by D S Kane
Still alone, he walked to the exit door leading onto 47th Street. He saw the security camera as he approached it, and pulled his jacket over his head, leaving his eyes peeking through the tiny gap he made. He faced away from the camera as he moved to the door, pushed it open and hurried away down the street.
He’d done it!
He imagined leaving New York, finding some less threatening place, and working there as a banker. It was what he’d planned to do after Lisa and he were married.
But an hour later, after he’d locked the door to his apartment behind him, he found his exuberance unjustified.
The files wanted passwords, and his own didn’t work. He tried other passwords, Mohammad, Muhammad, Allah, Admin, and a litany of more obscure ones often used by systems-security administrators. None worked. He kept trying, making up far-fetched possibilities as panic welled inside him.
It was after 4 a.m. when he gave up, but frustration from his failure to anticipate the need for a working password kept him from falling asleep.
Time was running out.
Chapter Twenty
Sommers’s apartment,177th Street, the Bronx
September 4, 4:13 a.m.
Jon paced the room. The odors of greasy food and garbage from the street outside assaulted him through the open window. He cursed.
There was only one way to fill the missing variable in his plan. Only one choice open to him. One person with the skills to help him. But it was someone who’d rejected him once before.
He pulled a throwaway cell phone from his pants pocket and punched in the number.
A woman answered the phone. Jon had no idea William had a girlfriend. “Get me Wing, please.”
“Call heem tomorrow. We are sleepeenk now.” She terminated the call.
Jon cursed. So, William had a girlfriend. He wondered if this was the reason the hacker wanted to avoid anything dangerous.
Well, tomorrow would have to bloody well do. He undressed and climbed into the ratty bed for a few scant hours of sleep. He remembered Ben-Levy saying no battle plan survived first contact with the enemy. He kept thinking how convoluted his plans got before they failed. Sleep eluded him until his wrist alarm rang.
At noon, Jon left for lunch. Using the counter-surveillance tradecraft procedures he’d learned from Mossad, he walked several blocks and stopped at a small Lebanese restaurant on Second Avenue and 44th Street. Once more he sat in a secluded booth where he felt safe. He ordered a lamb tagine. He scanned the bar’s entrance and the tunnel toward the rest rooms. Soon, he was sure no one had followed him.
He punched the number into his cell. “William, it’s O’Hara. I have a problem. Need a password for several files. Can you help? I’ll pay. The Mossad will send you the money, whatever you want.”
“Really? Yeah. Well, I’ll just charge ten thousand in USD this time, as an intro to the services I like to provide. So, look, FedEx a thumb-drive containing the files to me and I’ll remove the security. In three days you’ll have it back, and if I find anything encrypted, I’ll take care of that too.”
Jon breathed a sigh. “Can’t I download this to you and save us a day?”
“No, you idiot. You do that and every spy agency on the planet will be all over both our asses in a split second. FedEx.”
Jon raked his hair. “At least two days round-trip. There’s no other way?”
“Nope.”
Jon took a deep breath. “Right. Thanks. I’ll have it in your capable hands with tomorrow’s overnight FedEx delivery.” Wing gave him the address of a post office box in the New Territories in Hong Kong.
After he finished lunch, he headed for the East Midtown FedEx. Jon wrote the address of his apartment on a piece of paper and stuffed it into the FedEx box. He shivered with the knowledge that he’d have to continue in his cover assignment until he was sure he had all the intel he needed to end his nightmare.
William opened the envelope and fished a tiny micro-SD chip from the thumb-drive’s housing. He hummed a Kitaro tune from the Silk Road album as he popped the chip into a reader plugged into his desktop computer. Then he viewed details of its files and copied them all to a work directory on his hard drive. When the copy finished, he pulled the chip out. Hmmm. One hundred seventeen files. Sixteen types of encryption, nine of which involve some kind of password. The guy who created this is definitely paranoid. No one needs all that security. Except me.
