Buzzworm (A Technology Thriller): Computer virus or serial killer?

by Theo Cage

  “You back in Canada yet?” was all he growled.

  “Close. They just kicked me out of the CIA. They’re melting down and don’t want any eyewitnesses. But before I go, there is something we need to talk about."

  "Why don’t you send me an email. Isn’t that what you guys do?" Roger didn’t answer. “I’m busy, Strange. Tell me now.”

  “Not over the phone.”

  Hyde was skeptical, but reluctantly agreed to meet on the Memorial steps in about half an hour. Roger hung up and then walked through the traffic and sat on the steps leading up to the Lincoln statue. The view across the Reflecting pond to the Washington memorial in the distance made him forget his problems for a few minutes. It was breath taking. This was what Buzzworm was attacking? Human beings had finally got it right after all these centuries and built a true democracy, and now some army of malcontents was trying to tear it all down.

  Hyde was right on time, wearing a long rumpled black raincoat. He sat down beside Strange.

  Roger pointed across at the view. “Do you come here often?”

  Hyde looked slightly surprised by the question. “Used to bring my daughter here when she was younger. Sometimes an out-of-town relative.”

  “It’s humbling,” was all Roger could think of to say. “But I guess that’s the point.”

  Hyde looked at Strange like he was about to comment, then thought better of it. “So what do you have?”

  “Before we talk about that, what do you know about being followed? I just got this funny feeling like I was being watched.”

  Hyde stood up. “Let’s go for a walk. Soak up some more history.” As they started off on the grass along the verge of the Reflecting Pool, Hyde appeared wary. “Did you see anyone or just have a moment of paranoia back there?”

  “You know the videos that the CIA staff were talking about — me with the chainsaw? They talk about a handful, but I figure there have been maybe hundreds sent out over the past months to create as much misery and fear as possible. It’s someone’s psychological campaign on CIA employees. To make those videos they need to have people taking photos and movies of staff and their friends. Even relatives. So Buzzworm must have help keeping tabs on everyone. And no one reported any suspicious behavior of that kind?”

  “You mean has anyone made a police report – on the paparazzi? Hasn’t happened.”

  Roger dodged a small boy staring out over the water of the pond. “Don’t sound so skeptical. Doesn’t anyone take attacks on computer systems seriously?”

  Roger shook his head. “You have no idea what a dedicated hacker can accomplish. How about on Friday, you go to your local ATM to take out some of your hard earned paycheck and there’s no money in the account.”

  “Nothing unusual there. It’s called alimony.”

  “OK. How about millions of people all across the U.S. No cash. And when they go to use their credit cards, they don’t work. They can’t buy food. They can’t buy booze or cigarettes. They can’t put gas in their cars. Besides, the pumps at the gas station don’t work anyway.”

  “That sounds like a big bad fairy tale. Like the Y2K scare that never happened.”

  “No one talks about the vulnerabilities because institutions don’t want the public to know how close they are to a meltdown. The banks especially. They get hacked for billions every year.”

  Hyde gave him a side-glance. “I guess you would know about that.”

  “If you checked my priors, which I guess you did, you’d know I never stole anything.”

  “Fine. Attempted robbery then.”

  Roger realized there was no point in arguing his criminal history. His hacking experience put him on the other side of the line with Hyde and there was no changing that. “I know the banks, all financial institutions, want everyone to think they’re secure, but they are all as leaky as an aging fleet of submarines. Buzzworm could do untold damage.”

  “OK. I’m shakin’ in my boots. I’m going to go home and hide some cash in a tin under the bed. But I came here out of my busy schedule to talk about your lead. Is this about Xavier?”

  Roger swallowed. After the meeting in Scammel’s lab with Med and Vienna, they had visited security to go over the logs. Over three hundred people had signed into Building 213 on the day of Scammel’s death, only three from the outside. They all checked out. So they had a shadow, but that was all. Then Hyde asked Roger about the fireworks going on over this David Xavier. Roger told him to check the file on Scammel for a link to Xavier. He had heard a rumor. That was all.

