MONEY TREE

by Gordon, Ferris,

  ‘CNN are on the line. What do I tell them?’

  ‘Tell them to go to hell! No, tell them we’re undergoing a major maintenance programme and we’re sorry for any inconvenience. Tell them what you like! And get the team together.’

  Pat swaggered out, his leather clad rear swaying jauntily. He’d been around long enough to know when a game was over. And this one was truly at an end. Pat couldn’t give a shit how he looked now. He stared down anyone who did a double-take of him in his true colours. If he was going down – and he should have been doing exactly that this afternoon, he thought ruefully – he was going down in style.

  Stanstead heard them being ushered into the conference room. He walked through the adjoining door. There were four of them in a motley collection of clothes – except for Kubala who’d managed to find a suit. Typical. They were sat waiting for him to tell them what to do. Warwick didn’t know. For the first time, he didn’t have a plan. He’d not prepared for this. But old habits got him going.

  ‘Let’s do status. None of these work I guess?’ He threw his arm round the wall at the dead video screens. Heads shook. ‘Ok, so it’s just us. Let’s take this one at a time. I want a report on your region and your function. Now. Schmidt?’

  ‘Canada and North America are out. Not a flicker. None of the ATMs, or systems are up. I’ve got guys phoning in on these,’ he held up his cell phone, ‘in blind panic. What do I tell them?’

  He ignored him. ‘Tell them it’s being fixed. Kubala?’

  ‘Same. I’m in cell-phone contact with my leads. The entire EMEA territory is gone. All back-up systems are inoperable. It’s like a fucking nuclear strike.’ Warwick’s eyebrows rose a fraction. No-one used that language in his presence. And certainly not Mr control freak Kubala.

  ‘Why?! Why no back-up? We spent millions of fucking dollars on self-standing back-up sites. That’s what they’re there for! They were completely separate from the operational systems. Surely to god some of them are running?’

  ‘Nothing. Take our Michigan centre. Like everywhere, they took back-ups all the time. Kept ’em in secure bunkers off site. Then sent copies to our North America parallel data centre. It should have come up the moment the front-line systems went down. But whatever hit us, breezed right through the operational systems, tracked down the parallels and took them out too! We think they used the fibre links between the two systems. When the ops boys called through to the parallels, the viruses took over the lines. Maybe some of the back-up data is ok but we’ve got nothing to run them on. There isn’t a single computer alive in the division. We’re abso-fucking-lutely dead.’

  ‘How long?! To get operational?’

  Easterhouse was looking incredulous. ‘To get operational?! Warwick, you’re not listening! We may never get operational. Sure, we can buy new computers and maybe we can resurrect old software and data from the back up data centres, but this will take weeks, maybe months. And by then, as a bank, we’re history!’

  Warwick looked round the table. They all had the same expression: a mixture of shell-shock and rebellion. They’d given up hope and in doing so, there was nothing to play for and therefore nothing to worry about any more. They were looking into the abyss and had lost their fear for him. He couldn’t accept this. One by one he went back round the table and one by one they came back with the same story. No-one could believe a hacker team had done this. It was beyond imagination.

  Schmidt asked the burning question. ‘Did any other bank get hit?’

  ‘Only us. I’ve been calling around.’ This was Kubala.

  ‘You better not have been talking about what’s going on here!’ shouted Warwick.

  ‘I didn’t have to. They already knew. Does it matter, Warwick?’

  Warwick’s fist hit the table, jarring the cell phones.

  ‘It matters to me! Now hear this. We are not dead yet! I want you all back out there and working. I want technicians in. I want systems up. I want us not playing fucking dead! You got that?! Now get back out there and fight, damn you!’

  The men got up looking sullen and weary, and began their pointless mission.

  FIFTY FIVE

  It was midnight in New Delhi and Ted and Erin were still in front of their screens. The phone sat between them, its speaker light glowing red.

