by Jack Bowie
“Do you know him?”
That was an odd question. Flynn could look up his record as well as Slattery. What is she really asking?
“Not that I know of. Did you run him?”
“Yes. Nothing came back.”
“Okay. Mary Ellen. Why the interrogation? What’s going on?”
Flynn hesitated, then sat back, breaking some of the tension. “He was taken to Georgetown’s ER. When the docs were working on him, they poked at his teeth. Some kind of explosive capsule released a cloud of cyanide gas. We got called.” Flynn leaned forward. “You ever hear of anything like this?”
Now he knew why he was there. Mary Ellen Flynn had instincts that would shame Sherlock Holmes.
Slattery closed the folder and slowly handed it back to his colleague. They both knew it was a transparent delay tactic, but he needed the time to sort things out. He and Flynn had had each other’s backs for longer than he would admit. He couldn’t sandbag her now.
“Simple answer is yes. But we weren’t involved in this.”
“Shit.” Flynn slammed the folder on her desk. “Dammit, Roger, two doctors were killed. Talk to me!”
Slattery took another few seconds to compose his story. “Peter’s been on our back about bioterrorism readiness. Last year he wanted some new ideas. So we called in some outsiders.”
“Experts from other agencies? Why didn’t you ask us? We would have been happy to participate.”
He shook his head. “Not outside enough for Peter. He ordered up some eggheads.” Slattery hoped the allusion would keep Flynn at bay. He was wrong.
“You mean Jason?”
Slattery closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. Then he opened them and smiled. “You know too much, Mary Ellen. This is deeply classified. We contracted with Jason for an assessment, and after the final presentation everyone went out for drinks. One thing led to another and they started a game of ‘how would I beat the system?’ A little macabre, but you know these guys. So our slightly-drunk Jasons identified a handful of what we considered completely off-the-wall threat scenarios. They were filed away as part of the assessment and forgotten.” He paused and squirmed in his chair. “An exploding dental implant was among them. What else have you learned?”
“My turn to go black, Roger. Just between us. Torres had no history, no relatives, no local contacts. We sent the body to Quantico. They found evidence of tattoo removal. Art from the Columbian cartels. We dug further into his background and found he came here about six months ago from Belize.”
“What was he doing?”
“That’s what gets interesting. He had a job as a waiter in a fancy Spanish restaurant in Georgetown. But he moonlighted for catering services. The kind that services embassy parties.”
“Just the right place to come in contact with high-level ministers or law enforcement officers from South American countries. An assassination waiting to happen.”
Flynn nodded. “That’s what we think. But why the hell would someone do this? It’s a suicide mission.”
“The cartels have lots of pressure points. Maybe a family member that needs expensive medical care. Or a village that needs saving. Or maybe he just made a mistake, and this was his best option for punishment. It could be anything.”
“Well, whatever the reason, it looks like your damn consultants aren’t the only ones doing threat assessments.”
“I’m sorry, Mary Ellen. We never thought anybody would really implement such a hair-brained idea.”
Flynn’s face began to glow until it was nearly as red as her hair. Slattery sat back and prepared himself for the coming eruption.
“What the hell are we supposed to do now, Roger?” she finally barked. Outbursts like this were frowned upon in the FBI. Slattery took it as a compliment. “Check the teeth of everyone that comes into the country? Everybody that gets arrested? I feel like we’re falling behind the bad guys. What’s next? Anthrax in breast implants?”
Slattery froze. It wasn’t lost on Flynn.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“That was on the list too.”
Chapter 7
Crystal City, Alexandria, VA
Thursday, 12:15 p.m.
A deluge had struck Washington, D.C.—Braxton couldn’t decide which of the city’s multitude of sins had been the cause—which had resulted in a last-minute change in his lunch plans. He had called Lambkin early that morning, hoping to get some face-time with his IT guru. They had a lot to discuss. He had planned to simply drive down to Crystal City, but fearful of the likely impassable roads, he had grabbed the Metro at Tysons Corner and emerged at the Crystal City station, just a few doors away from Morton’s The Steakhouse.
