The Bug Hunter: A Novel Read online

  Brooks put her fingers on the screen and moved her forefinger and thumb outward, zooming in on the image. “That’s him all right,” said Gabriel. “Keep going. Let’s see what he does.” She restarted the video, and they watched Adnan approach the camera at the building entrance and stop. He turned around and faced the street and waited. By the camera clock, another six minutes went by.

  And then they saw her. Walking up the steps came a young woman wearing a hijab tightly wound around her face. You couldn’t see her face clearly, but Gabriel immediately knew that it was their mystery woman. She approached Adnan, but they didn’t touch or speak; Adnan then opened the door for her and followed her into the mosque.

  “That wasn’t a very warm greeting,” Brooks said. “If they were involved in a relationship, wouldn’t they hug or something?”

  “No,” said Dr. Habib. “That would be an offense to Allah, for an unmarried man and woman to openly show affection, especially on the steps of a mosque.”

  Brooks nodded, and she switched the feed to the second camera, which showed them coming into the hallway. Just as they reached the entrance to the room where the ISAMO meeting was taking place, a few other students came out of the door they were about to enter, causing their mystery woman to stop short. Adnan pressed up against her from behind. “There!” Gabriel said.

  You had to look carefully because it was a very small movement. But as Adnan pressed into the woman, their hands touched, their pinkies interlinking, showing affection. They were definitely a couple.

  Gabriel turned to Dr. Habib, who had also seen the movement and seemed to be embarrassed. “Is that her?”

  “Yes,” he said, staring at her face, which now filled the screen.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Fairfax, Virginia

  After their meeting at CIA Headquarters, Lee Jensen had no trouble getting Witt to give him carte blanche on the investigation into Abdul-Azim Rahman. Jensen ordered 24-7 surveillance on Rahman’s home and office and procured an emergency warrant to tap his cell phone and search his computer. Given the fact that Rahman was a computer expert, Jensen had no illusions about how hard that would be. But he trusted that Lisa Brooks would give Rahman a run for his money.

  By 8:00 p.m., Jensen, Gabriel, and Brooks were packed like sardines inside a van outside of the Computer Science Department, joined by a DHS operative named Jim Sullivan. They were watching real-time video surveillance from Rahman’s house just a mile from the GMU campus; there were lights on in the living room, and a drone overhead provided a full view of the modest three-bedroom home. Their goal had been to confirm that he was at home, and they’d even used an agent dressed as a pizza delivery driver to knock on the door, pizza in hand; when Rahman answered, the driver was apologetic that he’d gotten the wrong address. The agent reported Rahman was wearing a traditional long dressing gown and was clearly irritated by the disturbance.

  “It will take Rahman at least fifteen minutes to get here, so let’s not rush the search,” Jensen said. “Brooksy, I’m hoping you can get into his computer and get access to that blockchain. That’s the key.”

  Brooks nodded. She’d assembled every advanced tool that DHS had to break passwords and access personal computers and hoped they would do the trick. She also knew it was frequently the case that the more sophisticated the user was, the more chances he or she took on basic security things like passwords.

  Quietly, Brooks and Sullivan slipped out of the van. She was dressed like a college athlete in a GMU soccer sweatshirt, and she carried a backpack and wore her hair in a ponytail. Sullivan, who had been chosen for this job because he was twenty-eight years old but looked as if he were still in high school, was dressed like a typical college kid, wearing sweatpants and flip-flops despite the chill in the air. Their instructions were to go through the front door and walk by security as if they belonged there; if stopped, they were to say they were going to the computer lab on the third floor. As they approached the entrance, they hung back a bit to slide into the wake of a large group of students who were entering the building and followed the pack all the way to the elevators.

  Once they got off the elevator on the fourth floor, Brooks made a quick search of the hallway and found it empty. She approached Rahman’s office door and pushed down on the handle to confirm that it was locked. She then squatted down as if looking for something in her bag while Sullivan calmly slipped a pick into the door’s lock. Within ten seconds the lock clicked and the door gave way. Sullivan immediately walked back toward the elevator to keep watch on the hallway while Brooks slipped inside the office.

  Keeping the office lights off, Brooks turned on a penlight and made her way to Rahman’s desk. She reached under the desk and powered up the computer, a Dell tower that looked at least five years old. It was one of the ironies that made this job much easier than it might’ve been: academic institutions were notoriously behind the times in terms of the technology they used for email and office work, and even though Rahman taught computer science, that work was done more in the virtual world of the cloud or on sophisticated dedicated servers than on desktop computers like this one. This was the weak link, and Brooks hoped to exploit it.

  Once the computer was booted up, Brooks slipped what was known as the Cypher Generator, a proprietary device the size of a thumb drive, into the USB slot and turned it on. A series of lights flashed, and a preprogrammed sequence of passwords were rapidly entered into the computer. These passwords had been compiled by a DHS team that had scrubbed Rahman’s bio, looking for the kinds of references that most people typically turned into passwords: names, places, associations, hobbies, dates. In Brooks’s experience it worked 80 percent of the time. If it didn’t work, she was going to break into the system’s motherboard BIOS and find the password by brute force. The downside of this approach was that it would leave a trail that would be unmistakable to anyone who next signed on to the computer, tipping Rahman off to the hack. That was something they hoped to avoid.

