Kill Code

by Joseph Collins

  Setting it back in the tub, he said, “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to talk about what your company coded for Nathan before he died.”

  “He told me that you'd be coming to talk me about this.”

  She didn't know what to say. Was there not anything that Nathan hadn't predicted she would do? She resented his manipulating her life from beyond the grave.

  “I really need your help.”

  Jared said, “I've been here so much that they let me use the break room whenever I want. We probably better sit down for this.”

  She followed him to the rear of the building where an area had been set aside in the piles. A battered table and four mismatched chairs sat in front of a dusty refrigerator and a microwave.

  After they sat, Jared said, “What do you want to know?”

  “Was there anything strange about what you were coding for him?”

  He nodded. “That depends on your definition of strange. Nathan had been acting weird for the last two or three years involving projects that defied logic. While I never saw the whole picture, the pieces that I caught glimpses of scared the hell out of me—some of it was cutting edge, others were really simple, but very illegal.”

  “Illegal?”

  He looked at her with eyes magnified by his glasses. “For the record, I didn't want anything to do with any of it, but Nathan's money was always good—with the expansion of my business, I needed it. And I figured out ways of breaking up the coding modules so no one besides he and I had any idea what we were doing.”

  “So, what were you doing?”

  “You know that credit card swipe machine program that White Hat sold?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, every so often, it takes the rounded off calculations from a transaction and deposits that into an account. Maybe two or three tenths a day from each machine, but with as many credit card swipe machines as there are, it can add up quite quickly.”

  “Where did the money go?” She sure as hell could use it. Maybe to get her company up and going again and try and put together the rest of her life.

  He shrugged. “I have no idea at all. That was all Nathan's doing. My understanding is that the account it was deposited into varied depending on some strange formula that he came up with. It probably didn't stay in any place very long.”

  She thought about the implications of what he had said. “I can think of several dozen laws that are being broken. Why'd you do it?”

  Leaning back in his chair, he said, “I didn't do it. I just suspect that was what was happening. You know the score—from experience, despite being in the dark, you can infer a great deal of information. I've been in this business a long time and know a lot of the tricks.”

  She realized that he was getting hostile. Dealing with him required more diplomacy, otherwise he would clam up and she wouldn't be that much further ahead with the information she was seeking than she was now.

  “Anybody else in on this?”

  “Nope. Nathan didn't trust many people.”

  “You mentioned other 'strange' projects. I'm assuming that they were financed through the company, but weren't products for sale. Any clues what he was up to?”

  He took a moment to reply. “Mostly having to do with complex decision tree learning. Some really esoteric stuff here.”

  “Decision tree learning?”

  “Yeah. Using data mining, say from online newspaper sources, it maps observations about an item to conclusions about the item's target value, and then acts on them. It's a foundation of machine learning. Not real Artificial Intelligence, but damn close. Ported a bunch of stuff over to a scripting language, can be run anywhere, on almost any machine.”

  He had said 'Target,' hadn't he?

  “How about a web-based application?”

  Slowly, he nodded. “Yes.”

  She didn't know how much he knew or was willing to tell her, but she decided to lay all her cards out.

  “Have you been watching the news?”

  “What aspect of it?”

  “The Children of the Constitution thing. Recognize anything from what they've said and done?”

  “Yes. That can't be what Nathan was involved in, is it?”

  Somehow, she knew he was lying. He probably had drawn the same conclusions that she had, but much earlier on. She wondered how much his silence cost. That he wasn't already dead like Patrick, and anybody else associated with the company, was the thing that stuck out for her.

  “In theory, if the Children of the Constitution is a computer program, how would you access it?”

  He shrugged. “Honestly, I don't know. For what we developed, we used a pretty powerful computer to test it. With the scope of the algorithms we used and the amount of data you have to churn through, it's not something you can run on a desktop PC. You'll need some sort of distributed operating system, one heck of a lot of powerful processors and massive amount of storage—maybe as much as a petabyte, a thousand terabytes.”

  “Where would you find such hardware?”

  “You’re going to need a server farm of some sort. Not as big as say Google, but probably as big as one of their off-site units. Not cheap, sucks down power like water and needs to be secured and maintained. There are places that will turn-key one for you, and some people have built their own, but that's fraught with its own major problems.”

  “Is there anybody else that I should be talking to?”

  “I don't really know. Nathan was great at what he did, but he had some strange ideas.”

  “Where did he get them from?”

  Jared chuckled. “Boot up Google and ask it to search for whatever paranoid fantasy comes to mind and you'll find hundreds of web pages discussing the subject.”

  “Really?”In her own world she was a specialist, but there was so much information out there in the field of information technology about so many varying subjects that it was all that she could do to keep focused on what she did best—coding security systems for banks.

  “Hell yes. Blogging, Twittering, paranoia can come to you 24/7 and you can find plenty of like-minded individuals to discuss your cause.”

