Zero Day: A Novel Read online

  But the more success Vladimir enjoyed, the greater his ego had grown. At times she considered it to be out of control. He could be unbearable in his arrogance. Then there were his employers. She knew he’d worked for a time with the Russian Mafia, but she was certain he’d stopped. Yet when he’d been offered a job by more than one legitimate company, he’d refused them all. When she’d suggested her speaking to Boris Velichkovsky on his behalf, he’d become enraged and accused her of sleeping with her boss. She’d stood her ground and forced him to apologize for the remark, threatening to leave him until he did.

  But she could tolerate his arrogance. She saw it as a form of compensation for his disability, and she could continue to stand it, if only they had a child. For all the negatives of life, even in the so-called New Russia, what was the point, she’d told her mother, of living if you didn’t have a family?

  33

  PARIS, FRANCE

  18ÈME ARRONDISSEMENT

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 25

  9:06 P.M.

  Fajer al Dawar checked his appearance in the mirror at his suite in the Paris Ritz hotel. Forty-five years old, of average height and build, he took great pride in his jet-black hair. His unusually fair skin was also a source of satisfaction to him, but he never spoke about it to his swarthy brothers. He ran a comb through his hair, patted a lock into place, then laid the counts down as he once again admired his figure in the new Armani suit.

  As CEO of the Franco-Arabe Chimique Compagnie, Fajer made trips to Paris two or three times a year. At home he was a Muslim traditionalist, with two wives, though in the West he only spoke of his first. When he’d married, his father, from whom he’d inherited his enormous fortune, had taken him aside to talk. “An Arab of means should have the four wives the Prophet has promised, but no more. The first should be a woman you can hang on your arm in the West, but who also accepts her place. With the other three, you are free to choose as you wish, for no one will see them but your family. My advice is to marry once every ten years. That way you always have a young wife for your bed and to bring you children. Because they are so far apart, you will not have the jealousy problems others who are less careful in their planning face every day, to their regret.”

  Fajer believed his father, though he also despised him. The first son of the second wife, Fajer had seen the philosophy of wife-taking in action, and though, from his experience, it didn’t work quite as well as his father had indicated, it was one of Allah’s gifts to man. In all, his father had fifteen children, six of them sons. Fajer’s mother had existed in the shadow of the first wife and taught Fajer from the first that she and he were but second-class family members. She had filled him with an anger he’d learned to conceal, but was the source of his ambition.

  While in Riyadh, Fajer was publicly a strict Muslim, but those demands dropped away, though not without some ambivalence, the moment his private jet left Arab airspace. He enjoyed his Irish whiskey and the freer lifestyle of France, and he enjoyed enormously the statuesque blondes, available by the score at what was to him little cost.

  As he rode the elevator down to the hotel lobby, Fajer considered once again his mixed feelings. He honestly did not know if he could survive without these periodic trips that served as a release from the orchestrated, oppressive life in Riyadh. As he’d come to recognize them for the safety valve they were in his life, he looked to his uncles who had never gone to the West. Each of them seemed to him a bit odd, even mentally ill. Could it be true that to submit to Allah, as Fajer had been taught, was ultimately not possible? Not, at least, and keep your sanity? Perhaps this was a symptom of the West’s current subjugation of the Muslim world, something that would change when the new Muslim age began. But such was not his lot, and for that he was grateful, if torn. The pressure would build in the weeks leading up to these trips, but knowing he would soon step into his Lear made it bearable. Now he was here and he hadn’t felt this lighthearted, this free, since his last trip.

  To assuage his guilt, Fajer told himself these excursions were necessary. He had to present himself as he did to conduct business in the West. He had to act Western, had to fit in with foreign businessmen. If he took pleasure from the experience, he should not condemn himself for it.

  In the lobby bar of the Paris Ritz, Fajer found his brother Labib al Dawar waiting, engaged in polite conversation with a British businessman Fajer had met once. “Join us,” the florid-faced Brit said as he approached.

