Seaspun Magic (27 page)

"I'll take the cookies in." He smiled into her eyes, settling her carefully back down on the ground.

She blinked, taking a second longer to realize her feet really were on the floor, for she felt as light as sea foam.. .effervescent, yet full of seductive energy. "And I'll bring the cocoa," she whispered dazedly.

As soon as she had placed her small tray on the coffee table beside the shortbread, Leo drew her down on the couch. "All those nights I used to sit here alone, Arianne, when it's plenty big enough for the two of us."

The huge old-fashioned monster of a sofa accommodated them both as if it had been made for nights like this one. He stretched out against the back of it and brought her down with him to lie in front. Her hair spilled over the cushions and over the elbow he had propped to hold his head. That left his other hand free to roam at will over her lissome body, aligned in utter comfortable contentment to his.

"Now what was that about Larry?'' he reminded her with a little nibble on her earlobe.

Animatedly she related and summed up what had happened next door since the last time she'd seen him, Thursday morning, at breakfast. "So you see, that's how I know he's here, by his car. It's a pretty fantastic story, isn't it, Larry being Jill's husband? And whatever his scheme, it has something to do with that old fort." Leo was staring pensively, with knitted brow, into the crackling fire.

Arianne had her motives for revealing all that she knew about her mystery in such a point-blank way. She was hoping Leo would reciprocate as to his role in the strange events taking place in sleepy, tucked-away Port Townsend. Finally she decided to make no bones about the whole matter. "Where do you fit in?" Her fingers sifted through his hair—"Where have you been?"—and trailed down along his jaw to his chin—"What are you doing here?"—and delicately wandered down his strong brown throat. "You have to tell me, darling. You can't leave me in this awful suspense! Why shouldn't anyone know you're here?"

"I have to tell you now, don't I?" he murmured, brushing his lips against her temple. "I tried to keep you out of it, but you turned out to be one of the principals." Tucking her hips more snugly against his, he slid one knee across her thighs as his warm breath feathered over her cheek. "I'll tell you—" the ardent touch of his mouth continued to the corner of hers "—all about everything—" and his lips softly rubbed over hers "—in a minute."

But a minute later, all he said, in soft protest, was, "Between us we have enough clothes on to outfit the whole navy!" Off came the robe, off came the flannel nightgown, and the pink slippers came off when his jeans did.

***

Just a few feet away, below a mantel inspired with Christmas cheer, full of red ribands and prickly holly, the flames licked and smoked around split logs. Inside the house it was warm and dry and cozy. The wind could whisper and moan as much as it liked outside and the rain could beat against the windows; to the two people wrapped up in each other on the couch, the tempest was sweet and musical, an accompaniment to the snapping fire. The knitted afghan half-draped over them was their only cover.

It was quiet in the afterglow of making love. Leo's chin against her temple, they lay without speaking, peaceful and content, until he raised his head a bit and, looking at her face in repose, framed by the tousled glossy abundance of curls, murmured softly, "Don't fall asleep, Arianne. Don't fall asleep, darling—" he stopped to kiss her once, twice and a third time "—we're going to the fort."

"Say what?" Her eyes opened. "What did you say?"

Laughing softly at her wide-eyed stare, he kissed her open mouth a fourth time and added, "It's true. We have to get up, get dressed and go see the admiral."

"Lyndon Thrush?"

"Um-hm."

"He's expecting us, is he, at one-thirty in the morning?"

"Um-hm. We have to be very secretive about this."

"But, why!"

"I'll explain as we go."

"Well, you're responsible for getting Rae back to sleep then. Be it on your shoulders if he's up the rest of the night."

"We won't disturb him. A baby-sitter's coming here. He'll be here in—hell! Right now!" And sure enough, there was a thumping on her back door.

"What sort of baby-sitter—Leo, what the dickens— who is—"

He helped her into her robe and held out her slippers, and kissed her again just as there was another knocking on the door. "He's a navy doctor. He's delivered a few kids in his time, so he's okay. I almost want to wake Rae up, though, just to see if he's grown while I was away!" Leo grinned and began to tuck his shirt into his jeans. Watching him, Arianne wished she could take his clothes off again. "We'll be gone about two hours. Hurry up, darling—" his hand curved appreciatively around her bottom as he gave her a little push "—the sooner we get there, the sooner we get back."

