Dark Angel, page 24
“Whatever we do, we’ll want to keep Ordinary People out of the bureaucracy, away from the FBI,” Nowak said. “We don’t want any reports written about this.”
“The FBI is already pissed at us—and at you,” Letty said.
“Yes. They are. I’ll deal with that when I get back to Washington—and believe me, I can deal with it. Some people very, very close to the President and the joint chiefs are trying to figure out how we can help the Ukrainians, without kicking the hornet’s nest.”
Cartwright’s eyebrows went up. “So we’re cleared to do what we fuckin’ well please, to get the job done.”
“Try not to blow up any buildings. Not large buildings, anyway,” Nowak said. She stood up and wheeled her suitcase toward the door. “We’ve been told in no uncertain terms to get this done, to stop the trains, whatever it takes.”
Twenty
Raoul, the well-dressed attorney, dark pinstripe suit, French shoes, silk Hermès necktie, pointed the couple known as Bob and Sue at the black Chrysler 300 and said, “There’s your ride.”
“I gotta tell you,” Bob said, as he dragged his soles reluctantly across the sidewalk, Raoul’s ham-sized hand on his arm—Bob’s real name was Wesley Bunne, pronounced boon—“this whole thing scares me. Why would anyone put up that much money to get us out?”
He looked down at the limo, parked in the sunshine outside the Metropolitan Detention Center.
“Because the guy in the limo needs to talk to you about some hacking activities that he believes you’re aware of. Nothing to be scared of,” Raoul said. “Besides, he expects to get all the money back when you show up for your court date.”
“Would you say that we have any alternative to getting in the limo?” Sue asked. Her real named was Sharon Pecker, she’d grown up in Rib Lake, Wisconsin, and had an inborn suspicion of big-city limos, especially black ones.
“You have nothing to worry about. Honest,” Raoul said, though he wasn’t entirely sure of that. “We are looking to you for information, if you have it. If you don’t have it, we drop you off at a bus stop. If you do have it, we send you anywhere you want to go in the limo, with five hundred dollars to buy your lunch.”
“Probably want to go to Ocean Park,” Wesley said.
“That’s great,” Raoul said. “The man in the car lives over in that direction. He can run you right over there.”
Wesley and Sharon looked at each other, and then Wesley said, “What the hell. Let’s take the ride.”
As they walked up to the car, Raoul gave them his card. “The FBI is unlikely to press charges. If they do, I’ll demand discovery on every computer sting they’ve done in the last ten years, and the CIs they’ve used, to discover the extent to which they’ve covered for criminal activity. The federal attorney will give us some bullshit, but they won’t file.”
“That would be wonderful,” Sharon said.
Step was sitting in the backseat, wearing his beige chinos over cordovan shoes, with a yellow silk shirt, an outfit that you wouldn’t want to get blood on. The limo had a window between the front seat and the back and it was rolled up. Sharon got in the rear-facing seating, looking at Step, who smiled at her, and Wesley got in beside Step.
“Where we going?” Step asked. Tom Boyadjian, in looking for the train hackers, had found Bob and Sue. He had determined that they weren’t the hackers they were looking for, but had also learned that they probably knew about Ordinary People. He’d called Step with the information, and Step had called the well-dressed attorney.
Wesley gave Step an address and Step took a cell phone from his pocket and called the driver, who sat five feet away, behind the window. Step repeated the address and the limo pulled away from the curb.
“What exactly did you want?” Sharon asked.
Step seemed to think about the question, then said, “You two . . . let’s face it, you’re criminals.”
Sharon opened her mouth to object, but Step put a finger up.
“That’s okay. So am I. Like you, I do something that doesn’t hurt anyone, but it’s technically illegal. I understand you were ripping off casino ATMs, while the casinos were ripping off anyone stupid enough to walk through their doors. Am I right?”
“You’re right,” Wesley said. “What kind of criminal are you?”
“To put it simply, the United States bans the export of certain computer components to certain countries that really need the parts. I mean, it’s ridiculous. Computer components are basically fungible . . . You know what fungible means?”
Sharon said, “Yes. It means one thing can be replaced by another, all commonly available. Oil is fungible. Wheat is fungible. Most hardware is fungible.”
Step smiled: “Yes. Anyway, I acquire computer parts here in the U.S. and export them to . . . mmm . . . countries that want them. The way computer chips work, those countries will get all they want in two or three years, or five years, so why not now? Makes no sense. But, it’s a business opportunity.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Wesley asked. “We’re software, not hardware.”
“I have been troubled lately by software programmers. We thought you may be associated with them, but my researchers now say you are not. That you were involved in other activities, the ATM attacks, were caught by the FBI, and were turned as confidential informants. My researchers say that as FBI informants, you may be aware, or have encountered at one time or another, a group of three, two women and a man. The women, I’m told, are thin, attractive, carry guns and are willing to use them. The man is very large—tall and fat, dark hair and black-rimmed glasses . . .”
Wesley sat forward: “Those motherfuckers! Those motherfuckers have something to do with the FBI. There weren’t two women, that we know of, there was only one. Named Charlie. The fat guy is named Paul. I don’t know what they have to do with the FBI, because they’re not FBI, but they’re something . . .”