  “Thank you, but Labib and I have an engagement.” Fajer smiled at his younger brother, who looked as if he needed to be rescued. The businessman accepted the inevitable and excused himself.

  “What was that about?” Fajer asked.

  “Money. What else? They think we Arabs carry gold bars around in our pockets,” his brother said.

  They stepped into the late-night air. It was much cooler now than it had been during the day. Fajer thought for a moment that no city on earth was more beautiful than Paris at night. Darkness masked its few shortcomings as a metropolis, and the city was lit as if for a Hollywood production. The driver opened the door and the two men stepped into the black Mercedes. The heavy car pulled away from the hotel, hesitated, then merged with traffic. A moment later it descended into the same tunnel where Princess Diana had died.

  Labib was the second son of their father’s fourth wife. In Saudi families the sons of different mothers didn’t usually bond, but their mothers were cousins who had often visited one another during their childhood. Labib had always looked up to his older brother; when asked to join him in this venture, he’d been thrilled to be included.

  While Fajer handled the company’s affairs in the Kingdom, as Saudi Arabia was known, Labib had established the corporate presence in Paris. He’d lived here now for six years and had grown quite comfortable among the French. His wife loved Paris, and their son was thriving in school.

  Though Fajer looked very much like their father, Labib, at age thirty-seven, closely resembled his mother. An inch shorter than his brother, he was slender, with a nearly effeminate grace. He’d lost his fourth finger on his left hand in a camel-riding accident with Fajer when they were children, but otherwise was a perfect Arab specimen. He’d earned a degree in computer science at Harvard and had originally worked with his brother as IT manager for the company in Riyadh.

  Close as they were, the brothers were different in many ways. Fajer tended to the ostentatious when in the West, and his sexual appetite was nearly insatiable. Labib preferred to live a quiet life, with one woman, and avoided all overt displays of wealth. But they shared much in common. Both hated their father, despised the corrupt Saudi ruling family, and believed the future of the Arab world lay in a return to the old ways and a restoration of the caliphate as the world’s dominant power. Both of them wanted nothing so much as the destruction of America to make that possible.

  “And how are things, little brother?” Fajer asked in Arabic. The driver was Polish, so they could speak frankly.

  “I believe we will get the contract.”

  “Not that. The other.”

  Labib glanced at the driver a moment. “It has gone as planned so far. I see no problems.”

  “There are always problems, or, at the least, there is the unexpected.”

  “Fresh code is going out every day. We’ve confirmed replication. It’s really only a question of how far it spreads before activation, and that we can’t discover in advance without tipping our hand.”

  Fajer smiled. “I can hardly wait until the day comes. I will be home in the Kingdom. I suggest you return as well. We will be safe there. Nothing else?”

  “No.” Labib stared out the window.

  Fajer could sense his uncertainty. “Tell me. Is it the Russian?”

  The idea had been spawned high in a remote valley in the Hejaz Mountains near the western coast of Saudi Arabia. There Fajer had long maintained a traditional tribal settlement of about eighty people. Several times a year, especially during the torturous summer
, Fajer flew by helicopter to this remote region and lived in a tent, as had his forebears. Here he renewed his ties to the earth and to the traditional ways of his tribe.

  These included slaughtering a goat or sheep. He’d learned to cut the throat in the prescribed way, to drain the blood as specified, then to skin the animal before turning it over to the women. He found he took great pleasure in killing.

  One of the elderly men, a fighter from the old days, had spoken to him one night about the blade and how a sword or knife were the only true weapons for any desert Arab. Firearms were used of necessity, but a true Arab warrior fought with the blade, close to his enemy where he could see the life drain from the body of the slain.

  Fajer had been deeply moved. Later, the old man had given him a knife, a shafra, of old construction. “It has taken the blood of many infidels,” the nearly toothless man had said as he pressed it into Fajer’s hand. “You must use it in jihad.”

