Falling Stars

by Tim Tigner

  Pavel contemplated that for a second. “Kind of like bail.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s crazy. Ivan would lose everything if he ran.”

  And so would we, both men thought but didn’t say.

  The three executive members of Team Raven all knew about the loan because it affected their compensation. Ivan had granted each of them an equity stake in Silicon Hill, but like most bonuses, it was contingent on success. In this case, success was defined as Ivan taking ownership. The possibility that Ivan might not succeed had never concerned Michael. His boss was a legend. He always knew what would happen next, and how to leverage it.

  Michael put an arm on Pavel’s shoulder. “Vazov’s just paranoid. Don’t worry. Ivan can manage him. You focus on flying the drone and we’ll be rich before we know it.”

  Pavel raised the joystick in salute.

  Michael headed for the Tesla.

  Boris had Raven folded for transport and was now busy loading it aboard. The Model X’s seagull wings were perfect for this, and with the second row of seats removed, there was just enough room.

  “Everything good?” Michael asked.

  Boris pushed the button that brought the wings down and sealed Raven in. Even though he’d seen the procedure a hundred times, it still struck Michael as something from Star Wars.

  “It’s good, but inefficient.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Folding and unfolding Raven takes time. So does loading. For fast deployments and getaways, we’d be much better off using a truck. We could just cut off the roof and fly Raven in. Plus we’d save weight without the hinging mechanisms.”

  Michael nodded. “It’s common sense.”

  “Right!” Boris replied, obviously surprised that Michael was agreeing with him rather than defending Ivan’s decision.

  “I’m sure any experienced engineer would agree with you,” Michael added.

  “No doubt.” Boris canted his head. “Do you think Ivan might change his mind? Perhaps after the first operation or two?”

  “No chance.”

  Boris’s expression dimmed. “Why not?”

  “You might be an engineering genius, but Ivan is a tactical one.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Precisely,” Michael replied. He backed up a few steps and beckoned for Boris to follow.

  Boris played along.

  “What do you see?” Michael asked.

  Boris shrugged. “A Tesla Model X.”

  “More generally…”

  “A black car.”

  “Anything else?”

  Boris studied the scene for a few silent seconds. “No.”

  Michael put his arm around Boris’s shoulder. “That, my friend, is Ivan’s genius. Even when they’re looking for us, they’ll never see us coming.”

  20

  Chatter

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  JO STUDIED ACHILLES’ FACE in the afternoon sun as the Swann Fountain shot a geyser 50 feet into the air behind him. She saw genuine excitement sparkling in his eyes. Perhaps he really had figured out how to find Ivan. She didn’t want to dim that glow, but there were practical issues to consider prior to pursuing Ivan, and she’d been meaning to ask one of them for a while now. “How will you get out of the country with the FBI and CIA hunting you, and your name on every customs agents’ watch list?”

  Achilles gave her a surprised look. “You never bought a passport before?”

  “Never had the need. Do fake passports really work?”

  “They’re real passports. They work just fine.”

  “Where do I get a real fake passport with my biometric data in it?”

  “You know those payday-loan and check-cashing shops you always see in poor neighborhoods?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll start there, since passport suppliers use them to get real passports.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Most people who frequent those businesses don’t have a passport and never expect to travel out of their home state, much less the country. But they are in desperate need of money. The passport suppliers offer them say $1,000 to get a new passport and turn it over.”

  “And then you buy it for what, $10,000?”

  “Something like that. It’s a very high margin business, given that the only expenses beyond an inventory of $1,000 passports is the equipment that does the biometric programming and the software to run it. I don’t know what those cost, but they’re one-time expenses.”

  “And that equipment is available?”

  “It’s not locked up the way you might think. The U.S. government outsources everything. The passports themselves are made overseas with components from all over the world. The biometric chips and software are outsourced to Germany, the Netherlands, Thailand and China.”

  “What about replacing the passport pictures?”

  “Replacing them is tough, so they don’t. The passport scammer in the payday-loan shop takes the photos himself using lighting tricks to minimize facial detail. Then he matches his customer with somebody who’s close enough.”

  “And ‘close enough’ works in your experience?”

  “Hasn’t failed me yet. Since the passport control officer has biometric data, they tend to rely on that. In practice, they often don’t check anything at all when the line is long. The Internet is full of stories of husbands and wives who get their passports mixed up and travel around the world without ever being questioned.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Combine human nature with a minimal wage, and you can’t expect much else.”

  On that note, they left Logan Circle behind and began walking south on 19th. Once they’d passed the Academy of Sciences, Jo hit him with the big question. “So how are we going to find Ivan?”

  He gave a one word answer. “Drones.”

  “Drones,” she repeated. “As in surveillance? Turn his tool against him? I don’t see how.”

  “Have you ever heard of a drone that could pick up a person?”

  Jo thought about it. “No, come to think of it I haven’t.”

  “I’ve seen videos of hobbyists who cobbled together one-seaters for short joy rides. And I’ve read about startups working on ultralight helicopters. But I’ve never seen anything nearly as robust or sophisticated as the drone you sketched. Have you?”

