7:40 P.M.

  “It’s a ransom demand,” I said, somewhat disbelievingly, nerves vibrating like plucked fiddle strings. “For one hundred million dollars US?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who sent it?”

  “We believe it’s from Cloke.”

  “You believe?”

  “Our people are working to verify.”

  I refocused on the screen.

  The full amount must be transferred at precisely 10 p.m. EDT, July 20. An encrypted link will be provided five minutes in advance, a password simultaneously by separate email. If funds have not been deposited within five minutes of transmission, four commercial airliners will be seized in midair. Should these flights be canceled, others will be chosen. Doubt our sincerity? Train your eyes on the friendly skies of Chicago. More to follow at 8 p.m. EDT.

  My gaze flew to Rossiter. “Where was this received?”

  “A computer at OTD.” I had to think for a second about the acronym, then remembered: Operational Technology Division.

  “When?”

  “Noon today.”

  “Is the threat credible?”

  “Affirmative. Cloke provided a little demo”—hard with sarcasm—“by circumventing FBI security and jamming our WiFi for almost fifteen minutes. An action that took exceptional cyber chops.”

  Rossiter’s gaze slid to his partner. Reid gave a tight shake of his head. Not subtle. Clearly, the two were holding back.

  “How could Cloke have the expertise to hack your system?” I asked.

  “We really don’t have time—”

  “How?” Monck barked.

  Rossiter glanced at his watch. Swallowed. “That’s where Joe Benjamin comes in.”

  “Go on.”

  “Ever hear of NSO?”

  “It’s an Israeli software company.” Pretty much the extent of my knowledge.

  “Pegasus?”

  “It’s spyware.” Then, baffled. “I don’t see the relevance of your questions.”

  Rossiter’s eyes again shifted to his partner. Then, “Nothing I say leaves—”

  “This room,” Monck snapped. “Got it.”

  Rossiter drew a deep breath. Exhaled.

  “Pegasus is widely regarded as the world’s most potent spyware,” he began.

  “Why?” Monck asked.

  “The software can crack encrypted communications on both iPhones and Androids. Pegasus is produced by NSO and has been used to track terrorists and drug cartel members.”

  I reached down into my mind. Where had I read about this? A New York Times article. Snippets began filtering back.

  “Pegasus has also been used against journalists, dissidents, and human rights activists,” I said.

  “There may have been instances.” Terse.

  “What was that quote from the NSO sales brochure? Something about the software enabling law enforcement and spy agencies to”—I hooked air quotes—“ ‘turn their target’s smartphone into an intelligence gold mine’?”

  “That pitch referred to a program called Phantom.”

  “Big difference. I read a lengthy exposé on NSO. Two investigative journalists found that the American government has some very cozy history with the company.”

  Rossiter and Reid seemed to be looking to each other for help in getting the conversation back on track. And moving more quickly.

  I was surprising even myself with how much I was recalling from that article I’d read. It must have made an impression. “Didn’t the FBI also purchase the system, planning to use it for domestic surveillance?”

  “That didn’t happen.” Rossiter’s forehead now glistened like a sidewalk after a rain. The man was clearly uncomfortable.

  More snippets from the Times piece reconvened in my head.

  “To demonstrate a ‘zero click’ version of the spyware, FBI personnel were instructed to buy smartphones and set them up with dummy accounts using SIM cards from outside the US. Pegasus engineers then opened their interface, entered the phone numbers, and began an attack.”

  “Zero click?” Monck asked.

  “Meaning the program didn’t require a user to open a malicious link or attachment. So the agents monitoring the phones couldn’t see the Pegasus computers connecting to a global network of servers, hacking the phones, then connecting back to equipment in a US facility. They saw no sign of a breach.”

  Rossiter tried to interrupt, but I was on a roll.

  “What they could see, minutes later, was every piece of data stored on any of those phones unspooling into the Pegasus computers. Every email, photo, text thread, personal contact, whatever. They could also see the location of each phone, and even take control of their cameras and microphones.”

