Chapter 31

Mihail Kogalniceanu Military Air Base, Romania
April 12, 2006, 1600 Local Time

Charles found their project room in the portable office, adequate if somewhat cramped. They had setup their monitoring equipment on a large table in the center of the room. To a causal observer, it would have looked a jumbled mess of computer racks, screens, and cabling. Charles knew everything was carefully labeled for rapid assembly.

Army technicians had helped them connect to the base's communications network, and via satellite back to the rest of the MAADS team in Nevada. Despite Charles' assurances that all their machines were clean, and had never been connected to a public network, the technicians still insisted on setting up a double firewall between their equipment and the network. They told Charles that at the slightest hint of trouble, they would disconnect the MAADS computers.

Charles was not concerned because his people knew they should never connect a computer on a secure network to a public network. As an added precaution, none of the secure machines had exchangeable media - diskettes or CD ROM drives. The only way to load stuff from outside the secure network was through a pair of machines kept in a locked room. It was inconvenient and a source of complaints, but Charles had seen what happens when you breach security rules, and he knew investigators crawling all over your project was a lot more inconvenient.

Charles stood in front of the three screens showing a live image from each of the still functioning MAADS control units. Every ten seconds, the screens switched between visual and infrared. They received both images simultaneously, but didn't have enough screens, and alternating between them was the best solution to monitoring what both images showed. If necessary, they could stop on one of them.

All three screens showed falling snow, with a visibility of less than thirty meters. Snow on the infrared had a mesmerizing quality that Charles found hard to pull his eyes away from.

He glanced at the clock. The live images depended on a satellite overhead that was only available about ten hours out of twelve. They would lose the satellite, and consequently the live images, in thirty minutes time, and be blind to what was happening to all three MAADS systems for almost two hours. It wouldn't affect MAADS autonomous operation, but Charles always worried when they couldn't see what was happening to the deployed systems.

He joined Fiona, who was reviewing the images from the aerial vehicle, monitoring the infiltrators at the river crossing. The rope bridge was complete, and through the snow they could see men crossing the bridge, one at a time. The infiltrators were clearly visible on the infrared image. They stood out as bright red dots against the blue snow-covered background. Some were starting to make their way up the trail leading to the pass containing the destroyed MAADS system.

Fiona said, “I'm going to bring the aerial vehicle down to a level not much higher than the treetops, in order to see through the snow on the visual image.”

Charles asked, “How is the aerial vehicle performing?”

“So far, the aerial vehicle has performed flawlessly.”

Their concern, the mountains would cause data transmission problems, had not so far eventuated, and their software solution to the aerial vehicle losing contact with the network was still untested.

The next twenty hours would be critical. Charles was already tired, and felt he should take the opportunity to sleep, before the night's activity.

Charles' current concern was how the aerial vehicle would perform in the steadily falling snow.

“Fiona, did you ever fly the aerial vehicle in snow?”

“Yes we did, although there are different kinds of snow. When the temperature is around freezing, snow tends to melt and refreeze on metallic surfaces. This is especially true when air is moving over a surface, like the wing of a plane in flight, causing a water-ice mixture to cool through evaporation and form ice.

“Ice accumulation on the wings is the problem that brings planes down because it changes the aerodynamic characteristics of the flight surfaces. Our aerial vehicle's wings are not metallic, and are not prone to ice accumulation, but parts of its body are. Ice accumulation on the vehicle's non-flying surfaces is not a problem until the weight becomes significant, which has never happened with our aerial vehicle, but it could if the vehicle is in a snowstorm long enough.”

Fiona glanced at the screens showing the images from the three MAADS control units, and gasped. Charles looked across to see what had caused her reaction. Two men, one of whom was armed with a rifle, were clearly visible on one of the screens. The image switched to the infrared, and the men’s faces and hands showed bright red against the blue background and the lighter red of their bodies. He could now clearly see the second man had a pistol in his hand. The MAADS control unit should have killed both men, the instant it saw them. Could they possibly be friendlies no one had told them about?

Two hours earlier, Captain Freedman had met the MAADS support team for the first time. Charles would have preferred not to have a crisis as his introduction to MAADS, but he needed to keep the Captain informed.

“Arjay, get Captain Freedman immediately. Tell him it’s an emergency. His number's beside the telephone”

The image of the two men switched back to the visual, and the camera resumed its 360-degree scan.

What on earth was happening? MAADS was not supposed to behave like this. He glanced up at the wall clock. Less than five minutes before they lost the real-time images. Why did this have to happen now? Not only would they no longer be able to see what was happening, they would be unable to issue commands to the MAADS system.

