JK's Code (Brooks/Lotello Thriller Book 4)

by Ronald S. Barak

  POTUS WASN’T HAPPY AS he and Baker, Jr. convened in the Rose Garden. “What was so fucking important that it couldn’t keep until tomorrow?”

  “You asked me to get Austin’s view on this virus business.” Baker, Jr. repeated what Austin had said, “After giving the matter some thought, as you requested, he said he thought it would be a terrible mistake if you don’t take the potential pandemic public at the earliest possible moment, and transfer the responsibility to the medical experts and local government. Otherwise, he thought this entire pandemic could come heavily crashing down on your shoulders if it ever came to light that you were slow to act. And lead.”

  “What the fuck’s the matter with you? What I asked was for you to get him on the record agreeing with my position. Not contradicting it.”

  “I told him, Dad. He just didn’t listen.”

  “You let the son of a bitch know if he doesn’t get with my program, I’ll find someone else who will. Besides, my medical experts are telling me that this virus business is nothing. It’s going to vanish as quickly as it appeared. I’m hearing that all you need to do is gargle with Clorox.”

  “No worries, Dad. I’ll tell him. Again.”

  CHAPTER 44

  January 14, 2020, Eight Days Later

  JAKE WAS SITTING IN one of his classes. Even after almost two months away, he was already bored. How could he not be given his recent life. He had traveled to Kazakhstan, met several incredible people, and was using extraordinary software in pursuit of his cybersecurity ambitions. Ambitions that might also render a valuable public service.

  He hadn’t yet cracked the MC data code, although he was getting close. But school was getting in the way, really slowing him down. He could manage the work quickly enough, but his professors expected him to be in class. That was time consuming, and there was no way around that. Real time was real time. Why am I procrastinating? Maybe it’s time to just make the decision and cut the school cord?

  Kelly was another problem. After almost two months away, she wanted to make up fast for lost time. She expected his attention, but when he was with her, his thoughts were on Anya. He knew he needed to end things with Kelly, but he wasn’t sure where he was with Anya.

  The text alert on his phone sounded. He opened his text app:

  HELLO, JK. ARE YOU BACK IN SCHOOL? I’M AT HARVARD. IT’S VERY EXCITING. AND ALREADY VERY DEMANDING.

  I HOPE YOU HAD A NICE COUPLE OF WEEKS WITH YOUR FAMILY. AND A BIT OF A REST. WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU WEREN’T SOCIALIZING WITH YOUR FAMILY?

  I HAD A VERY NICE HOLIDAY SEASON WITH MY FAMILY. IT WAS THE RIGHT THING FOR ME TO DO, BUT I DID MISS YOU.

  I’M NOT SURE HOW OUR SCHEDULES ARE GOING TO MESH, BUT I HOPE WE WILL FIND TIME FOR ONE ANOTHER.

  LET ME KNOW HOW YOU’RE DOING. HUGS, ANYA.

  Damn. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Anya was at the head of the list. Excitement? Undeniably. More distractions? For sure. Whatever Professor Sanchez has been saying for the past ten minutes, Jake sure hadn’t heard any of it. Shit. Now I’ll have to borrow someone’s notes. More distractions. He sent Anya a short reply:

  YES, BACK IN SCHOOL AFTER SPENDING TIME WITH FAMILY. BORED WITH SCHOOL ALREADY, BUT VERY BUSY. GLAD YOU HAD A NICE VISIT WITH YOUR FAMILY AND HARVARD IS EXCITING FOR YOU. MISSED YOU TOO. HOPE WE CAN MAKE OUR SCHEDULES MESH. LATER, JT.

  She said “Hugs.” I wanted to say something better than “Later.” Wasn’t sure what to say. I’m so lame, damn it. Sanchez, what did he just say?

  ANYA CLOSED HER PHONE. “Later?” That’s all he could say? He really didn’t say much of anything. Busy with what? I’m expected to find out. Pressure from home. To get them what they want. Hoped Jake would come to me. Guess I’ll have to take the lead and visit him. Soon.

