Armchair Safari (A Cybercrime Technothriller)

by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

  It was a confusing mess for now. Any interaction with Derek, it seemed, continued to cause pain one way or another.

  Still... he had had the humility to call her and ask her for help. Not Roger, not Jim... her. He had recognized her value and her responsibility to the welfare of the company. So maybe he wasn’t a complete loser.

  And now, here she was, studying her own reflection in her bathroom mirror, thinking through where to go next.

  27

  Fallujah, Iraq. October 2004.

  Lance Corporal Stevens saluted as Lieutenant Callahan walked up to him outside the dusty brown building. Callahan scowled.

  “Don’t salute me out here, Stevens.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Where’s Staff Sergeant Ricks?”

  “Follow me, sir.”

  Stevens led Callahan and Sergeant Robinson down the deserted back alley. The Iraqi architecture here was all the same: two-story houses with a yard enclosed by a cinderblock wall, six feet high, and a single gate for an entrance. It all made for excellent cover during a firefight, which was much of what made their clearing action tedious and difficult. House-to-house, checking each one, not knowing if the next building was going to spring on them the rush of an ambush rather than continue to fuel the anxiety-filled silence that ate at their nerves. Would a grenade be rolled toward their feet when they breeched the entry? Would a gunman with an AK-47 be standing behind the door, ready to blow their fucking heads off as they entered the building? Death was ever at the ready. And yet they pressed on with their mission, as was their job. Clear the city.

  Two Marines standing guard on the corner watched curiously as Stevens, Callahan, and Robinson walked across the main street. Everything was the same color in the afternoon sun—a bleached-out tan mixed with the orange dirt of the desert. The sky had a dull haze to it that hung over the city like a smudge on a window. Rubble was strewn everywhere amongst the pockmarked buildings and burned-out vehicles rested silently along the street. Stevens took them through another alleyway and they emerged at the edge of what appeared to be a school playground. There was a merry-go-round next to a rusty red slide, a swing set with the swings missing, and a metal rocket ship emblazoned with the letters U-S-A in red and blue.

  Callahan raised his eyebrow. He had no idea they were so admired.

  They walked over to a residence immediately next to the school and ducked inside. It took a moment for Callahan’s eyes to adjust to the relative darkness. As they stood there, a familiar voice called out to him.

  “Lieutenant? Is that you?”

  “Yes. Hello, Ricks.”

  Staff Sergeant Ricks smiled grimly and shook hands with Callahan. “You got my message?”

  “Yes,” Callahan replied. “Where is it?”

  “Over here. Follow me.”

  Leaving Stevens at the door, they walked past the entry and deeper into the house, following a hallway and ending up at a closed door. Ricks looked over his shoulder with a resigned look at Callahan, took a breath, and turned the knob.

  The room beyond was larger than a typical bedroom, but there was no furniture in it save for a small table in the corner with a VCR and a small television. A tripod with a video camera lay folded neatly on the floor next to the table. On the far wall was hung a huge tarp crudely painted in the colors of the Iraqi flag, with three banks of blank Arabic writing spread evenly from left to right along its width. There were no windows and the walls felt thick and oppressive. Callahan surveyed his surroundings for a moment before his eyes came to rest on the middle of the cement floor.

  The dried, rust-colored stain made an ugly splotch at their feet. Blood.

  Callahan stood quietly and stared at the stain. Then he closed his eyes. He could imagine the terror of the person kneeling on the floor. What would have been going on in his head? Forced into a stress position, blindfolded, in pain. Listening to the guttural barks of rough men standing behind him as they made threats into the video camera. The fear of not knowing where he was, of what was going to happen, of when he would see his loved ones again. The sudden anxiety of being grabbed roughly from behind, the panic as unforgiving steel ripped into his throat, the searing pain, the rush of cold emptiness.

  He opened his eyes and looked at the stain again.

  Was it Finnegan’s blood? Callahan couldn’t help but wonder it.

  They were all wondering it.

  “Talk to me, Ricks. What do you know?”

  “Not much. We found this place early this morning after we cleared the block. There was a lot of fighting centered on this area—and I mean a lot of fighting. Martinez led a squad up and tossed a couple grenades into the front of the building here, and that seemed to finally crack up their resistance. Stormed in and got four kills. A couple hajis were on the roof and made a run for it. We nailed all three from our machine gunner two doors down on a different roof, but two kept on running. Don’t know where the bodies ended up. In any event, we searched the building and found a bunch of AKs and RPG rounds in the other rooms, and then Hollywood Studios right here.”

  “Looks like a setup for snuff films,” Robinson remarked dryly.

  “Yep.”

  The sergeant scratched absently at his eyebrow. Callahan noticed for the first time how tired Ricks looked.

  “You okay?”

  Ricks looked with surprise at Callahan. He thought for a moment. “No, sir. Not really. This shit really pisses me off.”

  Callahan nodded. The thought of Finnegan crossed his mind again. The kid was barely twenty years old. Could that really be his blood staining the floor? Derek wondered what tortures he might have been subjected to. Boiling water scalding his chest... caning on the bare soles of his feet until the skin detached... parts of his body set on fire while he was forced to watch? All just foreplay leading up to the big moment, a live beheading to be posted on YouTube with venomous rants around how the insurgents were backed up by God.

