The IRIS Algorithm, page 25
“Ya. That’s why we have Helga.” Günter laughed. “We’ll walk ahead of you. Trust me, they will look at her and wonder why she’s hanging out with a lug-head like me. Be a tourist and they never see you.”
Günter and Helga strolled at a leisurely pace. We followed at a comfortable distance. Not too close to be obvious, but close enough for Helga’s pulsating, heat signature to render us invisible. I was right about the tattoo. A beautiful blue and black butterfly partially emerged south of her low cut jeans, beckoned with three dimensional reality and wantonness. A Buddhist monk would follow that butt-fly.
We passed through a small grassy park just off the Isartorplatz and wandered through a canyon of alternating beige and white buildings bathed in the glow of Bavarian sun. We walked down to the green waters of the river Isar, trying its best to be wild within the carefully engineered concrete bulwarks. The day mocked us with its beauty, lulled us with its calm, kissed our cheeks with its warmth, and promised to devour us later in the darkness. After Logan had seen enough, we loafed by the river until he made casual eye contact with Günter.
He had stopped to buy Helga a scoop of gelato in a cone. Günter nodded nearly imperceptibly, and the two turned nonchalantly, strolling beside the Isar, licking their gelato.
I wanted to be wild, to flow free and pure like the Isar, to give life and love. The numbers—concrete bulwarks in my mind––demanded order and precision. God’s inescapable truth.
Maybe all these years I underestimated God’s unusual sense of irony.
CHAPTER 58
MOBILE, ALABAMA – 5:15 A.M. (12:15 P.M. CEST)
Obadiah slowly opened his sagging eyes. In the gray light of the predawn, he felt a hunter’s stare fill his bedroom, ominous and final. He tried to rub the sleep from his face but his arms wouldn’t cooperate. Paralyzed. How strange.
“Finally, you awake from blissful slumber.” A man’s voice, deep and reassuring, rose from the semi-darkness. “I was concerned you might sleep through the entire procedure. I consider it very unprofessional to kill a man in his sleep, especially one so deserving of his appointment as you.”
Flat of his back, with quivering difficulty, Obadiah managed to turn his head toward the sound of the voice. His arms and legs were made of lead, ballast only. His eyelids blinked against the buffeting air from the ceiling fan. His raging heart struggled in the depths of his chest.
“Who are you? Let me see your face.”
The man sat in Obadiah’s antique, Brazilian wood chair, moved from its place beside the closet to within three feet of the bed. His face obscured by the gloom of early morning, his dark form rested easily, arms folded; chair leaned back on two legs. He lowered the front legs to the floor and leaned closer to the bed. The long cylindrical shape of a gun barrel peered from his hand.
“Right to the point. I expected no less. A man of your stature and deeds—dubious beyond compare—mustn’t be kept waiting by the hired help.”
Though he couldn’t make out the face, Obadiah felt the man’s hideous smile. “You’re an assassin.”
“I’m a debt collector. Your bill is significantly past due.”
Obadiah struggled in vain to focus on the shadowy face, an angel of death, bleak and cold. The man hovered over him, completely at ease with the task at hand. The hollowness in Obadiah’s chest, where a soul should be, made him wonder if he was already dead, and this was just the beginning of his journey to hell.
“The paralysis is due to the pancuronium bromide. A little topical anesthesia on the top of the foot, and you never felt the pinprick.” The man spoke with icy detachment. “Starts in the extremities and works its way inward. If we had time, we would wait for the paralysis to reach your respiratory muscles, and I could enjoy watching you asphyxiate. Alas, time is of the essence, so we’re going ahead with 100 milliequivalents of potassium chloride to stop your hard heart.” The man lifted his hand revealing a syringe, not a gun. “My name is Roland Blax.”
“So the CIA stoops to killing me by lethal injection.” With all the disgust he could muster, Obadiah put on his patented scowl of superiority and attempted to wriggle up on the pillow. “I’m not some petty death row murderer.”
