Dark Tidings

Chapter 35 - Other People's Emails

The television coverage had rattled Michael. How many viewers had watched the broadcast? How many of them had noticed the grey-haired Madrick or the weirdly-acting Tung in the street or on the tube? Joe Public loved even two minutes of fame so anyone who'd seen them could well report the sighting to the TV station in an attempt to get themselves on the box. Madrick seemed oblivious to the risk and Tung was still basking in the glory of his new found celebrity.

Michael twirled and tugged at his beard hair. It helped him think. What would they say if they were found? There was no way to explain the strange objects which had been left in the hotel room. And how would they be treated if they were tracked down? He didn't know and he didn't want to find out.

"This is bad," he said. "You guys don't understand the reach that this kind of coverage has. Everybody's going to be on the lookout for you."

"I know, but a little bit of notoriety is fun. And fun is good."

"No, this is definitely not good. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. Put simply, we need to keep you guys out of sight."

"Okay," said Tung, "that was put simply enough."

"Low profile... simple as ABC."

As soon as he said it he realised it was a poor choice of simile. Tung couldn't read so ABC was anything but simple.

"Low profile," he repeated. "Low profile."

Michael was also troubled because he hadn't seen Faith since the crazy champagne party. They'd talked on the phone but the conversations had been superficial. He hadn't even told her about his meetings with Tung and Madrick. He wasn't sure why he was keeping that a secret but his gut told him to keep it to himself for now.

She hadn't been back to work since the party because her hangover had morphed into a severe dose of the flu. He felt sorry for her but it gave him some time and space to sort out what direction his life was going to take without dragging her along this unknown path. Much better to wait and then share everything once he had some sort of idea how it was all panning out.

He turned up at the office just before nine o'clock and got stuck into his work straight away. The day turned out to be a bit of a mishmash, thoughts about his new companions distracted him and messed with his concentration. Luckily, nothing too difficult presented itself, so he breezed through the day. As usual, most of his colleagues packed up and left on the dot of five but he always waited about fifteen minutes before he followed them out. That last fifteen minutes meant ninety-five percent of his workmates had no idea how late he stayed, all they knew was he'd worked later than them.

The front door banged behind him, it was good to be home. Tung and Madrick lounged in front of the television eating pizza, no surprise there. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he headed for his computer. It was time to initiate phase two of his destroy-IIBE plan. The antics of his traveller friends might force them all to beat a hasty retreat from the media and he didn't want that to scupper his plan. He was happy to run with his new friends but he wasn't going to let his meticulous preparation work to go to waste.

The usual routine followed... log on, check own emails and messages. Next, check the email accounts he'd hacked into. One odd-looking email to the chairman caught his eye. It wasn't the 'pricing report' subject line which piqued his interest, it was the fact that the body of the text was encrypted. Brilliant, he loved this sort of puzzle. Codes and ciphers fascinated him but this one was a tricky little number. Cracking it would take significant effort so he filed it away for when he'd more time. It probably wasn't particularly interesting or important anyway.

It was now time to concentrate on his plan because once he hit the metaphorical 'start button', there was no turning back. His scheme would be in play. It would take on a life of its own but he was ready, or at least as ready as he was ever going to be.

"Thunderbirds are go," he said as he hit the enter key. A little shiver ran down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, this was the moment he'd been working towards for the last eighteen months. Now all he could do was wait until someone noticed the probes he'd instigated and started to investigate. The probes, which would appear to have originated in North Korea, would poke at the bank's firewall and network perimeter, apparently seeking out weaknesses. Once the bank's security team began their investigation he'd keep ramping up the number of probe attacks until it looked like the beginning of a denial of service onslaught. The bank would dedicate all its IT security resources to counter the attack and that's when he'd hit them with the big steal. He'd get them when they were looking the wrong way.

Okay, so now what? Maybe one more look at the encrypted message to Samuel Buckingham would be fun. He stared at it, looking for obvious patterns but there were none. No familiar number sequences suggested what encryption method had been used.

The next step was to run it through the highly sophisticated Noviru intelligent analyser modules which he'd 'borrowed' when he left the company. They sifted and sorted text, making intelligent trial-and-error decisions about the type of message. In the first pass, they could generally determine the originating language. In the second pass, they could work out the nature of the message, for example, was it a scientific message or did it relate to financial data? Then finally, it would grind away until the message was cracked.

These were state-of-the-art routines which security agencies around the world used regularly. What these agencies didn't know was that there were even deeper levels of sophistication which Noviru didn't share with anyone. These were the levels which Michael was now applying to the message.

After an hour, the Noviru analysis had made a little progress. It had determined that the originating language was English and the message contained a date and time, 07.45 GMT 17th of this month. It had also ruled out a lot of things. The message wasn't scientific, mathematical or financial in nature. He reset some of the parameters, widened the analysis and left it to run while he went to talk to the others about what they should all do next.

This message was just a distraction anyway. Maybe he shouldn't bother with it at all, after all he'd enough other things to be getting on with.