Infinite Exposure (32 page)

“OK, slow down. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nedim was handling a certain group of American email addresses. When Nedim was outed those address went to this trainer,
correct?”

“Yes.”

I suspect another email was sent to those addresses, either directly or indirectly which told them the new email hub to use.
We have the email addresses, what I need is the phrase.”

“Don't you also need the email?”

“You can get that for me.”

“Sure, I'll just shit it out right here on the desk for you, no problem.”

“Never talk about shit to a man who rides a wheelchair.”

“Sorry, but you know what I meant.”

“Yes, and I need your full attention. There is a covert team in America which has some massive disk farms. Their mission is
to archive every suspected terrorist email message. If the American public ever found out about it they would go ballistic.”

“That's a lot of email. How are they getting it all?”

“There are only a couple of international backbones going in and out of that country. These sites sit on them and snag a copy
of every email going through. They have an up-front system which filters out the known spam. The text-only messages are run
through a keyword system to see if they need to be archived. Any email message containing an image is archived. Any email
message containing a compressed file or an image is archived.”

“That's a lot of storage.”

“They have several disk farms of more than 1,000TB each. Of course they use some form of data compression, but yes, eventually
it spills over.”

“How does this help us exactly?”

“We have a list of email addresses in their country. If we have the phrase or keyword which tells someone to change communications
hubs, we should be able to give them both and have them do a search of all email messages going to those addresses. They should
be able to do the image extraction and search for the keyword or phrase. We even know the email address they are using for
the hub now, so we could give them that to make certain the information we have is correct.”

“How does this help us exactly?”

“Once we verify it and they come back with the hit, they can scan all other suspected emails in their database for this keyword
or phrase, then hand the hub email address over to us. It also means the cells for the hub formerly in the Khyber Pass can
lead us to a new hub. It helps us because we can simply off this new guy and see where his people get routed.”

“Say we squeeze this phrase out of Nedim; the Americans magically go along with your request and they verify the phrase is
correct. What happens when we take out the current new hub and those cells go nowhere?”

“If we take him out in a way that doesn't alert suspicion it means that they haven't managed to get more hubs in the field.
We can take the trainer at will, leaving them completely blind. They will have to go back to direct emails and cell phones
until they can come up with something else. We already know how to inflict casualties on them when they communicate in that
manner.”

“I will run this by the suit and see what he thinks. Too bad you didn't come up with this idea before he got outed. My suspicion
is that Nedim is currently under too much surveillance from too many groups to risk bagging him. Everyone is waiting for al-Qaeda
to kill him.”

“That was my suspicion as well.”

“Run this past the Brit as well. He might be willing to risk it even if the suit says no. Then again, if he has this idea
in his head it will stop him from offing the current hub until after we've tried to squeeze them.”

“There is another option. If I'm able to make contact with the Americans, I can give them a couple of the email addresses
which we know switched, and tell them to pull five days worth, from a specific date forward, of email messages sent to them
on deciphering images looking for this new hub's email address, then ask them to share this information with us and run the
same search across their entire database. It might have gone out in a simple text message, and it might have been done via
phone call.”

“True. The information would be more valuable if we managed to obtain it without going the Nedim route. If he really is being
watched that closely the risk is high.”

“If it turns out you are correct, what do you propose we do?”

“The new operator must die in a very public and ordinary way. Hit by a truck, office fire, be standing within the blast circle
of a suicide bomber or something like that. Something which cannot be tied back to this operation yet showy enough to make
the news ... unless you can figure out a way for him to have a heart attack while talking with his trainer.”

“How often do you think something like that will work?”

“Depends how creative we get. It all hinges on the transfer being sent in an email though. If it is a phone call we will be
pumping a dry well.”

“Agreed.”

With that, Vladimir hung up and returned to scanning through the outbound emails. The need to find out what this trainer was
up to burned strong in him. He couldn't explain why. You simply develop a sense about these things once you had spent a long
time in covert operations. He spent nearly an hour going through the accumulated outbound messages, then he came across one
using an image he hadn't seen before.

What is this?
he thought. He went searching through the network directory which held all of the known baseline images, it turned up nothing.
He tried some software he had searching for single bit errors in the file and found quite a few. Now he had the long, drawn-out
process of trying to reconstruct the baseline message. He sent a quick email containing the message to Hans and asked him
to keep an eye out for a baseline image or another of this image in an email. He was certain this image contained something
dramatically important. It had originated from the trainer's machine, but had not come in.

