Betrayed: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – Book 1 in the Legacy Thriller Series)

by William Wield

  ‘I’ll have an answer for you by then,’ said Wheeler quickly and then heard the click of the telephone the other end.

  Getting off the stool, he went over to one of the many fitted cupboards, opened it and took out a half bottle of cooking brandy and pouring a large slug of it into a tumbler, drank almost all of it straight down. He immediately coughed and spluttered but, recovering, drank the rest of it and poured another.

  When he spoke to each of the other three in turn, it hardly surprised him that none of them – Matthews, the Major nor Rollo - believed him, at least not to start with. Eventually, however, the detail with which he was able to back up his story of this unlikely call from Moscow was sufficient for each of them in turn to take it seriously. Wheeler had also had the website checked out by an IT expert he knew well and whose judgement he trusted. After around half an hour’s reflection time, during which Matthews had rung Wheeler back and told him he would just leave all of this matter to him, it was ten o’clock. Wheeler rang the Major and Rollo on a conference telephone call.

  ‘I’ll summarise the situation, first, then you can each have your final say on this matter,’ said Wheeler. ‘Our number one priority is to get Nat’s hedge fund clear of any influence from the bunch up on Craithe,’ he continued, ‘after all that’s what he’s paying us for. I think we’ve all agreed already that, in view of the short time frame, kidnapping Macrae’s wife is the only way to achieve that objective. Are you both still of that opinion?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said the Major, ‘but what about Nat Matthews’s view on this?’

  ‘I’ve had him re-affirm that he’ll go along with anything we three agree,’ replied Wheeler,

  ‘That’s fine then, you’re running the show, so I’ll go along with that,’ said the Major.

  ‘Okay by me too, ‘said Rollo.

  ‘Next, referring to my telephone conversation with this Russian, Komarov,’ continued Wheeler, ‘I’ve had him checked out as best I can and I’ll say a couple of things on that. Firstly, he’s close to the Russian President but also appears to have a legitimate computer software business. What seems clear to me is that he has some kind of access to the Russian intelligence community, so his veiled threat that he might tell Macrae of our plans to kidnap his wife are too real to ignore – in fact, I believe that if we don’t allow him in to complete his mission alongside ourselves, there’s a risk of his blowing our best chance of doing the right thing for Nat. So, in summary, I vote we accept his offer of the helicopter and just keep a close watch throughout the whole operation on the man he sends on the mission with us. What do the two of you think about that particular aspect of his proposal?’

  ‘Makes sense to me,’ said the Major, ‘and, hell, if we have two or three of Mick Rollo’s top men alongside just one of him, what harm can it do? So, I say accept his offer.’

  ‘Speaking purely operationally,’ said Rollo, ‘I think the helicopter would make the whole thing much easier and, as the Major says, my lads can easily keep an eye on the Russian - don’t care even if he’s a bloody KGB James Bond superstar.’

  ‘They’re called the FSB nowadays, not the KGB,’ said Wheeler, ‘but I agree with Mick so let’s go for it. In addition to this, Komarov suggested we could benefit from a commission on the sales of Athena and the Craithe lot’s software which he’s going to acquire – whatever that means. My own thought is that there’s plenty of time to look into that later on, isn’t there?’

  Both of the other two agreed and Wheeler told them he would go ahead with Komarov.

  ‘It’s up to them to organise this James Bond figure they’re sending with the helicopter,’ he added finally, ‘and I’ll let both of you know as soon as they give me the details.’

  * * * * *

  Guiseppe Lupo, stood at the large floor to ceiling window of his New York apartment looking out at his favourite view over Central Park. He had been deep in thought for the past few minutes. His short thin and wiry frame swayed very slowly from side to side and he hummed a little tune to himself, one of Dean Martin’s Italian ‘hits’. He brushed a hand through his hair, once jet black, now flecked here and there with grey and white. Turning from the window, he came back into the centre of the room and sat down on the sofa next to Rocco his computer boffin, business manager, and general right-hand-man.

  Rocco had been updating Lupo on the latest news on their hunt for the rumoured new cyber weapon, and told him of the Bank of England Conference today and what the Lupo’s cousin in London had said about the situation. For some minutes Lupo had been looking out over Central Park assessing what he had just learned.

  ‘So you’re sure there’s something on the move at last with Komarov?’ asked Lupo as he crossed the room and sat down on the sofa next to Rocco.

  ‘Practically certain. No, I’ll go further than that, I’ll bet my life on it,’ replied Rocco, swivelling his round shiny head to peer back across the room. ‘Yeah, I’ll say it again, that’s what one of our contacts in London has said too.’

  ‘You think Komarov’s found what he’s been looking for, then?’

  ‘And what we’ve been looking for too,’ added Rocco.

  ‘Okay, I know we’ve been getting him to do all our work for us, using his vast resources, but you think this is it?’ Lupo looked back at Rocco and smiled – this might be coming to the culmination of over a year’s highly risky shadowing of Komarov.’

