The Florentine Deception: A Novel

Chapter 1

Microsoft Campus, Building 5—Redmond, Washington

2004

Vadim V-man Bulgakov stabbed his finger at his monitor’s on-off button and spun his chair to face the door.

Yes? he said bluntly.

The door cracked open and an acne-scarred junior engineer poked his head in. Hey V-man, the guys are going for some drinks. Want to join?

Vadim relaxed his grip on his armrest and eased back into his chair. Oh, he said, bringing his index fingers up to his temples, no thanks. I’ve got a severity-one defect that I’ve got to fix by tomorrow morning or I’ll be on Barry’s shit list. Vadim pressed the pads of his index fingers against his head and began rubbing in concentric circles. I’ll try to join you guys later.

Good luck, said the engineer empathetically. We’ll be at Daman’s Bar if you finish early enough.

Vadim nodded with a grunt, then swiveled back to face his monitor. Do me a favor and change my door tag to red. I need to concentrate.

No problem. He flipped over the laminated cardboard circle outside Vadim’s office and eased the door shut. Then from outside Vadim’s door, he yelled, V-man’s not coming. Wait up and let me grab my coat.

Vadim waited for the muffled voices in the hall to subside before he took one more glance over his shoulder and powered his monitor back on. Earlier that evening, he’d received yet another last-minute order from Moscow via a dead-drop email account, and if he were going to make the necessary modifications in time for tomorrow’s deadline, he was going to be up all night. He took a sip of overly sweet, lukewarm coffee and refocused his eyes on the C code that filled the screen.

"Yebat!" he cursed, paging back and forth through the code. After more than an hour tracing through thousands of lines of programming instructions, he still couldn’t decide how or even where to best make the change. And he was now way behind on his official task list. That was the last thing he needed. That, and more scrutiny from his boss.

Vadim scrolled down a few more lines and ran his finger down the code.

Finally.

He’d found the section of logic he’d need to modify. In the latest communication from Russia, he’d been asked to introduce a subtle flaw into his project’s authentication subsystem. According to the email, the flaw had to meet three specific requirements—each, no doubt, of paramount importance to the geniuses back in Moscow—yet be subtle enough that it wouldn’t be discovered by one of Vadim’s unsuspecting team members. And should the modification be discovered, it had to look like an honest mistake, a gaff that any engineer might make after a typical all-nighter at the office. At least that wouldn’t be a problem. He’d been slaving away nonstop on his official work assignments since nine the previous morning.

Vadim stared at the code segment for several minutes, took a deep breath, and began typing.

Chapter 2

Alex Fife’s House—Northridge, California

August 20, 2015

Why don’t you just ask her out?

Now’s not exactly the best time to be discussing my love life, Potter.

You’re not even at the hard part yet, Potter said. I shot a quick glance down; Potter stood far below, his chalk-covered hands outstretched and hovering protectively.

That’s reassuring. I inhaled, locked my left hand onto a peanut-sized outcropping, then delicately eased my right foot up into a shallow niche just below my hip.

All right, back to business, he said. Take it nice and deliberate.

I nodded absentmindedly, my focus on the overhanging rock above. The next hold sat four feet north of my head, well out of reach. I considered my options, but with each second of hesitation my biceps weakened, my body peeling farther away from the sheer face.

Talk to me, Potter said. A trickle of sweat ran down my cheek.

I’m going to throw for it. Ignoring the burn in my arms, I rocked onto my right foot, pulled my left shoulder in close to the face, and launched upward. My right index and middle fingers caught the rock just as my feet cut from the wall.

I’m losing it, I said, my legs sprawling in midair.

Feet, Alex! Get your feet back on.

I tensed my abs and swung my feet toward a narrow ridge. The tip of my right shoe skidded across the hold, caught, then slipped, sending my legs floundering violently backward.

I’m gonna pop!

Hold it together!

"It’s not—aaaaahhhh!" My fingers gave and I plummeted.…

Potter’s nimble hands caught my shoulders mid-fall and shifted me squarely over the padded vinyl mat; upon impact, a cloud of dust erupted from my chalk bag and settled on my face.

