~
After a dinner of Crab Louie and two glasses of Russian River pinot noir, which didn’t do anything to mask the headache that had lingered all day, Drake left the 4th Street Bar and Grill at halftime and took the elevator in the hotel up to his room. The lobby was bustling with business arrivals checking in for a week in the City.
He stepped into an elevator that was nearly full, then had to move further to the back when two men squeezed in just as the door was closing. Both men were taller than him and from his view behind them and the way they stood, he guessed they were probably ex-military. Both men wore dark suits that made their short blond hair look even blonder.
Drake smiled as he kept his eyes looking straight ahead. No one ever spoke or even smiled at the person standing only inches away. This was an elevator custom that always amused him, especially here in one of the friendliest countries in the world. The first sound he heard, in fact, was the elevator signaling its first stop on the seventh floor.
A small woman nudged him in the back and made her way toward the opening door. When people shuffled to let her out, Drake noticed the bulge of a weapon under the right arm of the tall blond at one o’clock in front of him. It automatically registered in his mind that the man was left handed and probably was a resident of California. It was, he knew, almost impossible to obtain a concealed carry permit in San Francisco. Non-residents couldn’t even apply for one and permits from other states were not recognized. So either the man was on-duty law enforcement and a Californian with a concealed carry permit or he was carrying illegally. Drake wondered which it was.
The numbers above the elevator went up until they reached the twenty-fifth floor. The two blond men were now flanking Drake. The elevator stopped, the door opened, and he stepped out alone. As he walked down the hallway to his corner room, he felt the muscles in his shoulders relax. He knew he had experienced a subliminal response to the potential threat of the two men in the elevator. It was an unconscious alarm system that had served him well in the past, and it was one he trusted. Tonight, it was probably the sight of the tell-tale bulge under the man’s arm that had set it off.
As Drake focused on inserting his card in the key card door lock, he failed to notice one of the blond men opening the door from the stairway at the other end of the hall. After watching him enter his room, the man stepped back into the stairway and sent a text message that they had found where the attorney was staying before returning to his partner waiting on the floor above.
Chapter 18
Before returning to the EIS office the next morning, Drake received a call from Kevin McRoberts, Mike Casey’s young, white-hat hacker.
“Mr. Drake,” McRoberts began, “Mr. Casey told me to call you and report my finding about the spear phishing at Energy Integrated Solutions. I hope I’m not calling too early. I worked on this all night, and I thought you’d want to know what I found right away.”
Drake had just finished the omelet, toast, and coffee that room service had delivered at seven o’clock. “Not too early, Kevin. Fire away. Mike’s told me a lot about you.”
“Not all of it’s true, Mr. Drake. A lot of things get blamed on me that I didn’t do. I haven’t done any of the black hat stuff since I started working for Mr. Casey. A lot of guys—”
“Kevin,” Drake interrupted, “what did you find out?”
“Nothing. I didn’t find anything. The security at EIS is top notch with very few vulnerabilities. The two I found, most people wouldn’t, and they weren’t serious ones. I didn’t find any links to employees’ mobile devices that could be exploited to access the EIS system. I hacked into all the competitors that were in the file they gave you. I couldn’t find any connections to any of the EIS employees. All of the companies are doing well with plenty of business of their own. The spear phishing wasn’t traceable. They were onion routed encrypted emails from all over.”
“What’s onion routing?”
“It’s where they route traffic through at least three servers around the world. They used TOR software. That’s free, open source software that hackers use. Volunteers run servers so the users’ hacking can’t be traced.”
“If this hacker was that clever, why wasn’t he successful?” Drake asked.
McRoberts paused to take a sip of an energy drink before continuing. “Using TOR software and onion routing is basic stuff, Mr. Drake. This guy was sending emails to everyone, just shot-gunning it. He wasn’t world class, by any means. He just wasn’t good enough to get what he wanted from EIS.”
“Kevin, this is your field, not mine, so I’m relying on your expertise. In your opinion, does this spear phishing at EIS constitute a material risk to the company’s business, operations, or financial results?”
“No way, Mr. Drake. There were no breaches of the system and no impact I can see. Other than being a nuisance.”
“All right, Kevin, thank you. Send the bill for your time directly to EIS. Mr. Bradford’s expecting it.”
Drake refilled his coffee cup and walked to the window. The San Francisco Bay was covered in a low blanket of bright white fog that he hoped would burn off in time for a trail run through the Presidio. Advice that the spear phishing incidents didn’t need to be reported to the SEC on the company’s 10-K report would please the security analyst, counter the advice of corporate counsel, and leave Bradford without an explanation to explain his hunch that something wasn’t right. But that’s what he was able to determine. It was all he had been asked to do.
When he arrived at EIS, he was told that Bradford was on a conference call, so he detoured to the security analyst to tell him what he’d be advising Bradford when he saw him. Lewiston was at his desk, staring at one of his monitors.
“Got a minute, John?” Drake asked after he knocked on the door and was waved in. “I wanted to give you a heads up before I meet with Bradford. I’m advising him that, based on what I could find, there’s no need to report the incidents you’ve been having to the SEC. Your security is top notch and your employees are being very careful, as you’ve trained them to be.”
