"But we aren't in this for the money," I said. "We need the target's name, and we want to — "
"Finn! Stop it. Thinking like that could get us killed. If they get an inkling that we aren't in this for the money, we'll lose before we even get started. Besides, why not pick up a few million dollars? Money's money. I've already spent too much of my life broke. This is my kind of deal; let me do it, okay?"
"Sure." I ground my teeth, but I didn't say anything else. I didn't know much about Mary's finances. She never seemed to worry about money, and she made a lot back when she was freelancing. At least I thought she did. Maybe she was still trying to build financial security. This deal would give her plenty of liquidity, and she was probably right about the danger of appearing too eager.
"Aaron?" she asked.
"Yes?"
"Any comments from your end?"
"No, ma'am. This is your show. Just keep me up to speed."
"Okay. I'll start the process. We'll call as soon as anything changes."
"Good enough. If I hear anything before you call me, I'll let you know."
"Sorry," I said, once the call was disconnected. "I didn't mean to second-guess you."
"Sorry I snapped at you, especially in front of Aaron. I should have shared my thoughts with you first. I'm a little antsy about this deal. Besides, I've always been solo when I was doing this kind of thing. I'll be better about sharing."
"Don't worry about it. Are you going to use the satellite hotspot to connect to the drop you use with the broker?"
"No. I still want to keep the hotspot private. There's public Wi-Fi in the anchorage; I'll use that and a VPN. Besides, the server for the blind drop provides end-to-end encryption."
"Okay," I said, watching as she took out the laptop and booted it up.
"I'll counteroffer $10 million, with a $7 million down payment and 90 days to complete. I'll propose we forfeit $3 million if we don't meet the 90-day completion date. We'll probably end up with something between their offer and mine. Sound okay?"
"Like you said, it's your game. Go for it."
Mary typed out her proposal and shared it with me. "I want you to proof it before I upload it."
"It looks okay, I guess. I don't have any experience with this; you're the one who's done it before."
"Yes, but I've never counter-offered. Is my wording clear?"
"It's clear to me, but I — " I was interrupted by a ping from Mary's iPhone. It was still on from when we used it to place the call to Aaron earlier.
Mary picked it up. "I just got a text."
She keyed in her passcode and turned the phone so we could both see it.
Unable to deliver the flowers you ordered recently. Please confirm this is the correct email address for your account, and we will send you the details. [email protected]
"Flowers?"
"It's a coded message from my broker. Something's wrong; this is an emergency fallback message."
"What do you need to do?"
"That email address will be another blind drop. I need to log in there and check the drafts folder."
"What about a password?"
"It's prearranged — a numeric string — the six-digit date of my last hit followed by the amount of the fee to the nearest thousand dollars. She and I both know that, but nobody else could guess it."
"Has this ever happened before?"
"No. She set this up when I first started working with her. It's meant to be used if we can't communicate using our regular drop."
"How long have you been using the regular drop?"
"Several years, but she changes the email account and password every three months, or after each hit."
"How did she let you know?"
"By leaving a draft email in the blind drop we were using, telling me about the new one. I don't like this; this whole deal felt wrong to begin with."
"Because of the price?"
"Partly. But the rhythm of the exchanges seemed off, too — the timing, I mean. Looking back on it, the wording of the messages wasn't quite the same as usual, but I put that down to the offer itself being odd, you know?"
"I'll take your word for it," I said.
She turned to the laptop and began typing. I wedged myself in beside her and read over her shoulder as she opened the message that was waiting in the new email drop.
Respond here at once to let me know you got the text. The drop we were using has been compromised. Do not log on to it again. I set an alert on this drafts folder, so as soon as you respond, I'll know. Please stay connected. I'll be right with you. We need to deal with this quickly.
Mary typed, Got the text; got the message. Standing by online.
She deleted the broker's draft email and filed her response in the drafts folder. Within a minute, a new draft appeared in the folder and the one Mary just put there was deleted. She opened the new draft.
I've been traveling and just returned to find a suspicious activity report about our last blind drop account. I wasn't monitoring it since you put yourself in an inactive status a few months ago, but apparently somebody's been using it for the last few days. Since I got the report, I've been unable to access the old account. Someone changed the password. If you know anything about this, tell me now, please.
Mary closed that file and deleted it from the drafts folder. Opening a new draft, she began to type. The first message I received regarding a contract offer assigned a new password for me to use on my next login. I thought you were changing it for some reason. She continued, providing the new password for the old account and a summary of the offer she received and her worries about the reference to the O'Hanlons. She read it over and then filed it in the drafts folder.
"Damn," she said. "What do you suppose is going on?"
"I don't know. How many people work with her?"
"I'm not sure. I told you about the first contact that I had with the woman I was pretty sure was a lawyer. And that woman was the same one who put me in touch with that shrink in Gainesville after my first few hits. So that's two people who know at least something about the broker. Beyond those two, I have no idea. I pictured her working alone, isolating herself for her own safety, just like I did."
