Chapter 28: Intrigues and Intrusions

“I’m serious, Paul, go to work,” Jeryl said. “You’ve been wonderful and supportive, and loving, but you need to go back to work. Besides, it’s not like I lack for help or companionship.”

I smiled and kissed her. “If you’re sure.”

She smiled back. “I am, really.”

We had been home from the hospital for almost three weeks. Jeryl’s mother had been with us the first two weeks. My mom had arrived just over a week ago. Anna had started the week we came home, and Alison was near, constantly checking on her Goddaughter. Mrs. Eccles at least made sure I got some food every once in a while.

“Okay, but I want to know if you change your mind. Nothing is more important to me than you and little Ali.”

“I know. Now, where are you going first?” She had obviously been told by someone of all the requests I had been delaying.

“California, first. I thought I could do without a PA, after Matthew took over manufacturing, but I was mistaken.”

Jeryl laughed. “‘Ya think?’ He kept you organized more than you ever realized. You’re going to have a hard time getting someone to fill his shoes.”

“I know. Anyway, I’ll get that process kicked off and then check on a few things around the Bay Area before heading down to Austin and then over to Atlanta and Gulfstream. Finally, Corning and then Boston to check on some smaller firms that Kelly and Candace want me to talk to.”

“How long will you be gone?” she asked with a frown. “That’s a lot more than I thought.”

I gave her a reassuring kiss. “That’s the nice thing about our partnering with Gulfstream. I’ll be home every weekend, at least. I’m not going to miss our daughter growing up.”

Jeryl stood up and gave me a kiss. “I’m going to hold you to that, lover.”

“Please do.”

The next morning, Sanford was driving me to the airport and a waiting G-400. Two hours later, I was passing out cigars in the office near Stanford.

“I’m glad you decided to finally get back to work,” Kelly teased as I was looking at the stacks of papers on my desk.

“If I had realized there was this much paper waiting for me, I might not have come back. I thought you were sending all the important stuff out to me in Utah.”

Kelly laughed. “I did. This is just the stuff that wasn’t that important. It’s the research papers and regular correspondence and reports.”

“Wow, all of this in a month?”

Kelly nodded.

“I guess really do need to get a new PA.”

“Two of them, most likely,” Matthew said from the door. “I did a lot more work than I ever got credit for.”

I laughed, and said, “I’m pretty sure that title by your door is plenty of credit, Matthew.”

We all laughed. “So do you already have a group of replacement PA’s screened?” I asked.

Matthew nodded and handed me four slim files. “Pick two,” he said. “I think you should have one here, and one on the road with you. You can rotate them if you want, so they both get experience with you.”

I sat down and flipped open the first file. I smiled and opened the second, then the third and fourth. “All ex-military. I think you’re biased, Matthew.”

He laughed. “It worked once. Why fix something that’s not broken? Here’s a fifth file that I almost rejected. I wanted your take on it, though.”

I took the fifth folder from him and opened it.

“Sheryl Conway, formerly of the Air Force Inspector General’s office. That’s interesting.”

Matthew shrugged. “I wasn’t even aware she was getting out of the Air Force until her resume hit my desk.”

“Well, we know she has the clearance for some of the conversations I find myself in on occasion,” I said. I read through her file more closely. “She actually might make a very good PA with this background.”

Kelly walked over and picked up the file. She read it quickly. “She’s got her JD from Penn. I wonder why she went into the Air Force?”

“Make sure you ask her in her interview,” I said.

Kelly nodded and handed the file back. “Okay, I will.”

“Can you go ahead and ask Rose to bring all of these folks in for interviews during the next couple of days? I want at least an hour with each, and I’d like each of you to talk to them as well. Then we can compare notes and decide who is crazy enough to ride herd on me.”

We all laughed.

“What do you think, Sheryl?”

One of my two new Executive Assistants looked up in surprise. She had admitted during the interview process that she thought of herself as a long shot, but still wanted the job. I had decided I could always use a person who wanted to help change the world.

“I think if you build it, half the third-world will want to buy it and weaponize it.”

