The Shadow File (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 4)

by A. C. Fuller

  We didn't stop for dinner, and I was growing hungry as night fell and Seleste turned off the highway after a road sign for Yara.

  Yara turned out to be a small town on the edge of the Parque National de Turquino, where Ursula and Richard planned to disappear for a week after stocking up on provisions. We stopped in front of a three-story building of painted white brick, and, as quickly as they'd come into our lives that morning, Richard and Ursula were gone.

  From Yara, we cut north across the eastern edge of Cuba, through Bayamo and Holguin, arriving at the tiny town of Velasco around ten. We'd made only five stops on the trip. Five stops in sixteen hours of driving, not counting the first four or so, during which I'd been asleep.

  My legs ached as I got out of the car, but I didn't feel too bad because I noticed right away that we were standing outside an Italian restaurant. And the lights were still on.

  Greta noticed, too. "Please tell me we're gonna eat," she said to Delfino.

  "No problem," Seleste said.

  We followed her and Delfino to the door, but they stepped aside when we got there.

  "You're not coming in?" I asked.

  "No, we're going home," Delfino said, his voice tired and even wispier than usual.

  "What about Innerva?" Greta asked.

  "She's inside. And if anyone asks, you're here to see the Casa de Cultura de Velasco," Delfino said, shaking my hand, turning quickly, and walking down the street. I watched him for a few seconds, surprised that he wasn't getting back in the car.

  Two doors from the restaurant, he stepped into a yellow brick building, Seleste close on his heels.

  "Maybe they live here," Greta said.

  Something seemed off about the whole thing, but I didn't know what, and I was too hungry to think of anything other than the smell of garlic and fresh-baked bread wafting out of the restaurant.

  I spotted Innerva from the doorway. She was sitting in an old booth in the corner, her thin shoulders hunched over a laptop as steam from a cup of coffee rose around her. Instead of her usual black turtleneck and matching pants—the only outfit I'd ever seen her in—she wore white shorts and a blue, floral print that almost made me think it was someone posing as Innerva. I'd never imagined that Innerva could look like a tourist.

  But I guess island living grows on a person.

  An old woman flashed us a grin from behind the bar and walked us straight to Innerva's table.

  As we sat, I noticed her rail-thin legs under the table.

  "It's good to see you," Innerva said. "Both of you. Thanks for coming."

  She said it without a smile, and without any real affection in her voice. She looked tired, more tired than I ever remembered her looking. And the last time I'd seen her had been only hours after her husband was gunned down as she listened to it on speakerphone.

  I could tell she'd been through something rough the past few days, and I wanted to ask about it. But I had a hundred other questions as well, and didn't know where to start.

  The old woman tapped on the table with her knuckles. "¿Que quieren ellos?" she asked Innerva.

  "What do you want?" Innerva asked.

  "I speak Spanish," Greta said.

  "How about I order," Innerva said.

  Before we could respond, she'd ordered for all of us in a stream of rapid Spanish. When the woman left, I asked, "What are we doing here?"

  "I could ask you the same thing," Innerva said, holding the cup of coffee up to her face but not drinking. She seemed to be trying to warm her face with the steam.

  "You mean why did we come to Cuba in the first place?" Greta asked.

  "Yes."

  I told her about the letter in detail, which I realized was mostly to show her how convincing the letter was so she wouldn't think I was an idiot for believing it. To my surprise, she didn't even comment on that.

  "That makes sense," she said. "When you showed up here, I knew it had to be something like that. I figured that Amand and his guys would try to get to the people close to me if they figured out I was behind the hack, which I assumed they would."

  "And yet you didn't warn Alex, or do anything to protect him." Greta was clearly annoyed, and I liked it. In my mind, I'd glossed over the fact that Innerva had initiated the ransomware attack without warning me, or taking any precautions to ensure my safety.

