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  Infernal Revenue

  ( The Destroyer - 96 )

  Warren Murphy

  Richard Sapir

  Remo and Chiun join forces with Harold Smith and his crime-fighting organization in their battle against an artificial intelligence computer chip called Friend that hijacks CURE's computer system and holds the world hostage to technoterrorism.

  Destroyer 96: Infernal Revenue

  By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

  Chapter 1

  From the moment he drove through the gate, Buzz Kuttner thought there was something spooky about Woodlawn Asylum.

  Maybe it was the grim-faced stone lions whose disembodied heads perched atop the brick entrance posts, or the fact that the evening sky began crackling with a sickly yellow lightning as he passed through.

  Certainly it wasn't the fact that the back of his Ford Econoline van was crammed with pilfered computer equipment. Buzz Kuttner cut deals like the one that had brought him to Woodlawn on this stormy early-September night all the time. These days a dishonest buck was about the only buck the Buzz Kuttners of the world could turn.

  Another forked yellow bolt stabbed down into Long Island Sound as he sent the van circling the three-story brick building, looking for the freight entrance. The thunder, when it came, was a dull, distant thump too meek to echo with conviction.

  The bulb over the freight entrance couldn't have rated more than forty watts. Still, its dingy light was enough. The voice on the telephone had told him to look for a light over a corrugated steel door overlooking a rust-stained concrete loading dock.

  Kuttner stopped, got out and threw open the van's rear doors before backing up snug to the dock. He waited.

  A warm rain started. It drummed on the van's roof with monotonous regularity. The windshield swam. Kuttner looked at his watch, fingered the horn and considered tapping out a toot. But the phone voice who had set this up had warned him not to call attention to himself. He had been very clear on that score. In fact, he'd been very precise about everything, as if setting up surreptitious deliveries of high-tech computer equipment was SOP at Woodlawn Asylum.

  Maybe it was, Kuttner thought. These days the medical industry was taking a pounding, thanks to Washington. Not as big a pounding as the computer field, but it was getting to that point.

  The owner of the telephone voice-he had claimed his name was Jones, for Christ's sake-had been extremely precise about the merchandise. Jukeboxes with WORM drives. Top-of-the-line with no commercial history or programs already installed. Jones had seemed very particular about that, too. Kuttner hadn't argued. If the guy wanted completely virgin drives, that was his right.

  Jones was awful fussy for a guy who was buying expensive computer equipment off the back of a truck, Kuttner was thinking when the corrugated freight door finally rattled up.

  Looking up, he could see the man in the door mirror. A tall, gaunt shadow standing well back from the wan light of the forty-watt bulb.

  Kuttner got out. "Jones?" he asked.

  "Yes," the shadow said.

  It was the phone voice, all right. Jones. He tried to project a tough growl that couldn't quite disguise the dry-as-dust tonality of his natural voice.

  Warily Kuttner mounted the concrete steps. The shadow immediately withdrew a pace, as if fearful of human contact. Kuttner immediately relaxed. If this was an FBI sting, the guy wouldn't be acting so spooky. "Got the money?" Kuttner asked.

  The shadow bent down briefly, and an attaché case skidded into view. Kuttner knelt, opened it and closed it after he was convinced that if there wasn't exactly thirty thousand dollars in the case, it was close enough for government work.

  "Okay," Kuttner said, straightening, "we have a deal."

  "Installation is part of the bargain," the dry voice reminded him.

  "Just tell me where."

  "Follow me."

  The gaunt shadow abruptly turned and walked into the cavernous area behind the freight door, picking his way behind the weak web of a penlight. Kuttner followed, finding himself walking down a noticeable incline and into a cool area that was filled with great dark shapes of industrial oil furnaces. Once he passed a cobwebby old coal furnace in a corner and next to it steel barrels-filled with cold gray ash.

  "I didn't know people still burned coal," he grunted.

  "It's for problem disposals," Jones said.

  Kuttner grunted. "Who hauls your ashes in this day and age?"

