by H. L. Wegley
“This doesn’t sound like work on a PhD dissertation, Kate. It sounds like spying, cyber-espionage.”
“Are you losing interest?”
“No.” He gave her a sly grin.
“Would you like to work for the FBI, NSA, CIA, or ugh…the DHS, someday?”
“I’d certainly consider it. But I would like that sheepskin with those three letters on it first.”
“You’ll get your degree. But you’re going to get some experience here that’s worth a whole lot more than the degree to the organizations I just mentioned.”
“Kate Brandt, you are one beautiful, scary woman.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Let’s hope we’re both scary to some terrorists plotting who knows what. Come on, I’ll get you started on a list of IP addresses. You just run the software like I showed you, print out the reports, and bring them to me. I’ll work from another list, and we’ll log the report information at 11:00 AM. Then you can take me out to lunch.”
“Did anybody ever tell you you’re presumptuous? And bossy, too.”
“No handsome young man ever has before.”
Her remark brought a smile to his face. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a flirt?”
“Only if that’s what you’re calling me.”
“Forget it. I’ll take you out to lunch.”
“And tomorrow, I’ll take you. Let’s get to work.”
****
Before Katie realized it, three hours had passed and Josh had printed out an inch-high stack of reports.
He walked over to her desk and laid several reports side-by-side. “This is pretty interesting. If we can identify these organizations by their real IP addresses, we’ll know who’s communicating with whom.”
“Normally, we would need some classified documents from NSA or the CIA to identify the organizations. But I’ve created my own database. It isn’t classified…yet. At some point, we’ll need to give it to the FBI, but I’m not sure they could use it in its present form. Maybe when our software is a little more user friendly.”
“Are you saying the FBI doesn’t have the resources to—”
“They cannot currently replicate my work. Not to my knowledge. This is original research, Josh. It has to be, or I have no dissertation. I keep my database encrypted, locked up, and hidden on a tiny flash drive and you have to keep my little secret.”
“Like I said, you’re a scary woman, Kate.”
“What happened to beautiful?”
He scanned her face. “Nothing.”
She smiled back at him. That wasn’t her normal response to a flirtatious man. She was Katie Brandt, the girl who used to throw rocks at boys who ogled her. With Josh, things were different, much different. “Before lunch we’ll run these correlated nodes against the database. That should give us one more cluster of conspirators. But identifying them still doesn’t tell us what they’re planning.”
“Something tells me you’ve already come up with an idea for doing that.”
“Maybe. But I’m going to need your help. First, let me show you what I found out about communications with our Boko Haram shooter.”
“So he wasn’t a lone wolf?”
“No. He was funded by a terrorist group and manipulated into attempting a mass murder of children. But in the grand scheme being plotted, he was only a peon. I was able to decrypt the final message they sent to him. It was clever, but not sophisticated. They coded their messages in the text sent via HTTP, so they can penetrate a lot of barriers, like firewalls and proxy servers.”
Josh rubbed his chin. “But that means the encryption scheme is probably pretty simple. So we should be able to decode it.”
“And it is.” Kate slipped a sheet of paper from a manila folder on her desk. “Here’s the message sent to the Boko Haram shooter. They simply used a five—five—five word spacing. I’m assuming it symbolizes the five pillars of Islam. These people are really into using symbolism for what, how, when, and where they do things.”
“So what steered you to word-spacing patterns?”
“I started by circling any words that seemed forced or unnatural in the text. Then I looked for patterns and for a rationale for the patterns. But let me finish identifying the organizations in these reports. I need a few more minutes.”
Josh looked over her shoulder as she worked.
In five minutes she had compiled a list of IP addresses in a text file. She queried her database using the addresses and waited.
Josh sat down beside her. “How long until—”
“Here they come, Josh. Four locations, four somewhat imprecise locations. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and somewhere in Western Canada.”
“But this is just raw traffic, Kate. Packets being routed to IP addresses. We’re only catching pieces of messages as they go by.”
“I know. Just like I did with the shooter, I have to hack into an email server to get the messages. We can identify the email server they’re using, but the hack has to be completely anonymous because—”
“Yeah. Because first, it could be illegal in whatever country the server resides, and second, it could get us killed.”
“There are no international treaties regarding espionage for national defense, because everybody does it, and no one wants to point a finger while three others point back to themselves.”
“What about the foreign country? Can they—”
“Accessing an email server used by a terrorist in a country that harbors terrorists is only illegal there. We’re not leaving the US and we’re going to remain anonymous. Satisfied, Josh?”
“You don’t belong to some hactivist group, do you?” Josh grinned, but his eyes held a glint of concern.
“Yes. And so do you—Katie’s cyber sleuths.”
“Don’t joke about it. These people are dead serious about what they’re doing. The Iranian connection is worrisome. That guy in charge is one scary dude. Even when he’s replaced, Iran will probably get someone even scarier.”
“You’ve got that right. I was listening to a documentary last week where several Israeli political and military leaders said the same thing. Iran wants to destroy Israel as soon as they can fit their ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. And they would try it despite knowing that Israel’s retaliation would decimate Iran.”
