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187 pages

English

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets Mr Robot in this tense cyber thriller. 'Williams's excellent sequel to 2017's Beijing Smog ... Williams creates vivid action scenes and convincingly draws even minor characters in this tale of a privacy-destroying big tech spying empire. Readily accessible to those with a minimal tech background, this scary cyber thriller deserves a wide readership' - Publishers WeeklyA new and dangerous computer bug is sweeping the internet. It's smart, quick, sophisticated, and developed by elite hackers working for a cybercrime syndicate. It can break through an unknown flaw in the world's most secure computer chips and cripple any system within seconds. It's the ultimate cyber weapon and it seems that everybody wants a part of it. From Burma to Berlin, and to the new Cold War frontline of Ukraine, cyber sleuth Chuck Drayton and his small team of investigators are pitted against the great cyber powers and an unscrupulous tech billionaire in a desperate race to find the zero day and its shadowy creator.

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	07 novembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781913227555
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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ZERO DAYS
A CYBER THRILLER
IAN WILLIAMS
Published by RedDoor
www.reddoorpress.co.uk
© 2019 Ian Williams
The right of Ian Williams to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design: www.dissectdesigns.com
Typesetting: Tutis Innovative E-Solutions Pte. Ltd
A mound was mistaken to be a pagoda and worshipped – until the lizard came out
Old Burmese proverb
Chapter One
The Buddha Head
Bagan, Myanmar
There was something almost hypnotic about the small blue blob on her computer screen; its steady pulse drawing her in and not letting go. Her laptop was propped up on pillows, and she sat cross-legged on the bed in front of it, tapping gently on a red stud above her right nostril, her finger matching the rhythm of the blinking blob. At the same time she explored the two silver rings that pierced the left corner of her upper lip with her tongue. It was something she did without thinking, the way others tap or swing their feet, spin pens or drum a table with anxious fingers. She’d known hackers who did them all, while popping endless pills to get through the long hours at the keyboard.
At first she didn’t hear the gentle tapping on the door. When it came again, louder and more persistent, she moved quickly and silently across the room. She held a hammer tightly in one hand, a heavy slab of metal on a thick wooden handle, made for stone carvers in the market. With the other hand she peeled back a square of dark tape covering a small spyhole she had drilled through the wood herself.
The server took two steps back as she opened the door, staring first at the hammer, then at her. His mouth tried to form words that wouldn’t come, eventually stammering, ‘Big sorry, Miss Vika. Big, big sorry.’ Because they’d run out of beer and had to send out for it, because it was warm beer, because he had taken such a long time. So long, that Miss Vika had completely forgotten placing the order, and she glowered at him, while he stared back, like he always stared, like a startled rabbit in the headlights, as if she was a creature from another planet.
Vika snatched the bottle of Mandalay beer, with its logo of a golden pagoda, and a glass of ice from the server’s tray, replacing them with two one-dollar bills as crumpled as the kid’s uniform. The ice cracked as she poured the beer, the froth racing up the glass, and only a quick and hungry slurp prevented it from spilling on her bed, on which she resumed her vigil in front of the blue blob.
A ceiling fan creaked and wobbled above her, as if it might come crashing down at any moment. It struggled to cool the room, the humid air reeking of mosquito repellent laced with smoke that seeped in from nearby piles of burning garbage.
She leapt from the bed.
Smack, smack, smack.
The punches hit square and hard.
The heavy duffle bag shuddered under her blows. Smack, smack, smack. She’d found the bag in the market and filled it with rice. It wasn’t ideal, not like the punch bags she’d trained with, but it served its purpose, another way of relieving the tension. Smack, smack, smack, smack.
When the explosion came it was so loud it shook the window. It was the signal she’d been waiting for, thunder marking the arrival of the afternoon rain. She parted the sagging brown curtains, which she had permanently drawn. A gecko leapt to the floor and she took a step back, showing respect for an ally, at least in the fight against mosquitoes.
Palm trees bent and swayed as they were whipped by the intensifying wind, black clouds sucked the light from the afternoon sky while a curtain of rain advanced from across the river, scrubbing out the distant bank. The rain might last less than an hour, but it would provide her with the cover she needed.
She pushed aside a shower head with permanent dribble that hung limply from the mildewed wall of a bathroom described as a super deluxe en suite, and examined herself in the cracked mirror. The multiple piercings – eyebrows, a pin cushion of an ear, tongue, as well as the nose and lip. The hair – long on one side, shaven on the other, and purple. Appearances didn’t matter in the online world, her world, where you could be whoever you wanted to be. In the real, offline world, anonymity was more difficult.