“Richard, get Jennie on the phone. Now! Then come and see this.”

Richard and Jennie were unusually close for software developers, who by the nature of their occupation tended to be individualists. Richard was the spokesperson for the pair, and in almost all situations Richard would speak while Jennie remained silent. However, Richard frequently consulted with her before answering a question. Richard rarely referred to their relationship, but had once remarked to Charles that Jen was a much better coder than he was, not because she was smarter, but because she was a natural. Often Jen would immediately see the solution to a problem that might take him hours to solve through logical analysis.

Even before Richard had finished dialing, Charles had picked up the extension, and was listening to the sound of a phone ringing. A sleepy sounding voice answered. “What?”

“Jennie, this is Charles. We have a problem.”

“What! What is it? Richard are you there?”

“Yes Jen, I'm here.”

“OK, let me have it.”

Charles said, “I want you to go the lab, and review the System D images for the last fifteen minutes, then look at the code, and try to figure out what is happening. You got that Jen, Richard?”

“Yes, Charles.”

Captain Freedman strode into the project room, rearranging his uniform. “I hope you realize my job does not include helping you fix technical or operational problems.”

“Captain Freedman, at least two armed men have approached the System D control unit, and MAADS has not killed them.”

“Why? Is there a malfunction?”

“We don't know, but we are trying to find out right now. Is it possible there are people in the area of System D with Identification, Friend or Foe devices?”

“Not unless there has been the mother of all security breaches.“

Richard interjected, “He's right. The men are not wearing IFFs.”

“I know you can override the control unit, and tell it what to do. Can you tell it to kill these infiltrators?”

“Not directly, but ... ”

Charles looked up at the clock and knew there wasn't enough time before they lost the satellite and consequently the ability to send commands to the MAADS control unit.

“... there isn't enough time. We lose the satellite link in less than a minute.”

“Does this affect the Ranger mission?”

“It might, but we won't know for the next two hours, until the satellite comes back online.”

Captain Freedmen asked, “That’s all?”

“Yes, Captain. That’s all we know at this time.”

Captain Freedman left the room. Charles assumed to report to his superiors.
He was back in less than five minutes.

“I have the following orders for you. The Army Ranger mission is now the overriding priority. You will take all steps necessary to ensure the success of the mission, up to and including, destroying part or all of the MAADS systems should they jeopardize the mission. If anything occurs that poses a risk or threat to the mission, then you will inform me immediately.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Your final order is, you will provide a full briefing to Colonel Saltvitz at 0000 hours, that’s 12:00 midnight. I will stay here until that time.”

Charles recognized Freedman was a by-the-book officer who didn't like surprises.

“There is not much you can do to help, Captain.”

“It's not my job to help, Mr. Corrigan. It’s my job to liaise. That means, I observe, try to understand, and report back to my superiors.”

“Then we will do our best to help you understand.”

“I'd appreciate that, Mr. Corrigan.”

Charles wasn't sure if he detected an element of skepticism in Freedman's tone.

Charles asked, “Richard, what’s happening with the control unit? Why did it fail to identify the two men as targets? We need an answer in the next two hours.”

“Jen is looking at the code right now, and we are talking our way through it.”

“You don't have the source code here?”

“No, I don't. But Jen can tell me what I need to know, and if necessary, I can download the source.”

“As soon as you think you have an answer, tell me.”

“Of course, Charles.”

“Fiona, how much longer can the aerial vehicle stay up?”

“In normal circumstances the aerial vehicle would stay up another two hours before refueling, but it has been doing a lot of elevation changes, which consumes fuel, and we don't known the effect of the snow. With the satellite going offline for two hours, I brought the refueling forward.

It's on its way back to the control unit right now.”

Fiona turned to Charles and he could see the anxiety in her face. “I was worried about the effect the snow is having on its power consumption. Because we can’t read the fuel status remotely, I have to guess at fuel consumption. I was just being cautious. I didn’t want our single aerial vehicle crashing because it ran out of fuel.”

Captain Freedman interjected, “I read in the specification that remote monitoring of fuel levels was a requirement. Why can’t you do it?”

Fiona hesitantly answered, “Mostly, because of weight considerations. Weight is always an issue with anything that flies. That’s why birds, I mean real birds, have hollow bones, to save weight.”

Charles thought, dropping the ability to monitor the aerial vehicle's fuel level remotely had been a significant error. One they would have to rectify in the next version of MAADS, assuming there was a next version.

