by Fritz Galt
So he raised his objection. “But these root servers are connected to the internet, and thus can be attacked.”
“True. Any hacker would love to meddle with the database of names.”
“Is the A root server safe?”
“Not completely. But, we have a redundant system.” She pointed to the thirteen boxes in a row.
“Yet there’s one file,” he said.
“Correct. We maintain it here in the United States.”
“At the Department of Commerce.”
She nodded.
“And where do you keep the password to the A root server?”
“Up here,” she said, pointing to her head. “It’s not something that you would want to write down or tell someone. It’s locked inside here.”
He eyed the thirteen servers suspiciously. So those were the subjects of hackers’ interest. “Where are those servers located?”
She jotted down a name under each box. “Los Angeles, New York, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Palo Alto, Ashburn…”
“Wait a second,” he said. “We have an A root server in Hong Kong? Last I checked, Hong Kong is part of China.”
“We need people to access the internet quickly from anywhere in the world.”
“But Hong Kong?”
He could see a highly secure computer in Germany, or some bank vault in New York. But he just couldn’t see how the benefits outweighed the risks of an A root server in Hong Kong.
“Remember,” she said, “the internet is an international, nongovernmental effort.”
“But you said the Department of Commerce is responsible for the security of the A root server.”
She nodded. “Some of the servers in the U.S. are at Commerce facilities. We used to run the servers in-house, but recently we’ve gone to more secure sites.”
He looked at the last name she had written. “Where’s Ashburn?”
“It’s a small, incorporated area near Dulles,” she said, referring to Washington’s major airport located in Northern Virginia.
He had grown up in the area and still only vaguely remembered that there was such an incorporated area. “Do you work in Ashburn?” he asked.
“No. At Verisign in Reston.”
“How did Verisign get the job to handle the A and J root servers?”
“We were selected by the IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, a department of ICANN.”
The relationships between the nongovernmental organizations were murky to him. He would have to research that later. Once again, he became more suspicious the less he knew.
Only then did he realize that he was studying Stacy with outward skepticism.
“We have voiceprints that prove you were the witness who called 9-1-1 about Han Chu’s murder.”
She sat down slowly. “I know. The police questioned me yesterday afternoon.”
“How did you know Chu?”
She stared back at him. “I didn’t. A man approached me when I was jogging on the bike path. I didn’t know it was Han Chu.”
“Why not?”
“I’d never seen him before in my life. He was just some nice, innocent-looking Chinese man trying to get my attention.”
“Okay, you didn’t recognize him because you had never met him. But did you know of him?”
“No.”
“If he was a stranger, why was he trying to get your attention?”
She shrugged.
“Why did you go to his funeral?” he asked.
She spoke under her breath. “I was curious.”
“Why didn’t you give your name to the 9-1-1 operator?”
She didn’t respond.
She had phoned 9-1-1 to report the incident, but she was computer-savvy and wanted to remain anonymous. She had used a Voice over IP connection to make the call, eliminating any way she could be tracked down by authorities.
“You didn’t want to give away your identity, so you used a computer to make the call.”
She didn’t contradict him.
“What I want to know is why. Why didn’t you want to be associated with the incident?”
“It was horrendous,” she said.
“Is it because the perpetrator saw you?” he pressed.
“No. He didn’t see me.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No.”
“Can you describe him to me?” he said.
At last her eyes met his. “Tall, lean, dark hair, young. He ran in from the bushes with a baseball bat. He wore a white shirt, dark tie and dark pants.”
“Why did he kill Han Chu?”
“I have no idea.” She buried her face in her hands. “I was out jogging. I saw this nice, middle-aged Chinese man approaching me from about twenty yards away. He smiled at me and motioned for me to stop and talk. A moment later, I saw this tall American-looking guy rush in from the side with a baseball bat. He called out something in Chinese, and I crouched behind some bushes. I saw the guy bash the Chinese guy over the head with the bat and knock him out cold and then drag him into the bushes. So I slipped away and ran home.” She swallowed hard. “That’s all I can say.”
“Could you help a sketch artist create a facial composite?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I didn’t get a good look at him.”
It was clear she couldn’t relive the experience without it traumatizing her once again. She had already said a lot.
The encounter seemed more than coincidental. There she was, a computer programmer jogging down the path with the password to the A root server in her head. She suddenly encountered the president of a computer firm that specialized in encryption and defense contracts. Then a lean young assailant intervened and killed the computer company chief.
Jake studied her to see if she was hiding anything. But just as her emotions were clearly visible, her intentions and motives seemed open and transparent. Except…
“Why didn’t you give your name to the authorities? We always need help identifying a culprit.”
She tilted her head to one side and regarded him frankly. “Do you really think this is just a matter of law enforcement?”
That stopped him in his tracks. He, after all, was law enforcement. Maintaining the rule of law and applying justice was what he was all about.
She was approaching this incident on a whole different plane.
