by Leslie Wolfe
She let go of Scott’s hand.
“Go ahead,” she said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
They jumped into their Toyota and followed the ambulance through the busy city streets. The ambulance had the siren on, but no one cared. When they finally arrived at the hospital, almost an hour later, Alex was already at the van’s back doors as they opened. The same paramedic didn’t seem in a hurry anymore. She grabbed his forearm, feeling her stomach sink.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he uttered sadly, “there was nothing we could do. Your friend died ten minutes ago.”
Alex let go of his arm; she was paralyzed in shock. She turned slowly toward Lou and saw Bal’s car pull right behind theirs. Before Lou could stop her, she went straight to Bal, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and shoved him hard against his car door.
“You killed him!” Alex yelled. “You killed him, you son of a bitch, and if it’s the last thing I do, I will make you pay for it!”
Bal pushed her away, straightening his clothes. He was livid with anger.
“Know your place, woman,” he growled.
“Know my place? You arrogant piece of shit! How about your place?”
“Enough,” Lou intervened, grabbing her and leading her away from Bal. “Enough,” he whispered. “Remember why we’re here. You can’t go after him like that. You taught me that.”
She struggled to calm down. She was panting angrily, hands shaking and tears flowing freely on her face.
“They killed him,” she whispered into Lou’s shoulder as he continued to hold her. “Please tell me you know that.”
“Yes, I do know that, and we’ll make them pay, but not like this, not here, not today.”
...Chapter 81: The Code
...Tuesday, August 30, 11:45PM Local Time (UTC+5:30 hours)
...Hotel Le Meridien
...New Delhi, India
As soon as the hotel room door closed behind them, Alex dropped the laptop bag on the floor and started pacing the room like a caged animal.
“I am sick and tired of this goddamn place. Sick of its smells and stupid heat. Sick of these assholes and their stonewalling. Sick of it all,” she said, struggling to control her tears. “They killed a man like he was nothing, Lou. Bal didn’t even flinch. I remember looking at him when he decided to take Scott for lunch. It was routine for him; it was nothing!”
Lou hooked up the Inmarsat to his laptop, getting ready to download the remaining module. He had found it, running his sniffer algorithm discreetly during the morning’s PowerPoint presentation, right under Bal’s eyes. The man’s all-consuming contempt for Alex made him focus solely on her, while Lou was able to execute the program sequences unnoticed.
“You need to calm down, boss,” he reminded her for the tenth time. “You can’t think straight like this. Why don’t you run the bug sweeper? Just to be sure?”
That gave her something to do to get her brain back into logical thinking. She sighed.
“Yep, I need to do that. How much longer with that code?”
“Just a couple of minutes, that’s all,” he said. “Then we’ll know.”
There were no bugs in this room, either.
“I got it, all of it,” Lou said, disconnecting the Inmarsat modem. “Let’s take a look.” She scrolled fast through the lines of code, looking for things that didn’t belong. “There’s something here. I almost missed it. This override component, here, you see?”
Alex looked at the code, trying to decipher how it would compile.
“I see it overrides the voter’s entry,” she said, “but under certain conditions and rules. What are the conditions? Which other modules do these conditions invoke?”
“Let’s see,” he said, starting to take notes on the notepad provided by the hotel. “The first condition calls the module that calculates the results every five minutes, by state. The second one, here, looks up the state where the vote is entered and returns a set of values. I need to open the module that does the state lookup.”
He browsed a little through the modules and found the one he was looking for.
“Ah, here it is. It’s got multiple lookups. One is a ‘type’ lookup, returning one of two values, ‘all,’ or ‘exception.’ The other one is defined as a ‘direction’ lookup, and returns ‘left,’ ‘right,’ and ‘center.’ Any idea what these might be?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied without hesitation. “The first one identifies ‘all-or-nothing’ states, where all electoral votes go where the majority of the popular votes go, and the other one identifies states by their political orientation, as in democratic, republican, and swing, or undecided. Interesting, keep going.”
Lou scribbled some notes on the notepad, then went back into the most recent module.
“OK, here we go. Then after getting the state lookup values, the module calculates a quantifier, like an adjustment factor. The calculation returns a numeric value between one and three, that gets applied to...Hmm...Not sure yet. Then here, it calls the randomizer module. Remember the one we found a few days ago and thought it was a leftover from other code? Nope, not a leftover, it’s called right here in two places.”
“Let me see,” Alex said, “OK, I think I got it. Let’s walk through it; let’s tell the story in the code. First, the malware module calculates the result by state, every five minutes. If democrat, the malware does exactly nothing, see?”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“If republican, then the weirdness begins. It checks to see what kind of state the voter is in. If the voter’s in an all-or-nothing state, the malware knows it has to reach a certain majority. Then it looks up to see if the republican majority is happening in a republican state, then it can do one of three things. If it’s a strong republican state, the malware again does nothing. If it’s a swing state, it generates a multiplier. If it’s a democratic state, it generates another multiplier, slightly larger and influenced by the results it calculates every five minutes. That multiplier is a correction factor. The bigger the gap it has to correct, the larger the multiplier. Huh...”
