Zero Day

22

Vladimir Koskov was twenty-one, and deeply in love, when he and nineteen-year-old Ivana were returning from the theater as he described the future he envisioned for himself. These were exciting times in Russia, and it seemed to his fertile mind that almost any career path was available to him.

They had met at the university, where Ivana was majoring in computer science and taking a course Vladimir was teaching. Though skilled with computers, her interest in them had waned and she’d turned to languages, but they continued to see each other. By that night, they had been a couple for two years.

As they laughed and joked, Chechen rebels, in reprisal for the Russian president’s latest crackdown in Chechnya, detonated a car bomb just off Red Square, striking at the late-night crowd. Ivana was walking beside a building wall, with Vladimir between her and the full force of the blast. She recalled only a blinding, silent white light and what seemed to her the heavy yet gentle press of Vladimir’s body against her own. Waking in a hospital four days later, undamaged except for a temporary hearing loss, a doctor informed her, “You were one lucky girl, Ivana, to be walking with a gentleman.”

Vladimir had been both lucky and unlucky that night. Lucky, in that thirty-four people were killed by the explosion while another dozen were seriously maimed. He was the closest to the Lada to live, but not without a cost. There, he was unlucky. The blast threw him against Ivana, and the pair of them against the wall. He had just leaned over to kiss her, turning slightly, and took the full force of the explosion on his back. His spinal cord was all but ruptured just below his waist.

When Vladimir swam back to consciousness, he learned in quick succession that Ivana had lived and was expected to recover with no permanent injuries, and that he would never walk again. The same doctor who spoke with Ivana said, “I know you don’t consider yourself fortunate, but you are. The others are dead and have no life at all. You will live, and unless you choose to climb into a bottle of vodka, you can have a good life. It may not seem like that today, but it’s true.”

Vladimir didn’t agree. His life was over. Ivana wouldn’t stay with a cripple. His plans were destroyed. There were no more dreams.

But he’d been wrong, though for one long year he’d done everything he could to make his dark vision a reality. He’d drunk bottle after bottle of cheap vodka, called every friend and every member of his family vile names to drive them from his life. In many cases he’d succeeded, as he wallowed in a pool of debasement.

But Ivana was made of tougher stuff. No matter how hard he worked to drive her from his life, she stayed. She pulled him from despair and gave him life. Two years after the explosion, they were married. The next year she found their apartment, where they’d lived ever since. Life hadn’t been easy. She’d worked all manner of jobs to support them, finally finding steady work as a translator.

Vladimir had long ago given up being bitter over his fate, though he couldn’t avoid bouts of self-pity that overwhelmed him from time to time. He’d slowly learned to live by burying himself in the hacker world he’d discovered on the Internet. He acquired computing skills that gave him a worldwide reputation among those who did such things and regained some of the self-respect he’d lost in the accident.

Later, he learned to earn a modest but growing income, about which he was enormously proud. He’d become so skilled at writing code he’d been recruited by more than one of the new Russian computer companies, but in each case he’d declined good pay to remain his own man. He might be trapped in a wheelchair, but in his work he was free. To be employed by a corporation was to throw away his most important freedom for a paycheck.

Now, as he did from time to time, he reached over and laid his hand on the FireWire drive on his desk. He kept all his work in it and either took it with him on those rare occasions when he left his computer or hid it. It was too valuable to risk. The information there was his private gold mine.

Vladimir took a final pull on his cigarette, then crushed it into an ashtray. Time to go back to work. He lit another cigarette as he entered one of the chat rooms where he was a regular visitor. He knew perhaps a dozen hackers well from this one room. They exchanged problems, sought solutions, bragged about successes, but most of all they discussed hacking and the latest developments.

He opened his IRC chat client, then entered the h@xx0rd chat room. Six hackers were signed in and listed along the right pane of the window. A few of the names he’d heard of here and there — just script kiddies. A few were chatting, but often some who were signed in just sat and watched. Some of the names might be IRC bots, programs that monitored chat, which was no surprise, especially since the chat thread was about Internet security. That was the principal subject of the hackers who spent a lot of time there.

A detailed description of rootkits and the means for implanting and detecting them followed. It was nothing new to Vladimir. The chat turned to computer security.

Vladimir took a drag on his cigarette, glanced up at his poster of a bare-chested Rick James with dreadlocks, then continued typing.

And there’s people who pay for it … pay very well. Anyone know Dragon Lady?

23

George Carlton retired to his den, splashed brandy into a snifter, and took a sip. At his leather easy chair he removed a Dominican corona cigar from the humidor, cut the tip, then lit it with a lighter that emitted a blue-and-gold flame like a miniature blowtorch. Setting the lighter down, he pulled on the cigar, then took a longer sip of the brandy.

Carlton and his wife, Emily, lived northwest of Alexandria, Virginia, some two miles from the Beltway, not far from the Ivy Hill Cemetery. Their house was one common to the area, with a decent though not extravagant expanse of yard thick with overgrown trees and a hedgerow between each plot.

The Carlton family was American blue blood. The first documented ancestor, William, had come to the British colony of New York to serve on the staff of General William Howe in early 1777. He’d proved popular on the social circuit that consumed the interests of the British officers during that first winter of occupation. In general, his staff work was adequate and his American career was marred only by an aborted field command. A less senior officer took the blame for the debacle, and Carlton was transferred to England, where he was soon well wed. But within twenty years he had spent the family into the poorhouse. His oldest son, also named George, with no realistic prospects in Britain, emigrated to the United States.

For three generations the Carlton family prospered in America. They were connected by marriage, schooling, or business to most of the new country’s families of influence. But in the period following the Civil War, the family’s wealth began to decline. Carlton’s grandfather, Edward, had invested heavily in the stock market following World War I, and for a time it appeared the Carltons would be restored to their former luster, but the weekend he would have received a warning to get out of the market in late 1929, he was on his yacht with his sixteen-year-old Cuban mistress, and the family lost nearly everything. Edward took the honorable way out, though he botched his suicide, which he’d tried to mask as a boating accident.

Carlton’s father, another William, served under “Wild Bill” Donovan in the American OSS during World War II, providing invaluable staff work. As a reward he was selected to be one of the five most senior officers in the newly created Central Intelligence Agency after the war. He and the fifth director, Allen Dulles, got along well, but when Dulles was forced to resign following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, William Carlton’s career went into eclipse. He retained just enough influence before dying of lung cancer to see that his son, George, who had gone into the FBI following his graduation from Yale, received a favorable appointment with the Company. The transfer had been more than unusual and raised a few eyebrows, as the FBI and CIA were rivals and rarely exchanged staff.

With a stellar family name and widespread connections, Carlton’s career should have flourished. Though the family had retained their Nantucket summer cottage, his father had been compelled to sell the surviving family estate in Maryland after the suicide of his father. The fact was, the Carltons were broke.

George Carlton had sought a wife with one concern in mind — to marry well and restore his fortune. A family name, especially in America, counted for nothing without the money to go with it. The woman he chose, Emily Langsdon, was a bit horse-faced with an overbite, but she had a fine figure and her pedigree was impeccable. Her family was, reputedly, so wealthy as to be beyond comment.

George’s awakening upon his return from a honeymoon he had financed by mortgaging the Nantucket cottage was brutal. He’d told Emily that it was his duty as her husband to assume management of her finances. She’d agreed. He soon learned why: there was almost nothing to manage.

