Red Team Blues

Red Team Blues is a 2023 techno thriller novel by Cory Doctorow about money laundering, cryptocurrency, and homelessness.

Stats

• Author: Cory Doctorow
• Publication date: 2023-04-25
• Word count: 71,000
• Audiobook
  • ISBN: 5184389278339
  • Narrator: Wil Wheaton
  • Length: 7h9m56s

Content

People

Ales Kocourek

(Note: Kocourek IPA pronunciation: [ˈkot͡sou̯rɛk]) A CompSci student and boyfriend of Jia. A second-generation Czech. Wrote security code for a data center securing Danny's laptop containing Trustlesscoin secure enclave private keys. Helped Jia and Sergey steal the laptop. Killed at Jordan's Mill by the Zetas.

Danny Moses Lazer

(C1): Founder of cryptography software company Keypair. Founder of Trustless, a cryptocurrency based on secure enclave signing. Suffers a fatal aneurysm shortly after MH recovers the stolen laptop from Danny.

Flaherty

(c6; unnamed): A childhood friend of Raza and a wealthy former computer pioneer. (c20): Helps MH lay low after his escape from the DHS safehouse.

Galit

(c1): Danny's first wife. Deceased years before the story starts. Worked office management jobs in Silicon Valley to support Danny.

Ira Hermann

Lawyer who handled Dannyʼs Trustlesscoin assets. Although semi-retired, manages and hides wealth of a select number of ultrawealthy. Is training Zoe to replace himself.

Jia Hak

Korean Stanford undergraduate girlfriend of Ales. Works with Ales and Sergey to steal Danny's Trustless laptop and hardware token. Killed by the Zetas and Jordan's Mill.

Lawrence “Lorrie” Lin

Ex-husband of Ruth. Former Apple employee. Scammer and faker of the tech industry. Stole Ruth's money.

Martin Harold Hench

(c1: a.k.a. Martin Hench, Martin ‘the Mensch’ Hench; meta: a.k.a. MH) The main character. A 67-year-old forensic accountant.

Mackenzie Clare

Daughter of Theodore Clare. 16-year-old who uses social media extensively, giving away Theodore Clare's affiliation with the Zetas via parties with Zeta leader children in Mexican vacation locations.

Maxim Preobrazhensky

Sergey Preobrazhensky's older half-brother. An ethnically Russian Azerbaijani member of an oligarch money laundering family. Gets Sergey to doublecross the Zetas who kill Sergey when the betrayal is discovered.

Raza

See Wilma Razafimandimby

Ruth Schwartzburg

A former employee of Danny and coworker of Sethu. Had her money stolen by Lorrie Lin.

Sebo Szarka

A lawyer fixer for Russian oligarchs.

Sergey Preobrazhensky

A Stanford student who performed a heist of secure enclave private keys for his older brother, Maxim and the Zetas. Is killed by the Zetas for performing a double cross planned by Maxim. Killed at Jordan's Mill by the Zetas. (c8): His father is a powerful banker in Azerbaijan.

Sethu

(c1: a.k.a. Sethuramani Balakrishnan) Danny's second wife. 25-years-old. Skilled at finance. Worked customer service for Danny's company, Keypair.

Theodore Clare

(a.k.a. @pojbu3swof): A Silicon Valley banker. Parent of Mackenzie Clare.

Venphira Ghostbane

(c17) Ruth's level 27 half-elf paladin of D&D games organized over Facebook, a social media platform Ruth is ashamed of using.

Vikram Zaim

(c2): Stockton, CA datacenter employee

Waterman Bates

Department of Homeland Security spook. Works to protect MH and the status quo of organized crime.

Wilma Razafimandimby

(c4): MH acquaintance. Owner of the Sectoral Balance. Left-wing economist at University of Missouri–Kansas City.

Zoe

Millennial lawyer who works at the same law firm as Ira Hermann. Manages and hides wealth of the ultrawealthy.

Places

Azerbaijan

(real) A nation-state of Eastern Europe/West Asia. Gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 following the Dissolution of the Soviet Union. The demonyms are either Azerbaijani or Azeri. (c17): Homeland of Sergey and Maxim Preobrazhensky, members of a family that runs the Azeri banking system.

