ProxyWar

by D S Kane

  Jon chewed on a bun filled with duck skin and hoisin sauce. “If I knew how this stuff tasted before, I’d weigh at least a ton. Can I get this in Manhattan’s Chinatown?”

  “Jon, listen. Please. We’ll need to make a plan, and that’s what you’re best at.”

  Jon stopped chewing. “Crap. Can’t even enjoy lunch.” His eyes drifted to the ceiling. “What’s your objective?”

  Betsy tapped William with her elbow. She stared into Jon’s eyes. “We have to find the person who sent William the infected file. If we can get him or her to let us play with the computer that sent the worm, our mission would be to see if there’s more in that computer on who designed it and how it’s designed. Two sub-objectives then. First, hack a reversal. Second, send a copy to your handlers so they can derive knowledge. Now, if we can’t find the person who started this mess, well, then he or she will still be out there, possibly wreaking havoc on more people. Could be a global nuisance. In that case, we’ll have to backtrace the hacker’s location from Willy’s machine. If it’s even possible, that will take forever, and has a very small potential for solving the problem.”

  William nodded. “Plan?”

  Jon’s eyes drifted down from the ceiling. “First, diagram the backtrace. A logic flow chart. Where there are missing parts, circle that part of the diagram. Do it on my cellphone. It has a stylus, making drawing easy.” He handed the cell to Betsy.

  She opened an app and pulled the stylus from the bottom of the cell. A sketch appeared bit by bit, filling the screen. “Okay. So, we know the hacker lives in the Shanghai area, probably within twenty miles of here. We know the owner of the computer was very close to our current location when the email was sent. We don’t know how many other recipients there were. The hacker’s email address indicates that the name of the hacker was “Chin Ryu.” Possibly a Korean-Chinese hybrid. And we aren’t sure of anything else. Simple, huh?”

  Jon tapped the table for nearly a minute. “First step is to find where Chin Ryu lives and track and stop him or her.”

  William nodded. “There’s the first clinker. Chin hasn’t signed a lease. Probably sublets. So that’s a dead end.”

  Jon tapped the table a few times. “What about other records? Phone company? Utilities?”

  William and Betsy both shook their heads. Betsy said, “The computer he used to send the email has an address that doesn’t exist. Our target must have hacked into the phone company and changed the address, then posted a “payment” record without really paying.”

  Jon frowned. “So you’re at a dead end. Totally.”

  The two nodded.

  “What other things are possible?”

  William said, “Jon, you’re Mossad. Can you request they use their tracking software to retroactively track all traces of Chin Ryu? For us to do this manually would take months.”

  Jon smiled. “Yeah, but it might take a while for my request to draw any attention since I’m inactive now. I have a question. Did either of you look for a bank account?”

  William and Betsy looked at each other, shaking their heads.

  Jon nodded. “That’s where I come in. I’ll get a search started right away. Maybe, within a few hours, we can find out if there was a payment to or from Chin Ryu.” He punched a number into his cell. “Jon Sommers here. I know it’s been over a year. How are you, Fraulein Schlein? I need a favor.”

  * * *

  Gunda Schlein rose from her cubicle desk at Dreitsbank headquarters, at Marienplatz 928, Munich, Germany, as the call terminated. He had vanished from her life almost three years ago. At first, it had been a vast relief. But hearing from him unexpectedly, she felt relief first, and then, anticipation. She saw her smile reflected in the smoked glass wall and took a second to flatten it.

  The evening shift at the bank’s funds transfer repair department was just starting to wind down. In all, it had been a quiet night. She scanned the floor filled with repair stations she commanded, and selected one whose operator was about to go on break. “Morris, I have a special project. Postpone your evening.”

  Morris’s head popped away from his computer screen and turned to face Gunda. “But I have plans—”

  “You have plans to earn double time for a high-priority project.”

  Morris stopped his protest and nodded at his supervisor.

  “Good. Now, here is what I want. Start with a public-level SWIFT antiterrorism text search,” she said, referring to a secure worldwide financial transactions network. “Find any transfers in the last two months for a person named ‘Chin Ryu.’ Report any replies directly to my terminal, but nowhere else. I’ll need all the sending and receiving account and bank details. Do it.” She spun on her heel and walked back to her cubicle. She noticed that her heart was fluttering.

