MONEY TREE (38 page)

the websites down an hour. whole ISP is out. looks like a data blizzard. -Thor-

they’ll be tracking the source. our asses are on the line
-Slick Willy-

no sweat.
all they’re hitting is the public stuff. originals in Tor. I’ve got 12 mirror sites in the dark. I’m posting links to each of you. all of you take a site and keep the replication going. no matter what, shield the dirt on GA. Ted & Erin are setting up a media blitz. -LR-

Hi Lone Ranger. We’ve just come on and can’t get in.
-Erin –

Gonna give you new web site addresses.
Hope you’ve downloaded the Tor browser like I told you. It’s untouchable. and by the way, take a look at the latest stuff I put up. we got the GA data warehouse to put out for us like u said. nice trace of big money going from GA to interesting accounts in India. hold tight. -LR-

fabulous! And we’ve got new stuff to go up too! This is killer
material. We need to go public. -Erin-

you mean
missile launch????! - LR-

There was a pause in the flickering messages.
Erin turned from her screen to Ted.

‘They want to know if this is it, and if they can counter-attack?’

‘I can read. So they’ve found the pay-offs to the Indian government! Ramesh is in the clear. That settles it. What’s to lose?! We’ve got Joey waiting out there for the go-ahead to come back and swat us, Stanstead’s killed one web site and I guess from what I’m seeing, the bank’s under attack again. I say go.’

‘You realise what will happen? And that it could all backfire?’

‘Do we have a choice?’ 

Erin
turned back to her screen, took a deep breath and hit the keys.

nuke em
. Oscar!!

They stared at the screen. Nothing happened.

‘So what is going on Erin?’

‘We’re waiting for it to start.’

‘What?’

‘Cyber war.’

As she spoke messages started scrolling down her screen.

‘Is there any way you can explain that to a Neanderthal?’

‘Let’s start with the public web site. GA has knocked out our service provider with sheer volume.’

She
tracked the messages on her screen. They were being copied on everything that Oscar and his gang were saying.

‘
Oscar knows GA is trying to track down the site owners. Namely, Oscar and his crew. But the trail stops at Tor. GA has no way of following URLs into darknets. It’s a separate slice of the dark web.
A website set up as a Hidden Service is accessible only when you’re connected to the Tor network.
They’ll waste a lot of time on the public stuff but won’t have a clue about the real world.’

‘
But we’re in the public world and Oscar was using public servers. Won’t that allow Warwick’s team to trace them? They could be on their way round to visit him now!’

‘
Relax. For one, Oscar’s working on a virtual machine. His hardware is shielded. For another, he’s completely anonymous inside a darknet.’

Ted
’s forehead creased as he tried to follow. Erin pointed at her screen.

‘Look! –
instructions and a new link. We’re going into Onionland.’

‘Wh
ere the hell is Onionland?!’

‘A dark
net. If you’re not browsing through Tor, you can’t get in. The Hidden Services pseudo-suffix - .onion - isn’t resolvable by the Internet’s core DNS servers, and Hidden Service URLs are a jumbled, 16-character alphanumeric mess autogenerated by a public cryptography key when the site is created.’

‘I have absolutely no idea what you just said.
Or even what language you said it in.’

‘Doesn’t matter. T
ell you later.’

Erin
typed in the details and the screen cleared showing their now familiar menu of evidence against Warwick Stanstead.

‘
Right, I’ll upload the Yeardon material. Why don’t you hook up to the battle? I’m sending you Oscar’s link.’ She fired the email across. Ted double-clicked and found his screen filled with rapidly scrolling messages.

ok we’re synced. we got enough replicas to snow them for days.- Switchblade-

yeah? don’t bet. seen the code these guys are using? so bad!!!- Thor-

sooner we go public the better. what’s cooking, LR?- SlickWilly-

Erin’s shooting up the hidden web now with new stuff. - LR-

checked the bank firewall. looking cool. I mean cool!! n
o flames… yet! - Magus-

keep your peepers on yo
ur block. I’ve got the centre. let’s see the view from our Delhi compadres - LR-

Ted turned to Erin. ‘How long can the bank firewalls hold out?’