  Brooks watched as the small device worked its magic, generating hundreds of password combinations in less than a minute. Suddenly the screen went from blue to white, opening up the GMU splash page. Brooks smiled and sent a quick text to Jensen: “We’re in.”

  At that very moment, Jason Witt was in his SUV headed home after an eighteen-hour day when his cell phone rang. It was a blocked number.

  “Witt.”

  “Jason, Ken Smythe here.”

  “Shit,” he said. He knew that if Smythe was calling at this hour, it was likely bad news.

  “Yep, it’s not good. We’ve got twenty-five cases confirmed and two fatalities, including a young girl. The FBI has been able to trace almost all of the cases to the consumption of locally made almond butter, pies, nut mixtures, and breads.”

  “FBI?”

  “Yep, they’re all over this case already.”

  Witt’s mind was racing. “Who’s the SAIC out there?”

  “Brian Sanderson out of the Sacramento Field Office. Know him?”

  “By reputation. Old school from what I hear.”

  “You can say that again,” Smythe said.

  “What’d he tell you about the case?”

  “Not much, really. Said that he thought it might be linked to the Florida case and that they believe it might be terrorism.”

  Witt was surprised by this but tried not to show it. “So what now?”

  “I’m going to brief the president right after I finish this call with you. I’m going to recommend to her that we shut down all almond exports and issue a global recall of all almonds and almond-based products immediately.”

  “She’s going to love that.”

  “Can’t be helped I’m afraid. You’ll need to alert customs, obviously.”

  “Not a problem. We have a contingency plan for just this kind of thing, though it’s never been used. Do we know what the source of the b
otulism is?”

  “No, and I’m going to need help from you on this one. Farmers have been reporting a higher-than-usual mortality in their almond trees and a greater-than-usual incidence of blight caused by insects like spider mites. I could use some of your bug experts on the ground out there.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to call the president now. Wish me luck.”

  “You’re gonna need it,” Witt said, and hung up. “Fuck!” he yelled to himself. He then dialed Jensen’s cell phone.

  “Yes, sir?” Jensen said in a hushed voice.

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I’m in a surveillance van, and it’s pretty close quarters.”

  “OK. Listen, I just talked to Smythe at the CDC. They’ve confirmed botulinum toxin out in California, and they think it is a copy of the Florida attack.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah, and that’s not all. The FBI is all over this now. They are leading the investigation out in California. So they know a shit ton more than we thought they did.”

  Jensen thought for a moment. After what Gabriel and Brooks had found out about the FBI at the DC mosque, there was no telling now what they knew. “I’d say our time is about up, boss.”

  “I know. But we’re not stopping until the president orders us to,” Witt said, weighing how blunt to be with Jensen. “If the FBI gets to Rahman, you can bet they’ll Mirandize him.”

  “And he’ll lawyer up.”

  “Yep. And that will make him useless to us.”

  “Well, boss, the good news is that I’ve got Brooks inside Rahman’s office right now attempting to copy his computer.”

  Witt smiled in spite of himself. He knew that if they could access the blockchain, they’d remain in the game. “Be careful. And for Christ’s sake, hurry up!”

  Witt no sooner hit End Call on his iPhone than it rang again. This time he recognized the number.

  “This is Secretary Witt,” he said.

  “Please hold for the president,” an operator’s voice said. After a moment Cooperman came on the line.

  “Jason, I just got off the phone with Dr. Smythe at the CDC.”

  “Yes, ma’am. He said he was going to be calling you.”

  Cooperman was momentarily taken aback. “So you know what I’m about to say?”

  Witt cursed himself for divulging that Smythe had already called him. Trust was the most important currency in DC, and he didn’t want to ruin his relationship with the CDC. “I don’t already know what you are going to say, ma’am. I only know that Dr. Smythe wanted DHS to provide support for him from our bug experts.”

  “OK,” she said finally. “The attack in California has been confirmed, and I’ve put a call in to Director Timmons and the FBI. He told me that they’ve been quietly working this case for over a month.”

  “I’m surprised to hear that,” Witt said. And he was.

  “I am too. He hadn’t wanted it to leak and so was waiting for confirmation before bringing it to my attention. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that—but that’s a conversation for another time. Right now we have to get the full force of the US government into this effort.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “They have already linked the attack in Florida to an Islamic terror threat that the NSA picked up in a communication from Chechnya six months ago. It was unspecific, but the FBI has been working their sources. One of those sources belongs to a student organization that meets weekly at the Islamic Center here in DC—”

  “ISAMO, yes, I’m aware of it.”

  “That’s it. They had an informant in there for almost a year. He began to suspect that something was going on and reported it to his handler. They apparently honed in on the faculty advisor for the group.”

  Oh shit, Witt thought. “So how did they tie it to the attack in Florida?”

