Текст книги "Independence Day "

Автор книги: Ben Coes

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

62

IN THE AIR

Katie Foxx stared out the window of Delta flight 35, the 9:10 P.M. Chicago-to-Atlanta direct. She was seated in first class. Next to her was Rob Tacoma, leaning against her shoulder. He’d been asleep since taking off from O’Hare.

Katie imagined that everyone surrounding them thought they were married, or a couple, but Tacoma was like a little brother. In fact, his snoring was annoying the shit out of her. She flared her elbow up, cracking him solidly in the neck. He opened his eyes, looked at her with a dazed, confused look, then shut his eyes again and leaned even farther into her seat.

Tacoma and Katie had worked together for more than a decade, first at the CIA, where she ran Special Operations Group under Bill Polk. Tacoma was her most reliable paramilitary agent, a tough-minded, fearless in-theater operator with stunning athletic skills. He was the best face-to-face combatant she’d ever seen. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer by any stretch, but with Katie around, he didn’t need to be.

When Katie left Langley to start a consulting firm, Tacoma was the only one she took with her. The firm, which didn’t have a name, provided a wide complex of services to individuals and corporations alike, all under the general rubric of security. These services usually involved doing things, in foreign countries, that were against the law.

Katie and Tacoma operated with the express approval and permission of the CIA. In fact, Langley was their biggest client. The firm enabled Langley to occasionally move faster and with more savageness than usual.

The serenity of the first-class cabin was interrupted by an announcement over the intercom.

“Ladies and gentleman, this is Captain Fletcher. I’m afraid we have a slight change of plans. We are having a medical issue involving two of our passengers, nothing to worry about, but we’re going to land in Columbus and make sure everything’s all right. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

Tacoma opened his eyes. He looked at Katie. She returned his look.

“This should be interesting,” Tacoma said.

Ten minutes later, the Boeing 737 touched down at Columbus International Airport, then taxied to a stop in the middle of the tarmac. A set of mobile air stairs was driven from the terminal building to meet the jet. Behind it sped a black Chevy Suburban.

A stewardess opened the cabin door as the air stairs were moved into place. Tacoma and Katie stood up, grabbed their bags from the overhead bin, walked to the door, and climbed down the stairs. They sprinted across the tarmac to the Suburban. The Suburban crossed two runways, then came to a stop next to a shiny light blue Gulfstream G100, its engines humming. A minute later, the jet was ripping through the sky, toward New York City.

63

SHENNAMERE ROAD

DARIEN, CONNECTICUT

Just before midnight, under a dark sky, Calibrisi’s Sikorsky S-76C helicopter dropped from the sky upon a bucolic Connecticut estate, landing on a large, circular pebble-stone driveway before a rambling mansion, now dark, except for a lone light in a first-floor window. Calibrisi, Foxx, and Tacoma jumped from the cabin of the chopper as the rotors continued to slash the night air.

Calibrisi had already briefed Foxx and Tacoma on the situation in Russia.

In the driveway was a pair of vehicles. One was a black Range Rover, the other a convertible Porsche 918 Spyder, yellow with black racing stripes along its sides.

They moved quickly toward the large door that marked the mansion’s entrance, a copper lantern dangling from above. Two men stood watch, both dressed in jeans, running shoes, and T-shirts. Both men clutched submachine guns.

Calibrisi, Foxx, and Tacoma nodded at the gunmen as they slipped quickly into the mansion.

The house was fully furnished and appeared lived in. Another gunmen stood inside the entrance hall. He nodded to a door at the side.

They stepped into a library. The walls were lined with bookshelves. Old taxidermy hung from the walls. The room contained only one desk. A man with long blond hair was typing frantically. In front of him, three computer screens were lit up. The center one showed a map of the world, lit up digitally. The other two screens displayed what looked like thousands and thousands of slow-moving rows of numbers and letters, in orange and green, scrolling over a black screen.

Calibrisi shut the door.

“Igor, this is Katie Foxx and Rob Tacoma.”

Igor turned, nodded, then turned back to the keyboard and kept typing.

Foxx and Tacoma glanced at each other, then at Calibrisi.

“This is the guy who’s going to find someone who just pried his way into the CIA?” asked Foxx.

