Vanowen squinted at him. "How is that possible? I spent forty-seven million dollars on IT last year alone. We were supposed to have the most advanced network security money can buy. You assured me of that. You assured the board of that. That's why we hired you."

"I don't think our systems were breached. Not from the outside. I think it's an inside job."

"Call the FBI."

"We can't do that."

"The hell we can't."

"Understand this, Russ: they can flush our entire network down the toilet with a single keystroke-from just about anywhere in the world. This company is hanging by a thread."

The room got deathly quiet. Still staring, Vanowen spoke with the sort of calm voice that usually precedes violence. "Explain this to me, Garrett."

"It gets much worse."

"Worse? How the hell can it get any worse?"

"Watch." Garrett motioned for Vanowen to follow him.

Vanowen's office was huge, with a double-height ceiling and windows. Several sets of sofas and leather chairs were placed about the room, with a wide plasma-screen television on the far end and a conference table nearby, encircled by chairs. The place was easily a couple thousand square feet.

Vanowen reluctantly got up from his desk and followed Lindhurst to the plasma screen. Lindhurst was already fiddling with a remote he had picked up from the credenza there.

Vanowen settled into a conference table chair. "I'll see that the people behind this go to federal prison for the rest of their lives."

"I don't think so."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll see in a moment." Lindhurst gestured to the plasma screen. "Have you used this video conferencing system yet? It cost seventy thousand dollars."

"Goddamnit, Lindhurst-"

"Okay, look, this system is jacked into our corporate network. I put something out there that I want you to see." Lindhurst used the remote to navigate to an intranet Web page, which filled the screen. "I found an e-mail in my inbox this morning. It was from the system administrator-the newsystem administrator. The person who took my rights away. That e-mail contained a hyperlink-which I copied to this network share." He navigated to another page and clicked a hyperlink. "Here is what I saw…"

Vanowen looked impatiently at the screen.

The seventy-inch plasma monitor suddenly went black and after a few moments a whooshing sound effect escorted a whirling logo into the center of the screen. It was a stylized emblem of the words: Daemon Industries LLC.

A professional-sounding female announcer came on, along with cavorting corporate music. It was like an infomercial or network marketing video. Her voice was cheerful. "Welcome to the Daemon Industries family of companies. In just a moment you'll hear some of the exciting new opportunities available to you in this fast-growing global organization. An organization to which your company now belongs. But first, a word from our founder…"

Vanowen frowned. "Lindhurst-"

"Shh!" He pointed.

The screen faded in on a man in his mid-thirties. He was sitting in a chair next to a fireplace. The chirpy corporate Muzak continued in the background. Words appeared at the bottom of the screen:

Matthew A. Sobol, Ph.D.

Chairman CEO Daemon Industries LLC

Sobol nodded once in dour greeting.

Lindhurst hit the PAUSE button on the remote. Sobol froze in mid-nod. "That's him."

"That's who?" Vanowen squinted at the words on-screen. He turned back to Lindhurst. "Never heard of him. Is this the person who broke into our network?"

"Yes."

"Call the FBI."

"Won't do any good, Russ. Matthew Sobol's dead." Lindhurst handed the rolled magazine to Vanowen.

Vanowen just glanced down at it, then with some reluctance took it. He unrolled it and moved it to arm's length so he could see the cover with his myopic eyes. The same Matthew Sobol was on the cover of the magazine. It was eight months old. The headline read: Murderer From Beyond the Grave."That guy?" Vanowen tossed the magazine onto the nearby conference table. "That was a hoax." He motioned to the plasma screen. "So is this. My kid at USC could probably make this video on his Powerbook."

"Russ, someone managed a coordinated global attack that not only stole rights to our worldwide network, but they did it months ago without raising a single alarm. They didn't leave a trace. Matthew Sobol was one of the few people who could have pulled it off."

"You're frighteningly gullible. Jesus, some hackers got into our network, and they're trying to put one over on you. Call the FBI."

"Russ, no one faked this video. If you listen to him, you'll see what I mean." Lindhurst released the PAUSE button.

Matthew Sobol came back to life on-screen. The infomercial music faded as he finished his nod. "By now you're beginning to realize that you no longer control your network and that your backups are damaged beyond repair. I am now an integral part of your organization-and have been for several months. Let me assure you that your corporate data is safe, and that sufficient backups exist off-site to provide seamless protection in the event of a natural disaster or other calamity.

"Before I continue, let me caution you to watch this video in its entirety before contacting your local or federal authorities. This recording contains important information that may affect your decision to involve those entities in this situation."

A light musical jingle accompanied a twirling inset picture that spun to a stop alongside Sobol's head. It was a video of Sobol's mansion roaring in flames.

Sobol smiled pleasantly. "As you can see, involving the authorities is no guarantee of your safety. Although they would certainly be willing to try again at your location."

The inset video image transitioned to a collection of quivering question marks.

Sobol looked intently into the camera. "But you're probably wondering just how you got yourselves into this situation. To answer that question, surprisingly, we need to go back hundreds of millions of years to the very origins of life on Earth."

The question marks expanded to fill the screen and faded away as the entire screen dissolved to an image of primordial Earth. It was a 3-D computer animation of the ancient seas, teeming with exotic life-razor-toothed fish with whiplike probosces and flitting schools of tiny translucent organisms.s

Vangelis music rose on the surround-sound speakers. Sobol narrated, "Let me tell you the story of the most successful organism of all time: this is the story of the parasite."

On- screen a large, particularly evil-looking fish with twin rows of splayed fangs and a spiked dorsal array glided into view. Just then, a small organism swam for the area just behind the enormous fish's gills, where it latched on, unnoticed. A dozen others followed it and also latched on.

Sobol spoke. "Early on, evolution branched into two distinct paths: independent organisms-those that exist on their own in the natural world-and parasites-organisms that live on other organisms. And it was, by far, the parasites that proved the more successful of the two branches. Today, for every independent organism in nature, there exist three parasites."

The computer animation transitioned from one eon to the next-from amphibian to reptilian to mammalian-with parasites continuing to evolve along with their hosts, infesting some species, driving them to extinction, while other species evolved means to keep them at bay-at least for a time.

"These two strains of evolution have been locked in a primordial arms race, constantly evolving to best each other for supremacy of this planet. As parasites evolve to perfect their systems against a species of host, the host evolves to evade their attack. Scientists call this theory of an eternal genetic struggle the Red Queen Hypothesis-a name taken from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass."