by Tom Clancy
Gavin picked up his sandwich. Before taking a bite he said, “So . . . you know how they did it. Does that help you figure out who did it?”
“Not really. But the target selection does. I’d say this was someone working on behalf of the Islamic State. Why they picked her specifically, I have no idea.”
Gavin shook his head. “But ISIS didn’t steal this OPM data. That’s so far out of their abilities it’s not even a consideration.”
Jack said, “Well, Vadim Rechkov didn’t steal the OPM data, either. But this incident looks like it came from the intel leak Rechkov used. I’m thinking the entity who stole the OPM data and built a targeting package on Scott Hagen did the same thing for Barbara Pineda, only this time he gave his targeting package to ISIS.”
Jack added, “He’s a one-stop shop. He’s got the intel and the means to exploit it.”
Gavin said, “These are two very different skill sets involved. Makes me think this isn’t one guy. It’s a group working in concert.”
Jack considered what Gavin was saying. “You’re right. We’ve been thinking the hack was some government actor. But social engineering of this type, using open-source intelligence to determine patterns, that’s what you see in the criminal sector.”
“What do you mean?” Gavin asked, surprised at the statement.
“Getting passwords, identity theft, stuff like that. Sounds like cybercrime. Not cyberwarfare.”
“Yeah . . . you’re right. But whoever did this, it wasn’t some teenager calling customer service lines to trick call center employees into giving out passwords. Like I said, this targeting data is top-notch investigatory work.”
“Agreed,” Jack said. “It was someone first-rate. A criminal or a criminal organization able to scoop up this classified intel, and to exploit it. So . . . where would you go to find the best in the world at that?”
Biery shrugged. “Some places are known for cybercrime. The Russians are great. Central Europeans, too. There’s a group in Taiwan stealing identities all over the world, but they haven’t gone after secure government databases. North Korea pretty much sucks at it, but they try . . . a lot. Hell, even here in the U.S. there is a robust cybercrime problem. You could find some criminal organization in any one of these places and see the skills to expand the raw intel by social engineering and open-source investigations, but how did they get the data in the first place? And why? Why would a private company do this, when there are banks to hack, credit card records to exploit? Individuals to rip off on a large scale. All the easy money for them.”
Jack said, “What if one of these private companies was doing the bidding of a nation. An enemy of the U.S.”
Gavin nodded quickly. “Yeah, that does happen, but usually on a smaller scale. Some nations’ intel agencies contract with existing criminal hacking concerns, often based outside of their own borders, to do the dirty work. The company tries to penetrate our systems on behalf of their client. China does it all the time. They work with private hackers all over the world to try to raid American government networks. Sometimes they even get something out of it.” He took another bite of his turkey sandwich. “But in this case, since we have different types of targets being compromised, it sure doesn’t look like China is involved. I mean, why would China be involved with the Russian kid? Why the hell would Beijing use him as a proxy assassin against a Navy captain?”
Jack said, “I can’t answer that. But the U.S. government is looking for the state actor. What do you say we start digging into the cybercrime aspect of this? We can research organizations, study the criminal groups who have been particularly successful. Is there something more small-scale we can do to look for fingerprints of the criminals?”
Gavin shrugged. “Like I said, we need to figure out the why to figure out the who.”
“Would the private company sell off the data to the highest bidder?”
Gavin made a face. “Shit. I wouldn’t. That would be suicide. Evil Hacking Company Inc. doesn’t know who it’s working on behalf of, because of all the cutouts between themselves and the state actor, right?”
“Right,” agreed Jack.
“But the state actor is the one who hired Evil Hacking Company Inc., so they know exactly who they are.”
“Of course,” Jack said, then connected the dots Gavin placed. “Which means, if Evil Hacking Company Inc. decided to sell the data it stole on behalf of the Russians, for example, the Russians would be pissed, and they would just fly to Bangalore or Singapore or wherever and start killing off the senior staff of the company.”
Gavin said, “Or tip off the USA about who just stole all their data.”
“Right,” Jack said. “The state actor would have put a lot of time, money, and risk into this op, they aren’t going to let anyone screw them over and survive.”
Gavin deadpanned, “We computer hackers are a stalwart bunch, but we aren’t the types brave enough to go toe-to-toe with Chinese assassins.”
Jack smiled, even though he felt further from a solution that he did before. Suddenly, though, another thought came to him. “What if someone stole data from the ones who stole the data?”
“You lost me.”
“What if . . . what if the private enterprise who snatched the OPM data for the state actor got ripped off? Another company stole it out from under them, or a pissed-off employee who works for them decides he wants to make money selling off the exploited files.”
Gavin said, “Possible.” He thought for a moment more. “Honestly, you might be onto something. It’s as good a theory as any for why so many different types of bad actors are apparently abusing the same data, which looks to be pilfered on behalf of a government.”
