by Ran Weber
Charlie Wong, a shift supervisor at Google’s headquarters, looked at the screen and exclaimed, “It’s gone!”
“What?” Clarice asked. “What’s gone?”
“Our car, number 12, it was on Bryant a second ago!”
“Where did it go?” Clarice asked, approaching the screen. “Did it turn into 15th Street?! That’s totally unplanned. Weird.”
“ No,” said Charlie, shivering slightly. “It’s disappeared completely.”
25
Tel Aviv, Israel
“Lousy government,” Rami cried in detestation as he leafed through the newspaper in disgust. His feet rested on the desk before him and he sank into the armchair. The room was dim, faint light coming through a small side window. “Nobodies. Incompetents.”
The fat man turned his back to Rami and looked out of the small window. “Can you believe it?” asked Rami, “They’re cutting back on the defense budget again, what are they going to do with all that money, huh?”
“Look...” the fat man began.
“I’ll tell you where all this money will go,” Rami interrupted angrily. “To those smooth politicians, that’s where it’ll go, via various kinds of concealed funds and fictitious charities, and they’ll get the money back, under the table.”
The fat man didn’t answer.
“They can’t be trusted, their decisions are decisions made with their hands tied with luxury ties, nightly cocktails with the ambassadors of Norway and Austria. They do what the Americans tell them and make sure not to annoy the English. I can’t stand it. Once there used to be leadership, there was a path, things were clear. It is impossible to run a country this way, and it’s impossible to solve burning security problems with the aid of eye-rolling and the Finance Ministry boys’ PowerPoint presentations. This farce must end.”
“So, what do you suggest?” said the fat man, turning to Rami.
Rami tossed the newspaper and took his feet off the desk. “I propose to act without asking anyone, do what needs to be done. Quietly and without argument.”
“As in Hebron?” asked the fat man.
“Yes,” replied Rami, “at the very least like in Hebron.”
The fat man was silent for a moment and then asked, “Tell me, Rami. The mission with Yossi and Yoav, what really happened?”
“Does it matter?” Rami asked. “It’s history. Old news.”
Rami stood and walked towards the fat man, his visage threatening. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” said the fat man, his fingers toying with a pencil. “I thought about it, about what exactly happened there.” His voice went higher. “I just thought about it, you know.”
“You’d better stop thinking, understand?”
26
Los Angeles, California
Ben studied the diner menu. He shot a glance around him. The place was empty. Almost empty. At the other end two old men sat eating breakfast. The waitress came up to him a second time. “I’m still thinking,” he responded politely.
It was a standard American diner, lacking charm and lacking singularity. The walls were overlaid with fake stone up to about three feet. Above the stone overlay was glued what looked like cheap imitation pine and above it the walls were painted a pale gray. Ben looked at his watch with unconcealed impatience.
Across the street, out of Ben’s sight, two federal agents sat in a rental car, eating donuts. The one was an overweight African American, the other thin, tall and white.
Ehud Slotzky entered in a typically flashy manner and smiled at the waitress. “Two coffees with cream, and breakfast.” She said something that Ben couldn’t make out. “Yes, yes,” Slotzky answered, “exactly.”
He swiftly sat down on the seat next to Ben and shook his hand warmly. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“You’re late,” Ben pointed out.
The waitress served them breakfast. Ben looked at her, surprised. “I ordered for you,” Slotzky told him.
The breakfast was made up of a fried egg, home fries, multigrain toast, a steaming cup of coffee and a glass of fresh orange juice. Slotzky attacked the juice and drank it in one long mouthful.
“I had to look into a few things for you and tie up some loose ends.”
Ben shifted uneasily and considered his plate. He pushed it away and sipped his coffee. The coffee was murky and he put it down in disgust. “Have you got any news?”
“Yes,” Slotzky answered. “The hacker challenge. Next week, San Diego. My guy will be there. Come.”
“Did you speak to him? Did you arrange something with him?”
“I leave that to you, Ben, my dear, I’m just letting you know. He’ll be at the big show and he’ll compete in the hacker challenge for sure.”
“Is he really that good?”
“That’s what I’m told,” Ehud said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he made it to the finals.”
Ben took out his phone and typed the information in slowly. When he looked up he saw Slotzky leave the diner. “Don’t forget to get the check,” Slotzky called back.
27
Federal Bureau of Investigations, Los Angeles
“Slotzky, cut the crap, you hear me?” Jim said, putting his coffee down angrily. It was early, but it wasn’t his first coffee of the day. A double espresso. He asks for it strong, so sometimes he gets a triple espresso in a latte paper cup.
“Jim,” Ehud stammered. “I...”
“You,” Jim shrieked into the phone and pushed it into his ear as hard as he could. “You said you would get him into Schetritt’s organization. The man is ambling around like a peacock in a safari, going around the city, and nothing is happening.”
“I’m taking care of it,” stammered Ehud.
“How are you taking care of it?” Jim asked impatiently. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples with his left hand.
“I have my ways.”
