Chapter 4

The funeral director entered the room after softly knocking on the door. He carefully closed the door behind him. In a distressed tone of voice, he said, “Mrs. Moore, I’m afraid that we have a slight problem.”

Upset at the idea of a problem, Rebecca asked, “What kind of problem?”

“The original room you requested for the service is too small.”

“Too small? Didn’t you say that it holds two hundred?”

“Yes, Ma’am. It’s already full, and there are more people arriving. I’m arranging for the service to be moved to our larger room. If too many more people arrive, we might have to move the service out to the great lawn.”

“Oh, my. I don’t know what to say. Are you sure they’re here for this funeral?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Patrica said, “What was my little brother doing with his mail order company to know so many people?”

George Moore asked, “Is that going to cost extra?”

“No, though it will delay the service a little.”

Donald asked, “Just how many people are showing up?”

“It’s hard to say. We’ve had to open the overflow lot to provide parking space for all of the cars.”

The town of Alexandria Virginia was founded in 1749, although its history extends back to 1730 with the passing of the Tobacco Inspection Law. The law decreed that tobacco was to be inspected in any of a number of official warehouses, one of which was to be located along the Potomac River at the mouth of Hunting Creek. While a government can issue decrees, Mother Nature holds the trump cards. The land at the specified site was unsuitable and the warehouse was built a half mile upstream at what is now the foot of Oronoco Street. Taking a role in the founding of the town were such notables as Scotsmen Philip and John Alexander, surveyor John West with his assistant, the then 17-year-old, George Washington, and Lawrence Washington (older brother of George).

A number of old buildings dating back to the early days of the city still remain standing. Among the notable landmark locations is Gadsby’s Tavern. It actually consists of two buildings, the original tavern building, dating back to 1785, which is currently run as a museum. The second building, once The City Hotel, was built in 1792. Both buildings were leased by John Gadsby who ran his tavern in them from 1796 to 1808. In its heyday, it was one of the places at which to be seen, entertaining such luminaries as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and the Marquis de Lafayette. As is often the case, the buildings fell into disrepair. In their history, they had housed lawyer offices and auction houses.

The buildings were purchased and restored in the latter part of the 1900s with the current incarnation of Gadsby’s Tavern being run out of the restaurant space of the City Hotel which was leased to a private restaurateur. The restaurant boasted of serving dishes that were contemporary with the founding of the country.

Nursing a small Gin and Tonic, very light on the Gin, Alan Barton was seated in a corner table with his back to the wall at the Gadsby’s Tavern waiting for Peter Moore to arrive. He wasn’t worried about recognizing the man. His time spent on the Internet provided everything there was to know about the person named Peter Moore, currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania. That was the easy stuff. It was in probing deeper that he kept running into walls.

His curiosity was aroused. He loved puzzles and would work on one obsessively until he solved it. He hated it when he couldn’t solve one. IvanNoobie had reminded him of a failure and he had been losing sleep ever since receiving the email.

Peter arrived exactly on time. He walked over to the table. Ignoring the gesture to take the chair opposite Alan, he took a seat catty-corner to him so that his back was also to a wall. They exchanged grins suggesting they appreciated the paranoia that each demonstrated.

“I’m Peter Moore, as I’m sure you’ve surmised. It’s an honor to meet you at last, Alan Barton.”

“I want the answer to ‘TheWorldNeedsWhiteHatHackers’ problem.”

Not surprised at the greeting, Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out a microSD card. He put it on the table and said, “It’s on there as four ASCII files on a freshly formatted card. One file is a LaTex file which describes the mathematics of the solution. One is a controller script for acquiring the necessary data from the target machine. One is a FORTRAN program for extracting the private key of the far-end machine based on the data you’ve acquired. One file contains a C program for generating a string that the target machine will encrypt to whatever 32 character string you want.”

Alan looked at the card, then up at him, and then back at the card. He frowned. He started to move and then froze in indecision. Finally, he gave up and pulled out his throw away cell phone. It took a half a second to slip the microSD card into it. A few seconds later, he was looking at one of the files.

“You get the target machine to encrypt 512 known phrases?”

“That’s the minimum amount of data necessary to extract the private key from the target machine.”

“Clever.”

He opened another file. He whistled lowly. Looking up at Peter, he said, “This program is a monster.”

“It has to be. It’ll take about a day on a high end gaming machine loaded with memory to extract the private key. It’s all computation, no guessing.”

“Why not use something bigger and better than a gaming machine?”

