The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  The next and most life-transforming piece of good fortune was the return, in April 2012, of a GRU undercover agent, Shen Fu Liáng, or Grigori Vedeneyev as he preferred to be known in Moscow, currently head of the Russian Trade Delegation in Washington. Liáng had come to Moscow with an incredible proposal. The seeds of a strategy that could restore the Motherland’s former glory, recover its lost territories and demonstrate its power and relevance in the new world order.

  Gavrikov was impressed, excited and seduced by the proposal. It could elevate him to one of the highest positions in the Soviet hierarchy. But he was deeply wary of this Chinese-Russian agent who had spent the last four years in the United States. He instructed Esther to gain Liáng’s confidence, find out if he should be taken seriously. Was the plan feasible, how much would it cost, how long would it take, what were the risks of it backfiring? But most of all, was this a genuine opportunity or a clever trap, set up by the Americans? Was he really a US mole, or if not, what was his motivation for proposing such an outlandish, ambitious scheme?

  Back in Washington, waiting for a response to his proposal, Shen received an invitation to a charity dinner at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, on Pennsylvania Avenue. Sitting next to him was a highly intellectual, beautiful young woman, who introduced herself as Elodie Delacroix, a Belgian political journalist. She was writing a series of articles about Russian–US relations for Le Point de Vue, a French left-wing political news magazine. Her current theme was the failure of the US government to enter into meaningful talks with Russia about their rightful claims to Ukraine. When Shen checked her out online, he was duly impressed with her credentials, and the many pro-Russian articles published under her name in a wide range of newspapers and magazines that the Soviet fake news/propaganda machine had worked overtime to produce. He called her the next morning and they had lunch at Le Diplomate, a French restaurant on 14th Street, a choice she thought would impress him.

  Although there was something in his character which reminded her slightly of Ray d’Almeida, Esther took an immediate dislike to the man. He seemed humourless and unfeeling, and she wasn’t sure about his sexual inclinations. But within a month, she had bewitched him, moved into his apartment and learned everything about his birth and life, the reasons for his hatred of China and love of Russia, and his plan to redraw the geographical borders of his adopted country. She revealed to him her alter-ego, Tsunami, and her international activities for the Soviet regime, and convinced him he had found the right partner to help him achieve his impossible dream. Her report to Gavrikov was impressively thorough and convincing, and the A2 cyber-blackmail project was approved. Shen explained to her how Lee-Win, a leading Chinese microprocessor manufacturer with a vast global government and industrial installed base and a potentially devastating encryption-transmission innovation, was the perfect vehicle for the attack.

  With a substantial budget and the shiny new Belgian passport from her Russian paymasters, she went back to Dublin as Elodie Delacroix, and rented an apartment just off Fitzwilliam Square, twenty minutes’ walk from the Ha’penny Bridge over the River Liffey and near the National Concert Hall. As she was walking past it one morning, Esther suddenly thought of the enigmatic Lord Arthur Dudley, the most intriguing and complex man she’d ever known. It was he who had introduced her to music, ballet and the love of beautiful things, a love which, sadly, she’d never been able to indulge. Until now, she told herself, now I can live the life Ray and I should have lived. I’m going to make the most of it.

  Shen followed her a week later, flying from Washington to Paris in his own name, then on to Dublin, as Gyeong Park, using a Korean passport he’d been given by his new sponsors at GRU. Not only was his project approved, but at Esther’s suggestion General Gavrikov had prepared a list of pro-USSR multi-billionaires, the ‘oligarchs’, who might be interested in financing the operation. The bait was two-fold: an investment into a successful high-tech company with a potentially industry-changing innovative development, and an opportunity to cherry-pick the valuable pieces of the fourteen ex-USSR satellites when they were taken back into the Russian fold.