Igor kept typing, ignoring her.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but Cloud sounds like he might be slightly more capable than some guy in an Aerosmith T-shirt that’s two sizes too small.”

“Oh, he’s much more capable,” said Igor as he continued to type without turning around. “He is on a level that is several generations more sophisticated than the U.S. government.”

“I doubt that,” said Katie.

Igor stopped typing and turned.

“Then you’re a fool,” he snapped, turning back around. “If you want to catch a hacker, you have to put aside self-delusion about the greatness of the brilliant men and woman at the CIA and the National Security Agency. No doubt they are all patriots, but catching a hacker has nothing to do with patriotism. It is a function of numbers and letters, and their arrangement in a three-dimensional grid, over time.”

Igor struck the keyboard.

“Tell me a city where Langley has a sphere of operations, Ms. Foxx.”

“It’s Katie.”

Igor scanned her up and down.

“You are beautiful, by the way,” he said, smiling.

“Tokyo,” said Katie.

Igor typed for a half minute.

Suddenly, the digital map of the world zoomed down onto Japan, then kept moving in, focusing, until Tokyo appeared. Igor typed, and different areas of the city flared up in pockets of red. Igor typed again. The screen to the left flashed a checkerboard of black-and-white photographs; they appeared to be some sort of surveillance photos.

“This is just a small example,” said Igor. “In fact, I was able to do this within one hour of arriving at my desk.”

Katie stepped forward. She studied the sheet and pointed to one of the photos. It showed a man climbing out of a car.

“That’s Kilmer,” said Katie, taken aback. “This was an operation. Last year. That’s off of my computer.”

“Yes, it is,” said Igor, “sorry about that. For what it’s worth, I didn’t look at any of your naked pictures.”

“I don’t—” said Katie, shocked. “My God. He hacked—”

“That is nothing. Watch this.”

Igor typed furiously. The right screen shot white, then came into focus. A note was written and he enlarged it.

“What is it?” Katie asked.

“That is computer code. Do you like it? A few little lines, like a haiku. Those lines were how I got them to drop you off in Columbus, Katie. Is that short for Katherine, by the way? Are you busy after we find this guy?”

“My God,” she said again.

“Yes, that is the proper reaction. Self-delusion doesn’t work in Cloud’s world. What does work is numbers and letters, arranged in a three-dimensional architecture—”

“Over time,” added Katie, “yadda yadda yadda.”

“Think of a cube,” said Igor, ignoring her. “That cube has a wrapper on it, a wrapper that is composed of numbers and letters, and they are constantly changing. But if we can unwrap it, inside we will find our hacker. Where we are going, Katie, there is no room for human emotion. Where you and I are going, however, after we find him, there is plenty of room for human emotion.”

“So do they know we’re here?” asked Katie.

“No,” said Igor.

“Why not?”

“Because I told them you’re not,” said Igor, smiling at her.

“Can you guarantee with one hundred percent certainty you’re going to find him?” asked Tacoma.

“Eventually, yes, I will find him,” said Igor. “By the time the nuclear bomb gets here? No, I can’t guarantee that. At best, I give it a twenty percent chance.”

“Then I want to understand what you’re trying to do,” demanded Katie.

Igor paused, looked at Calibrisi, then back to Katie.

“I understand,” said Igor patiently. “I will explain how we’re going to capture Cloud. Then you need to leave me alone.”

“Deal.”

Igor typed.

“Hacking in point of fact is the process of exposing human frailty, then taking advantage of it,” he said, gesticulating with one hand while he typed with the other. “The computer networks that run the CIA, KKB, a bank, a person’s e-mail account—they’re all a collection of computer code, written by human beings. They’re all protected by different forms of encryption, which is also built by human beings. Most of these encryption keys are terribly built. Some are better. Some are, in fact, nearly perfect. But none is perfect. Because a human being built it. Hackers attack by finding those human flaws. Once they find a flaw, they can gain entry into the computer network. The best hackers are not only able to penetrate the most secure networks, they’re able to do it without being noticed.”

He pointed to one of the screens in front of Katie. The screen showed a dizzying sheet of numbers and letters, which scrolled down very rapidly. She leaned forward to look.

