When the Killing Starts (The Blackwell Files Book 8)

by Steven F Freeman

  Alton plugged in the computer and leaned forward in his chair. Like the comforting sound of a friend’s voice, the room’s steady whir of electronic machinery and cooling fans served to improve his focus.

  “First, let’s disable the modem. The last thing we want is for this computer to start spreading a virus before I figure out what’s going on.”

  Flipping the computer upside down, he used a screwdriver to remove a pair of tiny screws, then pulled off the bottom panel.

  “Can’t you just uninstall the modem’s drivers instead of taking out the actual part?” asked Camron.

  “I could,” said Alton, “but then I’d run the risk of the virus being smart enough to reinstall the drivers before I figure out what it’s doing.” He detached a module half the size of a credit card, then replaced the panel in short order. “That’s done.”

  “Now what?” asked Camron.

  “First, I’m going to run a scan to make sure there aren’t any preexisting viruses. Then I’ll install a virus analysis package from Digimoat, one of Kruptos’ anti-virus partners. Then I’ll be ready to plug in the flash drive itself.”

  “In the meantime,” spoke up Nang, “it would be wise for the rest of us to resume work on our previous tasks. We all hope Agent Blackwell’s efforts will help us, but we can’t make that assumption.”

  The group broke up, the team members trailing back to the desks they had staked out as their own.

  Mallory turned to Alton. “I’m not sure there’s much more for me to check. There’s a few corner-case scenarios I can look into, but I doubt they’ll turn up anything.”

  “Might as well,” said Alton. “You never know.”

  Alton had been working on the new laptop for nearly an hour when he issued a sigh of satisfaction and leaned back in his chair to stretch his bum leg. “Looks like I’m ready to roll.”

  “No viruses?” asked Mallory.

  “Nope. Fresh as a baby’s butt.”

  “That’s good news,” said Mallory. “And I have some news of my own: I’m pretty sure I found something on the financial side.”

  The rest of the team ceased working and turned to listen.

  Mallory continued. “One of the analysts I work with, Allen, developed a metadata search routine that identifies potentially matching purchases and sales of bearer bonds.”

  David tilted his head. “Pretend for a minute I’m not an FBI forensic accountant. What the hell did you just say?”

  “A bond is simply debt issued by a government or company. So when you buy a bond, you’re giving that organization a loan. A bearer bond is a little different from other kinds, though. Bearer bonds aren’t traded electronically. Only physical documents are bought and sold, so there’s no record of the sale or the parties involved. That lack of audit trail used to make bearer bonds popular with the Mafia in the old days, but during my career, I’ve only seen one case of them being used. Looks like North Korea went retro and used this low-tech approach to avoid detection.”

  “I hate to ask a dumb question,” said David, “but if there’s no records kept, how’d you track down the trade?”

  “That’s the beauty of Allen’s search routine. It looks for offsetting transactions between two entities you suspect of laundering money. Then it looks for where that money came from and where it went. If it can’t find a legit use, the program assumes the money was potentially put to an illegitimate one. It flags those transactions for review. And with transactions involving huge sums of cash, bearer bonds are still the de facto choice for most criminals.

  “In this case,” she continued, “China recorded an incoming transaction for one point two million dollars about five months ago. The source of that money was never identified. There’s no legitimate record of where it came from. Here’s the interesting part: two days before China’s deposit, North Korea cashed out some of its holdings in an oil field in northern Saudi Arabia. Guess how much those holdings were worth?”

  “One point two million?” asked Alton.

  “Yep. And there’s no evidence the North ever did anything with that oil-field money internally. No deposits, no earmarked spending, no publicly known purchases close to that amount. It’s like the money just vanished.”

  “Into China’s coffers,” said Alton.

  Mallory shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “Impressive,” said O’Neil, whistling. “Damn impressive.”

  Alton studied the partial frown on his wife’s face. “I don’t think she’s finished yet.”

  “Almost,” said Mallory. “All that’s left is drawing the obvious conclusion: North Korea paid China to develop—or at least manufacture—a batch of custom-made, virus-infected thumb drives.”

  “I admit this is fascinating,” said Camron, “but isn’t it all conjecture?”

  “Yes, for the moment,” replied Alton, “but we have an easy way of putting that theory to the test.” He lifted the thumb drive off the table and examined it at chest height. “Let’s plug this thing in and see what happens.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “First,” said Alton, “I’ll need to activate Digimoat’s virus-containment program. Otherwise, this thumb drive could wreak havoc on the hard drive as soon as it’s connected.” Alton clicked on a canary-yellow icon, bringing to life a panel of statistical displays on the laptop’s screen. “All right. It’s ready.”

  The room fell into silence as Alton inserted the crimson device into the laptop’s USB port.

  They waited…for nothing. Alton studied the screen for a full minute, but none of the diagnostic programs indicated any sort of virus activity. The analytic lines continued their normal track, creating traces reminiscent of vital signs on hospital monitoring equipment.

