The Alexandria Project: A Tale of Treachery and Technology (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 1)

by Andrew Updegrove

  Jack turned and gave him a broad smile. “I’ll do that. You know, Josh, if I were you, I wouldn’t be too quick to count those guys out.”

  * * *

  “All systems go.”

  Frank smiled to himself as he read the three word email from Archie. The events of the past week had been profoundly satisfying. Archie was delighted to have a new game to launch, now that the original supply of iBalls was running out. He was even more delighted that Frank was willing to bail out iBalls.com on his own without asking his partner to chip in. Even Chad and Sanjay were pumped, once they understood that Frank was willing to underwrite their original iBalls.com business plan as well as pay off the current bills.

  Frank’s new plan was straightforward, at least the part that he was willing to share with Archie and the iBalls.com team. iBalls.com wouldn’t pay people to download iBalls anymore. From now on, site owners would have to pay to get them. They would also have to give permission to iBalls.com to gather and aggregate data about who was visiting their sites. The owners would be happy to buy in, though, because millions of iBall fans were just waiting for the new game to begin. What easier way was there to attract thousands of new visitors to your site?

  Chad and Sanjay were delighted. The coding needed to launch the new wave of iBalls was trivial, and they wouldn’t have to pay a dime for marketing. The Pangloss Game Company would take care of that, so for the first time in its history, iBalls.com would actually be turning a profit.

  The game that Frank had devised to drive the new wave of iBall downloads – and accomplish his real goal – was called the “Lotto iBalls Challenge,” and the concept was simple. For the first week, anyone could download as many iBalls as they wanted to display at their site, at a minimum bid of $1.00 apiece. There would be no reverse auction this time, though. The longer a site waited to buy in, the higher the price might rise as the limited number of iBalls available sold out. Once they were gone, the game players could begin hunting them down.

  And hunt them they would, because the contest would be like a lottery, with the big prizes going to those who captured the code of the iBalls with the winning numbers. The more iBalls you hunted down, the more money you stood to win.

  That was the elegant part of Frank’s plan, although it was Yoda who had provided the inspiration. Frank had puzzled for days over the last clue his mysterious mentor had shared with him:

  >The force will be with you if your crowd you let be your source.

  And then it hit him – “crowd sourcing” was what Yoda had been nudging him towards – using the thousands of free volunteers the Internet could deliver to help him in his quest. Frank had come to realize that he might never be able to track the Project back to its lair on his own. But why even try if he could get the Project to do the job for him? All he had to do was trick the Project’s malware into unknowingly carrying an iBall back to its master the next time it snatched a file from the new honeypot he would set up for the purpose. Then he could use the thousands of avid iBall gamers to find that iBall for him. With that many ingenious hackers on the hunt, he was confident that every last iBall would be found and captured eventually. Just like the Project, the most determined gamers would even construct robots to hunt and kill thousands of iBalls automatically rather than locate and zap them individually. And with so much money up for grabs, the game would attract the type of contestants that wouldn’t let firewalls stand in their way, either.

  So, unbeknownst to Chad and Sanjay as they prepared to push the new iBall download pages live, or to Archie as he readied the new game marketing campaign, Frank was finalizing the files that he would place in his trap once the game was well advanced. Those files would include embedded code that would simulate an iBall without displaying one. After all, he hardly expected the Alexandria Project to maintain a public website. But the Project would need to have a computer or server on which its own programs and data were stored. That’s where the iBall from Frank’s honeypot would end up, and also where the internet connection would be located by which it could be found by a determined contestant’s robot.

  Could the gamers really find every iBall? Well, just the year before DARPA, the same agency that had funded the initial creation of the Internet, had used a game to trigger the development of a wave of innovative, social media-based search strategies. All the agency had to do was offer a prize and wait. By adopting a crowd sourcing approach, it could study what had worked best after the contest was done, thereby saving millions of dollars of development fees and gaining access to many more strategies to pursue than it ever would have managed on its own.

  Like the Lotto iBalls Challenge, DARPA’s contest had also been simple: the agency promised a prize to the first team to report the locations of ten red weather balloons the agency briefly displayed thousands of miles apart around the country at the start of the competition. The winning team, from MIT, nailed all ten locations in under nine hours. DARPA had offered only $40,000 in its contest, but that modest amount (plus the glory of beating everyone else) had been sufficient to set off a frenzy of activity. Frank was betting that by promising a prize of $1,000,000 to whoever found and captured The Big iBall, at least one of the teams would find and bring home the one that he was counting on the Alexandria Project to remove from his honeypot.

  That iBall would be different from all the others, though. Even though it wouldn’t display a visual image, it would still “look” like an iBall to a Bot. More significantly, it would have location-based capabilities that would allow it to determine where it had been removed to as well. Once its code was captured by a gamer and returned to The Pangloss Game Company, it could also be identified immediately as being different from all the other iBalls being turned in. Frank would be looking for it, and when it came in he’d know at last where The Alexandria Project – and hopefully the second mystery intruder as well – could be found.

  But first he would have to wait. It was going to be a very long week.