While Carlton came to learn that the Langsdon family was wealthy indeed, the details of the wealth were devastating in their effect on him personally. Emily’s father had fallen out with his father many years before. The grandfather had seen that his granddaughter lacked for nothing, that she was properly educated and traveled, but Emily’s father was omitted from the will and all but eliminated from the Langsdon Family Trust.

Emily would inherit no property and had but a single trust fund herself, containing a mere $500,000. It was managed by the family financial administrators. She received the income from it in an annual check. Upon her death the fund would revert to the Langsdon Family Trust and not go to her surviving spouse or children, if any.

It was, Carlton thought, a gruesome way to manage a family. It had come as an enormous shock. During the years of their childless marriage, Emily had been good about financing her luxuries from her own income, but the burden of supporting them had fallen to Carlton and his government salary. Had they lived a modest middle-class life, this would have proven more than adequate — he’d done reasonably well in the CIA — but neither of them had come from middle-class lifestyles. They moved in circles that required more than they had, and over the years Carlton had been driven deeply into debt.

His move to Homeland Security had been motivated in part by a substantial increase in salary, as well as by a falling-out with his director. Regardless, he had found a way to alter his financial position to the positive. Almost like a miracle, if he believed in them.

Carlton coughed once, sipped brandy, took another puff on the cigar. Things were looking up to such an extent that he was considering dumping Emily, who’d been such a disappointment. If the cash flow continued as promised, he’d be living beside warm water and sipping drinks with umbrellas by year’s end. He could think of half a dozen young things he’d rather have with him, rather than horse-faced old Emily.

24

It was a beautiful day in Moscow.

Ivana wasn’t working this Saturday and insisted her husband leave their cramped apartment and take some air. “You need to be outdoors,” she said. “Away from this smelly place. You need to see some normal people, real people, and stop spending all your time on that computer talking with electronic messages.”

To pull Vladimir’s wheelchair backward out of the apartment had taken some effort, since he’d had new equipment delivered the previous day. With nowhere to put it he’d instructed that the man place it in the cleared path out the door. Before they’d done anything, however, he’d insisted on getting his external drive and taking it with him.

“If we had a fire,” Ivana said as she stacked boxes, “you’d be trapped here. We can’t keep living like this.”

At twenty-seven years of age, Ivana Adamov Koskov was a petite, dark beauty. Like her mother — indeed, like most traditional Russian woman — she was a pessimist. If anything could go wrong, you could count on it. Life was to be endured because there was no alternative. The one bright spot in her life had been her love of Vladimir Koskov. Their short early years had been filled with hope.

The bomb had nearly destroyed them. Though she had emerged essentially unscathed, her beautiful Vladimir bore terrible scars and had been crippled for life. The day Ivana was to go to the hospital and move him into the apartment she’d rented, her father, Sasha, had taken her aside.

“What are you doing?” he asked, the smell of vodka on his breath.

“Getting Vlad, of course,” she said haughtily. She had long since stopped listening to her father. “We have an apartment now.”

“You can’t be serious about this.” Ivana’s father was a veteran of the ill-fated Soviet war in Afghanistan. He’d seen, and once intimated that he’d done, terrible things. Since his discharge from the military he’d been adrift, never really settling at any job, despondent if not embittered, turning increasingly to his bottle. She’d watched her mother slowly retreat with resignation into the role of enabler for her father until she couldn’t bear to watch it any longer.

“I love Vlad, Father,” she said. “He is a good man.”

“He is a cripple! What future can you have with such a man?”

“His body is crippled, but his mind is whole. I love him for who he is. Please, you’re in my way.”

“You’re nineteen years old,” her father pleaded. “Don’t throw your life away like this.”

“Vlad needs me. He can’t live alone and he has nowhere to go. I’m late. Please, Father, I must do this.”

That had been eight years before. Her father had never accepted the situation, but at family gatherings he was always cordial if not friendly to Vladimir. His drinking was no worse, though, and that at least was something.

Ivana had arranged for their neighbor to help her, and with great effort the pair of them managed to get the wheelchair and her husband down three flights of stairs since the elevator wasn’t working. Vladimir had stoically sat in place, unable to help, resigned away from his computers to his role as an invalid.

But Ivana had been right. The weather had turned, and it was a glorious Russian summer day. Vladimir had forgotten the beauty of the vast sweep of the sky overhead, the smell of the trees and flowers, the familiar sounds of the city. For the first hour Ivana just pushed the chair to give him a full taste of the city. Finally, they reached Ararat Park in the heart of Moscow.

Families from across the city were gathered here. Most were enjoying picnics, while others were content to walk and enjoy the beauty. From a vendor, Ivana bought their lunch. She found a shaded spot beneath a tree set on a small hill from where they could watch the people.

As a couple with a small child passed them, Ivana said, “Perhaps we should have a baby.”

Vladimir laughed. “What? And put it in the sink?”

“We’ll have a bigger apartment soon.”

“Maybe. But why would you want to bring a child into this world? You don’t really think anything will improve, do it? You aren’t that stupid.” He watched her as he spoke. He often tried to bait her like this.

Ivana looked up. “A baby would make me very happy.” Vladimir’s body was scarred and much of it was useless, but in her mind’s eye Vladimir was the same young, strong man to whom she’d given herself so willingly. He was handsome still, she knew, handsome enough to have turned the heads of more than one woman since they’d left the apartment.

“Maybe later. When we can afford one, when we have enough room. I can’t work with a crying baby all day, you know.”

“I’ll see to it that doesn’t happen. Anyway, you said you were making a lot of money these days.”

That was true. More and more work was coming Vladimir’s way. He was even paid in hard currency, and in the new Russia, hard money opened every door. Parked in an e-gold account out of the country, his money was growing. So what if he didn’t know who was paying him? A cloud passed over Ivana’s face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked a bit nastily. “I thought you were happy.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s my work, isn’t it?”

Ivana looked at him. “What if State Security is eavesdropping? You could be arrested. And me as well!”

Vladimir laughed harshly. “I’m doing nothing illegal.”

“You’re very secretive about it for something that isn’t wrong.”

“I’m not secretive. It’s … complex, that’s all. It would be pointless for me to try and explain it.” He tapped her head, striking once so hard she jerked back, out of reach. “Anyway, it’s nothing for you to be concerned about. It’s my business.”

“But what if State Security is listening in?”

Vladimir snorted. “I’d like to see them try. All my communications are encrypted so they can’t eavesdrop. You worry too much. Just like a woman.”

Ivana was close to tears. After a few moments she persisted, “They have resources.”

Vladimir rolled his eyes. “They are idiots! They aren’t smart enough to catch me.”

“Catch you at what?”

Vladimir lit a cigarette. “Never mind.” He reached down into the pocket beside his wheelchair and pulled out his MP3 player and headset. Within seconds he was listening to Rick James, his eyes closed, his head moving to the beat. Ivana could no longer stand the music.

She turned away, her face covered with tears. Maybe her father was right. Maybe she was throwing herself away on a bitter, secretive man. She stood up and removed her outer clothing to reveal a new bathing suit Vladimir ignored. She spread a blanket and lay back to bask in the sun.

A few feet away, an elderly woman caught her husband admiring the view and poked him in the ribs as she glared at Ivana. “Slut!” she said.

What if he was lying? Ivana thought. What if State Security stormed their apartment? A chill spread across her body at the thought.

25

Twenty-two-year-old Miguel Estrada stood across the street from the outrageously pink Del Rey Hotel in central San José and watched the gringos with disgust. They’re turning us into a nation of whores and pimps, he thought.

