Shadows of Golstar (4 page)

He assured her he would join her if time allowed, then
they parted ways.

That was the third invitation this month, he thought
as he approached his door. He suspected the glorious Ms. Penman had ulterior
motives behind her invitations. He imagined his not insignificant presence
would cause quite a stir within her social circle, not that he had ever
actually considered accepting her invitations. Still, he thought; a little
feminine company would be nice for a change. Shaking his head, he resumed
walking and quickly reached his office door.

He palmed the lock plate. It recognized his DNA. The
door slid silently aside and he entered.
 
His office was, likewise, modified with a raised ceiling slightly higher
than the hallway so that he could finally straighten to his full height. He
casually looked around at the over-sized furnishings he was thoughtfully
provided by his client. It took him a moment to notice that he already had
company. The visitor was dwarfed in one of Owens’ side chairs, looking like a
small child in a business suit with feet dangling above the thick carpet.
Willens Santee, Senior Vice President of SolGen, Incorporated, his soon-to-be
ex-client, looked up and beamed at Owens.    

“Janus,” Willens’ booming voice was at variance with
his diminutive size, “I’m a happy man. I can’t tell you how pleased we are with
the outcome of your investigation.” Owens winced inwardly.    

He normally went by his last name, as he wasn’t overly
fond of the name ‘Janus’ since being teased mercilessly as a child by other
children in his day crèche. Loders were hardworking people and their limited
population dictated long, dedicated hours at their jobs. Loders took particular
pride in their work ethic. Little time could be devoted to child rearing. As a
solution, day crèches were established.

The day crèches, a combination of day-care, school,
physical conditioning programs and social centers, were where all children over
the age of two spent the majority of their developing years. They would spend
the greater part of their adolescent life under the care of the day crèche
staffs, until they eventually returned to their families on their sixteenth
birthdays and continued their educations in a more traditional manner.

Owens, the son of a typical Loder family, was no
exception to the rule and on his second birthday, he was bundled off to his
assigned day crèche. As a child, Owens had always been a bit of a loner. Early
on, his insatiable curiosity set him further apart from most of the other
children. That same curiosity drove him to excel in his schooling and made him
a favorite of many of his instructors. Unfortunately, this also led to
jealousies among his peers.  

The day crèche was a closed environment and in such
environments, cliques were often the norm rather than the exception with the
younger children. They would frequently gather around and taunt those who were
different and Owens, always the outsider, was forced to endure the ridicule.
Owens’ name became a favorite target. He could still remember the high
screeching voices calling out for “Janus the anus, Janus is a painus,” and
other colorful taunts.    

Fortunately, the phase didn’t last long. Into a
child’s tenth year, the curriculum intensified and individual achievement was
emphasized. The cliques would slowly dissolve as each student focused on their
heavily loaded schedules and spent less time in social gatherings. The jeers
faded, at least in public. He would still encounter the occasional derogatory
remark by some underachiever, but eventually they disappeared as Owens grew
older and towered over his fellows. Even for a Loder he was unusually tall.

Willens insisted that they address each other by their
first names during Owens’ association with SolGen, and every time he was called
‘Janus,’ he was reminded of his childhood embarrassment. He was glad he
wouldn’t have to hear his first name for much longer.

Owens stifled a smile as he watched Santee struggle to
get out of the chair. Squirming and wiggling, he finally managed to slide to his
feet. He momentarily stumbled but caught himself just before he fell. Ignoring
his awkward exit from the chair, Santee’s dignity remained unscathed. He walked
purposely forward, stretched to his full one hundred and twenty centimeters,
and extended his hand. Gingerly, Owens reached down and gently shook the hand
of his diminutive client.

“Thank you Willens,” Janus Owens, of Owens
Investigations, warmly responded.  “It took a while to nail the thief, but
I don’t think that you’ll be bothered by SynthEnGen stealing your trade secrets
again anytime soon… or by any other competitor, for that matter,” he added.

SolGen had originally gone by the name of Solaris
Genetics.
 
It was one of the three
original companies founded by the first families colonizing Genhome. They were
still headquartered and operating successfully on the planet.
 
SynthEnGen was first known as Synthetic
Engineering and Genetics. The third company didn't change its name and still
operated with the corporate logo of General Innovations Biotech. 

Although they were technically competitors, their
companies’ product lines and fields of research were frequently
complimentary.  The companies often entered into joint business alliances
to share in special project research, development costs and ultimately, the
profits. At the very least, inter-company relations had always been
professionally cordial. So it came as a shock to SolGen when it discovered that
SynthEnGen might be engaged in corporate espionage against its fellow company.
 

Owens had been hired to discover how SynthEnGen had
been able to release unique, new products that SolGen itself was readying for
market. SolGen’s concern began when SynthEnGen introduced an original
lightweight wood product that closely mimicked the characteristics of dense,
ceramic-metal alloys used in surface transportation components. SolGen had been
about to announce virtually the same product later that month. That SynthEnGen
released it weeks ahead of SolGen was curious enough, but the added fact the
product was outside of SynthEnGen’s usual product lines indicated to SolGen it
was possible that it was being beaten to the market with one of its own product
designs. 

In the past two years, SynthEnGen released a number of
other products, almost identical to what SolGen had been preparing to market.
SolGen realized it had a serious security problem that was wreaking havoc with
its market share. If the problem persisted, it could conceivably drive SolGen
right out of business.

