13th September – Judgement Day
Tom Meadowcote stared at the screen of his laptop which was resting on the coffee table in Helen’s front room.
‘I can get trajectory data from Atacama,’ he said, ‘which will give us the guidance data for the missiles. I know the PAL. Has anyone got today’s presidential password?’
‘Not yet,’ said Joan. ‘I’m awaiting a call from Angela in America. When do you need to send the instructions?’
‘Around twelve noon,’ Tom replied, looking at his watch. ‘That’s in three hours.’
‘I take it that you know where the launch base is,’ said Vladimir.
In the haste for Tom to start the process to control the missiles, no one had asked the question that none of us could previously answer.’
‘It’s a virtual base,’ said Tom, removing a piece of folded cardboard from his pocket.
As he placed the card on the table, I could see that it was a menu from the village pub, the Dog and Ferret.
‘Clever,’ said Vladimir.
‘Sam and I set it up by taking control of all the domestic and business computers within a five mile radius. That means that there are always more than enough running for our purposes. Blocks of computers have been configured to undertake the individual tasks required.’
‘You mean that there is no base,’ I said. ‘Hacked local computers do all the tasks that Vladimir set dedicated computers to do at Meadowcote, Northchester and on the Resolution.’
‘That’s right,’ Tom replied. ‘We were always worried that the dedicated bases were too vulnerable. Sam and I decided to tell no one about Waterford so maximum security could be maintained.’
‘Is that why you’ve been uncontactable until today?’ Joan asked.
‘This business is too serious to take any chances,’ Tom replied. ‘In the event of the other bases being compromised, it was best that I did this alone – using the data from Vladimir.
‘When I heard on the news this morning that an alien spacecraft had demolished Northchester Cathedral and abducted two people who had fled the building, I knew that you’d all be coming here, so I contacted Vladimir.’
Vladimir had been looking thoughtful throughout Tom’s explanation. ‘Where’s the hub?’ he asked.
‘At the Dog and Ferret – specifically the restaurant computer,’ Tom replied.
‘Food orders!’ said Vladimir. ‘Brilliant!’
‘I think you’ve lost us again,’ said Helen.
‘There needs to be just one location to transmit the data, and the data needs to be coded in a way that cannot be easily be detected by any bots that WAR might have circulating on the web,’ Vladimir explained. ‘I don’t think anyone has ever thought of using a food order in a restaurant.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ said Helen.
‘I’ve just put the guidance data into the system.’ Tom continued the explanation. ‘The PAL and the presidential password now have to be entered at the correct time. Those can be expressed by a combination of dishes ordered from the Dog and Ferret and entered into their menu computer. For extra security, that entry can only be done by a staff member because the menu computer screen uses fingerprint recognition for each entry.
‘I’ve just tested that system,’ Tom concluded, ‘so I know which dishes on the current menu have to be ordered in order to instigate the launch.’
‘What is for lunch?’ I asked.
Tom tapped the computer keyboard and a noise came from Helen’s printer.
I picked up the printed sheet and read:
‘Table 13;
Two portions of whitebait;
One deep fried camembert;
A soup of the day;
One leek and potato soup;
Two homemade steak and kidney pies;
One vegetable lasagne;
One venison burger;
?????
?????
?????’
‘What do the question marks mean?’ I asked.
‘That’s for the presidential password,’ replied Tom. ‘I hope Angela can get that to us in time.’