Genocide of One: A Thriller (12 page)

“Won’t you come into the car to talk?” Yuri asked again. “It’s warm inside.”

But Kento couldn’t believe this minivan with the tinted windows was really hers. He
felt as if, at any moment, the doors would whip open and men would rush out at him.
“I’m fine here. But what’s all this about a black laptop?”

“I never said it was black.”

Damn. He’d blown it again.

“But that is the one I’m talking about, the black laptop,” she said, her look serious
once more. “Your father left it to you, didn’t he?”

Kento was at a loss. If he said any more he’d just be digging himself into a deeper
hole.

“I’d like you to give me that laptop.”

Kento thought it over for a moment, then decided to change his strategy. “Okay, you’re
right, I do have it. But my father told me not to give it to anyone.”

“Of course he did. It contains data on research he was doing. In your own work you
never take your experiment notes outside the lab, do you?”

It seemed like she knew what she was talking about. Maybe she really did work for
a research institute.

“Your father was never expecting he’d die.”

That much was true. The note his father had left behind was a strange sort of will,
one that didn’t take into account the possibility of death.

“Without that laptop I won’t be able to continue my research. I need you to return
it to me.”

“Tell me about when my father collapsed at Mitaka station.”

Yuri was about to say something but suddenly fell silent. She inclined her head slightly
and cast him a sidelong glance.

“Did my father suffer?” he asked.

“I have no idea.”

“But weren’t you the one who called the ambulance?”

“No. That wasn’t me,” she said flatly. But Kento couldn’t believe her. She was the
last person ever to talk with his father. But then why would she have run away? There
had to be a reason why she’d left his father behind.

“This is for your own good, too, Kento,” Yuri said. “Give me back the laptop.”

“My own good? What are you talking about?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”

“Then I’m not giving you the laptop.”

Yuri was silent, her eyes unfocused, considering what to do. Kento stiffened, waiting
for her next move. But she just looked up and said coolly, “All right. I understand.”

Their conversation came to a sudden halt. Before he could stop her, Yuri strode off
toward her van. He watched her, puzzled by the encounter. Should he have tried to
keep her talking and find out more about her? Thinking he should at least get the
license-plate number, Kento stepped forward toward the minivan. But as soon as he
did, his heart started to pound, and he froze. Someone else was behind the tinted
windows of the van.

Yuri wasn’t alone.

Kento instinctively felt at risk. Yuri, hand on the door handle, turned around. Her
stern look as she peered through the darkness shot right through him.

Kento backed off and stepped through the main gate. Behind the campus wall, the car
out of sight, he felt, if anything, even more afraid. He turned around and hurried
away. By the time he reached the pharmacology building, he was running. He raced up
the stairs, heading for his lab and his colleagues. He stopped in the third-floor
corridor and looked around, but no one seemed to be following him.

Maybe he was just imagining things. Or had he really been in danger?

Kento opened the door and went into Dr. Sonoda’s lab. Some of the female researchers
were relaxing in the seminar room, drinking tea. He could hear the assistant professor’s
voice calling out directions to someone and the clatter of lab equipment.

Relieved at being back in familiar surroundings, Kento suddenly thought of calling
his father’s office, and he took out his cell phone. It was just before 7:00 p.m.,
so someone should still be in the lab.

The phone rang twice, and someone answered. “Hello? Tama Polytechnic University.”
A man’s voice.

“Is Professor Hamasaki in?”

“I’m Hamasaki.”

“I’m Seiji Koga’s son, Kento.”

“Ah,” the man said, no doubt recalling Kento greeting him at the funeral.

“There’s something I’d like to ask you. While my father was alive, was he doing any
joint research with an outside research institute?”

“Joint research? No, he wasn’t.”

“Are you familiar with a woman researcher named Yuri Sakai? She’s about forty years
old.”

“No. I can’t say I know her.”

So Yuri had been lying. As he was wondering who she could possibly be, a sudden chill
ran down his spine.

Consider all means of communication you use—landlines, cell phones, e-mail, and faxes—to
be tapped
.

What about this phone? Was it tapped? By Yuri Sakai?

