He withdrew from Kaiya and tapped the VPN to reach the router in question. After a scan of the logs, a detail jumped out: a standby network card on the router had been activated and reconfigured.
“Damn.”
She knelt next to him, asking with her eyes.
“Shit’s in the fan, I think. Maybe even a hack. Sorry, babe.”
“S’okay. Go get ‘em.” She stood, stroked his cheek, and strolled over to the window he’d looked out earlier. The woman he loved, inside a room full of technology, peering out at nature beyond – he took a mental snapshot.
A flow of data coursed out the hijacked router. The network systems monitors all showed green and no alarms had gone off – there was still a chance an InterGen tech had set up something unauthorized. A captured sample of the data stream revealed the type of files being transferred.
“Christ. Someone’s moving around music? Who would be so stupid?”
• • •
A miniature neon beer sign over Johan’s desk cast its glow in the smoke from his pipe. Across the studio apartment’s floor lay laptops, network cabling, and a pair of routers blinking in the dark. Laptop speakers tried to do justice to a discordant Eurobeat mp3 but came up woefully short. Corduroy curtains blocked out the morning light.
The Dutch hacker watched the cargo stream from InterGen to his client’s server in Thailand. For five hundred euro and as a test of InterGen’s security it was worth babysitting the transfer.
He ashed his pipe into an old coffee mug. InterGen had been on his bucket list for over two years. He had nearly given up trying except for the thousand different ways for profit once inside. In the end he lucked out with a combination of fresh tools that exploited an extraordinary vulnerability in the Crest series of Rocom routers, one that could only be another NSA backdoor. Finding them was all the rage.
He peeled a thumbnail-sized strip of the claylike hash from the trim of the monitor and fired up another bowl. After a deep pull, the transfer paused onscreen. He held his breath and willed it to continue. It did.
“I am a god,” he quipped as he exhaled. He started to check email when the transfer paused again, then once more.
He set the pipe down and pulled up a console window to investigate.
• • •
“It’s a hacker.”
Back at InterGen Matt asked, “How? What’d you find?”
“A root account on one of the old Promulgate servers is active. He’s pushing shit out now.”
“Where’s it going?”
He grunted. “Another hacked box unless he works for the Canadian Tourism Board. They might be able to see where the packets are going.”
“You’re going after him?”
“Damn straight I am.”
A call to the Canadian NOC went to voicemail. He marked it urgent but could only wait.
“Crap, I can’t believe this.”
The thought of someone cracking open the network was as annoying as it was surprising. Rocom routers were the most secure shit on the planet; the Crest series cost a fortune. The only thing that kept him from driving to InterGen was Kaiya’s soft hands rubbing his back and the nudging of her breasts while she listened to him describe the hack.
“See here... this is where he defined a new network. And here,” he tapped at a string of text, “the shitball rooted the old Promulgate server and hijacked it. He’s got about fifteen gigs of porn and music stashed and is sending some out now.”
She shook her head. “Owned by a hacker, babe. Not good.”
It sucked to hear but was true. “Yeah. I don’t see any new sessions so he hasn’t gone exploring yet. I’ll have to shut him out if he does. Crap, I wish Canada would call back.”
• • •
Across the planet from InterGen, Johan minimized the window, satisfied his gig on the Promulgate server was safe. The interruptions originated from somewhere inside the network but had since smoothed out. Relieved, he celebrated with a couple more tokes of hash. Soon he’d have help in cracking open database servers, a profitable gig as long as they stayed hidden.
His other side venture was setting up the extortion of a famous British playwright suffering from a case of pedophilia. With forged system access to a private server hosting child pornography, Johan had extracted membership information. Of course the playwright hadn’t registered under his real name but had paid with a credit card, a transaction recorded and stored by the server operator without consent. Johan had run the entire credit card database against the Underground’s collection of databases to cull a match.
In this case, the blackmail would likely be routine. He’d already infected the playwright’s computer with a custom tracker rootkit that logged and transmitted a daily report showing how long each page was looked at, how many times – a play by play of the sick obsession. With those reports he would extract one hundred thousand euro for not presenting the facts to the playwright’s wife of nine years... or to the papers. For an additional fee he offered the bonus plan: destruction of the server’s records incriminating him. Most took the option. An added five thousand euro for a minute’s work. That he would later release copies of the records anyway was something he kept strictly to himself.
He drew deeply from his pipe. Karma can be a bitch.
Outside, a concert of car horns erupted just as an email arrived from Crosstalk.
He arched his brows and blew a thin plume of smoke, noting the synchronicity. Two years ago a set of jpegs from Crosstalk netted them half a million euro. The images of a Dutch parliament member engaged in illicit sex with a youth had been taken with his knowledge though obviously a trust had been betrayed. The extortion went flawlessly with the help of an intermediary in Arnhem. There had been very little contact from him since. A couple of false starts on jobs that didn’t pan out. Crosstalk always worked the big ones.
He again pulled deeply from the pipe. The email was encrypted as it had arrived from the Underground’s Magistrate system. Using Crosstalk’s private key, he opened it to reveal an Alcazar link and a single paragraph.