He ran several programs to raw-read the guts of the files, searching for the passwords encrypted within each. It took several hours before he’d decrypted the files and removed the password protection.
He smiled. “CryptoMonger is the best!” Sealing the envelope, he walked to the local FedEx. He spoke Cantonese. “Please get this out before the last pick up.” The man at the counter nodded. William had made it there just before the cutoff.
But when he returned to his apartment, he was curious about the contents of the files he’d copied. Wing didn’t even think about how dangerous it might be to know what they contained. Since he’d decrypted them, they were now as much his product as O’Hara’s.
At his desk, he opened his copy of the files and read them one-by-one. His eyes bulged at the intel O’Hara had asked him to get. But as he examined their contents with increased focus, he found several pieces of crucial data were missing. Simply not in the files. He called O’Hara and found himself dumped into voice mail. “Michael, the return mail is on its way, but I think you’ll be disappointed. If you want, I can send this to someone who can tell you what’s not there, and how and where you might be able to find the missing pieces. Call me back ASAP.”
When the coffee wagon reached Jon’s floor and staff lined up for a break, he went to the restroom and downloaded email into his cell phone.
There was an email from Wing. He also saw Wing’s voicemail message, and listened to it. “Damn.” There was something else wrong. Jon would have to take a break. He’d need to leave the building and find somewhere safe to talk to the hacker.
But al-Ramen dropped by his desk just before lunch break. “Please rekey these. Errors in the transactions. I marked your corrections. It’s urgent, so skip lunch.” The Arab handed him a stack of paper.
It was after 3 p.m. when he was able to take his next coffee break. He headed onto Park Avenue and walked east at a brisk pace, looking in windows for the reflection of someone who might be following him. After several blocks, he took a deep breath and entered a bookstore. In the men’s room he called Wing.
He heard someone in the stall next to him flush and run the water. Afraid of being overheard, he waited a few seconds until the restroom door opened and closed. “William, it’s me. I got your email and your voice message. What’s it mean?”
“I scanned the contents off the chip. What you want isn’t in those files.”
Jon frowned. “How the bloody hell do you know what I’m looking for?” He realized he’d just shouted.
He heard a sigh on the other end of the line. “I’m not stupid. Want help or not?”
Jon thought for a few seconds. “What kind of help?”
“I know a hacker whose expertise is global banking. One of the best on the planet.”
He thought a bit more. “Right. Well, what’s his name?”
Wing chuckled just loud enough for Jon to hear it. “It’s a her. Betsy the Butterfly. She’ll call you tonight on your cell. After eleven your time. And, this will cost you.”
“How much?”
The silence went on for about twenty seconds. “Thirty thousand USD.”
That much would exhaust his cash. “No. Twenty thousand.”
Wing waited even longer. “Twenty-five. Agreed?”
Jon barked “Yes,” into the phone and terminated the call, wondering, what kind of name is “Betsy the Butterfly?” Leaving the bathroom, he walked back to the office, shaking his head.
The short, rail-thin woman with hollow cheeks and a hawk nose was humming “Fame,” from the movie, while her chicken
-filled Hot Pocket dinner cooked in the microwave. Behind her, a computer’s screensaver depicted a psychedelic butterfly’s flashing wings. Her cell phone buzzed and she removed it from the leather case strapped to her belt.
Betsy “Butterfly” Brown smiled when she heard Wing’s voice. But within seconds, she wondered, what the fuck is wrong with him now? She listened to William and tapped her fingers in rhythm to his words, waiting for a chance to break into his nonstop chatter. Damn, she thought, he must be nervous.
“Anyway, it’s a simple thing. Just examine what he has and listen to what he needs. Tell him how to find the missing data. A simple favor.” Wing spoke so fast the words all jammed together.
“No, Little Wing! I don’t just do favors without knowing what I’m getting myself into. What’s so important, anyway?”
