The Good Traitor

by Ryan Quinn

  “I see. So you thought I was a traitor?”

  “I didn’t pay close enough attention to form any strong opinions on the evidence. But honestly, I was dubious of that part of the story. The MSS doesn’t take volunteers from foreign spy agencies. They’re not like Russia and the US. Your Beijing station chief liked to tell a story about a thousand grains of sand. Have you heard it?” Vasser looked over at Kera. “Kera?”

  “Yes, of course,” Kera said. She remembered a day, very early in her training at Langley, when Lionel Bright had first explained to her the thousand-grains-of-sand concept, which illustrated the differences in the espionage strategies of the world’s superpowers. Imagine, Bright had said, that a certain beach had become an intelligence target seen as highly valuable to the US, Russia, and China. How would each nation approach the mission? The US, he said, would fly drones and satellites overhead and use electronic surveillance to collect a server-farm’s worth of data, costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Russia would offer money to one of the American intelligence analysts or blackmail him with prostitutes. Meanwhile, China would quietly send a thousand tourists to the beach and, afterward, ask them to shake out their beach towels.

  MANHATTAN

  “For the United States to be competitive,” Charlie Canyon’s guest was explaining, “we cannot have a Congress that strangles innovation with excessive regulations. The makers of old technologies have too much control on Capitol Hill. Disruptive new technologies need a voice too.”

  Canyon’s guest was Bill Orson, a fit-looking Asian American around forty who was the founder of a tech start-up that developed software that—well, Canyon wasn’t entirely sure what Orson’s company did. The man had called two weeks prior, requesting a meeting with Rafael Bolívar to discuss some kind of coalition. Canyon had been surprised to find that Orson would settle for a meeting with him instead, if that’s what he could get. Orson insisted that he preferred in-person meetings and that making the trip from Silicon Valley was no trouble for him. So here they were.

  “You’re proposing a lobbying effort,” Canyon said.

  “Of sorts, I suppose. Is it such a bad word?”

  “It is. But I can get over that. The more relevant concern is whether a news organization like Gnos.is ought to be lobbying a political body it covers. It reeks of conflict of interest. We have the First Amendment; we don’t need lobbyists.”

  “And yet Gnos.is is unable to practice its innovative form of journalism in the open. Mr. Bolívar and his staff are in hiding, are they not?”

  “That’s true,” Canyon conceded. “But not because they’ve done anything illegal. Gnos.is has found very effective ways to hold powerful people, governments, and corporations accountable. That makes them unpopular. So be it.”

  “Face it, Mr. Canyon. When the government has subpoenaed half of your staff and has declared openly that you should be shut down, it is not just your popularity that has been injured. Your credibility is also at stake.”

  “I don’t see how pandering to Capitol Hill would strengthen Gnos.is’s credibility.”

  Mr. Orson leaned back in his chair with a sportsmanlike smile. “I admire your principled stance. But I hope you’ll think about it. Take it to Mr. Bolívar.”

  “I will, of course. Can I ask what entities make up your coalition? I didn’t see that listed on your website.” In fact, the website Orson had directed him to during their initial phone call provided very little information at all beyond skeletal biographies of Orson and links to a few other secretive start-ups, all of which had websites that provided vague mission statements laden with lofty predictions of technology’s potential. True, Gnos.is might have once been described in just that way, but at least now it was a household name. Not that that had earned them much sway in Washington. Canyon hadn’t spent more than a few minutes browsing Orson’s website before, bored, he abandoned it and decided he could wait until their meeting to learn the important details of what the man was proposing.

  “It’s very early stages, you see, but I’ve had similar meetings with other tech companies,” Orson explained. “There’s a growing list of retailers who are eager to operate drones, automobile companies are on the verge of introducing autonomous vehicles, computer companies have already invested billions in artificial intelligence.”