“Listen, your time is running out, this is your last chance. You better not screw up, or…”
“I know, Jim,” said Ehud. “Have I ever let you down?”
“There was one time, wasn’t there?” Jim asked in a low voice and sat down, continuing to sip the coffee that had already cooled. “Trash coffee,” he hissed.
“What?” Asked Ehud on the other end of the line. “Trash coffee, Mexican coffee. They don’t even know how to make coffee, those pieces of trash. They pick them up on the streets and let them prepare coffee for us. Why aren’t they giving jobs to proud Americans?”
Ehud didn’t answer. “Look, he’s going to a gaming trade show today,” he said at last.
“Gaming trade show?” Jim shrieked, almost spitting out the coffee. “You’ve really lost your mind. Will you be sending him to Disneyland too?”
“You don’t understand, Jim, something big is going to happen there, believe me.”
“For your sake, let’s hope something happens.”
28
The Valley, Los Angeles, California
The sun’s rays came through the shutters. I rolled over in bed. I was sleeping well but something felt wrong. I rubbed my eyes and realized that the alarm clock didn’t go off. I looked at my cell phone and saw that the battery was dead. This thing doesn’t charge properly, I thought, I should have checked it last night.
I had rented a car to get to the trade show. I was supposed to head out at 7:30 AM; it was almost 8:30 AM. I felt the pressure build inside me. The hacker challenge, will I get there on time? It was strange that they hadn’t woken me up. The rental company promised to bring the car at exactly 7:30. I had a bad feeling when I was on the phone with them, arranging the rental. The clerk hadn’t sounded very intelligent when she asked me for my address and phone number several times.
I got dressed quickly and went out to see; perhaps they were outside after all. Binyamin’s front lawn and the n
arrow street spread out before me. One thing was missing in the picture to make it perfect – the rental car I’d ordered.
I stormed into Binyamin’s house. “I don’t believe it, I knew I couldn’t trust them.” “What?” He asked.
“They never came! From the rental company, they promised to bring a car down here at 7:30, it’s already 8:30 and they never came!” “They came,” Binyamin said calmly.
I looked at him in amazement. “Excuse me?”
“I sent them away,” he said, taking his keys.
“You sent them away? What do you mean?”
“I saved you money,” he said simply. “I’m giving you a ride to the trade show.”
“It’s a five-hour drive.”
I looked at him, not knowing whether to thank him or choke him. Either way, it was late and I had no other way of getting there.
We got into the pickup. “Tell me,” I asked, “what are you going to do there?”
“What do you care, old people aren’t allowed to go into a gaming trade show?” He began to laugh. “It’s good for me to get out a little. To get around, to see new things.”
“Okay,” I said. “Suit yourself.”
We took the motorway south. As we went past the airport Binyamin turned to me and asked, “Want to get some Mexican food?”
I nodded.
“There’s a guy around here who has a kosher Mexican restaurant,” Binyamin said. “I believe it’s here on the right. Some Chabadnik once told me about this place, they have an excellent burrito.”
He turned into a side street. The area looked poorer. Was this one of the small towns between Los Angeles and San Diego; Santa Ana? Long Beach?
We stopped by the side of the road. Standing before us, was something that looked like a cross between a coffee shop and a restaurant, a bamboo fence and a few small tables and chairs outside. A simple green and red sign bore the name La Casa and beneath the word “kosher” appeared in Hebrew. We went in. The little restaurant was quite empty at this hour. Binyamin asked me if I want anything in particular.
“I don’t know much about Mexican food,” I replied.
A strong smell of beans filled the air, and Mexican music was playing in the background. Pictures of Mexico adorned a wall painted in bright earthy colors. The place felt cozy. I asked Binyamin if it being empty said something about the food. He laughed. “Come in here at noon and you won’t find a stool to sit on.” I walked to a small table on the left and he ordered in the meantime. “Two burritos with black beans, both kosher and vegetarian,” he said. I wanted a salad, but the waiter didn’t understand what I was trying to say. Binyamin laughed and said no one eats salad in the morning in America, only at lunch or in the evening.
“This is not Israel,” he said finally.
“Why don’t you go back to Israel?”
“I can’t,” Binyamin said. “I already told you, it hurts too much, I can’t bear to see what’s happening. But in truth, I must go back. Mashiach is coming and oy vey to anyone caught in the Diaspora. We have to return to Israel.”
When we finished the meal, I got up to pay. Binyamin jumped as though a snake had bit him. “Forget about it,” he said quickly, taking out his credit card and handing it to the ready hand of the waiter behind the cash register. “You’re my guest, my friend.”
We left the restaurant and got into the car. Binyamin started the engine. It was a few seconds before we heard the familiar roar of the mighty engine. A quick turn, a zigzag between a few small streets and we were on the highway again.
***
“We got a signal, boss,” Nash said proudly as he burst into Jim’s office.
“When?” Jim asked, straightening up. “And I told you a thousand times, Nash, knock, even just a light knock.”
“Yesterday,” Nash said, ignoring the remark. He gently closed the door behind him.
