Zero Day: A Novel (21 page)

Special Applications Security, or SAS as it was known, had been created twenty years before by two former Special Air Service operatives who selected the name for its meaningful initials. Five years earlier they’d sold the lucrative international company to Lanson Security, one of the UK’s oldest security companies. SAS had, however, been largely untouched by the transition. The company specialized in security measures and hardware for private companies and small governments worldwide. The former manager had been named president of the company and business had gone on as before.

Manfield had worked at SAS for just over three years and was considered the company’s brightest star. He spoke five languages, which had proven helpful to the company in recent years, and was adept at blending in with various cultures. He traveled on average eight times a year for the company, his usual trip lasting two weeks. Though he could present and pitch the latest offerings in terms of security gates and twenty-first-century technology, he was most skilled with small weapons and was inevitably dispatched when an order for such was in the offing. More than once his consummate skill with the German HK MP-5 submachine gun had resulted in a larger-than-expected order. He boasted he could write his name with a burst of automatic fire from fifty yards, then did so.

Except that the name he wrote was not really his own. Brian Manfield was born Borz Mansur in Grozny, Chechnya, to a British mother, a devoted Communist, and Chechnyan father, at that time a general in the Soviet army. Until the fall of the Soviet empire, Borz had lived in the Soviet Union, attending school in Moscow while living with his parents. When Dzhokhar Dudayev declared Chechen independence in 1991, Borz was eleven years old, so his father had sent mother and son to London for safety. Borz’s father had then flown to Grozny, where he’d promptly sided with the rebels against the Russian army.

When Russia invaded in 1994, General Mansur had organized the ongoing resistance after the occupation and had directed guerrilla operations from the Caucasus Mountains. Three times he left to seek help from various affluent Muslims, once managing to reach London for a brief visit with his wife and son, whom he decided to take back with him.

In 1996, following a period of phony negotiations, the Russians once again invaded the country. This time Borz took part in the fighting, where he proved adept at night ambushes and the assassination of Russian officers. With his perfect Russian and European looks he would don a Russian uniform, then strike terror behind the lines. Shortly before hostilities largely ended that August, Borz’s father was killed, betrayed by the Russians, who violated a peace parley.

Borz returned to London, where he resumed his formal education. At the same time, his mother directed that he anglicize his name. Now in his thirties; he knew no one who was aware of his past. For all appearances and purposes, he was Brian Manfield, the perfect English gentleman. If people noticed that he never ate pork sausage, or if they believed they’d seen someone looking like him emerging from a mosque, they thought nothing more of it.

At three that afternoon Manfield called Caro. “Are you up yet?”

“Of course, silly. Been up for hours. I want to see you.”

Manfield chuckled. “Soon enough. How about a drink at six, then some dinner?”

“I know what I want to eat, and it’s not dinner.”

“Save it for dessert. I will.”

WEEK THREE

INCREASE IN CYBERCRIME DRAMATIC

By Ursula White

Global Computer News Service

August 24

LAS VEGAS—In a speech to computer software providers, Michael Elliot, president of Internet Security Alliance, said that cybercrime is the greatest threat to American prosperity since the depression of the 1930s. “Effective software to stop it in its tracks is vital for any company,” he said, adding, “Sadly, even companies that believe they are protected are running computer systems wide-open to incursions.”

Speaking to a gathering estimated at 4,000, Elliot related several stories of looting by cybercriminals, one in excess of $1 million. Malware specially crafted to obtain financial information from home and company computers is on the increase and “is more effective all the time.” One Fortune 500 company had many of its financial records encrypted and was required to pay a ransom of $100,000 for the key to restore the files.

Today’s cybercriminals have abandoned widespread attack against corporate firewalls for the specific targeting of individual computers which will likely hold sensitive financial information. “The sky’s the limit when it comes to cyberfraud,” he said in conclusion. “We live in a cyber world at our own peril.”

Global Computer News Service, Inc.
All rights reserved.

32

MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

TVERSKOE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25

4:06 P.M.

Ivana Koskov listened intently to her earphones, then said into the microphone, “The port terminals must have a significantly increased capacity on the Pacific Coast in order for us to…”

Listening to her steady voice was Boris Velichkovsky, the managing director for resource development and logistics for Yukos Oil and Gas Company, the largest oil company in Russia. He’d once served as deputy Soviet ambassador to the United Nations and preferred this method of translation in business meetings, where the various translators sat in another room, separated by a one-way mirror. One was assigned to each foreign speaker in attendance and was responsible for both translating from Russian into the foreign language, and from the foreign language back into Russian.

Ivana was highly proficient in English and Italian and was working hard on her French. Next would be Spanish, of which she had only a rudimentary understanding. She’d been hired for this job shortly after the former Yukos CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had been sentenced to nine years in prison for tax evasion. It was widely understood that his true crime had been to build the enormously wealthy Yukos from the corpse of the old Soviet Union, then fail to cut in the Russian president and his minions. Now he was paying the price.

Ivana had never met Khodorkovsky. Few in the company ever spoke of him. It was as if he’d never existed. But that was Russia, she’d told her husband. Czars, Party chairmen, presidents, it was all the same. The powerful all seemed to vanish in the night, to disappear as totally as if they’d never existed at all. Ivana’s mother had told her of working in the old Ministry of Propaganda, cutting photographs of the vanished from archived newspapers.