China

(real): A communist nation-state that was an ally of the Soviet Union.

Jordan's Mill

(c5): An area (Baltakatei: Likely fictional.) in Mendocino County, California, near a lake where the murder of Ales, Jia, and Sergey took place.

Mendocino County

(real): A county in northern California prone to wildfires. (c5): Is where Jordan's Mill is located.

Menlo Park

(real): A city near Stanford University and Palo Alto. (c1): Near Danny and Sethu's home.

Palo Alto

(real): A city near Stanford University. (c1): Where Danny lives. Office location for Ira Hermann's law firm.

Russia

(real): The nation-state that was formerly the center of the Soviet Union. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, various Russian oligarchs used government connections in the 1990s to buy up land and productive assets formerly held in common for the Russian people.

San Francisco

Where MH spends much time on the run from DHS and the Zetas.

Things

Department of Homeland Security

(c17; meta: a.k.a. DHS): An expansive branch of the US government with wide jurisdiction to conduct surveillance of nearly all population centers of the United States. Employs Waterman Bates and provides resources to capture and isolate MH. (c18): Loses a jurisdiction fight with the USDT over MH, forcing MH to escape surreptitiously.

Department of the Treasury

(a.k.a. United States Department of the Treasury, USDT) The treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. (c18): Overrides DHS and takes custody of MH, leaving him abandoned for a week in a DHS safehouse.

Keypairs

A cryptography software company founded by Danny that made him wealthy. Employed Ruth and Sethu in the past.

KPMG

A corporation that provides general logistic services (e.g. automobile purchases, hotel reservations) for wealthy clients.

Secure enclaves

Tamper proof miniature embedded computers with simple operating systems designed to create digital signatures with locally stored cryptographic keys extremely resistant to being read even if the enclave hardware is physically compromised.

Trustlesscoin

A cryptocurrency started by Danny for his second wife, Sethu, to manage after he dies. The public ledger is secured by smartphone secure enclave digital signatures. The story centers around Danny's mistake of purchasing a copy of the private keys of several secure enclave models; (c1): Danny loses these keys in a heist that takes place before the story starts.

Zetas

(a.k.a. Los Zetas), a criminal organization of Mexico. (c17): Original commissioner of the theft of Danny's keys, according to Waterman Bates.

Narrative

Chapter 1

MH visits Danny Lazer, a wealthy cryptographer who lost secure enclave signing keys for several prominent hardware platforms. Danny asks MH to determine what happened to the air-gapped laptop holding the keys and to prevent them from being used to harm Trustlesscoin, a cryptocurrency Danny created.

Chapter 2

51:48

MH visits Vikram Zain at a datacenter near Stockton, CA. MH pretends to perform a security audit of the facility for a client unrelated to Danny in order to identify a likely methodology for the heist of Danny's air-gapped laptop holding Danny's keys.

Chapter 3

01:00:25

A story about techie students: a Korean Stanford undergrad girl (Baltakatei: Jia Hak) who tutors a SF State computer science student (Baltakatei: Ales Kocourek) who makes synthesizer equipment for the girl. The CompSci student is known to Vikram and wrote custom code for the data center.

Vikram tells MH that he suspects a computer science student he recruited to write code for the data center security system. Immediately following the heist, the suspect disappeared from social media. (Baltakatei: Ales Kocourek.)

Chapter 4

01:04:05

MH meets UMKC economist and old friend, Wilma Razafimandimby (a.k.a. Raza) in a Wal-Mart parking lot. MH has known her for 30 years. Raza is in her tour bus, the Sectoral Balance. Raza is cooking meat and invites MH to eat.

Raza advises MH to build a social media graph of people Ales (the techie kid hired to write security code for the data center of the heist) spent weekends with in rural locations.

MH asks a team of Amsterdam kids to build the graph for him

MH has troubled sleep.

The Amsterdam kids return a likely location for MH to investigate.

MH sleeps.

Chapter 5

01:16:18

MH investigates Jordan's Mill. The area has suffered a major wildfire affecting San Mendocino County. MH chose the area because Ales and Jia had visited the area in the past.

