Page 33 of The Devil's Ransom

After a sleepless night, he’d decided on a different course of action. One that would be executed by the very people those idiots had attacked. He’d been hired for a specific purpose: geolocationof the hackers. He wasn’t hired to defeat the ransomware code, but to locate the people doing the extortion. That’s what the president had said. He wanted to punish them, and that might be the best way to solve the problem. Let this Project Prometheus loose, killing the Serbians before they could expose their connection with him. It would mean the end of his primary mission in the short term, but he couldn’t see any way around that.

The problem with that plan was the Russian, Andrei. In no way could he lead the US team to him, because he was the one person who knew Hobbes personally.

Well, that, and the fact that attempting to attack the Russian was asking for his own demise. The man was much more powerful than Hobbes—more powerful than anyone Hobbes even knew—and he had no illusions of what would happen if what he was planning reached Andrei.

He’d be found dead from some poisoning if he was lucky. Found in pieces if he wasn’t. That final thought caused his sweat to spring anew.

The guard waved him through, and Hobbes parked his car in the lot adjacent to the entrance to the West Wing, the lot fairly empty due to the late hour. He turned up the air-conditioning in a futile attempt to dry the moisture, sitting for five minutes with the air flowing over his face, putting his hands up to the vents like he was a professional bowler about to roll for a strike. Eventually he turned off the engine and sat for a minute, gathering his courage.

He was startled when someone knocked on his window. He turned and saw National Security Advisor Alexander Palmer outside his door. He opened it, saying, “You scared me.”

Palmer smiled and said, “I saw you pull in, but when youdidn’t exit the car, I figured I’d check on you to make sure you knew where to go.”

Hobbes exited the vehicle and Palmer said, “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Just a little nervous about this meeting, I guess.”

Palmer saw the moisture on his brow and said, “You had a COVID test, right?”

Hobbes smiled and said, “Yes, it’s not the dreaded Rona, I promise. I’m vaxxed and boosted, and you guys made me test before the first meeting two days ago. I’m good. Just nervous.”

Palmer nodded and handed him a visitor’s badge, saying, “Put that on and follow me.”

They entered the West Wing, skirting by the security desk and the staff secretary, walking directly to the Oval Office, Palmer saying, “You said on the phone that you had some information, is that right?”

“Yes. I think so. I have a location.”

Palmer opened the door to the Oval Office, saying, “Good, good. Go on in.”

Hobbes entered, seeing the president and five other people waiting expectantly. He recognized the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of the CIA, and the secretary of state but was unsure about the others.

President Hannister said, “You have some news?”

“Yes, sir. We haven’t been able to crack the encryption, but they left enough fingerprints to tell us who they are. It’s not conclusive, of course, but it’s pretty damn close.”

“Who?”

“It’s a ransomware group called Dark Star, and its leader is a Serbian named Branko Markovic.”

Amanda Croft, the secretary of state, said, “Serbian? Not Russian?”

Hobbes said, “The actual men working the keyboards are Serbian, but we honestly don’t know who’s behind them. Maybe Russians, maybe nobody. We’ve encountered Dark Star multiple times in the past, and they leave certain clues behind in every attack. We’ve published their digital traces in technical magazines, so there is a bit of caution in this assessment. Someone could be trying to throw authorities off the trail by duplicating them, or it could be a splinter group that left Dark Star and went off on their own. Happens all the time.”

The director of the CIA, Kerry Bostwick, said, “So, this isn’t definitive?”

“It’s as definitive as I can make it. There are no absolutes in this world, like DNA in criminal cases. My forensics are not as clear-cut, but in my professional opinion, thisisDark Star.”

President Hannister said, “Okay, assuming this is Dark Star, how does this help us? We need a location. Hopefully someplace we can reach. Where is their base of operations?”

Hobbes said, “Honestly, they operate all over the continent, depending on the target, but we’ve managed to find an association with the attack.”

He opened his briefcase and withdrew a tablet, saying, “This one came from Croatia, specifically Zagreb.”

He laid the tablet on the table, and everyone gathered around, staring at the map displayed. A bright blue marble highlighted a location inside a four-story building in the upper town of Zagreb, Croatia.

CIA director Bostwick, said, “How can you be this precise? What in the code led to this? I mean, I could see saying it came from Croatia, or even Zagreb, but you’re saying it came from this building?”

Hobbes felt the sweat start to build under his arms and on his forehead. He hoped nobody noticed. He certainly couldn’t tell them that he had no ability to geolocate the hacking crew to this fidelity, something the D/CIA seemed to suspect. The location was the last known address for the leader of the crew, but he couldn’t very well tell them a specific apartment.

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