“Is that Chanel Number Five?” he whispered.

Katie glanced at him.

“Can you please focus?” she snapped, but in a whisper.

“Oh, I’m focused,” he whispered back.

“What I meant was, could you explain what that is?” she asked, pointing. “You’re not my type, anyway.”

“What is your type?”

“Not you. Now will you explain what those numbers and letters are.”

“That screen shows processing activity at a server farm. A warehouse full of computers are all right now focused on finding errors in the encryption algorithms that safeguard the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“Where are they?”

Igor typed. The scrolling letters were replaced by the inside of a brightly lit warehouse, the size of a football field, filled with rows upon rows of high-powered servers.

“Iceland.”

“Are they yours?” she asked.

“Not exactly.”

“So what you’re saying is, we’re going to hack into Langley?” asked Katie.

“Oh, we’ve already hacked in,” said Igor. “I’ve found six separate vulnerabilities thus far. But I haven’t found Cloud yet.”

Katie nodded, making no effort to hide her doubt. She glanced at Calibrisi, who stared back with a blank expression.

“Cloud is a great programmer,” said Igor. “One of the best hackers in the world. In fact, some might say the best. But those people would be wrong. There’s one hacker who’s better than Cloud.”

“Who?” asked Katie.

“Another Russian. He is the best hacker in the world. At least he was. He hasn’t hacked in many years. He disappeared. Some people speculate that he may have died. The truth is, he’s not dead. He simply chose to stop breaking the law. Not that he ever would’ve been caught, but he didn’t want to do it anymore.”

“Can he help us?” asked Katie.

“He’s trying to,” said Igor, smiling. “But he’s having a hard time getting any work done because you’re asking him too many fucking questions.”

Katie nodded, then grinned.

“Lawbreaker, huh?” she said.

Igor smiled.

“Is that closer to your type?”

“A little.”

Igor pointed at the live video stream coming from Iceland.

“That warehouse generates so much heat that it had to be situated near cold water or else the air-conditioning would’ve been cost prohibitive. Right now, every computer in that room is scouring Langley’s technological infrastructure. Once we find the precise vulnerability point that Cloud is accessing, that is, his trapdoor, that, Katie, you beautiful American girl, is when you will have Cloud.”

“How long will that take?”

“If I had to guess, a week.”

“A week?” asked Katie.

“Then again, if a certain American woman with the most gorgeous blue eyes I’ve ever seen were to want to go to dinner with me, it might inspire me to do it quicker.”

“Well, I do want to find him,” said Katie, smiling mischievously at Igor, “but not that badly.”

“What happens if you can’t find him?” asked Tacoma.

Igor’s smile disappeared as his eyes roamed to Tacoma.

“Then we’re fucked.”

64

ELEKTROSTAL

Cloud saw the red icon in the shape of a star suddenly pop to the front of his screen. He double-clicked it, then scanned the flag:

22:00:15

Reinholt T.C.

Minsk NA MSQ UMMS 223

Withdrawal

NBRB

Exch. 75000 BEL ruble * RUS ruble

Cloud read and reread the alert. Reinholt was not one of the men, so why had the flag popped?

He went into the database and brought up the last two days’ worth of electronic signatures for both Brainard and Reinholt. Brainard’s last event was the purchase of drinks at a Minsk restaurant. The cash withdrawal at the airport ATM was Reinholt’s first. He did a quick directory search on Reinholt, using his passport identification to architect his financial activities—credit cards, bank accounts, and anything else the database had. Reinholt had three credit cards and two bank accounts. All of them had been created that day. In fact, the ATM withdrawals were the first electronic signature—the first transaction—Reinholt had ever made.

“Perhaps he’s a mountain man?” said Cloud to himself, facetiously. “Lived in a tree house for his whole life. Just happens to have a few credit cards along with a bunch of money in the bank. Now he wants to go to Moscow. Makes perfect sense.”

It was Langley’s asset, Brainard. He was at Minsk National Airport, where he’d just exchanged Belarus rubles for Russian ones.

Cloud looked at a publicly available schedule of flights between Minsk and Moscow. There was only one more flight that evening, a 10:07 P.M. Belavia flight.

