The Director: A Novel (27 page)

“Who’s asking? China?”

“No, me. Hubert Birkman.”

“Yeah, sure. I know my way around lots of things.”

Morris wrote a number down on a piece of paper and passed it to Dr. Li, who had been silent throughout the interview. The Chinese man pursed his lips.

“Could you excuse us for a minute?” said Morris, motioning for Dr. Li to join him in the hall. The Israeli resumed fidgeting.

Morris returned thirty seconds later, with the Chinese man who was his nominal boss.

“Dr. Li has authorized me to make an unusual offer to you. We are prepared to pay two hundred fifty thousand as an annual research stipend, plus full use of the computer lab here, plus bonuses for any unusual penetration work, such as zero-day exploits, to reflect the value they would have in the marketplace. Plus we will take care of your visa problem, and find you housing here in the Cambridge area. How does that sound?”

“Pretty fucking great, actually.”

The Israeli was finally smiling, dropping his cynical ex-junkie hacker pose as he contemplated all that money and, for once, a hassle-free lifestyle.

“We need you to start work right away, and we want to focus you on large banks; very large banks. Are you cool with that?”

“Why not?” he said, trying to sound unimpressed.

“Okay,” said Morris, shaking Shimansky’s hand. “We have a deal. You ready to sign the contract and nondisclosure agreement?”

“Whatever,” said the Israeli.

Morris pushed a four-page agreement across the desk. It was marked with the letterhead
One World
, which was one of the cover names Morris was using for his project. Dr. Li got up and left the room.

“Initial each page at the bottom and sign the last page where the red sticker is,” said Morris coolly.

Shimansky began reading the document.

“Don’t try,” said Morris. “It’s all legal bullshit. You won’t understand it, believe me, and I don’t have time. Just initial and sign.”

The Israeli shrugged. He signed as instructed and pushed the paper back to Morris.

The young American’s face and posture changed. The slouch was gone, and so was his lackadaisical manner.

“Welcome to my world, Mr. Shimansky. This is a legally binding document in the United Kingdom and everywhere else that has a legal system. It says that if there are any disputes, they will be arbitrated by a mediator of our choosing. It also includes a nondisclosure agreement that holds you responsible, with unlimited liability for damages, if any warranties are breached. If you say or do anything we feel violates this contract, we can take you to court.”

“What kind of agreement is that?” asked Shimansky.

“My kind, your kind, it doesn’t matter, because you just signed it.”

The Israeli glowered at Morris. He didn’t like to be manipulated so crassly.

“So I can leave,” he said.

“Try it,” said Morris. “Be my guest.”

Shimansky rose and opened the door of the interview room. An armed guard was standing in the hallway. The Israeli tried to pass but the guard pushed him back into the room and down into the chair he had just vacated.

“We’re going to be friends, honest,” said Morris. “You’ll like the work. But don’t try that again.”

“What
is
the work?” asked the Israeli. “And please, Mr. Birkman, no more bullshit about your clients.”

Morris smiled. He took off his wig, which was itchy, revealing his short brush of hair.

“I’m glad you asked that, Yoav. How would you like to hack a bank with me and some of my pals: the biggest goddamn bank in the world? How would you like to take money out of one account and put it into another? How would you like to make debtors become solvent at the push of an ‘enter’ key? Does that appeal to your sense of mischief?
Nu?
”

The Israeli cocked his head. What hacker wouldn’t want a challenge like that? It was like asking a bank robber if he wanted to take down Fort Knox.

“You pay me, like you said, and I’m in.”

“Attaboy. I knew I would like you. So let me explain a few things about what we have in mind.”

Morris laid out his scheme. Even Yoav Shimansky, a man who made it a point never to show his emotions, could not help but be impressed.

23

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND

James Morris had vanished.
He wasn’t answering his phones and he was ignoring all electronic messages. His location was concealed from his CIA colleagues, and even from the staff who worked for him in the joint NSA cover office in Denver. He had given his contact information in East Anglia to only one person. So Morris knew that it could only be that very particular friend who left an unsigned letter for him with the receptionist downstairs at the Fudan–East Anglia Research Centre. The note read:
Meet me at 5:00 at The Silver Locket.
The handwriting was distinctive, small letters, sharply formed, branching like spindly roots.

