Terminal Compromise

Tyrone hated the position he was in, but Scott had given him a ltoe recently. It was time to reciprocate.

"Off?"

"So far off, so far off that if you turned the light "On" it would still be off."

"It's a f.u.c.king mess," Tyrone said quickly. He was relieved to be able to talk about it. "You can't believe it. I'm down there to watch a crisis management team in action, but what do I find?"

He shook his head. "They're still trying to decide on the size of the conference table." The reference caught Scott's ear.

"No, it's not that bad, but it might as well be."

"How is this ECCO thing put together? Who's responsible?"

"Responsible? Ha! No one," Tyrone chuckled as he recounted the constant battles among the represented agencies. "This is the perfect bureaucratic solution. No one is responsible for s.h.i.+t, no one is accountable, but they all want to run the show. And, no one agency clearly has authority. It's a f.u.c.king disaster."

"No one runs security? In the whole government, no one runs security?"

"That's pus.h.i.+ng it a little, but not too far off base."

"Oh, I gotta hear this," Scott said reclining in the deep plush cloth covered couch.

"Once upon a time, a super secret agency, no one ever spoke the initials, but it begins with the National Security Agency, got elected by the Department of Defense to work out communications security during the Cold War. They took their job very seriously.

"Then along came NIST and IBM who developed DES. The DOD formed the Computer Security Initiative and then the Computer Security Evaluation Center. The DOD CSEC became the DOD Computer Security and then after NSA realized that everybody knew who they were, it became the NCSC. Following this?"

Scott nodded only not to disrupt the flow.

"Ok, in 1977, Carter signed a bill that said to NSA, you take over the cla.s.sified national security stuff, but he gave the dregs, the uncla.s.sified stuff to the NTIA, a piece of Commerce.

But that bill made a lot of people unhappy. So, along comes Reagan who says, no that's wrong, before we get anything con- structive done, let me issue a Directive, number 145, and give everything back to NSA.

"That p.i.s.sed off even more people and Congress then pa.s.sed the Computer Security Act of 1987, stripped NSA of what it had and gave NIST the uncla.s.sified stuff. As a result, NSA closed the NCSC, NIST is underbudgeted by a factor of 100 and in short, they all want a piece of a very small pie. That took over 4 years.

And that's whose fault it is.

"Whose?"

"Congress of course. Congress pa.s.ses the d.a.m.n laws and then won't fund them. Result? I get stuck in the middle of third tier rival agency technocrats fighting over their turf or s.h.i.+rking responsibility, and well, you get the idea. So I've got ECCO to talk to CERT to talk to NIST to talk to...and it goes on ad nauseum."

"Sorry I asked," joked Scott.

"In other words," Ty admitted, "I don't have the

"What's that?"

"It looks like it can only get worse."

Tuesday, November 11 White House Press Room

"Mr. President," asked the White House correspondent for Time magazine. "A recent article in the City Times said that the military has been hiding a super weapon for years that is capable of disabling enemy computers and electronics from a great dis- tance without any physical destruction. Is that true, sir, and has the use of those weapons contributed to the military's suc- cesses over the last few years?"

"Ah, well," the President hesitated briefly. "The Stealth pro- gram was certainly a boon to our air superiority. There is no question about that, and it was kept secret for a decade." He stared to his left, and the press pool saw him take a visual cue from his National Security Director. "Isn't that right Henry?"

Henry Kennedy nodded aggressively. "We have the best armed forces in the world, with all the advantages we can bring to bear, and I will not compromise them in any way. But, if there is such a cla.s.sified program that I was aware of, I couldn't speak of it even if I didn't know it existed." The President picked another newsman. "Next, yes, Jim?"

During the next question Henry Kennedy slipped off to the ante- room and called the Director of the National Security Agency.

"Marv, how far have you gotten on this EMP-T thing?" He waited for a response. "The President is feeling embarra.s.sed." Another pause. "So the Exchange is cooperating?" Pause. Wait. "How many pieces are missing?" Pause. "That's not what Mason's article said." Longer pause. "Deal with it."

Immediately after the press conference, the President, Phil Musgrave, his Chief of Staff, Henry Kennedy and Quinton Chambers his old time ally and Secretary of State had an impromptu meeting in the Oval Office.

They sat in the formal Queen Anne furniture as an elegant silver coffee and tea service was brought in for the five men. Minus Treasury Secreatry Martin Royce, this was the President' inner circle, his personal advisory clique who a.s.sisted in making grand national policy. Anything goes in one of these sessions, the President had made clear in the first days of his Administration.

Anything.

We do not take things personally here, he would say. We have to explore all options. All options. Even if they are distasteful.

And in these meeting, treat me like one of the guys. "Yes, sir, Mr. President." The only formality of their caucuses was the President's fundamental need to mediate the sometimes heated dialogues between his most trusted aids. They were real free-for-alls.

"Henry," the President said. "Before we start, who was that reporter? Where the h.e.l.l did that question come up about the weapon stuff?"

"Forget him. The story started at the City Times. Scott Mason, sir." Musgrave replied quickly. His huge football center sized body overwhelmed the couch on which he sat. "He's been giving extensive coverage to computer crime."

"Well, do we have such a bomb?" he asked with real curiosity.

"Ah, yessir," Henry Kennedy responded. "It's highly cla.s.sified.

But the object is simple. Lob in a few of the EMP-T bombs as they're called, shut down their communications and control, and move in during the confusion. Very effective, sir."

"Well, let's see what we can do about keeping secrets a little better. O.K., boys?" The President's charismatic hold over even his dear friends and long time a.s.sociates made him one of the most effective leaders in years. If he was given the right information.

The President scanned a few notes he had made on a legal pad.

"Can I forget about it?" the President closely scrutinized Henry for any body language.

"Yessir."

The President gave Henry one more glance and made an obvious point of highlighting the item. The subject would come up again.

Chapter 12

Thursday, November 14 NASA Control Center, Johnson s.p.a.ce Center

The voice of Mission Control spoke over the loudspeakers and into hundreds of headsets.

THE GROUND LAUNCH SEQUENCER HAS BEEN INITIATED. WE'RE AT T-MINUS 120 SECONDS AND COUNTING.

The s.p.a.ce Shuttle Columbia was on Launch Pad 3, in its final preparation for another secret mission. As was expected, the Department of Defense issued a terse non-statement on its pur- pose: "The Columbia is carrying a cla.s.sified payload will be used for a series of experiments. The flight is scheduled to last three days."

In reality, and most everyone knew it, the Columbia was going to release another KH-5 spy satellite. The KH-5 series was able, from an alt.i.tude of 110 miles, to discern and transmit to Earth photos so crisp, it could resolve the numbers on an automobile license plate. The photographic resolution of KH-5's was the envy of every government on the planet, and was one of the most closely guarded secrets that everyone knew about.

T-MINUS 110 SECONDS AND COUNTING.