Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [38]
Frankie was nearly a decade old now, the first bones put in place back when Doris started working for her uncle. In those days, she never thought much of her hacking skills — not until she went to a conference sponsored by the Working Forum on Reverse Engineering to "pick up a few tips." The WFORE board members were so impressed by the young woman's innovative methodology for recovering buried information and systems artifacts from software, they invited her to join their organization. Doris had just turned sixteen.
An urgent beep shocked Doris awake. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, not sure she'd read the screen correctly.
"System failed to execute command!?"
That had never happened before. Never.
She sighed. "If at first you don't succeed..."
Doris called up the bundle again, checked the cache size — the same as before. But before she pressed delete she kick-started the dumping process by opening another bundle for the data to flow into. Sometimes that trick worked for stubborn programs that refused to go away.
Again there was a long lag time before she got a response.
"Failed again!"
Doris called up the cache — but found that all but approximately five percent of the program had indeed been eradicated. A stubborn subset of data remained in the cache, however. Doris suspected it was some remnant of an interfacing program, something that allowed the data she'd erased to be used in another program. Setting the problem aside for the moment, Doris moved on to the next bundle of data.
But five cache deletes later it happened again — a stubborn five percent of the memory cache refused to be deleted no matter what she tried.
Doris issued a tiny squeal of frustration.
* * *
2:36:19 A.M. EDT
Tatiana's Tavern
Yuri appeared at the office door, jerked his head. Georgi rose and roused Jack Bauer, who had fallen asleep in his chair after a long phone conversation with someone named Almeida.
"Your car has arrived, Mr. Bauer."
Jack rubbed sleep out of his eyes. "What time is it?" He blinked when he saw the weapons and ammunition on Georgi Timko's desk.
Jack ignored the shotgun, but lifted the Heckler & Koch Mark 23 USP, the .45-caliber self-loading version of the smaller, lighter USP Tactical, which Jack had used during his stint at Delta Force. The standard Mark 23 lacked the bells and whistles of the Tactical model — including the O-ring barrel that allowed the use of a KAC suppressor, and the rear target sight adjustment. But more important to Jack, the Mark 23 had the same ambidextrous magazine release just behind the trigger guard as the high-end Tactical. This allowed ejection of the spent magazine using the thumb or index finger without having to readjust one's grip on the weapon — an essential feature for quick reloading and accurate fire.
"The best I could do in such short notice," Georgi said apologetically.
Jack checked the pistol's extractor, which doubled as a loaded chamber indicator. The magazine was full, but to satisfy himself the readout was accurate, Jack pulled the slide back slightly and looked inside. There were additional magazines on the desk — twelve of them — each loaded with a dozen .45-caliber slugs.
Jack was accustomed to using 9mm rounds, not the bigger .45-caliber slugs. But with the Mark 23's recoil-reduction system, which featured a spring within a spring, Jack knew the felt recoil would be dampened enough for him to switch to the harder-hitting ammunition without difficulty.
Offering sincere thanks to Timko, Jack engaged the safety and slipped the weapon into his shoulder holster. Then he pocketed the extra ammunition in his pants, shirt, and jacket pockets.
"Take the shotgun as well, Mr. Jack Bauer," Georgi insisted. "You never know when you might have to