"Right. I was just curious to know if she had any office staff, or IT support. Wondering how a hacker got into your business."
"Yeah, me too. There's her reply; let's see what she said." Mary clicked on the new file in the drafts folder.
I don't know anything about that. The person posing as me must have hacked into our drop and changed the password to lock me out. I suggest you proceed with utmost caution; we know nothing about this person. It could be anybody, including someone in law enforcement. Odd that the hacker knew about the O'Hanlon business. That would have been a red flag for me. If a potential client said something like that, I would have ended the interaction immediately. That tells me that the hacker knows who you are. All of my other blind drops are still secure; this attack appears to be targeted at you. You didn't somehow lose your password, did you? Are you active again? I haven't offered you anything, based on our last exchange.
Mary deleted the message and began typing. I'm not looking for work. I found what I thought was your first message about a contract in the old drop. I responded because it said the client asked for me personally, using the O'Hanlon reference. I wondered why you were making the offer, but the O'Hanlon comment made me think this might be related to other things I'm doing. Is there any way you can backtrack and find out more about the supposed client? What should I do about the offer? Should I respond? If so, how? I've already stalled for a few days. I'm worried that if I decline, there may be repercussions, given that this person may know who I am.
"What do you think, Finn? Should I post this, or edit it?"
I read it over carefully. "You don't want to share our plan, right?"
"No, I don't."
"Just checking; I didn't know how far you trusted her."
"Not that far. Did I give away t
oo much?"
"Maybe. I would delete the part that says, '…but the O'Hanlon comment made me think this might be related to other things I'm doing.' She'll wonder what other things you're doing, and you don't want to tell her."
"No, I don't, but I felt like I needed to explain why I responded to begin with, since she knows I'm not looking for work."
"Yes, I see that. But the less you tell her, the better, at least until we decide what to do about the offer. It's a damn good thing she sent that text when she did."
"Timing's everything." Mary deleted the sentence. "Now should I post it?"
"I think it's okay to post with that change."
Mary saved the file to the drafts folder. In less than a minute, it was deleted. A few seconds later, a new draft appeared, and Mary opened it.
Obviously, I didn't make this offer. I knew you weren't working. I have somebody trying to find the source of the breach, but they aren't hopeful. I have nothing to offer beyond what I've already told you, but I suggest you don't log into the old drop without letting me know. Continued contact with the unknown hacker is too risky. Let's see what my security person discovers. Meanwhile, be careful. I'll advise by posting here as soon as I know more. You do the same if anything changes on your end. I'm dropping off now to get this info to my security consultant.
Mary deleted the draft and logged off. Closing the laptop, she looked over at me. "Now what?"
"We need to call Aaron," I said.
"Before we do, I'm not comfortable with his SWIFT hacker monitoring my account now. You think it would be okay for me to close it?"
"What if we decide to go ahead with the contract?"
"I have other accounts. What I'll do is close that one and open another one at the same bank; it only takes one email. It's almost automatic. I would have done that anyway, once the payment hit."
"Let's tell Aaron first, so we don't embarrass him. I don't know what kind of relationship he has with that guy."
"Fair enough. You ready to call him?"
"Sure." I picked up the burner phone and pressed the green button.
9
"Finn?" Aaron's voice came from the speaker of the throwaway cellphone.
"Yes, and Mary. We have a problem."
"Tell me."
Mary gave him the details of her recent exchange with the broker. "Glad she caught us before I stepped into it, whatever it is."
"No kidding. Did she give you anything else?"
"She has somebody trying to trace the hacker, but she's not hopeful. That's it. You don't sound surprised."
"Just good at covering it. I was braced for almost anything, but not this. What's next?"
"No reflection on your SWIFT guru, but I'm going to close that numbered account. I'm worried about how the hacker got into that blind drop; I don't know what else may be exposed. I need to cover my tracks."
"I don't blame you. Thanks for letting me know. I'll tell him we're pulling back for the moment. That's no big deal; he's used to fluid situations."
"Okay, good. Thanks, Aaron."
"Sure. You're welcome. You want me to snoop on that blind drop?"
"The broker's already got somebody looking into it. Won't the two of you trip over each other?"
"Not the way we'll go about it from this end. All I need is the email address. I won't even touch that account, so whoever she's using won't know we're looking."
"Don't you need the password?"
"No. Just the email address. Remember, we have access to tools your average hacker or security consultant doesn't even know about. We'll be combing the ether for historical traffic that included the email address, looking for anybody who typed it into a browser. I'll filter out your stuff. What we'll be left with is the hacker or your broker. We'll pick up what her security expert's doing, too, but we can eliminate that based on the timing."
"But it's an encrypted account, Aaron. You won't be able to read the contents without logging into the account, will you?"
"Not if it's encrypted, but we don't need to read the contents. We already know what was in the messages. We're looking for the sources of traffic."
Mary and I sat staring at one another, not saying anything. After several seconds, Aaron broke the silence.
"Finn? Mary? You there?"