“Are you saying the FBI shouldn’t get involved?” he asked.
She glanced at the wall diagram, a complex system upon which the nation’s economy and security depended, and gave him a wry smile.
He wanted to take a moment to explain the role of the FBI and why he needed to know exactly what had gone down on that bike path. This was his case, and he needed all the facts to find the killer. And finding the killer might lead him to the motivation behind the murder.
Stacy sighed and checked her watch.
He was tempted to let her go, given the weight of her responsibilities. But those responsibilities were precisely what prompted him to want to dig deeper.
“I may need to talk with you at a later date,” he said, standing up.
She rose to her feet and pulled a business card from her jacket pocket.
At that moment, he felt he understood her. She was all about business and transactional relationships. Little did she know that the FBI already had a file on her.
He took her card and pulled out one of his own.
“Call me if any detail that might be useful occurs to you.”
She smiled so that the corners of her cheeks widened, and her frank blue eyes twinkled. “I doubt it.”
Chapter 8
Werner Hoffkeit had asked Jake to see him after interviewing Stacy Stefansson, so Jake took the elevator up to Hoffkeit’s office.
Hoffkeit had a team there when Jake arrived. Jake looked around for a place to wait until the people cleared out.
“No,” the receptionist said. “They’re all waiting for you.”
He was suddenly thrust into th
e presence of numerous Bureau bigwigs he recognized immediately. He realized introducing himself was unnecessary. They knew who he was, and were there because of his assignment.
Today, he was rubbing shoulders with the director, associate director and assistant directors for the Counterterrorism Division, the Counterintelligence Division, the Directorate of Intelligence, the Criminal Division and the Cyber Division as well as people he didn’t know from Science and Technology.
But all attention was focused on the director, who took a personal interest in the case.
“We just watched your interrogation of Ms. Stefansson,” Hoffkeit said, indicating the flat screen, closed-circuit TV on his office wall. At the moment, it displayed an empty interrogation room. Jake recognized it as the room that he had just left.
He was slightly nervous. He had assumed that the interview with Stacy was monitored in some way, but little did he know that the head honchos of the Bureau had been watching and listening.
“I got a call from the Secretary of Commerce this morning,” Hoffkeit began. “They’re wringing their hands over fresh breaches in security. Their computers have monitored direct attacks on the A root server in the past week. Levels Three and Two have already been breached. And there has been recent evidence of someone trying to gain unauthorized access to Level One. As you might guess, Level One would give the hackers complete access, for whatever purpose, to the internet.”
“What sort of purposes are we talking about?” the associate director asked.
“You remember the lost payroll last week?” Hoffkeit said.
Jake knew the problem well. His paycheck had never appeared in his account. The credit union was still trying to figure out what had happened. Meanwhile, he had a rent check to write.
“That was Level Three,” Hoffkeit said. “Did your cell phone go out for several hours yesterday?”
Everyone nodded, stunned.
“That was Level Two.”
“And Level One?” the associate director seemed afraid to ask.
“Commerce said that such a hacker could corrupt, usurp, manipulate or destroy the entire internet.”
Jake got the urgency of the situation.
“We’re all new to the case as of this morning, and just getting up to speed on the computer technology involved,” Hoffkeit said. “But Ms. Stefansson’s description of the internet’s layout makes it all crystal clear how it works. And it also shows how crucial her role is in keeping it functioning safely.”
The men and women in the room murmured in agreement.
“That she was present at a crime of any sort, merits our immediate attention,” Hoffkeit went on. “That the crime involved another computer expert raises this to even higher significance.”
“I believed her when she said she didn’t recognize the victim,” Jake said in her defense.
“Agent Maguire, it’s not that she didn’t recognize him,” Hoffkeit said. “It’s that he was there in the first place, approaching her and trying to get her attention, as Ms. Stefansson put it. Maybe he was even trying to recruit her.”
“Recruit, sir?” Jake said.
Here the Counterintelligence director spoke up. “Agents of foreign governments are always on the lookout for soft targets within our country.”
“Assuming he was a foreign agent,” Jake said. “But who would want to compromise the entire internet? It would have the effect of rendering it useless.”
All eyes turned to the counterterrorism chief, a stern looking woman who oversaw coordination with the Department of Homeland Security and the Central Intelligence Agency as well as the National Security Agency that handled electronic surveillance.
“In the past, hackers working alone or in small groups tried to exploit vulnerable computer systems of companies and governments for their own sake,” she said. “Nowadays governments have learned the value of computer espionage and disruption. Any number of motivations could be behind the actions of hostile nations.”
Jake could barely comprehend who might be behind the effort. “I’m just not clear on who’s responsible for countering cyber attacks,” he said. “I know I’m new to this, but I don’t feel this falls under the FBI’s jurisdiction.”
“I agree,” another man said. The slim man in dark frame glasses was the head of the FBI’s Cyber Division. “Our division doesn’t monitor attacks or try to thwart them. However, if a crime does occur, my team is there to gather facts and evidence and present it to the U.S. Attorney.”
