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‘And for that, you think they shot the plane down?’

Joe didn’t answer.

Suryei analysed what he was saying, chewing her lip. Civilian jets weren’t blown out of the sky as a regular occurrence. Something had prompted the military into an act of desperation. Something terrible. ‘What sort of virus?’

‘Pretty childish, really.’

‘And you think they traced you back to the plane?’ she asked incredulously.

‘No. Too many different networks, switches. And I decoy my own computer’s IP broadcast.’ He thought about that. It used to be impossible to trace a break-in, but he’d been out of hacking for a couple of years now, lost touch. Things move fast. Maybe… Joe felt an enormous weight settle on him. Guilt.

‘I thought you did computer games.’

‘I do. Now. But I used to do a bit of industrial spying. Nothing too serious… perfume formulas, carbon fibre applications, that sort of thing.’ Joe sat slumped, round-shouldered.

‘Do you remember what files you copied?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you must have taken something pretty bloody important.’ Suryei’s mind raced. Even then, would they shoot down a 747 full of innocent people to protect it? ‘Think, Joe. Can you remember anything about the files? What the hell did you see? What did you take?’

Joe again forced his mind back to the recent past. He had checked the protocols available from the aircraft and noted that WASP was on tap, the new Wireless Application Satellite Protocol that allowed wireless Internet access anywhere under a satellite footprint. He’d opened up his browser, found the phone directory for Jakarta, and noted the forty different numbers for the TNI. They appeared to be grouped in five distinct number series. He had had his computer ring all the numbers. Within a few minutes he knew which were old analogue and which were newer, digital phone numbers. Joe’s computer then called the digital numbers, adding and subtracting extra digits either side of the original phone numbers until his system noted the familiar return signal of a file server.

Joe easily cracked the server’s low security files. He remembered noting with satisfaction that the four digits of the carpark space reserved for the Indonesian general also matched his internal office phone extension. Recurring patterns of numbers were good news for hackers. It meant that whoever set the system up was careless. The time he’d spent hunting around inside the server amounted to a handful of minutes. He certainly hadn’t loitered.

To an observer on the plane, it would have appeared that Joe was merely tapping away at computer keys, perhaps writing a letter. But Joe’s mind saw it differently. He didn’t see the keyboard at all. He became melded with the computer’s hard-drive, sucked into another dimension that blotted reality from his mind. This was a black, light-less world where he existed as pure thought. There were objects in the blackness that appeared only semi-visible, mere shapes shrouded in black velvet. These objects were program spurs. To find them, Joe had to feel around until he sensed the shapes as ripples in the void. Joe had quickly discovered what he was looking for — the sophisticated, secure software program that ran the Indonesian army’s computer network.

Fortunately, the system was a good three years out of date. That kind of time frame was an eternity in the world of software design. But while the operating system was old, it was incredibly complex. He remembered thinking that he had no desire to spend the rest of the flight carefully picking the matrix apart. He’d been after something familiar. Sometimes companies low on funds would augment their old enterprise software with something relatively cheap and off the shelf, just to keep the system more or less current.

But while Joe had been inside the general’s computer disturbing the regular flow of electrons, the system’s Watchdog had picked up his ‘scent’ and it had padded off unseen, backtracking to the origin of the call barking its silent alarm.

And then Joe found what he was after; the ubiquitous operating system he knew like an old friend. It was running the Indonesian army’s internal mail. He thanked the declining value of Indonesia’s currency for the country’s willingness to cut corners, and hitched a ride on an internal memo. An instant later, Joe found himself on the general’s hard-drive, the place he’d gone looking for.

He remembered being confused by what he found because he couldn’t speak or read any Indonesian, and so couldn’t understand the unfamiliar language strings. He’d moved through the space, shouldering the unfamiliar words and sentences aside. That’s when he’d seen the safe. Not a real safe, of course, but a virtual one. It had immediately captured his interest. A safe meant secrets. So the general had files he wanted to keep off the army’s tailored operating system, for extra privacy and security?