“Then what?”
“Bring them to justice.”
“You’re fooling yourself. Those traitors you speak of? They think they’re patriots. They’ve convinced themselves that their cause is a noble one. And because it’s noble, they can break the rules. Every goddamn one. The only reason you’re still alive is because they believe you have incriminating evidence.” She paused before saying, “And you do, don’t you?”
He let silence serve as his answer.
“Then you’ve done it. Stolen documents. Intelligence reports. Communications. Databases.”
“And everything else.”
Not quite believing what he had confessed to her with such simplicity, she sat back, the wind physically knocked out of her. “So that’s why,” she said, almost in a whisper. “How did they find out?”
“While I was hacking them, they were hacking me.”
Vikki whistled, then swore foully, and finally invoked the name of her Savior. She folded her arms as if chilled. “What did you plan on doing with the information once you had it? Call them on it? Sit on it? Leak it? What?”
He gazed at her skeptically, wondering what she was angling at. “I didn’t get that far.”
“Neither did the people who put you up to this. Because it’s big,” she said, reading his mind. “Bigger than any one person can do to stop it. Making you, Jack Coyote, the single most arrogant man I have ever met. And believe you me, I’ve met most of them. You’re in this alone. You know that, don’t you?”
After the shackles came off and he was let out on bond; after scuttling home like a rat with his tail tucked between its legs; and after hedonistically wallowing in the mire of self-pitying solitude over feverish days and agitated nights, Jack had put together an exhaustive, cogent, and compelling dossier. His only goal was to remain at liberty long enough to turn it over to someone who could pursue an investigation and raise a stink.
The silence between them was crouched like a wolf ready to pounce and tear flesh from bone. He broke the silence. “Maybe not.”
They stared at one another, eyes locked and breaths even. She started to get up. “I need a cigarette.”
He reached forward and grabbed her wrist. “Do you want it?”
Not quite believing him, she sank into the chair. Slowly she cranked her head, pondering. Then her eyes lit up, flicking back and forth as she tested possibilities and considered benefits along with the obvious risks. If she took him up on his offer, she would become a target the same way he had become a target, but hopefully a more visible and reputable target who could not so easily be silenced or dismissed. Her eyes shifted back to him, focused and sure. “You understand what you’re suggesting?”
“I do.”
“What you’ve done is an indictable offense.”
“Apart from being a murderer?”
“But have you really thought about it? What it would mean to be a whistleblower? Labeled a traitor?”
“I’ve had nothing to do but think about it.”
“They can charge you under the Espionage Act. For obtaining and delivering information related to national defense to an unauthorized person or persons. For treason, for sedition, for trying to overthrow the government. For endangering the United States Military during a time of war.”
Glibly he said, “When aren’t we at war?”
“Immaterial, and you fucking know it!” It was the first time she had raised her voice. Immediately regretting it, she said, “You didn’t deserve that. In fact, you deserve a medal, preferably pinned to your skinny ass. But there won’t be any medals. You know that, too, don’t you? Instead, they’ll hound you to the ends of the earth and back again, and won’t give up until the dogs come home, blood dripping from their fangs.”
He acknowledged the plain truth of her assertion with a simple nod.
A slight smile slowly rose up on her mouth. “Do you still want to go through with this mad idea of yours?”
“I don’t have anything to lose. Maybe everything to gain.”
“What exactly? No, I’m curious. Vindication? Respect? Vengeance?”
Inside the peaceful confines of this room, they were kicking around the possibility of bringing down a corrupt political system operating inside the most powerful government on earth. Outside, everyday life went on. Kids playing. Neighbors laughing. Birds tweeting. Dogs barking.
“Does there have to be a reason?”
“You bet. Otherwise, why bother? You can just walk away. Lose yourself in the crowd. Find a desert island in the middle of the ocean.”
He squinted at her through half-closed eyes. What he was about to say was a challenge. For her, certainly. But mostly for him. “I’m doing it for Milly. Is that a good enough reason?”
