[Kyle Achilles 03.0] Falling Stars

by Tim Tigner

  “Forty-four percent?”

  Ivan smiled.

  Forty-four times $625 million. Pavel couldn’t manage the math during that magical moment—but then, when the numbers got that big, it really didn’t matter.

  88

  Captcha

  French Riviera

  WITH JO LOOKING OVER HIS SHOULDER, Achilles navigated to fallingstars.info. The simple home page consisted of just four elements. At the top, a picture of the big black drone with its snaking snare backdropped by a stormy sky, dark and menacing. Beneath the photo, four bold words stated the question on every affluent mind: “Are you a target?” Below the text, the familiar 3-2-4-digit box arrangement with the instructions: “Enter your Social Security number.” Finally, the Captcha, the Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

  Achilles entered his SSN and then checked the box beside “I am not a robot.” A collage of nine photos popped up with instructions beneath. Select the edible items. Achilles clicked on Chinese food, broccoli and a lollipop. The little arrow spun around, then stopped. The screen faded to white and words appeared center screen in bold black text: “You are NOT a target.”

  “That’s surprising,” Achilles said. “I’d think it would tell everyone they are a target. Just like everyone gets the ‘You’re a winner’ notice.”

  “No, the press would point that out. Ivan’s targeting the extremely affluent, not the especially gullible.”

  Achilles immediately understood that Jo’s instincts were better than his when it came to cons. No surprise, given her background. “Of course. You’re right. He wouldn’t bother with anyone who couldn’t afford a hundred grand. If I were him, I’d aim to target the wealthiest million Americans.”

  “A million people? How on earth would he identify that many? And how would he get their Social Security numbers?” She gestured toward the computer screen where Achilles had just entered his nine digits.

  “The credit agencies have that information. There are several of them, and they’re large organizations. I’m sure he could find a clever employee at one of them willing to trade a covert data download for a million in cash.”

  “No doubt,” Jo said. “That’s got to be a good ten years’ pay.”

  “At least, especially if you consider the fact that it’s tax free. Plenty to tempt an ambitious geek with a case of the nine-to-five cubical confinement blues.”

  “I’m with you, but do you think people will pay Ivan’s ask? Will they be motivated if their odds of being next are only one in a million?”

  “Oh, they’ll pay. It’s insurance, plain and simple. Even poor people pay for that.”

  “Not when the odds are one in a million.”

  “They won’t know the odds. I have no idea what the odds are that my house will burn down, but I buy fire insurance. No, when it comes to acquiring insurance, fear is the driver. We’re hardwired to avoid loss.”

  “Won’t someone do the analysis and point out the percentages?”

  “I just passed through a complicated Captcha control. At the time, I wasn’t sure why Ivan bothered, but now it’s clear that he installed it to prevent that possibility. The Captcha will keep computers from learning the length of the list. Although even if someone does overcome it and calculate the individual odds, people won’t look at their situation through that lens.”

  “How will they look at it?”

  Achilles took a few seconds to convert his intuition into words. “Think of it this way: a million people is less than one-third of one percent of the U.S. population. Less than one in three hundred people. If fallingstars.info tells you you’re a target, it’s going to feel like having the red dot of a sniper scope on your chest. You’ll rush to pay the premium, if you can afford it. And the top one percent of Americans can easily afford a hundred grand.”

  Achilles did the math while Jo nodded along. He felt his jaw go slack and had to double-check the zeroes. “A million times $100,000 is $100 billion.”

  Jo looked as stunned as he felt. “So even if only one in ten pay, Ivan still puts ten billion in the bank.”

  “Ten billion,” Achilles repeated.

  They both collapsed into their seats.

  Achilles found himself repeating the sum. Ten billion dollars. Ten billion dollars. Enough to spend a million dollars a day for—the rest of your life.

  Jo’s expression changed.

  “What?”

  “Not me. You. You’re smiling.”

