Now look at him. Not only was Nick his father’s son, he was growing into the picture of his father. He was already a wizened man, old before his time even though still in his thirties, wearing a wrinkled short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned to his breastbone exactly the way his father had worn his shirts. No, he decided, he would never go back to the place of his birth. Relatives lived there still. One of them might recognize his surname and connect it with the Anglicized name his parents adopted thirty years ago, when his younger sister came into the world with an irascible nature and a sharp tongue. Alexandria had already made the pilgrimage to the family’s ancestral town. For Nick, there was no going back, just as there was no going back to his wife and children in Chicago. From now on, he could only look forward.
This afternoon, the hours had grown long. Nick had many things to take care of before his trip. They would have to wait. For now, he did not want think more than two minutes into the future, even though the past would stay with him for a lifetime of regrets. He had already consumed half a bottle of ouzo. He planned to finish the rest this evening, sitting outside on his small veranda and watching people pass below while the moon tracked across the sky from east to west as if the hand of one of the many Grecian gods had flung it there and sent it on its eternal course.
Payment for the Coyote job had been set up for Nick at the bank of his choice. An attached trust account named him as its sole beneficiary. An account number and password gave him immediate and unquestioned access to a host of privileges, including debit card, ATM access, and the ability to live anywhere in the world. He chose Cyprus. And why not? Why complicate matters? He could lose himself there as well as anywhere else. His flight was booked for tomorrow evening. He hoped to live as long as tomorrow. Hell, he hoped to live to the end of the day, which is why he had prepared his Last Will and Testament, triggered if he should wind up in a morgue, provided his body was identified.
Guilt nagged his conscience, if he had any conscience left, which he must have since he constantly worried. It was in his nature to worry. He could not remember a time when he didn’t worry. Except this time, ah yes, this time he had something to worry about. He was an accomplice to murder. Unwitting, but still an accomplice. The leader of the black ops team failed to mention the possibility, damn the bastard, even though he must have planned it that way. When Coyote was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Nick thanked the gods of his ancestors since the authorities would not be looking for him or any of his accomplices. Coyote would take the rap. But then he was released. On a technicality, it was said. If Coyote remained a free man, he would be coming for him and the others. Nick knew this because he knew himself. If what was done to Coyote had been done to him, nothing, not even the Greek gods of Peloponnese, would be able to stop him from taking revenge.
A waitress had caught his attention. Her eyes were dark and unfathomable, and her mouth as wide and full as the lip of the pitcher from which she poured water into tall glasses. She often passed him from the kitchens to the dining room to the terrace, and each time, cast a glance his way, her penetrating eyes glistening with promise; her hips swaying to the hitch of her stride; her breasts moving freely beneath the peasant blouse; her perfume smelling of sea breezes; and her hair long enough and thick enough to wrap around the fists of both his hands. She was leading him on and offering promises with winks and smiles. Her flirtations grew like the crescendo of a symphony. He could imagine his arms around her while the earthy smell of her skin and the deep crevices of her womanhood took him into secret places.
She stopped to inquire if he wanted anything else. His stomach, he told her, was full for now. But what delights would she have for him tomorrow?
She smiled the knowing smile of women everywhere, flouncing the ruffled hem of her skirt and throwing back the thick waves of her hair. “For tomorrow, I will find something most delicious and most irresistible.” She strutted off, gazing back over a rounded shoulder.
He threw money onto the table, wearily got up from his chair, and strolled in the direction of Nikodimou Street, his eyes on constant lookout. If only he could grow eyes in the back of his head, it would have made his life immeasurably easier. For now, he would have to rely on his instincts and his quickness and the knife planted in his boot to ward off surprise attackers.
The waitress from the bistro caught up with him, as he knew she would. He laughed. Perhaps it was the first time he had laughed in years, full-throttled and feeling an unexpected rise of thrill in his groins. He would take this woman into his bed without offering promises, and she would stay the night, past the time when the crickets came out to sing their lullabies, to sleep in blissful unawareness until morning, when she would groan into wakefulness and tell him what a beast he had been.