You caught some serious air! he said, offering me a hand.

Thanks, Potter. I wiped the powder from my face and tousled my wavy brown hair until it stopped snowing chalk, then grabbed Potter’s hand and pulled myself upright. Davis Potter, a lanky five-eleven with a perpetually clean-shaven face and a scalp to match, was the consummate climbing partner—technically adept, levelheaded, and always sporting a genuine smile.

How was the right handhold? he asked, wiping the sweat from his face. The sun had just cleared my roof and it had to be pushing ninety degrees.

Pretty thin, I said. You want to try?

Nah. It’s way above my pay grade. You know, I can’t remember the last time I climbed on your wall. I like the new routes. He gazed appreciatively up at the twenty-foot-high artificial rock wall I’d had custom-built and bolted onto the back of my house.

Thanks! Speaking of new routes, when are we going to check out that new cave in Ojai? I reached for my water bottle and drained its last few ounces.

Give me another month to finish my master’s thesis and I’m totally game. It’s supposedly got some unbelievable crystalline stalactites.

Next month works. And if Linda’s interested, we’ll have a quorum.

Don’t hold your breath, he said. She’s been working tons of overtime at the hospital. Never seems to have time to climb anymore.

Don’t worry. I’ll guilt her into it.

Well if anyone can, it’s you. Potter hesitated a second. Hey Alex, hear me out now that you’re down.

My stomach clenched.

I’m telling you, Potter, she’s not interested. Not to mention I get a panic attack every time I think about asking her out.

All right, all right. Potter put his hands up in mock self-defense. Just give it some—

The phone rang. I rolled over to the left edge of the mat and grabbed the handset.

Hi Alex. Got a minute? It was my dad, no doubt calling to check in on his directionless son.

I held up a finger to Potter and mouthed one second.

Yeah, I said, What’s up?

Potter tapped his watch, waved goodbye, and headed toward my back gate.

Just wondering if you had a chance to clean up that old PC for me yet?

Crap. I totally forgot. I’d been putting it off. Can I get it to you next week?

Actually, he hesitated, I was hoping you could finish by tomorrow. Father Magruda was planning to give it to the Guatemalan family we’ve been sponsoring. Could you get it done by then?

Yeah … I’ll do it this afternoon.

Thanks, I really appreciate it. My father cleared his throat. So, any new projects? Promising startup ideas?

No. Nothing new to report. I knew he meant well, but the nagging was starting to get to me. Truth be told, I was bored out of my mind. I just couldn’t find anything to do that excited me. Other than climbing.

So where’d you get the PC from? I asked, changing the subject. Garage sale?

Nope. An estate sale, he said, taking my diversion in stride. Got it in a box-lot for twenty bucks.

Since Dad’s retirement, he’d become quite the do-gooder. Computers, toasters, portable gas stoves, anything he could rummage from a friend’s attic or find at a local garage sale, he’d buy, fix up, and offer to a needy family sponsored by the church.

Which led me to my exciting afternoon chore: delousing an old PC for his adopted family. It’s a routine familiar to all computer people. Everyone from third cousins to old high school teachers expect that since you’re a computer guy, you can fix virtually any problem with their PC. Parents were the worst offenders: I’m sure Alex can fix that problem. I’ll have him drop everything and give you a call.

In any case, this was one favor I’d agreed to do.

I said goodbye and trudged up the stairs and into the shower. After a few seconds fidgeting with the temperature, I turned on my shower radio.

… heat wave, SoCal Edison says there’s a five percent chance of rolling blackouts today. So pitch in and reduce your electricity usage during peak hours, it crackled. In other news, one of our own local Angelenos may soon shoot the moon! After forty years of fruitless treasure hunting, a feisty octogenarian from Chatsworth believes she’s finally located the burial site of the Wellingsworth fortune. Ruth Lindley stumbled upon Wellingworth’s diary at a local garage sale in 1966 and has been hunting for the millionaire’s treasure ever since. Until now.

Interesting. I wondered if she’d finally found it. I’d been infatuated with buried loot, treasure maps, and one-eyed pirates since devouring Treasure Island in the eighth grade, and had even done some poking around Wellingsworth Canyon myself as a teen. I didn’t find any treasure but did pick up a nasty case of poison oak.

