Triple Threat Read online

  Her mom nodded, slowly. “That’s the answer I expected. Not what I hoped for. Please, Katie…”

  Back to being her child again.

  “…Be careful. When I recognized you on the roof today, I…”

  “Mom, I think Someone else was directing things today. I was just an instrument playing in the orchestra.”

  “You and Josh were the orchestra. Speaking of Joshua West…”

  This strange, undefined relationship with Josh was her first relationship of any kind with a young man. Katie had survived the first part of this discussion with her plans intact, but now…

  A knock sounded on the door. “May I come in now?” Dad’s voice.

  “Come in, sweetheart.” Jenn swiveled toward the door.

  “Grace and Grady are engrossed in a nature video. Where are we here?” He looked from Katie to Jennifer.

  “We’re to the part where Katie finds potential applications for her work.” Jennifer pointed to a spot on the couch beside Katie.

  “So, how did cease and desist go?” He sat down.

  “It came and went.” Jennifer gave him a palms-up shrug.

  Her dad sighed and met Katie’s gaze. There was no hostility in his bright blue eyes, only concern. “Katie, after the events of today, we certainly don’t want our family becoming a target for every deranged, deluded terrorist dude on the planet.”

  Jennifer leaned forward in her chair. “Lee, what happened today wasn’t caused by Katie’s work. It was stopped by it.” Another palms-up shrug.

  “Yeah. It’s a double-edged sword, isn’t it? Reminds me of you, Jenn, when—”

  “Maybe I’d rather not be reminded right now. Anyway, Katie promised to be careful. Now on the matter of—”

  “Of Joshua West?” Lee said, cutting in.

  Here come the fatherly concerns. She had never had a boyfriend. Only a few friends who happened to be boys. Friendships without any romantic inclination on her part, but…

  “Katie, ask Josh to have dinner with us on Saturday.”

  “But, Mom, maybe he has other—”

  “Use your imagination. He’ll come if you ask.” Jenn turned to face Lee, “So, Lee, in three days you can talk with him. I’ll make sure Granddad is here, too.” Jennifer gave Katie a crooked smile.

  Poor Josh. Three of the most intimidating people on the planet were going to grill him on Saturday. She smiled, and then giggled. His interest in her would be tested to the max. Would he pass or fail? Continue their fast-growing friendship or slink away like— what was it the cowboys said in the old westerns Lee loved to watch—like a lily-livered coward? If she were a gambling woman, she would put her money on Josh.

  But Jenn had called Katie a risk taker. So, maybe she was a gambling woman. Maybe she had already put her money on Josh.

  If you slink away like a lily-livered coward, I’ll kill you, Joshua West.

  6

  Thursday morning, Katie caught the early bus to the U. It was only 7:10 AM when she keyed in the cipher and entered the lab.

  Josh sat at a UNIX workstation, fingers flying on the keyboard.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here so early.” She felt a smile growing.

  “After accepting that offer I couldn’t refuse, I was afraid you might put out a contract on me if I wasn’t here bright and early.”

  “So, you’re afraid of me? I’ve got you at a disadvantage. Right where I want Joshua West.”

  He stood and stepped away from the workstation. “Kate, you have everyone in the department at a disadvantage. Everyone but old Prof Bergmeier cringes when you start barraging them with questions.”

  “No they don’t. I’m not—”

  “But they do, because they know you have the answers and they usually don’t.”

  “Can we change the subject to something more pleasant?” She frowned.

  “I thought the subject was extremely pleasant.” He studied her frown and grinned. Josh was trying to flirt. That wasn’t like him.

  “I’m the flirtatious one in this relationship and you—” Relationship? The word had slipped out. Jumped from her heart and flew out of her mouth.

  Josh’s face showed surprise.

  And that look in his eyes…she needed to get focused. “The work we’ll be doing is normally done by people with high security clearances, the compartmentalized kind.”

  “You mean people who work for NSA, the FBI, or CIA, and maybe DHS?”

  “Exactly. But if we just push forward in our work, our lack of clearances shouldn’t matter.”

  “Push forward to what, Kate?”

  “To findings that, when presented to the authorities, will probably get classified…top secret, or higher.”

  The door to the lab opened. An undergraduate student stepped in with a huge backpack hanging from his shoulders.

  “Josh, do you have time to go somewhere private to talk?”

  “I accepted your offer. Didn’t I promise you all my time for the next two months?”

  Kate studied his face and eager eyes. Josh was the nicest guy she knew in the computer science department and handsome beyond belief. But she knew very little about what he believed, about his worldview. Before this relationship she had mentioned grew any further, she needed to know what he believed. What she discovered might even save his life, or his dignity on Saturday evening when Lee’s and Granddad’s questions shredded any incoherence in Josh’s worldview. “Come on. Let’s walk over to the little coffee shop on 15th. Order anything you want. My treat.”

  Josh’s gaze immediately sought her face. “Anything I want and you’re treating me?” He grinned. “Now, that’s an offer I really can’t refuse.”