“There is one thing,” Hamasaki went on. “I don’t know if it’s relevant, but your father
was planning to take a long-term leave of absence.”

“A leave of absence?” Kento repeated, trying to calm down. “For how long?”

“One month, until February twenty-eighth. If he had lived, he would have begun the
leave tomorrow. That’s all I can think of that might be related to joint research.”

So his father really had been seriously hoping to develop a drug to treat PAECS. He’d
been planning to develop it by the end of February and then hand it over to the American.
“Thank you,” Kento said. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No trouble at all. If I can be of any more help, please feel free to call,” Hamasaki
said, and hung up.

Even after he’d hung up the cell phone, Kento couldn’t shake a queasy feeling. He
left the seminar room and walked back to the lab, thinking of Yuri Sakai. All she
seemed interested in was getting hold of the laptop. Not the computer he was using
to develop the new drug but the other one, the one that wouldn’t start up.

The answer to the riddle seemed to lie in the silent black laptop. What could possibly
be recorded there?

Inside his bulletproof
limousine, Defense Secretary Lattimer was in a foul mood—and had been since early
morning. Why were all these stupid problems arising when he should be concentrating
on force planning for Iraq?

“So what are you saying about this drug cartel underling?” He threw aside both the
report in his hands and his patience. “Bullet points only, please.”

Watkins, director of national intelligence, and Holland, the CIA director, were in
the backseat, and both looked annoyed. It was too late to get back on the defense
secretary’s good side. They hated how he always blamed everything on a failure of
the intelligence community.

“It wasn’t some underling, it was a midlevel person,” Holland replied. “A person who
is, on paper, an executive in a phony company they set up. He was in a small plane
on his way to the United States from Colombia when the pilot lost consciousness.”

The pilot, perhaps because of some chronic condition, had lost consciousness for a
short time, during which the plane made a rapid descent. The drug cartel member noticed
what was happening, and by the time he grabbed the controls the plane was on the verge
of crashing into the Atlantic. He managed to straighten out the plane, but that was
the most he could do, since he didn’t have a pilot’s license. The plane deviated drastically
from its original flight path until the pilot finally regained consciousness. Aghast
at what he saw when he came to—they were barely skimming the surface of the ocean—he
pulled back on the stick and climbed steeply, but this set off alarms all over the
United States. The air defense radar system that covers a 450-kilometer area off Miami
picked up the plane as an unidentified object. If the interceptors—US fighter jets—had
scrambled ten minutes later, the president would have been rushed into Presidential
Emergency Operations Center, the emergency bunker under the East Wing of the White
House.

“It was a series of elementary mistakes,” Holland said lightly. “NORAD has investigated
the causes and reviewed the air defense system. It won’t happen again.”

“In that case take this report off our morning briefing,” Lattimer said, handing back
the document.

The limousine made its way through the steadily falling snow, and the massive St.
Regis Hotel loomed into view. They were close to the White House. Lattimer hurriedly
turned to the next briefing papers. The report concerned the shortcomings in Russia’s
counterintelligence measures and pointed out the vulnerabilities in Internet usage
originating from its military communications network. Even if the Cold War was over,
this wasn’t the kind of news the president would be happy to hear, though it wouldn’t
necessarily displease him. Lattimer decided to keep it on the agenda.

An unnatural silence fell over the sealed interior of the car. Watkins and Holland
didn’t feel much like chatting with the secretary of defense, who had a tendency to
meddle with the contents of the president’s daily briefing.

Lattimer considered the final report, with its implications about US superiority in
a cyberwar with the Russians. For all of human history, going back thousands of years,
military force had decided the outcome of wars, but that was a thing of the past.
Behind the brave and miserable fighting now lay another, more secret conflict: a struggle
over information. Most conflicts today came down to a war of wits between cryptographers
and analysts. Even in World War II, when the Allies defeated the Fascist powers, it
was hard to say how the war would have wound up if the United States and Britain hadn’t
broken their enemies’ codes. The whole world might very well have been conquered by
Fascism. But in reality capturing the Enigma code had crushed the ambitions of the
Third Reich, while breaking the Purple code led to the destruction of the Japanese
Empire.