  She had to think about her next question.

  “Ever heard of Alamut Enterprises?”

  “Nope. What about them?”

  “It's the name of a company that has a cadre of assassins on call. They are the killers doing the Children of the Constitution's bidding. According to bank records, Nathan ran it.”

  He sat back in his chair. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “That's not possible.”

  “The person helping me seems to think so. Also, he used to work for them.”

  “Who?”

  She shook her head. “I'm not saying. Anyway, they've been killing for various political ends for years—not something that I think Nathan could have pulled off. You just can't find a professional killer by looking in the phone book. These people needed to be recruited, vetted, trained, equipped and very well paid. So anything that you can tell me to help figure out what’s going on, I'd appreciate it.”

  He looked her in the eyes. “I can't think of anything.”

  She knew he was lying again, but didn't know what to do about it.

  Chapter 24

  Ken Brody was so busy he couldn't keep up. He'd just finished fiddling with a car owned by his newest target, Jared Becker. The target had been on his list for a while, but it had taken him a bit of time to track down the necessary technology and hardware for his application.

  The kill would be executed by computer. Most modern vehicles were 'fly by wire' anymore. If you pushed on the gas pedal, or brake, you didn't actually have any physical contact with the brakes or engine, the input went into a computer and it figured out what to do based on a number of factors. The government mandating Electronic Stability Control helped this. Some cars even had a modified 'Steer by Wire' system in which the steering wheel was still hooked to the wheels as a backup, but w
as still mostly computer controlled. Pretty soon, the driver wouldn't have much input in the driving experience—it would all be modified and controlled by computer in the name of safety. While that made his job much easier, he still didn't have to like it much.

  As he pulled the programmer cable from next to the brake pedal, he reviewed what he had done. At some time in the near future, the car would greatly modify any inputs from the driver, making it impossible to control. As an example, when it received input from the brakes, it would cause the vehicle to accelerate to a very fast speed instead. Even the parking brake wouldn't work anymore. There really wasn't any way to stop the vehicle short of running it into a brick wall, which would be fatal since the air bags had been disabled. This was particularly clever as the target was known for not wearing his seat belt.

  He put the cover back on the OBD-II access point and closed the door. Then he hit a button on his copy of the electronic key, locking it and arming the alarm system.

  Looking around, he saw that no one had been watching. Not that it mattered much anyway. He was dressed in a business suit and looked like he had lost his keys. There were no security cameras in this parking lot so he didn't have to worry about that aspect.

  He checked his watch. With any luck, he could get to the other two targets yet today and give himself enough breathing room to take a well-deserved break.

  ###

  FBI Agent Jeff Silver was pissed. He hated to be dragged out of an interrogation. To speak to the director wasn't worth it in his opinion.

  He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself before he picked up the phone.

  “Special Agent Silver here.”

  The female voice on the other end said, “Silver, Director Gerald here. I understand that you have a suspect from the sniping attacks in your custody.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he said. Why the hell was the director of the FBI personally involved in his investigation?

  “His fingerprints just came through the system.”

  He wondered why they hadn't got anything back on that yet.

  “Why haven't I gotten that information?”

  “Because it’s one hell of a lot higher than your pay grade, probably even mine. Based on that, I want you to release your suspect.”

  “Ma'am?” Surely this couldn't be right. Leo, while silent, was probably the key to a great deal more than was at first apparent.

  “You heard me. Release him. Give him back everything you've confiscated as evidence. Make sure that he leaves the grounds safely and be sure to apologize for your screw up.”

  “I still don't understand.”

  There was a pause, and then Gerald said, “Ever heard of a place called Stebbins, Alaska?”

  “No.” How was this relevant to what was going on?

  “According to the latest census, it has a population of five hundred forty-seven. And an airport, which means that it could be a terrorist target. It's a thousand miles from nowhere, and if Leo isn't out of your custody in ten minutes, you will be the newest, full-time and only member of the Stebbins, Alaska, branch of the FBI. I hear it gets damn cold up there, so either cut him loose or start packing your long underwear. Do you understand me?”

  Stebbins, Alaska? What the fuck? Something much bigger than this investigation was going on and whatever it was apparently even had the director of the FBI scared witless.

  “Yes, ma'am,” was all that he could find himself saying. His world had been knocked out from beneath his feet. While he was used to getting jerked around by the bureaucratic processes—he did work for the FBI, an organization known for generating reams of useless paper rather than take a chance on being wrong about something—having the director yank his case out from under him was something new.

  He set the phone back down on the cradle and glanced at his watch. Before he set Leo loose, he had a couple of things to do.

  ###

  Jill Ringler, the Third Finger of the Black Hand, was getting tired and pissed. She had taken out half-a-dozen targets in as many days and was almost reduced to killing with rat poison rather than the specialized chemicals she had personally developed.