She frowned, thinking hard and mumbling to herself unintelligible words, following the logic embedded in the code.
“Let’s see what it does with the correction factor,” Lou whispered, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“OK, I think I got it. See? Here it invokes the randomizer, which essentially says, ‘override these republican votes, as many as the multiplier indicates, randomly chosen by the randomizer, and turn them democratic, for the next five minutes. Then run routine again.’ Huh...The result of the malware would be a democratic win, but a very inconspicuous one, that respects political color by state and makes only the needed changes to discreetly steal the vote.”
“What are you saying?”
“You see? Technically, if the vote happens to be democratic on its own, the module does exactly nothing.” She stood and started pacing the room, rubbing her forehead. “Lou, this is the biggest electoral fraud in our history, in anyone’s history.”
“Fuck me...they’re stealing our elections,” he muttered in disbelief. “I mean, we knew there was something wrong with this code, some form of hacking or electoral fraud, but I didn’t expect this.”
“I didn’t see it, either. It’s a nationwide, orchestrated, discrete electoral fraud, that’s what it is. It’s a failsafe, in case Johnson can’t win on his own. It’s brilliant.”
“Holy shit!” Lou exclaimed. “That explains a lot of things.”
She continued pacing the room, agitated, rubbing her hands against each other.
“It explains some things, yes, but it raises a lot more questions. By the way,” she added, “just to verify, check the databases and see if the data in them confirms my theory. You should see the states in there, two tables. One should have Maine and Nebraska listed as the exception to the all-or-nothing rule. The other table should have, say, Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska listed as republican. See if the tables have the data co
lumns named in clear.”
“Nope, they don’t. They’re secretive about it, but you’re right, the data supports your theory. I think we got it. Now what?”
She sat on the bed, thinking. Her heart was pounding, adrenaline rushing through her blood. Now they knew what they had come here to find out. They knew what the attack was about, but it made absolutely no sense. She tried to calm herself and think rationally. This was bigger than they had anticipated.
“Let’s think through this a little. It’s all clear now; they’re stealing our elections. That was indeed worth killing for. It all adds up.” Deep in thought and frowning, she continued, absentmindedly twisting the cap from her empty water bottle, “Let’s just validate my theory. Why would a software company from India give a rat’s ass who the next American president is? Malware or not, the president is still an American, right? In that case, is Ramachandran the UNSUB’s pawn? Or the orchestrator of this entire plan?”
“There are huge financial gains for India if the future president is pro outsourcing and pro Indian immigration. Billions of dollars worth of American labor goes offshore every year, and India grabs a lot of that dough.” He smiled when he saw her surprised gaze. “Just read an article about it, and I paid attention when Brian was explaining these things to us. So yes, I’d say a major Indian software company could have reasons to give more than a rat’s ass about who wins our presidential elections.”
“Hmm...You might be right, but let’s just assume there’s someone else behind this plan, just like we had initially suspected. I have no proof. It’s just my gut. It feels more logical to me. This is a fairly complex plan to have been orchestrated by a software CEO. You know how many of these software CEOs are in India? So why would this one be different? It just doesn’t feel right to believe that. Let’s focus on who the UNSUB could really be. This is one area where we’ve made very little progress and have zero leads to follow. Short of grabbing Ramachandran and torturing him, we have no way of finding out who’s behind this.”
“We could do that, if we really must,” Lou offered hesitantly.
“Ah, hell no,” Alex replied. “I’m hoping to live my entire life without having to torture someone, anyone, no matter how badly I want to sometimes. No matter how badly he deserves it. Nope, torture’s off the table. Pfft...” She turned her head away, disgusted at the thought. “Sam said the guy in the limo was a known terrorist, right? So maybe there’s a terrorism connection behind this, and that’s it. That would actually make more sense, because we still don’t understand why terrorists would have political preferences strong enough to justify this type of action. It’s simply unheard of. There has to be a connection with interests back home.” She stood and went back to the computer, looking at the code some more. “You have no idea how much I hate being unable to anticipate this guy’s next move. Drives me nuts!”
“You think it’s just one guy? Behind all this?”
“Yep, that’s what I think. The plan has a certain elegance to it, a harmony, something you rarely see coming out of collective work. This is someone’s masterpiece, his vision, but we might not know all of it yet. It just doesn’t seem like Ramachandran is that man. He’s just too...superficial.”
“You still don’t want to confront Ramachandran?”
“Absolutely not. We play the game just as we did so far, pretending that we’re just minding our business. Then we sign off on the software and go home. But, in the meantime, we need to get the team up to speed and talk action and damage control. You do realize we can’t let this software be used on Election Day, and we have very limited alternatives. Not to mention limited time. We only have two more months, and these assholes are gonna stall us for another two or three weeks.”
“I still think it’s a mistake, not talking to Ramachandran directly, just to see what he has to say.”
