by Leslie Wolfe
“I did get lucky, didn’t I?”
Fischer considered the question before answering it. Either he was lucky or he had some very strong supporters who had started getting involved more. He knew Johnson came with a lot of strong support from some very powerful people, who chose to remain anonymous. Fischer was well aware of that support; although he still didn’t know who was behind it. That strong financial support had motivated him to come out of retirement and help Johnson ascend to power, persuaded by the generous, yet anonymous deal they had offered. It had taken a lot of money to get him engaged, but now it didn’t seem like enough. Even with all the experience he had putting people in the White House, Johnson had proven to be a hard case, making Fischer fear his career would end in shame rather than glory. After today though, he felt there was some serious hope, especially if Johnson’s unseen friends continued their campaign.
His entire reasoning was too much for Johnson to handle, even if he were sober.
“Yes, you did, Bobby. You did get lucky, and so did I.”
...Chapter 72: Routine
...Tuesday, August 16, 6:07PM Local Time (UTC+5:30 hours)
...Taj Palace Hotel
...New Delhi, India
They had their routine down. In the mornings, Alex and Lou would go to the office, get involved for a while, ask to see the code, put some useless pressure on the local project managers, run into Bal every now and then and exchange some more pleasantries, then head out for a long lunch, from about 11AM ’til about 2:30PM. Then they’d waltz right back into corporate HQ, holding hands, smiling, and looking at each other, causing most women to snicker and men to frown. They’d kill some more time at the office, but at about 4PM or so they’d be out of there. Then they’d head to their hotel, the Taj, where surveillance would place them near the pool, mostly tanning in the pollution-filtered sunlight or hanging out in the hotel lobby. Later on they’d head out to dinner, always in one of two places, either the Bukhara, famous for its fantastic mutton, or the Masala Art, right inside the Taj. Finally, as darkness fell, they’d hit the road and get lost in the vast city.
That was when the real work started. Pranav, Alex’s driver, was history, and Lou did a fairly good job driving the streets of New Delhi and losing their surveillance. They’d drive around for at least half an hour, making sure no one was following them, then stop somewhere remote and safe to run the bug finder on their car, clothes, laptop bags, everything. Then they would resume their drive and choose, on the spur of the moment, a hotel they liked. They’d enter the hotel’s parking structure, making sure yet again they were not followed. Lou would check-in under a well-documented alias, provided by Sam, with fake passport, fake credit cards, and the whole nine yards. Alex, waiting for the check-in to be complete, would sip a cup of coffee in the lobby and watch for anyone who showed too much interest in Lou’s midnight check-in. Then they’d go up to the room, and their work would finally start.
At first, Lou wrote some code that allowed him to discreetly map the network security parameters and figure out ways to get in. The heavy and bulky Inmarsat device had proven invaluable. It made it possible for them to deploy the sniffer code and figure out a way in from the Leela Palace in central Delhi. Then they grabbed their first modules of code, hacking into precise locations within the ERamSys network, from inside the Dusit Devarana, via encrypted satellite connection. They were finally making some progress.
Back at their own Taj Palace, by the pool, Alex was reading a book on her iPad, while Lou, with his laptop open, scrutinized every line of code. He frowned and slapped the laptop lid shut, then turned to her.
“Come on, baby, let’s grab an early dinner,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her up from the lounge chair. Immediately, young poolside personnel approached them with towels and trays with fresh lemonade. The service at the Taj was impeccable, but Alex’s focus remained on the lines on Lou’s forehead. She grabbed her things.
After enduring a long dinner, dying to ask questions she couldn’t ask until much later, they had finally made it though their daily routine. Once they were safely in an exquisite suite at the Shangri-La, she got to look at the code.
“What am I looking at?” Alex asked impatiently.
“This module seems fine, but it has some routines that shouldn’t be there. You see,” he pointed, “this routine calculates the results by state every five minutes. There’s no entry in the specification document that requires any such calculation. Seems redundant but doesn’t do any harm whatsoever. Then this other section of code shouldn’t exist either. It evaluates the state in which the vote is captured, and, based on the set of rules outlined here, it returns a value. That value could be called at some point into a different module to generate actions that might differ by state. Again, no harm done in this module, only a lot of useless coding. Nothing in the specs calls for processing by state or state type.”
“What actions?”
“Unknown. There isn’t anything in these modules that would explain that or call this variable. But keep in mind I couldn’t get everything. I just got a few modules, that’s it.”
“Then hack away, my man, hack away,” she said, stretching out on the luxurious bed and immediately falling asleep.
...Chapter 73: Republican Nomination
...Wednesday, August 17, 10:02PM EDT (UTC-4:00 hours)
...Flash Elections: Breaking News
...Nationally Syndicated
Phil Fournier’s smiling face came on the screen immediately after the opening credits faded.
“Well, it was not a given that the Republican Party would still support Senator Douglas Krassner in his run for president in the upcoming elections. It was not a given, especially after the recent turmoil in the media regarding Krassner’s views on religion, faith, and church—turmoil that happened at the precise time when people were casting their votes in the primaries. However, earlier today the Republican Party announced the results of the Republican National Convention, placing its support behind Krassner’s candidacy with a very strong majority.
