Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (17 page)

The 24 Hour
Fitness gym at South Lake Union pleased Ted. It was cool and convenient.
Endless rows of exercise machines filled a room with floor to ceiling windows
on two sides. Torquemada, the head of the Spanish Inquisition, probably dreamed
of a production line of torture machines like this. And people paid to use them
of their own free-will. How many souls could Torquemada save with this kind of
set up?

Ted never saw more
than half of the machines in use at any time, but the women were mostly young
professionals, and
hijole
, were they hot.

“So I got assigned
to my first case. . . “ Chris spoke easily between breaths as he ran on the
treadmill. “You wouldn’t believe my boss on this one.”

“Who’d you get?”
Ted inclined his treadmill another few degrees.

“They call her the
‘Dragon Lady.’” Chris flipped his long blond hair out of his face. “She’s this
Vietnamese chick. Smarter than shit and tough as nails.”

Ted’s treadmill
began to return to level and slow its pace. He breathed hard as he cooled down.

“Yeah, I’m on my
first case too. I’m lookin’ for a leak in a corporate boardroom.” Ted wiped his
brow with the towel around his neck.

“This chick puts
in eighty, a hundred hours a week. She expects me to do the same. I’ve gotta
say, she doesn’t cut me any slack for the ‘boss’s son’ thing.” Chris stepped
off of his treadmill and reached for his Nalgene bottle.

“What kind of case
is it?” Ted’s breathing had just about returned to normal.

“It’s really not a
case yet. This big-wheel chairman of the board type hired us because he expects
the CEO to sue him. We’re just gathering the facts before the suit is filed.
This guy’s a high roller that my dad lined up last summer on the
Star of the
Northwest
cruise.”

“Have you met him
yet?” Ted plopped down on a bench and took a long drink of water. “Is he
another one of those
locos
who fall all over themselves as soon as they
hear who you are?”

Chris sat next to
him. “He doesn’t even know that I exist. I’m just a humble paralegal. He’s
dad’s client. As a matter of fact, he’s probably never even met the Dragon Lady
who’s the lead attorney on the case.”

“So, who is this
guy? What’s his beef?”

“I can’t tell you
details. All I can say that he’s the chairman of a big computer company and his
CEO is trying to blame him for being way over budget on this R&D project.”

Ted’s spider sense
tingled. “Dude, what kind of R&D project?”

“I don’t know.
It’s something about a new kind of computer.”

“Shit, ‘
mano
.
You’re working for Millennium Systems. The R&D project is called ‘Delphi,’ isn’t it?”

Chris’ mouth
dropped open. He sat and stared at Ted for a minute. “How did you know that?”

“Dude, I’m working
for the CEO. We’re on different sides of the same case.”

The two friends
stared at each other in silence. Chris got up, started to walk away, turned and
sat down next to Ted again. “You know I can’t talk to you about this case,
don’t you?”

“Ditto.”

“So what’re we
gonna do?” Chris took another swig of water.

Ted saw the
confusion in his friend’s eyes. “I got a bad feelin’ about this. Cat is askin’
me to do something I don’t agree with. Now, I find out that you’re on the other
end. If you and your dad’re on the other side, I must be workin’ for the bad
guys.”

Ted agonized over
the right or wrong about what he was doing. Cat had a client who needed her
help. Ted could provide special skills to help resolve her problem. But what if
Alison was a crook? What if he was on the wrong side of the fight?

“I’m not too sure
about that
amigo
.” Chris got up and beckoned Ted to follow him. “I’ve
seen my client’s files. This guy’s not a new born babe. I’ve been thinking that
I should talk to Dad about what I’ve been finding out.”

“Shit, dude,” Ted
lowered his voice as they entered the busy locker room. “If they’ve both got
their hands dirty, how do we know who’s in the right?”

“We don’t.” Chris
dialed the combination lock on his locker. “We don’t talk to each other about
this case. We do our jobs and keep out butts down.” He stripped off his gym
clothes and strode towards the shower.

