The Manganese Dilemma

by Ian Miller

  "Fair enough," Rutherford said. "Right. Your next assignment. You are to try to hack into some major banks in various tax havens. Here is a list of accounts you will look at. Your job is to tell me what's in them. Just them. And no theft. Understand?"

  "Not really," Burrowes said. "What's this got to do with Russians?"

  "We're testing your ability," Rutherford explained. "One of the things we are going to do later is to check on certain Russian officials, who we think have been corrupt and have secreted money in offshore accounts."

  "You want me to look for such accounts?"

  "No. At least not yet. First we need to see whether you can do this, and how much auxiliary information you need to get into the banks and inspect their accounts and the movement of money."

  "As you wish," Burrowes said.

  "The accounts we have given you are controlled by government agencies, so if something goes wrong, we can patch up the error."

  "And fire you," Svetlana chirped. She had a broad superior grin as she pulled her finger over her throat, as if figuratively cutting it.

  "The finger's never far from the firing button," Dennis added, sticking his head over his computer.

  "You'd do well to remember that," Rutherford said, aiming his glance at Dennis, whose face immediately fell back behind his computer screen. He turned his glance towards Svetlana, and added, "Svetlana, you can concentrate on Russian media reports on oligarch's movements. You know roughly what we are looking for, so see what you can find."

  The room became strangely quiet, but for the tapping sounds from keyboards. Burrowes unlocked his briefcase and took out one of the large memory caches that held some of his hacking programs from his time in the NSA and began working.

  * * *

  "The American officer's report makes fascinating reading," Svetlana mentioned to Burrowes.

  Burrowes frowned. One of those distractions he did not need. However there was nothing else for it but to stop work. "In what way?"

  "His criticism of the Russian soldier struggling with the boat."

  "So?"

  "He was merely undoing what four American soldiers had done," she said. "Four should have more strength than one."

  "Yes," Burrowes said, "but the report is accurate. On the other hand, you weren't being chased by the FSB were you?"

  There was a pause, a slight frown, then she said, "Who said I was?"

  "You mentioned the difficulties evading the FSB," Burrowes said with a touch of triumph. He would show her he had been listening.

  "I said evading the FSB would be more risky than evading the CIA," she countered. "Evading the Russian army is more risky still."

  "I suppose," Burrowes said. "Why would the army be interested?"

  "Maybe because my father stole some documents from them?" she replied. "Maybe the FSB asked them because they were at the border. I don't know."

  "I see," Burrowes said lamely. There was something he did not see, but he could not work out what it was.

  "You want coffee?" Svetlana asked, seemingly to change the topic.

  "I'm making slow progress," Burrowes replied. "Maybe I should keep going."

  "I'll make it," she offered, "and in any case, you need to take the odd break."

  "And get my throat cut?" he challenged, with a grin that showed he was not afraid of being fired.

  "The boss's bark is worse than his bite provided you don't get too offside."

  "Oh? And how do you know if you've achieved that?"

  "He stops barking, or so I've been told. Then the bite starts to get serious, but don't worry. I'll get coffee."

  She soon came back with two steaming mugs, and she placed one down beside Burrowes. "So," she asked, "what's the problem?"

  "I've got into this bank," he replied, "but I can't find any sign of the account I'm looking for."

  "Back up what you've done," she suggested, "and check you haven't done something wrong and got into the wrong place."

  "I think you'll find –" he began, somewhat tartly.

  "But you've got a problem so something's wrong. I've got a suggestion, but I need to check before I tell you because I don't want you to fail because of something I said."

  So Burrowes went over what he had done in detail, and eventually Svetlana agreed he seemed to have done everything right. "What I would do, if I were you," she said, "is to move onto another bank and another objective. If you can get some right . . ."

  "Report partial success," he said glumly.

  "No. Report complete success. You will say that whoever made up the list either made a copying error or his source of information was wrong."

  "I could be wrong on that too."

  "You could," she said, "but you're better to be wrong and have a reasonable and plausible explanation for why in reality there is nothing there. To disprove you, they will have to show there is something there, and I don't think Rutherford has any special skills at hacking."

  "And lose this piece of paper if he goes to get someone else."

  "Exactly," she said with a smile. "You're starting to show signs of hope."

  * * *

  Svetlana decided to come back to work late that evening. While Burrowes had done quite a search on her on a different computer, he had downloaded what he had found onto a memory stick, and as far as she could make out, he left his memory sticks in his top right drawer. She wanted to find out what he had found out because she was far from satisfied he had told all. In particular, she wanted to know exactly the nature of the CIA interest in her.

  She parked some distance away and while carrying a large shoulder bag, she walked the rest of the way. There were obvious disadvantages in walking. Thanks to the snow, she was leaving footprints, but by walking on the edge of the road she could avoid that, and hopefully she could walk in tyre tracks until she had to go down the side of the front building. At that point, with any luck if she walked close to the building or along the fence, nobody would notice. She also had oversize galoshes with internal padding, so if anyone saw the footprints, they would be those of someone with significantly larger feet.

