Intrusion (A Chris Bruen Novel Book 2)

by Reece Hirsch

  Chris smiled. “Just trying to understand you a little better.”

  “Understand yourself, buddy. Because we’re playing the same game.”

  “Maybe,” Chris said. “I’d like to talk with you about Zoey for a minute.”

  “Okay. I hope we’re getting to the point of this conversation.”

  “We’re getting there. When you mentioned her earlier, you knew that she had worked as a bartender at that club the Bottom of the Hill.”

  “Right.”

  “How did you know that?”

  Grogan smiled and shrugged. “So is this what you want to talk about? I really have no idea. I probably overheard a conversation in the hallway, or maybe you told me at some point. What does it matter?”

  “It matters because you have the ability to access staff employment records. I checked the system audit logs, so I know you looked at Zoey’s file. I think you told the hired killer Tao Zhang that Zoey and I might go there to hide when he was hunting us.”

  Grogan shook his head and chuckled incredulously. It was a nice move, but it didn’t quite play.

  “Wait a second. You’re going to have to repeat that. Because I thought you just accused me of helping a hired killer track you down.”

  “I’m saying more than that. I’m saying that you hired him.”

  Grogan’s look of surprise quickly gave way to a grim calm. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said slowly, as if speaking to an opposing counsel who was in the middle of making a fatal miscalculation. “Because you’ve just made the kind of unsupported accusation that can get you run out of this law firm.”

  “Oh, I have support. We were able to trace the bitcoin transaction paying Zhang for his services. We linked it back to you.”

  Chris kept his expression still and his eyes focused on Grogan as he said this. He didn’t want any tell or twitch to give away the fact that he was bluffing.

  It was barely perceptible, but something in Grogan seemed to collapse a bit.

  “What are you talking about? Bitcoin transactions can’t be traced. They’re anonymous.”

  “You never were very tech savvy, were you, Richard? Sure, it’s difficult to trace a bitcoin transfer, but did you forget who you were dealing with? This is what Zoey and I do for a living. The bitcoin exchange Mt. Rox is in bankruptcy, and the feds have been able to access transaction records.”

  “My God, you are serious, aren’t you?” Grogan said. “I’m going to use this to have your partnership revoked. Hell, you might even lose your license. Forget about taking my tech clients to another firm. When I get done with you, there won’t be anything left.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I just told you that I have proof that you paid Tao Zhang to kill me.”

  “You have nothing.” Grogan stood and pushed away the chair. “You’re recording this, aren’t you? You want me to make some kind of admission.”

  Chris patted the front of his shirt. “I’m not wearing a wire. Feel free to check if you like.”

  Grogan held up a finger as if to put a placeholder in the conversation. “I think I’ll do that.”

  He stepped around the desk and patted Chris down. When he was finished, he said, “We’re not done yet. Stay here.”

  Grogan disappeared into the hallway, returning a few minutes later with a bug sweeper that he had borrowed from the forensic lab. He switched the device on and began swiping it around the office as it crackled and surged with feedback. He waved the device around Chris several times, seemingly unable to believe Chris hadn’t bugged himself for the discussion.

  “That’s not necessary,” Chris said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  When Grogan was satisfied the office was clean, he sat in the chair again. “If you want to play this out, just take these accusations to Don Rubinowski and see what happens.”

  “I intend to do that right after I take them to the police. But I just have one question for you. Why? Why did you do it?”

  Grogan stared at him for a long moment that stretched and then stretched some more. He looked over his shoulder to confirm the door to the office was shut. And then he said softly, “You think I didn’t know what you were planning? I’m not going to let you walk out of this firm with millions of dollars in billings that belong to me.”

  “And it was worth so much to you that you’d actually kill for it?”

  “I worked hard to get to where I am, and I’m not going to lose it now, not at this point in my career.”

  This was helpful, but it was not an admission. Chris realized he needed to goad him to go further.

  “Did you really think that if I died those clients would stay here? Stay with you?”

  Grogan’s face flushed. “Of course I did. Are you out of your mind?” He rose. “We’re done here.”

  “You’re right about one thing,” Chris said. “We’re definitely done.”

  Chris swiveled his desk chair around to face his computer, pressed a key, and the monitor filled with faces peering into the office as if through a window.

  “Smile for the webcam, Richard. And meet FBI Special Agent Hal Trask and his team.”

  During the next few seconds, Grogan’s face seemed to display a lightning-round version of the seven stages of grief.

