Alex shook Graves’s hand. “I imagine I’ll be back to give evidence about Major Salt.”
“We’ll see if we can help you avoid that unpleasant piece of business,” said Graves. “Right now, just worry about getting home and stopping the bad guys.”
“I can’t thank you enough for your help.”
“Godspeed.”
Alex climbed aboard and settled into a seat. From her window, she watched a bolt of lightning rip the sky. She counted slowly, waiting for the rumble of thunder. It came on three, cracking loudly enough to make her jump in her seat. She tightened the belt an extra inch and said a prayer. Not for a safe flight, but for luck in pinging Sandy Beaufoy’s number. It was a long shot. The Bureau would have to contact his phone service provider in South Africa and have them access their records. Johannesburg was an hour ahead of London. She didn’t think there were many telecom executives awake at midnight.
As the plane picked up speed and rolled down the runway, she tried to give John Sullivan one more call. Reception was poor, and the call didn’t go through.
Bobby, she thought to herself. Why aren’t you calling me back?
73
Astor arrived at Septimus Reventlow’s office at 49th and Park at 3:30 sharp. Sully kept the Sprinter circling the block. Astor promised it would be a short meeting. He entered the building and checked the tenant board. RCH, or Reventlow Consolidated Holdings, was listed at 3810. He decided to put on a necktie to make up for his rude behavior. He wasn’t sure whether it was an admission of victory or defeat. He used the glass as a mirror. Knotting his double Windsor, he saw that a familiar name was also a tenant of the building and also on the thirty-eighth floor. What were the odds? He decided to stop in for a surprise visit before his meeting with Reventlow and ask some questions.
The elevator arrived. Astor paused before stepping inside. A woman held the door, and finally he entered. The ride was mercifully quick, making only a single intermediary stop. Astor exited on thirty-eight. Room 3810 was to his left. He turned right, walking down the hall until he came to a double-doored entry. Raised letters gave the name of the tenant. China Investment Corporation. He put his hand on the doorknob and considered entering. What would he say? Who could he speak to? The sovereign wealth fund undoubtedly made its decisions in Beijing, not New York. He retraced his steps and continued to the end of the corridor. The door to Reventlow’s office had the same standard lettering. He opened the door and stepped inside. The reception area was empty. No secretary. No assistants. The office was as quiet as the grave. Astor had the impression that few people visited.
“Septimus,” he called. “I’m here.”
“Come on back. You can’t miss me.”
Astor walked to the end of a short corridor, where an open door admitted a stream of light. Reventlow sat behind an unassuming desk. There was a bookshelf behind him and a small table to one side. A window looked over the roof of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
“Glad you could make it,” said Reventlow. “Sorry to make you come so far uptown this time of day.”
“Cutting it close,” said Astor.
“I have your account details in my system. My banker is expecting my call. Any change in the position?”
“No.”
“So you’re amenable to taking the full three hundred million dollars?”
“We don’t need quite that much to meet the margin call, but we’ll take it for a cushion. You sure you want to do this?”
“Are you sure the yuan is going to depreciate?”
Astor stood up and walked around the room. He didn’t answer Reventlow. The truth was that he wasn’t sure about anything anymore, least of all whether the Chinese government was going to devalue its currency, as Magnus Lee had promised. If the China Investment Corporation did in fact have something to do with his father’s death, and therefore with the attack that Palantir (and Edward Astor) believed was imminent—whatever it was—Lee could not be trusted. For the first time, Bobby Astor had come to see himself as part of the plan. He didn’t know how or why. He only knew that there was a degree of interconnectivity that defied coincidence or happenstance. His malaise was only compounded by Septimus Reventlow’s continued desire to invest $300 million in Comstock.
“You know,” said Astor, “you never told me where the Reventlow family earned its money.”
“A long story,” said Reventlow. “Past history. No time to go into it now. Did you bring the paperwork?”
“In my briefcase,” said Astor. “I just need a few signatures. Did the money come from Germany?”
“Partly, but from before Germany became Germany. You might call it Prussian with a dash of White Russian. Berlin by way of Kiev. Dynasties long since dismantled and consigned to the scrap heap.”
“I didn’t realize it was only you running things here. No secretary?”
“I prefer to see to all administrative details.” Reventlow motioned toward his phone. “I think I should make the call.”
Astor stopped pacing. It came to him that Reventlow was the more nervous of the two. His normally ashen countenance was flushed. Despite the air-conditioning, perspiration dampened his forehead. Then again, thought Astor, he stood to lose quite a bit of money if Comstock went belly-up.
The shelves behind Reventlow were decorated with a dozen Lucite tombstones, mostly small mounted mementos of completed financial transactions. Astor studied them, interested to learn what other investments Reventlow had made, besides pouring $300 million into a wobbly hedge fund. His eye stopped on the third tombstone. For the second time in an hour, he felt as if he’d been struck in the chest by a baseball bat.
“What do you know about these guys?” he asked.
Reventlow took the tombstone that commemorated the purchase of Britium Technologies by Watersmark Partners. “I have a substantial investment in Watersmark. They send me one for every deal.”