  “No.”

  Achilles smiled and resumed jogging.

  She raced to catch up. “How does not hearing about drones help us find Ivan?”

  “Think about what he’s doing from a historical perspective. His work may not rival the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, but transporting people by drone is revolutionary.”

  “That’s an interesting perspective,” Jo said, aware that her tone wasn’t entirely sincere. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that he’s spearheading a very hot technology.”

  “Ivan has always been the leader in his field, but no one has ever tracked him down without insider knowledge.”

  Achilles’ eyes twinkled, causing Jo’s excitement to build. “Ivan’s earlier work was different. Building a product isn’t like constructing a caper. You can’t work in a vacuum. For something as sophisticated as a drone capable of carrying a person in a combat situation, Ivan had to amalgamate multiple cutting-edge technologies. His power supply would have to be second to none. Each component would have to be extremely lightweight, strong and resilient.”

  “So?”

  “In sum, the physical design of the drone that attacked you surely incorporates scores of insights gleaned from dozens of the industry’s best minds. There’s just no way he managed all that without assembling a team that’s second to none.”

  Jo could feel the insight coming, but she hadn’t quite grasped it yet. “So he had to recruit people.”

  “Right—”

  “The best people.”

  “Right again.”

  Jo’s mind was on a roll. “To
do that, he’d have to compile a compelling offer.”

  “Such as?”

  “This really isn’t an area where I have any expertise. You’re the man from Silicon Valley.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  “People like that would want more than money. They’d want ‘the whole package,’ whatever that means to engineers. Stock, I assume. Bonuses.”

  “Keep going.”

  Jo drew a blank and gave Achilles a give-it-to-me look.

  “You can’t steal Boeing’s best aeronautical engineer without offering something more solid than a monthly paycheck and an unsubstantiated promise. The risk/reward ratio wouldn’t work. Not for the guy everyone acknowledges to be the best.”

  “You’re talking about reputation,” Jo blurted. “Prestige.”

  Achilles didn’t contradict her.

  She considered her conclusion for a second. “Ivan has a reputation, a huge reputation. He’s the world’s most notorious criminal mastermind. He’s Ivan the Ghost. But nobody knows who he is, so I don’t see how that would help.”

  “You’re right about reputation. That’s the key. And you’re right that most engineers wouldn’t be attracted by the prospect of working for a criminal mastermind.” Achilles nodded encouragement. “Keep going. Bring it home. Use a specific example, I find that helps.”

  Jo thought out loud. “How do you steal Tesla’s best battery engineer? You show her something even better. Equally fascinating work, better perks, fantastic facilities, more prestige.” She felt the light ignite. She got it now. “You couldn’t keep an operation like that quiet. You wouldn’t want to. You’d publicize it. At least within certain circles.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Ivan’s got to be hiding in plain sight—like you did at JFK.”

  Achilles held out his fist for a bump. “And ‘plain sight’ is one place where the police wouldn’t think to look for a ghost.”

  21

  MiMiC

  French Riviera

  IVAN HAD A SECRET TO SHARE.

  He loved moments like this. Moments when he got to give others a glimpse of his genius.

  Exactly one hour before their departure on the first kidnap and ransom mission, he called the Team Raven executives to his office. It was a modest room in comparison to Vazov’s spectacular suite two doors down, but his view was just as breathtaking and his round table seated four people comfortably enough.

  They arrived as a group. Boris, the savant who was proving to be the best electromechanical engineer this side of Thomas Edison. Pavel, the ex-Air Force pilot who incessantly honed his skills on video games. And Michael, the team leader, the man who’d been by his side since high school.

  Ivan got right to business. “Everything in order? Punch lists punched? Check lists checked?”

  Each man nodded as Ivan met his eye.

  “Any concerns? Now’s the time to voice them.”

  Silence.

  “Very good then.”

  With his team primed for the dangers and disappointments in the offing, it was time to send them out of the locker room and onto the field. But first, a bit of motivation. A brilliant new play. A secret weapon for their arsenal.

  He picked up his mobile phone. It was an ordinary phone with an extraordinary app. He waved it beside his head. “You’re all familiar with the software we’re developing in the legitimate lab to help computers sound more like humans. But have any of you heard of the side project Paul and Walter are working on?” Paul Sturgess and Walter Moony were principal engineers recruited for the project from Google and Apple.

  Boris and Pavel shook their heads. Speaking slowly in speech that just might have been tinged with resentment, Michael said, “No, I haven’t.”

  “Good. I’d hate for the world to lose their talent.”

  Ivan tossed the phone to Michael. “I call it MiMiC—short for Mobile Impersonation Microphone. MiMiC has two very special functions. The first allows you to customize the caller ID sent to the recipient’s phone. It’s a relatively simple spoof, but an important one. The second, however, is real magic. It enables the caller to sound like anyone he wants. Tonight, for example, when Michael calls Lawrence O’Keeffe, he will sound like Melissa Theuriau.”

  Ivan paused, inviting questions. Two came at once.