Crystal City is neither a city nor made of sparkling translucent glass. It is, on the other hand, a very affluent urban neighborhood, full of soaring steel and glass office buildings, upscale boutiques and exclusive executive watering holes. It is also the epicenter of the “beltway-bandits”: the cabal of Northern Virginia consulting and defense contractors that help the federal government spend the country’s tax dollars. It lies southwest of the District of Columbia in Arlington County, Virginia, bordered on the east by the Potomac River, on the north by Interstate 395, and on the south by Reagan National Airport. Not coincidentally, less than a mile away, across I-395, lies the Pentagon.
Braxton dashed from the station into Morton’s, puddles of water dripping from his raincoat. He checked the sodden garment, introduced himself to the maitre d’ and was shown into the seating area.
“Hey, Lieutenant. You are alive.” Lambkin was already at their table and had started his two-martini lunch. He had changed very little from when Braxton knew him at Signals School: stocky frame with broad shoulders, square jaw and buzz-cut, although there was now a bit of salt in his pepper-black hair. It was hard to tell for sure, but Braxton assumed that Lambkin had continued his grueling exercise regime. Regime or not, Braxton was sure his friend’s appearance was well-received in the military intelligence community.
Lambkin rose and gave his friend a hug that would put Grizzly Adams to shame.
Guess he is still working out.
“Good to see you, too,” Braxton said after catching his breath.
They took their seats and spent the next few minutes browsing the menu.
“Would you like a drink, sir?” a handsome Asian waiter asked.
Braxton glanced at Lambkin’s martini and replied. “Talisker on the rocks, please.”
A few minutes later, the waiter returned with the scotch and took their orders. Braxton opted for a steak salad—he couldn’t afford to sleep all afternoon—and Lambkin ordered a ribeye with butter and mashed potatoes.
“You must have something pretty important on your mind to drag me down here, Adam. What’s up?”
Lambkin never was one for small talk. He was all business all the time. Typical of other Northern Virginia CEOs Braxton knew. He would fit right in with the Jasons.
“A couple of things. Any new information on the attacks on my servers?”
“Some. I mentioned I thought it looked like a single hacker. There was a definite pattern of the techniques used. I checked with some colleagues and ended up talking with a friend at GTAZ, Germany’s Counter-Terrorism Center. The intrusion signature was one he’d seen before. A hacker known as Scheherazade.”
“As in Arabian Nights? A thousand and one tales? Is this hacker a woman?”
“No one knows. Hackers take all manner of handles. But whoever he, or she, is, they were responsible for a flood of infiltrations in the Bundestag a couple of years ago. Exposed a lot of dirty personal laundry.”
“Why would this Scheherazade be trying to get into Cerberus?”
Lambkin shook his head. “No idea, Adam. But we’ve got a tracer on your system. If we can find out who this is, the Germans will owe us big time.”
Braxton dropped his head in his hands. How could he be getting a headache already? He hadn’t even gotten to the hard part.<
br />
“Okay, what else? Let’s get this out before our meals come.” Lambkin finished his martini and waved for a refill.
“I’ve got a new contract, Trevor. My client believes one of his employees is selling corporate secrets, probably on the dark web. My dark web knowledge is pretty stale, and I was hoping for a refresher. What do you think? Any way to find him?”
Lambkin stared across the table. There was obvious suspicion in his face.
“That’s quite an assignment, Adam. Shouldn’t this be a problem for the FBI?”
Braxton had expected push-back. He hoped his explanation would hold up. “Under normal circumstances, yes, Trevor. But the items are quite sensitive. And the company does a lot of business with the government, so you can understand their trepidation. They asked me to investigate before calling in the authorities. Can you help?”