“Every one?”
“Yes.”
“What about Silicon Solutions? Watersmark was involved with that transaction, too, weren’t they?” Astor found the tombstone buried among the others. Before he could comment, his phone vibrated against his leg. “Excuse me, I need to check this.” The message from Marv Shank read, “Getting our money? Hey, two FBI agents just came in looking for you. Janet McVeigh wants you to report to her at 26 Federal Plaza by five or else she’s going to issue a warrant for your arrest. Call me when you leave RCH.”
“Important news?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
Astor set down the tombstone. “You work with Oak Leaf Ventures, too?”
“Sit down, Bobby.”
Astor took a seat.
Reventlow steepled his fingers. “What is it you think you know?”
“First off, that I don’t need your money.”
“That’s too bad. You’re going to accept it.”
“So you’re in on this?”
“Yes, Bobby. I’m in on this. And so were you, the moment you accepted our money.”
“Why did you kill my father?”
“I had nothing to do with it. The Secret Service killed him, and no one will ever prove otherwise.”
“Because of Britium?”
“Not because of Britium—with Britium’s help. The Empire Platform is the greatest weapon that has ever been invented. Forget the nuclear bomb. Why wipe out a city when we can take over an entire country without anyone’s even knowing it?”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“If you know about Watersmark and Oak Leaf, you already have the answer.”
“It isn’t a coincidence that the China Investment Corporation is on the same floor.”
“No.”
“And you…you’re not Chinese.”
“In fact I am. I wasn’t lying about the Russian ties. My grandfather was Count Radzinsky. He went to Shanghai to escape the purges after the White Russian army was defeated in the revolution. I inherited more of his genes than I would have liked. When it was deci
ded that I would come to America, I had surgery to help things along.”
“Ray Nossey told me that the Empire Platform was invulnerable to hacking.”
“For the most part it is. That’s why we like it so much.”
“But then…”
“How do we manipulate it? Through people like you and your friends at Watersmark and Oak Leaf. You know already that the CIC owns between thirty and forty-five percent of both, as well as several other private equity firms. Enough to exert some control inside the boardroom. Not enough to be visible outside it. We influence Watersmark or Oak Leaf or the others to purchase companies whose products and technology use Britium’s products, especially the Empire Platform. Once we take control of the company, we use our insider status to legitimately gain access to the source code controlling the products. Buying Britium itself was the pièce de résistance.”
“And then?”
Reventlow smiled, as if he’d escaped a simple ploy.
“I take it Mr. Hong is a friend?” said Astor.
“Herbert? A brilliant man. On the record, he works for Watersmark. But each day he goes to work in Britium’s office. Each day he has free, unfettered access to every system using Britium’s technology.”
“Like giving a thief the keys to your house.”
Astor thought about the companies whose annual reports he’d found at Penelope Evans’s home. Between them, they manufactured power plants, communications satellites, missiles used by the navy and air force, and much, much more. He’d been right to suspect that the private equity firms were the common factor, just in a different way than he had imagined.
“The Flash Crash back in July of 2011—was that you?”
“A test to see if our theory was viable. It was. Frighteningly so. We had to scramble to patch things up and cover our tracks. We certainly didn’t want a full-scale meltdown—then.”
“Was Feudal you, too?” Astor was referring to a recent incident involving Feudal Trading, a bank that had lost over $500 million in the course of three hours when it accidentally uploaded a faulty algorithm into its trading software.
“No comment.”
“And now? Why are you getting so desperate?”
“Desperate? Are we? Is that what your father said, or perhaps this Palantir? You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Why the investment in Comstock?”
“This really is a family office. You see, we believe the yuan is going to lose a fair bit of its value, too. If you fail to meet your margin call, we’ll be out a good deal of money.” Reventlow picked up the phone. “Hello, Rajeev. It’s me. Please make the transfer to Comstock. Immediately. Thank you.” He hung up. “Your turn. Call your CFO and instruct her to use the funds to meet the margin calls.”
“If I don’t?”
“You remember that capable man you met yesterday at your father’s home? Blue eyes. Fast as lightning. He’s my youngest brother. He was trained at the Shaolin Temple as a warrior monk. Unfortunately, he enjoyed practicing his skills a little too much. We were able to get him out of the country before the police jailed him. He particularly liked harming young women. You have a daughter, don’t you? Katie, isn’t it? Sixteen years old. A student at the Horace Mann School. Lives at—”
“Hand me the phone.”
“Do as you’re told and everything will turn out fine. The yuan will depreciate. Comstock will make a killing. You’ll be the new Soros. Isn’t that what you want?”
“How do you know the yuan will depreciate?”
“My brother assures me of it.”
Astor nodded, his stomach sick with worry. “Who is your brother?”
“Magnus Lee. The future vice premier of China.”
74
Building Six.
Zero hour.
Magnus Lee hurried along the corridor on the fifteenth floor (belowground) of the secret installation. There were no company signs hanging from the ceiling. There was only one room, and it was designated with a T, for Troy. Two guards stood outside. Seeing Lee, they snapped to attention. Their reward was a perfunctory nod and a grunt.