  “The anchor from M6 News?” Pavel asked.

  “How does it work?” Boris asked.

  Michael just smiled.

  “I’ll answer both questions at once, and will simplify for clarity—although frankly I couldn’t explain it any other way. The nitty gritty of what Paul and Walter do is beyond me.”

  Ivan spread his hands professorially. “Picture a digital recording. You’ve all seen those waveforms, right? Patterns of vertical lines emanating from a central axis, kind of like a heartbeat monitor but angrier.”

  Two of the three nods were halfhearted, but all eyes were transfixed. Ivan continued, “If I read the first page of War and Peace, I’ll generate a different graphic than if Pavel reads it. Similar, but different. What MiMiC does is digitally convert one pattern to another. In real time.

  “This may seem simple on the surface, like a basic addition and subtraction operation, getting the sound peaks and valleys to align. But that’s because the waveforms we’re used to seeing portray sound in two dimensions. Human speech, however, goes way beyond peaks and valleys. It has multiple dimensions and is exceptionally complex. It’s not just the pitch, tone, accent and inflection of myriad letter combinations, but the speed at which they’re linked and delivered.

  “Paul and Walter are the two best brains in the speech recognition and replication business. They came here with everything Apple and Google know on the subject. Even with all that knowledge and coding as a starting point, it still took them 18 months of 80-hour weeks to crack. But crack it they did. Now we’ve got MiMiC and they’re set for the rest of their lives.”

  Ivan paused, giving the team time to ponder. He wasn’t worried about their following the technical aspects. All three had engineering minds. But the volume of operational opportunities MiMiC opened was enough to color the ocean.

  “Of course, MiMiC has to be taught how it’s supposed to sound. That’s accomplished by feeding it samples of speech, which is where Melissa Theuriau came in.”

  “Why Melissa Theuriau?” Pavel asked.

  “How large a sample?” Boris asked.

  “Sample size requirements vary. MiMiC needs thousands of letter combinations, each expressed in normal speech, exclamations and questions. With celebrities like Melissa Theuriau, it’s no problem. Plenty of recordings are available. But with civilians, you need a good twenty minutes of varied discussion to capture the necessary range. Sometimes more.

  “Paul and Walter set up the collection processor to display progress with red, yellow and green lights so you can measure progress in real time. Once MiMiC has enough data to function adequately during a typical business call, or a discussion between strangers, or a short conversation among casual acquaintances, red becomes yellow. Once you’re good to go with anyone on anything, it turns green.”

  Michael raised a finger. “You’d still have to choose appropriate words. Suitable phrasing. Proper expressions.”

  Ivan turned to his right-hand man. “Exactly. MiMiC won’t make a high school dropout sound like a college professor, or turn a Texas rancher into a Wall Street banker, but it will make Bill Clinton sound like Hillary—and it did allow me to impersonate the Director of the CIA.”

  Michael nodded as light dawned. He hadn’t known how Ivan had arranged the meeting between Rider and Achilles. “Where did you get recordings of Achilles?”

  “Press conferences from the 2010 Olympics. He did a long interview with his hometown news station.”

  “Genius,” Pavel said, his admiration evident.

  “I’m impressed,” Boris said. A rare compliment.

  Ivan added icing to the cake. “The advantages of sounding like a celebrity will be threefold. F
irst, our victims will likely recognize the voice. Second, that recognition will distract them by raising all kinds of questions. Third, and my personal favorite, it will make their claims of drone abduction sound all the more absurd, should they choose to alert the authorities.”

  Smiles erupted all around.

  Ivan basked in the warm glow of satisfaction for a few seconds, then handed Michael the MiMiC phone.

  “Go get ‘em.”

  22

  LeClaire

  Saint Tropez, France

  LAWRENCE O’KEEFFE loved his life. He loved his house. He loved his job. He loved his husband. The fact that they’d just come into big money didn’t hurt, either. There were plenty of places to spend it in Saint Tropez, and since the money had been a long time coming, Lawrence had a list. Fortunately, CJ agreed with most of it.

  Lawrence was thinking about that list as he and CJ began the warm-up portion of their nightly routine, a yoga regimen that would help keep them healthy well into their golden years. Lawrence knew he should be focusing on the sound of his breath, quieting the noise in his mind. That was never easy. A good CFO had to live and breathe the corporate numbers—the trends, the impacts, the implications. The stock market was a fickle master known to lash back with ferocity if neglected.

  A strange hum interrupted Lawrence’s background calculations. He looked up from a downward-facing pose to see a drone pop up over the hill. A big black one. He knew what that meant: the paparazzi had found them. CJ was new enough to celebrity status that the couple still found the attention more flattering than irritating.

  “Yet another sign you’ve made it,” he said as the drone zoomed closer. “We might be secluded from nosey neighbors, but apparently we’re not hidden from paparazzi drones. Should we go inside or just ignore it?” As he asked the question, Lawrence automatically inventoried their outfits. All of it was LeClaire. “Might be good publicity.”

  “That’s a bloody big drone,” CJ replied.