  Innerva sighed, and finally sipped her coffee. "I didn't used to drink coffee," she said. "I went ten years without caffeine, and was constantly trying to get James to give up the sodas he drank all the time. After he died…I was willing to do anything to stay motivated, to stay alert, to not give in to the darkness."

  "You're changing the subject," Greta said.

  "You're probably right. I probably should have warned you. But in my mind then, and even now, it's worth sacrificing a few people to bring these people down. They are truly evil."

  "Are all of them evil?" I asked. The ultimate morality of her whole attack was something I was still unsure of, and it wasn't where I'd wanted to start the conversation. But it's where we were.

  "Enough of them are that it renders their whole, decentralized system evil enough to deserve destruction."

  "I don't know about that. Why punish all these companies, all these people, for crimes committed by Amand and his team?"

  Innerva eyed me suspiciously. "They haven't flipped you, have they?"

  "No, no!" I said. "But I'm curious. How do you justify it?"

  Innerva sighed, then looked up at the ceiling and began to speak. "Imagine you're outside a frat house, looking in the windows, but unable to enter the house. Because that's pretty much what I do. I look in windows I'm not supposed to look in, but I usually don't enter the house. Now imagine there are fifty men and fifty women inside, drinking beer, playing darts, some are even watching a movie in a room off to the side. You scan to the top floor of the house, where there are three bedrooms. In each of the bedrooms, a man is raping a woman. The women are screaming in pain. Desperate for help. Calling out in terror. And you can see that, downstairs, some of the men and women are looking up from the TV. They can hear the screams. And a couple guys put down their cups of beer and walk to the bottom of the stairs. They can hear the screams, which are growing louder as they listen. Several women are touching up their makeup in a bathroom. They can hear the screams, too. Remember, you can't enter the house, but you can see it all going down. And no one does anything about it."

  She paused and looked around the restaurant, watching as a group of four old men left their table and walked into the night.

  "Now imagine the next morning, the police find the bodies of the women who were raped under the bleachers of the football stadium. They trace them back to the frat house and, eventually, arrest the killers. Justice is served, the bad guys are put away for life, and everything goes on as before. But remember, you were outside, watching the scene. You know that the people in the house heard the screams and did nothing.

  "Now imagine that not only can you look through windows, but you can smash them and enter the house. Not only watch, but act. What would you do?" She paused to let the question hang in the air, then asked another. "After you'd stopped the rapists, what would you do to the men and women who let it happen?"

  The old woman arrived with a wooden board covered in charcuterie, four kinds of pork, cornichons, and other sorts of pickled vegetables, crackers and mustard. Greta and I dug in and we ate in silence for a few minutes, which gave me time to think.

  I was tempted to get into Innerva's morality play, but more than anything I wanted to know what was going on with the hack, and how she'd ended up in Cuba in the first place.

  Greta was on the same page. "I understand the analogy," she said. "But I'm not sure it's apt. No, let me finish." She held up a hand to keep Innerva from interrupting. "We can debate the morality later, but if you don't tell us what is going on in the next ten minutes, I'm taking Alex and walking out of here, and catching the first plane to the States. Remember, you asked us to co
me here."

  It was an impressive threat, though Greta knew as well as I did that we were on the other side of Cuba now, and neither of us had any idea where the nearest airport was.

  "Fine," Innerva said, "what do you want to know first?"

  I still had a hundred questions, but I decided to start with the one that had just entered my mind. "There's something I've been wondering since you sent us the letter at Casa Remedios. Did you somehow tip off the police about the men who were following us in Havana?"

  "I did."

  "You told them they were mafia members because you thought they'd take the threat more seriously?"

  "Right."

  "Then why didn't they arrest them right away? The police waited for them to grab me, waited until they pulled out a gun on the streets of Havana. Why would they have waited?"