Lewiston looked up. “I suppose you’re responsible for the guy who’s been poking around our system,” he said.
“I had to be sure,” Drake said. “Mr. Bradford wanted a second opinion on the SEC reporting, but I’m not an IT expert. I can handle the legal end of things, but I needed an outside opinion. So I used a security firm that does threat assessments for a lot of high-tech firms.”
Lewiston motioned for him to close the door. “Your guy’s very good. In case I ever need someone to run a threat assessment, would you be willing to give me his name?”
“I don’t see why not. Call me when you need it.” Drake leaned over the desk and shook hands with Lewiston.
By the time he got back to Bradford’s office, the CEO was off the phone writing in an open file on his desk.
“Come in, Adam. Did you get all the files you wanted to see?”
“Yes, thank you. I also had someone assess your security and try to trace the cyber attacks. He also checked out your DARPA competitors. Your security is very good, Bill. I think you know that the cyber attacks weren’t traceable, as Lewiston told you, and we couldn’t find anything that linked your competitors to any of this. In my opinion, there’s no need to report these incidents to the SEC.”
“My attorney won’t like hearing that,” Bradford said, “but I agree with you. I still can’t shake the feeling there’s something going on, though. I’ve learned to trust my instincts about such things, but there doesn’t seem to be much more I can do. You think of anything?”
The CEO sat back in his chair and stroked his chin with one hand as he waited for an answer. The tightly pressed lips and slightly squinted eyes told Drake that Bradford wasn’t finished worrying about whatever it was that was bothering him.
“Bill,” he said, “I can’t think of anything else. I’m g
oing to be here for another day or so. I have a friend coming in from Las Vegas tomorrow night to meet me for dinner. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.”
“If you have the afternoon free tomorrow,” Bradford said, “would you like to go sailing? I try to go sailing mid-week to avoid the weekend crowd. I’ll bring the wine and some snacks, and we can leave from the marina here, say, one o’clock. You’ll enjoy it,” he promised.
“I’d like that. See you then.” Drake left to return to his hotel and change clothes for an afternoon run.
Chapter 19
The five and a half mile run Drake had discovered on the Internet was called the Presidio Extreme. It began in the parking lot of the Sports Basement, a favorite athletic and outdoor equipment store near the Golden Gate Bridge.
He parked the borrowed Audi TTS and cut through the parking lot at a slow jog to warm up. Then he set off along the route he had memorized until he reached the Ecology Trail. Picking up his pace, he ran up the hills past Inspiration Point and then continued until he came to the sandy trail along the Lobos Dunes. By then, he was sweating lightly. Another mile and a half on the Coast Trail and then down the hill at Chrissy Field until he saw the sign of the Sports Basement in the distance. He finished the run with a sprint back to his car.
As he slowed to a walk in the parking lot, Drake savored the sensations that lingered from one of the best runs he’d had in a while. Judging by the number of customers he saw carrying merchandise to their cars, the Sports Basement was having a good sales day.
A white Subaru Outback was parked next to his Audi and a woman was struggling to lift a new mountain bike onto a roof rack. An eight or nine-year-old boy was trying to help her. “Need a hand with that?” Drake asked as he approached them. He unlocked the Audi with his key fob to show he was parked next to her.
The young Latina wearing a red 49ers pullover jacket and skinny jeans smiled cautiously. “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t lift it high enough. I should have brought my husband.”
Drake took the bike from the woman as she moved to the rear of her car to give himself more room to lift. “Is this bike for you?” he asked the boy.
“It’s my birthday today. I’m eight,” was the proud answer.
With the bike’s front tire fitted snuggly in the front loader on the rack, Drake stepped around the boy to lock in the back wheel. In his peripheral vision, he noticed a black Ford Explorer pull out of the next row to his left and move slowly toward them.
“There,” he said as he reached to shake the hand of the birthday boy, “that’ll keep it safe…”
The passenger in the Explorer had a blue bandana over his lower face and was pointing a Tec-9 semi-automatic pistol out the open window.
In an instant, as the shooter began firing, Drake pulled the boy down to the ground and reached for his mother. The first bullets hit the woman in her right side and back. She staggered to her left, shielding her son from the shooter. As the SUV drove by, more rounds found their mark in her back and knocked her forward into Drake’s arms.
As he lowered her to the ground, he also grabbed the boy’s shoulder and kept him down until he heard the Explorer accelerate out of the parking lot. When he checked the woman for a pulse, he knew the sobbing boy beside him would never see his mother watching him ride his new bike.
He stood up and waved at two men looking at them over the roof of a nearby Camry. “Call 911! This woman’s been shot!”
Then he turned to the boy and moved in front of him so he couldn’t see his mother. “What’s your name, son?”
“Jeremy. Is my mom dead?”
“I’m afraid so, Jeremy. I’m sorry,” Drake lifted the boy into his arms.
One of the store’s security guards ran up. He was talking on his two-way radio. “Ambulance and police are on the way,” he said to Drake. “Is she…?”