“
Caramba.”
Ted sat and stared into space. He had a bad feeling about this.

****

The door slammed
shut with a thud. Catrina slid into the seat next to Ted and offered him a cup
of coffee. She hadn’t been able to resist the Caffe Ladro on the corner.

This battered
white delivery van was Catrina’s Batmobile. Plastic cartons held any number of
disguises, paraphernalia and who knows what else. While Catrina stepped out for
the coffee, Ted rummaged around in a stack of magnetic signs in the back of the
van and brought out two that said Magnolia Floral Delivery. It was only a
moment’s work to stick the signs on the side of the van.

The delivery van
sat parked in front of a large old house in Seattle’s upscale Magnolia
neighborhood. Hundred year-old oaks and maples burned with bright fall colors.
A few marigolds and other fall flowers clung precariously to their vines. Most
houses had lawns above the street level and stairs leading up to front porches.

“Explain to me
again why we couldn’t do this at the office?” The twinkle in Catrina’s gray
eyes told Ted that she was just playing with him.

Ted took a sip of
the hot coffee. “We don’t want to leave any incriminating evidence. If we hack
in from your office, we’ll leave behind your IP address. If anyone ever traces
the attack, it’ll lead them to your servers.” He slipped out of the driver’s
seat and made his way to the back of the van.

He flipped open
his laptop and booted up. “We’ll hijack a residential wireless network and
spoof the IP address. If they ever trace the hack, they’ll come back to one of
these home networks.”

Ted brought up his
wireless network connections screen. “Most people using wireless networks at
home don’t use secure passwords. I’ve got three networks in range right now.”

He selected the
network called “Montgomery Family” and clicked on “connect.” The progress bar
moved along the bottom of the screen, then the Montgomery Family network
changed to blue and the screen said “connected.”

At the bottom of
his screen, a white box asked for his pass code. Ted clicked on the Cracker
icon on his screen. In seconds he got a green light. Cracker had hacked the
password.

“That’s the first
step. We have a network connection.” Ted felt a pang of doubt in his stomach.
“Next we connect with MS.” He opened Outlook and searched for an email from
Alison Clarke. “Here we are.”

The email
contained a spreadsheet attachment. Ted opened the attachment and scanned down
the spreadsheet. “I planted a Trojan Horse on her personal computer. When she
opened that flash drive I gave her with the terrorist attack pictures, it
loaded a bot on her system. My little bot hijacked SMS and crawled the MS
network. I’ve got all of their IP addresses here.”

Ted logged onto
the MS domain controller and was challenged for a password. “Let’s see how good
YTS’s password cracker is.” Ted held his breath.

A popup window,
with a progress bar and a label, flashed onto the screen.

Please wait.

Attempting to
crack password.

The speakers from
his laptop played a tinny version of the Jeopardy theme song. “That’s Bear’s
sense of humor.”

It took forever.
“They must have strong password naming standards.” Ted wiped the beads of
perspiration from his brow. Finally, the dialog box flashed a green light and
a new window opened.

A surge of
adrenalin coursed through Ted’s system. This was the high that hackers were
after. He beat the system, but was he doing a good thing? Catrina was asking
him to commit a felony. Did the ends justify the means? Did the cops really
need for him to break the law to find out who killed that Harrison woman?
Wouldn’t they solve it on their own? But this wasn’t really about the murder
was it? It was about the boardroom leak. He was putting his ass on the line
over a bunch of rich people squabbling for control.

“We’re in.”

“You’re sure they
can’t trace you?” Catrina looked more nervous that Ted felt.

“That’s why we’re
going through all this trouble. Most hackers get caught because they get
sloppy. Justin didn’t allow any sloppiness in his organization.”

“This is all new
to me. I’m used to breaking and entering. I’ve just never done a virtual
B&E before. Seattle PD would love to catch me at something like this. I’ve
been such a pain in their butts that they’d love to put me out of business.”

