by Abbott, Jeff
“Have you ever heard of the Shadow Brokers? Or WikiLeaks Vault 7?”
“Uh, no.”
“Those are two very famous releases of cyberwarfare tools, done by hackers. Shadow Brokers released some old NSA—National Security Agency—tools a while back. WikiLeaks Vault 7 release showed how the CIA uses tools to hack everything from web browsers to iPhones to Android phones.” Peter looks at his screen. “But before both of those, there was an earlier leak, about ten years ago, of a program called Dangerzone. It was a CIA hacker tool to remotely scan, download, and activate functions on a laptop. But the CIA said Dangerzone was never deployed. There were problems with it; it was easy to detect. It was a prototype. You understand?”
Grant nods, thinking: the CIA?
“There’s a hidden file on your system called Dangerzone. It looks like it’s been updated or modified and it’s been on your system for a while.”
“Spying on me.”
“Yes. It could have activated your laptop camera, so someone remotely could watch you through it. Or your microphone, so they could hear you. I don’t know if it could infect other systems. Probably it could hide on a flash drive and install itself on the next computer.”
“Why would the CIA want to spy on me?” His camera? His microphone? Has someone been seeing and hearing what all goes on in his room, his den, his kitchen, wherever he has the laptop? The thought is chilling, what a stranger could know about his family and what they’ve done and said.
“Well, I doubt it’s the CIA,” Peter says. “The program, although kind of a dud, was released by a hacker group. Someone took it and updated it and fixed it. What I don’t get is why not change the name? Why leave it ‘dangerzone’ when that’s likely on a list of released hacker tools a cybersecurity expert would know to look for?”
“How do I get it off?”
“I think we have to go to the police.”
“No, Peter, I can’t.”
“Grant.” Peter’s stare on him is no longer the disinterested gaze of the too-cool-for-school loner. “Have you been threatened?”
“No,” he says quickly.
Peter studies him. “I’m going to call the police now.”
“No, you can’t, please, please,” Grant says.
“So you have been threatened?”
“No. I asked you to figure out where the email came from…”
“That. Yeah.” For a moment Peter seems to forget about calling the police. “So here’s what I did. I sent an HTML-formatted email with an image of you in it as a reply—I found a picture on my dad’s computer from the last barbecue we had at your parents’ house. You’re making a face at the camera. I copied the image to a server where I have administrative access at one of Dad’s companies. I sent it to the Gmail address. And I waited. That image is a little trap.”
Grant waits, hoping for an explanation, not sure what it all means. Peter smiles again.
“So our friend the Sender opens the email and the image loads. The Sender’s web browser sent a ‘GET’ request to my web server, trying to pull that image of you. I can check the logs to see the IP address of the Sender because he opened the email—the address of their computer on the internet, not their physical address. You understand?”
Grant nods again.
“So the email got opened. We were lucky. The Sender wasn’t using a virtual private network to obfuscate his or her location.”
“So where is the Sender?”
“I looked up the IP address. Whoever is sending you these emails is in Saint Petersburg, Russia.”
“Who is it?” Grant whispers.
“I used an IP registry to see what company in Saint Petersburg owns the IP address. They’ve not responded yet. They may not. I hear the Russians are not always cooperative. I told them that the person had been contacting a minor, though. That might make a difference. Assuming they even bother to read an email sent in English.”
Grant feels as though he’s been punched in the gut. “I was born near Saint Petersburg… Why would anyone have a CIA spy program on my computer and be sending me this stuff?” Grant’s voice shakes. I’ll have to talk to the police about the bad thing your dad did. What if his infected computer had infected Dad’s laptop? He’d copied something off Dad’s laptop not a month ago. And maybe Dad had something incriminating on his own computer, and now this person knew about it…
“Have you or your parents ever gone back to Russia?” Peter asks.
“No.”
“Did your parents have an enemy there?”
“No.” But…he doesn’t really know that, does he? An enemy? Who has an enemy?