She stuffed her hair under a cheap red ‘I Love Myanmar’ baseball cap. Her blue eyes, wide and intense, vanished behind a pair of large Gucci sunglasses, before she pulled on an oversized rain jacket with hood.
She stole one last look at her laptop.
The gently throbbing blob hadn’t moved. He was still in the museum.
She left through the veranda door of her ground floor room, glancing nervously at the windows above her own, curtains drawn, dull lights beyond. They were still in their rooms. The rain was now hammering hard on the roof of the guest house, the palm trees shrivelling under the intensifying onslaught. She stepped into the storm. Nobody in their right mind would set out on a walk now, and that made it ideal.
The dark sky rumbled and flickered as her feet sank into the waterlogged lawn. She pulled her hood tightly to her face, and in a few quick strides was under the cover of trees leading to a muddy path along the bank of the river. The driving rain stung her face each time she looked up, the river just a frothy grey nothingness.
The modern archaeological museum was a sprawling pavilion-like building with a tiered roof topped by golden towers. There were a series of broad pillars and arches with ornate carvings, somebody’s fantasy of past imperial glories, but the cheap concrete was already cracking. A clock inside the entrance showed five o’clock. A woman at the ticket office said the museum closed in half an hour but sold her a ticket anyway.
Vika left a trail of water across the cavernous atrium. She quickened her pace, ignoring the display cabinets, instead concentrating on her phone. It guided her towards the blob, directing her to the far corner of the atrium, up two flights of stairs, and to a heavy door marked, ‘PRIVATE WORKSHOP. DO NOT ENTER’.
It was not the sign that stopped her. She needed to be sure he was alone.
She stepped into another exhibition room to one side of the workshop. Display cabinets containing Buddha statues. A large laminated board explained the hand gestures. Touching the earth, preaching, meditation, compassion. The last was protection against danger. She lingered longer on that one. The glossy board let her see everything behind her. An elderly attendant, his head slumped, was asleep in a chair. A door leading to a terrace was ajar, blown open by the wind, a pool of water seeping in, though the rain had stopped as abruptly as it started. She stepped silently onto the terrace. Beside the workshop, the terrace was littered with heavy metal cabinets, battered and rusting. She stopped close to an open window.
She’d not known what to expect. Until that moment the professor had been just a beating blue blob on her screen. Click once and it was on a map so they could track him. Click again and it became a moving line, jumping and falling with the beat, the vital signs of life they could manipulate at will.
He was elderly, with a dishevelled head of grey hair and thick beard. He sat at a cluttered desk, leaning forward and gently brushing the long dangly earlobe of a Buddha head. She watched as he blew it gently, moving his mouth right up close, as if he was sharing a secret. She’d read his biog – explorer, acquirer of antiquities, benefactor to the world’s top museums, a man who collected academic chairs like others collect stamps. But this was no Indiana Jones. His movements were slow and deliberate, stooping as he stood to fetch a pair of magnifying spectacles, a light on top, which he used to read the squiggles that made up the ancient words of an inscription carved into the four sides of a plinth-like stone on which the Buddha head was sitting.
The professor looked up sharply and then fixed his eyes on a backpack at his feet. He leaned down and dug around in the bag, emerging with a cell phone, holding it between his forefinger and thumb, keeping it at a distance at first, as if it was something dirty or contaminated. He looked at the screen, hesitated, and then jabbed his finger clumsily to take the call, succeeding at the third attempt.
‘Yes, I hear you,’ was all he said. The words slow and taut.
Then he listened.
The call was no more than thirty seconds, after which he placed the phone on the table and sat staring blankly at the Buddha head.
Was the call from them? Playing with him, one last demand perhaps, one last order before this master of the ancient world was shut down by a weapon from the future.
Vika knew she had to move, and she had to move fast.
But she stopped abruptly and retreated behind one of the cabinets as a boy approached the professor. He was tall and gangly, dressed in traditional Burmese skirt-like longyi and check shirt, a mug in his hand, which he held out in front of him. The professor’s hand appeared to be shaking as he reached to take it, the two of them stepping out to the terrace. Neither spoke.
They stood looking out at a vast plain beside the bloated Irrawaddy River. The temples seemed to have burst into life, glowing under the late afternoon sun. The plain bristled with them, some short and stubby, others soaring above the plain, multiple terraces topped by conical spires of ornate brick and gold.
Coaches raced towards them, throwing up water from flooded pathways. Tourists poured from their doors, cameras and selfie-sticks in hand