“I never run the program on any hardware accessible by anyone else. I’m sure that you can understand why.”

“I understand. I’ll have to study the program to understand it.”

“You’ll need to read the paper first.”

“The last program?”

“For it to generate the desired end phrase takes several days to a week, but eventually it will spit out an answer.”

Alan shook his head in wonder. He asked, “How did you manage to come up with it?”

“I didn’t. I’m not that smart.”

“Who did come up with it?”

“An alcoholic mathematician came up with the basic transformations while on a one week bender, but it was incomplete. I got the outline of it from him before the alcohol took him out. I went to his funeral. I don’t believe he shared it with anyone else. At least, I’ve never come across any evidence to suggest otherwise.”

“You didn’t get the whole thing from him?”

“No. It took four other mathematicians six months to fill in the details. None of them knew the whole algorithm, just a piece of it. They each thought they were working on a signal processing algorithm.”

“Damn!”

Alan opened up the cell phone and took out the battery. There was always the chance that the SDCard had installed a tracking program. Peter watched him with a smile.

Alan said, “I appreciate what you did for Ann. I didn’t know how to stop him.”

“How much did you know about him?”

“Everything.”

“That’s how I stopped him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I tricked him into having a conversation with a big, ugly, angry, black man, who proceeded to inform the creep that he knew everything about him. If he ever heard about the creep contacting Ann in any way, that his bank accounts would be cleaned out, his investment portfolio turned into junk stocks, his credit cards maxed out, his loans would be defaulted, and a big, ugly, angry, black man would be forced to have another visit with him only it wouldn’t be so friendly.

“Just to make a point, half of his savings account disappeared that afternoon.”

Impressed, Alan said, “That would do it.”

“In case you’re worried, it was deposited in his ex-wife’s account. I felt she deserved it.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“I’d rather tell you after dinner. This is my first time here and I’d like to taste some cuisine from the revolutionary time period.”

“The food here is pretty good. I eat here quite often, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Great. What would you recommend?”

“I almost always go with the Gentleman’s Pye or George Washington’s Favorite. The Gentleman’s Pye is beef and lamb in a wine stew with mashed potatoes in a pastry. It’s pretty good. However, I’m in the mood for duck, so I’ll probably go with George Washington’s Favorite.”

“Both of those do sound good. I very seldom have duck, so I think I’ll give that a try.”

Alan made a gesture and a waiter came by the table. The two men placed their orders. There was a moment of awkwardness after the waiter left. They were essentially strangers to each other, yet each knew a tremendous amount about the other. There was an unspoken agreement not to discuss technology.

“How are you liking the University of Philadelphia?” Alan querried.

“My freshman year started out pretty bad. You’d think that we were toddlers based on all of the Freshman ... I mean First Year ... courses we had to attend. They were brain-numingly dull. By mutual agreement with the Provost, the Dean, and the Department Chair, I was able to avoid the ‘First Year Seminar’ and technical literacy courses.”

“I read a little about that. Lots of emails were sent back and forth with your name figuring prominently. You really hammered that woman.”

“She had it coming.”

“You can say that again. I read that guys journal. I’m really surprised he’s still alive.”

“If you can call being hooked on heroin being alive. His life exists from fix to fix now.”

“Are you going to do anything for him?”

“There’s not much I can do.”

Alan frowned. He said, “I run into that kind of situation in my job. Mostly I hate what I do. You and I both know that what I do is criminal, but it’s the government who is doing it. Still, I occasionally get to take down a real bad guy. That’s the only thing that makes the job bearable.

“I love taking down the bad guys, particularly those who operate in DC. Officially, I get about three of them a year. In reality, it is more like one a month. I’m always left a little dissatisfied. I can take down the villain, but I can’t help the victim.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“It’s like Ann’s father. He lost everything when his identity was stolen. I got the guy who did it put away, but I couldn’t get her father his money or credit rating back.”

Peter relaxed into the back of his chair. He said, “I meant to look up what happened to the thief, but I didn’t get around to it.”

“He went to prison. He got out and was offered a job making big bucks with one of the powerhouse financial firms. With a little help from yours truly, he was caught embezzling. He went to prison again. When he got out, none of the financial or security firms would touch him. When someone has proven they can’t be trusted in that business, they are dead. Well ... with one exception. The None Such Agency hired him. He managed to stay there for six months before it was discovered that he was selling secrets. He denied it, but the evidence was clear. He’s now locked away in a deep, dark, and very unpleasant place.”