  “I want to call my attorney,” he finally said.

  “I’m sure you do,” Chris said.

  “Will you please step a little closer to the monitor, Mr. Grogan?” It was the voice of Special Agent Trask through the computer’s tinny speaker. “I need to read you your Miranda rights, and I want to make sure that you hear every word.”

  53

  The sun was coming up over the Bay Bridge, its light inching across the floor of Chris’s apartment. Glad that he’d never bought curtains to cover the upper pane of glass, he watched the sunlight approach, nonchalant as a cat, as he softly played one of Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the upright piano in the corner.

  Today he’d chosen BWV 988: Variation 4 a 1—one of the simpler, midtempo variations, only a half minute or so long. Chris knew his playing sounded raggedy—his right hand remained much stronger than his left—but as he kept working through the simple variation, he thought he could hear a bit of what the composer had intended, and that was enough.

  Like all of Bach’s variations, this one was rigorous and mathematical, but if that were all there was to it, then it wouldn’t have been worth playing. There was also a kind of contained joy in the piece that was all the more joyous because it didn’t proclaim itself. Chris thought it was the sound of rightness in the world.

  That sense of rightness was a little harder to come by in the world at large. As with most APT1 hacks, it proved impossible to trace the intellectual property stolen in the Zapper intrusion. Chris and Zoey were ultimately able to track the algorithms to a drop site used by APT1 hackers, but from there it was anyone’s guess. Paul Saperstein was constitutionally paranoid about staying ahead of the tech industry competition, and that paranoia now seemed more justified than ever before.

  In the wake of the Chinese intrusion, Zapper continued to be the world’s leading search engine, but the theft was likely to bring a challenge to its dominance. Hoodu, China’s leading Internet search engine, was poised to enter the US market in six months, and it was probably armed with Zapper’s most vital corporate asset—the algorithms. If Hoodu succeeded in capturing a sizable portion of US Internet search traffic, the economic and national security ramifications would be far-reaching. Just as the NSA induced US Internet search engines to cooperate in its surveillance programs, the PLA would almost certainly induce Hoodu to cooperate in its economic espionage efforts. China’s plundering of US intellectual property wasn’t about to stop anytime soon.

  According to press accounts, the president and the State Department were preparing to announce a much tougher stance with Beijing over China’
s systematic theft of the intellectual property of US corporations. In his announcement, the president would evidently be citing new classified reports directly linking the People’s Liberation Army to the APT1 hacks. It had only been a matter of time, Chris knew. If the administration hadn’t planned to use the evidence Chris had obtained in Shenzhen, then Paul Saperstein and Zapper would have.

  Like Saperstein, Chris and Zoey were living with uncertainty. Although the PLA hadn’t actually assigned Red Sun to kill them, there was no guarantee that some form of retribution wasn’t on the way. Chris hoped that the coming negotiations between the State Department and Beijing on IP theft would offer some degree of protection for them.

  Chris hoped the upcoming talks would accomplish something else as well. Through Saperstein, he had urged the State Department to work for the release of Guiren Song and Quan Shao, the two dissidents who had helped him escape from China. Saperstein had said that the White House had put the issue at the center of the negotiations with China, so there was at least hope the pair might be freed or traded to the US in some sort of exchange of clandestine operatives.

  As the FBI assembled the murder-for-hire case against Richard Grogan, it learned that Grogan, while not entirely tech savvy, knew how to acquire criminal resources online. Through Silk Road, Grogan had anonymously contracted with hackers who were able to track the credit card purchases of Chris and Zoey. He had also engaged the services of a Ms. Ah-lam Wan, who had acted as his agent in Chinatown and was likely to be charged as an accomplice. Grogan had led everyone he hired to believe that they were dealing with someone affiliated with the PLA. By spying on Zoey’s email communications and other activity on the law firm’s system, Grogan learned of Zoey’s suspicion that there was a connection between the contract killer Red Sun and the PLA. So when he anonymously hired Red Sun to kill Chris, he knew Zoey would make sure that everyone reached the conclusion that the PLA was behind the hit.

  Grogan was also being charged with the murder of the journalist Matt Geist. In the course of spying on Zoey at the firm, Grogan discovered that Zoey had made a copy of the emails from Owyang’s laptop. He figured that if Red Sun was really hired by the PLA, then it would want to prevent the public disclosure of the evidence linking it to APT1. Grogan had instructed Red Sun to do what was necessary to retrieve the flash drive and prevent the disclosure, including murder Geist, simply to bolster the credibility of his ruse.