  “Echoes of Edward Snowden,” Monck said. “Governments transforming personal devices into surveillance tools to spy on their own citizens.”

  “Exactly. But there was a hitch. To placate the Americans, the Israeli government required NSO to make Pegasus incapable of targeting US numbers.”

  “Let me guess,” said Monck. “Some genius came up with a workaround.”

  “Phantom, a system that could hack any US device.”

  “Wasn’t NSO eventually blacklisted by the Biden administratio—”

  “Enough!”

  Rossiter’s vehemence startled us both into silence.

  “First of all, the FBI decided to never deploy Pegasus. Second, and more important, the morality of the spyware is not the point!”

  “What is the point,” I pressed.

  “I can’t go into that now.”

  “Do it or we walk,” Monck insisted.

  “You’re not grasping the urgency of the situation.”

  “Help us understand,” I said.

  “Jesus. Fine. The CliffsNotes version of NSO’s origin.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “NSO traces its roots to an agricultural co-op outside Tel Aviv. A place called Bnai Zion.”

  My gaze met Monck’s.

  “Sonofabitch,” he muttered, barely audible.

  “A chicken coop repurposed for rental back in the day. Space for technology start-ups,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Rossiter, eyeing me strangely.

  Monck and I exchanged a “holy shit” glance. Rossiter’s “tale” was tracking with Uncle Shlomo’s account.

  “Among the tenants were two former school friends, Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie. Long story short, after several flops, Hulio and Lavie launched a company called CommuniTake, offering software that allowed tech-support workers to take control of their customers’ devices.” Rossiter raised an index finger. “But only with permission.”

  Rossiter was speaking so quickly I had to concentrate to follow.

  “As with their prior efforts, CommuniTake also fell flat. Ever the entrepreneurs, Hulio and Lavie pivoted away from phone maintenance to a different potential market: law enforcement and intelligence agencies. They knew that cops and spies had long been able to intercept transmissions. They also knew that newly developed encryption techniques were rendering those captured messages unreadable.

  “If one could control the device itself, they reasoned, data could be collected prior to encryption. CommuniTake was already able to grab control of iPhones and Androids. All they needed was a modification to allow that to happen”—the finger came back up—“without permission.”

  “What does this have to do with Joe Benjamin?” Monck demanded. I could tell his patience was close to depleted.

  “You asked for this.”

  We had.

  After checking his watch once more, Rossiter resumed. “Lacking contacts in the intelligence community, Hulio and Lavie recruited a third partner, Niv Karmi. Karmi had served in both the military and the Mossad.”

  “Niv, Shalev, and Omri.” Monck toggled the initials with lightning speed. “NSO.”

  I couldn’t help playing the A student: “Didn’t NSO catch its first break when Pegasus managed to bust into encrypted BlackBerrys used by Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel in Mexico?”

  “Again, ma’am,” Rossiter chastised in his best let’s-move-this-along voice. “The success or morality of Pegasus isn’t the point.”

  The reprimand sent my molars reaching for each other. But I said nothing.

  “Seeing expansion as essential to their business plan, Hulio, Lavie, and Karmi began hiring like mad,” Rossiter resumed.

  “Joe Benjamin was one of those hires?” I ventured.

  “He was. For several years, Benjamin worked closely with the three partners, expanding and honing his already impressive arsenal of cyber skills. In late 2012, he returned stateside to care for his aging father.”

  I heard the thuck of titanium knuckles slamming flesh. Felt my own hands begin to sweat.

  “We believe Benjamin took the knowledge he acquired at NSO and went on to develop a zero click program with a unique twist. This new program was designed to hack into and take control of navigational systems.”

  Rossiter again checked the time. I fought the impulse to reach out and throttle the guy.

  “What kind of navigational systems?” Monck asked.

  “Pretty much any kind. And the implications go far beyond cars and trucks. We’re talking boats, choppers, planes.”