  When she came around the back of the front building, their building was partially lit up. Someone was still there. She tried the front door and was pleased to find she did not have to kill the alarm because that would alert whoever was there that she had entered. She got out of the snow, took off her galoshes and put them in a plastic bag, and then put that into the carry bag.

  As she walked around the first corner, it occurred to her that someone might be in her workroom. Accordingly, she decided to go in the storeroom that was adjacent, and which had a door into the corner of the workroom. She had a torch, so she did not have to turn on a light, and she crossed to the door and very gently opened it and peered in.

  There, searching on Burrowes' computer, was Dennis. He seemed to be copying something onto a memory stick, then he finally finished, put the computer to sleep, and got up. He threw the memory stick in the air, caught it, pocketed it, and after he turned out the lights he jauntily walked out the door.

  Svetlana waited, and then noticed the light filtering under the door went out. She waited another ten minutes, then with her torch she went to Burrowes' desk. She woke it up and began searching for what Dennis had been doing. She had suspected he would be doing what she wanted to do, namely to find out what Burrowes had found out about her, but she was wrong. He had been searching to find out how Burrowes had hacked into certain banks and got to their accounts.

  With both a chuckle and a sigh of despair, she realised Dennis was going to steal money from such accounts, and as luck had it, he was caught before he started. Also, as luck had it, that was none of her business. She had no intention of confessing how she knew. She then turned to the task she had come for and took out the memory sticks from the drawer and inserted them into a laptop she took from her carry bag. She uncovered all the sites Burrowes had searched and she read quickly what he had found. She had to acknowledge he had done quite a go
od job.

  She then turned off her laptop and returned the memory sticks to where she had found them, then she made her way back to the front door. This was the tricky bit. Dennis would have set the alarm. She would have to avoid the motion sensors, unlock the door, get out, and . . . Then she saw she had had another piece of luck. Dennis had forgotten to set the alarm.

  Now what? If she set it, and Dennis recalled he had not set it and came back, she would be advertising that she had been there, unless he thought that maybe he had set it anyway. If she did not set it, and this was noted tomorrow, Rutherford would be asking questions. She decided to set it, and try to be the first in tomorrow morning.

  * * *

  When Burrowes arrived the following morning, the first thing he noticed when he sat down was that the mouse was not exactly where he had left it. He could be wrong, of course, because it was not much of a switch, but he was suspicious, so when the computer was warmed up, he had a look at what traces were left of activity on it after he had left.

  At first he felt annoyed. Much of his work from the previous day had been examined. The good news was that his program had deleted the general aspects of the hack. Whoever had looked at what remained could only use it to get into those specific accounts because he had been given all the account numbers. Then he realized that much of what he would tell Rutherford would be unsubstantiated. As an example, when he got around to telling him that he had got into such an account at a bank on the Cayman Islands, there would be no real evidence he had. He would tell Rutherford he had opened a given account, but he would not normally tell them how much was in it, in part because that was not part of his instructions. It would have been sensible for his employer to check, and even more sensible to check that he had not tried to move money. Rather reluctantly, he had to admit that if he were in their shoes he might have checked to make sure nothing was stolen.

  He also noted that whoever had got in had merely checked that he had got in; they had not repeated any entries, so they had not tried to do anything with the accounts other than presumably verify he had not altered them in any way. So they did not entirely trust him, but maybe they might trust him more when they checked to see he had done what they asked, and had ignored the opportunity to handle so much money.

  He then noticed that although Svetlana was already at work, she probably was not achieving very much. She was clearly washed out. So, she was the one who had been checking up on him. Well, he thought, time to stir the pot a bit.

  "You had a hard night?" he asked her with a challenging tone.

  "There was an altercation going on in a downstairs apartment," Svetlana explained. This was true in that there had been an altercation, but she only knew about it because she had to pass the door when she came back from her late night visit to Burrowes' work station.

  Burrowes was thinking about this, and was trying to think of some way to catch her out if this was not true when Dennis popped his head up. Dennis was about to make some sort of remark, then, when he noticed Rutherford coming, he quickly put his head back down again. Rutherford came up to the desk, gave each of them a thoughtful stare, then said in an unemotional voice, "Well, Mr Burrowes, enlighten me as to what you found yesterday?"

  "Well, sir, I got into each of the banks you nominated yesterday, and I have written down the accounts and their contents on this piece of paper," and he handed over a sheet of paper on which everything was neatly hand-written.

  "You copied by hand?" Rutherford said in a tone that suggested he was unhappy about the inefficient use of resources.

  "I assumed you would not want a trace of the copying, because such a trace would be left at the other end."

  "There's nothing about the account at the first bank I gave you."

  Burrowes noticed that Svetlana gave him a slightly challenging look, as if to say, are you going to save yourself?

  "There's no such account there," Burrowes said. "Either it got closed between whoever made that list and now, or whoever made it made a mistake, maybe a typing error. There are a lot of numbers, and –"

  "Blaming someone else for your failure, are you?"

