Zero Days, page 5
‘And now he’s here.’
‘Yes, intriguing, isn’t it?’ said Schoenberg. ‘Then there’s Wang. He was, and possibly still is, deputy head of cyber command of the People’s Liberation Army. I’m surprised you didn’t come across him while you were in China. Perhaps you should bring him some dumplings.’
Drayton smiled. He was impressed, but not surprised by what Schoenberg told him. Not after the way the German had stripped bare his own past. He assumed he tapped into a network of diplomatic and intelligence contacts built over a lengthy career in and out of the shadows. He knew how to play their game.
‘None of them are hands-on computer people,’ Schoenberg said.
‘Isn’t that a problem?’ Drayton asked. ‘This is a cybercrime investigation.’
‘Oh, they understand very well the power and importance of computers – to espionage and warfare. That’s what matters to them. They don’t press the buttons, don’t need to, they run the operations.’
‘And Cullen,’ Drayton said. ‘What do we know about him?’
‘His background is in the military, special forces. Though his résumé has been scrubbed pretty clean. Now he’s CIA. I’m pretty sure of that.’
Drayton didn’t need to ask. He was absolutely sure. He’d recognised Cullen the moment he set eyes on him. In the hospital he’d been using a different name. He rarely did small talk, not now, not back then. He rarely did conversation at all, but he did do patriotism, an aggressive exaggerated patriotism. Drayton remembered that. In the hospital he’d been a brooding presence, slipping in an out of the control room, but always in the background, always watching, just as he was watching now.
*****
They called it a breakthrough, but it just confirmed what they already knew, that Cerberus was like nothing they had ever seen before. They were working at their usual table in the corner of the Control-Delete Bar, beer and a plate of fries alongside their laptops. Milo was sharing the fries with Fritz the dachshund, while keeping a wary eye out for Fritz the bar owner, who took a dim view of customers feeding his overweight dog.
Norgaard had isolated the bug used against the Berlin metro in the same way a medical scientist might isolate a deadly virus, neutralising and then examining it. Drayton watched the Norwegian at the screen of his computer as he disassembled, re-assembled, poked, prodded and generally did everything you could with a piece of malware, concluding that the snarling three-headed dog might never be stopped without rethinking the way computers are built.
‘It’s got to be the chip, it’s got to be the chip,’ Norgaard said.
Drayton agreed. There was no other explanation. The malware was getting into computer systems through a flaw in the very fabric of microchips, the microchips used in most of the world’s computers. That was why it was able to infect all operating systems and roam across all devices.
It was a startling conclusion, and one they needed to share, so Schoenberg immediately called a meeting of the Cardinals, who lined up as usual on one side of the conference room table, Schoenberg and his team on the other. Cullen doodled in a notebook; Strykov pulled at the sweaty, stained collar of his shirt and ran a cloth along the inside; Wang pulled at his ear, but mostly sat looking blankly out of the window, as Drayton laid out their conclusions.
‘But how’s it getting in?’ hissed Igor Strykov, affecting an air of cynical indifference, slumped in his seat, while his fat fingers rotated a coffee mug on the table in front of him. He was a broad bear of a man, with hooded eyes like sagging awnings over dark shop windows, offering little hint of what lay beyond. Norgaard gave him the nickname Muttley, after the snickering, sneaky and slightly menacing dog from Wacky Races. He reckoned the Russian’s wheezy smoker’s laugh was spot on.
‘And where’s the flaw?’ barked Cullen, in a rare demonstration of solidarity with Muttley. He was sitting bolt upright in his chair. Always did. Enormous hands on the table, fingers tapping impatiently, his broad, square, military shoulders poised like a boxer’s challenge to the others. Norgaard called him Captain America.
Drayton said they didn’t know. He said they hadn’t found the flaw. ‘But it’s the only plausible explanation.’ They’d arrived at their conclusion by a process of elimination, he said, since the malware didn’t appear to be getting into computer systems by any other route. ‘It has to be directly attacking the chips.’