Nick, though, would not sleep. He would worry about Coyote. Next week, next month, next year, or when he was a very old man, his day would come. When it did, he would greet the day as a relief, for then he would know there was nothing left to worry about. For now, he would taste the pleasures available to him until there were no more pleasures to be had. In this life, anyway. He hadn’t written off the next.
16
Georgetown, Washington D. C.
Saturday, July 26
RUPERT MILLER WAS leaning back in a swivel chair, arms folded across his chest, dreadlocks swaying, and eyes luminous as he listened to Jack recount a subversive plot too intricate, too evil, and too farfetched to be believed.
Their first meeting in the Severn County Courthouse, seated next to each other on a backless bench—each shackled ankle-to-ankle and wrist-to-wrist, and dressed in orange jumpsuits and soft-soled county-issue shoes—had been serendipitous. After the chance meeting of two hackers on the outs with the law, one for a misdemeanor and the other for a capital offense, they were destined to come together again, this time in an unshackled meeting of minds and mutual talents.
When Jack finished recounting his story, Rupert whistled. “Fifty million cool ones? You’re not serious? You are serious. Shit, tell me this isn’t every man’s wet dream.” As predicted by the perpetrator himself, the case against Rupert Miller, Esquire had been dropped. Georgetown was stuck with him, at least until the end of the summer session. “Want a beer, man?”
Jack turned him down.
It was a wet and rainy day. Rupert had taken it in stride when Jack showed up unannounced at the off-campus housing he shared with three roommates and frequent interlopers. “Almost didn’t recognize you, man,” he said after inviting him inside. When he led Jack past the vestiges of an all-night celebration that included weed, pizza, and girls, he was all lanky arms and loose-jointed legs. “Hey dudes, this is Jack. Jack, this is dudes.” The dudes burped, groaned, and eyed the stranger in bleary silence, immediately going back to sleep as Rupert took Jack upstairs to his small room beneath the attic eaves.
Jack tracked him down by hanging around the engineering school. He was known as a character before being put behind bars for hacking his English Lit grade, and a campus hero afterwards. Students smiled at the mere mention of his name and eagerly steered Jack in the right direction.
“Let me get this straight. Someone stole your identity and forgot to tell you about it.” Analyzing the photocopied bank statements Jack brought along—ledgers showing large sums of money wired from several Wall Street brokerages into a prominent bank in the Cayman Islands—Rupert didn’t really need an answer. His sleepy eyes gazed up. “Money still there?”
“Most of it was transferred to a U.S. corporation, name of Sintex. Ever hear of it?”
Rupert shook his head. He was recovering from a hangover, his eyes bloodshot and expression hangdog. He set aside the photocopies. Dressed in a sleeveless t-shirt and running shorts, he leaned back, stretching out his gangly legs and folding his arms across his chest. “Almost all?”
“Only a hundred thousand is left.”
“Chump change,” he said, harrumphing.
Jack had been wondering about the hundred t
housand dollars. It had to be a trap, a lure to draw him out in the open. “According to the prosecution, the fifty million proves I’m guilty of murder.”
“Heard you were out on bail.”
“They still want to hang me.”
His intelligent eyes wandered down to Jack’s ankles. “On electronic monitoring?”
“Not anymore.”
He closed his eyelids halfway, becoming introspective. “Should I trust you?”
“Your call.”
The lazy pitter-patter of rain striking the pavement filtered through the open window. Rupert squeezed his eyes shut and meditated ten short seconds before saying, “You could probably do it yourself, hack into the banks and trace the wire transfers.”
“I tried. Can’t get past the firewalls. Maybe you know how?” In truth, Jack was counting on Rupert to find something he had missed.
“I’m as innocent as the day I was born. Just ask my mom.” Rupert shuffled through the bank statements again.
On the residential street below, cars cruised past, splashing rainwater across the roadbed. A few doors down, the lighthearted giggling of a co-ed rippled through the air. Across the street, a husband and wife were bickering. A jogger slapped across the sidewalk, footfalls fading into the distance. Birds fluttered and chirped, playing in the rain, and vying for seeds and earthworms.
“You’re in deeper shit than I had you figured for, my man.” Rupert sat forward and dangled large hands between squared legs, staring glumly at the floor. He was still thinking, dreadlocks shrouding a face immersed in thought. Eventually his face nosed up, eyes filled with mischief. “And you need help. My help.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“You’ll pay me shit since that’s what your worth.”
