by L. A. Larkin
The rank was to their right. There were only eight people waiting and yellow cabs arrived pretty regularly, directed by a man in an airport uniform, blowing a whistle every few seconds. They joined the queue.
To their left was a mini-van, illegally parked, with two wheels up on the kerb. As they shuffled forward, the driver pulled away. A black limo with darkly tinted windows was parked on the other side of the road, and a chauffeur was holding the door open for a man in a long tailored black woollen coat, buttoned to his neck, with a cream cashmere scarf tucked in his collar. He nodded at the chauffeur and got inside the limo.
‘Oh no,’ Serena breathed. ‘Bukowski.’
John hadn’t heard her. She grabbed at his arm and pulled him out of the queue.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘That was Bukowski. I’d rather wait till he’s gone.’
She was trying to keep her panic under control.
They walked away arm in arm, heads bowed against the chill, back into the arrivals section.
‘Did he see us?’ Serena asked, once they were inside.
‘No, no way. Rugged up like this, he couldn’t possibly recognise us.’
‘It’s just … when I see him, I remember that night,’ she said, her voice trailing off.
‘I can’t even begin to imagine what this must be like for you,’ he said, ‘but if we get this right, that’ll be the last time you ever have to be near that bastard.’
She smiled. ‘You’re right. I mustn’t let him rattle me.’
They rejoined the taxi queue and, within a few minutes, were inside the damp interior of a yellow cab. The plastic flooring was wet and the warm air smelled like wet dog fur. The driver’s head never moved as he asked them, ‘Where to?’
‘Hotel DeVere, Greenwich Village, please,’ said Serena.
The driver nodded and drove off.
John spoke softly so that only she could hear. ‘Seri, I said we had to be in a hotel no more than a kilometre away from their building, with uninterrupted views. Greenwich Village is no good.’
‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘There’s a reason.’
They spent the rest of the ride gazing out of the steamed-up windows at the houses and parked cars covered in snow, at the Williamsburg Bridge, and at the skyscrapers, which towered above them like enormous tombstones. Both were aware that valuable time was ticking by.
Getting out at the DeVere Hotel, they waited for the driver to leave. Whistling loudly, Serena hailed another cab, asking for the Times Tower Hotel, Times Square.
‘Clever,’ commented John, nodding. ‘We’ll be harder to follow. But why the Times Tower?’
‘Because it’s the tallest hotel in New York and the top twenty floors will give us an uninterrupted view of the Gene-Asis building. How does that suit you?’ she said, smiling.
‘It suits me very well. As soon as we’re there, I’ll get to work. Which reminds me, I need a few things.’
For the rest of the journey, John was on the phone ordering a strange assortment of gadgets. He then pulled from his laptop bag a mini telescope.
‘What do you need a telescope for?’ she asked, as he placed it in front of his eye.
‘I’m gonna spy me a CEO.’
Chapter 67
They pulled up outside the Times Tower as it stopped snowing. A red carpet, slightly soggy from snowy footprints, tumbled down the stone steps, just short of the icy pavement. The cab door was opened by a bellboy in a thick, gold-embroidered bottle-green cape, heavy black boots and a peaked gold-embroidered cap.
‘Good evening,’ he almost sang. Then he danced to the back of the cab to grab their bags.
‘Now, this I like! I love guests who travel light!’ he said, as he picked up their hand luggage and led them into the stunning foyer with cream marble floors, backlit onyx ceiling and a central water feature resembling a waterfall encircled with glass.
‘Have a great day!’ he said, returning to the bitterly cold outside steps. He began singing along in perfect harmony to ‘Moon River’, which was playing on the speakers at the front of the hotel.
John requested a room on one of the top twenty floors, facing Broadway. ‘No problem. May I have your credit card, please?’
‘We’re paying cash.’
The receptionist, whose nose was red and sore due to a cold, looked at him as if he were from another planet.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but we have to take your credit card details, for additional expenses like the minibar.’
‘Well, can we pay for two nights in advance and give you a passport as security?’ he asked, checking his watch.
