by D S Kane
Appendix A.
Character List for MindField
Lee Ainsley. Former operative in Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence service in Washington DC. Now the husband of Cassandra (Cassie) Sashakovich and father of their adopted daughter Ann Sashakovich. Lee and Cassie work for Avram Shimmel and the UN Paramilitary Force.
Ford Bane. MindField’s senior vice president of sales and marketing.
Yigdal Ben-Levy. Former associate director of the Mossad. Now deceased.
Elizabeth (“Betsy”) Rochelle Brown. Call-sign Butterfly; hacker married to fellow hacker William Wing.
Arthur Creeg. CEO of the startup Underwire Software.
CypherGhost. Call-sign of Charlette Keegan-Ashbury, hacker extraordinaire and former lover of Ann Sashakovich.
Cyrus DeSpain. Father of the CypherGhost.
Michael Drapoff. Former Mossad kidon (assassin); now of Ness Ziona, an Israeli defense research institute.
Gilbert Greenfield. Director of an unnamed intelligence agency in Washington DC. Now deceased.
Willy Hangshaw. CEO of the startup XXY.
Carl Hernandes. President of the United States.
Judy Hernandez. One-time lover of Cassandra Sashakovich; currently on special assignment for Avram Shimmel.
Frederick Hunter. Laura Hunter’s father, serving time in prison for the murder of his wife.
Ingrid Hunter. Laura Hunter’s mother, deceased. Her husband Frederick was convicted of her murder.
Laura D. Hunter. Ann’s roommate at Stanford University; girlfriend of Frank Lucessi.
Harvey Kalinsky. Chief technical officer of MindField.
Victor Kreslin. Leader of the Russian team sent to assassinate President-Elect Daniel Strumler.
Lily Lee. Former Hong Kong call girl and former girlfriend of William Wing; now the girlfriend of Jon Sommers.
Frank Lucessi. Small-time arms dealer and drug dealer hired by Robert Randall of the CIA to represent InTelQ, an off-the-books venture-capital firm.
Paul Marotta. Corporate attorney who vets MindField’s contract with InTelQ.
Samuel Meyer. Director of the Mossad.
Roxy Mills. Assistant to President-Elect Daniel Strumler.
Husro Mansuri. High-ranking spymaster in Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, known as MOIS.
Igor Nelovich. Second in command to Victor Kreslin on a Russian assassination team.
Charles Nottingham. NSA analyst reporting to Carl Von Truber.
Pedro. Frank Lucessi’s driver in Areguá, Paraguay.
Nikolai Puchenko. Director of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service.
Robert Randall. CIA agent and provider of intelligence briefings to President-Elect Daniel Strumler. Randall runs an off-the-books venture-capital enterprise, InTelQ, for which he hires Frank Lucessi as a representative and Alan Skorkin as a “cleaner.”
Lev Robinson. Ness Ziona scientist who helped develop Bug-Lok.
Frederico Santos. Small-time drug dealer for Frank Lucessi.
Glen Sarkov. CEO of MindField and Ann Sashakovich’s boyfriend.
Ann Silbey Sashakovich. Hacker with growing abilities to access the internet with her brain and shoot fire from her fingers; adopted daughter of Cassandra Sashakovich and Lee Ainsley.
Cassandra (“Cassie”) Sashakovich. Hacker, and adoptive mother of Ann Silbey Sashakovich; she and husband Lee Ainsley work for Avram Shimmel and the UN Paramilitary Force.
Avram Shimmel. Israeli general and the director general of the UN Paramilitary Force.
Alan Skorkin. Cleaner (hired assassin) for Robert Randall’s InTelQ.
William Smythe. Assistant director (“ass dire”), CIA; Robert Randall’s boss.
Jon Sommers. Former kidon (assassin) for the Mossad, now associated with Avram Shimmel and the UN Paramilitary Force.
Richard Stein. CTO and EVP of the startup Sturgess Technology.
Daniel Strumler. President-elect of the United States.
Josh Taggert. CFO of the startup XXY Dimensions.
Daniel Tremain. CEO of the startup StarClaims.
Samantha Trout. MindField’s chief financial officer.
Carl Von Truber. Associate director of communications intercepts, NSA.
William Wing. Hacker; married to fellow hacker Betsy Brown.
William Wrand. Chairman of Ruhr-Rohrbach in Berlin, Germany.
Yi Shun. Employee of the UN General Assembly administration.
Appendix B.