But since the activities behind these information wars were mainly kept under wraps,
the story for public consumption was that the main actors in the victory were the
scientists who developed radar technology and the atomic bomb. Thus World War II was
dubbed the Physicists’ War. Now, well over a half century later, with information
technology having evolved so dramatically, a new category of conflict had arisen:
cyberwarfare. The battlefield was no longer in the real world but in the realm of
computer networks. Superior hacking technology was all it took to bring a superpower
to its knees. Not just the infrastructure—power plants, water treatment facilities,
traffic control—but also financial transactions and military command systems could
all be fatally damaged through the computer networks that linked them. The United
States had suffered numerous such attacks since the beginning of the century and had
carried out similar attacks on potential enemy nations. And they weren’t above deliberately
violating a country’s airspace to feel out its intercept capability. Any major conflict
in the twenty-first century would be a “mathematicians’ war.”

“About the last point in the report,” Lattimer said. “How far have we broken Russia’s
code?”

“You should ask the NSA,” Holland replied, referring to his professional rival.

Finding this pretty rude, Watkins responded. “We have the upper hand, no doubt about
it. Our ability to decipher public-key encryption, especially, is second to none.”

“What is that?”

“The most common code used on the Internet. RSA code, for instance.” Seeing that Lattimer
wanted a more detailed explanation, he reluctantly continued. “RSA code uses prime
numbers. Prime numbers are like five and seven—they can be divided only by one and
themselves. Prime numbers are easy to multiply, but it’s difficult to get back to
the original number.”

Lattimer frowned. “How so?”

“For instance,” Watkins said, making a mental calculation, “for the number two hundred
and three, it’s hard to tell what its divisors are.”

“For sure.”

“The answer is seven and twenty-nine.”

“I didn’t know you were so good at math.” As they often did, Lattimer’s words of praise
sounded more like sarcasm.

“Just something I picked up from the people at the NSA,” Watkins said, parrying the
remark. “In an RSA code, what’s important is the two prime numbers used to calculate
the product that becomes the public key. The two original prime numbers have to be
kept secret and only used when decoding the encrypted message. With some mathematical
creativity in selecting your prime numbers, you can make sure that a person who has
the public key is unlikely to determine the original prime numbers and decrypt the
message. But if the receiver has the original prime numbers used to generate the public
key, they can easily decrypt the message. So it doesn’t matter that the product of
the prime numbers is made public, because it would be very hard for someone to factor
the key into the correct original prime factors.” The director of national intelligence
shrugged. “If you want anything more than that, you’ll have to ask a mathematician.”

“Hold on. If you know the prime factors that are the key to the code, wouldn’t you
be able to break the code?”

“You would.”

“Couldn’t you just then multiply random prime numbers and eventually break the code?”

“In theory, yes. But there’s no need to worry. They use tremendously long numbers.
The RSA code used nowadays is so secure that you couldn’t do the calculations unless
you used the massive computers at the NSA.”

“I see,” Lattimer said. The NSA had more than three hundred supercomputers, so many
that they no longer calculated them in terms of number of computers but in square
footage. “They always want a huge budget.”

“And first-class mathematicians as well.” At this Watkins’s expression grew gloomy.
“This might be a groundless concern, but there is a problem with present-day codes.
If a genius mathematician appeared who was able to devise a revolutionary computational
process, Internet security would collapse in an instant. Even state secrets would
leak out. One single genius could control the cyberwar and reign supreme.”

“Could that actually happen?”

“Most experts say that computational procedure can’t be found. But they have no mathematical
proof of it. There’s still a risk that a new method of prime factorization might be
discovered.”

The limousine had arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It entered through the Southwest
Gate and pulled up next to the West Wing. In the moment before they got out of the
car Lattimer broached another topic. “By the way, what’s happening with getting rid
of the monster?”

“Are you talking about Afghanistan?”

“No; the Congo.”

“Ah.” Watkins nodded.

Holland, extremely interested in the special access program, perked up his ears.

“As always, our child prodigy is in high spirits.”