“True enough.”
“Call it a marker. You owe me.” He twirled the chair around and faced the computer monitor. The keyboard clicked like a locomotive. He called back for brokerage houses, account numbers, social security number, driver’s license number, mother’s maiden name.
“How are you going to do it?”
“How am I going to do it, he asks. I’m going to break some fucking federal laws is how I’m going to do it. Not like I don’t do it every day of the week. Opportunity knocked on the door, my man, but the university elders ignored the call. Could’ve hired yours truly to protect themselves from future hacks. Instead they stuck me in the clinker but failed to reform my bad ass.”
His clear eyes became focused. Screen after screen flashed by. Even if the room was a sauna, Rupert barely broke a sweat.
“You work for that outfit. Homeland Intelligence Division. Am I right? HID does what the CIA, FBI, and NSA can’t do legally. Staffed with cold-blooded business types along with narcissists and psychopaths. Doesn’t matter what their mission statement says. World domination is the goal, moving playing pieces on a gameboard, breaking all the rules because rules don’t apply to them. How’d you get hooked up with them anyway?”
His glanced back at Jack.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, rubbing thumb against finger pads, indicating cold hard cash. He refaced the monitor and went on talking while his fingers stroked the keyboard. “You were a babe in the woods. Bet you didn’t know their funding comes from legit agencies, after which the dollars are funneled into arms dealing, market manipulation, illegal drugs, and cybertheft. Like a roulette wheel, red they win, black someone else loses. They spend it on anything that needs to get done but can’t be done openly. Nothing is off limits. Everything is on the table. Assassination, kidnapping, brainwashing, torture, even terrorism. You name it, they’ve done it. And they can get away with it because shadow bureaucrats don’t have to testify before Congress or report to the President. The Vice President works with them on the sly.”
He swung his head around, eyes wide with amusement.
“Oh, didn’t you know? Frazier ‘Frank’ Daugherty belongs to this organization called the Fellowship. Nobody’s supposed to know about it, but everybody does. Officially, it’s called the Fraternal Order of Clairvaux. Not just him, but senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries, and Supreme Court justices. Sweet, huh? They set up their own executive office within the executive office. Plant stories, manipulate intelligence, and make deals with allies of good and axes of evil using closet diplomacy and the planet’s most trusted currency. Start wars, stop wars, fund extremists, ship armaments, and bribe governments under the cover of patriotism.”
He gave Jack a fleeting look and shrugged.
“Sure, I can see what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m one of those nutty conspiracy theorists. Well, think about this, my man. Think about the Trilateral Commission. Think about Oliver North and Iran-Contra. Think about Viet Nam and the Gulf of Tonkin. The Saudis and 9/11. Iraq and yellow cake. Pakistan and Osama bin Laden. Think about the occupation of Afghanistan and the invasion of the Congo on the pretext of them supposedly harboring terrorists. Then think about all those rare minerals just waiting to be exploited. Coltan, cassiterite, wolframite, lithium, copper, and rare earth metals. Finally, think about the greatest triumvirate of the modern age: oil, the military-industrial complex, and the lies of war.”
The morning wore on. The rain slowed to a drizzle. The sky lightened but the day stayed dreary. Rupert’s fingers flew over the keyboard.
