It was just gone 4:30 a.m. when we arrived in Sausalito – the counter-cultural enclave just north across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. And we were parked on the road just round the corner from where the GPS bug on Manek’s bike had stopped: at one of the multi-million dollar houseboats on Liberty Dock.
It’d been an eight and a half hour slog back to the coast, but Vann bore the brunt behind the wheel, while Ellen and I re-charged our batteries in the back: Ellen had gone out like a light, her head in my lap, and I snoozed against the door. We had unhesitatingly headed in the direction of San Francisco because of the bug on Manek’s bike. However, I had another reason for heading to San Francisco: I’d recognized a number of the nationalists, and I had an old friend in San Francisco who I reckoned could illuminate things further. But though I had every intention of telling Vann and Ellen about this, I had put it off, largely because I’d been too tired to broach it. In fact, the only conversation we’d had – in the final hour of our journey – had been about Manek. It was now indisputable that he’d lied, and we all agreed that, since we didn’t have time for games, it was time to turn the screws. And his location worked in our favor. A house-boat on a dock – no escape route.
It’d also crossed our minds that instead of finding him in a hackers’ commune – which we thought was most likely – we might in fact find him among the nationalists. But even if the house-boat was full of nationalists, we reckoned brute-force shock tactics were our best bet: they were more likely to quickly overcome the enemy.
And so, when we arrived, we didn’t hesitate. We got out of the car, and walked towards the entrance of Liberty Dock.
Although dark, we could still make out the lay of the land. These houseboats were not dingy, depressing dives, they were three-story converted ferries, permanent fixtures affixed to the dock with little wooden bridges. And the colorful paint-jobs and miniature herb gardens gave an air of hippie counter-culture.
A neighborhood of fat-cat socialists: bestselling novelists, famous sculptors, acclaimed filmmakers. Perhaps a computer programmer or two.
Vann sniffed the unseasonably hot air. ‘So you going to take the lead on this, Saul? Looks like all these places have just one entrance.’
I flexed my neck. I was feeling fresher for the sleep. ‘That’s the plan. I go in, and hunt down Manek while you cover me. If it is just another hackers’ commune, the key objective is to make sure none of the others call the cops – so let’s keep them under watch, and maybe even imply that we are the police. By the same token: we don’t want to make too much noise and have the neighbors raise the alarm.’
Vann grinned. ‘Just a shame we didn’t have time to get you a parrot and hook so you’d really look the part.’
‘And what about me?’ asked Ellen pragmatically.
‘There’s only one route of escape, so I reckon you should stay out front, and make sure no one does a runner.’
She nodded, and we headed down the wooden dock. Soon enough, we hit the house the GPS device had led us to – 58 Liberty Dock. A bright yellow ferry, which comprised of at least 1,500 square feet of floor space, over three stories, and which had Manek’s bike pushed up against the outer wall.
There were lights on, but the curtains were drawn.
I led the way over the small bridge. I examined the gap between the door and the jamb. The door was unlocked.
I took out my Walther. Go-time.
I burst silently through the door, the weapon raised. I was in a large foyer, and immediately I had company: there were two young men, in a cloud of marijuana smoke, on a sofa. And my first thought was: this is definitely a hackers’ commune.
One of them jumped to his feet.
‘What the fuck, man?’
‘This is a bust. Where’s Manek?’ I demanded brutally.
‘Fuck you, pig.’
I moved straight past them, to a spiral staircase on the other side of the room, and as I began mounting the stairs, I looked back, and saw that Vann had them in his sights, and was demanding how many people were in the house. The other guy replied: four.
I reached the top of the stairs, and found myself in an oversized lavish living room. Carpeted floor. Fireplace. Beamed ceiling. And though the spiral staircase led up to another floor, there were four doors off this space.