‘
Soon see. Oscar has rebuilt them with even tougher and more advanced guardian code. The bank’s systems have a tough shell all round them.’ She giggled. ‘Oscar described it as the mother of all condoms.’

‘An illuminating
image. So what’s to worry about?’

‘
We can’t shift all their systems into a darknet. GA’s upping the transaction volumes. They’re creating and replicating dummy transactions and firing them down separate pipes aimed at People’s Bank servers. Like multiple rocket launchers. Behind the dummies will be viruses. If the firewalls go down, the bugs get through and kill the bank’s systems. And there’s no reason why GA can’t keep up bombardment for days, or weeks until the bank goes out of business. The code Oscar and his crew have put together is super-fast, super-effective and can take the punishment – for a while anyway – and still let clean transactions through from real clients. They have to keep working, providing a service or GA wins anyway.’

‘You said there were two things.’

‘Right. Number two is killing the customer.’

‘You mean instead of going
after the bank, they go for the clients?!’

‘It’s easy to get hold of customer accounts. We can safely assume that GA is sitting with a directory of all the email addresses of
250 million People’s Bank customers.’

‘And…?’

‘They’ll forge emails which purport to be from People’s Bank. The customer opens it. The virus gets in and promptly destroys his computer or a client’s entire corporate network.’

‘C
an Oscar stop that?’

‘This was one of my ideas. I suggested it to the Delhi team. A few days ago the bank should have sent out an email to all its customers warning them of possible sabotage. Attached to the email would have been self-loading anti-virus code. Oscar got hold of the best software shield around from one of his gang. Worm I think. They’d trapped a slew of bugs from GA, analysed them and rebuilt their software to sift out and kill them off. Even variants should be handled as the software is trained to recognise the ‘style’ of the bugs and it goes on learning and adding new virus checkers all the time.’

‘There are times when I miss a drink more than others.’

She noticed he wasn’t doing anything about it.

‘Well maybe you’ll deserve one when this over. And maybe I’ll buy it.’

‘What’s happening now?’ The screen was quieter. Only the occasional message flicked across it.

‘Now, I would guess, they’re getting ready to go on the offensive.’

It was 4am in New York and the line was holding - just.

here’s a new one. Anyone want it? It looks like a leacher - LR-

that’s up my street. Goes with the other blood-suckers.- Slick
–

box em up and send them
over. Same for all you guys. tracer’s almost done and then we can turn it round. - LR-

‘Is this the offensive line coming in?’
Ted pointed at the last few messages.

Erin
turned back from her own machine and squinted over her glasses.

‘Uh huh. Let me just finish this. There she goes! Right, the web site’s got all the new stuff loaded. I’ll tell Oscar and he can do the necessa
ry replication. Then we have to work out who we tell. Don’t we?’

She emailed Oscar then stood and stretched.
Erin realised she was enjoying this. She felt good. Her stomach was miraculously quiet. Anila had given her a small jam-jar of ground leaves and bark of the neem tree. She added a spoonful to a mug of boiling water, let it stew and magic. It helped that for the first time in years she felt she was doing something worthwhile. That it was a giant act of vandalism aimed at bringing down her own corporation was a little bizarre. But this felt right. She had no doubts. She looked over Ted’s shoulder at the unfolding cyber drama.

‘They’re stripping all the viruses out of the GA blitz and rounding them into a pen. Oscar has been cutting code that will pick up every GA attacker and unpick its source address.’

‘So they know where it’s come from originally?’

‘Right. And he’s going to build that in to the firewall so that every new virus message that comes in, automatically gets bounced back where it came from. And on the way back, Oscar adds copies of every virus they’ve thrown at us. Plus a few of his own specials and some variations from his very wicked gang!’