Several Gulfstream executives mumbled in protest, but I held up my hand.

“Explain why you think that, please,” I said.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’ve got a business jet that is as fast or faster than a modern fighter. Its carrying capacity is just under 30,000 pounds. Someone is going to turn it into a Mach 2 bomber.”

I looked at the plans as various executives began to argue amongst themselves. I finally held up my hand.

“Gentlemen, can we place these cable runs at the belly of the fuselage?” I asked pointing at port and starboard conduits running along the lower flanks of the plane.

“We separate them for redundancy. If they are all in the belly, we create a single point of failure, potentially.”

I nodded. “But if we moved them top and bottom instead of on the sides, no one would dare try to cut and re-route them to make a bomb bay.”

One engineer hopped up and began looking more closely. “That could work. If we make the fuselage ribbing out of the new ceramic compound as well, and route them through custom openings in them, it would be virtually impossible to re-route them after construction.”

“How long to do the re-design?” I asked.

“I’ll have to talk to the team, but with the new CAD programs, it should only take a couple of weeks. Most of the components remain the same, so the build timeline shouldn’t be impacted.”

“We won’t retro-fit the prototype,” one man said. “It’s ready for testing, already.”

Harry spoke up before I could. “And we want the engine performance data before ramping up production anyway, so we don’t want to delay that any.”

I nodded. Rolls-Royce had built the turbojet engines with significant portions cast from CRP-2068, as we had taken to calling the new aerogel based ceramic compound. Jumping straight to the number, implied it was not our first attempt, according to the marketing department.

“So, we continue with the long-lead items in anticipation of moving on to production in the fall?” The new president of Gulfstream asked.

Everyone nodded.

“I believe the meeting is adjourned, then.”

We all stood and were soon headed for our waiting car. Sheryl frowned as we climbed in.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“A sixteen passenger, supersonic business jet is exciting, but a plane like that will fall into the wrong hands sooner or later.”

“At $50 million dollars a pop, I don’t think many people will risk destroying one trying to convert it. Our new ceramic isn’t like aircraft aluminum. You can’t just cut and patch it.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said. “Are you buying one?” she asked after a pause.

I smiled. “Of course. I get the second production plane.”

“Who gets the first?”

“Marketing,” I answered with a smile.

“Paul, Intel is hollering for more graphene. We’re going to have to build another plant to keep up with demand. It’s going to be at least a six month build out. This time, maybe we should quadruple our estimates instead of just doubling them so we can keep pace with the growth.”

“Do we have room at the Austin site?” I asked into the speaker phone on my work table as Donna Miller, my second new assistant, pulled a printout off the printer and joined me.

Donna was a West Point graduate who had finished her commitment to the Army and then been accepted into Wharton for their MBA program. She was blonde haired and blue eyed, of medium height, with a lean, trim build. She still ran three miles a day. We had spent the day going over production updates, prior to our weekly meeting with Matthew.

The printout was Matthew’s production plan and capacity report. I skimmed the numbers, knowing they would tell me the same thing he was reporting.

“Yes, we have room, but I think we should start building down here and then look for another site as well. We’re going to run out of space, and if something were to happen here, we would have zero capacity.”

“Good point. I’ll get someone looking for a new site. Anything in particular you want in it?” I asked.

Matthew laughed over the phone. “Room to grow would be nice. Rail access might be a good idea, as well.”

“Okay, I’ll get some recommendations to you by the end of next week. Anything else we need to discuss?”

“Yeah, we need to have Alison schedule another review down here. We’ve had a few irregularities in the access logs that I’d like someone else to go over.”

“Any reason to think there was a breach?”

“No, just some suspicious activity. One person’s card was deactivated with three access attempts, but they insist they didn’t try to use their card on that door. We’ve had a couple of other incidents. I might just be paranoid, but a lot of people would really like to know how we make the things we make.”

I was nodding. “Okay, I’ll give her a call and get something set up. Anything else?”

“Yeah, are you going to Edwards for the GX-3 tests?”