I upped the volume.

"Want to hear more about Ruth’s most recent find, and the sordid history behind the treasure? Tune in to ABC 7 Local News tonight at eleven."

Of course, just a teaser. I made a mental note to google later for the details.

I finished showering, toweled off, and looked in the mirror. Just one day without shaving and I was already getting scraggly. No good. I might be a slacker, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to look like one. I grabbed my Braun and went to work, then finished off the stragglers with a disposable razor. I’d gel my hair later, just before the party.

All right, what to wear? For computer cleanup detail? Grunge. I threw on a pair of comfortable blue jeans and a passable "No, I will not fix your computer" t-shirt from the hamper.

Reluctantly, I dragged the still-sealed cardboard box from my closet. A brief inspection revealed a chassis, grimy keyboard, small LCD monitor, standard three-button mouse, and a rat’s nest of cables. I disentangled the wiring, laid each neatly on the carpet, and then began connecting components. It took just a few minutes, but this was the easy part.

I planted my thumb firmly on the power button and stared expectantly at the monitor. After what seemed like an hour-long boot-up, Windows decided to make an appearance.

The login screen greeted me with a single account name: Richard.

Holding my breath expectantly, I prayed to the computer gods that Richard’s account had no password. That would make things so much easier. With an exhale, I clicked on his login picture.

Windows prompted me for a password.

What was I expecting, anyway? All right, I’d turn it into a challenge—could I hack in within fifteen minutes or less?

No problem.

I’d start with the low-hanging fruit; I began guessing passwords.

password didn’t do it. Neither did Richard or richard. Nine out of ten people use easy-to-guess passwords.

qwerty? Denied. A few more failed guesses and it was time for the nuclear option.

123456? Definitely top five. Rejected.

12345678? No.

abc123? Fail.

letmein? Nope. 111111? No.

Enough guessing—time was running out. I rummaged through my nightstand and snagged an old thumb drive, then grabbed my laptop and booted it up. It took a few seconds to find a website hosting the latest version of OphCrack—it had been the top password-cracker when I was at ViruTrax. Assuming Richard hadn’t encrypted his hard drive or picked a super-long password—and most people didn’t—this’d get me in within five minutes.

I downloaded and installed the password-cracking program onto the thumb drive, then inserted it into an empty USB slot on the front of Richard’s computer and rebooted with the boot-from-USB option. After about ninety seconds and a whirlwind of scrolling text, the OphCrack program popped up.

Please wait.… it said. Following a few moments of analysis, OphCrack indicated that Richard’s hard drive wasn’t encrypted and that a password-crack was possible. Things were looking up.

I selected Richard’s account name—the only one on the list—and clicked Go. A little hourglass appeared as the program began generating and validating hundreds of millions of passwords until it found the one that matched Richard’s. I visualized the process—aaaaaa, aaaaab, aaaaac, … aaaaba, aaaabb, aaaabc—hundreds of thousands of guesses … and failures … every second.

The hourglass turned over and over. One minute. Two. Three. The guy must have picked a long password. Four minutes. Five.

I began sweating. If this didn’t work, I’d have to go in, locate the proper system password files by hand, and reset Richard’s account. A year ago I wouldn’t have blinked at the prospect. But that was a year ago. Not to mention I’d blow my fifteen-minute goal.

Finally, after seven minutes of brute-force guessing, OphCrack issued a ding. The password r1ch4rd appeared on the screen. I issued a sigh of relief.

"Take that, Anonymous."

The PC had all of the must-have apps: a word processor, spreadsheet, Minesweeper, and more than likely a venereal buffet of computer viruses. Minus the viruses, whoever was to receive this computer should be happy. The background picture on the desktop showed a beautiful Impressionist painting, maybe a Van Gogh, I thought. I’d leave it for the new owner.

A few clicks revealed antivirus software last updated during the last presidential election—this machine was going to need some serious detox. Twenty minutes later, I had a freeware antivirus+firewall package installed and scanning away. It was a smorgasbord all right; the scanner unearthed and removed two dozen infections.