It was lightly raining, as it often did this time of year in San José. Estrada stood under a canopied doorway with several others, waiting for the rain to stop. In front of the Del Rey Hotel, American, Canadian, and German men laughed drunkenly, clutching lewdly at the buttocks of the prostitutes working as waitresses. It was all Estrada could bear to watch.

He’d read that government officials were cracking down on the sexual traffic for gay men and children, but from what he could see, nothing was being done about traditional prostitution. And in the open like this! Something needed to be done, or Costa Rica would be perverted beyond recall.

The rain stopped, and people began moving away. Estrada walked another block, then turned to his right, entering a doorway beneath a sign that read in English FLAMINGO MASSAGE. Gloria, the regular counter girl and the owner’s current girlfriend, was sitting at the counter. “Hello, Miguel. Rosa will be out in a few minutes. Have a seat.”

The spare waiting room was empty so Estrada sat by the door. He glanced at the same garish travel posters he’d seen countless times before. Four minutes later, a loud American in a florid shirt with a grin on his face emerged from behind a curtain. “You take care now, honey,” he said to Gloria as he walked out, ignoring Estrada. A few minutes later Rosa emerged. Spotting her boyfriend, she came over and tried to kiss him.

Estrada turned his face away. “Don’t. I know what you do back there.”

Rosa was twenty-six years old, with a Nordic look not uncommon to native Costa Ricans. She and Estrada had been dating for three months. “What do I do you don’t like?”

“You know.”

“I give massage, Miguel. That’s all. I’m not a puta. If you don’t like it, don’t come around.”

He sulked for a moment, then said, “I need to use the computer.”

Rosa glanced at Gloria, who was reading a magazine. “Why don’t you use the one at home? You spend all your time on it anyway.”

Estrada smirked. “Not for this, trust me. It will only take a minute. Please.”

Rosa shrugged. “Hey, Gloria. Miguel wants to use the computer for a minute, okay?”

Gloria glanced up from her magazine. “Sure. Don’t get caught.”

Miguel walked passed Gloria into the office. The computer was on and connected to the Internet. Slipping a disk from his pocket, he sat down and inserted it, clicked RUN, then waited three minutes as instructed. When he was done, he removed the disk and returned to the waiting area.

“Okay. When will you be home?” he said to Rosa.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Later sometime. See you then.” Again she tried to kiss him and again he turned his face.

As Estrada walked out, Gloria said, “You should get a new boyfriend. That one’s trouble.” She placed a piece of chewing gum on her wet pink tongue and pulled it into her mouth.

“He’s cute,” Rosa protested, who preferred a boyfriend without a job, as they were less trouble. “Anyway, if I didn’t support him, he’d starve. He’s too skinny as it is.”

“How was he?” Gloria said, meaning the customer.

Rosa laughed as she lit a cigarette. “Quick. We’re going to need more condoms.”

26

George Carlton had been with the CIA for eleven years in 1999, when he was given the opportunity to travel to the Middle East.

Company policy was that when managers reached a certain level and possessed a specified tenure, they should travel. The idea was to broaden horizons and give them the chance to put faces to the names they saw in so many reports. The more personalized the operation of the Company was, it was believed the more likely managers would exercise caution when making decisions that could impact lives. These junkets, as they were called at Langley, were much sought after, since they required no real work. They were, more or less, extended vacations at taxpayer expense.

In November of that year, Carlton had flown directly to Paris, where he spent several pleasant days. From there he flew to Madrid, then on to Rome. At the American embassy, he was reacquainted with Meade Gardner, the senior State Department adviser to the American ambassador for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They had belonged to the same fraternity at Yale; not Skull and Bones — neither of them had been so fortunate — but Delta Kappa Epsilon. The association had served Carlton well over the years, though not as well as he’d anticipated when he’d been initiated.

Following the various introductions, the pair had retired from the smoke-clouded salon to the patio overlooking the embassy garden. Amid fragrant Cuban cigar smoke and cognac they had reminisced. Twice divorced, Gardner was currently “between marriages” as he put it. Tall and angular, he was, in Carlton’s opinion, a bit pompous — but the two had been roommates and good buddies for a time. “How do you like Riyadh?” Carlton asked to be polite. Through French doors, a quartet played Brahms softly.

“Disgusting,” Gardner said, slurring the word a bit. He’d downed more than his share of Scotch since the pair met. “The Saudis are an arrogant bunch. They know they’ve got us by the short hairs and make no bones about it. If they turned off the spigot, it would be back to the Stone Age for us. It gives them clout and that’s something they understand. Revolting people, just revolting.”

Carlton didn’t disagree. He had no love of Arabs. “What about your social life? It must be awkward in a Muslim country.”

“You’ve got that right.” Gardner made a face. “Everything’s tied to one of the embassies. They house us Westerners in our own compound, and until a few years ago I hear it was pretty good. Booze, parties, babes away from home the first time. A little bit of home in the Muslim desert. But the Wahhabi mullahs objected and the religious police were allowed to crack down. Now it’s as sterile in the compound as it is everywhere else in Riyadh. Five million Arabs, the men horny as hell. You ask me, they’re all a bunch of perverts. They can’t even see a woman unless she’s a sister or wife. I can’t stand a culture that puts its women in bags. A few strip clubs and brothels would set things right, if you ask me.”

“Still, all that money,” Carlton mused. “It must be interesting at times. It surely isn’t all doom and gloom.”

Gardner grimaced. “Oh, I suppose. The embassy parties sound more like board meetings at times. They’re swimming in dollars, I tell you. They hardly know what to do with them. But they’re accustomed to being thought easy marks, so they’re careful as hell. They’ve got so many Western-educated men these days, they prefer partnerships to outright investments.”

Carlton hid his interest, but an hour later he’d managed to receive an invitation from Gardner to join an American delegation of computer representatives to Saudi Arabia, though Carlton had been scheduled for Ankara, Turkey. The State Department was sponsoring the trips of certain business representatives in hopes a few would land contracts with either the Saudi government or some of the businesses headquartered there. Carlton would travel in open cover, meaning he would use his real name and passport, but his credentials attached him to the delegation of Applied American Computing Solutions, Inc., from Dallas, Texas. The owner of the company was the sole representative of his firm, but he enthusiastically added Carlton to the trip when he learned he was honoring a favor for the American Saudi ambassador.

They’d sat together on the nonstop from Rome to Riyadh two days later. Peter Houser of AACS was a bit short and had gained a substantial paunch and lost most of his hair while prospering selling software.

“I was lucky,” he admitted shortly after takeoff. “I didn’t know software from hardware, but I figured computers were the coming thing and bought a well-run company. For the most part, I’ve just stayed out of their way.” He gazed out the window as the plane banked over the Mediterranean. “You’re not a spook, are you?” he’d asked unexpectedly.

Carlton had almost smiled. Instead, he’d eyed the man as he replied, “You never know.”

Two thousand feet above sea level, Riyadh was a sprawling traditional Arab city with a distinctly modern heart. The Kingdom Centre, the tallest structure in the city, was a massive building of modern art more suited for Brasília than the Saudi desert. The temperature was a balmy eighty-two when they stepped from the airplane at King Khalid International Airport.

Houser announced that this was his first trip to the “Arab world,” and his curiosity was untouched by the slightest hint of anticipation. “Sooner this part’s over, the better,” he said as he walked, his carry-on firmly clenched in his hand. His next stop, he’d told Carlton, was Cairo, where he was looking forward to seeing the Pyramids. “Can’t see one damn reason in the world to be here, of all places,” he said, using his free hand to gesture about him, then winking at Carlton, “unless I get a contract of course.”