“But that’s crazy.”
“Not if you really believe you have the power to bring down the Mahdi, the Islamic Messiah, and set the stage for the new caliphate.”
“I didn’t know you were into Islamic studies, or Middle-Eastern history and politics.”
“I’m not really. I’m more into the Bible. It pretty well describes the alliances against Israel that we’re seeing form today.”
Josh frowned and stepped back from her. “So you are a Bible thumper. I hope you don’t plan—”
“I’m not going to preach to you, Josh, if that’s what you’re worried about. But this problem between the Arabs, who’re mostly Islamic, and the Israelis, goes back 4,000 years, a blood feud between sons started by a disputed inheritance. It’s documented in the Bible, as well as secular history.”
“So…how do you think it all ends, the feud?”
“You’re not ready to hear that yet. You’ll just cut and run.”
“Come on, Kate. If I’m putting myself in danger, I need to hear about all the possibilities.”
“Suffice it to say, Bible scholars don’t think the US is mentioned as a player in the final showdown. Some think we won’t even be a world power at that time. You can interpret that any way you want. Now, in a few minutes, I’m going after the big kahuna, the Iranian connection’s mail server. Do you want out?”
Josh studied her face, his expression clearly indicating he liked what he saw.
She wondered if there would be trouble for them when attraction collided with disparate beliefs. Then there was his reluctance to—
“Kate, are you listening?”
“What?”
“I said, I
’m in.”
The attraction problem is already creating issues. Maybe she had made a mistake by inviting him in. “Are you a hundred percent sure? This is the point of no return.”
Josh’s eyes displayed a softer look. “Promise me you’ll be careful, because I—”
She cut him off. “I promise, Josh.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m in, for better or for worse.”
She laid her hand over his. “In sickness and in health, as long or short as we both may live?” She gave him a big grin.
He shook his head. “You know, I never know what’s really going on in that mind of yours, and half the time I don’t have a clue what you’re doing when your fingers are flying over that keyboard on your laptop.”
She took Josh’s hand, pulled it from her shoulder, and held it. His hand was huge, strong. It made her feel secure. Secure…Josh’s security was in his own abilities, not in the one true God.
Katie Brandt, what in heaven’s name are you doing? Maybe it wasn’t in heaven’s name. The question returned. Was she making a mistake with Josh? Possibly endangering someone who wasn’t prepared to die?
“Kate?”
“Huh?”
“You will explain what you’re doing when you start working your magic, won’t you?”
“I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” Including some things you probably don’t want to hear. “Hand me the list of IP addresses, Josh. It’s time to take a trip to Iran.”
8
Josh watched as Kate explored the directories on the Iranian server, a machine run by an organization funding international terrorists. As the tingling sensation ran up his back, the urge to pull the plug on her workstation grew. If he pulled it, he would probably say some things to Kate that he would regret. On the flip side of this platter, her foray also gave him the urge to wrap her up in his arms and protect her from anything their unseen enemy might try to do. Josh wiggled and squirmed until he couldn’t remain silent any longer. “Kate, how long are you going to stay logged in on their server?”
“Not one second longer than I have to. There. The files are coming across now. Another minute and they can have their unpatched server back.”
“Would their server administrators really be that sloppy? This is a terrorist group. If they slip up, bad things could happen.”
“You’d be surprised how many servers go unpatched for years. Somebody goes on vacation, a patch doesn’t get installed, soon, it’s forgotten. Or they just become complacent and lazy until it’s too late. I’ll bet you I can hack our own UNIX server.”
“I know one professor you could really tick off if you did.”
“We’ve got better things to do with our time. The files are all here and I’ve spooled them to the printer. Would you grab the printouts please, Josh, while I back out of my session on the server?”
Josh flipped through the stack of papers he pulled from the printer. “You ripped off at least thirty email messages.”
“All from the suspected collaborators. Now the tedious part begins. Do you ever play those cryptographic games they print in the newspaper?”
“Yeah. When I was a kid. Wasn’t too shabby at it, either.”
“Good. You take these.” She handed him a third of the pages and took the rest.
Obviously Kate realized how much brighter she was than many of the genius-level students in the department. She didn’t try to rub it in, but was clearly aware of it, and sometimes, that rubbed him the wrong way.
He took a long look at Kate’s face and bright blue eyes. Everybody needs a little wrong-way rubbing sometime. “What should we try first?”
“The same thing I saw in the shooter’s email. Word spacing patterns. There’s open source software for embedding messages inside images, audio files, videos. But it appears that these guys prefer to hide in plain sight. Just circle the words in the message that look forced. Then we’ll go back and check for patterns.”
He was on his fifth page, marking words and searching for some pattern that eluded him, when Kate grabbed his arm. “I think I’ve got it. I wondered why these messages were so much longer than the others I’ve seen.”
“OK, genius, what’s the pattern?”
“19—19—19.”
“That’s a lot of separation between words.”
