The high point of the weekend was the scare Annette delivered him over Passports. For a minute or two on Friday night, his mind fought through all the possibilities, racing to identify just how badly he'd been caught out.
"I need your passport, tomorrow morning," she'd said idly in the advertisement break in one of their favored TV programs. "Where do you keep it?"
Instantly awake, no longer relaxing, he struggled to keep control of a half-gone gulletful of wine. The only current passport he had now was illegal, in the name of a blissfully unaware neighbour. He thought he’d thrown his previous one away a few months ago when it expired: what had she seen?
Eyes suddenly watering profusely with the suppressed effort, "Where?" he forced through his tortured throat.
"That's what I said, where's it gone?" she explained. "I think I saw it a couple of months ago, in your suit or somewhere, but it's not there now. What's the matter?" she asked suddenly as she saw his freely-flowing tears.
"Throat," he gasped weakly. "Why do you want a passport?"
"So you can come to New Zealand. The Travel Agent asked for passport numbers last Wednesday, and I forgot about it. I'll ring him tomorrow, and - Oh, I need a cheque from you for four-forty dollars; or should I dip into the joint account?"
He had to keep the new passport out of her sight. The name was "different”, but she'd recognise it as the neighbour's, and Heaven knew where that line of discussion would end. Perhaps he'd need to buy his own ticket, travel separately, maybe not go at all, or - there was always that last alternative - bring Annette into the plot right away.
He still wanted very much to keep this a one-person secret until it was done. The risk was dangerous until the funds were in his hands: and one extra person knowing the score was an unnecessary hazard. So it became a question of whether he'd get away with a ticket in one name, and a passport in another. Certainly cause some interest; while he didn't know any of the procedures, it looked like a perilous situation.
Depending on the near-choke as an alibi, he thought on quickly. He couldn't use the passport with safety, but did he have to have one at all?
"Thought there wasn't any passport control between Australia and New Zealand," he whispered, as he allowed his maltreated throat gradually to relax again.
"There wasn't," she agreed, "but now there is. I think you can get into New Zealand alright, but the Australians want to see one on the way back. Anyway, what's the fuss? You have got one, haven't you?"
Of course! That was the answer. For her purposes, he didn't have one.
"No," he answered slowly, still carefully husbanding his aching vocal chords, "I don't know what you saw, but it must have been a while ago. Mine expired months ago, and I just haven’t got to it, it wasn’t a priority. What do we do now?"
"Ouch!" was all Annette could think of for a few moments, the television now unheeded. "You need to get one, quick. Let's see, photos, birth certificate - got a birth certificate? Need the form, that should tell us what else. "We'll get that tomorrow morning. My travel aent in Box Hill can probably rush it through for us. God, you're casual, Less!"
“How was I to know?" he pleaded, and they both settled back uncomfortably to pick up the missing pieces of the documentary on the "box."
At least Annette wasn't sure when she'd seen that other passport - a small blessing.
Next day, they started in one of those coin-in-slot booths, getting the passport photos. He'd found a birth certificate which, as he alone knew, cut about three weeks off the process. They wheedled an application form out of a Caulfield Travel Agent who was, naturally, keen to make the bookings too. Together they scanned the form, he (artlessly, he hoped) produced some old envelopes from his wallet, and they got a verification of his identity from the local Postmaster. Armed with all the necessary paper as ammunition, Annette calmed down noticeably to enjoy the weekend. She would get the Box Hill Travel Agent, only a block up from her workplace in the big shopping centre there, to do all the remaining legwork.
Back at work on Monday, he was busy with Rod McAllister, reviewing Rod's outstanding problems, when Fred Hart interrupted.
"Lester, would you mind dropping whatever you're doing and have a word with me. There's some work you did a couple of months ago is causing some concern in Audit."
"O.K., Fred, give us five minutes here and I'll come catch you," Lester complied. "Leave this one alone, Rod, and I'll do some research on it later today," turning back to McAllister's ruins. "I think you ought to disown the other one. That ought to be sent to the data communications people. The user is complaining about how he gets refused access, but it's happening so early in his sessions I think it's probably just bad line quality. I'd give that theory a try; at least give them a ring, see if it's an isolated complaint."
Rod was grateful for the advice. With those two tasks gone, he was almost on top of his problem list, and relieved of a lot of pressure, he set about getting to work on the next (and last) of his complaints.
By the time Lester reached his office, Fred was finishing a phone call that concerned Lester himself.
"Some people waiting for us upstairs in EDP Audit," he explained. "Let's not keep them waiting."
"Oh?" Lester queried, "what's that all about?"
"They've got some queries about some work of yours. We'd best leave it to AJ to explain," Fred said as they entered the lift.
Once the pair had seated themselves, James explained his current interests. There was a move afoot to create a separate Security position for computer software - with which he was sure they all agreed. In order to speed such a development, James was sharpening up some of the Centre's procedural compliances, and had recently made a disturbing discovery. He'd been working in the tape library, and come across a very sensitive backup tape that had a write-ring installed.
He paused in the narrative, for added effect, and looked meaningfully at the two visitors to underline his point. The write-ring was a small plastic ring that fitted around the hub of a reel of magnetic tape. The tape drive could sense its presence when the reel was mounted on the computer ready for use. When it wasn't installed on the reel, the system would only allow the operator to read information off that tape, so it became a useful safeguard against accidentally writing over the top of valuable information. Snap it in place, and you could read from, or write onto, that tape at will. But this precious backup tape, the man said, had a write-ring fitted. Who would want to write on a backup? Who would be careless enough to allow it to happen by accident, James was obviously thinking?
