The Canton Connection (10 page)

Jake was still asleep that Wednesday morning when the telephone rang.

It was Michael Epstein. “Maguire, you’re interfering with my investigation. I’ve been planning a full-blown investigation of Verisign. We’d agreed on me checking out that aspect of this case. What is their
connection to Quantum and so forth. My team followed Stacy Stefansson yesterday. They tell me you had her in your office and then went out with her.”

“Sorry, sir. I was following up on a lead on my end.”

“What lead?”

Suddenly, Jake decided he needed to
keep quiet. He had to protect his information about Simon Wu’s fingerprints on the bat and knife and Stacy’s relationship with Wu. Until he got that all cleared up, he didn’t want to be caught investigating a fellow DOJ employee or have Epstein launch into a full-blown investigation that might tip Wu off.

So Jake had to fabricate an excuse for his dinner with Stacy. “I had a hunch. That’s all.”

“What kind of hunch? Maguire, you have to be up front with me. We’re on the same team, aren’t we?”

“Of course, sir. It was just a hunch about why she went jogging that day, and it didn’t amount to anything.”

“Listen. I want to be clear about this,” Epstein said. “You stick to the foreign elements of this case, and I’ll stick to the companies involved. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“The Criminal Division is trying to establish a connection between Stacy Stefansson and Quantum. She’s the target of our investigation, so hands off.”

“Check.”

Jake hated to let go of Stacy, but he could see how it was necessary in order for Epstein to complete a full-scale probe.

“Don’t take her to any more dinners. Don’t develop a relationship. Don’t even phone her. And I mean it.”

“Got it.” He held the phone away from his ear. “Now about your end. What have you come up with?”

Epstein seemed eager to share the news. “We found out that there’s more to Stacy’s relation to Quantum than we knew.”

Jake sat up and took notice. “Pray tell.”

“She contracted Quantum to work on the encryption software.”

Contracted? So she was deeply involved with Quantum. “Does that mean she knew Han Chu?”

“She’s a low-level programmer and he was a company president, but both their names were on the contract.”

“So there’s a good chance they met at least once.”

“One has to assume, but we’re working to establish that
fact.”

Jake remembered how she claimed not to recognize the victim. According to her, Chu was a total stranger approaching her on the bike path. “What does this mean?”

“Number one,” Epstein said, “it means either Stacy Stefansson never met the man or is lying to us. And number two, she’s far more involved with the security of the A root server than we previously understood.”

“That’s how I see it.”

“And what have you learned about the hacking industry?”

“Actually, not much,” Jake admitted. “I’ve been to DHS, DoD, and the NSA. All of them claim to have a part to play, but nobody has exact jurisdiction over such an attack.”

“That’s confidence-inspiring. How about the CIA? Maybe they’re already onto this case.”

“I’ll find that out today,” Jake said. “I plan to drive out to Langley and see what they know.”

“That’s your end of this. Keep me informed.”

Epstein had disconnected before Jake could say good-bye.

So Stacy had signed a contract with Quantum.

Before getting out of bed, Jake reviewed in his mind her uncomplicated expressions, her innocent eyes. She claimed to know neither the attacker nor the victim. Either she was a fantastic liar, or she had incredible amnesia.

But he might never know which, because she was Epstein’s target, not his. He’d have to keep his mitts off her. He shouldn’t even check up on her over the phone.

He eased off the bed. He would go in to work and try to get his mind off Stacy.

He would set up a meeting with the CIA and see what they could add to the case. But he kept his expectations low. With the bureaucracy he’d encountered so far, all he would find was responsibility being handed off to other departments.

The birds singing that morning didn’t seem to have a problem with the heat. But Jake felt uncomfortable the moment he stepped out of his apartment building into the soupy air.

Driving to work, he had to pass Outback Steakhouse.

He couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d learned from his conversation with Stacy.

What did she really know about the murder?

She knew Simon Wu, but didn’t place him at the scene of the crime.

She probably knew Han Chu, but didn’t recognize him on the bike trail.