  Jones didn't answer. Instead, he said, "You told no one you were coming to Woodlawn?"

  "Who would I tell? You know this is under-the-table stuff, I know this is under-the-table stuff. The fewer people who know about our transaction, the better. That's why I worded the classified the way I did."

  "You don't seem like the sort of man who trafficks in stolen merchandise for a living," Jones remarked.

  "And you don't sound like a guy who buys it. But that's what the world's come to. Guys like me, who used to pull down the big bucks installing information systems, and guys like you, scouring the classifieds for equipment that won't bust your budget."

  Jones came to a door and unlocked it using three different keys dangling from a key ring. They passed into a dark space that was much cooler. There was no drumming sound of rain in here.

  A light clicked on. A twenty-five-watter hanging from a drop cord.

  "There," said Jones. He did not turn around. He was pointing the penlight ray to a far wall where four very old mainframes stood in a brick lined niche.

  There was a lot of grit on the floor, and in a corner bits of loose concrete and mortar lay in a pile. In the ridiculously weak light, Kuttner got the idea that the niche had been enlarged recently.

  Jones said, "I would like the-what did you call them?"

  "Jukeboxes."

  "Yes, the jukeboxes connected to the mainframes."

  "A hybrid system, huh? That's smart. You know what you want."

  "Yes, I know what I want. Can you have the new drives installed by morning?"

  "I can try."

  "They must be installed by morning. No one must know."

  "You got it," said Buzz Kuttner, going back to the van. There was a handcart and a dolly out by the freight door, and he used them to trundle the jukeboxes and their optical WORM-Write Once Read Many-drives back to the cool room with the mainframes.

  When he got the first one back, Jones wasn't there. Of course, he might have been lurking among the furnaces. Kuttner felt eyes on his back. Suppressing a shudder, he got the other machines in place and set about hooking them together.

  From time to time he was aware of Jones hovering beyond the radius of the eye-stressing twenty-five-watt light like an expectant undertaker. He didn't know why that image jumped into his mind. Maybe it was the guy's hollow voice and gaunt look.

  To keep himself from getting too edgy, Kuttner started talking a blue streak.

  "You've made a smart purchase here, Jones. These optical drives are going to be state-of-the-art deep into the twenty-first century. You won't have to replace these units until the next depression-God forbid."

  "I understand that a stationary crystal data-storage unit capable of being read by moving lasers has proven workable on the laboratory level," said Jones.

  "That so? Well, if you ask me, it's a long way from the laboratory to the kitchen-if you know what I mean."

  "May I ask you where you get your equipment?"

  "Different places. A lot of computer outfits going under these days, or dumping product. I pick up what I can where I can."

  "Can this equipment be traced?"

  "Not through me. These are XL SysCorp jukeboxes. The best. A voice on the phone lets me know when they have some
available. I meet a guy I don't know, cash changes hands, and I come away with my truck riding low on its springs." Kuttner stopped. "That reminds me, you in the market for a new terminal?"

  "No."

  "Sure? I got a nice one. Just happens to be in the back of my truck. I don't even know what they call them, they're so new. It's a terminal built into a tempered-glass desktop. Hit a switch and the screen lights up. Comes with a touch-sensitive keyboard."

  "I do not need any upgrades beyond the optical drives."

  "Suit yourself. Like I said, these are the best. You planning to store data permanently, a WORM drive is your best bet. Write it once and it's on the drive forever. No accidental erasures. No more screwing around with tape drives."

  "I intend to keep my tape drives as backup."

  "Reasonable choice for a careful man. And you, I can tell, are careful." Kuttner shook a cluster of connecting cables. "So which is the master unit?"

  "The one beside the standpipe," the disembodied voice of Jones said.

  Kuttner looked around. He saw the standpipe in a corner, next to the last mainframe in the line. It was vaguely rusty, but out of the open bottom trailed a flat ribbon cable.

  "Man, this baby is old."

  "I have no need for cable upgrade," said the disembodied voice of Jones.