  CHAPTER 45

  January 24, 2020, Ten Days Later

  AMIR WALKED OUT OF the U.S.C.I.S. offices in downtown Manhattan. He still had the three passports he had used to reach the U.S., but now he also had a card that said “Authorized Stay.”

  He had to wait in line for almost a full hour. “Passport, please,” the agent first said to him.

  Amir reached in his bag. He pulled out only his Bermuda passport and handed it to the agent.

  The agent kept looking back and forth at Amir and then the photo in the passport. He had a puzzled look on his face. “You are in the line to file an application for asylum,” the agent said. “Why are you seeking asylum?”

  “Life in danger,” Amir said. “Go home, surely be killed.”

  “You would be killed in Bermuda?” the agent said. “By whom?”

  “Not in Bermuda, in Kazakhstan,” Amir answered.

  “Kazakhstan?” the agent repeated. “I don’t understand.”

  Amir then produced his three passports and explained his circumstances, that what he did was the only way he could escape Kazakhstan and reach the United States.

  “So you entered the U.S. on a false passport. That’s not good at all.”

  “Only way, not do, dead. Please not to send back to Kazakhstan. Will be killed.” He showed the agent the photos on his phone of his bruises. “Please to looking.” He pointed to his face. He also lifted his shirt to show what remained of his bruises.

  The agent grimaced. “Well, this is highly unusual, traveling with multiple passports not issued by your claimed country of origin. I will leave it for the hearing officer on your asylum application to evaluate how you entered the country, and to decide what to do.”

  He helped Amir fill out and file his asylum application. He gave Amir a copy of the “Authorized Stay” card. “Retain this card. Don’t lose it. It’s very important.” He allowed Amir to retain his three passports. He gave Amir a date in six months to report back for the hearing of his asylum application, and wrote the date on his copy of the asylum application. “Bring all three passports to the hearing,” he said to Amir. “You can now stay and work in the U.S. until your asylum application is decided. If it’s granted, you can remain and work in the U.S. indefinitely, and can apply for a green card—permanent residence—after one year. If you are granted a green card, you can then obtain a U.S. passport and will be required to surrender your three existing passports.”

  “Work now anywhere in U.S.?” Amir asked.

  “Yes. How will you get by until you find work?”

  “Have American dollars cash.”

  “You can use your Authorized Stay card to open a bank account and obtain checks. It’s dangerous to walk around with more than a little cash for short-term use.”

  “Even in America?”

  “Even in America.”

  Amir was surprised how easy it actually turned out to be. Photos of bruises did trick. Especially when show bruises remain. Lift shirt, agent afraid have weapon. Agent keep saying unusual story is.

  Amir now had some time, but he had to find a job to live in America. He was afraid to go to the Kazakhstan consulate in New York because his enemies might learn of his whereabouts. For the same reason, he didn’t think it would be safe to reach out to the Kazakhstan expat community in New York.

  He thought more about how and where he could best find a job and make a living. All he knew was how to drive a taxi, but New York was too complicated and too expensive for him. He thought maybe he would go to New Haven and get a job driving for Uber. He was surprised that it was not necessary for him to own his own car. Google say many foreign persons from many countries in New Haven. Call melting pot. Can hide self well. Can also watch what Mr. JK in New Haven is doing. Why came to Kazakhstan to learn hacking.

  CHAPTER 46

  January 31, 2020, One Week Later

  JAKE HAD FINALLY MANAGED to decode the duplicate MC folder residing within the Mossad software on his anonymous laptop—the one he never used to access the internet other than to hack into Cipher’s computer solely from the Starbucks café in Maryland.

  Decoding the MC data had proved far more arduous than decoding the GL data. Why did Cipher go to ev
en greater extremes to hide the contents of the MC folder than he did with the contents of the GL folder? He began reviewing the multitude of files now housed in the duplicate MC folder on his computer. It would take him the better part of a day. He needed to get through it today because Anya was coming to spend the day with him tomorrow, Sunday.

