CHAPTER 25
Secure Comms Room
Clocktower Station HQ
Jakarta, Indonesia
Josh watched the other red dots on the screen wink out. The men at the safe houses — they had moved to the door, then disappeared — dead. A few minutes later he saw David’s convoy turn around in the street, then they were gone too — except for David. He saw his dot move around quickly, then one last sprint, and it went out too.
Josh exhaled and slumped in the chair. He stared through the glass walls at the outer door. The torch burned up the other side of it now, the burn mark a backwards J. Soon it would be a full U, then O and they would be through, and his time would be up. He had two, maybe three minutes.
The letter. He turned, rifled through the stack of folders and found it: David’s “open when I’m dead” letter. A few hours ago, Josh had thought he would never need to open it. So many illusions had died today: Clocktower couldn’t be compromised, Clocktower couldn’t fall, David couldn’t be killed, the good guys always won.
He ripped open the letter.
____________________
Dear Josh,
Don’t feel bad. We were way behind when we started. I can only assume Jakarta Station has fallen or is on its way.
Remember our goal: we must prevent the Immari end game. Forward whatever you’ve found to the Director of Clocktower. His name is Howard Keegan. You can trust him.
There’s a program on ClockServer1 — ClockConnect.exe It will open a private channel to Central where you can transmit data securely.
One last thing. I’ve collected a little money over the years, mostly from bad guys we put out of business. There’s another program on ClockServer1 — distribute.bat. It will disburse the money in my accounts.
I hope they never found this room and that you’re reading this letter in safety.
It has been my honor to serve with you.
David
____________________
Josh put the letter down.
He typed quickly on the keyboard, first uploading his data to Clocktower Central, then executing the bank transactions. “A little money” had been an understatement. Josh watched 5 transactions, all five million dollars each, go to first the Red Cross, then UNICEF, and three other disaster relief organizations. It made sense. But the final transaction didn’t. A deposit of five million dollars to a JP Morgan bank account in America — a New York branch. Josh copied the account holder’s names and searched. A man, 62, and his wife, 59. David’s parents? There was a news article — a piece in a Long Island newspaper. The couple had lost their only daughter in the 9/11 attacks. She had been an investment analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald at the time of the attacks, had recently graduated from Yale, and was engaged to be married to Andrew Reed, a graduate student at Columbia.
Josh heard it — or didn’t hear it — the torch had stopped. The ring was complete, and they were ramming the door, waiting for the metal to break free.
He gathered the papers, ran to the trash can and lit them on fire. He moved back to the table and opened the program that would erase the computer. It would take over five minutes. Maybe they wouldn’t find it. Or maybe he could buy it some time; he looked at the box with the gun in it.
Something else, on the screen, the location map. Josh thought he’d seen it — a flash, a red dot. But now it was gone. He stared again.
A boom, boom, boom at the door jolted Josh almost out of the chair. The men were beating on the door like a war drum, trying to make the thick iron come free. The pounding matched the throbbing in Josh’s chest as his heart beat uncontrollably.
The computer screen displayed the erase progress: 12% Complete.
The dot lit up for good: D. Vale. It drifted slowly, in the river. Vitals were faint, but he was alive. His body armor housed the sensors; it must have been damaged.
Josh had to send David what he’d found and a way to contact the source. Options? Normally they would establish an online dead-drop: a public web site where they exchanged coded messages. Clocktower routinely used eBay auctions — the pictures of the product for sale included embedded messages or files that a Clocktower algorithm could decrypt. To the naked eye, the picture looked normal, but small pixel changes throughout added up to a complex file Clocktower could read.
But he and David hadn’t established any system. He couldn’t call. Emailing would be a death sentence: Clocktower would monitor any email addresses, and when David checked it, Clocktower would trace the IP of the computer he used. The IP would give them a physical address, or a very close idea. Video surveillance feeds nearby would fill in the rest, and they would have him within minutes. An IP… Josh had an idea. Could it work?
Erasing… 37% Complete
He had to work fast, before the computer stopped functioning.
Josh opened a VPN connection to a private server he used mostly as a relay and staging area for online operations — transforming and bouncing encrypted reports around the internet before delivering them to Central. It was just added security to make sure Jakarta Station’s downloads to Central weren’t intercepted. It was off the grid, no one knew about it. And it already had several security protocols he’d written. It was perfect.
But the server didn’t have a web address — it didn’t need one — just an IP: 50.31.14.76. Web addresses like www.google.com, www.apple.com, etc really translated to IPs — when you type an address in your web browser, a group of servers called domain name servers (DNS), match the address to an IP in their database, and send you to the right place. If you typed the IP into your browser’s address bar, you’d actually end up in the same place without the routing; 74.125.139.100 opens Google.com, 17.149.160.49 opens Apple.com, and so on.
Josh finished uploading the data to the server. The computer was starting to run slowly. Several error messages popped up.
Erasing 48% Complete.
The drumming had stopped. They were using the torch again. A round bulge of strained metal had formed in the center of the door.
Josh had to send David the IP. He couldn’t call or text. All the sources and case officers would be monitored by Clocktower, and besides, he had no idea where David would end up. He needed somewhere David would look. Some way to send the numbers in the IP Address. Something only Josh knew about…
David’s bank account. It could work.
Josh also maintained a private bank account; he imagined almost everyone in their line of work did.
The cry of bending metal filled the cavernous room like a dying whale. They were close.
Josh opened a web browser and logged in to his bank. Quickly, he keyed in David’s bank routing number and account number. Then he made a series of deposits to David’s account:
9.11
50.00
31.00
14.00
76.00
9.11
It would take a day for the transactions to post, and even after they did, David would only see it if he checked the account. Would he know it was an IP address? Field operatives weren’t exactly tech-savvy. It was a long shot.
The door broke. Men were through, soldiers in full battle armor.
Erasing 65% Complete.
Not enough. They would find something.
The box, the capsule. 3-4 seconds. Not enough time.
Josh lunged for the box on the table, knocking it off. It crashed to the glass floor and he followed it. His shaking hands reached inside, grabbing the gun. How did it go, slide, shoot, press here. God. They were at the entrance to the glass room, three men.
He raised the gun. His arm shook. He steadied it with his other hand, and squeezed the trigger. The bullets ripped through the computer. He had to hit the hard drive. He fired again. The sound was deafening in the room.
Then the sound was all around. Glass was everywhere, tiny pieces. Josh was rushing to the glass wall. Then glass fell all around him, on him, cutting him. He looked down, seeing the bullet holes in his chest and the blood running from his mouth.