Smith forced his mind back to immediate concerns. Unsnapping his map case, he took out a laminated sectional photo map of Wednesday Island as scanned from polar orbit. "This is as far as the expedition's ground parties got-the official ones anyway. From here the climbing party that found the bomber started working directly upslope to the peak. We'll follow on around the mountain to a point above the glacier in the saddleback."
"How does the route ahead look, Colonel?" Smyslov asked.
"Not bad if this map's any indication." Smith passed the photo chart down to the Russian. "This ledge we've been following seems to keep going for another half mile or so. At its end we can drop down into the glacier. We might need to do some rope work, but it shouldn't be too bad. The crash site's almost at the foot of the east peak, about a mile, mile and a quarter across the ice. With no hang-ups we should make it well before nightfall."
He glanced at Metrace. She was sitting back against the rock wall, her eyes closed for the moment. "Holding up okay, Val?"
"Marvelous," she replied, not opening her eyes. "Just assure me there'll be a steaming bubbly spa, a roaring fireplace, and a quart of hot buttered rum waiting for me at our destination and I'll be fine."
"I'm afraid I can't promise anything but a sleeping bag and a solid belt of some very good medicinal whisky in your MRE coffee."
"A distant second, but acceptable." She opened her eyes and looked back at him, a quizzical smile brushing her face. "I thought you medical types had decided that consuming ardent spirits in freezing weather was another biological no-no."
"I'm not that healthy yet, Professor."
Her smile deepened in approval. "There is hope for you yet, Colonel."
Chapter Twenty-five
Wednesday Island Station
"Shouldn't you have a warrant or something?" Doctor Trowbridge asked suddenly.
Distracted, Randi looked up from the row of six identical Dell laptops on the laboratory worktable. "What?"
"These computers contain personal documents and information. Shouldn't you have some kind of a warrant before you go rummaging around in them?"
Randi shrugged and turned back to the computers, tapping a series of on buttons. "Damned if I know, Doctor."
"Well, you are a government...agent of some nature."
"I don't recall saying that."
The six screens glowed, cycling through their start-up sequences. Of the six, only two demanded access code words: those belonging to Dr. Hasegawa and Stefan Kropodkin.
"Still, before I can allow you to violate the privacy of my expedition's staff members there must be some kind of..."
Randi sighed, fixing a baleful gaze on Trowbridge. "First, Doctor, I don't have anyplace to get a warrant from. Secondly, I don't have anybody to give a warrant to, and finally, I don't really give a shit! Okay?"
Trowbridge subsided in outraged bafflement for a moment, turning to stare out of the lab window.
Turning back to the computers, Randi methodically set to work, checked the four open systems first, skimming through the e-mail files and address lists. Nothing sprang out at her from the stored correspondence. Professional and personal business, letters from wives, families, and friends. The English boy, Ian, was apparently on very good terms with at least three different girlfriends, and the American girl, Kayla, was discussing a marriage with a fiance.
No one seemed to be openly chatting up any known terrorist groups or exchanging missives with the Syrian Ministry of Defense. Which, of course, was meaningless. There were any number of covert contact and relay nodes for such organizations infesting the Internet, just as there were any number of simple transposition codes and tear-sheet ciphers that could be used to mask a covert communication. But these days there were better ways to go about things.
Randi moved on, cross-checking the control panels and programming screens and the memory reserves of the laptops. What she was looking for could be hidden, but it would also absorb a fair-sized chunk of hard drive space.
Again nothing sprang out at her. That left the locked-out laptops.
Getting up from the stool she had been using, she stretched for a moment and crossed to her pack that she had lugged in from the helicopter. Opening it, she took out a software wallet and removed a numbered compact disk. Returning to the laboratory table, she popped open the CD drive of the first locked computer and inserted the silvery disk.
The locked laptop made the error of checking the identification of the inserted disk, and in seconds the sophisticated NSA cracking program was raping its operating system.