The trial-and-error process went on for hours. Even with all of the software and knowledge at Vladimir's disposal, it was
difficult to pull a message out of a photo if you didn't have the baseline image. The baseline image would have been the raw
photograph with a simple word or sentence encoded in it already. After that you simply had the bit differences between the
two images. Finally Vladimir managed to pull out what he believed was the message.

Need new identity kits for myself and team. Operation to move forward soon.

***

Nikolaus received his phone call from Abel stating things were currently setup. He gave Nikolaus the user account and password
along with the Web address for the distributor to connect. It would take more time before they could use the XML interface
to send orders, receive invoices, and check inventories, but this would get them going for now. They had a half-a-million-dollar
line of credit, but that would change once the finance department got done.

There could be little doubt that Abel was a loyal party member. He had bulldogged this through in just over a day. Nikolaus
picked up a disposable cell phone and called Dimitri on the number he was given.

“Hello.”

“Your distributor has been set up. I have the password, username, and Web site address for you.”

“Excellent. Have someone email it to the contact we gave you. He will get right on placing an order. Are you ready to ship
our custom products?”

“Those were all packaged yesterday. You do have only a half-a-million-dollar credit limit to start. Finance hasn't had time
to do the credit processing.”

“No problem. Inform him of that in the email. I must warn you that he will probably burn most of that entering an order for
regular stuff, if not all of it. As I said, they have a large market for cheap generics, but simply couldn't get them.”

“I heard one of our distributors had one of the territories and might issue a legal challenge. We are prepared to handle that
on this end. They had not bothered to buy much of the generic stuff.”

“Good. Now that I think of it, things might go smoother if the first shipment and payment is for the generic stuff. We need
to get customs used to seeing large orders that are a waste of their time to go though.”

“As long as we manage to get your custom products taken care of in the next month or so, things should work.”

“I'm glad you are easy to do business with. This should be a very profitable undertaking for both of us.”

“I hope so. By the way, they don't handle blood products do they?”

“I can ask, why?”

“We are getting quite a supply of whole blood, clotting agent, and plasma built up. If they are supplying some hospitals it
would be nice if they could take some of those off our hands while they are still fresh.”

“I will make a call now.”

“Thank you.”

Nikolaus hung up the disposable phone, looked at the battery level, then tossed it in the trash.
No sense keeping something like that around or recharging it,
he thought.
Never know when this will all blow up.

When he returned to his desk, he got back to work on his new mission in life, building a secured camp in China. Abel had provided
him with additional information about the area where the existing gauze factory was. There was already a worker dormitory
on site. The odd thing about building in China was that housing was so scarce you had to build a company town to set up a
factory, at least if you weren't Chinese.

There was a very large plot of land the generics company had an option on and it was about the right size for a smaller second
secured facility. He already had his people approach their contacts in the Chinese government about building a facility on
that plot to house the drugs for their plan. They were all too eager to give an approval and promise to keep what the site
did confidential. The Lutton bombing had them wondering about having all of this stuff stored in one place as well.

Crazy Man was Right

John had been walking on egg shells for the past three days. His request for new identity kits and traveling money had went
unanswered. The stress of working nearly 18 hours per day, and actually having to work rather than supervise, was also taking
its toll on him. The company had finally hired a few people, but they were almost non-technical by definition. They had done
this to get around the union contract. They were all part-time people without any degrees. They were going to hire the maximum
number of part-time people they could find at the shit wages they were offering and not replace a single union worker. The
greedy bastards didn't care who keeled over in here.

Training the new people had been a big drain on John's time. He had little time to think about his plan or to do much about
implementing it. He had quietly opened up the firewall on three separate ports to allow his machine to connect from home,
or literally anywhere. In theory, the attack could be carried out from his apartment, but not if the company management found
the open ports in the fire wall. John had been good about covering his tracks when he did that, logging in via the generic
systems maintenance account the others used to do their work. Still, it was a gamble. If they ran a security audit, they would
find the ports and close them. They may or may not try to find out who took the security off those ports and why, but with
the ports closed he would be forced to be in the building (along with the three others) to carry out the attack.

A security audit was fast becoming a big risk. There was a lot of fall out from the failed data center migration. Even though
the center was up and running the following day, a lot of people were being called on the carpet for it. Even John's boss
had told him the Americans owned up to it being their fault. They had fired two people responsible for it and were looking
at taking legal action against the data center that quit the day of the conversion.

That was not good news to John. He had read enough Internet news and watched enough business reports on satellite TV to know
just how court cases like that worked. The former employees would get lawyers to file a class-action counter suit. There would
be lots of news reports and media coverage stating the data center was being off-shored. They might even identify John's data
center. Management would freak and lock down this facility like a fortress.