I looked at Donna, who nodded. “Looks like I am. Why?”

“I was there for the GX-2 tests. I thought I might tag along, if I have the time.”

“Sure. I’ll have Donna or Sheryl send the details.”

“Great. Talk to you later.”

The line was cut off.

“I’ll contact Ms. Wilson’s people and arrange the security review. Who is going to find a new plant location?”

“You and Sheryl can do that. Look in the Atlanta area first. Having production closer to Gulfstream might be good.”

“Should we look in New York, near Corning as well?”

“No. Let’s get another plant up in the south someplace and then assess. If we have rail access, shipping should be easier.”

“Okay. Any other parameters for us?”

“Get options for adjacent parcels, and plan on at least twenty acres to start.”

Donna jotted down notes and then looked up to see if there was anything else. After a moment, she closed the notebook and said, “First cut properties a week from Friday?”

“Yes. What’s next today?”

“Gentlemen, what can I do for my government today?” I asked as I entered our conference room with Kelly behind me. Sheryl was already inside offering the three men in dark suits coffee.

“We’d like to discuss the chips you are selling Cisco for use in their routers,” the middle-aged man with the least pressed suit began.

“And you are?” I sat down across from him, assuming he was the boss of the three.

“I’m Frank Dobbson, with the Department of Justice.”

I nodded and looked at the other two gentlemen, waiting patiently.

Finally, Frank did the introductions. “These are my associates, Caldwell Baker and Fredrick Reynolds. They perform various liaison functions with the department.”

Sheryl arched an eyebrow and gave the slightest shake of her head.

“Anyway,” Dobbson continued, “your government has concerns over the chips you are selling to Cisco and some other telecommunication’s vendors.”

“What sort of concerns?” Kelly asked.

“Under U.S. Export controls, cryptography systems using more than 40 bits for an encryption key are considered munitions and regulated for export. Your chips employ a communications protocol that can encrypt communications with keys up to 128 bits in length.”

I nodded. “They can. They fully implement the Secure Hash Algorithm and Protocol Exchange, or SHAPE as it was defined in a joint paper by myself and Dr. Reis.”

“Why do they need that?” Mr. Baker asked.

“It’s part of the FLO language interface. If you have hardware that tells the world what functions it can perform over a network interface, you have to know that the communications from that hardware are secure and originate with the device or chip you think they do. SHAPE handles that handshake between devices and control systems securely.”

“Wouldn’t 32-bits be sufficient for that?” Mr. Reynolds asked.

“Today, probably, but not in the near future. The IPv4 networking address space only has 2^32 available addresses by design. As soon as that threshold is reached, we’ll need to shift to a larger address space, most likely 2^128, which is what SHAPE was designed and written to support.”

Reynolds nodded. “But surely you could define that limit in software?” he asked.

I realized that he was the technical person on their team. “Yes, but then how do you tell devices to switch to the new protocol at a later date?”

He began to speak and then stopped. He stared at a wall for a moment. Finally, his eyes returned to mine. “Okay, so can you implement the protocol to handle authentication only? Isn’t that what the secure hash function is in place for?”

“Yes and no. The 128-bit hash is used for a low-level handshake across the network. Once the handshake is completed, a session specific random key is assigned and any messages passed between the device and an authenticated peer are encrypted using that session key. Session duration can be specified by message count or time. The protocol default is 1024 message exchanges.”

“And that key length is also 128 bits?”

I nodded.

“Can you reduce the size of the session key?”

“Not without potentially breaking the security of the session.”

“Is there a way to prevent higher level processes from accessing the SHAPE protocol stack on the chip?” He was at least asking logical questions.

“No, not without crippling the security of the overall network, which is my guess at what you actually want to accomplish.”

All three men looked uncomfortable.

I continued, “FLO is designed to coordinate processes across small and large area networks. The messaging function is a feature of the language. If I were to introduce artificial weaknesses into those aspects, it would become useless outside a single integrated system. Its power is going to be realized when complex systems can interact over wide area networks. Only then will re-usable computing power become a reality.”

