by D. B. Goodin
“We will confiscate all digital assets,” Natasha told Jake.
“Wha—” the boy said.
“Stand back, son,” John said.
With John’s help, Natasha gathered the rest of the equipment, carried it outside, and put it in the trunk of her car.
“Why did we take all that stuff?” John asked once they were both back in the car.
“That boy was Jake, the one who hurt Nigel, and he has powerful equipment that is helping to destabilize our infrastructure, for starters.” Natasha glanced back at Cassidy and Milo. “Now, let’s see if Ellen is okay,” she said.
Just as she put the car into gear, she noticed a man walking toward Jake’s house. He was well dressed in a large overcoat and was wearing a fedora. Is that—Viktor?
Natasha put the car back into park and stepped out.
“Privyet, Viktor.”
The man turned around with a startled look on his face. “Natasha?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I would ask you the same question. Who is in the car with you?”
“Are you here to see the kid?”
“The boss sent me!” Viktor said. “I was sent to scare the person causing trouble for the Colossal Machine.”
Natasha knew what that meant; he was here to eliminate Jake.
“I took care of the problem. Tell Alexei that I will contact him soon. You don’t have to take care of anyone, understand?”
“Da.”
Viktor started walking back to his car. Natasha waited a long time before driving away.
“What was that about?” John asked.
“Nothing,” she replied flatly.
Natasha was silent as she drove through the heavy snow. The normally twenty-minute drive across town was turning into an hour, the sun was setting, and visibility was getting worse by the minute. Natasha didn’t have a good feeling as she came closer to Ellen’s signal.
“John, see if you can call Ellen again.”
John dialed Ellen’s number. “Nothing!” he replied. “I’m getting a fast busy. I think our coverage is spotty, or service is being disrupted by the snow.”
Natasha had to stop short of hitting a barricade that was set up in the middle of the road. Several officers were standing behind the makeshift structure.
“You will turn around,” the officer said, approaching Natasha’s window.
“Why is the road closed?” Natasha looked ahead. There were flashing lights from a lot of vehicles ahead. “Our friend was on this road. We’re trying to locate her.”
The officer gave Natasha a concerned look.
“There was a bad accident here—at least forty or fifty cars. We have already taken most victims to local hospitals, but we are still trying to cut people out of other vehicles.” The officer pointed at the side of the road. “I need you to turn around now.”
“Didn’t you hear me? Our friend is in that pileup, and we haven’t been able to reach her. Can you tell me where they are taking the wounded?”
“Most of the wounded were taken to Milford General. They took others to Mercy, several miles down the highway. With conditions worsening, I doubt you can check them both.”
“Can you check to see where our friend is?”
“I don’t have that information. I’m sorry.”
John motioned for the officer. He lowered his voice.
“Hey, I’m a former Special Agent. Appleton of the FBI. My girlfriend is in that mess. Are you sure that you can’t tell me anything else?”
The man looked around, and then said quietly, “The accident is suspicious—two vehicles were . . . placed on the road. A mound of snow covered them. As if . . . someone had covered the vehicles using a dump truck of snow.”
“Thank you, officer,” John replied with a look of concern.
“I hope your friend is okay,” the officer said before walking off.
Natasha turned the car around.
Alexei received a status update from Viktor: Target neutralized, but the bad actor cannot be harmed. It came via the secure connection on the Pretzelverse App.
I need more details, Viktor, please call me, Alexei wrote.
Alexei waited a long time, but he didn’t receive an answer. It was getting late, and Viktor was several time zones behind him. It was going to be a long night.
Alexei pulled up the weather forecast for the eastern United States; it looked like it was getting hammered by a snowstorm.
“Sasha, get in here,” Alexei barked over the internal intercom that was connected to all rooms of the cottage.
Several minutes later, Sasha entered Alexei’s office.
“What is the latest status on the breaches to the Colossal Machine?” Alexei asked.
“There are multiple points of entry,” Sasha replied. “Viktor’s physical presence in the United States stabilized one of the breaches. But more are present.”
“We need to plug them all without taking down the entire network. We don’t have the staff to bring it back up.”
“We need more help. Do you have any more technical resources you can give me?”
“No technical ones, but I may have others.” Alexei then sent a message to Natasha. He didn’t want to bother her on holiday, but this was an “all-hands-on-deck” situation, and he needed as much help as possible.
After a few hours of no contact, Alexei finally turned in for the evening. He would need all his wits in the morning.
Chapter 5
Based on network flow traffic, Nigel traced the origin of the IP address that he had identified to the suspected attacker. Time to see who you are! he thought.
He performed a scan of the source system. It was running an operating system (OS) that he was familiar with: an open source version of Ninex, a popular hacker OS. The problem was that more scans would be necessary to determine which flavor of software distribution the intruder was using. The more he knew about it, the more effective he would be at taking down its defenses as well as combating it. He opened his Datasploit program. He was in the habit of updating it regularly so it should have all the latest vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits. The zero-day exploits were the most valuable: they contained vulnerabilities that even the OS developers did not know about yet.