  Camron couldn’t suppress the beginnings of a sneer. “Dead end, huh? I would have thought—”

  The anti-virus program interrupted the Korean expert with three long, low tones. The panels lit up and the tracing lines jumped as if the computer had experienced a sudden heart attack.

  Ignoring Camron’s remark, Alton murmured to himself. “Delayed installation, huh? Pretty slick.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Mallory.

  “Just in case someone like us is checking for malware, the virus program doesn’t install right away. It waits a minute or two, until after we’ve concluded the thumb drive is safe.”

  “Is that more sophisticated than usual?”

  “A delay is common enough,” said Alton, “but for someone to use it in addition to an ostensibly empty thumb drive suggests they were determined to keep this virus program a secret.”

  Nang studied the screen’s frenzied activity. “What’s your program doing now? Destroying the virus?”

  “No,” said Alton. “We want to know what it’s up to, so the containment software is simply studying the virus to see what kind of tasks it’s attempting.”

  “Seems risky.”

  “It would be if this laptop were still connected to the internet. But it’s not. The virus can’t propagate to any other IT systems, and we need to know what it’s programmed to do. The best way to do that it to let it run its course. That’s why I requisitioned a spare laptop.”

  “I see—quite logical,” said Nang. He studied the screen’s dancing figures for another half minute. “Uh…how long will this take?”

  “There’s no way to tell, really,” said Alton. “It could be five minutes or five hours. The containment program might be able to discover the virus’s purpose, or I may have to take its findings and work through the virus’s code on my own.”

  “In that case, Camron and I are gonna get back to studying the seaboard map,” said David. “We’ve been trying to figure out what route we’d use to reach the Olympic village if we were the North Koreans. We’ll need at least a couple of hours to finish.”

  “I’m not finished, either,” said Mallory.

  “It sounds like we could all use more time,” said Nang. “Let’s get to it.”

  The team m
embers dispersed, returning to their desks.

  Four hours later, Alton turned to Nang. “The virus-analysis program is done. The virus itself installed two programs and a bunch of files to support them.”

  “What do the programs do?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question. I don’t know, not yet. The anti-virus software couldn’t figure it out, so I’ll have to do some digging on my own.”

  Nang looked at the black military watch on his wrist. “It’s already late, and this seems like a good stopping point. The team should rest, or we won’t be any good tomorrow.”

  “You all go ahead,” said Alton. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.” He held up a placating palm as Nang began to protest. “Depending on what I find, I may need to phone Agent Vega’s analysts or my Kruptos colleagues for help. They’re just now getting into work. If I wait until our morning time to research these virus programs, all the US staff will be home for the night. We’ll effectively lose a day of investigation.”

  “I understand,” said Nang.

  Alton nodded. He turned to Mallory and grinned. “Keep my spot warm.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Try not to work too late, Sweetie. We’ll need you on top of your game tomorrow, too.”

  In moments, the room emptied, leaving Alton alone with the infected laptop. He brought up a new panel that, after a few keystrokes, began displaying the virus programs’ source code.

  Alton rubbed his hands together and began to study the code. Now to discover exactly what tasks these viruses had been programed to perform.

  CHAPTER 17

  Early the following morning, the joint team assembled in the cafeteria of the NIS HQ building.

  Alton poured himself a cup a black coffee and rubbed his eyes.

  “Dude, you look terrible,” said David. “What time did you get to sleep?”

  “About three. But there’s good news. I learned a lot.”

  “You’ve figured out the purpose of the virus programs?” asked Nang.

  “Yes—well, one of them, at least.” Alton scanned the dining hall’s open space to ensure no one but the team sat within earshot. “And I learned quite a bit about the North’s encryption techniques.”

  “I can see how it’s helpful to know what the virus programs do,” said Camron, “but does it really matter if we know what kind of encryption techniques they use?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. You have to know what kind of lock you’re dealing with before you can decide how to pick it.”

  Nang set down his mug of steaming tea. “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve found?”

  Alton nodded. “The thumb drive’s virus program reveals a lot about the North’s computing techniques. But first, a little background. Think about how many times we use passwords to access personal information on the internet. All the time, right? Internet passwords are created using a technique called RSA. This RSA methodology uses an algorithm to create a pair of encryption keys—one public, the other private. The keys have to match for you to access your private information online. All internet passwords are based on these public/private pairs.

  “At Kruptos, we’ve been working with a consortium of other companies to develop a new computing technique, one that uses quantum processors.”

  “How does that relate to the encryption pairs?” asked David.

  “Quantum processors are exponentially faster than the parallel processors used in today’s computers. One of the applications of this faster computing is code-breaking. Quantum computers search all possible encryption keys simultaneously rather than sequentially, the way parallel processors do today. That means quantum processors can crack RSA-based passwords.”

  Mallory’s face grew pale. “Our national security and economy are based on the security of online communication. If those passwords can be cracked…”

  “Exactly,” said Alton. “That’s why Kruptos is involved with the consortium—so we can put the next generation of password protection techniques in place before quantum computers become commercially available.”

  “And how does all this relate to North Korea?” asked Nang.

