When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we’d first begun.
Ksenia added her voice to Laynie’s on the last verse . . . and Laynie felt God’s glory fill the deep hole where they were trapped.
O Father, even here, you are with us! And when I am surrounded by your very presence, my heart rests from its struggles and pain. In you, Lord, I need not fear. Thank you.
The last words of the song trailed off, and Laynie rested her cheek on Ksenia’s head. “You were very brave today, dear one. I am so proud of you.”
“No, I was afraid, but . . . I trusted Jesus anyway.” Ksenia sighed. “I am glad we are together, Mader.”
“I am, too, little daughter.”
O Lord! The joy we feel now will last forever . . . when we are safely in your kingdom.
Chapter 36
WOLFE, TOBIN, AND JAZ returned to Wolfe’s DC offices. Wolfe placed a call while Tobin and Jaz listened.
“Major? We have the location.” He read off the coordinates. “Send reconnaissance now.”
He glanced up at Tobin and Jaz as he added, “Yes, I’m headed your way. ETA nine hours. Please activate our partners. Put them on a twelve-hour standby. You should have a picture of what we’re heading into by the time I arrive, yes?”
“Yes, sir. We’ll have the operation mapped out with contingencies when you arrive.”
Wolfe dropped the call and turned to Tobin and Jaz.
“I have called up a black ops assault team of my own, one pre-positioned at a US base in Turkey and authorized to operate anywhere except on American soil. Miss Jessup? You will return to Broadsword and apprise the task force. We may need the team to provide support. Marshal Tobin? I’m inviting you to accompany me.”
“Thank you, Director. I accept. I would hate to have broken your arm to get a seat on that plane.”
“Clever comeback, Marshal.”
“Not a comeback. Sir.”
At Wolfe’s frown, Tobin shrugged. “Just the way it is, sir. I’ma going after Bella, an’ ain’t no force on earth gonna stop me.”
Jaz looked from Wolfe to Tobin, her face a furious mask. “*Blank* your male chauvinism and patriarchy! Tobin goes, but I have to wait at Broadsword because I’m a woman?”
“Stand down, Miss Jessup. The reason you’re not coming along is because we won’t be sitting on our hands at the base in Turkey. Tobin and I are going with the assault team. You want us to armor you up and hand you a weapon? Say so.”
Jaz’s brows shot into her hairline. Her mouth shrank to a tiny “o.”
“Didn’t think so. I’ll have a driver take you back to Broadsword. Tobin? You and I need to hustle. We have a plane to catch.”
“YOU DID what?” Sayed’s rage was not unfamiliar to Bula, but he had never, before now, been its recipient.
“The woman led a rebellion in the kafir women’s cell. She blasphemed against Allah and led others to do the same.”
“I need that woman if we are to get our shipment delivered!”
Bula dropped his eyes. “She is likely not dead . . . yet. Perhaps she suffered a broken bone. If you order it, I will have her pulled out.”
Sayed sat abruptly and considered his uneasy, shifting fortunes. That he was now forced to treat a kafir woman as his equal galled him to no end.
I will stall this Davydenko woman until it is too late. Even if Anabelle Garineau has perished, the Davydenko woman will not know until after Khasurt has the weapon in hand. Then it will no longer matter.
Afterward, as long as our attack on the Great Satan goes forward as planned, I can ignore the Ukrainian organization and its upstart leader.
“Leave her for now.”
LAYNIE DIDN’T KNOW how long she and Ksenia had slept, but a shower of small pebbles woke them. Ksenia stood and looked up. Laynie was stiff and quite sore. It took her longer to get to her feet.
The faint outline of a head appeared at the cistern’s edge. A voice called softly.
“It is Asmeen!” Ksenia relayed to Laynie. “She has our water jugs.”
“Tell her to tie her scarves together, tie one end to a jug, and lower it to us.”
We will at least have water until Black finds a way to get us out.
The jug slowly descended to where Laynie could reach it.