Nigel filtered his scanning results. The suspected intruder was using Ninex KL version 2019.4, which was good news, because 2019.5 had been released just a day ago. He needed to trace down the person responsible for these attacks, but his head started bobbing. How long has it been since I slept? He wondered, but he didn’t know. He needed to inform Jet of this development. Nigel crafted a secure encrypted message with a packet trace file and then sent it to her. He would try to get a few hours’ sleep before he resumed.
Newport was like any other tourist town; it enjoyed tourism in the summer, and during the winter the 1 percent kept the city coffers stuffed. Jet’s father, Mitch, had abruptly moved the family to Newport less than a month ago. To Jet, the town was unremarkable; there was no cool computer shop like Better Buy Computers. Newport featured a large retailer with yellow price tags offering bargain basement prices on everything—except the cool hacking gadgets she needed.
Never thought I would get out of the house, Jet thought. Dad is becoming an overprotective pain in the ass. She was in the car with her mother, who had agreed to drop her off for a few hours at Newport Coast Roasters, a local café. Jet wanted to work without her father looking over her shoulder.
Jet tried to open the door to Newport Coast Roasters, but it was heavy and awkward to move. A man noticed her struggling and held the door open for her. She looked up at him and mouthed, Thank you. He responded by tipping the brim of his hat and nodding. She stood in line to order. The man who’d previously helped her was now behind her. Jet thought this might be a good opportunity to book a decent table. She turned to face him. “Mister, would you mind holding my place in line?”
The man tipped his hat again and said, “Certainly, miss.”
&nb
sp; Jet put her backpack on the chair of her favorite spot in the café near the back and then hurried back over and thanked the man for holding her place. She ordered her favorite drink—a flat white with skim milk—then returned to her table, where she opened her laptop.
She logged in and noticed a message from Nigel.
Jet,
I have traced the command and control packets back to a server in Eastern Europe. Check it out!
Nige
The email contained an attachment that appeared to be a packet trace file. She downloaded the file, and then ran one of her analysis tools on it.
“Are you a hacker?” a voice asked.
Jet froze, surprised. “How d—?”
“Your stickers on the back of your laptop give you away, my dear!”
Jet tensed and looked up. It was the man who’d helped her earlier; he was standing near her table, looking at her. He appeared to be a little older than her parents.
“My daughter goes to a university upstate, and her major is cybersecurity. She has many of the same stickers. I like the skull and crossbones with the smiley face, it’s my favorite.”
Jet smiled. “That is cool, mister.”
“You can call me Seymour.”
Jet nodded.
She resumed her examination of the packet capture file when she heard her name: “Jet, coffee’s ready!”
Jet strode over to the barista to claim her drink; it took longer than normal to grab her drink, since the place was packed.
About a minute later, Jet returned to her table. She looked at her unlocked computer screen. Didn’t I lock this? Jet thought. Why is the file organizer open?
She looked over at Seymour. He was seated at a nearby table, reading the newspaper. He looked up at her.
“I noticed the ‘Jet’ sticker on your laptop,” the man said. “Is that your online persona?”
“It’s only a nickname.”
“Do you have a Prog-hub page called ‘Spiderjet?’”
Jet looked incredulous. How did he know?
“Of course, you do, a lot of hackers have code in ProgHub, how else are you going to showcase your skills?” Seymour said.
Jet said nothing.
“My employer will pay you for your time and skills? You could use the money to help your friends. After all, Nigel’s mother has lost her job, and it’s only a matter of time before they are evicted from their house.”
How does he know about Nigel?
“You seem to know a lot about me and my friends,” Jet said in a low voice. “Who are you?”
Seymour laid down the newspaper and held his hands up. “I’m a friend.”
Jet closed her laptop.
Seymour stood up, walked over, and placed his card on Jet’s table next to her laptop. “If you change your mind, it was great speaking with you, but I’m late for a meeting.”
Seymour got up and left the coffee shop.
What the fuck just happened? I told no one about my project, Jet thought. She felt uneasy. She looked around the coffee shop. Nothing else looked amiss, so she resumed her research into the packet capture file.
About thirty minutes later, she sent Nigel a message.
Nige, thank you for providing the packet capture file. I’ve identified MORP activity with a signature consistent with Gregor’s previous hacks. The same MORP relay nodes were used by the hacker. Attached to this email is my full analysis.
Jet
Then Jet received a text from her mother: Jet, I’m outside, we need to get home . . . your father wants to see you.
Jet frowned and put her laptop away, careful not to bump her bad arm, then left the coffee shop. Her mother’s car wasn’t in sight, and she fumbled for her phone. Another text message appeared on top of the first. “Jet, I’m ten minutes out—be ready.” That was strange. She’d just received a message from her mother saying she was outside. She examined her text history and the previous message was from an unknown number. She hadn’t noticed until now. Just as she finished the thought, a woman not paying attention to where she was going jostled her.