  ‘Look, he did all that very poorly disguised work in Manila, gets himself all prepared now for the Conference today,’ said Rocco leaning forward towards his Lupo, ‘then, suddenly there’s this flurry of activity with a new group of people in London’ he said. ‘Must be that his SVR people have found something? We also know he’s been in touch with the Russian Embassy in London and that his partner has an operative hidden there. As I say, I’ll bet my life on it, they’re about to make a move. So much so that I’ve booked us rooms at the Dorchester Hotel in London, and got digs for the men too.’

  ‘You know I rely on your judgement,’ said Lupo, ‘let’s just hope you’re right about this.’

  ‘I am right, you’ll see, and sooner than you think,’ said Rocco. Lupo just smiled. For some time now he had been dreaming of the effect of finally acquiring this new weapon would have on his standing within the fraternity, plenty to smile about, indeed.

  Chapter 15

  Good Friday morning 24 March

  Conference, Bank of England, London

  From soon after eight in the morning, the doors were opened to Bank of England’s conference. Both of the Bank’s supervisory bodies, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority had sent personal invitations to senior personnel in organisations under their supervision. Excuses for non-attendance would not be accepted – though, in exceptional circumstances, an alternative attendee could be sent in place of the person named on the invitation. As a result, by eight-thirty the conference room was nearly full – a mix of chief executive officers, senior IT personnel, and senior partners of hedge funds – most of them irritated at being forced to be here after the start of the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, but resigned to attending. In short, the top seventy-five companies represented were those most likely to suffer a cyber-attack and whose demise might also effect the City rather than just themselves. Naturally, all of those UK companies whose collapse might threaten the stability of the world’s financial system had been forced to install Athena’s warning software, though, for smaller companies it was still voluntary. Over a period of a number of months, many foreign banks were secretly told all about Athena and most, keen on the latest technologies, had installed Athena’s software. Fisher, watching this process wondered if, by any chance, the US banks’ keenness in particular gave a clue that Athena’s other backer – the secretive conglomerate partner – just might be an American company. He never did get an answer to this speculation.

  Bill Fisher was due to make his welcoming address to the conference at nine-thirty, but, just before nine
, the unobtrusive red warning lights behind the scenes, installed at the Craithe Team’s request, began to flash on and off rapidly. The light was switched off and, as had been agreed, Fisher immediately rang Craithe.

  * * * * *

  In the cyber team’s rooms at Komarov’s offices, he and Silayev had arrived well before the Bank of England conference was due to start. Ever since Morozov had found out about Athena, the team had been looking to select the best organisation for their attack. As the objective of the attack was merely to confirm for them that Athena was indeed the rumoured super cyber weapon, they did not want to attack a bank that was big enough to cause ripples. Thus, the job for their ‘mole’ currently attending the conference was simply to help them pick a suitable target. It needed to be defended by CSL, and have Athena installed so that they could easily break through the main defences and be sure to trigger a defensive response from Athena.

  In due course, the mole had managed to speak to the chairman of CSL who had been happy to boast of his company’s extensive client list and had got his secretary to email him the list. The mole emailed Komarov with the name of the ideal target, a smallish investment bank by the name of Greystone & Frobisher.

  All eagerly gathered around the machines, Komarov gave a nod and the young operative hacked into it and delivered the cyber-attack. He and an assistant were ready to note carefully the sequence of events the moment he pressed the key initiating the attack and a stand-by machine had also been set up to record all events. They were shocked, however, at the practically instantaneous response from Athena – it seemed to come at almost the same moment they hit the key for the attack. It was followed by the machine they had used to make the attack being shut down. The second machine monitoring it, picked up the fact that it was indeed Athena doing the counter-attack but was too slow to record the sequence of events or exactly which files Athena had hit to kill the attacking machine. Thus, in effect, the purpose of the exercise, to find ways to steal Athena over the internet had been a complete failure.

  ‘Christ, that was fast,’ said Komarov, ‘hope to God you were quick enough switching off our second machine here – the last thing we need is Macrae knowing our real identity or location. Still, we now know we’ve found our new weapon and, at last we can give the President the good news. So let’s get on with the details of our plan with Mr Rollo’s group.’

  ‘We could use a man of mine who recently had an assignment in London,’ said Silayev, ‘he’s still sitting there waiting for a suitable moment to get back here to Moscow’ said Silayev, ‘and he’s well up to this job on Craithe.’

  ‘A hell of a lot hangs on this,’ said Komarov, ‘are you sure he’s right for it – we could still get an SVR operative to Northern Ireland in time?’

  ‘Well he may not be trained up quite as much as your fancy KGB, FSB, or SVR operatives, but he’s done good work for me,’ replied Silayev. Anyway what can be so difficult about stealing a load of software? More importantly, he has the advantage of being ready to go over to Rollo’s place right now. His name’s Dmitri Zaytsev.’

  ‘Well as you’re vouching for his competence,’ said Komarov, ‘the fact that he’s already in the UK, does make things easier.’

  He stopped for a minute, rubbing his chin. ‘The other factor of course is that the President’s losing patience with me over this whole bloody thing. So right then, I’ll take your word on him. I’ll get the Embassy to organise a helicopter for the weekend; is this Zaytsev man of yours trained on Eurocopters like most of our people?’