"Yeah, just stunned," I said. "I didn't know you could do that; it sounds daunting. That's worse than looking for a needle in a haystack."
"Tell me about it," Aaron said. "That's what computers are for. I'll be borrowing some processing power from the NSA."
"They still let you do that?" I asked.
"They never did let us do that. What they don't know can't hurt them. Besides, our tax dollars paid for their toys. It's only fair that we get to play with them when they're not looking."
"I have a question," Mary said.
"Ask."
"Why couldn't you have done this earlier, when we were puzzling over who the client might be?"
"Because we thought only you and the broker were accessing that email account. Now we know it was you and the hacker."
"Oh. So, you could use this to find the broker, then? Or me?"
"Yes, if we needed to find either of you. Keep in mind, it's not going to give us a name and mailing address. Chances are good that the trail will end at a VPN. We may or may not be able to get beyond that."
"I thought VPNs were impenetrable," I said.
"Theoretically, but nothing is impenetrable if you have enough processing power to deal with huge amounts of data. When you use a VPN, your communications with the VPN are encrypted. We look at who was connected to the VPN and match up the timing of the packets between the sources and the VPN and the destination account and the VPN. It's not perfect, but if there's enough traffic, it will give us a good idea of where the user was."
"Just thinking about that gives me a headache," I said. "How long will that take?"
"It's hard to say — too many variables. I should get to work on it right away. You got anything else?"
"What about Mike and Bob?" Mary asked. "Any news on them?"
"Nothing's changed there," Aaron said. "We have no idea where Mike is, and Bob has dropped out of sight since I called him the other day. The contact number that I used to reach him has been disconnected."
"You tried to call him again?"
"No. We were monitoring activity related to that number he was using. It disappeared from all the network databases not long after I spoke with him."
"Could somebody besides Bob have caused that?" I asked.
"Anything's possible. But the most likely cause is that he ordered it disconnected. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything new. Call me if the broker comes up with anything."
"Good enough," I said.
We disconnected the call, and Mary said, "I want to close that account now."
She opened the laptop and fired off an email. "There. I feel a little better, but listening to Aaron talk about all that snooping makes me nervous."
"Me, too."
"You sleepy, sailor?"
"No ma'am. Not me. How about you?"
She turned off the light and put her arms around me by way of an answer.
I lay still, all senses on high alert. Mary was asleep, her head on my shoulder. I wasn't sure what awakened me, so I stayed immobile, listening, isolating the sounds of the boat. The wind was gusty, blowing much harder than normal. A flash of lightning penetrated my half-open eyes, followed by the crack of thunder. A thunderstorm — not an intruder.
Satisfied that we were alone, I opened my eyes fully and gently slipped my shoulder from under Mary's head. Since I was awake, I decided to check on the boats around us and make sure none were dragging their anchors in the storm. I rolled out of the berth and stood up, only to stagger when Island Dream suffered an impact on her bow.
I peered out the forward portlight toward the lights of Deshaies and saw the stern of a modern powerboat a few feet off our starboard bow. Seaduction was her name. That fit
the boat's style, all right. Mary and I saw it arrive and idle through the anchorage as we were about to go to sleep. It anchored about a hundred yards off our bow, and two men launched a RIB, going ashore at the town dock. Seaduction was racy-looking, about 45 feet long — one of those boats that looked like a cross between a giant running shoe and a rocket ship.
As I watched, the boat swung again, its stern bumping our starboard bow. There was no sign of life aboard; the crew must be asleep, unaware that their anchor wasn't holding. I scrambled up on deck, pulling two pneumatic fenders from our cockpit locker on my way to the foredeck.
I sat on our toe rail and put my feet on the speedboat, shoving it away and wedging a fender between the two boats. I tied the fender to our lifelines and moved aft a few feet, repeating the process. The storm was petering out, fortunately. I got to my feet and turned around in time to see Mary coming, our boat hook in her hands.
"They're oblivious," she said, handing me the ten-foot-long aluminum pole that ended with a hook used to snag a line to pull it aboard.
I banged the butt of the boathook against the side of the powerboat several times, but nobody responded. I tried again. "Guess they're out for the count."
"Or maybe they're ashore."
"What time is it?" I asked.
"I don't know." Mary pointed at the town. "Looks like the restaurants and bars are still open. It can't be too late. What do you want to do?"
"I'll go aboard and let out a little more anchor rode so they'll lie alongside us. We'll just tie them off to us, for now. Our anchor's solid."
"Be careful." Mary took two dock lines from our cockpit locker and handed them to me before I climbed down onto the swim platform at the other boat's stern.
I banged on the stern with my fist, calling, "Anybody aboard?"
When there was no answer after a few seconds, I opened the gate in the transom and stepped up into the cockpit. That's when I heard the thumping sound. It was rhythmic but muffled, coming from up forward somewhere. I dropped the dock lines and tried the sliding glass doors that opened from the cockpit into the boat's main saloon.
Killers and Keepers Page 7