The Alexandria Project: A Tale of Treachery and Technology (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 1)

by Andrew Updegrove

  Marla was serious now. “So what are you going to do, Dad?”

  Frank tried to speak more gently now. “Marla, if things get too tense, I may decide I need to go away for awhile. If that happens, you won’t be able to call me on my cellphone, or email me, either. We’d have to assume that you’re the first person the CIA would tap in an effort to trace me back through you. Can you deal with that?”

  Marla looked at him with concern, not knowing if he was serious. She realized he was, and wondered whether she should try to argue him out of doing something she worried could backfire badly.

  “But Dad, if you run, they’ll be sure it’s you.”

  “I know. But I think the best way I can clear myself is by finding whoever is behind what’s going on. There’s a lot more I can do if I’m not under surveillance...websites I’d need to visit and people I’d need to be in touch with that would otherwise make me look even more suspicious. And I don’t have any confidence that the CIA is going to catch these guys on its own.”

  Marla looked down at her latte. It was untouched, and now cold.

  “Okay, Dad. I trust you. And yes, I’ll be able to deal with it if you decide you have to...drop out of sight.” Then she tried to lighten up the mood. “Have you thought of an alias yet?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. What do you think of ‘Carter Columbo’?”

  Marla rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ve seen your thrift store raincoat often enough to get the ‘Columbo’ part. But where did ‘Carter’ come from?”

  “Obviously you don’t read enough spy thrillers. Haven’t you noticed there’s invariably a government employee named ‘Carter’?”

  Marla managed a wan smile, but didn’t offer a response. There didn’t seem to be much else to talk about, so he gave Marla’s hand a squeeze, and stood up.

  Neither of them spoke as they left the Starbucks and walked back to Frank’s flat. Marla waited until they were in front of the apartment building before she asked, “Dad, if you really do take off, will there be any way we can keep in touch?”

  Frank smiled. “Yes, I think so, kid. But you’ll just have to wait for a little bird to tell you how.”

  * * *

  9

  You’ve Got Mail!

  Arriving at work on Monday, Frank found a Post-it® note on his monitor bearing just three words: See me – George.

  That wasn’t good. It looked like another week was going to get off to an interesting start. The question was, how?

  Frank took his time walking down the hall. He’d had enough unexpected developments already, and wasn’t looking forward to any new ones. But the distance was short, and it wasn’t long before he arrived at George’s office. Marchand saw him immediately, and motioned for him to sit down. Then he slid a sheet of paper to the edge of his desk.

  “This arrived in Saturday’s mail. Read it where it lies. I don’t want your fingerprints on it.”

  Frank recognized the logo at the top of the letter immediately: a tall, ancient-looking building that might be a lighthouse. Startled, he looked up at George.

  “Read it.”

  Frank pulled his chair closer and did as he was told.

  THE ALEXANDRIA PROJECT

  Dear Mr. Marchand,

  Allow me to apologize for any inconvenience my organization’s little demonstration may have caused to you and your staff. Also, be assured that your materials will be quite safe with us.

  We hope that your recent contributions to The Alexandria Project have made real to you a matter for which someone with your responsibilities should have the utmost concern: the headlong rush of government towards complete reliance upon the Internet, notwithstanding the increasing number of cyberattacks being launched by enemies of the state.

  You should also note with alarm the government’s intent to replace all paper-based systems with electronic archives. As this process accelerates across the public and private sectors, the day is not far distant when our enemies will be able to eradicate the knowledge upon which our very lives depend.

  When Julius Caesar set the blaze that destroyed the Library of Alexandria, and with it, the accumulated wisdom of the ancients, at least he could plead accident rather than intent. Above all other government offices, yours should never have been the first to adopt a print destruction policy, and hence our selection of the Library of Congress as the starting point for our campaign to force a return to sanity.

  Please know that the reach of our capabilities extends to every one of the Federal Agencies – and to all commercial, academic, and non-profit enterprises as well. Lest you doubt the truth of this statement, you will find that at 6:00 AM on Monday, the master security plans of the Department of Defense, White House, Library of Congress, MIT and Google will be contributed to The Alexandria Project. We will read them with interest, deficient as they are. Widespread contributions from other leading academic, media, and commercial contributors may only be avoided if the administration publicly announces an immediate halt to further transitions of government systems to digitized archives. We look forward to that announcement, with full supporting details, in the very near future.

  Very truly yours,

  ZENODOTUS

  Frank looked up, and George nodded. “Six o’clock, on the dot. You should see my email inbox. So what do you think?”

  “Where do I start? First of all, what’s he talking about, saying that the LoC is starting a ‘destruction policy’?”

  “Ah, that’s an interesting clue, isn’t it? You’d have to be very highly placed in the LoC to know about that, so whoever ‘Zenodotus’ really is, he’s got access to inside information. Needless to say, that’s troubling.”