Lambkin hesitated before replying. “So you want me to go back to being your instructor again? Okay, I can do that. But what happens if you don’t pass?”
“Pass? You’re making this a test?”
“Sure, why not?”
Braxton shook his head. Everything was a competition with Lambkin. “Okay, if I don’t pass, I buy lunch.”
Lambkin threw him a disgusted glare. “No way. This lunch was your request. You already said you’d pick up the check.”
Well, he didn’t fall for that one. It was worth a try.
“Okay. I buy the next meal too.”
Lambkin’s smile was seriously satanic. “Deal. So tell me what you do know.”
Braxton took a long swallow of his Talisker’s and began. “The so-called dark web is a part of the Internet that is only accessible by specific software programs. Dark web sites have two distinguishing characteristics. First, they are not registered on the public Internet so they are not discoverable: search engines like Google can't locate them. Second, they can only be accessed by special browsers, not Explorer, Firefox or Chrome. Philosophically, the dark web is a haven of privacy and anonymity.
“The most common software used in the dark web is Tor. Paradoxically, Tor was originally developed by the Naval Research Laboratory as a way to access Internet information securely.
“Tor encrypts all aspects of a message, including the source and destination. The message is then passed through a cloud of thousands of routers, each router only able to decrypt one part of the message. Thus no single router can expose both the source and the destination. When the message finally reaches its destination, the site can access the body of the message, but the originator is completely hidden.
“Tor creates a secure, anonymous communication channel. One that is ideally suited to hackers and dealers in pornography, drugs and armaments. Their currency of choice is Bitcoin. The dark web is another example of how no good deed goes unpunished.”
Lambkin sat back and nodded. “Very good. You passed the entrance exam.” The waiter brought his second martini, which was quickly dispatched. “Let’s start simple. Why is the access software called Tor?”
I’ve got this. “Tor is an acronym for The Onion Router. It’s named after the mechanism the router cloud uses. Each router peels off a layer of the message like an onion. Dark web URLs are long strings of seemingly random characters that all end in ‘.onion’.”
“Excellent start. I’ll give that an ‘A’. But why is the dark web important? Why not just eliminate all the Tor routers and kill it?”
Braxton was feeling pretty good so far. It seemed like his wallet was safe. “Secure, anonymous communication is crucial to many activities. The dark web is invaluable to the military, law enforcement and the press. It has also been essential to protecting whistleblowers and victims of domestic violence. You can’t stalk someone on the dark web.”
“That’s a ‘B’, Lieutenant. Good, but incomplete. In today’s world, everyone would like a more private, secure way to browse the web and perform transactions. They’re tired of scams, spyware and hijacking. So Tor and the dark web are going mainstream. More individuals are using it to access public web sites. Even Facebook has a dark web presence.
“Next question. Tor is a great piece of tech, but it is free and open-source. What does that mean?”
Braxton felt his adrenaline rising. He was actually enjoying this friendly contest. “Since it is open source, it can be examined and tested by a huge community of researchers and developers. This makes it very robust and relatively bug-free. But it can also be easily replicated. And modified. Modified in a proprietary way. So there can be multiple dark webs, each using its own browser and router platform.”
“Well, that’s only worth a ‘C’.” Before Braxton could respond, Lambkin raised an open hand. “The reason is that your analysis went too far. Tor is an incredibly complicated piece of code. Over half-a-million lines. No one wants to make, and support, a proprietary Tor clone. So we don’t have thousands of dark webs, we still have only one, but with some minor, site-specific idiosyncrasies. Last question, what does that mean?”
Braxton hesitated. He wanted to get this one right. “It means the tools that have been developed to crack the dark web are still viable. There may be small tweaks needed, but we don’t need to start over. We can find this auction site.”
“And that’s a ‘B’.” Braxton frowned. “Look, if I gave you an ‘A’ you’d complain when you received my bill for finding your site. It’s not that easy.”
“So you can find it?”