  A burst of pulses from Canyon’s smartphone, which was lying on the desk in front of him, divided his attention. He glanced down at it. The screen displayed a cybersecurity notification. What now? The security system, custom-built by J. D. Jones, was notoriously burdened. Gnos.is’s network faced cyberthreats almost constantly, usually in the form of commonplace denial-of-service attacks. Jones’s security system discharged these threats so routinely that, to Canyon, the steady flow of reports that popped up on the network’s intrusion log had become little-noticed background noise.

  What was this, then? A denial-of-service attack was no cause for an alert to be pushed to his phone. The notification said only that the attack had been flagged as “novel,” meaning its origins and intentions were unfamiliar to the security software.

  “Excuse me for one moment,” Canyon told Orson, who had paused midsentence at the distraction.

  “Of course.”

  Canyon swiveled to his keyboard and brought the screen to life. As usual, he was prompted immediately to enter his username and password. He did this with the ease of second nature. Then he clicked on the icon that opened the intrusion log. Lines of data appeared. The entries were listed in chronological order, beginning at the top with the most recent. That’s strange, he thought. The log reported nothing unusual. No novel intrusion attempts were listed among the common malware and DoS attacks. If the notification sent to his phone had not come from the intrusion log, where had it originated? He clicked on the system’s activity monitor to see if it contained any clues. Maybe the issue was local and didn’t affect Gnos.is’s wider network. Maybe it had been a false alarm altogether.

  His machine’s activity monitor was teeming. That was unusual. He wasn’t aware of any programs that would have been running while the computer was in sleep mode during his meeting with Orson. He scanned through the most recent entries, at first still searching for anything related to the phone alert. Nothing. Then he slowed down and began reading for other details.

  “Oh shit,” he whispered. The computer was in the process of uploading files. But how? To whom? The most recent entry in the log said that “C. Canyon” was sending a zip drive full of files to a remote user named “a11Egr0.”

  When Bill Orson rose from his chair on the other side of the desk, the movement caused Canyon to glance up. That’s when he saw the handgun. It was in Orson’s right hand, pointed directly at Canyon’s chest.

  “You don’t need to do anything,” Orson said. He looked as calm as he’d been when they were discussing Congress. “Just move away from the computer.”

  In the span of a few seconds, the situation shifted in Canyon’s mind from impossible to hard reality. This evolution brought with it understanding. His phone, he realized, must have been hacked. The notification that interrupted his meeting with Orson hadn’t been a warning of an ongoing attack, it had been a ploy to entice him to log in to his computer. Then a hacker working remotely had begun accessing files. But it had happened so fast. How? He thought of the website Orson had directed him to. He’d used this very computer to visit the site two weeks ago. When he did, malware must have uploaded itself to his computer and lain dormant, waiting to communicate with the remote hacker who could piggyback onto Canyon’s session as soon as he logged on, tricking the system into believing that Canyon himself was responsible for all the commands. It was a bold way around Jones’s security system. To pull it off, the hacker needed only two things: The first, getting Canyon to log into his computer, was easy; he did that all the time. But the hacker also needed time to let the attack run its course. The risk was too great that Canyon would notice something amiss right away and shut the whole thing down. Orso
n—or whatever his real name was—and his gun were here to prevent that.

  Given the government’s interest in Gnos.is, Bolívar and Jones had warned Canyon that they should expect very capable cyberattacks, if not court-ordered seizures, from the FBI, NSA, or other agencies. Such attacks would have to target Canyon’s office in New York because the loft there was the only physical presence Gnos.is was known to maintain. Because of this, Jones had created a last-resort solution in the event of a raid or some other sudden threat: an instantaneous way for Canyon to permanently encrypt everything on the computers in his New York office. The encryption lock, if executed, would essentially destroy all of the locally stored data and cut off Canyon’s office from the wider Gnos.is network.

  Orson wasn’t giving Canyon the vibe of someone affiliated with the FBI or NSA, but he didn’t see how that mattered just now.