The fourteen-strong delegation was met by a State Department public affairs officer and ushered through passport clearance before boarding three heavy-duty vans. Houser remarked that the glass seemed unusually thick as they pulled away from the curb. “No need for concern,” the young officer said, “but there have been some attacks and caution is always in order.”

Houser met Carlton’s eyes with an expression that said, What am I doing here?

The drive to the Al Faisaliah Hotel in the Olaya district consumed an hour of Carlton’s life he would never get back. During that time he formed the conviction that Riyadh should be placed high on the list of nuclear targets. If an exchange of such weapons ever occurred, it seemed to him the powers that be should take advantage of the opportunity to rid the world of this eyesore. Everywhere he looked he saw backwardness; never a smile on a single face. It was as if night had descended over the city even during the glare of daylight.

That afternoon he stretched out on his bed, took a nap, then dressed and wandered down to the hotel bar, only to discover the hardest drink being served was tea or something called a mocktail, fresh fruit juice served with Arabic coffee. The hotel itself was gorgeous; situated on the highest ground in the city, it offered a spectacular view of an uninspiring expanse of buildings, at least in Carlton’s opinion. At seven that evening the delegation was taken to the American embassy for a reception.

The embassy struck Carlton’s keen eye as a deceptively designed fortress. A modern structure designed to blend in with older buildings, it was elegant and state-of-the-art, for which he was grateful. Perhaps two hundred were in attendance. Traditional Arab dress was as common as Western-cut suits. With just a handful of exceptions, the only women were Western and their evening dress was far more demure than what he’d seen in Paris, Madrid, or Rome. It was like attending a cocktail party in Salt Lake City, he decided — except for the Arabs.

Most of the Arab men were wearing a thoub, the familiar flowing robes of the desert, with the red-and-white-checkered shumagg banded with a black ogal. Perhaps a third of them wore a formal, dark-colored, gold-edged bisht, a sort of cloak, over a dazzling white thoub. The few non-Western women were, he gathered, from India and Asia. He wondered which of the Arabs were in business.

Shortly after eight o’clock Carlton was approached by a middle-aged Saudi of average height, with startling fair skin and jet-black hair. He’d noticed the man earlier, as he was perhaps the most elegantly dressed of the Arabs and moved with an almost catlike grace.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I make it a practice to meet everyone I do not know at these affairs. I am Fajer al Dawar.” Carlton took his hand and gave him his name, briefly mentioned his cover story. “Computers? You don’t look like a computer type to me.”

Carlton smiled. “I’m management. I don’t know that much about them in detail. And what do you do?”

“I’m president of the Franco-Arab Chemical Company.”

The men visited for perhaps five minutes before Fajer moved on. Part of Carlton stirred. He felt instinctively that this was the sort of man he’d hoped to meet, someone in a position to make all his dreams come true. Carlton wanted desperately to talk to him longer, but there was no way to manage it in such a setting and Fajer certainly hadn’t seemed interested. So later that night, after Carlton had gone to his room at the hotel, he was surprised to see an envelope slipped under his door. Opening it he read:

Carlton was stunned. It was as if the man had read his mind. He breathed a sigh of satisfaction. His first impression had been correct. He considered going to the business room and searching the Internet for Fajer’s name and that of his company, but decided better. Saudi Arabia was a virtual police state, and he couldn’t expect that even a harmless Internet search would go undetected. Better not to take the risk.

The next day he could scarcely keep his focus on the tour. More than once Houser commented on how distant Carlton seemed. They were taken to the Masmak Fortress, the citadel in Old Riyadh, and the National Museum that afternoon, which, as far as Carlton was concerned, was more than enough.

That night Carlton dressed in his best suit and exited the main entrance shortly before 8:00. Standing immediately outside was too obvious, so he moved to his right and stood near a pillar perhaps fifty feet away. His first year with the Bureau, he’d been assigned to surveillance. He’d been one of a two-man team following members of foreign delegations. It had been boring in the extreme, but his partner had taught him every shadowing technique, every camouflage method known to man.

“We look at motion, mostly,” he’d told Carlton through cheap cigarette smoke. “We’re conditioned to be hunters and react to moving prey. The best way to hide is to not move.”

There were no shadows. Carlton didn’t want to appear obvious, so he stood motionless in demi-shadows between the pillar and the wall. Six minutes later a heavy, black Mercedes pulled up and stopped in front of him. The uniformed driver came to his side and said quietly, “Mr. Carlton?”

“I am.”

“Please?” The driver gestured to the now open rear door. Carlton entered to find himself alone. Unconcerned, he was carried across the largely darkened streets of Riyadh, but his curiosity was at fever pitch. Forty-five minutes later the car entered the gates of a vast compound on the outskirts of Riyadh. Carlton stepped from the car and found Fajer, dressed in a Western suit, waiting to greet him at what was the entrance to his home. “I’m so glad you could come. It will be just the two of us, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I must say I was very surprised to receive your kind invitation.”

“You told no one?” Fajer asked with mild concern.

“I did not.”

“Excellent. I knew I could count on your discretion. Please. This way.”

The house reminded Carlton of the movie Casablanca. He sensed it was vast, but there was no one to see but his host. The architecture was Moorish, the rooms oversize with arched ceilings. The dining room into which he was led was large enough for a banquet, but the vast table had just two place settings, at an end. Fajer gestured to pillows and the men sat.

“Red or white?” Fajer asked as dinner was served. A waiter hovered with a wine bottle wrapped in a brilliant white napkin.

“White. Thank you.”

“The rules against intoxicants are relaxed in my home.” Fajer held up his glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Carlton was a bit overwhelmed and willed himself to be cautious. This could turn out to be the most important meeting of his life, or not. He mustn’t let his expectations form his interpretation of what was about to take place. He must ground himself in reality.

A succession of servants brought course after course of the most exquisite meal Carlton had ever enjoyed. A mix of French and Middle Eastern cuisine, it was done to perfection. Carlton kept the conversation carefully neutral and praised each course. Following a cloyingly sweet dessert, the only dish that disappointed Carlton, Fajer suggested port and cigars. “I want to show you my garden.”

Outside was balmy, the sky overhead a velvet black. The men strolled slowly along a pathway that wove through the carefully manicured plants, subtly lit by lights rising no higher than their ankles. “Despite its name, my company is international in scope and not limited to chemicals, though we are one of the largest chemical importers into the kingdom. I’m assuming you’ve never heard of it?”

When Carlton shook his head no, Fajer explained how he’d assumed command of his father’s company following Cambridge. “These are difficult times for any business,” he said, “as I’m sure you know. Key to the success of an international company is information. You understand?”

“Of course. Knowing what is real and what is not, what is coming, is vital in most human endeavors.”

“Please, let us sit.” They sat on a carved bench beside a gurgling fountain. “Mr. Carlton, I have great respect for America and for Americans, as I have for our British friends. Though I do business with the French, I must confess that I have never understood them. No one in the world, in my opinion, has better information than the CIA.” Carlton felt his heart jump. “Information, after all, is their business. You must learn all kinds of things not necessary to America’s national security, but information that could be of enormous help to someone in my position.”

Carlton maintained a poker face as he said, “What are you saying? And what’s this about the CIA? Spies, aren’t they?”

“Come, Mr. Carlton. We are both adults. I have my sources. You are the deputy director for — what do you call it? — the Company. A man in such a position is important, and very valuable to someone like me.”

Carlton took a pull of his cigar, blew the smoke out, then had a sip of the port. He drew on the cigar again before speaking. “Actually, I’m a manager, hardly a deputy director, but you have the rest right.”

