Rideout nodded. “Drone idea again? I think it’s likely. Missiles are out, as crazy as it is to even say something like that. Avram had a pretty sophisticated radar system that not only detected incoming birds, but automatically would send the data out encrypted on military and police frequencies. I guess he had some issues, but the fact is that the boat didn’t squeak last night. But I don’t think it could pick up fliers as small as many drones. They’d be invisible to the radar.”
“I guess he didn’t modernize his paranoia,” said Cohen. “Who would have thought to protect their assets from drone strikes?”
“Why aren’t there more agents here?” asked Savas, glancing around the dock.
“It’s a bit chaotic,” said Rideout, “and you’ve been in transit for the last two days. Commands from on high have all agencies scrambling to put bodies on people and places. The Bureau is like a ghost ship, if you’ll excuse the juxtaposition.”
Cohen turned to Savas. “It’s all been in the last twelve hours. The kidnappings and killings have a lot of powerful people very frightened. Pressure is being put on all governmental and state agencies to secure them. Favors are being called in. People are starting to panic.”
Savas nodded. “Should have seen it coming. You’ll have to excuse me — I’m running on about negative three hours of sleep. Hopefully I can get some shuteye soon, that is if nothing else goes FUBAR in the next few hours.”
His cell rang.
Rideout and Cohen stared at him. He just sighed. “Here we go.” He tapped the screen and placed the phone to his ear. “Hi, Angel. What blew up now?”
RIDEOUT Deposition 1
MR. RIDEOUT: John had just flown back. He and Rebecca met me at the dock and we got our first look at the boat. What remained of it.
[REDACTED]: Is this when Agent Lightfoote became involved in the investigation?
MR. RIDEOUT: Angel? No.
[REDACTED]: Statements from other members of your division state that she was.
MR. RIDEOUT: Why would she be involved in the bombing case? She was cybercrimes.
CBD: But she called at the dock? We have cell phone records and the testimony of Agent Cohen.
MR. RIDEOUT: Yeah, she called. So what? The virus was completely unknown to us at that point. Angel didn't know why they were calling. She took the call and passed the message on to John.
CBD: Is that normal?
MR. RIDEOUT: NSA called. She's cybercrimes. What's the mystery?
CBD: But Savas took her along with him to the meeting?
MR. RIDEOUT: Of course. Again, she's cybercrimes. Why wouldn't she go?
[REDACTED]: But you said you didn't know about the virus.
MR. RIDEOUT: That's what the NSA meeting was about! So, no!
[REDACTED]: So, why bring your cybercrimes leader?
MR. RIDEOUT: Because NSA, duh? Angel is our digital guru. We're retreading this thing like you've never heard of a circle.
[REDACTED]: And now she's AWOL.
MR. RIDEOUT: AWOL? What the hell? She's not conscripted! She doesn't owe you guys anything. Just because your goons failed to grab her doesn't mean she's up to anything bad. If I hadn't been shot, I might be out there with her, deep in hiding from this mess.
[REDACTED]: She's breaking the law.
MR. RIDEOUT: Not any laws I know about. But you all have new laws now, don't you? Just making them up as you go. Christ, I had a bad feeling when martial law was declared. Little did I know!
[REDACTED]: There have been extraordinary events. Unprecedented threats to the nation. We are doing what we can to preserve order.
MR. RIDEOUT: Don't you think I know that? But you're shooting at friendlies, dammit!
CBD: Then you can understand our need to get to the bottom of things. Tell us about Lightfoote.
MR. RIDEOUT: Why are you so obsessed with her? Don't you have one hundred dossiers and film surveillance and case records? What the hell am I going to tell you that you don't know?
[REDACTED]: How about where she is?
MR. RIDEOUT: If I knew, that'd be the last thing I'd tell you.
11
“Joe, Jesus, it’s the middle of the trading day. What the hell is this about?”
Two men huddled underneath a pedestrian walkway in a quiet London park. They had both approached the location independently, secretively, without informing anyone of their destination. Both had exercised extreme vigilance in their journey, checking for pursuit or other surveillance, doubling back and changing routes several times, increasing by three-fold the amount of time it would take to reach the rendezvous. One man was dressed in a suit and sported closely cropped gray hair. The other, a younger man by two decades, wore slacks and a button down shirt as well as sunglasses. Both appeared anxious, their British accents cutting like daggers through the conversation.
“I’m taking a huge risk even showing up here,” said the young man.
“And I’m not? Spit it out. Is it this virus you’ve been talking about?”
“Worm,” he corrected.
“Whatever.”
“The difference is important.”
“That’s because you’re a computer programmer.”
He shook his head. “It matters. Look, a virus is a file, you have to execute it, infect your computer with it. A worm digs in by itself, and can lay a lot of viral eggs and do other things. But it spreads itself. This worm is spreading everywhere.”
“What’s everywhere?”
The programmer’s arms danced through the air. “By now, half the machines on the London exchange are likely infected. By next week, nearly all of them will be.”
The older man straightened slightly. “What will it do?”
“We don’t know!” he shouted, quickly catching himself and lowering his voice. “Look, my division at Interpol got the first information from Singapore a few days ago. Since then, all hell’s broken loose. We’re finding it everywhere, chasing it everywhere. No one has a handle on it, not the Americans, the Chinese, or the Russians. Hell, if the Russians can’t take it down, we’re in a fucking boatload of trouble!”
“Brilliant. Let’s calm down. What do you know?”
The Interpol programmer swiped his brow, sweat glistening and beginning to pool in his eyebrows despite the cool autumn day. “It’s global. Initially we thought that it was only a finance worm, now we’re finding it other places. It actually seems to have used NSA backdoors and code as gateways to infiltrate the machines the damn Americans were already spying on. It hides well. We mainly find what it leaves behind.”
“Which is?”
“Lots of really nasty code. The thing is injecting subroutines and entire programs into existing software, or between two pieces of software and handshaking them. Gave itself away when large sums of money started to funnel through the infected systems into offshore accounts.”
“How much money?”
“I don’t know. Billions. Maybe more. But that’s one thing. Billions from the derivative market isn’t going to be missed, really. But recent findings are looking a lot more scary. Your machines, your trading algorithms that run the damn exchanges, they are all compromised.”