“Got it.” She put the jug aside. “Now the other.”
When they had both jugs, Laynie said, “Ask Asmeen if she and Mariam are all right.”
A lengthy conversation ensued before Asmeen disappeared.
“Asmeen says the other girls were very cruel to her and Mariam when they came back to the cell last night. They slapped them and called them names and told them they were not welcome to return to their fire. Asmeen says that part is good, though, because our jugs were waiting next to our mattresses, and they could lower them to us.”
Laynie could hear Ksenia’s smile in the cistern’s darkness. “After they slapped Mariam, she told them how much God loves them—so much that he sent his Son to die for them.”
Tears sprang to Laynie’s eyes. “They are brave, too.”
“Yes, that is what I said to Asmeen. I told her that we are proud of them.”
Laynie hugged Ksenia. “My good girl.”
A moment later, Ksenia said, “I forgot. Asmeen also said the soldiers were talking about the man who came to see you. The one who said ‘Magda, Magda.’”
“What did the soldiers say?”
“They said he has been found to be a spy for the Americans, that Halima bint Abra testified against him.”
Gupta!
“The soldiers say Sayed will kill him, but he has put the man in a cell for now.”
The last vestige of hope seeped from Laynie’s body, and she sagged against the cistern wall.
Oh, Black. It seems that neither of us will leave this place.
JAZ REVIEWED HER PLANS on the ride back to Broadsword. Think you’re the only one with skills, Director? I may not know guns, but I played you and Tobin like a violin.
When she entered the bullpen, the team was waiting. Waiting for news.
She grinned. “We have the satphone’s location. Wolfe and Tobin are meeting an assault team in Turkey and—”
“They are on their way? Now?” It was Brian.
Of course it was.
“Yes, now. They will meet up with the assault team in nine or ten hours. I don’t know the plan after that, just that they are going to get Bella.”
And crush those who took her, her mind supplied.
“Finally!” Rusty shouted.
“Yes, finally. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a few things to do, but . . . I think we all deserve a break today. It’s Saturday, too, so take the rest of the day off. I’ll man the phones while I’m finishing up the details Wolfe asked me to see to. When I’m done, you-all can switch off here, two at a time, throughout the day and evening. Sound good?”
“I hardly know what to do with myself,” Gwyneth said.
Jubaila grabbed Gwyneth’s arm. “I vote for a movie—and popcorn!”
Brian’s head snapped up. “Popcorn?”
The bullpen couldn’t have emptied faster if someone had yelled “Zombie attack!”
Jaz got busy. She had already tinkered around the edges of the FBI’s system and the remote server farm where their files were backed up weekly, exploring the FBI’s cybersecurity protocols. They were robust, and it wouldn’t be easy for her to accomplish her task, but her brain had already problem-solved until she had ironed out her plan of attack.
Her complete strategy would evolve over two nights. However, she had to get the ball rolling today or risk a week’s delay.
It’s going to be much easier making the FBI get rid of those files for us than me trying to do it, she told herself as, keystroke by keystroke, she dug her way—carefully—through the remote server farm’s firewall.
A
fter twenty minutes of scanning directories, she located the FBI’s New York weekly file backup. The backup was on tape—and you can’t hack tape. Instead she wormed her way into the server farm’s “restore” functions, the software that, in the event of data loss or corruption on the FBI’s network, restored the most recent backup of the FBI’s files to their network servers.
She opened a text file from her personal library, copied from it, and pasted onto the “restore” functions’ handshaking parameters. The “restore” functions would now perform how and when she intended them to.
Very good, my pretties. Very good.
Jaz backed out of the server farm without triggering an alarm. Before she moved to her next and quite-convoluted task, she made herself a cup of tea. She forced herself to drink it slowly while rehearsing what came next—because it was not enough for Jaz to successfully complete her tasks. She had to do so without triggering any alarms or leaving a trail.
