No Stone Unturned: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Eleven

by Julie Moffett

  He seemed undecided as to whether to push for more information, but then he changed tactics. “Are you looking for a particular file in the Vatican?”

  “Yes. It has to do with the assassination of President Apeloko of the Congo, seven years ago. The Catholic Church was involved in the negotiations between Apeloko and the Congolese bishops who were trying to ease the iron fist of his despotism.”

  “I remember reading about that.” Elvis ran his hand through his hair. “Didn’t the guy and his son get assassinated, presumably by some of their associates?”

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  His brow furrowed together as it did when he thought. “Does it have to be the Vatican archives? There might be useful intelligence on that situation elsewhere.”

  “I need to know exactly who within the Catholic Church was involved and how. Specifically, I want to know if Slash was involved. The Vatican would be the ones with the file, right?”

  “Well, yes, but they might not be the only ones with intelligence on the assassination.” He shifted on the couch so he could look at me directly. “What about taking this down a notch, at least at first? We’d have a better chance of getting the information you need if we come at it from a different angle.”

  “What angle?”

  “The CIA angle. I guarantee you, they’ll have intelligence on what went down in the Congo. That would be much more familiar hacking for both of us, although a lot more dangerous this close to home. Still, we’d have a better chance to get at this in a timely fashion if we go that route.”

  I pressed my hand against my forehead. “It’s a good idea, Elvis. I’m not thinking properly. I’m too close to this.”

  He put an arm around my shoulder, pulled me in for a hug. “Look, I get it. You love him, which means you’ve got a lot invested in his safety. So do I. Slash saved my life on more than one occasion. If he’s in trouble, I’ve got his back. Besides, I may have a trick or two up my sleeve. Come on, let’s get hacking.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Thanks, Elvis.”

  “No thanks necessary. You can count on me anytime.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lexi

  Elvis had more than a trick; he had a freaking back door into the CIA, which saved us, at minimum, forty-eight hours of work. Possibly more. We drank coffee, ate snacks and hacked our hearts out rooting around in the system. We proceeded cautiously, so as not to draw the attention of their security monitoring software. It was extremely tedious work, unlike in the movies when after three dramatic clicks, the desired information popped up. Finding a specific file without using the search query function—which inevitably tipped off the security software—was like finding a special magic sword in multiplayer game world. There were lots of promising leads and even more dead ends.

  Around dinnertime Basia and Xavier returned from purchasing furniture for their new house, on which they would close next Tuesday. Xavier joined the hack after Elvis quickly brought him up to speed. The backdoor was starting to get crowded. Basia and Gwen went out on the back porch to drink lemonade and enjoy the warm evening while dinner cooked.

  “Bingo!” Elvis finally exclaimed. “I’ve found a folder that appears to correspond to the target years and countries. Give me a minute to poke around in the subfolders.” He spent a bit of time investigating. “This looks like the right stuff, but the security processes are pretty lame. There’s no use of code names, just regular text subfolder headings Africa, Congo, Vatican, and Apeloko. I would have expected something more innocuous like Project 19 or Continent X.”

  Inner alarms were going off in my head, and I sensed Elvis’s growing unease, as well.

  “Okay, we need to assume there might be a security tripwire associated with this information that we need to avoid,” I said. “Hopefully we haven’t already tripped it. We can’t back out now that we’re so close, but we don’t want create an uproar that will bring attention to this information if, in fact, it’s damaging to Slash.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Elvis asked.

  I considered the options. “Well, it looks like there’s an audio file, a large video file, a couple of photos, and some documents. All encrypted, naturally. It will be difficult to copy the video or audio files because of their size without alerting the monitoring software, but we might swing it. We could also attempt it in two stages, grabbing some documents and getting out, seeing if we can crack the encryption, and confirming that it contains the material we’re looking for, then going back for the rest if we need to do so.”

  “You got a plan, geek princess?” Xavier asked.

  I considered the options. It might be trap to find out who might be interested in this material and it might just be a honey pot that was established with false or fictional information to convince an interested party to stop looking while alerting the authorities to the presence of prowlers. But I didn’t believe anyone would go to the trouble of creating audio and video files in a honey pot. Too much time and wasted effort. So, my gut was telling me it had to be the stuff we wanted. We just had to be very careful and a lot smarter than the defenders.

  “Yeah, follow my lead.” I tapped on some keys. “We’re going to go in real slow. If we detect a trap, we shift gears and try to buy enough time to grab what we can and get out.”

  I handed Xavier and Elvis their assignments. “Xavier, I want you to monitor the back door to make sure that we get some warning of any activity that might try and close it before we can get out. Elvis, you have the security monitoring software. Do whatever you can to keep it asleep or distracted long enough so we can get out. I’ll also need you to make sure that we can’t be backtracked afterward in the activity logs if they do detect our presence. I’m going to grab as many of the documents as I dare, and perhaps a photo or two if things are going well. That shouldn’t take too long, and we’ll just have to hope that it’s enough. I want to do this in just one try, so let’s put our best game faces on.”