  “How do you know this isn’t all bullshit?” Monck’s voice held enough rancor for me to know he’d run out of patience. Rossiter was smart enough to read the room.

  “At two-thirty-four this afternoon the pilot of a United Airlines flight en route from Chicago to Punta Cana radioed that he was experiencing a potentially catastrophic system failure. The plane was diverting off course and his manual-override attempts were ineffective. In his words: it was as if someone had taken control of the plane.”

  Rossiter’s look was long and meaningful. “Keep your eyes on the friendly skies of Chicago.”

  “Jesus God. What happened?”

  “Eight minutes later all systems returned to normal.”

  A pair of images blasted into my brain. Five corpses on a vessel adrift at sea. A black-and-white print of a twin turbo prop plane.

  “The Sea Ray SDX 270 found six hundred miles off course last week?” I prompted, speaking with as much calm as I could muster. “You think Benjamin was responsible for that?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “The Piaggio P.180 that went down near Provo a few years back?”

  Rossiter nodded glumly.

  “A framed photo of that aircraft hangs in Joe Benjamin’s home,” I said.

  If Rossiter was surprised, he hid it well. A beat, then, “It’s apparent that the two of you were already aware of some of the intel I’ve just shared. May I ask your source?”

  Monck told Rossiter about Uncle Shlomo. About Avner and his two sons. About Yaakov’s injury and subsequent suicide. About Joe, né Yosef.

  When finished, Monck asked, “How long have you known about Cloke’s connection to Benjamin?”

  Rossiter’s eyes again went to his partner. Reid’s body language made it obvious he didn’t like the openness with us. Not at all.

  “A while,” Rossiter said.

  “A while,” Monck repeated, caustic. “How’d they hook up?”

  “In the interest of national security, I cannot disclose the means by which our special agent learned of Benjamin’s proficiency in coding.”

  “Did Cloke know about brother Yaakov’s wee bomb incident?”

  Reid made an odd noise in his throat.

  “No comment,” Rossiter said.

  “You come on to my turf, tell me a local is planning to blow planes out of the air, and say no comment?” Monck spit back, sharp, angry.

  “We believe Cloke tracked Benjamin for some time, eventually traveled to Provo to propose his get-rich-scheme in person.”

  “I’m hearing a lot of we believes. What is it you know?”

  “Back off, detective,” Reid snapped. “The clock is ticking, and Special Agent Rossiter has shared what he can.”

  No need to be a psychologist to know Reid didn’t like us. I was mulling what his principal beef was when another image detonated in my overstimulated brain.

  A serpentine track on a rainy ridge.

  “I think Benjamin may have targeted my phone,” I said quietly.

  “What?” Monck’s eyes went wide.

  I described my aborted drive to the synagogue. The rain. The Google Maps directions that sent me high onto a spiny ridge.

  “How could he have accessed your phone?” Monck asked.

  “Remember? I called him on our way to his house.”

  “Sonofabitch!”

  “Unbelievable,” Rossiter said after a moment. “Your serial killer is running with our cyber terrorist.”

  Now it was Monck who looked at his watch.

  7:55 p.m.

  Five minutes until Cloke’s follow-up communiqué.

  Four hours until Ryan’s “surprise” arrival?

  We waited as this unending Saturday waned, the room so silent I was certain the others could hear my heart pounding.

  The email landed on the OTD computer precisely at eight. Rossiter had it on his MacBook Air four minutes later.

  Rossiter did the zillion key thing, then he and Reid leaned into the screen.

  Looking like a man just given a cancer diagnosis, Rossiter swiveled the laptop toward us.

  Fear hit like a bazooka round to the chest.

  35

  8:04 P.M.

  Cloke’s second email consisted of a coded list.

  DL 1313 ATL 6:15 STT 10:26 Boeing 757

  BA 2113 LGW 5:40 ANU 10:08 Boeing 777

  AF 0009 CDG 4:40 SXM 10:19 A330

  AC 2107 YUL 7:55 PLS 11:44 A220-300

  “These are the planes this asshole is threatening to hijack?” asked Monck, voice masking his horror.

