by Ben Coes
A minute later, the Talaria was slicing smoothly through the calm water heading south.
86
THE WHITE NIGHT
AVENUE SVERCHKOV
MOSCOW
Malnikov exited the highway, then took side streets through a shabby-looking neighborhood. He parked in front of a bar.
“What are we doing?” asked Dewey.
Malnikov looked at him.
“Finding Cloud. Stay here.”
“No,” said Dewey. “Fuck that. What are we doing?”
“Seeing an old friend.”
“Why?”
“Something I realized this morning.”
“And what’s that?”
“That people are fuckheads.”
Malnikov reached for the door and climbed out.
“Let me do the talking,” he said as they approached the front door.
The White Night was nearly empty. Behind the bar was a mirror that stretched the entire length of the room, crowded with hundreds of bottles of liquor, beer, and wine. On the walls were framed photos of famous Soviet athletes: hockey players, soccer players, great sprinters, skiers, and swimmers from past Olympics, including a large black-and-white photo of the gymnast Olga Korbut, heroine of the 1972 Munich Olympics.
There was a lone person there. He was a short bald man with a beard and mustache. He stood at the bar, leaning down, counting out stacks of bundled one-hundred-ruble banknotes. Almost the entire surface of the bar was covered in bricks of the money, like a child’s table covered in blocks.
As Malnikov and Dewey entered, the man’s head jerked around, along with his right arm, which held a gun, reflexively training it on them. Seeing who it was, he quickly moved the muzzle away.
“Don’t shoot, Leo,” said Malnikov.
“Alexei,” said Tolstoy, putting the pistol back on the bar. “I’m sorry. Instincts. Who’s this?”
“Nobody,” said Malnikov.
He walked through the empty bar and stopped to Tolstoy’s left. Dewey followed behind him and took a seat at the bar.
“Have a seat,” said Tolstoy. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, thank you,” said Malnikov. “We won’t be long.”
“You’re up early.”
Malnikov nodded.
“What is it?” asked Tolstoy, who went back to counting out money.
“I realized something this morning,” said Malnikov.
“Yes, Alexei?” said Tolstoy.
“After my father was arrested, you said something to me.”
Tolstoy turned. He reached his hand out and placed it on Malnikov’s shoulder.
“I said I am sorry he was arrested,” said Tolstoy. “You know I love your father.”
“You said I could be next. You said I need ‘leverage.’ Remember?”
Tolstoy nodded, smiling nervously. He removed his hand and reached for a cup of coffee. As he did so, his eyes shot to the gun on the bar.
“I still believe that,” said Tolstoy. “If something were to happen to you, we would all be affected. You know this.”
Malnikov stared at Tolstoy for several moments, studying him.
“Actually, I will take that drink,” said Malnikov. “Vodka.”
“Yes, of course,” said Tolstoy. “How about you?”
Dewey nodded.
“Whiskey.”
Tolstoy stood from the barstool. With his back turned to Malnikov, he picked up the gun from the bar. He took a step, then swiveled, gun out, toward Malnikov. But Malnikov was already standing, anticipating, and his left hand grabbed Tolstoy’s gun arm before it could complete its sweep.
Tolstoy yanked his arm back, trying to get free of Malnikov’s clutch.
With his other hand, Malnikov reached down and grabbed his gun from the concealed holster.
Tolstoy, unable to get his gun arm free of Malnikov, thrust his leg forward, kicking Malnikov squarely in the crotch, and in the same instant Malnikov fired the Desert Eagle. The slug ripped into Tolstoy’s knee, dropping him to the ground. Tolstoy howled in agony.
“Motherfucker!”
Malnikov stepped forward and drop-kicked Tolstoy beneath the chin, sending him tumbling against a barstool. He kicked him again, this time in the gut. Then he stepped calmly above him, keeping the long-barreled Desert Eagle trained on Tolstoy’s head.
“Who told you to say it?” asked Malnikov.
“Why should I tell you?” groaned Tolstoy, clutching his blood-soaked knee.
