Tyranny of Secrets

by John Statton

  Rainy’s fly landed again, and again caught the trout's eye, but it was not yet ready to rise and strike.

  “My God, then I’ve been an unwitting party to a major fraud.”

  “Yes, but who is ever going to believe you, we’ve made sure there is no trace of our involvement. By the way, this is a serious matter, if you ever get the urge to reveal it, it's not only you who gets killed, but likely your family as well. I represent very committed people.”

  He saw the look on Earl’s face and added, “But this is supposed to be a friendly conversation. If you say no, we will completely understand and you are free to go. The Lashers’ recommendation got you this far; the next step is yours.”

  Rainy persisted in landing the fly in that pool; he just knew there was a lurker there. The fish must be hungry.

  “Mr. Vice President, this has been an extraordinary conversation so far, what is the cost of the next step?”

  “It's simple, the presidency for ultimate control. It’s the price of the Office. Day-to-day you decide the fate of the nation. On occasion, we dictate the decision.”

  Rainy could sense the trout still lurking but starting to draw nearer.

  With a thoughtful look on his face, Earl replied, “What if I disagree with what I'm asked to do?”

  “We will not ask you to go to war, but we may ask you to avoid one, we will not ask anything to violate your oath to serve your country. But you must acknowledge, there are different viewpoints of what's right for the country, and in any final analysis, ours will be the one to prevail.”

  Rainy could almost see the trout deciding, coiling, and tensing its flanks.

  “Come on, how could you enforce that kind of loyalty? The secret service will protect my family and I. Speaking of being frank, Mr. Vice President, isn't that earlier threat hollow?”

  Rainy pulled back the fly and reeled in for another cast. One more time, he was determined to hook this one.

  “Governor, may I call you Earl? Thanks, and please, my friends call me Adolph, or Dolph. Earl, our group has a long lineage and has controlled the White House before. None of us want another situation like Dallas in 1963.”

  Earl hesitated as he learned this terrible secret, and what it signified about the bargain offered. He responded in a subdued manner, “I understand. You honestly have a way to make this work?”

  “Not so honest, Earl, but we do. We want you to join our group. We want you to be part of the inner workings of this country, a place where patriots keep us safe. Interested?

  Rainy landed the fly in the center of the swirling pool and the trout rose at lightning speed to snap it up, only to feel the hook set deep.

  “Yes, I am. I am at that,” came Earl’s reply. He sensed this was one of those moments of truth when he decided how the rest of his life played out. He looked at Rainy and said, “So what can you do for me in a national election?”

  With that, the fish jumped out of the water trying to disgorge the fly and Rainy started to work it into shore.

  “Hey, look it there, you've hooked a nice one. Get it over here and I'll get the net.” Earl reeled in and put down his pole while Rainy landed the fish. It was indeed a beauty.

  Earl moved into Rainy’s lodge. The rest of the weekend they spent in campaign discussions, including how to move the billions that would secretly flow through independent expenditure committees. Rainy also talked about using his group’s extensive influence with editorial boards, bloggers, social media, and others controlling the flow of information, to ensure positive coverage.

  From Earl’s perspective, Rainy’s experienced team was willing to play hard and dirty to win. Just what Earl thought the game required. That weekend he passed the Politburo’s initiation and revealed himself to be as power-driven as they were.

  It wasn’t until Sunday evening when Rainy discussed how they would manipulate the election. Over post-dinner drinks on the lodge’s back balcony, they gazed out at the Grand Teton’s rugged spires. Rainy filled him in on FIXISIN and SHAVEPOINT.

  He also told him more about what they expected of their president. “Earl, we’re going to want you to support some significant national security expenditures for NSA data centers and cyber-activities.”

  “Why would y’all want that?” came the expected reply.

  Rainy proceeded to tell him, and by the end of the conversation Earl was a made-man for the Politburo, entrusted with secrets worth his and his family’s life.

  ***

  A couple of weeks after the Republican Convention, Mariana and Sander were still riding the rails. There is a tendency to drink aboard a train, much like when aboard a ship; there are long days between ultimate destinations with little else to do and no responsibilities, until your life resumes on the other end of the journey.

  They had been transiting the country behind one train or the other. The coach made a great mobile hideout, but it felt like being adrift. That was the rationale used as they drank Bloody Marys at breakfast. Each had enjoyed a couple of cocktails and were staying in the dining room with coffee, while CNN delivered news to the wall screen. Outside, a deserted stretch of Arizona gave way to a saguaro cactus forest.

  On screen, the announcer droned, “In this morning's campaign news, the candidates have reversed their horserace positions from earlier in the summer. Governor Ravana now leads by the narrowest of statistical margins in the CNN poll. It's Ravana by three points over Senator Scott Oak. These survey results are consistent with the governor's slow-growing popularity since his convention, but his advance is still within the margin of error.”

  Behind the announcer displayed a visual of Ravana flashing his plus sign and saying, “I’m just so pleased our message is resonating, you should see the crowds at our rallies, we are running such a positive campaign to ‘Celebrate America's Exceptionalism!’”