  ‘Oscar, I’m just off the phone from the Tribune. My boss tells me the news services across the States are all saying the same thing: Global American is out of action. Dead. No-one at the bank is saying anything other than they’re having maintenance problems and expect to be back up tomorrow. I’m getting the same message from the Internet news pages.’

  Oscar sounded tired but content.

  ‘That’s what I see too Ted. I think you can safely say we did it. And I don’t think they’ll be back in action this side of Christmas, far less Monday.’

  ‘What about our own guys?’

  ‘No serious damage. Shivani tells me they lost about thousand or so customer units but all their central systems are holding up.’

  ‘Unbelievable, Oscar. You and your team are just un-bloody-believable. But the news boys are also saying that a bunch of mad hackers have struck. They’re speculating like crazy about the darknet stuff, and the FBI are already mounting a global search.’

  ‘I know, I know. We’ve covered our traces, but once they find out how bad things are at GA they’ll come after us with everything. They have guys who know their way round darknets as well as us. They’ll know who’s capable of a job like this. I hope you have a plan, Ted. Otherwise you and I are going to be sharing a cell in San Quentin for the rest of our naturals. Now I don’t mind that a bit. You know what I think about you. But maybe your lady friend would have something to say?’

  Erin laughed. ‘Oscar, you’re impossible. But you’ve got a point. You know the plan and we’re ready to roll.’

  Ted nodded. ‘How’s things at your end?’

  ‘My end is just fine, dear. By the way, take a look at the twittersphere. #savethepeoplesbank is going viral. So do we light the touch paper?’

  ‘No going back now. Let’s ride, Lone Ranger!’

  Erin reached out, caressed her mouse, aimed it at the ‘send’ icon and pressed. A blizzard of emails started to fan out across the Internet. At the same moment in the hot afternoon sunshine of Lower East Manhattan, Oscar unleashed a clever little set of instructions that attacked every Information Service Provider with more than a million users. Oscar wasn’t intent on destruction, just on subverting, briefly, the home page of every ISP and putting his own full page advert on display.

  Within seconds, nearly two thirds of the available Internet advertising space around the planet had been taken over to spell out the attractions of a certain named web site. Every Google ‘search’ would come back with just one result for 24 hours. To prevent either the web site going down because of too many hits or attacks from any authority, Oscar had replicated the site on all public ISPs and then carefully shared out the addresses of all the replica sites. In extremis he could copy sites from the darknet up onto the public providers.

  Oscar turned his attention to the cell-phone networks. His fingers flashed out a new set of commands that hijacked their central servers. Texts started to flow across the networks until cell-phones world wide were receiving the message to check out Oscar’s web site. Then he commandeered Twitter, or specifically the accounts with the highest number of followers. Suddenly Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and the President of the Unites States were urging their followers to check out #globalamericandirtytricks. He also retweeted using the #saveourpeoplesbank. Within seconds, the twittersphere was awash with frenzied comments about the behaviour of Global American. Erin watched her screen fill with confirmations of their arrows going home.

  ‘If this comes off, Ted, I’m going to ask Ramesh if he needs a new district manager. Alaska region. What do you think?’

  ‘He won’t know what’s hit him. Let’s go.’

  He grabbed their cases and
headed for the door. A car was waiting in front ready to take them to a different hotel. Just in case Joey put in another showing. A large number of dollars bought them anonymity – they hoped - at the front desk.

  As the car swept them into the night, both were thinking the same thing. Monday was going to be an interesting day.

  FIFTY SIX

  On Monday morning, Ramesh Banerjee sat in the cool courtyard of his head office in Delhi preparing himself for the first day of his trial. He and his defence team had done everything they could to prepare for the event. They had waded through several inches of witness statements – all patently false but so hard to disprove – and several inches of defence documents and rebuttals. He shook his head. He knew that no matter what they did in court they would lose. This wasn’t about justice or right or wrong. It was about politics, and he didn’t play politics. Or rather he was no good at it.

