by D S Kane
CHAPTER 24
December 4, 11:59 a.m.
Swiftshadow Group offices,
2099 K Street NW, Washington DC
Jon and Avram sat at the Swiftshadow Group’s conference room table, the big screen at the head of the table showing a count down: 5…4…3…2…1. Next,the screen showed an olive-skinned, bearded man wearing a blue business suit. The insignia of the United Nations was prominent on the drape behind the man, whose expression showed an intense constant sadness. “General Shimmel, what have you to report?”
“Secretary-General Kang, first let me thank you for forcing the American government to release me. The United Nations still wields power. Our current status is that we have lost the security specialists we have used in the past to detect cyber threats. The government still holds all of them. For us, it is eleven individuals, including three of our senior management. For America, it might be as many as two million individuals. No one knows the exact number. No one knows if they are being treated humanely. No one knows where they are being held. Can the United Nations pressure the US government to release them all?”
Kang sat back in his seat and scratched his head. “Alone, I cannot. What I will do is to ask each of the other Security Council members to see how many want to pursue this issue in the General Assembly. Of course, the United States holds veto power on the Security Council, but my doing so will make the very statement you are looking for. Correct? Give me a day. I’ll call you again tomorrow at this time.”
The man’s image swirled away on the screen.
Jon said, “Unfortunately, making this sausage will take days, and there’s no reason to believe it might work. Given that both the Russians and the Chinese have axes to grind with America, it will probably just be a major embarrassment to the US government. Nothing more.”
Avram nodded. “We can return to your apartment now. I hope Ann has heard from the CypherGhost.”
As they left the office and waited for the elevator, Jon asked, “Do you know why Ann’s callsign is Little Noisy?”
Avram laughed. “Use your imagination.”
* * *
Ann read the CypherGhost’s latest message. It had arrived within the Draft folder of the Swiftshadow Group website, triggering a beep on Ann’s cellphone. The procedure worked to spec. Reading the message made Ann smile:
Little Noisy—
Okay. I agree we need to meet face-to-face. But, not any place either of us ever go normally. How about in Washington DC at the Le Pain Quotidien on P Street near Dupont Circle? Tomorrow. Noon, when it’s most crowded there. I know what you look like, so I’ll make the first move. See you there.
—the CypherGhost
It took only a few seconds for Ann to realize that the CypherGhost had already traveled to Washington. I wonder why? And where exactly is she? She knew that the CypherGhost had once wanted her dead. Was the hacker now really going to work with her side? No way to tell.
So, now she would meet the person who had started it all. She knew her adversary was probably a better hacker than she was. If we are to work together, we’ll need some way to cement the relationship. I’ll need to render her harmless, so I can sleep at night. How can I get close to her?
She was still thinking about the CypherGhost’s message and the best way to approach her, when the front door of the apartment opened and Avram and Jon walked in. “Hey, guys, look at this!” She pointed to the message on her screen.
* * *
Lee Ainsley toured the small building outside the walls of the compound. It was the fifth such compound he’d visited so far, and he’d never seen anything like them. Over two dozen buildings were contained on the other side of the fortress walls. He knew they were there because he now had an image of all the electrical circuitry of everything within the walls. Miles and miles of fiber-optic cable. Nearly a thousand miles of circuitry within two square miles filled with concrete buildings.
What are these fortresses going to be used for? What are the staff doing inside those walls? His NSA bosses had told him they would return his cellphone when the assignment was completed, and they’d housed him in an outbuilding of each of the facilities he’d visited. None of the places he’d been housed had radios or televisions.
They’d told him these were storage facilities, but no storage facility needed the server tech these outbuildings contained, so close to the enormous compound. And why not put the server tech within the walls? Only a prison would need the tech separated from the main set of buildings. He was nearly certain that these facilities housed the hackers who had been arrested. He’d seen the headlines on a newspaper that one of his senior clients had had on his desk. Other than that, he’d been able to discover nothing about what was happening in the outside world. No television or radio in the barracks where they’d put him up overnight.
Only a few more days and he could write his report and head home.
He frowned. He’d need to tell Cassie about this when he returned home.
* * *
The food slot opened and Cassie closed her eyes, not wanting the light leaking into the cell to blind her. When she heard the food tray scrape through the slot, she walked two paces toward the sound and opened her eyes. Whatever was there smelled like food, not like rot, as the previous meals all had. She reached her hand out and felt around the slot. She ate for the first time in what felt like three days, and the food tasted good but left her mouth incredibly dry. She ripped open the water sack and drank the entire amount within.
She thought nothing about what she’d just done was terribly unusual. By now, this was her routine.
* * *
The lead guard answered the chirp of his cellphone. The voice on the other side of the line was disguised, its tone altered. “Yeah, I did as you asked. Uh, I’m pretty sure. Uh, well, I think they did. From what I saw, all the prisoners did. Every water sack we collected after their meals was empty. Why’s that so important, anyway? Uh, sorry, okay. I’ll follow my orders. And thanks for the bonus.” He terminated the call. What’s so important about making sure all the prisoners were hydrated?
