by Nate Kenyon
CHAPTER FOUR
8:17 A.M.
HAWKE AND THE MAN with the duffel bag split ways at the Christopher Street stop, where Hawke switched from the PATH to the subway. Everyone was back on their various devices, looking for a signal in the tunnels as they began to move toward the exits. The station was more crowded than usual, a buzz in the air, and there were many others with signs and backpacks making their way along with the regular mix of well-dressed bankers and brokers.
The two sides mixed like oil and water. Hawke thought he caught a glimpse of Bluetooth as the subway doors closed, but he was swallowed up by the jostling crowd. The bastard. He supposed he should have given Bluetooth a break. After all, Hawke knew nothing about the man, not really; he was making assumptions that he was in no place to make. But Hawke’s uncle had been a broker in the early nineties and after convincing Hawke’s father to let him manage his money had lost most of the small nest egg by betting the wrong way on the savings and loan crisis. It was money they couldn’t afford to lose, and Hawke’s father had never recovered, drinking himself into oblivion after they had to sell the house. He would ramble on about the merits of Socialism and the New Party to anyone who would listen while the family bounced from one threadbare apartment to another. Hawke’s father’s last book had been a thinly veiled manifesto on the movement and had been panned by the few critics who bothered to read it, which had pushed him over the edge into full-blown alcoholism and dementia and an eventual stroke.
As a result, although Hawke had the grades to get into Cornell, he’d ended up having to scrape and claw for every penny working in a bar wiping tables while he watched the Ivy League assholes enjoy themselves and graduate into high-paying analyst and money-management positions. Since then, Hawke had found little about Wall Street that he liked.
Of course, those experiences had fed his hunger and his drive, helped cultivate that vision of success that had led to his position at the Times. They had also, perhaps, contributed to his fall from grace. He could never satisfy that hunger. It led him to take risks other men might not.
Hawke changed to the L train at 14th Street and changed again at Union Square, riding the 6 train to the Upper East Side and the Lexington Avenue stop at 77th. There seemed to be protestors everywhere, clogging up the tunnels, and his commute took even longer than usual. What the hell was going on? It was well past 8:30 as he sprinted around the corner on foot.
Conn.ect, Inc., rented space in a brand-new building on East 79th Street. Although the space itself was nice, it was a second-rate location; the larger players in network security kept offices in lower Manhattan. Remaining in the shadows didn’t seem like Weller’s style, but it stood to reason that he might want to keep a low profile after the scandal of his prior job, and security was a growing market.
At least that’s what he’d been saying to Hawke. Opportunity. Weller spoke as if the business was about to explode, but it sounded like a well-rehearsed play, a little too tired to be believable.
Inside the building, the elevator doors yawned like a toothless mouth, yellow caution tape stretched across the black opening. A man in a uniform crouched near a control panel that sprouted a nest of wires, cursing under his breath while a security guard stood behind the reception desk, talking in a low voice with a woman in a suit who kept tapping at an iPad and frowning.
Conn.ect, Inc., was on the seventh floor. Hawke took the stairs.
As he entered the suite, out of breath from the climb, the small reception area was silent. Beyond the empty desk, a little Roomba robot vacuum was marking lines across the carpet. He stepped carefully around the busily humming robot and into Conn.ect’s main room, a wide-open space with rows of workstations lined up before floor-to-ceiling windows. Only two people were visible, one of them at his desk, peering ogle eyed into duplicate glowing screens, the other some kind of office repairman bent over one of the brand-new, ridiculously expensive copy machines that could do everything but make lattes. It had been acting up yesterday like a temperamental thoroughbred. Neither of the men glanced up when Hawke entered. The lack of activity was strange; although the company had no major clients yet, they were busy developing proprietary security software, and every other day this week the office had been humming by this hour, with programmers shouting ideas back and forth, writing on the digital whiteboard and working at their computers and tablets.
Weller always arrived early and was probably holed up in his office, where he often worked alone with the door closed. Hawke suspected he sometimes slept there. He still hoped to get that hour with Weller a bit later in the morning before the network stress test demo. He’d already interviewed several employees about their boss; they described him as a visionary—a demanding, secretive and strange genius who seemed to be wound tighter every day. But Hawke had much more to do.
Right now you should be gathering your notes and working out some kind of story angle. Except he didn’t have enough yet to know what that would be. Hawke dropped his laptop at a small desk against the wall, the place Weller had given him to use during his stay. Where was everyone? Something was going on; raised voices came from the conference room in back.
He found a small cluster of people standing around the flat-screen TV, watching a growing throng of protestors around the Wall Street bull in Bowling Green Park and spilling up the side streets. The Occupy Wall Street protests had nearly shut down the city in the past, but they had remained mostly peaceful. This was different. The crowd was angrier, more violent, chanting and holding up signs demanding a revolution. And it looked like they were about to start one.