01:21:05: MH finds corpse of Ales Kocourek in an outdoor shelter in a wildfire clearing. The corpse is impaled rectally with laptop circuit board.

01:22:00: MH finds corpse of Jia, impaled with shelter stakes. MH finds a third corpse of a handsome man mutilated (Baltakatei:Sergey Preobrazhensky).

MH reluctantly takes some photographs with his point-and-shoot camera to provide serial numbers of the destroyed laptop to Danny.

Chapter 6

01:24:25

MH anonymously reports the crime scene. MH sends photos of laptop unique identifiers; Danny replies it was the wrong laptop.

Chapter 7

01:27:30

MH and Danny talk in person. MH describes to Danny details of the murder scene. Danny determines his hardware token was stolen but not the laptop with the keys. Danny requests that MH find or destroy the laptop. Danny offers to die if it will save others from further loss of life if MH can determine where the laptop is.

Chapter 8

01:35:40

Third dead kid was Sergey Preobrazhensky, a Stanford grad student.

MH physically visits several motels, gas stations, and other plausible stops where the dead kids may have stored the stolen laptop between San Francisco and the rural burned out area where they died.

MH does not find the laptop. MH returns to San Francisco. MH watches a sunset with a friend. MH sleeps.

Chapter 9

01:41:43

Instead of searching the 101, MH searches along the 128. MH stops at a nice Mexican restaurant named Graciela’s. MH coincidentally meets a waitress (Laura, Graciela's daughter) who recognizes photos of the three dead kids. MH pretends to be Ales's father, looking for more details about their time before their death at Jordan's Mill. Laura had not reported seeing the murdered kids despite seeing them on news reports because she and her husband avoid all interactions with Mendocino County police because they do not want to risk deportation; they are undocumented immigrants. MH's tears convince Laura to hand over a laptop the kids left behind. MH deduces the kids purposefully left the laptop behind since they judged the waitress was of good character and would return it to them after they gave the fake laptop to the buyers who ended up killing them.

Chapter 10

01:47:30

MH hands over the laptop to Danny. Danny drills holes into its hard drive and schedules for its atomization in an industrial grinder. MH charges Danny 25% of the entire value of Trustlesscoin which totals 1.2 billion USD.

MH receives roughly 300 million USD in off-shore assets. In Palo Alto, MH meets with Ira Hermann, a lawyer who manages Danny's wealth, to process the transaction. MH asks if Ira can be his lawyer for the wealth. Ira tells MH he cannot since he is retired and only does work for some special clients. The lawyer tells MH about a solar charity to which MH donates 1 million USD. Ira reveals he handles hidden wealth for the rich and powerful. Ira's law firm partner, Zoe, asks MH if MH could destroy their enterprise of hiding wealth. Since MH says he is retiring, Zoe hopes to learn some information to improve her wealth hiding skills. MH responds that he could unwind her work. MH grows more comfortable with the idea that he has about 300 million USD.

Chapter 11

02:06:48

MH contemplates his wealth. MH buys a brooch from a San Luis Obispo (SLO) jeweler for a special woman.

MH considers buying a house. MH notes that his tour bus, the Unsalted Hash, uses a combustion engine since converting it into an electric vehicle would be too much of a hassle. The Nissan Leaf that the Unsalted Hash tows is an EV. While running errands, MH notes the Leaf has trouble charging.

MH's Leaf explodes. MH survives the minor explosion.

A Leaf dealership technician finds evidence of sabotage that bypassed the battery charging safety interlocks.

Chapter 12

02:18:35

MH contemplates how the acquisition of significant wealth has transformed their lifestyle from one of anonymity to one of conspicuous extravagance.. MH buys a champagne colored Leaf via next day delivery.

Danny's wife, Sethu tells MH that Danny died suddenly. Sethu notifies MH that Danny will be buried the next day due to Jewish customs. Sethu invites MH to a memorial service a month later on April 12th.

Chapter 13

02:25:55

MH attends Danny's funeral. While carpooling to the funeral service, MH confesses to Ira and Zoe that he has only purchased a used Nissan Leaf and a broach for an old economist friend. After MH reveals his previous Leaf self-destructed, Ira and Zoe find a different method of travel for their return trip.