Late the next morning, Carlton boarded his plane for the flight to Athens, sitting once again next to Houser. “Didn’t see you last night,” the man said.

“Had a touch of the flu, or perhaps it was just fatigue from all the traveling.”

“Well, you didn’t miss much. I can’t wait to get out of here.” Once the plane was well over the Mediterranean, Houser leaned close and in a conspiratorial voice said, “Did you get what you came for?”

Carlton thought a moment before answering, “I’d say so, yes.”

27

Daryl Haugen entered the restored redbrick building through the side entrance, swiping her access card at the door. Inside, she stopped at the security desk, signed her name, logged the time, and presented her identification to one of the three uniformed DHS guards. She’d come straight from her morning workout, having only taken time to shower and change into casual clothes before coming to her office.

“Thank you, Ms. Haugen,” a stone-faced guard said.

Daryl smiled, passed through the security scan, and set off for the elevator. All three men watched her retreating figure with mute approval.

The Lee Building had been constructed just before World War I. In its day it was state-of-the-art, featuring larger windows than previously used and massively thick brick walls since no steel support was used in the construction. Housing various private, state, and finally federal agencies of declining significance over the decades, it had undergone a major renovation in the 1980s and now was the location for her Computer Infrastructure Security Unit, or CISU.

Since discovering Superphreak, Daryl’s staff of twenty-three variously skilled Internet and computer experts, most of whom she’d hired herself, had been on twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week. All previous assignments and holidays were canceled. Priority one was to understand the Superphreak viruses, identify their variants, determine the scope of their contamination, and organize a defense. Six of her staff were assigned to work directly with the private CSIA, Cyber Security Industry Alliance. The objective was to get everyone involved on the same page.

Since the CISU occupied the entire top floor of the Lee Building, someone could stand at one end and view every workstation and every member of the staff in a single glance. Daryl had seen the arrangement in a Tokyo office and grasped its improvement over individual offices and cubicles. She’d installed the new arrangement the first week after her promotion.

“Team leader meeting in five minutes!” she shouted as she stepped off the elevator. In the break room she filled her cup with coffee, grabbed a cinnamon bun for breakfast, then went directly to the glass-enclosed conference room. Setting her laptop down, she plugged it in and booted as she ate her breakfast.

Two team leaders entered over the next two minutes, each carrying a laptop and sheets of paper. Neither looked as if he or she had slept in the last three days. The third and final one to enter closed the door as Daryl began.

“Mercy Hospital in Brooklyn has four deaths so far, perhaps more to follow. From what research I’ve been able to do, there have been other hospital deaths. There are many incidents out there that just may be a result of the virus we’re chasing. A British Airways flight all but crashed over the Atlantic, some passengers were killed. It’s being blamed on a virus in the plane’s computer. Now I don’t want to sound like one of those TV shows, but I need answers. If this virus is the cause of all this, and potentially more, there will be panic. We can’t afford that. The panic could end up killing more than the virus itself. We don’t have time for idle talk. What have you got?”

The question was directed to Oscar Lee. Average height, lean with bright dark eyes, he jokingly claimed the building was owned by his father. From Berkeley, he’d followed the same employment path as Daryl and was recognized for his overarching grasp of viruses and his ability to coax outside agencies to help. She’d made him responsible for coordinating the effort with CSIA, since he already headed the team that liaisoned with them.

“The vendors aren’t on board yet, but I’ve convinced a few people here and there to give this some time,” he said, sounding weary and nervous. “So far we’ve got three rootkits identified. The first appears to have been released back in June. They conceal at least twenty-seven viruses, with different functions. We haven’t determined what all of them are as of yet.

“Many of the variants are either missing an exploit code or have one that we haven’t been able to identify. Those that do are mostly trying to use a variety of old exploits that work only against unpatched systems. The vendors report a surge in numbers of old viruses. We do have three that are exploiting a single zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft operating systems.” Zero day was a term used to identify software bugs for which no fix exists, that aren’t widely known, and that malware authors use to spread their viruses.

“Jeez,” Michelle Gritter muttered quietly. At twenty-three, she was the youngest of the management team, and the only woman. Pudgy, though not unattractive, she was a chronic nail-biter. She moved her left hand to her lips.

“Anything else?” Daryl asked.

Oscar shook his head. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Michelle?”

The young woman lowered her hand before speaking. “We’re attempting to establish the scope of the contamination. As of a few minutes ago we have 964 referrals of malware containing the word Superphreak from end users. We’re working on it and have managed to determine these referrals are primarily generated by six versions of the virus.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Oscar said, shaking his head. “How many are out there hidden by a rootkit nobody’s detected”

Daryl said, “It’s our job to find out.” She could see the concern written on the faces of her team. She’d hoped for better progress but knew the reality would be like this. Turning to the remaining team leader, she said, “Tom?”

Tom Gentry was the oldest of the group at thirty-one. Almost entirely self-taught, he lacked the academic degrees of the others but possessed a near genius understanding of computers. Daryl relied on him for his innovative thinking and his accumulated knowledge. His team was responsible for preparing the solution to the Superphreak virus. Tall and gawky, he was always uneasy in meetings, and today was no different. Shifting in his chair, he gulped down a big sip of coffee before speaking.

“Obviously we need to have a way to identify the viruses so signatures can be prepared, then we need signatures that work for each of the variations. Superphreak is the recurring figure we are focusing on, but we can’t rule out that the word might not appear in some variations.”

Michelle spoke. “You mean there could be Superphreak viruses without the name?”

“Sure,” Tom said, reaching for his coffee cup again and nearly knocking it over. “Someone else certainly knows more than I do at this point, but from what I’ve seen, the only really sophisticated part of the viruses are the rootkits. The viruses in general are of mixed quality and from a number of sources, some old, some brand-new.”

“How about distributing signatures?” Daryl asked.

“Oscar’s companies are probably our best bet for that. I think we’re going to need a bunch of them.” Tom wrinkled his forehead and looked her directly in the eye. “I just don’t see how we can do all this, boss.”

“The security vendors tell me they aren’t getting any of them in their honeypots,” Oscar said, seconding Tom’s concern. “They’re devoting their time to this wave of old viruses going around. We sitting at this table can see the train barreling down the hill, but we can’t get out of the way or even get the rest to pay attention.”

The room was silent for a long moment. “Do we have a sense that these are all the result of a single hacker?” Daryl asked.

Tom cleared his throat. “I’d say not. There’s more than one person involved, that’s for sure.”

“Are these scattered hackers just jumping on a bandwagon? Or is this orchestrated?” Daryl asked.

Oscar hesitated. “I don’t know if all of them are working together, but some of them must be. You know, boss, I have an idea. You can bet they use the Internet to communicate. They might even be in chat rooms.” Daryl nodded agreement, irritated she’d not already thought of that. “They’re sure to have left a trail.”

“You’ve got a good point,” she said.

Encouraged, Oscar said, “Maybe we can coax some of them out of their hole. You know how crackers like to brag. Maybe we can locate a few of these people and fool them into giving us some of the answers we’re working at finding the hard way.”

Tom brightened. “I like that.”

“So do I.” This just might be the shortcut Daryl had been hoping for. “See to it, Oscar. Find me three or four people good in chat rooms and forums, and let’s see what they come up with. Let’s keep it up, folks. We’re not lying down for this thing.”

28

Michel Dufour stared out the window and wondered once again why he was still in Paris. Every friend of his was either vacationing in the south or traveling abroad. Paris in August was dreadful. Hot, dirty, the streets filled with loud tourists, the waiters surly and sarcastic.