  Innerva offered up a slightly condescending smile. "Alan Gross, a hero of mine, got fifteen years for trying to set up free Internet access here. Internet that would be beyond the government's reach. He only served three because the U.S. arranged a prisoner swap, but still. American tourists have done five to ten years for possessing small amounts of marijuana, although I guess that still happens in the U.S. What I'm saying is that they're not especially fond of Americans coming in and committing crimes in Cuba. Add to that their struggles with the mafia, and how hard it was, historically, to convict anyone, and my guess is that they wanted to wait until they saw a gun. That way, they can put those guys away for life."

  "I doubt it," I said. "Amand and his people have tremendous clout."

  "I know they do, but it's not like in the U.S., where Amand could make a call and get some local sheriff to release a prisoner in two minutes and make the arrest records disappear. It's a lot trickier here."

  "Best guess, are the men who came after us still in prison?"

  "Best guess is that they're still in jail, but that Amand will get them out within months, or maybe weeks. Prisoner swap, outright bribe. Something. But, either way, someone is after us."

  She sounded sure about that. "How do you know?" I asked.

  "I have their systems. All of them. Another group of six of them landed today. Three men and three women. That's why Seleste and Delfino went to such lengths to get you here."

  "You're sure we weren't followed?" Greta asked.

  "Seleste wouldn't have brought you here if you were followed."

  A steaming platter of food arrived, a whole chicken surrounded by roasted vegetables, grilled Italian bread, and cherry tomatoes. The chicken didn't have the massive swollen breasts and thighs I was used to seeing, and I realized I was seeing a natural chicken, something hormones had long since eliminated in the U.S.

  "This looks delicious," I said, and I wasn't being polite. The smell was making my mouth water.

  Innerva shrugged. "I'm full," she said. "That's for you two."

  Innerva didn't look full. She looked sickly, almost emaciated, and I assumed she'd been living off caffeine and vengeance for months. But it wasn't going to do any good to say so.

  I looked at Greta. "I don't know about you, but I think we can finish it."

  Greta nodded.

  "Plus," I continued, "you can tell us all about this hack while we eat."

  "What do you want to know?"

  "We want to know everything," Greta said, serving herself a pile of vegetables and bread.

  "How did you think of it?" I asked. "What does it mean? Did you do what you threatened to do when the deadline passed? Did you crash their systems? We want to know everything."

  "Where should I start?" Innerva said, more to herself than to us.

  She thought for a moment, then looked up. For the first time since we'd sat down, I thought I saw a twinkle of life in her eye. "Have you seen the film The Atlantis Vision?"

  22

  "Everyone saw The Atlantis Vision. Good flick overall, though a bit overwritten. Visuals were gorgeous, and the lead performances—"

  Greta interrupted me. "I don't think she was looking for a movie review, Alex." Then, to Innerva, she said, "Why'd you ask about The Atlantis Vision?"

  "Did you see it in theaters?" Innerva asked. "Or download it illegally?"

  "I, uh…not sure why it matters, but I saw it in the theater with Bird." I turned to Greta. "Remember, that weekend you were out of town."

  Greta nodded, looking as confused by Innerva's questions as I was.

  When she didn't elaborate, I said, "I heard about it when it leaked. Our film and tech blogs wrote about it. Our site actually ran a thing about it a few days ago, before we came out here. Something about an executive being fired over the leak."

  "Ever wonder how movies that big get leaked?" Innerva asked. "Or why?"

  "Well, I figure that there could be a lot of whys," I said. Innerva smiled slightly, and I knew what she'd been getting at. "You leaked it, and it has something to do with the ransomware attack."

  She smiled again, and I knew I was right.

  "Wait," Greta said. "I want to hear how those two things connect, but start from the beginning. How did you end up in Cuba?"

  As we ate the chicken and vegetables, she told us.

  "James and I always had two or three escape plans. People we could count on and places we could go if things ever got too dangerous around a hack we were doing, or a story we were leaking. Most of the stuff we did wasn't in a category that would put us in any physical danger, but the stuff involving national security, or some of the bigger companies we hacked..." She paused for a moment. "Well, you never know how people will respond, so it's good to have a plan."

