Several of these server-to-external-hardware connections were necessary before Satoshi could begin his work. This week, he had told Elliot, he was confident that his updates would start affecting the system. He had made two changes at Elliot’s request. First, Satoshi had destroyed any of the Abu Musa code, which would negate Jinshan’s ability to anonymously manipulate the value of the bitcoin-based currency. Second, he had implanted software that would allow the CIA to monitor transaction activity.
Waleed and Elliot had set up a secure workspace for Satoshi at the Burj Al Arab hotel. This also sweetened the pot for Satoshi’s compliance. The NSA and CIA teams conducted all of their interactions with him in his hotel room. All the software fixes Satoshi was making to the Dubai Bitcoin Exchange were evaluated first by the NSA and CIA teams before being uploaded to the system. Satoshi had argued that this would greatly slow the operation down, but Elliot would not budge on this security measure.
Satoshi was essentially a prisoner at the hotel, though as prisons went, a room at one of the world’s most luxurious hotels was about as good as it got. For his own safety and the security of the operation, Satoshi was confined to his room. Elliot had several members of the CIA’s security team guarding him closely. Satoshi wasn’t allowed to communicate with anyone unless Elliot approved it.
Jinshan had flown back to China. None of the bitcoin plot had been made public, but there was some back-channel communication between the US, the UAE, and the Chinese that made it clear Jinshan was no longer welcome in either nation. Strangely, there had not been any response from the Chinese government. Not even a denial.
Waleed had not heard from Gorji since Satoshi had been extracted from Abu Musa. He, too, was strangely quiet. All of Waleed’s attempts to contact Gorji and get the rest of the list had failed.
Chase said, “What isn’t Satoshi doing?”
“Well, that’s the funny thing. It appears as though our man Satoshi is not actually trying to remove code. He’s trying to activate it. He keeps complaining that he needs live access to the servers, and that this secure, limited-access setup we’ve established is making it very difficult for him. Well, it’s time I laid my cards out for you, Chase.”
“Sir?”
“I never fully bought into Satoshi.”
“What do you mean?”
“When something is too good to be true, it probably is.”
“You think Satoshi was some sort of Trojan horse?”
Elliot said, “Gorji comes to us with partial truths — your brother being on the list, a leak in Dubai Station — he establishes credibility, then follows that up with a problem that we can solve. It’s classic tradecraft. But this ain’t my first rodeo. So I placed safeguards on our side.”
“Safeguards?”
“I could have given Satoshi access to the Dubai Financial Exchange. Actually, Waleed wanted me to. But that would have been exactly what the Iranians were asking for.”
“But Gorji? I mean, he’s a good guy, right?”
“Maybe. The truth is, I don’t really know. But I do know that he came to us with a problem and asked us to take a certain action to solve it. He told us that the Dubai Financial Exchange was part of the Abu Musa Operation. The only way to fix it was to get Satoshi out of Abu Musa and let him go to town hacking away at the secure code in the exchange servers. Chase, let me ask you, how in the hell did Gorji get Satoshi to just walk out of those secure buildings on Abu Musa?”
“He said he had a contact inside.”
“But he also said that the Abu Musa operation was run by Jinshan’s company, right? And that Pakvar was growing loyal to Jinshan.”
“Something like that.”
“So Satoshi’s been enslaved by Pakvar and Jinshan on Abu Musa for years, right? Then how the hell does Gorji get him off there so easily?”
“I don’t know.” Chase realized that it did seem pretty odd.
Elliot said, “One possibility would be that Jinshan, or whoever is pulling the strings, wanted us to get Satoshi over here. In that scenario, either Gorji is one of them, or he is being played by them. Either way, Satoshi — or whoever you took home from Abu Musa — is not really here to help us debug the Dubai Financial Exchange.”
Chase rolled his eyes. “Well, why send someone at all?”
“I don’t know that either. Maybe their undersea cable connection isn’t working out. Maybe they have other plans that we don’t even know about with the bitcoin currency. But the bottom line is, this character who we’ve been calling Satoshi is not the real Satoshi.”
“So we’ve been giving him access to—”
“No. We haven’t. I’ve had the NSA clean up any malicious code in the bitcoin section of the Dubai Financial Exchange servers. Waleed helped me speak with the Emiratis and got us access. In exchange for our covert ability to monitor transactions, of course.”
“How did they grant you that?”
“Because it would look pretty bad if the Dubai Financial Exchange collapsed in scandal. We allow them to save face, we ensure there is no funny business going on with manipulation of valuations, and we get to track transactional data. Without turning off the entire bitcoin backed currency transition, it’s about the best we could hope for. I’ve also had the NSA evaluate every upload Satoshi has asked us to make.”
Chase nodded. “So you’ve been playing him for the last month?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been playing me.”
“Need to know. You know how it is, son.”
“I understand. Find anything out?”
“He’s not trying to help us, that’s for sure.”
“Why are you still having him work on it?”
“Espionage 201. Follow the rabbit hole. I want to see where it goes. That’s how the game is played. I want Jinshan and Satoshi to think everything is just fine. Let them keep placing money in the pot until the last card. Until I have the upper hand.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“A few days ago, we allowed Satoshi outside Internet access. He saved a draft of an email. It was just a friendly hello email to someone in his family. But he never sent it. Yesterday, we checked his email account. It had been read by him.”
“I’m not following.”
“We didn’t allow him access to the Internet yesterday. That means someone else accessed his email and read his draft. He was using tradecraft, so that there would be no other source for us to look into.”
“What was he trying to communicate?”
“I’m not sure, but I have a guess.”
“What?”
“I am guessing that he said something to the effect of: ‘I’ve made my changes to the program, so it should be working now.’”
“What’s the next step?”
“We’re hoping that Jinshan will try something and it will reveal his participation. I don’t—”
The phone rang. Elliot picked it up. “Jackson.” He listened to the person on the other end speak. “Christ. I’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone.
Elliot said, “Come on. We are needed in the TOC. This is the second reason I needed to speak with you today.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll explain as we walk. I heard from Lisa Parker.”
Chase looked around the Tactical Operations Center. He counted ten people. That was twice the usual number, and all of their eyes were glued to the same screen. Elliot was there, looking pissed off.
There were over a dozen flat-screens on the front wall. Some of them were tactical displays showing various contacts of interest in the operating area. Other screens showed rows of information concerning reconnaissance and other air missions that would be checking in and the times they were expected.