“Were you in love with her?”
“No. Yes. Sometimes. I only know she didn’t deserve what happened to her.” And added, “Because of me.”
“How so?”
“Can’t you see?” he said, almost like a prayer.
“You worked together. You slept with each other. How does that make you responsible for what happened to her?”
“You just said how. Her association with me.”
“That’s just a coincidence.”
“Really? Just a coincidence? A flip of the coin, huh? Tails, you lose, huh? Heads, they win?” He shook his throbbing head. Rubbed his sore arm. Eased his throbbing side. Blinked his burning eyes.
“You’re leaving something out, aren’t you?”
“We were involved, Milly and me.”
“I realize. But it doesn’t explain why she’s dead.”
People forced to step over their own shit inevitably get covered in it. And he was up to his neck. “Are you my confessor?”
“The best you’ve got.”
He lay his head back and closed his eyes, picturing Milly in moments of gaiety. Dancing to music. Laughing at a joke. Making fun of him. Lying beneath him. “I may have used her password. I may have made it look like we were in it together.”
“Is that the best you can come up with?”
“Don’t you see?” he said, lifting his head. “If it weren’t for me, she’d still be alive.”
“If not for you, shit!”
“Who else then?”
“The people who set you up.”
She was right, of course. But it didn’t make him feel any nobler.
“What about your associate? Harrison Tobias. What do you know about him? Yeah, the newsrooms are buzzing about his disappearance. Your agency has managed to keep the lid on. They’re calling it a special mission. Like hell he’s on a special mission. So?” she encouraged him. “Rumors? Speculations? Leaks?”
“I have a theory. But it’s only a theory.”
“Let’s have it.”
“He was onto something like I was onto something. He was hacked like I was hacked. He’s not on a special mission for the government. And he didn’t just wander off after being run off the road. He was kidnapped and renditioned. To Baghdad or Turkey or Syria, where he’s probably being tortured and interrogated as we speak.”
“Were you in on it together?”
“Wish we had been. Maybe then we could have covered each other’s backs.”
She nodded. Her expression became serious. Her eyes angled away as if she needed to sort a few things out. Then they came back around and fastened on him. “I want to make sure you understand what you’re getting yourself into. I also want to make sure you appreciate that there is no logical argument, judicious claim, or provable accusation that can’t be obfuscated, exaggerated, minimized, lionized, fictionalized or made into a fabrication of woven lies everyone will believe.”
“I thought about that.”
“And that the promulgated vision of what America stands for and what we do as a nation has nothing to do with the truth.”
“Thought about that, too.”
“Well then,” she said. “I’m game if you are.” She stood up and offered a hand. He
rose to the occasion but could only make it all the way up with her strength. They shook on it. Then she took him into her arms and rocked him gently. “I think you need a drink. God knows I do.”
28
Georgetown, Washington D. C.
Tuesday, July 29
CORDELIA BURKE HADN’T slept well the night before. Her brain never shut off, not in bed, not in the shower, not when she was five years old, and not while lingering over a cup of coffee on a sunny morning. She was going to be late for work. She didn’t give a damn.
She was staring out at a bright Washington sky. For a change, morning arrived cool and refreshing. She had thrown open the windows as far as they would go, which wasn’t far enough. The breezes filtering into her apartment were charged with something more than exhaust fumes. One of her migraines was waiting to happen. She decided this was the kind of morning to get out a hammer, break the glass, and throw herself over the ledge. What waited below had to be better than her crummy life. But the mental image of Jimmy Burke keeping a stiff upper lip at his daughter’s funeral, plus a perfectly good manicure going to waste, stopped her from following through with such a rash act. Cordelia wasn’t the kind of woman to fritter away her hard-earned money on a momentary setback.