“One other explanation. The CIA has been known to hack bad guys and mislead them into thinking the attack came from Russia. I can’t imagine why, but that’s the other possibility. Do your parents have any ties to the CIA?”
Grant stares at him, trying to wrap his head around the question. “But, Peter, the Sender can’t be in Russia. Someone is leaving stuff for me here, now, in the tree. Money. Jewelry. A hacker in Russia can’t do that. So it has to be a trick.” He tells Peter about the money and the bracelet. He pulls the bracelet from his pocket.
Peter stares at it as if fascinated. Then he hands it back to Grant. “Be careful with that. It looks real.”
“Why would someone do this?” Grant said.
“Don’t know. But let’s set up a trap for them,” Peter says. “Never mind all these high-powered computers. If someone tied to this is here in the neighborhood, let’s just catch them in the act.”
The laptop pings. A new email arriving, from the Gmail address.
“The Sender is emailing you again,” Peter says.
“Should I open it?”
“Live fast,” Peter says.
Grant opens the email: Ask them for the journal. Ask them for the truth.
32
Iris
Iris always faces a challenge when at a school event or neighborhood gathering: people want to talk to her. It’s hard for her to move quickly across a crowd. There’s another fundraiser to discuss, a choir activity requiring parent chaperones, a meeting. Grant and Julia used to roll their eyes and complain about this. Now she gets stopped by people wanting to know how to help Ned, or help Julia, or just ask how she is holding up, or to thank her for the kind words she said about Danielle.
Stepping outside, she sees the Butlers get into a car and drive off. Fine. She’ll give them time to get home. She says her final goodbye and drives back to her house, watching the shadows in this neighborhood that she always thought was her refuge from the world, her safety net.
Then, having figured out which house is the Butlers’ since she knows the neighbors on each side, she walks down and knocks on their front door.
Carrie Butler answers the door. She doesn’t seem surprised to see Iris.
“Mrs. Butler?”
“Mrs. Pollitt,” Carrie Butler says.
“You know who I am.”
“My husband told me your name after your daughter found Danielle.”
“May we talk?”
“What about?”
“That you knew Danielle before you moved here.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Her voice is reedy, thin, but even. Not rattled.
“You got turned down for adoption and you blamed her.”
“Come in,” Carrie Butler says. “I can straighten this out.”
In the silence she could hear a television being muted.
Then the husband, Steve, standing in the foyer’s doorway. He’s holding a gun. Not aimed at her, but pointed at the floor.
“Mrs. Pollitt.” He nods.
Iris stares at the gun. He sets it in a drawer of a table and slides the drawer shut. “It’s for the neighborhood watch. I have duty tonight until 2:00 a.m.”
“I know you mean well,” Iris says, “but you walking around with a gun is going to make people nervous.”
“I saw Danielle. So did you. Someone kil
led her in an incredibly vicious, painful manner. I am not going to let that happen again.”
“You didn’t give a statement to Detective Ponder tonight.” Iris looks at Carrie.
“I’m going in tomorrow to do that.”
“Will you mention your previous business relationship with Danielle?”
“I feel there’s a misunderstanding,” Carrie says. “Danielle was helping us again.”
“What?”
“It’s true we hired her a while back and our applications were rejected.” Steve Butler clears his throat; his pale skin reddens in embarrassment.
Iris thinks: They might not have met an income requirement. Or it might be that they were older than most families that were trying to adopt. All sorts of prejudices, varying from country to country about which kinds of Americans could adopt, but it was down to Danielle to be the unfortunate messenger. It was a side of her job Iris had never appreciated, saying to someone, No, you’re not getting a child. I’m sorry. Crushing all their hopes and aspirations and their future in one heartless moment. What had that been like? What would the reaction be? Accepting heartbreak, or hatred?
She looks for an answer in their faces. Steve is flushed; Carrie seems defiant.