‘So it’s just a hypothesis,’ mumbled Wang to nobody in particular, addressing the Politburo again. He pushed a pair of heavy black-rimmed spectacles up his nose and smoothed his hair, which was dyed the regulation black favoured by Chinese apparatchiks. Norgaard had given him the nickname Winnie-the-Pooh, since he bore a striking resemblance to the rotund honey-guzzling cartoon bear.
Though Norgaard never used the nicknames to their faces.
‘A dangerous hypothesis,’ said Schoenberg.
After their initial burst of questions, the Cardinals said very little. But there was an edge in the room. At first Drayton thought it was because of the morning’s news – more deaths blamed on Cerberus. Ransomware had frozen the traffic management system in Boston. Traffic lights stuck on orange; others changed and flashed randomly. There was mayhem. Multiple accidents, and a family of four died in a collision with a truck.
But Drayton sensed another reason for the atmosphere. Could it be that their own agencies had reached much the same devastating conclusion? A flaw in software can be patched. But not a flaw in a chip – a chip used across the world from weapons to the giant servers controlling industrial systems, to phones and connected toasters. Computer chips themselves might have to be redesigned. The disruption would be unimaginable.
*****
The Cardinals found names for the latest attacks on their computer systems. Wang Yang called the ransomware that had crippled several Chinese oil fields Northghost7. The shutdown of the city of Boston was attributed by Ric Cullen to Charlie32. Wheezing Igor Strykov blamed the St Petersburg power grid shutdown on what he called Treptower5. British cyber experts blamed the attack on British water companies on Glienicke12. They all bore the signature of Cerberus, the snarling three-headed dog, but there were subtle variations between each of them.
Then one grey morning, rain lashing against the conference room window, traffic gridlocked below, Cullen announced that the NSA had cracked Charlie32. ‘We found a kill switch,’ he said, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. Boston was back online. Cyber sleuths from Britain’s GCHQ cracked Glienicke12. The water was flowing again. It seemed like the first genuinely good news in weeks.
Then after a few moments hesitation Wang said, ‘The oil is flowing again.’ His English was slow, sometimes faltering. ‘Our experts have also cracked the code.’
‘Ours too,’ said Strykov. ‘The lights are back on in St Petersburg.’
They had all found what they called a kill switch. Essentially the key to unlock the ransomware. Drayton assumed they’d all discovered it hidden in the code, but nobody was volunteering details.
Schoenberg stood and walked to the front of the conference room, hands behind his back, looking less the bank manager this time and more the learned professor addressing a hall of slightly dim students. He removed his glasses. Well done. You’ve made a good start, top marks for effort, but there’s a long way to go, and don’t forget this is a collaborative course.
Strykov said the St Petersburg investigation was on-going and he’d provide more details of the breakthrough when he could.
Cullen said, ‘There’s simply not much more we can say right now.’
Wang nodded in agreement. ‘Our investigation is at an early stage.’
Then Drayton said, ‘Think of it as a jigsaw puzzle. And you’ve each discovered a piece. We can’t tell a lot from an isolated piece, but put them together and there’s a broader picture.’
Cullen stood and walked to the coffee machine. Wang blew his nose. Strykov’s dirty handkerchief was back at his sweaty neck. Nobody spoke, the silence only interrupted by gurgling and hissing as the coffee machine delivered Cullen’s Americano.
‘Perhaps you all just paid the ransom, and none of you found the kill switch,’ Drayton said, not even trying to hide his impatience.
Cullen glared at Drayton. ‘Which means what, exactly?’
‘Which means, why don’t you share your great discovery, Ric? Unless there never was one. Maybe you just paid the ransom. A bunch of Bitcoins paid to the three-headed dog.’
Cullen winced. ‘With respect, Chuck, I don’t think you can expect any of us to provide operational detail. Let’s just say we’re all maybe getting better at our jobs.’ He smiled, but not from good humour. It was a bitter and hostile smile.
Schoenberg coughed and raised a hand. Schoenberg the diplomat. ‘There are of course operational considerations to sharing data. I understand that. But I don’t need to remind you all about the urgency – and the threat we are up against.’ Then he proposed another break.