  Achilles thought about it. “I guess I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Ten billion dollars gives us what we were looking for.”

  She prodded him with a chin tilt.

  “It gives us the big picture. An Ivan the Ghost-sized billboard of a picture.”

  “And what do you conclude from the big picture?”

  “I conclude that Ivan is planning to retire.”

  “He was already retired. Kinda. Right? I mean, nobody heard from him for years.”

  “No, no,” Achilles said with a jubilant shake of his head. “That’s not the same. Before this, he was a beaten man. Out of business with a tarnished crown. If he pulls this off, he’ll be the most successful master criminal of all time.”

  “Surely you’re not forgetting Korovin?” Jo jibed, referencing Russia’s notorious former president. A man with whom Achilles had tangled.

  “I’d argue that corrupt politicians are a different category of crook.”

  Jo conceded that point with a nod. “So Ivan goes out with glory and retires as one of the richest men on earth—if we let him get away with it.”

  Achilles was pleased to see that Jo had her pluck back. She’d beaten the bug.

  She continued thinking out loud. “I’m sure he’s got a new identity arranged, complete with a detailed legend, greased government connections and appointments with top plastic surgeons.”

  “I’m sure he does too, but even that won’t be enough for Ivan. Those things may provide satisfactory security, but they’re insufficient for true peace of mind. Remember, this is Ivan we’re talking about. The master of perfection. He won’t risk a bad roll of the dice. He won’t settle for just a high probability that he’ll never be found.”

  “No?”

  “No. Ivan will arrange things so that nobody ever looks.”

  “Are you kidding me? Half the world’s law enforcement will be looking for him. Not to mention the million mad millionaires.”

  Achilles held up a finger. “They won’t be looking if they think he’s dead.”

  “You think he’s going to fake his death? You think he’ll be able to fool the world’s best forensic scientists?”

  “He won’t need to fool forensic scientists. He won’t need to fake his death either.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “If you look at the big picture, if you think like Ivan, you realize that he’s been planning for this moment his entire criminal career. A clean exit with a huge payout has always been the ultimate goal. The culmination. The endgame.”

  “So?”

  “So since the beginning, since the day The Ghost was born, he’s been setting up his final con. Detail by detail. Year after year. With meticulous preparation.”

  “For what?”

  “For leading law enforcement to reach the same conclusion you did. For guiding them to the right place at the right time—to convince them that Victor Vazov’s playboy son is really Ivan the Ghost.”

  89

  The Arrow

  The Hoover Building, Washington D.C.

  RIP’S RETURN to the Hoover Building’s corner office was about as joyous as Louis XVI’s walk to the guillotine. He had been summoned and the end was in sight. No explanation had been given, but none was necessary. One of his confidential calls with Director Brix had been recorded and leaked to the press. Rip had no idea how that had happened, but it was playing on every newscast from DC to San Francisco—and it was not flattering.

  A bele
aguered assistant ushered him into the power office with a polite nod, closing the door quickly behind him.

  Rip found Brix standing before a pair of television monitors, hands on hips, back to the door. The focus of both broadcasts was the latest chapter of the fallingstars saga, the “No Hope” conversation the newscasters were calling it.

  Brix let the shows run for thirty excruciating seconds before muting both screens and turning around. “Is that you talking?”

  Rip found the question confusing. “I didn’t pick up on anything that sounded edited, if that’s what you mean?”

  “Just answer the question,” Brix pressed.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Well, it isn’t me.”

  “What do you mean?” Was Brix planning to deny the tape’s authenticity? Rip glanced around the room, looking for video recording equipment.

  “My calls aren’t recorded. My phone can’t be tapped. And I didn’t have that conversation. You were talking to an imposter.”

  Rip felt his stomach fill with ice. He began to voice one question and then another, but obvious answers stilled his tongue, leaving him standing in stunned silence. A single word finally escaped. “Ivan.”

  “Of course it’s Ivan. Are you any closer to catching him now than you were when you spoke those words?” Brix gestured toward the muted monitors.