  Over the next few months, the unlikely partners perfected their plan and began to execute the preliminary stages, starting with the acquisition of Lee-Win Micro-Technology. Chongkun Lee-Win proved to be incalcitrant in his refusal to sell the business, but it was not difficult to replace him in the transaction with his widow. His ‘accident’ also brought them a price reduction of twenty per cent and the oligarchs couldn’t resist the combined opportunity. Esther, as Tsunami, set up the charitable trust structure hidden behind a myriad of proxy companies, and only Shen’s share of the funding was required to consummate the transaction. When he revealed his murderous scheme to obtain the balance of his investment from his Chinese family inheritance, she finally understood what it was he had in common with Ray d’Almeida. He was a psychopath, prepared to do anything to fulfil his dream, to exact his revenge on the family who had thrown him out like a stray dog, to lay to rest the feeling of failure and rejection and to enjoy the taste of success and belonging, at last.

  The greatest shock Esther had to cope with was when Shen mentioned that Scotty Fitzgerald, whose removal had been scrupulously planned by her, would be replaced by a brilliant young encryption programming specialist called Leo Stewart. The same Leo Stewart who had been kidnapped and then released in Johannesburg in 2010, and who now reappeared in her life at the most crucial moment of their project. But thanks to Angela da Sousa, she’d neutralised him for long enough to get the project through, and now it was too late for him to cause further problems.

  She took another swig of Laurent Perrier. I’m not going to let Jenny Bishop’s family steal another fortune from me, she told herself. No. This time, it’s going to be Esther Rousseau who wins.

  Esther had some insurance. Over the last six years, countless millions of dollars had passed through bank accounts which, as Tsunami, she controlled. By regularly siphoning off small amounts, easily hidden from the GRU accountants, she had accumulated over $300,000 in the Credit Bank of Guadeloupe in her maiden name of Esther Bonnard. It was nothing like the amount she’d been promised from the A2 attack, but she could survive for a while. She booked a BA flight to London for Wednesday morning. Piotr had promised her she’d be paid on Monday and she prayed it would be so, but she wasn’t staying around in Moscow any longer. Whatever happened, it was definitely going to become the wrong place to be.

  Delmas, Mpumalanga, South Africa

  ‘I just got a text from Leo.’ Abby was relaxing with her mother by the pool. She was feeling exhausted. She’d done everything she could think of to help his meeting with the Chinese, and now they had to trust him to get the job done.

  ‘What does he have to say?’

  ‘He thanked me, and said nice things about the hub-handover file and the time difference I pointed out. The Chinese have agreed to see his network demo and he’s just received the names of the oligarchs from Ilona.’

  ‘That sounds very positive. What do you think?’

  ‘Sounds like he’s doing what he always does, winning.’

  Karen thought her daughter sounded a little jealous, but she said nothing. It’s good for her to have some competition, for a change, she told herself.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Moscow, Russian Federation

  Sunday, 18 July 2017

  Shen Fu Liáng was at the headquarters of the Main Directorate of the Russian General Chief of Staff, GRU, the foreign military intelligence agency. The 70,000-square-metre complex on Grizodubovoy Street had been built in 2006 at a cost of 9.5 billion roubles to house the ever-increasing number of security personnel working on a wide variety of ‘special assignments’. GRU, together with the FSB, the Federal Security Service, previously the KGB, and the SVR, Foreign Intelligence Service, the principal Russian security agencies, are engaged in every aspect of defensive and offensive non-military warfare. These include human intelligence and counter-intelligenc
e through military attaches and foreign agents, signals and imagery intelligence and surveillance from close to two hundred SIGINT spy satellites, internal and border security and counter-terrorism, as well as employing about 350,000 specialists engaged in a myriad of cross-border activities.

  The Chinaman was in the largest of the dozens of network centres in the vast underground labyrinth of GRU’s Internet-equipped laboratories. This was where the principal hub was housed, the hub that was used, together with their ‘Media Centre’ in St Petersburg, to disseminate cyber-attacks, fake news, spying software and a vast array of other cyber tools used by the State to monitor, spy on, infiltrate and destabilise governments, essential services and businesses around the world. This was the hub that Shen would use to deploy, via Shanghai, the shutdown trigger to the A2 cells in the billions of Lee-Win processors newly upgraded with Mark VII and ACRE software, the deployment he was demonstrating to General Piotr Gavrikov for the last time before it went live that night.