  “Yes.”

  “All are flights coming into the Caribbean. Delta from Atlanta to Saint Thomas, British Airways from London Gatwick to Antigua, Air France from Paris to St. Martin, Air Canada from Montreal to Provo. All landing between ten and midnight tonight.”

  “All in the air right now.” Monck.

  “I know a passenger on AC 2107.” My chest was ice, my lips barely able to form the words.

  Three faces swiveled toward me.

  “I have to warn him.” Reaching for my phone.

  “We can’t allow you to do that,” Reid said.

  “Allow me!?”

  “One leak could compromise our whole operation.”

  “You have an operation? You can’t even manage to find your own agent! You can’t trace his goddam emails!”

  “We have people on it.”

  “Jesus! You’re the freaking FBI!”

  “Hysteria won’t help.”

  Hysteria?

  But Reid wasn’t wrong. And Ryan had probably disabled his phone for takeoff.

  Tamping down my emotions, I said, “The AC passenger is a detective with the Sûreté du Québec, the Quebec provincial police. The man understands security and would never cause a leak. Get word to him.”

  Reid narrowed his eyes toward his partner.

  “Let me explain why these emails are so hard to track,” said Rossiter, soothing as an EMT talking a jumper from a ledge. “Then I will share—”

  “I want my friend off that plane!”

  “Please. Bear with us. That flight has just taken off. One call and we can have the plane diverted.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I understand your concern. But hundreds of lives could be at stake here.”

  “Talk fast.” Hating that he was right.

  Rossiter resumed his explanation.

  “Cloke and Benjamin have been communicating with each other and with the various agencies using a VPN.”

  “Do not play me with jargon,” Monck snapped.

  “A virtual private network.” I interceded, sensing the tension in the room escalating to match my own. “A VPN encrypts internet traffic and disguises a sender’s online identity so third parties can’t track any activities or steal any data. Especially since the encryption takes place in real time. Don’t ask me how it works.”

  Monck looked at me like I’d spoken Macedonian.

  Rossiter continued.

  “If you surf online with a VPN, the VPN server becomes the source of your data. Your ISP—internet service provider—and other third parties can’t see which websites you visit or what data you send and receive. A VPN works like a blender, turning your transmissions into gibberish. Is that clear, detective?”

  “Clear as Pickapeppa sauce.” Wired on adrenaline and piqued by Rossiter’s condescending tone. “Why the fuck is this relevant?”

  “And why are we sitting in this room doing nothing?” I demanded.

  “Those are my orders. For now.”

  “They sure as hell aren’t mine,” Monck exploded.

  Rossiter lifted a placating palm. I noted that it trembled slightly.

  “You asked why we couldn’t trace the sender of the ransom demand,” he said. “The answer is that the message was probably preprogrammed as to time of dispatch, then routed through a dozen anonymous servers all over the globe. The same will be true of the link they’ll provide for deposit of the money. The funds will go through a scrambling process, into an untraceable account, then be instantaneously transferred into the vapor.”

  Monck shot to his feet. “Enough, for Chrissake. I’m hitting the street. Obviously, you can’t flush your maniac agent, so my officers will.”

  “Please, detective.” Rossiter’s hand rose higher. “Hold on.”

  “No way. I’m done.”

  Monck strode for the door.

  “Several days ago, the OTD intercepted a phone conversation they believe took place between Cloke and Benjamin.”

  Monck froze.

  “What?” Too strident, my brain still in high-voltage mode. “How is that possible? They were being so careful.”

  Reid fired Rossiter one of his spy-versus-spy squints.

  “Sorry. Classified.” Rossiter did not seem sorry. “Suffice it to say one of them got sloppy.”

  “What kind of bullshit answer is that?” Monck barked.

  “Could your people pinpoint the origin of the call?” I asked.

  “Useless. The connection was made burner to burner.”

  “What was said?”