  ‘I’ll double check that when I contact him. Want me to do that now?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Komarov, ‘you have all the details? Rollo’s location, everything else you need to brief him for this project?’

  ‘I can brief him fully, he’ll be ready later today,’ said Silayev.

  ‘Good. We’ve just taken the first steps to an exceedingly lucrative business,’ said Komarov, ‘with Athena’s capabilities, this could be the biggest thing that anyone in the brotherhood has ever pulled off. The Wheeler lot using Macrae’s wife as a hostage will be like a children’s tea party compared to the infrastructure hostages we’ll be able to take once we’ve got Athena. Just imagine, a whole power station as held to ransom – even a regional grid.’

  ‘Okay, okay, less gloating, we haven’t got it yet,’ said Komarov ‘let’s get all the loose ends tied up. First thing is to organise Zaytsev and the helicopter.’

  ‘I’ll also ring Wheeler once we’ve done those two’ said Komarov, ‘this is beginning to look good.’

  * * * * *

  The telephone up in the Lab at Craithe had been busy when Fisher rang – no doubt connected to the attack, but when he got through, it was the professor who answered.

  ‘Our alarms went off down here,’ said Fisher, ‘was that a false alarm or for real?’

  ‘For real,’ confirmed the Prof, ‘good to have been prepared. It was a small investment bank called Greystone & Frobisher. As expected, it had originally been protected by CSL and we only installed the Athena warning software last week. All went to plan and the attacker was duly shut down. We’re in the process right now of trying to get more information on the attackers, but I can tell you already that they’re Moscow-based, and traces indicate they are the same lot as the Manila attackers. Anyway, all’s well, nothing more to worry about and we’ll ring you when we know more.’

  Fisher thanked him, much relieved that, when it had come to the first real cyber-attack of this kind, and that the Athena programme had worked so well.

  At nine-thirty, Bill Fisher came to the lectern on the podium and called for order. By now all the attendees had found themselves seats and most seemed intent on making the best of a tiresome duty – many also intrigued about what the Bank of England would say about the demonstration all had been mandated to watch on Thursday afternoon. Some were also looking forward to an explanation of the hacking into a hedge fund’s operations for the demonstration. He welcomed everyone, laid down some ‘housekeeping rules’, and reminded them that the purpose of the conference was to ensure that everyone was fully aware of the current threat levels of cyber-attacks and that all should have Athena’s warning software installed.

  ‘Most of you here will not be at all interested in computer software nor in computer defence systems’, he continued after the initial welcome, ‘and I’m sure many of you think you spend quite enough money on cyber defences as it is.’ There was a subdued noise all round of muttered agreement to this.

  ‘That is not how Mr Zhang Wei, Chief Executive Officer of the Manila Beijing Bank felt yesterday, however,’ he continued. ‘The cyber-attack on his bank destroyed all his customer account data forcing him to shut the bank, all its branches and ATMs. Briefly, it caused a run on his bank. The attack, the third of its kind in Manila in the past week or so, could have bankrupted the bank. He got over this by restoring his customer data from the previous night’s backups, which, of course were out of date. He therefore had many complaints of wrong transactions and balances, but his bank survived - just.’

  ‘The Manila Beijing Bank and two other banks raided earlier,’ continued Fisher, ‘were all defended by one of our best known and respected cyber defence providers, CSL. The hackers had been practicing on CSL defence software and they have warned us through a tip-off that a large bank, probably one also using CSL defences would be attacked whilst we are here at this conference this morning. I have to tell you that, soon after nine this morning, a small investment bank was attacked, here in London.’

  There was a short spate of coughing and throat-clearing as Fisher paused for a moment and some exchanged glances with their neighbours.

  ‘I’m happy to tell you that, wisely, it had installed Athena detection software and as soon as it was attacked Athena counter-attacked and disabled the attacker’s equipment. We now know that the attacker was from the same organisation that was responsible for the attacks in Manila though we are still trying to establish their fu
ll identity. So, what I’m saying to you is this, the threat levels are as high as they can get, and will remain like that until every attack is countered by Athena. It vindicates the Bank of England sponsored demonstration to try and get this message across to all of you and I trust that a combination of that demonstration and the attacks this morning will persuade the rest of you to see sense and install Athena later today or over the weekend. I know that installations of this kind can be complex and sometimes need to deal with compatibility issues, but all our many Athena users are relieved that they took the decision to install it.’

  The conference ended around midday. It was deemed by the Bank of England and the regulatory bodies to have been a success as, by the end, all the waverers had signed up for Athena and had booked times for the software to be installed. Sir Jeremy’s dream of the world’s financial stability being protected by a substantial mass of counter-attacking companies seemed near at hand, with London and some of the US and German Banks leading the way. Full reports of the day’s events began to be circulated around the world’s other financial centres and, already, many who had been appraised of Athena’s capabilities now began to request Athena installations.

  Cape had been there with Mina from before the conference began, getting her to take notes as the morning progressed. Mina said she needed to go out for a smoke break from time to time and twice she found Sandy Scale out in the street, ostensibly for the same reason. They chatted during these breaks, Scale asking Mina how she found working Cape in Number 11 Downing Street.