“But it hides messages much better.”
“Why nineteen, Kate?”
“Nineteen is significant in the Quran. You’ll find suras consisting of nineteen ayaats, multiples of nineteen for words and letters. Many other things are multiples of nineteen, too. Let me see what you marked so far.” She scanned his five pages. “That confirms the pattern.”
“Kate, you can’t count that fast—”
“You don’t count them. You just calibrate your vision for nineteen.”
“Yeah, sure. Twist my pupil a quarter turn to the right and it automatically skips the next eighteen words.”
“Doesn’t everybody—” She stopped, her lips forming a circle. “You mean, you don’t—”
“No, Kate. I can’t.”
She shrugged. “Well now that we know the pattern…” She divided the remaining pages in half. “Come on. Let’s see how these gentlefolk are planning to improve our world.”
He wasn’t measuring up to Kate’s expectations. Could she really respect him and like him for who he was? He needed to get focused on their work. The relational stuff would have to wait. Josh sighed and scanned a series of evenly spaced words. “Listen to this, Kate. Western, operations, control, Whistler. Funds, transferred, BOC.”
Kate leaned close to him to examine his findings. Waves of citrus-scented hair lay across his neck and arm. He couldn’t resist slipping an arm around her.
She tensed for a second when his hand curled around her arm, then relaxed as she read. “This message was sent from somewhere in Tehran. Probably from the big kahuna with the money. But that would mean Shiites are funding Sunnis. They wouldn’t do that. At least, I don’t think they would.”
Josh flipped the page. “Then this message came in from Whistler. It could be referencing locations in the Western US, but the wording is strange, certainly ambiguous.”
“That’s probably by design. Josh, we’ve got to figure out where all these US locations are and find out what they have in common, then maybe we can determine what they’re planning. But if…” She stopped.
He waited. “It scares me when you do that, Kate. But if what?”
“If we could find the person in Canada, maybe the whole operation can be stopped. Cut off the viper’s poisonous little head.” Kate turned and looked at him.
Her face so close to his completely destroyed his concentration.
“Josh, you take the US sites. I’ll take Whistler.”
“I’ve got more sites than you. Are you feeling generous? Trying to make me feel needed?”
“Needed?” Kate sat up and clamped a hand on his shoulder.
Her grip was strong. Like Kate, the woman, lithe, beautiful, but deceptively strong and athletic.
She showed him a serious frown. “We’re a team, and that’s the only way we can pull this off, by working together. I picked you because you’re the person I needed.”
“What you needed at the Key was an offense of lineman to open a path for you to get you where you needed to go. Is that what I am to you, a big, obtuse—”
“No.” There was hurt in her eyes. “But did you know that some of the brightest guys in football are offensive lineman. Not all of them, but some.”
“If that was a compliment—”
“Take it for what it’s worth. You know I did ask you to dinner Saturday…to meet my family.”
“Yeah. For your protection,” he said in a grumpy growl.
“Partly.” Kate’s coy smile showed, then faded. “It’s time for me to check out the Whistler connection while you figure out what’s happening on our side of the border.”
Kate could be completely exasperatin
g. She liked him, but allowed things to go only so far, and then she put on the brakes to their budding relationship. But as he had already determined, relational issues would have to wait.
Josh returned his attention to his stack of messages, but found nothing conclusive. “These all sound like vacation plans to visit some national parks and some of the larger cities where a lot of tourists go, New York, Chicago, Seattle.”
“Population centers. That sounds ominous. But I found the SSID of the router in Whistler.”
Kate opened a window and pasted something into it, then clicked with her mouse. “It’s the Pinnacle Hotel in Whistler Village. This Whistler guy could be the director of operations. But the messages seem to use benign sounding words as code words. Or maybe there is another layer of encryption. There’s not nearly enough evidence here to call the police or the FBI. I don’t think they can get a search warrant for a place in Canada. Arresting him isn’t going to be a simple matter. If I’m going to identify him, I need to be in the building while he’s online. I’ll sniff his computer to locate the room, then we can go—”
“That’s going too far, Kate. It’s risky enough just walking through the building. But going into his room…”
“He, or she, doesn’t have a clue who we are. We could…” Kate’s eyebrows rose and her blue eyes lit up. “We need a cover story. Let’s see…it’s June. We can pretend to be there on our honeymoon. It’s the perfect cover because you’re…well…and I’m, uh—”
“You must really want me dead. Even if we survive Whistler, your granddad will find out about our honeymoon and kick my head off. Then your mom will shoot me. Or so you’ve told me.”
“Shoot you? Probably not. Mom is a karate expert, too.”
“So I noticed out behind Key Arena. Will you tell them about us going to Whistler?”
“So you are coming?”
“Yeah. I’m coming.” He let out a blast of air. “Kate…you know, no girl…uh, woman has ever talked me into as many things I didn’t want to do as you have in the last couple of days.”
“Consider it good preparation for marriage.” Kate’s grin morphed to a smile, a smile that highlighted the beautiful features on an incredibly beautiful face.