There were at least two more people in the house, including Manek. And while we hadn’t made enough noise to alert the neighbors, anyone on this floor at least would undoubtedly know something was up. That meant I needed to be careful…
I approached the first door, and booted it open. A kitchen – empty. The second door – a bedroom, empty. The third door – a Jacuzzi on an outdoor mezzanine, empty. Then I approached the fourth, and, half-expecting it also to yield nothing, kicked it down.
A small pen-knife came slashing down at me, and I took an urgent half-step back and it whispered past my face. It was held by a small, greasy-faced guy, who looked terrified at his own display of violence. My response was immediate and instinctive: as he was still following through, out of balance, my gun came up, and whipped him round the ear.
A pop as his ear-drum perforated and he was down for the count.
Man number three. And the bedroom behind him empty.
The next instant, I was back on the spiral staircase, pounding upwards. As I did so, I hoped to hell that Manek was upstairs; hoped to hell he wasn’t planning on doing something stupid. I couldn’t afford to have another lead die on me.
My heart was hammering, but I felt calm, focused, lucid…
No sooner did I hit the top of the stairs than I found Manek, standing with his back to the wall, the other side of a large hackers’ space: a room packed with high-end computers. He had sweat on his chin, panic in his eyes, and a Colt pistol in his right hand, aimed directly at me.
‘Stay where you are,’ he yelled, his voice breaking.
I held my ground, my Walther raised.
His gun told me he’d expected trouble. But the tremor in his hand told me he had little experience with firearms.
On one hand, this was dangerous: a lack of confidence can make a target volatile. On the other, it meant I had a better chance of taking the lead.
The trick was to act fast. Give no time to think.
I glanced around my immediate vicinity. Just within my range was a hard plastic stool, no more than knee height. I had a plan.
‘I lower mine, you lower yours – nobody gets hurt.’
‘How can I trust you?’
‘It’s either that, or both our heads roll. On the count of three.’
He said nothing. I started counting. ‘One, two, three.’
At that, I slowly started lowering my arm, and he did the same. Four seconds later, both our arms reached our side.
Almost in the same moment, my foot lashed out like a snake, and belted the stool across the room. It bounced once and smashed into his legs, and he toppled awkwardly onto his gun-wielding arm with a visceral crunch.
Next thing I knew, I was across the room, straddling his back, and prizing the weapon from his hand. Then, once disarmed, I twisted the arm he’d landed on, and he groaned in pain. He was under control.
Ten minutes later, Arjun was on the sofa in the foyer, with Ellen and me standing over him, while Vann was upstairs with the three others, keeping them in check – not least because we didn’t need three strangers privy to what we were asking about.
We hadn’t said a word to Arjun yet. The tension was showing on his face.
I grabbed a chair, placed it opposite Manek, and sat, fondling my Walther with deliberate menace.
‘Arjun, I’ll cut to the chase,’ I said quietly. ‘We know you lied about GhostWallet: we went to an untraceable location, used GhostWallet, and a team of terrorists showed up and took us hostage. Now, there’s one of two possible scenarios. Scenario one: you’re in cahoots with them – either willingly or not. Scenario two: Lawrence told the nationalists about the trapdoor, you know nothing about them, and you lied out of loyalty to your libertarian ideals. Either way, the situation’s simple: either you tell us what you know, or there’s trouble.’
‘What the hell are you talking about? There’s no goddamn trapdoor.’
‘Wrong answer.’ I lifted the gun, and flicked off the safety.
Thick beads of sweat instantly formed on his temples, and words tumbled out of him:
‘Please, please, I honestly have no fucking clue about a trapdoor. Please, listen, listen, there’s no trapdoor, I have no idea about any terrorists, swear to God.’
I hadn’t planned to shoot him there and then: I’d planned to get a reaction. But while what he said was unexceptional, his tone wasn’t. He sounded profoundly sincere.
I lowered the gun and regarded him carefully.
‘So these terrorists just happened to run into us?’ I said bitterly; then, after a brief pause, I added more patiently: ‘Or are you saying there is a trapdoor, but you just didn’t know about it? Because that’d explain not knowing about the terrorists.’
