Counting from Zero

by Alan B. Johnston

  “Well, for me, it has been such a pleasure working with you on it, so exciting and exhilarating. And to be able to share the experience with you...” she paused.

  “I know. It has been unique.”

  “So Mick, I’m really sorry about what happened before. I should have told you right away, and not let you make incorrect assumptions…” she began.

  “You are correct.”

  “I’m truly sorry. I just had no idea things would go the way they did. You have probably figured out by now that I’m attracted to you, Mick. I love spending time with you, and talking to you about everything and anything. When we aren’t together, I have these imaginary little conversations with you in my head – I know it’s silly. I haven’t felt like this since I was a teenager.” She had been speaking quickly but now paused. Mick was silent for a moment.

  “You know that I’m attracted to you, too, Kat. But you are married!” Mick exclaimed. Kateryna took a deep breath.

  “Milos has been a good husband to me. But, to tell the truth, I really can’t stand him these days. I knew when we married that he had quite traditional views about the role of women, and a blunt way of expressing them. I guess I thought it didn’t really matter, and that I could put up with it. I think it really makes him angry that my career has gone a little better than his over the years, and I actually make more money than he does. And he makes a lot of comments about my priorities. Anyway, I just don’t know how much more I can put up with it... and it has seemed more difficult to put up with since I met you.

  “And these days, I find myself thinking a lot about you, Mick. I know you are consumed by this botnet and all the attacks, but I just wanted you to know that I am here, and I want to help you in any way you might need it.” Kateryna had been staring at the ceiling the whole time she spoke. Now, she rolled over onto her side, facing Mick. He shifted to his side, facing her as well.

  “Kat, thanks for sharing that with me. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” he began carefully. “I just want you to know how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and how much I appreciate your help. But...” he paused.

  “OK, you don’t need to say anymore, Mick, please,” she interrupted, rolling over to face the cabin wall.

  Mick thought about trying to restart the conversation, but couldn’t find the right words. He was still thinking hard about everything when he heard the sound of her sleeping.

  He closed his eyes and eventually drifted off to sleep as well, as their train wound its way through the European countryside.

  Early the next morning, they were all packed and ready to disembark by the time the train slowed coming into Berlin Hauptbahnhof station. Trains to Kiev only departed in the evening, so they had nearly eight hours to kill before then. As Mick had never visited Berlin on his previous trips to Germany, he was looking forward to exploring.

  They had a light breakfast of coffee and croissants before leaving their bags in a locker at the hotel and setting out. With his previous trips to Hiroshima and Los Alamos, World War II was still on Mick’s mind. He knew that it was the German atomic program that led to the creation of the Manhattan Project, and ultimately, the detonation over Hiroshima. Of course, history showed that the Germans were never close to building any kind of bomb, and were more interested in finding a power source for their submarines – a precursor to today’s nuclear powered submarines that can stay underwater for six months or more.

  They strolled along Unter den Liden, under the Linden trees along the most famous and beautiful street in Berlin and enjoyed the afternoon sun, although there was a slight chill in the air. They eventually stopped at a café to rest. Mick’s new shoes still needed to be broken in, but he didn’t complain to Kateryna. He had also stopped wearing the eyeglasses except when they went through customs and immigration, as they gave him a headache.

  “About last night,” Mick began, breaking the silence on the topic. “I just wanted you to know –”

  “Mick, you don’t need to explain,” she interrupted him.

  “Yes, I do, Kat,” he interrupted her, pausing to collect his thoughts. “I think about you every hour of every day. For those three weeks while I was at sea when we didn’t mail or video, probably more often.” He looked up and could see that he had her attention. “I just don’t know what to do. You have a husband, and I have... I don’t know... motorcycles?” She smiled weakly at him.

  “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, too,” she responded. She reached over and took his hand. Mick liked how it felt. “This is just a crazy situation we are in. And all the secrecy and excitement of this adventure just seems to magnify it.”

  “I know. I think we should just take it very slowly – get through this and not do something stupid we might regret later.” Mick squeezed her hand, and she smiled again.

  “You are right, of course. Perhaps it will fade once this trip is over. I don’t know what I was thinking last night...” then she changed the subject. “So, are you all set to take down this botnet?” Mick leaned back in his chair. It took him a moment to shift gears in his mind.

  “Well, I can’t take it down, but I think I can paralyze it – by making it so that the botnet can’t initiate an attack. Jasinski gave me a root certificate for the botnet with revocation privileges. Now that I have figured out the encryption and the format of the botnet control messages, I can use this to effectively lock out the criminals so that I’m the only person who can give the botnet commands. But the criminals will know about it as soon as I execute the script, and I think they will know it was me.”

  “Or Jasinski.”

