No sooner had I grabbed a walkie-talkie from the car and handed it to Vann than Ellen and I were back on the road, powering over the Golden Gate, and crawling through the city in the direction of Matt’s in Lower Haight. Soon enough, we arrived 769 Page Street – a terraced Victorian affair. We climbed the stairs and hit the doorbell.
Thirty seconds later, Matt Soghoian threw open the door. He was fully dressed – he’d always been an early riser – and had a big smile on his soft, rosy-cheeked face.
‘I don’t believe my eyes – Saul Marshall!’ He grabbed me into a bear hug. ‘You son-of-a-bitch: haven’t see you in years, then you just turn up at my front door!’ He turned to Ellen. ‘And who’s this?’
‘A good friend of mine: Ellen Kelden.’
He shook her hand. ‘Come in, come in.’
As he led us into the living room, Ellen and I exchanged a positive glance. He was clearly onside. But we knew we needed to cut to the chase.
The living room was large. In the far corner was an oversized desk supporting three high-powered computers – clearly his office area. To one side, a muted TV. And near the door, a sofa next to a coffee table cluttered with the breakfast we’d clearly interrupted.
Matt gestured to the sofa. ‘Sit, I’ll make coffee.’
‘Listen, Matt, I won’t beat round the bush,’ I said abruptly. ‘We’re here because we desperately need your help, and time is tight.’
His face went serious. ‘I heard rumors, Saul, that you’d landed yourself in serious trouble a couple of years back, but I didn’t know what to make of them.’
I nodded. ‘It’s true enough, but this isn’t about that. In fact, it may be best for you not to know what this is about, exactly – it may put you in the firing line. But either way: I think you have information that might make a big difference. That might even save lives.’
He nodded. ‘We were shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches. I’m at your disposal.’
I smiled. ‘Here’s the deal. A few years back, you showed me some of the stuff you were working on, showed me the mug-shots of a specific team of Chinese hackers you’d been collecting by switching on their webcams—’
‘Saul,’ Matt broke in, looking uncertainly at Ellen.
‘I remember you said it was illegal, Matt. But you can trust her.’
He gave a small nod. I continued:
‘Basically, I need to see those same mug-shots again, and hear everything you know about the folk in them.’
He furrowed his brow. ‘That’s all well and fine, but I’m gonna need more to go on. China have an eye-watering number of cyber warriors – at least 20,000. And while I don’t have that many mug-shots, I’ve got enough.’
I grunted. Although I’d thought it might not be so simple, I hadn’t expected quite such a needle in a haystack. ‘Okay.’ I thought a beat. ‘I remember you were particularly interested in them because they’d been responsible for taking down the White House’s website and replacing it with text that read: Protest US Nazis. Just after the US accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo War in 1999.’ I clicked my fingers. ‘Byzantine Amber, you called them.’
Matt made a knowing smile. ‘Byzantine Ember – the code-name I assigned them.’
‘That’s the one.’
Matt led the way to his office area, sat at the central computer, and, after a few clicks, brought up a page with the words Byzantine Ember across the top, containing fourteen miniature mug-shots. He clicked the mug-shot on the top-left of the screen.
The image filled the screen. It was one of the men who’d abducted Ellen. Sitting in a squalid-looking office, wearing a wife-beater.
‘Guessing we got a hit,’ said Matt, registering the recognition in my face.
I nodded. ‘We do.’
I looked at Ellen, who was frowning at the screen; she then turned to me, and nodded – as if to say that, while she didn’t recognize him, she understood who it must be.
Matt hit a key, and the next image filled the screen. Lanky, come from the dead. Staring us down with his steely gaze. Again, I nodded my recognition to Matt. And this time, there was recognition in Ellen’s face, too. She was leaning in, almost holding her breath.