  “Did you find a link?” Roger asked.

  Hyde had his hands in his raincoat pocket, his head down. “Not much. When Wishnowsky sent in the report, Xavier’s name was mentioned once in the notes section. When the data was entered into the national crime base, that note was included. Xavier visited Scammel the day he was arrested.”

  “So he was a lawyer? Xavier?”

  “He never passed the bar in the United States. I checked.”

  “So how did he get in to see Scammel?”

  Hyde thought about that for a few steps. “Where did you get this information from?”

  “It was given to me by a trusted source.”

  Hyde stopped. They still hadn’t reached the East end of the pool. It was much larger than Roger had imagined. “I could hold your head under water for a few minutes, test your commitment on that trusted source.” Roger felt the blood running out of his head. He believed that Hyde could do it. He seemed like one of those people who were capable of anything on a minute’s notice.

  Roger looked at the water then back at Hyde. He couldn’t imagine doing Hyde’s job in a million years, so he decided to cut him some slack. “I’m good with computer systems. I find things others miss.” Hyde started walking again, apparently no longer interested in dragging Roger into the water. They could both see Constitution Gardens off in the distance, their apparent destination.

  “Besides a name, what else do you know about him?” asked Hyde. “You and your buddy the Internet.”

  “I guess you know a lot more than I do.”

  Hyde smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Xavier is a military contractor, but this town is infested with them. He’s done work for the CIA of course. I called his company, got a receptionist. She said he’s out of the country for a week on business. In Dubai. She took my number and said he would call me. But he hasn’t.”

  Roger didn’t look happy. “Mary Ellen Duke, the team lead you met at the lab? She’s been going out with him.”

  Hyde gave Roger a sidelong glance. “That got your blood boiling, son?”

  Roger ignored the jab. “Don’t you think it’s suspicious that Xavier has a connection with your suicide victim and a dead cop and a female employee at the CIA?”

  Hyde looked up at the brooding sky. “Yeah, it sounds fucked up. But what I have is two suicides and an accidental death, one which you witnessed. Nothing that a prosecuting attorney is going to want to waste any time on. The only actual homicide case connected to the CIA is Dodge’s, which is really about an ex-military screw-up who loved to go to his favorite bar, drink himself into fighting shape and take on the biggest guy in the room. Which is exactly what he did the night he died, his blood alcohol level off the charts. From what the owner tells us, some customer decided to get even for some previous beating. All we need to do now is find the murder weapon, a pickup truck of uncertain origination. And this we got from one witness who at the time was puking up his Jack Daniels in the weeds behind the bar’s trash bins.”

  Roger looked surprised. “I don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t want any more leads?”

  “Does this Dodge business sound to you like the work of an intelligence genius? Why would a businessman with connections to the military care about Dodge anyway? He didn’t even work directly for the CIA. He was a contractor working for a security company. A rent-a-cop.”

  Roger noticed that Hyde seemed suddenly distracted. Like he was putting things tog
ether in his head. “My advice is to stay out of this, Strange. This all smells like typical Washington intrigue and you have no idea how ugly that can get. First, don’t look around. We are being followed. They’re fairly good too. They’ve obviously been trained on surveillance. But it could just be the FBI or Homeland Security keeping an eye on foreigners. If you’re poking around on the Internet, you could be alerting all kinds of Intelligence attention. And then there’s also the possibility that the whackos behind Buzzworm are watching you as well.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Go home. Before your Visa expires and the feds come after you. Let me figure this out.”

  Roger was tired of being treated like a nuisance. “I don’t think you can figure this out, Hyde. I think your perp is Buzzworm, not a guy with a half-ton truck. And you just can’t see that. Division 213 has some kind of launch taking place on Monday, very top secret, so I don’t know the details, but I think Buzzworm will do anything to mess that up. Including killing and threatening people. I think that’s what he has been working up to all these months. He could be working for Al Qaeda, the Koreans, the Chinese - anybody. But this is like war in the 21st Century and we know a bomb is about to go off. And you don’t know enough to care.”

