The Handler by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2022-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CIA Headquarters, Langley

Sasha Levchenko was one of the agency’s most talented computer experts. He was in his early thirties, tall, thin, with straight dark hair and angular features. He always seemed to look tired and almost always sported what appeared to be three days’ growth of beard.

Sasha had previously earned a decent living as a consultant for small companies in the private sector. In those days, he used his spare time to hack into government websites.

As Reagan came to learn, many techies who wreak electronic havoc do not do it for profit, they do it simply to prove they could. Bored with helping clients on their computers—people they generally regarded as morons for their inability to use the most basic software or install standard upgrades into their systems—they enjoyed the challenge of breaking codes, finding ways around protective firewalls and otherwise outsmarting others playing the same game. Ultimately they would be caught and, depending on the damage they had done, punished accordingly. In Sasha’s case, his reckoning came after he took a run at the CIA.

The Company’s specialists detected the attempted intrusion, found the location of the server, and identified the user. That’s when Sasha received a visit from Nick Reagan and Carol Gellos. They were dispatched to pick him up at his apartment, where they seized his four laptops and brought him in for questioning. This was a matter of national security, and Sasha was given no warning of the arrest. Reagan and Gellos had no warrant, and there was no offer of a lawyer.

The young man was left to cool his heels in a holding pen overnight as his hardware was examined by experts on the second floor. The consensus was that he had not done the agency any harm, at least not yet, but his other work—invading various bank and credit card sites as well as the Social Security Administration—was potentially damaging and quite impressive. With Kenny’s approval, his two agents sat with the young man and made him an offer—a long jail term or a job with the agency.

“It doesn’t appear you stole any money when you were hacking these sites,” Gellos said.

Sasha gave his head a vigorous shake. “Never.”

“This was all about the challenge?”

“Yeah,” Sasha said, “it was about the fun.”

Reagan stared at him. “You think a ten-year stretch in a federal prison will be fun?”

Sasha blinked but said nothing.

“We have a better idea.”

That was four years ago, and Sasha had been with the Company ever since. He was assigned to a unit that monitors cyberattacks, but this evening he had been brought in to address the possibility of a more violent assault.

When Reagan, Gellos, and Brandt got back to Langley, they provided a report to the deputy director on the events in Baltimore that afternoon, then all four of them joined Erin and Levchenko in a conference room down the hall.

“Haven’t seen you since you helped us with our problems in London,” Reagan said to Sasha.

Levchenko nodded. “You woke me up two days in a row at four in the morning to get that help.

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