Internet Links Composing a Primer on Hacker Operations, Government, and Venture Capital Relationships
Operation Start Up: BizSprint, Doolittle Institute, July 7, 2017 (courtesy of J.J. Snow: @jensnow47) http://www.sofwerx.org/opsu/
Russia steps up spying efforts after election, CNNPolitics.com, July 7, 2017 http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/06/politics/russia-steps-up-spying-efforts-after-election/index.html
The 18 hottest enterprise startups of 2017, according to how investors value them, Business Insider, July 4, 2017 http://www.businessinsider.com/18-hottest-enterprise-startups-2017-2017-6
Startup Street: Israeli Spy Agency To Fund Startups Building Cool Spy Gadgets, Bloomberg, July 2, 2017 https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/2017/07/02/startup-street-israels-mossad-startup-fund-spy-technologies-zomato-cybersecurity
Voodoo Manufacturing raises $5 million for robot factory, CNBC, June 24, 2017 http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/22/voodoo-manufacturing-raises-5-million-for-robot-factory.html
Wikileaks: The CIA can remotely hack into computers that aren’t even connected to the internet, qz.com, June 24, 2017 https://qz.com/1013361/wikileaks-the-cia-can-remotely-hack-into-computers-that-arent-even-connected-to-the-internet/
Here’s a List of Every Single Trump Lie Since He Took Office, HuffPost, June 23, 2017 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/every-single-trump-lie_us_594d85cce4b02734df2a7bc1
Vladimir Putin gave direct instructions to help elect Trump, report says, CBS News, June 23, 2017 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vladimir-putin-gave-direct-instructions-help-elect-donald-trump-report/
Meet The Biohacking Pioneers Who Are Redesigning Their Own Bodies, fastcodesign.com, June 22, 2017 https://www.fastcodesign.com/90130651/meet-the-people-who-voluntarily-put-computer-chips-in-their-bodies
Why So Many Top Hackers Hail from Russia, Krebs on Security, June 22, 2017 https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/06/why-so-many-top-hackers-hail-from-russia/
A Cyberattack ‘the World Isn’t Ready For,’ New York Times, June 22, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/technology/ransomware-attack-nsa-cyberweapons.html
8 futuristic technologies from sci-fi movies that actually exist today, mic.com, June 22, 2017 https://mic.com/articles/178972/8-futuristic-technologies-from-sci-fi-movies-that-actually-exist-today
Security experts warn lawmakers of election hacking risks, ZDNet, June 21, 2017 http://www.zdnet.com/article/security-experts-sign-warning-letter-amid-election-security-failings/?loc=newsletter_large_thumb_related&ftag=TREc64629f&bhid=26199999350103284654847101531876
Humanity’s next Stage of Evolution Could Be the Cyborg, futurism.com, June 18, 2017 https://futurism.com/humanitys-next-stage-evolution-cyborg/
How to Browse the Web and Leave No Trace, gizmodo.com, June 18, 2017 http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/how-to-browse-the-web-and-leave-no-trace-1795721220
How to Spot and Remove Stalkerware, gizmodo.com, June 18, 2017 http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/how-to-spot-and-remove-stalkerware-1796167351?rev=1497792368757
If your home wifi router is on this list, it might be vulnerable to CIA hacking tools, qz.com, June 18, 2017 https://qz.com/1008273/complete-list-of-wifi-routers-included-in-wikileaks-cherryblossom-release-possibly-vulnerable-to-cia-hacking-tools/
Michael Dorf: When Talking With Trump, Be Sure to Wear a Wire, Newsweek, June 11, 2017 http://www.newsweek.com/michael-dorf-when-talking-trump-be-sure-wear-wire-623810
Top Dem Donor Calls on Lawmakers to Take Up Trump Impeachment, HuffPost, June 9, 2017 http://www.huffingt
onpost.com/entry/trump-impeachment-dem-donor_us_593b1863e4b0240268797312
How Russia Hacks Elections in the US and Around the World, WIRED, June 9, 2017 https://www.wired.com/story/russia-election-hacking-playbook/
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, this entire series was spawned by a series of conversations with my “drink of the month” friends, mostly from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, as well as conversations with cypherpunk hacker Steven Schear. The story for this book was inspired by a story told by my wife, Andrea Brown, who is also the final arbiter of the quality of my writing.
But, so many other people were also crucial in preparing this manuscript for you, the reader.
My critique partners, Ned Huston, Al Steagall, Marianne Van Gelder, and Evelyn Helminem were instrumental in the final polishing of this manuscript into readable fiction. Also, fellow members of BookPod contributed beta-reader critiques. My friends also helped with this task, including Will Calhoun, Barry Groves, Grant Rosen, Lee Engdahl, and most of all, my writing teacher Eric Witchey.
I want to thank my publication team, consisting of my editor, Sandra Beris; copyeditor Karl Yambert; graphic designer Jeroen Ten Berge; my formatters Kimberly Hitchens and Barb Elliott of BookNook.biz, my website designer and host Maddee James of xuni.com; my marketing expert Rebecca Berus; and Paul Marotta and Megan Jeanne of the Corporate Law Group, who incorporated The Swiftshadow Group.
I am grateful for all the suggestions and advice I have received but I alone am responsible for the resulting work.
About MindField
MindField is a technothriller taking place mostly in Silicon Valley. When Stanford University sophomore and budding computer hacker Ann Sashakovich meets Glen Sarkov, a senior who is also the CEO of a startup seeking venture capital, she is smitten. Glen and his team find a venture capitalist who is not what he seems, and the strings attached to the funding offer might be lethal.
The world’s intelligence services have all been looking for a less-obvious way to fund weapons development. The Mossad’s relationship with Ness Ziona and the CIA’s relationship with the wholly owned InTelQ venture capital firm are an updated form of the Fed’s captive DARPA in providing new weapons tech. What would happen if this new model spread like a virus?
About DS Kane
For a decade, DS Kane served the federal government of the United States as a covert operative without cover. After earning his MBA and earning a faculty position in the Stern Graduate School of Business of NYU, Kane roamed as a management consultant in countries you’d want to miss on your next vacation, “helping” banks that needed a way to cover their financial tracks for money laundering and weapons delivery. His real job was to discover and report these activities to his government handler.
When his cover was blown, he disappeared from Washington and Manhattan and reinvented himself in Northern California, working with venture capitalists and startup companies.
Now he writes fictionalized accounts of his career episodes, as the Amazon bestselling author of the Spies Lie series. With seven books previously released in the series, Kane now presents Book 8, MindField.