Now the Texan was speaking. She seamlessly switched into Russian, glancing at her watch. It would soon be five. She couldn’t see this meeting lasting much longer. Velichkovsky would want to start the eating and drinking soon enough. Only after everyone had been lubricated with bottles of vodka would the real haggling and deal making take place. This was, as Velichkovsky had once told her with a lecherous grin, just so much foreplay.

This had also been the same time he’d suggested a significant promotion would be hers if she’d just join him on a foreign trip and see to his every need. His last traveling mistress had done well for herself, he’d pointed out. Ivana had been firm in her rejection and expected to be punished, but he’d just laughed, patted her good-naturedly on the back, and called her his
his “good girl.”

The years of marriage to Vladimir had been demanding, far more demanding than her young heart had ever imagined. In many ways her father had been right in his advice, and she’d come to understand he’d spoken out of love for her rather than a dislike of Vladimir. She’d labored at one menial job after another, usually two or three at a time, to support them. Finally, she’d taken a job cleaning the offices of Interport, Inc., one of the new American companies that had set up business in Moscow.

The company, concerned with security, had supervised all the cleaning and maintenance staff with one of their own, a good-natured third-generation Russian Jew from New York, named Annie. “Actually it’s Anastasya,” she’d said when they first met, “but only my grandmother calls me that.”

Over the following months, the two women had grown quite close. Annie came to respect Ivana and her self-sacrifice enormously. “You can’t keep cleaning rooms,” she told her. “You’ll turn into one of those stooping old women.” When she’d learned that Ivana spoke fluent Italian and Spanish and had studied English in school, she’d immediately switched to English and, when talking to her, drilled Ivana repeatedly whenever she mispronounced a word. Within six months she announced, “You’re good enough to interpret if you want. I could recommend you.”

“Oh, no. I make too many mistakes.” The thought of the better pay as an interpreter excited her, but she was self-conscious of her remaining errors when speaking English.

“Don’t be silly. You should hear the cow they’re using now.”

The new job had lasted less than a year before the American company closed its doors, deciding the cost of doing business in Russia was more than it wanted to pay. By then, Ivana’s English was nearly colloquial, and she’d been recommended for the job at Yukos.

Ivana considered herself lucky. Her petite, firm body still reflected the years of ballet training she’d put in before giving it up for Vladimir. If her smile was reluctant, it could be dazzling in effect. Though a pessimist by nature, she viewed herself as a realist. Russians had never had a break. It was their fate. To expect anything different was stupidity. The best they could hope for was a small niche of comfort and a measure of uncertain security.

Though the cramped apartment and the often noisy building was beginning to wear on her, Vladimir gave her the most concern. She marveled at how he’d managed to crawl out of his hole of despair and find a new life for himself with computers. These past months he’d started making significant money, and she was sure they’d be moving as soon as she could find a suitable apartment.

But the more success Vladimir enjoyed, the greater his ego had grown. At times she considered it to be out of control. He could be unbearable in his arrogance. Then there were his employers. She knew he’d worked for a time with the Russian Mafia, but she was certain he’d stopped. Yet when he’d been offered a job by more than one legitimate company, he’d refused them all. When she’d suggested her speaking to Boris Velichkovsky on his behalf, he’d become enraged and accused her of sleeping with her boss. She’d stood her ground and forced him to apologize for the remark, threatening to leave him until he did.

But she could tolerate his arrogance. She saw it as a form of compensation for his disability, and she could continue to stand it, if only they had a child. For all the negatives of life, even in the so-called New Russia, what was the point, she’d told her mother, of living if you didn’t have a family?

33

PARIS, FRANCE

18ÈME ARRONDISSEMENT

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25

9:06 P.M.

Fajer al Dawar checked his appearance in the mirror at his suite in the Paris Ritz hotel. Forty-five years old, of average height and build, he took great pride in his jet-black hair. His unusually fair skin was also a source of satisfaction to him, but he never spoke about it to his swarthy brothers. He ran a comb through his hair, patted a lock into place, then laid the counts down as he once again admired his figure in the new Armani suit.

As CEO of the Franco-Arabe Chimique Compagnie, Fajer made trips to Paris two or three times a year. At home he was a Muslim traditionalist, with two wives, though in the West he only spoke of his first. When he’d married, his father, from whom he’d inherited his enormous fortune, had taken him aside to talk. “An Arab of means should have the four wives the Prophet has promised, but no more. The first should be a woman you can hang on your arm in the West, but who also accepts her place. With the other three, you are free to choose as you wish, for no one will see them but your family. My advice is to marry once every ten years. That way you always have a young wife for your bed and to bring you children. Because they are so far apart, you will not have the jealousy problems others who are less careful in their planning face every day, to their regret.”

Fajer believed his father, though he also despised him. The first son of the second wife, Fajer had seen the philosophy of wife-taking in action, and though, from his experience, it didn’t work quite as well as his father had indicated, it was one of Allah’s gifts to man. In all, his father had fifteen children, six of them sons. Fajer’s mother had existed in the shadow of the first wife and taught Fajer from the first that she and he were but second-class family members. She had filled him with an anger he’d learned to conceal, but was the source of his ambition.

While in Riyadh, Fajer was publicly a strict Muslim, but those demands dropped away, though not without some ambivalence, the moment his private jet left Arab airspace. He enjoyed his Irish whiskey and the freer lifestyle of France, and he enjoyed enormously the statuesque blondes, available by the score at what was to him little cost.