An Armageddon Duology (5 page)

H
alfway around the world
, off the tip of the Malay Peninsula, the city-state of Singapore was an engine churning into morning overdrive. Businesses hummed, planes were launched around the world, financial transactions from hundreds of nations sped through the computer systems of their exchanges.

In a gleaming new building of blue and gray, on a wide and open floor lit by a bank of windows facing toward the front of the structure, rows of digital detectives sat in front of their computers. Near the middle of the floor, a short, gray-haired man of European descent hunched arthritically beside the desk of a young Asian woman. He wore a stunned expression as he stared at her screen.

“Are you sure about this?”

Yi Ling nodded to her superior. The thin fingers of her right hand drummed nervously on her keyboard. She reflexively tugged at her chest-length hair with her left. She could not afford to be wrong about this.

It was only two months ago that she had landed this job at the newly opened INTERPOL Digital Crime Centre in Singapore. The DCC was a dream job, letting her use her computer skills in her home country under the auspices of one of the largest and most respected law enforcement agencies in the world. Her friends were all impressed. It paid very well. But now, everything was threatened by the discoveries she had made over the last two days. It had taken her all of yesterday to convince herself that should risk raising the issue with her superiors.

“Yes, Mr. Rosenfeld,” her perfect English hardly accented by her native Mandarin. “It’s always on the derivative bets. All off-market.”

The older man coughed and adjusted his glasses. “Nothing from the exchanges?”

“No,” she said, wetting her lips with her tongue. “See these modifications to the contracts? They occur after the parties have established the contract terms but before the instrument is finalized.”

Rosenfeld nodded. “That’s incredible. How are they not noticing the modifications?”

“I don’t know, sir, except that few check the source code anymore. Everything is automated these days, everything comes out of code. Maybe that’s why nothing was tried on the exchanges since there’d be too many eyes on the trades. There’s a code injection into the contract scripts here.” She indicated a row of text on one side of the display. “The siphoning is minimal and scaled to the return on the instrument. They’d have to dig through the layers of fees and clauses to root it out.”

“God damned penny shaving. But these are pretty big pennies. How on earth are these modifications getting in there?”

“I’m not sure, but look at this. The losses don’t show except for hundredths of a second because an equal amount of money comes into the account.”

“From where?”

“It’s random. Shell-accounts, investment banks, everywhere. And that’s what happens in every instance. There is a loss and nearly immediate plug of the deficit.” She didn’t want to say more and hoped Rosenfeld would reach the conclusion she had.

“I’ll be damned. It’s some sort of light-speed Ponzi-scheme.”

Yes.
“I think so, sir. And I think it works because of the epic nature of the worm infection. There are so many compromised accounts, tens of thousands, that the code left on the systems can continuously shuffle money, even in these increased amounts, so that for no length of time does any one account report much of a loss. It’s fantastically complicated, but there is so much unregulated and unmonitored in these dark markets. I think that explains how it’s gotten away with this for so long and with so much money involved.”

“Just how bad is the spread?”

“I don’t know for sure, but unprecedented. I couldn’t believe how systematic it is. I’ve been using the NSA share-data on the known financial OTC trading, and I haven’t found any derivative contracts of significance in the last six months that haven’t been modified. It’s got to total in the trillions.”

“Incredible.”

“And as long as the contract is viable, it’s funneling the money. Untraceable. The money trail disappears in one offshore account after another.”

“Like some damn invisible parasite. Thank God we have access to the OTC bids. We’d never have known. Chalk up a success story to the NSA octopus.”

The woman swallowed. “Well, that may be part of the problem, sir.”

The old man looked at her face and pulled a chair over. He sighed, sitting down. “I’m not going to like this, am I? Go on.”

“I’m not sure yet, but there seems to be an association with the NSA data hacks and the timing of the code penetration.” God, she hoped she wasn’t making a fool of herself. She was prodding a dragon. She knew that.

Rosenfeld removed his glasses. “Wait. You mean that whoever is behind this might be piggy-backing on the NSA worms and backdoors?”

“I think so, sir.”

“
Oy vey
.” He put a hand to his head. “This is going to explode.”

Yi Ling felt her stomach churn.

After a silent moment, the old man replaced his glasses and patted her on the back. “This is incredible work. I’m going straight to Richards with this, getting this off my plate as fast as possible. We’ll see how the bigwigs are going to handle it. I need you to prepare a presentation. I’m going to put you as point. This is going to bring in all the agencies and spooks. Governments are going to freak out, especially the US. We’re looking at a game-changer here.”

The slight Asian woman trembled with excitement. “Yes, sir. Immediately.”

The old man stared grimly forward. “You might just have uncovered the biggest financial cybercrime in history.”

“
J
en
, what the hell is your son doing at my computer?”

The black hair of a young boy popped up from behind a monitor, his eyes wide behind oversized glasses. Several books were positioned around him on the desk, and his hand clutched a computer mouse in an iron grip.

A red-faced man stood in the doorway to the home office, his teeth bared, high-end casual clothing draping an athletic form. A woman rushed past him into the room, placing herself between the boy and the man, hands up as if to ward off a blow.

“Now, Richard, he just wanted to try some programming. It’s for his class presentation.” She smiled wildly. “His will be so much better than all the other children’s! He’s a genius, you know!”

“A genius. Am I hearing this right?” He stepped into the room deliberately. The woman’s smile faded. “Your second-grade brat is fucking up my workstation for a goddamned school project? I have trades on that machine, client information, our taxes! Important documents! Where do you think all this comes from, lady?” He gestured dramatically around the room. “Your nice clothes? Your car? That bitch therapist? Or those ritzy lunches you have with your girlfriends?”