  Hyde stared at Strange for a few long seconds. “I think it’s you that doesn’t get it. Look around you. This town lives and breathes this shit every day. They’ll deal with it. Congress will give them another ten billion and the problem will go away.”

  “Congress can’t stop a denial of service attack.”

  “Denial of what?”

  “That’s what hackers use to attack websites. I’m not talking about someone’s web page. I’m talking the way companies do business today. Financial institutions, the government, the stock market, commodities markets, police, CIA, air traffic control, energy grids. Everything. Everyone uses the Internet now. A denial of service attack is a very powerful weapon. Some call it an eBomb. It blows up everything.”

  “An eBomb…”

  “Look it up. DoS. Denial of service. If I launched a DoS on the CIA through the Internet, they would be helpless. No communications. No interpretation. No satellite data. And based on what we’ve seen, they are totally vulnerable right now. Softened up.”

  Hyde walked them over to a park bench, pointed, and Roger sat reluctantly. Then the detective undid his raincoat, slumped down and placed both elbows on his knees. He had his eyes on the pond, taking a deep breath. “You’re a cocky kid. I should kick your ass for talking like that.”

  “I’m not getting through to you. What do you want me to say? Buzzworm put a bunch of garbage on my computer to get me arrested and nobody believes me. I’m pissed off.”

  “He threatened me too, if that make you feel any better.”

  Roger turned to the big cop who towered over him even sitting down. “Huh?”

  “We had a friendly chat by web conference. Then the asshole threatened to go after my daughter if I continued the investigation.”

  “Hyde. That’s the same threat that Wishnowsky was talking about. He was worried about his daughter. And I think he was referring to Xavier too. Xavier could be behind all of this.”

  Hyde turned and looked at the hacker. “Does Med know this?” Roger stiffened, an image of her flashing through his mind.

  “Do you think …”

  “I don’t think the weasel is in Dubai. I think he’s like everything else in this town — smoke and mirrors.”

  “Do you have any contacts at the FBI? Assuming their systems aren’t compromised like the CIA. Can they check out Xavier?”

  Hyde was staring at two young women sharing a picnic lunch across from them. They seemed so happy and full of life. He frowned. “I may know someone.”

  Roger closed his eyes. He had a sudden vision of Med’s face the last time they spoke. There was more than anger there; there was fear as well. He hadn’t noticed it before. He never had a chance to say goodbye, to explain the real reason he was so interested in Xavier. Roger got up. He couldn’t sit still anymore. His fight or flight instincts were on fire. He suddenly realized why. “Med. She’s in danger isn’t she?”

  Hyde sat up, almost like he was thinking the same thing. “If you’re right about Xavier, then maybe he was able to bribe Scammel by somehow getting him off the sex crime. That would take powerful connections and money. That would explain a lot of things. Then when they were done with him at the CIA, they … convinced him to commit suicide.” Hyde looked at Roger. “These people will do anything to get what they want.”

  “Can we get her protection?”

  “If I were her I would just get away. Out of town. Away from home and work.” Hyde pulled his cell phone out of his inside jacket pocket. Roger was hoping he was making arrangements to get her moved. “Emile,” he started quietly, “Do you still see them? The two of them?” He listened, nodding.

  “We’re going to continue on to the fountain and stop there. You move up from behind. Get at least one of them. I don’t care which one it is.” He put the phone away.

  “Roger, if you even so much as turn your head, I will lock you up for obstruction. Walk with me.” They got up from the bench and started heading east again, the clouds hanging even lower over Washington downtown, the water in the pond reflecting a steely gray sky. “Emile is my partner. He’s been tailing us to see if we we’re being watched. He’s going to try to make an arrest now. Even ID’ing one might help in the event they’re not cooperative. Unless of course they’re the FBI, in which case we kick them in the balls and run like hell.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Tyler McKinnon had been with Homeland Security from its first inception. He had watched from the Washington bridge in New York on September 11th, stuck in a traffic jam, as the second jetliner sliced into the North tower.