‘So the firewall becomes a mirror?’

‘Or a missile defence system. Eat your heart out
, George Bush!’

Ted
’s screen dissolved and a new picture started forming.

‘What’s happening? Have we lost? Is this Stanstead’s bugs?’

‘I don’t think so… Wait. What the hell…!

There was a blare of trumpets
, the screen came into focus, filled with figures. A band of muscled men in loin cloths and capes marched forward brandishing swords and shields. The camera angled back leaving the small band of warriors bunched together on the left of the screen. Facing them was an endless horde of raging men on foot or mounted on horses and elephants. Tigers and leopards wrenched at their chains in their frenzy to attack.

The dull roars from both sides were
abruptly overridden by one powerful voice. The leader of the small band of semi-naked musclemen stood forward, and raised his spear. His chubby face came into close-up. Oscar. With a big black beard. Just behind him was a grinning Albert. Their borrowed bodies rippled and glowed. The camera panned to the enemy battalions and fixed on the leader riding a great chariot and surrounded by screaming henchmen with axes and spears. The leader’s face showed the jutting nose and high brow of Warwick Stanstead.

King
Oscar saw his nemesis and drew his arm back. He launched his great spear at Xerxes/Stanstead with a mighty shout,

‘
I - AM - SPARTA!’

Three hundred voices swelled behind him in chorus. The vastly outnumbered, doomed warriors broke into a sprint towards the enemy legions. A great clash of arms unfolded, with screams of pain and terror and exultation. Swords rose and fell, blood spurted, limbs flew off and severed heads rolled.

Ted burst out laughing. ‘It’s 300! The Spartans’ battle for Thermopylae. Oscar’s hijacked the movie!’

Erin
was laughing with him. ‘It’s the computer game. He’s hacked it. I bet he’s hooked it up directly to the server battle.’

‘What?’

‘GA’s virus attacks are represented by the enemy battalions. Oscar and his men are the Spartans. Look, you can see some of the gang we met in CJ’s back office. There’s Vikram and Shivani!’ she pointed at the flushed faces of the young man and woman fighting alongside Oscar. ‘And he’s raided GA’s computer files for mug shots of Warwick and his exec team for the faces of his enemy!

‘But it’s not for real?’
Ted asked doubtfully.

‘Real enough.
Representational for sure. Oscar will have written code to translate what’s actually happening in the cyber war and hacked it into the 300 video game. I bet he’s linked the volumes of virus attacks to the numbers of bad guys. If the baddies are winning, the Spartans will be forced back.’ Her voice lost its humour. ‘If Oscar goes down, it means Ramesh’s bank has been overrun. For real.’

They sat glued to the images of the bloody fighting for what seemed hours. For a long time, the Spartans were on the defensive. They were pushed back by sheer weight of numbers into the narrow defile of the pass of Thermopylae. Bodies piled up. Exhaustion lined the faces of the defenders. There came a pause, a long pause as the enemy regrouped and prepared for one final push. The sound of battle dropped. From behind the Spartans came a long trumpet blast. Tired bodies righted themselves and muscles flexed anew.
King Oscar turned to his troops and beat his shield with his bloody sword.

‘TO ME! TO ME! FOR SPARTA!’ his voice boomed out, echoing round the walls of the rocky pass.

The Spartans hammered their shields, formed into battle order and as one, charged the enemy. Instead of the few hundred that had first lined up with Oscar, a torrent of new troops poured down the gorge and into the enemy ranks. At first it was simply a chaos of shouting and crashing of weaponry. Then slowly, inch by inch, the enemy hordes gave way. Still more Spartan muscle-men filled the scene. The rout started quickly. Soon the enemy were running from the field, only to be cut down by the avenging hordes. Like a brown sea the Spartans overwhelmed the dark forces until with a snap, the screen blinked out.