Zero Day: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

own creativity and determination against that of the hacker. In its own way it was not so different from the most difficult computer games he played except that real stakes were involved here. Knowing that kept Jeff’s excitement tamped down, though he couldn’t resist a mental pat on the back before continuing.
    As a precaution, he set up what was essentially a “virtual” computer that allowed him to examine the virus in operation, but at a much slower pace. The virtual computer behaved exactly like a real one and, to the user, looked like the screen of a real computer displayed in a window on their desktop. But the virtual computer gave Jeff great control over the process since he was able to control execution of the malware, starting and stopping it as needed. In this way, he hoped to be able to unravel the code.
    Next he dropped the code onto the disk as an unencrypted copy of the driver. Completely consumed, he lost all touch with day and night. Even Sue didn’t exist as a person. She vanished from his world, though she sat next to him. He was neither thirsty nor hungry. He felt no discomfort in his body.
    It often seemed to him, during a job like this, that he’d been born for this work, such was his capacity to shut out everything else. For him a computer problem was like solving a brain teaser, and he loved games. He also hated being defeated. The real world could be chaotic and violent and frequently felt, at least to him, to be out of his control. But with work he could understand a computer, even the viruses that attacked them. Success here was clearly defined: when he was finished, the computer either worked or it didn’t.
    Right now his only world was the one on the screens before him.

5
    DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, WASHINGTON, D.C.
    DIVISION OF COUNTER CYBERTERRORISM
    MONDAY, AUGUST 14
    9:51 A.M.
    “I don’t get the connection,” George Carlton said as he leaned back in his chair, eyeing with cautious pleasure the woman seated before him.
    Dr. Daryl Haugen, dressed casually in jeans and a snug blouse, paused before responding. Slender and just over average height, with a fair complexion and blond, shoulder-length hair, she was stunningly attractive. The way Carlton eyed her while pretending he was not was a reaction she’d grown accustomed to as a teenager. A computer science graduate of MIT and thirty-five years old that July, she’d worked hard to be taken for what she was, much more than a pretty bauble on a man’s arm. Men such as Carlton, who acted as though they took her seriously when all they really were interested in was her butt, rubbed her the wrong way. But what she had to get across to him was too important for her to waste time getting angry over his juvenile chauvinism.
    “We’ve come up with eight incidents so far,” she said, leaning forward to emphasize her point. “The most deadly was at a hospital in New York City. The computer glitch there appears to have caused four deaths from misapplied medications. There are similar reports out of several hospitals in other boroughs.”
    “What about these other incidents?” Carlton leafed through the papers as if searching for something specific, then stopped in apparent frustration. “I’ve read your report. Frankly, I don’t see a connection between any of them, and I certainly don’t see a national security issue. As you know, during my tenure here we’ve made significant strides in combating computer viruses, especially when they target government or military computers.”
    Daryl sighed to herself. Not that again, she thought. “I can’t be certain, but it looks like more than one virus. It’s odd, striking like this in so many seemingly unrelated places, and being so deadly.” She wrinkled her brow. “The viruses were also in systems that should have excluded them. We need to understand quickly why they didn’t. We have no idea how many of them are out there, or how they spread. If they’re commonly on the