  “Captain Austin should see this, Ricks. I’m going to send him up. Keep the building under guard until I get back.”

  “Sir,” the sergeant replied distantly.

  Callahan stopped. Ricks was simultaneously staring at the stain and yet staring at nothing.

  “Ricks.”

  No response.

  “Staff Sergeant.”

  Ricks blinked. “Yes, sir?”

  “That’s not Finnegan’s blood. Could be anything, anyone’s.”

  There was a long, tired pause. “Yes, sir.”

  Callahan stared at his non-com. This man was a fellow Marine, a brother. It only took a moment for the lieutenant to make up his mind. “Come with me, Staff Sergeant.”

  The two men walked through a series of doorways until they were standing back outside. The sky was dusty and overcast.

  “Marcus... talk to me.”

  Ricks avoided making eye contact. After a few moments he shrugged. “I’m just... fuck. Pissed, sir. Fuck.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Callahan replied. “Not at you, Marcus. At the cockroaches we’re fighting.”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “No, it’s not. Bad things happen. You can’t stop every one of them.”

  The Marine stared at the ground, unconvinced.

  “Marcus, how many times have you saved my ass from a dumb move? How many times have you sat down with a Marine in our platoon who had his nose out of joint and straightened things out? You get the job done. You’re The Man. You know that? But shitty situations still pop up. You get these men through it ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Don’t overthink the one that doesn’t go our way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t yes-sir bullshit me, Marcus. Come on.”

  “Yes, si—yes, okay. I got it, Lieutenant.”

  Callahan gave his First Sergeant a slap on the arm. “Stay focused. We’ll find him.”

  Ricks managed a grim nod before going back inside. Callahan walked carefully around the outside perimeter of the building back to the front, wh
ere Robinson was waiting. The sergeant of 2ndSquad was trying to conceal his concern.

  “What, Robinson?” Callahan asked, annoyed.

  “Do you think the Staff Sergeant will be okay?”

  “Yeah. He will. We have to find our man, though.”

  “Roger that,” the sergeant said. Robinson was built like a short, dark WWE wrestler, and worry wasn’t something that was congruous with his demeanor. He looked uncomfortable. “He’s just normally such a cool cat, especially under fire. I’ve never seen him rattled before.”

  Finnegan... it couldn’t really be his blood, could it? The disappearance was maddening. It was different than someone getting injured or killed. The risk of death was something that every Marine came to grips with early on. But the idea that they had lost track of one of their squad in the chaos of a fight was unacceptable. It felt like irresponsibility. Ricks was a good man and, like any Marine, saw it as his sacred duty to protect his people.

  “He’ll be fine,” Callahan repeated. “Looking around this building ain’t gonna help, though. What did you call that setup—a fucking snuff room? Who wouldn’t be upset at finding this bullshit after one of their men went MIA?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It won’t make any difference in combat though. Ricks is as solid as he ever was.”

  As the two men walked back outside, Callahan hoped that was true.

  28

  Austin, Texas.

  Early the next morning, the team was at work on the problem.

  “If a player lost money, why aren’t we seeing it?” Dave Streib said as he sipped coffee. “There’s no metrics, no nothing.”

  “Good question,” Lucy said. “I’ve already called SecureNet about a possible breach. That’s not what I’m asking you guys to figure out. Assume this wasn’t from some malware installed in our system. In light of that email, what would you conclude has happened?”

  “That someone is leveraging our game environment to do naughty things.”

  “Obviously. And we need to stop it. That means understanding the tactics so we can shut it down.”

  Lucy had Dave, Marty, Manmeet, and Roger all sitting in the developer conference room. She had called each of them before 5 a.m. that morning and asked them personally to get to the office by six for this emergency meeting. She knew that in some situations getting a jump on a particular task made a big difference. So did bringing in coffee and pastries from Starbucks, especially for Marty.

  She had also purposely not invited Derek. This was an exercise for undistracted minds.

  The overhead projector displayed the email threat on the wall for inspiration. Manmeet was offering his thoughts. “That money had to have come from a game account. Why else would a player write something like that?”

  “Maybe it’s a bluff?” asked Dave.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone could have gotten wind that there was money missing, and raised their hand to pretend it was theirs. To see if we would pay them.”

  “You seriously think we’d pay someone a million bucks just for asking?” groaned Manmeet.

  “Say they were hoping we’d pay a smaller amount, just to go away.”

  “Guys—stop,” Lucy interrupted. “We have to consider this a legitimate email. Ideas, please.”

  They all stared at the screen as if waiting for enlightenment. Roger stifled a yawn. Marty wiped his beard with a napkin in between muffins. The fan on the overhead projector kicked in and filled the silence in the room with a tiny whir.

  Finally, Marty cleared his throat.

  “Well, obviously there’s a glitch between the player account and the transitional account that money gets moved into when pulled out of a stronghold.”

  “That’s preposterous,” said Dave. “That’s never happened.”