Cullen grabbed Drayton’s arm as they left the room, steering him into one of the nearby offices they never used, pushing the door closed behind them and pinning him hard against the wall, a fist full of Drayton’s shirt in his hand.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are Drayton? Calling me out like that,’ he hissed, tightening his grip, Drayton struggling for breath. ‘You forgotten about the hospital already? Maybe you should just have kept running, kept hiding, because you know what, you fucked up, you fucked up big time. And people died because of you.’
He released his grip.
‘But I’m gonna give you a chance to redeem yourself, to make things good. Because you know what? We’re on the same side, Drayton.’ Pushing him down into a seat, and leaning close. ‘I expect you to tell me what’s going on with Schoenberg and with the others. Strykov and Wang, in particular. You’re working for me now, you understand?’
And in case Drayton didn’t understand, Cullen said, ‘I’m giving you a chance to put things right. Or to make them worse. Because I can destroy you, Drayton. Never forget that. It’s your choice.’
*****
Outside, the rain had eased, but it was still drizzling. Drayton bought a coffee and sat on a damp bench close to a mock-up of the world’s first traffic light, a strange contraption, set on five solid pillars and hand-operated.
‘Maybe that’s what we need to beat the hackers,’ Schoenberg said, taking a seat beside him.
‘Maybe,’ Drayton replied, his mind elsewhere.
‘Ric Cullen doesn’t really like you, does he?’
‘It’s mutual. He, or people like him, are the reason I left government service.’
‘But the Mountville Memorial Hospital, that was a government operation. CIA, was it not?’
Drayton didn’t immediately answer. He sipped his coffee, watching the old traffic light turn green, no longer surprised by Schoenberg’s knowledge of what was supposed to have been a classified operation.
‘They were a client. Just another client. I quit working full-time for the government after China.’
‘So what did happen, Chuck? What went wrong at the hospital?’
Drayton raised the collar of his coat against the cold, and for a while neither of them said anything.
Then Drayton said, ‘There was a Russian, a double agent, he’d defected to us about a year ago, and he was being treated in that hospital. There’d been a tip-off about an assassination attempt. The GRU, Russian military intelligence, wanted to make a point to anybody else thinking of betraying the motherland. They were planning to hack the hospital computer systems, target the syringe infusion pump. Take control, hit him with a killer overdose. Wham. Right into his veins.’
‘And you tracked it. Followed the bug. The CIA wanted to learn about it, turn it round.’
‘That was the idea. It was powerful and unknown. We followed it, right into the computer system. The plan was to isolate it, sandbox the thing, and all the time let the Russian controllers think they were still in charge. Long enough to do the analysis. But it seemed to anticipate our every move. It learned. Changed its behaviour, hid. I told them we couldn’t let it get any further. We had to destroy it, destroy it quickly. I keyed in the code to kill it. But nothing happened. Nothing.’
Drayton warmed his hands around his coffee cup, speaking slowly now, looking into the distance.
‘By then it was too late. It was already controlling the pumps. The Russian was the first to die. It was very quick. But it also infected other pumps. Collateral damage, I guess you’d call it.’
‘And you blamed yourself?’
‘Who else is there to blame. I was the guy at the controls. I’m still not exactly sure what happened. But it should never have got through.’
‘And Cullen was there?’
Drayton nodded.
‘It was the first time hackers had used the image of the three-headed dog. Does that make Cerberus a Russian weapon?’ Schoenberg asked.
‘The hit was contracted out. That’s the way the Russians work. Keep it deniable, keep it at arm’s length. And look at the Cerberus attacks since then. The targets have been everywhere, including in Russia.’
*****
It began to rain more heavily, and they took shelter in a glass-covered atrium off the main Potsdamer Platz intersection. It was large and airy, lined with cafés and designer boutiques. There was a gallery to one side, and around a dozen protesters had gathered outside. They were outnumbered by bored-looking police, who stood in front of the gallery’s glass windows and large revolving door.
