by Thomas Waite
I’d rather show him the door—as soon as possible—so I don’t want him getting comfortable.
But Lana stifled those words as she had so many others of late, figuring it was good practice for all that was likely to follow with Doper Don trying to wheedle his way back into their lives.
Within an hour Lana was back at NSA headquarters, feeling remarkably refreshed for the grudging amount of sleep she’d managed. But a shower and a smoothie—and a daunting array of supplements—had revitalized her enough to hurry down to Holmes’s office.
Donna was back at her desk, waving Lana inside.
Holmes was on the phone, pacing and uttering a series of “Uh-huh . . . uh-huh . . . uh-huh . . .” that kept perfect rhythm with his steps.
He looked over to Lana and pointed to the screens on the wall, then brought up the sound just enough for her to hear the House Speaker on The Today Show lambasting the President, calling him a “coward.” Certainly no surprise there. Neither was his skill at shoehorning the word into his next four sentences, which he spieled off in less than thirty seconds. He might not have two brain cells to rub together but he had earned a veritable PhD in sound bites.
Lana picked up the remote and switched to Good Morning America, where the Senate Majority Leader was performing a similar routine, using the same words as if he were literally an echo chamber and not merely a man who sounded like one.
The House Whip was working his dark magic over on CNN. And FOX had two members of the House and two senators who sounded like a geek chorus.
Holmes hung up and said, “It’s been like this since they went on the air this morning.”
“Hardly a bulletin.”
“From your message, it must have gone well for you.”
She briefed him about the four-pointed “square” between Russia’s renewable energy sector, its secret police, the Ahearn murders, and the WAIS that she’d uncovered with her link analysis of the metadata last night. As she talked, she brought out her computer, summarized the “hops” through routers, gateways, and other systems, then focused Holmes on the unusually intense packet flows into and out of an apartment building in downtown Moscow.
“Here it is,” she said, using Google Earth to show him the residence.
“I don’t know what to make of that. It looks like a thousand other places around the world. Maybe that’s the point. Keep it anonymous when you’re going anomalous.”
“I think it’s feistier than that. I sent a message to the source of that transmission before signing off a few hours ago.”
“You mean the person you suspect is in that building—if there really is an operative in there?”
“I think it is a person, unless, for some bizarre reason, Russian cyberagents have themselves set up in there as some kind of dodge. But I can’t see why they would. Based on my trace-routing as well as activity trends and some behavioral analytics, I’m reasonably sure we do have an individual inside that building performing all these acrobatics. Not as efficiently as I am, because whoever it is lacks our resources, but they’re doing a pretty decent job.”
“A lone-wolf terrorist?”
“I don’t think so. This is someone who’s been actively trying to figure out who hacked into the Delphin’s communications, so that means it’s not the FSB or whoever might be spearheading this hacker group. They’re not working for us, but given what they’re doing, they might as well be. And in the recent past they were looking for links to the Ahearn murders and AAC. In short, Bob, whoever this is has been doing what I’ve been doing.”
Holmes sat down on the couch, then stood right back up, as if he couldn’t contain his energy. “I don’t think it matters. If they know that much right there in the heart of Moscow, they’re guilty. They’re implicated. I wish we could send in a drone right now.”
“But what if we’re dealing with someone who, for whatever reason, has tapped into material that we don’t have, but is not part of what the Russians are up to? Or even knows their plans?” She paused. “I put out a feeler.”
“Meaning?”
“I let them know someone new was watching them. And I had the encrypted message sent through proxy servers that strip away the sender’s personally identifiable information. Let’s just say I don’t care who they are, they’ll never trace it back.”
“But your subject can respond?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, show me what you sent.”
Lana turned the screen toward Holmes. “WHO ARE YOU?” appeared as he watched. “I kept it simple.”
“In those block letters?” he asked.
She nodded. “It felt blunter that way.”
Holmes scratched his head. She knew he was trying to figure out whether she’d been rash. She was ready for that. “Look, the Trident’s missile launch system is very likely compromised, right?”
“Yes.”
“They have control of a nuclear sub and they say they’re moving ahead to send that missile somewhere, and we have no reason not to believe they’ll detonate it right over Antarctica. Today, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s why everyone with your level of clearance has been notified.”
“So if this person is part of that plot—which I doubt because he or she would be working with the hacker, not trying to crack his codes—it won’t make any difference. That missile is going to fly and we’ll have a whole new world to contend with.”
“And we’ll lose all those scientists at the Amundsen-Scott research station.”
“Oh, no. I thought we were set to get them out of there.”
Holmes shook his head. “You know how bad the weather can be down there. We couldn’t get them out. Go on.”
She paused respectfully for a moment. “Anyway, if this hacker’s connected to those killers, let’s see what kind of reaction we get. Maybe he’ll panic. Maybe it’s a she. If whoever it is tries to figure out that I’m onto them, they’ll never get through our computer security defenses.”
“I wish you had cleared that with me.”