  The announcer continued, “The Democratic challenger, Senator Oak, has been focused on his leaked private text message with a young male campaign intern, which some claim is inappropriately salacious for the long-married senator.”

  The news clip played Oak being hustled off by aides while the media shouted unanswered questions. The announcer, in voice-over, concluded with, “The FBI has promised to investigate the source of the leaks under the wiretap statute.”

  Neither of them had been giving the US election any thought. Sander glanced at Mariana and said, “Hey, in case you hadn’t noticed, Ravana’s candidacy is following the script for the UK election hacking that you outlined; a tightening race and then the underdog moving narrowly ahead in the polls, check.”

  Sander continued, “With new improved opponent takedown capabilities via a salacious leak. You didn’t use that tactic in your election, did you?”

  “No,” she replied, “I managed to avoid doing that.”

  Mariana pulled out her laptop and started to Google past election results for North Carolina, specifically those for Earl Ravana. She spent a few minutes furiously typing and reading. Sander just sat back and let her work. He reached for his Bloody Mary instead of coffee; he had a feeling he was not going to like what she was investigating.

  After a few minutes, she wound down and stopped to consider what she had learned. Sander took another long sip, and she started in, “Look, it's in Ravana’s 2008 governor’s results, then in 2012 when he ran for re-election. In each case, the polling had moved to a tight race and his voters came out in droves to win each of the closely contested districts.”

  “Do you believe in lightning striking twice?”

  “No, especially when it follows a script I wrote.”

  He looked sharply up at the screen then turned towards her. “This means they’re going to steal the presidential election.”

  “Yes, they have been ripping off my work and testing it on Ravana’s governors’ races. Apparently, it has been working just fine, and now they’re ready for Broadway. This shit is real.”

  They each reached over and topped off their glasses.

&n
bsp; “I think we need to add some purpose to our travels,” she said.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” he replied. “What do ‘we’ have in mind?”

  “First we need to visit some cities and collect some code. Remember the hacking catalog I mentioned? I’ve got the complete files plus a lot more stashed offline in four caches. I may have an idea about what we can do, but I’ll need all the information at those sites. Let me think about it while we head to Seattle, then Chicago, Atlanta, and New Orleans.”

  “Choo-Choo,” with one arm making wheel-turning motions, was Sander’s deliberately goofy, upbeat and enthusiastic reply. “Full steam ahead into danger.”

  #

  Chapter 16

  On the Rails

  September 2016

  The next few weeks were a bit dangerous; crisscrossing the country to secure the information in Mariana’s data vaults without being spotted was dicey. She’d placed the data in train station lockers across the country, stashed against a future without NetSecure. Stations where she could covertly hack the security systems and provide digital invisibility. But they had to remain inconspicuous when doing the physical pickups. Except Chicago, where things got a little scary, they managed to avoid police on the lookout. She was coy whenever Sander raised a question of what she was going to do with the collected data.

  As the trip lengthened, the ten-foot wide railcar in near constant motion became confining. Despite the car’s luxury, the time and miles grew long. They diverted themselves by playing on the web through an encrypted satellite system and untraceable accounts. They laid low, refilling supplies through Google and Amazon orders, and having deliveries made to the car when in a station.

  The well-appointed coach became their traveling world. They got out occasionally to stretch their legs and, even then, were careful to wear hats, track satellite footprints showing when they were vulnerable to spying, and never look up in case of drones.

  Their car often changed trains at night, and morning would find them hundreds of miles further along. A very effective hiding place, it also left them with a lot of time on their hands and the opportunity for long conversations.

  “You won’t believe what I’ve found now that I’ve had a chance to dig into the information I swiped from Mansfield,” she announced one evening as they were sipping cocktails under the Vista Dome.

  “Yeah, try me, I’ve got a vivid imagination.”

  “They’re definitely using my hacks to swing this election.”

  “We've got to expose them,” Sander said. “If we don’t, they’re going to steal it. We could post our story on the net. We've got the documents you took from NetSecure’s server. The public needs to know about FIXISIN and SHAVEPOINT.”

  “I'm not sure what would happen faster, either being discredited as a conspiracy lunatic while being buried under a national security gag, or fast-roping killers dropping in from a black helicopter overhead.”

  “Don’t see how they can have it both ways,” he snidely retorted.

  She laughed, “Yes, they could. They could come after us with both approaches, why not just steamroller us? Seeing 'most wanted' pictures starting to appear may be the least of our worries.”

  “We need to do something, because we can't hide forever and when we surface they'll be waiting. Besides, we forget one thing, where is all of the data going? Who is collecting it and how are they going to use it? Someone has to be paying for all of the storage and processing; it can't be cheap.”

  “That’s one of the more interesting things I stumbled over. Mansfield kept a private journal. When I broke into it, I found he reported to Adolph Rainy.”

  “The former Vice President?”

  “Yes, but more importantly, Rainy is part of a treasonous group called the Politburo.”

  “What the hell? How did the Russians get involved with this?”