  “I’m not sure. The NSA intercept said something about fruit, which at the time didn’t mean anything. I guess they just put two and two together.”

  “I guess,” Witt said doubtfully. He didn’t believe in that kind of luck. There was more to this story.

  “Director Timmons is moving on this now. He’s taking down the faculty advisor and the other student members of that ISAMO group.”

  “Now, ma’am?”

  “Right now.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you mind if I call you back, Madam President? I need to take care of an urgent matter.”

  Cooperman wasn’t used to being put off but decided not to push it. “Sure, you know where to reach me.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Witt hung up and speed-dialed Jensen. On the third ring, he picked up.

  “Go,” he said.

  “The FBI is on their way to take down Rahman. If they catch Brooks inside, we are going to be out in the cold. Get her out now!”

  “Fuck! OK, I’ll call you back,” Jensen said and hung up.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Fairfax, Virginia

  Lisa Brooks’s phone started buzzing when she was in the middle of a complex command to ensure she got all of what was on Rahman’s hard drive and browser data, including his Tor browser and block stack loader. This would enable them to emulate Rahman’s computer as if Rahman himself were using it, thereby giving them access to his cloud accounts and other network data.

  She was tempted to dismiss the call but then thought better of it. Looking at the screen, she saw it was Jensen. “What?” she said. “I’m in the middle of something here.”

  “Get out now. The FBI is on its way.”

  “Damn it! I need five more minutes to get this finished!”

  “You don’t have five minutes! Just take whatever you got, and get out!”

  Just as Brooks was about to respond, she saw lights flashing in the parking lot. She moved to the window and peeked out through the blinds. There were a dozen cars and at least two vans pulling up to the entrance. “Too late, they’re here!”

  “Get out now, and that’s an—” Brooks hung up, cutting Jensen off in midsentence. She crawled back to the keyboard and finished typing in the command she needed to complete.

  At that moment Sullivan ran in from the hallway. “The police are here,” he said in a loud whisper. “We gotta go!”

  “It’s actually the FBI,” Brooks said, “and I’m not finished.”

  Sullivan moved over to the desk. “Are you shitting me? We get caught in here, and we’re screwed!”

  “I’m not leaving until this is done.”

  “Hurry the fuck up!”

  Brooks didn’t reply and watched the lights on her thumb drive continue to flash while it worked through the data. After thirty more seconds, it finished with a satisfying beep. She then carefully took the device out; rather than shutting down the computer, she put it into sleep mode. If it was off but the tower was still warm to the touch, they’d know that someone had just been there.

  “Let’s go,” Brooks said, moving past Sullivan into the hallway. “Which way?”

  Sullivan grabbed her hand. “This way,” he said, running down to the stairway. They opened the door and could hear footsteps from below heading in their direction. They hugged the wall in order to avoid being seen from below and made it down to the third floor, where they ducked back into the hallway. That was the floor with the computer lab on it.

  Brooks and Sullivan slipped into the lab, which at that point had roughly twenty students in it. They went to opposite ends of the room, turned on terminals, and pretended to be deeply engaged in their work. After about five minutes, the door opened, and a pair of FBI agents came into the room.

  The agents didn’t say anything, but they walked around, looking at each student. After a few minutes, they were apparently satisfied with what they saw and left. None of the students had even noticed them come in or leave,
something that Brooks thought was strange.

  Brooks took out her phone and texted Jensen: “We are in the computer lab. Mission accomplished. We are safe for now. We’ll be here until the lab closes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Washington, DC

  The next morning, Gabriel, Lee Jensen, and Lisa Brooks crowded around the flat-screen display in her office. She was in the process of uploading Rahman’s computer data onto a DHS server, a job that was almost complete.

  “This should be the same as if we were sitting in front of Rahman’s screen,” she said. She opened up a new window, and they were staring at the GMU splash page.

  “We have clearance, Clarence,” Jensen said, trying to contain his glee. This was what they’d been waiting for.

  Gabriel got the Airplane! reference. “Chill, Kareem. This is just the beginning. We still need to get into the blockchain.”

  “Gabriel’s right,” Brooks said. “Let’s hope this works.”

  She opened up the block browser and typed “SMRA,” the name of the block that they’d earlier identified on Adnan’s computer, into the search bar. “Here goes nothing.” She then hit Enter.

  Instantly the SMRA block appeared. They browsed through the transactions looking for what was known as the “received time,” the exact time Adnan had uploaded the encryption key the night he was killed. “Here it is,” she said, clicking on the associated block hash where the data was stored.

  Up on the screen came a block of seemingly random numbers and letters. “OK, this is the key,” she said. She copied the block and saved it to a thumb drive. She then took the thumb drive and placed it in a USB port connected to Adnan’s tablet. Opening his Amazon cloud account, she pasted the encryption key into a window. Before she hit Enter, she looked at Gabriel and Jensen. “You guys feeling lucky?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Within seconds a file opened up on the screen. Brooks read it out loud:

  There once was a merchant in the famous market in Baghdad. One day he saw a strange woman looking at him; he knew the woman was the Angel of Death.