* * *
Irwin Sadowski turned off the voice modulator. Phase one is complete. Now even if any of the prisoners escape, the organization will know where every one of them is. Nothing like Bug-Lok to track a human. Too bad these were made without the long-range kill switch. But even without the switch, knowing exactly where on Planet Earth they were means there is no escape for them. The nanobugs will remain inside their bodies for almost six weeks. He tried to locate several of the prisoners using his cellphone. Now he smiled. The Bug-Loks worked to spec.
He called the cell of the person he reported to. Phase two could now begin.
* * *
William guessed that he’d been held prisoner for maybe three or four days. No way to tell for sure; in the cell, night and day were indistinguishable. He thought about how long before he should activate his Bug-Lok and computer. Was there any benefit to waiting longer? Nope. Might as well try now and see what the world outside looks like. He had saved his water sack from the piece of garbage they’d offered him as a meal. He pulled out the tiny container he’d hidden up his rectum, holding a Bug-Lok device floating somewhere in its fluid and washed the outside of the container with water from his lunch sack, cleaning it as best he could before he opened it and swallowed the contents. Salty. Then he drank the remainder of the water in his lunch sack. He then removed the thumb drive from his butt hole, used some of the water from the sack to wash it off, and gave its bottom a sharp twist, turning it on. Then he slipped it back up his rectum.
In under a minute he could see a logon screen open in the middle of his head. He thought about his user ID and password and saw them flash into the screen-in-his-head. The screen gave him several choices, but the screen rendering had bleed and shimmer. Something isn’t working well, here. He chose CNN and caught up on current events for fifteen minutes. The screen in his head kept blinking off for a second every three
or four minutes. What the fuck?
Next, he initiated a search for “nearby friends.” Listed among the others he could contact were Cassie and Betsy. He arranged to conference in with them, using text messages.
Betsy: William, where the fuck-all have you been?
William: Just not sure you guys had turned on as yet. Do you have shimmer and bleed issues with the screen?
Cassie: I’ve got a bit of that. But, we’ve been at it for almost four hours. Maybe this was a defective batch of Bug-Loks.
William: Anyone hear from Ann? Is she also being held captive?
Cassie: Not sure. She’s dark. I placed a message for her into the Drafts folder about fifteen minutes ago but no love yet.
Betsy: Does she have a configuration like ours?
Cassie: Yeah. Standard issue for all of the hackers at Swiftshadow. I’m guessing they picked up the entire department. We should have heard from all your department personnel by now. Starting to worry about the others.
William: Me too. Cassie, can you place a cellphone call using this setup?
Cassie: No. No auditory connection. It would have made the hardware in this version of the Bug-Lok too big. We tried to keep all the original features, but those versions killed several test subjects. Before he died, Ben-Levy said it would be best to include just the absolute minimum set of features.
Just then, a beep alerted each of them. The message ENTRY rippled through each of their consciousnesses:
Little Noisy—
Okay. I agree we need to meet face-to-face. But, not any place either of us ever go normally. How about in Washington DC at the Le Pain Quotidien on P Street near Dupont Circle? Tomorrow. Noon, when it’s most crowded there. I know what you look like, so I’ll make the first move. See you there.
—the CypherGhost
Cassie: Who’s Little Noisy? Who’s this CypherGhost?
Betsy: I guess no one told you about Ann’s call-sign. Little Noisy. She earned it last year when she came to Washington without you. She and Charles, her boyfriend du jour slept together, and well, she’s a screamer. As for the CypherGhost, not sure. Guess that’d be the mongo-hacker who started the mess we’re now in.
Cassie: My daughter was sleeping with a boy in my house while I was away?
William: Get over it. What’s more important is the meeting they’ve planned. Any luck and, working together, they may be able to get us out of here. Did either of you try the GPS functionality?
In seconds, they’d all tried the feature. In each of their minds, the GPS flashed their latitude and longitude. Betsy also saw a nearest-city location blink.
Betsy: Provo! Never been here before. Never want to visit again. Let’s update the Draft folder with our locations.
William: Somewhere in rural Wyoming. No city, just latitude and longitude.
Cassie: I’m nowhere near either of you guys. Somewhere in Nevada.
* * *
Three hours later, Ann was prepared to go to Le Pain Quotidien where the CypherGhost would meet her. She looked at the weather outside Jon’s apartment. Heavy snowfall obscured everything. She couldn’t even see the building across the street. She donned a hooded snorkel parka and gloves, and grabbed her notebook computer. After placing it inside a padded, nondescript waterproof gray-canvas case, she left the apartment.
It was a thirty-minute walk from Jon’s apartment to Le Pain Quotidien on P Street at Dupont Circle. But with the heavy falling snow, Ann wasn’t sure she’d be on time. She walked as fast as the heavy snow would let her, and arrived just a few minutes late.
Inside the small, L-shaped room, there was only one other person besides the cashier and a baker working at the oven. A young woman, perhaps twenty-five years old, with punk-slicked short black hair. A Goth look. Ann was sure she’d seen this woman before, but she couldn’t recollect where or when. The woman wore a lighter coat than she should have, given the weather. She carried no case big enough for a computer. When Ann smiled at her, the other woman simply nodded and walked to the table farthest from the counter. Ann sat across from her.
