Lynne Heitman - The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

“Uh-huh. Hardware encryption encrypts every sector and byte, and it doesn’t leave temporary files and directories unencrypted, which software usually does. In fact, if it’s what I think it is…” He went back to the beanbag, pulled his laptop into position, and started pounding, referring to the napkin for the numbers. When the results came up on the screen, he took in a quick breath, sucking it through clenched teeth. “Oh, man.”

“What?”

“First of all, that porno virus story can’t be true, not with this kind of encryption.”

“What kind?”

“I can’t say for sure, but he could have used something like a KryptoDisk system, which would totally defend it from your average virus. It’s military-grade encryption. The only thing that unlocks it is a cryptographic token.”

“A token?”

“Four years ago, it probably looked like a thick credit card. Here, you can see.” Sensing, perhaps, that he had more energy than I did, he brought his laptop over and showed me the photo on the screen. “You plug it into a slot in the side, the operating system loads, and everything comes up as normal.”

“Is there any chance the files could have been erased or written over without the token?”

“No, except, well…usually, there’s a recovery password in case you lose the key, because if you do, you’re pretty much screwed. But you have to have one or the other or sometimes both to get in. It’s also pretty-”

My phone started to twitter. I whipped it out of my front pocket. Private call, which was how Kraft’s calls had been coming in. I flipped it open.

“Alex Shanahan.”

“What the fuck do I have to do to keep you from calling me every half hour?”

Despite my dislike for Kraft and his battery-acid disposition, it was thrilling to hear his voice. I got up from the chair. Somehow, it made me feel more ready to deal with him if I was on my feet. “I have something you’ll want. I can’t put you in touch with the other reporter, but I have something better. I have his story and all his research notes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then fuck you. This man’s son was murdered by Blackthorne, and he took a tremendous risk leaving this stuff with me right before he quit his job, packed up, and fled the city. So, if you want it, let’s talk about a deal. If you don’t, stop wasting my time.”

He had no response to that. Maybe if he couldn’t say something nasty, he said nothing at all.

“The research he gave me includes taped interviews with Tony Blackmon. I haven’t heard all the material, but in what I heard, he talks about Thorne’s background and the things that drove him over the cliff. He calls him Cy, by the way. Did you know that?”

Still no response. I had either shamed him into silence, which had to be hard to do, or he was interested.

“He talks about Thorne’s motives and his own motives. According to the reporter’s notes, he also gives names and dates and describes a bunch of the group’s illegal operations. If this is what you’re writing about, you want this stuff, and there is nowhere else to get it. Blackmon is dead.”

I listened closely to the silence and heard what I had hoped to hear. He was breathing faster. He was interested.

“Can you at least let me hear some of it?”

I had brought the envelope with me. I had not let it out of my sight since I’d been entrusted with its care. I pulled the recorder from my backpack, turned it on, and let it run until I heard Blackmon’s voice. I held the phone close to the speaker and let it run for about thirty seconds. I turned it off. “Convinced?”

“How much tape do you have?”

“Two tapes, probably four hours. Plus a lot of additional notes and research. You can have it all.”

There was another long pause, and I was sick of hanging on his every word and breath, so I turned it back on him. “Do you have the Dell with the files?”

“I have the Dell and I looked for the files, but I didn’t find anything that looked like them.”

I went over to where Felix was working and found the Wendy’s napkin. “Check the serial number on the unit.” I read Drazen’s notes to Kraft.

“That’s it,” he said.

That was troubling. The computer without the files would be very bad news, indeed. “You didn’t find anything?”

“I looked.”

“Hold on.” I covered the phone. “Felix, if these files were on an encrypted hard drive, would you be able to see them without the token?”

“No. The operating system wouldn’t even load.”

Back to Kraft. “You wouldn’t necessarily see them.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“My computer guy, and don’t even start with me. He is completely reliable. He believes Vladi’s computer must have had an encrypted hard drive, which means you would need a key or a token to access them or even to see them.” I went to look over Felix’s shoulder. “Pull up that screen again, Felix.”

He pulled up the picture of the KryptoDisk system. “Look on the side of the unit. Is there a slot there?”

“Yeah.”

Felix cupped his hand to whisper to me. “It’s just a standard PMC slot. That could be for a modem or a networking card or…”

I walked out of his range. I didn’t need to complicate matters with the truth.

“If you don’t have the key,” I said, “you can’t get to the files.”

“Okay. Do you have the key?”

“No, but that shouldn’t matter. It sounds as if Drazen has a way to get in. He wasn’t concerned about the key, just the machine. Bring it to me in Boston, and I’ll have all your materials waiting.”

“I can’t give you the computer, even if it does have your files. I already told you, it has the e-mails on it from the Martyr’s Brigade. I need them for my story.”

“Your story on Cyrus Thorne?”

“Yes.”

I still didn’t understand what e-mails from the Martyrs had to do with Thorne, and I was tired of being in the dark. “I need to know what you’re writing about.”

“No.”

“Tell me what the story is about or, I swear-”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Swear to God, Kraft-”

“You don’t want to know. Believe me, you don’t.”

“I swear to you I will burn this stuff to ashes and it will be gone forever because, let me just say this again, Tony Blackmon is dead.”

He was going to give me the answer. I knew he would. I was just trying to make it sooner rather than later.

“Fine,” he said. “You want to know the big secret?”

“Yes.”

“Here it is. Here’s the big secret.” Even then, when he had me right on the edge, he waited.

“Kraft-”

“It was staged.” The words popped out like a hiccup.

“What was staged?”

“The hijacking.”

“The hi-” It sank in. “Salanna 809 was staged?”

“Planned, funded, and directed by Americans. The group that did it is Blackthorne. The e-mails prove it.”

He didn’t sound crazy. He was an award-winning investigative journalist, yet what he was saying sounded like crazy talk to me. “Are you making this up?”

“No.”

“Why would Blackthorne hijack that plane?”

“They didn’t. They hired the Martyr’s Brigade to do it, and it wasn’t really a hijacking. Thorne considered it an extraction. A complicated one, but an extraction nonetheless. It was called Operation Peloton.”

“Who were they extracting?”

“Ali al-Badat. He was a prisoner in Pakistan.”

Pakistan…al-Badat. This was familiar. I got out my notebook and flipped back to my conversation with Lyle. That seemed like years ago. “Right. I remember this. They caught al-Badat when they were looking for someone else.”

“That’s right. Musharraf had just declared his support for the U.S., which was about as popular with his Muslim constituency as bikinis. There was rioting in the streets, burning of the U.S. flag. The military opposed him. His intelligence people were plotting against him. It was tense. In the middle of all this, he stumbled across al-Badat, the people’s sheikh. He was popular, charismatic, articulate, and fully capable of destabilizing the pro-West secular government of Pakistan. They couldn’t put him on trial. They couldn’t kill him and turn him into a martyr, and they couldn’t let him walk. What do you do?”