  “Or Jasinski – good point! I think I understand why she planned to disappear.”

  They enjoyed the rest of the afternoon together exploring Berlin, but they were both distracted. By the middle of the afternoon they were back at the station getting ready to board their train to Ukraine. Mick read a mail from Sam.

  Cheerio Uncle Alec,

  I am glad you are having fun in merry old England. I read that the London Science Museum has a working version of Babbage’s Analytical Engine! If you haven’t seen it, you must! Do you think they’d let you write a program for it? Could you write a buffer overflow attack for it?

  When are you visiting Boston again?

  Take care, my favorite (and only, LOL) uncle,

  Sam

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  He smiled and fired off a reply as they waited to board.

  Their train, known as the Kashtan, departed Berlin as the sun set. They had another sleeper car, but this time Mick didn’t feel as nervous as he had the previous night. He wondered how they could go through such an awkward situation, and so quickly get past it. Their ‘relationship’ certainly was nothing like anything he had ever experienced before. And he didn’t know where he was going... besides Kiev.

  Skipping coffee, Mick and Kateryna enjoyed a packed dinner of schnitzel. Mick finished up his script; he was ready to disrupt the botnet tomorrow once they arrived in Kiev and staked out the Zed.Kicker headquarters. Just before bed, they discussed several scenarios for the next day. This way they could react quickly without lots of discussion. Of course, there were too many unknowns to really plan properly.

  As he fell asleep, Mick felt both sorry he had involved Kateryna, and thankful for her steadiness and contributions to the effort.

  Mick awoke first, slowly regaining consciousness. For a minute he did not know where he was, then he remembered. He felt Kateryna snuggled up against his back as he lay on his side, and he tensed up. Then he realized that she (or perhaps he) had probably initiated the ‘spooning’ while asleep. He stayed in that position for a few minutes, feeling her breathing and her
warmth against him. As the train shook slightly rounding a bend, Kateryna stirred, and Mick took the opportunity to slide away from her. She made a noise and rolled over in the other direction. He sighed silently in relief, then began to focus on the day ahead.

  After customs and immigration in Kiev, they would get a hotel and a rental and find the Zed.Kicker location. He pulled up a map on the GPS, noticing Chernobyl, about 2ØØkm north of Kiev near the border with Belarus. He recalled the nuclear power plant accident there in 1986 and the bravery of the firefighters who prevented a meltdown and brought the fire under control despite knowing that they were receiving a lethal dose of radiation. Mick wondered if the radioactive cloud that drifted across Europe afterwards and circled the globe were at all similar to the ‘black rain’ that fell on Hiroshima after the A-bomb. He knew he probably wouldn’t have a chance to visit, and wondered whether there was anything to see on a tour.

  Mick was up and about before Kateryna stirred. He again dressed in the strange – for him – clothes. He found them unsettling. Mick thought he didn’t care much about clothes, but he was beginning to realize that perhaps he did care.

  Are my clothes my armor against the world, another layer of security? Or is my life cosplay?

  He wondered if he could get used to wearing clothes besides his ‘uniform’ in the future.

  When Kateryna awoke, she sat up on her elbows and smiled up at him – her dark hair disheveled. Looking at her, Mick realized he didn’t seem to tire of spending time with this amazing woman.

  As they reached the border with Ukraine, the train stopped and reversed direction, heading into a literal sidetrack. Kateryna looked out the window, alarmed.

  “Don’t worry: we are just shunting so the train’s wheels can be changed – the countries of the former Soviet Union do not use the standard rail gauge of 1.435m used throughout Europe, but instead use 1.524m.” Kateryna looked surprised. “I remember my cousins in Australia saying how in the old days, train travelers between Sydney and Melbourne had to change trains at the border town of Albury, as the states of Victoria and New South Wales used different rail widths,” he explained. He was about to pontificate about the value of standards when he noticed that Kateryna was already back reading her book.

  Mick had been ignoring most of his mail since leaving London, but he couldn’t ignore one from Liz. It had a Subject: I know you are with Kat. He opened it, feeling nervous:

  Mick,

  I hope you can forgive me for writing, but I couldn’t sit here and say nothing. I knew the second time I saw the two of you together that something was going to happen between you. I also knew it didn’t happen in Vegas, but it was obvious to me the day before you left London that you were planning something, and when you both inexplicably disappeared, well... Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else knows your little secret, but that’s because they are blind to these things.

  I don’t want to interfere, but I will anyway. I am just so worried about you – I know you don’t have casual affairs, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what Kat is up to, running off with you like this. I am presuming that it was her idea and you are just going along with it to see where it leads. Please, please be careful.

  Do you really know what she is after? Do we really know her that well? I don’t mean to slight you at all – you are an intriguing, attractive guy, but...