I’ll start with a low-level employee with basic network access. Let’s call him Ralph. Then I’ll worm my way into Ralph’s personal life. I do hope Ralph is married or has a love interest. If he doesn’t, Ralph becomes Reject Ralph, and I’ll have to replace him with Ralph 2.0, someone who fits my needs.
Setting aside her empty cup, Jaz opened a command prompt, dumped preformatted text into it, and tweaked it for her present scenario. A few minutes later, she stared at the list of users on the New York FBI’s network—but she made no attempt to breach the network’s firewall.
She toggled to a new screen outside the FBI’s network and ran a search on her initial mark, looking for the man’s personal email account, while she hummed the melody to Hammerstein’s “Getting to Know You.”
“There you are, Ralphie, and thanks for playing today.”
“Getting to know all about you” is easy enough, right, Ralphie? I’ll just hack your home email account.
Once inside his personal email account, she dug through Ralph’s inbox and found an email he’d sent from his FBI email account to his personal account.
Good. Now I have Ralph’s FBI email address. Next, I’ll find and hack his sweetie’s email account. Then I’ll send an email from her account to Ralph’s FBI email account.
“Let’s see,” Jaz whispered to herself. “What should Ralphie’s sweetie ask him? ‘Can we go see this movie?’ Yes. That will work.”
Jaz prepared the email Ralph’s girlfriend would send to him at work. The text ‘Can we go see this movie?’ was a link to which Jaz attached her Very Special Worm Number 1.
Because on any given workday, when Ralph saw an email from his girlfriend’s account in his FBI email inbox, he would open it, yes? Perfectly safe. He trusts her, so he would even click on the attachment to see which movie she wanted to see. The attachment—my attachment—is also quite convincing. He’d never believe the email wasn’t from his girlfriend.
Jaz snickered. “But, since this is Saturday and Ralph isn’t at work today, I’ll have to open the email and click the link for him.”
True, she could have just as well sent the email from some random account, clicked the link herself, then deleted the email—but if, by some fluke, the FBI suspected a network intrusion and began an investigation, she preferred they find ready suspects at hand rather than have them looking farther afield.
On one screen, she sent the email from the girlfriend to Ralph at work. On the other screen, she hacked into the FBI’s Outlook email system and into Ralph’s FBI email account. When the girlfriend’s email arrived. Jaz opened it, clicked the link, and waited.
Once my Very Special Worm Number 1 does its work, Ralph will have temporary administrator access to the FBI’s entire Outlook email system.
“Yup. Here we go.” She was in.
Jaz scanned the staff directory within the FBI’s Outlook program and identified appropriate HR and IT department personnel. She created an email distribution group for the IT department staff and saved it. She then hacked the email account of a mid-level HR employee and sent a group email purportedly from the HR department to all IT staff members.
The email announced upcoming mandatory training and contained an attachment with the training schedule.
“Totally legit, boys and girls,” Jaz whispered, “and even though it’s Saturday, some bottom-of-the-pecking-order help desk guys are always on duty. Whichever one of them opens the schedule first—with my Very Special Worm Number 2 attached—will grant me their network administrator privileges, letting me view the entire network tree, even the classified partitions. I don’t need read-write access, just need to see the file structure and all file names.”
Jaz unwrapped a stick of Black Jack, folded it in quarters, and put it in her mouth. She chewed and watched carefully for a quarter of an hour. Finally, someone clicked on the “training schedule” and activated her worm.
“Bingo. Yes, I’m that good.” She opened the network directory in her new administrator role and found everything she needed—including the directory containing the Ukrainian mob’s encrypted files.
To minimize the chances of her scheme being found out too soon, Jaz recalled the first email from HR, and all the unopened emails disappeared. Then she fired off a second email from HR only to the recipient who had opened the first email. “We apologize for our mistake in sending you notice for the upcoming training,” Jaz read aloud as she typed. “IT is not the intended target audience for this training. Please disregard the previous notice. Thank you.”
Just needs to hold water for two more days.