Drake nodded and walked to the other side of the white Subaru. “Her purse is in the front seat. See if there’s a number to call her husband.”
He stood quietly, the boy’s head resting on his shoulder, as a crowd formed and then parted as the first of the police cruisers made its way to them. He waited while they checked to see if the woman was indeed dead and then took control of the crime scene.
An unmarked police car drove up behind the two cruisers, and a detective and his partner got out. After a brief conversation with one of the officers, the detective approached Drake.
“I’m Detective Cabrillo. Is this your son?”
“No. I was just helping the boy’s mother with his bike. His name is Jeremy. My name is Adam Drake. The Audi’s mine.”
“John,” Detective Cabrillo said to his partner, “why don’t you take Jeremy to our car while I speak with Mr. Drake.”
Jeremy didn’t want to be handed off.
“It’s okay, Jeremy,” Drake said. “I’ll stay here until your dad comes.”
When they were alone, the questioning began.
“What happened?”
Drake organized his thoughts. “I’d just finished my run through the Presidio and was walking to my car. She was trying to get Jeremy’s bike on the bike rack, but she wasn’t tall enough. I offered to help. I noticed a black Ford Explorer pull out from that empty parking spot over there and drive toward us. The passenger had his window down and had a Tec-9 in his right hand. He had tats across his four fingers of his right hand and a blue bandana over his mouth. I pushed the boy down and reached for her, but the bullets hit her first. She fell against my car, which shielded me, and then fell forward in my arms. The Explorer roared off. I checked. She was dead.”
“You noticed a lot in a few seconds,” Cabrillo said. “What do you do?”
“I’m an attorney. Used to be a prosecutor up in Portland. I’ve tried a couple gang drive-by shootings. Blue bandana, tattoos on each of his four fingers, MS-13?”
“That’s my guess,” Cabrillo said. He pointed at the red 49ers jacket Jeremy’s mother was wearing. “The Nortenos are a rival gang. Red’s their color.”
“She sure doesn’t look like the gang members I’m used to seeing.”
Cabrillo just shook his head. “You don’t have to be a member,” he said. “You just have to look like one. Be dressed in red. We’ll know soon enough. Do you live here?”
“I’m doing some work here for Energy Integrated Solutions and staying at the Marriott Marquis.” Drake handed the detective his business card. “I think that might be Jeremy’s dad that just arrived. I’d like to say goodbye to the boy and go take a hot shower, if that’s okay.”
“Sure,” Cabrillo said. “Drop by tomorrow and make a statement and let me know when you’re leaving the City. Thanks for staying with the boy.”
Drake walked toward the police cruiser where a sad little boy was waiting for his father.
Chapter 20
Ryan Walker took the news badly that MS-13 had failed to kill Adam Drake. He had agreed to pay way too much for what should have been a simple field exercise for an organization used to killing people. MS-13 was known for its brutal and indiscriminate lust for blood and its efficient methods. But maybe, Walker thought, it was also just PR.
“Tell them they need to return the money,” he shouted at his cartel contact on the other end. “Or the heads of the shooters. Unless you want to return the money, and the fee I paid you to arrange it.”
Walker slammed the phone down and took a deep breath. His connection to the Alliance, the creation of his grandfather after World War II that had been run by his father until he was killed, was more important than any one operation. Law enforcement’s discovery of its connection to terrorism was something he could not risk.
It had been a delicate exercise in management—his specialty—to keep his client organizations working together for a common purpose. The jihadis wanted to rule the world and restore the caliphate, the old Muslim empir
e. The drug cartels wanted to profit from America’s insatiable appetite for drugs. They also wanted to kill each other and, too often, to kill their golden goose when citizens grew tired of all the violence and tried to run them off.
His purpose, however, was to create lawlessness in the world that begged for a return of order that only a strong nationalist government like the one his forefathers had created in Germany in the first half of the 20th century. For that, he needed the efforts of both the jihadis and the cartels.
He did have something good to consider, he reminded himself. His plant at EIS was making progress and in position to infect the new security software. The cyber analyst in the Pentagon’s Cyber Command he was blackmailing was also in place to steal a copy of the Stuxnet worm that had shut down the centrifuges in Iran. As soon as his own team modified the worm and his man planted it within the EIS software, his job was finished. Then he could return to South America and the safety of his fortress there.
But, first, he had to make sure his plans had not been compromised.
Walker got up from his desk and poured himself a large snifter of Camus cognac. France was a miserable country, but they still made the best cognac. From the window in his study, he looked out over the San Francisco skyline to the east. The attorney he had failed to kill might, or might not, be the attorney Canaan had warned him about, but now he could not allow said attorney to become suspicious of Canaan or their operation. He needed to find another way to eliminate the risk.
Hardly even seeing the lights of the City, he ran through the catalog of his options. It was too soon for another accident. Heart attacks, car accidents, and drive-by shootings that connected Drake in any way to EIS would only lead to a more thorough investigation. A simple assassination would have the same result. Walker needed something more subtle, something that would lead the authorities in a different direction.
Dark Trojan (The Adam Drake series Book 3) Page 6