  OK, I will stop here. I hope we can still be friends after this is over – your friendship has always meant a lot to me, Mick, and I would be very, very sorry to lose it. I just want you to know that you have friends who care about you and will do anything for you.

  I also won’t expect to hear back from you, wherever you are... Just take care, Mick... See you again soon.

  Yours,

  Liz

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  He read and re-read the message a few times, not quite knowing what to make of it. He couldn’t recall Liz ever writing such a note. He resolved to tell Kateryna about the mail, but later.

  Had Liz sent a similar note to Kat as well?

  He looked at her as she sat across the compartment from him as she read. His thoughts were interrupted by their arrival into Kiev.

  They cleared customs and immigration without any problems, although Mick got an elbow in the ribs from Kateryna when she caught him staring at the customs officers. They were not your usual government bureaucrats; they were all young women, and their uniforms consisted of extremely short, tight skirts and stiletto heels.

  At the instant when one of the blonde women stamped both passports, Mick wondered how Kateryna was going to explain the stamps to her husband. Mick noted that their passports had been scanned this time – the first time since leaving England. If any governments or agents were tracking them, they would know where they were now. Both he and Kateryna had been ignoring their social network since they left London. Liz’s note had reminded him how much discussion and speculation might be now starting about each of them, or worse, about the both of them.

  They found a small hotel a short walk from the station that was cheap but clean, and Mick had a good wireless signal there after replacing SIM cards yet again. At the hotel, he registered them as Mr. and Mrs. Petrescu while Kateryna looked on. Mick’s signature on the register was a very good facsimile of Milos Petrescu’s. He had thought it would be difficult for him to assume this new identity, but it wasn’t. In a way, didn’t he do something similar every day of his life?

  While Kateryna showered, Mick set out to rent a vehicle. He returned just over an hour later, finding parking on the street nearby. Mick then showered quickly and was ready for the day.

  Mick got out one of Kateryna’s digital cameras and verified its impressive digital zoom. He cut a small, unobtrusive hole in the side of a small backpack he had bought so the camera could film without being taken out of the bag.

  Leading Kateryna to their rental, Mick walked down the stairs carrying his computer and the camera bag. Out on the street and down a block, he stopped to get the key out of his pocket.

  “So, where is it? The Škoda?” Kateryna asked looking for the vehicle. Mick was impressed by her knowledge of car makes – the little car in front of them was a Škoda, manufactured in the Czech republic, but it had taken more than a glance for him to confirm this fact.

  “No, that’s not it,” he replied, trying not to smile.

  “Which one then?” she asked looking around at other cars nearby. “Wait, it isn’t... you DIDN’T!” she replied, looking closer.

  “Yep. You don’t really mind, do you? It was a great deal and –” he began, now smiling.

  “You rented a motorbike instead of a car? Are you insane?”

  “Yes and no – there are lots of bikes here – you must have noticed, so we won’t stand out. And the weather is going to be fine the next few days – no rain... or snow.”

  “Can’t you focus on the job at hand? How are we going to navigate? How will we talk?” she replied, getting more annoyed with each passing moment. “This isn’t one of your brightest ideas!”

  “Look, Kat. It will be fine. My mobile will speak the directions to me, and I have a backup earpiece for my mobile that you can wear in your helmet so we can talk,” he explained. Kateryna’s annoyance abated, or perhaps she decided that to continue their argument in English here on the street wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Fine – give me my helmet,” she replied, holding out her hand. Mick grinned triumphantly, but then wondered if he might pay for this later.

  “Here’s a key for you – in case you need to get something out of the panniers,” he said, handing her a key. She took it in silence.

  Mick opened up the pannier bags on the back of the bike and
got out the full-face helmets he had rented along with the bike. It was a blue late model Honda CBR 125 – quite a bit smaller than his usual sport bike, but perfectly adequate. He just hoped Ukrainian weather predictions were accurate...

  Navigating through the streets was not difficult, and Mick felt quite comfortable on the bike. At first, having Kateryna’s arms around his waist and her legs up against his was distracting, but it quickly felt normal. She also seemed at ease, leaned with him in corners, and was otherwise a model pillion passenger. He wondered if perhaps she had done this before.

  Mick stopped a few blocks from the address Jasinski had provided, just close enough to see the main entrance of the building and the two floors of windowed offices. There weren’t any parking places, but he didn’t need one for the bike – he rode up on the sidewalk and parked next to two other motorcycles. Switching off the engine, Mick sent Kateryna to go for a walk up the street and reconnoiter. He got out the camera bag and turned on the camera, setting it for maximum zoom. With the bag resting casually on the seat of the motorbike, he filmed the street and the front of the building while he pretended to talk on his mobile.