The Enemy Within

Thorn looked away, still angry at the clear waste of good manpower. He turned back to Rossini. “You’re sure this guy Kettler can handle the job?”

“Uh-huh. Without breaking a sweat.”

Thorn hoped the Maestro’s confidence wasn’t misplaced. The man they were on their way to see, Derek Kettler, made his living as a freelance software designer and consultant. Apparently, JSOC had hired him once before to craft special security and antiviral programs for its intelligence section.

“Kettler lives and breathes computers, Pete,” Rossini con tinned. “The guy’s a little unusual, but he practically dreams in machine code. He’s good. One of the best.” “Just how unusual is he?” Thorn asked sceptically.

Rossini shrugged. “He telecommutes so he can work alone. He likes being alone. He hates having to take orders. In fact, he hates just about anything to do with authority or control.”

Thorn arched an eyebrow. “Then why work with computers? Hell, they’re nothing but rules and instructions…”

Rossini shook his head. “Those are physical limitations, like gravity or the speed of light. It’s people telling him what to do that Kettler has trouble with.”

Great, Thorn thought. They were off on a visit to the Computer Hermit of Herndon.

The older man pulled off the Access Road, fast-talked their way past the local tollbooth, and followed a series of treelined streets to a newer part of the town.

The housing development still showed signs of newness. A Dumpster loaded with construction scraps marked the corner where they turned off the main road, and two of the end units still had raw, muddy earth instead of lawns. The homes were attractive, brick-fronted, two-story town houses. Different gables and copper trim gave each a small bit of identity otherwise lacking in their construction.

Derek Kettler’s house was third from the left in a row of ten. They parked, and Rossini muttered, “Stay here in the car for a minute, until I signal. He agreed to meet with us over the phone last night because he’s dying to see this new virus, but he really wasn’t very happy with the idea of a face-to- face chat. Like I said, he prefers dealing by modem.”

Swell. Thorn sat stiffly in the front seat, watching Rossini climb the front steps to Kettler’s town house.

The Maestro knocked, and then, after waiting a few moments without any apparent response, pressed the bell. Even in the car, Thorn could hear the sound, not of a bell, but a fierce animal roar. Rossini seemed to expect it and looked apologetically toward the car, shrugging.

The door opened, and Thorn saw Kettler for the first time.

His immediate impression was a 1960s-style hippie without any of the tie-dyed colon Rossini’s computer genius wore a grey sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, all of which looked rumpled even the shoes. Kettler himself was in his thirties, slightly overweight, and badly in need of a haircut. His black hair and beard were long and lank.

Thorn watched the two men speak for a few minutes. Kettler kept nervously glancing toward the car while Rossini made soothing gestures. Finally, the computer expert disappeared, still shaking his head, and the Maestro motioned for Thorn to come on up.

He trotted up the steps and followed Rossini inside.

He first noticed the smell, a mixture of stale food and mustiness and other things he didn’t want to identify. The front door opened into the living room, which was dominated by a six-foot-high, ten-foot-wide entertainment canter. Thorn considered himself something of an audiophile, but this system was incredible. It included a CD player and a tape deck, but it also contained a reel-to-reel tape player and a turntable. There was even what looked like a CRT and a computer keyboard built into the system.

A mass of scattered clothes, magazines, and paperback books surrounded the wall unit, covering about half the carpet. Empty potato chip bags punctuated the mess.

If Thorn expected the living room to be the worst of it, he was mistaken. When they walked back past the kitchen, he spotted countertops littered with dirty dishes and empty soda cans. The room’s main fixture seemed to be a large green plastic trash can with so many pizza boxes stuffed into it that they overflowed onto the floor.

Kettler led them upstairs.

A converted bedroom was obviously the heart of the house. A large U-shaped desk filled the center of the room, with computer boxes and electronic components on the desk, on shelves over the desk, and on the floor beside it. Bookshelves crammed with thick hardcovers and trade paperbacks lined one wall. They were all computer-related, with titles like Numeric Process Control Codes.

Thorn didn’t even feel tempted to open that one.

Like the rest of the house, the blinds were closed, and he doubted if they were ever opened. In stark contrast to the rest of the house, though, the desk and the room were comparatively neat, although he could see small piles of debris in the corners.