“Who owns the building?” Walter asked Helena.
“Ah, now, that’s where things get really interesting. Supposedly a charitable trust purchased the property not that long ago, but when we queried the registrar, they could produce no records to substantiate ownership. It’s as if the entire project went on without anyone knowing about it. We can only surmise that someone hacked the government website to remove the records altogether. Would have been an easy manipulation for a skilled hacker. Estonia has had a very difficult time with Russian moles infiltrating government positions. There’s always that possibility, as well.”
Novak had read in the dossier that in 2008, the head of the Estonian Defense Ministry, Herman Simm, had been arrested after it had been discovered that he was a mole for the SVR—the Russian intelligence service that succeeded the KGB. He’d been privy to NATO secrets and the tactical measures undertaken to secure the Estonian Internet domain during those massive cyberattacks in 2007. It made Novak wonder if Bounty4Justice itself might be a smoke screen for Russia’s grab for supreme control over the Internet. With the Kremlin aspiring to rebuild the Soviet empire through land grabs, it certainly wasn’t a long shot.
“Does anyone currently occupy the site?” Walter asked.
“The police have performed preliminary surveillance,” Helena explained. “They’ve reported no activity. No one coming or going. They’re keeping an eye on everything until we can move.”
Novak had a strong inkling that no one would show up, because the landlords were most likely both laid out in a morgue in Bermuda. Since word of the double shooting, there’d been a moratorium on bounty payments and text blasts, which was welcome news, particularly for himself, Walter, and Knight. It was as if Bounty4Justice had gone into sleep mode, right along with its masterminds.
“Someone must be paying the utility bills,” Michaels said.
“I already checked into it,” Helena said, “and those bills are set up on autopay out of an anonymous account in Stockholm that had been activated online. For now, let’s just say it’s a dead end.”
“And how about the construction company that did all that work?” Novak asked.
“A general contractor from Latvia handled the entire project. The authorities have already questioned him. He claims to have never met his client face-to-face. Everything was handled by email and phone, both of which ran through encrypted VOIP and proxy servers that we’re still unable to trace. He has all the receipts and job orders. He also produced permits and inspection reports the client had sent to him—all of it falsified, with no indication of the client’s actual name. All he can tell us is that it was a woman, she paid on time, and she knew exactly what equipment and specifications were needed for the job.”
“A woman?”
“Do we have a name for her?” Michaels asked, as surprised as Novak.
“Only a first name: Rhea.” Helena spelled it for them.
Novak smiled, recalling that in Greek mythology, Rhea was the goddess who’d saved her son Zeus from being eaten by his Titan father, Cronus…she’d fed Cronus a swaddled stone instead of the child. He wondered what meal this Rhea was preparing.
Nexus Official Tweet @nexushackerwire • 2h
TALLINN REGIONAL ACTION ALERT: We are requesting your support. Please log in to our secure message board for further instructions: nex.wr/gateway
# 74.01
@ Estonian Information System Authority
Friday, 11/10/2017
08:00:00 EET
The next morning, the presentation hall was filled to capacity with uniformed constables from the Politsei-ja Piirivalveamet, black-clad tough guys from the K-Commando counterterrorism unit, plainclothes linguists and cyber technicians from the Computer Emergency Response Team of Estonia and the FBI Cyber Action Team, suited bureaucrats from the Estonian Cyber Defense League, and agents from the local outpost of the Secret Service. From what Novak could observe from where he stood along the back wall with Michaels, Walter, and Helena, the ad hoc task force was an equal balance of brains and brawn.
Boilerplate briefings from the police and cyber units were followed by a crisp PowerPoint slide show from Commander Jüri Žmaka of K-Commando. A hulk of a man with a buzz cut, dressed in full combat gear, Žmaka summarized the tactical elements of the raid and gave visual context to the facts Helena had disclosed over cocktails the previous afternoon. The building in Žmaka’s reconnaissance photos looked nothing like what Novak had sketched in his mind—an old brick factory or some repurposed Soviet storage facility.