Lee entered the operations center. Only four men were present. They sat side by side in front of computers and monitors. Each man held advanced degrees in computer science, mathematics, and statistics. They were the best of the best, the smartest of the smart, spotted by watchers at the country’s finest universities and snatched away to work on behalf of their people. There was no greater honor. They had other skills, too, and these skills were not taught at universities. They were the nation’s best hackers, and therefore the world’s.
Lee sat down in a chair at the rear of the room. There was a word for people who possessed the ability to do so much with so little. That word was super-empowered. Lee liked the sound of it. Of course, it helped if you had the might and the resources of an entire country behind you.
A digital clock broadcast the time in minutes and seconds on one wall. Less than eighteen hours remained before the key was inserted. A giant screen covered the wall facing him.
Lee watched as a simulation of the attack was broadcast. The first target had never been a subject of debate. As Troy had come into being and Lee and his assistants at Watersmark and Oak Leaf and all the other sponsors had begun to acquire stakes in so many companies across so many industries, it was always clear that the U.S. financial system would be their mark. In no other area did the Americans hold such a vast superiority to China. China’s heavy industry was the equal of America’s, as was its energy sector, its computer sector, its transportation, and soon even its military. But as a financial center, China lagged far behind. Daily, the world followed the fluctuations of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the NASDAQ, even the VIX, with bated breath. No one gave two hoots about the Shanghai Exchange. Shanghai was a second-rate market, fit for gamblers who burned joss and said a prayer while closing their eyes and throwing a dart at the stocks page.
It was not enough for China to succeed—America must fail.
And so tomorrow, when the key was inserted and the door finally opened, America would fail.
First to fall would be the New York Stock Exchange, or more specifically, its proprietary trading platform. The Flash Crash had been a taste of the chaos to come. For years i3 had been secretly decrypting the trading strategies employed by America’s most important investment banks. All were clients of the Exchange. All traded hundreds of millions of shares each day. Lee would use this knowledge to corrupt these strategies. Once the firewall was breached, a virus would infect the Exchange’s trading software, causing a wholesale meltdown the likes of which had never been seen.
An order to buy a thousand shares would read as an order to buy a hundred thousand. An order to sell fifty thousand shares at $40 would read as fifty thousand at $35. The discrepancy would trigger complex program trading orders to buy or sell hundreds of thousands of shares at a time. Perplexed, the software would no longer know how to match proper buy and sell orders. Order imbalances would multiply. The Dow Jones index would fall five thousand points in minutes, and when the Exchange’s built-in circuit breakers failed to arrest the decline, the index would fall further, until trading would be shut down altogether. London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, and Tokyo would follow. No trading platform was safe. For all the exchanges were interconnected. Once the virus infected one, it would naturally seek out another and another. Pandemonium would ensue.
From the Exchange, the virus would seek out the giant data centers where records of every trade and transaction completed were stored on state-of-the-art servers. The New York Stock Exchange had recently built a new, ultrasecure facility in Mahwah, New Jersey, but it kept backups in Ohio and England. What crippled Mahwah would cripple Ohio and London. All would be compromised in seconds. Data would be erased wholesale. Efforts to reconstruct an accurate financial picture ante cyberbellum would be met and neutralized.
That was only the beginning.
From the data centers, the virus would travel to
clients of the Exchange themselves. To banks, insurance companies, trading houses, credit card companies, and then to their clients. Everywhere, the virus would seek out data and destroy it.
The permutations were endless. For the virus was written to move continually upstream. To use the first target to find the second, and so on ad infinitum.
All would know that the crash was the result of an error in the trading platform. No matter. Trust would be compromised. Billions of dollars lost. Within hours, all commerce would cease. Economic Armageddon would ensue.
Still, it would not be enough.
On top of all this would be the physical attack. The ordinary citizen did not understand cyberwar. A computer virus was not tangible. It was a concept, ethereal by nature. It meant nothing.
Ordinary citizens needed blood and guts and bombs and rubble to know they were under attack. They needed to see the faces of the dead, the anguish of the survivors, the rage of the violated, and the tears of orphans. They needed to feel unsafe, insecure and at risk.
They needed to feel in danger.
Only then would they understand.
9/11 was a good beginning, but it did not go far enough. Stock prices plummeted. The Exchange closed for a week. But when it reopened trading continued as if nothing had happened. America was bruised, but came back stronger than ever. Tomorrow, China would land the decisive blow and complete the mission to dethrone the United States as the financial and economic capital of the world.
It was not enough for China to succeed—America must fail.
All this Magnus Lee saw played upon the screens in front of him. Step by step, victim by victim, country by country.
And when the virus had done its worst and all seemed lost, Lee himself would call the American president. He would volunteer China’s services to locate the virus, kill it, and restore the lost financial records. For no one had a safer, more secure, more stable platform than the Chinese. No one had foreseen such an attack and taken preemptive measures. No one had guessed its adversaries’ motives, means, and methods.
The Prince of Risk Page 32