Kingdom of Lies

by Kate Fazzini

  “I’m sure you do, sir. If you don’t pay within the next ten minutes, the rate goes up to three hundred Bitcoin. I will text you the details for sending the money to our wallet via WhatsApp. Have a wonderful evening!”

  She hangs up, sweating. She turns around and can see all the hackers on the floor watching her through the glass walls of her office.

  Her phone rings again. She ignores it. It rings again. She ignores it again. “Answer it!” someone yells. She ignores that, too.

  Then a tiny ping from Sig’s office next door. Only audible because of the dead silence. Then Sig’s voice, ringing through the whole office, in German:

  “Oh mein verdammter Gott.”

  Oh my fucking God.

  He clears his throat, steps out of the office, and announces humbly: “Confirmed: 200 Bitcoin deposit.”

  $1.3 million.

  Cheers. Whistles. René has pulled off the largest ransom in company history.

  It is not yet 10 a.m. in Arnica Valka.

  After taking a few moments to celebrate, René retreats to her office and sits down. A scene from her childhood plays on a loop in her mind.

  Her father, a police officer, trying to teach her math at the kitchen table: “You must learn math and then computers. You can be an accountant, a nice office job.” She put her forehead on the kitchen table over her folded arms, trying to ignore him.

  Now she repeats the gesture on her office desk. What would her father, the police officer, think if he knew what she was doing?

  Sig taps on the door and walks in. René looks up.

  “How should we split it?” he asks. “You decide.”

  Typically, everyone in the office gets a piece of the ransom. It is a team effort, and if one goes down, they all go down.

  “Evenly, just like all the others,” she says. “It will keep them from fighting.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. This isn’t going to be the last one, is it?”

  Sig smiles. All of their previous hacks had targeted companies and ransomed institutional data. This is the first time they have gone after a prominent individual. They hadn’t so much deployed ransomware as they had committed blackmail, without the thinly veiled guise of offering cybersecurity services. TechSolu is about to pivot into a much more dangerous and much more lucrative business model.

  * * *

  That night, they go out to one of René’s favorite clubs. She gets everyone cherry ChapStick-flavored cocktails. It’s ’80s night. René twirls with her colleagues to New Order’s “Blue Monday,” Depeche Mode, Prince. Sig sits in a corner, watching, sketching on his napkin.

  He hadn’t expected this. He likes it, that they have brought in so much money. But now there is René, the center of attention. A master criminal after just a few hours of work. With nothing more than a proficiency in PowerPoint and a God-given gift of talking to people she has all of TechSolu’s employees spinning around her like satellites.

  Sig realizes he no longer has control of the situation. He doesn’t like this. He smiles at René, a big, sincere grin. She flashes one back, tipsy as she is, for a beat too long.

  He’s so handsome, she thinks, as a Guns N’ Roses song comes on. “Welcome to the Jungle.” Such a good smile he has.

  Such nice teeth, she thinks.

  Like a vampire.

  10.

  The Medium

  Charlie Mack has been working nights and weekends to prepare for the public disclosure of what happened at NOW Bank.

  When the company was breached and the rumors reached the media, it was a fucking free-for-all. People could talk and talk and talk about what they thought had gone down without knowing a thing. It was the not knowing that led to ridiculous, random speculation. That’s why lawyers are so necessary—because disclosing the truth can dispel all their bullshit in one blow.

  This propensity toward rumormongering was endemic to the field of security, including at Charlie’s previous position at the CIA. Just before coming to NOW Bank, Charlie left his spy job, where he was stationed in Benghazi, Libya. He left right before the deadly attack on the compound there. Charlie Mack knows all about the dangers of speculation.

  In NOW Bank’s case, there are rumors that entire books of asset management clients have been snatched and that the hackers have control of high-speed trading platforms, that they could have taken down the bank or the whole financial sector itself. There are rumors that “they” are Chinese spies, sent in to monitor each and every activity of the bank. Or possibly Russians trying to get the financial information of either enemies or friends of Vladimir Putin. These rumors are mostly ludicrous but, like the best lies, contain a kernel of truth.

  Some of the rumors, Charlie knows, have been spread around to various media contacts by Raykoff himself. In fact, there have been a few laudatory profiles in selected media outlets of the strong and tough military men the bank has hired.

  But the positive coverage hasn’t helped Raykoff. It became apparent to Charlie early in the investigation of the breach that Raykoff couldn’t handle the pressure. He was replaced by Prem, first nominally, then literally, through an organizational shift.

  Raykoff will eventually be moved into a more suitable job doing government relations work. Soon after that, he’ll be reporting to Prem.

  * * *

  But for now, Charlie does what he does best. Saves the world, his world anyway, with intense attention to detail and an encyclopedic knowledge of cybersecurity law. The purpose of the disclosure is to spell out what happened as clearly as possible for the public while maintaining some degree of dignity for the bank. The disclosure will divulge most of the known knowns, a few known unknowns, and virtually no unknown unknowns.

  Most of the latter two categories fall under law enforcement, and those enforcement professionals have the unenviable task of disclosing what must be disclosed to the public while leaving undisclosed the information that the Department of Justice wants to keep for itself to tout its own accomplishments.