The men looked uncomfortable. Finally, Dobbson tried to regain control of the exchange. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Taylor. Given what you’ve told us, and what we currently understand, the chips you are selling to Cisco, Intel, and others will be placed on our controlled export list and require further review prior to any export licenses being granted.”

I shrugged. “I guess we’ll be seeing you in court, someday, then.”

“Why do you say that?”

I nodded to Kelly. I knew when I drafted the SHAPE protocol and embedded it into FLO that this day would come.

“We don’t believe that your export controls supersede a U.S. citizen’s right of free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The protocol and programming language you are trying to suppress were first published outside the U.S. of A. Furthermore, the complete source code for the implementation on individual hardware was published by the MIT Press last year and has sold well overseas. Since the hardware you are trying to prevent being exported is functionally identical to that code once it is fed into a computer, from a legal perspective, they are the same. You are trying to prevent the export of protected speech. I’m certain the Supreme Court will listen to the case sooner or later.”

All three men looked very uncomfortable as we ended the meeting. Once they were gone, Kelly and Sheryl cornered me in my office.

“How did you know the NSA would try to stop you?” Sheryl managed to ask first.

“Why do you think I knew they would pull this kind of crap?” I asked as I poured a glass of water and sat down at my desk.

“The General and I wondered why you chose to have your software conferences in Canada for the past two years. I also noted the publication from MIT Press last fall. I could see striking such a deal after they tried to stop you, but planning that far ahead seems...”

“Paranoid? ‘Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you,’” I said. “I’ve had enough run-ins with our government to be a little paranoid. I want FLO implemented in any device that talks to another device. I’m making very generous business terms for just that reason. I was not about to shackle myself to their playing field this time. That’s why the software conference is held outside the States, and why I will continue to publish critical technology briefs internationally.”

“But there is a real risk of your technology falling into the wrong hands and being used against us.”

“A man with a bomb is dangerous. Knowing how to make a bomb is not.”

Kelly interjected, “Sheryl, you can debate this with Paul for hours. He will not budge, believe me. He wants the world to have knowledge and freedoms that we take for granted.”

I gave her a weak smile. “And,” I said, “I have become a little paranoid with regard to our government respecting everyone’s civil rights equally.”

I was in a foul mood when someone breezed into my office without bothering to knock. I looked up from my computer, ready to snarl, and stopped when I saw Jeryl leading an entourage through my door.

She was dressed for the pleasant California weather in tan pants and a black blouse. She was nearly back to her normal, sexy, trim self. Anna, our nurse was behind her with Alison Elizabeth bundled in her arms. I saw our older Alison stop just outside the door, after a quick peek inside. I decided I needed a nickname for one of them, soon, or we would always be confused about which Alison we were discussing.

Jeryl came around my desk and gave me a passionate kiss. I had been home over the weekend, but decided four days away warranted as reunion. I kissed her back and then smiled when she pulled away.

“At least you look happy to see me. I thought you were going to bite my head off when we came through the door,” she said.

I smiled and stood to take Alison from Anna. “I was. Then I saw it was my favorite ladies in the world. Your kiss just made it even better.” I looked down at the bundle of joy in my arms.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what brings you out from Utah on this fine April day?”

I sat down and Jeryl sat on the arm of the chair I was in and began stroking the back of my head as I held our child.

“I decided it was time to get out and about. Alison and Anna agreed. We decided to come to you for the weekend instead of making you fly to us.”

“You’ll have to do some work at the house. We don’t have any baby stuff there.”

“Alison already took care of that. She insisted on having security run errands for us yesterday while you were here. She wants to make certain her Ali-Beth is properly taken care of.”

I chuckled and got a drooling smile from my daughter. Anna handed me a spit towel as I made silly faces to continue entertaining our baby.

“So, Ali-Beth,” I said softly, “Are you enjoying visiting daddy at his office?”

She cooed back at me as her eyes focused on mine. I smiled and then turned and gave Jeryl another kiss.

“You are a wonderful mother, and wife,” I said.

