Rogue Angel - Polar Quest Part 24

"Well, most things, yeah. But not stuff like that. It's top secret stuff that gets read only by the colonel. Maybe Major Braden, too, but I'm not sure. Anyway, they get to read it and then I'm pretty sure it gets destroyed."

"Destroyed?"

"If it's a hard copy, they'll burn it. If it's an e-mail they'll delete the file and make sure it can't be undeleted."

"And they don't read the reports here?"

The soldier glanced around. "I'm not supposed to be telling you this or anyone else for that matter, but when a cla.s.sified message comes in, I route it to the colonel's private terminal in his shelter."

"He's got a computer in his tent?"

"Yep."

"That must be nice, huh?"

The soldier grinned. "Rank has its privileges, ma'am."

"Indeed it does," Annja said. "Well, maybe I'd better go see the colonel then about getting a copy of the report for myself, huh?"

"You can try, but I don't think he'll let you see it."

"Why not?"

"It's cla.s.sified stuff. Anything relating to this dig site has already been cla.s.sified top secret. That means unless you have the proper security clearance, identification and a need-to-know, you aren't going to get a copy of it."

Annja frowned. "I don't suppose you can whip me up any of that stuff here, can you?"

"Afraid not, Miss Creed. I'd be glad to help you out but I can't. Far as I know, the colonel doesn't show that stuff to anyone. He said something one time about things needing to be kept compartmentalized. Otherwise we'd have havoc back home if people knew we were looking at alien artifacts and whatnot."

"I suppose that makes sense," Annja said. "Do you know if the colonel is over at his shelter now?"

"I don't know. I think he's still at breakfast. He and Major Braden have been hanging out quite a bit, but I think that's because the colonel really enjoys talking with him about security and stuff."

Annja smiled. "Yes, that Major Braden certainly has an eye for security."

"Your best bet is to wander over and knock on his door. Who knows? He might just be there."

Annja smiled at him. "Thank you. I'll do that."

24.

Outside in the dim light, the snow fell harder, coming at Annja in small, dry flakes that pelted the few bits of exposed skin she had. The frozen landscape was brutal and as the wind screamed in her ears; the entire environment seemed almost entirely...dead.

Colonel Thomson's shelter was several yards away from the admin shelter, and Annja moved quickly. Some people moved past her, but no one stopped to speak. Out here, it was always a matter of getting from point A to point B in the least amount of time possible.

And Annja wanted to get to Thomson's shelter soon before he came back to it and found her there.

The only way I'm going to be able to do this, she thought, is if I can sneak in and get access to his computer system. She frowned. There would be a security system of some sort on his laptop. She'd need a pa.s.sword and without knowing anything of his past, she'd have a hard time guessing it.

Still, there might be a way.

Instead of heading for the colonel's shelter, Annja turned and headed for her own shelter. Inside, she flipped open her laptop and booted it up. She'd need some way to connect to the outside world, though. And she didn't have a satellite phone.

But Dave did. She'd seen him unpack it earlier in the trip when they first arrived. She hadn't thought much of it then, just figured it was something he always carried. A just-in-case solution in the event he needed it. Now, however, she found herself wondering why he had one.

Not that it mattered. At the moment, she needed its ability to reach out and touch someone. Annja peered out of the door but saw no one heading toward her shelter. She ducked back inside and went right for Dave's bag.

The sat phone was about twelve inches long, and Annja found a USB jack on the side of it that she could hook up to her laptop. She switched it on and found her way to the Internet dial-up connection. It was extremely slow working on dial-up rather than broadband, but at least she had a line out.

She headed right for the message board she knew her hacker friend Knightmare always hung out on. In the forum area, she posted a quick note:

K, it's Digger A. Drop me a line-got a project for you.

Then she sat back and waited. No sooner had she posted it than her e-mail indicator light turned green. She had a new e-mail waiting for her. Annja clicked over and saw it was from Knightmare.

Can you video? Go to Yahoo if you can.

Annja clicked on her Yahoo Instant Messenger video feed and peered into the camera on her laptop. An instant later, Knightmare's face popped up on her screen.

"Yo, Annja."

"What's up, Knight?"

"You rang?"