“You mean that young guy at the Schneider Institute?”

“He’s pretty sharp. And he gets along well with Dr. Gardner.”

“Have you heard any updates?”

Lattimer was secretary of defense, yet he apparently knew nothing about this special
access program, which his own department was spearheading. Holland considered himself
the only one who seemed to be taking the threat seriously.

“All the people in the Office of Special Plans have set their action time to Congo
time,” Watkins replied. “They’ve moved the mission up. The unit is quite an elite
group, and they’ve finished their training ahead of schedule.”

“An outstanding group?”

“From what I hear.”

“It’s a real shame,” Lattimer said with a sigh. “But since the president made the
decision there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“It’s the right decision. The operation will be over in a couple of weeks. Just wait
for the final report.”

Watkins hadn’t touched on anything of substance about the mission. Holland glanced
at him. The director of national intelligence’s composed expression made it clear
that the subject was closed. In the present administration anyone who gave the president
disappointing news brought disaster down on himself. And in the present special access
program there were disturbing signs below the surface, but these needed to be suppressed.
The counterintelligence operation in Japan would, no doubt, eventually reach the president’s
ear. Easygoing Dr. Gardner would no doubt let it slip.

Operation Guardian was moved up more than a week. Singleton decided this after seeing
how well the training was going. The four-man team, because of their military training,
quickly regained the stamina they’d need for a ten-day operation in the tropical rain
forest.

Yeager was happy at the news. Now he could get back to Justin, in the hospital in
Lisbon, even sooner.

None of the others was perturbed by the sudden change in orders. They simply got ready.
They’d all been supplied with various equipment—hammock, maps, compass, canteen, GPS
units, long-range recon rations. They were each given strict orders to carry enough
antiviral antidote capsules, in a waterproof case, for all the other men, just in
case someone lost his own. But since their cover story was that they were civilians,
the only weapons they were allowed to carry openly were AK-47s. AK-47s could be picked
up for less than a dollar in the Congo, and everyone had one. Their semiautomatic
pistols and night vision equipment would be kept out of sight, packed away in their
civilian backpacks. After consulting with Mick, Yeager also packed some grenades and
a grenade launcher, so they would have the minimum firepower they would need if they
made contact with one of the insurgent forces.

At the last briefing before they were to leave South Africa, they were given the necessary
documents—fake passports, ID cards for the wildlife conservancy organization, yellow
fever inoculation certificates, and several types of passes issued by the various
military forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“Here’s the situation on the ground,” Singleton explained. “The Congolese government
has sent a battalion-size force into the area, but the rebel forces still have the
upper hand. There’s a local military force in central Ituri, and a broad section of
the north and south part of the region is under the control of Ugandan and Rwandan
forces. If you come in contact with the rebel forces, make sure you show them the
correct pass. If you can’t tell who it is you’re dealing with, then emphasize you’re
with the wildlife conservancy group. They don’t want world opinion to run against
them, so they are, on the surface, at least, adopting a pro-wildlife stance.”

As Singleton had sarcastically told them once before, world opinion seemed more concerned
with the fate of a couple thousand gorillas than it did with the lives of millions
of human beings.

“The last thing I’ll give you is cash, ten thousand US dollars each. Congolese officials
and soldiers will do anything as long as you bribe them. Money will be a valuable
weapon with the insurgents. You need to be prepared for both war and peace.”

Each of the four mercenaries was given a stack of two hundred fifty-dollar bills.
Added baggage.

“We’ve only spent a short time together, but I wish you all the best, and Godspeed.”

Yeager and team shook hands, perfunctorily, with Singleton and set out from the Zeta
Security building, leaving their personal possessions back in their room. The equipment
and ammunition they’d just packed away would be sent on separately.

The four of them, on separate flights, flew to Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

This city on the banks of Lake Victoria was much more modern than Yeager had imagined.
He’d never pictured high-rise buildings in the middle of the African continent. The
city was almost right below the equator, but since it was at a high elevation the
heat was not overpowering. He wanted to take a walk through the bustling city of one
million people, but they’d been ordered to stay out of sight in their hotel rooms.