Malnikov fired another round. The bullet struck Tolstoy’s stomach. As Tolstoy groaned, both of his hands reached for his stomach, trying to stop the bleeding.
“I’ll call an ambulance if you tell me right now,” said Malnikov, the gun trained on Tolstoy’s head.
“Sascha,” whispered Tolstoy. “The man’s name is Sascha.”
Malnikov’s face grew red with anger.
“Is he the one who gave you Bokolov’s number?”
Tolstoy nodded.
Malnikov paused, looking down at Tolstoy, disappointment, betrayal, and hatred crossing his face.
“Where is he from?”
“Elektrostal.”
Malnikov kept the gun aimed at Tolstoy. He pulled a phone from his pocket and hit a speed-dial number, calling a man named Goran, who ran operations in Elektrostal for Malnikov. As it rang, he hit the Speaker button.
“Alexei,” came a groggy voice. “What time is it?”
“There’s a man named Sascha,” said Malnikov, staring at Tolstoy, the gun still trained on his skull. “According to Leo, he’s in your city.”
“There are many Saschas,” said Goran, half asleep.
“He’s a computer hacker.”
“Yes,” said Goran. “I believe I know this man. What does he look like?”
Malnikov looked at Tolstoy.
“Black hair,” coughed Tolstoy. “Long. He has a ponytail.”
“Yes, that’s him,” said Goran on speakerphone. “He likes fat girls. What do you want me to do with him?”
“Get me his address.”
Malnikov hung up the cell. He kept the muzzle on Tolstoy.
“Please, Alexei,” begged Tolstoy. “The ambulance.”
“I to, chto ty, predatel’?” seethed Malnikov. And what did you get, traitor? “Some of the money? Some of my money!?”
Blood topped Tolstoy’s lips and started dripping down his chin as he looked up at Malnikov from the floor.
“He knew everything.” Tolstoy coughed through his clotted throat. “He said I would end up in the same prison as your father. I had no choice.”
Malnikov fired. The slug ripped a jagged hole between Tolstoy’s eyes, kicking his head back, raining blood, skull, and brains on the floor, killing him instantly.
“You always have a choice, Leo.”
87
ELEKTROSTAL
Cloud had two screens on Moscow network news. One screen showed continuing coverage of the plane crash. The other had live coverage of the explosion near Pobedy Park.
He heard the door open behind him, and turned. It was Sascha. He trudged inside, his clothing and hair soaking wet. His face was red and sweaty.
“It’s all over the news,” said Cloud.
“He was there.”
“Who?”
“Andreas.”
Cloud stood, mouth agape.
“He was across the street, like he was watching the building. He chased me.”
“What did you do?”
“I detonated the bomb. He was thrown in the air. I think I might have killed him.”
Sascha stepped behind Cloud to look at the news. The screen was frozen.
Cloud hit the keyboard.
“We’re iced,” he said.
Cloud pounded the keyboard several times.
“It must be in our directories,” said Cloud.
He walked to the next workstation and ran a series of diagnostic scans of their own servers, then rebooted the system.
The scan of the servers pinpoin
ted a buffer overflow—a massive amount of traffic that clogged the system. In looking at the sequence of its arrival, he was quickly able to find the perpetrator. It was coming from someplace in North America. The perpetrator had no purpose other than to disrupt the streaming of the television station.
Cloud cleaned it out, then rebooted the servers. Within twenty seconds, the screen quickly froze again.
Cloud went back to the log and found the malicious code behind the buffer overflow. He cut out the piece of malicious code, saved it, then ran it through a program that contextualized the code against existing hacker code, looking for similarities, so that he could understand where the code had come from and if it represented a danger. He pasted the code, then watched as it was smashed against hundreds of millions of cataloged malicious code from hackers all over the world, including his own.
After less than a minute, a red flashing block of code appeared:
hwpsraid:/7sxl:0.01
He stared at the screen for several seconds, in shock.
