Black List

by Will Jordan

  Alex had to admit, even he was taken aback by the sincerity in Gregar’s voice. Perhaps he was a better actor than Alex had given him credit for.

  ‘That’s just beautiful, mate,’ he said, his tone laced with sarcasm. ‘But apart from the fact it’s in your interests to keep me sweet when your life’s at stake, what reason do I have to believe you?’

  And then something happened that Alex had never expected. Anya spoke up on Landvik’s behalf.

  ‘Because he is telling the truth,’ she said.

  Alex looked at her as if she were mad, which she quite possibly was if she believed Landvik was being straight with them. ‘Come again?’

  ‘He is not lying to you, Alex,’ the woman said calmly. ‘I can’t vouch for his character, but what he has said is the truth.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘Because I’ve dealt with enough liars in my life to know the difference.’

  Alex frowned. There was more to that statement than she was telling him – he was certain of it – but now wasn’t the time to try to unravel her life story. Anyway, he’d spent enough time already banging his head against a brick wall today.

  ‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’ When she didn’t respond, Alex turned his eyes on Landvik. ‘So if it wasn’t you, who did it?’

  The big man made a helpless gesture. ‘I don’t know, Alex. All I can tell you is that it wasn’t me.’

  Alex let out a breath, slumping back in his chair. Unconsciously he glanced down at his hand, the knuckles bruised and red from where he’d struck his former friend earlier. Venting his anger without even questioning what he was doing.

  Was it really possible? Had he been wrong all this time?

  ‘Say I believe you, and I’m not sure I do…’ he said at last, his voice quiet and subdued. After so long, he wasn’t ready to admit it to himself yet, and certainly not to Landvik. ‘Where do we go from here?’

  ‘Well, it seems like you could use some help,’ Landvik observed with typical dry humour. ‘I know this system a lot better than you. At least I can stop you fucking things up worse than they are already.’

  ‘I kind of doubt that.’

  ‘If you think he can help, then say so now,’ Anya prompted. ‘Otherwise he’s going back where he came from.’

  ‘He knows I can help,’ Landvik chipped in, his eyes on Alex the whole time. ‘He just doesn’t want to admit it.’

  Alex glanced up at Anya, then back to his former friend. ‘If you try to fuck us over, believe me when I say it’ll end badly for you. And I’m not talking about a broken nose here. Are you sure this is what you want?’

  He nodded. ‘If it gets the two of you out of my house a little sooner, I’m in.’

  Alex sighed, threw up his hands and turned back to the computer terminal. ‘Fine. Pull up a chair. Let’s just hope you’re better at coding than I remember.’

  Chapter 24

  US embassy, Oslo

  The United States embassy building in which Mitchell now found herself was about as nondescript as they come – a big, monolithic glass block that seemed to have been dropped without warning on the centre of Oslo. Aside from the diplomatic seal on the lobby floor and the scattering of armed security guards, there was little to distinguish it from any of the dozens of other midrise office blocks in the area.

  Still, it was infinitely better than a similar compound in Afghanistan, which had reminded her of a Lego castle surrounded by more fortifications than the average WWII bunker. And at least the coffee was good here, she thought, as she took a sip freshly poured from an urn in one corner of the room.

  She and the rest of the team led by Hawkins had requisitioned a large open-plan office area on the top floor from which to continue their search for Yates, much to the chagrin of the diplomatic staff working there. However, a few terse orders from Hawkins had been enough to get them moving.

  The man was nothing if not driven.

  She could see him from where she stood. Unsurprisingly, he was on the phone to someone while the rest of the team worked to tie in with local police and follow up possible leads. He seemed to spend much of his time on the phone, though who he was talking to was a mystery.

  One thing was certain – they were higher in the food chain than he was. She could tell from the tension in his shoulders, the set of his jaw, the look in his eyes, that he was intimidated by whoever he was conversing with. That certainly gave her pause for thought. Whoever could intimidate a man like Hawkins must have been powerful indeed.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ a voice beside her prompted.

