by David Lender
Tom’s anger rose again.
“The guys at IR Systems think we’re dealing with four different types of logic bombs, all placed in subroutines in different types of IR Systems’ software,” Stone said.
“Do you think somebody at the company was helping him out in order to plant stuff in four different types of programs?”
“No. It’s really very simple,” Stone said. “Somebody writes a different subroutine for each of four different types of programs—some function in a refinery, one in a drilling program, one for a production well, and one in a natural gas pipeline program. Then he hacks into IR Systems and plants it in four master IR Systems versions. Those master versions automatically go out over the Internet to update every one of IR Systems’ programs, like Microsoft sends out Windows updates.”
Tom still didn’t think it was simple.
“So then on four different days, an auto-update mechanism at IR Systems logs into each of its babies, gives them a shot of new and improved tweaks online, and plants the logic bombs at the same time. Really very easy. The only hard part was hacking into IR Systems’ network. And apparently whoever’s on Youngblood’s computer right now found a hole someplace to plant the logic bombs.”
Tom got the gist of it. Pretty slick. But if Stone was right it could have been one or two guys, or a small group. The chopper landed. Tom ran across the pavement to a waiting car.
He spoke from the back seat. “Stone, I’m on the ground at Thirty-fourth Street on the West Side. My guys are coming to your office. I’m heading straight for Rock Center. Stay on the line and let me know what the Sabre boys and the Saudis are saying about our hacker.”
Tom wondered what kind of person would help out these bastards. Freshly scrubbed computer kid? Yeah, he wanted to be with the team that caught up with him.
The lobby at 30 Rockefeller Plaza was deserted. Four FBI agents, escorted by a half-dozen New York cops, convinced the security guards to let them go upstairs. Eleven men piled into one elevator.
“All right, now listen up. This is an FBI operation, tactical onsite, subject to CIA command via Mr. Goddard here,” Johnson, the FBI tactical commander, said. “We’ll take the lead,” he said to the cops. “We don’t know which office he’s in, but we know the phone number’s extension 6193. Two FBI agents will take the lead to the left and the other two to the right. You guard the rear, with one man at the elevator.”
The cops nodded. “Thanks fellas.” Johnson now addressed his men. “Simms, you come with me to the left. Walters and Vixen, you go right. I want weapon hands free, coats unbuttoned, and holster thongs unsnapped. Unidentified subject may be on premises, no description. We want the unsub alive. No green light on weapons unless threat-risk detected. I’m primary through each door.” The doors opened and they crossed the lobby to the locked entrance of Ladoix’s offices. Agent Vixen picked the lock in fifteen seconds.
The two teams fanned off. Johnson saw the layout, made a signal, and all of them drew their weapons. Tom wished he was carrying one now, if only to club the son of a bitch.
Johnson and Simms worked efficiently and coolly. They stalked up to each office door and wherever they saw a computer screen illuminated, looked inside to check. Johnson checked the phone numbers, slowing down after he realized the extensions were in descending order.
6195…two to go, Tom thought. Johnson and Simms passed one more office and Tom saw light dancing in the next doorway. Johnson made a hand motion to Simms, who sneaked behind the secretary’s station and went down past the office. He circled back along the outside wall, approaching the office in the opposite direction from Johnson. They both inched their way to the door, automatics raised to eye level. The door was open. No sounds emanated from the office, but the green light continued to dance. Tom held his breath.
Both men leapt into the doorway. They froze for a second, then lowered their weapons.
Tom ran in behind them. “What?”
“Damned if I know,” Johnson replied, “Looks like somebody’s online. Look at the thing.” Johnson pointed his gun at the computer screen. Typed commands ran across it, scrolling upward with each new line entered.
Tom flipped open his cell phone and called Stone.
“Nobody’s here,” he said. “The damn computer’s running commands by itself.”
“Our hacker must be logged into his computer, using it as a remote terminal from someplace else,” Stone said.
Damn. All this for nothing. Or was it nothing? Could this guy, Kovarik, who called the FBI about Daniel, be on the level? Could Daniel be dirty and only helping out the CIA to throw them off the scent?
