Nicholas said, “He’s got great criminal instincts for someone so young. So Matthew Spenser and his Celebrants of Earth had their very own stockbroker. Who would have believed it?”
“Porter Wallace confirmed he and Matthew Spenser knew each other in school. Spenser showed up on his doorstep a year ago with a massive amount of cash and a need to invest it quietly. According to Wallace, he was forced into the scheme, which, I must say, is absolutely ingenious. When you get back, I’ll give you all the details and numbers in our secure documents. From what Wallace said, he’s been parlaying information from the backroom chat sessions he was having with his fellow brokers. They all get on a chat once a week and talk about what they’re going to be buying in the upcoming session. After the chat, Wallace makes all of his buys for his legit clients, and a few buys for his not so legit clients.”
“Two sets of books.”
“Exactly. High-stakes, too. The last numbers I saw give COE a bank account in the ten million range. This number grows and shrinks based on the market, but Wallace is a shrewd investor, and has done well for them.”
“Where did they get the money to invest in the first place? We’ve known they were well-financed from the beginning, but we haven’t been able to find the trail. Who’s behind this?”
“They were initially self-funded—Matthew Spenser’s quite large trust fund was more than enough to get them started. Then, three months ago, COE shows up with a massive influx of cash.”
Mike said, “That was when Zahir Damari showed up, with the money from Iran.”
“Exactly,” Gray said. “I started back tracing all the IP addresses they’ve used for the past month. Their computer expert is—was—first rate.”
“But you’re better.”
“I’m skilled in a different way. Last known IP address came from a motel in Lorton, Virginia. I heard they found the computer guy’s body—Andy Tate?”
“Right. They purchased DDoS attacks from Gunther Ansell, Tate loaded his own code next to it, and launched it into the systems. Ingenious plan.”
“Lot of moving parts,” Gray said. “But we’ve got them now.”
Nicholas said, “It does sound like we have nearly everything we need to wrap up this part of the investigation. Great work, thanks to both of you.”
Ben said, “Come on home, guys. We miss you. Mike, give the big Brit a smooch for me.”
Ben and Gray both laughed like loons, and Mike looked like she’d been shot. She punched off the cell.
“You want to talk about it?” Nicholas asked.
“No, there’s nothing to talk about, you know that. As for those two, they’re idiots.”
“No big smooch?”
“No more in this lifetime.”
“We’ll see. Now, how much time before the bomb at Yorktown?”
“Seventeen minutes, and there’s nothing to see.”
“Good, enough time to speak to Adam about a theory I have about how Spenser managed to break into the electrical grid and upload the worm to Air Force One’s flight computers.” He punched in Adam’s number.
Adam answered immediately. “I’ve been waiting for your call. Wow, that was some really gnarly coding, Nicholas. I’ve never seen anything like it. You two okay?”
Nicholas laughed. “Yes, we’re fine. Now tell me, how exactly did you see my code?”
“Dude, you’re an instant freaking legend! The entire hacker community knows what happened. They’re calling it the Swoop, and calling you Superman. Go into the darknet, check it out when you get a chance. It’s totally awesome. They are bowing at your feet. Reddit blew up with requests to join your forces of good—you now officially have minions.”
Nicholas cleared his throat. “Thank you for passing that along, Adam.” He decided having minions couldn’t hurt. “If you’re through, I need your help again. It shouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“Go for it, Superman, Sir Superman.”
“Shove it. Let’s see how clever you are. Is there anything Air Force One might have in common with Dominion Virginia Power and the attacked oil companies, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, etcetera?”