‘No, you don’t understand.’ He was red, on the brink of tears.
‘Help me understand.’
He opened his mouth, shut it again, shook his head.
‘I’m losing patience,’ I whispered.
‘Who are you?’ he said with sudden urgency. ‘I need to know who you are.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘Enough with the goddamn libertarian shit! Am I supposed to believe that you have no idea about these terrorists, and that you’re willing to lose your life simply to protect your goddamn app? For god’s sake: it’s already been compromised!’
‘This is bigger—’ He broke off, then said quickly. ‘Given the situation, yes, I’m willing to give my life rather than tell the wrong person. I don’t want to die, but I will. So either you tell me who you are, or shoot me now.’
Silence. I looked at Ellen whose face was indecipherable, then back to Manek.
Two options. Either resort to violence, or humor him. And all at once, I made the decision to humor him. Something told me the libertarian stuff was real, and that he really was willing to share if I could offer some assurances.
And after all, if it didn’t play out as I wanted, I still had the other option…
‘My name’s Saul Marshall. If you’re worried about what you know falling into the hands of the state, then I’m not someone to be concerned about. On the contrary: as someone who once worked for the government, and wronged them, I’m considered an enemy of the state. But my relationship to the state is immaterial. A team of radical Chinese nationalists are using technology to track down and murder innocent protestors and I need to know exactly what’s going on so I can shut these fuckers down.’
Arjun was rubbing his temples. ‘Okay, okay,’ he mumbled. He looked up, new resolve in his eyes. He had no way of verifying my story. But it looked like he was about to take a punt.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘When you went to this – untraceable location – what exactly did you do on the computer?’
I shrugged. ‘Used GhostWallet, not much else matters.’
‘It matters a lot,’ he said loudly. ‘A lot. Tell me what you did.’
I looked at Ellen. A small nod.
‘We downloaded TOR, visited a Dark Net website, and transferred money to someone via that website.’
Arjun nodded. ‘And on that website, did you input information that identified you?’
I looked at him hard. ‘Yes, we signed in. But all information we sent was encrypted with Public Key.’
He was still nodding. Then his eyes went misty, like he was thinking how to proceed.
‘Two months ago, Lawrence visited me out the blue: turned up at the squat I was at in LA, and told me he had big news – news I couldn’t share with anyone. He claimed that he and a cypherpunk team he’d been working with had achieved the biggest libertarian breakthrough of a generation: they’d not only de-anonymized TOR, but also bypassed the use of Public Key Encryption on TOR.’ He paused. ‘Then, by way of proof, he gave me a USB stick. On it, was a short description of how they’d achieved it – not instructions, but the theory – and document that contained details of the corrupt activity of five Californian elites, real high-powered people, as proof.’
I absorbed this slowly.
‘So you’re telling me that this nationalist team don’t have a tiny window into the Dark Net: they’ve blown it wide open? That this team can see all the online activity of those people who’ve gone out of their way to conceal what they’re doing? And that’s how they tracked us?’
Manek gave a blood-shot stare.
‘That’s precisely what I’m saying. They may only be a small team, but TOR is considerably smaller than the rest of the internet, so it’s definitely conceivable that they’ve been able to monitor all Dark Net activity. But the implications are vaster.’ He shook his head. ‘Sure, not many people use TOR compared to the mainstream internet. But it’s still used by thousands of dissidents the world over. In fact, they depend on it: it’s the last safe refuge on the net. Right now, it sounds like you’ve got a small team using this technology to carry out retribution on a small scale. But imagine if it fell into the hands of an authoritarian government – say, Russia or China – with the resources to follow up and punish every dissident. Hell – after Snowden– I’d be shitting myself even if the NSA got hold of it, because we sure as hell can’t trust them not to trample on our liberties.