THEY ARE TRACKING ME RIGHT NOW THEY HAVE ME I AM DEAD TONIGHT. THEY ARE ON THE GROUND AND IN PEOPLES MINDS DON’T LET THEM FIND WHO YOU ARE!! GET THIS AND RUN NOW ZERO RIGHT NOW GO LOW FAST BUT FIND A WAY TO LET IT OUT. LET THEM HAVE IT!! MAKE IT COUNT!!!! I WAS DARREN BLYTHE ENGLAND, HCS. REMEMBER STATEN-GENERAAL.
High was suddenly almost too high. He read the paragraph once more in disbelief. That Crosstalk used his real name was almost as surprising as the message itself. Go low. To run, to disappear. Not a warning given lightly. The link would kick off a download from Alcazar, the Underground’s secure storage network.
“Seriously?”
Almost ten minutes left on the mp3 dump to the Thai client. He clicked the link to start the Alcazar download. Forty chunks. It could take twice as long as the Thai download.
Run now Zero right now go low fast.
“Fuck.”
• • •
Up in the shop the music faded and Sam interrupted.
“Incoming call from Lisa Delanger of the Canadian Tourism Commission.”
“Here she is.” Austin pressed a button on his headset to connect and winked at Kaiya curled up on the recliner. She had slipped into one of his paint-splattered t-shirts.
The Canadian admin required minimal prompting before producing the next hop: a backbone router for a large telco in New Jersey. With thanks and a promise to let her know how the chase ended, he signed off and dialed the network operations center contact listed for the telecom. A bored voice answered the phone in Jersey.
“Austin Bakken here from InterGen California. Your gw08 router is being used right now by a hacker to stream his data. If you could do me a huge favor and just check where those packets are headed to? I’m trying to track him and–”
“Ah shit...” The voice was suddenly more awake.
“— I’m hoping you can help. The packets are inbound from–” he rattled off the IP address
of the Canadian hop, “–and can’t be missed, there’s a ton of ‘em.”
Keyboard clatter mixed with a string of cuss words. “Okay, got them.”
“Them?”
“Two destinations. Hang on. One’s Thailand. The other... Germany. The load’s going to Thailand and your hacker’s in Europe. Or using Europe anyway. I’m going to have to shut this down–”
He asked him to wait. “I need another ten or twenty minutes to track.”
He got ten so he sent Matt chasing the Thailand server. The real trace was through the router in Germany to the hacker. A lookup showed a website and email hosted off the address, the domain registered to a brewery. He phoned internationally to the technical contact, someone named Andreas Bietl. An assistant regretfully informed he wasn’t available.
When would he return? It was lunchtime, maybe an hour. Could he type a few commands at the router in question? No, he wasn’t authorized to but would take a message.
A sudden dead end in the grab for the hacker.
• • •
One of Johan’s cells rang.
“Ja?”
“Nosy admin called from InterGen in America trying to track you. I brushed him off but Andreas may have to deal with him. What are you up to now?”
The InterGen job blown? If nothing else was truly wrong, that certainly was.
“Just a dump of music and porn. I have other things to concern me right now, but please thank Andreas, and thank you.”
“Be careful where you are poking around, Drehen! We can only allow your streams if you conceal yourself well.”
“Ja, ja, the transfer is over in moments. I will route the interface to avoid your path. My apologies. Guten tag.”
The last of his clothes went into a suitcase stacked on the luggage dolly. Still a couple of minutes left on the Thailand gig and only twelve of the forty file chunks had come down from Alcazar.
He looked around the studio. Surfaces wiped. Nothing of identity except stray, undocumented DNA. He dismissed the thought that he might be overreacting to an odd email. Survival protocol demanded action. Threat, response. Control ahead of change. He’d be back, but then again... he looked around once more. If not, he’d miss the studio, his home for the past four months.
The mp3 transfer was nearly complete. He walked to the French doors and parted the heavy curtains. Streets reflected the gray skies that drizzled the city. Another in a series of summer storms was due over Rotterdam before nightfall. He rubbed the stubble of his cheeks. Crosstalk’s email crowded his buzz. Possible information, possible bullshit. Even if it were nothing, it was good for drill though he would want an explanation.
A delivery truck laid on its horn. Three teenage girls laughed off the near collision and danced onto the sidewalk. Music from the Italian cafe below sounded faintly. Italia. The beauty, the food, the traditions, and the people, the sense of family. He hadn’t returned since the deVere incident. Instead, he enjoyed lunch and dinner at Cafe Trevi where Marie and Cathrine waited on him with their beautiful accents.
A feeling pressed uncomfortably on his buzz – the feeling it was time to go. He checked the laptop and found trace warnings from Alcazar. He scrolled through the messages.
“Shit.” Someone had bypassed all safeguards and tracked him.
He canceled the Alcazar download with only fifteen file chunks received and began unplugging gear.
“What the fuck, Crosstalk? What did you grab?”
• • •
A security guard waved Austin’s white BMW through the gates at InterGen just before the Saturday sun rose above the Sierras. He’d arrived early to get a head start on addressing the Crest vulnerability. Rocom had already formed a response team and were ready to work with him.
