Returning to Zero (Mick O'Malley Series Book 2)

by Alan B. Johnston

  “Sorry, wrong word, I meant calendar,” she replied. Mick stared blankly. “There’s something about today’s date. What is it?”

  “May 25th of course,” Mick replied. He lost interest as Jasinski become engrossed in her mobile. She dropped it on the floor a moment later.

  “It is exactly one year to the day!”

  “One year since what?”

  “Since the botnet went online.” This gave Mick pause.

  “How do you know?”

  “I was there, dummy! I didn’t know it was a botnet, of course! But I recall they kept talking about ‘May 25’, ‘25 May’. Had to hurry. ‘Only 28 days until May 25th’. Drove me crazy! I thought they were launching their communication service on that day,” she replied. “I was just starting to think about having a conversation about how they planned to license my software when…” She stopped. “GET OUT!” she shouted, pushing Mick’s shoulder.

  “Oi! Get a grip!” he shouted back, almost losing his balance.

  “It is all about licensing!”

  “Licensing, what do you mean—oh, licensing!” It was Mick’s turn to be surprised. “No way!”

  “Way!” Jasinski replied, and started to laugh, a strange high pitched sound. “The Zed dot Kicker code must have a timer in it, a timer that either shuts it down or takes it back after exactly one year. Who would do that?”

  “A subcontractor who wrote the critical exploit code and wanted to get another round of licensing fees.”

  “Very clever—yes, yes, I can see that,” she replied.

  “Novice.”

  “What?”

  “I’m just guessing that’s how he pronounces it. Novice, you know, a beginner, Or Novus like new,” Mick replied.

  “What?”

  “His alias—you know, N zero V I Z. He could be a she, of course, too. Or perhaps he says No Viz, like no visibility or hidden, or something—”

  “You know the alias of the exploit writer?” Jasinski replied, incredulous.

  “Yep.”

  “Since when? Who else knows?”

  “I figured it out last year soon after I arrived in Dublin. Anyone who goes through the code carefully enough can find it—he signed his exploit. I still haven’t fully figured out how it works, though. It is a very clever piece of code.”

  “Oh this is huge!” Jasinski said, standing up and starting to pace. “We have his code, his name—do we know his nationality?”

  “I suspect Russian, based on some of the phrases in the code,” Mick replied.

  “Let’s get to work. Time for some re-search!” Jasinski replied. Mick nodded and sat down next to her at her computer.

  They worked through the night, and into the next morning. Mick called in sick so he could stay and continue searching. As Jasinski identified leads and possibilities, he followed up. However, most leads took them straight to Russian sites where the language barrier stopped them.

  “Who do you know who speaks Russki?” Jasinski asked wearily as middle of the day arrived. Mick, who had just made espresso and tea, thought hard. “It has to be someone you trust,” she added.

  “Igor, maybe,” he replied. He had met Igor at a motorcycle meet-up a few months ago, and the two had immediately found common language. “Let me call him.”

  That evening they met him in a pub in Richmond, another Melbourne inner suburb, and he came back to Mick’s house that night to continue the work.

  Despite Igor’s help in translating the Russian sites, they didn’t make any progress. Jasinski did find that she was able to read some of the forums. It seemed that Polski and Russki weren’t as dissimilar as they initially seemed.

  “This is going nowhere!” Mick said after Igor left in the early hours of the morning. “If there was a trail back to No-viz, we would have found it,” he told Jasinski.

  “I agree we need more information. We need more information.”

  “But where?”

  “I can only think of one other person who might have the information we need to track him down,” she replied.

  “Who?”

  “The General.”

  “The General, that’s great. That’s no help at all,” Mick replied, again feeling downcast.

  The General was the head of a group in the NSA, the U.S. National Security Agency, that had interrogated and threatened Mick last year to try to take control of the Zed.Kicker botnet. The last time Mick saw the General was in the hospital in Kiev shortly before Kat helped him to escape.

  “We could hack him.” Jasinski replied.

  “There’s no way we’d be able to get access to his systems remotely. Even if we could locate them.”

  “What if we could hack his network from the inside?”

  “We’d need to get physical access to his network. But first we’d have to locate him—”

  “I know where he is!”

  “You do?”

  “Yep. If we paid him a visit, we might be able to hack his systems—”

  “This is crazy! You and your ‘re-search’. I heard that he retired—I think he was hounded out of office partially because of all this!”

  “You are right. His extrajudicial methods came under fire too.” She paused, giving Mick an expectant look. “The reports I read were very vague. I understand that he used to like grabbing people and bringing them in for questioning, as if he ran a secret police or something.” Mick gave her a look, recalling his first meeting with the General in Washington, D.C. last year.

  “Can anyone keep any secrets from you? Anyway, we can’t go to the General. It’s way too risky.”

  “What’re we going to do then? I’m sure even if he is retired he has information on Zed dot Kicker. Unless my clock is wrong, I believe another part of the botnet is about to go dark. If anyone knows anything about NØviz and how to find him, it will be the General. NØviz probably controls the botnet now—are you planning to do nothing?” Mick was silent. He looked at the screen and made his decision.

