The Russian Crisis

by G. R. Daniels

  “If this theft ever gets out to the military community, we’re dead,” Carmen said in an appropriate voice of doom voice.

  “And,” chimed in Mariah Belo in her alto range, “if it gets out to the public, we’re even deader.”

  “What does that mean?” Blax entered the discussion in an angry mood. “Why the hell would the public care about this? And who would tell them in the first place?”

  “The news media. The bunch some people call the fake news media. They are still very much around and still very smart. And if they get hold of this, they’ll make it public and the public will crucify the people who opened the door to terrorists or Russians or who knows who.” Mariah wasn’t the kind to back down to anyone. Jackson got her point faster than the rest.

  “She has a point, Maxim,” said Jackson calmly but loudly, cutting through the buzz around the table. “Apart from losing most of our clients, this could be a perfect storm if the public finds out we have all this nifty software that could be used by cops and governments as well as the military and we let the bad guys get control of it. Some people would claim we’re cleverly in league with spies. Other people would say we’re careless idiots endangering everyone’s lives. Can’t win.”

  “So where do we go with this?” Payne was doing his rationale, practical thing to bring the debate back to earth. “We’ll have the military bailing out of our products and the public and media waiting around the corner to ruin us.”

  “It appears to me,” said Fred Nbodo, entering the fray for the first time, “… we should find out exactly who stole what.”

  “Agreed,” said Jackson loudly.

  Maxim Blax gave a perfunctory nod but he exuded stubbornness.

  JPI, after all, was a corporation, so, Payne proposed a committee of himself, Brownley and Mariah, headed by Jackson as the chair pro tem.’ The committee would oversee the initial investigation. Everyone else agreed while Blax stared out the window.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After the meeting in the executive boardroom broke up, Brownley approached Jackson. “Want a tour?”

  The reply was an eager one. “You bet. Many changes in a year?”

  “You’ll see,” replied Brownley. Bill also handed Jackson a new pass that gave him full access to all but server rooms. No one but the CEO and pairs of technicians were supposed to have that level of security. JPI had several other locations in the suburbs, including several server rooms in buildings that were impregnable to all but nuclear attacks.

  The tour began with the executive floors, moved to other floors where much of the design, data engineering, programming and other tasks were done. It ended in the cavernous lobby. Jackson hadn’t noticed that many changes throughout the tour and asked Brownley what had been added in the time Jackson had been away from JPI’s headquarters.

  “I wanted to see if you noticed. The fact you didn’t is great.”

  Jackson raised his eyebrows. “How come?”

  “We have added a huge amount of security to this building. And we’ve copied a lot of it in the condo building where Blax lives. He didn’t think he needed it, but, still…” Brownley looked to one side. “Anyway, what you didn’t see are dozens of new and very small cameras. There are more than twenty in this lobby alone.”

  Looking around, Jackson saw, perhaps, a dozen obvious CCTV cameras mounted well above them on the atrium ceiling four storeys above. Brownley followed Jackson’s look and chuckled. “They work but they’re mainly for show. The real cameras are all around us. There’s one,” he smiled pointing at the wall behind the large circular security desk.

  Jackson saw nothing but a cream-coloured wall on which was mounted a JPI logo in brushed aluminum.

  Brownley whispered. “It’s in the dot of the I in JPI. One of seven cameras on that wall and I’ll bet you can’t find any of the others.”

  The tour wrapped up on the street outside of the Queen’s Quay building. Brownley told Jackson the whole area a block in each direction was covered by the camera system. As well, there were sound receivers that would identify noises like gunshots or squealing tires and alert security staff day or night.

  It also had ‘shotgun mics’, microphones that could be aimed, remotely, at sound sources up to one hundred metres away to pick up conversations or screams for help. The system could match faces and voices to separate data bases.

