Deep Storm (34 page)

She put it aside. Opening the hard drive from her own laptop, she carefully removed the same piece, attached it to Ashers drive, and replaced the top of the housing.

Moment of truth, she said, returning the damaged drive to her laptop. She quickly reassembled the computer, plugged it in, gave the interior a gentle blast of canned air, and switched it on again.

Crane drew close, staring eagerly at the screen. The same error message reappeared.

Damn, he said.

But the Click of Death is gone, Hui replied. And did you notice there were no warning beeps during the POST?

Whats that mean?

The laptop sees the hard drive now, no problem. It just cant find any data.

Crane swore under his breath.

Were not done yet. She slipped a jewel case from her tool kit, opened it, and took out a CD. This is a bootable disc with an assortment of diagnostic tools. Lets take a closer look at Ashers hard drive.

She slipped the disc into the laptop and restarted it. This time the screen came to life. The disc drive trundled for a moment, then several windows opened. Hui took a seat at the lab table and began typing. Crane peered over her shoulder.

For several minutes, Hui moused her way through a variety of windows. Long series of binary and hexadecimal numbers appeared, scrolled up the screen, then disappeared again. At last, she sat back.

The hard drive is operable, she said. I cant detect any further physical damage.

Then why cant we read it? Crane asked.

Hui looked at him. Because it appears somebody has erased all the data on it.

Erased?

She removed her face mask, shook out her hair, and nodded. Based on the electromagnetic pattern, it seems somebody used a degausser on it.

And this was done after the fire?

Must have been. Asher wouldnt have done it himself.

But why? Crane felt stunned. That makes no sense. For all anybody knew, the laptop was ruined.

I guess somebody wanted to make sure of that.

Slowly, Crane pulled out the other lab stool and sat down. He took off his own mask and dropped it on the table. All of a sudden, he felt very old.

Thats it, then, he said. Now well never know what Asher found.

He sighed. Then he glanced at Hui. What he saw surprised him. She was looking back, a small smile on her face that at any other time he might have termed mischievous.

What is it? he asked.

I still have one or two tricks up my sleeve.

What are you talking about? The hard drives been erased.

Yes. But that doesnt mean the datas gone.

He shook his head. I dont understand.

Its like this. When you erase data on a hard drive, youre really just overwriting that data with random zeros and ones. But you see, when the read/write head writes that new data, it uses only enough signal necessary to set the bit. Thats the way hard drives work: just enough signal, and no more.

Why is that?

To make sure that adjoining bits arent affected. Anyway, because the signal isnt powerful enough to fully saturate the platter, whatever data was previously there is like a ghost going to affect the overall strength of the signal in that location.

Crane looked at her, uncomprehending.

Lets say you have two positions on a hard drive, side by side. The first contains a zero, the second contains a one. Then somebody comes along and overwrites those two positions with two ones. So now we have a one in both positions. But guess what? Because the read/write head uses the bare minimum of signal to write those ones, the position that had a zero in it before has a weaker signal strength than the position that had a one in it.

So the data that was there before affects the new data that overwrites it, Crane said.

Exactly.

And youve got a tool that can resurrect that old, overwritten data?

Hui nodded. It takes an absolute value of the signal and subtracts it from whats actually on the hard disk. That leaves us with a shadow image of what had been there before.

I had no idea that was possible. Crane paused. But wait a minute. The data wasnt overwritten. You said it was degaussed. Demagnetized. How can you restore that?

Whatever kind of degausser was used, it doesnt seem to have been very powerful: probably a hand-held model. Or maybe the person who did this didnt take into account that the platters of the hard disk have a small amount of shielding. Anyway, a light degaussing is the equivalent of overwriting the hard disk two, maybe three times. And my equipment has the capability of restoring data thats been overwritten twice as many times as that.

Crane could only shake his head.

But the process is destructive. Well only have one pass at it and that means well need another hard drive to dump the reconstructed data onto. I trashed mine when I removed the PCB. She glanced at him. Can I borrow yours?

Crane smiled. Seems were going through laptops pretty fast. Sure, Ill get it now.

Ill get the data recovery started. Hui pushed the magnifying glass aside and reached for her tool kit.

You be safe. And Crane turned and quietly left the lab.

Chapter 41

The man calling himself Wallace limped quietly through the maze of passages making up the science facilities of the refitted Storm King oil platform. He moved more quickly than usual: he had only now received a message in his quarters a coded signal, transmitted via low-frequency radio and he had to pass it on to the operative on Deep Storm immediately.

The Tub left in twenty minutes, bound for the ocean floor. If he hurried, he might just make it.

