Hack, page 19
“We’ll work on it,” Mia said.
“Next question’s for Teofilo. What do you think of the coffee in this place?”
“Tastes like turpentine, but my family’s originally from Cuba, so my standards are a little higher.”
“Couldn’t agree more. Stuff’s swill. So tell me, Teofilo, what does a producer do, exactly?” Nik said.
“It’s Teo, and I put together Mia’s show, Dateline Washington, and help coordinate other Dateline podcasts for Newshound around the country. I book guests, suggest topics, recruit feedback, post to social media, help host events, write and edit scripts, record the show, promote the podcast, handle analytics, build audience. I might be leaving a few things out, but that’s the gist.”
“Teo makes the trains run on time, and I’d be lost without him. He’s a rock star,” Mia said.
“Wow,” Nik said. “Impressive. If I ever run a railroad, I’ll be sure to look him up. What’s this got to do with the job prospect you mentioned? You can’t possibly want me to talk about the singles scene in Washington, DC. That would take all of about a solid minute, minute and a half, tops.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Mia said, “but no, I’m not here to talk to you about Dateline, but I do want to talk to you about podcasts.”
Nik looked at Teo. “She serious?”
“Un-huh.” Teo nodded and added, “But I’m not sold.”
Nik responded, “Hmm. Sounds complicated.”
Mia said, “It’s not. It’s pretty straightforward. Tell him, Teo.”
“It’s pretty complicated,” Teo agreed with Nik.
Mia said, “Maybe just a little, but if I can master it, so can you.”
Nik demurred, “Mia, I appreciate it, but I really don’t think so.”
Mia countered, “You haven’t even heard the idea yet, Nik.”
“I don’t need to,” Nik said. “Look, Teo, the expert here, doesn’t think it’s a good idea, and it sounds like he knows a thing or two about podcasts.”
Mia said, “He thinks you’d be a natural. Right, Teo?”
“Hard to say,” Teo hedged. “You might do okay, depending.”
Nik said, “That’s a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one.”
“You are an excellent reporter, Nik, and good reporting makes for strong podcasts,” Teo said and stopped to sip on a metal straw that protruded from a polished gourd the size of a fist, “but I worry you would not think it serious journalism. Have you ever listened to Dateline Washington?”
Nik gave Mia an apologetic look. “I haven’t. Sorry.”
“How about any other podcast?” Teo said.
“A couple, but I never could understand what all the hoopla was about. Didn’t click, at least, not for me.”
“When was that?” Mia asked.
“I dunno. A couple years back.”
“Lot’s changed since then,” Teo said. “Early on, there were just a handful of shows where hosts were merely reading news stories, like a radio broadcast. There are now more than half a million podcasts airing weekly. Those early trials didn’t pan out, but we learned a great deal from their failures.”
“Yeah, like what?” Nik asked, checking his phone for messages and trying not to sound bored by the whole discussion.
“That successful podcasts need to be conversational, exploratory, expansive. Good ones start with a narrative that introduces the story line for that episode or episodes. That’s where old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting plays a role. And, generally speaking, podcasts work better in pairs. Mia always has a guest or a secondary host on her podcasts, for example.”
“We think the OmniSoft story would be a fantastic topic to explore,” Mia interjected. “Could be the type of story that we might be able to build a whole season around.”
That got Nik’s attention. “Where does Li’l Dick Whetstone fit into all this? Can’t imagine he’s supportive, since he just fired my ass.”
“He doesn’t,” Mia said. “Podcasts are run out of corporate. He has zero input into the product and doesn’t control the budget or talent.”
“Talent?” Nik said skeptically.
“That’s what we call the hosts,” Mia said, sounding a little sheepish. “But you’re free to call yourself whatever you like.”
“How ’bout reporter?” Nik said. “Always liked the ring of that.”
“Fine.”
“Do you have a name for this podcast?” Nik asked.
Teo looked at Mia, then Nik. “We were thinking The Front Page.”
“Hmm. Not bad. I like the sound of it.”
“So, you on board?” Mia asked.
Nik hesitated, then nodded. “I guess so. Not like people are beating down my door with job offers.”
“Great. I think you’re going to do great. Don’t you think so, too, Teo?”
Teo was noncommittal. “Perhaps.” He sniffed. “We’ll see.”
“Any ideas on how’d you like to kick it off?” Mia asked.
“A couple, but I need to think about it.”
“Okay, but you want to pull out all the stops for the first podcast if possible. Get people talking about it,” Teo advised.
“What about a story on our Chinese friend?” Nik said to Mia.
“Fantastic idea. I could see an opening show that teases a whole season of podcasts. If you go that route, I can sit in the second chair since I’m up to speed on the story. I can also envision a spot for Mo down the road.”
“Let me make a couple calls and do some more reporting. There’re more questions I have for Mr. Liu, and I need to get an official response to his allegations from the Justice Department. It’s going to take me a few days to nail everything down.”
“That’s fine,” Teo said. “And if you get a chance, go to Wondery and download a couple of their podcasts. I’d recommend Dirty John or Dr. Death. Give you an idea of the kind of style we’re shooting for, longer term.”
“Will do. By the way, what’s that you’re drinking?” Nik finally asked Teo after he took another long slurp from the metal straw.
“Yerba maté tea. It’s from Argentina.”
“Any good?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” Teo said with a shrug.
“Sorta like podcasts,” Nik said.
“Sorta like podcasts,” Teo agreed.
Chapter 47
January 13, Washington, DC
Nik, Mia, and Teo debated whether to launch The Front Page with just Liu Li’s tale about POOF falling into the hands of the Chinese or wait until they had assembled all the pieces of the far-flung story to make a much bigger splash. Nik had messaged Cal Walker on the encrypted app the day before and arranged to conduct a more extensive interview with Mr. Liu using the burner phones. But there was still much to the story he didn’t know. He was leaning toward holding off on the podcast until he could do more extensive reporting and gather more information.
Mia was in favor of rolling the story out episodically. “If you’re waiting on perfect, Nik, we’ll be here a very long time,” she cautioned.
Teo came down somewhere in the middle.
“There’s a good argument for holding off until all the stars align,” Teo said, “but the downside to that strategy is then we only have one shot to get it right.”
After several hours of batting it around, they still couldn’t reach a consensus, so they did what they often did in similar types of situations and turned to Frank Rath, the veteran newsman, for his input. They found Frank standing outside Newshound’s offices in his overcoat, looking pale, smoking a Merit Ultra Light, and reading a paperback.
Frank’s advice was short and to the point: “Either phone or get out of the booth,” he said.
His message was clear, and Nik, with Teo’s assistance, sat down to write the script for his first-ever podcast. He couldn’t help but wonder if it would also be his last, if Mr. Liu’s story didn’t hold up.
Teo had been promoting the podcast for the past couple days on social media, and Mia plugged it extensively on her show, Dateline Washington, as did other Newshound podcasts across the country.
The Front Page debuted midweek with Nik as host and narrator. He strongly doubted anyone would listen to it, let alone pay it much attention. He could not have been more wrong.
__________________
Producer’s introduction: This is the inaugural podcast of The Front Page, an enterprise-reporting program. The podcast is narrated by reporter Nik Byron, who is joined by Mia Landry, creator and host of Newshound’s popular podcast Dateline Washington. Now for Part One.
The Crown Jewels
On a brisk New York weekend morning, an unassuming member of China’s United Nations delegation was enjoying a leisurely walk back to his apartment after a light breakfast when he was approached by a stranger, a dark-haired woman, with an intriguing proposition: Would China be interested in acquiring one of the United States’s most guarded and promising surveillance technologies?
The woman, who quickly disappeared into the crowd after delivering the message, could not have chosen a better target to approach. The man, Liu Li, was not only a UN delegate, he was also secretly a member of China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s sprawling and all-powerful intelligence apparatus. In other words, he was a spy, working undercover as an interpreter for his country at the United Nations.
Her timing couldn’t have been any better, either.
China’s spymasters had been suffering a crisis of confidence ever since Edward Snowden, an American whistleblower, had leaked sensitive National Security Agency cables while he was employed by the CIA. The leaked classified diplomatic cables revealed a breathtakingly audacious spying enterprise the CIA had launched against US allies. While foreign diplomats and heads of state protested the security breach and claimed the US had violated their trust, the Chinese hierarchy saw the matter in an entirely different light.
The disclosures exposed just how superior US advanced spy technologies were compared to China’s. Snowden’s leaked documents confirmed what many already suspected but could never prove: that the US possessed new capabilities that allowed them to crack even the most hardened and sophisticated encryption systems.
The incident set off alarm bells across world capitals, but nowhere more so than in Beijing.
The country’s leaders instructed the Ministry of State Security and the People’s Liberation Army to join forces to close the technology gap by any means possible and to do it quickly. The PLA and State Security have a long history of working together to steal US military technologies, and they quickly spun up a bold, long-range plan not only to close the gap but to leapfrog the US, as well, in the all-important and evolving field of quantum computing.
What the Chinese plan didn’t envision was the stroke of good fortune Liu Li would have on that blustery autumn day. Seemingly out of nowhere, someone was offering to sell China the newest generation of US spy technology that the unidentified woman described as “the crown jewels of the US intelligence community.”
US officials referred to the “crown jewels” by another name. They know it as POOF, the name given to it by its creator, Cal Walker, who has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the federal government, alleging it illegally seized the software and forced his company into bankruptcy.
POOF, short for Phantom Omniscient Ocular Functionality, was initially developed by Walker after 9/11 to be an encryption-cracking, data-mining, and software surveillance program all rolled into one. When fully operational, POOF is capable of casting a net over an individual’s digital activities to capture their every move, transaction, and interaction in real time, and it was originally developed to track terrorists.
Starting with the thinnest piece of digital information, such as an email alias or IP address, POOF is capable of building and mapping comprehensive databases on targeted individuals, their families, and associates with exacting precision and invisibility.
