A Quest Within

by Len Marshall

  ***

  Victor had briefed his FBI contact about the situation with the Waverley Davis network. The FBI had assured Waverley Davis of their full cooperation in unmasking the hackers whilst maintaining complete secrecy. An entire FBI cyber task force was on standby in case of any further attacks. Agent Christopher Ray, a good friend of Victor’s, was heading the taskforce.

  Meanwhile, at Waverley Davis, new security measures had been introduced to mitigate the cyber threats. The Research and Development departments of all the industrial divisions were asked to sandbox their new programs, even those that were not harmful. But all these measures became absolutely redundant when it was discovered that the malicious code that Victor had trapped and sandboxed earlier was detected on one of the isolated network nodes in the finance division.

  “How is this even possible?” Victor had thought when he came to know about it. The FBI was still unaware of this particular attack since it had taken place in an isolated network that was not under cyber surveillance.

  “I think we must inform FBI about this latest attack.” Farrell was equally puzzled.

  “No time, first we’ll have to contain it!” Victor shouted. He had seen that the virus had started its work and now outgoing traffic from the affected computer was showing a sudden surge. Victor wanted to configure all the firewalls to block any kind of network traffic from this particular computer. His hands were busy typing the data. Farrell was busy getting login data from the Access Control Server (ACS).

  “Victor, it’s Neil Anderson who is the user on the computer that’s being attacked,” Farrell told Victor who was still occupied tightening security and now bore a grim look on his face. He had worked so hard on securing the network against external attacks but now he had discovered that the threat was within Waverley Davis itself. He was enraged.

  “We’ve double checked and it’s been confirmed,” Victor was talking on the phone.

  “Ajay, I can’t say anything until we’ve concluded our investigations on Neil,” he said.

  “Yes sir, I’m well-aware of that and that’s exactly why I’ve decided not to involve the FBI in this matter yet. It’s really hard to believe that he could be responsible for this latest issue but after so many attacks this is the first concrete evidence we have and it must be investigated thoroughly. I’ll prepare a comprehensive report for your review. Thank you, he said putting the phone down. Enough is enough, now they can’t hide from me, he said to himself.

  Within the next twenty minutes most of the employees in the finance division, including Neil, had gathered in the conference room. No one knew why they had been asked to this meeting. Neil was asked first to go into an adjacent room. As soon he entered, he felt an unnerving silence. He was shocked to learn that he had been brought there to be polygraphed. What had he done? He asked himself. He was annoyed because everyone knew about his friendship with Jacob and to a great extent with Ajay as well but he was grilled during the polygraph session. He was disgusted by this treatment but released a big sigh of relief as soon as he walked back to the conference room where the others were waiting for their turn, unaware of the proceedings in the other room.

  After three hours, Victor and Ajay were looking at the polygraph test with utter disbelief. It showed all the participants had cleared the polygraph and there was no prime suspect in the case so far. Farrell had already watched several days of CCTV footage from Neil’s office and had been unable to find anything suspicious.

  Ajay picked up the phone and called Neil as soon as Victor had left his office. He wanted to talk to Neil about today’s events. He told Neil about the situation in the finance division but chose not to show him the complete picture fearing that Neil would tell Jacob. Actually, he wanted to ask Neil not to tell Jacob anything at all about the attacks or about being polygraphed. Neil was stunned to learn how dangerous the virus on his terminal was. Neil wanted to talk to Ajay as well, to discuss Jacob’s issue.

  “Ajay, Jacob is concerned about you,” Neil said.

  “Yes, I know,” Ajay said with a touch of cynicism in his voice. “He thinks that he’s learnt everything and doesn’t need his father to tell him anything.” Ajay’s reply made Neil think about his own plan to bring about a change to Jacob’s way of thinking.

  “He’s worried about your health, I guess,” Neil said.

  “I’m perfectly fine, Neil, but I’m the CEO of this firm and there are things which I’m responsible for which include making tough business decisions that no one else can make for me. Not even my son,” Ajay said.

  “But I don’t think there’s any harm in sharing a few things with your son. Maybe Jacob could give you few good ideas for future technical products,” Neil advised.

  “If he’d been so concerned about sharing my burden and been prepared to give me some good technical ideas, he would have joined this firm the day he finished his degree,” Ajay said sternly. Neil’s advice had offended him a little.

  Neil now had another possible reason for Ajay’s stress which had been a cause for concern for Jacob over the last few days.

  In the entire conversation, Neil had not said a word about Jacob’s inability to reconcile with Ajay’s wishes or his decision to make his own life instead of joining Waverley Davis but Ajay bringing up these concerns provided Neil with a pretty good idea about the abyss between son and father which was only widening with every passing day. Neil realized that Ajay was pushing Jacob to learn things on a spiritual level which, clearly, Jacob was not yet ready to learn and would need more time to understand.