  “No involvement at all, just a code name they use. They’ve been calling the shots the entire time. I have a feeling from Mansfield’s entries they’re a conspiracy within the government. NetSecure was designed to handle not only black-hat hacking for the national security apparatus but also for the Politburo.”

  Sander said, “A little perspective here, we’ve got a conspiracy to take control of the American political system, and at the same time NetSecure has been setting up a national data tap and acquiring everything passing over the net. For starters, that covers running the country and all citizens’ digital privacy.”

  Her voice was a little bitter, “I don’t know what it means yet. I do know we live with the illusion of privacy. Anyone who wants to do us ill can already find out anything they want for a few dollars. All you have to do is have the motivation to do it and dig a little.”

  He agreed, “Yeah, big consumer data breaches have been going on for years, and all of that information moves freely across the dark net. A million medical records hacked here, ten million credit card accounts stolen there, and it adds up to the fact almost everyone's personally identifiable information is freely available to any criminal with a keyboard. Cheap. Talk about feeling violated; try having your identity hijacked. People live with a false sense of security, until it happens to them.”

  She said, “To top it all off, everyone is getting paranoid. What does the government know about me and how is it going to be used against me?”

  “What do we do?” he asked. “It's not like we can wipe out privacy, throw open the doors to everyone's secrets. We all suspect the government has the power to pry your digital life open and use your information for its purposes. Now it looks like we’re also cattle to be herded and have our leaders selected for us.”

  “What if we could end privacy?” she stated. “We would have to evolve new standards of decency, how to handle such deep knowledge of each other, but at least we could make those decisions as a free people.”

  He said, “I don't know, seems like an overreach. What if this new world without privacy was worse? What if everyone could see everything about each other? I think it would freak people out. People want to retain their privacy illusions.”

  “Yeah, it could be a scary new order. But it’s not a choice we get to make, because evil people are manipulating us through our secrets. Hell, even our election results can't be trusted. There is no way this gang is going to give up power, ever.” Her voice registered her stress. “How much longer do you think their control will need to be hidden? How much longer before it’s a crime to oppose the state?”

  He acquiesced to her passion because he thoroughly agreed, “Privacy has become perverted. It's dead, but no one wants to acknowledge it. Privacy has become a tool for the elites to control us. You think the gap between rich and poor is wide now, just wait for them to use your election hijacking system globally.”

  ***

  Other times, they prepared for when the ride would end. Knowing things could go awry as soon as they stopped at the next station, Mariana got busy building a new digital ID for Sander. This required a cyber-artist with the highest levels of clearance to pull off. Fortunately, that described Mariana to a T.

  One night, over dinner, as they were heading towards New Orleans and the final cache pick up, she turned to him and said, “Remember your 1984?”

  “Of course,” he smiled, “we have some history with that book.”

  “Recall the main character, Winston Smith? Well, I’ve been busy, and you’re now Winston Smith instead of Sander Bonham.”

  “Catchy name, tell me more.”

  “Yep, a reclusive Nevada rancher, born in Las Vegas, with a birth certificate, social security number, school records, credit history, driver’s license, and enough associated records to be close to bulletproof. It’s a bit spotty in places but should pass muster if ever subjected to a database search. I know, because I helped set the standard used.”

  As she was laying this out, she showed him her handiwork on the laptop screen. His face was on a Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles driver’s license data
base screen, with Winston’s name and an address somewhere way out in the desert.

  “What a surprise, how did you...?”

  “I’ve still got access to all of the country’s record systems. The majority of your files will date back five years, which is the current look-back parameter. If they start digging, it won’t stand up, but it’s the best I can do for now.”

  “Pretty damn cool.”

  “Sorry, no passport, it would have triggered a facial recognition cross-check, and you’re not that bullet proof. You need to remember to always look for security cameras and stay out of their sight. Better start growing a beard and wearing a cowboy hat, Mr. Rancher. Adding glasses wouldn’t hurt. I’ve informed your new home state you’ve lost your license and to please send a duplicate to the Lake Tahoe town, near where we’re going to park for a while.”

  “What happens if we have to stop riding the rails and need to vamoose?”

  “For dessert, I’ve got another little surprise. We’ve also got a go-bag ready to grab and run. Just the usual clothes, emergency rations, medical kit, satellite and burner phones, cash, and prepaid debit cards. Everything for the well-heeled couple on the lam. Let’s start leaving it hanging next to the club room door.”

  “Sounds good, but what happens if we get split up? We need to establish some ways to communicate securely.”

  “Yeah, it could be a problem. One method is to use a novel as a one-time pad; it's an old-school way of secret messaging. For example, choose a page and how many words from its beginning to yield a letter. Like 1224 – twelve pages in and the start of the twenty-fourth word. It relies more on security by obscurity, but if you don’t know the book, it’s almost impossible for an NSA cryptanalyst to crack.”

  Their conversation took another turn as they finished dinner, walked up to the Vista Dome, and watched as the scenery spooled through the thick Louisiana swamp.