  She glanced around at Argento, who had approached while she was preoccupied with Hawkins. ‘Same questions, no answers. Who are we really chasing, and why?’

  She saw a wry smile. ‘I can name one person in this room who isn’t going to give us any answers.’

  Mitchell took a sip of coffee. ‘I hear you.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  There wasn’t much they could do at this point. They were no closer to catching Yates than Hawkins himself, and that situation didn’t seem likely to change any time soon.

  ‘We wait,’ she decided. As unpalatable as it might have been, it was their only option until they caught a break. ‘But when the time comes, we bring Yates and the woman in alive. Agreed?’

  Argento didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.

  *

  ‘I’m telling you, the best way in is through their server grid,’ Landvik persisted, his voice rising in volume as frustration threatened to get the better of him. ‘Just like we used to do it in the old days. We upset the load balancers to trigger a switchover, then—’

  ‘Wait for them to trace the source of the overload and shut us down,’ Alex interrupted him. ‘Come on, Gregar. We’re not hacking the payroll system of a local supermarket here. That shit was getting old when we were just starting out.’

  His friend chewed his lip. ‘What about a port scanner?’

  Alex shook his head. ‘They’d be ready for it. Any unusual activity would be flagged within seconds.’

  The two men had been collaborating for the past thirty minutes, composing and discarding a dozen possible ideas and strategies without making any real breakthrough.

  Alex kept coming up against the same problem that had dogged him since the beginning. The only way they could get in was to find a way to make use of Anya’s conditional access module, but so far it had defeated their best attempts to subvert and overcome the lockdown that had been placed on it.

  ‘The only way to get past the firewall is with the CAM,’ he decided. ‘The answer’s in here somewhere. We just need to find it.’

  ‘How?’ Landvik asked. ‘You can’t log into a system with a compromised ID. And since we don’t have any valid ones to replace it with, it’s a waste of time.’

  Alex closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing the bridge of his nose as fatigue, pain from his injured ribs and a growing headache pressed down on him like a physical weight. He felt like shit, plain and simple, and his failure to deliver on his promise to Anya wasn’t helping his mood.

  ‘I need a smoke,’ he decided. Nicotine – and often something a little stronger – always used to help him sort through complex problems like this.

  Landvik shook his head. ‘Not in here. If my dad smells smoke in the house, he will literally take his rifle and hunt us both down.’

  Just my luck, Alex thought with grim humour. It wasn’t bad enough that the CIA wanted him dead; now he’d have to contend with a mad Norwegian with a cleanliness fetish.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alex,’ his friend went on, his voice quieter now. ‘We gave it a good shot, but I don’t think we can win this one.’

  ‘This isn’t school sports day, man. They don’t give marks for effort.’

  ‘So what? We’ve had failures before. You pick yourself up and move on. Why is this one so important?’

  Unable to help himself, Alex slammed his fist down on the table, send
ing a shiver of pain up his arm. ‘Because I don’t want to end up like Arran,’ he snapped.

  At this, Landvik frowned. ‘What do you mean? What happened to Arran?’

  Alex winced, wishing he’d never spoken. ‘Forget it. You’ll live longer.’

  ‘Fuck that. We might have had our differences, but Arran was still a friend. If something happened to him, I want to know right now.’

  Sighing, Alex leaned back in his chair. ‘A week ago he contacted me, offered me a job. I refused, so he took it on himself. Then he disappeared.’ He glanced at Landvik. ‘You figure it out.’

  Landvik’s eyes were wide as he turned slowly to look out the window, seeing nothing. Whatever else he might have been, he obviously still considered Arran a friend. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Yeah, that more or less sums it up,’ Alex agreed. ‘And unless I make it further than Arran did, I’m next. Maybe now you understand why this is so important.’