Muttering to herself about the idiosyncrasies of some people she knew, Arianne took herself upstairs. Still shaking her head, she sped through a lightning shower and wondered what on earth the current etiquette books would advise one to wear to see an admiral at one-thirty in the morning. What she finally decided on was an outfit consisting of excellently fitted jeans, a white shirt and a royal-blue pullover. She caught her hair up with a narrow white ribbon just because it was Christmas. Then she checked on Rae, and about ten minutes after she'd sped up the stairs, she ran down.

And about five minutes after that, with the navy doctor settled in, Leo took her hand as they went down the back porch steps into the dark, wet and cold December night.

"So you see Arianne, I do have a bookstore, a small one. It's a hobby of mine and I have a manager who runs the place for me. The travelogue and bureau are all just a front, and those other business cards are the same – covers for my main business, MicroCon. MicroCon is a company that deals in computers and computer software. One branch of the company is concerned with computer security and crime prevention. A little while ago the navy hired me as a security consultant for one of their new computer systems. Then their present system was accessed illegally from the base on Whidbey Island. They asked me to come out earlier to investigate; and that's what I've been doing since I came here—setting up new security systems and backup and designing the training course. And trying to find out who logged onto that first ring and how."

Arianne tripped in the dark, not because of a wayward blackberry briar or a root, but because of the shock she had just received. "Oh, no—" she clutched his arm "—this accessing—it's done by passwords? Passwords like 'bobsled'?"

"You've go it!"

"Oh, my God!" was all she could say, quavering for the moment. "Are they going to clap me in irons, or whatever it is they do?"

"No, my love. We all know by now you're not guilty of anything other than having ESP, although that we still have to prove. And that's why we're going to see the admiral!" He chuckled faintly at her gigantic dismay. "I have to produce you. Otherwise, they won't believe my theory that you're the dastardly accomplice planning to sabotage the defense of the entire West Coast!" He laughed under his breath in rich amusement. "But it's not funny, darling, really it isn't, I just have a bent sense of humor. I was thinking of the expression on Thrush's face when I told him about you. Actually, it's terrible," he said with a sigh. "The danger you're in makes my heart sick.... You've stopped helping Barnes, haven't you?"

"Well, um, yes—" Arianne gulped. "He—he was getting too pushy, and I was afraid... 1 was afraid of another kidnapping case."

"He didn't get any farther than the first ring."

"I've been giving him passwords like 'tuba' and 'saxophone' and 'retarded' for ring two—" Arianne giggled "—when all along I knew it was 'hippo.'" She clapped her hand over mouth.

"You're something else, Arianne!" Leo shook his head. As the wind rustled in the pines above their heads, and the rain filtering down through the forest roof was diminished into a fine drizzle, he stopped and kissed her softly on the mouth. The pungent smell of wet cedar and spongy pine needles mixed with the musky scent of the forest floor. Their lips fused in sultry warmth, while their faces were misted and cold.

"So you're already on to Larry?" They hurried on through the night.

"We knew he had made several clever attempts to log on, all unsuccessful—until he met you. The navy figures that he has an accomplice in the computer department, but I don't think so."

"But how did you find him out?"

"Well, it's this way. Using an RJET—"

"You've lost me already."

"He used a Remote Job Entry Terminal. That means he didn't have to be anywhere near the actual computer department. There are hundreds of different terminals of various kinds, and they're all a part of what's called the front end. They all tie into the host, or the control center.