“Like I said, your debts are long overdue. The CIA can’t afford me anymore. Budget cuts, red tape, one too many reorganizations. They have twenty-year-olds with joysticks flying unmanned drones and shooting Hellfire missiles at SUV’s in the dirt country. Very impersonal. The poignant moment of realization, the bitter irony of mortality, the last chance for redemption— all missing when a machine drops ordinance on you from a mile high. This,” he raised the syringe, “this, my friend, is personal.”
The old mantle clock that had belonged to Obadiah’s mother chimed quarter past five.
A cheap clock outlives us all. Yes, the poignant moment of realization.
“Do you actually think I fear death, Mr. Blax?”
“Hmm. A serious question. In light of your dire circumstances, I believe it deserves a serious answer.” Blax shifted in his chair, leaning closer to the silk pillowcase. “I no longer take appointments without first reading the dossier of the target. I pass on far more jobs than I take. I reserve my talents and abilities for only the most deserving. I’m highly selective and very specialized. You should be pleased someone cared enough to hire the very best.”
“Hmphf. You didn’t answer my question.”
“Pardon me. No, I don’t think you fear death as much as you fear other things. I think you should. Personally, I believe death is only the beginning of sorrow.”
Obadiah’s chest felt heavy. His breaths came shallow and rapid. Was it the effect of the drug? Was his worn out body trying to fight back? Was the cruel certainty of fate overpowering him? He would never admit to some halfwit philosopher assassin that he feared other things more than death: being irrelevant, being weak, and being forgotten. Mostly he feared the wrath of his daughters, driven by hatred righteously earned.
“They may check your feet for a hypodermic puncture,” the angel of death said, “but probably not. A sick old man dies in his sleep from heart failure. Happens all the time.” Blax grabbed a limp foot and inserted the needle into a vein. He pressed the plunger. “Your clock is definitely ticking now. If you’re going to say any prayers, I suggest you get right to the point.”
Heart failure? Not assassinated? The bitter irony of mortality.
His heart fluttered. Even through partial paralysis, the pain grew in his shoulder and chest.
“Who did this?! Who did this to—” The searing pain choked off his last words.
The rosy light of dawn illuminated his room to reveal Blax’s maddening smile. His demeanor pathetically pleasant and unthreatening. He was murdered by the man behind the counter at the ice cream parlor.
“Obadiah, please be serious before you die. You know who did this. You’ve always known it would end this way.”
The last chance for redemption. Oh, God …
CHAPTER 59
MUNICH, GERMANY –– 2:33 P.M. CEST
The thrill was gone after the second Internet café crowded with grungy, tattooed hipsters anonymously surfing the Internet. Their visible piercings made me want to run to the nearest pharmacy for hydrogen peroxide. I shuddered to think about their more personal invisible ones. I suspected their anonymous surfing was up to no good. So were we.
With Farki’s help, I began making small intrusions into AEM’s data center. The three hours of intrusions weren’t elegant and could be tracked. We kept them short. I moved from place to place to keep them from pinpointing my location. At some point, AEM would notice I was in their system. I did not need unrequested room service in the form of irate security guys, compliments of AEM, so we used public access points.
The fifth location, Incog24, was in the center of town and nicer than the others. Located off the Marienplatz—Mary’s Square—in the shadow of the gothic spires of Neues Rathaus—the New City Hall—the streets were flooded with tourists. The area was a maze of angled side streets and narrow back alleys we could scamper into if needed. It was close to the Hofbrauhaus, Munich’s famous beer hall, which produced many happy red faces to disappear into if needed. I did not like beer, but being in Bavaria in the summer made me reconsider that decision.
I had not found a trace of IRIS on AEM’s servers. Maybe they did not load it, a delusional thought even without beer. The double glass doors of Incog24 were propped open. Everyone, but us and a few other nerds, enjoyed the warm sun and mingling aromas of wursts wafting on the gentle breeze, carnivores on parade. The nearest vegan was somewhere north of Luxembourg. If my brain and my stomach could agree on what time it was, I might get hungry again.
