SILENT AS THE DEAD: A Deadly Cyber Chase Begins Read online

  Vicky said, “Please sit down. Let me arrange some tea first.”

  Rakesh asked, “What’s happened Vicky?” His voice was anxious; however, it was alert, sensing danger.

  34. Monday, 2.11PM, Ekerö, Stockholm

  Nobody knew his real identity.

  He was a middle aged man with a slender fit body. National Security Agency would be happy to spend any amount of money to get hold of him.

  His grey hair was thinning but he looked much younger. He pulled in his car near the garage and cut the engine.

  Since it was August, the weather was good in Ekerö. It was an archipelago of islands in Lake Mälaren, Stockholm County. There were few farm houses. Secluded. Private. Not very far away from two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Viking age settlement Birka, and Drottningholm Palace.

  The man squinted as the sun hit his windshield. He took a look at the sky. It was clear and blue. Tourists started coming and he could see the colorful boats in the lake. The flat landscape made Ekerö perfect for bicycle-riders also.

  It was an out-of-the-way farm house with large garden in front of it. He entered the kitchen first and made coffee. With the mug he now entered a large room which looked like PG’s computer-room. It had similarity with the compartment where the pilot sat while flying the aircraft. Here computers made the only difference. Three large monitors sat with a keyboard in the centre. There were few known devices like photocopier, scanner, PDA and personal organizer but some were unknown and strange looking.

  Some of them he had made by himself. He loved playing around with the hardware. One of them was a retina scanner. He scanned his retina in his own machine and the computer booted automatically.

  There was a message lying before him on the main screen.

  He took a quick look and seemed perplexed. He didn’t believe his eyes. The man squinted again and it seemed it was his habit. His hard and crude face softened a little bit as he took out the keyboard and started keying in lightning speed.

  He wrote: It was you – PG! I still don’t believe my eyes.

  The answer came immediately: Yes, it was me VOD. I want to tell you something.

  ‘Valley of Death’, one of the most infamous and deadly hackers in the black hat category smiled while his fingers danced on his keyboard: I hope you won’t tell me to be a saint!

  PG wrote back: You’re a saint at heart I know. One day you’ll feel it and remember me.

  ‘Never. Tell me PG, how are you?’

  ‘I am fine VOD.’

  ‘Tell me how I can help you?’

  ‘I don’t need your help now. I want to alert you.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I thought you are done with the VSS.’

  ‘The Voice Sampling Search?’ The man looked thoughtful again.

  ‘Yes, it was that VSS which I believed I had destroyed and you admitted it too.’

  ‘Yes, you did a perfect shot and I lost million dollars.’

  ‘Sorry for your loss. Do you know, it still exists?’

  ‘You’re joking PG. It can’t.’ VOD laughed it out.

  ‘I am not joking VOD. Someone in India has used this to locate my voice. I thought you must know about it.’

  ‘In India? No way PG. It’s impossible.’

  ‘Yes it’s happened few minutes back.. I’m trying to trace it out. It’s near somewhere in the south region. I have almost completed the trace route. He is a murderer and criminal. He has been collecting ransom, blackmailing people for some time. He is also a phone freak. His social engineering skill was good. But I don’t know how he has managed to get the VSS? I don’t believe you had given him before.’

  There was a pause. ‘Valley of Death’, the black hat hacker looked really bewildered.

  He wrote back: I believe you PG. But it’s really unbelievable. I know one guy in India. He was my disciple – long ago. But I can’t believe he stole the VSS from me! I just can’t imagine. We’re black hat; however, we maintain a dignity I am angry PG. I am really angry. This boy should not live any more. He betrayed me! He should be silent as the dead.

  ‘Sorry I don’t want to spoil your mood. And I didn’t believe that you had given it.’

  ‘No, never. I didn’t give it. He stole it taking the chance of my faith. He was a good student no doubt. He learned things quicker than any one. A smart kid. At that time his base was near Tambaram. I still remember the name of the place. He must have shifted his base now. Anyway I’ll track him down and check it first. Many thanks PG for letting me know that someone has betrayed me.’

  ‘I’ll find him out anyway. He is a killer.’

  ‘You need not waste your talent behind a rogue, PG. Leave it for me. I got his old addresses. It’ll take few minutes to make the new trace route complete. I’ll teach that bastard.’

  ‘I am almost done. Leave it; tell me what you’re doing now?’

  ‘Nothing special. I earned lot of money and thinking about retirement.’

  ‘I don’t believe you’re leaving the stage so early. A real Viking!’

  ‘Ha, ha. I’m not leaving. I have recently built a retina scanner from an old radio. You won’t believe it man! Our old technologies are not dead yet.’

  ‘I believe you VOD. Send me the code. I’d like to see your code. You’re the most decent coder I’ve ever seen in my life.’

  ‘No, you’re the best. You cracked my fort. No one did that before. Not even NSA. You can do anything. But you’re a perfect gentleman. You didn’t divulge my address to anyone.’

  ‘Ha, ha, you’re joking VOD. I cracked your fort because you let me in. Otherwise, no one tried to do that. They knew they couldn’t.’

  ‘But I can’t crack you PG. You guy still remain anonymous.’

