by Allen Wyler
So, again Arnold considered whether or not to destroy the implanted spyware or ignore it. The downside to removing it would be destruction of any trust the Jahandars had in Arnold. Once that happened there would be no more reason to keep him alive. Then they could simply kill him and walk away with all the hardware in the basement. But his hardware alone was worthless. They had to know how his system worked, and it was quirky enough that it would almost be impossible for Nawzer to figure it out. Long as Arnold was alive, they would watch him work only until they could reverse-engineer his system’s use. Then, game over.
Ignore the spyware? But the longer he allowed the alien code to remain installed the more deeply Nawzer could burrow into his system.
Tough decision.
He paused to massage the kinks in his neck. Of the two options, he decided it’d be best to simply ignore the virus and let them believe they’d outfoxed him. This, however, meant he had to end this in two days. At most.
Having a clear course of action now energized him. First thing he needed to do was check to see if Rachael was online and if so, spend a few moments chatting. After that, he needed to dig into work. He smiled at the thought of her. He pinged her and she immediately responded with:
Rachael: Hi. What u up to?
Arnold: Work. Got a job.
Rachael: NK? What?
Arnold: Can’t tell U. Classified.
Rachael: LOL
Arnold: No, really.
Rachael: When can I C U?
Arnold’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t believe what he had just read. He scanned the line again and thought about it and realized his mistake. Did the Jahandars now know about her?
Arnold: CU.
He cut the connection. Aw, shit! He erased all evidence of the chat and then double-checked that the few lines had been exchanged over the Tor browser, meaning her address would be difficult to track down. But now they knew her name. Making it all the more urgent to destroy everything. The last thing he wanted was to place her in danger, too.
Dumb shit!
He stood, took several deep breaths to calm himself, then went into the bathroom to rinse his face with cold water.
Back at his computer, he tried to concentrate, to see if he was missing anything other than the plan he’d selected. The obvious downside to vanishing into the witness protection program would be the need to abandon any possibility of a relationship with her. His heart ached at the thought.
Press on, don’t get mired in self-pity.
A quick check of his offshore account confirmed a new deposit for the $20,000, payoffs from bets last weekend and another $5,000 from the terrorists. A few mouse clicks moved the money from that account to another one he felt certain remained unknown to the Jahandars and FBI. Certainly, if the FBI were monitoring his offshore account in an attempt to backtrack into Nawzer’s system, they’d realize the balance had suddenly zeroed out, but what could they do about it? Arnold, after all, was their asset.
Arnold pushed out of the chair again to stretch and relieve the kinks in his spine. Move! Do it. He grabbed his toolbox and the replacement stove igniter purchased earlier today at Lee’s Appliances. As usual, Karim was spread over the TV room couch next to the French doors, taking advantage of the bright sunlight angling in, a paperback in hand and a glass of tea on the end table. Karim didn’t even glance up to acknowledge him, just grunted something unintelligible while flipping the page.
Arnold set the toolbox on the counter next to the stove, opened it, and rummaged around noisily. He watched the Iranian’s reflection on the stainless-steel microwave above the stove, but the smelly bastard didn’t seem to any pay attention. Arnold pulled the black iron pot support from the burner and set it on the counter, where Karim could see it if he glanced this way. He unpacked the gas igniter, selected a small crescent wrench from the toolbox, and stood at the stove pretending to work.
Two minutes later, satisfied of a convincing performance, Arnold repacked his tools, replaced the burner cover, and slipped the new, recently purchased burner igniter into his pocket. He turned the burner on and off a couple times, testing it, watching the electrical igniter spark and ignite a flame. “Okay. Burner’s working,” he called, as if Karim could give a shit.
He walked to the basement stairs, opened the door, yelled, “Be downstairs for awhile.”
Now in his special electronics room, Arnold knelt next to the rack that housed his computers, routers, and networking equipment. Over the past few days he’d accumulated all the needed parts here: a standard 110V extension cord, a voltage transformer, and some standard dual-wire cord with the insulation off one end and a USB plug wired to the appropriate computer jack. He quickly soldered the bare ends of the 110V line to the transformer and wrapped them in electrical tape, then did the same to the transformer and stove burner igniter, creating a mechanism to trigger a spark. He used electrical tape to affix the igniter to a strut on the computer rack, plugged in the AC line. This circuit complete, he typed a preprogrammed command on his smartphone. The igniter fired each time he hit enter. Now he had a way of triggering the igniter remotely via the house wi-fi system. He tried it three times to make certain it faithfully triggered a beautiful arching spark.
He smiled. So far, so good. Phase I of his plan was now finished.
Next the tricky part. He turned off the room’s special air conditioning but allowed the ventilation system to continue running. The HVAC was powered by natural gas brought into the room via a thick, high-pressure hose from the house furnace supply. He severed this line and inserted a T-valve between the severed ends. The T-portion of the valve was turned off, allowing the gas to flow normally to the HVAC. Next, he attached a three-foot length of new tube from the T-portion of the valve. He duct-taped the hose’s free end to the equipment rack so the open end was only a half-inch from the igniter. Then, for additional stability and support, he duct-taped the hose vertically to the struts. The T-valve could be use to divert the natural gas from the HVAC into room air with the highest concentration next to the igniter. He had, in effect, created a bomb that could be detonated from his cell phone similar to the way Middle Eastern insurgents triggered improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. He smiled at the ironic parallel.