  Though there were several interesting rat poisons—her favorite being Brodifacoum, a second generation anticoagulant. In the right dose, it caused massive internal bleeding, including in the brain. If caught, it was reversible with the appropriate medical treatment, and even then, recovery could take several months.

  She was starting to dread the sound her Blackberry made when a message came through. It had been weeks since she had a break and the strain of hitting so many targets in so short of a time, she felt, was starting to affect her judgment. Poison wasn't like using a sniper rifle—wait in the distance for the target to come strolling by and then zap him. Instead, she had to analyze her target's habits and vulnerabilities, tailor a poison specific to them and then work her way in close enough that she could employ it.

  Every time she dealt with a target face-to-face, her chances of getting caught were greatly increased. Somewhere some computer was probably pulling together all the facts about her targets and would be able to predict where and what she would be doing even before she did.

  While she did most of her business in anonymous bars, someone was going to be able to put the pieces together and catch her.

  A saving grace was the chaos in the Denver area. The police were overwhelmed with the number of killings in their city and surrounding areas. While the FBI was probably involved, they would take too long to get up to speed—she hoped to be sitting at her beach house enjoying a fine wine before they got really involved in the investigation.

  Another point in her favor was the nature of the deaths she caused—there had been enough deaths by fire bombings, stabbings, shootings and beatings to allow her activities to fade into the background chatter.

  She checked her Blackberry again for information on her next target. It was going to be easy, another man. He liked exotic food, so Botulinum toxin would be his undoing.

  Considered the most toxic substance known to mankind, a fatal dose was in the order of micrograms. She hated to use it as it tended to get the attention of the wrong sorts of people, including the FBI and DHS, as it was a potential war bug. In fact, prior to the first Gulf War, Iraq had produced enough of the stuff to kill every living human three times over. Various attempts had been made over the years to control it to keep it out of the hands of terrorists, but since the toxin was produced by an easy to handle soil bacteria, it was a lot more difficult than originally anticipated.

  While rarely fatal any more, the dosage she was planning on giving would be deadly even if the appropriate treatment was started immediately. The chaos around Denver would help delay proper supportive care and treatment.

  It was the last poison in her current arsenal—she had no more materials with her even after several uses of improvised poisons. After she poisoned the low level DEA informant, she would shut off her phone, get on her chartered jet and head back home.

  While her bank account was quite fat with all of this work, she wasn't. She was used to only doing one or two jobs a year at most and having completed ten assignments in the past week and a half was way too much work. She missed her laboratory, her wine cellar and the life that she had built for herself.

  She looked at the tiny vial containing the Botulinum toxin. There was enough to kill the entire city and it had taken some new and interesting ways of processing the base materials to create this amount.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of the target. He was slightly early for their dinner date, which didn't matter to her as she was planning on being very late. The date had been set up in an online chat room for sexual sadists. While she considered herself asexual, she knew enough of the kinks to play enough of a convincing character to lure in her victims.

  She looked at her face in the rear view mirror. Tonight, she was a blond and had even dyed her eyebrows to match. Sky blue contact lenses and heavy makeup completed the dis
guise.

  Running her hand through her hair, she settled in to wait until ten minutes after the dinner reservation. Then it would be time to get to work.

  Chapter 25

  Before returning to the interrogation room, Jeff Silver made a phone call. Luckily, the Denver branch of the FBI was big enough to have their own HRT team with snipers. He gave the team leader specific instructions and knew that they would be followed to the letter when he mentioned talking with Director Gerald. Then he stopped by the Computer Forensics Lab in the FBI office. It was packed with piles of computer equipment and monitors all in a disorganized mess on cheap metal shelves that were bent by the weight of their contents.

  He had dropped off the notebook found in Leo's hotel room hoping that the technological wizards could get something from it.

  There were three of them standing over a bare computer, glaring at a wide screen monitor. The tech guys were contractors, not sworn agents, so he couldn't bully them around like he could a regular agent.

  Two of the men were pencil thin, the other almost morbidly obese.

  “What did you find?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  He glanced down at his watch. “You've had it for almost four hours, what have you been doing in that time?”

  “Trying to crack the encryption.”

  “What encryption?”

  The obese man, wearing a ratty t-shirt, said, “First, per procedure, we did a byte-by-byte duplication of the hard drive. Then we plugged it into our computer and have been trying to access the data since then. It's encrypted up the wazoo and none of us have any idea as to how to crack it.”

  “How is it encrypted?” As an FBI agent, he had to deal with all sorts of computer crime and had been through the FBI's technology classes. Not that it got him up to the level of the computer geeks, but he could speak the lingo.

  “It's called Twofish. Considered one of the top five advanced encryption methods, the 128-bit Twofish encryption cipher, which we have here, has never had a successful attack reported. A 128-bit key has over 3.4 x 1038 possible combinations. Cracking Twofish trying every possible encryption key would take 8.77 x 1017years.”