  * * *

  Josh was feeling good. TrashTalk was getting close to launching a new $1 billion fund, and he was looking forward to the new influx of management fees it would generate. They were really pushing the envelope this time, and planned to ask the limited partners to let management pay itself an extra percent of the fund assets on the management fee – that meant another $10 million a year, most of which Josh and his two full partners would split up after sharing a few crumbs with their junior partners. Cashing in the $65 million insurance policy on iBalls.com would provide the kind of proof of their exalted status that should seal the deal.

  Josh punched the button on his buzzing phone with a flourish. “W’sup, Lynne?”

  “A reporter from The Register, Josh. Want me to tell her you’re tied up?”

  “That’s okay, Lynne. Go ahead and put her through.” Josh felt like gloating to someone – even a reporter.

  “Josh Peabody.”

  “Hi, Josh. Lydia Sparrowhawk. Any comment on this morning’s press release from iBalls.com announcing their relaunch and the cramdown of TrashTalk’s investment?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Josh was thunderstruck. He desperately typed “iBalls.com” into Google News. Sure enough, there was a press release from his portfolio company – jointly issued with The Pangloss Game Company.

  “Gosh, Lydia, I beg your pardon. Somebody just handed me an urgent message. Gotta go!”

  Josh read the press release with mounting horror:

  Pangloss Game Company joins Forces with iBalls.com to Create World-Class Gaming Partnership

  iBalls.com recapitalized as gamers anticipate new blockbuster game

  Palo Alto, California – The Pangloss Game Company (TPGC), the world’s leading provider of prize-based game apps, and iBalls.com, the leading provider of down-loadable, graphics-based market data collection software, today announced they have entered into a strategic partnership that will set the stage for a new level of on-line gaming. Under the partnership, TPGC has acquired 85% of iBalls
.com in the form of a new class of super-priority preferred stock. As a result of the investment and the adoption of a new incentive plan for management, former controlling stockholder TrashTalk LP’’s ownership will be reduced to 0.001% of the Company.

  TPGC and iBalls.com also announced the launch of an innovative new global contest called the Lotto iBalls Challenge®, featuring a $1 million prize for the lucky gamer that captures The Big iBall®.

  “We’re unbelievably excited here at iBalls.com,” said iBalls.com CEO Chad Derwent. “Unlike Josh Peabody and TrashTalk, TPGC truly gets the future of the Internet. And with the unlimited financing that TPGC brings to the table, our long-term success is assured.”

  Josh quit reading as his blood ran cold. TrashTalk had just been crammed down so hard its $50 million stake was now worth almost – but critically, not quite – nothing.

  Josh quickly dialed up the CEO of VC/Derivatives, Inc., the TrashTalk portfolio company he was counting on to bail him out on the iBalls.com investment.

  “Hey, Jeremy, Josh Peabody. How you doing?”

  “Great, Josh. What’s new?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. Just checking in. But hey, since you mention it, somebody just asked me how the terms would work if we cash in on one of your VC policies. If we ever had a big write down, we could just call you up and get paid, right?”

  “That doesn’t sound right to me, Josh. But Jack Posner happens to be right here in the conference room with me, and he wrote the claims language. Let me put him on.”

  Jack Posner! That was iBalls.com’s attorney, too. Josh struggled to make his voice sound normal, but he could already feel the noose tightening around his neck.

  “Hey Jack, small world. I’d forgotten I lined you up with VC/Derivatives. So to repeat my question to Jeremy, all we have to do is show VC/Derivatives the basis for a write down and they’ll pay up, right?”

  “Of course not, Josh,” Jack replied in a patient voice. “We’d never do such a poor job of writing a policy for a start-up you invested in. The company that you buy insurance on would have to declare bankruptcy and be liquidated first. Otherwise, how would you know that you would end up losing anything? As long as a company’s still alive, it could turn out to be the next Google some day.”

  Jack heard a faint gurgling sound from Josh’s end. He could have left it at that, but hey, life was short.

  “Bummer about iBalls.com and The Pangloss Game Company, huh Josh?”

  Silence. Should he give the knife a final twist? After all, this couldn’t be happening to a nicer guy. And he certainly wasn’t ever going to get another referral from Peabody anyway.

  “I guess it’s just like you always say, though. Business is business.”

  * * *

  21

  Does the Beloved Father have a Rocket in his Pocket, or is he Just Happy to See Us?

  The president of the United States was treating himself to an early breakfast of bacon and eggs. And why not? If a Commander-in-Chief couldn’t ignore his personal physician’s orders on his seventieth birthday, why bother to have the job at all?

  “Ready, Mr. President?”

  “Go for it, Harry.”

  Adlai Stevenson Harrison was the President’s Director of National Intelligence. He was also one of his oldest and best friends, and one of the few advisors the President invited to visit him in the family’s private quarters upstairs at the White House.

  The President put on his reading glasses as Harrison handed him the Daily Brief he had completed a half hour earlier.

  “Hmm. I see you’ve moved Korea to the top of the list. What’s new since yesterday? Have they gone and sunk another South Korean boat?”

  “No, nothing that dramatic. But we’re worried that this time the North might push the envelope a lot farther than usual.”