He sighed. What was there to do? The deadline loomed and could not be moved.

Pauvre Michel, he thought, poor Michael. Repeating the phrase his older sister had used to mock him as a child whenever he felt sorry for himself, he swiveled from the window and returned to his monitor.

He typed for several moments, then confirmed he was into the Internet access at a cybercafé he knew, one of a dozen around Paris he used. He wasn’t about to leave any trails leading to the office. Next he opened a send box and typed:

Dufour glanced at his list, considered for an instant if it was worth his time to copy and paste, decided it was not. Instead, he opened another message box.

Dufour stretched, grimaced, opened another send box, then typed:

The Finn was full of himself. Always promising work he couldn’t deliver. Thought he was hot stuff with code. That should fix him. Dufour took a long look at his work list, opened another e-mail send box, then typed:

That was almost it for the night. Dufour dug through the papers strewn about his desk but couldn’t find another fresh list. He reminded himself that he had to get better organized.

Then his fingers found a scrap of paper. Oh, yes. One more for the night, then some wine and Yvette. He started to type xhugo49 @ gmail.com, then decided he was finished with that e-mail address.

29

A package, delivered by courier, was waiting at the front desk for Jeff when he returned to his hotel. Thanking the clerk, he rode the elevator up, all but asleep on his feet.

In his room he tossed the package on the desk, stripped off his clothes, then stepped into the shower, where he scrubbed himself top to bottom. Running the hot water over his body until his fingertips were puckered, he smiled briefly when he glanced at them, recalling how he’d called them “old” fingers when he’d been a child, wondering if his grandparents’ age was catching. He toweled off, then slipped on the hotel bathrobe, feeling if not reborn than at least much better.

Jeff sat at the desk, fingering the package. What he wanted most of all was sleep, but he’d promised Daryl he’d do what he could to help. And, he had to admit to himself, no matter how tired he was, sleep might not easily come when what he was finding on his client’s server was emerging as his worst nightmare. For years he’d complained to anyone who’d listen about the lack of real Internet security. Now it appeared that a cyber-attack might well be upon them. From what Daryl was telling him, the attacks linked to Superphreak were broadly targeted, meaning the cyber-assault was widespread and aggressive.

He had no complaint about his actual client. In other circumstances a man like Joshua Greene would have been ranting at him every day, thanks to the enormous pressure he was under. Instead, Greene seemed satisfied with dropping in on them two or three times during his work hours. “I’ll take care of him,” Sue had said that first day, and apparently she had.

Jeff had spent this entire day in a copy of the firm’s monthly backup, trying to prepare it for Sue’s booting. He’d found more than he had with the daily backup, but had no way of knowing if he’d cleaned out enough.

He’d located two rootkits in the law firm’s computers but still had no idea how many virus variants there were and what triggering devices they were using. He hoped Daryl, with her much greater resources, would come up with something on that.

In the case of his client, Jeff had decided that one of the viruses was designed to destroy financial records stored by SQL Server, one of the more popular databases used by midsize businesses. If this same payload was in the Social Security Administration records, or company pension records, or in the computers that controlled Wall Street, when the trigger kicked in, the damage would be incalculable. His sense of frustration and despair increased with each new discovery.

His work at the firm was about finished, though, one way or another. Sue was going to attempt a boot again later that night. He’d been too exhausted to stay for it. He’d find the results out soon enough.

Something like this had been coming at them for years, and for too long he’d felt like the lone sentry to realize it. Not that long ago a hacker had detected an exploit in the Excel program and had the nerve to offer it on eBay, in essence selling potential access to every computer online with a copy of Excel. How many was that? Ten million? Fifty million? With so many cloned programs and illegal copying, there was no way to know. Each one represented a doorway through which any cracker could send his malware. And the guy who’d discovered it sold the knowledge over the Internet as if he were peddling a used Ford!

Jeff had visited Web sites where anyone could download rootkit and other virus code. The creators were just giving the technology away. Any novice hacker with a rudimentary knowledge of viruses could now cloak his programs or discover a new, nastier virus.

Security firms named variants with letters of the alphabet. Some viruses had so many variants they wrapped around the alphabet three times. One virus alone was known to have two thousand versions.

The Sober worm, one of the most proliferative ever released, actually communicated with its creator. The guy wasn’t a dunce. The worm checked specified URLs on certain days to search for instructions on what destructive act to commit. The thing was, the URLs didn’t exist. The creator knew the ones he’d planted in the virus. When he was ready to give it instructions, he created the URL on the day he wanted to tell it what to do. How did you stop something like that? Jeff thought.

The number of businesses harmed by malware was increasing every month. The public only read about it when ABC, CNN, or the Financial Times was struck. Though thousands of new viruses or variants of old ones were released every year, the great harm was coming from the ones seeking financial gain. You could now hire people to write malware to make you a profit, and plenty of unscrupulous people were taking advantage of that.

If it wasn’t this time with Superphreak, Jeff thought, then soon enough such an attack would be mounted and bring the Internet, and a significant number of the computers connected to it, down for the count, requiring that everything be rebuilt from scratch. Billions of dollars’ worth of information would permanently be lost. Businesses and operations necessary to maintain the nation would stop in their tracks. Countless tens of thousands would be thrown out of work; companies would fail. The cost to the nation and to the world’s economy was all but incalculable. It would be what had happened to Fischerman, Platt & Cohen but on a worldwide scale.

Once the system was rebuilt, there could be no certainty the virus, or some variant of it, could not worm its way into the new system. The price to be paid for the current complacency was likely incalculable. Jeff couldn’t contemplate it without bile rising in his throat. But, on his own, what could he do about it? And even when he’d had access to the powers that be, fools such as Carlton hadn’t taken him seriously.

Jeff logged onto his laptop as he tore open the package from Daryl, revealing an external USB hard drive. He unfolded and read her hastily scribbled note:

These are copies of disks we received late yesterday and today. Each has Superphreak and each has a rootkit, as you predicted. They are getting easier to find thanks to you. Each does something different. Three more deaths have been reported. I’m scared.

Jeff grimaced. He was scared himself. His ICQ icon blinked and the laptop chirped. He opened the instant-messaging system.

Jeff hoped that her confidence in him wasn’t misplaced. If her entire team couldn’t identify what she’d sent, he doubted that he could. For two hours he worked on the disk and made little progress other than to cover familiar ground, though he was getting faster at it. Finally, his attention was drawn to the time stamps on a number of files: Date modified: 09/11. The dates were off nearly a month. Odd.

Curious, he ran another forensic tool, then stopped cold as he read the results. That was it. It had to be. The trigger to the viruses was the date!

Jeff stood up and began pacing the room. Had he missed a changed date on the law firm’s computer? How many other infected computers had the wrong date somewhere in the software?

Then there was the date itself. It might be a fluke. Or perhaps Superphreak was using the date as a trigger to make a point.

Which raised still another issue — could all the Superphreak viruses be time-triggered? Was that something they’d missed? Could that be what happened at the hospitals? At the Ford plant? To the airplane?

Jeff’s heart was racing as he called Daryl. After several rings her sleepy voice answered.

“I’ve just come across something unusual on those CDs.” He told her about the modified dates, hearing the apprehension in his own voice.

“The trigger is the date 9/11?”

“I’ll check my client’s computer in the morning. Your team should follow up too.”

“Of course.” Daryl hesitated. “Jeff, what if—”

“I know,” he cut her off. “I’ve already considered the possibility that we’re actually dealing with Arab terrorists. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s first see if it really is the trigger.”