She smiled back. “You’re just trying to butter me up, I think.”

“Oh? For what?”

She playfully slapped my shoulder. “Paul, let’s not discuss that in front of the child,” she teased.

I gave Anna a look. “She’s a nurse. I think she knows how babies get made.”

Jeryl laughed and Anna blushed.

She was a tall, dirty-blonde, who looked awkward in a coltish way when we first met her. She was very competent, but seemed unsure of herself in social situations. Dealing with children and families fighting cancer had taken a toll on her, it seemed. Over the past few months I had learned how to easily make her blush. She and Jeryl had become friends.

“Alison!” I called. She stuck her head in the door. “Why are you hiding out there? Come in and say hello for a bit.”

She came in, looking as professional as ever, and gave me a smile as she saw me holding her namesake.

“I was actually just seeing if Matthew had reviewed my team’s security report. You know you do pay me for security, not just my pretty face?”

I laughed. “Yes, I do, don’t I? How is it looking?”

Anna took Ali-Beth from me as she started fussing and Alison sat down with us.

“Things are still secure, but someone was trying to get in. I’ve got several recommendations for changes so maybe we can catch the person instead of just denying them entry. I wanted to see if Matthew had agreed to them yet.”

“It’s not his call. You’re responsible for security. Make it happen.”

She nodded. “I’ll get the work ordered to begin as soon as possible. I’ll also have a few people visit the Atlanta site to begin looking at security there as well.”

“That’s enough work talk,” Jeryl said. “I’m still on maternity leave. We can get into business in three months when I come back to work.”

“Oh? You’ve decided to come back?”

She smiled. “Well, at least part time. I need to keep my mind busy after all, and it will have to change again, once Ali-Beth begins school. Then I won’t be as mobile as I am now or was before.”

I kissed her hand. “Your counsel has been missed, you know?”

She kissed my cheek and we fell into easy conversation about the expansion and our visit from the DOJ and NSA. I was just thinking about taking them out to lunch when Sheryl came into the office.

She waved at everyone, but had her eyes on me.

“What’s up Sheryl?”

“I just got a call from General Baker. He would like to come over and talk to you privately.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “When?”

“I didn’t know you had guests. He’s on his way now. He should be here in twenty minutes.”

I nodded and Jeryl stood up.

“Honey,” she said. “Why don’t we go over to the house and get settled in while you talk to the General? Then you can come home and we’ll have a late lunch while Ali gets her nap.”

I kissed her and whispered my thanks.

They had only just gotten away from the office when the General arrived. Sheryl escorted him into my office.

“What’s so urgent, General?” I asked after shaking his hand.

“I just wanted you to hear some news before it was on T.V.” he said.

“What news?”

“Earlier today, our time, we carried out a raid on both Iranian and Iraqi forces in the Gulf of Arabia in response to the mine strike on the Samuel B. Roberts last week. It was the first use of four modified B-1’s in conjunction with naval forces in the area.”

“Things went well, I take it?”

“Very well. We just demonstrated force projection like the world wouldn’t believe.” He opened his briefcase and pulled out several photos and a small map. “Our B-1’s took off from Guam and tanked up over the Bay of Bengal. We overflew some of the most sophisticated air defenses outside the Soviet Bloc and did not even get a flutter on their radars. We hit every target on our list and had zero friendly casualties. It was nearly a textbook mission.”

I looked at the photos the Air Force used for bomb damage assessment. They had hit mostly naval targets; docks, naval stores, and ships tied up pier side.

“You can’t see it in the photos, but the Iranian Republic Guard Navy just lost pretty much every boat they had in port. We took out their mine storage and training school as well.”

I nodded. “I’m glad it went well, but why tell me?”

The general smiled and I had a bad feeling in my stomach. “The B-1 was originally designed and built to be a strategic asset, not really configured or used for conventional munitions or missions. When we saw what Lockheed had done, thanks to your material, we re-thought that assumption. Six aircraft were further modified during their refits to handle conventional munitions. Four of those participated in this mission. I want you to understand how valuable your assistance has been to your country.”