  “We’re intruding on privacy here, six ways to sundown,” Brownley remarked, “but we treat H.Q. like a military installation. Every conversation and video image are scanned for security markers and immediately deleted if nothing suspicious is found. That takes a fraction of a second. And we have top secret status so …”

  “So, no one knows in the first place.” Jackson said with a quick scan of the area in a futile attempt to pick up any of the surveillance equipment.

  “And we’re not getting into the rest of the defensive stuff. Then, there’s my 15 men and women on the security staff. I wouldn’t recommend trying to attack any of our buildings unless you have a death wish.”

  “All JPI stuff.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Oops…” Brownley looked chagrined. “Of course, you know everything already, Mr. Phillips. I’m sorry to bore you.”

  “Not at all, Bill,” Jackson looked up at the JPI H.Q. rising above them. “I’m proud of the work, too. But all this begs the question. How did someone get to that code?”

  Brownley felt foolish until he felt Jackson softly punch his arm encouragingly.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Previous Week:

  Roman Petrenko, nicknamed The Ukrainian among his criminal cronies, was in his one- bedroom apartment in a rundown rental building near The Distillery, an east-end arts destination.

  He had been born to a Ukrainian father and Russian mother in Kharkiv, a town in Ukraine near the Russian border. Apart from leading a small criminal gang, he was a GRU ‘asset’ given odd jobs by the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. His major role as a low-level secret agent was to keep tabs on the large Ukrainian diaspora in Toronto and surrounding areas.

  Petrenko found little traction among his fellow Ukrainians. Immigrants have been coming to Canada from Ukraine for more than 200 years and to Toronto in large numbers. They are a sizeable and important segment of Canadian and city culture with their churches, restaurants, shops, heritage institutions and events. Ukrainian Canadians tend to be very proud of their heritage and of the independence of their homeland. Put briefly and bluntly, most are no friends of Russia, particularly after Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014.

  Petrenko tried sporadically to recruit from the community but would be rebuffed, sometimes roughly. Most of the time, Petrenko acted like the thug he was and recruited hoodlums with no Ukrainian blood in them but a liking for money and the kind of cruelty Petrenko fostered.

  Petrenko was dressed in a smart black suit but it was the one he wore almost every day with a cheap white shirt. He was paid a meagre salary by Russia as an asset of the GRU and made extra through the efforts of his bunch of toughs. The opportunity now presented to him was an unimaginable one. Not entirely stupid, Petrenko seized it like a dog with a steak.

  After ten years of playing ‘spy’, this opportunity could make it all worthwhile. It came in a call to his cellphone, the one he listed on the business card he handed out freely to anyone he met in the Ukrainian community.

  “Yeah.”

  The voice on the other end of the call had been disguised with an application readily available on the Internet. It obscured race and gender and made the caller a cartoon character. “I hear you have friends in the GRU.”

  Petrenko felt a chill and his stomach lurched. “I don’t know this GRU.”

  “That’s not what I hear. But if you want to play that game, you’re going to be very sorry.”

  The Ukrainian juggled the choices. What the hell? Who knows? He had little to lose by listening. “Go ahead.”

&n
bsp; “I have something for you, Mr. Petrenko. Something important. Something expensive.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “Here it is, Mr. Petrenko. Your employer might be very pissed off if you don’t listen to me.” There was a slight hesitation. Then the offer came.

  “I am in possession of source code from Jackson Phillips Incorporated. You know the company, don’t you?”

  “I know. I am not an idiot.”

  “Good, you had me wondering, Mr. Petrenko. I will supply your employer with the code from the MLD&T division. Your GRU contact will certainly know what that is.”

  “I will ask. What do you want for this code?”

  “It will cost. It will cost a lot. Do you want a piece of this, Mr. Petrenko?” Pause. “Or do I take this to someone else who will listen better? Maybe China…”

  “No.” Petrenko was sweating. “No, don’t do that. I can… I will take your offer to the consulate. I will do this today. You don’t have to worry.” Petrenko lost any pretence of control. He was begging now.

