Page 85 of No Vow Broken

“Not yet,” Slash said. “Eugene and his team are making progress, but not fast enough given the national urgency. That’s why they’re calling us in for an assist. You guys ready for it?”

“Is that a trick question?” Elvis grinned. “Of course, we’re ready for it. Let’s do it.”

“Excellent. Everyone, take a seat and I’ll let Eugene brief you on what his team has done so far so we don’t waste time on those avenues.”

Eugene gave us the rundown in a precise and logical way. I was impressed by his knowledge and skill. His team hadn’t had time to go deep, but they’d done the right things in the right order, following standard protocol. It was clear whoever had deposited the bitcoin into Tranh’s and Amanda’s boyfriend’s accounts had used this for multiple purposes. There were several transactions.

Slash, the twins, and I knew there was a general misconception about cryptocurrencies among criminals. Bitcoin wallets were almost impossible to crack without inside information. However, they were not as hard to track as cybercriminals liked to think. It just took special software and the right resources. I was convinced that if anyone could find who paid that money to hit our friends and family, it was the team right here in this room. It was only a matter of time.

But did we have enough time?

We each took a laptop as Slash instructed us on our course of action. Slash took the laptop to my right, Eugene to the left. Elvis and Xavier were side by side directly behind us at the U-shaped table. There were several other laptops running that would be cycling various routines and protocols.

My hands hovered over the keyboard as Slash carefully orchestrated each of our movements before we started the dive.

Twenty minutes in, we had determined that the bitcoin had moved from a mobile wallet. This was confirmed by Eugene’s guys in the other room a few minutes later. That was a break, as it meant that our adversary was using his mobile phone to transfer the money and mobile wallets are not as secure as other types.

We started checking transactional timestamps on the two accounts that had full access to the wallet, and who was paying them. Elvis first recognized the money was moving through nested wallets, complicating our problem, as we had to work backward through each level.

As we identified each layer, Slash started handing them out to us and to Eugene’s team as we found them, looking for commonalities. Xavier connected one of the accounts with a mobile phone that matched one of the numbers used to call Tranh and company. We were definitely on the right track.

The break came about forty-five minutes later. Our adversary had gotten sloppy and recorded his backup access password list for one of the wallets on one of his burner phones, then copied it to another burner phone when he transitioned from one phone to the other. It was a list of twenty-three random words in a specific order. These twenty-three words were the complex key that opened the bitcoin wallet in case the owner forgot the password. And just like that, we were inside his accounts.

We then divvied up the bitcoin accounts, looking for personally identifiable information. It had likely taken our so-called mastermind ten times longer to create that trail than it did for us to follow it backward. Since these transactions had taken place recently, our trail was hot and so was the hunt. While I hadn’t done a lot of blockchain tracing, it wasn’t that hard. The challenge proved quite interesting, so for an hour or two, I was free from any anxiety about the wedding.

Two rooms over from us, Eugene had his team working on the information we had developed, and he would periodically get up and go check on their progress. Somewhere in there, Eugene had arranged for coffee, some cold sodas and energy drinks, and snacks. We attacked them like ravenous raccoons once they arrived. Hacking always made us hungry.

“Does anyone know where we are at the moment?” Xavier asked, chewing on a piece of beef jerky.

Slash nodded. “Our man is from Russia, and I’m close to putting a name to the account.” He tapped on several more keys and toggled his screens. We scurried over to see what he was doing. His long hacker fingers flew over the keyboard. We huddled around to watch him work. After a few minutes he pushed back in his chair. “Sergei Sokholov. Does the name mean anything to anyone?”

We all looked at each other and shook our heads. Eugene put his hands on his head, looking stunned.

“Wow,” Eugene said. “That was the most amazing work I’ve ever seen behind the keyboard, and let me assure you, I’ve seen a lot. How the heck did you guys do that so fast? I could barely keep up. I need to hire you to train my team on those methods.”

“Most of it is instinct,” I said, and Slash smiled at me. “But we could share our methods, as unorthodox as they may be.”

“Well, I’d like to state for the record that I’mreallyglad you’re on our side. Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

Xavier grinned and clapped Eugene on the back. “Hey, you weren’t too shabby, either, dude. Good work all around.”

I took a swig from my water bottle. “Well, I guess it’s time for a look at this Sergei guy. Who is he and why is he targeting our wedding? Eugene, would it be possible to see if either the CIA or FBI have anyone with that name in their databases? For that matter, can we find out from Customs and Border Protection if Sergei has recently entered the country?”

Eugene made some notes and then said that he would get his guys working on our requests right away. Twenty minutes later Eugene resurfaced with a smile on his face to share what he’d found.

“Looks like Sergei Sokholov is a former Soviet/Russian military man. He has recently been associated with criminal elements, as well as industrial espionage and mercenary recruitment activities. The CIA has a report out of Monaco that associates him with a gang known for professional assassinations.”

“Sounds like our guy,” Elvis responded just before downing his third, or perhaps fourth, energy drink. I had lost count. At least it was better than whiskey.

“Big guy, well trained,” Eugene continued. “An enforcer type. No obvious knowledge or skill with a computer, hacking or cracking, although he seems to know his way around digital currency. He’s reputed to be associated with money.”

“If I had to make an educated guess, I’d bet he hired someone to wire the money from his wallet or he has a paid accountant,” Slash said. “I doubt he did it himself.”

“The big question is, where’s he getting the money from?” Xavier asked.

“I’m still working on that,” Eugene said. “Two of my guys started running his known associates as soon as we got a name. Shouldn’t take too long to find out.”

“It could be a guy named Plotnikov,” I said, looking up from my screen. I, too, had been pounding the keys since Eugene gave us his name. “Apparently, he’s a super-rich oligarch who made a fortune gobbling up property in the 1980s during perestroika. Sokholov has been spotted near or by Plotnikov’s side in several recent photographs. It could mean he works for him. This Plotnikov guy would have both the money and resources to go after the first lady if he wanted to.”

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