  Here we go again!

  Chapter 5.

  From the Privacy and Other Mirages Blog:

  Does my firewall provide privacy on the net?

  Not really. Let’s look at what a firewall is and what it does.

  A firewall’s purpose in a network is to block unwanted Internet traffic while allowing legitimate traffic. The word ‘firewall’ refers to a fireproof wall between rooms or buildings. If you have a firewall in your network, it can block port scans and only let traffic that you want flow from the Internet to your computer.

  However, your biggest privacy concerns relate to when you leave your network and access the Internet, and your firewall doesn’t do anything about this.

  So having a firewall is good, and provides you with security on your network, but it doesn’t do much at all for your privacy.

  Chapter 6.

  Ja2 MT Slashdot: Celebs #pwned by their own text messages! #clever #funny

  NØviz looked out the open window. A warm breeze flowed into the room, smelling of pollen and grass. He could see the tiled rooftops and occasional steeples, some medieval and others modern. He could hear the traffic, the trams, and an occasional train.

  He had caught himself whistling the previous day. His whole outlook had turned around. What a difference it felt to have control over his zombies again! At last count he had over 37 million hosts under his control again!

  He knew Cloud 8++ would never notice his little timing trigger. He had planned to use it to renegotiate and get paid a second time. The second time he would have asked for a percentage. After all, how could one estimate the value of such a powerful botnet?

  He stepped outside and walked the narrow streets. He was wandering through the Jewish quarter of the city—his favorite part. He had chosen this city because of the low cost of living, excellent beer, and supposedly the world’s hottest women. But he had to admit that the beauty of the place was growing on him.

  Everything in his life was looking better now he had control over th
e botnet. All would be well.

  Chapter 7.

  Ja2 I hate #flying with a #vengeance. Do you know #ihateflying! Flying sucks! Why not have really long bridges? #reallylongbridges Please?

  Jasinski nervously paced in front of Mick at the gate at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.

  “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” she announced.

  “Well, it was your idea,” Mick replied.

  “But that was before I realized I would have to fly. Again. You do know I hate flying?”

  “Yes, I believe you mentioned it once. Look, I’m pretty nervous about it too—not the flying part, the rest of it. I haven’t done anything as risky as this in a while.” He looked up at her and could see that she was not getting better.

  He had relaxed considerably since going through exit passport control using his Seamus Campbell Irish passport. This was pretty good confirmation that this identity wasn’t associated with his Alec Robertson or Mick O’Malley identities, both of which were wanted by the U.S. government. Even so, he had decided not to risk using his Seamus Campbell passport to enter the U.S.—he would instead use a backup plan. His plan was more than a little illegal, and he had to pay money to some questionable characters to get the magnetic swipe data and PIN code. His manufactured card was in his carry-on bag, which had made it through the security screening, ready to use upon landing.

  With some effort, Mick forced himself to stop thinking about what lay ahead. He looked over at Jasinski—she looked kind of cute in her nervousness and anxiety.

  She had dyed her hair pink again, and wore black tights and a long grey wool sweater dress. She tapped her combat boot on the ground as she spoke. Mick, too, had altered his appearance. His beard was gone, replaced with long sideburns and a goatee. His cheeks were also a bit different, a result of the pads he had in his mouth to reshape his face a bit. The rest of his face was mostly covered under a Hawthorn Hawks baseball cap. He hated the look, but it was the best he could do in a short time to try to throw off facial recognition software.

  “So tell me about yourself?” he tried and was rewarded with a glare.

  “This isn’t some first date, Seamus.”

  “Humor me. As I am no good at re-search, I know almost nothing about you. My mother always told me not to get involved with a girl without getting to know her first. This isn’t exactly the situation she had in mind, but it is close enough.” He changed tack, trying again. “I know you are an Alan Turing fan—of course, who isn’t? Breaking Enigma—what an accomplishment, and nearly single handed!” He waited to see if she would go for the bait.

  “Oh, don’t be pathetic—you know full well he didn’t work alone, and the early work was actually done by a Polksi named Rejewski. But yes, I’m a big admirer. I also admire Babbage and Tesla, and Hooke was pretty awesome as well.” She gradually started to relax, talking about scientists and computers. He then got her going on various printer technologies from ball, to dot matrix, thermal, and line printers. Soon they were on board the A38Ø and getting settled in. They were in the lower deck, economy class, directly over the wing, the very middle seats—Jasinski’s choice.

  “It is so strange,” Mick began.

  “What?”

  “I used to feel more at home on a plane than in my apartment. I lived to fly. Flying meant seeing my friends, having adventures and fun. But now…” He looked up and down the isle. “Now it feels, I don’t know, foreign.”

  “I know that feeling. Did I mention I hate flying?”

