Cipher

by Robert Stohn

  He clicked on the first news link in the search, which led him to a popular news piece from the New York Times about the researcher. He read the information to find out more about her work and research. She had a PhD in mathematical physics from Harvard University, and she had been hailed as the leading mind in mathematics. He read a part of the article that discussed the doctor and her work.

  Turkish born, Dr. Jennifer M. Cobalt, a fellow at Harvard University, is blazing a trail in applied mathematics and advanced cryptology algorithms. Her research has been hailed as revolutionary and ground breaking.

  He looked at the documents on the silver USB stick that were given to him by Don Cicerone again. He reviewed the information to see if he could find a phone number or an address, and he did. He located an address on Bağdat Avenue in Istanbul and a phone number. It was an old address and phone number but he decided that he would start there regardless. She wouldn’t be that difficult to locate; he knew that. But, locating the black USB cipher drive, might prove to be much more difficult. That was the goal anyhow – to locate the cipher drive. He picked up his cell phone and decided to call, and a woman answered the phone.

  “Evet?” said the voice on the other end in Turkish.

  “Hello? Hi, can I speak with Dr. Cobalt please?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if almost expecting the phone call. “Who is this?”

  “My name is Jonathan Grace.”

  “I’m sorry, but Ms. Cobalt is not here,” said the woman in near-perfect English.

  “Can I leave a message with her?”

  Another pause on the other end of the line. “What is this about please?” she asked politely.

  “I have something very important that I need to discuss with her. I can only discuss it with her. Can you please have her call me? I need to speak to her right away.”

  “Yes, okay. I will have her call you. She will be back this evening.”

  Jonathan gave the woman his phone number and hung up. After the conversation, he felt uneasy, almost as if it seemed to good to be true. Would she be that easy to reach? Would she be that simple to find? Maybe it was some sort of test. He looked around the room and thought about it for a few moments. He ran the ideas through his mind. He didn’t know where he was supposed to go from there. He felt lost. He couldn’t do much until he heard from the woman.

  Wait, what about the map? What about the coordinates on the map? Jonathan had a flash of an idea suddenly. It hit him like a sudden pile of bricks being dropped on his head. The coordinates must lead somewhere. Maybe he would follow the coordinates. He looked at the map again. He analyzed it with great detail. He couldn’t tell if the hand-written coordinates were GPS coordinates. They looked similar to GPS coordinates with a latitude and longitude, but they had too many digits. It almost seemed like it was a cipher in and of itself. He looked at them for twenty minutes, trying to understand what they meant. He wrote and rewrote the numbers out on a notepad in various different formats, but to no avail.

  He was growing increasingly weary by the moment as the jetlag started to kick in. The coordinates weren’t making sense to him. What could they be pointing to? What was the overlay on the map referring to? Was it the directions to somewhere? Was he supposed to follow the coordinates to find the black USB cipher drive? That couldn’t have been it; it couldn’t have been that easy. That didn’t make sense. He was only hours away from connecting with Dr. Cobalt, and if she didn’t have the black USB cipher drive, then she had to know who did. She had to be the one that could divulge that information to him. If she couldn’t, he didn’t know what he was going to do. He wasn’t sure what direction it would lead him in, but he knew he had to follow.

  His mind was racing at a million miles-a-minute. He opened up the hotel safe and stashed a large portion of his cash in there along with his other valuables. He decided he needed some rest. He needed to lie down if he was going to be at all productive. The seven-hour time difference was starting to catch up even though he had caught some sleep on the plan; the full day of travel was finally starting to wear on him. His initial burst of energy had all but worn off. He was tired. And, as his eyelids sagged, he stared at the bed that looked so comfortable. He stared at it for just long enough when he decided he was tired enough to sleep. Just a few hours of shuteye. That’s all I need. Just a few hours of shuteye.

  Chapter 4

  Major chaos today in cities across the world when water and power failed in 7 major metropolitan areas including London, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, Hong Kong, and Sydney. The power outages were widespread and it’s been suspected that the attack was a coordinated effort against the major water and power distributors. All efforts are being taken to restore power in cities across the world but hundreds of millions have been affected. Air traffic and control in several major cities have also reported problems, with planes experiencing major diversions in flight paths and communications interruptions. And, financial markets have taken a big hit today as the major indices around the world plunged as hackers gained access to institutions across the globe. It’s been estimated that billions of dollars have gone missing. The FBI, NSA, CIA, Interpol, MI6, and other international agencies are still searching for clues but all are saying that this is the most sophisticated coordinated attack they have ever seen. Stay tuned for the full story.

  In a war room located deep beneath the bowels of the White House in Washington, D.C., the President of the United States assembled his top secretaries. Present in the room was the Director of the FBI, CIA, NSA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and the Vice President. The President sat at the head of the table silently, looking at each of his trusted members of the government. The air in the room was tense; you could slice the tension with a knife. The President, with his hands folded on the table in front of him, had a silent look of determination on his face.