“Maybe. Probably. There is no list of dark web sites, and even if there were, it would be obsolete tomorrow. Every time the authorities identify an illegal site like Silk Road or Diabolus Market and shut it down, a new one gets created.”
“But this site must have been around for a while. There’s been a lot of activity lately. That should help.”
“Hopefully. I know of some resources that, ah, you can’t access. Let me take it back home.”
“Thank you, Trevor.”
Another waiter arrived with their lunches.
“But not until after I finish the lunch you have so graciously provided,” Lambkin added.
Chapter 8
CIA Headquarters, Langley, VA
Wednesday, 1:30 p.m.
After returning from Liberty Crossing, Slattery settled into a boring routine of reviewing case reports and project summaries. Still, he couldn’t get the conversation with Flynn out of his mind. There was something he should be seeing, but it was always hidden behind a dark mist.
“Roger?” Cassie Lewis, Slattery’s admin, stuck her head around the doorjamb to his office. “Have a few minutes for Aaron? He‘s been asking all morning to see you.”
Slattery looked up from an exceptionally detailed report on cyberattacks upon CIA databases. The bad guys continued to test the Agency’s firewalls with abandon. Every week it was some new hacker or troll farm.
The report was another gem from the boys in the Science and Technology Directorate, the CIA’s go-to group for all things technical. They were the closest thing the CIA had to James Bond’s Q Branch.
“Absolutely. Anything to get me out of this encyclopedia of computer babble.”
Slattery had been hoping to hear from Temple ever since their earlier conversation. Perhaps there would finally be some proof of this damn syndrome.
Five minutes later Temple walked through the door and stopped in front of his boss’s desk.
“Good news, Aaron?” Slattery asked.
“Yes, sir. Or at least I think it’s good. Three tech guys from Chaklala set up shop in the embassy yesterday. They worked all day and most of the night. We received their report this morning. Turns out the affected employees all worked in the same part of the embassy. And line of sight to the office was limited to one hotel across the street.”
Slattery’s pulse ticked up. Did they finally have a real lead?
Temple continued, the pace of his narration increasing. “A check of the hotel’s guests identified an anomaly. One suite, with visual to the embassy, was booked a c
ouple of weeks ago by three Latinos. They don’t fit in with any of the other Islamic guests. Keep to themselves, etc., etc. From what the team could tell, they never leave the suite empty. There’s always somebody there. So we can’t go in, but the team did record some odd EMF emissions. More than the standard WiFi crap that’s everywhere. Something is going on.”
The agent paused to take a breath and Slattery jumped in. “What do you want to do?”
Temple wasted no time. “I want to break down their goddamn door and bust their asses.”
Slattery grinned. “So do I. Cassie!” Slattery called. “Get me some time with Peter.”
* * *
Walker’s first task on her boss’s crazy plan was to submit an electronic job application on MITRE’s web site. Preparing it had been easy; all she had needed to do was delete the reference to Cerberus on her resume. Everything else, especially her clearances and experience at DIA, matched the requirements exactly. But despite Braxton’s optimism, she had mentally settled in for a long wait.
Which was why she nearly dropped her cell phone when she received a call from MITRE first thing that morning asking if she was available for an interview later that day. She quickly accepted.
The invitation didn’t eliminate the questions she had about the Plan—it had become capitalized in her mind—but the speed at which her application had been acted upon was a positive sign.
It wasn’t hard to prepare. Her last undercover assignment for DIA had been over two years ago, but becoming someone else had always been easy for her. She was sure the shrinks at DIA had attributed that to some fatal flaw in her childhood. Maybe they were right, or maybe not. She didn’t care. Walker knew who she was and it didn’t matter what others thought.
Or at least it hadn’t until she had joined Cerberus. That odd, sometimes dysfunctional, family had grown on her. It was something she still didn’t completely understand.
She selected a conservative suit, applied a bit of makeup and headed to McLean.