‘And you better believe that if any of these governments were even to get a whiff this technology exists, they’d do whatever it takes to get hold of it. They’d shell out hundreds of millions of dollars for it. Maybe even kill. So that’s why I concealed the truth in LA: I didn’t know if I could trust you. Still don’t.’
I looked at Ellen. She was dumbstruck.
‘But I don’t get it: why would a libertarian design such a thing? I understand these nationalists pretended they were cypherpunks to secure Lawrence’s help; but why did he think it was a good idea to undermine TOR?’
Manek uttered a bitter laugh. ‘I told him the same damn thing. Told him he was opening Pandora’s Box. But his view was that the hack had to come eventually, and it was better for it to be in the hands of libertarians. There was no dissuading him; and so, since he’d made it clear I was the only other person who knew about it, and not even his team knew I knew, I resolved that all I could do was keep mum.’
I took a deep breath. I felt giddy – sick. All of a sudden, these nationalists were far more powerful than I’d ever imagined.
They had dirt on every person doing their best to hide their dirt. They had technology countries would kill for…
I took myself in hand. ‘This USB stick – the one with the dirt on five elites – where is it? Obviously it’s only the tip of the iceberg, but it might be useful to see some of the folk under their thumb. Also: I want to see proof they have this technology.’
A defeated nod. ‘It’s upstairs. But—’
‘But what?’
‘After you interrogated me in LA, I encrypted it, then deleted the key, so even I couldn’t unlock it.’
My jaw tightened.
‘But listen,’ he continued quickly. ‘While I did encrypt it, I was reluctant to make it completely inaccessible – I knew that the information might end up being life-or-death – so I used a weaker algorithm. An algorithm that can, in fact, be broken in just a couple of hours with a brute-force attack. But it’s not a simple procedure: you’d still need a supercomputer to do it – like the ones at the NSA; or, at a push, a highly-classified private contractor.’ He paused. ‘I really can’t tell you much more about what’s on it: I was reluctant to look at it myself in any depth, because I knew the information was so dangerous.’
I nodded slowly. Already I had someone in mind – someone in San Francisco, no less – who might be able to get me a supercomputer. But first, I needed the USB stick.
I stood. ‘Let’s go get this USB.’
Without any resistance, Manek led me and Ellen up the spiral staircase to the hackers’ space, where he picked up an innocuous-looking thumb drive from a desk and handed it over. And at that moment, I was damn grateful we’d taken him alive: there was no way I would’ve picked it out from the masses of equipment in the room.
Thirty seconds later, we were on the second floor with Vann, and Manek was sitting with the three other hackers.
Ellen, Vann and myself formed a huddle that let us keep an eye on our captives without being overheard. Immediately, I filled Vann in.
His eyes rounded. ‘That’s… huge,’ he said simply.
‘So I’m thinking Scott Brendan,’ I replied pragmatically. ‘He works for SAIC, the private contractor known colloquially as NSA West, and which is bound to have a supercomputer. And not only are their offices in San Fran, but it’s a Sunday, meaning it’s the ideal time to get inside surreptitiously. I can probably get a phone-number for Scott online.’
‘Scott Brendan?’ probed Ellen.
‘Aside from Vann, my closest friend in the world is a man called Morton Giles – the guy who hunted me during my con-artist career, and who became my mentor at the FBI. Three years ago, Morton Giles took on a new protégé: Scott Brendan. I’ve only met him a couple of times, but if Morton Giles trusts him, we can, too.’
I paused.
‘As it so happens, he’s already sacrificed a lot for me. Back in 2013, Mort also helped me try to retrieve my son, and as a result, the FBI gave him the third degree. But though they were unable to nail him – largely because he had so many powerful contacts – Scott was shown the door due to his association with Mort. So he moved west, to SAIC.
‘But we can trust Scott, there’s no doubt in my mind. He’s the sort who puts what’s right above what’s easy.’