‘Certainly. Thank you, Mr and Mrs Bradley, you’re in room 70201.’
The room was a small box, with twin beds and an en suite bathroom, and a computer dock, keyboard and screen. Serena threw herself onto one of the duck-down, quilted bedspreads.
Holding back one of the thick curtains, John stared out of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
‘Is that it?’ he asked.
Serena dragged herself off the bed and stood next to him. Before her stretched New York City: glittering lights glinting in the dark. To her right, she could see the dazzling illuminated billboards of One Times Square and the curved NASDAQ building, like a castle turret, brightly lit with blue and green advertising messages. Traffic crawled along Broadway and Seventh Avenue, like lines of ants forming a chain. Looking diagonally across Duffy Square, she saw Two Times Square, with its electronic billboards, piled one on top of the other, flashing and gyrating advertisements for Coca-Cola, HSBC, Samsung and Chrysler. It was like the Tower of Babel, clambering up to the heavens, offering God a Diet Coke and a bank account.
But the most imposing building of all was the one on the corner of West 46th and Seventh, where the Times Square Visitors Center used to be. Serena had instantly recognised the Gene-Asis global head office. It spiralled upwards, like a giant double helix, twisting its way into the sky, the rungs in the middle forming the floors. All 120 floors were of black glass, which reflected, like a giant mirror, the flashing multicoloured lights ofTimes Square. Its exterior only revealed the building’s secrets on those floors where the lights were switched on. She had never seen a structure like it.
‘Holy shit! That’s something else,’ John said.
‘You’re telling me. I can’t believe they managed to build a twisting structure like that. And so high,’ said Serena, shuddering at the sinister way the building dominated Times Square and, indeed, Manhattan itself; its predominantly black exterior in harsh contrast to the bright, colourful playfulness of Times Square and the theatre district.
‘I’ll get set up,’ said John.
‘What can I do?’ asked Serena.
‘Order strong black coffee and a burger for me. It’s going to be a long night.’
‘Whatever you want, maestro.’ She placed the order, times two.
As John set up both his laptops, Serena considered her role in their back-up plan if he failed to hack the system. It was nothing short of suicidal. To distract herself, she turned on the TV and channel-surfed. Tomorrow’s Gene-Asis launch was on every news bulletin.
John took the telescope and looked out of the window.
‘Good, it’s cleared,’ he said, nodding at the sky. ‘So, which is Bukowski’s office?’
‘Very top floor. It’ll be a corner office,’ she said, moving to join him.
John placed the mini telescope to his eye and scanned the top floor. ‘Some white-haired guy; nah, that’s not him. Okay, hold on. No, that can’t be him, unless he’s had a sex change. Here we go … Yes, there’s the piece of shit. Perfect, just where I want you, Bukowski.’ John looked at Serena. ‘He’s practising the presentation. Take a look.’
He handed her the telescope. In the clear night sky, Bukowski’s luxurious corner office shone like a beacon. She was amazed she could see into the building so clearly. She saw a laptop on the desk and Bukowski pacing the room, speaking to a projected image on the wa
ll. She could even discern the words: ‘Supercrop Ultra’, ‘Bruise Free Fruit’ and ‘Long Life Meat’.
‘Yes, that’s the launch presentation. So, how are you going to do this without being detected?’
‘They won’t know what’s hit them till it’s too late,’ he replied. ‘The first thing I need to do is own the computer that’ll run the presentation, which we now know to be Bukowski’s.’
‘What do you mean by “own?”’ Serena asked.
‘Sorry, Seri … I have to compromise his computer so I’ve got full control of it. Then I “own” it.’
‘I get it. And you need some equipment to do that?’
‘Yes, the stuff I’ve ordered is to build a Wi-Fi sniper rifle.’
‘What do you mean by “rifle”?’ said Serena, alarmed.
There was a knock at the door—the waiter with the coffee and burgers. John poured himself a steaming cup, no milk, and took a sip. Serena loaded up sugar in hers.
‘Damn. They make coffee hot here,’ he said, touching his burnt upper lip.