  “As you know, the LoC’s funding comes out of the Congressional budget. With the economy in the tank and the deficit soaring, the legislators need to show they’re willing to share the pain. That said, of course they don’t want to cut their own staff or perks, so they’ve told everyone else they have to double down on their own reductions. We’ve got to figure out how to lop 5% off our budget every year for the next three years, and as it happens, one of the easiest ways to do that is to digitize and pulp books as fast as we can.”

  “But how much money can that really save?”

  “Much more than you’d expect. We already add new material exclusively in electronic form, and if we start getting rid of the old stuff, we can cancel the new storage facility we were going to build out at Fort Meade, cut down on the curatorial staff, mothball parts of our current facilities – the list goes on and on. Hosting servers is a whole lot cheaper than hosting books, and we can show increased public access benefits by throwing more and more material on line. We can make it look like a win–win proposition.”

  Frank was mildly shocked. “We’d really do that? Start pulping millions of books?” He was as digital as the next IT guy, but like most LoC employees, he’d become fond of the aura of the millions of books, maps, music, and more that surrounded him at work. Personally, he thought that the Alexandria Project folks had a pretty good point. Not that this was the time to admit it.

  “You said the letter arrived by mail. Where was it postmarked?”

  “Alexandria, Virginia. But who knows whether the post box was just down the street from the author, or whether he drove five hundred miles to post it there. As you’ll recall from the anthrax scare, if you want to remain anonymous, there’s no better way to communicate than through the good old U.S. mail.”

  Frank tried a different tack. “Okay, so let’s talk about the author. What do you make of ‘Zenodotus’?”

  “That part’s easy. Turns out he was a Greek grammarian, literary critic, Homeric scholar – and the first head librarian of the Library of Alexandria. So the story line holds true.”

  “Yeah,” Frank countered, “But what if the whole thing is simply a cover for something else? How disruptive would it be if every agency’s IT department is thrown into chaos? And what happens to every other legislative priority if Congress has
to drop everything to save the country from a ‘cybersecurity crisis’?”

  Frank stopped abruptly at that point. George guessed why. “So does this make you look more, or less, suspicious?”

  Why deny it? Frank thought.

  “I admit the thought did just cross my mind.”

  “I’m thinking it doesn’t help you, Frank. On the one hand, you shouldn’t know about the pulping program yet – that won’t be announced until next week. But on the other, if you’ve been sneaking around every directory on the servers, why wouldn’t you have stumbled on this?”

  Frank said nothing. Instead, he looked down at the letter again, trying to commit as much of it to memory as he could. Then he leaned back.

  “Why did you share this with me, George? Does Cummings know you intended to tip me on this?”

  “Cummings doesn’t know this letter exists – not yet. I only got here a half hour before you did, but I happened to flip through the weekend mail before getting down to business.”

  “He’ll be pissed.”

  “He’ll get over it. If he finds out, I’ll tell him I wanted to watch you read the letter and see how you reacted.”

  Frank looked up sharply. He wondered which way the conversation was about to turn.

  “So what would you tell him?”

  “I’d tell him you looked genuinely surprised,” George said evenly. Then he leaned forward and continued, more softly, “Don’t worry, Frank. I don’t think you have anything to do with this. You and I have known each other for quite a long time – I’m even the godfather of your daughter, in case you’d forgotten.”

  Frank breathed a silent sigh of relief, but George wasn’t done yet. “I know you can be a bull-headed idiot, Frank. And more often than not, you’re your own worst enemy to boot. But I don’t think you’re a big enough moron to pull a stunt like this.”

  Frank gave half a smile. “I’m not sure ‘thanks’ is the appropriate reply to a statement like that, but I will acknowledge a sense of relief.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Frank. When you compare this letter to the little rant I understand you committed to Carl Cummings’ audio recorder, it doesn’t look good. As soon as you leave this room, I’ll naturally have to call the CIA and turn this letter over to them. After that, all hell’s going to break loose. This isn’t just an annoying little problem here at the LoC anymore. This is about to turn into a public relations disaster for the administration.”

  There was no denying that, Frank realized. It looked like he might have less time to prepare than he had been counting on.

  George continued. “The CIA will obviously be able to keep the lid on this with the DoD and the White House. I don’t know how they’ll deal with the folks at MIT and Google – maybe they’ll just leave them in the dark for now, or maybe they’ll be upfront and ask them to play ball. Either way, I don’t see a major university and a public corporation calling in the press over something like this if the CIA gives them a gold plated excuse not to. But if Zenodotus & Co. start snapping up documents here, there and everywhere, this will hit the front pages – fast. Come to think of it, I bet the next letters will go to the New York Times, CBN and – God help the President – Pox News, each of which will have just had their security plans ‘contributed.’ Now, won’t that just be fun?”

  “So just exactly how screwed do you think I am, George? After all, there’s not really anything at all to connect me with this.”

  “I can’t answer that, Frank. You’re right; there’s no smoking gun pointed directly at you. But the genie is out of the bottle now. There’s not much I’m going to be able to do to help. We both know that if the CIA decides that it needs to have at least one ‘person of interest’ in their sights so they look like they’re doing their job, it’s likely to be you, for lack of a better volunteer.”