Tom’s cell phone rang.
“It’s Daniel. We just landed. Where do you want us?”
“FBI headquarters. The driver will know. We need to talk.”
“Yes. I have some ideas I need to discuss with you, too.”
I’ll bet you do.
CHAPTER 42
SEPTEMBER, THIS YEAR. NEW YORK City. Daniel and Sasha got off the elevator at One American Plaza, FBI Headquarters in the city. Daniel could see Sasha was tentative, walking slowly, head down. She’s not herself. Just before they reached the receptionist’s desk, Daniel turned to Sasha. “You okay?”
“No. I’m uneasy. Seeing Tom face-to-face brings up that awful night of Ibrahim’s assassination all those years ago.”
Daniel squeezed her hand. He’d keep an eye on her.
Tom met them at the receptionist’s desk. Daniel watched his eyes meet Sasha’s. He looked different than Daniel expected, younger than he had on the satellite screen, perhaps early 50s, with healthy color and full hair. Penetrating blue eyes. Daniel saw Tom glance at him, then look away as if guilty. Of course. Tom knew he and Sasha were lovers, knew Daniel must have had heard Sasha and Tom’s history from her, how he used her in Ibrahim’s murder. He looked at Sasha, saw her emotions rise as she looked at Tom. There was pain in her eyes, but also something more. He wondered. Were they ever lovers?
Tom ushered them in. The lighting was fluorescent, stark, the furnishings functional and cheap. Tom showed them into a conference room, the blinds drawn. “Have a seat,” he said, taking one himself.
They sat for an awkward few moments, Daniel glancing on and off at Tom, seeing Tom observing him as if sizing him up. He didn’t like it. Then a 40-ish woman, tough-looking, burst through the door like she owned the place.
“FBI Special Agent Stone?” Tom said.
“Who else?” she said. She looked at Daniel. “Youngblood?”
“Yes.”
Stone nodded. She said, “So, I’ve got good news. We now have patches for all four of IR Systems’ program platforms. Bad news, the logic bombs were timed to go off starting tomorrow at noon, and we don’t know where else the buggers hid them.”
Nobody said anything.
Tom looked at his watch; Daniel checked his own: 2:05 a.m.
Stone said, “Daniel, I’ve been meaning to ask you how you saved the River Rouge refinery.”
“I pulled the plug, literally.”
Stone looked at him in stunned silence for a few moments.
“How come nobody thought of that for the rest?” Tom said.
“It’s no good,” Daniel said. “Rouge is an antiquated plant by today’s standards. I’m sure you know modern plants have redundant computer backup, hardwired into the power grid.”
“Yeah,” Stone said, “If the computer system went renegade, it wouldn’t let you shut it down.”
“You’d have to shut down the entire plant. For a failsafe fix of this thing, that means you’d have to shut down the whole oil and gas industry.” Daniel looked over at Tom.
Tom appeared to be thinking. He said, “You’d need the President to shut down the United States, then talk to all foreign heads of state.”
Daniel said, “By the time you did that we’d either have debugged this thing or they’d have all blown up.”
Tom thought for a moment, appeared to be turning it over in
his mind, then said to Daniel, “You said you had some ideas.”
Sasha watched, amazed, as Daniel stood up from the conference room table and started pacing, rattled off 15 other oil and gas investment bankers on Wall Street he competed with, then dozens of their clients who supplied computer software systems to the oil and gas industry. How did he retain it all?
“That should give you a good percentage of all the worldwide systems the terrorists would infiltrate,” Daniel said. He was looking at Tom, clearly seeking a reaction.
Tom seemed to be thinking about something himself. After a pause, he said “I’ll get some more of our guys in here and get on it.” He looked at Stone, then spoke into his cell phone.
Stone said, “I’m gonna need to rouse a lot of people from bed, get access to their offices and computers, and trace a ton of trails to find out if we’ve got other tainted software.”
“There’s something that’s been bothering me,” Daniel said. “The terrorists had to have had expert help. Nobody but an industry insider would have the insight to target these operations so effectively. If we can find out who, we might be able to get a roadmap, find a solution. Otherwise it will take too long.”