  As Burrowes had been explaining, he had become increasingly nervous. Passing the blame back upstairs seemed in retrospect a poor way to get out of this. However, now he began to feel a little angry. He had done well. "I am not blaming anyone," he said coldly, "but there is no such account there. You're welcome to prove me wrong."

  Rutherford gave him a stare, then when Burrowes did not flinch, he glanced across the report and compared the amounts with what was written on another piece of paper. Then he looked up at Burrowes.

  "That's not too bad at all," Rutherford finally announced. "The first one was not a mistake or an error. That there was no such account was put there deliberately to see what you would do, and my question before was to see whether you had the balls to stand up for yourself. You got it as right as could be expected and you stood up for yourself, so, well done. Take the rest of the day off, and tomorrow we shall give you a more important target."

  "Thank you," Burrowes said, and sat back in his chair. When Rutherford had gone, he caught Svetlana's eye, and said, "Thank you."

  "What is it you say? You're welcome," she said, and turned her attention back to her computer.

  Burrowes gave a slight shrug, and picked up his carry bag. If he were offered the chance to take most of the day off, he should take it.

  Chapter 7

  Burrowes arrived early the following morning. He knew he was being examined, and he thought he should do something to make an impression, just in case time keeping was relevant to Rutherford's thinking. Svetlana was the next to arrive. She smiled sweetly, and asked him so sweetly that it was obviously forced and totally without sincerity, if he would like coffee. He offered to make it, but she waved him away. "Until the boss arrives, we've nothing to do anyway."

  She returned, handed him his mug, then sat down. "So, what did you do with your free time?"

  "Would you believe I went grocery shopping?"

  "Oh dear, how droll. Couldn't you come up with something a little more adventurous?"

  "Possibly," he said with a shrug, "but then I would have run out of things to eat, and eating has its merits."

  "I suppose it does, but it's hardly exciting."

  "No, but then again I didn't have so much time that I could prepare for an adventure and have it. Also . . ."

  "Also?" This had Svetlana's interest.

  "Most of the rest of the day was spent fixing my car," he said. "It developed an electrical problem, and, well, it took quite some time to find out what was wrong, then go get parts and fix it."

  "You need a more reliable car. You should go shopping for one."

  "You're not wrong I need a more reliable car," Burrowes replied in a gloomy tone, "but I need more cash to get one."

  Rutherford's arrival put an end to that banter. "So, all ready to do something useful?" he asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued, "This is the file of a minor Russian oligarch called Saveliy Kapralov." He paused, because he noticed that Svetlana had given a slight smile. "You know of him?" he asked her.

  "Not at all," she replied. "Never heard of him, but if we are going to go through all the minor Russian oligarchs, I can see we are going to be paid for a very long time because there are a lot of them."

  "He may be a relatively minor oligarch, nevertheless he has come to the attention of the organization who is paying you," Rutherford said, "and sorry to disappoint you, but it is unlikely we shall be looking at a huge number of other ones. For some reason, he has been selected, so as an exercise I want you to find out what you can about him that is not in this file, see what you can hack of his correspondence with whoever he contacts, see where he keeps his money, and see whether he transfers large amounts of money for reasons other than obvious business reasons."

  "Is there anything you don't want?"

  "At this stage, we take everything," Rutherford said. "Fi
rst, consider it an exercise, and second, it may expose vulnerabilities."

  "It will also create a lot of useless data," Burrowes pointed out. "Are you trying to build up the volume?"

  "There's a bit of truth in that," Rutherford said. "The real boss of this program has nominated this person, so my guess is he already has something on him."

  "So why are we doing this?"

  "Because, let me remind you, you are being paid to do what he asks. I also suggest both of you read this file carefully because the guy who's paying you may well have left some clues as to how to do whatever he wants."

  "Ladies first," Burrowes said, handing the file to Svetlana.

  "How chivalrous," she muttered. "I don't suppose this has anything to do with a lack of enthusiasm for –"

  "It has something to do with my lack of knowledge of how Russians live," Burrowes said. "Something I thought to be highly suspicious might be what every Russian does."

  "So what are you going to do?"

  "If you show me that file, and assuming it has Kapralov's e-accounts, I'll get started on seeing if I can find may way in."

  The rest of the morning was spent industriously, although as noted later, it yielded little of substance. Kapralov had undoubtedly had an easy way to riches, and the route was easily uncovered. How he had come by the necessary financial help was very well hidden.

  "It's not so much even how he came to be so rich that matters," Rutherford noted at lunchtime. "It's who he owes, and what he's doing about repaying."

  At the end of the day, Burrowes confessed that from what he had seen, Kapralov was simply a fairly compliant businessman. "There have been transfers of large sums of money from the company he was running, but that's hardly surprising, given it is a large business and tends to buy raw material in lots of a full rail shipment."

  "Compliant?" Rutherford asked. "Explain."