turn so that no matter which way you turned it the tape could never be protected and then Allan made sure that the last thing the program would do was to delete the tape. ‘He'll just think it's rewinding,’ Jack said. ‘He'll never twig that it is wiping itself blank. But here I've an idea! Just to make sure he doesn't give it back to Henry afterwards let's put a tape-deleted message into it.’ So Allan put that into the program too. After the tape was deleted the program would print the message ‘This is a read-once-only tape - tape now deleted’ ‘That'll give him the shakes.’ Jack said. ‘He'll know then that he can't give the tape back to Henry and pretend he hasn't read it. So he'll just have to get rid of it and not let on. It's beaut! All the best stings make use of the victim's own dirty tricks against him.’ The drop, it turned out, was the easy bit. Jack simply slipped the tape into a box of tapes destined for John Seaton's office. Allan distracted the messenger's attention by spilling a pile of printout at his feet and while Allan and the messenger were gathering up the fan-folds, Jack did the deed. ‘What a performance!’ Jack said. ‘You're about ready for the Royal Shakespeare Company.’ And Allan was quite pleased with himself too. He had controlled his blushing. A little bit of embarrassment fitted the part, but not too much. The hardest bit was waiting for the output. It was possible that Seaton would ignore the box for several days, or forever. But if it did happen, they had to be on hand to pull the tape out of the drive and remove the tell-tale message on the screen. There had to be a message. They could not afford to get the tapes muddled up with some other person's data. The other problem was that there would be a lot of data. Uncertain of which files needed to be copied, they had set the program to cast its net wide. The stuff could take a long time to be copied and for all of that time the tape-drive would be running and running and other people in the office might start to ask questions. ‘Let's put a time control on it,’ Allan had suggested. ‘Bung the program into background so that it zaps the files in the network during the night when everyone else has gone home.’ ‘What happens if Seaton works late? It could do its thing while he's there.’ ‘He won't work that late. He's got a family. What family man works late this close to Christmas?’ ‘One that's fed up hanging balloons.’ ‘Or fancies his secretary.’ ‘We'll need to chance that.’ They put a blank tape in the tape-drive and worked out a shift rota. Allan made an excuse about getting some work ready for the morning and stayed on late. The idea was that he should be the last person out and that Jack should be the first person in in the morning. Even that would be dodgy because the incriminating tape and its message on the screen would be waiting there all night. Masood decided to work late too. Allan sat at his own console with one eye on Jack's machine listening for the whine of the tape-drive. Masood's desk was on the other side of the office so there was a good chance that he would not hear the tape even if it did start to operate. Allan wrote a program, typing slowly and carefully, still watching the tape-drive on Jack's machine. The program did not do anything in particular. He compiled and ran it, corrected the errors and ran it again, and again, and again. Jack's machine was still quiescent. He heard a noise and looked up. Masood was walking over in his direction, in the direction of Jack's machine. He had a tape in his hand. Allan watched appalled as Masood bent and tried to push his tape into the drive. Then he saw that it was occupied and went off to find another. Allan deleted his useless program and started over once more, using a different style. He laid it out very neatly taking great care with the indentations. Still the tape did not come. He made coffee. Masood switched on a radio. ‘Feed the World! Don't they know it Christmas Time at all!’ That would help to drown out the noise of Jack's tape drive but Masood switched it off again. He came over to join Allan at the coffee cupboard. Someone had hung paper streamers around the coffee machine and paper puff-balls from the ceiling. ‘Working late?’ ‘Yes just something I need for the morning.’ ‘Rush job? What's on then?’ Allan's mind went blank. But Masood didn't wait for an answer. ‘Want to see my latest?’ Masood gave him a demonstration of his new handwriting detector. He was trying to recognise handwriting style, even without signatures, from the characteristic way letters were formed. ‘But I change my writing style all the time,’ Allan protested. ‘No you don't,’ said Masood. ‘The letters may look different but you still have a set of characteristic letters and the pressures and slopes are still the same. What's the matter?’ He followed Allan's gaze over to Jack's machine. ‘Nothing. I thought I heard the night guard coming round.’ ‘He won't be for another hour.’ Masood went home soon after that. Allan read a chapter in a book on phoneme recognition. His eyes closed. He started awake as the door banged. ‘Are you going to be much longer?’ said the guard. He was tall with greying hair and over his tan uniform he wore a leather shoulder bag. He seemed untouched by Christmas cheer. ‘I'm just waiting for a program to finish.’ ‘You didn't sign the late-book.’ The guard was offended. He opened the shoulder bag and clicked a button on the gadget inside to record his location and time. ‘I'll go down in a minute and sign it. This shouldn't be much longer.’ ‘I want you to sign it now, Sir.’ Argument was useless. Allan followed him down through the dimly lit building to the control desk and signed the late-book. He scanned the names. Seaton's name was there. He had signed out only two hours before. They had used a four hour time delay. The guard insisted on coming with him all the way back again. ‘Twenty minutes more,’ he said. ‘And then I have to lock up. That's the rule.’ ‘Ok. Ok.’ He closed the door of the office behind him and walked back towards his own desk. He stopped. Jack's machine did not look the same as it had before. The screen was different. Then he became aware of the noise. He leaned closer and there was the single word on the screen. ‘BINGO!’ The tape whined on, and on. He had no way of knowing how long it would take. The guard might return while it was still running. He forced himself to sit at his desk and read the next chapter in the book. His eyes washed over the words without absorbing anything. Ten minutes. The tape-drive was still running jerking from file to file. Fifteen minutes. And then it broke into a continuous high pitched whine - rewinding! Sixteen minutes. Seventeen. The guard was officious. He would probably be back before time. The tape stopped. He snatched the tape out of the tape-drive, slipped it into his pocket and typed the ‘clear’ message to wipe the screen. Rucksack in hand he made for the door but with his hand on the door handle he stopped, went back to his desk, took the tape from his pocket and put it into a drawer. As he passed through the security point he shouted a cheery ‘Good night!’ to the guard who was glowering at him from the security desk, and as he did so the bunch of keys in Allan's pocket triggered the alarm bells. The following evening he walked out of the building with the tape. This time Jack acted as the alarm detector. Allan was pleased that he was able to do it, to find that his emotions were under control. All it needed was a little time to think about it and a little more experience of subterfuge. He was becoming an expert. Jocylin McCarrie drove him to Edinburgh the following Saturday. She used her own car and she was a good driver. Allan reckoned she was a cut above Steve who was too fast and took too many chances, but Jocylin went pretty fast for all that. They stopped for a snack at the Harthill service station. Over the noise of canned Christmas music he tried chatting her up. It was obvious that she regarded him as just another job. ‘Where exactly is it we're going?,’ she said. ‘My old department at Edinburgh University.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because they have the kind of computer and software I need to dis-assemble the stuff we got on the tape Jack and I hacked.’ ‘Is that safe?’ ‘Karl's ok,’ said Allan. ‘He'll keep quiet if we explain it to him. He was my supervisor.’ ‘And he knows we're coming?’ ‘Aye.’ Karl Wellington was waiting for them. He came out of his house in a pullover and slacks as soon as they drew up at his gate, and flopped into the back seat. ‘This is not like you Allan,’ he said. ‘You're the last person I would have expected to get caught up in something like this.’ ‘I've been surprising myself recently.’ He made the introductions. ‘Karl Wellington my old supervisor .... Detective Sergeant McCarrie’ After a pause he added, ‘Jocylin's riding shotgun today.’ Allan gave the directions as they drove round to the department. ‘Great place to work,’ he had told Jocylin earlier. ‘I really enjoyed being a student there.’ ‘Now. What exactly is it that you want?’ said Karl when they were in his office and sitting in a threesome round a terminal. Karl was in the middle with his hands on the keyboard. ‘Just a dis-assembly of the stuff on the tape.’ Allan leaned forwards and pushed the tape into the drive. ‘Is this what you were on about that day you were through here before.’ ‘Aye.’ ‘You sly bugger!’ said Karl. ‘It's still hush hush,’ said Allan. ‘Please keep it under your hat Karl.’ ‘That's important,’ said Jocylin. Wellington promised and did what they asked, but it worried Allan that yet again the circle of friends had been expanded. There seemed to be no way to contain this thing. The printout was enormous. ‘That's a hell of a lot of paper,’ Karl said. ‘Are we going to get paid for this?’ Jocylin said, ‘I'll talk to my boss.’ They got back to Burnside as darkness fell. He made tea while they discussed what to do with the bundle of paper which was about a foot thick. Allan wrapped it in a polythene bin-liner sack and stashed it in a dustbin in the tractor shed. Sunday. The three of them, Bob Chalmers, Steve McElroy and Jocylin were at his door at eight am. It was scarcely light. Chalmers said, ‘Did you have any trouble?’ ‘No. Everything went ok, but Karl Wellington wants paid for the computer time and for the paper we used.’ ‘Mmmm,’ said Chalmers. Jack arrived an hour later. Jocylin made it clear she was not there as tea-lady. She organised the space. Clearing the table, setting out the chairs and retrieving the printout from the tractor shed. Then she went for a walk. It was Chalmers who kept the tea and coffee flowing. Steve did his best to help but he had little knowledge of the assembly language so the burden of the analysis fell on Jack and Allan. They split the bundle between them and began. ‘Don't write on the printout,’ said Allan seeing Jack wielding a ball-point. ‘Don't leave anything on the page which will identify you.’ Chalmers was going to say something about that but changed his mind. Steve wandered out and shortly afterwards Jocylin came back and settled down by the fire with a paperback. An hour later they knew. The program from the MCI network had been nobbled in the same way as the local Gairnock program. The conspiracy was `global' and as Chalmers had put it `was out of their league'. The detective thrust his hands deep into his pockets and walked out of the door. They listened to his steps receding. ‘What will he do?’ ‘He has contacts in Special Branch,’ said Jocylin. ‘He'll probably use them and try to take it to the top.’ ‘Is he quite sure that it's not at the top already?’ said Allan. There was a scuffle at the door and Steve walked in. Allan said, ‘Are you three keeping watch or something?’ Steve said, ‘Just a precaution’ and stared back at Jocylin. Jocylin said, ‘You know it would be hard to plant a bug in this house. Most eavesdropping gadgets these days are made to look like electric sockets or light fittings, but they would look a bit out of place here.’ ‘There are other ways,’ said Steve. Lunch was corned beef sandwiches and tea and then they started again. They had no easy guide as to the content and significance of the other files. Each line had to be read and identified. On separate sheets of paper they scribbled notes, trying to decipher the logic, the purpose of each program. Jocylin stood behind Allan for a while and watched him. Most of his notes consisted of little boxes with labels to represent blocks of code. Spidery lines drawn between them represented the flow of control and there were sketches of what looked like irregular chessboards representing arrays and data of other kinds. He tore up some paper into strips so that he could re-arrange the order of the blocks. ‘What are these?’ Jocylin said pointing. Allan explained without pausing. He was scribbling hard. She went back to her book. The light faded early. Allan lit the tilly-lamps and placed one on the mantlepiece. The other was hung from a large rusty hook which dangled from the ceiling. ‘Handy for if you're contemplating suicide,’ said Jack and then added ‘ ...sorry’ when no one laughed. Supper was a repeat of lunch. Chalmers' cooking skills were limited. Steve went outside for a while and Chalmers slept in the armchair. Jack and Allan read on. A log crackled occasionally and settled in the grate. The tilly-lamps hissed quietly. The only other sound was the repetitive turning of the pages. Two hours later Jack said ‘Bingo,’ He looked at Allan. ‘This is it.’ Jocylin got up and came round behind them to see. Chalmers was still asleep. There was a two-way radio lying on the table. It bleeped and Steve's voice said ‘Hold it.’ Jocylin snatched up radio. ‘What's up?’ ‘Car. Dark blue Escort. It's stopping.’ Jocylin still had the set in her hand. She went over and touched Chalmers on the shoulder. ‘Someone's coming,’ she said quietly as his eyes opened. Steve's voice sounded again. ‘He's getting out the car ... sorry ... she. Hold it. It's Dr. Telman.’ ‘Damn,’ said Allan and blushed. ‘She's looking at our cars ... she's coming up the track ... she's seen Jack's car ... she's stopped ... it's OK, she's going back .... all clear.’ Faintly in the distance they heard a car door bang and the sound of the engine. Jack looked at Allan and winked. ‘You'd better relieve Steve, he'll be frozen,’ said Chalmers to Jocylin. She said, ‘They've found the program. The one that does the customization.’ ‘You mean the one that inserts the secret passage?’ Chalmers was alert. ‘If our guesses are right,’ said Jack. ‘All we have to do now is to find the password itself.’ They split the pages of fan-fold between them and carried on. Half an hour later Allan knew for certain that he was looking at it - a long string of characters which the program loaded into the chip. He copied it down carefully among his notes and slipped the sheet under the bundle. Pretending to doodle he wrote it a second time on the wooden table top itself among the cracks, grooves and coffee stains. A few minutes later he said ‘Here Jack. What do you think?’ He spun the bundle of printout round for Jack to read. Steve was out getting more logs. Chalmers was dozing again. With brow furrowed, Jack scanned the page. He looked up for a moment at Allan with bright eyes and then dropped them again on to the page. ‘Hmmm. Lets see.’ He wrote on his notes boxing off a paragraph with a wavy line and then linking it to another. More writing. He lifted a page and slipped it under his other notes. Steve came back in, struggled with the door and dropped a log on the stone floor. Jack said, ‘I guess so. I think it must be.’ He spoke flatly denying the excitement which was flitting behind his eyes as he turned the page back to Allan. Allan looked at Chalmers. ‘We've got it,’ he said loudly. ‘That's it.’ He pointed with a finger at the line of code. ‘That's the password.’ Chalmers and Steve banged heads as they bent to look. ‘Hang on,’ said Jack, ‘I'll just note this down.’ and he began copying the characters on to his notes. Chalmers' hand reached for the page. ‘I'll take charge of this from now on,’ he said. ‘And I think I'd better have these notes as well.’ He lifted both sets of notes from the table. Jack and Allan exchanged glances. They sat round the fire and drank the harsh black tea which Chalmers had made. ‘There are a few things we still have to clear up,’ said Chalmers. ‘Before I take this higher. I think we have enough to re-open the case but the implications are so serious I'd like to be sure of a few points before I move.’ ‘You worried about the local enterprise theory?’ said Steve. ‘Aye.’ Chalmers looked into the mug of tea which he held between his ample fists as though trying to crush it. ‘You see ... ’ He looked at Steve as he spoke, checking Steve's reaction to his words. ‘ ... there are a couple of people we have had our eye on for some time. I want to check them out ...’ He hesitated and then seemed to make up his mind. ‘But I don't want to involve you two in that aspect. I'd just like you to keep your eyes and ears open at MCI. Especially if you hear of anyone making a quiet pile for themselves. Someone spending money freely, more than you'd expect them to be able to afford.’ ‘I'm freezing,’ said Jocylin's voice. Steve laughed and stood up. ‘Hang on princess your prince is coming,’ he said into the radio. ‘Just let your hair down a wee bit.’ When he had gone Chalmers said, ‘I'm worried about you two. I suppose there's no way anyone could find out that you were responsible for this little lot?’ He waved a hand at the pile of paper. Jack laughed. ‘If they identify anyone it will be John Seaton.’ But Chalmers was not amused. ‘This is deadly serious,’ he said. ‘Two deaths already. John Ford driving over a cliff and then Tommy hanged. I don't want more. From now on I want you both to keep a very low profile.’ ‘Yes Sir,’ Jack saluted American GI style. Jocylin came in and went to the fire. She held out her hands to the flames. ‘Are we going soon?’ Jack sat in the armchair with his eyes shut while Allan cleared away and washed up. ‘I'd better be going too. Pity he nabbed the password,’ he said. He was looking at Allan for confirmation. ‘.... Isn't it?’ When Allan did not answer he said ‘You've got it you bugger. Where did you put it?’ ‘I want a promise Jack.’ ‘Promise.’ He held up his hand to take the oath. ‘I'm serious Jack. How can I trust you? You're a hack-o-holic.’ ‘I'm reformed. I've signed the pledge.’ ‘No Jack. I'm scared. It's got to remain secret.’ ‘Well bugger you! I'm the one who cracked this thing in the first place.’ It was a fair point. Allan knew Jack should not be told and yet his sense of justice rebelled. In the end, after more argument and many promises, he showed Jack the tiny characters scribbled into a crack on the table's surface. ‘You crafty bugger! I thought I'd fool him by writing it down fairly obviously but he guessed I had already written it in my notes the swine.’ Jack got out his diary and was about to copy the password down but Allan stopped him. ‘That's a dead give away Jack,’ he said. ‘Let me show you a way to encode it.’ So with Jack at his elbow Allan set to work with pen and paper. First he counted the characters in the password. There were thirty. Then he wrote down the sentence ‘Weesleekitcowrintimrousbeastie’ as a single word without spaces. Next he wrote down the numeric computer code for each character in the sentence and did the same for the characters in the password. He paired them off with the poem sentence and added them to produce a new set of thirty numbers. Every character in the numeric character set is a number between 32 and 127. By adding and subtracting from the new numbers where necessary, he mapped the new set of numbers to the range of numeric characters. These he translated back into character form. ‘Copy that down,’ he said, ‘and for God's sake never leave the real password lying about.’ ‘Ok Gov,’ said Jack cheerfully, and Allan's heart sank. When he heard the sound of Jack's car moving off he began again with a new sentence. This time it was the names of his three favourite mountains, in Ordinance Survey Gaelic, strung together as before without spaces. With the blade of his pen knife he detached the backing page from inside the cover of his diary and wrote the converted password on the inside of that page. He wrote it with spaces between the characters and in the spaces he placed other arbitrary characters to give a new password sixty characters long. Then he put a X on the front for good luck. Finally he glued the page back into place and scrubbed the table top until all trace of the password had gone. Afterwards he tried to put it out of his mind. He told himself that he had played his part in exposing the conspiracy. The matter was now in responsible hands and he could look forwards to getting on with the project with Rosa. The logs burned brightly. With the glare of the tilly-lamps turned off he sat staring into the flames. Rosa had come that evening. She had seen the cars in the lay-by and Jack's Citroen parked by the cottage and she had gone away again. What had she thought? He did not like to think of her being hurt. Jack would surely come to his senses. As before he and Allan would have a weekly pizza at Alphonso's and they would talk about nothing more significant than ... than ... well maybe not wine, but definitely women and song. |