  Landvik shook his head. ‘What about this Anya you’ve brought with you? Where the hell did you find her?’

  Alex almost laughed at the irony. ‘I didn’t. She found me.’

  ‘Then maybe it’s time she lost you.’

  Alex looked up at him. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Come on, Alex. You’re stupid, but not that stupid. Do you really think she would keep us around if we were of no use to her?’ Landvik asked, staring him hard in the eye. ‘Or that she’ll let us go now we know what she looks like?’

  Alex couldn’t help wondering about that. ‘She saved my life twice in as many days.’

  ‘Why? Because you promised you could deliver?’ He eyed Alex shrewdly. ‘What do you think she’ll do when she finds out you were bullshitting?’

  ‘I wasn’t bullshitting!’ Alex hissed, trying to keep his voice down. ‘I meant what I said.’

  ‘But that doesn’t change the fact you can’t deliver. One way or another, failure is failure, and that’s all she’ll see.’

  Just for a moment, Alex felt completely torn. Torn between a possibly misplaced sense of loyalty to Anya and what she’d done for him so far, and Landvik’s very pragmatic assessment of his situation. Was he right? Was Anya merely stringing him along until he’d served his purpose? Should he try to cut and run now while he had the chance? If so, could he really spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, wondering if this was the day she finally caught up with him?

  Sensing that his friend was wavering, Landvik leaned in closer, his voice low and urgent as he tried to strike the killer blow. ‘Maybe you should think about a different option.’

  ‘What option?’ Anya asked from the doorway, cutting short their conversation before Alex had time to consider his reply.

  Landvik, to his credit, reacted immediately to her unannounced arrival and swung around to face her.

  ‘Another way into the system. We’re beating our heads against a brick wall with this.’ He threw up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘The encryption scheme is too strong to break. We can’t use the compromised ID you’ve given us, and there’s no way to create a new one.’

  Anya said nothing to this. She had wisely stayed out of their discussions and arguments so far – a silent and brooding presence occasionally taking a break from patrolling the house to watch their petty bickering.

  She looked directly at Alex, ignoring his companion. In matters such as this, she trusted only his opinion. ‘Is he right, Alex?’

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to tell her.

  ‘Alex, I want you to be honest with me,’ she pressed, her tone harder and more commanding now. ‘Can this be done, or are we wasting our time?’

  Alex’s head was pounding as the physical and mental toll of the past couple of days seemed to pile in against him. Images of the two dead men at the farm mingled together inside his mind with the moment of realisation that he was a hunted man, the failed escape bid across the rooftops, and the awful feeling of water being poured down his throat. And everywhere, drowning out everything else, he saw line after line of computer code descending on his mind like a net, trapping him, smothering him, drowning him.

  All because he’d been stupid enough to use that memory stick.

  And then, just like that, it came to him.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he gasped, snapping back to awareness.

  ‘What?’

  Alex could have slapped himself. Like most complex problems, the maddeningly simple solution had been staring him in the face all along. Straight away he turned around and went to work, attacking the computer code he’d been so carefully picking apart all morning.

  ‘I don’t believe it. All this time I’ve been looking for a way into their system without being detected, a way to use this module you gave me without it giving us away,’ he said, his voice working almost as fast as his fingertips on the keyboard. ‘But I was wrong. The only way in is to let it give us away.’

  The woman was frowning now. She might not have known much about software engineering, but as a soldier she understood that giving one’s enemy exactly what they wanted was a quick way to lose a battle. ‘How will that help?’

  ‘The minute the CAM goes live, it sends out a ping. A little burst of data telling the Agency it’s online and being used. Their automatic response is to run a trace programme to find the source of the ping, basically following it back to its source. That’s how they found me in London.’

  ‘I know all this,’ she reminded him. ‘Tell me how you can use it.’

  ‘Don’t you get it? That trace programme is our way in. To run it, they have to make a connection with this computer. The second they do that, we’ve got them.’