  “Because?” The President sampled his eggs with appreciation.

  “We’re receiving reports that last year’s crop failures were far worse than previously thought. The winter’s less than half over, and we estimate that famine conditions will prevail over more than 75% of the country by February. With Jong Kim-Lo looking more frail each time he pops up, we’re beginning to worry that the inner circle may decide they need a more dramatic international crisis than usual to distract the population.”

  The President put down his fork and sat back with his coffee. “‘May decide?’ According to the DB you handed me, Kim-Lo is saying he’s going to turn Washington instead of Seattle into a ‘Sea of Fire’ if we back the South on that last sinking. What’s the latest on their missile program?”

  “The truth is, there are some new developments we’re watching closely. You’ll recall that the North tried to launch a satellite back in April of 2009. They used a three stage missile, and at least the third stage failed. The payload hit the ocean about 1300 miles down range. Of course, back home the regime claimed the launch was a complete success.

  “That launch used a Taepodong-2 missile. Armed with a full-size warhead, it could have hit Alaska if all had gone according to plan. With a warhead half that size, we expect they could have hit one of our west coast cities. In today’s speech, Kim-Lo claims they’re ready to not just test, but also to deploy a new version of the Taepodong – one that could hit the east coast.”

  “What do our folks think about that?”

  “Well, the Taepodong-1 test back in 1998 blew up a few seconds after launch. The Taepodong-2 got off at least one stage, and maybe two, with good success. So they’ve learned a lot along the way. And their friends the Iranians have been doing very well with their missile program. We know that North Korea has sold nuclear secrets and equipment to the Iranians before, so it’s not a reach to think the North may have swapped nuclear technology to Iran in exchange for help with their missile program.”

  “But have we seen such a missile?”

  Harrison felt uncomfortable. He wished he’d delivered the next piece of information in yesterday’s Daily Brief.

  “As of yesterday, our satellite images were telling us the North is preparing their two most sophisticated launch pads for use. We couldn’t tell from those images what they may be planning on sending up, but today’s pictures may tell us more.”

  “So you’re telling me the North Koreans may be able to hit us anywhere in the U.S. if this new missile works. What about a nuclear warhead, though? Both their first nuclear tests fizzled, right?”

  “That’s what we’ve always concluded. According to our seismic data, the yields were pretty low. But the devices clearly worked, and that’s the concerning part. Once you’ve succeeded in refining fuel to the point of sustaining fission and demonstrated the ability to trigger that process, the rest is all details – and those details are a lot more available than we’d like to think. We’ve got to assume that they bought every piece of Pakistani information A. Q. Kahn was willing to sell. And also that there wasn’t any information the bastard wasn’t willing to sell.”

  “I see.” The President thought he knew where this was going, and he didn’t like the destination.

  “The other possibility is that the tests didn’t fizzle at all. We know the North hasn’t been able to produce much weapons-grade fuel from the reactor they have – maybe enough for six one kiloton bombs, tops. With the two tests we’ve monitored, they’ve therefore used up at least a third of their total stockpile of enriched uranium. They can’t afford to run more tests without losing the strategic value they gained by demonstrating that they’ve got a nuclear capability.

  “But what if those weren’t proof of technology tests after all? And what if they were only half kiloton bombs? If so, what we detected might have been completely successful tests of smaller, more lightweight warheads. If that’s the case, they’ve demonstrated twice in a row that they can make a missile-deliverable warhead of dangerous size that works.”

  Outside, it was starting to snow. Harrison wondered whether the President was aware of it as he stared out the window, tapping his teaspoon quie
tly on the tablecloth. Finally, the President asked, “What do we calculate the odds are of that being the case?”

  “Well, Mr. President, as you know, there’s no country where we have less reliable intelligence to work with than North Korea. That means that just about everything we do have is by way of inference and conjecture, and not based on direct intelligence. So we’d be kidding ourselves if we even tried to come up with anything like a percentage estimate.”

  The President turned and looked at him, slightly annoyed. “Okay, let me rephrase my question. When I walk into the Oval Office today, do I, or do I not have to take their wretched ‘Beloved Father’s’ threat seriously?”

  Harrison had expected this question, and for the last twelve hours had struggled with what he would say in response. After North Korea had followed its first missile test with a second only a month later, Harrison had divided his analysts into two teams: one to argue on the data for a credible nuclear threat, and one to contend that the North’s technology wasn’t yet capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. He’d spent half of last night reading and re-reading the resulting position papers. When he finally went to bed he still hadn’t reached a conclusion.

  Harrison saw that it was snowing heavily now. The spectral branches of the bare trees on the White House lawn were tossing in the wind. Looking into the dark turbulence of the world outside, Harrison decided he had been resisting a conclusion he was not yet willing to accept. Not for the first time, he was grateful that his friend sat behind the desk in the Oval Office and not himself.

  “I’m sorry, Henry. I think that you have to assume that we’ve got a real problem on our hands.”

  The President tapped his teaspoon on the tablecloth a few more times, and then set it down neatly next to his plate. Harrison noticed that most of his eggs and bacon were uneaten.