Terminal Rage

  After the revolution, a copy of Leviathan on a flash drive had fallen into the hands of the Egyptian army by way of an insider, who had also tipped them off on how the software functioned and its impenetrable security features. Unlocking it could deliver to the draining Egyptian coffers as much as seven billion dollars.

  Sam Morgan had used the Exertify hostage standoff as a cover to break into the offices of the Aswan Group, also shared by another company called Balmoral Westwood. Both companies were fronts for the illegal activities of the same member of the Mubarak family who had commissioned Leviathan.

  Whatever Sam had taken from the safe of the office of these companies had to be connected to Leviathan given Sam’s background as a software developer, and Blackwell’s serious allergy to coincidences. He hoped what Danny Zimmerman could tell him about Leviathan would in some way get him closer to the object of his obsessions.

  It had taken Robert Slant a few weeks to set up this meeting. The official story was that Blackwell was curious and wanted closure after negotiating a bedeviling case. Just to scratch an outstanding itch. Not an uncommon outcome for anyone working a criminal investigation. Slant had warned Blackwell not to do or say anything to raise Zimmerman’s suspicion. Although the meeting was unofficial, they had no idea to what extent Zimmerman would report back to the NSA, and what the NSA would want in return.

  “Thanks for meeting me. I’ll make this short.”

  “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “Last November I negotiated with a man who broke into the mid-town Manhattan office of an offshore corporation, the Aswan Group.”

  “Yeah, and he ‘borrowed’ a few items from their safe. Naughty boy.”

  Blackwell nodded. “I understand our government loaned you out to the Egyptians to help them crack a piece of software.”

  “Now you’re curious how that panned out,” Zimmerman said.

  He leaned forward and his face caught the light to reveal his finer features now—olive skin, jade-green eyes and a cleft chin.

  “It took me twelve hours to wrap my mind around that damn thing. A fine piece of coding if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “Could you tell who designed it? Did they leave a signature or anything like that?”

  “No, but whoever built it was exceptional. Kudos to them.”

  “You mean more than one person designed this?”

  Zimmerman hesitated for a beat as if his own CPU was processing how much he cared to reveal.

  He shook his head a few times.

  “This wasn’t a group effort, just one very focused architect. Whoever wrote this poured their heart and soul into it over many months, possibly a year or two.”

  Blackwell was trying hard to temper himself to avoid coming across as overly eager, so he muted his voice and spoke casually. “So, once again, any ideas who designed it?”

  Now no longer holding back, the geek in Zimmerman seemed eager to let it all gush out like a waterfall.

  “An outsider, for sure. No one from the security or defense sectors. Whoever commissioned this made a conscious decision to hire someone off of the radar of the industry.”

  “Like?”

  “Impossible to tell. However, there was one thing, but it’s probably nothing...”

  “It’s never nothing. What was it?”

  “Well, this is just gut instinct, nothing scientific. The underlying architecture reminds me of a group of West Coast programmers out of UCLA. Their work was popular in the late nineties. Economic modeling, a bit of artificial intelligence and a lot of gaming. Just the way they did things was unique. I saw quite a bit of that DNA here.”

  UCLA, eh? “Are they still around and active?”

  “They faded into oblivion. Shame. You don’t see that sort of attention to detail any more. Everything’s coded in India or Romania now.”

  “Were you able to crack it?”

  Zimmerman instinctively looked around before he spoke, even though they were in the privacy of a closed apartment, making Blackwell instantly uneasy.

  “It was too late. The data within Leviathan had been deleted. Or auto-destroyed, to be more precise.”

  “How?”

  “Leviathan was designed to authenticate itself with a remote verification server before it could function.”

  Blackwell was silent as he considered what Zimmerman had just said. He had almost committed to memory the report filed by Finn Simmer, the FBI’s Legat in Cairo. He had tried to understand every detail about how Leviathan worked, but some of it went over his head.

  What he did know was that if someone tried to access it and entered an incorrect login code three times in a row, the software would self-destruct, deleting its valuable data. Then it would alert the “verification server” that Zimmerman had just mentioned. Any time someone tried to load a copy of the software after that, the verification server would send an immediate kill command to destroy the data. It would keep doing it with every successive copy seeking verification.

  Blackwell didn’t know much about computers, but he was a master of logic.

  “Hypothetically, you could break into the remote server and bypass the fail safe, right?”

  Zimmerman’s mouth opened in a massive grin. “Believe me, I tried and it was impossible. There was no physical server. Just a badass ghost application weaving in and out of one remote machine after the other. When I first tried, it was Greenland. The second time it was Hawaii, the third Manila. You get the picture.”

  “So whoever designed this made it impenetrable?”

  “Pretty much. Even if we could foretell where the next remote server would be and somehow silence it, each local copy of Leviathan would recognize we did this and would then proceed to cannibalize itself and destroy the data anyway. Exactly how I would have built it—with a tertiary security implement.”