  “How could we let this happen? How did we not know about this?” asked the President, looking at each member one by one as the said the words slowly. He turned to look at his intelligence officers and paused at the Director of the NSA, Peter Edwards.

  “President Meyers, sir, this blindsided us.” He looked the President square in the eyes. “It’s the most sophisticated attack we’ve seen, and the coordination of all these diverse targets is extraordinary.”

  “Who’s pulling these strings?” asked the President. “I don’t want to hear about how sophisticated this operation has been. That’s already very clear. Just look at the news right now. The world is plunging into chaos and there’s sure to be more to follow. What are our people doing right now to contain this?” This time he turned to look at the FBI Director Ryan Shilling. “Ryan? What are your thoughts?”

  “Sir, we’re pulling out all stops on this one. We have some ideas of who’s pulling these strings. On the screen in front of you is Boris Medviek, former Russian KGB, and Special Operations Soldier. We think he may have something to do with this. Our chatter is pointing towards the Russians.”

  “What do we know about Medviek? How do we know for certain that he’s behind this?” asked the President again, this time looking at his Director of CIA, Michael Waterman.

  “Sir, we have preliminary knowledge of the possibility of his involvement, but we’re still attempting to confirm certain information. We are unclear of his whereabouts now, but we are working with our agents on the ground to get a pinpoint on him. Sources have him in either Istanbul or Amsterdam, and he may also be back in Moscow. He knows how to evade tracking, but we’ll get a location on him soon.”

  “Look,” said the President, “I know that we can all say what we should of or could have done to avoid this crisis, but it’s here and we need to deal with it. I need to know that our best people are on this. We can’t let this balloon out of control. If this Medviek is coordinating these attacks, then we need to find him and put a stop to this. God knows to what extent this can be further carried out.”

  “Sir, I agree
,” said the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Donald Elmington. “And this information doesn’t leave these four walls. We cannot allow the American public to know what caused this. We can’t allow fear to grow in the hearts of people. It would cause sheer panic and chaos. But, if this Medviek decides to further these attacks and goes after energy facilities or atomic generators we could be in grave trouble.”

  “Don, we can’t allow that to happen. We can’t allow the lives of millions of people to be in the balance here. We have to do something to stop this. We have to do something right away. We need a plan people. I want a status report tonight at twenty-one hundred hours. Is that clear?” said the President.

  The President looked at the members in attendance of the meeting. The air was just as tense as when the meeting began, if not more. The bunker-like war room had set the tone for what was to come.

  “Mr. President. If I may say something, sir,” said Secretary of Defense Palmer.

  “Yes, go ahead, Steven,” said the President.

  “I think we need to prepare for a doomsday situation here. I don’t think we need to panic the American people, but we need to be prepared. My staff has done some estimations of the damage that could be caused if nuclear and weapons facilities are hit, and it could be catastrophic. Mr. President this could be thousands of times worse than 9-11. This trumps all of our worries in the Middle East and the secular extremists.”

  The Secretary of Defense pressed a button on his tablet screen and sent the imagery of the nuclear facilitates that could be targeted across the world. The images of destruction and devastation showed a huge radius of worldwide terror that could be caused. “You’ll see in the image above, the destruction could be catastrophic. This Medviek was able to hit three diverse systems all at once. We can only imagine what else he can do,” added Secretary of Defense Palmer.

  The room grew quiet. Not another word was said. The President looked from one set of eyes to the next in the room. He knew the severity of the situation. He knew what could happen if they allowed this thing to get out of control. He looked at his Joint Chiefs of Staff, Elmington.

  “Don, what do you think? Do we go to the American people with this? If we do, we could cause complete panic. If we don’t, and something goes very wrong, we could be risking a lot more by holding this from them.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that Mr. President. But, I think that at this time, until we can accurately assess the real threat to the American people, that we keep this under wraps. I think we need to employ all assets in the field to locate Medviek. Once we’ve got some more intelligence on him and the situation, then we should reassess.”

  The President looked pleased with his view. He looked around the room at the others seated at the table.

  “Everyone in agreement with that?” asked the President.

  They all agreed in unison, and the President excused them. He asked everyone to leave aside from the Vice President, Ron Jenkins.

  “Ronnie, we’re in deep shit with this,” said the President.

  “I know we are. I know we are.”

  “What’s your take on this?”

  “I think Don had a good point about not going to the public with it until we’re absolutely certain of the real threat, but we need to make some moves here. Each moment we lose is a moment we can’t spare.”

  “I agree. We need to get a location on Medviek. I want you to push everyone involved as much as you can. This is top priority now. This supersedes everything else we’ve got going on. If this Medviek can access systems like this, then there’s no stopping him.”

  “Okay, I’ll get on it, Mr. President,” said the Vice President.

  “Okay. Good. Keep me updated.”

  “Okay. Sounds good, Mr. President.”