Step 1: Completed.

Step 2: Remove all personal information from the machine. Financial records, documents, pictures (all types of pictures), music files, and home movies—such private information, and yet so often forgotten. It never ceased to amaze me how often people forget to remove personal data before discarding a computer. I’d started by searching the hard drive for JPEG picture files when my bedroom door creaked open.

What’s up, slacker?

Who…? I spun around.

Gotcha!

Jesus! You scared the crap out of me! I growled. How the hell did you get in?

I used my old key. Steven shoved aside a pile of glossy open-house flyers and plopped onto my futon. His otherwise-uniform helmet of curly brown hair had been marred by a razor-shaped trough above the left ear.

Hillary give you a haircut?

Look good? Steven adjusted his glasses and shot me a sultry look.

Go look in the mirror. I grinned.

Dammit, he groused, showing no desire to verify for himself. She was watching some new-age vegan show while she was buzzing away. Whatever. Hey what’s this? he asked, picking up the top sheet from the stack of flyers. Whoa, four-point-five mil!

Nice huh? Twenty-foot-high walls of glass overlooking the Pacific. It’s in the Santa Monica Canyon.

That is one serious chick magnet! He winked suggestively. Are you going to buy it?

I shook my head. I haven’t decided yet. It’s got some layout problems. But it’s on my top-five list right now.

Steven dropped the flyer back onto the pile and leaned back against the wall, perching his hands on an increasingly prominent belly.

So what’s the latest? he asked.

Not much. I’m stuck cleaning up a donated PC for Dad’s adopted family. I pointed at the dusty computer.

Man, that family lives better than I do. Steven wiped his forehead with his arm. Hey, got anything cold to drink? It’s like an oven outside.

One second. I socked him in the arm, then traipsed downstairs to check the fridge. Steven was my best friend, actually more like a brother. We’d lived together since our freshman year at UCLA, until he got hitched.

Here, I said when I returned, handing him a bottle. Steven had already managed to click up a tasteless picture from Richard’s hard drive.

Wow, this computer cleanup thing isn’t nearly as bad as I thought. It has some real perks. He grinned.

I rolled my eyes. Glad to hear it. Then you can do the rest of it.

So what are you up to later? he continued, ignoring me. "Want to catch Dead Alive II? Hillary’s doing girls’ night tonight, so I’m a bachelor." Steven took a gulp and clicked on another picture.

Sure. When’s it playing? I need to head over to Tom and Gennady’s place around six. I took a swig.

I was thinking of going at seven, but I’ll bet there’s an afternoon matinee.

Steven clicked on the Internet Explorer icon and pulled up Google. A few keystrokes later he consulted his watch and said, It’s playing at the Winnetka 21 in … thirty-seven minutes. A (temporarily jobless) rocket scientist, Steven was habitually precise.

Okay. Let me finish this and we can go. I’d reached for the mouse when the newly installed firewall software popped an alert onto the screen:

Firewall Alert: Unknown program WINCALC.EXE is attempting to send an email to address: OXOTHИ[email protected].

It offered two buttons: Block or Allow, about as meaningful as a poorly translated fortune cookie. Only unlike a fortune cookie, this type of prompt encouraged people to call their computer-expert-sons for help. WinCalc, huh? Since when did Windows calculator programs send emails to strange Russian email addresses?

What’s that alert mean? asked Steven.

Not sure. The firewall software I installed is grousing about some calculator program on the computer trying to send email over the Internet.

Calculators sending email? That makes no sense.

Agreed. My guess is it’s a spyware program, maybe an email virus. The antivirus scan I ran totally missed it.

Think it’s an entirely new virus? he asked.

Wouldn’t surprise me, I said. The last year I was at ViruTrax we discovered something like thirty million new strains.

Jesus. Steven’s jaw dropped. So can you figure out what it does?

I’m a bit out of practice but it probably wouldn’t be too hard.

Why don’t you take it apart, Mr. Virus Expert? he chided.

Skip the movie?

Why not? I’ve always wanted to see how a virus ticks.

All right. Let’s do it.

Chapter 3

My buddies in the lab at ViruTrax could dissect a new computer virus in ten or fifteen minutes, determine how it spawned, what data it tried to steal (most likely your credit card number), and how to exterminate it. During your first few dissections, the process was utterly confusing, like reading Shakespeare for the first time. After a dozen, you started recognizing idioms, familiar techniques. After a few hundred, you began recognizing familial relationships between different strains, much like historians can identify the artist of an unknown painting based on its brush strokes, composition, and structure.

My eight months of retirement had made me a bit rusty, but what the hell. I inserted a second thumb drive into Richard’s computer and, after a bit of hunting, located and copied the enigmatic WINCALC.EXE file over to my laptop.

Just bear with me, I haven’t done this in a while.

No worries. So how do you figure out what it does?

I’m going to run it through a disassembler, I said.

A disassembler?

It’s a tool that produces a human-readable listing of the program’s computer instructions, its underlying logic. Then we get to slog through them all to see what they do. That’s the tricky part. It’s like reading a mystery novel and fitting all the clues together until you see the bigger picture. Give me about an hour and I should be able to give you the CliffsNotes overview.

By five, we had most of the particulars nailed. Richard’s computer was home to a species of garden-variety spyware. This particular organism recorded and archived every keystroke typed by the user into a hidden file. Once every day, it emailed the latest transcripts to its master, owner of the mysterious Russian email address.

So it records everything you type? asked Steven.

It looks like it. Had it not been for that firewall alert, our Russian friend would know what movies you were looking up at the Winnetka 21.

Scary, he said with unusual sincerity.

It took just a few minutes to disable the spyware from Richard’s PC now that we knew how it ticked.

Feeling voyeuristic? I asked. Want to see a transcript of this guy’s last minutes?

"What do you mean last minutes?"

My dad picked up this PC at an estate sale. That means that the owner’s dead. Deceased. Pushing daisies. That spyware wiretap file probably has the last words he ever typed in his life.

Steven’s eyebrows rose. Seriously? What do you think we’ll find?

Who knows? Probably nothing. I glanced over my shoulder conspiratorially and lowered my voice. But maybe, just maybe, the directions to the Wellingsworth treasure.

Wellings-what? Treasure? Really?

No, not really. I laughed. It’s probably just a list of the last few porn sites the guy visited.

I slid the mouse back over to the file, but a fraction of a second before I could open it, the lamp’s filament flared and popped, and the power to the house died.

Perfect timing. Speaking about timing, I looked down at my watch. It was 6:45 p.m. Crap! I need to go. I’m late for Tom’s party!

Chapter 4

Tom! yelled Gennady, Alex is here. Gennady grabbed me in a bear hug, then stepped aside for me to enter. Long time no see!

Hey Gennady.

"Come on in. What do you want to drink? Wodka? Jäger?"

Jäger? I feel like I’m still in college. I’ll take a Diet Coke and save the shots for later. Thanks.

I walked down the hallway to the kitchen. A half-dozen people, most with familiar faces but unfamiliar names, were mingling around the living room with red party cups. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was playing in the background.

Hey Alex! A hand waved from behind the refrigerator door, then a second later, Tom popped his head up. One sec, I’ll be right over.

Tom finished his rummaging and returned holding a can of Pabst.

Happy birthday, man. I handed him a bag of Reese’s Pieces.

Epic—just like old times! Thanks! Tom ripped open a corner of the bag with his teeth and tipped a handful into his mouth.

And here’s the real gift. I placed an envelope in his hand. Don’t forget to open it or you’ll regret it.

Tom gave me a quizzical look and placed the envelope with the others on the counter.

Thanks. I won’t. Follow me, he said, walking over to the other guests. You remember Vic and Letty, right?

Hey guys, I said, good to see you again. I had no recollection whatsoever who they were.

And this is Cindy. Cindy was a well-endowed brunette, very good looking.

Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Alex. I shook her hand. How do you know—

And her girlfriend Vivian, interrupted Tom, strategically.

Oh. Hi Vivian, nice to meet you too.

The other two are Gennady’s friends from Russia. Tom issued a polite smile and nodded. They don’t speak much English, but boy can they pound the vodka.