  "And one of your plans was Cuba?" I asked.

  "Yes. James and I had talked about trying to relocate here, whether it was through fake passports, bribery, or some other way, but when he died I figured it was the safest option I had."

  "I'm betting that, somehow, you already knew Delfino."

  "Yes, James met Delfino three years ago at a conference for white hat hackers. The boy was only eleven, and the only Cuban out of two hundred people there. He still won't tell me how he got the money to attend, or how he got permission to leave the country, but my guess is that he impressed someone online from an Internet cafe and that person paid his way. After the conference, Delfino, James and I became fast friends, all online of course, and we hired him to arrange a way into the country for us, if the need should ever arise. At that point, it was still an emergency backup plan. But once James died, I contacted Delfino. I was in Cuba before the police even showed up at my apartment to tell me James was dead. Delfino got me in with fake papers, but he also had a plan that would enable me to stay."

  "He seems like a sweet kid," Greta said. "Is this where the uncle comes in? He said something about you being family?"

  "I married his uncle about three months after I got to Cuba. Been here in this town ever since. Of course, the marriage is just to make me a legal resident. It was a good trade. I get to stay in the country, and Juan gets to fulfill his dream of traveling outside of Cuba. With money I provide, of course."

  "It was a good plan," I said, "but can you tell us about the hack?"

  "I was getting to that. Every moment I was here, I was planning my revenge. But first I had to set up a network, which took some time. Once I had access to the systems I needed, I put the plan into action. First, I got into the email of everyone at Family Media Holdings, looking for a hot new movie release to steal. As luck would have it, I was able to get a screener of The Atlantis Vision with full credits a month before it came out, right when the buzz about it was beginning to peak."

  "Millions of people downloaded that film illegally," I said. "It was one of the biggest disasters the movie business has seen."

  "The film still did well at the box office, but I did kind of steal their thunder."

  Greta said, "I'm still not seeing how this is connected to the ransomware attack."

  "That's the thing," Innerva said. "Millions of people downloaded the file to watch The Atlantis Visi
on. Eleven million, four hundred thousand, to be exact. But what they didn't know while they were enjoying their ninety-minute, action-packed thrill ride, was that I also gave them a shadow file."

  "A what?" I asked.

  "In computer circles, we usually call them trojan horses. Files that are embedded in other files, that are designed to take over—and sometimes destroy—any system that downloads it."

  "You embedded a secret file within the file containing The Atlantis Vision?"

  Innerva smiled.

  "What type of file?" Greta asked between bites of chicken.

  "A file that got their systems working for me," she said. "That allowed me to control eleven million, four hundred thousand personal computers around the world. In the first generation, anyway. It propagated nicely."

  I'd been nibbling on a piece of bread, and I almost dropped it when I got what she was saying. "Are you serious?"

  She smiled again, clearly proud of her work. As she continued, I forgot all about dinner.

  "Playing the movie triggered the shadow file encoded in the same data package. That file is a program that runs quietly in the background of your computer, or on whatever server it's stored on. It's small and almost undetectable, and it waits for contact with one of the computers owned by one of the companies that killed James. I used that movie to turn half the world into my personal botnet. Nobody's system is secure enough to hide from that. Once the file gained access to one of the systems I was targeting—and not one of them held out more than five days—it unfolded into a quiet set of permission changes deep below the user-interface level. Nothing about their computers changed or worked differently, except that I had access and control."

  By the time she finished, I was staring at her like she'd transformed into a unicorn in front of my eyes, and I'll explain why.

  A normal ransomware attack takes a computer hostage. Typically, the hacker then demands a ransom from the owner or user to unlock the machine. When the ransomware attack is against a personal computer, the hacker might demand $200 to unlock it. That's an amount many people have immediate access to, and are willing to pay.