  Finally the penny dropped for Landvik. ‘You’re talking about using a stalker. You clever little shit.’

  Anticipating Anya’s question, Alex decided to offer an explanation. ‘A stalker is a special program we normally use to hack corporate networks. It’s not exactly designed for this, but if it does its job, it’ll hijack their connection and give us a back door through their firewall. Kind of like a trace in reverse.’

  ‘Their system won’t know anything’s wrong, because the trace was activated at their end,’ Landvik carried on. ‘Once we’re inside, we’ll have the run of the entire network. Fucking genius.’

  Anya however was less interested in massaging egos. ‘Will it work?’

  ‘Well, that depends on your point of view,’ Alex said, without taking his eyes off the screen. ‘The stalker will get us inside. The problem is that I’ll have to find and shut down the alert before they break into our own system. Gregar’s firewalls should buy us the time we need, but there are no guarantees. It’s a calculated risk.’ At this, he paused a moment and turned to look at her. ‘It’s up to you, Anya. Do you want to go for it?’

  Anya said nothing for several seconds. For perhaps the first time, she looked genuinely undecided about what to do, and he could understand why. He was asking her to trust him, to put her faith in him and know he wouldn’t let her down. It was a big ask.

  Taking a breath, she nodded, the decision made. ‘Do it.’

  That was all he needed. ‘All right. Gregar, get ready with the stalker. The second the trace hits us, send it.’

  ‘On it.’

  Reaching down, Alex picked up the network cables he had disconnected earlier to prevent the system going online, took a moment to send a silent prayer to whatever deities might govern the world of computers, and plugged them in.

  Within seconds, the tool Landvik was using to measure the flow of data to and from his machine noted the sudden jump in usage. ‘I see it. The ping just went out.’

  ‘Get ready,’ Alex said quietly, clenching and unclenching his fists as he prepared to spring into action, like a sprinter waiting for the starting gun.

  Then, sure enough, it came.

  ‘That’s it!’ Landvik cried. ‘Their trace is active. It’s at our firewall.’ A single mouse click was enough to unleash his counter attack. ‘Stalker’s
away.’

  ‘How long will it take?’ Anya asked.

  Her answer came before Alex could even articulate a reply, which was just as well because he needed every ounce of concentration now. A single chime sounded, followed by a pop-up message informing him that the program had succeeded in establishing a connection.

  And that was it. In a moment or two, they were inside.

  ‘Yes!’ Alex cried, punching the air. ‘Get in, son!’

  ‘We’re in,’ Landvik gasped, hardly believing it had worked.

  For a few seconds Alex just sat there, mesmerized by the sheer scale of his accomplishment. He had done what no spy or intelligence agency had ever managed. Sitting here in an untidy bedroom in the middle of nowhere, he now had full and unlimited access to one of the most secure and secretive organisations on the planet.

  But first he had to cover his tracks.

  ‘Right, let’s disable this trace before they find us,’ he said, mindful that the CIA’s best cracking tools were at this very moment working to break through Landvik’s own firewall to discover their location. He was packing some of the best triple-layered security available, but even this wouldn’t hold off a determined attack forever.

  With the determination born from urgency, he went to work. There was no web page or graphical interface of any kind to work with now; just row after row of files and directories. He had bypassed all of the usual tools and browsers that he assumed CIA employees used to navigate their own system, instead delving right into the hidden file structure beneath it all.

  ‘They’re through the first layer,’ Landvik warned, monitoring his system security with a look of growing alarm. ‘Damn, they’re fast. The second one’s about to go.’

  For the next thirty seconds, Alex’s fingers danced over the keyboard as he trawled through level after level of files and databases, searching for the core of the vast system, the central point from which everything else branched out. It might have belonged to the world’s premier intelligence agency, but it was a system like any other, and he’d trawled through so many just like it that he felt almost as if he were navigating by instinct.