“My God,” he whispered.
“What?”
Cloud shut his eyes, deep in thought.
“Cloud, what is it?”
“They found us.”
* * *
Down the hall from the Situation Room, Brubaker led Calibrisi and Polk to a small, windowless office. The room had photos on the walls of past presidents presiding over meetings in the Situation Room. A desk was against one wall. On top of it sat two large unusual-looking rectangular black phones.
Brubaker stepped to one of the phones and hit the speaker.
A female voice came on: “White House Signal.”
“This is Josh Brubaker. I need a dedicated preaction uplink via NSA channel two two.”
“Hold, please.”
The phone made two distinct beeps, then a male voice came on the line.
“NSC code link, you’re live. Agent O’Brien here, go, sir.”
“O’Brien, you have a live Emergency Priority action,” said Brubaker. “I’m handing it over to Hector.”
“Yes, sir. It’s an honor, Mr. Calibrisi.”
Brubaker patted Calibrisi on the shoulder, then left, shutting the door behind him.
“What kind of encryption is on the link?” asked Polk.
“KEY-5 TLS encryption,” said O’Brien. “What’s the first number?”
“212-772-1001,” said Calibrisi.
“One minute, sir.”
* * *
Malnikov pushed the red Ferrari F12 Berlinetta recklessly fast—tearing east along the M7 at 150 mph despite the heavy rain.
Dewey, strapped tight in the passenger seat, stared ahead with a hint of unease.
“Alexei?”
“Yeah?”
“You realize if we die on the way there it sort of makes it hard to capture him.”
Malnikov glanced at Dewey. He slowed ever so slightly, shaking his head.
“I thought you were tough.”
“I never said that,” said Dewey. “Besides, I don’t care how tough you are, hitting a hunk of concrete at two hundred miles an hour hurts.”
“Victory requires speed,” said Malnikov. “Americans want to go too slow. Speed limits and whatnot. You’re too cautious. Perhaps this is why you lose all these wars? Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq…”
Dewey’s eyes bulged as they came up behind a semitruck, then swerved right, barely missing it.
“The Cold War,” added Dewey.
Malnikov braked sharply, then exited the highway. A few minutes later, they came to the edge of Elektrostal. He took a left on Mayakovskogo. The road was rutted with potholes. Trees and shrubs had taken over the sidewalks. Old warehouses stained with rust sat between decrepit structures that had once been office buildings but now appeared abandoned.
“I didn’t realize Russia was so nice,” said Dewey.
Malnikov laughed.
“We have better-looking women,” he responded.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Dewey.
“No, it’s a fact.”
“Katya’s pretty, I’ll give you that. But I’ll take an Iowa farm girl any day.”
“‘Farm girl’?” asked Malnikov, shaking his head in disgust as he steered past potholes. “Who the hell wants to fuck a farm girl? You come out with me sometime. I’ll show you what a beautiful woman looks like.”
Malnikov slashed right, then slowed and came to a stop.
“There it is,” said Malnikov, shutting off the Ferrari’s lights.
Two blocks away, an ugly office building sat midblock. Four stories tall, it looked like the countless other structures on the street, concrete, shaped like a rectangular block, with small windows. Lights were visible in the building’s top floor.
Malnikov’s cell suddenly started ringing. He looked at the caller ID, muted it.
He turned to Dewey.
“In the glove compartment. Get a weapon.”
* * *
As Igor waited for Calibrisi to call him back, he set the phone down on the desk and began typing, pulling the noose even tighter around Cloud’s neck.
First, he built redundant pathways into Cloud’s network, in case Cloud somehow shut off the system or was able to contain him. Next, he looked for Cloud’s alternative egress points, quickly cataloging the various digital pathways out from the network to the Internet. In all, he found sixteen different arteries out of the single building at 17 Vostochnyy. He infiltrated them all, inserting trapdoors.