He started the HVAC again and brushed off his hands while inspecting his handiwork. Not bad. Not bad at all for a nerdy computer geek.
Back upstairs, he turned his attention back to one of his most daunting tasks in the entire plan: he still needed to write the most important chunk of computer code of his young life. With Nawzer’s spyware recording his every keystroke, time seemed to be evaporating at warp speed, making it imperative to infiltrate the terrorists’ system within the next 24 hours. Even 48 hours would be too long. The pressure bearing down on him was both exciting and dreadful, exhilarating yet painful, rolling waves of pain through his stomach. From this point on there was no room for any mistake.
He kicked himself for not having factored in the possibility of a Jahandar implanting the keystroke monitor in his laptop, for now the odds of success had been shifted from Arnold to Nawzer. The question was, could he turn that advantage into a liability?
Yeah, maybe. Well, no maybes, you damn well have to.
How?
Jesus!
He blew a breath, wiped his palms on his thighs, stood.
Stop farting around. Press on!
Okay, think. The problem with a keystroke recorder is it’s only good if you can use it. Which means you eventually have to read it to retrieve any information. Either that or it has to be programmed to automatically send you information when reaching a predetermined buffer size. So, sooner or later a connection had to be made directly between him and Nawzer’s computer. Unless Karim or Firouz intended to copy the information and send it to him, which he believed was highly unlikely. Besides, that would take time, and Arnold suspected Nawzer needed the information as soon as possible.
Meaning it’d be very likely that Nawzer would try to upl
oad the information later today, when he gave Arnold his assignment. Yeah, that’s perfect! Meaning if Arnold were to have any prayer of establishing a route back into Nawzer’s computer to tag him instead, his code would have to be flawless. Shit, do I have enough time to write it?
He had one advantage: he’d written similar software a year earlier so that would be a good start. Problem was, it wasn’t particularly sophisticated, making it difficult to slip past a professional as good as Nawzer. He blew a long slow breath and continued coding the software.
31.
When the call came an hour and a half later, Arnold had barely finished coding. The instant his cell rang his heart began hammering in his chest. Palms damp, he pushed speakerphone, grabbed a pen, sucked a deep breath. “Yes?”
“Is it clear?”
He immediately recognized the voice from prior calls.
“Yes.” They running a stress analysis of my voice? Not knowing, he kept his answer as short as possible.
“Repeat please: alpha, mike, dash, thirty-four, fifteen.”
Soon as the words were out of Arnold’s mouth, the phone connection cut off, giving him only ten minutes to connect with the terrorists’ computer before the site would cease to exist in the seamy Darknet world. On one screen, using the Tor browser, he typed AM-3415.onion in the address field while he kicked in another program on his second window. A few months ago, his cable connection had died for two hours. He prayed similar problems wouldn’t happen now, when every second was crucial. He double-checked the typing, confirmed it was typed correctly, hit enter.
And started drumming his fingers, watching the first computer hand off the connection to the next, then on to the next, until the multiple links wormed across the globe to finally link up the desired destination. Soon as the connection secured he typed the command to transmit his Trojan horse to the recipient computer while muttering a brief prayer that Nawzer wouldn’t notice it coming. Without making any attempt to confirm receipt—for any hesitation might, in itself, draw attention—he moused a big red button on the center of the screen. One second later, the icon vanished and the screen filled with several lines of typewritten instruction: his assignment. Having anticipated this would be their method for passing the information, he quickly snapped a screenshot which he immediately saved to a protected directory. He snapped a second insurance shot in case the first one had somehow been corrupted. Before he even had time to log off the site, the screen blanked, terminating his connection with the terrorist’s computer. The entire process of information transfer had taken less than sixty seconds. No one—not even the highly skilled NSA computer scientists—would have been able to trace the connection on the regular Internet, much less via the Darknet. Which underscored the importance of cyber-warfare in fighting terrorism.
Arnold stood and inhaled a deep breath, felt like moving but had no idea where, took three steps, decided that wasn’t helping, so returned to the chair. Shit! Restless body syndrome. Standing once more, massaging both temples, he tried to relax and stop grinding his molars. Jesus! Is Karim watching?
For Christ sake, don’t look.
He believed the bastard was too computer illiterate to realize what he’d just done even if he had been watching. On the other hand, the bastard possessed a coyote’s nose when sniffing out stress. He continued to stand, eyes closed, massaging both temples, counting one, one thousand, two, one thousand… Get. A. Grip.
The question was; would Nawzer discover his Trojan horse? If not, would it work? The most efficient and stealthy spyware, Arnold believed, must be an artwork of engineering parsimony. Effective, short, free of any bug. Most of all, it had to be sufficiently functional to flawlessly execute the intended task.
I’ll find out soon enough. Within the next ten minutes, most likely. He knew this would mean each second would pass with sub-glacial speed. He tried to distract himself by reading his new assignment. After five futile minutes, he simply gave up.