He glanced at his watch: 10:00 P.M.

Within a minute, Cloud discovered a vulnerability in one of Aeroflot’s servers, enabling him to penetrate the airline’s computer network. By 10:04, he was looking at the passenger manifest of Belavia flight 9984 Minsk to Moscow. He thought for a minute. Then he copied the list of names and ran it against the Belavia customer database. Only one name was new. Either Langley had an alias they were employing for Brainard’s trip to Moscow unaffiliated with his identity, or they’d provisioned new identity in the last hour. If it was the former, there was little Cloud could do at this point.

At 10:06, Cloud dialed Minsk Customs emergency hotline.

“Customs hotline.”

“My name is Rudyev and I work for Federal Security Service,” said Cloud. “You have a suspected terrorist on flight nine-nine-eight-four. A Mr. Reinholt. He’s seated in 9B. Do not let that plane leave the ground.”

*   *   *

Two minutes later, from his seat aboard the plane, Brainard watched through a large terminal window as at least a dozen uniformed Customs agents charged through the terminal.

He picked up his cell and dialed Carter.

“I’m blown. Let Bill know.”

65

NOVGOROD, RUSSIA

Dewey got on the main highway between Saint Petersburg and Moscow, the M10. With every passing minute, he knew FSB would put more men on finding him. But those same minutes bought Dewey distance and—the farther away he got from Saint Petersburg—anonymity. They would be looking for him near the city. Then he remembered what Calibrisi told him. His photo was on the wire. His likeness attached to the APB posed a significant challenge.

There was something to take his mind off the feeling of being hunted, however …

He’d felt it for the past hour now, down his leg: cold, wet, raw.

So far, he’d been able to ignore the pain, as he’d been trained to do, but it was deep and it was getting worse. Dewey’s sheer size, and the layers of muscle on his arms, torso, and legs, prevented several bones from breaking when he’d hit the ground outside the Four Seasons, but that was little consolation right now. The bleeding wasn’t stopping.

Dewey looked at his leg. From the knee down, the trousers were solid red.

He unzipped his pants. Slowly, as he drove, he pulled them down below his knees, groaning in pain as the rough fabric chafed against the wound. In the dim light, he could see a deep gash glistening in fresh, dark blood.

He’d ignored it thus far, but the blood loss would debilitate him if he didn’t deal with it.

At the first exit, Dewey turned off the highway. He pulled into a modern orange-and-white Eka gas station.

He climbed out of the car and stuck the pump nozzle into the fuel tank, then limped toward the gas station, glancing down at the thin, wet trail of blood dripping from his right pant leg.

The wind had picked up. He looked at the black sky and could see clouds undulating with stripes of white and, below, far in the distance, lightning. A storm was coming.

He remembered words from training:

You will learn to operate in the worst types of weather, so when it comes, you’re ready. A storm is an opportunity. It’s the time when strength and power can be freely used. In this way, the weather is a weapon. The best offensive operations occur at night, during storms.

The store was crowded. Dewey walked the aisles, looking for something to stop the bleeding. He picked up a package of baby wipes, scissors, duct tape, garbage bags, a bag of salt, cornstarch, bandages, and paper towels. He grabbed two large bottles of vodka, then looked up and made eye contact with a teenage girl, who abruptly turned and walked away. Dewey glanced at a mirror in the corner, seeing his face. He was drenched in sweat, and his skin was bright red. His clothes didn’t fit. He looked from the mirror to the floor. A small pool of blood had collected at his shoe. He saw an advertisement in the far corner of the convenience store. It was a photo of a fish, hooked to a fishing pole, as the fisherman pulled it flying out of a stream. Near the advertisement, he found a large stainless steel fishhook, a spool of fishing line, and a pair of pliers.

He stepped into line. The chaos of the crowd helped conceal the trail of blood at Dewey’s feet. People were too busy to look down, as they fumbled for their wallets and cash. As Dewey got to the front of the line, his eyes shot left, to the door. But it wasn’t something outside that caused him to turn. Instead, it was a bulletin attached to the door. It was a large poster, freshly hung. A Wanted poster. Dewey’s photo was spread across the center.

Luckily, the photo showed a man with long brown hair. Chopping off his hair had been a good call.