Did she have some sort of visual impairment?

He thought about her affectionate gaze at him over dinner. No, if anything, she could see straight through a person.

But there had to be some simple explanation for all of this.

Regarding Wu, Jake could accept that she glossed over his photo in the line-up because she thought Jake was trying to trip her up. And her explanation for not fingering Wu in the line-up was equally plausible. She claimed he wasn’t the assailant.

Since she said the assailant wasn’t Wu, it seemed likely that someone was trying to set him up for murder.

That left a major question in Jake’s mind. If the murderer was trying to frame Wu by planting Wu’s fingerprints on the evidence, and Wu didn’t own a baseball bat, who had access to the
weapons after the crime to do so? And how had the culprit planted the fingerprints? Finding that out could lead to a break in the case.

As soon as he reached work, he checked if Bob was in his office.

“Come in, rookie.”

Jake stepped in and took a seat. Bob had come to him with the fingerprint news and Jake wanted him to follow through investigating it.

Jake explained the whole sequence of events that had led Stacy not to identify Simon Wu in the line-up. “If we assume that what she said is true, Wu simply was not at the scene of the crime. I believe that either the perpetrator planted the evidence or someone in the DOJ tampered with it.”

“And you want me to follow through on the chain of custody, etc. and find out where the breach occurred?” Bob said.

“That’s right. Today I’m going to the Agency and don’t have time to talk with the lab about the prints.”

“Okay. Go see the boys at Langley,” Bob said. “I’ll look into where the fingerprints came from.”

“Thanks, boss.”

Jake returned to his desk and pondered a question that had arisen from Epstein’s phone call early that morning. Stacy knew Han Chu
, yet she hadn’t identified him on the bike path.

It seemed somewhat improbable, but it leant credence to the idea that Chu was looking for her, not the other way around. If Jake could only interview Stacy about problems with Quantum, Inc., it might shed some light on what Chu had in mind to tell her.

But Epstein was against another interview. Stacy was Epstein’s subject at the moment, and Jake didn’t want to interfere with the Criminal Division director’s probe.

Epstein was right about Jake’s real duties. He still had to find that one missing piece of the puzzle: motive.

Supposing the Chinese were behind this, what would they be up to? Tampering with the A root server was more than stealing trade secrets. It meant messing up the world economy. Why would China want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?

He reached for his phone and called Todd Williams’ contact at the CIA.

Shortly after noon, Jake was on the George Washington Memorial Parkway driving toward Langley. Usually spooks came to FBI headquarters to give briefings, but today he was making the trek to the CIA.

His FBI badge got him onto the parking lot, but not into the building.

His contact, Bill Brewster, was waiting just inside the lobby. Bill was a large guy who was all belly and no shoulders. He adjusted his thick glasses, signed Jake in and smoothed his scruffy beard. “Welcome to the Agency.”

Together they passed the CIA motto engraved in stone, taken from John 8:32, “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

At the New Headquarters Building, they walked past a sculpture of horses breaking free of the Berlin Wall and an eagle with its wings spread open in attack mode.

People passed through the building in some unusual garb. Most wore business suits, but one man wore a pith helmet and safari suit, and
a group wore desert camouflage. If any agency could nail international hackers, it was the CIA.

Bill took him into a brightly lit conference room and closed the door.

He showed Jake a seat, then sank into a chair opposite him. “You’re asking about cyber security?” Bill said.

Jake nodded. “What does the CIA offer in that department?” He was hoping that he had stumbled on an organization with something akin to Fort Meade’s Cyber Command, but this time with the ability to investigate and retaliate.

Bill closed his eyes and began. “We’re in the middle of a five-year strategic plan to prevent and fight cyber threats. This is part of a government-wide program to ramp up across all agencies responsible for the critical information infrastructure.”

Jake had heard all that before, but let the man finish.

“We’ve made every attempt to keep up with cyber threats and dangerous technology.”

“Okay,” Jake cut him off. “But what if there is a cyber attack plot brewing somewhere in the world. Would you be able to detect it?”

