The Code Within: A Thriller (Trent Turner Series) (49 page)

Turner could tell through his friend’s tentative voice that he wasn’t yet ready to open that wound.

“First,” Brendan continued, “I wanted to hunt the bastards down and slit their throats, but the guys on the team talked me down.” Manion took a deep breath. “When that happened, my commander gave me some time, but I started drinking. I wasn’t doing what I was trained to do. In my state, it was too dangerous for the team to have me out there on operations.” He shook his head. “At first I didn’t see it that way. I just wanted to get out there and try to work through it, but this time it was different.”

“The guilt?”

“Yeah,” Manion said. “I mean it’s one thing when you lose a SEAL on the team, a fellow soldier, a friend. The scars are something we all have to live with.” He took another deep breath. “But when something you do on an operation bleeds into your life outside of your work. It reaches your loved ones, people who didn’t sign up for this shit.” He took a moment to reflect. “It fucks you up pretty bad, man. Pretty damn bad.”

Trent turned to his friend and understood perfectly. “Ryan’s death—I don’t know, I’m still not sure how I’m going to file that one away. I almost got myself killed a couple of times going after the guy who did it,” Turner admitted. “My head wasn’t there. It’s just a good thing I wasn’t on an operation working with anyone else, or I could have gotten someone killed.”

“And that was my problem. I was worried about my family at home. We’re so close, and it had me scared.” He shook his head. “Was some other terror cell going to come out of the woodwork and take out my family? Her family? Someone I cared about? It was a distraction that was weighing me down. I couldn’t function, and I was on my way to becoming an alcoholic.”

Turner thought about his own situation and could easily see himself in Brendan’s shoes.

“You can’t expect to eliminate a fanatic and not have his lemmings come for you,” Turner said. “The fucking press, they can be so ignorant.”

Manion laughed, but there was no humor. “Some of them could stand for some common sense and decency,” he agreed. “My commander reached out to Addy before he approached me with the idea. You know, kill me off so I wouldn’t have to worry about my family anymore, so I wouldn’t have that hanging over my head.” He looked to Turner. “So that’s what we did. Addy’s got some serious pull and made it happen. I was listed as a casualty on a bird that went down.” He looked to the sky. “A lot of good soldiers lost their life on that Apache,” he said bitterly. “It’s ironic that they gave me mine back.”

“Now you have all the more reason to make a difference,” Turner said.

Manion nodded. “I’d been getting my feet wet doing some work in Afghanistan, and when you’re brother was killed Addy decided it was time to let the cat out of the bag and officially bring me on board.”

“He’s a smart man. Jesus, it’s great to see you, Brendan,” Trent said as the two pounded fists.

They had just made it back to the others when they heard the loud report of a weapon.

The Shop, Northern VA

“WE’VE GOT IT,” CDWG Director Cynthia Grayson said with a smile. “Nice work everyone, incredible job.”

Her team had been working feverishly to break the encryption on the files they had intercepted from the Bratva just before their Chicago compound was destroyed. Hacker Dennis Zander had provided them with the crucial piece of information that led to their breakthrough. He had told them that the bank account numbers in the files the Russians were using for their operation never changed, and that detail ended up being the key to breaking the encryption relatively fast.

The transmission they had intercepted had been done in haste just before the explosion at the Bratva’s compound in Chicago. The Shop had identified the communication from a USB modem when it connected to the same cell tower that Maria Soller’s phone had used. Once the team of analysts utilized an NSA back door to decrypt the secure copy between the computers, they quickly realized that some of the files had been sent unencrypted. From there, it was a matter of comparing an unencrypted file with an encrypted file that Zander had helped them identify from the financial institution data that had been archived in the NSA’s Top Secret Stellar Wind data collection program.

Now it was time for Grayson to collect her thoughts and report on the progress. She headed into her office and went straight for the special phone on her desk. She pressed the button labeled “Situation Room” and eagerly awaited an answer.

“Cyndi, good morning,” President Cross said.

“Good morning, Mr. President. Do you have Addy with you?”