The Utopian vision John had for this attack was that he and the three others would enter a conference room under the guise
of a software deployment meeting. This would be entered on the calendars just like any other deployment meeting. Since it
was a software deployment meeting, nobody would think twice about the developers having their notebook computers in the room.

At the start of the meeting they would start each of the jobs that transferred money out of the accounts. One of the developers
had come up with a wonderful idea. Rather than begin a bulk transfer of all moneys, they had written a program which would
randomly take transaction amounts which occurred on each account over the past six months. Instead of going to their original
destinations these transactions would be sent to the accounts in Syria, Iran, and Switzerland. John had already tasked one
of the cell leaders with getting the accounts set up and getting software in place so when the money started coming in they
could instantly transfer it out via the drug-dealer, money-laundering system.

The meeting would be held near the end of the work day. After they had monitored the jobs a little while, they would simply
go home, pack their bags and disappear. Even if the banks began to catch onto the heist, tens of millions if not billions
would be gone. Trying to get it all in one lump sum would send up too many red flags in the software. They would all be caught
and the transactions would be reversed before the money could be snatched out of the accounts.

One thing John had learned in doing his research for this attack is that there is less printed money worldwide than there
is wealth. If every single person went to their bank and stock broker trying to all get their funds in cash, roughly half
of them would have to take IOUs. They didn't have to get all of the money to start a global panic, just enough to force a
run on the banks.

This had been a hard sell for John. A lot of money had come in post-9/11 and the upper echelon of al-Qaeda did not have much
interest in any attack which didn't take the lives of infidels. John had decided he was going through with this whether he
got the blessing of the leaders or not. Apparently they had come to the same conclusion since they sent him employees and
people to train for the email hub operations.

John believed the only reason he didn't get a new person to train after the hub in Pakistan had been so rudely taken out was
the fact he sent an email stating the operation was to happen soon. The others on John's team had told him their cell leaders
had a lot of support for this project. Weapons and people were being chewed up in Afghanistan. It cost cash to purchase small
arms and explosives. Their Russian suppliers had all but stopped selling them anything good. Now they were dealing with the
Muslim countries surrounding Afghanistan, but the prices were higher due to the risk for them and the fact they were buying
from the Russians and acting as middle men.

A strike like this could prove just how dangerous al-Qaeda really was. They had been unable to acquire decent biological weapons
or any nuclear weapons, but the cash from this might tempt some of the more unstable governments in the region. It would also
allow them to set up a disposal company for chemical and nuclear waste. They had some home-grown supporters in countries where
that was a commercial business, most notably in the United States: Squeaky clean individuals who could get the licenses easily
if they had enough cash lying around. As with most wars, money and industry would eventually win the day. If you had the money,
you could buy the industry.

There were only two things holding up this operation. The first thing was the lack of identity kits. Security camera's made
those mandatory. They would have to get out of the country before this was discovered. The second thing was that new banking
software installed for French operations. The programmers needed some time to write a separate job to handle that database
and application.

One of the programmers had lamented to John about no cell thinking of buying a black-market, credit-card imprinting machine.
The database contained all of the information for nearly a billion ATM accounts along with millions of bank-issued credit
cards. They could print up their own cards and take the money a little at a time.

John was hit with a better idea. Why not create an ASCII delimited file of all the information and take it with them? Since
an ASCII file was pure text, which could be imported into a spreadsheet, database, or any other application they chose to
use, it would be perfect. There were dozens of chat rooms on-line where people sold identities. Granted, they only got about
$10 per card for them, but it would be a method of getting some cash while traveling the world in disguise. He instructed
the programmer to create such an extract from every system. One file for each system, then quietly sneak it out. They would
all have one or two of the files to fund their escape.

There were few illusions in John's mind about this operation. No place in India would be safe for him no matter how much money
he had. His new identity kit would need to come with an H1-B Visa to the U.S. There were so many Indian IT workers there,
nobody paid attention to them. He could hide in the forest of New York for a while, then move off to the Midwest or the West
Coast. Identity kits or not, John set the meeting two weeks out. It was not unusual for his schedule or the programmer's schedules
to be that backlogged.

***

Nikolaus used his own login to check the inventory levels of the special products for Dimitri's distributor. They had taken
a couple of containers of Russian currency, a container of euros and, oddly, even a container of Indian currency. Nikolaus
didn't want to know anything about what they were doing with it, he just wanted it gone. He was somewhat peeved they didn't
take the one container of South African currency they had. He was about ready to burn that money. He had asked everyone in
the party who ran any kind of covert operation if they had use for it and they all said no.