With no evidence of actual break-ins or data hacking,
SolGen concluded secret company research information must have been leaked from
a source within the company. There had to be a corporate spy active in their
midst, someone probably placed within the product research and development
organization. Management believed this hidden mole was responsible for somehow
siphoning off product research data to SynthEnGen, allowing them to beat SolGen
to the market.    

Since the local authorities had limited resources and
no experience with the suspected white-collar crime, the investigation fell on
the shoulders of SolGen’s own Office of Internal Security.  Although
SolGen’s Security itself had little experience in the field of corporate
espionage, it was well staffed and at least formally trained. SolGen management
was confident that its Security staff would solve the crime in short
order.  However, after eight months, their Security failed to report any
real progress. They seemed no closer to finding the spy than when they had
started.  

Management realized their confidence had been
misplaced.
 
SolGen’s Security had been
unable to discover the source of the leak and the company continued to
hemorrhage in the marketplace.
 
Worse,
they were beginning to lose prestige as a leader in their line of genetically
engineered products. SolGen watched helplessly as SynthEnGen again beat it to
the market, releasing another product very similar to one that SolGen had under
development. In desperation, SolGen’s management turned to Owens, an ex-police detective,
turned private investigator. Over the past few years Owens had gained a solid
reputation for success in solving cases of corporate espionage. 
  

On being retained, Owens reviewed SolGen Security’s
investigation. He quickly saw that SolGen Security had concentrated its
investigation on its own research, engineering and technical staffs, working
from the bottom up. It was Security’s theory that those at the lower levels,
involved with the “hands-on” research and development, were the ones most likely
to succumb to the temptation of making a fast credit.

 Based on his work on past cases of this nature,
Owens instead focused on upper management, administration and marketing;
starting at the very top.  It was Owens’ experience that the higher one
climbed the corporate ladder, the less scrutiny one received related to
security and other matters. And with unlimited and unsupervised access to
company data, Owens often found information leaks led right back to the
executive offices.

 It took several weeks of investigation for Owens
to ferret out that a particular high level SolGen officer was ripe for
blackmail. Through patient investigation, he discovered a family member of a
certain well-placed executive was a drug addict. It turned out to be the
executive’s daughter. In interviewing the daughter’s friends, Owens found the
daughter was not the soul of discretion. She had confided in one of her
friends. She had bragged she was blackmailing her father for hush money about
her drug use.  

The suspected officer’s daughter was addicted to a
highly illegal endorphin-based drug. If the daughter’s addiction was revealed,
the legal and social implications would severely affect the family. The father
was being groomed for a higher position within the company, so to avoid scandal
and protect his pending advancement he provided money and, at times, actually
procured the drug for his daughter in exchange for her silence. 
  

As it hadn’t taken him very long to find the potential
weak link in SolGen’s management core, Owens surmised SynthEnGen had easily
discovered the daughter’s addiction as well and had decided to exploit the
situation. Instead of demanding money, their payment was confidential company
information in exchange for silence. The executive was now entangled in two
separate blackmail schemes based on the same dirty secret.

However, this was hearsay and speculation. Owens had
needed hard evidence, some real proof of what was going on. Bank accounts and
personal spending habits often provide the first clues. But since money wasn’t
changing hands, no fiscal audit trails existed. And until now, the suspect had
been clever enough to evade discovery. Somehow the officer was able to mask his
download access into the corporate database.

Owens decided that the suspect would have to be caught
in the act, and to do that would call for an old-fashioned sting operation. He
took part in a number of stings while still serving as a detective in the
police department. Some had been quite elaborate, but in his experience, the
simplest scenarios usually had the greatest chances for success. He felt
certain a fairly straight-forward plan would be best to nail the culprit.

Owens immediately went to work. In his investigation,
he had reviewed the company’s internal practices. As a result, he knew that
many high-ranking officers received bulletins on new products and could access
more detailed technical information on products that were under development. He
reasoned this was the likely source of the leak. From this questionable
practice, it was easy for him to conceive a simple trap.

He met with selected SolGen researchers and data
managers he had personally screened. The trap was based upon providing company
officers who had regular access to new research information with unique sets of
what would appear as legitimate data. The data would relate to a single high
profile product currently under development. As usual, the officers would
receive the new-product notification through normal company channels. However,
unknown to them, each would have computer access to a distinctive set of
“tagged” technical records.  At first blush, they would all appear to be
identical, and though the differences were subtle, they became clear if you
knew where to look.    

Owens also worked with the local judicial system and
law enforcement to have a search warrant made ready. Owens then had company
techs monitor all the terminals’ read-only access. He didn’t waste time trying
to figure out how the data was being downloaded from supposedly restricted
terminals. First, he needed to catch the thief with the marked data in his
possession. Discovering how the thief had covered his tracks would come later.
With the preparations completed, the trap was set and a new product was announced
to the corporate executives.    

Within two days of being notified of the new product,
the suspect’s terminal was accessed a number of times but with no indication of
an illicit transfer of material. Owens waited another week and noted the
suspect had stopped accessing the product materials for three days. Under
surveillance, the suspect was observed at a public cyber café using one of the
in-house terminals. Owens knew then that the trap was sprung.

He notified the authorities and accompanied them on
the search of the SynthEnGen research department. The search warrant provided
authority to freeze all R&D files and required that data located in those
files be decrypted for a technical audit. Searching SynthEnGen’s R&D files,
it didn’t take long to locate the SolGen product research data and the hidden
markers unique to the suspect’s terminal access. At first, SynthEnGen
vigorously denied the data belonged to SolGen but the protests were abruptly
silenced when the nature of the trap was explained.