“Must be over a thousand of them,” someone muttered. The crowd surged forward and a policeman swung a baton at a young man’s arm. A female reporter, dressed smartly, with thick makeup and expertly done hair, stood behind the throng, nearly shouting into her microphone as the anchor asked her to describe the scene. She looked terrified and about to bolt like a young calf at the smell of the slaughterhouse. The cops seemed badly outnumbered, pushed back as they raised riot shields and tried to hold their ground. Someone else threw a bottle, which shattered across a shield; the cops waded in again.
“Twitter,” Anne Young said, her round glasses reflecting the light as she glanced at Hawke and then back at the screen. “A call to action sent out this morning from someone supposedly tied to the group Anonymous, an ‘Admiral Doe.’ Take over the streets, shut down businesses, fight authority. They want blood. And the police are giving it to them.”
Young was a twenty-four-year-old developer Weller had introduced to Hawke when he’d first arrived. She was Asian, fresh faced and just out of grad school, and she appeared to idolize Weller; she tended to spend time in his office with the door closed. Hawke found her stoic, if a bit naïve, and assumed Weller was sleeping with her.
Hawke thought about what Brady had said on the phone about Anonymous: I hear they have a hand in the mess you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in this morning, tweeting about spontaneous rallies and calls to action, gumming up the public transit system. It was more than that, if what Young said was true. Hawke thought about his old friend Rick again, and a faceless army of black hats brought together by nothing more than a common goal, a revolution born out of the loins of Net culture that would change the world. An ambitious idea, to be sure, and one Hawke had bought into once himself. But that felt like a lifetime ago.
Admiral Doe was clearly an echo of Commander X, a hacker who had burst onto the world stage several years ago after posting online videos and participating in a number of prominent cyberattacks. The self-proclaimed leader of the People’s Liberation Front, a hacker collective aligned with Anonymous, Commander X had been identified as a homeless man from California who was arrested for taking down government Web sites before escaping to Canada.
Whoever Admiral Doe was, he or she had sent out a bulletin to every hacker in the world with this call to action:
We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.
“I
can’t understand it,” Young said, her face impassive, unreadable, still watching as another cop swung a baton. “Why would they respond to this? They’re being used to incite the violence. It’s not going to get them anywhere, at least not where they want.”
Of course she doesn’t understand, Hawke thought. All her life, she’d probably been a rule follower, straight edged and rigid. She was bright and motivated but probably raised to do as she was told. A person like that couldn’t ever imagine the alternative.
“You okay?” Young said, watching him now. He nodded, thinking about the fight with his wife, about another set of rules, those around relationships. Happy wife, happy life, Brady had said once. They had drifted outside the tent at Hawke’s wedding reception to catch some air. Brady was drunk and Hawke was, too, and Brady’d probably been joking in the way he tended to, but the phrase had stuck with Hawke through the years. He’d been angry lately about what happened at the Times and taking it out on Robin; he’d come home last night and had a drink, and that turned into several, and after Thomas had gone to bed they had gotten into it about money. Robin’s father had helped them get their lives started, move to Jersey and find a place to live. Hawke would never have been able to do it alone; journalism didn’t pay enough, and life near the city was expensive. Hawke had no family money, no safety net. But they had agreed to have children, and he had begged Robin to trust in him.
Now he had dug them an even deeper hole, and they both knew it. Last night was one of the worst fights they’d ever had. Robin was distraught over the thought of them being unable to make their rent payments. Robin’s father had offered to help again, but Hawke didn’t want to take it. He wanted to provide for his family, something his own father had never been able to do. But a boy who needed special attention, and another baby on the way, made going on their own impossible. Even if the Network story worked out, it would hardly cover more than two months’ bills.
They were going to have to move to a cheaper place, and even then, he thought, it wouldn’t be enough.
* * *
“Our local anarchist,” Brady said, introducing him. Brady was dressed as Bill Clinton, Brady’s favorite president. They were at a costume party at Brady’s place, Robin in a red, low-cut dress looking like she belonged at a senator’s fund-raiser and Hawke in his ratty jeans and secondhand button-down and socks with holes in the heels. Hipster cool that was half costume, half his regular weekend outfit. He knew he looked good enough, women liked him and he liked them right back, but this one was another species entirely.
“John’s a writer and part of the hacker underground; it’s all very secretive and exciting. I don’t suppose you’ll like each other much; Robin enjoys the civilized world.”
Robin held his gaze and kept his hand in hers a moment longer than what might be necessary, her skin hot against his own.
“Anarchists frighten me,” she said, after they broke off from Brady and got drinks from the kitchen. “But then again, so do heights. And yet they make me tremble with excitement.” She glanced sideways at Hawke, and then down, a look he would later come to know very well. He caught a whiff of something light and summery as she leaned in, smiling: jasmine and cedar. “Will you make me tremble, Mr. Hawke?”
Hawke couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. It was Marilyn Monroe–style parody, but Robin played it well. She wore her curls up under a short blond wig and had a slender neck, a few fine, dark hairs escaping from where they’d been pinned.