  “Good question,” said Alton. “The North is using a rudimentary form of quantum processing to search for your RSA-based passwords. Their technique doesn’t realize the full potential of quantum processing—not yet, at least—but it does give them the ability to crack the occasional RSA encryption key.”

  “I’ve always thought of North Korea as being backwards technologically,” said David. “It surprises me they’d be up to speed on that sort of thing.”

  “I have to admit, it surprised me, too,” said Alton.

  Camron spoke up. “The North has a history of working with China and Russia, their former Soviet partner, to buy the latest and greatest technology. North Korea gets tech it couldn’t develop on its own, and the selling countries turn a good profit. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.”

  “Except for the rest of the world,” said Mallory with a grim expression.

  “Indeed,” said Alton. He turned to Nang. “After breakfast, I’ll put together some instructions for making your RSA passwords harder to crack. I’ll send them to the rest of our team and to your boss for a broader distribution.” He sat back in his blue plastic chair. “In a way, it’s good we discovered this. Otherwise, the North would continue to intercept and decode the occasional secure message.

  “In the meantime,” he continued, “let me share what I’ve learned about one of the thumb drive’s specific virus programs. The Northerners are using a Chinese hacking technique to infiltrate South Korea’s servers.”

  As if by a hidden signal, the group leaned in around Alton.

  “Once a contaminated thumb drive containing a virus is plugged into a laptop, it downloads a keystroke logger that captures the person’s login and user ID. It also installs an encrypted communications program that sends that captured information back to the North.”

  “But to what end?” asked Mallory. “What are the North Koreans looking for?”

  “Good question. Unfortunately, I’m still working on the answer to that one. But we need to find out fast. If their plan does involve the Olympics, we could have as little as twelve hours to find out. The Opening Ceremony is tonight.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Nang’s cellphone rang. He answered it and walked to the cafeteria’s far wall, murmuring in soft tones. After spending most of the three-minute conversation listening, he returned to the group.

  “What news?” asked Sergeant Chegal.

  “Satellite imagery picked up evidence of troop movement south of the border, along the eastern seaboard.” He paused to fix his gaze on Alton. “Unidentified troop movement. These aren’t South Korean forces.”

  “How many troops?” asked David.

  “Hard to say,” replied Nang. “Our ground forces haven’t been able to find the enemy soldiers—at least not yet. Probably not too many, or we would have found them by now.”

  “You’re sure it’s a North Korean force?”

  “Positive? No. But we’ve confirmed they’re not ours, and the spacing between individuals is too uniform to be a group of civilians. It’s a good bet the North has launched some kind of strike team.”

  Alton’s mind raced, but he fought to maintain a calm exterior. The team needed steady leadership. “Can you tell what direction they’re headed?”

  “Due south. About fifty kilometers inland, the last time we could pick up their trail.”

  “Where will that heading take them?”

  “Fifteen or twenty kilometers east of PyeongChang,” cut in Camron. “The site of the Olympic Village.”

  No one spoke for a minute. From the cafeteria’s serving line, the clatter of orange trays being stacked rang out.

  “That must be their target,” said Nang at last. “Not that it comes as a great surprise.”

  “We move to intercept, right?” asked David.

  “Yes,” said Nang. “Two squads of Marine
s have been deployed to the troops’ last known path, but our boys will be hard pressed to intercept them. The area is huge, and our security forces are massed around the Olympic venues. It wouldn’t make sense to pull them off that assignment, especially if they’re already guarding the North’s targeted objective.”

  “O’Neil and Silva,” said Alton, “why don’t you work with Sergeant Chegal and Corporal Ru to gather the supplies off the list the four of you created earlier? We’ll need to outfit our team with the appropriate weaponry to fend off an armed attack at the Olympic venues.”

  “Since you’re foreigners,” said Chegal, “your weapons should be concealed. Otherwise, it might make the Olympic spectators nervous.”

  “Agreed,” said Alton. “Issue us the handguns you have. We’ll stow them in our jackets.”

  “We’ll be ready to leave in an hour,” said Chegal. He bowed towards Nang, and the four soldiers scurried out of the room to execute their mission.

  “Better go pack your bags,” said Nang to the remaining team members. “Who knows when we’ll be back here?”

  As they headed for their fourth-floor quarters, Mallory glanced at Alton and kept her gaze fixed in his direction. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Something doesn’t feel right,” replied Alton.

  “What?”

  “It’s just…Kim has to know South Korea has massed all its security forces to protect the Games. Why would he attack into the heart of all that security?”

  Camron spoke up from two steps behind. “Perhaps he feels the gain is worth the risk. He and his father have never hesitated to gamble with other peoples’ lives.”

  Alton shrugged. “I guess you’re right.” Gut instincts didn’t count for much without any evidence to back them up.

  An hour later, the team drove through the narrow streets of Seoul’s old quarter. A forest of neon signs advertised products ranging from electronics to kitchen utensils to shoes. In the distance, modern skyscrapers of glass and steel soared into the heavens.