  He finished the demonstration, the trigger command from the first hub still maintaining the network in shutdown mode via the second, and asked, ‘Are you happy with my solution?’

  The general smiled grimly. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow, after our targets bend the knee.’

  It was during his stint in the US, in 2011, that Shen had learned about A2, the ‘Analog Back Door Attack’, and realised it was the ultimate cyber-weapon. Since then he had dedicated his life and his fortune to implement the technology to launch a gigantic cyber-attack that would damage China, the country that had spurned and deported him like a slave, and benefit Russia, the country that had adopted him and given him a home and a loving family. Almost by accident, he found out that Lee-Win Micro-Technology, an independent Chinese microprocessor manufacturer, had conceived ACRE, an innovative encryption-transmission technology which could be the ‘Back Door’ to launch his A2 attack into millions of networks around the world.

  Thanks to the fortuitous meeting with Elodie, who, as Tsunami, had privileged access to Colonel-General Piotr Gavrikov, his project was approved and funded. He assumed that Elodie and Gavrikov were lovers, but he didn’t care. The general believed in his project and provided the support needed to prepare it. Besides, Shen wasn’t particularly interested in women, he wasn’t interested in anything but his revenge. In Dublin, armed with Tsunami’s offshore expertise, the oligarchs’ money and avarice, and the Russian ruler’s obsession to rebuild the USSR, the whole brilliant strategy was put in place. Within six months, his Chinese family had disappeared, Lee-Win was acquired, and nothing could stand in the way of the A2 attack.

  Shen flew to London Heathrow on 15 November 2012 as Gyeong Park, then on to Shanghai as Shen Fu Liáng to take up his position as representative of the anonymous new owners on the governing board of Lee-Win Micro-Technology. He quickly imposed his authority and persuaded the other members to create XPC, a new subsidiary, far away from Shanghai, where he could put together the pieces of his plan without it being discovered until it was too late. The Dubai project was approved in March 2013, and by October 2014 it was fully functional and staffed by some of the cleverest brains in the industry. The ACRE encryption-transmission technology conceived by Chongkun Lee-Win was still a work-in-progress, and Shen convinced the board to transfer the development to XPC, with himself as the technical link between the two centres. Tom Connor gave a layer of normality and respectability to the new enterprise, and thanks to the brilliant minds of Scotty Fitzgerald and Sharif Kayani, carefully identified and hired by Shen, ACRE became a reality. The key to realising the five-year plan to rebuild the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

  There had been some casualties along the way. Chongkun had refused to sell his company and a fortuitous accident was required, his own treacherous Chinese family had to be removed to provide the balance of the funds he needed, Scotty Fitzgerald had been too inquisitive, and Leo Stewart had almost ruined everything at the last moment. But he had survived all those threats and emerged victorious. At XPC, he had used Sharif’s expertise to test the trigger command itself. It wasn’t risky, because that was only half the solution. The upgrade had to be deployed via Lee-Win’s Shanghai hub, but the obvious danger was that they would immediately stop the trigger function and the shutdown would be cancelled. A small amount of money was all it took to subvert Hoi Wei, a senior manager in the Shanghai organisation, to do his bidding and no one, not even Elodie, knew his identity. With his accomplice and some help from cyber experts at GRU, he had perfected the hub transfer software that would permit him to maintain the constant triggering until the targeted networks submitted to Russia’s demands. And, most importantly, the attack would appear to come from China.

  Now, at last, the night of the final act had arrived. Five years after conceiving his audacious plan for retribution, Shen Fu Liáng was about to lay the past to rest and start a new life. A new life without that bisexual nymphomaniac, Elodie Delacroix, Tsunami, or whoever she really was. Without the arrogant, amoral so-called oligarchs, and without GRU and Gavrikov or any of the people involved in his scheme. A new life with just his Russian family. Tonight, he would finally find closure.

  Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

  ‘This code is not what we have deployed, so I don’t see why it is relevant to anything. We can all write code that shuts down networks, but we don’t upload it to our customers.’

  The speaker was Han Wang Tāng, who had listened to Leo’s explanations and demonstrations step-by-step, ending with the triggering of the rogue cell, Sector 470, Cell number 887,999. As always, the network had been shut down by the trigger commands. The Chinese had asked for a second demonstration, but Tāng’s reaction was still one of disbelief. It was now almost ten o’clock and he had so far refrained from making any positive comment.

  ‘Han, that cell isn’t in our XPC design, but it’s in your processors. It must have been placed there intentionally, for a purpose. It’s not an accident that it’s there, nor that we’ve discovered this shutdown code.’

  ‘But that means someone has interfered with the production line here in Shanghai.’

  ‘Dead right it does,’ Leo said, relieved to hear this partial acknowledgement at last. ‘Do you know a guy called Hoi Wei?’

  ‘I know him. He’s been with us for about ten years, a loyal and competent man, but not destined for greatness, if I may say. Why do you ask, how do you know his name?’

  Leo produced the printout of the email, ‘Expected Sunday, 12pm’. ‘We found this in the XPC server. It was encrypted, but my friends in South Africa opened it up. It was sent by Shen to hoi.wei@sina.com.’

  ‘What is your interpretation of the message?’

  ‘We figure the A2 trigger code will be sent here from Moscow tonight and this man, Hoi Wei, will deploy it with the Lee-Win signature. The message doesn’t say whether it’s Moscow or Shanghai time, so we don’t know how much time we’ve got to prevent it.’

  ‘I see. That is a very serious accusation.’ Han turned and spoke to his chairman. Bohai Cheong’s eyes flashed and he made a voluble response, gesticulating with his hands.

  Han said nothing, and Leo looked at Junjie, who translated. ‘Mr Cheong cannot believe that anyone would defile the name and reputation of Lee-Win in this way. He says there must be a mistake.’ The other directors nodded their heads in deference to the chairman.

  ‘I understand Mr Cheong’s doubts, it’s hard to believe, but I’ll prove to you there’s no mistake.’ Leo searched his laptop. ‘Take a look at this folder. It’s from the original memory stick given to Sharif Kayani in Dubai last March, by Shen Fu Liáng.’ He turned the screen towards them and opened the A2 file to show the code he’d used for his demonstration, then showed the ‘Properties, Details’ page. ‘See who the author is? Hoi Wei, the same person Shen sent that email to.’ Neither of them looked convinced and he sat back in his chair, wondering what more he could say to get his message through.

  Patrice, who hadn’t yet spoken,
came to his assistance. ‘Gentlemen, Leo flew from Johannesburg and I came from Malaga to Hong Kong at a moment’s notice, then Junjie joined us to fly immediately here to Shanghai. Do you think we would have taken such urgent action if we weren’t convinced of this imminent global cyber-attack? Why do you think Scotty Fitzgerald was murdered and Leo was imprisoned, if not to cover up a major conspiracy? Do you remember that Shen’s Chinese family was wiped out in the plane crash just before Chongkun was killed and Mme Lee-Win sold the company? We are convinced he arranged the crash, so he could inherit the fortune necessary for his share of the purchase. I’m sure you don’t know this, Mr Cheong, but Shen Fu Liáng is one of the owners of your company.’ At this, the Chinese directors looked stunned.

  He continued, ‘Why is General Chillicott, at US Homeland Security, investigating Shen and his partner, Elodie Delacroix, who we believe is a Russian agent called Tsunami, if he’s not convinced of all this? These two people planned this whole conspiracy five years ago, and they are about to execute it in a few hours’ time. Please, gentlemen, you must believe us and act immediately, or the world will be facing a catastrophe.’

  Everyone sat in silence for a few moments, then Cheong turned to Junjie and asked, in perfect English, ‘Do you know for certain who was behind the acquisition of our company from your esteemed mother?’

  ‘I didn’t know until a few hours ago. Leo, show Mr Cheong and Han the message from General Chillicott.’