A sluggish Matt and two other techs looked up from their consoles as he entered the network operations center. The large NORADs showed systems and traffic looking first-rate.
“All quiet, boss.”
“Good. How did the trace to Thailand go?”
“Through that factory in Bangkok to a hosting company that doesn’t honor requests without legal wrapping.”
“Figures. You scanned the other routers?”
He nodded and stood to stretch. “No broken glass, no trace. The alarms are set based on what we know.”
“Good news. Beat it Matt, and thanks for the hard work.”
“Twenty minutes ‘til I can turn back into a pumpkin.”
“Go. These guys will keep an eye on things.”
Matt came over and said in a low voice, “I’m really sorry for not catching the hack.”
“Don’t sweat it. Like my dad always says, ‘A mistake shouldn’t embarrass anyone, but failing to benefit by it should.’ I doubt you’d miss it again.”
“Nope, I sure wouldn’t.”
The hiss of the soda opening coincided with the phone ringing. Austin took a gulp before he answered. It was Andreas Bietl of the brewery in Germany, speaking with thickly accented English.
“I am returning your earlier call. How may I help you?”
He explained the intrusion at InterGen and the trace back to their brewery. “I was hoping you might have logs for that router and would allow me to analyze them, or perhaps you have a technical person I could talk with.”
There was a pause. “Log files? Hackers? I know nothing of these things. My consultant keeps our network secure. It is unfortunate that your security was breached but I cannot help with what you ask. We have no logs.”
From not knowing what a log file was to knowing he didn’t have any. This would go nowhere.
He couldn’t help responding tightly. “If your consultant finds anything pertaining to this matter, please do have him contact me. I will send my information.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.” He ended the call with a thump on the desk. Kaiya’s words echoed. Owned by a hacker, babe. Not good.
No, not good at all.
Just in case, he fired off his contact information to the German bullshitter and got on the phone with Rocom to help isolate the Crest vulnerability.
Chapter 2
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him a spinal cord would suffice.
-Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist
Many people whose lives are comprised of compounded lies end up developing a certain amount of nagging regret. It’s the feeling, however small, of wishing the lies had never begun while knowing all too well they had and would continue. While they might get used to the feeling, it never lost its eventual bitter after taste.
For Johan, whose normal footprint in society was as false as the nature backdrops used in the Berlin opera, the lies that made up his identity were nag free. The characters portrayed to the unsuspecting public were genuine, the backgrounds contrived yet harmless to those he met and chose to interact with. That is, harmless to most. That he sometimes acted outside of those personas and did break laws, steal, extort, con, and worse did not weigh heavily on his conscience. There was no reason to indulge in regret because he was merely acting as an agent of karmic balance.
A vague notion to most, the idea of karma and a universe that saw fit to balance it among all things was very real to Johan – life experience had proven its existence beyond any doubt. Targets were never needy individuals or companies; they were always well-endowed firms or individuals, professional players of the big game of life. In the written and unwritten records of their past were histories that made them deserving. His was an uncanny ability to uncover the players and their past. Sifting through news reports and social magazines, political reports and court filings, hacked email accounts and mail servers, invariably deserving targets appeared.
Karmic balance.
Just as the wind blew strong to topple rotted pines in the forest, so did he effect change on those he selected. If profit occurred as a result, it was simply the scales swinging
back into line.
Once he’d begun such work the successes piled up, creating a momentum that allowed him to pursue that balance with greater resources and with more exacting cause.
He operated in the narrow but plentiful gaps that ran through all major systems. Those systems relied on technology and technology relied on humans to program it. Those programs had weaknesses, especially when strung together. Legions of hackers found and exploited those gaps. Johan belonged to a group that harvested that information to form an exclusive repository of tools.
When a needed hack couldn’t be found in the repository, he wasn’t beyond physically infiltrating facilities to install his own wedge to allow access. Drehen Legters, his web designer and internet marketing wiz persona, was well traveled as a result. Social engineering skills stemmed from an admittedly borderline neurotic personality he’d largely mastered and could direct at will, a character that had talked his way into secure facilities and out of many a dire strait. Success came from blending old world material finesse with technological expertise.
There could be no better time for fortune from such a mix. The adoption of computerized records, combined with the decline of care put into paper record keeping, allowed for very creative results. Both storage mediums were subject to unauthorized access and alteration given the right preparation.
Lately, his efforts were aimed at catching up with those that used stolen innocence as currency. It was as dangerous an effort as any he’d undertaken, in some ways more so... but also more rewarding – to enact punitive sentences on those that no court could easily target. For now, he was picking off the users; later he would target the server operators, which might involve the law or might lead to something much more elaborate and severe. The justice systems of the world were plagued with ineffective agents and his work was needed for balance. As long as he followed his rules, the outcome of each effort was predictable, resulting in either success or a controlled failure.
Driving in the storm-cast gloom of early evening, he assessed the situation. Half in character, half thinking of mortality, what happened at the apartment tugged hard on the edge of calm. When the traces showed up, the walls of the tiny apartment echoed Crosstalk’s command, go low...
System Seven Page 2