She raised her eyebrow at him, and he caved instantly.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want us to spend Labor Day weekend in the Maldives,” she replied and winked at him. “You could tell Ramachandran that we want to explore the beauty of the region, blah, blah, whatever, and we would like to leave on Thursday, the day after tomorrow, and be back the next Wednesday. Ask him to cover for us; he’ll be entertained and less suspicious. Something tells me he won’t mind. Then we meet with the team in the Maldives. We need help. This is too big for you and me, buddy. We have too many questions and too few answers.”
“Are we done for tonight, then?”
“Yep, grab our stuff. I’ll make the call to Tom; tell them to pack their bags.”
They left the hotel room feeling optimistic for the first time in weeks. After all, they had finally made some progress. They had all the code, and they knew what was wrong with it. They had one more piece of the puzzle left to find and a lot of damage control to think about.
Just a couple minutes later, a man entered the room quietly and started looking around. He took a picture of the undisturbed bed and went through the trashcans, looking for any trace of evidence left behind. Finally, he approached the desk and looked at the notepad. The pages Lou had scribbled on were gone, but indentations remained on the notepad, still visible in the desk lamp’s light. Satisfied, he put the notepad in his pocket and left, just as quietly as he had arrived.
...Chapter 82: Failed Setup
...Friday, September 2, 10:01AM EDT (UTC-4:00 hours)
...Flash Elections: Breaking News
...Nationally Syndicated
“Good morning and welcome to Flash Elections,” Phil Fournier greeted his audience. “We’re opening the headlines this morning with the latest smear campaign against Senator Douglas Krassner, the favorite in this year’s presidential races.”
The image showed a middle-aged, balding man, an average Joe Anyone, speaking with a reporter somewhere in downtown DC, in the blazing summer heat. Little sweat beads were forming on the man’s forehead, and he was wiping them off every minute or so.
“I am surprised, no, I am appalled to learn that a man like Krassner, who is very rich, and who keeps saying how he cares about the country’s well-being and all that, has only donated $250 to charity in his entire life. His entire life! Now, what kind of man can sit on such a considerable fortune without finding a single cause worthy of a more substantial donation? Who are we bringing into the White House? The most selfish man who ever lived?”
Phil’s smiling face returned to the screen. “Now let’s hear what Senator Krassner had to say in response.”
The charismatic persona of Doug Krassner appeared, dialoguing with Phil Fournier in a cozy, dim-lit studio.
“Senator,” Phil asked, “what do you think about the recording we just watched? Is it true you’ve only donated $250 to charity in the past years?”
“Yes, it is,” Krassner answered without hesitation. “It is also true that I have significant charitable initiatives that I prefer to manage myself, or through my trusted appointees, rather than just donate cash to get tax deductions.”
“Can you give us an example?”
“Absolutely. Our family built and endowed the Dallas Medical Haven, a 180-bed hospital and a walk-in clinic, that covers any out-of-pocket medical expenses for families making less than $40,000 a year, regardless of whether they’re insured or not. Last year, we added a dental practice to the Medical Haven, with 23 staff dentists. Same rules, no out of pocket for any patient.”
“That’s amazing, senator. I bet there are long lines in front of the Dallas Medical Haven, aren’t there?”
“There are, that’s true, and we’ve noticed that. People travel from other cities to gain access to our care. Consequently, the Houston Medical Haven is scheduled to open its facilities next April.”
“Any other initiative you might want to share with us today, senator?”
“My wife is the architect and sponsor of the Smart Girls Center for Development, where girls with an IQ in the 95th percentile receive support to access suitable levels o
f education, regardless of family income, all the way through college. We all win when smart people are well educated and can lead the nation in business, economics, or medicine.”
“Thank you, senator.”
The screen shifted again to Phil’s in-studio setting. His smile was almost sarcastic.
“Krassner’s support gained another four percentage points after this interview was released yesterday. Now at 46 percent, Krassner is leaving his main opponent, Bobby Johnson, a little further behind. If those who started the most recent smear campaign had done a better job researching the facts, they might have chosen not to consolidate Krassner’s ratings any further. Johnson’s ratings also picked up a couple percentage points, due to his strong religious beliefs, now at 37 percent in popular support. From Flash Elections, this is Phil Fournier, wishing you a great Labor Day weekend!”
...Chapter 83: A Reunion
...Friday, September 2, 6:18PM Local Time (UTC+5:00 hours)
...Royal Island Resort and Spa
...The Maldives
“Jeez, Alex, you stink,” Steve said, hugging her tight and rocking her left and right.
She laughed.
“I guess I do, but I can’t smell it anymore. The nose protects itself. It’s the curry that’s in everything. Can’t help it. Although a long bath wouldn’t hurt,” she said with an embarrassed smile.
She moved away from Steve and gave Tom a hug.
“Steve’s right, you know,” Tom added, “you do carry a bit of exotic flavor. How have you been?”
“Curryfied, I guess, considering how you all say I smell. And mad as hell. I wasted a month and a half of my life down there and got very little in return. I feel defeated.”
“I disagree,” Sam said. “I don’t think you are defeated, or any of us, for that matter. We know what they’re up to, at least partially, and that’s more than we did before you came here.”