Bill opened his eyes. “We keep tabs on many sources of suspicious activity.”

“Say, in China.”

“China, Iran. Russia, North Korea. You name it.”

“What if they’re no longer in that country, and have moved their operation to the United States?”

“We’re aware of such moves as they occur.”

“Say someone is preparing to attack the A root server.”

Bill stared at him blankly. “The what?”

Oh boy. Just as Jake had worried, CIA employees were not technical specialists.

Bill seemed sensitive about the gap in his knowledge of the IT world, and quickly moved to cover it up. “We’re aware of specific threats hackers have posed to large corporations, the U.S. Government, defense contractors and the like.”

“How about the Chinese?”

“They steal secrets from oil companies, patent lawyers, pharmaceutical companies, whatever, on a daily basis. They relentlessly exploit every crack in classified and unclassified systems.”

“How do they do it?” Jake asked.

Bill closed his eyes. “There are various disparate groups of hackers in China, even a group of girl hackers. But there’s also a concerted military effort to coordinate attacks with industrial and military needs. The government can tap into its reserve of private hackers for whatever it wants. They turn off anti-virus software, then go in and attack computers. Or they get the key to become system administrators. Or they send out email spyware, or insert Trojan Horses, etc.”

“Okay,” Jake cut him off. “You’re talking about stealing business or military secrets. But breaking into the A root server would compromise and possibly bring the entire World Wide Web to a grinding halt. Who is prepared to jeopardize the internet?”

Bill’s eyes flashed open. His look told him that he thought Jake might be off his rocker. “The Chinese government has nothing to gain from bringing down the internet. Their whole emphasis is to give them an edge in the world economy.”

“I accept that,” Jake said. “But let’s just think outside the box for a moment. Your agency knows China inside and out. Who might want to shut down the internet completely?”

Bill scratched his beard. “I can’t imagine. Are you sure someone’s trying to do that? And how?”

Now the CIA was asking
him
questions.

“All we know so far,” Jake said, “is that a minority-owned company, run by Chinese-Americans and employing programmers on work visas from China, is providing encryption software to the root server of the internet. The Department of Commerce has identified recent attacks on the server, at all but the highest security level.”

Bill appeared to be in listening mode.

“Given access to the A root server,” Jake went on, “they can remove links to all .com URLs, or re-name websites, or I suppose re-route traffic to their own computers. In short, they can control all access to email and web addresses.”

“This would be a massive computer attack,” Bill said. “I don’t think anybody has thought that big before.”

“And I’m asking you to. I’ve talked to Homeland Security and it seemed over their heads. I talked to the military, and they’re hampered from counterattacking. And I’ve talked to the National Security Agency and they can’t prevent a thing. So I’m turning to you to help us identify the source of these attacks, figure out what they’re up to and thwart it. In essence, what we need is post 9/11 think before the next 9/11 event occurs. We need Hack Attack think before the attack. Imagine the unimaginable.”

“We are aware of various provincial elements within China jockeying for more control over the national agenda…”

“Go on.”

Bill closed his eyes again. “Of course there are always nationalist elements, but also politicians who are out to make a name for themselves. Our embassy and consulates and our China Bureau would be up on the specifics. And they pass along what they learn to the relevant agencies.”

“I see,” Jake said. “And they haven’t reported anything on the scale I’m suggesting.”

Bill pointed at the door. “I can assure you, if our operatives or analysts learned anything of that nature, I’d know about it. So far, nothing.”

Not only did Jake feel his expectations deflate, but he felt he wasn’t being taken seriously.

He considered giving the CIA some of the information he had already learned. He could give Bill the names of people at Quantum, but Michael Epstein didn’t want Jake interfering with his investigation.

Jake was left with the uneasy feeling that countering a computer attack lay outside the core competencies of the various agencies of the federal government. It was nobody’s problem but his.

He stood and reached out to shake Bill’s hand. “Thanks for your help,” he said. “I learned a lot.”

It was one case where the truth didn’t exactly make him free.