Sasha saw Tom’s gaze darting back and forth between Daniel and Stone. She had an odd feeling about it, shifted in her seat. Something’s bothering him. Then Tom said, “Interesting you bring that up. We got a call from a guy named Kovarik, who suggested it was you, Daniel, helping them out. He phoned in his lead to the FBI yesterday and now we can’t find him.”
Sasha saw Daniel do a double take, then sit back down in his chair as if now everything made sense. “Kovarik. Bob Kovarik,” he said. “We were best friends, came up together at Goldman. He dated Angie, my wife, before I met her. She dumped him, and I don’t think he ever forgot about her. In fact, he hit on her right up until the day we got married. Then he stabbed me in the back for partner of oil and gas at Goldman.”
Sasha was watching Daniel closely, seeing his eyes tracing off into the distance, feeling the pain he was experiencing as he spoke. She wanted to embrace him, support him in some way.
Daniel said to Tom, “The light bulb just went off. It’s Kovarik. He’s a slimeball and he hates me enough to sick the FBI onto me. Something’s not right, and under the circumstances, that means a lot. We need to track this guy down.”
Tom said, “I worried about you for a minute or two, including when we found the hacker online on your computer. But it didn’t add up. So I’d like to talk to this guy, Kovarik.”
“Me too,” Daniel said.
“His call means something,” Tom said.
“Maybe everything,” Daniel said.
When the team didn’t find Kovarik at his townhouse, they went to his office. The security guard at 299 Park was dozing when they arrived, but sat bolt upright at seeing four men and women dressed in business attire surrounded by six hulks wearing body armor with FBI logos on their backs, automatic weapons in hand. A half-dozen New York cops rounded out the ensemble.
Upstairs, Daniel was hoping they’d use a battering ram on the office front door, but one of the agents picked the lock in less than a minute.
“Where’s his office?” Johnson, the lead FBI agent, asked.
“I’ve never been here,” Daniel said. “But if I know Kovarik, it’s big. Look for the one with the throne in it.”
Daniel saw Sasha turn on a lamp on an end table, observe the paintings on the wall, the furniture. What’s she doing?
They went in the first office past reception. Daniel saw Kovarik’s face in framed photographs on shelves and the credenza. Framed merger deal announcements hung on the walls and Lucite deal mementos sat on the credenza. Kovarik’s deals. “This is it,” he said. Two of Johnson’s agents stood guard at the door, Daniel thought, absurdly, as if anyone would be showing up at close to 3:00 a.m. Daniel walked behind Kovarik’s desk, wondering what he was supposed to do. Open drawers? No, the computer. It was still turned on.
Johnson and two other agents fanned out around the room, opening credenza drawers, lifting the few piles of paper that lay exposed. Daniel stared at the computer screen, pondering. He felt anxious, powerless. All dressed up and no place to go. He saw Sasha looking at each photograph in turn, studying it, then moving onto the next. Now what’s she doing?
Daniel sat down and clicked the mouse on Kovarik’s computer, saw the screen saver vanish and Kovarik’s desktop appear. Neat rows of icons were stacked along the desktop, maybe 40 or 50 in all. Jesus. He clicked on the control panel to find Kovarik’s documents folder. It held another 50 or 60 folders.
He glanced up to see Sasha staring at a photograph on Kovarik’s shelf. She said, “He’s standing next to an Aston Martin.” She turned to look at Daniel. “Is this the one he raced with you?”
“Yes.” He felt a flash of excitement. Was she onto something?
“Is he a man who names his cars?”
“Yes.” Daniel leaned to the side to get a better look at the photo. “That’s ‘Destroyer.’”
“Is this the one you forced into the wall at Watkins Glen?”
Daniel’s pulse quickened. He knew where she was going. “No,” he said, looking back at Kovarik’s computer screen, “that was ‘Eliminator.’”
