cool, and collected. He caught himself wishing he’d popped a fourth Valium before getting out of his car. He tried to think of a different line of small talk, but fortunately he did not have to.
Biery opened the plastic box containing the hard drive and said, “There she is.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
Gavin took the board out of its protective sheath and looked it over. “What was the deal with the delay?”
“Delay?” Wicks asked nervously.
Biery just cocked his head. “Yeah. We ordered this on the sixth. Usually you guys get off-the-shelf items to us in a week.”
Todd shrugged. “It was on back order. You know me, buddy, I get it to you as fast as I can.”
Biery just looked at the salesman. He smiled while he shut the box. “‘Buddy’? What, you trying to butter me up? Sell me a few mouse pads or something?”
“No. Just being friendly.”
“An ass-kissing is a poor substitute for a box of doughnuts.”
“I’ll remember that. I hope your system wasn’t inconvenienced by the back order.”
“No, but I will install the hard drive myself in the next day or two. We need the upgrade.”
“That’s great. Really great.”
Biery looked up, away from the component that Wicks knew could get him thrown in prison. He asked, “You feeling okay?”
“Fine. Why?”
Biery cocked his head. “You seem a little out of it. I can’t tell if you need a vacation or if you just got back from one.”
Todd smiled now. “Funny you say that. I’m taking the family down to Saint Simons Island for a few days.”
Gavin Biery suspected his vendor had started his vacation a little early in his head.
Biery finished his meeting with Todd Wicks, and within twenty minutes found himself sitting in the conference room off Gerry Hendley’s office. Where the other seven men in the room looked crisp and clean, Gavin looked like he’d climbed the stairwell up to the ninth floor on his hands and knees. His pants and shirt were wrinkled, except where his significant paunch pulled them tight, his hair was unkempt, and his baggy eyes made Ryan think of an old Saint Bernard.
Jack told Biery about the NSA’s discovery of the connection between Iran and the drone attacks, going into detail about how the pilfered data was exfiltrated to a command server at the Qom University of Technology.
Instantly Biery declared, “I’m not buying that for a minute.”
Rick Bell said, “You’re not? Why not?”
“Think about it. Whoever managed to break into the secure Air Force network and exfiltrate the data back out would most definitely hide the origin of the attack. There is no way in hell the Iranians would have put a line of code in the virus that sent data to a drop point in their own borders. They could put that server anywhere on the planet and then use other means to get the data there.”
“So you don’t think Iran had anything to do with this?”
“No. Somebody wants us to think they did.”
“But,” asked Ryan, “if it wasn’t the Iranians, who—”
“It was the Chinese. No doubt in my mind. They are the best, and something like this took the best.”
“Why the Chinese?” It was Caruso asking. “The Russians are good at cyberstuff, too. Why can’t this be them?”
Gavin explained: “Here is a good general rule of thumb for you guys to keep in mind when it comes to cybercrime and cyberespionage. The Eastern Europeans are damn good. The Russians, Ukrainians, Moldovans, Lithuanians, and so on. They have tons of great technical colleges, and they train computer programmers of high quality and in high numbers. And then, when these kids get out of school… there are no jobs over there. No jobs over there except in the underworld. Some get recruited in the West. As a matter of fact, Romanian is the second most spoken language at Microsoft’s headquarters. But still, that’s a small subset of the total number of the East and Central European talent pool. Most of the rest go into cybercrime. Stealing banking info and hacking into corporate accounts.
“In China, on the other hand, they have amazing technical universities, as good as or better than in the former East Bloc states. They also have special training in the military for young programmers. And then, when these young men and women get out of school or out of military vocational training… each and every one has a job. In one of many military information warfare battalions around China, or working for their Ministry of State Security’s cyberdirectorate. Or else they go to work for the state in telecom or something like that, but even these programmers are organized for offensive and defensive CNO, that’s computer network operations, because the government has cybermilitias that conscript the best and brightest minds into working for the state.”
Hendley strummed his fingers on his desk. “So, it sounds to me like the Chinese are more organized and ready to act against us.”
Gavin said, “Yes. A Russian hacker will steal your ATM card number and your pin. A Chinese hacker will blow out the electrical grid in your city and send your commercial aircraft into a mountainside.”
It was silent in the conference room for several moments.
Chavez asked, “But why would the Chinese do this? We aren’t operating drones against them in any number. This happened in Afghanistan and Africa and in the U.S.”
Biery thought about this for a moment. “I don’t know. The only thing that comes to mind is they want to distract us.”
“From what?” asked Ryan.
Gavin said, “From whatever it is that they are really doing.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just the computer guy. You guys are the spooks and the analysts.”
Sam Granger leaned forward on the desk. “Well, now. That is a good segue into the next order of business.”
Biery looked around. Quickly he noticed everyone smiling at him.
“What’s up, guys?”
Chavez said, “Gavin, we need you to get on a plane with us tonight.”
“A plane to
“Hong Kong. We have located FastByte Twenty-two, and we need your help to go over there and learn a little more about him and who he’s working for.”
Gavin’s eyes widened.
“You found FastByte Twenty-two?”
“The CIA did, actually.”
“And you want me in the field? With the operators?”
Ryan said, “We think you could be a crucial part of this operation.”
“There is no question about that,” Gavin said with immodesty. “Do I get to carry a heater?”
Chavez cocked his head. “A
“A heater. You know. An iron. A piece.”
Ryan started laughing. “He means a gun.”
Chavez groaned. “No, Gavin. Sorry to disappoint you, but you don’t get a heater.”
Biery shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
John Clark sat on his porch, looking out over his back pasture at the blustery autumn afternoon. In his left hand he held a paperback book that he’d been trying to read for the last few days, and in his right hand he held a racquetball.
He closed his eyes slowly and concentrated on squeezing down. His three functional fingers exerted enough pressure to slightly deform the rubber ball, but his index finger just wiggled a little.
He threw the ball into the backyard and returned his focus to the paperback.
His mobile rang, and he found himself happy for a temporary diversion from his boring afternoon, even if it