Jack rubbed his eyes. His head hurt from thinking this through. “If somebody did swipe the files, how would they go about selling them off to Iran, Indonesia, a private Russian citizen, ISIS, and whoever the hell else? Could they really reach out individually to just the right person in each government without getting exposed for what they were doing?”
Gavin said, “Sorry, Ryan . . . can’t help you there. I’m the computer guy. That’s spy shit.” He laughed to himself. “I’m not aware of an eBay for spies.” He laughed at his own humor, but he did not laugh for long.
“Unless.”
Jack cocked his head. “Unless?”
“I mean . . . If you want to sell something illicit, you do it on the dark web.”
“That’s for like drugs and stuff, right?”
“It’s a safe way to conduct business between two parties without knowing who the other party is. If I were a thief who’d ripped off the criminal enterprise I worked for, screwed over a very dangerous state actor in the process, and wanted to make money by dealing with terrorist groups, organized crime, and other nasty state actors out there . . . I’m not placing an ad in The Wall Street Journal with my office address. I’m going to the dark web. I can open up my own little marketplace there, trade in Bitcoin with a Bitcoin hopper so that there is no way I can possibly be traced.”
Jack felt a tingle in his spine. He was onto something solid, he knew it. “Awesome, Gavin! Let’s go to the dark web and start hunting for this marketplace! Maybe there will be some clues into who is behind this whole thing.”
Now Gavin gave Jack Ryan, Jr., a disappointed look. Jack had received this look from Gavin Biery many times in his years working at The Campus.
Gavin said, “Some days I think I’ve trained you well. Then you go and say something so dumb I don’t even know why I bother hanging around you.”
Jack was used to Gavin’s style of admonishment. He didn’t take it personally, because he knew Gavin had spent his life with his head hunched over a keyboard, and social skills had never been his thing. “What did I say?” Jack asked.
“You don’t spend a lot of time on the dark web, do you?”
To that question, Jac
k asked, “And you do?”
“Hey, man. I do my job around here; it sends me down some creepy alleys. Anyway, you don’t search on the dark web. You have to have a specific address to type in to find something, and that’s how you get there.”
Jack said, “I get it. You don’t look. You are invited.”
“Exactly.”
“Oh,” said Jack, realizing for the first time that he had no idea how this worked.
Gavin leaned close and whispered to him. “That’s why they call it ‘dark.’” He was being a smartass, but Jack ignored it.
“So . . . If we have to get an invitation, then it’s hopeless finding the bad guy this way.”
“Not necessarily. What if we were able to hack into someone who our thief was in communications with? Maybe that way we could get information on how to see what he had to sell.”
“How the hell do we do that?”
Gavin looked down at his computer. “We don’t know who he talked to when he made contact with the Iranians, the Indonesians, the North Koreans, or the Islamic State.”
Jack understood. “But the Russian guy! Vadim Rechkov. He wasn’t aligned with anyone, as near as we can tell. He had his own personal axe to grind with his target.” Jack thought another moment. “And there is another way he doesn’t fit the mold.”
“What’s that?” Gavin asked.
“Money. All the other actors presumably could pay for the intel they were given. But Rechkov was a nobody. Not even working.”
Gavin was intrigued by this. “Very true. Why do you think he was given the data if he couldn’t pay for it like the Iranians and the others?”
Jack said, “Maybe Vadim Rechkov was someone the actual thief knew, or knew about, at least. For some reason, he gave Rechkov a freebie.”
His shoulders slumped a little now. “But I’m sure the FBI is looking into this already. They’ll have investigators taking apart Rechkov’s life and poring over his communications with everyone.”
Gavin brushed this away with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, but there’s something you aren’t considering.”
“What’s that?”
“Even though Rechkov is a piece of shit, and a murderer, and dead, and a foreigner overstaying his visa, the Feds will have to get court orders and everything signed off on before they even look under his doormat. Every step of the way the FBI will have to deal with the bureaucracy that will slow them down.”
Jack said, “But we don’t.”
“Nope, which means by the end of today we can potentially be further along in knowing who gave Rechkov the intel about Commander Hagen than the Feds who have been working on this the past two weeks.” Gavin smiled a little. “Unless you too are concerned about protecting the late Vadim Rechkov’s privacy by jumping through all the legal hoops the Feds have to go through.”
Jack looked at Gavin like he was insane. “Screw Rechkov. He’s a dead asshole, let’s crack open his life and see what falls out. If it can help us find who is behind this leak, and save others, I don’t give a damn.”
Gavin said, “Works for me.” He thought for a moment. “It’s safe to assume the person who passed Rechkov the intel about Hagen was a computer guy. Rechkov himself was a computer guy. I’ll see what message boards Rechkov hung out on, stuff like that.”
“Where will you get that info?”
“The FBI forensic team has his computer. I’ll get Gerry to ask Dan Murray for their findings. What’s the time frame we are working with here on the Rechkov attack?”
