“How hard was identifying São Paulo?” she asked suspiciously.
“Hard, but not impossible,” Frank said.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
Jeff looked at Frank, who answered. “We received a photograph. They hadn’t stripped the metadata and the GPS coordinates map to a warehouse district in São Paulo. Companhia Cero is the only company listed with offices at that location.”
“What photograph? Who would send you a photo? Of what? What are you talking about?”
“It was just a … gentle warning,” Jeff said.
“A warning? In a photograph? Let me see it.”
“Daryl, really, that’s not necessary,” Frank said quietly.
She was stunned. “You two, you’re going to get killed, you know that?” She reached into her purse, removed tissue, and blew her nose. As she put it away she said, “They go to the trouble of sending you a photograph and just accidentally leave the GPS in it. Someone is baiting you. They just put out the hook and you’re going to bite. You’ve thought of that, right?”
“First idea we had,” Frank said. “But we can’t stay here and São Paulo is the only physical lead we’ve got, tainted or not. And Brazil is perhaps the best place in the world for us to go right now.”
“And how does that work, exactly?” she asked.
Frank looked offended. He pulled open one of the top drawers in the dresser. “Here.” He handed over two Canadian passports.
Daryl fingered them both, then leafed through the pages, scrutinizing the visa stamps. “Are these any good?” she asked. “They look all right to me but will they pass?”
“They’re as good as originals. In fact, they are originals except for the fact the final product wasn’t officially created, though the Canadian computers say they were. And there’s a credit card or two to go with each of them, but we’ll only use them where cash will raise suspicions.”
Daryl looked distraught as she handed the passports back. “So when are you going?”
Frank checked his watch. “We’re leaving here in about an hour. We’re booked out of Newark, changing planes in Miami, then on to São Paulo. We’ll be there midday tomorrow; then we’ll work on finding the location.”
“Frank, please. Do you really know what you’re doing? You could end up in a Brazilian prison the way you’re talking.”
“It’ll be fine. You’ll see. Trust me.” Frank’s smile was dazzling.
45
ENFORCEMENT DIVISION
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
NEW YORK REGIONAL OFFICE
200 VESSEY STREET
NEW YORK CITY
2:41 P.M.
Susan Flores rose from her desk, stretched her body with exaggeration as her yoga instructor had once taught her, repeated the movement three times, then slowly drew several deep breaths. She held each, then released them slowly.
She acknowledged the others working on her way to the ladies’ room. A computer forensics expert, she’d worked for Robert Alshon for nearly two years. Her specialty was the NYSE Euronext software architecture and specifically the trading system security mechanisms. This particular examination had proved problematic, since she didn’t know that much about malware, which was beyond the scope of her usual tasks. The NYSE IT computer security team did great work in her estimation, and she had always been careful not to step on their toes in the past. She’d made several requests for their resources, asking for data and access to log files and trading records. Though she had a court order, it was better if this was all done cooperatively. There’d be other investigations after all.
She’d been flattered when Alshon selected her as his go-to contact for such work. It was a big step up so early in her career. But the man was more than a little intimidating to work for and not very forgiving of failure. He’d made more than a few enemies even since she’d joined his team, and she didn’t want to go down that path. He demanded nothing less than excellence, and she wasn’t surprised he’d been divorced twice. She didn’t want to think what he must be like to live with.
Susan Flores had been raised in Tucson, Arizona, the oldest child of Mexican immigrants. She’d attended the University of Arizona, majoring in economics and computer science. She’d gone to work at the IT department of Nabisco after graduation and it was there she’d become interested in computer security. Though she’d been uneasy about moving to Manhattan, she loved her job with the SEC. It was a great place to apply her education, training, and experience. The only real downside was Alshon being so difficult to work with. As a result she lived in constant fear of perceived failure and worked under stress she’d not had before her move.
After stopping by the restroom, Flores went for coffee and considered why she felt so uneasy on this assignment. She had it. Alshon was behaving with an excess of passion. She was reluctant to admit it, but it seemed to her the fact that he’d once been with the FBI and that the targets in this case had formerly been CIA had a lot to do with it. She recalled previous disparaging comments he’d made about the CIA. Up to then, his attitude hadn’t seemed to influence his work but now she wasn’t so sure.
Red Zoya wasn’t the only examination on her desk. She’d been doing other important work, but he had her drop everything to work on this. And it wasn’t going as expected.
She poured some kind of artificial creamer into her black coffee and considered again how unhealthy her job was. Proper exercise was challenging. She enjoyed Central Park but so did most of the city on beautiful days. Sure, she could get off on a subway stop farther from the office, but finding time was difficult. She’d given up yoga and saw how quickly she was slipping away from what she’d been taught. It was so easy to turn into one more fat computer nerd. Maintaining fitness had been easier in Tucson, a bit challenging in New Jersey, but in Manhattan it was proving almost impossible.
Flores closed her eyes for a moment. When had she last slept more than an hour? She couldn’t remember. Two nights, at least.