  * * *

  Chow Sang walked along the Bund, carefully looking into window reflections, as if he were shopping, to ensure he hadn’t been followed. It had been years since he last used tradecraft, and his was obviously rusty. He hadn’t seen anyone following him but he did feel someone following him. He turned on his heel and entered a random building where he took the elevator filled with office workers and left at the third door opening on the fifth floor.

  There were still two people on the elevator and they headed on up when Sang got off. He walked down one floor, entered the men’s restroom, and occupied a stall where he waited for twenty minutes, then trekked back down the stairs. He approached the stairwell exit door and scanned the lobby.

  No one waiting, just transient traffic. He exited and moved in shadows toward the building’s entrance. From here he scanned the pedestrian traffic and, one by one, eliminated people who might have been watching for him.

  That’s where he found the man who he was now sure had murdered his lover. A very tall, well-built Caucasian’s eyes were riveted on the stream of people leaving the building.

  Sang pulled his cell from his pocket and snapped off seven photos of the man. Two close-up face shots—one straight-on, one profile—another to show his size relative to others on the street, and four more close-ups: the man’s ears, nose, eyes, and hands. Then he retreated to the back of the lobby and exited the building into the back alleyway that paralleled the street.

  He now feared that he was a loose end, to be hunted and eliminated. His rusty tradecraft instantly felt sharper. He remembered several tradecraft tricks and constructed a mental “to do” list. I have to seek someplace safe. And, to survive, I’ll need allies. A list of countries and their largest cities flew through his mind.

  * * *

  When he saw the curt text message on his cell, Yigdal Ben-Levy was confused. The call-sign wasn’t familiar. It took him nearly two minutes to remember “Cardshark” from the decades long ago when Abel Sommerstein had recruited the man in Africa. Why was this text marked “daylight priority”?

  He decoded the text. The message was short and curt. “Send a courier to Istanbul to meet with me. I have urgent knowledge. I won’t send you the file; am unsure of who I can trust. To reply, use sender name ‘Gargoyle.’”

  Ben-Levy sighed. He was long out of the game, now imprisoned in the “dip” service. For several years, he’d managed to maintain a black ops team in secret, without even the Mossad’s director-in-chief knowing. But he’d made a mistake in one of the more dicey ops, and that ended his team’s charter. There was no way remaining now for him to work a covert op off the books. He decided to decline the request for a courier. Or, maybe better, he could pass the request on to someone he trusted.

  He thought about forwarding the message to someone in Collections, but he had no connections there anymore. There was only one place where he had any pull. Avram Shimmel's group, The Swiftshadow Group. Who might be appropriate? Maybe Misha Kovich, Cassandra Sashakovich’s uncle.

  He forwarded the message to the Drafts folder of the Swiftshadow website’s email function. Nothing more he could do.

  * * *

  “Ah! Gunda has worked her magic
. Chin Ryu received a payment from the Bank of Trade’s Moscow office for one dollar, US.” Jon’s fingers tapped the top of the desk he sat at in his hotel room. “That’s a bank account proof. Three days later, the night he died, Ryu deposited fifty thousand USD in cash into his bank account using the overnight box at Bank of Trade in Shanghai. Ten minutes later, he used his cell to transfer the cash to a man named Chow Sang. Looks like he died right after that. We need to find Sang.”

  William nodded. “Who is Chow Sang?” He keyed commands into his notebook computer. “Uh, Jon, take a look. There is a hard connection between Chow Sang and Chin Ryu.”

  Jon read the screen over William’s shoulder. “Looks like they shared more than money. Chow was paying the rent on Chin’s apartment. Either Chin worked for him or they were lovers.”

  William shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. If Chow can withdraw the cash, he’ll have enough money to stay well hidden.”

  Betsy pushed William out of the seat he’d taken opposite Jon at the desk. “My turn.” She studied the screen, then started keying. Screens flashed by. “Okay. You missed this.” She pointed at the screen. “Both were men. Chow was almost sixty, but Chin was just twenty-six. Chin liked jazz, Chow liked classical. Oh, and here’s a nugget. Chow knew your Mother guy.”

