Twenty-Nine Cozy Bears

14

"Sure Chief", Samantha said, with an overly played enthusiasm.

"What are you so chipper about?" Gorr ask her as she sat down at the chair to his right with her coffee and half donut.

That's right, some people don't even eat full donuts. They cut them in half, and share them with someone else who believes all the calories fall out of them when you do that, Doug thought as he moved to a chair on his side closer to Gorr.

"Oh," Samantha said, "I just get excited when Doug gets manly and bossy. Makes me believe he might own property some day."

"Huh," Gorr grunted, "So, what do we have? Anything solid?"

"As it turns out, yes," Samantha reported, her voice reined in to a professional tone. "We have eyes and ears on the ground with this one."

"We do?" Doug asked, this being news to him.

"Well, not us, exactly, but the Mossad do. They have an operative inside the new Iranian Special Elite Team, the one that is all women."

"Really?" Gorr asked, "this is news for me."

Samantha nodded her agreement, "It is apparently news for most people in the world, but the Mossad are on the Iranians hard, so it doesn't surprise me that they discovered the project. Anyway they managed to get an operative in to the unit. And then three of them were assigned as liaison with the Russian team. One of those being their operative."

"Female special forces débuting as liaison? Sounds more Russian than Iranian." Mitch said from the door with a laugh as he was leaving.

"Close the door, would you Mitch, thanks," Gorr said, then turned back to Samantha, "Go ahead, we'll beat him with buggy-whips after lunch."

"No warning him this time Doug," Samantha said, pointing the end of a finger that jerked like it might go off.

Doug looked back and forth between them and wondered if they were flirting. If so, Gorr was much better at it than he was. She was flush and ready and it wasn't 10am yet. It might be the Cozy Bear case, and the fact that she had the info. She was competitive like that. "Well?" he asked, his frustration evident. "Any ideas on why they are there, and what the Mossad has gotten into?"

"First," Gorr interrupted, his tone all business now, "who are 'they'? Who are we talking about? Is it Fancy Bear?"

"No, we believe, and even more so now, with a little cooperation, that they are the new Cozy Bears. Cozy Grimm, or Grimm Comm."

"Don't confuse me with the details." Gorr said, leaning forward with his arms on the table and his hands clasp together. "I like the bears, keep it wit the bears. You are saying they are new? But what, are they replacing the others?"

"Bears it is, and yes, sort of. The original Cozy Bears from the Democrat Headquarters hack, the Republican headquarters hack, the Pentagon and the ransom-ware, have apparently retired on their ill-gained wealth, and are living a life proving crime pays... if you are a bear. These guys showed up about two years ago, and have been using most of the same tools and techniques."

"So, we're not looking at the wunderkind any more, just the second string," Gorr said, sounding a bit relieved.

"No, I wouldn't say that, not that way," Doug countered. "Any first string would be nervous with these guys as their second. Because they are not second to just anyone. These guys are using the same tools and the same methods, but..."

"... they are on a new level," Samantha interrupted. "We know their youngest, Luca Mancini, has a creative outlook that pushes envelopes. He is their Package man. He makes the malware or the virus. The other two might help, they are a team, but we have Luca's scores and thesis. I've read them and I'm still reading them."

Doug opened his note book, "The next guy is their Weaver, Alek Petrov, as in weaver of tales. He's the email writer, the scam designer. He's fluent in six languages which are not computer languages. On the computer he's not a slouch but that's not why he is there."

"We could still find him in any country he ran too," Samantha pointed out.

"Why's that?" Gorr asked.

"Because he's nearly seven feet tall, white haired and built like, well, a Russian."

Gorr smiled, "So he sticks out."

Doug clicked his tongue, "Stands out so much we have a total of two photos of him," he commented.

Gorr stiffen on that remark. He was old school CIA. "Sounds like the man has worked around his physical deformities."

"Well, they don't get out much, either." Doug pointed out.

"What about the third?" Gorr asked.

"He is a Mister Who." Samantha said. "We're not even sure he is a he. Could be a woman, for all we know. Right now he is APT 29, Cozy Bear. We know he is the ICE Cracker. He's been in and out of every major system in the world, that we can tell. Trouble is that he sells his tech and his victims. So many of the places that look like him, were cracked by a customer."

Doug sighed, "He must write one hell of a HOWTO, because it is extremely difficult to tell him from a script-runner. Very little deviation."

"Why buy something from the best and then ignore it?" Gorr asked sagely.

"Because that's what they do," Doug pointed out, "these cash hungry smash and grab types. They always deviate at some point. They always rush the job or try to shortcut. Not his clients. They stay on point. And they get results because of it, your are right there."

"We ever get his clients?" Gorr asked.

"One. He's why we know Cozy Bear exists," Samantha answered. "Nothing else. We just know that who our informant described and from the coding itself, he is not one of the other two."

"One of these days you're going to have to explain to me how you can look at compiled code and tell it was made from one source or another. But not today. Where are they now?"

"Tehran. They landed thirty minutes ago. We're expecting an update any minute," Samantha reported.