No sooner had he disconnected than his cell phone rang.

“The monthly backup crashed and burned,” Sue said, sounding weary. “Just like the other.”

30

George Carlton eased his BMW down the narrow, two-lane road, then pulled into an isolated picnic area. He sat there idling for five full minutes before switching off the ignition. It had been at least a year since he’d last used this drop box, and he was certain no one had followed him.

He’d had no idea how useful working surveillance for the Bureau would be. In fact, he wished he’d paid closer attention to his seasoned partner, because playing the part of the fox instead of the hound was daunting. It seemed simple enough to drop off a disk with information, but he knew how easy it was to fall into patterns.

During his time Carlton had played a small role in catching a Soviet operator working under embassy cover who’d returned to the same drop box too often. He’d been so predictable that the Bureau had set the location under surveillance, no longer bothering to follow him to the site. They’d had no trouble catching the American traitor who provided the Soviet operator with information, visiting the same drop box. From what Carlton knew, they’d turned the traitor into a double agent for a good two years, during which time he gave false information to the Soviets, before deciding his usefulness was gone and they had arrested the Russian, rolling up a spy ring.

So when Carlton had initially set up his locations with Fajer al Dawar, he’d insisted they be employed in an unpredictable rotation. It had gone as smoothly as he’d hoped, and Carlton intended for it to stay that way. Still, during the years of their association, as he preferred to think of it, he always experienced a bit of angst whenever he dropped off a disk on the way home from work.

At their first meeting in Riyadh years ago, Carlton had given Fajer a Hotmail address for contacting him. “Only use it once,” Carlton had cautioned. “When we meet next, I’ll have a more secure system for communication worked out,” certain that Fajer was impressed with his caution and expertise.

They’d met for the second time in New York City four months later. Fajer was attending various business meetings on behalf of the Saudi government, as Carlton understood it, and requested that they meet, bringing along his first contribution of information. Carlton had stayed at a cheap hotel on Broadway where they’d allowed him just to flash his driver’s license so he could register under a false name and pay in cash for two nights. He’d told Emily he was away on business, and though such trips for him were rare, she’d not so much as lifted her nose from her Sidney Sheldon novel.

In the end, Carlton had left it to Fajer to come to his small room. Better to risk that then to travel about the city, have the bad luck of someone spotting him, then have to answer questions.

Fajer had arrived on time, dressed in a Western suit and unaccompanied, as Carlton had requested. They’d shaken hands, and as they sat facing one another, Carlton said, “Forgive the hotel. I was able to use cash and a false name.”

“A wise precaution.” Then came a round of courtesies that Carlton bore patiently. Finally Fajer asked, “Do you have something for me?”

“Yes,” Carlton said, patting his jacket pocket, “but I want to go over some of the terms again.”

“Of course. You’ve had some months to reconsider my proposal. It is only natural that you would have questions.” Fajer smiled, a man accustomed to being in complete command of every situation.

“The use of this material is entirely commercial, as you said?”

“Absolutely. And you control what it is you give me. If you are concerned the information could have any other use, withhold it. I will never know.”

“I ask because I am not a traitor.”

“Of course not,” Fajer assured him. “We are both honorable men. There is no question of that.” Fajer pulled a cigarette from a packet and held it up in question. Carlton nodded agreement, though he was in a nonsmoking room.

After returning from his junket, Carlton had scoured the Internet for everything he could find about the Franco-Arab Chemical Company — Franco-Arabe Chimique Compagnie, or FACC, as it was better known. Fajer was all but impossible to find, identified only as the company’s Saudi owner. The name of the company, Carlton discovered, was a bit of a misnomer. While at one time it had apparently been the primary importer of various chemicals into the Saudi kingdom, it was now primarily an importer of oil-production equipment, computer-related electronics, and electronics in general.

Carlton had applied himself in determining just what kind of information would be of use to such a company, while being the most profitable for him. At home, he’d conducted extensive Internet research on Saudi Arabia and oil to learn what was in the public domain, then at the office he’d accessed databases available to him and compared the two. He’d found several strategic reports prepared by the CIA he thought Fajer would want and downloaded them. Using a laptop he bought just for this purpose, he vetted the material at home, reducing it to bullet points with short generic summaries, which he printed on standard stock paper he was careful never to touch. That way, should the information get beyond Fajer, its original source could not be identified. Between reports to the Saudi, Carlton planned to keep the laptop in his bank deposit box.

That winter Carlton had surprised Emily with a week’s vacation in Aruba. They’d never taken a holiday in the winter before, and she’d been thrilled. While she lost money at one of the casinos, he’d established a numbered offshore bank account for himself, one he could access and control via the Internet. Since returning home he’d been cautious never to access it with one of his own computers or those of the CIA or Homeland Security. As an added level of security, all payments from Fajer were wired to a GoldMoney account he’d established. From there it went to Aruba. The money was as untraceable as twenty-first-century technology made possible.

During that hotel room meeting Carlton had said, “In case I didn’t make it clear when we first met at your lovely home, I have no interest in this unless it is very profitable.” Fajer had nodded his head. “Here is the information from two Company reports you might find of interest.” Carlton handed him a manila folder.

“And here,” he continued, giving Fajer a printed sheet of paper, “is the account into which you are to wire the money. If it is enough, we will meet again.” He’d then briefed Fajer on the various drop boxes he intended to use. “Our personal meetings must be infrequent. None is even better. I mean no disrespect, but each time I see you increases the likelihood I’ll be detected.”

Fajer nodded as if impressed. “I understand and agree, though from time to time a personal meeting may be necessary.”

“The American government views the release of commercial data the same way it would if I were behaving as a spy.”

Fajer pursed his lips. “I wasn’t aware of that. We must be very careful, in that case. There is much more at risk here than your career. Why not simply e-mail the material to me?”

Carlton had considered that very idea. He’d checked with Jeff Aiken of his Cyberterrorism Unit on Internet security, someone whose expertise in this regard he trusted, and though he’d understood e-mail was usually easy to trace, efforts could be made to conceal it. He decided that was too complicated for him and not worth bothering with. Besides, he understood that the NSA programs monitoring e-mail were highly sophisticated, and he was certain his messages would be spotted. No, the old proven methods were best — except hereafter he’d leave the material on the less bulky disks.

“The drops are safer,” he’d answered. Fajer had not pursued the matter.

Those two initial reports had garnered Carlton $50,000. Over the years, Carlton had taken in half a million dollars from Fajer, transferring data to him on average just twice a year. The money had made possible his new car and better vacations. He’d also paid off his personal debt, being careful to do so slowly. Only now was he in a position to start piling up the money. With a bit of luck, Carlton was of the opinion he’d be retiring early from DHS. And since most of his assets didn’t legally exist, a divorce was likely in the cards.

He’d only met with Fajer twice since that 2000 meeting in New York City. The last had been in Arlington, Virginia, the previous June. This time Fajer had taken a modest hotel room, and as before, they met indoors.

Following the exchange of the usual pleasantries and the information Carlton had brought, Fajer had crossed his legs, taken a long moment to light an elegantly thin cigarette, then said, “I have an associate in Paris. The relationship between us is very complicated, and you’d have to be an Arab to understand it. The bottom line, as you Americans so delightfully say, is that I have a family obligation with this person I must fulfill. I don’t like it, but I have no alternative. I hope you understand.”

Carlton felt a tingle along his spine. He’d been trained in the art of espionage, what was then called tradecraft, and could not view his relationship with Fajer without considerable suspicion. Their arrangement had gone on much longer than he’d initially thought it would, so long he’d become accustomed to the idea that it would continue unchanged for another few years. Now he wondered if it had all been a setup, aimed for this very moment.