  “Got it,” Elvis said. “Be advised it will take me about fifteen minutes to set up so I can monitor the security software and temporarily suspend the activity logging.” His fingers raced across the keys.

  While he was doing that, Xavier reported he was in position, monitoring the back door. I spent the next fifteen minutes planning my exact steps so I’d be as quick as possible in case we did set off an alarm.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” Elvis said. “Just give me a heads-up right before you start to actually copy the files. I’m going to create an error loop that will effectively block the security software and make any file transfer logs that do get saved look like a malfunction.”

  “Understood.” I began with the penetration, taking my time and going as carefully as I could. After about five minutes, Xavier interrupted my train of thought.

  “Lexi, we have something going on with the back door,” he said. “It’s subtle, but the traffic through the access point has increased in the last two minutes. Are either of you doing anything that would cause that?”

  “Nope,” Elvis said. “Not me.

  “Me neither,” I said. “Did we trip an alarm?”

  “I don’t think so,” Xavier mused. “It appears most of the traffic right now is from the outside coming in.”

  I watched the data scroll across my screen looking for answers or anomalies. Something was off “That’s strange. Elvis, who else would know about this back door?”

  “No one except for Xavier and me. If someone else does, we’ll have to close it down after this.”

  “Understood. Keep monitoring it. I want to get this done and get out of here.” I navigated to the subfolder and started to select the files in order to copy them when they suddenly disappeared. I refreshed my directory and caught a glimpse of them before they vanished again.

  My hands flew across the keyboard. “Elvis, what’s going on? Is the security system onto us?
It looks like it is randomly renaming the files.” I refreshed the directory and everything changed again.

  “No.” His voice sounded puzzled. “There is no indication the security system is aware of our presence at all.”

  “Once again, the back door is showing increased unknown activity,” Xavier offered. “Can’t explain it, but it’s definitely there.”

  What the heck is going on?

  I jumped out of the hack to write a quick script and readied it for my next attempt. “Elvis, I am going to try and copy a file in about ten seconds. Are you ready?”

  “You’re good. Go for it.”

  I ran the script, then hit refresh. Immediately I received a message confirming I’d retrieved the file. But when I went to where the copied file was supposed to be, the directory was blank. My log showed I’d copied the file, but somehow my copy had been routed to some unknown directory.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, mystified.

  “Back door activity spiked about fifteen seconds ago and has since gone back down,” Xavier stated calmly.

  “No change in the security software,” Elvis reported.

  Frustrated, I revised the script to make two copies instead of one, routing the first to the same new temporary subdirectory I tried to use last time. Concurrently, I secretly sent a second copy directly back to my laptop through the back door. I alerted Xavier and Elvis of my planned maneuver and ran the script. Abruptly, I was kicked out of the system.

  “Back door just went down and then came back up,” Xavier said.

  “I’m knocked out,” said Elvis.

  A quick check confirmed my copy of the file did not make it through the back door before it went down. That meant only one thing. There was no automatic software that could be responding in this sophisticated a fashion.

  We were facing a human opponent. Someone who was good.

  Very good.

  “Holy crap!” I breathed. “There’s someone on the other side in real time, and they aren’t using the regular security software. We must have tripped a hidden alarm when we first started looking for the files. Who could it be?”

  “No idea,” Xavier said. “But it’s weird. The defensive activities are being directed from outside the back door and corresponding with the activity spikes.”

  No way was that right. “That’s...impossible!” I stared at the screen. “Outside protection on files that are seven years old? Through a hidden back door supposedly only known by you and Elvis and being handled by an incredibly talented hacker?”

  “Crazy.” Elvis’s shoulders were tense, but I heard a note of excitement in his voice. He wasn’t used to meeting anyone approaching his level of skill. “Who the heck are they hiring at the CIA these days?”

  “It just doesn’t make sense.” My brain hurt. Someone had anticipated and counter opposed my moves effortlessly. “It’s bizarre. It’s like whoever is on the other side can read my mind and knows what I’ll do before I even do it.”

  Xavier swore when the back door suddenly dropped offline again. “I know, right? This is wizard-level planning and execution. With the exception of a few Russian and Chinese hackers, there isn’t anybody I know with moves like this outside our group.”

  My fingers froze on the keyboard. OMG. The pieces suddenly fit together.

  Gwen, who must have been in the kitchen, ran in to see what all the excitement was about. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re close to our prize,” Elvis said. “Come on, come on. Xavier, get that back door open again.”

  “Lexi,” Xavier barked, snapping me out of my trance. “The door is open. What do you want us to do now?”

  Nothing. I was numb. There was only one person in the world who would know about the Zimmermans’ back door and would know my moves, our moves, like that.

  “Abort,” I said quietly.

  “What?” Elvis threw a wild glance over his shoulder at me. He had the hacker glaze, a look we got when we get close to the target of the hack. “Are you kidding? We’re so close.”