My God, what a woman. He was out of his league and tongue-tied. “Nathan’s pulling your leg. We don’t want to end all government. We’re just interested in freedom of expression, and the power of the masses to bring the right kind of change. It’s about justice.”
“That a pretty noble idea, but not a very realistic one, is it?”
“Let the trembling commence.”
“I just mean it isn’t particularly feasible. It assumes the masses can agree on anything.”
“True democracy assumes that the majority can reach a consensus. We just try to create a space where that can happen. Technology gives us a vehicle to do that, in a way that’s never been possible before.”
“But how are you going to do that? Give everyone in America a voice?”
“We’re all free to join the movement, protest against the decisions we don’t like, make our opinions known—”
“But you can’t force people to do it. And let’s face it, most of them won’t. Most Americans will continue about their lives, working day shifts and going home to dinner with their families. So you’re faced with the same situation we’ve faced since the beginning of the civilized world—you’re part of a small group claiming to represent the opinions of everyone else.”
“It’s not like that,” Hawke said. He was beginning to get flushed, and she was so goddamn beautiful he couldn’t think straight. “We don’t represent anyone but ourselves, and that’s the whole point. Look, the imbalance of power is greater now than at any other time in our history. A handful of people hold the country’s wealth, while the rest work their fingers to the bone just to survive—”
“Have you ever heard of feudalism?” Robin said. She sipped her drink, watching his face, her long, delicate fingers wrapped around the glass.
“I’m talking about modern times here,” he said, his flush getting deeper. “Listen, what are you anyway, a historian?”
“Actually, yes. Working on my dissertation.” She smiled again, and her face was warm and open and kind; there was nothing confrontational in it, and he realized she’d been playing with him after all.
“You’re pretty serious, aren’t you?” she said. “I like a serious man. Someone who believes in their convictions, who has a vision of what they want. It’s sexy as hell. Let’s go have babies together and conquer the world.”
Goddamn it, Nathan. Hawke had to smile. Brady had known exactly what he was doing, introducing them. “Why don’t we start by getting out of here,” Hawke said, and Robin agreed. They slipped out before dinner even started without telling anyone, and he never spent a second regretting it.
In fact, it was the best decision he ever made.
CHAPTER FIVE
8:59 A.M.
THE TV IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM FLICKERED and went to snow for a moment, and the lights dimmed. Like in my apartment earlier this morning, Hawke thought, memories of his wife drifting away and leaving him with a momentary ache. A faint smell wafted over the room, chemical and hot, and a buzzing filled the air and then faded as the fluorescents came back up.
“Did you see that?” a programmer named Bradbury, who had just entered the room asked. He was large enough to have rolls of fat around the back of his neck. He was looking up at the lights, as if the answer could be found there. But nothing else happened, and after a moment the broadcast came back on.
As Hawke slipped back to the desk where he’d set up his computer, still thinking of Robin, his cell vibrated. He dug it out to see a message response from Rick: No.
That was it, just the one word on Hawke’s screen. Rick had never been the type to go on and on about anything. But as angry as Rick was (“hurt” or “betrayed” might be more accurate), Hawke was surprised he’d responded at all, and that meant something.
The man was worried.
Hawke texted back: Log on in five. He sat down and opened his laptop. So, as far as Rick was concerned, Anonymous hadn’t been responsible for the attack on the Justice Department’s servers. Rick was deeper in the underground network than anyone, Hawke knew. But it was an amorphous entity, members and targets shifting constantly with no formal leadership structure, and although Hawke still trusted Rick with his life regardless of all that had happened between them, and although he knew Rick would be honest with him, that didn’t mean he was right.
The standard decoy message board was still online, cluttered with news items and press releases that chronicled the group’s latest targets and triumphs. It even had a log-in and special members are
a where people posted about ion cannons and argued about the merits of taking down Facebook. But that was all bullshit, a smoke screen, and the people posting there were wannabes and fringe elements. You had to dig past them to get to the core; there were layers of Anonymous so deep and so secret, even some of the veterans didn’t know they existed. It had to be this way, with federal investigators all over them.
Hawke quickly found the right thread with what appeared to be the ravings of a lunatic against big government. He got out his phone and launched a custom app that applied a filter to the phone’s camera, allowing him to see the public key encryption hidden in simple text against the white background underneath. He hadn’t visited the board in months, but the process was still the same, and he hoped the private key he had was still the right one.
Sure enough, the private key worked just fine. He copied the hidden URL, as well as a user name and password. The boards changed constantly, and user names and passwords were generated on the fly; they were good for one use only. Chat sessions within the network, if initiated, could only run for three minutes before the URL changed and new log-in credentials were required.
The latest private board was filled with threads that were already pages long, going on about something called Operation Global Blackout. It was supposed to be an organized attack over the next several days by Anonymous members on networks across the world to protest the latest copyright bill working its way through Congress. But here people seemed mostly confused, all of them claiming to have nothing to do with the attacks, including the one on the DOJ last night.