“The announcement gained Krassner six percentage points within hours, putting him back in the lead at 42 percent and leaving democratic presidential candidate Bobby Johnson behind yet again by several percentage points. Johnson, now at 34 percent, has some catching up to do and only two-and-a-half months left until Election Day. We will continue keeping you informed with details and numbers as the presidential race heats up. From Flash Elections, this is Phil Fournier, wishing you a good evening.”
...Chapter 74: The Terrorism Link
...Thursday, August 18, 9:17AM EDT (UTC-4:00 hours)
...Sam Russell’s Residence
...Timberlake, Virginia
Sam sat on his deck, ignoring the early morning sunshine bringing up the colors in the landscape spread behind his home. He was reading an encrypted email for the fifth time since he had received it less than ten minutes before. He checked the time. It was still very early in California, but it didn’t matter. He pressed a few buttons to make a call.
“Hello,” the man answered immediately.
“Tom, it’s me, Sam. Sorry to wake you.”
“You didn’t. What’s up?”
“If you recall, Alex had us follow a limo in New Delhi last Friday to see who was visiting the vendor’s CEO.”
“Yes, I remember.” Tom confirmed.
“The intel came back just now, and it’s trouble. Big trouble. The man we followed that day is Mastaan Eshwar Singh, sixty-four years old, very rich, self-made businessman with interests in steel and manufacturing. But that’s not where the trouble is.”
“I’m listening,” Tom whispered.
“He’s a terrorist, Tom, a terrorist who hasn’t made it yet on the FBI’s most wanted list, but definitely belongs there. He is on Mossad’s list though. He’s got known ties with Kashmir terrorist networks and is thought to be responsible for the New Delhi bombings in 2005 that killed or injured more than 250 people. He’s also
believed to be the force behind the attack on the Parliament of India in 2001, but he wasn’t charged. He’s a self-declared anti-American, and it was his people who instigated the burning of American flags in New Delhi in 2012.”
“Oh, my God,” Tom whispered. “What are they stepping into?”
“Whatever it is, they’re already in the middle of it.”
...Chapter 75: No Coincidences
...Thursday, August 18, 10:09PM PDT (UTC-7:00 hours)
...Hilton San Diego Bayfront
...San Diego, California
Warren Helms looked out the window of his seventh-story hotel room, which overlooked the bay. The blue water reminded him of Panama; although the bay waters were a dark blue, not the Caribbean bluish-green he still recalled after so many years.
Only in his mid-twenties back then, he had deployed as a well-trained and enthusiastic Green Beret in Operation Just Cause, along with some twenty thousand other US troops on a mission to overthrow Panama dictator Manuel Noriega and install the democratically elected Guillermo Endara. Should have been easy, and it had been, for the vast majority of the troops, heavily supported by hundreds of aircraft. It was the conflagration the United States had won with the least casualties, losing only 23 men and taking home 324 wounded.
Him, they had left behind, wounded within an inch of his life, in the aftermath of one of the very few altercations with the Panamanian Defense Forces, where Americans had actually been wounded. His lieutenant made the call to leave him behind, not even bothering to check to see if he was still alive. He’d taken a bullet in the abdomen and another one in the leg, causing him to drop face down in the sand, suffocating with pain. He wasn’t able to call out. He saw them leaving him there, and he couldn’t call out. He heard his lieutenant give the order and say, “Let’s move out; he’s probably gone.” Every time he closed his eyes, he could still hear him give that fateful order.
He had somehow survived. A family, so poor he felt guilty every time he ate, nursed him to health. They had no medical supplies, no money, and no means of any kind. They knew a retired doctor who gave them some advice, and he found some support in a hospital so decrepit and fetid he had considered dying rather than going inside. The hospital was able to stop his infection and patch him up, then returned him to the family who had no food to spare, but somehow managed to feed him every day.
As soon as he was strong enough, he made his way to the American Embassy. It was a long and exhausting walk through dirty, endless city streets, hours of agony spent enduring the pain of putting one foot in front of the other. Three days later he was home, coming back a hero, and getting the medical attention he needed. Six days after that, he was dishonorably discharged for punching his former lieutenant several times and putting him in a coma. Then he was charged with assault.
Then Helms fell off the grid, turning toward the mercenaries in search for a place where he could belong and make a living. With his record permanently damaged by the dishonorable discharge and the suspended sentence for assault and battery, he had little choice to find a way to earn a lawful living. He didn’t regret it though. In Panama, fighting for his life in the poorest of environments, he had learned the value of money. When his lieutenant had turned his back on him, leaving him for dead, he had learned the value of loyalty.
Since then, everything he did he did for money, and there was no line drawn anywhere. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for the right amount of cash. He was smart and merciless, and his conscience never bothered him. He had left it in Panama. He was an efficient and competent killer, trained by the best Fort Bragg had to offer, and had real combat experience. He was a sought-after commodity in today’s shady market for contractors and mercenaries, and he was never out of work.