Steve clears his throat again. “I had financial difficulties. I had a gambling problem. It was nothing Carrie did, the responsibility was all mine. I thought once we had a child again, I would stop. I had it backward, of course.” Carrie takes his hand. “It became clear to the authorities in China and Uganda from our financial records that there was an issue, and that’s why we were told no. I’ve been going to therapy and I’m no longer gambling. I’ve got a good job with a software company—I work with Matt Sifowicz; that’s why we were out running together—and we’re stable now. So Danielle said she’d help us. She had a lead on a couple of likely adoption possibilities for us.”
“I didn’t know she had taken you back on as clients.” The old email from Danielle was half the story.
Unless the Butlers were lying.
“Why would you?” Carrie says. “It’s none of your business. Did Danielle normally discuss clients with you?”
“No. And she didn’t discuss this with me. She told a friend. Because she said in an email that you had been terrible to her.”
“So much for confidentiality,” Carrie says. “We were angry. We apologized. She accepted. It’s what grown-ups do.”
“We don’t have room to complain,” Steve says quickly. “Not every consultant would have worked with us after two nations said no. We knew she was the best. We were lucky to have her. I didn’t react well to our rejection and I vented to Danielle. She was right to step away from us. That I apparently scared her or upset her, I’m genuinely sorry for.”
Are they telling the truth? Iris wonders. “And you bought a house near her because…?”
“Are you suggesting we bought a house because we wanted to annoy her if she didn’t take us back on?” Carrie says. “Wow, just wow.”
“We wanted to be in the Lakehaven school system, and we didn’t want to wait until prices went up even more,” Steve says. “This happened to be the house we found. You can understand that.”
Slowly Iris nods. Time to play another card. “Is there anything I can do to be of help? About being an adoptive parent? There are groups, resources. And Danielle’s not here to tell you.” She cuts off her words.
“We don’t need parenting tips,” Carrie says. “We lost our kids. Our son, John, and our daughter, Addie. In a car accident in Dallas, when they were fifteen and seventeen.”
Iris feels a tremble rise up her legs. “I’m very sorry. I’m so sorry.” What was she doing here, preying on these people?
“We wanted to give our love to a child. What was left of it,” Carrie says, and Iris thinks, She’s a walking ghost. She’s hoping a child will bring her back to life.
She cannot imagine what these people have gone through. “Yes. I understand.”
“Can you? You still have your teenagers. A boy and a girl. Just like we did.”
Iris knows no words are adequate. And no words will help ease this woman’s pain. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. I mean, we’ll have a child soon. And that child will be safe. We won’t lose a child again,” Steve Butler says, and now she can see something in his gaze, pain so dark and unknowable, something she doesn’t want to look at. He wipes at his mouth and then she sees it.
Bruises on his knuckles.
A mottling of purple, above and beneath the bone, like someone has struck a pipe against his hand.
She stares at Steve Butler. Wouldn’t it be a good cover story to be one of the first to find the body, while jogging with a coworker who’s an established presence in the neighborhood? And then have your wife claim to have seen a mysterious man come from the direction of your home to Danielle’s? She wonders whose idea it was for the two of them to run that morning.
She thinks of the bruise on Danielle’s tender throat, the broken windpipe, the bright blood on her mouth.
Iris wants out of this house. Now. Now. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she says again. Trying not to look at the bruises. “I’ll leave you to your evening.”
“I’ll see you out,” Carrie says, rising.
Iris steps into the night, Carrie following.
“She mentioned you to me. As one of her success stories,” Carrie says.
Iris turns to face her. “We love our son very much. We’re grateful to her.”
“That man I saw that night, I really can’t be sure which house he might have come from. The color of his coat…it was dark; it was hard to tell. But he was about your husband’s height and build. He skipped the meeting tonight, didn’t he?”
Iris stares at her.
“Memory is such an imprecise thing,” Carrie says. “Tricky. If someone says something bad about one’s family, it can spur one to sharper, more certain memories, can’t it?”
It was a threat. Iris smiles, because she understands threats, and says, “Welcome to the neighborhood. I know we’ll be great friends.” Because you don’t want me as an enemy.