  Chapter 5

  The white and chrome finish of the 245-foot luxury superyacht glistened under the hot summer sun. Anchored just a few hundred feet off the shores of Portofino, Italy, the sleek vivacious lines of the superyacht elegantly bent and curved along the exotic hull of the modern floating mansion. Boris Medviek looked out onto the crystal blue ocean waters and cloudless blue skies from the rear upper deck. He looked out and admired the view of the vividly colored buildings that hung almost dangerously along the cliffs of the famed Cinque Terre city. The brightly colored reds, yellows, and oranges of the buildings gently mixed with the blues of the ocean and skies to cast a painted masterpiece that could have been hung in any world-class art gallery in the world.

  Boris’s two most trusted lieutenants sat at a teakwood table with five Eastern European supermodels. The Russian, Ukrainian, and Czechoslovakian girls smiled and nodded, bobbing their head to the electronic music playing in the background as they sipped champagne. Boris smiled and raised his glass to his comrades. He looked on towards the shores of the Portofino beach through dark sunglasses and reveled in his own accomplishments. He had done it. He had effectively used the cipher drive to wreak havoc and in effect capture billions of dollars. It was easy, almost too easy.

  “Like taking candy from babies,” he said with a Russian accent, but near-perfect English. He raised his glass further, and motioned for one of the deckhands to quickly top off all of the champagne. The girls raised their glasses too but they had no idea what they were toasting to.

  “To more success,” said Dmitry, his most trusted lieutenant and brother, who sat at the table with the girls.

  They chinked their glasses and all drank the champagne. Boris finished his first, with a toss straight down the throat like a true Russian. He smiled and called for more. And, off in the distance, the silent rumble of a helicopter cut through the summer air as it neared. They could all hear the sound, as the chopper got closer until it finally appeared around the inlet of Portofino from behind a set of buildings over the horizon. The black EC155 helicopter hovered directly over the superyacht as it slowly descended onto the landing pad on the upper deck of the ship, in plain sight of all the onlookers.

  “He’s here,” said Boris.

  “Yes,” said Dmitry. “Girls, downstairs. Now!” he yelled at them to scram as the chopper killed its engine and the blades made their final whining noise as they came to an abrupt stop and the door opened.

  Standing up from their chairs, Boris alone walked towards the chopper as a small entourage of Saudis disembarked. “Sheik Abdullah. So good to see you your highness,” said Boris.

  “Thank you for having me,” said the middle-aged Saudi Sheik. They did a non-contact kiss in the air towards both cheeks as they shook hands. Boris did it as a sign of respect.

  “Thank you for coming. Shall we have a seat?” he asked, pointing towards the seating area already setup on the upper deck. Boris snapped his fingers and the table was quickly cleared of all alcohol out of respect for the Saudi. Then, just as quickly as the alcohol had disappeared, a variety of fresh fruits, juices, breads, croissants, and jams found their way to the table.

  “Yes, thank you,” said the Sheik, taking a seat at the over-sized round table. “Good of you to invite me.” The Sheik’s armed bodyguards took positions at the rear corners of the ship, flanking the wealthy Saudi.

  “Please, can I offer you some coffee, tea, or juice?”

  “Tea. The Sheik likes tea,” said one of the men who had arrived as part of the Sheik’s entourage.

  “I’m sorry. Excuse me. This is Salem. He is my most trusted advisor.” The Sheik looked at Boris and Dmitry as he was speaking. A deckhand appeared and poured tea for the Sheik and Salem.

  “Of course,” replied Boris. “Anything you want here is yours. Just name it,” cooed Dmitry with a smile on his face.

  “You know what I really want. You know the reason that I’m here,” said the Sheik.

  “Yes, of course. And it won’t be a problem,” said Boris slyly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “How can you be certain?” The Sheik looked at Boris with intent. He knew what he was asking for, and Bori
s knew that he could give it to him.

  “Have you read the headlines in the news lately? Power outages in New York, London, and Hong Kong?”

  “Yes, of course,” said the Sheik.

  Boris smiled.

  “This was you?”

  “Yes. And have you heard of the Air Traffic Control headaches lately in several cities across the world? How about the financial collapse of intra-day trading in many indices across the globe?”

  “Yes, of course. I have. All of them.”

  Boris smiled again.

  “This was you?” asked the Sheik.

  “Yes. It was a coordinated attack. They did not suspect it coming.”

  “And what if they are more prepared the next time you attempt this type of attack? How will you get me the information that I am seeking?”

  “They cannot safe guard anything. I can provide you the information that you’re after, but it won’t come cheap.” Boris looked at the Sheik square in the eyes and spoke with a great deal of intent. He was more than confident he could extract the information that he needed. He could provide him with what he was looking for.

  “Okay, we’ll see. How much?”

  “One billion US dollars for each 1000 names of agents.”

  “That is a very steep price to pay,” said the Sheik.

  “Yes, but you have very few alternatives. I will make sure you get those names.” Boris knew what he had to do. It was going to be one of the most daring heists that would be pulled off this century. The real names and identities of the field agents for the CIA, FBI, MI6, and Interpol stationed around the world would be the most lethal information that could be extracted from the world’s governments.