  The day was warm and sunny by Seattle standards. Fifteen minutes later Kate and Josh sat outside the coffee shop huddled around a small table in the sun, holding steaming drinks in their hands.

  Josh took a sip of his caramel macchiato, a sweet salty drink, sighed, and then focused his gaze squarely on her lips. Though he hadn’t said a word, this was beyond flirting.

  “Josh, how would you like a karate jab?”

  “I wasn’t flirting, Kate. Honest. Just…wondering.”

  “More like wandering.”

  “Yeah. Guess my mind was wandering. Where were we? Something about Internet topology and routing?”

  “Yes. And using our knowledge of them, you can constrain the class of problems we’re dealing with to one that is computable in something less than polynomial time.”

  “But, Kate, that will vary from location to location on the Internet. And the net itself is constantly changing.”

  “Just focus on the backbone, Josh.”

  “OK. I can handle that.”

  “Great.”

  Now for the stickler…

  “Josh…” She studied his face, his eyes.

  Josh’s face turned red and he averted his gaze. Some flirt he was.

  “Josh, look at me. I need you to listen carefully and consider everything before you answer me.”

  “OK.”

  “What we’re doing has so much potential for good by thwarting evil. It’s good for our nation. It’s good for our families. But there is potential danger for you and me.”

  Josh nodded. “Yeah. After Tuesday, I can see that.”

  Now for the bombshell. “There’s one more thing, and you’ve got to promise me you’ll tell no one about it until we both decide it’s the right time.”

  “What if we can’t agree about that?”

  “Then we don’t tell anyone until we do.”

  “I guess I can agree to that.”

  She took Josh’s hand and squeezed it. “Something really big is being planned by multiple jihadist groups. They have found a way to hide their collaboration. Well, it was hidden until I found the shooter.”

  “Before I commit to the dangerous stuff, can you tell me who you think is involved?”

  “You must not mention even these, my suspicions, to anyone. Do you understand?”
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  “I promise, Kate.”

  “Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, part of the Muslim brotherhood, Hamas, and Boko Haram.”

  “I don’t know much about that last group, but this sounds scary. Remember what Peterson said about being cautious?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “When do you think you’ll go to the authorities with this?”

  “When we agree the time is right. But the things I told you are only my suspicions. I have no hard evidence.” She wrapped both of her hands around Josh’s. “Classes at the University end this week. As summer break starts, the servers in the lab will be mostly ours. In the evenings, we’ll have the whole lab to ourselves. In a week or two, we can probably flush out the participants, possibly determine who’s funding them, and find out what they’re planning to do.”

  “And how will we do all of this?”

  “First, are you in, Josh?”

  “What’s the biggest danger to us, Kate?”

  “That our probing leaves evidence which they can track back to us, if they’ve got the talent available. If they do, they’ll probably kill us.”

  “Is that all?” He paused. “You’ve already trusted me with a lot of information. Why did you do that?”

  “You are avoiding answering me.”

  “Answer me first, then I’ll give you my answer.”

  “I…uh…checked you out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I ran a background check on you through an agency that I trust. They gave me a lot of information. Stuff like Joshua West, tight end on a state champion football team. Your impressive GPA. You cost me fifty bucks, Josh. But you came out squeaky clean.”

  ****

  Kate had carefully selected him. A young woman like Kate trusted him and, in a sense, needed him. He looked at her wide, excited blue eyes. At that moment, he would’ve marched into hell for Kate Brandt, in the figurative sense. Heaven and hell were not real places, but he suspected Kate believed differently. Would that become a problem? Probably, at some point. But maybe a problem they could work through. Kate’s attraction was so strong that he had to get to know her better, and he loved his country. Helping Kate would help—

  “Josh? I need an answer.” Her eyes had turned to penetrating, blue steel.

  “I’m in, Kate.”

  Her eyes softened to sky-blue.

  Was he going to regret this? He scanned Kate’s beautiful, smiling face.

  No regrets. None at all.

  7

  When Josh opened the door to the computer lab Friday morning, Kate stood inside facing him, hands on hips.

  “It’s about time. 7:15 AM.”

  “I didn’t sleep well last night. Had dreams about a scary lady.”

  “This morning I’m the scary lady.”

  “You were last night, too.”

  “So I’m your worst nightmare?” She gave him what he was beginning to recognize as her questioning, squinting frown.

  “I didn’t say it was a nightmare.”

  Kate’s face relaxed. “Well then…the lady of your dreams…” the enigmatic smile appeared, “…thinks we need to talk privately, very privately.” She pulled him toward the lab conference room and locked the door after they entered.

  Lady of his dreams. That pretty well described Kate. “Is this the way it’s going to be with us, always hiding in secret?”

  “No. You’re coming to my house for dinner on Saturday. Jenn…uh, Mom’s orders.”

  “So I don’t have a choice in the matter?”

  “No. None at all.” She pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows. “So be there. Two men want to interrogate you.”

  “Who? Peterson, the FBI guy, and his partner?”

  “No. My dad and my granddad.”

  “Are you serious, Kate?”

  “I don’t know. But evidently they think so.”

  “Who thinks what? You’re not making any sense.”