“Butterfly, I have a friend who needs help ASAP. I tried, but banking isn’t my best area of knowledge. Of course, I know tons, but you know more in this one tiny area. Please. I’ll owe you, and you know what that means.”
She scowled, listening to him diss her. Then she thought about the last time he’d requested her help. They hadn’t ever met face-to-face, and that was the last thing she wanted. “Not interested. You already owe me big.”
Wing’s voice went up half an octave. “Crap. You want me to beg? Okay, I’m begging.”
She smiled once again. “Just tell me, oh holy CryptoMonger: Who’s the best hacker on planet Earth? Eh? Say it, damn you!”
She could hear Wing hesitate. Oh, this is going to be good. “Say it or I’m hanging up.”
“Shit. Okay, you are.”
But his tone wasn’t convincing. “Who is?”
“Butterfly is.”
Kick him while he’d down. Make him remember this moment forever! “Is what, you idiot?”
“Okay! Butterfly is the best hacker on Earth. There. Now, will you help me?”
She smiled. “I’ll be your humble servant this time. Twenty thousand USD. When I’m done, I’ll call you back. And you better be sweet on the phone to me, Little Wing. I expect at least a half-hour of your sweet voice guiding me to nirvana.”
The microwave’s bell chimed. But she wasn’t hungry anymore. “Now, for the details. Call me back on a secure Internet phone line. And I’ll want to know everything, Little Wing.” She terminated the call and walked to the microwave. She picked up the Hot Pocket and carried it to her computer, where she initiated a secure link to his own computer.
Brown listened to him describe his friend’s problem and agreed to do his bidding. As she hung up, she remembered the last time they competed in a hacking contest. Wing won, but only because he cheated. Butterfly is the best!
She made the next phone call as instructed. When the voice on the other end picked up, she took a deep breath. “I’m the Butterfly. Wing asked me to call you.”
“Uh, Betsy? Butterfly?” She heard the upscale British accent. No one she knew. Kinda sexy voice though. Sweeter than Little Wing’s.
She nodded to herself. “Yes. Correct. Do you have a throwaway cell?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Good. Give me the number.”
Three minutes later she connected her notebook computer to his cell. “William told me you’re looking for certain bank accounts at the Bank of Trade, and the funds aren’t being electronically transferred in or out. Correct?”
“I’m tracking a series of payments. Ah, large amounts but not electronic. Some kind of book entry. So, yes, that seems to be it in a bloody nutshell. I’ve reviewed the documents William sent back and there’s nothing helpful. What can you tell me?”
She almost smiled. Not a total idiot, he had some banking knowledge. “Here’s what I think is happening. The cash you want to follow is being deposited at a branch somewhere else. Possibly in New York, but not necessarily. More likely in the Middle East. It doesn’t matter where. You can’t hack those cash transactions. Probably large amounts.”
She took a deep breath. Needed to make this simple enough for an idiot to understand. “And from there the funds are being sent with trade transactions as their cover, using letters of credit, cash collateral, or documentary collections. Got it so far?”
The Brit said, “Yeah. Got it.”
She sat at the table in the kitchen. “So, you aren’t seeing them because they’re maintained in off-balance-sheet accounts, sort of like footnotes to the bank’s general ledger. But no details for them in the general ledger. You need to get the transactions from a terminal but not in accounting. In the bank’s trade finance area. A separate computer. Understand?”
The voice on the other side of the line was silent for a while. Then: “Uh, yes. So, I’m not working in the right department. Correct?” He didn’t wait for her to confirm. “Blast the bloody bankers.”
“So sorry, but that’s the path you must travel. Would you like me to send you an email explaining this in enough detail to make it easier?”
“Ah, Betsy. I’d appreciate that. Yes.” He gave her an untraceable hushmail address.
She smiled. “Consider it done.” And with that, she terminated the call. She crafted the email and her forefinger hovered over the send key:
Read this carefully. Your life may depend on not leaving any trace behind. Do your work after the bank empties, and be watchful of security cams and laser alarms. Know where the stairs are, because if you are seen, or if you set off an alarm, it will take minutes at most for security to get to you. Do NOT use the elevators after the workday ends. There will be security cams in those for sure.
