Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ailbe poked his head out as Wyl strolled down the hallway. “Wyl, got a minute?”
“Sure, Ailbe. What’s up?” Wyl followed Ailbe into his office.
“I have two projects I need you to grade. These projects are from the two murdered students. I’m having difficulty getting through them because of the circumstances.”
“Sure, Ailbe. I’ll be glad to.” Ailbe was good at lying, and Wyl thought he deserved an Academy Award.
“Good,” he handed the two projects to Wyl.
Wyl realized these two projects were his opportunity to throw a monkey wrench in Ailbe’s plans. Since Ailbe may not have looked at them, he could find a way to manipulate the code so that the final program would run but stop before completing.
“Do you know where in the overall project these will fall?” Wyl asked.
“Rafferty’s project is near the beginning. Moynihan’s project is at the very end. He was a brilliant student with a promising future ahead of him. It’s such a shame he died so young.”
Academy Award number two, Wyl thought. “That is good to know. Would you like me to input these when I finish looking them over?”
Wyl hoped Ailbe would buy into having a master like him enter the codes. It would be a guarantee of success, or in this case, failure. What better way to ensure a perfect end to Ailbe’s scheme than to have Wyl involved?
“That is an excellent idea, Wyl. Focus on those two projects today. They are both critical, so take your time.”
Wyl detected a slight smile on Ailbe’s face—the smile of a doomed cyberterrorist. Wyl turned out of the office.
He spent the day working on the two critical pieces of the overall plan.
Both students wrote flawless code with no detectable errors.
Wyl sighed. Such brilliant young minds, silenced forever by a madman.
He began entering the code, carefully inserting a small algorithm that would halt the process near the end and wait for specific operator input.
The wrong input would abort the operation.
* * *
Thursday morning, Wyl arrived at the campus at 10:30. He tapped on Ailbe’s open office door. “Good morning, Ailbe. Is there anything you need me to do today?”
“Ah…Wyl. Good morning. I think we’ve got things in good shape. We've finished grading the last two projects you submitted yesterday. Students are entering their projects into the system. We will finish this week, with any luck, and I can do a trial run on Saturday.”
“Wow,” Wyl said. That’s much earlier than you planned, isn’t it?”
“Yes…But I thought the grading would take longer. I didn’t plan to have the assistance of the top cybersecurity expert worldwide.”
“I’m glad I could help. Why don’t I hang around the lab and be available to assist the students?”
“Good idea, Wyl. They will be honored to have your help.”
* * *
Garrett Burke picked up the phone and dialed Glenn Cross.
“Cross,” Glenn answered.
“Glenn, Garrett Burke here.”
“Hi, Garrett. What’s up?”
“I thought you should know that Dr. MacGowan escalated things. He wants everything entered by Friday evening.”
“Interesting news, Garrett. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll pass it on.”
“I’ll call you if anything else unusual happens.”
“You did well, my friend.”
“Thanks,” Garrett disconnected. He hoped everyone on both sides would be okay.
* * *
Wyl spent Thursday and Friday in the lab, answering questions and assisting students with entering their projects.
By Friday afternoon, all work was entered, and the project was in the database, ready for the trial run.
Wyl knew the trial run would fail, but wanted Ailbe to discover that for himself.
“Everything is in, Ailbe.” Wyl stood outside Ailbe’s office. “Do you want me to come for the trial run tomorrow?”
“No, Wyl. You and Rod enjoy your weekend. I’m sure there is a bit of tweaking, but we can handle that next week.”
“You and Declan have a good weekend. Rod and I may go up to the horse ranch and spend the weekend on horseback.”
“Sounds like a good idea, Wyl. What’s that place again? Free-Willy or something?” Ailbe asked.
“Carrowholly.” Wyl chuckled. “Westport County. I called to check them out, and they’d love to have two Texans straddling their steeds.”
Ailbe laughed. “Well, have fun. We’ll catch up next week.”
Wyl turned and left. Everything was ready for launch, or at least that’s what he wanted Ailbe to believe.
* * *
Wyl walked into the flat. “Hi, babe.”
“Hi, yourself. How was your day?”
“Interesting. Ailbe is ready to launch a full week ahead of schedule. I need to let Cross know.”
Concern scrunched Rod’s face. Things were moving more quickly than either of them anticipated.
Wyl pulled out his government cell phone and dialed Glenn’s MI-6 number.
“Cross,” Glenn answered.
“Glenn, Wyl here. I have news.”
“You sound worried, Wyl.”
“Ailbe is ready to launch. All codes are entered. He’s planning a trial run-through tomorrow.”
“Garrett Burke called to let me know the students were entering their projects with a deadline of today. I figured MacGowan wanted to launch early.”
“The launch won’t work. I inserted a step that will stop it before it completes. The sequence will fail when Ailbe does the test run, and the project will abort unless he enters the correct information.”
“I’m sure you remember the correct information, right?” Glenn said.
“There isn’t any. It’s three spaces. Anything else, and the program will abort.”
“That’s good, but we know how determined he is. You and Rod should be extra careful. When he runs that program, and it fails, he’ll want your help.”
“We’ll be careful,” Wyl said.
Rod caught Wyl’s worried expression.
“I’ll alert O’Brien to be on standby,” Glenn said. “Keep me posted on further developments.”
“Thanks. Later,” Wyl disconnected.
“You look worried,” Rod said.
“I think we’re fine, babe. We have to wait and see what Ailbe does.”
Rod pulled Wyl into an embrace. “Now, don’t worry. You’re the one who boosted me when I became uneasy. This is what we came for. The game. We need to let it play out.”
Wyl sighed. “I know. I realize we’re at that point.” The painful memories of his capture in Italy flashed in his mind. “Now, let’s have a martini, relax, and talk about this weekend.”
“This weekend?” Rod went to the refrigerator to take out a lemon for twists.
“How about we go horseback riding?” Wyl reached for highball glasses.
“Is there a place here in Ireland to do that?” Rod washed the lemon and used a paring knife to slice the lemon rind.
“Don’t you remember James mentioning it at Wilde’s Pub one night? There are stables north of here, up near the coast. I checked them out, and they’re happy to have a couple of Texans ride this weekend.” Ice clinked in the glasses as Wyl dropped in the cubes.
“That sounds like fun, Wyl.” Rod dropped the slices of peel into the glasses. “You helped me discover the pleasure of horseback riding, and I miss it.”
Wyl poured the Boru vodka into the glasses, ice crackling as the warm liquid flowed from the bottle. “We’ll drive up in the morning and spend all day riding. We can come back Sunday so I can face Ailbe’s rant when his trial run doesn’t work.”