by T. M. Parris
Whatever else Rapp was, she was passionate about the task for all the right reasons.
“Is it directed at the west?” asked Gardner. “I’m just wondering if they’re tied in with Islamic extremists or anyone else who has a problem with western so-called imperialism.”
“We can’t rule it out, but their messages haven’t been political so far. All kinds of people can turn to hacking for all kinds of reasons, but the Fire Sappers brand isn’t about that. It’s more, hey, we’re more clever than you, so pay up! Nothing too idealistic there.”
“So where are they based?” asked Rose.
“That’s exactly what we don’t know. We’ve identified individuals all over the place, although we don’t know who they are in real life. Russia of course, China, India and southern Asia, right across Europe and plenty on home turf. But the uniformity of the attacks, how they’re co-ordinated and their consistency, demonstrate that there’s central control. Someone somewhere is running this show. It’s far from random. Hackers generally are becoming more networked. Some of them sell ransomware software on a franchise basis to other hackers to widen their footprint and increase the number of attacks. Just like a regular franchise, they’ll impose rules about how the software is used and will claim a cut. This group takes it a step further. They co-ordinate their attacks to make them more powerful. The participants are not franchises so much as military units. But we have no idea where to locate their commanding officer.”
“There’s more to that as well,” said Fairchild. “How do they impose discipline? How do they get disparate rebels and criminals the world over to march to their tune?”
“Enforcement,” put in Zack. “Or coercion. They have muscle on the ground.”
Rapp was nodding. “There’s every chance they’re working in league with traditional organised crime. We could try infiltrating mafia groups but we’d need to know where to start.”
“The yakuza is involved here,” said Rose. “I saw one of them tailing one of the hackers.”
“From our point of view, the more people involved the better,” said Rapp. “The more likely we’ll be able to get to them.”
Fairchild could read Rose’s face. Clearly she didn’t think yakuza involvement was a good thing.
“What about the money?” asked Gardner. “Where does it go?”
“They invariably demand Bitcoin, and currently they use an encryption product that prevents anyone from being able to trace where the payments are going. The US government and others are in negotiation with the people running that little outfit to put pressure on them to close it down.”
“So it’s above board, the product?” asked Fairchild.
“It’s not classed as illegal. Loads of crypto investors use it for so-called privacy. Unfortunately, that kind of complete privacy attracts cyber criminals in large number.”
“So if tracing the money isn’t possible, what else are you doing?” asked Rose.
“Identifying the hackers,” said Rapp. “But it’s slow going. It’s virtually impossible to connect an online identity with a real person, unless someone messes up or is outed in some way. We spend a lot of time reviewing code to see if we can spot habits or idiosyncrasies in code writing that might lead back to specific people.”
“Like bomb-makers,” said Gardner. “They have their own traits.”
“Exactly. It helps, but doesn’t give us their physical ID or location.”
“So what’s the Japanese connection?” asked Rose. Fairchild could tell she was getting impatient.
“We found a connection between Fire Sappers and a bunch of Japanese hackers that seem to match up to your group,” said Rapp. “Details about their avatars seem to tally with what you sent. How they look, how they dress. Whoever they are, they’re not pros. A pro would be way more careful than that. For months now we’ve been working in the dark, going round in circles, tying things back to figures in the ether but with no way of connecting them with actual people you can arrest. This is a good break. A weakness in the chain. We need to get right onto these people and use them to take us into the Fire Sappers network.”
“We also need to rescue my brother,” said Rose. “Who’s gone missing. And I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty sure that those Japanese hackers, who are no more than students by the way, must have had some help. Tracking him down half way across Tokyo without the aid of any tech and bundling him off somewhere has mob written all over it.”
“Yes, maybe it would help,” prompted Gardner, “to take everyone through how your brother got caught up in all this. It was rather unfortunate.”
Rose did so. Rapp’s man took detailed notes. Rose took them right up to the current time including James’ email, but glossed over Amy’s theory that Rose (or someone else) was supposed to know what the key was.
“The computing is being done right now,” she said. “They’re systematically working through every possible combination and when they get a hit, we’ll have our location.”
“Do we know when?” asked Rapp.
“No. It could be hours, it could be days.”
“Well, we can use the time to prepare,” said Rapp.
“Yes, what exactly is going to happen when we get the location?” asked Rose.
Rapp stared, as if she’d asked a stupid question. “We will use all possible means to get hold of these people and persuade them to help us.”
“Help us how? They may not know themselves who the Fire Sappers ringleaders are.”
“They’re inside, we know that. They’re in contact with the people we want. We can work with them to utilise that and get the info we need.”
“We don’t even know that the Japanese hackers are with them,” said Rose. “They could be safe at home in Tokyo. It could just be my brother who’s being held by a bunch of thugs.”
“You don’t have these Japanese guys under surveillance?” asked Barclay, the first contribution from him.
“Sorry, old man,” said Gardner. “We don’t have those kinds of resources. Rose here tailed one of them for a while, but once this became about a missing citizen, our priorities changed somewhat.”