Paul: that confirmed George Hewitt’s comment about a man named Paul. “Charlie and Paul. Charlie’s a man’s name . . .” Step said.
“Also a nickname for Charlotte,” Sharon said.
“Ah.”
They told the story of the abortive sting, about the apparent argument between the FBI agents and people higher up the law enforcement pole, the release of Charlie and Paul, and their own eventual arrest and three-day isolation. They told the story that Charlie and Paul told, the hospital ransomware attack, the Bitcoin problem, and the University of Florida.
“So they’re criminals, too?” Step asked. He’d been listening attentively, thumb and middle finger under his chin, index finger along his nose.
“Yeah, but they have something that the FBI wants,” Sharon said. “We just don’t know what that is. I’ll tell you, though, if you run into them, watch that chick. Charlie. We were sitting at a café table and she pulled a gun and threatened to shoot me between the tits. That’s her words. She was serious. She’s a fuckin’ psycho.”
“I have reason to believe that,” Step said.
By then, they were heading west on the 10, toward Ocean Park, and Wesley and Sharon were feeling more confident about their destination being somewhere other than a ditch.
Step asked more questions about Charlie and Paul, and about Ordinary People, and who might be associated with the group. Wesley and Sharon were aware of Ordinary People, as was the FBI. They gave Step some names, including those of Loren Barron, William Orleans, and Michele Obermath.
With the Barron name, Step decided that their information was at least somewhat reliable. He’d never heard of William Orleans or Michele Obermath, but the surnames were unusual enough that they could probably be found. He made notes in an alligator-leather-covered notepad the size of a checkbook.
“What’d they do to you?” Wesley asked.
“They’re fuckin’ with me and I don’t know why,” Step said. “They stole part of a shipment of computer chips I had stored in a warehouse. One of those psycho chicks, probably this Charlie, shot one of my men and when the cops and FBI showed up, they let them go.”
“That’s what we really don’t get,” Sharon said. “They’re criminals, but nobody seems to care. Or they’ve got influence somewhere.”
Step nodded and bobbed his head: “Yes. A mystery. I really don’t like mysteries. They tend to bite you when you’re not looking.”
The ride from MDC to Ocean Park took fifteen minutes and Step dropped them a block from their apartment. At the curb, Step leaned toward Sharon with a thin fold of cash, and said, “Five hundred dollars. For lunch. And give me your phone numbers. I could use a couple like you. Computer people. Be a lot safer than what you used to do, more . . . invisible. Good money, too, and we will get you legal help for your current problems.”
They gave him phone numbers and he wrote them in the elegant notepad.
Sharon said, “I know you’re a lot bigger than we are, but can I give you something to think about?”
“Sure,” Step said, giving her his number-three smile.
“You’re selling one chip at a time. You might manage to get hold of a lot of chips, but each one is a separate sale. That’s because you’re selling hardware. And you have to find and pay the people who . . . acquire . . . the chips for you and organize trucks and ships and airplanes and warehouses, and you have to hide from the cops and pay bribes and legal fees and so on, and then you have to find customers and collect your money. Overall, after acquiring and shipping and paying employees and lawyers, how much do you keep? What’s your personal margin? Ten percent? Fifteen?”
“That’s not too far off,” Step admitted. “Of course, there’s no taxes.”
“But you’re risking prison,” Sharon said.
Step nodded: “True.”
“The thing about software is that it’s usually written by one person or a small team. You pay them once,” Sharon said. “When it’s done, you can ship the software anywhere in the world. From anywhere in the world. Anonymously. For free. If it’s the right piece of software, you can sell it over and over and over. You can sell it a hundred times, or a thousand, without lifting a finger or doing any more work. No other employees to deal with. And it’s very serious stuff. The U.S. government and the Israelis fucked up an entire top-secret Iranian nuclear processing plant with a virus called Stuxnet.”
“Huh. And you know about this sales concept because . . .”
“Because it’s done all the time in other businesses,” Wesley said. “Stephen King writes one book and the publishing company, not him, prints and sells a million copies. But Stephen King only does that one thing—writes one book.”
“So?”
“Wes and I have some ideas for a computer security company that would be able to isolate and destroy the most vicious kinds of viruses and malware,” Sharon said. “Do that one thing: destroy them quickly and cleanly and get paid very well for doing it. Aboveboard. Good tax-paying citizens. We would like to find a . . . sophisticated . . . venture capitalist to finance the start-up. We think we could launch for as little as a million dollars.”
“Why would anybody hire you in particular?” Step asked. “As opposed to some big security company?”
“Because we’d be so quick and efficient. We’d spot the virus first, we’d spot all the infected businesses—there could be dozens of them, or even hundreds—and one program would kill them. We’d be out there while everybody else is still sucking on their thumbs,” Sharon said. “We couldn’t be quicker or more efficient with the fix than if we’d created the viruses ourselves, if we’d done that one thing.”
She smiled.
“Ah. Now that is something to consider,” Step said. His eyebrows went up, creating a bank of wrinkles across his forehead.
