Suddenly another horrifying possibility occurred to him. “Christ, what about all the credit cards we’ve issued? Are those records affected too?”
Stachowska pulled up another screen and scanned the rapidly changing numbers. “Yes, they are,” she admitted in a low, quivering voice.
Rogoski swallowed hard. “Which means that everyone who tries to use one of our cards—”
“Is being automatically declined,” she confirmed somberly. “At the moment, every line of business we have — from individual banking and home mortgages to investment banking and commercial lending — is effectively dead.”
He sat down hard, burying his head in his hands. “My God,” he muttered. “We’re ruined.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Marta Stachowska said quietly, “it’s not just us.”
“What?”
“If what the news reports we’re hearing are accurate, every financial institution in Poland has been hacked,” she told him bluntly. “What’s happening here in Warsaw is going on across the whole country.”
In a whirlwind of rotor-blown dried leaves, the Sokoł helicopter lifted off the forecourt. Narrowly clearing the trees and wrought-iron fence separating the Belweder Palace from the city, it began circling, steadily gaining altitude.
Brad McLanahan peered down at the Polish capital’s mosaic of elegant classical architecture and gleaming, modern skyscrapers, of broad, tree-lined avenues and narrow alleys. From what he could see, traffic was at a total standstill. Crowds of people were pouring out into the streets, converging in agitated masses on a number of different buildings scattered throughout Warsaw’s center. Flashing blue and red lights marked dozens of police cars trying to force their way along jammed thoroughfares.
“Those mobs are gathering outside every branch of every bank and financial institution,” Martindale said grimly over the intercom.
Brad looked across the passenger cabin. The other man had his own face pressed to the nearest window. “Sir?”
“The banks have closed up tight,” Martindale told him. “What choice do they have? With what appears to be some really nasty malware running wild through all of their computers, they can’t make any transactions.”
“Which means our whole economy is going to be grinding to a halt,” Nadia realized.
“That’s about the size of it,” Martindale said gloomily. “Without operating banks, who can conduct business? Sure, there may be a few mom-and-pop stores that still deal mostly in cash, but everyone else relies on electronic transfers. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a worker bee using an ATM card or a credit card or a big corporation relying on a line of credit to fund some new enterprise.” He frowned. “It’s a damnably simple equation: without access to capital or credit, there’s no real commerce. Not above a primitive, barter-style economy, anyway.”
“So very soon no one will be able to buy food. Or pay for gasoline. Or anything else,” Nadia said, looking deeply worried. “Not once they’ve used up any cash they have left in their wallets and purses.”
Brad looked down at Warsaw’s streets. The crowds were growing fast. He could see thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people, more streaming in from every direction. He glanced back at Martindale. “You think people down there are going to turn violent, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” the other man said flatly. “At least enough of them to make real trouble.”
Thinking about the skinhead he’d confronted, Brad nodded. There were always fringe groups in any society, ready and eager to snatch any chance to raise hell. And as panic spread through Poland, with more and more of its citizens discovering they could no longer access their savings or use credit cards to buy necessities, it would take just a single small spark to set off an epidemic of looting, arson, and mayhem.
Something caught his eye just as their helicopter swung east, heading for Minsk Mazowiecki at 130 knots. White puffs suddenly blossomed in the air, right above a huge mass of people thronging a wide avenue lined by several major banks.
“The police are firing tear gas,” Martindale said somberly. “It’s begun.”
Polish president Piotr Wilk sat huddled with the two most important and influential members of his government — Prime Minister Klaudia Rybak and Janusz Gierek, his minister of defense. They were gathered around a conference table equipped with a computer and a flat-screen display.
Slightly muffled by distance and the stout walls of the palace, the constant wail of police, ambulance, and fire-engine sirens served as a backdrop to their tense discussion. Riot police were in action at multiple points across Warsaw, fending off the massive, panic-stricken crowds still trying to break into bank buildings. Other police units had their hands full cracking down on criminals who were setting fires and looting stores across the city.
Kevin Martindale looked out at them from the computer screen. His image was grainy. The American was flying west somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean aboard one of his private executive jets. Bouncing encrypted signals through multiple communications satellites made this secure two-way video link possible, though only by the narrowest of margins.
“I’ve spoken to the heads of every major bank personally,” Klaudia Rybak said crisply. Before she became prime minister, her work as an economist had helped Poland transition from a failed Marxist state to a vibrant, increasingly prosperous nation. Most of the men and women who ran their nation’s financial institutions were former colleagues or subordinates. “The situation is extremely grave. There is no doubt that all of their current account records are corrupted beyond any hope of salvage.”
“Can they reboot their computer systems using stored backups?” Martindale asked.
The prime minister nodded. “They can. In fact, they must.” Her expression was bleak. “But to do any good, each bank’s IT specialists will have to systematically analyze each separate backup with enormous care. Only those made before these hackers inserted their malware will be safe to use.”
“All of which means more delay before the wheels of commerce begin turning again,” Wilk said sourly.
“Yes, Mr. President,” she agreed. “But that is not all. Rebooting from earlier backups means that the digital records of millions and perhaps tens of millions of separate financial transactions will be effectively erased forever. Over time, paper receipts and records can be used to help fill in some of the resulting gaps, but not all.” She sighed. “No matter how you look at it, the costs and economic disruption will be enormous.”
“How much?” Wilk asked.
The prime minister shrugged. “It is impossible as yet to tell. But I suspect it will be somewhere on the order of eight to ten billion zlotys. And those figures may go much higher. The costs to our economy and people will certainly rise steeply for every day the banks remain closed.”
Martindale whistled softly under his breath. Ten billion zlotys was close to three billion dollars at current exchange rates. It also represented close to 2 percent of Poland’s annual gross domestic product. Taking that kind of financial hit once wouldn’t tip the country’s growing economy into a full-blown recession, but it was close. And it was all too likely that more hits were on the way.
“Can we prove the Russians did this?” Janusz Gierek asked. The white-haired defense minister’s voice trembled with anger. “What is being done to track down those responsible?”
“Computer emergency response teams, CERTs, from our Internal Security Agency are examining copies of the corrupted software with all possible speed,” Wilk told him. “And Mr. Martindale’s experts from Scion are conducting their own independent analysis.”