Tom Clancy – Op Center 3 – Games Of State

“The shading under the curl at the bottom of the scroll is blue, not black. Someone with a background in publishing might have done that out of habit. During color separations, deep blue shadows reproduce richer than blacks. And the molded colors of the vellum, giving it a solid look here”— he touched the still-scrolled section at the top— “is similar to the texture of the deer skin in the forests of the other game.” Nancy sat back. “You’re reaching.” Stoll shook his head. “Of all people, you should know the kinds of flourishes designers put in their games. You probably remember the early days of video games,” Stoll said. “The days when you could tell an Activision game from an Imagic game from an Atari game because of the designers’s touches. Hell, you could even tell a David Crane game from the rest of the games at Activision. Creators left their fingerprints all over the screen.” Nancy said, “I know those early days better than you think, Matt. And I’m telling you Demain isn’t like that. When I program games for Dominique we leave our personal vision at the door. Our job is to pack as many colors and realistic graphics into a game as possible.” Hood said, “That doesn’t mean Demain wasn’t behind the game. Dominique would hardly produce hate games which looked like his regular games.” Nancy said, “But I’ve seen the portfolios of the people who work up there,” she said. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about their graphics. None of them work like this.” “What about outside designers?” Hood said.

“At some point, they’d still have to come through the system,” she said. “Tested, tweaked, downloaded— there are dozens of steps.” “What if the entire process were done outside?” Hood asked.

Stoll snapped his fingers. “That kid Reiner, Hausen’s assistant. He said he designed stereogram programs. He knows computers.” “Right,” said Hood. “Nancy, if someone did design a game on the outside, what’s the fewest number of people who would see the diskettes at Demain?” She said, “First of all, something that dangerous would not come in on diskettes.” “Why not?” Hood asked.

“It would be a smoking gun,” she said. “A timeencoded program on a diskette would be proof in court that Dominique was trafficking in hate games.” “Assuming they didn’t erase it once it was uploaded,” Stoll said.

“They’d keep it until they were sure everything went off as planned,” Nancy said. “That’s how they work here.

Anyway, an outside program like that would have to be modemed to a diskless workstation.” “We’ve got those, Boss,” Stoll said. “They’re used for highly sensitive data which you don’t want copied from the file server— the networked computer— onto a local diskette.” Hood was at the limit of his technical know-how, but he got the gist of what Stoll was saying.

Nancy said, “The only people who have diskless workstations at Demain are vice-presidents who deal with information about new games or business strategies.” Stoll erased the program on his laptop. “Give me the names of some of those high-ups who have the technical chops to process game programs.” Nancy said, “The entire process? Only two of them can do that. Etienne Escarbot and Jean-Michel Horne.” Stoll input the names, sent them off to Op-Center, and asked for a background report. While they waited, Hood addressed something that had been roiling around inside him ever since he’d spoken with Ballon. The Colonel had been less than enthused about Hausen’s participation. He’d called him a headline-grabber.

What if he were worse than that? Hood wondered. He didn’t want to think ill of someone who seemed a good man, but that was part of the job. Asking yourself, What if? And after listening to Hausen talk about his Luftwaffe father he was asking himself, What if Hausen and Dominique weren’t enemies? Hood only had Hausen’s account of what had transpired in Paris twenty-odd years ago. What if the two were working together? Christ, Ballon said that Dominique’s father had made his fortune in Airbus construction.

Airplanes. And Hausen was a goddamned pilot.

Hood carried his thinking a few steps further. What if Reiner had been doing exactly what his boss wanted?

Making Hausen look like a victim of a hate game in order to sucker Op-Center, Ballon, and the German government into an embarrassing incursion? Who would ever attack Dominique a second time if the first assault turned up nothing?

Stoll said, “Aha! We’ve already got some potential rotten apples here. According to Lowell Coffey’s legal files, in 1981 M. Escarbot was charged by a Parisian firm with stealing trade secrets from IBM about a process of displaying bit-mapped graphics. Demain paid to settle that case. And criminal charges were filed and then dropped nineteen years ago against M. Horne. Seems he received a French patent for an advanced four-bit chip which an American company said was stolen from them. Only they couldn’t prove it. They also couldn’t find the person who supposedly ripped off the…” Stoll stopped reading. His white face turned slowly toward Hood, then toward Nancy.