Ellen sighed, then nodded. She trusted me. And I could tell she appreciated that I hadn’t sugar-coated things.
‘So how about you call Scott, then the two of you go pay him a visit, while I stay put?’ said Vann. ‘We need to keep an eye on Manek till we know this USB’s the real deal.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll try and call Scott now from the landline here. But there’s someone else I want to see before Scott, if possible.’
Both Vann and Ellen raised eyebrows.
‘When I first saw these nationalists in Joshua Tree, I had a powerful déjà vu, and I think I’ve managed to place it. Vann, remember when we were in Iraq with the HRT, and we worked with the tech guys in the Fourth Brigade, Second Infantry Division – The Raiders, we used to call them?’
Vann nodded.
‘Well, I got friendly with one in particular – Matt Soghoian. Then a few years after Iraq – in 2008 – I was in San Fran for business, and heard that Matt had started an internet security company. When I paid him a visit, I remember he told me that not only did he spend most his time fending off hackers from the Chinese government, but that he’d also taken some unorthodox steps – namely, hacking these hackers back, switching on their webcams, and creating a catalogue of mug-shots. He showed me some, and I think that’s where I remembered these nationalists from.’
I let this sink in. Ellen said:
‘But how do we know we can trust this guy? Have you heard from him since then?’
‘I haven’t. But seeing that we trusted him with our lives in Iraq, and he didn’t let us down then, I reckon we can trust him again. Besides, I remember he told me that what he’s been doing – hacking back – is technically illegal, so, given that he’s vulnerable himself, I don’t think he’s likely to be too loose lipped.’
I paused. ‘And finally, we need more information, so I reckon it’s worth the risk.’
There were reservations in Ellen’s face, but she said nothing.
‘Vann, how will we stay in contact?’ I said, moving the conversation on. ‘We have to consider your burner compromised, since its number was in the memory of my burner when we were captured. So I say we use the nationalists’ walkie-talkies on a friendly frequency.’
Vann nodded. ‘Less discreet, but it’ll do the trick.’
‘Okay. I’m gonna head upstairs, and use a computer and landline.’
I went upstairs and booted a computer. First, I searched for Scott Brendan, and thankfully found his details in the white pages. Next, I searched the address I remembered as Matt’s, and got a result suggesting the house was still in his name. Finally, I picked up the landline, and dialed Scott’s home number.
It rang on and on – it was, after all, early Sunday morning. At last, a drowsy response:
‘Hello?’
I could see him in my mind’s eye. Slim frame; eyebrows frowning; intelligent, diffident face creased with tiredness.
‘Scott, it’s Saul.’
A pause. ‘My God, Saul Marshall,’ he said softly.
‘I know this wasn’t how you envisaged our reunion – or maybe it was – but I need your help, Scott. Shit’s hit the fan.’
‘I bet.’ He was trying to sound nonplussed, but he wasn’t. That was unsurprising. He was one of the good guys, but he wasn’t a cool customer. I knew this would be tough for him.
‘Fill me in, Saul.’
I smiled. No questions asked. Loyal to the last. And so, quick as I could, I gave him the run down: the true nature of the sniper killings; the prospect of another imminent attack; the technology we could be up against; and the favor I desperately needed.
He was silent a spell. ‘Saul, if these people have this technology, it’s – huge.’
‘So can you decrypt this USB?’
‘Dear Lord.’ He was scared – I could hear it.
‘Scott?’
‘I can. We have a Cray Supercomputer at SAIC. Not quite as powerful as the NSA ones, but they’ll be able to brute force it alright.’ He paused a beat. ‘Meet me at the corner of Battery and Sacramento at seven thirty: the office is just round the corner. Since it’s Sunday, I should be able to get you in. The place is closed.’
‘I’m bringing Ellen – that would-be victim I mentioned. That okay?’
‘Yes. Just make sure you both look innocuous.’
‘Anything else you need me to do?’
‘Pray this technology isn’t real.’