  The same situation applied regarding Ajay’s desire for Jacob to join Waverley Davis. He hoped his son would one day become its CEO. In Jacob’s mind, rejection of this position was natural. He did not really want the same as his father did for him. He was, after all, more like his mother in that respect than he would ever be like his father.

  As his friend, Neil knew just how Jacob’s mind was set towards work.

  Ajay therefore felt he had failed as a father but could not understand the reasons why.

  Jacob, on the other hand, had finished his technical training and had done what his father had asked of him to become a technician in computers.

  It seemed that all three felt disappointed on behalf of the others.

  Jacob had worked in the Artificial Intelligence Division at Waverley Davis when he was designing an advanced simulation module to manage New York’s traffic as part of his final project. This work was a mandatory requirement for the completion of his degree. He had not clearly thought about his future at that time because he was simply focusing on his studies. He had a vision of working at Waverley Davis, starting from the bottom and rising to the top as CTO, the Chief Technology Officer.

  On the other hand, Ajay had visualized a different outcome for his son. He saw Jacob as a young CEO sitting in his chair whilst Ajay visited India for longer vacations. Sadly, by continually asking him to join Waverley, Ajay had inadvertently pushed Jacob away. Desperation repels. One of the golden principles of the law of attraction was at work but Ajay had failed to realize it. Neil had seen it and wondered how come Ajay had failed to grasp the obvious.

  Now Neil wanted to make Jacob forget worrying about his Dad’s health and he had decided how he might make Jacob consider changing his mind about fulfilling at least one of his father’s two dreams for him. “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall open to you,” Neil said suddenly. He had realized that, before changing Jacob’s views, preventing Ajay from unwittingly pushing Jacob even further away was a critical imperative. He changed the topic accordingly. “Do you remember teaching me this invaluable lesson?” he asked Ajay who was still trying to understand the sudden change of topic by Neil.

  “Do you have something to say?” Ajay asked Neil.

  “Ajay, all I want to say is that we can’t change a perso
n who is not ready to ask himself if he is ready to be changed. And you’ve told me a number of times that it’s never too late in life to ask this question. Please give Jacob some time. Let him reach the point where he asks himself this important question,” Neil said. Ajay listened to him and was now looking at Neil as if he was meeting him for the first time.

  Neil left immediately afterwards. This short interaction between them had triggered memories of Martha in Ajay’s mind.

  When she was alive, she would find the solutions to his problems with such ease and, on this particular subject, her views would be exactly the same as those that Neil had expressed to him today. He closed his eyes and started to repeatedly play Neil’s words in his mind and, within a few minutes, he found a peculiar sort of enlightenment in his consciousness as he began to realize his mistake in this entire affair.

  Neil called Jacob as soon as he got to his office and told Jacob that everything was fine as far as the health of his father was concerned and that he must not be worried about his father being displeased with him because of his disappointing behavior. He must accept his father’s proposal to join Waverley Davis and become its CEO because this was the reason behind his father’s stress. Jacob had not liked what he had heard and rejected Neil’s conclusions. Jacob remained convinced it was something else that was responsible for his father’s recent stress.

  After talking to Jacob, Neil decided to change the perception of Ajay in Jacob’s mind as part of his effort to bridge the gap between the two personalities. This was essential if Neil was to succeed in his efforts to rewire Jacob’s subconscious and change his belief in life.

  ***

  She was locking the door of her apartment and busy answering her phone

  “Yes, I know I’m late but don’t worry I’ll not miss my mark, I promise,” she said putting the door keys in her shoulder bag. She saw a pizza delivery guy knocking on the door two apartments away from her own. As soon as she had passed him and entered the elevator, the pizza delivery guy started to walk towards the door of her apartment, looking cautiously down the corridor. Shifting the empty pizza boxes into his right hand, he reached into his pocket with his left hand. Using a small lock pick kit in no time at all he was inside the girl’s apartment which was large and newly decorated. The girl must have had taken it on only recently.

  He found what he was looking for in the second room. He pulled a small device out which looked like a small Integrated Circuit (IC). He opened the LAN cabling socket and installed the device there. Then he attached another small device under the top of her computer table. He put it at an angle which concealed it from anyone standing near the table or sitting in the chair. It was a small but powerful listening device. He left the apartment as soon as he had finished his work there. Leaving the building, after getting rid of the pizza boxes in a skip, he activated his mobile which confirmed that both of his devices were active.

  Chapter Four

  “Reality is a projection of your thoughts Be careful therefore. The things you habitually think about.”

  Stephen Richards

  The mood in the room was very serious.

  Ping May was present along with two other people. One was the representative of the Chinese Naval Intelligence Service and the second was the Chinese Political-Bureau’s representative, Wu Chin who had met with Ping at another meeting earlier that month.

  All three were flicking through different large files in front of them.

  “Why haven’t we made much progress in the Waverley Davis server matter?” asked Ping May before reminding them that the Party leadership wanted immediate results.