“My priorities,” said Rose. “I’m the only resource working on this. It’s James I’m interested in, not the others.”
“I really feel that given the vital importance of a British national in all this, we need a role in planning operations,” said Gardner.
“Of course, Tim,” said Barclay. “We’re all working together on this. We’ll do everything we can to get your man out.”
“Even if he’s the only captive?” asked Rose.
“Sure,” said Barclay.
Rose clearly wasn’t convinced. “Let me make something clear. Whatever the circumstances, my brother is not to be used to try and access this group. Even if he’s the only option. James was caught up in this accidentally. The number one priority of any mission to locate him is to ensure his personal safety. He is not getting involved in any FBI cyber operation. He needs to be on a plane on his way back home to his wife and children. It’s the Japanese hackers you want. Not James.”
“Absolutely,” said Gardner. “This is a rescue mission. An extraction. Once James is out of harm’s way, I’m sure he’ll happily supply you with any information he has about these people.”
“Now, Timothy,” said Barclay. “You can rest assured that we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of your man. But you need to understand that the resources we’re bringing to this are part of a high-priority mission to nail some of the world’s bad guys, people who don’t care who’s about to die in a hospital bed as long as they get their money. These lowlifes are threatening our freedom and way of life, and we will pursue them any way we can.”
Here we go again, thought Fairchild. An ideology waved about to justify how cheaply a single life can be valued. Rose wouldn’t be fooled by any of this. As an agent runner herself, she’d used the same justification often enough. But this was family.
“The priority right now,” Barclay was saying, “is to find these people. We have a possible location from this email. We can also see if these hackers are still in Tokyo. You can help us with where they might be?”
“Sure.” Rose relayed what she saw of them at Yoyogi Park and Mirai’s journey to the Shibuya campus. “And you have their descriptions already. The conference organisers might be persuaded to give up Mirai’s registration details as well.” Rapp and her man took all of this on board. “But we need to plan the rescue together.”
That last comment seemed to fall on deaf ears.
“Who will be running the op on the ground?” asked Fairchild.
“We have our people for that,” said Rapp shortly.
“The reason I ask is that Zack has considerable experience with lightning-fast raids.” Fairchild had been extracted himself in that manner from tricky situations more than once. “He might be a good person to head it up given his liaison role.”
“Happy to,” said Zack. Rose and Gardner nodded. Rose had her moments with Zack but she could see he’d be a better choice than Rapp and her team.
“We have our people for that,” repeated Rapp.
“Good thought, guys, but it isn’t necessary,” said Barclay, weighing in with a shade more diplomacy. “We’re all set up for this. Don’t worry. We’re on the same side here. We make sure your boy is safe then we take it from there. In any case, we’ll need to run this by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and that’s best done as a joint effort.”
“Now, Barclay, can you give me every assurance we’ll be totally in the loop on this?” asked Gardner. “Remember, we’re supplying the intelligence here so we’re very much a part of the team.”
“Of course you are!” Some of Barclay’s bluster was returning. “Want to shake on it?” Come on, we all want what’s best for our people.”
He held out his hand. While Gardner shook, looking dubious, the expression on Rose’s face changed. Her eyes widened but she wasn’t looking at anything. She’d thought of something – but she was keeping it to herself.
The conversation continued, arrangements for follow-up and so on. Rose took no part in it. Fairchild was watching her. At one point she got out her phone, idly tapped something into it then put it away again. People got up, more hand-shaking. Despite the warm words, the overall story was that all intelligence would be passed to Rapp who would then do whatever she liked. The British seemed to have little to bargain with. Unless of course they didn’t pass the information on.
Fairchild got caught in a side conversation with Zack and Barclay. When he broke free, Rose was gone. He went to the door. No sign of her in the street either. But he knew her well enough to have an idea of what was going on.
She’d realised what the key was. She could get the location, and she was going after James herself.
Chapter 26
Rose was on the bullet train before she stopped to draw breath. It was clear how things were panning out in the meeting. The FBI were the only people in the room with any clout, and they were exclusively focused on getting into Fire Sappers. The Americans stopped short of even saying that this was a rescue mission. What they wanted was to use anyone they could to try and gain access to the group. She knew how this game worked and they weren’t going to do it to James.
It was the handshake that did it. Big red-faced CIA man Barclay holding his hand out to Gardner took her right back to a slightly drunken evening years ago, sitting on a grassy bank with James, both of them staring at the sky and putting the world to rights. Then she just had to recall the date. When she had it, she called Amy. But she’d already left the meeting by then. No way was she going to share this. Not straight away.
Amy had called back almost immediately. “Bingo! It checks out perfectly. It’s in a village in the mountains. I can get you to within the block.”
“Best way of getting there in a hurry?”
Amy had that too, bless her. “If you don’t have a helicopter, that would be the bullet train. Then a taxi, probably.”
“Which train?”