  ‘You can’t carry on your secrecy forever. It’s unbearable, VOD.’

  ‘You’re right PG. I feel exactly the same.’

  ‘See you guy, next time. If you find the VSS before me, please destroy it.’

  ‘Yah, sure. I’ll destroy him too. The betrayer!’

  35. Monday, 5.55PM, Calcutta

  Rakesh looked anxious.

  He stood up and started pacing up and down the large room. He said, “I still can’t believe Vicky. I have been watched for some time? The joint police commissioner has been tapped. Someone has recorded information that I pass. They have recorded everything! They came to know about your Mumbai journey in advance! It's unbelievable, Vicky.”

  Vicky said, “Yes, it’s true. PG told me to warn you and take care till we don’t find that cracker. You don’t go to your place tonight Rakesh. It’s risky. You better stay here.”

  “They may kill me? But why?”

  “For two reasons. First they might like to wipe out the track of their snooping activities. Second they don’t want honest police officers like you. I told you about the Udit-affair.”

  “Vicky, I don’t believe Udit is a dishonest officer. I think he was scared.”

  “May be, we don’t know. He had never met an anonymous killer before this happened.”

  “Yes, the anonymous killer. The killer can now camouflage into anything. He listens to your conversations. He copies your mobile and sends SMS to anybody. He could force people to do anything. We have never seen such criminal activity before.”

  “Yes, we’ve not seen it before. This is the future form of criminal offence. We need to be able to tackle this type of criminals.”

  “What we have to do now?”

  “We’ll go to your office. PG has given me this pen drive. We’ll put this into your computer. Your computer has been compromised. This device will detect it. Keeping it on your computer we will contact PG and he will connect your machine with his system. That’ll help him complete the trace route. He has told me it’d have finished by tonight. His hacker friends are also trying to detect the guy.”

  Vicky stood up, “Let’s go to your office.”

  Rakesh said, “Should I book a cab through the smart phone app?”

&
nbsp; Vicky smiled, “No, you shouldn’t do that. Once you book the cab from here, the cracker will get this secret location.”

  “My goodness.” Rakesh was out of breath.

  35. Monday, 6.15PM, Calcutta

  He just needed another connection.

  He was watching the dots moving towards one destination. He could have left the whole matter to ‘Valley of Death’. He would have found the trace route and told him the exact address.

  But PG hadn’t done that in his hacking life. He was feeling excited while he waited for the phone call from Vicky. Once Vicky and Rakesh reached the police head quarter and placed the pen drive into the computer the trace route should be complete. He was waiting for the call.

  The cracker must have been waiting silently inside Rakesh’s computer as he waited in the girl’s laptop as well as he waited inside Grass’ laptop. Everywhere he had hatched the eggs that would attack any system. From Jacky’s home he copied the source code used by the cracker. Now he’d like to match it with Rakesh’s computer.

  His mobile rang. It was Vicky.

  “Yes Vicky.”

  “I have placed the pen drive as you told me.”

  “Yes, I got the signal. Stay there for some time.”

  PG was typing in furious speed.

  Username: John Doe

  Password: ***********

  The system was checking credentials…it always asked its first question.

  Perfect. Mr. Doe, what do you want to know?

  He typed in quickly. He had to answer it within five seconds. That was the death-limit. He wrote it fast.

  Knowledge has no limit…so it is meaningless to chase behind it…

  Good. What do you prefer most?

  Not to be watched.

  Who hit you?

  *********

  When?

  ****

  Perfect. You’re entering into the temple of doom. Remember, if you don’t know how to come out you are going to have a memory loss. You can’t remember your past! It’s no joke!

  …

  Usually the machine would take few minutes to organize itself but this time it was behaving strangely. And in a fraction of second PG understood what was happening. He was furiously keying on and immediately the first layer system started encrypting all the whole files.

  Bloody shit! He murmured and cursed himself. He should have guessed it right away. He guessed it correctly; the cracker was waiting for him silently. But he was in stealth mode. He didn’t think about the stealth mode. He should have. Actually he was in the mood to beat ‘VOD’ and cracked the trace route first. So there was a hole in the bucket of concentration.

  In a flash of moment all the files of the first security layer was auto-encrypted. Now if the cracker got them it it’d take three years to decrypt them by a normal high speed PC. But for supercomputers which used parallel processing, it’d take few minutes. So PG decided not to take any chance.

  The cracker had already been bombarded with a logic bomb. It was full of few puzzles that a good programmer would solve in a few hours. But it’d be a waste of time also. If he had a radar program he would have escaped it too.

  But the dirty bomb would fall anyway on any system that was connected to his system for a fraction of microsecond.

  PG was not sitting idle. He was busy writing a code that’d trace every step he had taken in the last few minutes. He was retrieving all the details of the murderer.

  He had to do that before ‘Valley of Death’ reached there. He was enjoying this strange challenge to complete the trace route faster than VOD.

  36. Monday, 6.25PM, Yelagiri

  It was still raining in Chennai.

  Now it was dark outside. The killer-cracker sat patiently before six monitors.