  It was over.

  He had embarrassed the FBI.

  He had committed a deadly sin.

  The only road to redemption was bathing the Bureau in even greater glory, and he harbored little hope of that. Not after Ivan’s ingenious impersonation made it clear that he was so thoroughly outwitted.

  Rip owed Brix the truth. Bald wood, no varnish. “The website hasn’t given us much. The domain name registration for fallingstars.info is with a trade attaché at the Saudi Arabian Embassy.”

  Brix bowed his head. “A Saudi spy? Ivan’s just screwing with us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What does the embassy say about that?”

  “Nothing yet. It’s closed for the weekend. I’ve got a call in to the State Department, but you know how it will go. They’ll claim utter ignorance while obsequiously offering to check with their attaché. Then they’ll eventually inform us that he’s been back in Riyadh for weeks.”

  Brix grunted agreement. “What else have you learned about the website?”

  “On the surface, there’s not much to it. Not yet anyway. No hidden pages, embedded malware, or Easter eggs. The only notable feature is the Captcha, which is cutting edge. It’s time consuming and beyond any existing automated workaround. It won’t allow access from hidden IP addresses or permit open addresses to query more than once per hour.”

  “Your point?”

  “We haven’t been able to accurately estimate the target pool. It’s a small percentage of the general population, that much is clear, but the end count could be twelve people or twelve million.”

  “That’s not reassuring. Half our job—the half the White House cares most about—is making America feel safe. Regardless of their actual circumstances,” Brix added.

  Rip said nothing.

  “Do you have anything we can use to reassure the people, or relieve the President?”

  “No, sir.”

  Brix fumed in silence for a second, then moved on. “What are your thoughts on shutting down the website?”

  “I’ve got a team assembling momentarily to tackle that very question. You’re welcome to join us.”

  Brix ignored the invitation. “I’m asking for your personal opinion.”

  “I don’t see any upside to shutting it down—beyond a fleeting moment of feel-good. But the downside’s obvious as a beetle on a bed sheet.”

  “I’m not into linen. Why don’t you enlighten me.”

  Rip took a deep breath. “Ivan undoubtedly has backup domains he can activate with a finger snap. Before word gets out that we’ve shut one down, he’ll have a replacement running. We’ll end up playing whack-a-mole and look foolish doing so. Worse yet, we’ll force him to advertise each new domain.”

  Brix blinked. “Advertise… Huh… That means more high-profile kidnappings, more media circuses.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So how close are you to catching him?”

  “To catching Ivan the Ghost?” Rip used Ivan’s full title to emphasize the ask. “We’re just one good tip away.”

  “That sounds familiar, but frankly not very reassuring.” Brix dropped into his chair. “Nothing more from Miss Ooh La La?”

  “Not for a few days now. She’ll call me if she has something.” Actually, Rip wasn’t sure she would ever call him again. Their last conversation had not ended well.

  The Director shifted forward and brought cupped fists to chin. “You’ve had a rough tenure as the San Francisco SAIC.”

  “The cards haven’t been particularly kind.”

  “No, they haven’t. It’s clear now that I wasn’t doing you a favor after all, pulling you out of a regional role and handing you the big ball.”

  More like a hot potato than a big ball, Rip thought. He saw where this was going, but was helpless to divert it. He had no countervailing force to present. No ace in his hole. He didn’t have a blindfold and cigarette either, so he just sat steady in the saddle, waiting to take the inevitable arrow like a man.

  90

  Things to Come

  French Riviera

  IVAN GRABBED a chilled bottle of Icelandic Glacial Water from the refrigerator and slumped into a lounger on his villa’s balcony. Like everyone who worked at Silicon Hill, he lived there. It was part of his camouflage.

  His villa used to belong to the billionaire’s sommelier, a man with whom he conversed and in whom he confided, so it had an ocean view, which Ivan enjoyed, and a wine cellar, which Ivan converted into a secret workshop and storage facility. Otherwise, it was unremarkable. Camouflage.