  And, finally, there it was, the answer to Jake’s question, hiding right there in plain sight. Or there he was. Any number of emails interspersed among other less elucidating material in the MC folder made clear that the true author of the sophisticated software Turgenev planned to use to control the outcome of the 2020 U.S. election was none other than MC, short for Cailin Molloy. Unfortunately, however, the MC folder contained no specific details regarding the software.

  Partly derived from Cipher’s decoded MC folder, including inexplicably Cipher’s own research into Molloy’s background, and Jake’s additional research as well, Jake had been able to patch together at least a preliminary sense of who Molloy was, and what his motives were:

  Molloy, whose descendants, along with thousands of other Irish immigrants, had emigrated from Ireland to Windmill Point, a small neighborhood village in Montreal, Quebec, to escape the Irish period of mass starvation and disease between 1845 and 1849—known as the Irish Potato Famine. Rampant poverty, disease, and death in the Montreal surroundings unfortunately followed these immigrants on their flight in search of a better life. One of the dwindling line of his all but destitute family, Molloy never made it past high school. All he had was a mathematical aptitude, a love for all computer toys and games, and a burning desire to make a mark—some kind of mark—that his family had never been able to do.

  But to do that, even if known only to himself, he had to survive. Kind of like those art collectors who steal famous art and then have to keep it locked up in their basement vaults, known to and enjoyed only by themselves in order not to lose what they wrongfully accumulated—and worse still, perhaps end up in jail. Similarly, Molloy chose to conceal his identity and live vicariously as a ghost through his two charades—Leonid Gradsky and Lars Nilsen. Guess it works for him. Gradsky and Nilsen were well thought out and carefully created figments of Molloy’s boundless imagination. Unlike his aliases, Molloy suffered no physical ailments whatsoever.

  Only Cipher and Molloy previously knew the truth. And now so did Jake. He wondered if that knowledge would threaten his well-being.

  CHAPTER 47

  February 2, 2020, Two Days Later

  JAKE HAD SPENT THE day with Anya after he picked her up at the train station. He showed her around New Haven in the early part of the day and they had lunch at one of his favorite coffee shops—nothing extravagant at all.

  At lunch, Anya asked Jake to explain to her the goings on of the Baker impeachment trial. “Why do they bother?” Anya asked Jake. “Almost three whole weeks. It seems like such a waste of time and resources.”

  “Yes and no,” Jake answered. “While there is no doubt about the outcome, that Baker will be acquitted in a vote along party lines having nothing to do with his actual guilt or innocence, each side, Democrats and Republicans, will have played American politics to the hilt, posturing for any possible edge in terms of the coming November elections.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” Anya said. “Maybe I just don’t have the necessary background. Nothing like this could ever happen in Russia.”

  “By the time of the vote this coming week, the Democrats will have enjoyed major daily visibility for almost three straight weeks in their quest to paint Baker as a corrupt and dishonest individual who should never have been elected in 2016, and certainly should not be reelected this time around. That they will have expended millions of taxpayer dollars for that possible benefit is of no concern to them. It won’t be as if they had to spend their own money on this frivolity.”

  “And what about Baker?” Anya asked. “Is he just an innocent victim of all these theatrics?”

  “Only Baker’s strongest core followers consider him an innocent victim. As you can see on the daily news reports, Baker is constantly tweeting that the impeachment trial is nothing more than a “witch hunt” and that he will be totally “vindicated” by the acquittal vote—as if it were an impartial vote, which we all know it will not be—and that the Democrats should be rejected by the voters in November. Not only in the presidential election, but in the downstream congressional elections as well.”

  In the afternoon, they visited the Yale campus and finally his own SCSU campus, which didn’t compare all that favorably to Yale, but it did include his apartment. The day had gone nicely. He had some thoughts about showing Anya his apartment, although unfortunately his roommate had some friends in. So much for that bright idea.

  He had to settle for a hug and a whiff of her vanilla perfume when he saw her off for her train ride back to Harvard. The next visit will probably have to be on me. At least I’ll get a sense of what I missed out on by not getting better grades in high school—Harvard. Leah would have been so proud. Maybe my parents too.