“Yesterday?! Why didn’t you let me know?”
“You were busy, I couldn’t reach you.”
“Well, what is it?” Jim asked.
“Well,” Nash said slowly. “Schetritt was talking to someone, it’s unclear who it might have been, it was too hard to locate. We only managed to understand that he was about to plant a car bomb.”
“Plant a car bomb? What car? Whose car? On whose behalf?”
“It’s not clear what car.”
Jim looked at Nash and approached him, his interest piqued. “Did they mention details? A remote Operating System? Couldn’t you understand even a little more?”
“No,” Nash said, scratching his head. “At one point, Schetritt laughed and said that as far as this explosion goes, there’s no need to worry too much about the driver.”
Jim nodded. “A suicide driver? The Iranians?”
“Maybe,” Nash said, raising an eyebrow.
“The Foretellers,” Jim said angrily, slapping the table.
29
The Hacker Challenge, San Diego, California
The trade show building – home to the hacker challenge – was huge. An enormous glass pyramid extended from it, reinforced with cobalt blue steel supports. At night, powerful spotlights scanned the sky. I had no intention of staying as late as that, but the videos I’d seen on the net showed it was a true spectacle.
Every year more people attended the trade show. It started out as a regional San Diego trade show, which was also attended by gamers from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Then it became a West Coast gamers’ trade show and then the entire US. In the previous two years, it had been attended by people from all over the world - Japanese, Germans, British, even Saudis. Binyamin said he would stay in the car, that he had some calls to make and that he’d come in later. We arranged to meet back in the car at five.
I entered the complex. The loudspeakers blasted high-decibel electronic music and signs displaying the big company names hung everywhere. I walked along the stands, checking out new games and gadgets. I thought of Amos. He would have been elated to be here. When turning along the maze of the exhibition, I thought I saw Binyamin from a distance, talking to two men in suits. I considered approaching him – he might not know how these trade shows functioned and could be struggling to make his way. I changed my mind – he’s a big boy, he’ll manage.
I turned into a peripheral glass corridor that lead to the hacker challenge. Hundreds of hackers crammed into the glass pyramid, adjacent to the main trade show, trying their luck. The preliminary stage was a relatively basic hacking attempt. Those who got through it, progressed to the next stage that posed a more complex challenge. After that, only a few remained to take on the major challenge.
I saw a crowd gather around the terminals in the pyramid’s center. I bought a Coke and sat on one of the benches on the side. I took a sip and looked at the huge plasma screens mounted on the walls and the ceiling, displaying the hacker terminal screens and their hacking attempts. There were rumors that the challenge was funded not only by the official sponsors but also by information security firms recruiting young talent.
The trade show posed a hiatus for me. Rami and the fat man certainly wouldn’t be pleased to know I were here, but I owed it to myself.
I held the nearly empty bottle suspended between two fingers and I looked at the screens. I was able to scan several different screens concurrently, to see parallel attempts of different hackers and parallel responses of the system to the hacking attempts. I was able to discern something, a flash of a thought. A synchronization of the hackers’ strategies and the system’s response. I began to develop a pattern of thought that I had not developed on my own; the result of the strenuous efforts of two or three hackers. Unlike them, I possessed the physical and mental distance to see the big picture. I got up and tossed the empty bottle in the trash.
I found myself standing in front of a free computer terminal. The cursor flashed in the top right corner. I rolle
d up my sleeves and began to type quickly. I went through the first two stages fairly quickly and progressed to the main challenge. I initially tried to attack the system from one angle and encountered a rejection. I chose another strategy – another rejection.
As the system rejected my attempts, it became clear to me how right I was in the flash that came to me as I had witnessed the hackers crash against the impenetrable walls of the system. My attempts were more of a sniff of the terrain than a genuine hope for a breach. I took a deep breath, the din of the room faded, I entered a state of deep concentration.
I started implementing the chosen strategy. In the absence of a time restriction, each of the hackers sitting around me could have solved the puzzle, however time was limited. Within three minutes I pressed Enter for the last time and heard the victory bell – a synthesized French horn, loudly blowing three times. A metallic voice called out: “The hacker challenge has been breached. Terminal 12 has won.”
***
“Where did he see him?” Rami asked, alarmed.
“In a computer games trade show,” said the fat man with satisfaction. “But wait, that’s not all.”
“Not all?” said Rami, pacing around the room, irritated. “What was he thinking? That we’d sent him out there to play computer games?”
“Wait,” the fat man said. “This is much more interesting than you think.”
“Did Ehud update you just now?”
“I received an encrypted message from him this very minute. He followed him to the exhibition and discovered some very interesting things.”
“Well?” Rami asked impatiently, “What’s so interesting?”
“Yoav won the hacker challenge, the trade show’s hacker competition. You were right, he really is brilliant – the challenge was particularly tough this year. Several information security companies paid the trade show executives double figures to escalate the challenge by several degrees, to see what the hackers are really made of. There was a tough battle between several hackers and in the end our Yoavaleh scooped the prize.”