  Jon perked up. “Yigdal Ben-Levy?”

  “Uh-huh.” Her grin had a predatory glow.

  William frowned. “We still don’t know where Chow is. How do we find him?”

  Jon said, “The key is the money. We’ll need to uncover his location by backtracing his transactions. But once he’s withdrawn the cash, we’re screwed.”

  Betsy’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and she hummed as she worked.

  * * *

  It was a long line at the ATM but he’d expected that. Earlier, he’d wired all the cash from Bank of Trade to HSBC, and within the last hour Chow Sang had visited three HSBC branches, extracting the maximum cash from each and grabbing a taxi from each one to the next one. His cell displayed the bank’s map of its Shanghai ATMs and this one was his final stop; he’d have extracted the maximum daily amount of cash. Then he’d use his cellphone to transfer the remaining money to Citibank and begin withdrawals from his account there.

  He assumed his identity was now compromised. His passport, his driver’s license—all tracked by whoever was hunting him. Airports wouldn’t be safe. He’d need to obtain a new identity, then rent a car and drive to another city before he dared fly. Guilin, maybe. When he could safely board a plane, he needed to go to Istanbul, a place he was familiar with, where he could take the next step to ensure his lover hadn’t died in vain. And after that, somewhere else. He could use Dragon Air to fly to Hong Kong. He’d already decided he could disappear in Russia. Moscow. He could drive a cab while he waited for his hunters to either give up or show up.

  As he neared the front of the line to use the ATM, he saw three people approach, a short Caucasian woman and two men, one Asian and the other Caucasian. They seemed to be searching, and Chow’s level of alertness went through the roof. He started slinking away but one of the men caught his arm and brought their heads close.

  “Been looking for you, Sang. We mean you no harm. That is, if you’re willing to help us.”

  Chow sized the man up. British accent. Looked more like a banker than an assassin. “What do you want?”

  “First, to talk.”

  Chow had failed. Maybe they were telling truth. Maybe not and he would now die. He shrugged, and followed the Caucasian, with the two others as a rear guard. “Where?”

  The Caucasian turned his head as he led the way. “Someplace safe and private.” He led them into an alleyway off the Bund and smiled at a man who was obviously the bouncer. “Four, for lunch,” he said. They entered an elevator and rode up four floors. The entryway at Jean Georges wound around the maître’s desk. The dark wood wall panels and dark floor gave off a moody glow from sunlight entering the windows facing the Bund and the river, the only bright light coming into the restaurant.

  In under a minute the four were seated at a table far from anyone else. A waitress wearing a tux appeared, announced herself, handed out menus and left.

  Sang took a deep breath, preparing for his interrogation. He’d tell them anything—lies, truths, half-truths—to leave the restaurant alive. His gaze scanned the three captors, looking for clues as to why they’d followed him. Nothing apparent from their facial expressions. He decided on a direct, more aggressive approach. “Who are you?”

  The Asian spoke. “My name is William Wing, and you sent me an email. CryptoMonger. Remember? Well, the files you sent included one with a worm.”

  * * *

  Sang finished his story. “So sorry. I didn’t know there was a worm in the data I sent you. What does that mean, anyway?”

  Betsy was doing most of the talking when the subject was tech. “It means that whoever murdered your friend now knows about William, and since they had access to his computer, they know about me and Jon and the Mossad. Who else did you send the data to?”

  “An old acquaintance. A man with many names. Some called him Emah. We’d crossed paths decades ago when China and Israel worked together on several ‘projects’ in Africa.”

  Jon whispered, “Mother.”

  Sang’s head jerked. “You know this man?”

  Jon’s head sagged. He barely whispered the words. “He murdered my fiancée.”

  * * *

  “Chin Ryu was my best friend. Decades younger than me and reckless. When we met, he was a good hacker, a white hat. But someone convinced him to steal, told him it would save many lives. I told him not to trust a person who wouldn’t meet him face-to-face, but he didn’t listen. I don’t know what he stole, but he became a gray hat, working to grift trade secrets and pending-product research from corporations. A few weeks ago, he finally got his handler to agree to meet face to face after he’d completed an assignment. I warned him it was dangerous, and told him how to behave to protect himself. My help was not sufficient. Ryu died that night. Yesterday, I saw his body in the Shanghai central morgue and identified him. When I left the morgue, I felt someone following me.”

