Mallory could not see the body; the policemen blocked his view. The crowd was nearly silent, just watching. Then one of the policemen stood, holding a red passport in his hands--a German passport. Thank God, Mallory thought, feeling a flood of relief that lasted until a moment later, when one of the paramedics stepped away and Mallory saw one leg of the victim--a faded black tracksuit and a dirty Adidas running shoe, now soaked with blood.
He felt a wave of nausea, and turned away, pushing back through the crowd. The faces stared past him, impassive or annoyed. But nobody even glanced at him. They were all looking at the body.
Except for one man, dressed like an executive in a dark suit and tie. He was looking directly at Mallory. Mallory met his eyes. The man nodded slightly. Mallory made no response. He just pushed through the last of the crowd and fled, hurrying back down the stairs to his office, and realizing that somehow, in some way that he did not understand, his life had changed forever.
TOKYO
TUESDAY, JUNE 1
10:01 A. M.
IDEC, the International Data Environmental Consortium, was located in a small brick building adjacent to the campus of Keio Mita University. To the casual observer, IDEC was part of the university, and even showed the coat of arms ("Calamus Gladio Fortior"), but in fact it was independent. The center of the building consisted of a small conference room with a podium and two rows of five chairs facing a screen at the front.
At ten in the morning, IDEC director Akira Hitomi stood at the podium and watched as the American came in and took a seat. The American was a large man, not so tall but thick in the shoulders and chest, like an athlete. For such a large man he moved easily, quietly. The Nepali officer entered right behind him, dark-skinned and watchful. He took a seat behind the American and off to one side. At the podium, Hitomi nodded to them and said nothing.
The wood-paneled room darkened slowly, to allow eyes to adjust. On all sides, the wood panels slid silently away, exposing huge flat-panel screens. Some of the screens moved smoothly out from the walls.
At last, the main door closed and locked with a click. Only then did Hitomi speak.
"Good morning, Kenner-san." On the main screen it said "Hitomi Akira" in English and Japanese. "And good morning, Thapa-san." Hitomi flipped open a very small, very thin silver laptop. "Today I will present data from the last twenty-one days, correct up to twenty minutes ago. These will be findings from our joint project, Akamai Tree."
The two visitors nodded. Kenner smiled in anticipation. As well he should, Hitomi thought. Nowhere else in the world could he see such a presentation, for Hitomi's agency was the world leader in the accumulation and manipulation of electronic data. Now images on the screens came up, glowing one after another. They showed what appeared to be a corporate logo: a green tree on a white background, and the letteringAKAMAI TREE DIGITAL NETWORK SOLUTIONS .
This name and image had been chosen for their similarity to actual Internet companies and their logos. For the last two years, Akamai Tree's network of servers actually consisted of carefully designed traps. They incorporated multilevel quad-check honeynets established in both business and academic domains. This enabled them to track backward from servers to user with an 87 percent success rate. They had baited the net starting last year, first with ordinary feed and then with increasingly juicy morsels.
"Our sites mirrored established geology, applied physics, ecology, civil engineering, and biogeography sites," Hitomi said. "To attract deep divers, typical data included information on the use of explosives in seismic recordings, the tests of the stability of structures to vibration and earthquake damage, and in our oceanographic sites, data on hurricanes, rogue waves, tsunamis, and so forth. All this is familiar to you."
Kenner nodded.
Hitomi continued: "We knew we had a disseminated enemy, and a clever one. Users often operate behind netnanny firewalls, or used AOL accounts with teen ratings, to imply they are juvenile pranksters or kiddie scripters. But they are nothing of the sort. They are well organized, patient, and unrelenting. In recent weeks, we have begun to understand more."
The screen changed, showing a list.
"Out of a mix of sites and discussion groups, our sys progs found the deep divers clustered on the following category topics:
Aarhus, Denmark Argon/Oxygen Drives Australian Military History Caisson Seawalls Cavitation (Solid)
Cellular Encryption Controlled Demolition Flood Mitigation High-Voltage Insulators Hilo, Hawaii Mid-Ocean Relay Network (MORN)
Missionary Diaries of the Pacific National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC)
National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF)
Network Data Encryption Potassium Hydroxide Prescott, Arizona Rain Forest Disease Foundation (RFDF)
Seismic Signatures, Geological Shaped Explosives (Timed)
Shinkai 2000