After the service, MH is approached by Ruth Schwartzburg, a former founding employee at Keypairs, under Danny, who married Lawrence “Lorrie” Lin, a former Apple employee who MH believed was a scammer and faker. Ruth shares that Lorrie robbed her of her 8 million USD after they broke up and hid her money, claiming Ruth spent it all. MH offers to track down her money for free.

MH finds Ruth's money. Now Ruth can order her own lawyer to recover her money from Lorrie. Ruth and MH celebrate together as “fellow one percenters” with expensive lodging, expensive drink, and sex.

MH and Ruth agree not to make this celebration and intimacy a regular habit.

MH and Ruth discuss Sethu, Danny's young ambitious wife. Ruth, a former coworker of Sethu, suspects she is a gold digger. MH and Ruth agree that even if that were true, Sethu had saved Danny from self destruction after his first wife died and that Sethu had earned Danny's wealth. Ruth shares that Sethu seemed oddly proficient at finance in her post as customer service rep and that Ruth relied upon Sethu to perform budget tasks for Danny.

MH later messages Sethu to offer to pay his respects in person with her. Sethu immediately sets a date for the next day.

Chapter 14

03:00:30

MH visits Sethu. MH cleans Sethu's house, unmaintained since Danny's death.

MH and Sethu go to a sandwich restaurant. Sethu warns MH that Danny was visited by three Russian-sounding late 20-something goons who pressured Danny to give up information on MH. Sethu believes Danny's death the next day was due to the stress of contemplating how to manage the risks on MH's life. Sethu heard the conversation Danny recorded but after his death, only his business files were unencrypted; all Danny's personal files were encrypted.

Chapter 15

03:13:10

MH and Sethu continue to talk. Sethu shares her history as the lucky girlfriend of a rich money launderer who she suspects was killed in a finance deal gone wrong. Sethu confesses the knowledge she gained working for her ex helped her climb the corporate ladder at Danny's company and to eventually become his personal assistant and wife. Sethu shares that she believes Danny made the cryptocurrency, Trustlesscoin, for her to have something after he died. Sethu shares that she believes Danny acquired the irresponsibly acquired secure enclave keypairs in order to erase any embarrassing mistakes Sethu may have made in learning to manage Trustless.

Sethu asks MH to sleep with her. MH is reluctant and gives foreshadowing that time spent sleeping with her could have been used to reduce the magnitude of future problems. Sethu reassures MH that Danny would have been okay with her sleeping with him since they practiced consensual non-monogamy. MH gives in to Sethu's caresses and they sleep on Danny's bed.

Chapter 16

03:37:35

Sethu gives MH a painting of herself. Sethu tells MH that she believes Sebo Szarka was the person who sent the Azeris (Baltakatei: Note: “Azeri” is shorthand for “Azerbaijani” in English-speaking contexts) to Jim, her former boyfriend. Sethu says Szarka knows how Rubles are moved to and from Azerbaijan.

MH meets Sebo in San Francisco. MH explains that he believes he is under attack by the rich banking family whose child, Sergey, was murdered. MH says the banking family believes MH was the one who orchestrated the killings. MH asks Sebo to tell Sergey's family that Sergey and the other two kids were selling Danny's keys to an unknown party and that killing MH won't help them avenge Sergey's death. Sebo promises to pass on that information if he encounters someone from the family.

Chapter 17

03:58:22

Ruth calls MH, asking him to sleep over. MH visits Ruth on the third floor of some low income housing. MH and Ruth have sex. MH leaves but notices that some armed goons have surrounded his Leaf and are staged to attack him. MH surreptitiously calls local police on them, ditches his Leaf, then returns via Uber to his tour bus, the Unsalted Hash.

The next day, Ruth notes the police kerfuffle and MH's abandoned Leaf. MH recommends Ruth to move to a hotel. Ruth asks MH to visit her at the hotel.

MH messages Sebo, telling him that he (MH) was involved in the parking lot incident at Ruth's hotel. Sebo invites MH over to his office.