“If you think you could get serious about it, we’ve written a detailed prospectus, entirely encrypted, of course. I’m sure you’d find it interesting.”
“I will call you when the current problem is dealt with,” Step promised.
As they were getting out of the car, Sharon said, “Haven’t seen a nice little notepad like that in a while. Alligator hide. Everything goes in cell phones now.”
Step said, “Yeah, well . . . You ever try to chew up and swallow an iPhone?”
* * *
On the way back to the Flats, Step’s phone dinged with an incoming message. The message, from Victoria, was simple enough: “V+3.” By the time it came in, she would have erased the outgoing message from her phone.
So: Volkov had arrived from Washington and there were three others with him. Step was aware of a Russian intelligence operation based in San Diego, after the spies had been chased out of the consulate in San Francisco. He’d been asked a half-dozen times to provide minor services to agents going through the LA area—cash, anonymous car rides, on one occasion a pistol, and on another, referral to a doctor who wouldn’t ask too many questions and would take payment in cash.
The medical problem had been serious but basically routine—nothing like a wound—but Americans were insured up to their necks, and most doctors didn’t deal in cash. But a few did, and Step knew two of them.
* * *
The limo dropped Step outside a parking structure in Santa Monica, where he’d left his car, and he drove back to his guesthouse from there. The guesthouse was also in the Beverly Hills Flats, a half mile from the main house.
Volkov always made him anxious. But he could, in the end, handle Volkov, he thought, and if he couldn’t, Victoria certainly could. He was more worried about the mystery of the two crazy chicks and the fat guy.
Though Volkov was bad, it was him and three other men. He, Step, had more men than that and if they weren’t exactly GRU quality, they were good enough. With the mystery group, he didn’t know what he was dealing with. Getting the entire FBI on his ass, or some other unknown American agency with shooters, would be a problem of a completely different order, because he didn’t have more men than the FBI.
He wondered, briefly, what would happen if he got a couple of boys, and they walked through the front door of the guesthouse and killed Volkov and the other three, right there, bam-bam-bam, and then denied ever seeing him? He thought about it, decided it probably wouldn’t work. Wouldn’t for sure if Volkov had already made a call from the house. But the concept was attractive. Maybe some other time, some other place, after he built an ironclad alibi. Talk first.
* * *
Volkov was a modern-day remnant of the old Soviet Union, a hulking, round-shouldered thug with a bullet head and heavy black eyebrows, and a mouth that naturally turned down in a scowl. He was sitting in the diminutive living room with a glass of iced tea. He wore a dark suit over a black tee-shirt, with poorly polished, blunt-tipped black shoes that looked like weapons, designed to kick someone to death. None of his three companions looked like him, but they had a GRU family resemblance, a built-in bull-necked glower, that any Russian civilian would have recognized and carefully walked around. Two of them had the kind of dark, well-trimmed beards that looked almost like velvet, or fur. One of them had a glass of iced tea, two had glasses of water.
“Ah, Arseny Denisevich, my old friend,” Volkov said when Step walked through the kitchen and into the living room. “You have problems.”
“Maybe I have problems,” Step said, speaking in Russian. “And maybe you have problems. The newspapers here say you’re about to invade Ukraine. I believe you might want to use trains to move your men and material to the front.”
“That would be classified as secret,” Volkov said. “But, as speculation, I would speculate that you might be correct. You were supposed to handle that potential problem.”
Step sank into an easy chair and Victoria handed him a glass of tea, heavy with sugar. “We’re merchants. We have to take protective steps to ensure the safety of our merchandise, so we have—we did have—the capabilities necessary to do that. We were happy to help the motherland if we could,” he said piously. “But in the last few days . . .”
He told the visitors about the elimination of three of the train ransomware creators. He added that the FBI had been all over the men who had done the job and had killed two of them and arrested the third, and that when he sent two more men to take out a fourth train hacker, one of his men had been shot, and the other was in the federal lockup.
Volkov’s forehead wrinkled: “How reliable are the men held by the Americans?”
“Very. They know we will get them out as soon as we can. Two were shot and are hospitalized and we are looking at removing them from the hospitals when they are recovered enough to travel, but before they are taken to a prison. We can do that. The other is in a federal lockup, but he did nothing aggressive and we think he will be allowed bail. If he is, we will remove him from the U.S. and return him to Serbia, where he won’t be found.”
“Why is this happening now?” Volkov asked. “Because of Ukraine?”
“I don’t know. There’s something going on that we don’t know about and that we’ve never experienced before. I think there’s an intelligence operation underway, because these people know cops, but they’re not cops, they’re shooters.”
“CIA,” Volkov said. “Maybe DIA. They both have shooters and the FBI wouldn’t touch them.”
“They don’t act like CIA. One of the girls looks and acts like a teenager, all tattooed and seemingly not too intelligent. I’ve been told that she’s a psycho. Threatened to kill another woman while they were sitting at a café table; flashed a pocket gun. They claim to have run a ransomware attack on a hospital in Georgia, and that has checked out. They actually stole computer components from one of my warehouses.”