  It was 6.30 am. He had woken early as usual and decided to enjoy the fresh morning air before the heat sucked away the vitality. His lawyer Medha Sardar would not arrive until 8 o’clock. He was sipping tea and thinking fondly of his brave daughter Meera. She’d sounded strong and happy yesterday on the phone from her new district. The gamble had paid off sending the reporter and the bank woman with Meera. Even if it didn’t make any difference except a kinder word in an American newspaper, Ramesh thought he’d got some of his message through. This was all he could hope for: that one man, or one woman would see the point of it all, would understand his impossible dream.

  He was so proud of his daughter. So bright, so energetic and with the wonderful faith and hope of youth. He imagined he’d felt the same twenty five years ago. He could change the world then. But now he knew better. You could shift things a little, you could bend things, but finally one man couldn’t change anything. Not even Buddha or the Christian prophet. Deep down inside men would always be driven by the basest of motives: power, sex, greed. Maybe they were all the same thing? He wondered how or if he was different? Was it all about power for him? Power to do good was just as potent a drug as power to do evil.

  He put his glasses back on, picked up his book of poetry and began to immerse himself in the rhythms of the Sanskrit. He had deliberately avoided newspapers and radio and TV this morning to keep his mind clear.

  Medha Sardar and CJ Kapoor burst in on his tranquillity at 7.30. Ramesh dragged himself back to the present, carefully placed his bookmark in the book it, shut it, and turned to see why they were so excited. CJ was waving a newspaper like a flag.

  ‘Ramesh! Ramesh have you heard?’

  Ramesh smiled at his lieutenant. It was unusual to see the calm and sober CJ Kapoor so agitated.

  ‘I have heard the birds singing and the trees rustling in the morning breeze. Is that what you mean?’

  CJ seemed impatient at his humour.

  ‘No, no! It is in all the news. On the television. On the radio. And here in the newspaper. Look!’ CJ placed the now somewhat mangled first edition of the Times of India in front of him on the table. On the front page, with banner headlines, the story was set out in sensational language. But when was it not, thought Ramesh.

  Global American and World Bank in Evil Plot

  The People’s Bank of India has been the target of a nefarious attack by the largest bank in the Western world and the World Bank institution itself. In the hours of darkness, astounding revelations were made to a sleeping world. A series of emails and texts showered the globe with references to a web site containing incriminating evidence of double dealing and wickedness.

  The Times can report that according to our legal team and technical experts the information contained on this startling web site may well be genuine. It contains mind-boggling transcripts and recordings of conversations between the Chief Executive of Global American bank and a series of high profilers, including the President of the World Bank himself. They show a catalogue of jiggery pokery and foul play over many months to bring down the People’s Bank. It is clear – if the information is to be believed – that the Indian Government has been duped by a powerful cabal of Western gangsters and their henchmen.

  In an amazing parallel incident, the whole of the banking system of Global American appears to have been bowled out by a gang of cyberspace hackers. Is it all coincidental on the same day that the People’s Bank appears in court charged with embezzlement and corruption? The Times asks ‘what is going on here?!’ Stand by for more revelations of this astounding story in later editions.

  ‘It is the same on the TV and the radio. The world has gone mad!’

  CJ was sitting opposite Ramesh, jabbing his finger at the headlines. Ramesh read and re-read the column trying to make sense of it.

  ‘Let us stay calm. Let us go inside and check this out on your screens CJ.’

  ‘Let me tell you, Ramesh, our teams have been working round the clock to keep our systems going. It seems we have won!’

  They passed clumps of bank employees chattering with excitement in the corridors, or gathered round their computer screens pointing out items to each other. Some however were slumped across their desks, exhausted beyond interest in the latest revelations. CJ led the way to his own table in a corner and began to pull up news screens.

  ‘Look! Look! It is on every news channel. The same story.’

  ‘I can hardly believe it!’ said Ramesh to his colleagues. ‘Go into one of these web sites they are talking about.’