Charles could see the decisions and compromises he had made for good reasons at the time, combine with unforeseeable events to result in failure at a critical point. Men had breached the control unit’s defenses, the aerial vehicle would arrive early for its refueling because of Fiona’s caution and their inability to read the fuel level, the satellite communications were out, and they didn’t know what was happening, nor could they intervene to stop it. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Charles told himself, there was no point in speculating. He needed to concentrate on what they did know. Charles walked over to Richard who was sitting in front of two laptop computers with earphones and a microphone headset on. He occasionally spoke into the microphone, while alternating his typing between the laptops.

Charles tapped him on the shoulder. Richard looked up, said something into the microphone, and then moved the earphones away from his ears.

“What can you tell me?”

“We're making progress.”

Which Charles knew to be geek-speak for 'We don't know what the problem is, but we are pretty sure we know some of the things it isn't'. He understood troubleshooting software was a process of eliminating possibilities, and in Sherlock Holmes' immortal words 'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'.

Richard said, “What’s that, Jen?”

Richard slipped the earphones back on, and listened for a moment before pulling them back off.

“Jen says she has got the search software vendor's Chief Developer on the phone. We are going to switch to a three-way IM chat session, and he is going to talk us through possible causes.”

“Make sure you don't give him any specifics”

“Of course, I know the drill.”

Alan Jones had convinced them of the benefits of using commercially available software from small vendors. Military R&D projects in the UK had been doing this as a matter of course for several years. The USA in contrast had always built the software for classified projects from scratch. An approach that took longer, cost more, and caused ongoing maintenance headaches.

With small commercial software vendors, they would buy ten or twenty licenses, and immediately become the company's biggest customer. Consequently, they got the special treatment that big customers of small companies always get. They would feed in their requirements and priorities, and usually get what they wanted by the time they wanted it.

Charles glanced up at the wall clock. Less than an hour before the satellite came back online. Charles decided he would do what all managers of technical people should do at times of crisis. He went to get Pizza and Cokes. It also allowed him to avoid Captain Freedman’s questions.

He came back thirty minutes later with microwaved pizza and cans of no-name cola in a bag. He put them down on a small table against the wall, and then went around telling people to get the food while it was hot. People came over, grabbed their pizza and coke, and went back to work.

Charles intercepted Richard who had three pieces of pizza piled on a paper napkin. Without being asked, Richard told him what he wanted to know.

“We might have found the problem. Jen is checking it out right now.” Charles waved Captain Freedman over as Richard took a bite out the topmost piece of pizza.

Charles' assessment to Captain Freeman was more cautious. “We may have made some progress toward finding the problem with the MAADS control unit. Go on, Richard.” The pile of pizza slices stopped halfway to Richard's mouth.

“The search software does a series of range checks on the image components. When the software finds an image it is interested in, like a human body shape or a human head. It checks to see if the image's characteristics fall within certain values defined as the valid ranges for whatever it thinks it has detected. Does it have the right size, shape, etc.? One of the things it checks for is contrast in the infrared range.”

Charles asked, “So, if the contrast is too high or too low, the software concludes the image is not what it's looking for?”

“That’s our theory.”

“Who determined the levels of these settings?”

“Jen and I have never touched them, so they must be the default settings from the vendor.”

“What does the vendor say?”

“They say a person in a snowstorm might produce infrared contrasts outside the predefined valid ranges, but as far as I'm concerned the level of confidence we have on this, is one level above 'we don't know'. Although, Jen seems to think it would explain things, and if anyone should know, it's her.”

Captain Freedman, who had been following Richard's comments intently asked, “Can we test this?”

“Sure! Find me a MAADS control unit and a snowstorm, and I'd be happy to oblige you.”

“Richard, Captain Freedman is just doing his job. Captain, can I have a word with you.”

Both men stepped out of the room and onto the steps below the entrance to the temporary office. Charles said, “I'd like to apologize for Richard's behavior. He is under a lot of pressure, and he doesn't suffer fools gladly at the best of times. Not that I am implying you are a fool.”

“Apology accepted. And I am a fool when it comes to this stuff. Hell, I had to get my ten-year-old daughter to teach me how to use the Internet.”

Charles glimpsed a family man behind the formal and professionally reserved soldier.

“Until the satellite comes back online, we don’t know what has happened at the control unit, and I see no point in speculating. I just wanted to assure you, we will do everything we can to ensure the Colonel gets his surveillance.”

Both men returned to the project room, and Charles anxiously paced the limited space available, waiting for the next fifteen minutes to pass.

Chapter 32