When Morris received the note, it was nearly four-thirty. He told Dr. Li to delay the last interview; he needed to take a walk and would be back as soon as he could. It was dusk when Morris set out, and in the low light the fields were plush green and the furrows and hedgerows a deep velvet. He walked quickly toward the pub on the outskirts of the little town. Morris passed the memorial to Rupert Brooke, the World War I poet who had made the village modestly famous. Morris didn’t care about poetry. The only poems he could remember liking had been generated by an AI program he’d created when he was at Stanford: You typed in the theme, say
love
, and the names of the characters, the setting and a metric scheme, and out came a poem.

Morris went into the Silver Locket and asked the barman for a pint of lager. It took a few moments before his eyes adjusted to the light. Then he saw Ramona Kyle, sitting at a table in the corner. She was drinking a glass of fruit juice. Morris sat down beside her. She was wearing a wool sweater with a crew neck, the kind that teenage boys wear in prep school. Her red curls were tied in a tight ponytail. She closed her eyes and formed a kiss with her lips, without touching him. He smiled.

“Hey, you,” he said. “What’s up?”

“I was in England seeing some people, and I got worried about you. I thought you might be lonely.”

“Me? No way. I hate people. I like being alone.”

Kyle smiled. She looked to the other tables. The pub was beginning to fill with people coming in after work.

“That’s my man,” she murmured. She put a finger to her lips for quiet.

“Seriously,” he whispered, “why did you come? I’m okay. Nobody knows I’m here. I want to keep it that way.”

“The truth?”

“Always.”

“I was afraid you might be getting cold feet. I wanted to check your temperature.”

“I’m chill. I’m recruiting my last engineers now. This is going to be the hack of the century. Don’t be nervous about me, K. I’m all in.”

“Good. You have to move soon. The heat is on the
Independent
again after that story. Eventually it will be on you.”

Morris’s face lost what little color it had. He licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. He leaned toward her and spoke in her ear.

“Did you plant that?”

“Don’t ask,” she said. “That’s our deal.”

He took his beer and drained the glass.

“I don’t care anymore. Let’s blow it all up.”

“Shhh!” she said, her finger to her lips again. “You need to be careful, Jimmy.”

“I am. That’s why I’m here. You’re the one who broke security.”

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” she said, very quietly now. “That’s the other reason I came.”

“I’m not meeting people now.”

“He’s over there.” She looked across the lounge to a muscular young man in a blue blazer and a purple and white college scarf. Morris followed her eyes. The other man looked like a Cambridge undergraduate, almost. He nodded. He’d seen Ramona before, in a desolate park in Maryland.

“His name is Roger. At least that’s his work name. When I get up, he’s going to come over here and introduce himself.”

“What if I don’t want to meet him? I told you, I don’t like people.”

“Not an option. But you’ll appreciate him. He can help.”

Ramona Kyle finished the last of her fruit juice and donned a raincoat over her sweater. She leaned toward Morris.

“I am so proud of you,” she said. “Most people do nothing. You’re doing everything.”

She walked away. The front of the bar was full now; she disappeared into a knot of people before she reached the door.

The young man in the scarf came over and sat down next to Morris, where Ramona had been. Someone watching them would have guessed it was a gay pickup. He was carrying a paperback book on “Scala,” a new high-level programming language.

“How are you doing, man?” he began. There was a slight accent in his voice. Morris couldn’t place it, but it was east of Germany. “I’m Roger. Can I buy you a beer?”

“I have to go,” said Morris. “I have an appointment.”

“No problem, man.” He put his hand on Morris’s knee. Morris was startled, but he didn’t move.

“When you get up to go, take the book with you.”

“I have plenty to read,” said Morris.

“Take the book,” whispered the man. “It has some information that will be helpful for you. It also has the time and place of our next meeting.”