Serena crossed her arms. ‘John, I want to broadcast this documentary and expose Gene-Asis. But I don’t want to kill anyone. No rifles, okay?’
‘Relax. This rifle allows me to pinpoint and control Bukowski’s laptop and the projector. It uses radio waves, working up to a kilometre away, but I need to point it directly at the target—hence, the location of this room is perfect. We’re, what, only half a k away from their building?’ He took a big bite of his burger.
‘So, tell me what you’re going to do,’ she asked, ploughing into her own burger. She was famished.
‘I have to knock Bukowski off the network. I’ll get onto their wireless network and then I’ll launch a DOS attack against his laptop.’ He noticed Serena raise her eyebrows, as her cheeks bulged with food. ‘You look like a startled hamster,’ he said, smiling.
Serena’s mouth was too full to protest.
‘Okay,’ he continued, ‘a DOS is a denial-of-service attack. I’m gonna use an exploit framework tool I have. In it, will be numerous DOS attacks. It’s a case of firing one off, seeing if it works, if not, trying the next one, and so on. Different attacks work on different computers, you see. I’ll know when one’s worked because I’ll see his laptop drop off the network.’
Serena swallowed. ‘But won’t access to the Gene-Asis network have some kind of password?’
‘I’ll crack the crypto key … the password needed to connect to the wireless access point. Then I’m on their network and I win.’
Serena grinned. ‘Of course you will.’
A piercing ring tone made them both jump. John answered the room’s phone and asked for the delivery to be brought up. A number of boxes arrived on a trolley pushed by a teenage bellboy, who eyed them inquisitively.
‘Metal sculptures. We just had to buy them.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, beating a hasty retreat.
John laid out the contents of the unmarked boxes on the carpet: various pieces of scrap metal, a number of cable ties and gaffer tape, a Yagi antenna, a pigtail connector, wiring, batteries, a radioshack adapter plug, something that looked like an electrical circuit board inside two pieces of plastic, and a tripod, similar to those used by photographers.
‘If I had a welder and a drill, I could make this look really professional. You know, make it look like a real rifle. But drilling holes in metal kinda makes too much noise, so I’ll have to make do with the gaffer tape and cable ties. It’ll still work fine.’
‘Have you ever made one before?’
‘Oh yeah; learned how to at the DefCon hacking conference years back—Las Vegas, I think. Desert conditions are great for long-distance hacking,’ he replied, starting to put the rifle together. ‘When it’s built, I’ll hook it up to my laptop so we can see in real time whatever it picks up.’
Serena watched as John constructed something that, to her eye, looked very like a real rifle except it had a cable linking it to one of his laptops.
‘Is he still practising?’ asked John.
She looked though the telescope. ‘Yes, he’s a perfectionist, but you’d better get a wriggle on, just in case he gets tired or something.’
She pulled up a chair to sit behind John and leaned forward, cupping her chin in her hand. ‘Bukowski won’t notice he’s been knocked off the network?’
‘I’m only going to do a quick test tonight, to be sure I can do it tomorrow for the launch—timing is everything. For now, I’ll be so fast he won’t notice and, besides, if he does, he’ll think it’s just another bloody network glitch.’ He looked up at her. ‘It’s ready. Let’s test this little beauty,’ he said, moving to the window. He moved the rifle around until he had the antenna pointing at Bukowski’s office.
‘Serena, can you hold this here? I’ll tighten the tripod when I know we’ve got it right.’ John sat in front of the screen. Serena took the ridge with one hand, and with the other, held the telescope to her eye to check on Bukowski. He was thanking the key players. ‘Randolph J. Randolph,’ she read aloud. ‘He’s getting near the end.’
‘Who?’ asked John.
‘That’s the President of R and D.’
‘That can’t be his real name?’ John asked, smirking.
‘Sure is.’
‘Parents must have hated him. Can you move the rifle a little to the left?’
She did as she was asked.
‘Bingo. Now, can you tighten the tripod so the antenna won’t move?’
John cracked his knuckles and placed his fingertips lightly on the laptop’s keyboard, like a concert pianist about to perform.