  Unlike others who had felt fear that morning, he had felt an instant sense of anger and betrayal. He knew instinctively that the crash was an attack on American interests. At that point, he had just been transferred to New York by the FBI where he had been working in a field office in Minneapolis. He applied to Homeland the day they announced the new agency was being formed.

  Now he was standing in Memorial Park on recon duty, next to another Homeland agent he knew little about, although he came highly recommended. The agent’s name was Eppart. He was wearing a dark blue windbreaker and Ray Bans. Despite the heavy cloud cover.

  “What have we got?” Eppart said, all business.

  McKinnon showed him the screen of his iPhone. There was a grainy picture of a middle-aged man in a dark gray raincoat. He ran his finger along the screen, zooming in.

  “What’s that?”

  “Wires. He has wires showing under his coat,” answered McKinnon.

  Eppart dipped his head down and slid the sunglasses up over his eyes, squinting at the little screen. He could make out a number of colored wires or tubes showing from under the coat where the wind had caught it. “Goddamn,” was all he said.

  “This came in about twenty minutes ago from someone in the area. From a cell phone camera. A tourist, we think, taking a stroll in the park.” McKinnon ran his finger back on the screen, this time the image zooming out. They could both clearly see the Washington Memorial spike off in the distance behind the man in the long coat, a second man walking beside him. “He has an accomplice,” added McKinnon.

  Two days before, Homeland Security had upped the threat level in the capital city from guarded (blue) to elevated (yellow) and everyone was wary and alert, and that hadn’t happened for years. McKinnon felt like it was the first day of school. He was anxious, but prepared.

  “Is something going down here?” asked Eppart, snapping his gum. “Are we getting backup?”

  “It’s an unconfirmed. They want us to check it out. So far, it’s just wires. He could be a cable guy.”

  Eppart huffed. “Did you see him? He’s got something under that raincoat. I’d bet my pension on it. Where are they headed?”

/>   “They’re moving towards the Memorial. How about you take the south side of the pond, I’ll take the north. Stay back until I give the word to move in closer.” Eppart nodded, his glasses back on. McKinnon decided he wanted Eppart as far away from the subjects as possible. Only an idiot couldn’t tell that the guy was a cop. If it weren’t his attitude that gave him away, it would be his neatly trimmed eighties-style mustache.

  “I’m not letting this turn into some Oklahoma fuckup,” offered Eppart. “Are you ready to take them out if we need to?”

  Before McKinnon could answer, his phone vibrated in his hand. He took the call, his head down. When he finished the call and looked up, Eppart knew the assessment had changed from the look on his partners face.

  “Ever heard of LBS?” asked McKinnon, the blood drained out of his face. Eppart just stared at him. “It’s cell phone technology. Location based services. Most phones today have it. So kids in the mall can find their friends. We use it to track high profile politicians in the area. Keep an eye on them.” McKinnon tapped the screen on his iPhone several times and showed Eppart a different image, this one an aerial photo of the park. He pointed to a spot near the Reflecting Pond. “That’s where our two suspects are.” Then he slid his index finger across the screen, the map moving to the east. “See that blue dot? Close to the spire? That’s the Vice President. Going for a walk in the park with two undercover security staff. Something he likes to do.”

  “Shit. You think they are after the Veep?”

  McKinnon clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to say anything that would set Eppart off, but he had to share the facts as he knew them. “Stay cool, man. They’re headed in that direction, but that doesn’t mean anything. We’ll flank them.” He pressed his right ear where he wore his ear bud. “You copy?”

  Eppart nodded, briefly touching the nylon necklace that held his microphone. McKinnon stepped back several feet and turned. They could now communicate clearly through their VHF ear buds. “Eppart. Keep as close as you can, try to stay within shooting distance. But don’t do anything until we agree.”