Chapter 41
The director led Rose and me into his office’s attached conference room. Steele, Frayer, Red, Sherman, and Kessler were already there.
“Well?” John Brown asked.
“I have, at your direction, scanned every FBI-issued phone in this facility,” Red said. “Thank you for having the foresight to approve the installation of said scanners when we built the place.”
Brown smiled and rolled his hand to indicate she should continue.
“Seventeen phones are equipped with an unauthorized application titled Warlock and produced by a company that ultimately leads back to William Cramer. On the IG’s team, Agent Ivan Peterman is the only one with that app.
Here is a list of the others in this facility,” she said, touching her tablet to light up the monitor.
“Also, be advised that AD Shire’s phone has the app. ”
“Expected at this point. Can you get into the app?”
“Yes. When Cassie left her interview, I monitored Peterman’s phone. He used the app and I was able to piggyback his sign-in. I have inserted my own virus into his app and it is populating the parent system now.”
“Any results?”
“Here is what he wrote: Sir, subject is ready to snap. Indicates legal action against bureau. The response back was the details of a bet to place on the Dropseer prediction site.”
“How do we fight that prediction system of payment?”
“Um, I may have already begun, sir,” I said.
“What and how?”
“They pay informants by giving them obscure predictions with big odds on payout. I have been studying Dropseer’s offerings and finding those same bets.
I jump in on the same side as Cramer’s prediction, placing way more money than anyone else, and effectively destroy the odds or at least drop them down to paying almost nothing. ”
“And how are you doing that?”
“I may have significant crypto earnings squirreled away on numerous hot and cold wallets, sir,” I said.
“I see. And what results have you incurred?”
“Small profits and large destruction of the odds imbalance.”
“How do you know which ones to bet on?”
“It’s kinda my thing… predictions. Knowing enough about Cramer and witnessing CATMAP in action, I’ve got a pretty good handle on it. I would say my hit rate is about sixty-seven percent but climbing.”
“Hmm. What is your program looking for, Agent Redmyer?” he asked, turning to the data expert.
“Names, contacts, conversations, as well as implanting deeper sleeper viruses in case they detect my intrusion.”
“Any preliminary information?”
“It’s huge, sir. Across every part of the government, military, intelligence, and corporate world in this country and many others.”
“I need to know who we can trust in the White House as well as the DHS and the Bureau. Get me that soonest.”
“Yes sir.”
“As soon as you have that, we will take it to the president. Steele, Redmyer, Carmine, and Cassie, be ready to go with me. Oh, Cassie… what was the thing about calling your godmother?”
“Well, he asked and it was true.”
“Why the detail on who she is and who your godfather is?”
“Understand, sir, that I have no control over anything they do. That said, my godmother was pissed. My godfather will be furious. The teams here in DC doing spy training may receive additional orders. I would bet money on it. Ivan Peterman may become the victim of a series of harassment exercises that practice infiltration, psy ops, lock picking, alarm bypass, electronic observation, and direct observation. Just a guess. When his residence shows signs of entry, his computer is hacked, or he himself feels like he’s being watched, he’ll maybe guess why. ”
“Hmm. He is an agent of the FBI,” the director said, frowning.
“Is he that first, sir, or an agent of William Cramer?” I asked. “Cramer sent him here to shake me, maybe create opportunity. I’m just working an opposing op.”
“Several at the same time, it would seem,” he mused, frowning.
“Not so complicated. I really just wanted to talk to my remaining family. I didn’t ask them to do anything. I’m simply predicting a likely result. Most of my attention is on the prediction markets. Reducing Cramer’s currency.”
“Do you think he knows what you’re doing?” Steele asked.
“CATMAP does, so he likely does. If he does nothing in response, his payment system of lucrative bets is debased. He is likely going to try and reverse odds on a few bets by directly influencing the outcomes of those events.”
“What does that look like?” Agent Frayer asked.
“Lots of stuff. I have to study the posted events and try to figure out how he would try to influence things. Like, he could influence election bets by releasing damning information on one of the candidates; that kind of thing. It’s kind of a loop.
He uses the predictions to reward his network for the information they provide and then uses the information to influence the predictions. ”
“How is this possible?” Agent Sherman asked. “How has the world reached this point?”
“Seems like we’ve been careening toward something of this nature for decades,” Director Brown said. “Let’s do what we do and enforce the laws of this country.”
The meeting broke up and I went back to my station next to Red’s, where I could monitor the Dropseer site and make diluting bets while also scanning news bites for clues and leads.
An hour into it, I started to get that feeling I get when I’m sensing a pattern but don’t fully see it yet.
I pulled back and stared at the prediction screen.
There were eight predictions on the first screen.
Eight on the next, and eight on all the screens after that.
Each prediction was a two-part situation.
Either this outcome or that, or sometimes yes or no.
Two outcomes. Binary. I blinked and looked back at the first screen.
“Red, do you know ASCII? Binary code?” I asked.
She snorted. “Come on, Cassie,” she protested.
I turned my tablet to her. “If each of these predictions was a binary letter expression, top one equal to a one and the bottom one equal to a zero, what letter would this be?”
“Ah, 01000011, that’s letter c.”
“And this screen?”
“01100001, letter a.”
“These next two are the same pattern,” I said.
“01110011, both s.”
“This?
“I.”
“And finally,” I said, pulling up the sixth screen.
“E.”
“Put it all together and it spells…?” I asked, doing a cheerleader tone.
“Cassie,” she said, her face suddenly blank with shock. “Coincidence.”
“Well, I don’t think so, but let’s keep scrolling through pages,” I said.
We did. Nine more pages.
“Wait. There’s even a space in machine language?” I asked.
“Of course. Number thirty-two. So all together, this says, Cassie, help me. Holy shit!”
She clicked a key on her computer and spoke into her headset mic. “Sir, we need you here in the computer bay.”
Agent Steele showed up two minutes later, Dr. Chen in tow.
We explained what we had found.
“The prediction market is sending you messages?” Steele asked,
“No. My counterpart in this betting thing is. CATMAP,” I said.