by Ed Markham
Walker said to him, “Wes, these are the Quantico agents assigned to the Ketchner investigation.”
“Good for them.”
Martin laughed, while David approached the man’s desk. He stood before it and watched quietly as Harris clicked and typed furiously, his eyes darting from one of his monitors to another. After a few seconds, Harris offered, “It’s definitely not confined to our office. Anyone anywhere who navigates to Ketchy is seeing it.”
David nodded but did not speak, and eventually Harris added, “I’m messaging with one of Ketchy’s engineers, and she’s telling me it’s not a browser hijacker.”
“What’s a browser hijacker?” David asked him.
Harris’s upper lip rose as though this question were so rudimentary he was offended to have been asked it. “It means people trying to navigate to Ketchy aren’t being redirected to another site. The video we’re seeing seems to be embedded in Ketchy’s servers, which makes it a much bigger deal. The level of sophistication involved in that kind of incursion is very, very high—unless someone actually had access to Ketchy’s hardware.”
Martin said, “Or access to Ketchy’s founder and CEO?”
Harris stopped typing and, for the first time, closely regarded David and then his father. “That’s true,” he said to Martin. “If someone had Brad Ketchner, they might be able to manage something like this remotely.” After pondering this for a moment, he turned his attention back to his computer monitors and added, “Along with the video, visitors to Ketchy are getting hit with a file download. It happens when you click the screen.”
“A virus?” Walker asked.
Harris squinted at his screens. “Not sure. I’m patting it down for concealed weapons. So far it just looks like a bunch of harmless computer code.”
.
Chapter 12
David looked at the clock on the conference room wall and saw it was nearly six in the evening.
The attack on Ketchy’s website had begun a little after two in the afternoon, and the site’s engineers had taken it offline within ten minutes. For the first time in nearly a decade, no one in the world had access to Ketchy.com’s search functionality.
The people at Ketchy had notified the FBI that, despite their quick action, they estimated at least fourteen million unique visitors had unwittingly downloaded the mysterious file that accompanied the video. Around four that afternoon, the FBI and NSA had issued a joint statement, warning people not to open the file. The two agencies had also advised people to delete the downloaded file due to the confirmed presence of “a crippling virus that may spread to your friends’ and coworkers’ computers. “
The rapidity of this statement’s release had surprised David and others at the Bureau’s San Francisco office. Along with members of the FBI’s Information Technology Unit at Quantico, Wes Harris and his team were still working their way through the file, and had not detected the presence of any virus.
“Must have been the NSA’s techs,” Harris had said. He’d looked visibly annoyed at having been beaten to the punch by his counterparts at the Bureau’s smaller sister agency.
Now, David shifted his eyes from the clock on the wall to Agent Megan Brandt, who was looking right back at him.
“There’s little to no doubt the video was of Brad Ketchner,” she said to him, concluding her recap of her afternoon’s work.
He’d tasked her with contacting Ketchner’s known associates to ask their opinion of whether the screaming man in the video was indeed the missing billionaire. While she had gone to work on this task, he’d also gotten in touch with Omar Ghafari, who was in charge of the Communications and Information Technology Unit back at Quantico. Omar was a man with whom David and Martin had worked closely on many assignments, and one they trusted. Using what he always referred to as “Next Generation Identification” tools—which David and his father understood to be advanced video facial recognition software—Ghafari and his people had come to the same conclusion as Ketchner’s friends.
“The NGI says it’s Ketchner, which is totally insane,” Ghafari had told David. “How do you keep ending up with these cases, man?”
In response to the consensus that the video was of Ketchner, Martin stood up from the conference table and began to pace along one side of the room, sipping pensively from his beaten-up coffee mug.
Guy Walker asked David, “Are we going to notify the press?”
“What’s the difference?” Martin interjected. “People aren’t blind.” He pointed at a television monitor in the corner of the room, on which CNN was replaying the video of the moaning man in the strait jacket. “The press and public didn’t need fancy software to put two and two together. They know that’s Ketchner.”
David said to Walker, “It’s not my call whether we notify the media. Pass our findings on to Section Chief Dean.”
As Walker left the room, Martin stepped to the dry erase board where he’d written the message that had accompanied the video. “Men go mad in herds,” he read, restating the first half of the message.
They’d learned almost immediately that the words referenced a quote from a nineteenth century Scottish author and journalist named Charles Mackay. Mackay had published a book titled Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, in which he documented the most ludicrous and widespread misconceptions or “follies” of his time. These included fortune-telling, alchemy, and other “philosophical delusions.” Since his death, Mackay’s writings had achieved some acclaim as contemporary economists and social theorists revisited his ideas and concluded many of his concepts were sound.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds,” Mackay had written. “It will be seen that they go mad in herds.”
“What do we make of this?” Martin asked as he looked at the dry erase board. He jabbed the quote with a finger for emphasis.
“Some kind of warning?” Brandt offered. “Garrison Pool is missing. Maybe he’s the next member of the ‘herd.’ ”
Martin turned to her. “OK, so how do you drive a guy mad?”