  CJ did and they clicked through Erin and Ted’s simple menu, reading and listening to some of the damning material. CJ and Ramesh hardly spoke, but listened open-mouthed to the steadily mounting evidence of megalomania and corruption. The lawyer was bumping up and down in his seat in demented excitement, scribbling notes furiously and calling for hard copies to be run off.

  ‘I almost feel sorry for him.’

  ‘How can you, Ramesh?!’

  ‘He was caught by the machine that drives us all along now.’

  ‘Not us. We are different!’ CJ was offended.

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘But it will kill this trial. It shows the Government taking bribes from this American bank. They cannot proceed now, can they?’ asked CJ of the lawyer Sardar.

  Sardar’s arms were overflowing with bundles of print outs.

  ‘It is wonderful! But we’ve still got to appear in court this morning. In one hour.’

  Ramesh stood up. ‘Come CJ. We will continue with our business. We must go to court. It is our duty.’

  The three men gathered up their papers and walked through to the foyer. They opened the doors leading out onto the main street and were hit by a barrage of flashbulbs. The entire world’s press seemed arrayed in front of them. A car was waiting for them but it was completely swamped by photographers and reporters. They fought their way through and climbed in. All round them were cries for comments amid volleys of shutter clicks.

  Their car eased through the crowd and crawled forward till they reached the Chandni Chowk. They honked their way across the busy cross-roads and turned right along the Chowk. At the T junction opposite the Red Fort, they forced their way through the red-light jumpers and the whistle-blowing policemen and turned south. All they had to do was follow the Netaji Subhash Marg until it gave way to the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. The Supreme Court sat in on the right. It should have been a journey of 15 minutes, perhaps half an hour, if the traffic was thick.

  The traffic was relatively free-moving as far as the Delhi Gate but Ramesh noticed a growing number of people on either side of the roads. They were all heading south. They had reached the intersection of the Vikas Marg and the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg when they noticed that the streams of people were flowing together and forming a tighter and tighter crowd. Within a hundred yards the crowd had spilled across the road, and forward movement for all vehicles had stopped. Still more people poured through. Up ahead a noise was gathering like a rhythmic chanting.

  Policemen were vainly floundering about, blowing whistles and trying to push the p
eople back on to the side of the roads. Their batons flailed uselessly. All that happened was the people streamed either side of the islands of policeman leaving them stranded and ineffectual. Ramesh rolled his window down and asked a sweating officer what was happening.

  ‘Please to stay in your car. We do not know what is happening. The court is completely surrounded. We are not coping yet with the crowd.’

  ‘But what is the noise? What are they saying?’

  ‘It is just a bunch of mad people. Do not pay them mind.’

  ‘But we have to get to the court. We have a trial today.’

  The policeman took a closer interest in them. He peered into the car and inspected Ramesh’s face in the front seat. Then he peered at the two men in the back.

  ‘Maybe you should be walking to the court? But I am not thinking you will get through today. I do not think the judges even will be able to get through.’

  Ramesh and his men climbed out of the car and pressed forward into the crowd. Suddenly there were cries about them.

  ‘Look! It is him! It is Ramesh Banerjee!

  ‘Sir, Sir! We are here for you!

  ‘Let him through! Let Ramesh through!’

  A phalanx of self appointed guardians formed in front and to the side of Ramesh and his party and began to cut a swathe through the mass of people. Their shouts cleaved a path like a hot poker pushing steadily into pat of ghee. As they progressed, the crowd either side picked up the news and a steady chanting began.

  ‘Ramesh, Ramesh, Ramesh!’

  ‘My goodness, they are going to make you Emperor I think,’ shouted CJ in wonder. He smiled at the crowd to show them he was friendly.

  ‘Or lynch me,’ shouted Ramesh back at him.

  Steadily they moved on and the top cornices of the Supreme Court building could now be seen above the crowd. The chanting of the crowd immediately around them had changed to tie in with the better established chorus at the centre of the mass. Now they could make out the words.