  “Yes, you did. It is also a bit of an experience for me flying with someone—besides a few trips with my parents and sister, I’ve always traveled alone. By the way, how did you manage on the flight from Dublin to Sydney?” he asked.

  “With great difficulty! I think I was unconscious for most of it. I don’t really remember.”

  “Did you stop in Dubai?” he asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Hmm—you must have been out of it. Well, I wasn’t sure I’d ever fly again. I even had dreams that I was in an airport terminal, but all I did was wander around and never got on a plane.”

  “Did I mention that you are a weird guy?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  They were silent for a few minutes as the flight attendants closed the remaining overhead bins and made the cabin ready for takeoff. Mick turned on the monitor to show the view from the camera mounted on the tail.

  Maybe this is not such a bad idea.

  As the jet was starting to accelerate along the runway, Jasinski’s hands, which had not been all that still since sitting down, now were nervously twitching. Mick reached over and squeezed her hand, and both went still. Mick gave her a smile, but saw only a deer-in-the-headlights look back from Jasinski.

  The whirlwind events of the past day had probably prevented her from thinking much about the flight. She and Mick had purchased their tickets to Los Angeles and had packed up his house, leaving the key for his uncle, who was out of town.

  Mick had insisted Jasinski come with him when he rode his mostly-repaired Moto Guzzi motorbike to his uncle’s shed. Apparently, she had never been on a motorcycle before and seemed to enjoy it. The only bad part was when they were stopped at an intersection turning right waiting for a break in the oncoming traffic. A tram pulled up behind them and started loudly dinging its bell. Jasinski seemed more than a bit disconcerted by all the noise, and he could feel the anxiety in her as she turned around to look back at the tram.

  Mick heard another bell and realized the plane had leveled off and apparently, they were free to now move about the cabin. Jasinski, too, broke out of her thoughts and pulled her hand away from Mick. She zipped up her top, pulled her hood over her head and most of her face, kicked off her shoes, and was sleeping soundly in minutes.

  Mick felt her wake when she moved her head, which had been resting against Mick’s shoulder. He was glad of the opportunity to move again.

  “By the way, you drooled on me,” he lied to her.

  “What?” she wiped her mouth, then glared back at him. “No I didn’t!”

  She just looked at him, then into his face curiously.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Kateryna sent you an email!” she replied incredulously. Mick realized he wasn’t fast enough putting away the mail he was reading on his mobile.

  “It is none of your business, but yes. She has sent me a couple over the past six months. I haven’t replied, of course—that would be stupid!”

  “Given that we are working together on this, I’d say it is my business. Show it to me. Come on. Unless it is all lovey-dovey!”

  “It is not lovey-dovey! Are you twelve years old? Actually how old are you, Jaz?”

  “You already know—I saw you glance at my passport earlier,” she replied.

  “Actually, I was looking up your first name, Gertrude.”

  “Don’t ever call me that again, or I’ll, I’ll, I don’t know, I’ll do something really unpleasant and unexpected!” She stopped as Mick was already laughing.

  “OK, OK, never again, I promise.”

  “So what was the nature of your relationship with Kateryna?” she asked. “I know what the Americans wrote about it, but I’d like your version.”

  “Sometimes I don’t know when you are telling the truth and when you are lying,” he replied, looking for a reaction, but he got none. “We didn’t really have a relationship. We worked closely together for a few months while we tracked down Zed dot Kicker. She was just great—I couldn’t have done it without her help. But she is married, so end of story.”

  “Ah, is she though?”

  “Now I know you are lying!”

  “Well, I couldn’t verify the marriage license, but I didn’t try that hard in my re-search.”

  Mick shook his head and turned on the flight map onto the screen. They were less than one third of the way across the Pacific. He noted idly that the temperature in Celsius was almost identical to the temperature in Fahrenheit, rec
alling the school algebra problem to derive that particular temperature.

  “OK, I guess we need to trust each other if we are going to be successful. Here it is,” he said as he flipped the mail back on the screen.

  Dear Finbar,

  “Finbar?” she asked puzzled. “Oh, right, just in case someone actually believed you were dead. Anyone who read the coroner’s report would know the truth.” She continued reading.

  It is so strange writing you these letters, and having no idea if you receive them or read them. Anyway, I believe you are, otherwise I’d stop writing.

  Things continue to go well for me. You might have heard about my keynote presentation at last month’s anti-spam conference in Dallas. Liz was there, although we didn’t talk. I think she blames me for what happened to you.

  Otherwise, life goes on. Winter is finally over here in San Francisco, so I’m looking forward to some blue skies and warmer weather. (I can always hope, right?) Wherever you are, I hope you have nice weather.

  Oh, and I’ve started taking some English lessons. It has been useful to me in toning down my accent. My teacher is always correcting me, just like you used to do.

  OK, I will send this now. Take care, Finbar. Hope you are enjoying whatever you are doing.

  Regards,

  Kat

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  Jasinski passed the mobile back to Mick, who was thinking about his friend Liz who he had dated briefly what seemed a like a long time ago, before he met Kateryna.