  Few minutes ago he got the message from Calcutta. A man entered into the room of joint CP. Ami tried to sneak in but he was kicked out of the room immediately.

  He was watching every activity, from a distance, one after another. They blinked and various messages were cropping up under his eagle eye. At present he was obsessed with the central monitor.

  A cruel smile came to his face for a second and evaporated quickly.

  He was desperate to know about the mysterious old hacker. By now he was convinced that the man was not a simple hacker. He was a wizard. He obfuscated his every trace, every move. Was he trying to enter the police computer?

  He sashayed slightly and adjusted his chair. His fingers were waiting in trepidation. He should take the first chance to sneak into that man’s system and take it under his control. Every fraction of microsecond was important. The man on the opposite side, probably in Calcutta, was typing like a hell. The man got into his system and, in Chennai; he started typing at equal speed. He had no time to waste but to enter into it at once.

  Oh, sacred shit, the man on the opposite side stopped for a moment and he stopped suddenly. Did he suspect anything? Yes, he did.

  Oh, double chicken’s shit; the man sent a logic bomb. Well he could counter it. His radar program would detect any incoming missile program. And the logic bomb he sent was a little prank.

  But what was happening wholly shit? The moment he was about to enter into that man’s system it was beginning to encrypt. The man knew his job. Salute man! He silently praised his unknown enemy.

  For the first time he felt helpless in his life. What was going on?

  In a moment he jumped off his chair and running like a mad man towards the stairs. He had to reach his server room immediately and switch it off.

  When he was midway he heard the sound – a thunder of the waterfall.

  His server room switch was emitting black smoke. The man in Calcutta sent him a dirty bomb. He heard about it. But he never believed that anyone could have made it.

  The hacker in Calcutta had made it. And he used it, just now, blowing up his main hardware system completely. It was an electrical fusion. It forced his system to take command of his entire electric wiring and bent it to its whim. And the bomb did not only make the sound of a thunder but it actually damaged his entire hardware system; blowing it away. It was like a lightning.

  The fat ugly-looking-cracker started crying like a child; shouting, cursing: Bastard! I’ll kill you. Yes, whoever you are. I’ll find you and kill everyone associated with you.

  He stooped down on his knees and could not watch the devastation any more.

  His plan fell through at the last moment for that bastard-hacker in Calcutta. He hadn’t bargained for it. The hacker from Calcutta blew his system and made it non-operational for ever. Now he had to build everything from scratch.

  Before that he had to leave this place immediately. The police would raid this place any time. They got this address.

  But he had a good place to hide.

  37. Monday, 2.41PM, Ekerö, Stockholm

  The mystery-man was not sitting idol.

  The devil inside him slept like a monster. It was an incarnation. The chat with PG had made him mad with anger. He couldn’t believe that small little boy, who had come before him with an insatiable appetite for learning, stole his most precious possession – the ‘Voice Sample Search’.

  He let that teenager inside his system, not wholly but partly; and he somehow managed to sneak his nose further and made a copy of the most precious software.

  I will turn you silent as the dead. He whispered while keying at enraged speed.

  ‘Valley of Death’ stood up leaving his specially designed cockpit. He hated killing people and had never asked them doing this ugly work. Killing some animated body was the dullest thing an intelligent human being could do. Every animal had right to live like every human being. Who gave this power to kill another fellow animal?

  Yes, it was necessary in some special cases. The last point of no return when you had to kill somebody for saving your little ass.

  The time had come to protect me – thought ‘Valley of Death’.

  That bastard could have used the VSS to track his
voice and let the NSA people know his hide-out. National Security Agency had been searching him for last ten years. They were ready to pay any amount to get his hold. And this young guy had lost his morality. He social engineered to blackmail people. The last thing a true hacker would ever do.

  In another room he opened a chest and took out a smart-phone.

  ‘The untraceable phone!’ He thought while he was watching it. He made it with some special silicon chips. He worked on it for three months and tested it several times. He could not trace the call made by it in the past. It was untraceable.

  He plugged it in his main computer system to make it doubly-secured.

  His only fear was NSA - National Security Agency of US. They were ruthless.

  He loved PG for that reason had a soft corner for him. PG had never divulged his address to NSA people. In this world only he could have done that. He had that legendary tracing-out-power.

  He dialled a number. It was ringing.

  At once on the top right hand corner of his monitor latitude and longitude were displayed. The recipient was now in Karachi, Pakistan.

  ‘What the hell John doing there?’ he murmured.

  It was connected and came the reply, “Hi VOD. How are you?”

  “Fine. What you’re doing in Karachi. Hope you’re not working for the terrorists.”

  “No way. They are dope. I am here for a different business.”

  “You have only one business – killing people.”

  “Nah, I’m no longer doing it myself. Outsource some of them. I’m getting old VOD. Anyway tell me what can I do for you?”

  “I will convert your crypto currency.”

  “Oh, VOD, really? Really good news. As I told you before, I’ll give you ten percent cut. It’ll amount to…”

  “I don’t need any cut John.”

  “Why, you don’t like ten percent? Okay boy, tell me your amount. I am always open to any dealing with you. I’ll never bargain with you my friend.”

  “No, I don’t’ want money.”