Exit Code. Don Pendleton

      The Stony Man cybernetics expert nodded. “Age sixty-one, place of birth, Boston.” Kurtzman looked at Bolan, winked and replied, “A homeboy, Striker.”

      “I feel so honored,” Bolan replied with an expression of mock humility.

      Bolan’s remark produced smiles from the rest of the team. The Executioner had been born in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam, but his battle on the home front had begun in the small town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

      “Six years ago, Lenzini started taking an interest in more than just the numbers rackets,” Price said. “He began investing in dot-coms all over the place, focusing particularly on the larger ones that provided Web-based services and Internet technologies to anyone requiring them. At first a large number of local law-enforcement agencies were convinced he was just using these companies to launder funds or take bets electronically. Nothing ever came of it though.”

      “Why?” Bolan asked.

      “They couldn’t build enough evidence to support a grand jury indictment,” Brognola said.

      “So they just dropped it,” Bolan stated.

      “You’ve got it,” Price continued. “After the attacks on the WTC, priorities suddenly shifted. Nobody figured it was worth their time because terrorists were the bigger fish to fry.”

      Bolan shook his head. “The problem with that kind of thinking is that it doesn’t account for the real foundation of organized crime—greed. They obviously didn’t figure the syndicate might use that to their advantage, and even go as far as to crawl beneath the sheets with terrorists if it meant easy money.”

      “True,” Price agreed. “And that, coupled with the collapse of dot-coms, left the FBI convinced that Lenzini had simply made a bad investment and lost enough to put to rest any ideas he had about maintaining his legitimate businessman charade.”

      “But now we think differently?”

      “Absolutely,” Kurtzman said. He tapped a key and displayed a 3-D map of the United States. The map showed a series of gold stars in various areas of the country, with dotted blue lines connecting those areas.

      “Once I got into Lenzini’s network, I found quite a few interesting little tidbits.”

      “Such as?” Bolan asked.

      “Well, for one, his system has network-wide security protocols that very much mirror those Rhatib used to cover his tracks inside Carnivore.”

      “I’d say that’s a pretty strong connection,” Brognola chimed in.

      Bolan nodded.

      “Additionally,” Kurtzman continued, “he’s got an infrastructure as large as the federal information system repositories, and damn near as large as Stony Man’s own network. This map shows only the connections within North America, but there are also hits in twenty-seven foreign countries, including a concentration in Europe, and scatterings throughout every remaining continent.”

      Bolan couldn’t refrain from whistling his surprise. “Sounds like Lenzini’s been busy.”

      “What bothers us most is that we didn’t catch it before now,” Price said. She sighed with a look of frustration.

      “I wouldn’t get too down on yourselves,” Bolan replied. “Not even Stony Man can be everywhere at once. You can’t plan for every contingency.”

      “That’s for sure,” Brognola added with a grunt.

      “No, but we sure as hell can do something about it now,” Kurtzman continued. “My team is already working on a new detection program that can head off something like this in the future by allowing us to see it ahead of time. You see, every programmer and technologist has his or her own set of signature work. You could almost compare it to the signature of a bomb maker or arsonist.”

      “Like a profile?” Brognola asked.

      “Sort of, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. We do build a profile on them, without a doubt, but there are telltale signs they leave behind, and no two are alike. You could call it the electronic version of a fingerprint. Maybe it’s the particular system or combination of systems they use to build their infrastructure, maybe it’s their methods of programming. Whatever it is, we can hit upon it and expand the profile at an exponential rate. And if we can actually tie this information to the identity of that individual, just like we did with Rhatib, we’re one step closer to closing the holes in all of our information and defense systems.”

      “But for the time being,” Price said to Bolan, “we need you to put an end to Lenzini’s operations. Basically, we need you to buy Stony Man some time.”

      Bolan shrugged. “The only way for me to do that is to get a clearer understanding of how Lenzini’s work ties to the NIF. What’s the motivation here?”

      “That’s what we don’t know,” Brognola said, cutting in. “What we can tell you is that Lenzini set up this network to get Rhatib access to specific areas, most of them defensive operational systems and defense networks belonging to the Defense Department.”

      “Something’s wrong here,” Price said. “Why would the NIF go after defensive systems? You’d think they would want to get their hands on offensive weaponry, particularly nuclear or chemical.”

      “That’s just what I was thinking as well,” Bolan said. “Unless they plan to launch some type of major offensive and use Carnivore to shut down defensive systems. That would render us vulnerable to just about any attack.”

      “Precisely,” Kurtzman added.

      “Your friend, Tyra MacEwan, was the one who really helped us to see how this works,” Price said. “She possessed key knowledge we didn’t have. About four years ago, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency started a program called the Next Generation Internet, or NGI, which they nicknamed SuperNet. The funding was sanctioned at the highest levels within the Oval Office and the Pentagon, and plans started immediately for its design, engineering and ultimately its implementation.” She smiled and then looked at Kurtzman. “But I’ll let Bear get into the technical details.”

      “MacEwan wasn’t real anxious to give up the information during her debriefing,” Kurtzman said. “But I think she trusts you,” he said to Bolan.

      Bolan nodded in understanding. He couldn’t really fault the woman for her reticence. Tyra MacEwan was patriotic, passionate and highly intelligent. Shortly after her appointment to DARPA, she was brought into the FBI on a joint special technology services project to work with Dr. Mitchell Fowler, a respected scientist for the FBI who wasn’t the least bit shy about verbalizing his reservations regarding the security of Carnivore. Fowler’s death from a sniper’s bullet had triggered the events of the past few days, and had nearly cost Bolan, Jack Grimaldi and Tyra MacEwan their lives.

      “The concepts behind the NGI are pretty high-level still,” Kurtzman continued, “but there are a good number of technologies already in place to support it. First is the idea of multispectral sensors, such as radar and SAR, infrared and microwave. This would be used to increase bandwidth into the multi-TBPS level,” he said.

      “Could you give that to me again?” Bolan asked.

      “Sorry. TBPS is terabytes per second.”

      Bolan nodded and then waved at him to continue.

      “There’s also the engineering side of this thing, Striker.” Kurtzman tapped a key and the display showed a small, rectangular object—some sort of electronic chip—with a micrometer ruler above it that demonstrated the object was only three-quarters of a millimeter wide and less than one-tenth of a millimeter high. “This is a prototype of a laser array transmitter than can pass transmissions at two hundred gigabytes per second or faster.”

      “God help us,” Brognola said, immediately followed by a sigh that told Bolan he was stunned by Kurtzman’s revelation.

      Bolan