It was odd to still have all of those euros. Nikolaus had taken to paying the team doing the harvesting in cash. It was a
big bag of euros every week and still they had a bunch bailed up and waiting to be boxed. At least they had gotten more strict
in their organ dealings. American dollars, euros, or Russian rubles were the only forms of payment they accepted. Deliveries
were now accompanied by special paramilitary units who made sure the terms were met or the buyers no longer had need for organs.

Getting rid of the odd currencies was still going to be a problem. Nikolaus had called Hans and asked him for a shipping address
to send some special cargo.

“What kind of special cargo?”

“Local currency in containers which state it is medical supplies and not to be opened,” responded Nikolaus.

“How many containers?”

“Four.”

“Will they fit in the trunk of a car?”

“Not all four together.”

“Ship them one per week to the apartment where the three guys are staying. The can cart the package here. This location really
isn't secure to be leaving that kind of cash around.”

“Use it to grease whatever palms need greasing. One of the sales from the other operation got paid in that currency and we
aren't set up to use it or convert it. The laundry didn't leap at cleaning it. Since you are in-country you can pay your people
in local currency and bribe who you must.”

It would be nice to have a decent hotel thought Hans. I can keep a low profile and have a place with flush plumbing for a
change. Be nice to take a hot shower more than once per week as well. This time the people doing the surveillance had it good
and the headquarters had it bad. There was one hydrant sticking out of the ground for water and it didn't have much pressure.
No way you could take a shower, even if there was a shower or a hose.

“How is that going, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Beyond capacity. Took the risk of bringing in new people to boost capacity, but quite risky.”

“You need a second location.”

“I'm already on it. Presenting to the board later today.”

“Be a year before it is up though, won't it?”

“Six months. Much smaller site and a much bigger construction crew.”

“Won't that be difficult to hide?”

“They are being provided by the government of where it will be built. They use them for much of their military construction.”

“Oh. You managed a big hook.”

“A whale.”

“Good fishing then.”

Nikolaus laughed, then hung up. His stress level was dropping. While the money laundering was going slower than he wanted
it was still going to add several million to the bottom line of the company this quarter.

That reminded Nikolaus to check the inventory of blood. He logged in again and found it had been cut in half from its previous
level last week. He picked up the phone and called Abel.

“Hello.”

“Hello Abel, Nikolaus here. Is there any way I can see what this new distributor orders?”

“Are you logged into your inquiry page?”

“Yes.”

“Along the top menu there is an option for reports. Put your mouse over it and a drop down menu will appear. Should be an
option for account history.”

“Ah, there is.”

“Select it and key in the account number I gave you. It should bring up a list of invoices after asking you a date range.
You can look at each invoice individually. That will pretty much match their order, unless we had to back order some items
for them. Do you need more information?”

“No, this is good enough. Thank you very much.”

“Always glad to be of service to the party.”

No wonder they hadn't taken much in the way of currency off Nikolaus' hands. Nearly half of their credit limit was used up
ordering blood. Another quarter of it went to the generic products. They only had chump change left to order their private
products. Dimitri wasn't kidding about this distributor starving for quality generics. They ordered enough cold formula and
antibiotics to treat a city. He wondered what would happen in a few weeks when their credit limit was adjusted as a result
of finance finishing their credit check. Hell, they ordered 1,000 boxes of gauze patches! Other than the blood and plasma,
none of the stuff they ordered retailed for more than U.S.$5 Nikolaus was interrupted by an email notification. He opened
the message as he saw it was from the contact at the new distributor.

Hello,

I just wanted to thank you for allowing us to distribute your products. We have been trying to find a line of quality products
for a very long time. I can't wait for your credit department to finish their check on us so we can order all of the things
we really need.

We are updating our catalog now with all of your products and sending it out to all retail and hospital locations we supply.
By the time our credit limit is increased we expect to have a very large order waiting for you.

It would be at least a week before their credit limit was bumped. Nikolaus had forgotten how bad off some parts of Russia
really were. He assumed Dimitri would be providing the credit references in one way or another and that this influx of generic
medical supplies into the region was his method of buying off the public. Still, doing some good along the way never hurt.
After all, wasn't that how the other countries were going to be sucked into this operation. They were all buying blood components
and their very wealthy were buying organs to extend their greedy lives.

***

The Brit was using every trick he knew to locate the actual destination of the email address which had Vladimir all in a tither.
The Brit still didn't know who Vladimir was, only that someone remotely going through the outbound email had stumbled across
something big. He used every mail distribution site he knew how to hack into to send every kind of spam he could think of
with the ping utility embedded in it. He simply needed the remote location to get a ping to work from. The outbound email
happened before the trainer's machine had been fully compromised.