MH visits Sebo. Sebo explains to MH that MH cannot contact Sebo anymore. MH gets Sebo to admit that Sebo's long-term financial plans involving hiding the wealth of Russian oligarchs have morally compromised Sebo, forcing decisions such as the one to cut ties with MH even though Sebo knows MH is innocent.

MH departs in an Uber. The Uber is compromised by the US Department of Homeland Security which dumps him at a parking garage where a DHS spook offers MH explanations for what has been going on. MH learns the spook's name is Waterman Bates.

The DHS spook takes MH to a safehouse where he explains that Sergey's older brother accidentally got Sergey killed in a deal with the Zetas, a Mexican crime organization. The spook says MH (i.e. Mr. Hench) must be disappeared for his own protection because they judge MH likely to disrupt the DHS's operations infiltrating the Zetas and other organized crime organizations, which would be costly to rebuild. MH is disgusted by the DHS's strategy of supporting organized crime organizations in order to better spy on them. The DHS spook tells MH his tour bus has already been impounded and his assets seized; MH must submit to DHS protection and stay in the DHS safehouse. MH reluctantly agrees to DHS protection.

Chapter 18

04:40:58

MH passes the time figuring out an escape plan from the DHS safehouse. MH discovers how to lock pick a garbage door with an apple and a Bic pen carved up with a razor. MH waits to escape. MH waits several days and starts to run low on food. MH gets a call indicating the DHS spook that put him in the safehouse was reassigned; now, MH has no idea who officially has custody of him. MH gets a Signal text from the DHS spook, Bates, telling him a government jurisdiction snafu occured and now the US Department of the Treasury took over MH's case. MH escapes and hails a taxi near a Japanese consulate.

MH meets with Raza, his economist friend, asking for advice. Raza advises MH turn the Zetas against Sergey's brother who screwed up, Maxim. Raza explains that the DHS was planning to preserve corrupt power structures instead of doing their job of fighting crime; triggering violence now only beings inevitable future violence closer to the present. MH is reluctant but decides to take Raza's advice.

Chapter 19

05:20:08

MH hides in homeless camps and works from a public library of San Francisco.

MH settles in a camp near a group of homeless people named Martín, Laquan, and Tonya. Martín helps MH choose a good spot for setting up a tent. Tonya talks about Shaq, her brother, who is addicted to drugs. MH thinks about the Sackler Family, owner of the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma which is notorious for lobbying for overprescription of addictive pharmaceutical drugs such as OxyContin.

MH gets a chicken dinner and shares it with Martín and Tonya.

MH goes to the library. MH identifies a Zeta boss via LinkedIn and Instagram posts. The boss's Instagram account is @pojbu3swof. MH builds a model of the Zeta organization using indirect evidence from social media posts of the children of Zeta leaders. MH leaves the library and gets a chicken dinner. The restaurant gives MH extra empanadas for him to give away.

Martín sends MH away because Tonya is distraught because Tonya's brother, Shaq, died from a drug overdose. MH leaves the food with Martín. Martín gives MH directions to stay in a vacant office lobby. MH takes a THC gummy and sleeps.

MH cleans up at an SRO (Baltakatei: SRO stands for Single Room Occupancy, a type of housing consisting of a single room with no bathroom.). MH buys a burner phone in order to make an Instagram account to send messages to @pojbu3swof. The related @theodoreclaire was set to private.

Chapter 20

05:51:12

MH finds that the vacant lobby was locked up and his sleeping supplies were taken. MH tries asking Martín for lodging. Martín grudgingly gives MH his bed and tent for one night. When MH leaves, Martín formally cuts all ties and semblance of hospitality, disgusted that MH, who clearly doesn't have to hide among the homeless, is taking hospitality from homeless such as them.

MH visits a coffee shop. MH confronts Sebo Szarka, warning him that the Zetas know Maxim crossed them. Szarka is furious. MH makes it clear that MH holds no blame. Szarka agrees.