“Good job,” Peter said with admiration.

“Ann always treated me nicely, despite the fact that I wasn’t the greatest person around. Her father is a really nice guy. He could have turned bitter, but he didn’t.”

“That speaks well of his character.”

Four people sat down at the table next to theirs. Two of the four were well known people in the news business. They were loud and obnoxious. Even worse, they were talking about the recent election. For the second time in a row, the wrong candidate won. At least as far as they were concerned.

Alan muttered, “Fools.”

“I agree.”

“Someone needs to take them down.”

“Anonymous tried.”

“And failed.”

“It was a partial success. The word got out.”

Peter looked over at the table next to theirs. The people there were already ordering second drinks. Peter and Alan rolled their eyes when the news people went off on a rant about how groups like WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and crackpots on YouTube were trying to derail the current political system. They readily admitted that it was broken since the wrong person was elected to the presidency, but part of the problem was that the voters weren’t keeping to the program.

Peter asked, “Do you follow any sports teams?”

“No. Do you?”

“No. I’ve always felt that Aldous Huxley was correct when he wrote, ‘A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it.’ I believe that entertainment industry and professional sports are the modern day equivalents to the Roman Circus.”

“You’re ‘preaching to the choir.’ When I was in my early teens, that was back before I discovered the computer, I was into Star Wars big time. I must have watched every Star Wars movie twenty times. I could spout lines from it on demand. I dug into the trivia surrounding it. If I wasn’t in school, I was off into Star Wars,” said Alan. “One day, I was talking to Ann’s father. He asked me something that just absolutely amazed me. I was blathering on about something to do with Star Wars and he asked, How does knowing that crap help you?’ I was about to respond when he asked if I thought it would attract Ann’s attention. Before I had a chance to answer, he said that she detested that movie and I was boring her to tears each time that I talked about it.”

“That’s not what a teenage boy wants to hear,” Peter said with a low chuckle.

“You can say that again. I guess he knew that I had a pretty bad crush on her at the time.”

“What’s changed?”

“No,” Alan protested holding up a hand. He said, “It’s nothing like that.”

“Sure it is. Your voice changes every time you say her name. It gets ... wistful.”

Irritated, Alan said, “You’re interrupting my story.”

“Sorry, continue.”

“It was one of those moments they call an epiphany. It was like the world shifted beneath my feet. For five full minutes I saw things a lot clearer.

“He then followed through with his point. He said, ‘You have to be special, different from everyone else, but in a good way. You’ve got to have a talent that lets you stand out from a crowd. It’s got to be something that’s essential to who you are. Sports are no good. The body ages and you lose the ability to play the game. You are put on the sideline, an observer, not a player.’

“I realized that being a movie fan like I had been was just being an observer and not a player. It made me a second class person. I’m sure that the expression on my face proclaimed to anyone looking what I was thinking. No one wants to be a second class person.

“Her father reached over and tapped me on my temple. He told me that I had a good brain, with a phenomenal memory, an ability to see patterns others miss, and could solve problems that intimidate others. I could be anything I wanted to be. He pointed out that that wasn’t true of the other guys with whom I talked about Star Wars stuff.

“It was a life changing moment. Here was an adult who I thought was really a great guy, telling me that I could be someone special. I think every young teenage boy has a need to hear something like that from a respected elder.

“I discovered the computer shortly after that. Everyone kept saying, that’s where the money is. I had only been using it a short time before I realized that the money was nothing. I could do things with that machine no one else could do.”

“Interesting.”

“So what about you?”

Peter said, “My story is a little simpler. I’m small and lightweight. It was even worse back when I was younger and physical strength meant so much to kids. There was a bully who kept picking on me in second or third grade. He’d hit me and I’d go home with bruises or black eyes.

“My parent’s answer was that I needed to learn martial arts so that I could protect myself. After a couple of lessons, I tried to fight back and got creamed. He pummeled me. I started for home crying along the way. Then something strange happened. It stopped hurting before I got more than a couple of blocks away. I wasn’t in pain, but I was angry by the time I got home.

“So there I was. Too small to defend myself. People telling me I needed to learn martial arts, but it didn’t do a damned bit of good. All it did was making the beating I received worse.”

Alan said, “I saw that happen too many times.”

Peter said, “Taking control of my life started with something I overheard someone say. Knowledge is power. I know you’ve heard that. It’s almost a cliché among those like us.”

“Yeah.”

“It was one sentence, but it got me to wondering exactly what it meant. Remember that I was about eight or nine at that time. How could knowing something make you powerful? Could knowledge make you powerful enough to defeat your enemies who were bigger and stronger than you were?

“The second piece of the puzzle came when I went out from my room one night to tell my parents good night. They were watching a movie on television and I decided to wait to bid good night to them until the commercial came on. I think I watched about five minutes of it, but it was the right five minutes. I only remember one scene and that was of a guy sinking in quick sand. The hero of the story was being chased by a bunch of bad people. He knew the area and they didn’t. He kept leading them into traps because he knew what to avoid and they didn’t. He had knowledge that they lacked, and it made him more powerful than all of the bad guys combined.

“The next time I ran into the bully, I insulted him and ran. He chased after me shouting threats that he’d beat me up. I ran right to a branch that crossed over a creek bed. I slowed down and crossed the creek terrified of falling and killing myself. Today, I’d laugh about how shallow it really was, but at that time it was like I was leading him over the Grand Canyon. I got across, but he didn’t. The branch snapped right when he was in the middle. He fell and fell hard; just as I had planned. He broke his leg which was an injury that I hadn’t even considered in my plan.

“I stood there looking down at him while he was rolling around and crying. I kept thinking to myself that I would make it a point of always knowing more than anyone trying to harm me. The bully might get in a few blows, but like the song says, ‘Pain hurts, but only for a minute.’ I knew that was true before the song ever came out, I just didn’t have the trite saying that summarized it so effectively.”

“So that made you what you are?”

“That was the beginning. It was a stupid kid’s movie that provided the next great insight. I’m sure you’ve seen it – ‘The Secret of NIMH.’ You can unlock any door if you only have the key. That was a perfect validation of what I had already figured out.”

“I do remember that movie. I always thought that was a pretty significant statement, but I never really thought about it much more than that.”

“The fourth thing was a science program on PBS. They were talking about how man survived when surrounded by huge fierce predators even though we were weak, fangless, and without claws. They were bigger and stronger than us, but we were smart and used tools. A little chip of rock replaced claws. The chip of rock eventually became a knife. We were small and weak, but that knife gave us just that bit of an edge. A stick added to a knife made a spear which extended our reach and improved our chances of survival. The tools we used allowed us to overcome the strong.

“So there I was with a philosophy that could be summarized with four trite sayings. Pain hurts, but only for a minute. Knowledge is Power. You can open any door if you only have the key. Tools enable the weak to overcome the strong. I knew there was something missing in all of that.”

“What was it?”

“By the time I entered my teens, I was reading everything I could get my hands on. One day, I picked up a copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince. I nearly dropped the book when I read, ‘The injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.’ That was the missing piece. It was that line in an old book about power that freed me from fear.”

“Amazing.”

“People laugh when I say that I can take care of myself. They don’t understand how I operate.”

“I can see how you used that against Ann’s stalker.”

“That’s right,” Peter said.

“That’s scary.”

The waiter showed up with their meals. The two ate with only a little conversation. The table next to theirs was getting louder and louder in equal measure with the amount of the alcohol consumed. The bitch session about the disaster of the recent election got more intense. If they hadn’t been highly visible members of the press, the Secret Service would have detained them for making threats against the President elect.

Alan looked across the table and asked, “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“What do you think I’m thinking?”

“Machiavelli.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m thinking. I have the knowledge. I have the key. I know what is to be done. I’m gathering my tools.”

“Let’s finish and take a walk. We definitely need to talk.”

“I’d really like to enjoy my meal. This is the best duck I’ve ever eaten.”

“It is good, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

The two took their time finishing their meals. The waiter cleared the table, inquired about coffee and dessert which they refused, and then headed off to bring the bill. There was that awkward moment when the bill arrived and both men eyed it.

“I invited you here.”

“You’re a college student.”

“Money is not an issue.”

“Why isn’t it an issue?”

“Knowledge is power. I know who to watch and I do as they do. They get rich at the risk of getting caught. I just get rich. Occasionally, when they are doing something real nasty, I make sure they get caught.”

“Have it your way,” Alan said.

Peter paid the bill with cash. Seeing the look from Alan, he said, “I avoid using credit cards. There’s no use letting certain companies build a complete and accurate profile on me.”

“Aren’t you worried about getting robbed?”

“No. I can take care of myself.”

Alan laughed. It wasn’t the derisive laughter Peter’s comment usually provoked. It was more the laugh you make upon realizing you just said something stupid. He had no doubt that Peter could take care of himself.

Chapter 5 »