Once she thought the view of the Potomac, set way off in the distance and partially obscured by taller buildings, was breathtaking. She had just arrived from Chicago, excited at the prospect of taking on the world. She picked out the apartment on an adrenalin high. The panoramic view lured her into signing the lease. On moving day, sitting on the secondhand sofa plopped in the middle of her combination living room slash dining room slash kitchen, boxes stacked everywhere, the fresh smell of wall paint stinging her nostrils, and the town spread before her like a platter of hand-dipped chocolates, she had dared to dream. The future tricked her, staying just out of reach, obscured by a smoggy horizon, and guarded by dusty blinds and smudged picture windows. Almost two years had flown by since that day. She was wondering where the time had gone and what she had proven by moving to a city where she didn’t belong.
The cityscape and Jason Pucinski had been her distractions.
This morning she was tuned into him. He was standing behind her, but damned if she was going to get mushy or make a scene. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. She had sensed his feelings long before this awkward moment and tried to pretend them away. She couldn’t pretend anymore.
Isabella Proctor was the one-time significant other of Jason’s college roommate. Not only was she gorgeous and attached to the NSA, she was gamey in bed. Cordelia was as straight-laced as they came, except when it came to live-in arrangements of the temporary kind, which she managed to make boring. It was a throwaway world in a casual society, but she was forced to take responsibility for her mistakes.
Last night, Jason carefully packed up the baseball collection he valued more than Cordelia. They didn’t talk. They didn’t have to. She made him sleep on the couch. Since Jason was a wimp, he dutifully gathered up spare bedding and saluted, mouthing a brisk, “General Burke.” He left. The bedroom door closed but did not latch. She got up and slammed it shut. On the other side, Jason exhaled a string of foul words, crept around in the dark, and assembled his makeshift bed. Throughout the night, Cordelia listened to the sounds coming from the combination living room slash dining room slash kitchen. Mostly he slept. Mostly she didn’t.
Come morning, she listened to him shower and dress and pack up the last of his things. Now he was waiting. For a gesture, a word of parting, a suitable closure to their relationship. She smelled the dampness evaporating from his skin, so close and familiar yet so distant and alien. She refused to turn around. Jason was a nice guy. He just didn’t have a spine. She heard him deposit the key on the kitchen counter. When he closed the apartment door behind himself, she involuntarily jerked. Never had she felt so alone. She wanted to reach out and hold something warm. The mincing cat purring at her feet was the closest body. Cordelia was twenty-seven, directionless, discontented, and the owner of a conceited feline with exotic tastes and an unpredictable nature. After a few seconds, even the cat jumped out of her arms.
She stepped into the shower and took a cold shower, howling at the ceiling until her neighbor Audrey banged an angry fist against their common wall and yelled if there was a law against getting a good night’s sleep, people screaming before the sun had a decent chance of coming up. Since Audrey and Cordelia were cordial in the hallway but mortal enemies over the transom, Cordelia yelled back that there was a law. Cordelia’s law.
“Jesus, find a goddamn life.”
“I’ve got a goddamn life! And it sucks!”
Audrey mumbled something sympathetic, appended it with, “Poor baby,” and went back to bed.
Cordelia was finishing her shower with lukewarm water and copious tears when her brain took a detour. She was thinking about work … about the fifty million dollars and the vanilla name wrapped inside a manila envelope. She was thinking there had to be a connection. Something more than met the eye.
Five minutes later, she was powder-puffing her face over the bathroom sink when cable news interrupted its usual morning patter with a special report about the cybersecurity expert accused of his girlfriend’s grisly murder. About him being let out on bond last week. About breaking the conditions of his house arrest. About the all-points bulletin issued within the last twenty-four hours. About his imminent recapture and arrest. And about explosive new developments. To add newsworthiness, the reporter was reporting live from the Severn County Courthouse, where nothing newsworthy was happening at this precise moment, though the dramatic backdrop added poignancy to his narrative.
On the night John Jackson Coyote killed that poor Whitney girl, he reported, he also managed to hack into several Wall Street brokerage houses, steal several millions of dollars from numerous client accounts, and wire the proceeds to an offshore tax haven located in the Caribbean. Tied to the story was the unsubstantiated rumor about his associate—Harrison Tobias—who disappeared the same night Ms. Whitney was murdered.