Over the course of many months, the Chinese became convinced the technology they were being offered was genuine, and eventually purchased the stolen software through a third-party intermediary, the North Koreans.
At first, Liu Li was enthusiastic about the technology that had dropped into his country’s lap, but over time, he became disillusioned when he realized party leaders intended to use the powerful software not only to spy on other countries but to couple it with other programs to spy on and oppress its own citizens. Eventually, he says, China planned to offer the software to rogue governments to help suppress their populations as well.
China, Liu Li claimed, intended to marry POOF with artificial intelligence and facial-recognition software to build, quote, “a digital Great Wall” to imprison individuals where they lived.
Liu Li fled China to the United States to warn other countries of what his government intended.
When contacted about Liu Li, the Chinese government labeled him a mentally unstable traitor and denied any knowledge of POOF.
The US Department of Justice, which is involved in a lengthy legal battle with Cal Walker over the POOF software program, said it has never heard of Liu Li and denied that a leaked copy of the software program has been offered for sale on the black market.
“The whole story is preposterous, and if this Liu Li actually exists, he should present himself to the US attorney general’s office in Washington, DC, for questioning,” a spokesperson told The Front Page podcast.
Hi, Nik.
Hi, Mia.
Nik, that’s an incredible story. Where is Liu Li now, and will he talk with US officials?
He’s in hiding, Mia, in the US. One attempt has already been made on his life, and he fears for his safety.
Have you been able to confirm there was an actual assassination attempt? Forgive me, but that sounds a little dramatic, Nik.
I was sitting across from him when someone tried to blow his brains out. It was dramatic.
So, where does the story go from here, Nik?
In Part Two, we attempt to root out and identify a shadowy character who we believe is at the heart of the POOF story. We’ve been able to piece together clues about this person—we believe he has ties to paramilitary groups and is connected to one of the men suspected of blowing up the Trident Office Park, where OmniSoft was located. We have a partial description and have tracked down military personnel we believe he served with overseas.
That all sounds fascinating, Nik. We will take a short break for a word from our sponsors, and when we return, we will join Nik for Part Two of “The Crown Jewels.”
Chapter 48
January 18, Washington, DC
Before last week, Nik had no concept of how much work went into producing podcasts. “Enunciate,” Teo barked into Nik’s headset repeatedly. “Project,” he demanded. “Slow down,” he ordered. They did nine takes over the course of four-plus hours before Teo was finally satisfied with the second episode of The Front Page. It’d been nearly a week since “The Crown Jewels” had aired, and, given the strong and favorable reaction to the program, Mia was anxious to rush out the next episode.
The process left Nik mentally and emotionally drained, and he escaped the cramped, stuffy little studio where they recorded the show as soon as it was finished, but a host of demands pursued him as he fled out the door: Mia and Teo wanted to immediately begin work scripting the third episode; Sam texted to suggest drinks and dinner later that evening with a newly married couple she wanted to introduce Nik to; Maggie was demanding that he get in contact with her about the shock wave his podcast had unleashed inside the Justice Department; and Cal Walker sent him a message on the encrypted app asking for an urgent meeting. I’ll be in True Face, Walker’s message said.
True Face???? Nik replied.
Spy speak for not in disguise, came the answer.
For the first time in weeks, the sun was shining and the temperature was hovering around fifty degrees. Nik wanted nothing more than to take Gyp for a run in Rock Creek Park and decompress.
Nik dodged Mia and Teo; returned Maggie’s call when he guessed she was at her yoga class with Spence and unable to answer her phone; texted Sam and counterproposed drinks, no dinner; and messaged Walker to meet him at the stone bridge over Rock Creek at five p.m. when the park was certain to be all but deserted. He then raced home to change into running gear and collect Gyp for some much-needed exercise for the both of them.
_______________
Rock Creek Park is a 2,100-acre oasis in the northwest quadrant of DC, and Nik, like many transplant Washingtonians, was drawn to its open spaces, extensive running and biking trails, eighteen-hole golf course, and the forested swaths that bisected the park and made visitors feel like they were in the remote outdoors and not smack-dab in the middle of an urban metropolis.
Nik had purchased an expensive pair of Danner trail-running shoes and loved nothing more than to explore the park off the beaten path with Gyp. He was privately embarrassed more than once when he got turned around and lost in the dense woods. Lucky for him, Gyp had a natural sense of direction and would eventually lead the pair back to well-maintained trails and civilization.
Nik arrived at the park just before four p.m., the sky already darkening. He’d have to get moving if he wanted to meet Walker on time. The stone bridge was on the other side of the park, and if he kept to the trails, it was about a five-mile trek, according to the navigation app on his watch.
Nik figured he could cover the five miles in about an hour, with time to spare, if he were in shape, but he wasn’t. He hadn’t exercised for more than a month and was carrying a few extra pounds that he’d put on over the holidays. If he cut across country, he could shave a mile to a mile and a half, maybe a little more, off that distance.