Now that he was
in, Ted breathed easier. “We have the keys to the kingdom.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve just logged
in as sysadmin. I own their network.”

Catrina patted
Ted’s back. “OK, what do you see?”

“Let’s start by
looking at their CFO’s files. It looks like their Finance department is on its
own sub-net, behind a fire wall. We’re going to have to hack through that.”

****

Rickie Freeman
couldn’t have articulated why he hated his dad. Maybe it was because his dad
was so dominating, controlling Rickie’s every action. Maybe it was because his
dad was an authority figure. Rickie hated authority. Maybe it was because his
dad was always right. Whatever it was, Rickie resented his father in a way that
few sons ever did. He wanted to show him up. He wanted to prove that he was as
good as the old man. Now he had the chance.

At the age of
fifteen, Rickie had been planted in front of a video device for most of his
life. When he was little, it was the TV. His mom plopped him down in front of
the electronic babysitter and shoved a video tape into the VCR. As he got
older, he became addicted to video games. From Nintendo he graduated to
PlayStation, then on to WII.

Now he was into
computers. Or more accurately, he was into hacking. His buddies at Redmond High School got him started, but he quickly outclassed any of them. He had a God-given
talent for breaking and entering. There wasn’t any system he couldn’t get into.

His computer
teacher at school made them watch a lame
News Front
TV segment on some
old dude named Jason something or other who hacked systems for a living. It was
actually kinda cool. But Rickie had a much deeper desire: he was going to hack
into his dad’s network and show the whole world what a fraud he was.

Rickie had the big
McMansion to himself. Mom and Dad were both at work, like they were every
afternoon. He danced down the twisting staircase and through Mom’s living room.
He hesitated at the door to Dad’s office. It was forbidden territory.

When he slipped
the key into the door, it turned smoothly. He wasn’t allowed in here often and
never alone. The blonde oak desk looked out through French doors into Mom’s
garden. Behind the leather swivel chair was a matching credenza with a bunch of
framed pictures.

A wicked smile
crossed his acne-scarred face as he picked up the silver framed picture of the
old man and him on a fishing trip. He’d given the picture to his dad for his
birthday last week. He insisted that Dad keep the picture on the credenza in
his home office.

He brushed his
long hair out of his eyes, turned the picture frame over and slipped open a
concealed compartment. From the compartment he removed a flash drive and
replaced it with another.

“Smug bastard,”
Rickie said to himself. Dad never even examined the picture frame. It was a
nanny-cam Rickie found on the Internet, the same place where he got the
nanny-cam that he concealed in his parents’ bedroom. The flash drive contained
up to seventy-two hours of footage. During that time Dad surely must have
logged into his work system. Dad spent more time in his home office logged into
the computer than he did with the family.

Just getting into
Dad’s office had been a challenge. Dad kept it locked twenty-four- seven.
Rickie had stolen Dad’s keys one night while Mom and Dad were making God-awful
noises in their bedroom. He got an imprint and made a key from a blank he shoplifted
from Lowe’s.

Rickie replaced
the nanny-cam and locked his dad’s office, then bounded up the stairs to his
bedroom. He plugged the flash drive into his MacBook Air and fast-forwarded
through the boring stuff until Dad entered the picture. This was Rickie’s third
attempt. He had to re-position the picture frame twice so that it could get a
better shot of the keyboard.

The picture on his
screen showed Dad sitting at the desk. He turned on his computer and his
fingers went to the keyboard. Rickie froze the action. There was the first
letter, a capital “R.” He carefully wrote down each key stroke until he had the
password. “R1cK1e#1.” What bullshit. Dad used Rickie’s name for his password.

From his desk, he
used the home wireless network to log onto his dad’s computer. Dad would have a
cow if he knew that Rickie had set up a wireless network. He was always
bitching about how insecure they were. Rickie’s secret network allowed him to
work from his room, just in case his parents came home early.