  “In other words, you couldn’t beat it, right?”

  Zimmerman sighed, making no effort to conceal the offense he had taken to Blackwell’s questioning of his skills. Then that wide open-mouthed grin again.

  “Maybe with unlimited resources and an open-ended timeline, we could have tried to outsmart it. But my guess is it was always meant to be foolproof. There are times when even the best hackers need to take their hat off and pay respect to the architect.”

  “Pay respect to the architect.” Blackwell repeated the words once out loud, and then many times in his mind.

  Sam was the architect. Not just of Leviathan, but this whole affair.

  “All those properties worth billions are locked in a flash drive purgatory, is what you’re telling me?” Blackwell remembered Slant’s warning and made a note to dial his interest down a notch to avoid revealing a more than healthy concern for the matter.

  Zimmerman stood up and began pacing around.

  “Leviathan is dead. It’s gone, Mr. Blackwell.”

  “Define ‘gone?’”

  “Somebody got to it first and entered the incorrect access login that destroyed the data. That kind of gone. Whoever entered those codes must have known the result of their actions. So I’d say it was intentionally sabotaged.”

  “By whom?”

  “No clue. However...”

  “What?”

  “Every time Leviathan is successfully verified by the remote system, a text file of the last ten login attempts is placed on the local version of the software. These logs are not affected by the destruction of the data bank that occurs after a breach, and remain there indefinitely.”

  “This means...what exactly in human terms?”

  Zimmerman chuckled and stopped pacing around.

  “It means I was able to tell when and from which location Leviathan was breached. November seventh, exactly four days before I got to it.”

  One day after Sam escaped from the building, Blackwell calculated.


  “Where did it happen?”

  “Downtown Philly.”

  “Precise location?”

  “Public Wi-Fi hotspot. A Starbucks on South Broad Street. Before you ask, yes, we checked nearby closed-circuit cameras.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing, sir. Absolutely nothing.”

  Blackwell stood up, guessing the meeting was about to end.

  “One last question.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you have any theories who would want to destroy it?”

  “No clue.”

  “This was sort of helpful. Thanks.” Blackwell nodded at Zimmerman and headed to the door.

  “Not so fast.” Zimmerman was a few inches behind him, breathing down his neck.

  “There is one more thing you might find intriguing.”

  It felt like he had seen through Blackwell’s feeble attempt to conceal the extent of his obsession with the case.

  “What is it?”

  “Right before the three failed attempts that initiated the destruction protocol, there was one successful access of Leviathan.”

  “Oh?”

  “And it gets better, there was an export of all the data. Whoever destroyed it did it on purpose, after looting the whole damn thing.”

  And the stakes rise again.

  Zimmerman moved uncomfortably close to Blackwell and pushed his glasses on top of his head.

  “The only way you can retrieve the data now is to find whoever did this.”

  All Blackwell could see as he stood in front of Zimmerman was a smiling fox.

  “I’m guessing you have far more interest in this case than old man Bob is letting on.”

  Zimmerman took out a card and handed it to him. Blackwell hesitated at first, as if accepting it would infect him with some synthetic, malevolent government virus that would compel him to sell his soul to Zimmerman’s employers.

  “Never was much of a recruiter, but I’m obliged to let you know that the NSA takes care of its own. And we have great coffee, far better than the Bureau’s blend I’m told.”

  Blackwell shot out of the apartment as fast as he possibly could.

  Where the hell are you, Sam?

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sunday, July 23, 2006—4:00 p.m.

  Newport, Rhode Island

  Sam Morgan walked along with the hundreds of men, women and children who were trickling in from the main residence through the symmetrical paths of crushed oyster shells. They gathered outside on the spectacular Ocean Lawn facing calm waters. Even though the Belle Mer residence was Rhode Island’s finest venue for weddings, there were no nuptial floral arrangements or the blissful buzz of matrimony in the air. Just a subdued melancholy under the honey-colored afternoon sun, and the emptiness of unprocessed grief suspended over the air like a tenacious cloud.

  When the standing audience had reached its critical mass, a blonde woman in her early sixties emerged from the crowd. She wore a white strapless dress and pearl-encrusted sandals, and moved with poise toward a simple oak podium set up for her at the edge of the lawn.

  Sam had never seen Amelia Ridgley in the flesh until now, and was certain neither had most of the people gathered to hear her speak today. But he recognized her face from the media. A few people had approached her prior to the speech to thank her for everything she had done on their behalf.

  Amelia took a few seconds to canvass the sea of eyes fixed on her, then took a deep breath and began to speak.

  “Exactly a year ago, every single one of us here today lost someone we loved. A friend, a spouse, a child, a parent, a relative or a colleague. Death is never easy. Tragic death is even more painful, because the senseless violence behind it, somehow, becomes our focal point.

