This can’t be!
He ran through the lab’s secure program files, checking several more developmental copies and finding nothing out of the ordinary before sitting back, a cold sweat forming on his brow.
It isn’t here! But… I didn’t just imagine it. If I saw what I saw and I still have the evidence safely stashed away, and these are the copies they came from…
There was only one remaining explanation, and the realization coursed through his veins like ice water: Someone had electronically entered their main databank and erased the renegade lines of computer code. Hacking from outside was effectively impossible. Only someone within Uniwave could be responsible.
Ben stood up and looked through the opening of his cubicle, watching his team members for a moment as his thoughts raced around the problem of what to do and who might be responsible. The main evidence was gone, and he’d come within a finger stroke of destroying the only remaining record before leaving his house.
But that remaining record was no threat to whoever was behind the sabotaged code, and they had to know it. Ben shuddered at the symmetry of the dilemma. He was checkmated. If he revealed what he’d found, his career would be over and he’d end up in a federal prison somewhere. But if he didn’t blow the whistle, the saboteurs would succeed, probably causing the crash of all aboard during the final test flight in the Gulfstream, himself included.
He thought about going straight to Joe Davis and reporting the existence of the renegade code, and then pretending to “find” it missing when he brought Joe back to the lab.
Impossible, Ben concluded. Without the concrete evidence he had but couldn’t reveal, there was no way he’d convince Joe or Martin or anyone else in authority to stop the re-test and risk bankruptcy.
“Ben?” Gene Swanson had been standing next to Ben for several minutes, invisible to him, wondering where Ben’s mind was. “You okay? You looked zoned out there,” Gene said.
Ben sighed and rubbed his brow as he tried unsuccessfully to laugh. “Yeah. I do feel a little strange.”
“You said you were taking a cold medicine… maybe it’s a virus and not a cold. Not that a cold isn’t a virus, but… you know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Ben smiled at him and clapped a hand on his shoulder in an ineffectual attempt at reassurance as a desperate possibility coalesced in his head. “I’m, ah, going to run out to the aircraft and check a few things, Gene. Where are we in the process?”
“We’ve found nothing,” Gene replied, a puzzled expression crossing his face. Ben held up a finger.
“Ah… no one removed any sections from the master code for testing or anything this morning, right?”
Gene Swanson looked stunned. “Removed? You mean, without authorization?”
“No, I mean… maybe a test copy or something.”
“What are you asking, Ben? None of us would do that.”
Ben shook his head again. “Just a thought, and obviously a silly one. I know you know this, but we’re under such pressure, if any of you find any section of the master code that’s been contaminated in any way, isolate and copy that section and wait for me to get back, okay?”
“Well… sure. We would anyway.”
Ben left the lab as Gene moved back to the main test stand.
“What was that all about?” one of the other programmers asked.
“Frankly? I think Ben’s losin’ it.”
The short drive to the secure hangar where Uniwave’s Gulfstream was housed took less than five minutes, but processing through the security entrance took an additional fifteen since the name “Ben Cole” was not listed on the approved roster for that precise day and hour. First Lindsey, then Joe Davis, had to get involved by phone, verbally approving his visit after questioning why he needed to be there.
“Just checking a theory about the programming,” Ben explained.
“Yeah, but, Ben,” Joe Davis replied, “you bring the central hard drive back with you after each flight. There’s nothing out there to see.”
Ben glanced over at the security officers and smiled, rolling his eyes at the shared agony of dealing with bureaucratic machines.
“Joe, I could ask you the same thing in reverse. Is there something out here I’m not supposed to see?”
“No. No, of course not.” There was a hesitancy in Joe Davis’s voice, but it didn’t register in Ben’s thinking.
“Well, I’m chief software engineer, Joe, and the computer out here still has software embedded in it, and I’d like to look at it. Why is that a problem?”
“It isn’t, now that you’ve explained yourself,” Joe replied. “You should let people know, Ben. Don’t just show up. It makes our security people very nervous.”
The Gulfstream sat freshly washed and sparkling in the lights of the windowless hangar as Ben walked to the entrance and climbed aboard, pausing to look to his left into the technical complexity of the cockpit. Somehow the Gulfstream had reverted to the exciting, friendly, safe environment he’d always considered it, almost as if the nightmare of the uncontrolled descent two nights before had never happened.
There were technical manuals open on the copilot’s seat, and the captain’s seat had been pulled back to its full extent.
Must be the T-handle installation, Ben mused as he let his eyes roam over the area left of the captain’s rudder pedals, where the emergency disconnect T-handle was supposed to be. He could hear voices in the hangar and hurried footsteps apparently approaching the entry stairs.
The telltale signs of a new installation were there, all right, along with the manual disconnect handle, which would physically knock the autoflight relays away from the flight controls if the computer glitched again. It was a comforting feeling to see the little handle, and he knew the pilots would equally appreciate having a way to pull the computer’s silicon hands from their throat if anything else went wrong.
The footsteps were coming up the Gulfstream’s entry stairs behind him, and Ben casually took note, letting his eyes rest on the engineering plans laid out on the copilot’s seat. They were obviously the installation instructions for the emergency disconnect T-handle. The word “copy” was stamped in the upper left-hand corner over the more detailed engineering identification box, but it contained another stamped word he couldn’t quite make out.
Ben could hear someone approaching the top of the stairs as he reached out and moved the top page to get a better look at the papers.
“Anyone here?” a male voice asked from the entryway, distracting him.
“Yes. Ben Cole. I’m in the cockpit.”
A heavyset, worried-looking man moved in behind him and leaned over, snatching the engineering papers off the copilot’s seat.
“Is there a problem?” Ben asked, twisting around and looking up to catch the man’s eyes.
“No. I just left these… maintenance papers here,” he said.
“I’m Ben Cole, chief software engineer,” Ben said, extending his hand as he got to his feet.
“Ah… Don Brossard,” the man said, reluctantly shifting the papers to his left hand and meeting the handshake.
“You’re maintenance?”
Ben saw Brossard’s eyebrows rise visibly. The man nodded, his eyes darting to the entry way with a clear desire to bolt and run. “Yeah. Sorry… I’ve got a… a conference.” He pointed toward the far door of the hangar.
“Understood, but before you go, let me ask you a question about that emergency disconnect handle you just installed.”
Brossard nodded. “Yeah?”
“Is it operational yet, and have you tested it?”