Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗

onto to something that will begin to put several pieces in

place for me. And if I’m right, even a little bit right, holy

shit. I mean, hoooolly shit.”

“Clue me in, man. What’s the skinny. You got Pulitzer eyes.”

Ben tried to keep up with Scott as their pace quickened.

“I gotta make one phone call, for a confirmation. And, if it’s a

yes, then I got, I mean we got one fuckuva story.”

“No, it’s yours man, yours. Just let me keep the blood and guts.

Besides, I don’t even know what you’re talking about, you ain’t

said shit. Keep it. Just keep your promise on the drinks. Ok?”

Scott arrived at Grand Central as the huge clock oppose the giant

Kodak photograph struck four o’clock. He proceeded to track

twenty two where the four-thirteen to Scarsdale and White Plains

was waiting. He walked down to the third car and took a seat

that would only hold two. He was saving it for Ty.

Tyrone Duncan hopped on the crowded train seconds before it left

the station. He dashed down the aisle of the crowded car. There

was only one empty seat. Next to Scott Mason. Scott’s rushed

call gave Ty an excuse to leave work early. It had been one of

those days. Ty collapsed in a sweat on the seat next to Scott.

“Didn’t your mother tell you it’s not polite to keep people

waiting?” Scott made fun of Tyrone.

“Didn’t your mama tell you not to irritate crazy overworked black

dudes who carry a gun?”

Scott took the hint. It was safest to ignore Ty’s diatribe

completely. “I think I got it figured out. Thought you might be

interested.” Scott teased Duncan.

Tyrone turned his head away from Scott. “If you do, I’ll kiss

your bare ass on Broadway. We don’t have shit.” He sounded

disgusted with the performance of his bureau.

Scott puffed up a bit before answering. The pride did not go

unnoticed by Duncan. “I figured out how these guys, these black-

mailers, whoever they are, get their information.” Scott paused

for effect which was not lost on Duncan.

“I don’t care anymore. I’ve been pulled from the case,” Tyrone

said sounding exhausted.

“Well,” Scott smirked. “I think you just might care, anyway.”

Tyrone felt himself Scott putting him into a trap. “What have

you got?”

Scott relished the moment. The answer was so simple. He saw the

anticipation in Tyrone’s face, but they had become friends and

didn’t feel right about prolonging the tension. “Van Eck.”

Duncan was expecting more than a two word answer that was abso-

lutely meaningless to him. “What? What is Van Eck? The ex-

pressway?” He said referring to the New York Expressway that had

been a 14 mile line traffic jam since it opened some 40 years

ago.

“Not Van Wyck, Van Eck. Van Eck Radiation. That’s how they get

the information.”

Duncan was no engineer, and he knew that Scott was proficient in

the discipline. He was sure he had an education coming. “For us

feeble minded simpletons, would you mind explaining? I know

about Van Allen radiation belts, nuclear radiation . . .but ok, I

give. What’s this Van Eck?”

Scott had not meant to humble Tyrone that much. “Sorry. It’s a

pretty arcane branch of engineering, even for techy types. How

much do you know about computers? Electronics?”

“Enough to get into trouble. I can wire a stereo and I know how

to use the computers at the Bureau, but that’s about it. Never

bothered to get inside those monsters. Consider me an idiot.”

“Never, just a novice. It’s lecture time. Computers, I mean

PC’s, the kind on your desk and at home are electronic devices,

that’s no great revelation. As you may know, radio waves are

caused by the motion of electrons, current, down a wire. Ever

heard or seen interference on your TV?”

“Sure. We’ve been down this road before, with your EMP-T bombs.”

Tyrone cringed at the lecture he had received on secret defense

projects.

“Exactly. Interference is caused by other electrical devices

that are running near the radio or TV. Essentially, everything

that runs on electricity emanates a field of energy, an electro-

magnetic field. Well, in TV and radio, an antenna is stuck up in

the air to pick up or ‘hear’ the radio waves. You simply tune it

in to the frequency you want to listen to.”