  “Okay. That’s it for now. You can tell your friends that I want a great deal of money for this. And I want a whole new life, meaning they will get their documents people to work. I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Do I have a go-between, or should I go talk some Mandarin.”

  “What is your telephone?” said Petrenko.

  “Ha.” There was no amusement in the voice. “I’ll get back to you. I know your phone and I know you’re not recording. Bye, Mr. Petrenko.” There was dead silence on the phone. Finally, Petrenko pressed his red button to disconnect. He sat in his chair shivering while perspiration gleamed on his forehead.

  “How could they know I am not recording?” Petrenko finally asked himself. He stared at his phone and wondered how secure the thing was. After all, he did work for Russia.

  When he came to Canada years before, it was to get to the Golden West. But Canada’s streets had not been paved with gold for Petrenko; in fact, many of them were potholed worse than in Kharkiv. Maybe he could finally grab the golden ring after all.

  An hour after the mysterious call, Petrenko told his handler all he knew about the offer in a hurried visit to the Russian at the Consulate General’s office on St. Clair Avenue in Toronto. Serge Sokolov had been his usual taciturn, almost bored self, but told The Ukrainian he would pass on the information. He gave permission for Petrenko to take further calls from the source.

  The call came at the same time the next day. “Well, Mr. Petrenko, are we moving ahead?”

  The voice was disguised again, as expected, but this time Petrenko was listening avidly to each word.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I have a sample for you. To let you know what your employer could get if you’re smart. You can pick it up at exactly 8 p.m.” The caller gave Petrenko the name and address of a bar on Queen Street not far from his apartment.

  Petrenko felt the hairs on his neck rise. “God, they know where I live.”

  “Just ask the bartender for the ‘package for Petrenko.’ Got it?”

  “Yes, I have…” The call had ended.

  Just before 8 p.m., Petrenko entered the bar. He flagged down the female bartender and asked for his package. With impatience on her face, the bartender went to the cash register, opened its drawer and pulled out a small envelope. She returned and handed it to Petrenko, holding onto one end. He fumbled in his pocket, withdrew a ten-dollar bill and thrust it at her with his free hand. She took the bill and let go of the envelope. As soon as she was gone, Petrenko unsealed the envelope to find a Secure Digital (SD) card inside. There was no message.

  At home, Petrenko pushed the card into the slot in his MacBook Air. He knew enough about computing to know the card held code written in programming language but that was all he understood. He ejected the card and put it back into the original envelope. He sealed the envelope with transparent tape and put it into a drawer of his desk. He locked the drawer and leaned back.

  If, reasoned Petrenko, the software was the real deal, and if it were worth it to dear old Mother Russia, Petrenko might also benefit in a big way if he had more understanding of what was in play. His handler wouldn’t tell him, obviously, and once the SD card was out of his hands, he might never learn more.

  CHAPTER TEN

  One of Petrenko’s small successes as a recruiter was a man named Frank. Frank Ostrenko was a Ukrainian-Canadian who lived in Long Branch, an area at the southwest edge of Toronto. Petrenko took out his Ford Explorer from a garage nearby where it was stored. He drove through heavy traffic along Lakeshore Boulevard to Frank’s street.

  Frank met him at the door of his little house. A lawn sign advertised his business - servicing computers - mostly for Ukrainian-Canadians who trusted him. Once inside, Petrenko handed over the card with a brief description and Frank disappeared into his den, leaving The Ukrainian drinking tea in the kitchen

  Frank told Petrenko after an hour of studying the contents of the card. “Just a bunch of screen shots.”

  “Huh?”

  “You couldn’t do anything with it. But it definitely is source code. There are programmer’s notes here, too. Side comments that tell you more than the code itself…”

  Petrenko cut off the explanation with a savage wave of his hand. “Enough,” he shouted. “I don’t need a goddamned lecture. And you have to forget all you saw.”

