Devil's Fork

  Now Mark stepped forward, “What can happen here, is that a hacker can basically read an encrypted message and send it on to the person it was meant for. He can usually do this without either the sender or the recipient knowing that he has seen it. If he is good, he can do this without installing any permanent malware on either victim’s computers.”

  Anderson was looking at them with his mouth hanging open. Sara was pretty sure hers was open as well. Her stomach felt like a pot full of boiling water. For some reason she visualized Tom, with his strong facial features and clean shave, tied to a chair with North Koreans yelling at him. She pushed the thought out of her mind.

  Mark continued, “We did not read the message you sent. We just followed the traffic, so we are not sure what you guys have going on. But you should know that as we were looking into this yesterday, we discovered that your message to PACOM went not just through Wuhan, China. It went through a military base. A group of people that work there saw your message. We actually have had to deal with that group before. They are a cyberwarfare unit in the People’s Liberation Army. They are the Chinese military’s hacking unit. We even know the person that intercepted your message. We’ve had to deal with him before too. We don’t know who he is, we just know him by his handle, or his username. He’s known as ‘SLOTHMAN’. Using our own— methods—“ Mark looked at J.D., “we understand that as soon as SLOTHMAN saw your message, he placed a call to the man we assess to be his boss – the head of that Cyberwarfare unit. We don’t know who he is yet. He’s a mysterious figure. His handle is NATPAC.”

  Sara looked at Matt. His hand was on his forehead. “Oh, no” he moaned quietly. Sara looked back at Mark. “So what does that mean?” She asked.

  “I asked J.D. to look into it further. What he found last night was even more unsettling, and that’s why we needed to come over here to tell you.”

  “What?” Anderson asked.

  “About 30 seconds after NATPAC received the phone call from SLOTHMAN, he placed a phone call of his own. He called a number in Beijing. J.D. figured out that it went to a Chinese State government building. Whoever received NATPAC’s phone call, made a call right after speaking to NATPAC. This person’s call went to a city outside of China. It went to a number in Pyongyang. In North Korea.”

  “Oh my God,” Sara jumped.

  Anderson started running out of the room. Sara had rarely heard panic in his voice before. “They know Tom’s coming!”