He found the VPN
icon on the screen and double clicked. He entered the password as he had seen
his father do on the video. The screen flashed a warning, then the Millennium
Systems logo came up. His heart leapt. He was into the best protected network
in the world.

What the hell?
Richard Freeman Sr., still smarting from the public humiliation administered by
that damned Justin McCormack on
News Front
, stared at the report for the
hundredth time.
These numbers don’t add up.

Freeman brushed
his hands across his salt and pepper military-style haircut and pondered the
report. There were fifty seconds of unbilled time on his computer network this
month.
Fifty seconds?
What did that mean? How could the system skip
almost a full minute? That was an eternity in computer time.

A big man, Freeman
sat ram rod straight at his desk. Once a Marine, always a Marine. He hit a few
keys on his keyboard and brought up last month’s report. No missing time. Not
the month before either. Or the month before that.
Fifty seconds.

He went back to
this month’s report. He clicked on the little “+” sign next to the detail line.
It opened up even greater detail. There it was. Thirty seconds. Then ten
seconds, then another ten seconds. Three distinct events. All late at night.
The domain controller processed a request, went blank for a few seconds, then
went merrily on its way.

What the hell
was going on?
A hacker! Someone was hacking in. They were using that
unbilled time to worm their way into the system, then, if his experience was
right, they assumed a legitimate user’s ID. His system was under attack.

There, in the log files,
were the user ID’s of people logged on when the attack occurred. He dialed the
phone.

It rang once, then:
“Millennium Systems IT, this is Sandra, can I help you?”

“Sandra, Richard
Freeman in Security. I have a quick question for you. On Wednesday morning, at
about one am, were you logged into the system?”

“One am? Are you
nuts? Even I’m not that dedicated. I was sleeping like a baby. Why?”

“Oh, nothing to
worry about.” He had hit pay dirt on the first try. “I’m just looking into some
irregularities in the system logs.”

He hung up without
saying ‘good bye’. It took seven more attempts to find the next person who was
not on the system when their ID was used late at night. The third person
frightened him. Jackson Schmidt, Millennium Systems CFO. Schmidt had the keys
to the kingdom. If someone could hack in with his ID, they could do inestimable
damage.

“Goddamn it,”
Freeman said to himself. “Nobody hacks in to Millennium Systems.”

No one in MS
Security would get a moment's rest until he knew the hacker's name. And then,
God help them.

****

Chris was feeling
stronger every day. He was back to bench pressing two hundred pounds and his
runs with Amy were up to two miles a day.

“Twenty-two,
twenty-three . . .” Amy gently wiped his brow with the towel around her neck as
she spotted Chris’ curls. “Two more, c’mon. Don’t stop now.”

Chris had never
been in better shape. He was driven to excel for her. He always had to do just
two more reps for her.

“Twenty-five.” He
dropped the free weights and blew out a long breath.

Amy stood toe-to-toe
with him. He looked down into her brown eyes. She didn’t flinch, didn’t move. He
watched her chest expanding and contracting with each breath.

“Good job. I think
that’s it for today.” She still didn’t move.

Their faces were
inches apart.

Chris felt his
heart beating in his chest, felt her closeness. He moved his face slowly
forward. There was a strange look in her eyes. Was it fear? She turned her head
up to meet his lips.

He took her face
in his hands. He still dreamed of Meagan every night. He couldn’t put himself on
the line again. He never wanted to go through that kind of pain, ever again.

Chris turned
away. “I'm sorry, Amy. I can't do this. It's too soon.” He turned and headed
for the locker room.

****

“You what?” Ted
unrolled the chimichanga and added shredded lettuce on top of the flap. “Are
you
loco, amigo?
The
chica
clearly digs you.” He sprinkled
shredded cheddar cheese over the lettuce and reached for the guacamole and sour
cream.