‘Okay, let’s grab the crypto key first.’
He placed headphones over his ears to shut out the rest of the world. The music must have been loud, as Serena could catch occasional bursts from where she sat. She watched the screen over his shoulder. Bright green numbers, letters and symbols, on a black background, all meaningless to her, flowed down the screen like rain down a pane of glass. She resumed watching Bukowski through the telescope. She breathed a sigh of relief to see him start the whole presentation again.
‘Got it,’ shouted John after twenty-five minutes. He removed his headphones. ‘I’m into the Gene-Asis network. Now I have to find Bukowski. This is the easy bit.’ He didn’t bother replacing his headphones while he searched.
‘Right. Now for the DOS. I’ve got a 0-day I can try. Gene-Asis uses a software package that’s vulnerable to a particular DOS attack and the supplier hasn’t patched it. In fact, I don’t think this supplier knows about the problem yet. I certainly haven’t alerted them, so I’m hoping this could be how I bounce Bukowski off the network.’ A minute later, he was punching the air.
‘God, I’m good,’ he crowed, laughing. ‘One shot, one kill! I’ve knocked him off the network!’
Serena had the telescope pointing at Bukowski. ‘He noticed. He’s thrown his remote across the room.’
‘Shit!’ said John, immediately breaking the connection. ‘What’s he doing now?’
‘The presentation is back up. It’s all fine.’
‘Good; now we wait till Bukowski stops using the projector.’
‘That could be a while.’
‘Nothing we can do. In the meantime, let’s work out where the projector is likely to be tomorrow.’
‘The auditorium, on the 119th floor,’ she replied. ‘I’ve done some homework.’
Fifty minutes later, Bukowski finished his run through and left the office. This time, Serena knew what to do. She moved the antenna to point at the correct floor, until she found the projector. Then she watched John send a test—a Gene-Asis logo—to the projector to demonstrate he had control over it. It worked perfectly.
‘If anyone sees this image, they’ll just think it’s a legit test,’ John commented. ‘So, that’s it! We’re in business,’ he continued, giving her a big high five.
‘We can do better than that,’ said Serena, kissing him.
Moments passed
before John whispered, ‘So that thing about waiting till …’
‘Forget about it,’ she replied, kissing him again.
Chapter 68
Serena had difficulty waking John. Eventually, he opened one bloodshot eye.
‘I need some water. Too much coffee,’ he groaned. ‘And some painkillers.’
Serena drew back the curtains as John got up. The sky was blue and a weak sun shone, but the roads, pavements and roofs were still covered in snow and ice. Flags on rooftops flapped furiously in the one direction, buffeted by a strong wind. John plonked himself sleepily at the desk, a water bottle in hand. Then he began to repeat the steps he had followed last night.
‘What?’ he said.
Instantly wide awake, he tapped in a command. The screen remained blank. He scratched his head and then continued to input commands frantically.
‘Oh, shit.’
‘John? What’s wrong?’
He raced to the Wi-Fi antenna and moved it so it pointed at a building, one that was next door to Gene-Asis’ HQ. Instantly, a stream of data appeared on screen.
‘Fuck,’ he said, hitting the desk. ‘We’re fucked.’
‘What’s going on? Tell me.’
‘Gimme a second … I need to think this through. They must have surrounded the whole building with some kind of RF Shield—it’s the only explanation. It wasn’t there last night. Shit! They must’ve turned it on this morning to stop intruders. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why didn’t I think of that?’ John paced the tiny room. ‘Maybe I triggered something last night or maybe they don’t want journos transmitting the Gene-Asis presentation live to their OB units. This RF shield prevents any signals from transmitting into or out of the building.’
‘So you can’t communicate with Bukowski’s laptop or the projector?’
‘I can’t do a damned thing. We were all set to go earlier—I had complete control of the projector. But now they’re shielding emissions, I can’t control a thing,’ he said, flinging his arms wide.
‘John, please sit down,’ Serena said, taking him by the arm and leading him to the bed. ‘We go to Plan B.’