  Kuttner pulled the jukebox cables to the master mainframe and started to hook everything up in a cable arrangement called a star. He kept up his end of the conversation.

  "How far up does that ribbon cable go?"

  "To the second floor."

  Kuttner blinked. He craned his neck around and addressed Jones. "You mean you've got two whole floors between your system and your terminals?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay. I guess you really don't want anyone to know about this hybrid system of yours," muttered Kuttner, suddenly wondering if the mainframes had been skimmed out of some warehouse, as well. If so, it was a hell of a long time ago. Still, they had been good in their day. IDC mainframes. Too bad about IDC. Kuttner had worked for them once, back in the days when if you knew computers you could write your own ticket.

  As he attached the cables, Buzz Kuttner noticed that the standpipe wasn't a standpipe. From the outside, yes, but inside it was a double sheath. Looked like copper and some other conductive metal. Maybe a nickel compound. It was the perfect shielding to soak up radio emissions. They used shielding like this on CIA and NSA computer lines so no one could intercept the radio signals computers naturally emitted and reproduce them on a remote screen. The government had a word for it. Tempest. Yeah, these cables were Tempest shielded.

  What the hell kind of hospital is this? Kuttner wondered. Then he wondered if it was really a hospital at all. He remembered that Jones had given him travel instructions to Woodlawn, but in fact there were no signs. Not even at the gate. He had only Jones's word that this place was in fact Woodlawn Asylum. And how much good was the word of a guy who stayed in the shadows and called himself Jones?

  Kuttner put these thoughts out of his mind. Whatever this weird place was, he had a job to do and a deadline, and best of all a big chunk of change waiting at the end of one heavy night's work. Who cared what this place actually was?

  He kept talking. "Once you dedicate these jukeboxes to their tasks and roll the data off the mainframes, you can junk all but one of these old monsters, you know."

  "I know."

  "You need a guy to off-load your data, I got the interface. Of course, I'll have to come back with a minicomputer. I can do a direct channel link. Take maybe two or three weeks, depending on how much data you got in these mainframes."

  "Thank you, no," said Jones, his voice no longer a growl but very dry. There was the suggestion of an accent. New England, or maybe the South. They had a lot in common if you really listened.

  "Anyway," Kuttner resumed, "you won't need but one mainframe. Each jukebox contains one hundred optical platters, and each platter can store one hundred megabytes. You got an even dozen jukeboxes, so you're talking terabytes, if not googolbytes, of data storage and retrieval. Hell, if these XL's hold out-and that's their reputation-you won't need to upgrade until your grandchildren are great-grandparents."

  "That is an exaggeration," Jones said, his voice flat.

  "But not much of one, right?"

  "I am not in the habit of buying a pig in a poke," Jones said. "I understand what I have acquired. The jukeboxes are sealed units. Inside is an arrangement very much like that of a record jukebox. A robot arm selects the correct WORM disk from the disk array on command and places it on the carousel for reading. It is the perfect system for Wormwood Asylum."

  "I thought you said this place was called Woodlawn."

  Jones cleared his throat with such violence Buzz Kuttner clenched his teeth. It was a very nervous clearing of the throat. "I misspoke," said Jones. "I was thinking of the WORM drives."

  "Yeah, anybody can forget the name of the place where he works," Kuttner said dryly.

  Jones said nothing, so Kuttner continued installing. Going back to the jukeboxes-they looked like squat beige refrigerators all in a row-he noticed the ragged edge of the long niche where the mainframes stood. Bits of copper showed through the poured concrete. Grounded copper mesh, he realized. These mainframes had been practically walled in and Tempest shielded.

  Woodlawn Asylum, or Wormwood or whatever it was, was no run-of-the-mill nuthouse, Buzz Kuttner decided. That was for damn sure.

  SOMEWHERE in the hours before dawn-reading his watch was not easy in the dim light-Buzz Kuttner finished installing the last XL SysCorp optical WORM drive data-storage units.