  As Chris prepared to play the Bach piece again, from the corner of his eye he caught Zoey tiptoeing down the stairs from the bedroom of the loft in bare feet, underwear, and T-shirt. He smiled and began to play. She didn’t say anything, just poured a cup of coffee, curled up on the couch near the piano, and listened.

  Finally, Chris stopped, letting his fingers rest on a chord.

  “You are getting shockingly good at that,” Zoey said.

  “It’s how I fool people into thinking I can really play. It’s only a half minute long, it’s not all that hard, and I practice it like crazy.”

  “Well, trick or not, it’s lovely.”

  Zoey had given up the lease on her apartment on Eleventh Street a week ago and moved in with him. So far, so very good. He knew that things wouldn’t always be so effortless, but he already had the sense that even when they weren’t, it would probably be worth it.

  “You know, I’ve noticed something about my playing since you moved in.”

  “Oh? Have I inspired you?”

  “I’ve stopped humming.”

  “Oh, really. You hum?” She said it as if it hadn’t been annoying the hell out of her.

  “I think I picked it up from listening to Glenn Gould recordings. Gould hummed while he played. It drove the recording engineers nuts, but he couldn’t seem to help it.”

  “Actually, I did notice it. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  “It was annoying, wasn’t it?”

  “Not really. Okay, maybe a little. It just seemed like—you. So why’d you stop?”

  “Well, I can see now that it’s one of those quirks that you get from living alone too long. I had listened to those recordings so many times, and it was always just me playing to myself and so, why not hum along? But now that there’s someone around to listen to it, it just doesn’t seem—necessary—anymore.”

  Zoey pulled a comforter up over her and grinned. “Look at you. You’re getting all normal on me, aren’t you?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Don’t worry, you still have a long way to go. And I really don’t think you’re ever going to get there. At least I hope not.”

  Chris went to the kitchen and poured another cup of coffee.

  “So what are you doing up so early?” Zoey asked from the other room.

  “I’ve been making plans.”

  “What sort of plans?”

  Chris came in and joined her on the couch. “I’ve decided to leave Reynolds Fincher and start a new law firm.” He took a sip and raised his eyebrows. “You in?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Because this was my first book written to a deadline, there are fewer people to thank than usual. I pretty much had to put my head down and get it done. Nevertheless, the following people all played invaluable roles in making Intrusion a better book. I’m lucky to have an editor, Alison Dasho, who knows just about everything there is to know about mysteries, thrillers, and crime fiction, and also happens to be a joy to work with. Thank you to my copyeditor, Marcus Trower; proofreader, Michelle Hope-Anderson; cover designer, Marc Cohen; and the entire team at Thomas & Mercer, including the fabulous Jacque Ben-Zekry, Tiffany Pokorny, and Kjersti Egerdahl. If there’s a more efficient, fun, collaborative, authorcentric way to produce a book, then I’m sure the innovators at T&M will be the ones to devise it.

  My agent, David Hale Smith, at Inkwell Management, is the best person that a mystery/thriller writer can have in their corner. Ed Stackler has improved each of my books with his head for thriller plotting and the electronic equivalent of a sharp red pencil. Ed played a key role in getting this book into shape. Jay Hershey, my longtime friend and a talented editor, helped point my first draft in the right direction.

  Shane McGee, chief privacy officer at Fireye, provided some invaluable from-the-trenches cybersecurity details. On a related note, Shane was formerly general counsel at Mandiant, which was acquired by Fireye. In February 2013 Mandiant published a report linking the APT1 hacking incidents to the People’s Liberation Army. The investigation described in Chapter 3 draws liberally from that Mandiant report.

  Thanks to the authors who generously took the time to read and blurb The Adversary—David Liss, Graham Brown, Rebecca Cantrell, and my fellow T&M author Andrew Peterson.

  And as always, thank you to my wife, Kathy, whose infallible BS detector is the true secret weapon in my writing process. Without her patience in allowing me to balance my legal career and my writing, none of my books would have been written.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2013 Sarah Deragon

  Reece Hirsch is the author of three thrillers that draw upon his background as a privacy and data security attorney. His first book, The Insider, was a finalist for the 2011 International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel. Hirsch is a partner in the San Francisco office of an international law firm and co-chair of its privacy and cyber-security practice. He is also a member of the board of directors of 826 National (www.826National.org). He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and a small, unruly dog. His website is www.reecehirsch.com.

 

 

 
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