Roger stared into Morris’s eyes. He was a powerful person, handsome, but more than that. He had an operative’s way of subtly establishing rapport and control at once,

Morris removed the man’s hand from his leg and stood up. “I’ll think about it,” he said. He turned and walked toward the door. Under his arm was the Scala book.

Dr. Li was waiting just inside the door when Morris returned to the office. He was looking at his watch. It was after six. The five-thirty appointment had already arrived, with annoying punctuality. Morris muttered an apology. He went upstairs and locked Roger’s book in his safe. He wanted to lock himself away, too, but it was too late for that. The time for deliberating or holding back had passed, he wasn’t sure when, but the opportunity to withdraw was gone. Now he had to execute.

The last appointment was a Chinese research student named Bo Guafeng. Dr. Li had found him through a friend who was a fellow of Girton College, where Bo was a research student. Dr. Li learned that he was from Wuhan in the interior, which probably meant that he wasn’t from a rich family and needed money. He was proficient in computer science, and he had something of a reputation as a hacker. Within the Chinese student community, he was known as a rebel who wore his hair long and dressed in a leather jacket.

Can be controlled
, wrote Dr. Li on the margin of the young man’s résumé.

Morris nodded. He was trying to pay attention, but he was distracted.

Young Mr. Bo was wearing a black gabardine suit with his hair trussed in a ponytail. From the moment he shook Morris’s hand, it was obvious that he was trying hard to appear to be a diligent student, as opposed to his natural demeanor of mildly antisocial rebellion. That was precisely the wrong strategy to adopt for a meeting with Morris, but there was no way for the Chinese student to know that, and enough bits of maladapted behavior showed through to make him a believable hacker.

As before, the applicant was seated at a computer keyboard, in front of a screen, with a companion monitor facing the interviewers. This time Morris let Dr. Li do most of the talking. He was tired, and he wanted his Chinese colleague to have “face” with Bo, in the event that he was hired. Dr. Li began with a largely fictitious description of the activities of the Fudan–East Anglia Research Centre. Dr. Li was an excellent liar, whatever his other limits.

Morris introduced himself as a former employee of Hubang Networks’ subsidiary in Britain that marketed their routers and other hardware to European clients. This identity was backstopped, in case Bo bothered to check. The spurious Chinese connection would reassure Bo that he would not be courting prosecution by the Public Security Bureau when he returned home.

Morris gave a rote description of the particular fellowship position they were looking to fill. Bo looked at him intently, evidently curious about this American who seemed so well connected with Chinese information technology.

“We need a shopper,” said Morris, “someone who can research the things that might be dangerous to our clients—so that they can take defensive measures. You understand, Mr. Bo?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Birkman,” he said eagerly. “Dr. Li told me what you want. I am ready to show my skills.”

“We are waiting,” said Dr. Li, gesturing to the keyboard. “You take us on a shopping trip.”

Dr. Li gave him the guest username and password, and Bo opened his browser. He looked up and saw that they were waiting for him to display his hacking expertise.

“First, I think we must open TOR account for Onion links.”

Bo typed quickly and the browser interface for torproject.org appeared on the monitors.

“I think now we would like to go to TOR Hidden Service Directory. We will see what they have there.”

He looked at a sheet he had brought along and typed a sixteen-letter address, starting with
dppm
and continuing with a string of seemingly random letters. This opened a browser screen that displayed service providers that were running TOR, too, so that the connection was double-blind; triple-encrypted.

“Okay, easy stuff,” said Dr. Li.

“Now I think maybe you want to look at what people can buy from the Russian carders, which could harm your clients.”

The Chinese research student looked again at his crib sheet and typed another sixteen-letter string, this time beginning
with
, and up came a price list. For one hundred credit cards, the price today was $5,000. This was a competitive market. There was so much identity theft these days that prices were falling.

“Not bad,” said Dr. Li. He was stingy with his praise.

“I will look now at stolen PayPal accounts.”

This time the young man typed a shorter address, starting with
ivu4
, and in an instant the current market in PayPal money online was displayed.