Amy offered to send her the details. Rose went back to her hotel room to kit up. A hurried subway journey to Tokyo Station got her on the next train. Only then did she look at her texts. Several from Fairchild. Nothing from anyone else. She called him.
“You know it, don’t you?” he said on answering.
“Where are you?”
“I’m on my own. Everyone’s gone. What was it?”
“It was nothing. Just a conversation I had with him years ago. I’d forgotten about it. But the date checked out.”
“You’re on your way there now, aren’t you?”
She didn’t reply.
“You’re going to have to pass on that information, Rose.”
“But I don’t have to do it now.”
“No.” In that one word she knew he understood perfectly why she was doing this. He’d probably do the same. “I can join you. Zack might, as well, if he can think of an excuse. Are you armed?”
She wasn’t, and was tempted to accept his help. But even in the rush to get the train, she’d thought about this.
“If either of you join me, that scuppers the whole partnership. If it’s just me, I can be dismissed as going rogue for personal reasons. We might still need the FBI. We’ve no idea where this will lead. It’s better if it’s me taking a hit, not the whole arrangement falling apart.”
There was a silence while he thought about it. He wasn’t giving much away.
“What do you think you’ll find there?”
“It’s a house just outside a village, quite remote. I think I’ll find James and some street thugs. Beyond that, no idea.”
“And what’s your plan?”
“Go in and get James out of the picture. After that they can have what they like.”
“But James is the picture. He’s right at the heart of all this, somehow.”
“Well, he won’t be. He’ll be gone, and so will I, and Rapp can scrape up the crumbs and do what she wants with them. No way is she getting her hands on my brother.”
Another pause. The train was gathering speed, rocking slightly as it made its way through the urban sprawl of Greater Tokyo.
“If we want to keep the Americans on board,” said Fairchild, “we have to share this. There’s no way of avoiding it.”
“Give me a head start, Fairchild. Then pass it on. Tell them you only just got it from me.”
“How long do you need?”
She thought. “Three hours.”
“Okay. I’ll give you three hours. If there’s anything more I can do…”
“Sure. Thanks”
She hung up and texted him the location. The Americans would of course find out there was a delay, but it would all come back on her and frankly she’d be happy to argue her corner. Was Rapp a safer custodian than the Japanese mafia? Rose had her doubts.
Outside, they were still passing through industrial hinterland, but further ahead the land started to rise up. Rose went back in her mind to that day, the 10th of May, 1997. It was a Saturday and some kind of family celebration: wedding anniversary, big birthday, something. The weather had been unseasonably hot, like July. There’d been a garden party, trestle tables with sausage rolls and mini onion bhajis and crumbly slices of quiche and awkward conversations with relatives, and warm orange juice, at least for Rose because she was only seventeen. James on the other hand was nineteen and back from university for the occasion, looking more like a man than when he left, though Rose couldn’t have said exactly how. As the gathering started to diminish the two of them wandered out of the garden into the fields at the back where a hollow invisible from the house used to catch the evening sun. They lay on the grass.
“Hope I’m not corrupting you with this,” James had said, pulling a hip flask out of his jacket. “I doubt it, somehow.”
“Hardly.” Rose took a swig. It was pure vodka. The heat of it made her cough. “Gross.”
&nbs
p; “Yes, well, needs must.” He took a generous swig himself. One day Rose would remind him of some of this in front of his children. They chatted about this and that; she didn’t remember it all. She remembered slipping her shoes off, feeling the warm earth under her feet, lying back, the sun in her face, the smell of spring grass, birds singing. James was going on about the internet.
“People could do all their shopping online. All of it, why not?”
“Why would they want to do that? People like going to the shops.”
“Because it’s easier. There could be a lot more choice. Cheaper, cuts out the middleman. It’s going to change the world, Rose.”
“Right. That’s what you’re going to do with your life, is it? Figure out how people can buy dining room chairs and frilly knickers from their couch with the aid of a computer?”
“Well, I could do a lot worse. Now’s the time to get in with some killer app that will change everything.”
“Such as?”
“Hmm. Need more time to think about that. And more vodka.” He took another swig.
“So what are you going to do with your life, Rosie-Posie?”
She leaned across and poked him in the ribs, making him choke all over his hip flask. “Don’t call me that.”
“You made me spill it!”
“It’s your fault. I’m going to travel the world.”
“Ah! Hence the enthusiasm for languages. Yours would take you to France and Russia, anyway, unless you’ve changed your mind again.”
“I haven’t. And lots of places speak French and Russian. Well, French, anyway. People don’t get the importance of languages. They think everyone in the world speaks English, but they don’t. Languages are a key. They unlock doors. They tell you a lot about the people who speak them.”
She didn’t normally take her big brother seriously enough to bother lecturing him, but here he was now, all grown up and away from home while she was still a child.
“Well, that’s true of maths as well,” he said. “It’s a key that unlocks the world.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Well, yes, actually. The way we live our lives is dependent on maths. Everything we do, all human activity is in some way reliant on our understanding of maths.”
