Operation Desolation Read online

  He’d alerted his contacts in the antivirus security industry to the new virus and made his fix available once he’d developed it. His connections were extensive and he was widely respected in his field because of his work to advance the state of antivirus research and in creating effective countermeasures.

  Jeff had run a test of his solution before leaving Atlanta and it checked out. He’d then left the system to the IT staff while he flew home. He’d just spent the day remotely running additional tests, really for his own peace of mind. It all looked good, but as he’d tried to explain, this approach always left bits and pieces of the virus behind like so much clutter scattered across a factory floor or piled in corners. Generally that was no problem, but do it often enough and you slowly contaminated the operating system in subtle ways that adversely effected its efficiency and security. Well, they’d been warned.

  In the quiet of his house he heard a car drive by, its tires splashing as it passed through standing water. Finished, Jeff disconnected from the Atlanta system, then opened his accounting spreadsheet to calculate the bill.

  Daryl was away—again. Since the events of two years before when they’d nearly been killed obtaining the codes needed to partially counter the force of a cyber-attack on the West by Al Qaeda, they’d been a committed couple. She’d resigned as director of US-CERT Security Operations located at Arlington, Virginia, and joined him in his private IT security company, Red Zoya Systems LP. The name was a takeoff on the zero day applications that had made the Al Qaeda attack so frightening.

  Though neither of their names had surfaced in the media after blunting the Al Qaeda attack, within certain circles they were superstars. Word of their exploits, both accurate and wildly exaggerated, had spread throughout the cyber-security industry. The result was more work than they could comfortably manage.

  Their fees continued to pile up in the bank as neither of them had the time to spend their income. They worked out of their Georgetown Redstone town house, though; on any given day one or both of them were out of the city or country on a project. They stayed in touch remotely, but the work tended to be all-consuming. Partly it was their nature, but it was primarily the demands that came with the job. By the time they were summoned the situation was always critical.

  One snowy Sunday Jeff had contemplated just how many days they’d spent apart. He’d pulled out his calendar and made a dismal discovery that only confirmed what he suspected. In the last eighteen months, since they’d been set up here and been fully available for work, he and Daryl had spent a grand total of twenty-three days together. And on most of those days one or both of them had worked. He did not include one frenzied three-month period when they had largely worked from the office together on a special project as there’d been little interaction between them except as related to the job at hand.

  He’d pointed this out to Daryl while she’d hurriedly packed for her next trip and she’d assured him they’d do something about it, that she wanted to do something about it—just as soon as she got back. That had been three weeks ago.

  Jeff finished the tabulation, saved the file, then locked the screen with a sigh. This was no way to run a relationship. He sometimes wondered why he even bothered. Given the reality of their situation, he could only see one outcome.

  Just then his telephone rang. He glanced at the number as he answered. London calling.

  Also by Mark Russinovich

  Zero Day

  About the Author

  MARK RUSSINOVICH works at Microsoft as a Technical Fellow, Microsoft’s senior-most technical position. He joined the company when Microsoft acquired Winternals Software, which he co-founded in 1996. He is the author of the first Jeff Aiken novel, Zero Day, and also of the popular Sysinternals tools. The non-fiction books he’s coauthored include the Sysinternals Adminitrator’s Reference (Microsoft Press) and the Windows Internals book series (Microsoft Press). He’s a contributing editor for TechNet Magazine, and a senior contributing editor for Windows IT Pro Magazine. Mark lives in Washington State.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  OPERATION DESOLATION. Copyright © 2012 by Mark Russinovich. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Cover design by Ervin Serrano

  Cover photographs by shutterstock

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

  www.stmartins.com

  e-ISBN: 978-1-4668-2155-2