  Canyon’s hand shot to the mouse next to the keyboard. In two clicks he launched Jones’s system-wide encryption program. A window opened: “Are you sure you wish to continue? This command cannot be undone.”

  The first spit of lead from the weapon surprised them both—Orson, because he’d assumed Canyon would back away at the sight of the gun and had fired instinctively when Canyon did the opposite; and Canyon, because his choice and its consequences all happened too fast to seem real. His left arm sagged. A searing, tingling sensation not unlike a hard strike to the funny bone engulfed his left shoulder. But the fingers on his right hand had found the “Enter” key. Fighting his body’s impulse to react to the pain, he glanced at the screen. It had gone black but for a simple message bar at the center, which announced that the encryption process had begun.

  Canyon’s lingering interest in the screen, despite his shoulder wound, must have made obvious his intention to spoil the attack, because Orson squeezed off a second round and followed it up by coming around the desk to kick Canyon’s chair backward, away from the keyboard. The force of this strike dislodged Canyon, who found he no longer had control of his posture, and sent him sprawling to the floor. An instant earlier, he’d been certain that the second shot had hit him too. He’d felt the air go out of his lungs. There had been an abrupt pain, sharp as a blade, tearing up the area around his collarbone. But now the pain had dulled. He couldn’t be sure where he was wounded. The last thing he was aware of, lying on his back, were the ceiling lights, three of them in a row between two steel beams. They swayed, then they grew fuzzy as they dimmed, shrinking to tiny white points.

  CATSKILL MOUNTAINS

  They rode mostly in silence. Every ten or fifteen minutes, Kera would think of another question about Vasser’s post in Beijing and they’d talk until the hum of the road lulled them back into an introspective trance. Finally, Kera decelerated to match the speed limit of the small town they were entering. They weren’t far from their destination.

  It was late afternoon when they turned off the state highway onto a landscaped drive that wound discreetly into the woods. An understated sign tucked away in a flower bed said SUNDOWN SANCTUARY. When they were out of sight of the highway, Kera pulled the car over and got out. She glanced around to make sure they were alone. In each direction, the shaded drive was quiet. Opening the trunk, where she’d tossed her duffle when they fled, she replaced her blond wig with a brunette one and slipped a green contact into each eye, blinking away a well of tears. Finally, she grabbed the unused prepaid smartphone. Then she got back behind the wheel and followed signs to guest registration, where she parked in front of a small vine-covered building. She told Vasser to wait in the car.

  Inside, she gave the conservatively dressed receptionist the driver’s license that identified her as Abigail Dalton of New York City. She’d established this identity specifically to open a fake corporate expense account that she could link to the Sundown Sanctuary. After a great deal of research, she’d identified Sundown as an ideal place to retreat to and maintain a low profile.

  The Abigail Dalton alias was tailored to fit Sundown’s target demographic: overworked and overpaid Manhattanites who needed to drop off the grid once or twice a year to prevent or nurse a nervous breakdown. Signage in the lobby tastefully compelled guests to forfeit their smartphones, tablets, and laptops for secure storage in an assigned safe. The safe could be accessed upon request, and electronic devices could be used in a small study off the lobby, but the devices were not permitted anywhere else on the premises. Exhaling as if with relief, Kera handed over the phone she’d brought with her. “Can I pay an extra fee and just have you destroy this?” she said.

  The woman smiled politely, as if either she had no sense of humor or because she’d heard the joke a thousand times. “How many keys will you need?”

  Kera thought she saw the woman glance outside in the direction of her parked car.

  “Two, please. I have a guest staying with me.” Kera declined help getting their luggage to the cabin she’d rented for the week. Then the woman gave Kera the key cards and, on a map of the resort, drew a line to the guest parking lot and, deeper into the property, their cabin.