  Wu Chin intervened “What’s happening at the Central Politburo of the Communist Party? The department wants answers from the Political Bureau and especially from me at the CPC Central Committee.”

  “I know what the stakes are Wu,” he replied.

  Wu Chin continued, “As a matter of fact, it was me who devised this plan. Hopefully we can soon finally get some good news about the outcome. It’s taking more time than expected and we’re having difficulties penetrating the most secure network in the world.”

  “We’re constantly facing stiff resistance from the server we’re targeting however the intensity encountered has proved to be somewhat unexpected based on our usual procedures,” Ping explained.

  “Can you give me anything specific about the progress made so far?” Wu Chin asked again.

  “We’ve already penetrated their perimeter firewalls and gained access to their utility servers, we can’t draw any attention to ourselves. The fact that they stay ahead of us is incredible. We remain focused on finding our target, despite the fact that they are constantly changing their internal network configuration and topology,” Ping May explained.

  “I assume they are fully aware of these attacks?” he asked.

  “Yes, they’re aware of attacks but they haven’t found out our method of collating information yet. Our scanning worm remains hidden in their internal network,” Ping replied.

  “Well yes, and I suppose that it’s only a matter of time until they find that too.”

  “The FBI’s cyber task force has already been involved in this matter.” This was Zhang Yong, the naval intelligence person.

  “This is a development of real concern,” Wu Chin said.

  “I had considered this possibility and have prepared a contingency plan for it as well,” Ping May said.

  “What sort of contingency plan? The FBI will put the entire network under cyber surveillance and they’ll be anticipating future attacks,” Zhang sounded concerned.

  “There are currently ninety three of our cyber task forces under surveillance by the FBI. I’ll give each of the ninety-three units heightened activity to distract the FBI. Whilst they are distracted we can sneak into the Waverley Davis military servers but I’m certain things will not come to that.” Ping was showing optimism despite the reservations of other two.

  “I’m still unable to understand your strategy Ping,” Zhang said.

  “Isn’t that exactly what a secret service is supposed to do Zhang?” asked Ping “I have another asset over there who is assessing the situation with our cyber team and its local contacts. Based on his assessment, I’ll make a decision about either escalating or decreasing our efforts.”

  “The best way to address the FBI problem is to meet our primary objective,” Ping continued. “Based on the input of my asset there, we’ll have a clearer picture about the odds of success of our current strategy of cyber-attack. If, after assessing the situation, I feel any need to change our line of action, you guys will be informed as well. So far there’s nothing new in the strategy.”

  “Naval intelligence will always be there to assist Ping,” Zhang said.

  “I have no doubt about that and it’s already playing a key role in this plan. We would not have been aware of this American project if it wasn’t for our naval intelligence in the first place,” Ping praised Zhang’s institution. The meeting finished but not before Ping had reassured both Zhang and Wu about the success of the plan.

  The Chinese government, however, as a global superpower, was now really concerned about growing international pressure caused by Beijing’s claim on the entire South China Sea territory. America was totally opposed to these territory claims. Secretly, the USA armed forces continued to patrol this territory along with its allies in the region. They point blank refused to accept and rejected Chinese claims. Now the US Navy, along with naval ships from other allied nations, regularly showed an armed presence in the area. Using the Freedom of the Navigation charter of the United Nations as cover meant the US could sail these waters legitimately

  Diplomatically, this left Beijing in a very vulnerable situation. They were in a very strong position, having rich military resources, but these could not be used. They also knew they had to contain the
threat of the US Navy’s military project of and its potential impact on the prevailing balance of power in the region. This had created ripples in Beijing. Suddenly, the already troubled waters of the South China Sea had had oil poured upon it.

  China had decided to be more active in the secret world of military protocol and they engaged in all forms of espionage and subterfuge.

  China had no choice but to initialize a preemptive cyber assault on the USA in an attempt to steal the research concerning the US projects. Furthermore, the Chinese were not members of the United Nations

  After the meeting, Ping May thought about the situation for a few minutes and then he asked his assistant to find and contact agent Lee, now active in the USA, as a matter of urgency.

  “Report as soon as you get contact,” he snapped.

  “I’ve got him on line one now sir,” his assistant said, “He’s on extension three. Shall I patch him through?”

  “Yes, put him on.”

  “What’s your progress, Lee?”

  “So far they’ve had no luck with the primary objective. The main problem is the regular changes in the network security configuration. It seems that they’re trying to get back to Fu and his team.”

  “What’s the risk of that,” Ping asked.

  “A plausible scenario and a known risk but no need to be concerned, I’ve planned for that situation,” Lee replied.

  “Did the FBI find anything? Ping asked.

  “All covers are intact and our network tracing code is still there on the network. It shows that they haven’t found anything,” Lee said.

  “Hmm... it looks like they also want to avoid any media exposure of this situation which suits us,” Ping said.