Her shoulders slumped and she backed away from him. ‘Richard, it’s only—”

“How many times have we talked about this? I don’t know what his father let him get away with, but the little prince has got to learn the rules around here! My desk and my things are off limits! They're not toys! Do you understand that, kid?”

“He
is
doing serious work, Richard!” The wild smile returned. “See? He wants to be like you. He’s got your books out and he’s learning to write those programs like you do! I’m so proud of him!”

“So you’re defending him in spite of what I just said?”

“Yes?” she said, her face falling.

Richard lurched forward, left arm whipping across his body to backhand Jenny across the face. Her head snapped back with a crunch, and she dropped to the ground, catching herself on her palms.

“Mom!” The boy leapt up from the chair, then froze. Without turning his face away from his mother, his wide eyes darted toward the broad shape in the middle of the room. He began to shake.

Richard stared down at the crumpled form of the woman, drops of blood falling to the floor from the back of her hand, the overturned palm already filled like a bowl with a thick, crimson fluid. The anger drained from his face.

“Fuck!” he said, turning to the boy. “This is your fault, you know, you little brat. I don’t want to see you touching anything of mine again without my permission, or I’ll beat the shit out of you, too.” He spun and stormed out of the room. “I won’t be back till late. Try to clean that mess up.”

There was a jangle of keys and then a door slam. The house fell silent.

“Mom,” said the boy again, moving away from the desk. His hands reached out hesitantly toward her.

“No, no!” she said loudly, keeping her face angled away from him, her voice distorted, mouth full. “It’s okay, pooh-bear. Don’t come closer. Mommy’s okay.”

“Mom, your nose—”

The woman tried to stand, swayed and steadied herself on a chair nearby. Her face and shirt were stained red, her nose bent gruesomely.

“Can’t get blood on his chairs,” she mumbled, stumbling sideways with her hands cupped under her face. She reached the bathroom just off the office and closed the door behind her. The boy heard her retching.

For several moments he didn’t move. Just faced the door of the bathroom, breathing labored, body shaking. He closed his eyes. Water ran behind the door and the sounds of muffled sobs leaked into the office space. His breathing slowed.

Exhaling, he opened his eyes. His upper lip twitched. He turned to the computer and sat down in the chair, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Richard was too big. He knew that. He couldn’t punch him the way Richard had hit his mother, not unless he wanted a worse beating. He couldn’t hurt him that way. But if he didn’t do something, he would hate himself forever. He knew that. He couldn't just let him get away with it. His mind raced.

His stepfather didn’t like anyone to use his things. His stepfather’s computer was
important
. The things on the computer were
serious work
. Maybe it was true, maybe he didn’t know how to code like a grown up yet. He wasn’t sure. No one would teach him at school and his programs didn’t always work like he wanted. He knew he needed to learn more.

But he could delete files. He knew how to do that.

He could delete ALL his stepfather’s files.

He opened a terminal window and began typing.

C
BD
: Will you please identify yourself for the record?

MS. COHEN: Rebecca Cohen, FBI special agent, Intel 1.

C
BD
: You understand that your testimony here is on the record, and your words might later be used to charge and try you as an enemy combatant of the United States?

MS. COHEN: I want to petition for a civilian lawyer and habeas corpus.

[
R
EDACTED
]: Your requests have already been noted and processed. Until such a time as they are ruled upon, please focus on the inquiry at hand. Do you understand the law as it applies to you?

MS. COHEN: I was told that this is a deposition. Isn't it a bit unusual to have [REDACTED] with my counsel? Cross-examination?

[REDACTED]: Please answer the question. Do you understand the law as it applies to you?

MS. COHEN: Oh, I understand, all right. This is a damned inquisition.

C
BD
: To the matter at hand, Ms. Cohen.

MS. COHEN: Do I have a choice?

C
BD
: There is some discrepancy about when and how the Washington FBI divisions were informed of your suspicions concerning Senator Heidi Moss.

MS. COHEN: Clarification. By "your" you mean Agent Savas and myself?

CBD: That is correct. Can you shed light on this?

[
R
EDACTED
]: Enough! Damn the protocol issues. Agent Cohen, it seems pretty clear that Intel 1 kept this information to itself for some time. Now, when you and Savas returned from D.C., what were his actions at Intel 1?

MS. COHEN: We didn't have any time to do much. All hell was starting to break loose. The virus was already eating through the world financial system, and the first big break on that, hell, the discovery of it, was made in Singapore.

C
BD
: You knew this then?

MS. COHEN: No. But that's the timeline.

CBD: Let's stick with what you knew at the time and how the defendant behaved.

MS. COHEN: How did he behave? We were both exhausted from racing around trying to piece together what the hell was happening with the car bombing, when bam! A VIP kidnapping spree and a fucking boat-bomb!

C
BD
: Wait, one thing at a-

MS. COHEN: We were hardly given a moment’s rest and then I'm racing to midtown while John and Frank are landing back in D.C. to interface with the local FBI divisions on the snatches there. My work cell is firing like a receptionist’s and our division is split across the city and between cities. Then, the next thing you know it's the NSA on the line and-

C
BD
: Ms. Cohen, please! One thing at a time. We need things to be clear.

MS. COHEN: You want clarity? You have us isolated and jailed under military law, asking all sorts of questions about our protocol during those days! Protocol! You want clarity? Try following protocol when VIPs are disappearing and blowing up in real time around you, when you get informed that a cyberworm is chewing through the modern monetary system!

C
BD
: We understand that this was a difficult time, Ms. Cohen, but-

MS. COHEN: You don't understand anything!

CBD: Please. I'm his counsel, I'm on your side, here.

MS. COHEN: Are you?

C
BD
: All right, let's calm this down and try again. After your return from D.C., what happened?

MS. COHEN: What happened? Everything happened.