Terminal Compromise by Winn Schwartau (ebooks children's books free .txt) 📕

clear, but are you sure? Yes, I am sure. Then I will follow

orders. As ordered. Will we speak again? No, this is your task,

your destiny. The Arab Nation calls upon you now. Do you an-

swer? Yes, I answer. I will perform. We, our army will perform.

“Insha’allah.”

“Yes, God willing.”

Ahmed Shah put his teaching schedule on hold by asking for and

receiving an immediate sabbatical. He then booked and took a

flight to Tokyo three days later.

“I need an army, and I am told you can provide such services for

me. Is that so?” Homosoto asked Ahmed Shah though he already

knew the answer.

Ahmed Shah and Taki Homosoto were meeting in a private palace in

the outskirts of Tokyo. Ahmed wasn’t quite sure to whom it

belonged, but he was following orders and in no way felt in

danger. The grounds were impeccable, a Japanese Versailles. The

weather was cool, but not uncomfortably so. Both men sat under

an arbor that would be graced with cherry blossoms in a few

months. Each carried an air of confidence, an assurity not meant

as arrogance, but rather as an assertion of control, power over

their respective empires.

“How large is you army?” Homosoto knew the answer, but asked

anyway.

“One thousand to the death. Three thousand to extreme pain,

another ten thousand functionaries.” Ahmed Shah said with pride.

Homosoto laughed a convivial Japanese laugh, and lightly slapped

his knees. “Ah, comrade. To the death, so familiar, that is why

you are here, but, I hope that will not be necessary. You see,

this war will be one without bullets.” Homosoto said waiting for

the volatile Arab’s reaction.

This was exactly what Ahmed feared. A spineless war. How could

one afford to wage a war against America and not expect, indeed,

plan for, the death of some troops. There was no Arab transla-

tion for pussy-wimp, but the thought was there.

“How may I be of service?”

“The task is simple. I have need of information, much informa-

tion that will be of extreme embarrassment to the United States.

Their Government operates illegally, their companies control the

country with virtual impunity from law. It is time that they are

tried for their crimes.” Homosoto tailored his words so that his

guest would acquire an enthusiasm similar to his.

“Yes,” Ahmed agreed. “They need to learn a lesson. But, Mr.

Homosoto, how can that be done without weapons? I assume you

want to attack their planes, their businesses, Washington per-

haps?” Ahmed was hopeful for the opportunity to give his loyal

troops the action they desired.

“In a manner of speaking, yes, my friend. We shall strike where

they least expect it, and in a way in which they are totally

unprepared.” Homosoto softened his speech to further his pitch

to gain Ahmed Shah’s trust and unity. “I am well aware of the

types of training that you and your people have gone through.

However, you must be aware, that Japan is the most technically

advanced country in the world, and that we can accomplish things

is a less violent manner, yet still achieve the same goals. We

shall be much more subtle. I assume you have been informed of

that by your superiors.” Homosoto waited for Ahmed’s response.

“As you say, we have been trained to expect, even welcome death

in the struggle against our adversaries. Yet I recognize that a

joint effort may be more fruitful for all of us. It may be a

disappointment to some of my people that they will not be permit-

ted the honor of martyrdom, but they are expected to follow

orders. If they do not comply, they will die without the honor

they crave. They will perform as ordered.”

“Excellent. That is as I hoped.” Homosoto beamed at the de-

veloping understanding. “Let me explain. My people will provide

you with the weapons of this new war, a type of war never before

fought. These are technological weapons that do not kill the

enemy. Better, they expose him for what he is. It will be up to

your army to use these weapons and allow us to launch later

attacks against the Americans.

“There are to be no independent actions or activities. None

without my and your direction and approval. Can you abide by

these conditions?”

“At the request of my Government and Allah, I will be happy to

serve you in your war. Both our goals will be met.” Ahmed

glowed at the opportunity to finally let his people do something

after so much waiting.

Homosoto arose and stood over Ahmed. “We will make a valuable

alliance. To the destruction of America.” He held his water

glass to Ahmed.

Ahmed responded by raising his glass. “To Allah, and the cause!”

They both drank deeply from the Perrier. Homosoto had one more

question.

“If one or more off your men get caught, will they talk?”

“They will not talk.”

“How can you be so sure?” Homosoto inquired naively.

“Because, if they are caught, they will be dead.”

“An excellent solution.”

For the last few weeks the general press and computer media have

been foretelling the destruction to be caused by this year’s

version of the dreaded Columbus Day Virus. AKA Data Crime, the

virus began exploding yesterday and will continue today, depend-

ing upon which version strikes your computer.

With all of the folderall by the TV networks and news channels,

and the reports of anticipated doom for many computers, I expect-

ed to wake up this morning and learn that this paper didn’t get

printed, my train from the suburbs was rerouted to Calcutta and

Manhattan’s traffic lights were out of order. No such luck.

America is up and running.

That doesn’t mean that no one got struck by computer influenza,

though. There are hundreds of reports of widespread damage to

microcomputers everywhere.

The Bala Cynwyd, PA medical center lost several weeks of records.

Credit Card International was struck in Madrid, Spain and can’t

figure out which customers bought what from whom. A few schools

in England don’t know who their students are, and a University in

upstate New York won’t be holding computer classes for a while.

William Murray of the Institute for Public Computing Confidence

in Washington, D.C., downplayed the incident. “We have had re-

ports of several small outbreaks, but we have not heard of any

particularly devastating incidents. It seems that only a few

isolated sites were affected.”

On the other hand, Bethan Fenster from Virus Stoppers in McLean,

Virginia, maintains that the virus damage was much more wide-

spread. She says the outbreaks are worse than reported in the

press. “I personally know of several Fortune 100 companies that

will be spending the next several weeks putting their systems

back in order. Some financial institutions have been nearly shut

down because their computers are inoperable. It’s the worst

(computer) virus outbreak I’ve ever seen.”

Very few companies would confirm that they had been affected by

the Columbus Day Virus. “They won’t talk to you,” Ms. Fenster

said. “If a major company announced publicly that their comput-

ers were down due to criminal activity, there would be a certain

loss of confidence in that company. I understand that they feel

a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to minimize the

effects of this.”

Despite Ms. Fenster’s position, Forsythe Insurance, NorthEast

Airlines, Brocker Financial and the Internal Revenue Service all

admitted that they have had a ‘major’ disruption in their comput-

er services and expect to take two to six weeks to repair the

damage. Nonetheless, several of those companies hit, feel lucky.

“We only lost about a thousand machines,” said Ashley Marie,

senior network manager at Edison Power. “Considering that we

have no means of protecting our computers at all, we could have

been totally put out of business.” She said that despite the

cost to repair the systems, her management feels no need to add

security or protective measures in the future. “They believe

that this was a quirk, a one time deal. They’re wrong,” Ms.

Marie said.

Many small companies that said they have almost been put out of

business because they were struck by the Columbus Day Virus.

“Simply not true,” commented Christopher Angel of the Anti-Virus

Brigade, a vigilante group who professes to have access to pri-

vate information on computer viruses. “Of all of the reports of

downed computers yesterday, less than 10% are from the Data

Crime. Anyone who had any sort of trouble is blaming it on the

virus rather than more common causes like hardware malfunction

and operator error. It is a lot more glamorous to