  ANYA THOGUHT THE DAY had gone well. While she didn’t yet have any information of what Jake was pursuing, she was growing her relationship with him. Hopefully, that would in due course lead Jake to confide in her. She had mixed emotions, but she knew her optimistic report home would be required and well received. I hope JK’ll now be motivated to make a visit to me in the next week or two. If not sooner.

  MIKHAIL OBLONSKY CLEARED CUSTOMS at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He obtained a B-2 visitors visa at the U.S. Consulate in Moscow. All he had to say was that he would be traveling to the U.S. to attend a one-week international studies conference at Harvard, but the paranoid Moscow authorities spent two weeks making sure that Oblonsky wasn’t actually seeking to defect to the West. Human assets were increasingly valuable and not to be lost under the guise of a short academic exercise.

  The B-2 visit was good for six months. He would not need that long. At JFK, the customs officer asked him why he was there. He gave his pre-arranged answer, and the agent stamped a form and handed it to him, and told him to have a nice day. He went to Hertz and picked up the rental car that was waiting for him. All he had to do was show his international driver’s license and insurance certificate. He plugged his destination into the GPS on his smartphone and drove out of the airport.

  AFTER JAKE LEFT ANYA at the train station, his mind returned to Molloy. Work before pleasure. He needed to get into Molloy’s computer and see what more he could learn. The emails in the MC folder on Cipher’s laptop made clear that Molloy still made his home in Montreal. Montreal was much closer than Kazakhstan, but it might as well be Kazakhstan because he had no backdoor into Molloy’s computer, like the one he had planted on Cipher’s.

  Somehow, he was going to have to get physically close enough to Molloy’s computer so the Mossad software could hack into it without needing the Mossad thumb drive sourced backdoor. The problem with that was that such an approach was a one shot affair, unless Jake was going to repeat it periodically as needed. Otherwise, Jake would have to come up with a more elaborate and permanent solution. Such a long-term solution was Jake’s only prospect at present to sufficiently identify Molloy’s election hacking software to design a software anecdote or barrier.

  This was going to be tricky, both in terms of planning and execution. Tricky in a way that did not fall within Jake’s skill set.

  Jake thought about the possibilities. From the MC folder, and Jake’s own research, he had the address of Molloy’s upscale home outside Montreal. As a matter of curiosity, he had also found that Molloy’s cover story for having such a grand home without any tangible means was that he had done well timing the market over the years when the real explanation was his dark web consulting revenues.

  A big stumbling block was that while Jake had pictures of Molloy from the MC folder, Molloy—aka Nilsen—also knew exactly what Jake looked like. Unless Jake was going to involve an accomplice, which did not at all appeal to hi
m, he was going to have to develop a blueprint that did not require his physical presence in Montreal to be known to Molloy.

  It was over the top, right out of a spy novel, but Jake slowly conjured up a game plan. He would fly to Montreal, rent a car, drive close enough to Molloy’s home at a time when he knew Malloy would be away—but that his computer would be there—and use the Mossad software to disarm the computerized security alarm and cameras Molloy undoubtedly employed at his home. He could research when Malloy left his home on chores and didn’t have other staff around.

  Jake would then break into the home and use his Mossad thumb drive to plant the backdoor into the USB port of Malloy’s computer, just as he had done with Cipher’s computer in Kazakhstan. He would then have to get out of the house, drive a safe distance away, hack into Molloy’s computer using the Mossad software and the now established backdoor in Molloy’s computer, copy the contents of Molloy’s computer onto his own laptop, and leave Molloy’s computer content intact. After all that, he would also have to re-arm the home security system before Molloy might subsequently discover that Jake had copied the content of his computer while the home security system had been offline during the few minutes Jake was in Molloy’s home.

  This assumed that the Mossad software could hack the re-arming instructions on the home security system before deactivating it so that the Mossad software could then be used to re-arm the system once Jake had left Molloy’s home. If not, Molloy might ultimately suspect that he had been hacked, unless he assumed it was some random power outage that was not protected by any backup generator at his home. I’ve never seen a backup generator that reliably performs all the time as they are “guaranteed” to do.