Fire Ice (NUMA Files 3)

Austin plucked a cap from a pile, tossed it to Trout and jammed another on his head, He pulled the visor down over his head and said: "We go for a stroll."

29

AUSTIN STOPPED AT an intersection and glanced up and down the corridors like a bewildered tourist. "Damn," he said. "I think we're lost."

"We should have left a trail of bread crumbs," Trout said wistfully.

"This isn't exactly a gingerbread house and we're not Hansel and – whoops." Austin jerked his thumb at a door off to the left. His ear had picked up the click of a knob turning.

Trout stepped back, but Austin grabbed his arm. "Too late," he whispered. "Look as if we belong here." He bent his head over a clipboard he'd liberated from the divers' room and kept one hand close to the gun concealed under his uniform. Trout got down on one knee, untied his shoelace and began to tie it.

The door opened, and two men carne out. Austin glanced up from his clipboard, gave them a friendly smile and checked them out for weapons. The men differed from each other in physique, but both wore glasses and their faces had a studious look. They were deep in conversation and only glanced at the NUMA men before they disappeared down a corridor.

Austin watched them go and said, "You can stand now. Those two looked like techies. We've got a major problem. It could take days to search this ship properly. The longer we're here, the greater the chance someone will see through our highly imaginative disguises."

Trout stood and rubbed his knee. "To say nothing of the toll to be exerted on my aging joints. What do we do now?”

Austin stared off past Trout's shoulder, and a smile replaced the frown on his lips. "For starters, I'd suggest that you look behind you."

Trout grinned when he saw the diagram on the wall. It was a map showing the ship's layout as seen from above and in profile. "We're apparently not the only ones who need help finding their way around this little houseboat."

Austin examined the map closely and tapped a red dot that indicated their intersection. "We're coming up on a restricted area. Let's see what they're trying to hide. If it's restricted, there may be less chance of bumping into Razov's thug brigade."

Austin's words had barely faded when they heard rough male voices approaching. Without hesitation, Austin stepped over to the door from which the scientists had emerged, and tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He gestured for Trout to follow him. The room was dark, but he could smell chemicals and guessed it was a lab. He quietly closed the door, leaving it open a crack. Within seconds, a pair of stocky guards, each carrying an automatic weapon, passed by and disappeared down the passageway. He flicked on a wall light long enough to see that they were, indeed, in a laboratory of some sort. Then he checked once more, saw the way was clear, and they cautiously slipped back into the corridor.

He pointed to the passageway on the right. Ever alert, they set off along the corridor until a door blocked their way. Austin used his rusty language skills from his CIA days to translate the Cyrillic letters printed on the outside. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He tried the door. Locked. He reached into his pack and came out with a set of burglary lock picks, another holdover from his time with the Company. With Trout keeping watch, Austin tried several picks before coming up with the right one. He turned the knob, and they stepped inside.

With its horseshoe-shaped console, the room resembled the control area of Yaeger's computer center, although it was a fraction of the size. Instead of facing out onto a voice-activated hologram stage like Max, beyond the console was a large screen controlled by a keyboard, archaic relics that Yaeger would have disdained.

Trout walked over and examined the setup. It was fairly sophisticated. Although he was considered a computer whiz in his own right, specializing in the modeling of deep ocean bottom phenomena, Trout was not in the same league as Yaeger.

"Well?" Austin said.

Trout shrugged and said, "I'll give it a try." He settled his long form into a swivel chair. Like a concert pianist looking for a lost chord, he let his fingers play over the keyboard without touching the keys. After first asking Austin to trans- late the Cyrillic, he took a deep breath and pushed the key that said Enter. The fish school screens aver that had been swimming across the screen disappeared, and in its place was an icon of a sunburst. "So far, so good," he said."

I didn't set off any alarms that I know of."

Austin, who was leaning over Trout's shoulder looking at the monitor, gave him a back pat of encouragement.

Trout bent to his task. He clicked on the icon, which was replaced by a number of options. For several minutes, he pecked away at the keys, muttering under his breath. Then he sat back and folded his arms. "I need a password to get in.”

"That could be anything," Austin said with frustration.

Trout nodded sadly. "We have to think Russian. Anything you've come across that might work?"

Taking a stab at it, Austin told him to try Cossack. When that didn't work, he tried Ataman. Nothing. One more false try, and the computer would freeze up on them. He was about to give up when he recalled his first conversation with Petrov back in Istanbul. "Try Troika."

Trout let out a triumphant, "Yes!" Then his shoulders sagged as the screen filled with lines of words. "This is the Russian equivalent of gobbledygook." He worked on it a few more minutes. Beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead. He sat back in the chair and threw his hands up in the air.

"Sorry, Kurt, this is beyond my skills." He shook his head. "What I need is a teenage hacker."

Austin only had to think about Trout's request for an instant. "Hold on. I can get you the next best thing."

He produced his Globalstar phone and punched out a number. When Yaeger's voice came on, Austin said, "Good morning, I can't get into details because we're short on time, but Paul needs help."

He handed the phone to Trout. Before long, the two men were into a deep discussion of firewalls, packet filters, applications, Trojan horses, gateway circuits, tunnels and decoys. He gave the phone back to Austin.

"Let's see if I can explain the problem," Yaeger said. "Think of the computer as a room. You go into the room, but it's dark, so you can't see what's written on the blackboard. So you flick the switch, which is what Paul has done, but the blackboard is still unreadable because it's in a language you can't understand."