Wednesday night
dinners at his apartment had become a new tradition. Chris came over every week
after his workout at 24-hour Fitness, which was only a few blocks from Ted’s
building. Ted used Chris’ workout time to cook. Cooking always grounded him,
made him feel close to his family, no matter that they lived fifteen-hundred
miles away.

“I think she
wanted me to kiss her.” Chris paused setting the table. Okay, it was really a
breakfast bar. Finally, he reached in the fridge for a couple of Coronas. “Jesus,
Ted. It’s wrong on so many levels.”

Ted looked up from
the counter. His tall blond friend leaned against the breakfast bar, a hang-dog
look on his face.
Wasn’t he ever going to get over Meagan?
Ted still had
the nightmares, but he had moved on with his life. These weekly sessions were
beginning to feel like some kind of girly talk show. Guys didn't talk this much
about their feelings.

“She’s a
professional, you know.” Chris took a pull on his Coronas. “It’s unethical for
her to get mixed up with her clients." He spoke in a quiet monotone. "And
I’m just not ready.”

“Okay, dude, so
why're you hangin’ out with her? You don’t need her anymore. Shit, man, I can
hardly keep up with you anymore when we run. You don’t need no physical
therapist.” Ted passed a plate with a
chimichanga, frijoles
and
arroz
to Chris.

Chris took the
plate. “Goddamn, Ted. This looks amazing." His voice perked up. "You’ll
make someone a good wife someday.” He broke off a piece of the deep-fried flour
tortilla and plopped it into his mouth. “I don’t know. . . I just like being
around her. She kind of fills up a hole in my life, I guess.”

Ted slathered
homemade chipotle salsa over his
chimi
. “Look, dude, either shit or get
off the pot. I’m no Doctor Phil, but even I know that it ain’t right. If you’re
interested in her, you’ve gotta let her know. If you're not, then it’s not fair
to string her along.” He took that first bite. Heaven. Just as good as the
chimis
that Papa made. “Ask her out." Ted spoke around a mouthful of food. “Take
her on a date; see if she’s really interested.”

****

“Mr. Chung, I’m
Dorothy Robinson, Department of Homeland Security.” Catrina flashed her ID. “And
this is special agent Washington, FBI.” She tilted her head towards Jonathon
Jefferson.

Good
,
Catrina thought, he
couldn’t be more surprised if we stepped off of a flying
saucer
.

She noticed the
manager glance around the bank’s posh two-story lobby to see if anyone was
watching the interchange.

“We need a few
minutes of your time. Can we go into your office?” Catrina saw a lavishly-appointed
office behind the door through which Chung had just stepped.

“What’s this all
about?” Beads of perspiration appeared on the manager’s bald forehead.

He’s got
something to hide.
“Darrell Chung, right? Let’s go in your office and talk
about it.” Catrina didn’t wait for Chung to acquiesce.

Jeff gently put a
hand on Chung’s shoulder and turned him towards his office. “The lady doesn’t
like to be kept waiting.”

Chung seated
himself behind his desk as Catrina and Jeff took the leather chairs opposite him.
“Could I see your ID again?”

Chung isn’t
about to be taken in. I guess Millennium System’s bad publicity on
News
Front
must still be fresh on everyone's mind.

Catrina handed him
her black leather folder with a badge on one side and a picture ID on the
other. It would take an expert using microscopic methods to detect the
forgeries.

Catrina matched
the picture on her ID. The medium length brown hair was a wig, the brown eyes,
contacts. For good measure, she wore a sports bra to flatten her chest and hip
pads to fill out her dark gray suit. It wasn’t comfortable, especially the four-inch
pumps, but it was necessary. Besides, the pumps gave her a height advantage
over the little man, and that could be intimidating.

She glanced over
at Jeff. His normally bald head was covered with a close-cropped wig; he
sported a mustache and goatee over a banker’s style pinstripe black suit. The
pot belly strapped over his washboard abs was a nice touch.

“Mr. Chung, we
need to see your files on a customer.” Catrina referred to the notebook in her
hand, even though she knew full well whose files she wanted. “One Jackson
Schmidt.”