  Kera parked the car in its designated spot and sat for a moment, surveying the route from the car to the cabin. Vasser sat quietly, waiting for instruction. Kera observed the resort staff and security personnel who whisked themselves around on silent electric golf carts. The staff seemed to outnumber the guests. She spotted two middle-aged women walking together, tennis racquets in hand; an Asian man in flip-flops and a still-dripping bathing suit; and a thirtysomething man with a paperback novel sitting on a bar’s patio. Getting out of the car, Kera gave Vasser a baseball cap and sunglasses from her duffle.

  Included in the resort’s nightly rate was the use of a golf cart to get around the expansive property. As the woman at registration had instructed, Kera located her assigned cart among the neatly parked fleet. The vehicles were all identical but for a unique number printed on the back bumper. She stared at the cart, which she saw could be operated by tapping the key card to a magnetized strip on the electric cart’s dash.

  “Let’s just walk,” she said, leading Vasser down paths, past pools and cafés, over a creek, and a down a quiet, narrow drive. Their dwelling was a New England country-style cottage with a large deck and brick chimney. White clapboard was trimmed with forest green accents to match the hedges that lined the drive.

  “What is this place?” Vasser asked inside, looking out a window that provided a view across one of the thirty-six fairways that littered the property.

  “It’s the safest place for you to be right now. No phones, no computers, no NSA. Everyone here is completely disconnected. Oh, and”—she paused in the midst of unpacking her duffle to look at Vasser—“no elevators.”

  Vasser peeked into each of the two bedrooms and then returned, pacing nervously. “There’s not even a television?”

  “That’s a feature, not a bug. We’re surrounded by people who haven’t been watching the news.”

  In her duffle, Kera found the satellite phone Bolívar had given her in the valley. A few days earlier, after she’d updated Bolívar and Jones about WhisperLift’s elevator vulnerabilities and given them a vague outline of her itinerary—an itinerary she hadn’t followed for even a day—she’d promised them that she would turn on the phone three times a day in case they needed to get her a message. Over the past few days, they’d left several text messages asking whether she was OK. She had ignored them all. When she powered up the phone this time, it spasmed to life with yet another notification. CALL ME. URGENT, Bolívar’s text said.

  Kera felt a familiar clash of emotions. On the one hand, the guilt she felt for not checking in with Bolívar and Jones grew daily. She knew they were genuinely worried for her safety, and her silence was causing them undue stress. But on the other hand, Conrad Smith’s death pointed to a troubling pattern: all of the murders had been preceded by the publication of classified information by Gnos.is. If Gnos.is had refrained from publishing certain things, would these people still be alive? Maybe the ans
wer to that question was complicated, but in any case it had left Kera uncertain of how to address the matter with Bolívar.

  She powered down the satellite phone and then put it and the cheap flip phone in the refrigerator.

  “Phones are high-level contraband around here. I feel like I’m squirreling away booze at a twelve-step recovery retreat.” She could feel Vasser watching her. “They should be clean, anyway, but there’s no reason not to be extra safe.”

  After she took a shower, Kera found Vasser on the couch studying the printout of the Gnos.is article about Conrad Smith’s death. Vasser looked up when Kera entered and sat in the chair across from her.

  “There may be something here,” Vasser said.

  “Oh?”

  “The first two elevator attacks and the ambassador’s plane crash. They all happened within a day or two of each other. They were spaced out geographically across the world, leaving no obvious link between them. They were smart hits, meticulously planned out and so highly technical that no one would suspect foul play, right?”

  Kera nodded.

  “But killing Conrad in exactly the same way a week later exposed them all. It totally undid everything that was so brilliant about the first round of hits. Why go through so much trouble to disguise the first attacks if you’re just going to tip your hand a week later?”

  “Maybe something changed.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Conrad Smith’s name turning up in a classified document published on Gnos.is,” Kera said. “For whatever reason, that made him a new target.”

  “Sure, but if they had just wanted to kill him, why not hire a shooter like they sent after me? Or why not make it look like a suicide or a car accident? Hacking an elevator is too unique. It’s too deliberate. It’s like leaving a signature or something, as if they’re trying to send a message.”