  “We’ve been spending time together, and we’ll probably spend a lot more this summer. So my dad and my granddad need to give you an old-fashioned father-to-boyfriend talk. You know, threaten you a little.”

  “Why are they going to threaten me? They don’t even know me.”

  “That’s reason enough. Then they won’t have to kill you later, though Mom would probably shoot you before they could get to you.”

  “Isn’t that being a little overprotective, old-fashioned?”

  “Old-fashioned, yes. Overprotective? If you were me, you wouldn’t think so. So what’s it going to be, Josh? Dinner at 6:00 PM on Saturday, or…”

  Dinner with Kate was worth a lot more than a little intimidation. “It’s going to be dinner Saturday at 6:00 PM.”

  “I knew you’d make a wise decision.”

  “How did you know? After all the threats, I might have—”

  “No. You wouldn’t have. Because then I would have threatened to kill you.” She gave him her coy smile.

  This was more than mere flirting. She had invited him in a little deeper into her mysterious life, presenting him with a new look at Kate Brandt.

  Very alluring. Very scary.

  He could handle the man talk on Saturday. That was something he’d handled in the locker room and on the football field. The threats from Kate were an unknown quantity. Her family’s concern, however, was a good sign. They must know she had an interest in him. And he certainly had an interest in Kate.

  “Joshua West?”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I wonder where your mind wanders off to when I’m talking to you.” She smiled that all-knowing smile. She had made an educated guess.

  Their relationship, barely in its infancy, was warming rapidly. He needed to be cautious. Kate was someone he didn’t want to lose. He would make sure not to—

  “Josh?”

  “Yeah, Kate.”

  “You’re back.”

  He nodded.

  “I need to tell you about a call I received from Peterson.” They sat down side-by-side at the long table. “Peterson identified the shooter and verified that he’s a member of Boko Haram. Someone convinced a young radical Muslim to come to America with false identification and commit an act of terror. I want to know who the driving force is. I suspect Al Qaeda. But I also need to know who’s paying the bills.”

  “Seems like your work gets a little scarier every day.”

  “Yes. It’s getting scary. But that’s not the worst.”

  “You mean there’s something worse?”

  “I think so. I haven’t told Peterson yet, because you and I need to do a little probing.”

  “Sounds like you mean cyber-espionage, or hacking.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Kate, you’re not going to get us sentenced to prison, are you?”

  “No.” She grinned. “At least…I don’t think so.” Her expression grew serious. “I need to show you how to run my software. We need to target the people funding Boko Haram, especially the shooter’s trip to the USA. If you follow the money, you find, as Granddad always says, the big kahuna.”

  “Do you know enough to tell me who or what to target?”

  “Don’t worry about that. What you need to worry about is how to operate my software so you can’t be traced. That’s where we’ll start today.”

  “What if I mess up and they—”

  “I won’t give you the chance to do that.”

  “But what about you, Kate?”

  “Like I said, I won’t let you get the chance to do that.”

  So she was going to protect him. But who would protect Kate, the scary woman who seemed to thrive on taking chances?

  I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me…once I figure out what it is.

  ****

  Kate studied Josh’s face. It looked like he understood her instructions on running her software, but she would run it by him one more time. “At the UNIX command line enter collaborate dash F, and then the parameters I showed you. Wh
en it’s done, spool the output file to the printer.”

  Why did Josh have that squinting frown on his face? He wasn’t going to back out, was he?

  “Kate, you’ve got to be running this program against a huge Internet traffic database. You haven’t told me where you get that much real-time Internet traffic data.”

  So that’s his problem. He thinks this might be illegal.

  “It’s not real-time data, Josh. There are several delays.”

  “But I thought only groups like NSA, the CIA, and—”

  “You’re correct for the most part. But if you know where all the real-time monitors are, and where people send that data, you can sniff and filter out what you need. The data’s not classified or encrypted so—”

  “Sniff it?” Josh’s voice rose. “Wouldn’t that be like sticking your nose in NASA’s supersonic wind tunnel and trying to take a breath?”

  “Josh, it’s not like I can walk into NSA headquarters and ask for database access.” She smiled. “I do my best at scrounging data. I manage.”

  Josh shook his head. He was either unconvinced or unsatisfied.

  She stuck a thumb out toward the server room. “Why do you suppose our biggest UNIX server in the lab is busy most of the time?”

  “You mean you’re collecting this stuff, continuously?”

  “Yes. Well, since I started work on my dissertation I’ve kept the server really busy. Of course, in my hodgepodge of collected data streams things frequently break. I lose some data. But since I’m only working with packets, I catch enough over a period of time to see the origins and destinations of the traffic.”

  Josh looked at her with a wary expression in his eyes.

  “Look, Mom gave me a lot of information about who collects what on the Internet backbone. That’s not classified, neither the information, nor the data. It’s legal, just difficult to do on a shoestring budget. Changing the subject…remember the big event I thought was being planned?”

  “Yeah. Got any ideas about what and when?”

  “It’s not immediate, but soon. However, I don’t have a handle on the scope of it. That’s where you and I have some work to do.”