“No,” she said, “there aren’t two Nancy Jo Bosworths.

That was me.” “It’s okay,” Hood said to him. “I knew all about it.” Stoll nodded slowly. He regarded Nancy. “Forgive me,” he said, “but as a software designer m’self, I just have to say that that’s very uncool.” “I know,” Nancy replied.

“That’s enough, Matt,” Hood said sternly.

“Sure,” Stoll said. He sat back, tightened the seatbelt which he’d never unbuckled, and turned around so he could look out the window.

And then Hood thought, Damn everything. Here he was rebuking Stoll when what he should have been doing was wondering about Nancy showing up in the park the way she did. And when he happened to be with Richard Hausen. Was it a coincidence, or could it be that all of them were in this thing with Dominique? He suddenly felt very unsure and very stupid. In the rush of events, in his eagerness to stop Dominique from getting his message and his games to America, Hood had utterly ignored security and caution.

What’s more, he’d allowed his group to be split. His security expert, Bob Herbert, was roaming around the German countryside.

It could be that he was making more of this than there was. His gut told him he was. But his brain told him to try and find out. Before they got to Demain, if possible.

Hood remained beside Stoll while Nancy had returned to her side of the aircraft. She was unhappy and not attempting to hide it. Stoll was disgusted and not trying to hide it either. Only Hood had to keep his feelings to himself, though not for long.

As Elisabeth came on the intercom to announce the final descent into Toulouse, Hood casually borrowed the laptop from Stoll.

“Want me to boot up Solitaire?” Stoll asked, referring to Hood’s favorite computer game.

“No,” Hood said as he switched the machine back on. “I feel like Tetris.” As he spoke, Hood typed a message onto the screen. “Matt,” he wrote, “I don’t want you to say anything. Just put me on-line with Darrell.” Stoll casually touched his nose, leaned over, and entered his password and Op-Center’s number. The disk drive hummed as the prompt said, “Processing.” Stoll sat back when the prompt said, “Ready.” He turned his head toward the window, but kept his eyes on the screen.

Hood typed his personal transmission code in quickly, then wrote: “Darrell: I need every detail you can get an the life of German Deputy Foreign Minister Richard Hausen. Check tax records from 1970s. Looking for employment by Airbus Industrie or by a man named Dupre or Dominique of Toulouse. Also want details of postwar life and activities of Maximillian Hausen of the Luftwaffe. Call me when you have anything. Shoot for 1600 hours EST today at the latest.” Hood sat back. “I suck at this game. What do I do now?” Stoll reached over. He transmitted the E-mail message.

“You want to save any of these games?” “No,” Hood said.

Stoll typed in 🙂 then erased the screen.

“In fact,” Hood said, shutting off the computer, “I want you to take this machine and throw it out the window.” “You should never play video games when you’re tense,” Nancy said. She looked across the cabin at Hood.

“It’s like sports or sex. You’ve got to be loose.” Hood handed Stoll the computer. Then he walked over to Nancy and buckled himself in beside her.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” he said.

“Which ‘this’ do you mean?” she asked. “This little raid or this whole stinking, lousy business?” “The raid,” he said. “I shouldn’t have imposed on our…” He stopped to search for the right word, settled reluctantly on “friendship.” “It’s all right,” Nancy said. “Really it is, Paul. A big part of me is tired of running and of depending on Demain and on the whole expatriate life that you have to be drawn to to enjoy. What was it that Sydney Carton said on the way to the scaffold in A Tale of Two Cities? ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done.’ This is far, far better than the things I’ve done till now.” Hood smiled warmly. He wanted to tell her not to worry about the scaffold. But he couldn’t guarantee her fate any more than he could swear to her allegiance. As the plane landed gently on the soil of France, he only hoped that the worry on her face was for her future and not his.

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