“I’ve done this before. We move when we have to. You’ve always given me that latitude.”
“The stakes are extraordinarily high,” Holmes said.
“I know. We’re talking about the geologic clock speeding up so fast we could see billions die in the days and weeks ahead.”
“And then be left with Russia in control.”
“Of everything,” she added.
Holmes walked over to his desk and sat down before going on: “You don’t think you’re getting played, do you?”
“No, not at all. And you’ll be the first to know, either way. What’s going on at the White House? From the ‘Uh-huhs,’ it sounded like the Oval Office.”
“It was the President’s chief of staff. His boss, our boss, met with the Russian ambassador early this morning. It was deny, deny, deny.”
“We didn’t really expect anything different, did we?”
“No. I’ll tell you something we expected even less. The Chinese ambassador is in the Oval Office right now offering his country’s considerable assistance.”
“What?” That floored Lana. The U.S. wanted to prosecute Chinese military officials for hacking U.S. corporations and government secrets.
“I know, it’s hard to believe,” Holmes replied, “but China has four of the world’s top fifteen cities that would be hit hardest by a sudden rise in sea levels, more than any other country. And the total numbers for China are sobering to the extreme. They’re looking at twenty-two million people directly threatened with just a half-meter rise, and we’re looking at a lot more than that. And about $7.5 trillion in losses. Their economy would be shredded and the internal disruptions would be monumental and pretty much impossible to contain.”
“Those are extraordinary numbers. The brink of disaster for them, too, then.”<
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“So they have very sound reasons to help. Russia, by the way, doesn’t even make the list. We’re next, after China, with two cities, the New York-Newark region and Miami. The Russians aren’t just targeting us. They’re also targeting another old rival.”
“What about their economic ties, the gas and oil deals?”
“I think worldwide domination trumps that from the Russian standpoint. Besides, they’ll still be selling all the fossil fuels they want, along with a tax, I’m betting, to cover the AAC fees that will be in every contract the Russians sign after this.”
“So we’re going to accept China’s help?”
“Not officially. You can imagine what the Speaker and Majority Leader would do with that.” They both glanced at the muted TV screens. “Unofficially, we wouldn’t say no to anyone who walked in the door and said, ‘Here are your hackers.’ So good work on that apartment in Moscow,” Holmes said, nodding at her screen, “and good luck. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Thanks for the update. That was stunning news.”
As Lana went to shut her laptop, Holmes pointed to her screen and said, “What’s that?”
She turned it toward her and said, “That’s called a response.”
“From the hacker?”
“Yes!” She held it up to him: WHO ARE YOU?
It wasn’t much, but this wasn’t a hit-and-run posting. The hacker had signaled a desire for a conversation.
The very first step across the cyberminefield.
CHAPTER 12
GALINA COULDN’T SLEEP. THE night had turned into a long dark voyage that would not end. Each time she felt herself drifting off, she’d be seized by fears about Alexandra. Not her daughter’s cancer so much as whether she would be abducted in the middle of the night. Galina’s weak hold on her own fate made her even more wary of Alexandra’s.
Finally, after checking on her repeatedly, Galina climbed into bed with Alexandra and held her close. “No one’s going to take you. I promise,” she whispered. Not God, not cancer. Nor any of the devils who had been haunting their lives.
She watched with weary eyes as first light painted the familiar features of Alexandra’s room, the porcelain dolls on her shelf that had been Galina’s playthings little more than twenty years ago, and a pair of ballet slippers in their special place at the center of the top shelf. They looked so new, for Galina had given them to Alexandra only two days before the leukemia first left her too weak to dance.
A clown-face clock showed the time, 5:25, its eyes fixed on a stuffed bunny as big as Alexandra herself, won by her father at a carnival last year. Galina could not think of Viktor as a “deadbeat dad” anymore. He was Alexandra’s father, and every once in a while he had been wonderful to her. At the carnival, Viktor had accepted the barker’s dare with a smile and insisted that Alexandra stand by his side as he confidently sank ten free throws in a row to win the grand prize. Till then, Galina had not known that Viktor had lived, eaten, and slept basketball for most of his childhood.
There must have been so much more about him that she hadn’t known. And now, she realized, she’d never be able to give his daughter a full understanding of his life. She hadn’t loved Viktor in the end—and had been enormously frustrated by him much of the time—but she missed him on Alexandra’s behalf. Another fatherless child in Russia.
Oleg had killed him or had him killed. As soon as Galina had heard about the terms of Viktor’s so-called will, she’d known its true author. And when Tattoo had tried to get her to blame the murder on Oleg, she’d also known the deadly trap Oleg had tried to set. Galina would never let him near her again—or Alexandra. It still filled her with revulsion to think of him touching her daughter’s forehead in the elevator.
But what could stop him from killing her? Or Alexandra? Those questions ate at Galina as dawn opened up the sky. The lone answer, though, could have darkened the noonday sun, for nothing, nothing could stop Oleg from yet another murder. He’d seen to the merciless slaying of the Ahearns, Viktor, and the sailors on that submarine. And now news reports were saying the scientists in Antarctica would likely die from radiation poisoning if the missile landed on the continent because none of them could be evacuated.
