Read Online Borderless Deceit by Adrian de Hoog - Free Book Online Page B

the mid-eighties when the Cold War still raged. Under a new bilateral information-sharing arrangement we were designated as the respective contact points. It was soon obvious that Hugh-S was prepared to operate beyond the confines of the agreement. He had a soft spot for Canadians, he said, because once upon a time that’s what his family was. Cajun. For generations his family had raised its young on a Louisiana bayou, but Hugh-S was proud of his Acadian forebears who’d come down from far to the north. “Cahsun,” the voice on the telephone in its folksy accent once told me, “you know, my wife jokes about my name – Hugh-S.A., she says and laughs – but deep down I think Canuck like you.” A sense of kinship propelled our relationship.
    Promotion after promotion elevated him to the senior ranks, but he always insisted on keeping the liaison role which mirrored mine. It was he who arranged my unique access to the ever-expanding universe of information which sophisticated technology was opening up. Every day in my cell, solitary as a monk, I tapped the keys, formed instructions, directed searches and, courtesy of Hugh-S, threw fine-meshed nets over half of humanity and filtered out knowledge.
    Hugh-S was like a patron, the way he allowed me access to special data. Of course, I served him in return, by sharing my analyses with him. The delight on the other end of the line was often unrestrained.“Masterful work, Cahsun. More than a few folks here’ll like what you came up with.” They did, and it brought me still more access. Already back then, in the Cold War days, I proposed schemes to assemble information from different sources, linking it up, allowing deeper insight into relationships of special interest, for example, between the Soviets and West Germans (where much more was going on than met the eye), or between the communist regime in Poland and Africa’s Marxist states. Hugh-S obliged. And so I acquired paths into sections of the American intelligence storehouse denied to other allied watchers. Without Hugh-S I would not have been able to track Rachel as thoroughly as I did.
    The day after the plague struck I called him on a direct-link scramble phone. The tone it carried was hollow and deepened his drawl. Of course, he knew we had been hit by the virus.
Bin kinda expectin’ it
. Their position all along was that our network was vulnerable. He said a request for assistance by someone in our Service to determine what caused the plague had already been made through the US ambassador. “We’s workin’ on it, Cahsun,” he assured me. He added that the first scan they ran showed the virus might have travelled through the pipeline, our secure data link to a battery of servers in Langley, Virginia. Naturally this worried them. A preliminary analysis showed there had been a huge jump in the volume of data passing through the pipeline.
    â€œKinda like a volcano erupting. It showed up just about the time yous Canucks went belly-up. Smells like gator shit to me, Cahsun. Guess you doan have that kinda stink in Canuckland, but, man, I tell you, the smell of gator shit is sumthin else.”
    â€œYou think there’s a link between the data jump and the meltdown?”
    â€œYup. Tracin’ it right now. Let you know as soon as I do. How’s it for yous up there? Feelin’ buggered?”
    â€œI’d say…we feel mishandled. Who asked your ambassador for help?”
    â€œA woman. Claire something…”
    â€œDesmarais?”
    â€œThat’s the name. My aunty’s called Claire. Sweetest lady there ever was.”
    â€œThis one tends to the sour side.”
    â€œThat really is too bad.”
    â€œI hope we’re not out of business long.
    I’m closing in on the deal for those mothballed Exocets sold to Iran.”
    Hugh-S purred. “Cherries gettin’ ripe? ‘Bout ready for pickin’?”
    â€œThree