There was no longer any doubt in her mind: the show was a huge-a monster-success.
Chapter 58
D’Agosta watched in sick disbelief as the technicians, both of them now working frantically, continued to type commands on their keyboards.
“What’s wrong?” Hayward demanded.
Enderby wiped his forehead nervously. “I don’t know. The terminal isn’t accepting my commands.”
“Manual override?” Hayward asked.
“Tried that already.”
Hayward turned to Manetti. “Notify the guards in the tomb. Tell them we’re shutting down the show.” She pulled out her radio, preparing to talk to her own officers on the inside. Then she paused, staring at Manetti, who had gone pale. “What is it?”
“That’s just it. I’m trying to contact my men in the tomb. There’s no communication. None.”
“How can that be? They’re less than fifty yards away!”
“The tomb has been shielded against radio frequencies,” said Pendergast quietly.
Hayward put down her radio. “Use the P.A. system. It’s hardwired, right?”
More furious typing from Enderby. “That’s down, too.”
Hayward stared at him. “Cut power to the doors. In the event of a total power failure, they can be levered open by hand.”
Enderby typed some more, then raised his hands in a gesture of futility.
Suddenly, Pendergast pointed at one of the monitors displaying a live feed of the hall. “Did you see that? Rewind it, please.”
One of the technicians digitally rewound the image.
“There.” And Pendergast indicated the blurry outline of a figure, off to one side in the shadows.
“Can you sharpen the image?” he asked urgently. “Magnify it?”
D’Agosta stared as the feed jumped into clearer focus. They all watched as the man slipped a hand inside his dinner jacket, casually extracted a black eye-mask, and put it on. A pair of earplugs followed.
“Menzies,” Hayward murmured.
“Diogenes,” Pendergast said, almost to himself, his voice as cold as ice.
“We need to call for backup,” said Manetti. “Get a SWAT team in here, and-”
“No!” Pendergast broke in. “We don’t have time. That will delay everything-they’ll want to set up a mobile command unit, there will be rules of engagement to follow. We’ve got ten minutes-at the outside.”
“I can’t believe these doors won’t open!” Enderby said, banging at the keyboard. “We programmed two completely independent backups. This doesn’t make sense. Nothing’s responding-”
“And nothing will respond,” said Pendergast. “Those doors aren’t going to open no matter what you do. Menzies-Diogenes-has no doubt hijacked the systems controlling both the show and the hall.” Pendergast turned back to Enderby. “Can you get a list of all running processes?”
“Yes.” Enderby typed a series of commands. D’Agosta glanced over: a small window had opened on the screen, filled with a list of mysterious lowercase words like asmcomp, rutil, syslog, kcron.
“Examine all the process names,” Pendergast said. “Especially the system processes. See anything unusual?”
“No.” Enderby peered at the screen. “Yes. This one called kernel_con_fund_o.”
“Any idea what it’s for?”
Enderby blinked. “Judging by the name, it’s some kind of console file that accesses the system kernel. That zero at the end also implies it’s a beta version.”
“Reverse-engineer the code if you can, get a sense of what it does.” Pendergast turned toward Hayward and D’Agosta. “Although I’m afraid I already know the answer.”
“What’s that?” Hayward asked.
“That’s not a zero at the end-it’s the letter o. Confundo in Latin means to trouble, distress, throw into confusion. It’s no doubt a system routine added by Diogenes to hijack the show.” He gestured at the room full of equipment. “I would guess all this equipment-everything-is now under Diogenes’s control.”
Meanwhile, Enderby was peering at his screen. “There seems to be another server actually running the show, and it’s inside the tomb itself. All the systems in the control room, here, are slaved to it.”
Pendergast leaned over the technician’s shoulder. “Can you attack it, disable it?”
More furious typing. “No. Now it isn’t even accepting my input anymore.”
“Cut all power to the tomb,” Pendergast said.
“It’ll just switch to backup-”
“Cut that, too.”
“That’ll leave them in darkness.”
“Do it.”
More typing, followed by a frustrated curse. “Nothing.”
Pendergast looked around. “In that case, the breaker box.” He strode over, flung open the box, and threw the main circuit breaker.
Although the little room was immediately plunged into darkness, the computers remained online. Within seconds, there was a sharp click as the backup power system kicked in, rows of emergency fluorescent tubes flicking on.
Enderby stared at the monitors in disbelief. “Incredible. There’s still full power in the tomb. The show’s going on like nothing’s happened. There must be an internal generator somewhere inside. But that wasn’t on any of the plans I-”
“Where’s the backup power source for this room?” Pendergast interrupted.
Manetti nodded toward a large gray metal cabinet in the corner. “That contains the relays connecting the tomb’s main power cables to the museum’s auxiliary generator.”
Pendergast stepped back and pointed Manetti’s weapon at the cabinet. He emptied a full clip into it-the gunshots incredibly loud in the soundproofed space-walking the rounds from one side of the cabinet to the other, each round punching a large dark hole in the metal and sending chips of gray paint flying. There was a sound of crackling electricity, a massive blue arc, and the lights flickered and went out-leaving only the glow of the computer screens and the stench of cordite and melted insulation.
“These computers are still on,” said Pendergast. “Why?”
“They’ve got their own local battery backup.”
“Force a hard reboot, then. Pull the power cords and plug them back in.”
Enderby crawled under the table and began yanking out cords, throwing the room into utter darkness and silence. There was a snap, then a sudden glow of light as Hayward switched on her flashlight.
The door was abruptly flung open and a tall man with a red ascot and round black glasses advanced. “What is going on here?” he asked in a shrill voice. “I’m directing a live simulcast to millions of people, and you can’t even keep the power on? Listen, my backup power won’t last more than fifteen minutes.”
D’Agosta recognized Randall Loftus, the famous director, his face mottled with anger.
Pendergast turned to D’Agosta, leaned in close. “You know what has to be done, Vincent?”
“Yes,” D’Agosta said. Then he turned toward the director. “Let me help you.”
“I should hope so.” And Loftus turned and walked stiffly out of the room, D’Agosta following.
In the hall beyond, guests were milling around in a darkness relieved only by the glow from hundreds of tea candles set on the tables, excited but not yet alarmed, apparently treating it as an adventure. Museum guards were circulating, reassuring people that the power would be restored at any moment. D’Agosta followed the director to the far end of the hall, where his crew was set up. They were all working quickly and efficiently, murmuring into mikes or observing small camera-mounted monitors.
“We’ve lost touch with the crew inside,” said one. “But it seems their power is still on. They’re still broadcasting, and the feed to the uplink is good. In fact, I don’t even think they know we’ve lost power out here.”
“Thank God for that,” said Loftus. “I’d rather die than deliver dead airtime.”