Reaching his office, he turned on the light, then shut and locked the door. The courier bag sat on his desk, ready to be delivered to the Recovery Chamber on the lowest level of the platform. He opened it, rummaged through its contents, then pulled out a CD hand-labeled RADIOGRAPHS 001136001152.

Image files precisely what he needed.

He inserted the CD into his computer, loaded one of the images at random into memory. He removed the CD, placed it back in its jewel case, and returned it to the courier bag. Next, he wrote a short routine that would embed a message into the least significant bits of the pixels of the radiograph image. It was the work of five minutes to type in the computer program and double-check it for bugs.

The man pressed a function key, causing the short routine to execute. A question mark appeared on screen: the routine was requesting input. He carefully typed in the message hed been ordered to relay. Then he paused, finger hovering over the enter key, while he examined the message for accuracy:

IF WORK IS NOT STOPPED

DESTROY FACILITY WITHIN 24 HOURS

Satisfied, he pressed the key. The message disappeared from the screen; there was a brief pause as the program converted the message into its binary equivalent, then hid it within the digital code of the radiograph. A short chirp indicated that the process had been completed successfully.

Wallace smiled.

Opening a drawer, he pulled out a writable CD, slid it into the drive, and instructed the computer to burn a copy of the doctored radiograph. While the machine worked, he sat back in his chair, cleaning his glasses with his shirttail. The image was not large, and within a few minutes the new disk had been burned. He ejected it and quickly powered down the computer, instantly destroying all traces of his work. Pulling a fresh jewel case from the open drawer, he inserted the CD, wrote the recipients name on it with a black marker, then slipped it into the courier bag.

He stood up, slung the bag over his shoulder, glanced at his watch.

Twelve minutes to spare. Excellent.

Unlocking his door, he stepped out, whistling to himself as he made his way to the Recovery Chamber and the waiting Tub.

Chapter 42

Hui Ping sat bolt upright on the lab stool, dropping a screwdriver on the table with a clatter, as Crane crept into the lab.

God! she said. You practically scared me to death.

Sorry.

You took so long. What happened?

I just had to return a few messages, back in my stateroom. Crane didnt bother to mention the ten-minute questioning hed just endured on his way back through the Barrier: two marines who were very eager to discover the location of Dr. Ping. There was no point making her more nervous than she already was.

How are you coming? he asked, stepping forward and placing his laptop on the table.

Hui was laboring over a complex contraption that, to Cranes untrained eye, appeared to be several lab instruments joined by a forest of ribbon cables. In response to his question, she pushed herself away from the table.

Just finished the last test.

Looks like rocket science to me.

It is rocket science. Almost. A magnetometer, chained to an A/D converter, and both in turn slaved to a timecode striper. The whole things capable of making a bit-by-bit copy of Dr. Ashers erased hard drive.

Crane whistled. Trust Asher to fit his labs up properly. What if you didnt have all these cool toys?

The magnetometer is vital. I could do without the rest, but it would take a lot longer. She reached for his laptop, then paused. Im going to have to wipe your hard drive. Sure you dont mind?

Crane shrugged. Go ahead. All my files are on the network, anyway.

Hui booted up his laptop and typed in a series of commands. This may take a few minutes.

A silence settled over the lab while the hard drive trundled.

While retrieving my laptop, I did some thinking, Crane said at last. Whoever degaussed Ashers computer wanted to make ultra sure what Asher discovered remained a secret.

I was thinking the same thing. But that person also didnt want anybody to know he was trashing it.

Precisely my point. Otherwise they could have simply taken a sledgehammer to the laptop.

But who? And why?

The saboteur? Crane said.

Seems unlikely, doesnt it? I dont know his motives, but if I was the saboteur, Id want that data for myself. Hui stood up.

My moneys on Korolis, Crane said.

Whys that?

As far as I can tell, he lied about your presence at Outer Hull Receiving and in the hyperbaric suite. He hesitated. Does your resume mention that internship at the data recovery facility?

Hui nodded.

So he knows about that, too. I dont think he wants anybody learning whats on this laptop.

I hope youre wrong. Hed make a very dangerous enemy. Hui stood up. Were set.

Removing the case from his laptop, she attached the end of a ribbon cable to the hard drive, leaving the power cables connected. Then she powered up the chain of devices, made a few adjustments, and simultaneously engaged switches on the magnetometer and the digital timecode device. A low whirring filled the lab.

How long will this take? Crane asked.

Not long. Apparently, Dr. Asher was like you he did most of his work via dumb terminal on the Facilitys mainframe. I doubt the laptop holds more than his personal e-mail, Internet files, and the work on the codes.

Ten minutes went by in which little was said. Hui monitored the extraction process while Crane puttered around the lab, picking up instruments and replacing them, trying not to grow impatient. At last the whirring noise stopped.