Jack thought about this. “Rechkov’s brother was killed, and seven months later he went after Hagen. Somewhere after the first event, and before the second event, the leaker made contact with Rechkov.” Ryan looked over the data he had on the Hagen case on his computer. Then he said, “Rechkov started moving from Portland to Princeton four days before he acted, so it happened before then.”
Gavin was looking at his own information on the case now. “Hagen’s sister booked the hotel rooms five weeks out from the trip. Before that, how would the leaker know to tell Rechkov that Hagen would be in Princeton, New Jersey?”
Gavin said, “I’m going to do some research on Rechkov’s online and e-mail activity in this roughly four-and-a-half-week time window. Maybe it will be a dry hole, but just maybe we’ll strike oil.”
29
Two members of Abu Musa al-Matari’s Fairfax cell rolled into the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, just after eight p.m. Even though cell leader David Hembrick wasn’t with them, the men followed instructions he had given them, and they proceeded directly to coordinates programmed into their vehicle’s GPS.
Namir drove while Karim sat in the front passenger seat, his Uzi down between his knees in a gym bag.
They obeyed the traffic laws to stay out of any trouble, but as long as they kept their weapons hidden they knew they had little to worry about. Karim was Egyptian by birth, but he’d become a U.S. citizen at the age of eighteen. Now, at twenty-five, he was a college graduate with a degree in international studies, and he worked part-time as a waiter in a restaurant just outside Landover, Maryland. He paid taxes and he kept his documentation in order, and there was no reason for anyone around here to be suspicious of him.
Namir was born in the United States to Lebanese parents, he was a citizen and a high school graduate, and, like Karim, he’d been radicalized over the past few years by watching ISIS propaganda and slowly moving from mosque to mosque around the D.C. area, seeking out the most conservative teachings. They’d both found the same mullah in Baltimore, a man who’d directed them to an online ISIS recruiter promising them the peace and eternal bliss they would never find living in the belly of sin that was America.
They’d never met before the Language School in El Salvador, a testament to the mullah’s ability to compartmentalize his recruits in case one was ever rolled up by the FBI.
But now they were here, on their first mission. The other three had remained up in Fairfax County; the day before fellow cell members Ghazi and Husam had killed the DIA woman and were now back at the safe house, but Karim and Namir were told by David Hembrick that he had confidence in them, and the two of them could handle the Fayetteville assignment as a team.
The GPS took them down a middle-class residential street called Lemont Drive, lined with small 1960s-era homes set back on flat full-acre properties. There seemed to be at least one pickup truck in every driveway or carport, and U.S. flags adorned flagpoles in many of the front yards.
Namir was driving, and he also had his phone live-broadcasting video from his front breast pocket. He knew Mohammed would be watching the feed right now, so he was extra careful to do everything correctly.
“Very slowly,” said Karim as he scanned for the address he was looking for.
“Not too slowly,” replied Namir, as he kept the speedometer around ten miles per hour. “We don’t want to draw attention.”
“Yes, well, turning around if we miss it will draw attention, too.”
“Yes, yes,” said Namir, but he did not slow down.
The house was on the left, halfway up the street, and they almost did miss it, but they did not slow when they passed. A white Ford F-150 sat parked in the drive just outside the carport, and a bearded man in a dirty gray T-shirt and jeans climbed out of the driver’s side. In one hand he carried a bag of fast food and an extra-large soda, and in the other was a mobile phone; he was talking on the phone.
“Is that him?”
“I don’t know. He does not have the beard in the photograph.”
“It’s him. American commandos wear beards. They think they blend in when fighting in the caliphate.”
By now they had passed the yard, as well as the next property. “What are you doing?” Karim asked.
“I am turning around. You should shoot him before he gets in the house.”
Karim pulle
d the Uzi out of the bag.
“No. The AK. Use the AK.” Namir pulled into a driveway to turn back around, speeding up his movements.
“Why not the Uzi?”
“He is big. We are too far away. Use the AK.”
Karim put the Uzi down between his legs, grabbed the black AK-103 from between the seats and hefted it. He switched the selector from semiautomatic to fully automatic, he rolled down his window halfway, and rested the polymer hand guard of the weapon below the barrel on the glass of the partially opened window.
Karim said, “Hurry, now. Don’t let him get inside.”
“Yes, yes!”
—
Mike Wayne was dog-ass tired after a thirty-six-hour land-nav training evolution, and the smell of his own BO almost made him want to take a shower before he ate his chicken sandwich and fries.
Almost. He hadn’t eaten anything since the power bar he’d downed around noon, so he’d shovel some shitty fast food into his mouth as soon as he got inside to his kitchen table.
He hung up from his call with his sister and pocketed his cell phone, and walked to the carport door of his modest home. He fumbled with his dinner and the keys for a second, then put the key in the lock. Just as he turned the knob, out of the corner of his eye he saw a gray SUV pull up in front of his driveway and stop.
But before he even turned to check it out, he heard an unmistakable sound, one he’d last heard two weeks earlier on the Syrian–Turkish border.