Matt continued cycling through the photos, and we were confronted with a parade of familiar faces – all six men from Joshua Tee, the other guy from LA – as well as a handful of unfamiliar faces. Finally, Matt brought up the fourteenth and final mug-shot. Immediately, it stood out as an anomaly. For one thing, it was a woman. For another, instead of a wife-beater or Tee, she was wearing a People’s Liberation Army uniform.
And there was something else that separated her – something more intangible. The look of unbridled fanaticism in her eyes.
This was the ringleader. The woman who’d ordered our death by fire.
‘That, as you might’ve guessed, is the team leader,’ said Matt.
‘Hold on: am I to take it from her uniform that this team is part of China’s People’s Liberation Army?’
Matt hummed. ‘It’s not that simple. We’re used to thinking of an army as a top-down organization, in which there’s someone at the top of the food chain sanctioning all activity. But the PLA’s different. A group like this can get together, start working, and if they’re doing useful stuff, the PLA will take them under their wing. But at the same time, they’ll remain somewhat autonomous.’
I pointed at the screen. ‘You know anything about this woman?’
Matt clicked the image, and brought up a text-box on the bottom-right. ‘Ah yes, I remember her,’ he said. ‘Yuelin Lie. She actually formed this group immediately after the Belgrade bombing. That in itself is hardly surprising: the incident sparked a world of fury in China. But there’s another twist: her father – a dignitary called Delon Lie – was one of the three casualties. That might explain this group’s uniquely malicious activity towards America over the years: it was fueled by a very personal animosity.’
‘Uniquely malicious activity?’ I asked.
‘You see, whereas most Chinese hackers simply steal our data, this group – while they did conduct plenty of theft – also frequently sought to wreak further havoc in the process. For example, they once launched a denial-of-service attack against the US Department of Energy and the Interior – that is, took their website offline – in the early noughties.’
‘So we’re talking nationalists with a particular vitriol for America?’
‘Precisely.’
I looked at Ellen. I could see her mind ticking over.
‘You got any more information on Yuelin?’
‘A little. Born Beijing, 1979. Into a family with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Elites. In 1996, she enrolled in Tsinghua University in Beijing – their version of an Ivy. Then, shortly after she graduated, she set-up Byzantine Ember in 1999, which she led till its abrupt disbandment in 2013.’
I nodded slowly. ‘The thing is: while I get why Yuelin might have a unique vitriol towards America, I don’t understand how she found fourteen men willing to dance to her tune. Surely she must exist on an extreme fringe?’
Matt looked at me hard. ‘I’m not sure you understand the levels of anger and mistrust there is toward the US in China – and the seismic impact that embassy bombing had to further sour their perception of us. When our planes dropped those bombs, while it was quite clear to the international community it was an accident – their embassy had recently changed address, and our army hadn’t logged their new address into their database – the Chinese simply refused to believe this. And not just the general population, but elites, too. In fact, many felt it was part of a wider US plan to undermine China: China’s number two at the time described it as a carefully crafted plot of subversion.’
I remembered what Vann had said – that the Chinese had a conspiracy mentality when it came to America. Matt continued:
‘But whether the Chinese en masse saw it as an accident or not – and most did not – there was a near ubiquitous perception that it was yet another humiliation in the long line of humiliations that made up China’s recent past. 100,000 protesters turned up at the US embassy in Beijing and bombarded it with rocks.
‘So while, yes, the likes of Yuelin are an extreme fringe, it’s entirely possible she’d be able to recruit thirteen likeminded men at that point in time, given that the mentality of the average Chinese towards the US was already one of hostility. Given that they’re taught from childhood about their historical humiliations, and the imperative of righting those wrongs.’
‘Wuwang guochi,’ Ellen said quietly, echoing the slogan Vann told us earlier. ‘Never forget national humiliation.’
Matt nodded solemnly. I took a deep breath. The true nature of what I was up against was hitting home. A nationalist team brought together by outrage at an act they perceived as American murder; forged in the fire of an overwhelming sense of injustice.
And for their ringleader – the one driving them, radicalizing them – it was a personal injustice rolled into a national one. A double whammy.