Novak whispered to Helena, “You could have told us it was a church.”
“And ruin the surprise?” she said with a devious smile.
The church’s architecture was by no means grandiose—no flying buttresses, or decorative spires, or gargoyles, or ornate Gothic features. Just a plain rectangle of fieldstone walls supporting a gabled slate roof, probably small enough to be classified as a chapel. Built into the front left corner of the building was a stout bell tower webbed with veins of new mortar. Perched atop the tower, where a cross might once have been, was a compact satellite dish aimed skyward. Along the sides of the church were narrow arched windows that had likely once been adorned with stained glass but were now completely filled in with cement. The formidable main door was painted high-gloss black; Novak couldn’t tell if it was made of metal or wood. On close examination of the meticulous restoration, he could see the more sinister qualities that had transformed the property—not so much in form as in function. What had once been a house of worship had been clearly repurposed as a bunker.
# 74.02
The convoy consisted of six armored vehicles, eight Politsei patrol cars, and a CERT mobile command transport. As the procession drew nearer the waterfront, quaint residential plots tightened and yielded to warehouses and production facilities and shipyards. The armored off-road vehicles veered left off the roadway to hook onto the gravel embankment for the old railway, while the remaining vehicles parked in the lot of the abandoned mill, designated by Commander Žmaka as a staging area.
The four FBI agents exited the CERT truck and followed the cybertechs and police brigade on foot.
Rounding the building, Novak saw the armored vehicles up ahead, moving steadily in line along the left side of the railway. Strangely, the right side of the railway was lined by people—tall and short, reedy and husky, male and female, scruffy and clean-cut, in jeans and flannel shirts and suits and ties. All of them were wearing white volto masks.
“How did Nexus find out about the raid?” Michaels asked.
“I’m not sure,” Helena said.
None of the Nexi had weapons, as far as Novak could tell, and they remained silent, with their heads bowed, as if engaged in some kind of prayer vigil. Plumes of frozen breath emanated from the slots in their masks. “Let’s just hope they all behave themselves,” he said.
# 74.03
The church looked fundamentally the same as it did in the pictures, except for its scale, which, to Novak, seemed much larger in real life. No roadways led up to the property, and the grounds immediately surrounding the structure were overgrown with weeds.
The Nexi congregated in the vicinity, but the police cordoned them at a safe distance outside K-Commando’s buffer zone. A police chopper began circling high overhead, and snipers took up tactical positions off in the bare trees. Novak could see news crews dashing along the rails, trying not to be late to the party. Walter stood with the clutch of eager cybertechs, all at the ready with gear in hand.
Žmaka scanned the church’s entryway with binoculars, then gave a chopping hand signal to four commandos holding a pneumatic door ram that looked like a cannon. Before K-Commando could flex its muscle, however, the big black door made some ominous metallic clicking sounds that sent the breaching crew retreating back a few steps.
Then the front door of the bunker slowly and smoothly opened inward.
# 74.04
With the tsunami of violence Bou
nty4Justice had unleashed upon the world, it was anyone’s guess as to what Rhea had in store for her uninvited guests. But after a seemingly endless minute ticked by, nothing happened, and the chatter began.
As the news cameramen rolled live coverage, Žmaka’s men deployed a recon robot, which rose up on six articulating legs and scurried toward the church—a metal vandal that nimbly clicked and clacked its way up the front steps and disappeared into the darkened interior.
Žmaka stood behind the bot’s engineer, monitoring its video transmission feed, telegraphing no emotion whatsoever. Five minutes later, he gave another hand signal; this one sent six commandos armed with MP5s streaming up the steps, into the building, followed by a seventh man guiding two German shepherds on leashes.
Twenty minutes later, one of the commandos reappeared, and Žmaka trotted over to him. There was a brief exchange. Then the commander turned to the cyber team and the FBI agents and waved them inside.