David thought then of the antibodies that had turned up in Brad Ketchner’s toxicology report. He was about to mention this when Walker appeared in the doorway to the conference room, looking anxious and out of breath.
“Wes and his team have something,” he said. He walked quickly to the room’s conference phone and started dialing. Addressing David, he went on, “Wes called me while I was with Dean, assuming I was here with you. I told him I’d get back to him ASAP on the conference line.”
Harris answered immediately. “I’m about ninety-five percent sure the attachment contains the code for Ketchy’s search algorithm.”
“Explain that to me,” Martin barked at the phone. “What’s a search algorithm?”
Harris’s sigh was audible even through the conference phone. “It’s the code that determines what comes up when you type a search term into Ketchy.”
Walker, recognizing from the look on Martin’s face that the elder Yerxa wasn’t technologically savvy, said to him, “Agent Yerxa, let’s say you type the term ‘FBI’ into Ketchy’s website. The search algorithm would steer you to the most relevant websites—like the FBI’s homepage.”
Knowing his father’s disdain for computers, David added, “People find almost everything using search engines, Pop. Companies spend millions trying to understand and fool Ketchy’s algorithm into linking their businesses or products with popular search terms.”
Harris, speaking from the conference phone, said, “That’s true. But the algorithm has become so complex that, even if you had it, you couldn’t really cheat it like you could a few years ago.”
Martin made a face. “So what’s the point of carpet bombing everyone’s computers with this file?”
“I was getting to that,” Harris said. “I can’t be sure yet, but it looks like there’s some kind of trapdoor, or cheat, built into the algorithm.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” David asked him.
“This is a major oversimplification,” Harris said, “but it looks like the code allows Ketchy—or whoever has access to Ketchy’s system—to artificially promote or suppress certain types of content. I’m still—”
His voice broke off suddenly, and David could hear other people speaking to him in the background. Then the line went dead.
A moment later there was a sharp knock on the conference room door.
David turned, and saw two men in dark suits standing in the doorway.
One of them said to him, “Agent Yerxa, I’m Agent Ken Kresge of the NSA.” Kresge’s thinning hair was combed straight back from his round, portly face. His voice was so soft of timbre that it sounded feminine. “From this point forward, my agency will be handling this Ketchy breach.”
.
Chapter 13
“What the hell are you talking about?” Martin said, his big voice filling a room that suddenly seemed too cramped for so many agents and, for that matter, so many agencies.
Kresge’s expression was placid as he turned from David to address the elder Yerxa. “It has been determined that this incursion of Ketchy.com constitutes an act of cyber terrorism that may involve foreign individuals or entities.” He licked his lips, and looked to be relishing Martin’s annoyance. “As such, follow-up falls under the jurisdiction of the National Security Agency.”
“Bullshit,” Martin said.
Kresge looked at him with an amused expression, but before he could respond David asked him, “How has it been determined that foreign entities might be involved?”
This seemed to scrape away a little of Kresge’s hauteur. “At this time, that’s not information I’m permitted to share with you,” he said. “I suggest you speak with your section chief, who will reiterate that this is now an NSA matter. If we discover information pertinent to your investigation of Brad Ketchner’s death or Garrison Pool’s disappearance, we will share it with you immediately.”
David could feel his father looking at him, waiting to see how he wanted to play this. He considered his position—and the fact that Kresge seemed to be goading them—and decided not to give the NSA agent the satisfaction.
“If the NSA wants to take over this mess, that’s fine by me,” he said, “though I’m not sure why you felt the need to come here and inform us in person.”
Kresge blinked a few times, and in his mild way appeared to be at a loss for words. He seemed to be working on an appropriate answer to this question, but before he could manage one, David added, “We don’t want to keep you. You know the way out, Agent Kresge?”
When Kresge and the other NSA agents had gone, Martin shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a first,” he said.
David looked at Walker and said, “Get Harris back on the line if you can.”
As Walker attempted to do this, Martin asked his son, “What was Harris saying when he was cut off? Something about manipulating the data?”
Brandt spoke up. “He said it looked like the code allowed for someone to artificially promote or suppress Ketchy’s search results or keywords.”
“Harris isn’t picking up,” Walker said to David. “You want me to track him down?”
David nodded. When Walker had gone, he put in a call to Omar Ghafari on the room’s conference line. The head of his office’s communications and IT unit picked up immediately.
“I was hoping it was you,” Omar said. “Insane things are going on here, David. After I told you how the NGI software had ID’d the guy in the video as Ketchner, I started working on the accompanying auto-download—”
“That’s why I’m calling,” David interrupted. He looked at his father as he said, “The NSA is going to be handling that from here on out.”
Martin looked at him blankly.
“Yeah I know,” Omar answered. “EAD Brooks sent two of his guys down here to tell us to keep our hands off because the ball was now in NSA’s court. They practically kicked me out of my own lab. That’s why I was—”
“I’m sure they have good reasons for that,” David said, cutting him off.