  “Abort. Please.” I said it louder this time, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

  “Why?” Elvis’s face scrunched up in confusion. “The security software has no idea we’re inside. We’re just fighting with another hacker who wants the information for himself. We can beat him. We don’t want to let him get there first. It puts Slash at further risk.”

  “Elvis, it’s Slash on the other side.” My nerves, stretched to the breaking point, were causing queasy twitches in my stomach. “He doesn’t want me to see what’s in there. He knows if we’re determined he can’t keep all three of us out at the same time, especially when we’re using the same back door. He can’t shut that down permanently or he shuts himself out, too. He also knows he can’t do too much or he’ll alert the authorities and jeopardize the back door. But he’s still trying anyway, hoping we will quit.” I couldn’t believe I was saying this. How had it come to this—Slash and I on opposing sides? We were actively working against each other, like enemies. The queasiness in my stomach was turning into full-fledged nausea.

  Elvis was as floored by the situation as I was, color rising in his cheeks. “Are you kidding me? We’re hacking against Slash? Why the hell would he try to stop us? I thought you were trying to help him.”

  “I am. It’s complicated.” How could I explain it to Elvis when I was just working it out myself?

  “Lexi, does he know it’s you?” Xavier asked.

  “I think so.”

  “And he’s still blocking you?” Elvis asked, his voice incredulous. “What’s going on with you two?”

  My throat was so tight, I could barely squeak out the words. “I think he’s protecting me.”

  For a moment, Elvis stared at me and then shook his head. “That’s not cool. Not cool at all.” Then he turned, tapped something on the keyboard and stood up. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I didn’t.

  Without another word, he turned and left the room. I let him go. I couldn’t deal with his feelings when I was still fighting my own.

  “Okay. I’m closing up,” Xavier said, his hands busy on the keyboard. “At least it was Slash coming in through our back door and not someone else. Guess I must have mentioned it to him before. That guy has a mind like a steel trap.”

  As he shut down, I sat in front of my laptop, staring blankly at the screen. I felt sick.

  Xavier stood, flexed and shook out his hands. “Don’t worry, Lexi. Everything will work out.” As he walked past, he put his hand on my shoulder, letting the solid weight linger for a moment. He didn’t ask what was going on with Slash and me or why I’d made the decision I had. I suppose neither mattered at this point.

  Xavier disappeared into the kitchen, and I heard a door open and close. He’d gone out to the back porch, presumably to find Basia.

  I glanced up when I heard a shuffling noise. Gwen. I’d forgotten she was still here. She looked at me sympathetically. “Lexi, are you okay?”

  Was she kidding? I’d just had a serious hack-off against my fiancé. We’d been officially on opposing sides, working hard to thwart each other. It wasn’t a drill. It wasn’t a game. We’d been aggressive opponents, fighting a brutal, virtual duel against each other.

  How had this happened to us?

  “No, I’m not okay,” I admitted. “I just hacked against the man I love. He shut me out, and I let him.”

  “Why?” she asked. Her question was innocent and concerned, and it helped me focus.

  “I don’t know, Gwen. I think he’s afraid of losing me. Whatever is in those files, he must have known I’d come after them, and that’s why he set a trap...why he was waiting for me.” The fact that he’d planned the tripwire and trap in advance, knowing I’d come for them, hurt more than I could articulate.

  I held up my left h
and where the blue diamond in my engagement ring sparkled. “It doesn’t make sense. Why is he fighting me so hard on this? We’re committed to spending the rest of our lives together. He’s not going to lose me because of what’s in a file.”

  I wouldn’t let that happen.

  Gwen’s voice softened. “I think what’s important is that you loved him enough to stop the hack. You stopped it because you were protecting Slash, just like he was protecting you. That’s what people who really love each other do. They stick together. They figure it out. I know you will.”

  Sudden clarity descended on me and I abruptly stood. “Gwen, you’re absolutely right.” I knew exactly what I had to do.

  I shoved my laptop into my bag. “Tell Elvis and Xavier I’m sorry I wasted their time. I’ll make it up to them. I promise.”

  Alarm crossed her face. “Of course, I’ll tell them. But Lexi...what are you doing?”

  I added the power cord to my bag and zipped it up. I slung it over my shoulder, my voice steady, my mind made up.

  “Doing what I should have done in the first place. I’m going to Italy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Slash

  A thousand miles and an ocean away in his Rome hotel, Slash closed his laptop, resting his elbows atop it and placing his forehead in his hands. She’d found the files. He had no doubt it was Lexi the second the alarm had been triggered. She’d been faster than he expected, and he should have known better than to underestimate her. As soon as he saw the hacker’s methods, his suspicions were confirmed. He’d hacked enough times with her to know her style. He also knew Xavier and Elvis were helping her. It was their back door, after all. It’s what he would have done—brought in the best to get the information. If only they knew this was the one time he didn’t want their help. He didn’t want any of them to know what those files held.