  Frank let that one hang in the air for a moment, and then stood up. “Well. I guess that’s that, then. I appreciate all you’ve done for me, George – I really do. Thanks for letting me know about the letter, too. The more I know, the more I can defend myself. Or at least it helps me think I can.”

  Frank was at his boss’s door when George spoke again. “Frank – one last thing.”

  What now? Frank thought.

  “Let me know by the end of the day what explanation you want to use for your absence, because as of 5:00 PM Friday, you’re on paid administrative leave.”

  * * *

  10

  Good Boy, Carl!

  Good morning agent Cummings!” The normally sullen receptionist smiled brightly at the handsome young agent. As an afterthought, she added, “Oh! I almost forgot. Mr. Marchand would like to speak to you.”

  “That’s nice. I’ll get around to it.”

  “Oh, but he said right away – just as soon as you arrive! He’s in that conference room right there.” Mary pointed at the door to her right.

  Carl gave a nonchalant smile and walked on. Who was George Marchand to be telling a CIA agent what to do?

  Ten minutes later, coffee cup in hand, Carl strolled past Mary again. Rewarding her with a wink, he opened the conference room door without knocking and stepped inside.

  To his surprise, he saw his boss sitting next to George, and next to him, the head of the CIA’s cybersecurity division, Michael Armstrong. Carl got a much bigger surprise a few moments later when he heard Armstrong call George “sir.”

  Ignored by those in the room, Carl slipped quietly into an empty chair at the end of the table. He decided it was time he started listening very carefully to what George had to say.

  “So that’s the news on the political front. Mike, give me an update on the current attacker profile we’re leaning towards. Dave, you play devil’s advocate.”

  “Unfortunately, sir, we really don’t have a profile. There’s no end of possibilities for who we could be up against, once you assume this whole Alexandria story is a pile of crap.”

  Carl’s boss interrupted him. “So let’s stop right there. Why should we assume it’s a pile of crap?’”

  “It was an attack after our last meeting that sealed it. What’s important is that this time, they took ‘litmus test’ files we had planted as bait, and we confirmed they were able to decrypt the files almost immediately. We know the encryption algorithm has been compromised before, so now we only use it when we want to pass false information along to bad guys – or, as in this case, when we want to know whether we’re up against the pros, or just amateurs without access to supercomputers. Conclusion: this isn’t any bunch of cranks – or any disgruntled employee, either – that we’re dealing with.”

  “So if the Alexandria story isn’t genuine, why are they playing around with us?” Dave countered. “Why don’t they just do whatever it is they really want to do and skip the theatrics?”

  Mike shrugged. “Well, it may be that they need to test their techniques further to be sure they’ll work before they pull the trigger on what they’re really up to. Or maybe they still haven’t figured out how to get to what they really want. Either way, they might have figured we’d detect them before long, so why not come up with a ruse to confuse us?”

  “Okay, let’s say that’s conceivable. But if it’s not really about book pulping, why are they hacking the Library of Congress?”

  Mike pointed to George. “The same reason Mr. Marchand’s cover is to be the head of IT there. Since the LoC is the secret testbed for security systems for the entire government, if they can crack the most secure servers he’s got, they can get to anything in any agency. They’ll even be able to do that next year, after we roll out the new wave of security the LoC is testing now.”

  Dave jabbed a finger at him. “But choosing the LoC could have been just dumb luck. How can you tell it wasn’t?”

  “We can’t,” George interrupted. “But we also can’t risk assuming it was. Keep going, Mike.”

  Dave sat back, and Mike continued. “So let’s agree to assume that the whole Alexandria story is just a
cover to throw us off track. If that’s the case, the letter Mr. Marchand got this morning is brilliant, because now we have to treat the Alexandria Project like a real danger – whether it’s a sham or not. Any day now, the lid will blow off if they decide to swipe a file and someone calls the papers – hell, if they decide to start swiping files from the papers! MIT and Google have agreed to keep quiet for now, but we can’t play whack-a-mole with every damn server owner in the country.”

  George spoke up again. “Agreed. Let’s move on. So now that we’ve decided we’re not looking for a bunch of Internet-Luddites, who should be on the suspect list?”

  Mike shrugged. “Where do I start? The Russians have been saber-rattling against us ever since the President announced he supports inviting the last of the former eastern bloc countries to join NATO.

  “Meanwhile, the Koreans have their hair in a knot because the President is saber-rattling against them. They’ve been firing off missiles every other day this week to show how tough they are.

  “Of course the Iranians hate us recreationally to begin with, but ever since we planted the Stuxnet worm in their beloved nuclear centrifuges, they’ve been really ripped.

  “Next, there’s China. They’re pissed at us over all the cybersecurity things we’re pissed at them about, because we’ve been public in our criticism of them. They prefer to discuss these things discretely behind the scenes. Maybe they figure that if we’re going to hammer them for harboring cybercriminals anyway, they might as well get something out of it.” Mike paused.

  “And then there’s the French.” Everybody in the room except Carl rolled his eyes.

  “Let’s not even talk about the French,” George interjected.