Dewey turned calmly back to the cashier. She was young and plump, with neon-blue-tinted hair, dressed in an Eka uniform.

Dewey pointed behind her to a pack of cigarettes. He added a lighter to the pile as well.

The cashier scanned the items, barely looking up.

Dewey glanced back to the Wanted poster as, to his right, he heard a commotion. He knew it somehow concerned him. He tried not to turn. Then he felt a tap on the shoulder. Looking, he saw a middle-aged man, a father, pointing at the ground and the growing patch of blood on the linoleum floor. Next to him was his daughter, who was crying at the sight of it, her mother’s hand over her mouth.

The man said something in Russian. Dewey ignored him, turning back to the cashier as she bagged up his items.

Dewey pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and looked back to the Wanted poster. Two men were reading it and examining the photo of Dewey. As one read the poster, the other’s eyes settled on Dewey, staring at him as he waited for his change. From the corner of his eye, Dewey registered the man hitting his friend in the arm, trying to get his attention. The other man turned and joined his friend, staring relentlessly at Dewey.

Dewey picked up the bags and walked toward the door, directly at the men, who remained at the door, watching Dewey approach, suspicion in their eyes. As Dewey came closer, they didn’t move. They were blocking the door. One pointed to the ground, at the trail of fresh blood that followed Dewey, then said something in Russian. Dewey paused as he was about to walk into them. When neither moved, Dewey put his right arm between the two men and barreled through the door, knocking both men to the side.

He knew he needed to cut off the distraction immediately.

Dewey looked to the station wagon. It was to the left, at the pumps. He went right. Glancing back, he saw the two men following him.

The first drop of rain struck his head, then another, and then it was a downpour.

At the corner of the building, Dewey went right again. One of the men yelled. Dewey dropped the shopping bags and moved along the wall of the building toward the garage.

He heard the fast rhythm of boots behind him. Both men were now chasing after him.

Both bays of the garage were closed and the lights were out. Dewey moved to the door, slamming his left shoulder against it. The doorframe cracked, sending wood from the doorjamb to the ground. Dewey pushed in the door and was inside a dirty office that stank of petroleum.

The men were now on his heels.

He cursed himself for not bringing the Skyph with him.

Dewey cut left, into the darkness. He sprinted along the near wall, hands out, feeling his way. At a large tool chest, he stopped and crouched out of sight.

The pain in his right knee was getting worse. He shut his eyes and focused on not groaning, lest he alert them where he was hiding.

One of the men charged into the garage. He groped for a light switch, found it, and flipped on the lights. The near bay was empty. In the second bay, a car was raised up in the air.

From his crouching position, Dewey turned his head and searched the wall. Above him, he saw a large black hydraulic lever used to raise and lower the cars.

The first Russian was soon joined by the other.

They both clutched guns. One man flanked left, the other right.

Dewey reached to his calf and removed his combat blade. He held it in his right hand. He watched as one of the men crossed the garage, gun out, searching for him. He kicked over garbage cans, peered behind oil drums, and rummaged along the wall at the far side of the garage.

The second Russian called out something as Dewey squatted against the tool chest, his knee firing sharp bolts of pain up his leg as he tried to keep still and quiet.

Dewey couldn’t see the second man, but he heard his footsteps scuffing the ground as he moved toward him. When he felt a small bump on the other side of the tool chest, he held his breath. Then the front of a running shoe came into view just inches away.

Dewey took one last glance across the garage. The other man was inching toward the mechanic’s well beneath the raised car, looking to see if Dewey had climbed down inside.

Squatting on the concrete floor, Dewey stared up at where he knew the other Russian would emerge. He clutched the knife in his right hand. The gunman took one more step. His face was visible above the tool chest. A second later, the muzzle of his gun appeared just inches away from Dewey’s head.

The other Russian was inching cautiously to the mechanic’s well beneath the raised auto.

“Come on,” muttered Dewey as his eyes returned to the closer man.

His eyes found Dewey. But by the time he could scream, Dewey had sprung up at him, slashing the knife through the air and spearing it into the man’s gut, then pulling it back out and stabbing it into his chest.