  “We are left with the chilling emptiness of unexpected loss. The painful day-to-day realities of dealing with the vacuum left behind. For some of us, the mourning process can take a lifetime, for others, less. The one thing we all share is that throughout our grieving, we find little time to celebrate the lives of those we lost.

  “This is why we are gathered here today. Not to remember the pain of death, not to relive the tragedy of that fateful day, and not to rehash the anger we all felt and still feel. We are here to remember with pride the loved ones we lost, and to be grateful for the time we spent with them, rather than lament the time cut short.”

  She paused and allowed her eyes to observe the crowd before she continued. “This mutual celebration of their lives will accelerate our individual healing. We can do it better together as a group of people who experienced the same horrific loss.

  “When my colleagues and I created the Spring Roy Employee Solidarity Trust, it was meant to support the families of the colleagues we lost during the brutal terrorist attack on our Sharm El Sheikh property last year. Not long after, we realized the legacy of our colleagues would forever be connected to every single person who died with them that day.

  “The men and women of the Spring Roy Sharm El Sheikh lost their lives honorably doing what we love to do best—to serve others, just like we serve our own. This is why, with the utmost respect and love, I announce to you today that the Foundation has now been renamed the Spring Roy Sharm El Sheikh Memorial Trust. This stems from our commitment to provide the same emotional and material support to everyone affected by the attacks, and not just our own.”

  A massive roar of applause erupted on the lawn to acknowledge gratitude and give Amelia a chance to compose herself and wipe her tears. When the clapping had faded and the strength of her voice restored, Amelia continued even more determined.

  “I urge us all to use our time here today to speak to one another about the beautiful souls we lost. Let’s commemorate their lives and our eternal love for them. Let’s remember the joy they gave us, rather than the pain their death left behind. Let’s create new friendships and cement the bond of this new family of ours with love and mutual respect.

  “I leave you with fleeting emotions from an often-quoted poem about loss, the true meaning of which I only recently understood, through my own mourning of my friends and colleagues and everyone who perished that day.”

  She paused, lowered her head briefly, and began reciting.

  Can I see another’s woe,

  And not be in sorrow too?

  Can I see another’s grief,

  And not seek for kind relief?

  Can I see a falling tear,

  And not feel my sorrow’s share?

  Can a father see his child

  Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

  Can a mother sit and hear

  An infant groan, an infant fear?

  No, no! Never can it be!

  Never, never can it be!

  The crowd erupted once again in spontaneous repetition of the concluding verse of the poem. “Never, never can it be! Never, never can it be!”

  Sam was intrigued by a young woman standing next to him. Not because of anything she was doing, but precisely the opposite. She wasn’t applauding or reacting to anything Amelia was saying during her rousing speech. She wasn’t even looking toward the podium, but was staring out to sea with a stone-cold glare in her eyes, almost repulsed. The young woman had glanced at Sam once briefly and then looked away.

  After the speech, when the crowd had dispersed, Sam looked around for her but she was gone. He was used to her disappearing on him but he always managed to trace her. Sam had been tracking her for months, learning everything about her until he was certain she was the ‘one.’ Today seemed like the perfect opportunity to speak to her.

  Ignoring Amelia Ridgley’s suggestion to mingle with the other victims’ families, Sam retreated to an isolated bench overlooking the water. He closed his eyes and shut his ears to the murmur of chatter in the background. In the year since his family had been killed, the times he
was able to sleep soundly through the night were few and far between. He had never gone back to live in his old house, and that may have had something to do with it.

  He would sometimes doze off in the middle of the day and wake up to find himself in a public park or on a beach somewhere, barely able to remember how he got there in the first place. Being intoxicated with grief will do that to you. There were times when he’d wake up feeling euphoric and positive, as if his life had never changed. Then the painful reality of what happened to his family would lodge in his belly like a horrific dream that never ends.

  He had tried everything to accept his fate, but there was a gaping wound in his soul more cavernous than any psychotherapy could heal. Both his parents were born Catholic, but had drifted away from their religion and passed on to Sam strong values instead of dogma, and a scientific and spiritual toolbox to explain the great mysteries of life.

  Unlike people of faith who upon experiencing a tragedy either question their beliefs or find solace in them, Sam had ultimately analyzed and come to terms with his misery through a strictly material prism. And he had suffered tremendously before he found the only path that could keep him sane.

  And not for lack of trying to find his peace through conventional emotional means. Nothing he ever tried to reconcile the sheer injustice of what happened to him and his loved ones ever worked.

  In the early days, therapy to deal with the immediate emotional trauma helped him a little to get on his feet so he could at least function. But it was never going to be a viable long-term solution.

  Like most survivors of violent crime, Sam started believing he could heal faster if he embraced his guilt. He was the one who had accepted his client’s offer of an all-expenses-paid holiday in Sharm El Sheikh, much to his wife Angela’s initial resistance. They could have gone anywhere in the world, but they ended up in the one place that would rob him of the three people he loved most. And it was his decision, and his alone.