Study all the rest of this. Don’t print it. I know it’s dry, but you must know it!
Transfers for terrorism are usually done as internal “on us” transfers between branches of the same bank located in different countries. It’s the safest way to deliver money, since, if done right, no external record of the sender’s identity remains within the bank’s online systems.
To do this, the vendors (arms dealers and governments) and consumers (terrorists) must have accounts at the same bank as the customer who makes the deposit.
The transfer mechanism will always be a cash collateral delivery, a letter of credit, or a documentary collection. These accounts and their “trade finance transactions” are maintained “off balance sheet.” They are recorded on a separate computer system for added protection against government regulators and, of course, hackers. This makes it difficult to trace the money as it flows through the bank from those who fund terrorism to those who buy the tools to do the task.
It works this way: funds transferred for payment of weapons are moved via book entry to the vendor's account without funds ever leaving the bank. Funds moving on and off the trade-finance computer are transferred once a night in a batch run. Non-account-holding terrorists deposit bearer bonds with the bank to fund their transaction. They can also borrow (using their trade-finance collateral) to fund their activities.
Any bank will have its most impenetrable security in this department. The floor may have a door requiring entry of a key-code to maintain security. Find a way to get the code. Once inside the area, look for a single terminal on a raised platform at the back of the area. This will be where the supervisor sits. The terminal is used for approval of any modifications to the transactions, and more important, for load leveling. It is the only terminal with access to all the records. As for passwords to the files, try “Mohammad,” “Allah,” and the name of the supervisor who sits there. If there’s a picture of the supervisor’s family, try their names if you can find them. Also try “admin.” If they don’t work, copy all the encrypted files anyway, and call Wing. He has software to crack most password protection.
Happy hunting,
Butterfly Brown.
She’d made it as plain as possible. Of course, this was a dark art, something most people in banking wouldn’t even know.
Now, as she pressed the Enter key to send out the email, her question was, what would happen to the man she’d spoken to? He’d
sounded to her as if he felt defeated.
She realized he was in a dangerous position. Then her mind drifted into an area that was none of her business. She wondered, what’s at stake here? Could some of that danger rub off on me?
At his first coffee break during the next workday, Sommers crafted a plan. The probability of its working was low, but none of the others he manufactured looked better. He searched the company phone directory Sambol had given him on his first day on the job. Non-credit Financial Services was on the floor beneath his. On his way to lunch an hour later, he stopped the elevator on the fifth floor and took a long, detailed look as the doors opened.
The area Jon sought was behind thick Plexiglas walls. He could see the supervisor for data entry of off-balance-sheet transactions sitting at a Formica desk. Jon saw the supervisor’s terminal serving as the control unit for letters of credit and documentary collections—just where Betsy’s email had stated it would be, along the back wall and elevated by a platform, one foot above the other desks. He walked toward a bookcase and pretended to be searching for a reference text while he watched the keypad until someone used it to enter the secured area. From his viewpoint, he memorized the key sequence.
How does the Butterfly know this, he wondered. Are all banks set up the same way? What if she’s wrong? He reentered the lift just as the elevator doors closed. Jon swallowed hard. There was no way to know. He’d have to risk it.
As he worked through the afternoon, he kept running scenarios through his mind. While he worked, two huge men wearing suits walked the hall for over ten minutes. Jon noticed the bulges in their jackets. Shoulder holsters. He’d heard the bank had an enforcement arm, but he’d assumed it was for delinquent borrowers. The idea that security policed the staff was a new twist on the concept.
At a deliberate pace, he eliminated the plans with obvious flaws. Soon, he’d processed all his ideas and found that none was without a large risk of detection. If his assumption about the heavies prowling the floor was correct, detection meant death.