“He’s here, and also Assistant Director Hood from the FBI.”

“Gentlemen,” she said.

“Good morning, Cyndi,” Addy Simpson chimed in. “I sure hope you have some good news for us.”

She tried to quietly clear her throat. “I do, both good and bad. My team has broken the encryption on the files.”

“Great news,” the president said before she continued.

“We’ve also confirmed that they’re using the surgeon bots to modify the Automated Clearing House files from the Federal Reserve. You may know them as ACH files.”

“ACH files?” Simpson said, and then paused as if the wheels were turning in his head. “Is that the system the Fed uses to distribute electronic transfers for payroll and payments?”

“That’s right,” she confirmed. “The hacker we brought in from Chicago has been a big help. Between what he’s told us and the code the team here has reverse engineered, we’ve confirmed that the Russians plan to modify each of the target bank’s incoming ACH files. It looks like their plan is to change the amount of the transfers within each ACH file so it will take funds from and aggregate those funds into accounts that are seldom used.”

“Wouldn’t that be easy to spot?” President Cross asked.

“You would think so, but from what we’ve been able to determine, the way they’re going about this will maintain the correct amounts for total debits and credits for each ACH file, and that’s how the banks verify everything once the payment file is finished processing.”

“You’re saying their overall numbers won’t be off, so it won’t immediately be brought to their attention?” Simpson said, pausing for a moment. “So, let’s say I’m supposed to get a thousand dollars,” he continued, “but instead they send it to another account that’s in the same file and zero out mine? They just swap the amounts out?”

“That’s right, they’d send you something like twenty dollars and change, and the rest would go into some other account where they’re building up a large balance. These files can total tens of millions of dollars in transactions, and they typically process several per day, so it’s impossible to verify the amount for each individual account was correct.”

“That sounds too easy,” the president said.

“It’s not as hard as it should be,” Grayson agreed. “There should be more protective measures in place. Since they’re targeting accounts with low activity, it could be a week, maybe more, before the magnitude of what’s going on will be discovered.”

The president took a long moment to respond. “Do you know how they plan to move the money around?”

“I was just getting to that. Let me try to keep it simple,” she said. “The DataBank software application is accessed with a web browser. What they’re doing is injecting hidden transactions into the browser of a user who is legitimately authorized to do wire transfers.”

“So they’re piggybacking off of a real transaction?” Simpson asked.

“That, and not to get too technical, but they’ve cleverly manipulated the browsers to display what they want the user to see. In other words, at least initially, those extra transactions will be invisible on the screen.”

“Got it,” Cross said. “They don’t need that much time.”

“Correct. They just need the bank to process an ACH file, and typically you’re two people with the proper authorizations and a couple of clicks away from funneling out millions.”

The president grunted his understanding. “Once the money is wired out into a money-laundering haven—take your pick, Lichtenburg, Switzerland, the Caribbean—it will be too late to pull it back.” Cross drew in a deep breath and exhaled. “Now for the most important question. Can you stop them?”

“Well, sir, I believe they’ve already started with some financial institutions. My team is working on it, but it’s touch and go. I suppose the good news is that we’ll be able to figure out who was affected by this, but as far as stopping it without shutting down the banking system goes, we’re still working hard to figure that out. We won’t stop until we do.”

Shutting down the banks posed many of the same risks as the attack itself did. The president drummed his fingers on the table as he considered the options.

“Can you stop them from doing any more damage? Maybe block the ACH files from leaving the Fed in the first place.”

“It’s going to be close,” Grayson said. “Most banks on the East Coast will start processing the files from the Fed soon. Once that starts, if they’ve got things ready to go and they’ve initiated the attack, we’ll need a miracle to stop them.”

“Please figure this out fast,” the president said flatly. “We’re counting on you and your team. Do you have any details on the other matter?”

“Yes, I do. Senator Soller was intoxicated when he was killed in the automobile accident,” Grayson explained. “Toxicology tests confirmed that he had no business being behind the wheel of a car.”

“Were you able to pull the call?” Simpson asked.

