The Enemy Within

Kettler’s system was already on. Several large-screen monitors displayed brightly colored geometric designs against a darkened background. The center monitor, a huge two-page display, showed a blue and white emblem surrounded with the words “United Federation of Planets.”

Cute. Very cute.

“Gimme the disk,” demanded Kettler.

Rossini handed it over without apparent qualm, violating several federal laws in the process. Thorn winced a little, but kept his thoughts to himself. The diskette passed to them by CERT bore only a handwritten label identifying its contents as

“MidTel Virus, Unknown.”

Kettler handled it like it was red-hot.

He sat down in a swivel chair and started typing. “Okay, Maestro, I’m going to reconfigure my system. I’ll isolate one CPU, and then we’ll see what this beast looks like.” Rossini explained to Thorn what they were seeing while Kettler typed in commands and threw switches on a homemade junction box. The software designer had four computers wired together. One was a server, or file manager. Another did nothing but log on to bulletin boards, download files, and screen them for material he was interested in. The final two were paired processors, hooked up in a special rig that allowed Kettler to designate which processor would handle a task. Isolating one of the units would protect the rest of his system from damage if the virus started running wild.

Despite his misgivings, Thorn had to admit he was impressed by the sheer amount of linked hardware in the room and by the evident ease with which the other man handled his equipment.

New lines of text popped into existence on the central monitor.

“All right, here we go,” Kettler muttered to himself. He slid the disk into a drive and typed in another set of commands.

“All right, it’s just one big file. Okay, baby, let’s see if we can find out just what you’re made of.” Kettler conducted a running monologue with himself while he started running a series of keyboard controlled tests, probing around the file’s periphery. Rossini stood over his shoulder, answering questions about the known behavior of the virus.

“Oh, yeah.” Kettler nodded knowingly. “Same kind of trick we’re supposed to have pulled on the Iraqis during the Gulf War.”

Thorn looked at Rossini. “Is that true?”

“Uh-huh,” the older man agreed. “The story showed up in a number of the journals. According to them, we planted a virus in the printers inside their air defense computers in Baghdad. It would have worked pretty much the same way.”

Thorn whistled sharply. Maybe Amir Taleh’s belief that Iraq was behind the effort to rebuild radical Islam’s terrorist forces was right after all. Was this a case of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?

The big monitor suddenly filled with jumbled numbers. “Yes!” Kettler exclaimed.

Thorn looked over Rossini’s shoulder. “That’s it?”

“Yeah, in octal code,” Rossini answered.

“This will make more sense,” Kettler announced, and hit a key. The numbers vanished. They were replaced by text grouped in three-letter combinations.

Assembly code, Thorn realized. That was one step up from octal, but it was still Greek to him.

Kettler, however, studied it as if he were reading a road map. Tracing his finger across the columns of code, he scrolled the screen up and down. There were pages of the stuff. Oblivious to the two men, he murmured to himself and scratched notes on a pad.

Thorn fought the urge to check his watch.

After what seemed like an eternity, Kettler shouted, “All right!” for the umpteenth time. Spinning around in his chair to face them, he smiled, almost beaming. “It’s the Bulgarian!” “You’re sure?” Rossini demanded.

“Absolutely,” Kettler asserted. “This is his stuff. I know viruses. I have to in my line of work. See?”

The computer expert took a key from his pocket and unlocked one of the desk drawers. He pulled it open and lifted out a long disk box that had been marked with yellow-and black striped tape.

He held the box carefully, as if afraid to jostle its contents. “This is my collection. Every virus I’ve ever heard of, including some that were stopped before they hit the street.” He patted it almost lovingly.

Rossini looked at the box in horror, as though the codes it contained were about to leap out and infect him personally. Like any good analyst, he was instinctively repelled by the idea of a program deliberately created to destroy information.

Kettler flipped open the lid and pulled out three neatly labeled disks. “All three of these babies hold viruses created by the Bulgarian, and the similarities are unmistakable. Some of the subroutines are identical.”

Rossini saw Thorn’s impatient look and explained. “He’s right, Pete. Programmers are like other artists. They’ve each got their own styles and their own bags of little tricks favorite techniques they use to achieve specific ends. To somebody who knows how to read this stuff like Derek here, those are as good as fingerprints or signatures.”