Helms moved away from the window and grabbed his phone. He had interesting news to break to his current employer, a Russian he had only recently met face to face. Helms didn’t care whom he worked for, as long as they paid on time and generously and could keep their mouth shut.
“Da?” His employer answered in a raspy, sleepy voice.
“This is Helms,” he identified himself.
“Da?” The man repeated.
“Your Indian friend might have a problem. Two of the people DCBI sent to New Delhi are originally from San Diego.”
“So? Why does that matter?”
“The hacker who looked into the transplant clinic’s database was traced back there, to San Diego. In my line of work there are no coincidences.”
“Blyad’!” the Russian exclaimed in his mother tongue, all sleepiness gone. “If your suspicions are confirmed, figure out control measures on your end. I will deal with my end.”
“Understood,” Helms confirmed.
...Chapter 76: The Insider Plan
...Thursday, August 25, 11:14PM Local Time (UTC+5:30 hours)
...The Lalit Hotel
...New Delhi, India
Alex still screened the temporary hotel rooms for bugs, almost religiously; although it made little sense. No matter how intense the surveillance, the UNSUB wouldn’t have time to bug a room that fast. Alex and Lou picked their hotels spontaneously, and from the reception desk, where they would get the key card in a matter of minutes, they would go straight to their room to work. No one was that fast. No one was powerful enough to bug all the hotels in Delhi, just in case the two of them decided to show up. Nevertheless, she still swept them, carefully, methodically, just to be sure.
Satisfied, she put the bug sweeper back into her laptop bag and sat next to Lou at the small desk.
“Shoot,” she said, looking at his screen.
“I downloaded a few more modules. I still don’t have everything; I’m missing a few more. I don’t know where they are, haven’t found them yet. They’re supposed to all be together on this staging server, but at least one module is definitely missing.”
“Did you find anything interesting in these?”
“Somewhat,” he answered, scratching his forehead. “Not sure if it’s intentional or just a leftover, but I found a randomizer sub-module in the code. It just generates random numbers if called, that’s all it does.”
“So, nothing to worry about?”
“Not by itself, no. But we keep finding these sequences of code that are not in the spec and shouldn’t exist.”
“Sometimes these software companies reuse code they wrote for some other client without cleaning it up. They mix and match blocks of code from previous projects to maximize their profits. I struggle with this idea though, because I don’t think they’d normally get a lot of projects involving voting. These are fairly rare. If our project were a dashboard, for example, this scenario would make more sense.”
“You know what else doesn’t make sense? If doing sloppy coding work is what they’re trying to hide, do you think that’s worth killing for? I don’t think so,” Lou said firmly. “I just don’t. Here’s what I want to do. I want us to go see Bal tomorrow and show him what we found, call him on it and watch what he has to say.”
“Bad idea,” Alex replied, shaking her head. “Bad, really bad.”
“Why?”
“Do you think this is a situation where you can play fair, in the open? First, you said you don’t have all the code yet. Second, you’re dealing with a man who threatened me, personally and unequivocally. Something tells me he’ll take the news that you hacked their systems and downloaded their code badly, as in pull out a gun and shoot us both. And finally, Sam said the man who visited a few days ago in that huge limo is a known terrorist. Need I say more? You can’t confront them, not now, not later.”
He blushed a little and stood and turned toward the window to hide it.
“Embarrassing,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder if I have what it takes to do this job.”
“Sure you do, you just need a little more experience, and sometimes you just have to forget you’re an ex-SEAL. Not all fights are open and fair, clean hand-to-hand combat, or your Krav Maga. Most of
them aren’t. You still have a misconception that corporate environments are open, honest, and encourage direct communication. Maybe some do, but we’re not usually investigating those. I am sure your SEAL trainers taught you to be covert and think like the enemy. How would this enemy think? What would they do?”
“Well, considering how they keep on stonewalling us, I’d say they’re delaying the moment when we see the code, if we’re ever gonna see it. I’d say they might even present us with a couple of devices with the software already loaded on it, for us to test and sign off on, when it’s already too late to object or ask for anything else. They’re already behind schedule on delivering the software, and that’s what I think they’re planning. That’s why I thought we could approach Bal and make him face the music.”
“Remember why we’re here,” Alex said, sounding almost maternal, which made her smile. “We wanna catch all the bastards, not just Bal and his boss. They didn’t start this on their own; they didn’t think this plan up. Until we know everything there is to know about that code we cannot draw attention to ourselves. They have to believe they had us fooled and that we’re too busy romancing in Delhi to even care. They think Americans are idiots, so let’s just play right to their ideas. Steve could have given you a great speech on using someone’s preconceived notions against themselves. That’s exactly what we’re doing here. And most likely, keeping Robert and Melanie’s safety in mind, we will sign off on that software, no matter what’s in it, and pretend everything’s fine, then control the situation as best as we can stateside. They’ll still have to hand over that software at some point, right? That’s the plan, my man,” she ended her speech, punching him in his arm.