She returned to her target directory and the folder storing the Ukrainians’ files. She could even view the files themselves. But the only action she took was to grab a screen shot of the folder and its files. She pasted the image into a new document and saved it to her laptop.
She would never attempt something so ignorant as altering or deleting the files. No, any such attempt would have set off mega alarms. Might even have triggered a “restore” from the tape backup.
Jaz laughed aloud at her own joke. “Now who would want the FBI to do that?”
Using the screen grab as her guide, Jaz replicated the folder in an admin directory and populated the folder with the same number of files as her screen grab. It was a time-consuming activity, because she had to ensure that every file was named correctly and was exactly the same size as its twin. The contents of each new file were total nonsense—but all of the files were as highly encrypted as the mob’s financial records.
Now I need to view the FBI’s security alarm system. I’ll only tweak it a little. Just a teensy weensy bit.
With her modification to the security alarm system done, she completed her last task, adding one further step to IT’s normal backup cron job. Then she erased all trace of her presence in the FBI’s system.
Rusty and Vincent strolled into the gym. “Hey, Jaz. It’s been three hours. Do you want us to spell you on the phones?”
“Yup. I’m pretty much done here. Glad you guys are taking over—I mean, the phone lines have been on fire, and I’m just worn out answering the hundreds of calls flooding in.”
Rusty and Vincent laughed. Rusty added, “Don’t worry. I’ll keep the fire extinguisher by my desk.”
“Good move,” Jaz answered. While they got settled, she reviewed her work, inaudibly murmuring each step in sequence.
“The weekly backup will run tonight, midnight, writing the FBI’s files to tape. Immediately after, the additional step in the cron job will overwrite to the same tape the fake Ukrainian directory and files I planted in the FBI’s network—after which that directory will disappear. Erased.
“Tomorrow night, midnight, an unscheduled system restore will commence. While the sad little, bottom-of-the-pecking-order IT guys on night duty try to figure out why a restore is running and if they should abort it, it will be too late. The only directory overwritten will be the one holding the Ukrainians’ financial records. When they view the directory, however, nothing will have changed. Even
the timestamps in the directory won’t reflect the restore point—score another round for Vyper.
“Their IT gurus will scratch their heads and cross their fingers, hoping and praying they haven’t fallen victim to a world-class hacker like me. If they should sense anything amiss and decide to restore from the previous tape backup? Sadly, they will discover that the entire tape has already been erased and reformatted. Twice.”
She chuckled softly. “Bottom line? The Ukrainian mob’s original encrypted files will be gone. Blotto. The cherry on top is that the FBI has never been able to decrypt the mob’s files. Hard to make the case that they’ve lost the files’ contents when they can’t testify to what they had in the first place. If they ever do decrypt the files? They’ll find reams of complete junk.”
Jaz sat back and treated herself to another stick of gum.
Behold the power of the Venom Queen.
Chapter 37
WHEN WOLFE AND TOBIN landed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, they were thrown seven hours ahead of their own time zone. They had snatched a few hours of sleep on the plane, but when they descended from the jet, what should have been an hour before midnight was a bright winter morning on a little chunk of America dropped into a foreign nation.
The leader of Wolfe’s assault team met them on the tarmac.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning, Mr. Fenelli. Marshal Quincy Tobin? This is Tony Fenelli, Wolf Pack Team Lead, designation Wolf Pack 1.”
Fenelli and Tobin shook hands. Then, with nothing more than a “this way, sir,” Fenelli led them to an idling vehicle and drove them farther down the tarmac to a C-130 Hercules already warming up. His five-member team was waiting for them.
After Fenelli introduced them around, he said, “Our assault gear and cargo are loaded, and our helo is pre-positioned on the LZ outside Grozny as directed by our Russian counterparts. Additionally, sir and Marshal Tobin, we have gear for you to change into on the plane. We are good for go on your say-so.”
Laynie Portland, Spy Resurrected Page 41
