Mark Pryor - Cyberian Affair

“Marko told me the same thing. I will send the information to the FBI, but they might not follow through.”

Niko slammed his fist on the arm of the couch. “That’s not good enough. Marko, Joey, and everyone else are dead. I’m a loose end for them. They won’t stop looking for me.”

Vyper looked up from her laptop. “Marko was the only friend I had. I am angry, too. Do you have any ideas?”

“First, we have to tell someone who will force the government to act… the press. Like Watergate. Deep Throat’s inside information led to the resignation of the president. Maybe we could do the same thing and take down Sokolov.” Niko struggled to turn his instincts into a real plan. “You need to be a new Deep Throat . We’ll call you Trotsky .”

Vyper shook her head. “I know computers, not people. I do not know what to say, who to talk to.”

“Then I’ll be Trotsky . I’ll figure out what to say, who to tell.”

“I agree. But it will not stop the Russians. It is not safe for you to leave my home. Not until they are stopped. Do you have any more ideas?”

“I’ll think of something. Sokolov’s doing this. We stole his money. He’s looking for me—maybe you, too.”

“How can we stop him?”

“Right now, I don’t have a plan. But we need a brilliant hacker willing to do unethical things online. Someone like Prixster.”

Niko waited for an answer. He needed to neutralize the Russian threat, but he couldn’t do it without Vyper’s help.

She nodded. “You are right. I will be Prixster once again, but I will not use the name.”

“Great. Working together, we have a fighting chance.”

The live video feed showed the outside of the burning building. The fire department had contained most of the flames while the EMTs stood around. No sign of anyone coming out.

Vyper set her laptop on the couch. “We cannot help them. The emergency responders will do that.”

“We don’t know…” Niko thought of the people who were in the Center earlier in the evening before Marko was killed. “Maybe Rocky or Gato survived.”

“I am monitoring the dispatch system. If something significant happens, I will get the details. For now, we need a plan. Marko knew a lot more about the Russians than we do. I have his files on the backup server.”

Niko studied the directory on the server. Next to the video files were twenty folders, each one labeled with unintelligible names consisting of random numbers and letters. “What am I looking at?”

Vyper pointed to one of the folders.

Niko selected it and entered the password Vyper gave him. A list of clearly labelled files appeared, sorted with the newest date on top. One name was familiar. “I’ll start with the file on SOKOLOV.”

“I will look at the latest information on security incidents.” Vyper began typing on her laptop.

The Sokolov file summarized what was known about the billionaire who was recently named the CEO of Rusmir, the largest computer services company in Russia. Previously, he held a government position as Director of Communications, IT and Media—probably a reward from the Russian president for assistance in the Crimean intervention.

Crimea ! That’s where Niko grew up—in Sevastopol. Scanning quickly past the first few pages, he found confirmation of his suspicions. Sokolov was Ukrainian. The man had been a suspected enforcer in the Ukrainian Mafia. He might have lived there when Niko did.

Niko thought back to his teenage years in Sevastopol. He wasn’t proud of the work his gang did for the Mafia—collecting and delivering protection money.

He turned to Vyper. “I might have met Sokolov when I lived in the Ukraine.”

She looked up from her laptop. “When I searched for your name earlier this evening, I learned where you were from. You will have more insight into Sokolov’s background than I do.”

On the TV, the live video showed an ambulance driving around the side of the building where the flames had been extinguished.

Someone’s alive .

Vyper must have seen it, too. She typed on her laptop. “They are reporting one survivor—a man. He requires an ambulance. No name or description of injuries yet.”

Niko thought about the Action Center. “Maybe the survivor was inside the datacenter. The tight physical security could have protected him. The others were unprotected—in operations, where the drone exploded.” He looked at Vyper. “Have you learned anything about the hackers?”

“They are not done yet. It is a large team, and they are now probing Fairfax County systems, looking for weaknesses. The probes are coming from the dark net. If they find a vulnerable server, they might take more aggressive action.”

“Can you protect the systems they’re targeting?”

“Yes, I will, but it will not stop the Russians from probing other systems. I plan to configure a few decoy servers so they appear to have weak defenses. Once the Russians access the decoys, I will track them backwards.”

“You said the hacks are coming from the dark net. You can’t track anything through that network.”

“So far, the only dark net traffic I see comes from the TOR network. It is only a minor problem because I know the vulnerabilities of its Onion routers. When I was Prixster, I infected over a thousand of them. Each time I see an attack coming from an Onion router, I install my software on it and spread the infection. Over time, I have been able to trace many attacks back to the source.”

No one can crack the dark net… no one but Prixster .

A smile crossed his lips. “I’m going to learn a lot from you.”

“I am not a good teacher, but you may watch all you like.”

“Vyper.” Niko waited for her to look in his direction. “Can I ask a personal question?”

“You can ask me whatever you like.”

“The way you speak. It sounds so formal. Where did you learn to speak English?”

A wrinkle formed on her brow. “I do not know. I cannot remember learning to speak. I was very young. Why do you ask?”

“I learned Ukrainian and Russian long before I learned English. I wondered if English was a second language for you.”

“I grew up in Utah. Never learned a second language.”

“I don’t think I ever heard you use a contraction. You say, ‘I do not know,’ and, ‘I cannot remember’. It’s just… like I said, it sounds so formal.”

“That is how I learned to speak. Contractions sound like slang to me. It is… It’s… just the way I speak. Does it bother you?”

“Absolutely not. You have a lovely voice. It was a silly question.”

A glance at his watch showed it was nearly 4 a.m. He could barely spell Sokolov at this hour. “I’m going to bed. My mind works better after a few hours’ sleep.”

“You are right. I need my sleep, too.” She closed her laptop and stood. “See you in the morning.”

It was too late for a shower. Niko moved everything off the double bed in the guest room. He stripped off his clothes, turned out the light, and crawled under the sheet. As tired as he was, sleep should come easily, but he feared a repeat of his recurring nightmare.

Niko was eighteen again in Sevastopol. Part of his mind knew it was a dream, but everything seemed so real. He stepped out of the pub into the warm night air, carrying a valise full of protection money. He turned right and spotted his friend Yuri standing on the corner.

Yuri waved. “ Pryvit !”

Niko slipped easily back into his native language. “ Pryvit ! Is something wrong? Skorpion is expecting me.”

Yuri’s expression turned serious. He motioned Niko closer and lowered his voice. “Skorpion is dead. Shot full of bullets outside his house.”