Unmuted gunfire shattered the air as the Russian opened fire on Dewey, but Dewey was moving, shielded by the chest. Then he reached over his head and grabbed the hydraulic lever, yanking it just as a slug struck the wall in front of him. The car atop the hoist dropped down on top of the gunman, crushing him.

Dewey pulled his combat blade from the dead Russian’s chest. He searched his pockets and removed a cell phone. Then he moved to the door.

Outside the garage, the skies had opened up. Rain was cascading down in sideways sheets of warm water. Dewey welcomed the water against his skin, cooling him, washing away the blood.

At the front of the Eka store, he retrieved the shopping bags. He walked quickly to the station wagon, hung the nozzle back on the pump, climbed inside, then sped out of the gas station. Soon, he was back on the highway. He fell into a line of slow-moving vehicles almost paralyzed by the violent storm.

Dewey moved to the middle of the front seat, steering with his left hand and using his left foot for the gas and brake.

He reached beneath the seat, found the gun, and set it in the driver’s seat.

He pulled out a bottle of vodka. He unscrewed the cap and took a big gulp, then another, trying to quell the pain now emanating from his knee.

Dewey put the tip of the Gerber against his right knee. He counted to three, then pushed until the blade punctured the trousers. He pushed the blade down the length of his calf, cutting away the pants. He put the knife between his teeth then grabbed the pants and tore them aside, exposing his knee.

The traffic abruptly came to a halt; Dewey hit the brakes just inches from striking the bumper of the car in front of him. He took another swig from the bottle.

In the dim light, Dewey could barely see his knee, only a sheen of wet blood. When he turned on the overhead light, the sight was gruesome. The knee looked pulverized. The skin all around the wound was black and purple, while the wound itself was open and raw.

Dewey poured vodka over the wound, biting hard on the knife handle and letting out a mumbled groan as the pain seared him.

He opened the glove compartment and set the knife on the shelf.

Dewey splashed more vodka on the gash, then pressed a handful of baby wipes against the wound. He reached into the shopping bag and found the fishhook and put it between his teeth. Without looking, he threaded the fishing line through the eyelet, then tied a hangman’s knot.

His eyes were startled by something up ahead. A set of police lights, red and blue, flashed in the distance, coming in the opposite direction, moving recklessly fast. Another cruiser was behind it, then a third. The roar of the sirens couldn’t be heard at first, dulled by the rain, then it grew loud as the vehicles swept by.

Dewey removed the bloody baby wipes and tossed them to the floor. He poured more vodka into the wound.

He reached inside the bag for the box of cornstarch. He ripped off the top and placed it on the shelf. Then he found the bag of salt. He set it between his legs, stabbing the top with the knife and ripping it open.

Dewey looked up at the road. The blurry line of lights went straight for as far as he could see. He slowed down a bit, then looked back at his knee. He took a sip, then poured the rest of the vodka into the wound. He poured cornstarch into the gash, then slammed his fist against it, pounding the cornstarch into every possible part of the wound to absorb the blood.

He glanced up at the road, making sure he was still in the line of traffic.

Dewey took a big handful of salt and sprinkled it down into the wound, screaming as the salt cauterized the blood. The pain was like fire. It branched out like electricity, shooting through every part of him. Tears rolled involuntarily down his cheeks. He pounded the salt in, then repeated it, pouring more in, pounding, until the bleeding stopped.

With baby wipes, he cleaned away the excess salt and cornstarch.

He paused for several minutes, allowing himself to get past the pain of the salt. When it had settled into a dull ache, he took the fishhook, glanced at the car in front of him, then looked down and stuck the tip through the healthy skin above the edge of the wound. He stuck his index finger into the wound and worked it up, under the skin, toward the hook. When he found it, he gripped the end and pulled it through, along with the line. He put the hook through the skin on the other side of the wound, pulling it through. He pulled the line semitight, being careful not to rip the skin.

Dewey methodically moved the hook between the edges of the gash, sewing the skin back together.

When he was done, he cut the line and tied the ends together. He wrapped the bandage around the wound, then wrapped duct tape around the bandage.

He moved back into the driver’s seat. He lit a cigarette, opening the window slightly, despite the rain.

A large green traffic sign was illuminated above the road ahead:

Moskva 300 km