Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [74]
Fajer had slowly become excited, then ecstatic. “Can it truly be done? This is not just idle talk?”
“It can be done. What we cannot know in advance is how devastating it will be. But if we plan it carefully, I believe we can cause enormous harm that will shake Western beliefs. I think we can do enough damage so that the antiwar sentiment in America will grow sufficiently to change their course of action. We can put them on the defensive, cause them to withdraw from the lands of the Prophet, the Merciful. It will be the beginning of the great Muslim Restoration.”
“Then we must do it, little brother. We must do it!”
And so they had, keeping their effort almost to themselves as they did not trust others.
“It is not the Russian, not directly,” Labib said finally. “There is something else.”
“Yes?”
“We monitor certain sites for signs that we have been discovered. It is passive monitoring so we give nothing away.”
“Very wise. You have found something?”
“Yes. A message was posted asking for information by anyone about a hacker known as Superphreak.”
Fajer had not heard the name previously. “Yes?”
“That is our Russian.”
Fajer’s eyes lit for an instant. “How could anyone know that name?”
“It must be in the code.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When hackers create new code, they often use bits and pieces of old code that have worked in the past. They see no reason to reinvent it. I think our Russian took old code that had his cyber name in it, without knowing it, probably.”
“I thought he was ordered to leave no trail,” Fajer said.
“He was.”
“He’s been very careless.”
“Yes,” Labib agreed, “careless. But it is too late to stop it. The act is already in motion. What is done, is done. Even if we were to agree to stop or delay it, we cannot. If it is beyond our power, it is beyond anyone else’s too.”
Fajer considered that a moment. “I suppose. Tell me all you learn as you learn it.”
“Of course.”
34
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK
HOTEL LUXOR
EAST THIRTIETH STREET
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26
9:06 P.M.
As Jeff waited for his laptop to boot, he thought back on his work for Fischerman, Platt & Cohen. He’d been at it now almost two weeks, and from his point of view he had nothing to give them. He’d learned a great deal about the two viruses that infected their system, but his attempts to find and boot a clean image had been a failure. He knew more since the last effort, but he could give neither Sue nor Greene any assurance that he could rid the contaminated backup files of either virus, or if he did, that a third, or fourth, wasn’t still lurking somewhere in the data.
He was conflicted about what to do next. On the one hand, the firm needed him to be successful, and the information he was learning and passing along to Daryl might be vital in helping other companies under similar attack. It might even prove useful in thwarting further ones.
But that wasn’t what Greene was paying Jeff to do. He’d spoken earlier with the harried lawyer, and the man had presented a pretty unpleasant picture of what was taking place within the firm. Work wasn’t getting done, clients were jumping ship, a few of the newest hires had already resigned, and no new work of any kind was being signed. Worst of all, the cash flow had all but stopped. Unless Jeff could present a realistic prospect of recovery, he felt he had no business collecting any more of his fee. If he stopped, however, the firm would go under because no one else could do a better job.
And this had another component, one he’d rather not admit to. Memories he’d long suppressed were crowding his consciousness, breaking down the barriers he’d erected around him. In many ways the work at the New York law firm was similar to what he’d done at the old CIA. He’d worn his failure to avert the 9/11 disaster, and save Cynthia’s life, like an invisible yoke around his neck, and now that same sense of failure was weighing down on him again, threatening