  Charlie takes a deep breath.

  The “northern Italians” responsible for Venice are two Israelis and one Russian Israeli. They will be apprehended by the FBI and placed under arrest soon. There is a fourth guy, a mystery man named Tony Belvedere, who has been laundering money through Newark and Manhattan for the trio. This information will be kept under wraps. It is not for the bank to disclose.

  * * *

  The communications team is working alongside Charlie on a disclosure to media. To reaffirm the bank’s commitment to cybersecurity, to maintaining the privacy and integrity of its customers’ accounts.

  It’s Sunday and Charlie is wearing a pink button-down shirt, cargo shorts, and open-toed sandals. He’s just returned from a short vacation to the Caribbean. He’s trim and tan and looks more like a teenager coming back from spring break than a corporate lawyer. He talks in between document reviews to the other two workers who are there, Caroline and Frances, the communications lead.

  Charlie is bored. He loved being a spy. In that job, he got to go to exotic places, do exciting things, know everything before it happened. Before it was disclosed. If it ever was disclosed. Benghazi. Malta. Morocco. Romania. He loves knowing secrets and, even more than that, keeping them. But he’s a dad now with two young daughters. So no more spy stuff. This is as close to his old life as it gets for Charlie. The thrill of knowing a little inside info before it hits the press.

  The fact is that all the rumors are vaguely true, they just aren’t specific to Venice.

  Did Chinese hackers get into the bank to steal all its secrets? Yes, but that was a while ago.

  Are Russians trolling bank networks looking to grab information on Putin’s “friends” and enemies? Sure. Just not in this particular case.

  There are more important questions emerging from this particular breach. Are any of these things a matter of national security? Could the bank hold its own against fully funded international armies? Should it even be expected to?


  The bank’s relationship with its government “partners” is complex. For one thing, its government counterparts don’t have the capabilities to truly help against these bigger, badder enemies, no matter what the various agencies claim. For that, they would need full visibility into bank networks. But the bank does business in many countries, not just this one. Giving the government that visibility would alienate a lot of important customers.

  In addition, many government employees are champing at the bit to get the bank in trouble over other types of violations. It could get them a lot of street cred, a promotion, or, most important, a decent-paying job at one of the big consulting firms. Who knows, maybe some of them actually care about justice. So if the bank brings in a government agency every time there is a problem, the bank is going to get dinged by regulators, slammed by the media, and waste tons of time and money that could be better spent on actual security.

  Everything is complicated. Nothing is straightforward. What Charlie knows best and what he puts more of his faith in than anything else is human intelligence.

  The bank, the entire cybersecurity team—fuck, the entire cybersecurity profession—is relying too heavily on analyzing data. “Big data.” Vast swaths of information streaming into little bank server bottlenecks, parsed by “artificial intelligence” engines, and interpreted into a spreadsheet or PowerPoint by kids two years out of college.

  In Charlie’s experience, this shit is useful for day-to-day problem-solving but meaningless in the long run. It “solves” nothing.

  What does make a difference is the one guy or gal on the ground, in the trenches, doing the crimes or solving the crimes or watching the crimes who can illuminate the real problems and how they might be solved. Who are we dealing with? What motivates them? Everything else is just semantics. Charlie should know. He’s the lawyer.

  That’s what he loves about Caroline. She knows the value of the human element. That’s why she hired so many former spies.

  The disclosure will go like this:

  On August 5, 2014, we discovered a group of criminals had broken into our servers and stolen the personal details, including names, Social Security numbers, addresses and phone numbers of 87 million NOW Bank clients. We are working with law enforcement to investigate this matter and, as a result, cannot fully disclose some details of the investigation.

  There is more to come. But this is good. Nice, straight, and to the point. Filled with crisp, safe known knowns.

  Who was he kidding? People were going to freak out.

  * * *

  By Valentine’s Day 2015 everyone in cybersecurity at NOW Bank is looking for a new job. If they haven’t jumped already. Bonuses get paid out in a few weeks. After that, the real exodus will begin.

  They were all promised sky-high salaries and big bonuses while they went slogging through the pain of Venice. Neither of which came to pass. Many people involved are of the opinion that this is due to Raykoff having pissed off so many people that they are putting the squeeze on him in order to further justify moving him out. Many of them, novices to the inner workings of the bank, have forgotten they work in a cost center. And once you find yourself in a cost center, you’re always in a cost center.

  Raykoff is busy today. He’s meeting some important people. Some of the administrative workers in the SOC are surprised by a knock on the door. It’s a man and a woman, both with earpieces, and another man behind them. They seem important.

  “We’re … looking for Bill Raykoff?” asks the one man without an earpiece.

  The secretary answers. “Yes, he’s upstairs. But I can let you in now.”

  The man is Admiral Michael Rogers, and the people with him are Secret Service agents. He’s in civvies. Rogers is the head of the National Security Agency and Cyber Command, a centralized operations point for all branches of the Armed Forces and other agencies of the Department of Defense. He is there to see the SOC. He seems puzzled.