  They purred so softly that once the triple-locked door was locked, no one standing where he stood now would suspect that an incredibly powerful hybrid computer system was operating on the other side.

  "Okay, it's all set," Kuttner said, brushing concrete dust off the knees of his denim work pants.

  "You have completed your task?" a voice asked. It was a different voice. Buzz Kuttner whirled. In the weak light, he saw no one.

  "Who's there?" he demanded.

  "I asked you a question," the voice said. Buzz Kuttner felt his heart jump high in his throat. The voice was now directly behind him. And he hadn't seen or heard anyone move,

  "Who... is... there?"

  "I am but a servant who cleans up untidiness," said the voice.

  His heart pounding now, Kuttner declined to turn around. The voice sounded vaguely squeaky.

  "You mean you're the janitor?" asked Kuttner.

  "I have told you what my duties are."

  "Then you're the janitor,"

  "In which case," the squeaky voice countered, "you may consider yourself trash."

  Kuttner turned then. He turned completely around. "Where are you?"

  "Behind you."

  Buzz turned again. "I don't see you."

  "That is because I am behind you," insisted the squeaky voice.

  It was crazy. Buzz Kuttner was turning in place, repeatedly making 360-degree turns, and the voice was continually behind him. Therefore, it could not be behind him. It was coming from somewhere else. A hidden speaker or intercom. Kuttner stopped turning in search of the source.

  "What did you mean, I'm trash?" he asked the disembodied voice.

  "You are a thief."

  "I'm an out-of-work media consultant and technical installer just trying to make payments on a house that's worth less than the mortgage. What do you expect me to do, walk the floor in a department store?"

  "Your wife would not like that," the squeaky voice suggested.

  "What wife? She walked when the severance pay ran out."

  "You must miss your children terribly," the squeaky voice clucked sympathetically.

  "No kids. That was my one break in life."

  "That is good."

  "I'll say."

  "For without a wife or children, a thief such as you will not be missed."

  "Missed?"

  The squeaky voice gr
ew deep and sonorous, as if telling a story. "Men such as you were chosen by the pharaohs of Egypt for the important tasks of palace building. Men who would toil long days and nights, their efforts unbroken by thoughts of family."

  Buzz Kuttner didn't like the way this was going, so he began backing out of the ill-lit room. The voice seemed to follow him. Now it seemed near his left ear, but that was impossible. There was no one there.

  "And when their tasks were complete," the squeaky voice continued, "they could be disposed of without a second thought, taking the pharaoh's secrets with them."

  "I don't know any secrets."

  "You have entered the sanctum sanctorum of the emperor I serve."

  "Emperor! You're a nut. Wait a minute, this is a nuthouse. Of course you're a nut."

  "I am not a nut."

  "This is twentieth-century America, and you're talking about pharaohs and emperors and secret palaces. Of course you're a nut. And this is an asylum. Some crazy kind of asylum, but an asylum just the same. I can't believe you got me so worked up over a pipe dream."

  So great was Buzz Kuttner's relief that he started laughing. It was a nervous laughter, and he let it go on a long time.

  He never felt the bladelike fingernail that slipped easily into his back between two lumbar vertebrae, severing his spinal cord like a soft strand of spaghetti.

  Buzz Kuttner was still laughing when he collapsed on the hard floor in the grit of shattered concrete. The laugh became breathy, then trailed off into a long exhalation and ending in a rattle that sounded like a broken continuation of his laughter.

  After a silent minute the gaunt shadow returned to the room. He wore gray. His hair was white.

  "Your will has been done, Emperor Smith," said the owner of the squeaky voice. He bowed slightly, and a slice of light captured a flash of orange silk whose pattern resembled the stripes of a Bengal tiger.

  "Good. Please dispose of the body."

  "Where?"

  "The coal furnace. Place him inside,"

  "If it is your will."

  "I would help, but I must get rid of the truck."

  A gnarled yellow claw with fingernails like ivory blades gestured toward the array of mainframes and jukeboxes. "All has been accomplished to your satisfaction?"