  The handle of the shafra was of white pearl, the seven-inch steel blade turned down in Arab fashion. It was meant to be worn in a sheath in the small of the back as a reserve or secret weapon. The next morning, Fajer had donned the knife. Now he was never without it.

  He was so moved by his many experiences at this desert encampment that he had selected a future wife from among the people. Though she was not yet ten years of age, when the time was right, he would wed his third wife in a traditional tribal ceremony, planning to leave their children among her people, wanting them to be raised free of the temptations and contamination to which he’d been exposed as a child.

  Eight years earlier, Fajer had taken Labib to the settlement for the first time. Beside a dying fire, within the comfort of his people, staring into an ebony sky with stars sparkling like tiny diamonds, Fajer first shared his vision of the future.

  “We have turned away from the Prophet, the Merciful. Our punishment has been to see our people seduced by the West. The greatest curse ever given us has been oil. Because of it the West has conquered and divided us. Otherwise they would have left us at peace.”

  “I understand. We are but two men. What can we do?” Labib had asked.

  It was the first moment it had occurred to Fajer that his brother was with him. He had felt alone until this moment. “The Prophet was but one when he began. With two, we can level mountains. Tell me of this education you have from the American university. I know very little about Americans.”

  The brothers had talked far into that night and several nights to follow. During the days they had hunted wild game and flown their falcons. “This,” Fajer said more than once, “is the life we Arabs were meant to live.”

  But the men had done nothing but complain until the attack on the World Trade Center. Fajer had called his brother and told him to turn the television to CNN International. They were talking by telephone as they watched the two towers fall.

  “Allahu Akbar! Allah is greater!” Fajer had exclaimed. “Allah be praised!”

  They had been convinced that this was the beginning of something great and watched the news each day with anticipation. But as the Americans had driven the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan, then invaded Iraq, as they had harassed the followers of Osama bin Laden around the world, Fajer had lapsed into a deep depression. The West was winning again. The previous summer the two brothers had met in the Hejaz Mountains, where Fajer had expressed his loss of faith.

  “Osama cannot do it alone. The American forces are too strong. We are weak, and getting weaker. It has all been for nothing.”

  Labib then spoke to his brother about thoughts that he had long kept to himself. “It is true that the West is corrupt and evil. But it is also true America and its allies have an enormous industrial base capable of overwhelming us in battle. Their one great ability is to build weapons, and their single greatest strength is their absolute willingness to use those weapons against anyone they consider to be an enemy.

  “In the last half century they have expanded their industrial base far beyond what it once was. They have pursued their policy of creating one world under their polytheistic, hedonistic rule. To accomplish that, they have connected their means of production worldwide, but nowhere is that connection more firm than within the United States. Banks, manufacturing, national defense, government—everything is linked through computers, and the computers are connected through the Internet.” Labib explained how this worked, then told his older brother his idea.

  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 collectin
g 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 to derail the pathetically small sense of emotional security he’d won for himself since that horrific day.

  I can’t go through that again, he thought, I can’t fail this time too. Maybe I can’t save the company that hired me, but the help I’m giving Daryl might accomplish something I wasn’t able to do before. This is much more than just another job, he suddenly realized. Buoyed by the understanding he was given something rare in life, a second chance, Jeff turned to his work with renewed energy.

  Once the computer was running, Jeff sat at the desk in his room and launched a search for hacker chat rooms, recognizing several from his search earlier that week and even some from back to his CIA days, when trolling hacker chat rooms had been his late-night “hobby.” He scrolled through the various chat rooms, searching for the words superphreak and kinky, or any other reference to Rick James. Nothing.

  Then, shortly before eleven o’clock, he entered the h@xx0rd chat room. He’d glanced at the chat room a time or two before and knew that foreign hackers liked it, but hadn’t previously seen anything that interested him. This time, though, as he scanned down the page, scrolling as needed, he was pulled up short. He read:

  Godder:

  Hw mch?

  Dante:

  I’m nt gettn rich, u know … few thousand Euros …

  Godder: