Chapter 34
“So, Dave, what have you got for me?” Riles looked over Kurtz’s right shoulder at the banks of computer monitors.
David Kurtz turned toward his boss and shrugged. “A whole lot of nothing as far as I can tell.”
“What do you mean? I thought the search was narrowing in on something.”
Kurtz nodded vigorously enough that if the floor had not been a static-free raised platform, Riles would have expected to see bolts of electricity arcing between the wild strands of his hair.
“Oh, we narrowed in all right. Right to a computer in the Russian Ministry of Transportation. This one is physically located in Terminal Two of the Sheremetyevo International Airport.”
“Moscow?”
“You’ve got it, sir.”
“One of the secure systems?” asked Riles.
“No—at least, not in any sophisticated sense of the word. This is just one of the standard tourist information terminals.”
“That could make it a little tough to lay our hands on.”
“More like impossible. The system was just taken off-line by Russian customs authorities. They received an anonymous tip that it was being used by foreign agents as an encrypted message server.”
“Were we able to trace the tip? Where did it originate?”
“Actually, we saw it get generated. You’re not going to like the answer to your question, though.”
“Look, I can’t dislike it any more than I’m disliking how long you’re taking to get to the point, Dr. Kurtz.”
“The e-mail tip was generated from that same airport computer.”
“And the tip was in Russian?”
“Flawless Russian, according to the boys downstairs,” said Kurtz.
“Shit! I don’t believe this.”
Kurtz grinned. “I didn’t either. No one is that good or that lucky. That’s why I started a complete analysis of the New Year’s Day Virus pattern from early-stage infection until the trace program was completed. When that analysis run finished, we spotted a very interesting anomaly in the data. Everything was consistent until about an hour before we identified the source computer in the Moscow terminal. Then it changed.”
Riles' gaze narrowed. “How so?”
“The agent programs left behind by the virus got cleaned from the net, leaving almost no traces. We barely managed to identify the trail back to Moscow. It looked like a really effective antivirus program swept the net.”
“Did you recheck the routing tables on all the Internet routers?”
“That’s how we found Moscow.”
Riles paused, rubbing his chin. “The tip was in flawless Russian you say? Maybe too good, as in textbook? I think someone is playing a little game with us.
“I want you to go back several hours before the trace completed. Figure out the key routers in the network pattern you were following and compare the most recent routing tables with those saved off on tape backup from the previous night.”
Kurtz nodded. “I’ll get right on it. We are going to need some subpoenas to get those records, unless you want Gregory's team involved again.”
“No, go through normal channels this time. Since we’ve hit a dead end, we have plenty of time to backtrack. Besides, I have other plans for Jack.”
Jonathan Riles turned and strode out of David Kurtz’s lab softly whistling the theme song to The Titanic.