“Oh, sorry, dear!” the woman said.
“Watch it—” Jet said. At that moment, distracted by the woman, Jet heard a door open and felt someone push her. She tumbled into an empty panel van with no windows. The driver’s compartment was separated from the back by a wire mesh. The van’s doors closed. Jet’s screams were silenced as a man grabbed her from behind; a gloved hand covered her mouth. She noticed the glove smelled funny before she passed out.
The gloved man worked fast. He had less than ten minutes before they needed to arrive at the Newport dock, where the Sultan’s boat was; it was maybe a hundred feet from the parking lot where the van would park.
It would not do to get caught unloading a body from the van. The man hit the side of the van with his fist. A panel popped open several inches. He pried the rest of the panel open, and several pieces of wood appeared. The man pulled the boards out; he had measured the boards and only a few inches to work with, but he could wiggle the boards loose. The headliner of the van was missing, and the man loosened the straps holding the larger boards in place. He started assembling the box that would contain the Sultan’s prize.
When the van stopped, the man was installing the remaining screws using an electric drill. He had approximately a minute to finish the job, as the van couldn’t be seen for long. He grabbed Jet’s limp body and carefully placed her in the box. If his calculations were correct, Jet would have only two inches of space to move around. Her mouth and hands were taped just in case she woke early. The man looked at his watch: twenty seconds remaining. Too close!
It took Nigel several minutes to even think about checking his messages. He felt like his head was stuck in a jar of thick honey. It was an effort to perform even basic tasks. That’s what I get for not getting enough sleep! After examining Jet’s response, he continued the trace of the connection. He let his Datasploit program lead him the rest of the way to the hacker’s home. Give me the goods!
I’m in, Nigel texted Jet.
Ralphie stirred, but didn’t awaken. He clicked on the “exploit” button on his Datasploit console. A system message confirmed that a reverse shell was active. He was inside the intruder’s system. He had to be careful not to give himself away. He watched the system activity for a while and monitored certain system files, such as the bash history, which gave him a complete command history. Whatever the intruder typed, he could see. He clicked the record button in the Datasploit app. He wanted to save this session. After a few more clicks and keystrokes, Nigel could trace back the intruder’s location to a MORP exit node in the UK. This was the first big break he had had. He could resolve the external IP of that exit relay in the Edinburgh location; it wasn’t an exact address, but it was close enough to start looking. He also could confirm the intruder’s intended target based on packet flow. It was EIA!
Nigel composed another message to Jet, relayed the details, and then shut down the laptop. He had to conserve power, as he was almost out of reserve battery.
Where is Mom? She should have been back a long time ago, Nigel thought.
Seymour stood near the slip where the Sultan’s vessel was docked. He made sure that all buttons were securing fastened on his coat. He turned up his collar to block the wind.
“We need to leave before the storm intensifies,” the captain said.
“The package is nearly here,” Seymour said.
“I will give you five more minutes. Then we leave, package or no.”
Two minutes later, the van appeared with its precious cargo. Two large men hauled the box into the boat’s cargo hold then left without a word to Seymour. Another man handed Seymour a bag.
“Disassembly is mandatory,” the man said, smiling.
Seymour nodded.
No sooner had the man left than the boat set sail. Two burly deck hands carried the box to the cargo hold.
“In which room should we place the cargo?” one man aske
d.
“Put her in the stateroom. I expect the Sultan this evening,” Seymour said.
The man nodded, and then proceeded with the task at hand.
Seymour looked out of a nearby porthole as snow began falling; he noticed that the waves were unusually calm for winter. With any luck, the Sultan would meet his prize tonight. Seymour felt a brief pang of regret. He’d told the girl the truth. He had a daughter. However, after a moment, the feeling had evaporated; he had emotions, but they rarely lasted long enough to warrant analysis. Seymour appreciated that the Sultan paid his bills, and he needed the money. He just hoped that delivery would be quick—before his urges returned. The ones that so often got him in trouble with the authorities. That time in D.C. was too close for comfort. Seymour shrugged off the dreadful memory.
Jet woke from her drug-induced slumber. As she opened her eyes, she took in her surroundings. She was lying in a bed in the middle of a room with elegant wood paneling. She must have hit her head, because the room was spinning. She tried getting up, but couldn’t move. She looked at her arms and then her legs. She was tied up! They’d pulled her bad arm back behind her. She should be in agony, but she felt nothing. Jet tried to use her good hand. She could barely move her wrist. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Several minutes later, an older man entered the room.
“You’re awake!” He sat next to her.
“Mmmm—” Jet said.
“If I take this out, will you promise not to scream?”
Jet nodded. The man took the gag out of her mouth. Jet’s mouth trembled.
“Don’t hurt me!”
“Not planning on it, my dear; my client needs you in tip-top condition. You will stay with me until delivery. The doctor has given you something for the pain. I didn’t want you to feel any discomfort. I’m sorry I tied you up like this, but it’s for your own safety.”