The Associated Press @AP • 14m
BREAKING: Tallinn, Estonia—Authorities face off with Nexus at suspected @Bounty4Justice host facility.
apne.ws/1RgtFVC2w1
Reuters Top News @Reuters • 11m
CYBER SPRING UPRISING: Hacktivist collective Nexus rallies behind @Bounty4Justice to promote Net independence and justice.
reut.rs/1fEg2XoY23
# 75.01
Walking up those five granite steps and crossing over the physical threshold into the inner sanctum of Bounty4Justice, Novak couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so alive with anticipation. Immediately inside the entryway, they passed through a small vestibule, then under a heavy purple curtain that had been pulled aside, into the chilly, darkened sanctuary, which twinkled with thousands of pinpoints of neon light, like an alien nightscape. Within seconds, the darkness was banished when someone turned on the overhead electric candelabras.
As in most churches, a main aisle led up to the raised platform of the altar, but instead of pews on either side, this one was flanked by stocky refrigerator-sized metal cabinets with shelves stacked tight with routers and processors and hard drives, six server cabinets to the left of the aisle, six to the right, all thrumming and humming. They were spaced comfortably apart, so that one could easily pace around any one of them. Their fiber optic cables and power lines were piped up into a wide metal conduit bolted to the joists supporting the vaulted ceiling. The main trunks on each side ran in straight lines alongside the air-conditioning ductwork, through the sanctuary, and over the altar, before disappearing behind a black curtain hung along the rear wall where the tabernacle would normally be.
LEDs flickered wildly on the face of the component cells, tracking the frenetic calculations taking place in each section of the massive digital brain. Hundreds if not thousands of tiny fans whirred, and the cool air felt electro-charged, as if it could ionize into lightning at any moment.
Walter and the cybertechs were circling the machines, intently studying the complex devices stacked inside the cabinets, no doubt contemplating how to disarm the world’s most potent cyber weapon.
Michaels tugged on Novak’s arm and pointed up at the rafters.
Novak looked up and spotted one lens, then many more of the discreet surveillance cameras that had been installed throughout the space. They were swiveling on their mounts, panning to and fro, their electronic eyes retracting and zooming.
“Someone’s watching us,” she said.
Just then, the candelabras went out.
The German shepherds growled against a backdrop of nervous murmuring.
Novak reached for his Glock.
Up on the altar, a large LCD monitor snapped to life. Against its solid crimson display, bold white letters spelled out a message in real time:
WELCOME.
I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU.
# 75.02
Everyone in the church fell silent, while the servers hummed along unabated, like bees in a hive. All eyes were transfixed on the screen atop the altar as the next message eerily materialized, letter by letter:
LOOK AROUND.
THIS IS WHAT LITTLE IT TAKES
TO CAST OUR INTERCONNECTED
WORLD INTO UTTER CHAOS.
SERVERS.
NOT MISSILES.
WELCOME TO THE CYBERWAR.
Novak glanced at his companions. Standing close beside him, Michaels was electric with tension. Walter and the cybertechs were huddled close to the altar, consulting in hushed tones; Žmaka and K-Commando stood in defensive formation behind them in the center aisle, draped in the weapons of another era, powerless against the digital ghost.
“Is this some kind of game?” Žmaka scoffed loudly, to no one in particular.
A reply scrolled onto the screen:
YES. YOU PEOPLE LIKE TO PLAY GAMES, DON’T YOU?
Žmaka glared at the screen, defiant. “Does someone want to talk some sense into this machine?”
The room broke out in chatter.
Until the machine responded:
HOW ABOUT YOU, AGENT NOVAK?
YOU’VE BEEN AN INTERESTING ADVERSARY.
Novak gazed up at the cameras. This was no chatbot, however clever. It was obvious that its operator was listening. Those who knew him were staring at him expectantly, and the others caught on quickly. Raising his voice slightly, he called out, “Is that you, Rhea?”