Suddenly, his third computer screen lit up. Words appeared:
X:UsersCX7-44> who is this
Igor thought for a split second, then started typing:
C:Users02> where is it
As he waited for Cloud’s response, the screen came alive again:
X:UsersCX7-44> where is what
Igor paused. He knew that right now, every second mattered. He needed to try to delay Cloud long enough for Calibrisi to get people there.
Igor’s phone started to ring.
“Igor?” asked Calibrisi.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“What do you have?” asked Calibrisi.
“He’s in a city called Elektrostal,” said Igor.
* * *
Polk opened his laptop, quickly bringing up a digital map of Russia. He narrowed in on Elektrostal.
Igor spoke: “Hector, you need to know something. He initiated conversation with me.”
“How?”
“Text.”
“What did he say?”
“‘Who is this?’”
“How’d you respond?”
“I asked, ‘Where is it?’ He just responded, ‘Where is what?’”
Calibrisi looked at Polk, who was deep in thought.
“We need time,” said Polk. “We need to get Dewey there. Let’s ask him where the money is. He might think Malnikov has found him.”
“Got it,” said Igor.
“Control,” said Calibrisi. “I need you to add another number.”
* * *
On one screen, Cloud studied the hack, trying to assess where it had come from.
A second screen showed his opponent’s words in white text on black:
C:Users02> the money
Cloud found the point of intrusion. First, his opponent had discovered an error in one of the networks Cloud had used to send one of his attacks.
Once his opponent discovered the error, he went directly after the jugular, seeking to break the encryption algorithm that safeguarded all of Cloud’s network. The attacker had employed a so-called brute-force attack. Armed with a vast amount of computing power, the person or institution had eventually broken his encryption key by systematically enumerating all possible variants of the encryption key until finding the right one.
Now that he was in, there was no way to get him out. His attacker had already commandeered the network and architected a new layer of encryption, which he, not Cloud, controlled.
“How did he get in?” ask
ed Sascha.
“A fucking fencepost error,” said Cloud, shaking his head in disgust.
“I’ll do a registry scan,” said Sascha, beginning to type. “Send me the bad code.”
“It’s no use. He broke the key.”
Cloud watched a separate screen, which displayed security flags. One by one, so fast he barely had time to read the individual lines of code, his DNS addresses were taken over. Whoever was out there was now commandeering every computer and every program Cloud possessed.
“Mother of God,” said Sascha. “It’s like a tidal wave.”
Whoever it was wanted him to believe they worked for Alexei Malnikov. Perhaps they did work for Malnikov. But Cloud doubted the Russian mobster cared about the money, certainly not enough to invest in the sort of sophisticated attack that just broke through his defenses and brought down his network. Even the response, “the money,” gave him pause; he knew Alexei Malnikov would rather kill him than get his money back.
It had to be the United States. Langley.
Cloud turned on his cell, making sure he could use it to continue the dialogue with the attacker. He typed into the phone:
I want to cut a deal
He looked at his computer to see if the phone was still working. On the screen, his words were displayed exactly as they had been written:
X:UsersCX7-44> I want to cut a deal
Cloud stood up.
“Leave everything,” he said to Sascha. “Leave it all, exactly as it is.”
* * *
Dewey opened the Ferrari’s glove compartment. There were four handguns inside. All were the same: Desert Eagle .50 AE. He grabbed one of the guns, then popped the mag, making sure it was full. He grabbed an extra mag and stuffed it in his pocket.
“We need to loop in Hector,” said Dewey.
“The time is now, Dewey,” said Malnikov. “We call Hector and all of a sudden it’s five minutes from now.”
Dewey stared at the windshield as rain pelted the glass. He knew they needed to tie in Hector, yet he knew Malnikov was right. It would take time they didn’t have. There wasn’t anything Hector could tell them that would alter the plan right now, anyway.
“One of us stays here,” said Dewey.
“We both go in.”
“No,” said Dewey. “One of us needs to watch the exits. That’s you. Remember, we need him alive.”
Though angry, Malnikov nodded. He reached for the door pocket and pulled out another cell.