She was to meet with Alshon later and mentally reviewed what she would tell him. Aiken and Renkin, her targets, had to be part of a much larger operation. She estimated as many as half a dozen software writers were involved, though she understood that such estimates were inexact. What she was sure of was that no two men were doing this.
The success and expanse of the penetration had come as a shock to her. She realized it had been a bit naïve on her part, but she’d honestly believed that it was impossible for someone to hack the Exchange’s trading platform. She found the reality more than a little unsettling.
Her most recent forensics data drop from the trading engines contained an updated version of the malware, confirming that the operation was ongoing. NYSE IT remained unaware of the malware’s existence and as a result they had yet to shut this operation down. She wanted to take her findings to her contacts there, but Alshon had explicitly instructed her not to. He didn’t want to act before he had a clear view of the extent of the infiltration, especially if there was an insider involved. Tipping their hand prematurely could result in the destruction of evidence or, worse, a rash act by the culprits or even the NYSE IT department that could take a bad situation and make it a disaster.
This was a complex and widespread operation, delicately interwoven within the kernel of the trading platform. Even after they were alerted NYSE IT would move cautiously and it would take more than a few days to act as they’d be concerned about disrupting normal operations by committing an error in negating the malware. The law of unintended consequences flourished in just such situations, especially when things were rushed.
The speed and size of the updates was just one reason she was certain so many people were involved. And it was ridiculous to think that two men on the run were making the recent changes from a hotel room somewhere. The scope and frequency of the additions and changes suggested to her an urgency by the hackers, and she increasingly felt a sense of unease that something very bad was about to happen, as if she and h
er colleagues at NYSE IT were the lookouts on the Titanic, who’d just spotted the iceberg dead ahead.
Which only heightened her suspicion. As she’d told Alshon, it wasn’t her place to analyze motives and character but the casual way Aiken had set up his brokerage account shocked her. He was surely cleverer than that. She’d researched his company and saw the rave reviews it received. Renkin was more difficult to research, as his computer career had been in the CIA, but she’d found no hint of concern about him or his work.
Not for the first time did she wonder if Alshon had this wrong. Her suggestion that the two had been set up was slowly turning into an opinion, one she knew would be unwelcome. She reminded herself to stay focused on what the code was doing. That was troubling enough.
Flores returned to her desk, sipped the hot coffee, set the cup down, then placed her face into her hands, her eyes burning slightly. Should she risk a nap? She feared she’d be down for the count if she did.
This high-frequency trading algo malware deeply concerned her. It was manipulating trades across the spectrum, and she suspected it was stealing money from them. She could see how the funds were routed out of the system, scattered about into what she believed were various banks and trusts. It had all the hallmarks of a classic financial fraud operation. The difference was its level of sophistication, its presence within the NYSE trading engines, and the implementation of a HFT algo. It was like multiple bank robberies occurring simultaneously on fast forward and the implications were staggering.
Flores sighed and went back to work. Her job was to tie these two to the operation. Failing that, she was to see where it led and who else was involved, if possible. It was up to Alshon to make the command decisions. She just hoped he knew what he was doing.
46
GRUPO TÉCNICO
RUA ADOLFO MOTA
GRANDE TIJUCA
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
3:55 P.M.
Pedro Bandeira couldn’t recall the last time he’d put in so many hours. Now, with blinding speed, everything was coming to an end. When this was over, he’d decided, he’d start his own computer company, providing legitimate services. Much of what they did was in fact not illegal and would be of use to companies. He’d even take his staff with him.
This idea of assuming the leadership of the Nosso Lugar after his father, something his mother frequently brought up, was absurd. He’d never be a criminal, at least not like his father was. What Pedro wanted was a quiet way out of what he was doing, a way to lead a normal life in the years to come.
Pedro turned his mind to business. What was nagging at him was his concern as to whether or not they could really pull this off. Right now it didn’t look to him as if it were possible. They were being asked to do the impossible.
In his last conversation with Abílio in New York he’d been sure he detected some doubt in his counterpart as well. Pedro might not have liked the subordinate role he’d held for most of the last five years, but he’d never doubted his boss’s expertise. Abílio was on-site. He saw everything firsthand. If he was worried, Pedro knew he had every reason to be as well.
Grupo Técnico had the Universal Trading Platform code for the NYSE engines. Obtaining it had been time consuming, and one of Abílio’s jobs was to ensure their version was always current. This gave them an engine core behaving exactly as it did at the New Jersey hub. They ran new and modified code within a simulated framework where they placed bids and offers and observed how their code worked in the complex environment. This allowed them to confirm it worked as predicted before insertion into the live trading engines.
