Page 56 of The Devil's Ransom

He put his finger over the button on the steering wheel to close out the call, and someone answered, saying, “Hello? What is your business?”

“I need to talk to Andrei. My name is Sphinx. He’ll know me.”

“Stand by.”

Thirty seconds later, he heard Andrei say, “To what do I owe this pleasure? You said you’d never call. You know, because everyone in the United States intelligence apparatus is tracking you. I’m assuming by the fact you’re using an open cell line that you’re clean?”

“No, I’m not clean, but nobody is tracking me. I’m assuming because you gave me this number for an emergency, thatit’sclean. Is that not the case? If so, I’ll hang up now.”

He heard Andrei laugh and say, “One-time use. Never been on the cell network. You’ve just destroyed this number, so it had better be important.”

Hobbes toyed with telling him that they’d attacked a classified organization of the United States, but couldn’t see how to leverage the information. He decided to go with what he knew, leaving Andrei in the dark.

“The scheduled launch has been moved up a week because of weather. We need to initiate now.”

“But you said they’d find the bug if we penetrated early?”

“The launch is going early. They have some weather thing going on. What I want your team to do is penetrate the system and implant the malware, but use a timer. Get into the system and set a time bomb for initiation.”

“I’m not sure they can do that. I’m not skilled in the intricacies of this attack. All I’m skilled in is that I will profit from it. Do you understand? I will profit, right?”

Hobbes said, “Of course you’re going to get a payday. Just like me. But in order for that to happen, I need them to inject now.”

What he didn’t say was that the team was about to be wiped out by a killing crew deep in the heart of the United States government, hence the time delay. Or that he intended to use his company to implicate another nation-state for the Auriga attack, and cause a cascading effect.

Hobbes continued, saying, “They need to implant with a countdown. I know how to do this. I need the chat room they operate in to coach them. To tell them how to make it work.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘chat room.’”

“Andrei, don’t kid me on this. It’s my job. I know they talk in a chat room on the dark web because that’s what all of them do. I need that access. I’ll tell them how to accomplish the mission, and we’ll both make money. I send them the gateway access, and they learn how to do a time-delay response.”

Andrei paused for a moment, then said, “If I give you the chat, can you access their systems?”

Hobbes laughed and said, “No, come on. The chat is just the chat. I can’t access their systems. And nobody is watching me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Andrei said, “Okay, I’ll send you the dark web chat room. But if you’re thinking of screwing me out of money by some backdoor deal, I will find you.”

Hobbes lied and said, “I’m not doing that. We both want the same thing. Money.”

Chapter31

Jennifer gave me a cup of coffee and leaned into the computer. I said, “Nothing new yet.”

She nodded, took a sip of her own coffee, and said, “Any backlash from the Taskforce?”

“None yet, but you know it’s coming. That SITREP probably has them changing their diapers.”

“You don’t have a response?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

The computer made an announcement, and we both whipped around to the screen. A blue marble was highlighted inside the old town of Split. Along with it came the same caveat we’d heard before:Cannot confirm current, but this is the last known location.

I stood up, saying, “Looks like it’s Split. Get everyone ready to go. No telling how long that signal will last. He’s already wiped his phone. Hopefully he thinks that computer is clean.”

She said, “And the authorization?”

“It’ll come. Just get everyone ready to move.”

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