The protesters were chanting and holding screaming banners and placards. ‘STOP GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR BURMA’, ‘STOP KILLING MUSLIMS IN BURMA’, ‘SAVE MUSLIM ROHINGYA’.
Other placards showed an image of Myanmar’s leader, an elegant woman with a flower in her hair, to which had been added fangs and a splattering of red paint. Words below read, ‘Aung San Suu Kyi. Shame on You!’ On another placard, the Facebook name and logo had been doctored to read, ‘Hatebook’. Red paint oozed out of the Facebook thumb, ‘Delete Facebook’, and ‘Delete the lies and hate’, daubed across it.
The gallery’s walls were hung with large Buddha images. Buddhas among trees and on hillsides. Another in a field. One dominating a small island in a river. A poster advertised an exhibition, Buddha and the Landscape, opening today, and sponsored by the Myanmar embassy.
Drayton and Schoenberg walked deeper into the atrium.
‘You don’t do social media, do you Drayton?’
‘Used to. Deleted most of my accounts. Don’t like what they do with the data. And you?’
‘Never,’ the German replied. Sharp, emphatic, as if it were obvious, and the question itself was pointless and unnecessary.
They reached the far end of the atrium, which was dominated by a large video screen showing rolling news headlines, a strap below carried the latest currency rates and share prices. The Berlin office of one of Germany’s main news agencies lay behind the screen, which was filled with images of a man walking briskly through the arrivals hall of Berlin’s Tegel Airport, surrounded by cameras. Bodyguards clearing a path through the pushing and jostling mass. The images were wobbly. The man at the centre of the scrum had slicked back grey hair in a ponytail. He smiled, waved and climbed into the back of a waiting Mercedes. A caption said, ‘Efren’s hundred billion dollar dream’.
Drayton and Schoenberg stopped at a fussy and over-priced ice cream kiosk with a long Italian name. Drayton ordered a large cone with three scoops. Belgian chocolate, caramel cookie crunch and a raspberry cheesecake gelato.
Schoenberg ordered a small cone with a single scoop of vanilla. ‘You trained as a lawyer, didn’t you? Picked up the computer skills later?’
‘I’ve never pretended I was a computer geek. I’m an investigator who knows computers. I’ve never bought the idea that cyberspace is somehow beyond the law, or even needs new laws. We’ve got plenty, against fraud, extortion, theft. Murder even. The computer’s just another way of doing it. It’s just a matter of getting the person at the keyboard.’
‘Tell me about New York,’ Schoenberg said. ‘The New York Attorney General’s office, 2006 until 2009. Isn’t that when you worked there? Before you joined government service.’
‘I did. It was my first big break after law school.’
‘So you were there through the financial crises?’
Drayton nodded. ‘It kept us busy.’
‘But still, nobody was jailed.’
‘The figure is one. One solitary banker, last time I counted.’
‘How do you feel about that?’
‘How do you expect me to feel? Nobody was held to account for the biggest man-made economic disaster since the great depression. You don’t have to be a card-carrying socialist to think that stinks.’
‘You worked on the Efren Bell case?’ said Schoenberg, nodding towards the video screen.
Drayton waited as a loud cry went up at the other end of the atrium. Shouting and angry chants. The Myanmar ambassador arriving for the exhibition opening.
‘The case was never prosecuted,’ he said.
‘Not enough evidence?’
‘Oh, there was plenty of evidence. He traded on inside information. He knew what was coming. Sold the market short massively and made billions.’
‘He says it was all down to algorithms,’ Schoenberg said. ‘Clever trading algorithms that kept him one step ahead and predicted the fall.’
‘That’s what he says. The evidence says otherwise.’
‘So why was he not prosecuted?’
‘That’s a question I still ask myself. It was a political decision, and Efren Bell was always generous with contributions to our elected officials. I thought we’d nailed him. I pushed hard to indict him.’
Schoenberg took off his spectacles and wiped the lenses. ‘Maybe too hard. They forced you from your job and accused you of leaking details to the New York Times. You blew your legal career on account of Efren Bell.’
