Distraction - Bruce Sterling [39]
“We built those profile sniffers quite a while back, and they turned out pretty useful. But then the State Department made the mistake of kinda lending that software to some undependable allies.…” Fontenot stopped short as a spotted jaguarundi emerged from under a bush, stretched, yawned, and ambled past them. “The problem came when our profile sniffers fell into the wrong hands.… See, there’s a different application for that protective software. Bad people can use it to compile large mailing lists of dangerous lunatics. Finding the crazies with net analysis, that’s the easy part. Convincing them to take action, that part is a little harder. But if you’ve got ten or twelve thousand of them, you’ve got a lotta fish, and somebody’s bound to bite. If you can somehow put it into their heads that some particular guy deserves to be attacked, that guy might very well come to harm.”
“So you’re saying that Governor Huguelet has put me on an enemies list?”
“No, not Huey. Not personally. He ain’t that dumb. I’m saying that somebody, somewhere, built some software years ago that automatically puts Green Huey’s enemies onto hit lists.”
Oscar removed his hat and carefully adjusted his hair. “I’m rather surprised I haven’t heard about this practice.”
“We Secret Service people don’t like it publicized. We do what we can to fight back—we wiped out a whole nest of those evil things during Third Panama … but we can’t monitor every offshore netserver in the world. About the best we can do is to monitor our own informants. We always check ’em, to see if they’re getting email urging them to kill somebody. So have a look at this printout.”
They found a graceful wooden garden bench. A small child in a pinafore was sitting on it, patiently petting an exotic stoat, but she didn’t seem to mind adult company. Oscar silently read through the text, twice, carefully.
The text was nowhere near so sinister and sophisticated as he had somehow imagined it. In fact, the text was crude and banal. He found it deeply embarrassing to discover his own name inserted into a murderous rant so blatant and so badly composed. He nodded, slipped the paper back to Fontenot. The two of them smiled, tipped their hats to the little girl, and went back to walking.
“It’s pathetic!” Oscar said, once they were out of earshot. “That’s spam from a junk mailbot. I’ve seen some junkbots that are pretty sophisticated, they can generate a halfway decent ad spiel. But that stuff is pure chain-mail ware. It can’t even punctuate!”
“Well, your core-target violent paranoiac, he might not notice the misspellings.”
Oscar thought this over. “How many of those messages were mailed out, do you suppose?”
“Maybe a couple of thousand? The USSS protective-interest files list over three hundred thousand people. A clever program wouldn’t hit up every possible lunatic every single time, of course.”
“Of course.” Oscar nodded thoughtfully. “And what about Bambakias? Is he in danger too?”
“I briefed the Senator about this situation. They’ll step up his security in Cambridge and Washington. But I figure you’re in much more trouble than he is. You’re closer, you’re louder, and you’re a lot easier.”
“Hmmm. I see. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Jules. You’re making very good sense, as always. So what would you advise?”
“I advise better security. The commonsense things. Break up your daily routine. Go to places where you can’t be expected. Keep a safe house ready, in case of trouble. Watch out for strangers, for anybody who might be stalking you, or workin’ up the nerve. Avoid crowds whenever possible. And you do need a bodyguard.”
“I don’t have time for all that, though. There’s too much work for me here.”
Fontenot sighed. “That’s exactly what people always tell us.… Oscar, I was in the Secret Service for twenty-two years. It’s a career, we have a real job of work. You don’t hear a lot in public about the Secret Service, but the Secret Service is a very busy outfit. They shut down the old CIA, they broke up the FBI years ago, but the USSS has been