On the plus side, we’d already taken out six of them. So, if Yuelin’s team was simply Byzantine Ember, there was only eight left – Yuelin included.
Suddenly, a thought struck me. ‘These photos – wouldn’t US national security have similar catalogs, and therefore know to look out for these guys if they ever came over?’
Matt chuckled. ‘Again, I’m not sure you’ve got the measure of things. For one thing, our three letter agencies are in many ways less equipped than the private sector when it comes to fending off hackers, and I’d be greatly surprised if they had such a catalog. And even if they did, I highly doubt they’d be able to keep tabs in the way you’re suggesting. As a country, we’re so hopelessly overrun by Chinese hackers, we can hardly keep up.’
‘Titan Rain,’ Ellen piped up again. ‘That’s the NSA codename, isn’t it?’
‘Precisely,’ replied Matt.
I shook my head. I was lost.
‘In short, this Chinese nationalism and desire to redress wrongs has manifested in a colossal effort to steal intellectual property from the US through hacking. And when I say colossal, I mean colossal: trillions of dollars’ worth of intellectual property since the late 90s.’
‘Like the F-35 Fighter Jet, right?’ said Ellen.
‘Right,’ said Matt, with an impressed nod. ‘The US Government invested a trillion dollars in the F-35, and outsourced the work to a private company, Lockheed Martin. But in 2006, Chinese hackers stole the blueprints, and six years later, the Chinese unveiled a near identical jet.’ Matt paused. ‘But that’s only one example. I’ve just shown you a small team of hackers, but there’s one team that’s over a thousand strong and works from a 130,000 square foot office in Shanghai. Theft on an industrial scale.’
I was shaking my head. ‘I knew China hacked us, but I had no idea of the scale.’
‘That’s the problem. Even someone like you – someone with years of experience at the FBI – has little idea. In part, it’s because this sort of theft is hard to make people care about: it’s intangible. But in part, it’s because our leaders are too scared to call China out: they’re terrified of alienating our second biggest trade partner. And since the public is almost completely in the dark about it, they can’t put pressure on the politicians.
‘If you want my opinion, this resurgent Chinese nationalism’s a ticking time bomb, and unless we start confronting it, we’re gonna have a crisis on our hands sooner or later.’
I sighed. What Matt didn’t realize was that we already had a crisis on our hands; that this nationalism was already making itself felt in a far more sinister fashion – through unprecedented acts of violence on US soil.
‘Okay, I think we’ve got what we needed.’ Matt nodded and stood. I looked at him a beat. ‘I’m happy to tell you more about this, Matt. But I do believe that knowing is more trouble than it’s worth. It’s your call. But either way, I owe you big-time.’
Matt put a hand on my shoulder. ‘As always, I trust your judgment.’
I smiled, gestured to Ellen, and started across the room. Then the TV caught my eye: it was the news, and it was about to give a rundown of the top stories.
I wanted to see if they were reporting on Vegas.
‘Mind if we turn that up a minute?’ I asked, gesturing at the TV.
‘Go ahead.’
I picked up the remote and thumbed on the volume. Immediately the anchor started talking about Vegas. Three more sniper victims – all high-profile hackers – had been found at Caesar’s Palace, Vegas. That’s all they were reporting right now.
I knew at least a few cameras would have caught us in Vegas, and that law enforcement would be in the process of connecting dots. But though it would be clear to them we’d had enough knowledge to know which rooms to investigate, I knew there’d be little to suggest we’d actually done the crime…
I sighed and refocused my attention on the TV. The anchor was now discussing a local incident in which a guy had almost gotten himself run over by a San Fran tram about twenty minutes ago. They were playing footage of it that someone had caught on their cell phone: a blond-haired man jumping in front of a tram – apparently to kill himself; the tram making a futile emergency stop; the guy jumping clear at the last moment, and darting away.
I felt a twist in my gut. I was just like this guy. I’d thrown myself in front of an unstoppable force. And I had two choices: either get out the way, or wind up road kill.