  “Until now.”

  “No, not now, either. It’s something else, man. That code is tight. Every stronghold uses the same procedure call—there can’t be a problem in just one vault.”

  “Wait,” Manmeet said, holding up his hand. “Marty, why do you think there’s a glitch?”

  “Well, if we’re talking about player funds, it’s the only explanation.” Marty took another bite of a muffin. “When money gets pulled out of a stronghold, the game transfers it into a transitional account, right? It’s no longer the property of the victim, but it’s not assigned to the person that stole it until they get it back to their own vault.”

  “We know this, Marty,” said Dave. “All of us have worked here more than a day.”

  Roger scratched his chin, thinking. “Marty, we already ran a transitional account log for the last forty-eight hours. There’s nothing that came up. Why do you think there’s a glitch instead of some other explanation?”

  “Simple. The formation of a transitional account triggers an additional liability entered on the balance sheet. Since players typically cash out at least some of what they steal, the accountants make us do this. But here, you have money that left a transitional account with no corresponding liability created. Therefore—a glitch.”

  “But this has never happened before,” Manmeet said, puzzled.

  “I agree,” Dave echoed. “I don’t know why that would suddenly happen out of nowhere. And never mind that we’ve never seen an account registered with millions of dollars in it in the first place. There must be some malware involved somehow, masking the money movement.”

  Lucy ran her fingers up and down her sleeve while everyone digested this. She understood what Marty was saying, but couldn’t get past how such a majorly latent bug could suddenly pop up.

  “So, what do we want to do?” asked Manmeet. “Run more virus sweeps? Or hit up QA to try and recreate a bug?”

  “QA is Marty’s area,” Dave said disdainfully. “He can do that part.”

  Marty took another bite of a croissant. “Thank you, I will.”

  “But it’s just a stupid waste of time,” Dave insisted.

  “Why are you so sure?” asked Manmeet.

  “Because—again—the vault object in our code is a tight piece of programming. The whole game hinges on it working properly, because if money doesn’t stay secure and then get moved properly, then no one will play—”

  “Guys,” Lucy said, struggling to think. There was something important about Marty’s idea, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  Dave continued to ramble. “—since the transitional account is generated by the vault object, you’re not just going to lose your transitional account. It doesn’t work that way—”

  “That’s why you run QA tests,” interjected Marty. “Something has obviously happened with one of these transitional accounts that’s causing it to not be tracked.”

  “There’s nothing that can happen to one account that wouldn’t happen to everybody,” Dave argued.

  “Guys,” repeated Lucy. She kept staring at the projector screen, trying to grab that errant thought.

  Marty had put down his pastry, a clear sign of agitation. “Sherlock Holmes once said, ‘Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the answer.’ ”

  “Oh, that’s crap, Marty!”

  “Why?”

  “Because, a common programming object that behaves differently for different players in the game is impossible!”

  “I never said that the vault object behaved differently, I said that the transitional account that was created isn’t properly allocated.”

  “It’s the same ball of wax!” exploded Dave, exasperated. “The transitional account doesn’t work in a vacuum, it’s attached to the vault object. Otherwise, the game wouldn’t know where to put the money back. The burden is on the adventurer who stole the money to get it home before anything is transferred hard and fast.”

  “Guys!” Lucy yelled.

  Everyone stopped. Lucy saw four men watching her expectantly.

  “Something to say?” asked Roger.

  “Yes. Dave, you’re bril
liant.”

  Dave looked like a child who had just been praised for something he wasn’t aware he did.

  “The answer’s right here in front of us,” continued Lucy. “It may not matter that we can or can’t find a broken transitional account, or a flaw in the vault object programming, or a connection to the banking system, or a piece of malware that masked the setup. We can still find the answer to where that money is.”

  The group looked blankly at her.

  Lucy pointed to the projector screen. “If the money is in a transitional account, then another player took this money. Find that other player and you find the money.”

  Silence.

  “You’re right,” Manmeet said.

  “A player took this guy’s money,” Marty repeated softly.

  Dave Streib was still struggling to comprehend his supposed brilliance.

  Marty was vigorous now. “It’s perfect. We don’t have to solve the how. The author of this email had their vault broken into by another adventurer in the game. Otherwise, nothing gets triggered and there’s no money that moves.”

  “Which means we can still run reporting on what every player in the game has been doing over the past couple of weeks and see if anything looks abnormal,” finished Manmeet.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dave, confusion finally winning out. “What exactly are you going to look for when you run these reports?”

  “Anything,” said Manmeet. “Everything. Geographic location of players in the game environment. Unusual lengths of time on any particular activity. Big changes in a character’s inventory. We could come up with fifteen or twenty metrics, plot a baseline, and see if there are any players outside normal deviations. Odds are that you don’t find two million dollars by accident. There might be a pattern out of the norm that shows who did it.”

  “Okay,” said Lucy, “let’s go help Marty run this out.” She paused. “Maybe the rest of you need to eat more muffins.”

  Manmeet chuckled. Dave looked disgusted at the idea. Marty glanced over to see that there were only two muffins left. He seemed alarmed that he might have to share them.