Ann took a deep breath. “What now?”
“You know where your mom is?”
“Yeah.” She pulled the notebook from its case and popped it open. “Look. Here.”
The CypherGhost examined the message and nodded. “Good, good. It’s what I’d already found out.”
Ann reached out and touched her companion’s hand. “Will you please tell me your name? Or something else I can call you? The CypherGhost is a mouthful.”
There was silence for nearly a minute. “Not here. Where is your hideout?”
Ann nodded. “Okay, then. Follow me.”
* * *
Just over an hour after she’d left Jon’s apartment to go to Le Pain Quotidien, Ann unlocked the door again, and led the mysterious woman inside. They both removed their coats.
“I’m Charlette Keegan-Ashbury. I think I’m one of the very best. I’ve been following you electronically since you foiled my takedown of the aircraft you were sitting on. Oh, and I’m not sorry I did what I did. A long time ago, I had a guy.” She told Ann the entire sequence of events relating to Martin’s death.
Ann frowned. “I’m so sorry for you.”
They sat close together on the couch. Ann told Charlette about her ex-boyfriend Charles, how he’d dumped her after he got to Harvard, and in return, how she’d hacked Harvard to flunk him out.
Charlette laughed. “Bastard got what he deserved.”
Ann noticed they were so close together, they could touch one another. Without thinking, she reached out and touched Charlette’s hand. Charlette turned her head as her mouth fell open, but then resumed her pose, looking as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed.
Ann said, “Well, you’re right. But it was simple revenge. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it to him. It’s possible I ruined his life.” Ann pulled her hand back.
“Don’t think so. If he has half the brain I think he does, he’ll do a bit of research and find out he was hacked. You might have a problem if he can find out who and how.” Charlette stared at Ann, then touched Ann’s hand and left hers on top. “But, doesn’t help. Let’s get started trying to figure out this mess.”
* * *
Viktur Krasnowski stomped around his tiny room in Vladivostok, Russia, screaming “Da! Da, da, da!” He held his large belly as he danced. Since the hacker roundup in the United States, his bank balance had increased by over fifty million rubles. “So much easier now with no security in the Five Eyes,” the intelligence alliance of the United States, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. A snowstorm was falling, and the gray silence outside was nearly overwhelming. He tried to stop smiling, but there was nothing he could think of that could stop him from laughing. “Oy! The world is mine now.”
His notebook computer sat on the small wood table. Its screen showed the file header for the CIA’s black list of personnel, one of many he’d just downloaded. He also had obtained the complete personnel files for all FBI employees and contractors, and for every government employee in every United States agency. He’d used a program he’d written to transfer as much of their personal assets as he could find to an intermediary bank in Gibraltar. The program was now routing the cash, over fifty million dollars, to his own bank account in Vladivostok. “I’m rich!”
Now he scanned the Dark Web for buyers of the intelligence agency databases. Fourteen hours ago, when he started hacking the government servers, the going price for these files had totaled over five hundred million US dollars.
But now, the going price had dropped to only three hundred thousand dollars, total, for all seventeen files. He scratched his head. How could this happen? Then he saw that the total number of sellers of the material currently exceeded seven million hackers. All were international. Nearly two million were Russian, almost four million were Chinese. The remaining sellers were hackers from North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Slovakia. But there were no sellers from North America
, since most of the hackers living there had all been imprisoned.
And Viktur knew that most of the imprisoned American hackers were white hats, trying to stop the black hats who now undisputedly ruled the earth. Nothing this historic and asinine had occurred since David Cameron had made encryption illegal in Great Britain.
He sat frowning as he watched the price continue to fall. Everyone had hacked all the data in the United States that had any value. And he’d become wealthy in under three days. But it was over now. He’d have to be satisfied with what he’d earned.
He wondered which warm climate vacation place he should now retire to.
* * *
Pacing in front of his desk in the Oval Office, Carl Hernandez, the President of the United States, read the document he held and cursed into the intercom. “Get me Senator Ruth Cantor.”
He sat and tapped his fingers against the desk for a few seconds. “Senator, it has just come to my attention that it was you who caused nearly two-point-five million hackers to be incarcerated in the Midwest. And according to what I was just told, you personally gave the order. Not me. And without specific charges against them. Just because there was some remote possibility that they might pose a security risk. Is this true?”
He listened to her feeble response.
“Senator, I don’t know how you convinced the FBI to act on your authority. You have no authority!” He took a deep breath to stop himself from yelling into the phone. “Are you aware of what has just happened in the global hacker community over the last seventy-two hours?”
Once again the senator babbled on.
The President interrupted. “That’s bullshit. Because of your precipitous and irresponsible action, every classified file the government ever held is now public. Hacked by the hackers in nations that don’t have America’s interests at heart. With all the white hats imprisoned, we were defenseless. The damage done exceeds anything ever done to our country through espionage. We no longer have any secrets. You are a disgrace. I want your resignation from the US Senate before the next hour ends.”
When he heard the senator begin her inevitable protest, he said, “Ruth, if you haven’t resigned by the end of the next hour, I’ll have you arrested for treason.”