“This associate is engaged in the use of computer viruses to obtain financial information. He then draws money from those accounts.”

“Theft.”

Fajer looked in pain at the word. “I assure you this is as unpleasant for me as for you. What I require is quite simple. I must know if the government is alerted to an extensive network engaged in planting code on a large number of computers. That is all.”

“The government is a big place.”

“Of course. I mean within your province. No more.”

“For how long?”

Fajer shrugged. “I’m not an expert on these things, but as I understand it, the worms, if that’s the right word, are being quietly planted now. Once enough are in place, then at a predetermined point they will all be activated at once. I have explained that I can only assist this one time.”

“Does anyone know about me?”

Fajer looked horrified. “Of course not! My word of honor! It is assumed that someone in my position has contacts. I was just asked to use them. This unpleasantness repays an obligation, and I will be considerably in your debt. You’ve been very helpful to me these last years, and I’ve come to regard us as friends. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. If there was any other way, you can be assured I’d do it.”

Carlton took time to retrieve a bottle of water from the minibar and open it. He took a sip, then said, “I don’t know…”

“My personal guarantee to you will be one million dollars, half to be paid now, half when the operation is finished, sometime before the end of the year.” Carlton was motionless. “In addition, you will be paid five percent of what is collected.”

“How much will that be?”

Fajer smiled. “I have no faith in such a figure. It seems too ridiculous. I asked the same question and was told your share would be no less than fifty million dollars.” Fajer stopped, stubbed one cigarette out, then elegantly lit another.

Fifty million dollars! Carlton’s mind raced at the possibility. He could retire at the end of the year, begin his new life. But did he trust Fajer? Was he hearing the truth? An Internet financial scam seemed plausible enough, but it was very different from what they’d been doing. It was outright theft, and if a den of thieves fell apart, who knew how it would end?

“Are you quite certain I’ll be kept out of it?” he asked. Risk, his broker often said, was directly associated with return.

The Arab placed his hand to his heart. “On my honor.”

Carlton willed himself to slow down, to think this through, but he found his mind a fog. Fifty million dollars! He couldn’t get past the number. “I can do this.”

“Excellent,” Fajer said, smiling. “We will continue with the drops as before, and I still desire the kind of information you’ve been providing. There is no change in that, but I ask you to set up an electronic mail system for contacting me in the event you learn something definitive on this other business. I will leave it to you.”

That had been just over two months ago. The first half million was safely in his Aruba account, invested in a balanced portfolio. Carlton stepped from the car and walked to a picnic table where he sat, as if lost in thought. Instead, he surreptitiously scanned the area to be certain he was not being observed. Satisfied, he walked to a tree as if to urinate. As he stood there, he slipped the disk into a hole. A few minutes later he was on the highway, expecting to be home within the half hour.

31

Brian Manfield awoke with a start.

He’d slept with his window undraped so that the first rays of the rising sun flooded the small room with light. He hated alarm clocks, though one was set on the stand beside his bed. He reached across the naked back of the young woman and switched it off.

In the bathroom Manfield turned on the shower and, as he waited for the water to warm, urinated at great length in the toilet. Finished, he climbed into the shower, where he washed and shaved. Six feet two inches tall, weighing 185 pounds, Manfield was fit and worked to stay that way. With thick dark hair and deep blue eyes inherited from his mother, he was exceptionally handsome. After toweling off, he slipped on a robe he’d acquired at the Carlyle in Manhattan, then went to the kitchen for his usual breakfast of fruit, toast, marmalade, and tea.

Outside was one of those sparkling days London sees too rarely. He carried his breakfast onto his balcony and ate standing up, taking in the expanse of the old city. He loved London. He’d spent most of his adult life here and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

In the kitchen he carefully washed the dishes in the sink, then set them to drain. Back in the bedroom he meticulously dressed in a startling white broadcloth shirt with striped tie and a nearly black Anderson & Sheppard suit from Savile Row. Finally, he slipped on the black banker’s shoes he preferred.

Caroline Bynum stirred in the bed as he slipped on his gold Rolex. Not yet twenty years old, born with more money than God, she was crazy about him, still in the early bloom of the relationship.

“Caro,” he said quietly. “I have to leave now. Take your time. Lock up when you go, there’s a dear. I’ll call later today when I’m free.” The young woman gave a grunt, then lapsed into deep sleep. Manfield smiled, took his cell phone from on top of the dresser, and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

It was just a ten-minute walk to his office. On such a beautiful day, he never considered driving or taking a taxi. Arriving five minutes early, he greeted the receptionist, then went straight to his office, where he perused the Financial Times as he had another cup of tea. Then he checked his e-mail, dashed off four replies, and settled in with the newspaper.

Special Applications Security, or SAS as it was known, had been created twenty years before by two former Special Air Service operatives who selected the name for its meaningful initials. Five years earlier they’d sold the lucrative international company to Lanson Security, one of the UK’s oldest security companies. SAS had, however, been largely untouched by the transition. The company specialized in security measures and hardware for private companies and small governments worldwide. The former manager had been named president of the company and business had gone on as before.

Manfield had worked at SAS for just over three years and was considered the company’s brightest star. He spoke five languages, which had proven helpful to the company in recent years, and was adept at blending in with various cultures. He traveled on average eight times a year for the company, his usual trip lasting two weeks. Though he could present and pitch the latest offerings in terms of security gates and twenty-first-century technology, he was most skilled with small weapons and was inevitably dispatched when an order for such was in the offing. More than once his consummate skill with the German HK MP-5 submachine gun had resulted in a larger-than-expected order. He boasted he could write his name with a burst of automatic fire from fifty yards, then did so.

Except that the name he wrote was not really his own. Brian Manfield was born Borz Mansur in Grozny, Chechnya, to a British mother, a devoted Communist, and Chechnyan father, at that time a general in the Soviet army. Until the fall of the Soviet empire, Borz had lived in the Soviet Union, attending school in Moscow while living with his parents. When Dzhokhar Dudayev declared Chechen independence in 1991, Borz was eleven years old, so his father had sent mother and son to London for safety. Borz’s father had then flown to Grozny, where he’d promptly sided with the rebels against the Russian army.

When Russia invaded in 1994, General Mansur had organized the ongoing resistance after the occupation and had directed guerrilla operations from the Caucasus Mountains. Three times he left to seek help from various affluent Muslims, once managing to reach London for a brief visit with his wife and son, whom he decided to take back with him.

In 1996, following a period of phony negotiations, the Russians once again invaded the country. This time Borz took part in the fighting, where he proved adept at night ambushes and the assassination of Russian officers. With his perfect Russian and European looks he would don a Russian uniform, then strike terror behind the lines. Shortly before hostilities largely ended that August, Borz’s father was killed, betrayed by the Russians, who violated a peace parley.

Borz returned to London, where he resumed his formal education. At the same time, his mother directed that he anglicize his name. Now in his thirties; he knew no one who was aware of his past. For all appearances and purposes, he was Brian Manfield, the perfect English gentleman. If people noticed that he never ate pork sausage, or if they believed they’d seen someone looking like him emerging from a mosque, they thought nothing more of it.

At three that afternoon Manfield called Caro. “Are you up yet?”

“Of course, silly. Been up for hours. I want to see you.”

Manfield chuckled. “Soon enough. How about a drink at six, then some dinner?”

“I know what I want to eat, and it’s not dinner.”

“Save it for dessert. I will.”