  He’d just returned from a meeting with Little V. A meeting that had yielded good, better and best news. The good news was that the steady flow of cash deposits had relieved Vlad’s anxiety regarding the repayment of his loan. With his initial $300 million and then some repaid, Vlad was no longer belligerent. The better news was that Vlad had not connected the repayments with the K&R operations. The self-absorbed playboy continued to believe that they derived from legitimate business contracts. The best news was that Ivan had solved the mystery of the disappearing bodyguards. Now he was on Vlad’s good side.

  When the topic came up, Ivan offered to help think it through. They discussed the details over frosty mugs of Panaché. The capture. The fight. The zip ties. The departure for the marina. The failure to return. The yacht in its berth. The car at the heliport.

  None of the storytelling yielded anything.

  It wasn’t until Ivan had him describe the plan to dispose of Achilles that he developed a provable hypothesis. And prove it he did, with a trip to the marina. Now Vlad knew that his missing bodyguards weren’t working with Achilles, and he knew they weren’t talking to the police. He knew that Achilles had somehow turned the tables and fed them to the fishes. Ivan assumed it was with the aid of Jo Monfort, but he didn’t tell Vlad that. Ivan knew all of this because the VaVaVoom was missing its extra anchor chain.

  That solved one of two questions bothering Ivan. By far the lesser of the two. He took a deep drink of the cool clear water, put his feet up on the balcony rail, and turned his focus to the other.

  Achilles was alive. He was supposed to be dead, killed by Vazov’s men while the FBI was on his tail—thereby leading the agents to Vazov. This was an integral part of Ivan’s grand plan, and it was now off the rails.

  Ivan had redundant measures in place, of course. He always established backups for the key elements of his plans. He had a backup for leading the FBI to Vazov, and he had a backup for killing Achilles. But those didn’t kick in until the endgame. The question he had resolved to answer there on the balcony was: How much of a threat did Achill
es pose in the meantime?

  Staring out at an azure sea that merged seamlessly with a blue horizon, Ivan decided the answer depended on what Achilles knew. He didn’t know Ivan’s endgame. If Michael, Pavel and Boris couldn’t guess it from the inside, an outsider surely couldn’t. He also didn’t know who Ivan was or where Ivan was. Nobody had ever been able to find Ivan the Ghost, and plenty had tried. Achilles did know that Vlad was not Ivan. Did that matter? Not at the moment, and Achilles would be dead before it did.

  Achilles also knew that a drone killed Rider, but the FBI already had that information, and of course they were keeping it quiet. Did Achilles know anything else? Have any meaningful clues? Did Jo? Did her involvement change anything? Ivan stared blankly at the invisible horizon until he convinced himself that the answer on all accounts was No.

  Satisfied that his magnum opus was still following the music and playing toward its inevitable, glorious conclusion, Ivan returned his attention to execution. The U.S. operation was nearly complete, and so far everything of significance had gone as planned. MiMiC and Raven were working flawlessly, and everyone from the FBI to the media to the actual and potential victims had acted predictably, like puppets on strings.

  The endgame would be upon them before they knew it, so it was time to bring Team Raven into the loop. What a conversation that would be. Michael had been sensing something was up for months, but he still didn’t have a clue what was coming—or his role in it.

  91

  Crazy

  French Riviera

  JO SLID into the tub of hot suds with a sense of relief she hadn’t felt in weeks. Her health was back near one hundred percent and her life wasn’t in immediate danger. Her mind was also oddly at ease. She found herself drawing deep satisfaction from uncovering Ivan’s ultimate plan—even though she didn’t know how to act on the information.

  She did feel bad for Rip Zonder. He’d been crucified by the media for his “No Hope” discussion with Director Brix. The pundits made a sport of pouring scorn on the man and the agency in its aftermath. Of course, that cost him his position.