She walks home and she doesn’t look back at Carrie Butler. She sees a sheriff’s car parked in the distance, between the Butler house and her house. Probably to keep an eye on Steve Butler and his troop of volunteer watchdogs.
Kyle is in the driveway, putting out the recycling and trash bins. Tomorrow is pickup day.
“How did it go?” he asks quietly. He doesn’t know about the Butlers. He means the meeting.
Iris doesn’t know how to answer at first, but then the words spill out of her: “If I had been a better friend to her, maybe I would have known what was happening with her. Maybe she needed someone to confide in and that should have been me. To protect our family, I should have been a better friend to her. I know I failed her.”
And then the tears come, hot and sudden, and Kyle encloses her in his arms and she weeps for all that has been lost.
33
From Iris Pollitt’s “From Russia with Love” Adoption Journal
2002
Black SUV, that’s all the few witnesses said. One driver saw it racing away. There were cameras along the highway and the roads, and perhaps they would pick up a damaged SUV making its way into town in the minutes after our crash. We were taken to a hospital and all pronounced fit, except for Feliks, who had a concussion and cuts on his scalp and forehead, and Pavel, who had a broken arm.
I kept thinking about the warning woman in the airport: “Go home.”
Why did anyone care if we got a baby here?
What did we do to anger someone?
The police are polite but not hopeful. Kyle calls the embassy and they send a young woman to translate for us.
“Do you think you were targeted? Was the car following you?” the embassy woman translated as the police asked us questions. One of the officers looked at us as though we were hysterical Americans, imagining a conspiracy.
“Yes,” I said and “No,” Danielle said.
There was discussion then, and one of the officers shook his head sadly.
“There is a lot of drunk driving on that road,” the embassy woman said. “It is regrettable.”
“We are adopting a Russian infant and I think we were targeted,” I said, and Danielle said something in Russian to the police.
“Not everyone approves of foreign adoption,” the embassy worker said, “but we’ve never had parents targeted.”
“Well, you do now,” I said, and Kyle put a hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off.
No one saw a license plate of the other car, and so we would have to rely on the police checking body shops or the security cameras on the streets catching the damaged vehicle.
We went back to the hotel. The two hours with Sasha had been so wonderful, even with him sick. With my embarrassing scene at the orphanage and the crash, the day felt ruined. I wouldn't let it. We met our son today. I would not let these unfortunate moments cloud this day.
“What the hell is going on here?” Kyle said as we sat down at the lobby bar. We ordered glasses of red wine. My nerves felt shattered.
“That woman in the airport doesn’t seem so unbelievable now, does she? We were warned to go home. And then this.”
“Maybe we go home,” Kyle said, looking at me. “And we don’t come back.”
So much for “See you soon, son.”
No Sasha to become Grant. No. No. I would not be scared off and I could not believe Kyle, my brave, smart Kyle, would consider backing down.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“I’ll let you talk,” Danielle said. She gulped her wine down.
“Wait. If we back out, do we get any of the money back?” Kyle asked her. I took refuge in a long sip of French pinot noir.
“From the Russians? No. I’ll do what I can with GAC given the situation. But you have no proof you’ve been targeted. None.” Danielle’s voice wasn’t strident, but she seemed out of her depth. “Look, it wasn’t that long ago that Saint Petersburg was considered the crime capital of Russia. Foreigners were often targeted. You want to find a rich foreigner? Go to an orphanage and follow a car from there. Or someone at the orphanage doesn’t like the gift you gave them and calls a friend and tells them when you’re leaving. People have been run off the road before and robbed. The idea that anyone objects that you two specifically are adopting a child is garbage.” Danielle set down her glass, exhausted. “I’m sorry. We’ve just never had this issue.” She looked at me. “I know you love that child, Iris. I could see it. All I’ve wanted to do, for you and every family, is to bring you together. To give these kids a future and to give you a child to love.” Her voice broke.