Careful, Lester warned himself, this was advance warning that his own work was under scrutiny. This could be dangerous!
Having inserted his pause, and waited long enough for the response that didn't come, James started exploring his concerns.
"It could have given us a serious problem, that write-ring on a vital backup tape. Wouldn't you agree?" He looked at Lester.
"Could have done," agreed Lester, feeling he finally had to speak "but I'm afraid our procedures covering that sort of thing are pretty open. We've got too many part-trained operators around to get upset over it."
"I'm not talking about new operators in this case," James corrected. "It looks like this was an oversight by one of our more skilled people."
So it was him! There'd only be one reason for his putting a write-ring on a backup: he wanted to write on the backup. He wanted to alter THAT backup, the payroll deductions disbursement backup. He'd left the damned ring there in his hurry to return the tape before the Librarian got back to the log book.
It began to look like he needed a scapegoat.
"That would be pretty foolish," he began. "Who did it?"
"It looks like you did, Lester," James answered. "That would be a bit disturbing, don't you think?"
"Yes, I suppose it would be," Lester agreed slowly, his mind racing ahead of the conversation. "It's a bit hard to believe, though. I just wonder how sure you are - I think there must be other possibilities."
"It's the tape reel you checked out after that system fault six weeks ago. You reported you checked it, and as far as I can tell there's been nobody else had any reason to use it since. I'm worried about that. What other explanations could there be?"
"Let's think, then," Lester began, still searching desperately for some way to change the subject of the investigation. "No other usage records on it since about six weeks back?"
James wagged his head in a silent negative.
Suddenly, it hit him. Last time he'd taken the tape out, he'd entered Henry Chu's name for it, and used the wrong reel number on his own entry. He was safe: he only needed them to look hard enough at the right records.
"There's a couple of points I need to make, then," Lester continued. "Some operator is likely to do this kind of dumb thing weekly, at least. To prove that, why don't you look at, say, ten backups in the Library - I bet you'll find one or two of ten selected at random have got write-rings. It's wrong, and dangerous, but we've got a lot of careless people here.
"Second thing: we all make mistakes, but I don't think I'd make that one. The Security log won't tell you who used it off-line, that particular reel of tape, but I seem to remember someone else checking it, three or four weeks ago. You can tell when I used it last off the security report. Why don't you use the Library log, to see if somebody else used it later?"
"Do you think it's serious, Lester?" Fred Hart had been silent up to now, possibly out of his depth on procedures in the Operations area, but now he was attempting to get a perspective.
His confidence returning, Lester answered, "It is if I did it, because I know a lot better. But I also know I'm dodging the kind of disaster that could cause, all the time. There's a dozen guys -and girls - are more likely to have done it. If it's not me, it's not very serious: at least I'm not terribly surprised."
"That's all we need, I think, Lester," the audit man said, effectively closing off the conversation. When he had left the office, Alf turned to Fred Hart, and asked, "Well, what do you think?"
"He certainly didn't act guilty," Fred answered thoughtfully. "You going to follow up on his suggestions?"
"I already did one of them," James responded. "I went through a list of 25 backups of financial programs this morning, after I spoke to you. Two of them were out of the Library, probably in use or something - I didn't have time to hunt them down - but another two had write-rings fitted, too. It just underlines what I was afraid of. Somebody's fooling around with the backup programs, and it looks like that somebody is interested in the financial programs. I don't like it!"
"So what about Bayliss?" Hart said.
"He didn't sound guilty to me, either. For one thing, he's done a lousy job of covering his tracks if it was him. I think I'll check the loan register in the tape library, as he suggested. I'll have to talk to the Operations people, too: the way he sees it, we might have potential disasters all over the place."
"Right, then. Let me know if I can help," Hart finished, as he headed back to work a couple of floors down.
Ten minutes' work on the Library loan register gave AJ all the confirmation he needed that his "Golden boy" was not at fault. Henry Chu had had the reel of tape out for a couple of days a month ago. He decided to take his suspicions to Ken Murray after another brief phone discussion with Fred Hart.
At Chu's name, Murray was all ears. Yes, Hart was aware of this development, but nothing was definite, and it was difficult to see how anything could be proved. No, he hadn't had the tape checked, but if something was amiss he sincerely doubted a criminally-inclined employee would leave a change in place for any length of time. More likely, he had checked out the feasibility of a plan on the backup, then put everything back right, maybe to wait for the best opportunity.
This was all theory, Mr Murray must understand, but it encourages him, and he had convinced Mr. Hart, that some kind of closer surveillance on Chu and his work was warranted.
Murray understood, he said, and the meeting was at an end. As the Auditor left, Murray delved back in his notebook, chasing the mentions he had flagged over the last couple of months. Yes, this was the third instance now where Chu's name had been associated with some circumstantially strange situation.
Nothing could be proved.
Nothing was ever proved, he recalled, even after a computer crime had been committed. The law moved too slowly.
He called Fred Hart up for a brief discussion.
"That's what I thought, too," Ken agreed, as Fred muddled with the question of how well Henry Chu could be trusted. "We'll just have to terminate him on the grounds of inadequate performance. In a court of law, we've nothing concrete to offer, but the balance of probabilities doesn't look good. This discussion is to remain between us. However, bear in mind that you may lose that man at very short notice in the next week or two."