  The secretary swipes him into the secure room. The door swings open. The SOC workers look up, slightly curious, then back down at their computers. Only one of them, a Navy vet, snaps to attention and salutes. Nobody else knows who Michael Rogers is.

  Frances is now five months pregnant. She walks into the room and waves at Admiral Rogers and his entourage. “Howdy!” she says as she takes a seat.

  Just a few moments before the admiral’s arrival, she received an offer from a consulting firm that will more than double her salary—despite her being five months pregnant. She doesn’t know who Admiral Rogers is and right now she couldn’t care less. Between her house burning down and the breach, it’s been a rough year.

  But getting big offers and aggressive recruiter calls is happening to many of NOW Bank’s security employees. Their phones have been ringing off the hook from recruiters.

  There is now a premium price for the bank’s cybersecurity employees. It’s a seller’s market for their skills. That’s because they worked through Venice and thus have experience working on a complex, public breach, one of the biggest ever. Nobody hiring at other companies blames them for the breach. The top executives take the fall while the cybersecurity pros run.

  Caroline will go to an insurance company, one populated by many of her best dragons who have already flown away. Charlie will stay, not for a lack of offers but because he keeps seeing daylight at NOW Bank as others peel off and everyone realizes he’s one of a kind.

  Prem will rise to the top. He’s already replaced Raykoff and is sitting in his office. A new group will come in under him, and the ties that bind the old guard will wither away.

  Raykoff is getting settled into his new role with a government relations theme. Things must be looking up because several employees visiting his new office have noted an industrial-size bottle of Viagra on his desk.

  * * *

  There are new criminals, too. Charlie is busy drafting an internal policy on how the bank and its executives will respond to ransomware and its rarer cousin cyber-extortion.

  It’s only a draft, though. Ransomers are targeting very discreetly now. He knows that will change once other criminal groups recognize the upside potential in the simple, cost-efficient attack. It’s a new vector; he likes that. The concept, though, of compromising, extorting, and bolting is as old as spies.

  He loves that.

  11.

  The Lovers

  Sig smiles. He has regained control of the situation so he is smiling a lot these days.

  René is at home, his home, the home he bought for them to live in together after a whirlwind romance. She doesn’t come into the office anymore. It’s better that way.

  After her wild, overnight success, the guys at TechSolu started looking up to René in a way that threatened Sig’s oversight of the enterprise. To combat this, he fell in love with her and ensured she did with him. Before she knew it, all her dreams for an exciting, high-profile, interesting life had been fulfilled. She was so star struck. Lovely, too. It was easy, and now she is still working for TechSolu but out of the picture. A perfect solution.

  He has three business propositions he’s considering. The first, something that will later be known as the post-Soviet bank heist, is just a fledgling scam right now. He has to go to Bucharest for the day to learn more about it. He doesn’t like traveling these days. He’s already put spyware on René’s computer, though, and GPS on her phone, so he’ll know what she’s up to or if she leaves.

  * * *

  It is hard for René to believe that just six months ago, she was dancing in a club, celebrating her life as a newly minted millionaire. The phone contacts all over the world, the danger, the deception, demanding extortions from billion-dollar companies, it had been so sexy. That lasted about a week. But now she doesn’t go to the club anymore. She doesn’t even go to work. She got off social media entirely. Left her house and all of her friends. Her mother, who seemed to barely notice, has called her once.

  Only six months, and now René works from home or, rather,
an old farmhouse Sig bought for her and intends to renovate. It’s big and airy and spacious, but she spends most of her time in it alone, in the smallest room in the house. She’s even afraid to step outside some days.

  In the beginning, it was amazing and romantic. Sig praised her endlessly: her ambition, her ability to think on her feet and make use of her meager education and average looks.

  Meager. Average.

  Then he encouraged her to cut ties with her college completely. Then, to work from his new home.

  Or hers. He did say it is hers. That he’d bought it for her. But it is his.

  Her friends couldn’t believe it at first, that she’d settle down so quickly and so young, so he told her to stop talking to them. They are a bad influence, he says.

  He says he wants to marry her, to settle in this spacious suburb in this big country house. But she feels her world has grown quite small. Where once she loved the freedom of being a waitress, and listening to music, and saying hello to her coworkers, and sharing her pictures with friends, all that has been replaced. First by work. Then by Sig. Thinking about him, worrying that he is happy with her, fearing she might do something to make him upset. Sig wants her to be better.

  “Is there something wrong with that? I just want you to be the best.”

  So here she sits, working hard. He loves her. Right? That’s what he says. He monitors her time online so it’s difficult for her to leave. He texts her constantly, and if she doesn’t answer right away, he gets worried. Or angry. Sometimes both. But she doesn’t mind. He is just smitten with her. That’s the word he uses. Smitten.

  So she shrank down to the size of a pea. Even now, she’s curled up in the loveseat, laptop in her lap, voice-over-IP to receive calls from ransom victims right in her chair. The calls come less frequently now. Companies have caught on. TechSolu gained a reputation as a crack operation that can be trusted to release data once it is paid. No need to call customer service.