“I’m ambidextrous. I can break code, hack into networks, and yack at the same time. Sometimes you may hear an echo, but it’s only me thinking. See, a guy like the guy who hacked you is an Elite. With a capital E. Not just any Elite. The Elite of all Elites. He knows stuff most Elites can only have wet dreams about. A lot of hackers make outrageous claims. This break-in at the CIA. That hack at a Wall Street bank. Most of it pure crap. Tall tales create a sense of distrust. But your man, he’s not a man to breed distrust. He lives his life with precision. Some Elites can make the claim by the gray hairs on their heads. Others because of a hack that gets around despite the Elite’s denials. Still others publish their exploits anonymously. An Elite can’t call himself an Elite. Others have to baptize him an Elite. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. But your hacker? He’s probably been active on the hacker websites. We can’t help ourselves, right? But once he became an Elite, he changed his screen name and used a different avatar. Right now, he’s a bogey flying at low altitude but sending out intermittent signals. Maybe he still hangs out on one or two intimate message and chat boards. He could be dodging direct questions but hinting at mouthwatering stunts. Somehow, someway, it always gets around. Each hacker has his own imprint, his own style. Plus you can’t rip off millions and somebody not get wind of it. The hacker community always keeps up with the truly gifted. Does the name Bill Knudsen ring a bell? No? Another thing. The way I figure, he couldn’t have done it by himself. An Elite doesn’t go around killing people. His is a universe of zeros and ones. He’s one. The rest of us are zeros. How about D. J. Renner? Too bad. So probably he was contacted by someone inside HID. Or better yet …” He swung around. “The lady you took home. Your alibi. She drugged you, didn’t she? Roofies, wasn’t it? She’s not a ringer. She’s the ringleader. Wouldn’t be surprised if she recruited the hacker and the killer.”
“The possibility crossed my mind.” Jack felt depleted, victimized. But at least he was on the right track. And he wasn’t imagining things.
He swung back to the keyboard. “Here’s one more possibility. Does the name Simon Brodey ring a bell? No? Well, probably you wouldn’t know the hacker if he was standing in front of you, but he sure as hell knows you.” He was nodding to himself, pleased with the way his theory was shaping up. “Chances are you’ll never find any of them. But maybe you can get the goods on where the money went. It looks like there’s a long and winding road.”
He made a few phone calls, posing as Mr. Miller from Security or Marketing or IT, whatever sounded credible. “It’s easy to talk your way past protocols, especially on Saturdays. Weekend warriors are anxious to clock out. They’r
e relaxed. Bosses aren’t watching their backs. They’re looking forward to amorous evenings with significant others or getting plastered with their buddies. They’re talkative and friendly. And they like to show off, act important.”
He used names picked straight from corporate websites. Clerks believed his story about having to get a report on his boss’s desk by Monday morning sharp. Vice presidents believed him, too, passing along names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Rupert used the email addresses to send bogus password change notifications. When this official or that employee dutifully changed it, he keylogged their entries and used the new passwords to enter the system. From there, he was able to break past firewalls and infiltrate databases.
“Got some cash on you?”
Jack reached for his wallet.
His roommates went to the supermarket and trucked back lunch. Rupert surfed while chowing down a turkey club. Data screens popped up, stayed put for a while, and disappeared. “For greedy fuckers, skimming money becomes an obsession and hiding it, an addiction. They’re always looking for their next con. They think they can get away with it. Some can. Most don’t. Just in the last couple of months, a New York hedge fund manager swindled twenty-five million dollars from a prominent Baltimore family. An Illinois couple was indicted for bilking thousands of customers for a cool ten mill by offering free doodads that came with giant shipping charges. And a financial manager in California promising a twenty-five-percent return was arrested for ripping off a hundred million from investors in a classic Ponzi scheme. The great new economy doesn’t have anything to do with silicon or cocaine. Currency makes the world go around. Currency, tax havens, and electronic banking.”
The money chase pressed on. By late afternoon, Rupert clucked with satisfaction. Printed off a ream of documents. And finally swiveled his chair around. “This is how it went down. Ready? First, they hacked into those four brokerage accounts and transferred the funds internally. You heard me right. They parked the money inside the same institutions. In accounts set up under your name. But only for nanoseconds. To establish provenance. To point guilt. Devious, wouldn’t you say? And very, very slick. Before anybody missed anything, every penny was wired to a tax haven in the South Pacific. Vanuatu. Ever hear of it? Me neither. Twenty-four hours later, it was relayed to Grand Cayman. After that, it was simple to divvy up everything and electronically wire shares around the globe. Bahamas, Channel Islands, Barbados, Turks and Caicos, Nevis. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. When the dust finally settled, thirty-five million wound up in two Swiss accounts. Probably the ringleader claiming the lion’s share. The rest was divided into three five-million-dollar chunks. Meaning three operatives.” He tugged on his outstretched fingers, each in turn. “Belize, the Isle of Man, and Cyprus.”
Cyber Warfare Page 10