“I know, like on my car radio. Those are preset, though.”

“Doesn’t matter. They still pick the frequency you want to

listen to. Can you just hold that thought and accept it at face

value?” Scott followed his old teaching techniques. He wanted

to make sure that each and every step of his explanation was

clearly understood before going on to the next. Tyrone acknowl-

edged that while he wasn’t an electronic engineer, he wasn’t

stupid either.

“Good. Well computers are the same. They radiate an electromag-

netic field when they’re in use. If the power is off then

there’s no radiation. Inside the computer there are so many

radiated fields that it looks like garbage, pure noise to an

antenna. Filtering out the information is a bitch. But, you can

easily tune into a monitor.”

“Monitors. You mean computer screens?” Tyrone wanted to clarify

his understanding.

“Monitors, CRT’s, screens, cathode ray tubes, whatever you want

to call them. The inside of most monitors is just like televi-

sion sets. There is an electron beam that writes to the surface

of the screen, the phosphor coated one. That’s what makes the

picture.”

“That’s how a TV works? I always wondered.” Duncan was only half

kidding.

“So, the phosphor coating gets hit with a strong electron beam,

full of high voltage energy, and the phosphor glows, just for a

few milliseconds. Then, the beam comes around again and either

turns it on or leaves it off, depending upon what the picture is

supposed to show. Make sense?”

“That’s why you can go frame to frame on a VCR, isn’t it? Every

second there are actually lots of still pictures that change so

quickly that the eye is fooled into thinking it’s watching mo-

tion. Really, it’s a whole set of photographed being flipped

through quickly.” Duncan picked up the essentials on the first

pass. Scott was visibly impressed.

“Bingo! So this beam is directed around the surface of the screen

about 60 times every second.”

“What moves the beam?” Duncan was following closely.

“You are one perceptive pain in the butt, aren’t you? You nailed

it right on the head.” Scott enjoyed working with bright stu-

dents. Duncan’s smile made his pudgy face appear larger than it

was. “Inside the monitor are what is called deflection coils.

Deflection coils are magnets that tell the beam where to strike

the screen’s surface. One magnet moves the beam horizontally

across the screen from left to right, and the other magnet, the

vertical one, moves the beam from the top to the bottom. Same

way as in a TV.” Scott paused for a moment. He had given simi-

lar descriptions before, and he found it useful to let is audi-

ence have time to create a mental image.

“Sure, that makes sense. So what about this radiation?” Duncan

impatiently asked. He wanted to understand the full picture.

“Well, magnets concentrate lots of electrical energy in a small

place, so they create more intense, or stronger magnetic fields.

Electromagnetic radiation if you will. In this case, the radia-

tion from a computer monitor is called Van Eck radiation, named

after the Dutch electrical engineer who described the phenomena.”

Scott sounded pleased with his Radiation 101 course brief.

Tyrone wasn’t satisfied though. “So how does that explain the

blackmail and the infamous papers you have? And why do I care? I

don’t get it.” The confused look on Tyrone’s face told Scott he

hadn’t successfully tutored his FBI friend.

“It’s just like a radio station. A computer monitor puts out a

distinctive pattern of radio waves from the coils and pixel

radiations from the screen itself, at a comparatively high power.

So, with a little radio tuner, you can pick up the signals on the

computer screen and read them for yourself. It’s the equivalent

of eavesdropping on a computer.”

The stunned grimace on Duncan’s face was all Scott needed to see

to realize that he now had communicated the gist of the technolo-

gy to him.

“Are you telling me,” Tyrone searched for the words and spoke

slowly, “that a computer broadcasts what’s going on inside it?

That anyone can read anyone else’s computer?”

“In a sense yes.”

Tyrone looked out the window as they passed through Yonkers, New

York. He whistled quietly to himself.

“How did you find out? Where did you . . .?” The questions

spewed forth.

“There was a wreak, midtown, and there was a bunch of equipment

in it. Then I checked it out with a couple of . . .engineer

friends who are more up on this than I am. They confirmed it.”

“This stuff was in a van? How far away