Ruth Wind - Countdown

“Yeah, yeah, Valenti.”

She wiped her face. As if the towel wiped away a layer of confusion, the answer to the signature was suddenly plain.

“It’s a virus,” she said.

S cott wiped his face with a towel. “What is a virus?”

“That’s what the signature is, a virus mark. It’s using the virus to encode the messages, the same way a virus works to infect computers.”

“I’m not following.”

“It’s a lot more confusing to say it than it is in action. When you get a regular e-mail virus, it comes in through your e-mail program, right? Then goes out through the addresses in your address book.”

“Okay.” He lifted the towel to his mouth.

“This is working the same way. The guy writes his message, adds the signature line, and it goes through the e-mail systems, bouncing here and there and everywhere, gaining a layer of corruption—in this case, encryption—with each bounce.”

“Jeez. So how do they decode it?”

“There’s obviously a key at the other end.”

A slow grin broke on his angled face. “Let’s go find it.”

It was the break they’d been looking for. Within twelve hours, Kim and Scott had broken down the e-mails and sorted them into two piles so that they could each run decryption possibilities.

The most logical place to look was the source of the virus itself. Most encryption was “private-key,” that is, it used the same key to encrypt the message as would be used to decrypt it. While there was such a thing as “public-key” encryption, where the encoding key was different from the decoding key, it was very slow and would be too noticeable for an e-mail virus. By examining the virus, they were able to crack the code itself.

Which left another layer: the e-mails had been written in Arabic and had to be translated into English so the bulk of the messages could be read by the team.

Even then, there were missing pieces of information, but pointers clearly indicated there was trouble on the way. It looked as if it would be centered around Chicago.

“We’ve gotta call Dana,” Kim said.

“You want me to make the call?” Scott asked.

Kim gave him a glare. “No way. He can be a bastard all he likes, but he can’t stop me.”

Scott lifted a shoulder. “Why subject yourself to such a jerk? He’s old school, no point in banging your head against the wall.”

“Because dealing with me means he learns, over and over, that women are in this organization to stay.”

“Suit yourself.” He waved a file. “I’ll get this copied.”

Despite her bravado, Kim had to brace herself before she picked up the phone. Dana Milosovich was a fifty-something CIA diehard, who thought women should be secretaries, whores or wives. Not operatives. Not code breakers. He had not forgiven Kim for an incident last spring, when she’d beaten him to the draw on an important case.

Too bad.

On the other end of the line, the phone rang. “Milosovich.” His voice was as gravelly as five miles of bad road, no doubt from decades of smoking contraband Cuban cigars.

“Hello, Dana. It’s Kim Valenti, from NSA. You have a minute?”

“A short one.”

“Thanks for your graciousness.”

“Don’t mention it. What is it?”

“We’ve been following some suspicious e-mail activity related to the Q’rajn. My partner and I broke the code this morning and it appears to be pointing to plans for a terrorist attack in Chicago.”

“Yeah?”

“Looks like a bomb. Maybe a truck, something to do with the bridges over the river or a freighter on the lake. They’ve created a virus code to encrypt the e-mails, which we’ve broken, but on top of that, the cell is using another layer of code substituting one group of activities for another. We haven’t entirely sorted that part out, but we’re pretty sure the site is Chicago.”

“We’re way ahead of you, Valenti. Our operatives have been following the same cell. They’re Berzhaanian rebels, and were planning to stage an event to draw attention to the situation in their county.”

Kim scowled. “Right, but we—”

“Two key members of Q-group were killed in Berzhaan yesterday. We feel certain they’re no longer an immediate threat, and in fact recommended that Homeland Security step down to a level-yellow alert.”

“What were their names?”

“Whose names?”

Kim pressed the eraser end of a pencil into the spot between her eyebrows. “The Berzhaanians who were killed.”

“Oh, let’s see. Ahmed bin Hoshel and Sabrout Al Javid El Thakur.”

Not her guys, but she paused and double-checked her notes before she spoke. No. Not the same names she had received from Oracle, but she couldn’t reveal that source. “Hmm. They may very well have been leaders in Berzhaan, but the e-mails we’ve examined have all originated within the U.S. It’s a different cell.”

“You don’t know that. They could have coded it from anywhere.”

“Not exactly,” Kim returned. Patiently, she thought. “There are ways to track addresses, but it’s more a matter of a pattern of exchange. The IP addresses are American. It looks like it’s out of the Chicago area somewhere, as well.”

“Is that so.” He coughed, a rattly, gray sound. “Don’t know how to help you, missy.”

“I’m asking you to check out the possibility of a terrorist attack in Chicago.”

“It’s done. The FBI has been over the city with a fine-tooth comb. Without a lot more information, I don’t see why we need to be wasting more man-hours and causing more unrest.”

Kim could read between the lines: there was a lot riding on this election, and the incumbent Whitlow needed things to appear stable, even if they weren’t. “Look, Milosovich, I know you don’t like me, but how’re you going to feel when a bunch of civilians get blown up because you want to piss in my cornflakes?”

“Give me something a little more substantial, and we’ll get right on it, sister.”

Scott came back, dropped a file on his desk opposite hers and raised an eyebrow. Kim rolled her eyes. “How about I give you names?”

“What names?”

“Two people associated with the terrorist cell we think is planning this attack on Chicago. They’re based just outside of the city.”

“Let me have ’em.”

“Not without a guarantee that I can have some cooperation.”

“What do you want?”

“Whatever you’ve got on these men.”

A short pause. She heard him rattling something. Maybe a canister of pens. “All right. Let me have ’em.”

With some reservations, Kim said, “Fathi bin Amin Mansour and Hafiz abu Malik Abd-Humam.”

Milosovich broke into a ragged, wet chuckle. “That loser? Abd-Humam is running a tire store downtown. He’s been here since his college days. Fathi Mansour…don’t know him.”

“My intelligence says he’s a professor with no known terrorist ties. But we both know that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’ll look into it, see what we’ve got, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’m telling you the cell was castrated when the leaders were killed in Berzhaan.”

“Hope you’re right.”

“You know, Valenti, your arrogance pisses me off. I’ve been doing this since before you were born. You hotshot kids come in here with all your jargon and think you can save the world in five minutes flat, but it doesn’t work like that.”

Kim struggled with an array of answers, from the unprintable to the compassionate. He was an old man on his way out. He knew it and resented it. She could understand that, but not at the risk of human lives. “I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time, Mr. Milosovich,” she said finally. “You’ll let me know if you turn anything up.”