“Try that,” she said, but before she’d finished saying it, he’d already found the ‘Eliminator’ icon on Kovarik’s desktop. He clicked on it and an Excel file opened up. He felt a blast of adrenaline. “That’s it.” The file showed a list of investment bankers, Daniel’s name at the top, followed by lists of software vendor clients and their customers. Daniel scrolled down, guessed the list was 20 to 30 pages if printed.
When he looked back up, the entire team surrounded him, Sasha’s face beaming at him over the top of the computer screen. She mouthed the words, “I love you.” It warmed him.
“You sure?” Johnson said.
“Absolutely.”
Johnson punched a fist in the air. His teammates slapped each other on the back. Daniel felt a surge of triumph. They still had time.
“I’ll get Stone,” Daniel said, flipping open his cell phone. “Hey,” he said to her. “We got your roadmap.”
“You dog, you,” Stone said. “Email it to me, then print it, scan it, make a couple copies on memory sticks and hand them out to Johnson’s team. We don’t want anybody getting hit by a truck carrying the only copy.”
Daniel hung up, then looked back up at Sasha. She was still beaming at him.
CHAPTER 43
SEPTEMBER, THIS YEAR. NEW YORK City. Back at FBI Headquarters, Tom greeted Daniel and Sasha in the reception area. Daniel chuckled to himself at the smirk that poked through Tom’s attempt to maintain a grim face. “Great work,” Tom said. “The list totaled fourteen investment bankers, fifty-six of their software vendor clients. We scrambled foreign intelligence services and all our computer techs. We’re on half of the list already, patches moving into place. With a little luck it looks like we’ll lick this thing.”
“Wonderful news,” Sasha said. She let out a nervous laugh.
Daniel grabbed Tom’s hand, shook it and clutched his arm as well. Tom allowed himself a smile, then said, “Let’s not start celebrating yet. We’ve got a lot of work to do. And let’s just hope these bastards didn’t have a different design of logic bombs for any of the other vendors.”
Daniel felt it like a body blow. He hadn’t thought of that. He looked at Sasha and saw alarm in her eyes.
Tom said, “Nothing left for you two to do for the moment. Go get some sleep. I’ll call you if I need you.”
Sasha said, “A few hours in our own bed sounds like a smashing idea about now.”
“Better not,” Tom said. “We have a team watching your apartment, just in case. Looks like somebody else might be staking it out, too.” Daniel felt a chill. “You got someplace quiet nobody would think of to look for you?”
“Yes,” Daniel said. “I used to go a small hotel once in a while on weekends when I d
idn’t want anybody at the office to know where I was.”
Sasha stood looking out over 64th Street from Barton Manor, the hotel tucked away off Madison Avenue that Daniel had taken them to. Her focus went from the empty street below to her own reflection in the window. And from there into her thoughts: the moments she’d shared with Daniel, the realization she could be at one with him, that perhaps this would all be over soon.
She heard Daniel washing up in the bathroom; then the water stopped. He walked through the door. “I love you,” he said.
He came to her. Sasha felt her need throbbing in her arms as she reached for him. She breathed his name in his ear, then, “Oh, how I love you.” She felt his arms around her. He moved her toward the bed.
After they made love, Daniel watched Lydia fall asleep, her head nestled in his shoulder. After only a few minutes she awakened and propped her chin on his chest. “Darling, I can hardly believe I found you in all this craziness,” she said. “You’ve redeemed me from a life of searching for a love I never thought I’d find. You’ve made me believe in love again.”
Daniel felt his chest swell, his throat clog with emotion. Then he saw her brow furrow, her eyes darken. She said, “But we aren’t out of this yet. I know it’s only a question of time before these lunatics locate me again. They’ve been chasing me for decades now.”
“We need to find a way to get these al-Mujari nuts off your tail for good.” Just thinking about it made him queasy.
“I’ve tried, using assumed names, trying to vanish, but eventually they catch up with me.”
“Maybe Tom can help.”
Her eyes went far away. “Nafta and I discussed a radical idea. I’m not sure I could bring myself to try it.” She focused on Daniel again, smiled. “Let’s get through this crisis, then deal with a long-term solution later. The important thing is that we’ll be together.”