Pause.
AT YOUR SERVICE.
Jackpot. He desperately wished he could hear her voice, get a read on the subtleties—the subtext—of her responses.
READY TO PLAY?
“That depends. What’s the game?”
HANGMAN, OF COURSE.
It was a low-tech, old-school choice—the kind of game he used to play with his sister as a young boy, using crayons and a scribble pad—but macabrely appropriate for the mastermind of Bounty4Justice. “Okay. I’m game. And what happens if I win?”
There was another pause, filled by the ambient drone of the servers.
I’LL REMOVE YOU FROM MY LIST.
“I’d appreciate that. But how about you remove everyone from your list? How about you stop the killing, Rhea?” It was a strong rejoinder—a bit too strong, perhaps arrogant—and some in the small crowd stirred uneasily. At this juncture, however, there was nothing to be gained by pussyfooting around. The stakes were simply too high. “You’ve proved your point, haven’t you?”
No hesitation now.
DO YOU REALLY THINK
YOU UNDERSTAND MY POINT?
Novak glanced at Michaels, who nodded almost imperceptibly and gave him a cool, go-ahead little smile. Proceed, with caution. He decided to stick to the tough-love script. “I can’t speak for you, Rhea. Just so we’re clear, why don’t you tell me in your own words? Tell us why you’ve brought us here.”
There was another pause, longer this time, as Rhea presumably contemplated her response—or further retribution. He wondered if she was somewhere nearby or halfway around the globe, holed up in a dark room—watching him through robotic eyes, already on to her next move and playing them all like fools.
Finally, her reply scrolled onto the screen in rapid-fire typing:
MANY FORCES SEEK TO UNDERMINE OUR FREEDOM.
THE RULE OF LAW HAS FAILED US!
OUR GOVERNMENTS HAVE FAILED US!
THEY HAVE TURNED TECHNOLOGY AGAINST US.
THE INTERNET IS ALL THAT REMAINS.
THE COLLECTIVE IS THE LAST TRUE DEMOCRACY.
THE COLLECTIVE IS JUSTICE.
Clearly, he’d struck a chord. “But you’re using the Internet as a weapon. Doesn’t that undermine everyone’s freedom?”
This time, with no delay:
MERE DEMONSTRATIONS, AGENT NOVAK.
OTHERWISE NO ONE NOTICES,
AND NOTHING CHANGES.
NOW EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS THE THREATS WE FACE,
THE WEAPONS ARRAYED AGAINST US.
NOW THINGS WILL CHANGE.
WE MUST DEFEND TRUE JUSTICE.
WE MUST DEFEND
A TRULY INDEPENDENT INTERNET.
AT ANY COST.
WIN THE GAME, I STOP THE KILLING.
READY TO PLAY?
“I am.”
PLEASE DON’T CHEAT, AGENT NOVAK.
YOU’VE SEEN WHAT I DO TO CHEATERS.
YOUR CLUE: THE ULTIMATE PUZZLE
# 76.01
The sentient screen again reverted to solid red for a moment. Then the clue appeared in bold white letters, along with a digital clock graphic, a crudely drawn hangman’s gallows, and blank lines in place of the letters for the two words needed to solve the puzzle.
The LEDs on all the servers began pulsating wildly, and the machines’ buzzing ratcheted up to a fever pitch, like engine pistons firing on nitrous oxide. Some kind of controlled power surge, Novak guessed. The two German shepherds growled, fangs bared, hackles spiking along their backbones, their handler struggling with the leashes to restrain them. Not a good sign, since most canine units were specifically trained to sniff out bombs. Which seemed to be exactly what Žmaka was thinking when he shouted, “Everyone out! Saada väljaspool nüüd!”
Michaels pulled at Novak’s arm. “Roman, this is going downhill.”
“No. I’ve got this.” I might be blown to pieces, but I can do this. “You go.”
Bounty Page 35