“Then who in Washington does monitor and thwart such attacks?” Jake asked.
The roomful of career law enforcement officials stared at each other and shrugged.
Hoffkeit looked at the blank expressions. “Then we have a problem.”
As Jake saw it, all the FBI needed was someone to figure out who in the federal government was forward leaning enough to find and, if necessary, preemptively strike at hostile states or cyber criminals before the internet was compromised.
So he volunteered. “As I understand it, the director has put me in charge of this case. We must learn who was behind the murder, and why. I will put together the various jurisdictional pieces and assist the police in their investigation. In the meantime, I have Stacy’s, I mean Ms. Stefansson’s, card and I intend to follow up with her.”
“We need more than a follow-up interview,” Hoffkeit said. “If Ms. Stefansson is a target, she needs around-the-clock protection.”
“Hold on, sir,” Jake said. He knew the code words. The FBI couldn’t spy on someone without a search warrant, but could spy on someone by ostensibly “protecting” him or her. “I’m concerned that a heavy-handed approach might cause Ms. Stefansson to clam up.”
Hoffkeit ignored Jake’s objection and turned his attention to the Criminal Division director.
“I’ll assign a team to keep an eye on her,” the criminal guy said with a note of authority. Then he slipped Jake his card. “I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Jake stared at the card. He had no doubt that the balding, slightly built Michael Epstein and his Criminal Division had every intention of using the pretense of protection to investigate her.
She was cooperative with Jake, but how would she react to the entire apparatus of the Bureau coming down on her?
“May I suggest that the Commerce Department simply replace her,” Jake said. “That would seal whatever leak there might be.”
“No dice,” Hoffkeit said. “Commerce is one hundred percent behind her. Besides, without her, they might never find the hackers.”
Hoffkeit trained his gray eyes on the criminal division chief.
“Michael, your team will keep an eye on Stacy and look into any malfeasance or inappropriate contacts on her part or the part of Han Chu’s company.”
Then he turned to Jake.
“And Agent Maguire will look at the broader picture. What does our government know about what’s happening here, and what can we do about it? This one calls for more than the standard ‘follow the evidence’ kind of investigation. This will require sticking our nose in other agencies’ business and a heavy dose of intuition. We’re looking for a needle in a haystack here, and I’m not even sure there’s a needle to be found.”
“Can Commerce point us in some direction?” Jake asked.
“Commerce has tried repeatedly to trace the hackers to no avail. They’re at their wit’s end. They even raised this at a Cabinet meeting, and the attorney general promised to do something about it.”
“Who made the connection with the A root server and the murder?” Jake asked.
Hoffkeit’s gray eyes landed on him. “I did.”
“So Commerce doesn’t know who’s trying to hack into Level One security on the A root server,” Jake summarized. “Who do you suspect?”
“You’ve heard about all the Chinese, Russian, North Korean and Iranian attacks on our proprietary information and vital networks. We’re just waiting for the big one, and it could come from anywhere. I don’t want you
to let standard operating procedure interfere with your investigation. Kick in some doors. Bend a few rules. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for someone to compromise Ms. Stefansson’s computer. We have to prevent it from happening. Period. If there’s something imminent, I want to squash it.”
Jake watched Hoffkeit rise to his feet and hike up his pants.
Hoffkeit strode over to the window that looked down the street five blocks at the White House. He was a political appointee, but he had remained above politics his whole career. “I don’t feel right about letting this crime go unpunished, but something tells me from Agent Maguire’s interrogation that this case involves something far more important than homicide. And I don’t believe our public needs to look under the hood on what happened last Friday on that bike path.”
It gave Jake comfort that Hoffkeit wasn’t going to inflict public scrutiny on his investigation, but it gave him a chill to think that his work might be top secret. The public might never know what he did or learned.
“Do you suspect the murder amounted to…treason?” Jake asked.
Hoffkeit’s gaze lifted to the horizon. “Worse than that. I suspect patriotism.”
Chapter 9
The head honchos at the FBI shook hands all around as if such meetings were rare. Then they disappeared into the compartments of the Bureau they ran.
They might have a counterintelligence problem on their hands, mixed with a terrorism effort combined with a cyber attack all revealed by a criminal action.
Jake left the director’s office with the overwhelming impression that the Bureau was going back into its “stove-piping” mode. There would be no cross-division collaboration on the case. And the FBI had failed to learn its lesson from 9/11.
But Werner Hoffkeit had given Michael Epstein and him their marching orders.
Hoffkeit had directed the Criminal Division to “protect” Stacy Stefansson and make sure she and Quantum, Han Chu’s company, were operating on the right side of the law.
Because the FBI’s Cyber Division only played an enforcement role, Hoffkeit had given Jake the broad responsibility of figuring out what government body might be tracking Chu’s company and could thwart a cyber attack.