They’d made several revisions to their code in recent days without difficulty but now they’d received a copy of the latest NYSE code drop the Exchange was uploading in preparation for the major IPO on Wednesday. And that had thrown a monkey wrench into their plans because the revised code was now incompatible with their simulation framework. The parameters of the various internal subroutine calls had been changed significantly, and his team was having a hard time understanding their purpose. Their limited goal was to get their own software functioning properly and every few hours, they thought they had it, but each time they ran a test with the latest code the simulator either hung up or crashed. They seemed no closer to a resolution now than they’d been when they’d run their first test.
Renata had given him a progress report earlier that afternoon. Five billion dollars of the Wednesday take was to come from several Casas de Férias operations against specifically targeted companies. They still hadn’t identified enough of them but most troubling was that, in her view, they had too few holding accounts and an insufficient number of exit channels for the money.
“I’m worried that it can be traced,” she’d said. “We haven’t generated enough targets to properly conceal it. There’s another concern as well.”
“What?”
“Ten billion is dangerous, Pedro. I know this is going to be a big IPO and there will be a lot of action surrounding it but that is a great deal of money. There’s the potential of something beyond our control going very wrong and we’ll get swept up in it.”
“I pointed that out and was told to go ahead anyway.”
“All right. But what if we cause a crash in the market? Something really serious? It could be very bad for us.”
He’d told her that he understood and sent her back to work. She’d raised the very question that most troubled him. An IPO of this size was drawing players who controlled unimaginable sums of money. These HFTs would be using their sophisticated algos to break the IPO their way. He simply couldn’t predict how that would affect Carnaval. He hoped those wouldn’t influence Carnaval at all, but the more he read about the Toptical buzz, the more concerned he became.
Should he talk to his father again? He looked at his staff. He’d have to give them a break. The botched update was a warning. If he continued to demand they work like this, there’d be more mistakes, and he didn’t dare risk that, not with what was on the line.
His Skype program rang. Pedro opened it, then accepted the call. “My son,” Bandeira said, “how are things going?”
“We’re working on the last update. I don’t know if we can get it ready before Wednesday morning.”
“It must be done,” Bandeira snapped, then smiled. “You can do it, Pedro. I know you can.”
“It’s like I told you before, I have too few people for all the work we have to do. If you scaled back how much you plan to take, things would be much easier.”
“That’s not possible.”
“As you wish. The good news is that our IPO algo looks good. We just have to get it working properly with the new code. We’re also having a problem with the other targets. They are scattered and it is more complicated.”
“Pedro, I have made commitments. The figure I’ve given is the one you must reach.”
“I’m doing my best, Father, but you are asking a great deal.”
“Just do it! We’ll talk Tuesday night, and I expect everything to be in place. Now, enough of your complaining. Be a man for once!” Bandeira ended the call.
Pedro sat back in his chair. This was the ugly side of his father, the one he despised. How many times had he been treated like this over the years? Too many. He considered what would happen if he missed the target, or if there was a disaster beyond his control. What would his father do?
Nothing significant to him, he realized. Humiliate him, shut down the operation, force him into a lowly job, but he couldn’t help feeling concern for his staff. He’d heard stories about what his father did to those who disappointed him. Until recently he’d not believed them. He could see the top of Renata’s head from where he sat. Would his father really kill her, a single mother?
There was a gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He knew the answer.
As for the $10 billion, Pedro knew what that was all about. Ego, greed, the pleasure his father took in setting an impossible demand and then insisting it be met. It was to
be $10 billion because his father said so. There was no other reason.
47
MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA
8:19 P.M.
Jeff examined his Canadian passport, wondering exactly how Frank had managed to get one for each of them so quickly. Not only had he accomplished it on short notice, but he also expressed absolute confidence in them.
Jeff wasn’t so sure. He ran his thumb across its surface. It definitely felt official. It looked it as well, on the cover and inside. But passports were now linked into vast computer networks. You didn’t just have to fool an individual when boarding the plane or when clearing immigration on arrival; you had to fool a sophisticated database.
He looked again at his new name: Douglas Bennett.
Was he even real? Or was the name simply a creation?
He’d asked Frank for specifics, but his friend had simply smiled, then patted his arm. “Let me worry about details. You just get well and take it easy.”
Easy to say but Jeff couldn’t help but be concerned. And if they were caught leaving the country, he didn’t want to think how badly that would reflect on them. Not one official would believe they were on their way to prove their innocence. They’d interpret this as two fugitives fleeing to avoid getting caught.
What a mess. Jeff slipped the passport back into the inside pocket of his jacket and closed his eyes. Frank was off buying water, snacks, and pain pills. Jeff was feeling better all the time, but right now couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so run-down. And he still had a ten-hour flight ahead of him.
He placed his hands on his head, inadvertently touching the tender spot. He’d removed the bandages before sneaking out of the hotel in Manhattan. He’d not said anything to Frank, but he wondered if he had internal bleeding on his brain, some slow seepage that would send him into a coma and kill him. He’d done an Internet search on the subject. There would be no symptoms until it was almost too late. That’s why patients with head injuries were kept in hospitals until the doctor was certain.
Rogue Code Page 24