  Frank studied Petrenko for a minute, thinking about throwing The Ukrainian out of his house. He relented. “Calm down, Roman. I’m not sure what this stuff is meant to do except that it is advanced. I can tell you there’s some AI content…”

  “Aw, gees. What the hell, Frank?”

  “Artificial Intelligence. The stuff can learn as it goes so it does whatever it does faster and better all the time. There were some notes about it. It loses me pretty fast. Frank handed Petrenko the SD card. “I got my own stuff, Roman. Can’t fool around with this anymore.”

  Petrenko eyed Frank for a moment. “How about a hundred?” Frank grimaced but held out his hand as Petrenko carefully counted out five twenties. He trudged back to his little house planning to spend the hundred on beer and Blue Jays baseball.

  Petrenko knew how to research. Once back in his apartment, he turned to the Internet and pulled down everything he could find on Jackson Phillips Inc., its software products and services and its personnel.

  After thinking about the situation through the rest of the day, Petrenko decided to try his recruiting skills at JPI. There was always someone with a hand out. He knew a sales guy who made the rounds of technology companies peddling memory storage. For a few hundred, the salesman agreed to link Petrenko with a source in JPI.

  Barbara Schumacher was a receptionist in the CEO’s office suite at JPI. She was a single mom who would go to the cafeteria with the salesman on his visits. She was a good mother but she didn’t make enough to live the life she wanted - one where she could hire babysitters while she partied and looked for a new husband. For a promise of a weekly stipend for a month or two, Barbara agreed to keep a close watch at JPI for anything that seemed ‘to bother the executives.’

  For once, one of Petrenko’s recruiting hunts paid off quickly. After a few days, Barbara found a diamond among the dross. She told Roman that Ryan Payne, JPI’s CFO, had a short conversation with Bill Brownley, head of JPI security, right in front of Barbara’s reception desk in the entryway of the CEO’s suite.

  “Mr. Payne was going to see the CEO, Mr. Blax, when Mr. Brimley was leaving. Mr. Payne told Mr. Brownley that ‘only Jackson’ could figure out what to do. Mr. Brownley said that he couldn’t talk to Jackson without telling Maxim,” Barbara reported in a rush. She said the two men had hurried away in different directions after finding Barbara only feet away.

  It took another minute on the Internet for Petrenko to determine that ‘Jackson’ was Jackson Phillips, the founder and namesake of the company, while Maxim Bl
ax was current CEO. It was worth the effort, Petrenko figured, to find out what Payne and Brownley were discussing. He told his two most reliable hoods to trail Payne, the least likely of the two men to notice the surveillance. Petrenko even supplied his own Explorer for the task.

  Petrenko’s hoods followed orders. The men followed Payne for two mornings as the CFO drove from his home in Oakville to JPI H.Q. On the second day, Payne parked and went to the building’s front door but met Brownley on the sidewalk outside. The two returned to the garage with one of Petrenko’s men tailing them. The duo climbed into a car in a reserved section of the garage with Brownley at the wheel of a new Jeep that he drove out to the street. The watcher ran outside and was picked up by his cohort in the Ford Explorer. They followed Brownley’s Jeep north for several hours. They lost Brownley and Payne when the men went out in a boat from a marina on Georgian Bay. The hoods waited until their quarry returned and followed Brownley’s Jeep when it headed home.

  Current time

  Petrenko didn’t reveal the stupidity of Petrenko’ hoods in ramming the rear of Brownley’s Jeep nor the fact Petrenko had taken his sweet time mulling over ways he could exploit the Voice’s offer, while trying the patient of the mystery caller. Finally, Petrenko told Sokolov, his handler at the Russian Consulate, that he would receive a sample ‘soon’ so that the consulate could have its techies assess the value of the deal on offer. He said he could smell a large win on Russia’s doorstep. The handler didn’t seem impressed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Roman Petrenko thought he would take the rest of the day off after ranting at his crew because extortion revenues were falling off. His dream of a day off from the office didn’t work out. His cellphone vibrated in his pocket. He hauled it out and answered.