"Ms., ah,
Robinson, you know we can’t release that information.” Chung was sweating
profusely. “You know you need a search warrant.”

“I don’t think you
understand. Surely you’ve heard of the ‘Patriot Act?’” Catrina flipped her
notebook closed and dropped it into her black leather purse. “All we need is
the signature of a US attorney, and we can tear this place apart.”

Catrina watched
the fight go out of Chung.

“This is a matter
of national security. We’re following the money trail of al-Qaeda terrorists. I
don’t think you want it made public that First Washington National Bank is suspected
of laundering terrorist money.”

Chung hesitated,
then reached for the phone. “I….I need to okay this with our legal department.
This will just take a minute.”

“Mr. Chung.”
Jeff’s harsh voice cut the air as he pushed down on the phone’s release button.
“We don’t have a minute. We don’t have another second. If I don’t have those
files in my hands in sixty seconds,” he reached in his pocket for a cell phone,
“I call in our forensic accounting team. We lock your doors, twenty carnivorous
accountants take as long as they need to crawl through every file in your
systems, every paper in your building.”

“Oh, and by the
way.” Catrina loosed her best evil grin. “We can’t control the media. I can’t
guarantee that there won’t be news vans from every TV station in town parked in
front of your building.”

Chung dropped the
phone onto its receiver. He seemed to deflate in front of Catrina’s eyes.

Good. He’s
right where we want him.

****

Most of the lights
on the floor were out. Here and there a small pool of light illuminated the
cubicles and offices of the damned. Silence reigned. Occasionally a shadow offered
the only sign of life, or was it just a reflection of life missed? This, Chris
thought, is life in a big-city law firm.

Chris’ mood
matched the gloomy weather. The November sky darkens early in the Pacific Northwest.
The rain poured down outside. Chris sat in his gray cubicle on a gray evening
wondering what in the hell he was still doing at work at nine o’clock on a
Friday night.

He glanced over
his shoulder. Kathy Nguyen was still hard at work. He must have been out of his
mind. He promised himself that he would match his new boss, hour for hour. Will
was right. The Dragon Lady worked longer and harder than anyone else at
HB&J.

So why did he
care? This job was just temporary. He’d start law school in the fall. He didn’t
really care about pleasing the Old Man. His dad wouldn’t, couldn’t possibly
know about the hours he was putting in, the elbow grease he was applying to
this case.

It wasn’t even
really a case yet. He and Kathy were pouring through thousands of pages of
documents, thousands of emails, looking for grounds for a countersuit that
hadn’t even been filed.

Okay, if he was
honest with himself, he did kinda want to impress Kathy. The tiny Vietnamese
woman was one of the brightest, most driven people he had ever met. But she was
hot too. Those ebony eyes, the raven hair.

Wait a minute.
What’s this?

Chris had allowed
his attention to wander. The documents had been floating in front of his eyes,
his conscious mind numb. But somewhere, deep inside an alarm went off.

The file was
labeled “Donna Harrison.” He knew that name. That magical thing inside his head
turned on and he was scrolling though newspaper headlines on the computer
screen in his mind. There it was.

“Software Giant
Slain,” the headline screamed. He read on. Donna Harrison was the president of
DigiSystems, a Redmond based computer security firm. Her nude body was found
floating in Elliot Bay.

Why does Terry
Metcalf have a file on a dead software mogul?

Chris leafed
through the folder. There were pictures, obviously from surveillance cameras.
There was no doubt that the woman in the pictures was Donna Harrison. Or was
she? She was wearing a cleaning lady’s uniform. The name tag read “Betty.”

Did Mrs.
Harrison have a twin sister?

Here were Mrs.
Harrison’s financial records. How did Metcalf get a hold of those? Medical
records. Apparently she had a heart condition. Copies of every article ever
written about her. Her whole life, spread out on paper before him. The life of
a murdered woman.

Something was very
fishy here. What should he do?