MH visits the childhood friend of Raza named Flaherty. MH asks for occasional WiFi and laptop charging favors while they lay low in a nearby camping area. Over alcoholic drinks, Flaherty is reluctant to offer help until MH lets slip that the trouble is a result of helping Danny. Knowing MH was helping Danny convinces Flaherty to offer generous supplies and WiFi privileges via a long distance antenna.

MH lays for several continuous days after learning various open daylight murders are taking place as a turf war is fought between the Zetas and the Azeri money launderers related to Maxim.

MH calls Szarka from a beach payphone and asks for a status update. Szarka communicates that the situation is bad, Maxim is dead, and everyone knows that MH was an innocent bystander.

Chapter 21

06:21:29

MH gets an Uber to a Fairmont hotel via his logistics service company DKMG. MH talks with Jasmine the Uber driver. MH checks in. MH takes Raza's call. Raza invites MH to Missouri to audit an undergraduate economics 101 class at University of Missouri–Kansas City.

MH formally takes back his wealth via lawyers. MH recovers his impounded tour bus, the Unsalted Hash, and his EV car, a used Nissan Leaf. MH gets both automobiles checked for surveillance bugs.

Chapter 22

06:33:46

MH calls Ruth. Ruth is cold. MH announces they are going to UMKC to audit an undergraduate economics course. MH and Ruth agree to correspond.

MH receives the debugged Unsalted Hash from a local hacker space group.

MH gives the Unsalted Hash to Martín, Tonya, and Laquan along with a year's worth of fuel money and two years of insurance.

Chapter 23

06:45:52

MH travels to Missouri. MH receives flowers from Ruth. With Raza's help, MH writes Ruth several postcards per week.

MH audits Raza's final undergraduate economics lectures.

MH returns to California, staying in Menlo Park.

MH visits Ira Herman's office. Zoe says Ira has not been well.

MH asks Zoe to pay taxes on his wealth. Zoe offers to manage the financial operation that would convert MH's offshore assets into onshore assets. MH clarifies that he intends for his off-shore asesets to be taxed in-place, off-shore. Zoe warns that many others who hide their wealth off-shore will be implicated by MH's actions. MH says he is not asking Ira's office to handle his accounts; instead, MH is giving them a one-month warning that he will file a tax return to the IRS reporting the account structures that Ira set up for Danny. MH intends to use his own tax return to teach the IRS how to properly use their “red team advantage”. MH tells Zoe that he believes her “blue team” work should be much more difficult than it currently is. Zoe graciously accepts the warning. Zoe notes that the higher bar for money laundering MH is setting will force out her weaker competitors from the wealth management business.

MH visits Sethu. Sethu has taken the CEO role at the company managing Trustlesscoin. MH thanks Sethu for the intimate memories of sex with her; Sethu warns MH to not risk his relationship with Ruth by becoming intimate with her, Sethu. MH considers whether Sethu and Ruth shared notes about his sexual performance since Ruth was Sethu's former supervisor at Danny's company, Keypairs. Sethu reassures MH that Sethu did not share details about MH with Ruth.

MH visits Ruth. MH gives Ruth a model of her fantasy RPG character, the level 27 half-elf paladin, Venphira Ghostbane.

MH processes his storage units and discards most of his long-term belongings. An exception is Sethu's angry portrait that Sethu gave MH.

The DHS spook Bates visits MH. Bates had helped spring the Unsalted Hash and the Leaf from impound. Bates relays news that Sebo Szarka had died in a car wreck at nearly the same location as Sethu's money laundering boyfriend had died at. Bates tells MH that he believes the crime organizations have become weary of killing and Sebo's death was likely the last of them. Bates recognizes that MH did the Treasury a favor for filing an extremely detailed tax return.

MH receives Danny's pajamas (engraved with “DML”) from Sethu. Ruth asks that Danny use the pajamas.

Promo

07:06:55

Cory Doctorow is releasing another Martin Hench novel in 2024-02 titled “The Bezel” and in 2025-01 titled “Picks and Shovels”.

Doctorow has a website named Pluralistic.

Narrator Wil Wheaton reads some digits of Pi.

History

• 2023-04-25: Red Team Blues originally published.

See also

• Cory Doctorow
• Cryptocurrency

External links

• bk4, reboil.com