I nodded and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“I’d also like to ask you to do a bit of consulting with us on the next round of upgrades to the B-1.”

“Golf-three, control, come left to course zero-two-zero for your acceleration run.”

“This is golf-three, roger. Turning to course zero-two-zero.”

A minute or less later, “Golf-three is steady on course zero-two-zero, angels twenty, over.”

“Chase-one, confirm visual status, over.”

“This is chase-one, golf-three steady on course, all visuals clear, over.”

“Golf-three, this is control. You are cleared for acceleration through Mach one, over.”

“This is golf-three, commencing acceleration.”

Standing in the control room of test operations at Edwards Air Force base once again had a strange sense of deja vu. It had been two years since the crash of GX-2 after it broke Mach one. Now we were waiting to see if GX-3 could improve on that performance.

“This is golf-three, steady at Mach one point one, over.”

“Golf-three, control, call your state.”

“Golf-three is at angels twenty, heading zero-two-zero, speed Mach one point one, all systems green, over.”

“Golf-three, control, continue the test plan, over.”

“Golf-three, roger. Accelerating.”

We held our breaths. Theoretically, there should be no new aerodynamic regimens as the plane accelerated, so the risk was low. Harry looked nervous, however. They had fully tested the new engines, but a maiden flight at Mach two was much different from static tests.

“Control, chase-one, maintaining visual, but golf-three is pulling away, over.”

The T-38 Talon was rated for Mach 1.3.

“Control, chase-two, I have visual on golf-three. Visuals all clear, over.”

The second chase plane was higher and slightly ahead of the GX-3 for this run.

“This is control, roger.”

“Control, gulf-three, speed steady at Mach two point one, all systems green, over.”

“Hurrah!” several people in the control room yelled, most notably Harry. The test director gave us a scolding look, but then broke into a smile.

“Golf-three, control, begin deceleration, over.”

“This is golf-three, roger, over.”

As the plane slowed to subsonic speeds once again, I went over to Harry and the other engineers and shook their hands. Matthew followed suit. I could see the large grin on Sheryl’s face as she watched from one side of the room. We listened to some more of the radio chatter before heading outside to watch the plane land. We managed to keep the champagne in the bottle until our test pilot could join us on the tarmac by the hanger. It was definitely a huge milestone for us all.

That night, Dan Rather’s voice covered film of the successful test flight.

“Today in California, at the U.S. Air Force’s Edwards flight test range, the world’s first private supersonic business jet successfully flew more than twice the speed of sound. The plane is a joint venture between Gulfstream, Rolls-Royce, and PT Innovations.”

The footage shifted to shots of the plane landing smoothly, it’s sleek body, delta wings, and low-slung engine cowlings making it look more like it was leaping off the runway rather than landing.

“The plane is designed to carry up to sixteen passengers at intercontinental distances. Once in service, it should be able to fly from New York to London in under three hours. While regulators insist significant testing remains before it is approved for passenger flights, Gulfstream has announced it will begin accepting orders in September. The list price will be approximately forty million dollars.”

The segment ended with a shot of us popping bottles of champagne and toasting the pilot and plane.

Sheryl and Donna looked at me as I stuffed papers into my well-worn leather case. I had just told them I had a special project for them.

“I want you to find me at least four thousand acres of land to buy. It needs to be west of the Rockies. It needs access to the power grid, even if we’ll have to string lines to get power to a building site. It needs water plus water rights and mineral rights.”

Sheryl looked up from her notes. “Is that all?”

Donna asked, “What’s it for?”

“It’s for a lab, so I’d like to have easy access from here or the house in Utah. We’ll put in a runway, so that will simplify getting to and from, but I suppose we’ll need road access for construction and deliveries and whatnot.”

“Rail access?” Sheryl asked?

“No. It will never be a production site.”

“Why so big then?”

“Security. Peace from any nosy neighbors. Safety in case something goes boom. Take your pick.”

“Okay,” Donna said, obviously thinking I was attempting humor again. “What time frame?”

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