  “What do you mean, you ‘felt’ someone following you?” Betsy leaned forward across the table.

  Sang’s head sagged. He wiped his eyes. “Once, long ago, I was trained as a covert operative. My ability to know when I was followed kept me alive. Apparently, it still does.”

  Jon pulled his cell from his pocket. “If you’re correct, then we’re probably all being followed now.” He punched a number into the cell and placed it against his ear. “Let me speak with Avram. Tell him it’s Jon Sommers.” In a few seconds he terminated the call. “Avram’s out with his mercs. But I’ve a number to reach them.” Jon entered another number into his cell.

  “Might as well finish lunch.” William nibbled at the foie gras with port cherry sauce. “Never know when we’ll have another meal.”

  * * *

  In the large cargo aircraft, General Avram Shimmel sat among fifty men armed for battle, belted into seats behind a light tank with a 50mm gun. His cell buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it, busy with prayer and meditation before battle. The noise of the airplane would have made talking impossible anyway. On second thought, he plucked the cell from his pocket and scanned the screen. Not important, a potential interruption of the mission. He placed the phone back in his pocket. What can Jon Sommers want, anyway? I haven’t heard from my old friend in almost a year. Maybe after battle I’ll return the call.

  * * *

  “Crap. Voicemail.”

  William tapped Jon’s hand. “Call Cassandra Sashakovich. Maybe she can help us.”

  Jon nodded and handed the cell to William, who punched in the number and handed the phone back to Jon. “Jon Sommers. We met at Swiftshadow a while back. Can I interest you in joining William Wing and me in an adventure?” The answer was short and the call terminated abruptly. “Cassandra Sashakovich is on maternity lea
ve. I’m out of numbers. We’re on our own.”

  Sang reached into his coat pocket and pulled a blank sheet of paper from it. He wrote on the paper and handed it to Jon. “This will help you. Go to the library and find this book. Shanghai Walks by Tess Johnston, published in 1993 by Garden Books Your answers lie within.” He rose from the table. “I’m on my own. Don’t worry, I can handle this.”

  As he turned to leave, Betsy grabbed his coat sleeve. “That’s just plain stupid. Let us help. Where do you want us to take you first?”

  “You’d be more of a choke point than you’d be protection. If you are caught, you’ll be tortured until you tell what you know. Then I’ll have an even longer trail of killers on my trail.”

  Jon nodded. “He’s right. Let him go. Look, we’ll watch your tail until you get a cab, Sang.”

  Sang nodded and left the table as Jon paid the lunch tab. “Thanks. I think I can fend for myself.” He rose and walked toward the elevator.

  * * *

  Major Dmitri Sokol watched from the roof of a low building across the street from the restaurant. He’d assembled the Dragunov sniper rifle and tried to make himself comfortable in the icy wind that swept across his prone body. He knew he’d likely have just one shot before they could scatter; if they couldn’t detect the direction from which the bullet came, he might squeeze a second shot in. There were four of them. Sang was his primary objective, but he’d no idea what Sang had told the two men and the woman with him. He’d need to follow the survivors and terminate them all. He also carried a ceramic handgun. Maybe if the Dragunov wasn’t quick enough, he could follow them and pick them off, one at a time with the 9mm.

  He saw the group as they entered the alleyway from the restaurant. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and sighted through the rifle’s scope.

  They were walking toward the Bund, toward him, making this a ridiculously easy shot. He squeezed the trigger, but as the gun popped, Sang bent over to tie a shoelace. The bullet missed its target by a few inches, but that was enough. Before he could chamber another round, the four were running farther into the alleyway and were out of sight as it curved away from his position. He cursed as he broke apart the Dragunov and packed it away. Sokol hurried down the staircase from the roof, carrying the rifle in its case. As he neared the street, he reached for his ceramic 9mm. At least two blocks behind them, he knew this had gone from an easy task to a more dangerous and difficult one.