I led the way between the round segmented tables of Incog24, past the coffee bar, through an opening into a section that was unoccupied. Ignoring seats available in the front apparently offended the frowning barista’s German efficiency. We had no tattoos or piercings and wore no leather, so we looked very American. She let it go, which was a good move on her part.
I was willing to start World War III if that was what it took to get Samuel back. A warm-up round with the coffee Nazi was fine with me. My foul and unforgiving mood had grown as the day progressed and we found nothing on AEM’s computers. I could not imagine why they had not loaded IRIS, and worse, I refused to imagine what they were doing to my son.
Logan took his usual sentinel position, watching the front door, gauging the distance to the emergency exit, calculating how hard he had to throw a chair to break the plate glass window. I took the laptop out of my backpack, flipped it open, plugged in the power, connected to the Wi-Fi, and accessed the Internet. A message from Farki popped up. I knew it was bad news before I read it.
“Farki says we need to get on a conference call ASAP.” I plugged two USB headsets into the laptop and handed one to Logan.
“I guess we can do this here.” Logan frowned, shook it off. “No one could possibly know we’d end up here. Totally random. No way to bug it.” I made the secure VPN connection, and we joined the video conference, huddling on the same side of the table, a blank wall behind us. Farki, Burns, and Martin were on the call. Everyone in different locations, no one happy.
Burns took the lead. “Obadiah Skeffington was found dead in his home at 7:00 a.m. central time. Massive heart attack. His housekeeper found him dead in his bed.” The dour look on Burns’ face said that wasn’t the worst of it. “There’s a problem.”
“A problem bigger than 'there is no point in snatching a dead man, because nobody will trade you anything for a corpse' kind of a problem?” Walnut hard, the muscles in Logan’s jaw twitched as he talked.
“We had surveillance on the compound,” Burns said. “When the ambulance showed, and we learned Skeffington was dead, we reviewed video from the remote camera. It picked up someone leaving the residence at approximately 5:30 a.m. That person was Roland Blax. I don’t know how the son of a bitch got in there.”
“I think the bigger question is who sent him?” Martin said. The smugness in his voice said he already knew. “I believe this Roland Blax fellow is an associate of yours Logan. Isn’t that right?”
Logan froze the screen with polished granite eyes, cold and hard. I wanted him to say this was not about revenge; someone else did this. He did not utter one word.
“If that’s not enough,” Martin dripped arrogance, “the IRIS algorithm was used today against the London Stock Exchange. The attack caused a flash crash. Trading was halted. I expect the New York Stock Exchange to be hit after the opening bell today,” he looked at his watch, “in about an hour.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Farki and I have been inside AEM’s data center for over three hours today. We have not found a trace of IRIS. I have run explicit searches, heuristic searches, and polymorphic searches. It is not on their system.” I do not like having my expertise questioned, especially by Martin. “Are you sure the flash crash wasn’t a glitch in somebody’s computer trading? That has happened before.”
“The automated trading programs did go haywire,” Farki said. “But that was after a huge spike in volume, and when the major financial houses sold off their positions.”
“Well, that is what they do, isn’t it? Sell positions?” I desperately wanted to believe we still had time.
Farki’s forced professionalism momentarily reverted to geek mode. “Dude, I mean like the top ten institutions put in sell orders for all of their positions. Everything. The whole market would have gone to penny stocks if trading hadn’t been halted. Buddy of mine is a programmer for Goldman. They’re trying to reverse out all the pending orders and figure out what the hell happened.”
“The only thing that explains how ten of the world’s largest institutions suddenly decided on the same day to sell off all their stock holdings is IRIS,” Martin said. “They used IRIS to gain access to the trading systems and execute the orders.”
“It won’t matter if they straighten out the orders today,” Farki said. “Someone can just waltz into their system and screw it up again tomorrow. Once the markets get wind of this, they will tank on their own, which was the point of the attack.”
“We have to nuke them,” I said. “Farki, we need to initiate denial of service attacks on every AEM data center. That will keep them from getting access to the outside. I will jump on their internal network from here and start melting down their servers. They will know they are under attack, and it will be ugly, but I do not see any other way.”