“Yes,” Grayson confirmed. “His voice was slurred, and as he apologized to his wife, his tone seemed to turn increasingly dark. The analyst identified the sound of an engine accelerating in the background before he ended the call. We’re trying to confirm whether it was from his vehicle, but at this point we believe that to be the case.” She knew what they were thinking, and she had come to the same conclusion. “The call disconnected at almost the same time the phone’s signal disappeared. The police found the device smashed inside the car. It was ugly. All indications point to the senator taking his own life by driving off the bridge on MacArthur Drive. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been driving that fast. It’s a fair plunge all the way down to Cabin John Parkway, so that would be a good place to make sure you did the job. The police are going to speculate that it was an animal on the road.”

“And the Federal Reserve?” the president asked.

Grayson had been unnerved by what she’d found, knowing the impact this single attack would have on the United States.

“They’re in a complete panic. Bart Stapleton tried to call Soller several times this morning. He’ll quickly find out about his death. It sounds like they’ve lost nearly two trillion dollars from their foreign accounts so far.”

“Jesus,” Simpson said.

The president remained silent.

Grayson could sense the tension and added, “Chairman Stapleton has mentioned a call with you, Mr. President, in some of the communications we’ve intercepted. He stopped short of saying you were involved, but the death of the senator has him paranoid.”

“Mr. President,” Ivor Hood chimed in, “I’m not sure if this would help, but we did finally find Stapleton. He came in late last night from Portugal.”

“We’ll check with our sources over there,” President Cross said. “Let’s see if our friendly neighborhood cabal had a meeting. If they did, maybe that will help us figure out what’s happened to the money. It looks like our long forgotten communist pals have figured out how to hit us where it hurts. Shit, if they pull this off…”

“Mr. President,” Grayson said, “we’ve been monitoring the Fed very closely, considering the circumstances, and we do have some limited information.”

“Go ahead.”

“Someone from the Fed did initiate a transfer of sixty-seven billion dollars from Banque Suisse to Iraq’s central bank. It happened at six fourteen this morning, and almost immediately after that transaction every substantial bank account of theirs we know of also made a transfer of the same amount. A couple of them fired it off twice.” She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. “We’ve just seen that one of the banks with a duplicate transfer tried to call for verification of the wire, and it was redirected to a number in Europe. We hope to have the conversation pulled from Red Hook to see what was said. We suspect they’ve hacked the phone system to pull this off and we’ll come to find the same situation with the other transfers.”

“How do you know the first transfer was legit?” When she didn’t immediately respond, Cross said, “Never mind, Cyndi, I don’t need to know. I’m sure you have your ways. Can we get the money back somehow?”

“I highly doubt it. I suspect they’ve moved the money several times by now, but the team is looking into it as we speak,” she said, and then her voice saddened. “Unfortunately, the one man who might have been able to help was killed recently.”

“Talk about timing,” the president lamented. “You’re probably right, they would have moved it too quickly. If this second attack goes through”—he paused and then blew out a deep breath—“I’m afraid it will make the Great Depression look like a night at the Four Seasons in Paris. Let’s hope Karl Marx wasn’t right about history repeating itself, and we don’t have the reincarnation of the Bolsheviks.”

Kozlov Bratva hideout, Leesburg, VA

TRENT TURNER’S HEAD swung back toward the sound of the gunshot. He was thankful not to hear the familiar sound of a bullet cutting through the air.

“Shit, who are they shooting at?” he asked.

They had just come to within earshot of the others when Manion said, “I don’t know, but that was a large-caliber rifle for sure. Lucky we didn’t run into him when we were down there.” He turned to Throaty, Jake Sanders, and Rudy Pagano. “We need to be more careful. Those Spetsnaz boys are deadly accurate behind the scope.”

“Does that increase the pucker factor?” Turner joked.

Rudy Pagano shook his head and laughed. “The only pucker I’ve seen in this crew was from that little beauty queen who had eyes for you.” His accent was Bronx to the core. “I’ll tell ya, Trent, I thought she was gonna cry when you didn’t return that little peck on the cheek.”