He left the laptop to pour a glass of cold water from the plastic container in the fridge. At the sink now, he sipped and stared out the window over the weathered cedar fence to the neighbor’s Tudor.
What do I do if Karim’s phone rings? For that would only mean one thing.
Forget getting information for the FBI and move on to phase II.
Attractive as that seemed, another part of him knew he had to follow through and play out this game to the end, even if it meant his life. He owed Howie.
Yeah, very noble, but if his phone rings, you know what’s coming next.
Grab a knife for self-defense? Yeah, that’d be a stretch. Had no idea how to fight with one, never having dreamed of ever getting into a hand-to-hand combat situation. Then again, you probably picked things up quickly when your life depended on it. Then again, Karim would probably use a gun like he had on Howard, so… Would he really? Especially knowing his fingerprints were all over the place? Sure, if he figured his prints weren’t on file. If he even thought about that angle. Or maybe he’d make some excuse to return to Discovery Park and do it there. Maybe that’s what that trip was all about, sizing the site up, getting Arnold used to the idea.
Jesus! Too many things to worry about.
Finger combing his hair, he tried to slow his mind from rabid-bat-mode, different thoughts zinging through it with millisecond half-lives, making one coherent thought impossible.
The laptop dinged. An email.
Cardiac arrest time.
Back in the chair now, mouse in hand, he double-clicked the email icon. And froze. Did a double take, looked again, just to be certain. Holy shit!
His little Trojan horse was successfully embedded in Nawzer’s computer, laying down a series of breadcrumbs for Arnold to trace. But it’d take time, because Nawzer kept the machine online only a few minutes at a pop with no regular schedule. But hey, he was grateful for anything. In the meantime, he had an assignment to finish.
Rachael. Jesus, If I could only see her and explain what’s going on.
Has to be some sort of karmic injustice. After all I’ve gone through to get close to her… He shook his head. Fate is making damn sure that’s impossible.
32.
Arnold collected up his grande mocha from the barista’s oval serving counter to carry over to the table, where Davidson waited with an open bottle of Perrier. Karim sat camped out with his Tazo at a separate table next to the front window, probably where the reading light was brighter and he could rest easy that Arnold couldn’t sneak out. They’d decided to meet at the Starbucks on the 2300 block of First Avenue and were fortunate enough to catch a lull in patrons, allowing the luxury of separate tables with sufficient distance in between to not worry about being overheard. Not that he thought the big terrorist really gave a rat’s ass, but you could never predict the machinations of that primitive mind. Karim’s blasé attitude could just as easily be a clever ruse to lull Arnold into slipping up. But perhaps that was giving him too much credit. On the other hand, the accurate predictions Arnold had provided them the past couple weeks made it entirely possible the Jahandars now considered him fully on board.
Arnold chose a chair perpendicular to Davidson’s instead of directly opposite, allowing his voice to project away from Karim. He paused to reflect on how strange it was to have his life degenerate into worrying about such otherwise insignificant details.
Leaning closer, Davidson lowered his voice. “Are my eyes deceiving me, or is that a romance novel your friend’s reading?”
Without bothering to look, Arnold nodded. “Reads nothing but. Devours them, in fact. Never seen anything like it. Can you believe it?”
Davidson continued to stare past Arnold’s shoulder for another moment before slowly shaking his head. “Who’da thunk it, right?” He was absentmindedly rotating his coffee cup.
Arnold peeled the white plastic lid off his own cup, leaned down to blow steam away from the black surface, trying to give Karim the impression of casualness. He loved the smells of roasted coffee
and rich pastries so characteristic of these stores. He supposed Starbucks was all too aware of that also.
“What’s up?”
Unable to suppress a slight smile, Arnold answered in normal volume, “Nailed them all. Well, except for one.” And felt obliged to defend the one incorrect point spread. “You probably saw the game, but the Seahawks field goal kicker sprained his ankle in the first quarter so ended up on the bench. Second string guy missed a thirty-five yarder with one minute to go. Pathetic.” And gave a couldn’t-be-helped shrug. “Those are the weird twists you can’t account for. So, missed that one by two points.” He stole an over-the-shoulder glance at Karim. Good, still engrossed in his Harlequin, not seeming to pay any attention.
Davidson put his hand next to his mouth. “Have anything for our friends?”
Meaning the FBI. How to answer? He’d figured Davidson would ask. Telling him everything at this point would put the lawyer at risk and, having grown fond of him, he didn’t want that. But, he repeatedly reminded himself, the man was at risk no matter what the hell he did.
He nodded and lowered his voice. “Couple things. Tell Fisher the attack’s planned for the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. That’s probably why Breeze and company have been living there, establishing a cover. It’s going to happen this weekend, but I’m not sure exactly which building yet. That convention center is pretty damn big. What they want me to is decide the best spot to plant the explosive for maximum damage. I’ll pass along that information soon as I make the determination.”
Davidson whistled softly. “Yikes. They’re going to want to know ASAP. No one short of the Secretary of Defense is going to be able to shut that convention down, so they’ll have to deploy more security.”