Galina, still sleepless, propped herself on her elbow and looked around Alexandra’s room, forcing herself to take deep breaths to try to relax. She saw her daughter’s two favorite picture books open on the floor. One featured a little girl as the captain of a pirate ship that sailed the seas in search of the most wonderful treasure of all: love. And the other showed the stars twinkling on a snowy night, lantern light soft on a city’s white street.
She’d read those books—and so many others—to Alexandra dozens of times, and remembered her daughter’s pure joy as she was ushered into those richly imagined worlds.
Galina smiled and dearly hoped she would read so many more to the “little love of her life.” And she believed she would—if Galina could just get her the cancer care she so desperately needed.
The next time Galina glanced at the clown clock, an hour had passed and she understood that she’d finally snoozed.
She sprang from the bed and bolted to the bathroom, showering and washing her hair. She wanted to make herself look as presentable—and as affluent—as possible, donning one of her most tasteful dresses.
Galina planned to plead with the older woman who ran the oncologist’s office. She had a voice like a man’s and was as burly as those testosterone-laden female Russian weightlifters who, along with their East German counterparts, had dominated their Olympic events for so long. Her father had laughed heartily as they’d watched a documentary during her childhood about those “great Russian female athletes,” as the narrator had described the masculine-looking medalists on the podium.
Her poor papa. In truth, he had laughed very little, making that occasion in front of the TV so memorable. She wished he were alive so she could flee to him, have his help, but at fifty-nine he had died the slow-motion suicide of a functional alcoholic and chain-smoker.
Galina’s mother had died even younger from a botched gall bladder surgery.
With Alexandra’s room fully lit, she woke her daughter and fed her the same cereal for breakfast that she’d eaten last night. “When they are this sick,” a nurse at a pediatric clinic had told her, “give them whatever they’ll eat that’s reasonable.”
Galina didn’t know if cereal that was supposed to taste like mini chocolate donuts was reasonable, but the milk had protein and healthy fats, and Alexandra let her mother spoon it into her mouth. Galina felt like a mama bird feeding her frail offspring.
They arrived at the doctor’s office right at eight thirty, when the staff unlocked the door. The doctor’s hours started at nine.
The office manager’s steely gray hair was pulled back so tightly it looked like the pressure would pop the roots right out of her hairline.
“I don’t know if you remember, but I’m Galina Bortnik,” she said quietly. “I was in last week to make the appointment, and then I called yesterday. We talked about the money.”
“Do you have what you need to see the doctor?” the woman replied obliquely.
Galina lifted Alexandra up so the office manager could see her over the counter. “I have my daughter. She has leukemia. I know your doctor can do miracles.”
“We do not do miracles for everyone. Do you have what you need?” she asked again, less patiently.
“Money, yes, I know. I have so much coming in. That’s not even an issue. I just inherited fifty million rubles.”
“And I am Czar Nicholas. Go.” She waved Galina away. More women with sick children were lining up behind them. “And don’t come back,” the manager warned. “You waste my time and are disturbing everyone.”
With tears streaming down her cheeks—and Alexandra asking, “Why won’t they help me, Mama?”—Galina carried her da
ughter outside, still bundled like a baby in her bunny blanket. Every day her daughter got lighter, even as Galina herself felt weakened by the horror of what was happening to her child.
She sat with Alexandra on a bench by the parking lot in back of the building. She’d seen photographs online of the doctor smiling at charity events for “cancer kids.” She would curbside him. That was a term she’d read on American websites. There was no Russian equivalent that she knew.
At precisely nine o’clock a black Mercedes coupe with smoked windows pulled into the parking spot reserved for Dr. Kublakov. It was closest to the rear entrance. His Benz was shiny black with sparkling chrome. Perfect. Not a speck of dust on it. She wondered how many “cancer kids” had made that purchase possible.
Galina lifted Alexandra and stood as the driver’s door opened. But the handsome doctor did not get out. Instead, a stocky man with a shaved head and dark sunglasses stood and scanned their surroundings, as if for assassins, then buttoned his black suit jacket and walked around to open the passenger door. That was when she saw the revered doctor for the first time, the man the media called a “miracle maker.”
“Doctor Kublakov,” she called to him. “My daughter needs your help so much.”
She carried Alexandra toward the two men. As she neared them, the bodyguard placed his ample bulk in front of the oncologist, who was hurrying toward the door.
When Galina tried to reach past the bodyguard, he karate-chopped her arm. His hand felt like steel. It hurt so badly she almost dropped Alexandra.
Kublakov disappeared through the doorway.
“Go away,” the bodyguard told her. “Do not be here when I come back.”
Galina, forearm throbbing, retreated to the bench and sat back down. She watched with blurry eyes as the bodyguard paused to glare at her one more time before following his boss into the building.