“You mean this foreign entity crap? That’s total—”
Again, David interrupted him. “Omar, you remember when I was removed as lead during the Edith Vereen investigation?”
The line was quiet for a moment before Omar answered. “Sure.”
“That all worked out for the best, and I’m sure this will too.”
Martin raised his eyebrows at his son and turned away, smiling to himself.
Omar started to speak, but paused. When he finally answered, his tone had changed. “You’re right. It’s probably better that NSA is handling this.”
When they got off the phone, David leaned back in his chair. He was sure Omar had understood his unspoken message, and so had his father.
At one point during his investigation into Edith Vereen—the woman the press had dubbed the “Colony Killer”—David had been suspended for two weeks when the deputy director of the FBI had determined he wasn’t making sufficient progress toward capturing Vereen. During his suspension, David had continued to receive information about the investigation from Omar, who used only private phone and email accounts to communicate with him. David had used some of the information Omar fed him to identify Vereen’s final victim.
He didn’t know what was going on with the NSA. But he knew he could trust Omar, and he wanted to speak with his man when they had the chance to do so using more secure channels.
Turning to Brandt, he asked, “Do we have phone or email data on Ketchner and Pool? Anything from their security people?”
“Some for Ketchner, more for Pool,” she said. “Although we only received Pool’s records a few hours ago. So far we’ve been through the catalogue of incoming and outgoing calls and texts. No red flags have gone up.”
David told her to look specifically for symmetries between the two men’s schedules or contacts. “Events they may have both attended, or people they both communicated with,” he said.
“Look for calls to doctors,” Martin added. He turned to his son and said, “Watching that video . . . I gotta say, I’ve seen crazy like that before, but not for a long time.” He paused, and then added, “I want to talk with Pool’s wife.”
.
Chapter 14
David piloted the Bureau’s black Suburban north on Divisadero Street and deeper into the Pacific Heights section of downtown San Francisco.
Martin—holding his son’s smart phone—navigated them toward the home of Garrison and Amelia Pool.
“Nice neighborhood,” he observed as they passed the mansions and luxury townhouses that comprised a good-sized chunk of the city’s priciest real estate. “I have a feeling one of these row houses costs a little more than my place in Philly.”
David nodded. “But they probably don’t have an Esposito’s Meats around the corner. Or a Maureen’s.”
Martin smiled and leaned forward, craning his head in order to see the upper floors of the houses they were passing. He shook his head and said, “What the hell are we doing out here?” He sat back in his seat. “We’re strangers in a strange land here, buddy boy. And the reasons we’ve been given don’t make sense to this old man.”
David didn’t answer, though he had been thinking many of the same things.
During his more than ten years with the FBI, he had never been sent so far afield for an investigation that didn’t at least brush up against his usual areas of expertise. Coupled with the NSA’s sudden involvement, he had the sense unseen people or forces had an interest in steering the course of his involvement, though he couldn’t yet say whether that interest was benign or corrupting.
He said to his father, “I could tell you caught my message to Omar.”
“Yeah, and that was good thinking. Hopefully he keeps working on that download file—the Ketchy computer code thing.”
David knew he wouldn’t have to twist Omar’s arm on that, assuming his man still had access to the file. He thought
that was likely.
“Take your next right,” Martin said as he squinted down at his son’s phone. “Should be just a few in from the corner.”
The Pool residence—a many-tiered cube of a mansion rising five stories above street level—seemed to glow purple-orange as the sun dipped into the Pacific somewhere out of sight.
Seeing the place, Martin whistled. “Even without an Esposito’s . . .” he said, grinning at his son.
Two silver Suburbans much like the one David was driving were parked outside the gated drive that led behind the house. A third Suburban and an SFPD cruiser were parked a little ways down and on the other side of the street.
Father and son were greeted at the gate by two men. One wore a dark suit, while the other was dressed in pressed khaki pants and a black polo shirt. The man in the suit was FBI, while the polo-shirted man turned out to be a member of Pool’s private security detail. He introduced himself as Craig Darnell, and led David and Martin up a slate walkway and past neatly pruned hedges toward the back of the house.
“Mrs. Pool is in the green house,” Darnell said to them. He added, “She likes the light at this time of day.”
This statement got a big laugh from Martin, whom Darnell regarding sternly.
“Relax, Darnell,” Martin said. “I’ll lose the grin before your boss has the chance to take offense.”
Turning a corner, David saw the evening sky reflected in dozens of panes of glass. The structure Darnell had called the “green house” extended from the back of the Pool’s mansion onto the lawn behind their home. This backyard space was bordered by tightly spaced evergreens to keep neighbors from peering into the Pools’ urban sanctuary. Another man, dressed in khakis and a black polo exactly like Darnell’s, stood near the entrance to the glass-enclosed space. He nodded somberly at David and Martin as they entered.
The glass-walled greenhouse was roughly the size of the ground floor of David’s entire home. It was filled with small trees and flowers, as well as several coordinated clusters of furniture.