Hello, I said, nodding as well. The pair smiled.

Tom motioned me back to their red leather Bugatti couch. Take a seat.

So what’s up? Word is that you bailed from ViruTrax? said Gennady from the kitchen.

That word is right, I said, shoving aside a bag of chips and taking a seat. That was a while ago. When did we last talk?

Tom, clearly well on his way to inebriation, stared up at the ceiling and considered.

Don’t remember, he said, taking a gulp.

I do. Camping last November in Sequoia.

Sue! I hopped up from the couch to give her a hug. How are things?

Good! I started a new job last week, and Gennady and I are heading to Maui next month, so I’ve got nothing to complain about.

Excellent! Come sit with me. I sat back down and patted the couch. I want to hear all about your job. Sue sat down and wrapped her arm around me for a second hug.

Anyway, why’d you leave? continued Tom. All your options vest?

Nah. Things just got too political.

Like he needed the stock options, said Gennady, handing me a red party cup. I took a sniff. Just Coke, no wodka. Now on the other hand, we could have used the options.

I nearly choked on my drink. You missed your calling, Gennady. You should have gone into standup.

Gennady and Tom had been employees number two and three at my college cyber-security startup. I’d invented an entirely new approach to detect computer viruses, but didn’t have the mathematical background to make it work, or the business acumen to make it a success. Gennady, a brilliant applied mathematics major, and Tom, a physics major and business savant, were the perfect partners. I, of course, did all the programming.

After about twenty-four months of stealth R&D in Tom’s parents’ guesthouse, we shipped a new crowd-sourced antivirus technology that put existing security products to shame. Word spread, and the product was free, so within nine months on the market, we’d reached one hundred and sixty million users, surpassing ViruTrax as the world’s most popular antivirus vendor. In a bout of desperation, ViruTrax offered us seventy-five million for our company; we settled for two hundred and ninety. Gennady and Tom had wisely cashed out and declined employment, but I promised to stay on a year as a condition to close the deal.

So how’s the new startup going? I asked.

Tom looked at Gennady and smirked.

Kaput, said Gennady. Our VC funding ran out, and neither of us is willing to put any more of our own cash in.

Not to mention that the product sucks, said Tom, just a little slur in his voice.

Gennady glared at Tom a moment, then nodded grudgingly. It’s true. So basically we’re trying to figure out our next project. So what have you been up to, Alex? he asked. Traveling the world in a private mega-yacht? Ascending Mount Everest?

I thought a moment. Climbing, eating, sleeping. I took a drink. And I think I’m having a midlife crisis too.

Wow—you’ve been busy, said Gennady in his odd Russian-Texan accent. Midlife crisis? At what, twenty-six?

Twenty-five.

Same difference. He picked up a tumbler of some opaque alcoholic concoction from the coffee table and sipped. Try buying a dacha in St. Petersburg and getting a new nineteen-year-old girlfriend. That worked for my dad.

I pulled out my smartphone and pretended to scrawl with my finger on the screen. Nineteen-year-old girlfriend. Check. Vacation home in former Soviet Union. Check. I nodded. Got it. Thanks man.

Sue began giggling.

Let’s create another startup, said Tom. Nothing like ninety-hour workweeks to give your life meaning.

It wasn’t a half-bad idea if I could just find a project I was passionate about; I needed something challenging to do soon or I’d die of sheer boredom.

I’ll give that some thought as well, I said, gazing around the room at Tom and Gennady’s slovenly home-slash-headquarters. Why the two of them still lived together like college students when both could buy mega-mansions—for cash—was an enigma. Then again, who was I to judge; I lived in a tract home on low-fat microwave burritos and slept on a purple IKEA futon.

How’s Julie, asked Sue, changing the subject.

Ummm … She dumped me two months ago.

Sorry, Alex. Sue squeezed my hand, then said, I didn’t like her anyway. No big loss.

Brutal, said Gennady, shaking his head. I think we need to go on a bender to fix Alex up.

Ben-der! yelled one of the Russians from behind.

Nah, I’m good. I’m just in a lull.

The doorbell rang.

Be right back. Gennady