"Using an RJET, what happens first is that the two computers, the terminal and the host, shake hands and set up their link. The host then asks the terminal for its communications protocol—what sort of machine the terminal is and its operating speed, the baud rate. Then the terminal screen displays a request for the operator's identity. Sometimes this is simply the operator's name, which is typed in, and sometimes it's a plasticized card, like a credit card, with a magnetic code strip. The card is run through the reader portion of the terminal. If the card passes clearance, the host asks for the password. And having correctly supplied that, the operator is cleared and he can move ahead into whatever file he wants—provided, of course, that his security rating permits access. An operator is given three tries to log on. After three unsuccessful attempts, the host locks out that particular terminal, and it stays locked out until it's cleared by someone with supervisory access. See?"

"Yes, by George, I believe I do! Larry kept botching the password part of the logging on."

"Now that's one system. There are others. Sometimes the password is imbedded in the actual data and the operator doesn't know which word or phrase it is. Passwords, or keywords, can be any combination of alphanumeric characters, in any combination of upper and lower case. So you see Barnes's dilemma.

"But the trouble with all these methods is that they're so easy to foil. A hacker can break the navy! And Barnes is a hacker. A 'hacker,' a computer hobbyist who trespasses upon private, corporate or government systems, can be anyone, anywhere. One of my cases turned out to be a grandmother way out on a ranch in Texas. Bored, she began to play with her grandson's computer. Pretty soon, before she went to town, she would arrange credit accounts for herself at the major department stores, under a different name each time. She shopped like mad, put it on account, went home, erased her accounts, and then several weeks later did the same thing all over again.

"And they never would have caught her, had I not been running a payroll scan for one of the stores, to catch a technique called 'salami slicing.' That's when an operator commands the computer to send fractions of cents left over in specific financial transactions to a bank account in his name. So that's how I found her, because this sweet little white-haired granny contributed a surprising number of fractions of cents to the salami-slicers' bank book!"

"Oh, don't tell me you have a grandmother languishing in jail!"

"As a matter of fact, the granny works for me now." Arianne sensed his grin more than saw it in the darkness. "Computer crime is kept hush-hush... companies don't often prosecute. But this? This is military, and our lieutenant is in over his head. The price for spying is, shall we say, astronomical!''

They came out onto the beach, where the gusts had Leo pulling Arianne protectively against his side. On the drenched sand the waves broke in explosions of foam as they passed. "But if you have all this on him, why doesn't the navy nab him?" Arianne had to shout; even so, the wind snatched at her words.

Bending closer to her, Leo went on. "They want to see what he does with the information he got from the first level. These levels are like rings nested one inside the other, each one of greater importance. The innermost level contains the system's program design. If this level is accessed, the game's all over. Anything can be done at this level, any manipulation of data, commands... the works. The higher the level, the greater the security, of course. The ring Barnes logged on, for instance, controlled software function. The next one could control supervisory function, the next, management, and so on. The innermost one is always the brain for the analysis specialists and the program designers. That's where I come in. Obviously Barnes is aiming for the brain. Therefore, whoever's funding him is of enormous interest to the navy. To the country, for that matter. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes. But, Leo," she wailed, "what about all the data Larry got his hands on? How important is it?"

"Oh, I slipped in a new first level complete with misleading information, and that's all Barnes got for his trouble. Now we're waiting to see where the false information eventually turns up. It's in second stage now with Barnes's contact in Seattle."

"Then he is being followed."

"You bet. I tried to keep you out of it, Arianne, after I figured you were innocent, but things went too far. I had to have you checked out—your history, everything, you understand? The admiral's been reading your dossier."

"So I've been followed, too?"

"In a way. It had to be done, Arianne. We had no choice." He paused for a moment. "That's why I tried so hard to keep our relationship strictly business..." Then he went on. "The navy's idea is to keep an eye on Barnes and the network he's working for and monitor the information that passes through their channels, leaving them operational until it's absolutely necessary to shut them down. But if Barnes gives you away to the network as his source, you could be in the kind of trouble I don't even want to think about. And the navy needs protection against you, too. So my idea is to have Barnes picked up immediately. But to convince the admiral, I have to prove you helped Barnes. That's what we'll be doing. Thrush has flown in doctors and research specialists to run some tests on you. I asked for Dr. Mathias Dickenson to attend, but the admiral insisted on armed-forces men only. Do you think you can handle it?"