Cordelia stepped out of the bathroom and gazed blankly at the television. The station had broken for a commercial. It was all cloak-and-dagger stuff, the fodder of a twenty-four-hour news cycle that broke up the monotony of the day. Except a few details murmured in her ear … seemingly small and insignificant facts that could have easily escaped unnoticed … but now reran in her mind in a feedback loop.
She repeated the location of the offshore tax haven mentioned by the reporter. “Grand Cayman.” Then she repeated the full legal name of the escaped felon. “John Jackson Coyote.” And finally, in a full-throated voice, she put a voice to the vanilla name wrapped inside the manila envelope—“John Jackson Finlay.”
29
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Tuesday, July 29
AFTER JACK AND Vikki toasted their partnership with two shots of Scotch whisky and a chaser of black coffee, they got down to work.
He opened his secure account in the cloud and clicked through screen after screen, showing her the dossier he put together, everything backed up by supporting documentation, itemized and codified, and linked to presentations, exhibits, and white papers. He also showed her the database directories, what they contained, and how she could access reports and samplings. What was in them was not important for her purposes. What was important were their contents: a digitized compilation of millions of ordinary citizens and noncitizens currently residing or once having resided within the territorial boundaries of an indivisible nation under God whose motto Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness had been set aside for pragmatic reasons.
To implement Spinnaker, wholesale breaches of privacy were required, cooperation from corporate entities sought, arm twisting vigorously applied, and secrecy demanded on pain of sanctions or arrest, so noted in signed contracts containing footnotes in small type. It took years to set up and engineer the massive surveillance program, but once put into place, electron
ic interfaces and real-time downloads flowed at an unprecedented volume and speed. Databases storing the electronic bits and bytes of information—the virtual lives of millions of categorized, classified, and collated individuals—had been expanded to limits unknown, even in the days of the warrantless cyber searches conducted by the NSA.
“Everything,” Vikki said at one point, “in the interest of national security and global tranquility. Well, here’s to the people, God bless us all!” She reached for the whisky bottle, poured a third shot for each of them, tossed back her head, and after tucking the bottle calmly away, said with a satisfied smile, “You were saying ….”
“You’ve heard of Weeping Angel?” he asked.
“The joint initiative conducted by MI5 and the CIA? Televisions that stay on even when they’re off, under the guise of collecting marketing data and viewing habits? Yes, I’m very familiar.”
Spinnaker expanded Weeping Angel by focusing on movements, associations, psychological profiles, and predicative models. Explained within the halls of government as routine security measures to catch the bad guys, it still left the good guys subject to electronic shakedowns and unwarranted targeting. No one was immune. Everyone became an open book. Further expansion was in the works for tracking nearly ten billion global citizens, the sole purpose of which could have only one outcome: to control the hearts, minds, and thoughts of the masses.
“I always thought 1984 was in the future,” she said. “It’s happening now, isn’t it? HID is the shadow government everyone has always feared.”
When Jack first came across the databases, he minimized their enormity but started asking questions, questions no one could adequately answer. He persisted. Only after being released on bail and finding out a hacker had hacked him did he fully appreciate what he had set into motion. He forced their hand. They had to come after him, shut him down, and shut him up.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” she said. “We’ve been transformed into clones of Winston Smith. Watched by others while watching ourselves, the very definition of schizophrenia. All that anyone has to do is stand up for basic human rights—freedom of speech, association, movement, and even thought—to be branded an enemy. Privacy is no longer a given. Sort of liberating, don’t you think? As the fat man says, if you’re being raped, might as well lay back and enjoy it.” Vikki grabbed his chin and squeezed it, making his lips pucker against her luscious ones. When she released him, her eyes were laughing. “Get some rest. I have work to do.”
Cyber Warfare Page 19