Annja smiled. Knightmare was a sixteen-year-old from Beverly Hills who enjoyed raiding all sorts of cryptic government files just for the fun of it. He certainly didn't need any money. Form what Annja knew, Knightmare's father was the head of a software company that had just gone public for billions of dollars.

"Guess where I am?"

"Someplace cold, judging from the parka."

"Antarctica."

His face lit up. "No s.h.i.t?"

"Really. But I need your help."

He nodded, getting his game face on. "What gives?"

"I can't go into details right now, but suffice it to say I'm on a covert government job right now. I need to get access to a computer network that is linked up to a defense satellite communications system. Can you help out?"

Knightmare whistled. "That's a tall order, pretty lady. Defense networks alone are tough game, but via satellite is tougher still. Their sat systems have multilevel encryption systems designed to kick out the genuinely curious such as myself from pursuing truth and freedom wherever our cyber circuits take us."

"Very poetic. Can you or can't you help?" Annja asked.

He grinned. "I take it time is of the essence?"

"Yep."

"Can do, then. Gimme a sec."

Annja watched him rummage through some file cabinets near his desk. He pulled out a number of CDs and started flipping through them. "I've really got to start labeling my software," he said absently.

"Knight, I'm not sure how long I have this phone for. I didn't exactly ask to borrow it."

He nodded and slipped a CD into the computer. "Okay, what's the network protocol?"

"Uh..."

He sighed. "Annja, you're making this tougher than it has to be."

"I don't know what the protocol is. I'm on a cla.s.sified government operation here. They don't exactly broadcast it, you know?"

"Fine, fine, where are you, then?"

"Horlick Mountain."

"Hang on, I have to find out the lat.i.tude and longitude and then overlay that with the geosynchronous...o...b..ts of all known defense satellites." He spent a few seconds typing something into the computer. "Okay, got it. Let's see, Navstar 5."

"Did you say Navstar?"

"Yeah."

Annja frowned. "Okay. Keep going."

Knight kept typing. His fingers seemed to fly over the keys, and his eyes never left the screen. It felt weird seeing him look at the computer with such intensity. He wasn't even looking at Annja, but it felt as if he was.

"Hang on, I have to route this through a number of cutouts so they can't trace it back to me. If they do, I'm screwed. My dad said he'd take my computer away."

"Not that," Annja said.

"Yeah, I'd be forced to hack through my PSP instead and that's no fun." He kept typing, rambling off a string of cities as he did so. "Rio, Dubai, Tokyo, Manila, Johannesburg, Stockholm, back to Capetown, over to Mumbai and then back to Wellington. That last one should give them pause." He chuckled and kept typing.

"How you doing?" Annja asked. At any moment, she figured Dave would definitely come through the door and see her on his sat phone. Then she'd have a lot of explaining to do.

"Hang on, I'm picking up the stream of communications now. This will give me the information I need to tap into it. It should be small. How many computers have you seen where you are?"

"Maybe five or six."

"So they can't have a lot of traffic flowing back and forth. That helps me narrow it down." He continued typing. "Okay, I think I've got it. Stand by."

Annja heard him clicking the keys and then saw the broad smile splash across his face. "I'm in."

"You can get into the computers?" Annja asked.

"No, I just hooked on to their network. Cracking the security will take me a little longer. But at least I've got access. You proud of me or what?"

"Excessively," Annja said. "But I need access to one particular computer terminal."

"Is it on the network?"

"I think so, yes. One of the people I spoke to said that he sent traffic and e-mails over to that terminal."

"Good, that means I can piggyback onto it." Knightmare continued typing. "You know where it would be?"

"Well, it wasn't grouped with the other five computers, if that's what you're asking."

He frowned. "Lemme try something..."

Annja glanced at the door. She needed to hurry this along or Dave would find out. And since she wasn't yet sure if he was entirely trustworthy, she didn't want him to know what was going on.

"Got it."

Annja looked up. "You found the computer?"

"Yep. Registered to a Colonel Thomson. Next time tell me, okay? That would have cut down on my time by like thirty seconds."

"Sorry."

"What do you need to know?"

"You're into his computer?"

"Working on it, Annja. I'm not Superman, you know." He typed a few more keys. "Looks like he's got a nice long alphanumeric string here. Time for me to step aside and let the Icebreaker do his thing."

"Icebreaker?"