The numbers and shapes churned in the black depths of my mind. The madness of my words made manifest the pale probabilities of success. I saw myself standing by the River Isar, staring into the glassy depths, the reflection of the AEM facility waving nervously on the surface. We would drown together.
“I’ll start the process of bringing the authorities into the loop,” Martin said.
“No!” Logan snapped from his trance “You said I had until tomorrow morning.”
“Things changed,” Martin said. “You’ve made no progress. The prime suspect was assassinated. IRIS is in the wild. It’s pointless to delay any further.”
Martin’s voice, which I have always found soothing, sounded cold and matter of fact, self-righteous.
“My son is being held hostage less than two miles away from where I’m sitting.” Logan’s measured words controlled his imminent explosion. “It’s not pointless if I have a chance to rescue him before AEM panics.” There was a fulminating rage, a suppressed tone of darkness in Logan, which enthralled me with fear and adulation. “Give me twelve more hours. Samuel deserves that. Please.”
The brief silence hung heavy, an axe in midair, Samuel’s neck on the block below.
“I need to speak to Simone,” Martin said. “Alone.”
I will never understand why I said yes.
CHAPTER 60
I wanted Logan him to stay for the conversation with Martin, but he didn’t give me time to ask. An unhappy bull in a coffee shop, he made his way between the coffee stained tables and tattooed patrons in Incog24. Everything was happening too fast. With spiked fists, the thrashing numbers pounded against the back of my eyes.
Logan despised Martin; that was not new. The tension went back to the Puzzle Palace days. When I pushed Logan back then, he said it was nothing specific, just a bad feeling in his gut. Logan relied on his intuition a lot. He said it kept him alive. The only thing I knew about the illustrious Martin Stafford at the time was he was well dressed with splendid white teeth and a perfect tan.
Martin, despite his oversized ego, was the best friend I had—maybe the only friend. I owed him the right to talk to me privately. I am not sure why I suddenly felt like I needed a protector when I talked to him. Maybe it was because he was so cold and distant in the conference, maybe it was because he did not seem to give a damn about my child. Maybe Logan was right about him.
The state of the art, satellite phone chirped in my hand. Fortunately, the high-end model Martin provided looked pretty much like a regular cell phone. The last thing I needed was to draw attention to myself; although, in this Internet café’s human zoo, a bone through my nose would not draw attention.
After the encrypted link was established, Martin’s voice was as clear as if he were next to me. “Simone. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all of this. You deserve better.”
“Thanks, Martin, but as far as what I deserve… that is debatable.”
“Is Logan with you?”
“He stepped outside. You said you wanted to speak to me alone.” Logan hovered near the door. I gave him a discreet wave, but he did not see me or pretended not to.
“It’s better this way. We need to talk, Simone—just the two of us.” Martin’s voice had reverted to warm apple pie. Comforting. Safe. Dependable. Sometimes I drifted into a cushioned cocoon when he talked.
I sat back down slowly, keeping my eyes on Logan. He scanned every passerby for anything threatening, expected the worst. An unholy, raging fire glowed around him, an angry aura, which reminded me how little I knew about what haunted him.
“Simone, we don’t have much time. I’m sorry to have to be so direct and for not being there in person, but….” Martin’s voice trailed off.
The sudden dead air broke my trance. I had never heard Martin say he was sorry about anything, and he had said it twice in the past minute. I certainly never heard him at a loss for words.
“Martin, when have I not preferred direct? I am not a big fan of nuance.”
“Yes, of course.” Martin cleared his throat. “This business with Skeffington, it had to be Logan.”
“I considered that, but Logan would never jeopardize this mission.” The few seconds that I considered it during the conference call made me feel guilty. The minute the words left my mouth, I wished I had not admitted that to Martin. Mathematics required completeness and that meant considering all the data, but there was something disconcerting about Martin’s conclusion that it was Logan. Martin was brilliant and very logical in his own right; that was not logical. It didn’t fit the equation. Maybe I was too blind to see it or chose to ignore it.
