White-Hot Hack

by Tracey Garvis Graves

  “Okay, cupcake. I hear you.”

  “I’ll let you go. I’m sure you have lots of work to do. I love you.” Her voice cracked a little, and it broke his heart.

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure I can get it all done. I love you too.” It killed him to disconnect the call.

  Ian looked around for Charlie and spotted him a few rows over, typing and focusing on his screen, securely in the zone. He rushed to his side.

  “I need your help.”

  “Little busy trying to figure these lights out, Smith. Maybe you can ask someone you trust for help.”

  Ian felt horrible. How could he think Charlie would ever betray him? “Yeah, I’m an asshole. I know that. I will apologize every day for the rest of my life, but Kate’s in trouble.”

  Charlie took his eyes off the computer screen. “What are you talking about?”

  “Someone’s in the car with her.”

  “What? How?”

  “They must have put a tracking device on the Porsche. No one’s driven it since I swapped out our vehicles after we got hacked. It probably triggered an alarm the minute I drove it up from the barn.”

  “And you think they’re in the car with her now?”

  “I’m positive. We worked out some signals on a social engineering assignment we did together a few months back. She just gave me the response for ‘things are not okay’ because they can hear our conversation.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  Ian handed Charlie his cell phone. “He disabled her tracking device. I told myself I was being paranoid, but when I designed the app, I added a feature that would trigger a backup locator if something like this ever happened.”

  “I’d be thoroughly disappointed if you hadn’t.”

  “She’s still on the original route. Open the unnamed white app, get an update on her location, and drop a pin. Tell Phillip I need him. I’ll be in your office.”

  The first thing Ian did once he reached Charlie’s office was try to access the Porsche’s network, only to discover he’d been locked out of it. He took a deep breath because even though he’d expected the roadblock, taking control of the car would require a few more steps.

  Phillip burst into the room, Charlie hot on his heels. “What’s going on?”

  “Someone’s intercepted Kate in the Spyder.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Use my phone to call Steve. Tell him what’s going on, and then keep him on the line. His and Chad’s phones can both track Kate, and they should be coming up on her fairly soon. I want to know when they can see her. I’m sorry. I know you’ve got other things to worry about right now.” The blackouts were no longer only the task force’s problem. By now the affected cities would be following disaster-recovery protocols, and emergency management would have been dispatched to keep things under control until they could get the power back on.

  Phillip squeezed Ian’s shoulder, and at that moment, he had never seemed more like a father figure. “It’s okay. We’ve got plenty of people out there working on it.”

  “Charlie. Can you get law enforcement on the phone? Give them Kate’s location and tell them to send whoever’s closest to pull the car over. Tell them to hurry.”

  “On it.”

  Ian turned his attention back to his laptop. If someone thought they could keep him out of a network, especially one that belonged to him, he couldn’t wait to show them just how wrong they’d been.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The phone rang again, but this time it was Zach’s and the muffled ringing grew louder when he pulled it from his pocket. “Yeah.” He listened for a minute. “What do you mean you can’t take off? What the hell is this shit? I paid you. You were supposed to be waiting on the runway with your fucking engines idling.” His voice had taken on an icy edge that absolutely terrified her, and she knew that at this point he wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of his goal. He simply had too much invested. He listened for another thirty seconds and then disconnected the call without responding.

  Without warning, he yanked hard on the steering wheel, drove through the grassy median, and merged aggressively into the eastbound lanes of the interstate to a chorus of honking horns and squealing, skidding tires as they narrowly avoided being mowed over by a passing semi. Kate curled into a ball, bracing herself for impact, but Zach remained calm and seemingly unaffected.

  She had no idea where they were headed. Would he go somewhere to wait out the ban on air travel? Or was he driving her to wherever he’d planned to fly? She’d assumed his final destination was somewhere outside the United States, but maybe it wasn’t.

  She didn’t dare ask him. Mostly because she was too scared to hear the answer.

  Ian scanned the Porsche’s network, looking for the Remote Access Trojan, or RAT, which was not unlike following an actual rat into a maze. There were dead ends and plenty of backtracking as he hit one virtual wall after another. He’d scanned the network three times and hadn’t found the RAT yet, which told him whoever had done this possessed a decent level of technical skill.

  “Thought you’d be in by now,” Charlie said.

  “It’s a little different when it’s your wife and child.”

  “Wait. Kate’s pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  Charlie watched him struggle. “Come on. This is child’s play for you.”

  Kate had to be terrified, but she’d done what she needed to do to get her message to him.

  Turn off your emotions, he told himself. Use your brain to help her.

  Ian might identify as a hacker, but in reality it was his programming abilities that made him so good at what he did. His skills were far superior, but he’d allowed anxiety and fear to invade his normally calm state and had wasted time using an automated program that should have easily found and eliminated the Trojan but hadn’t. He switched to a custom tool he’d designed himself and launched it. He would find the Trojan and destroy it, and then he would take back control of what was his.

  They needed Phillip back in the war room, so Charlie now held a phone to each ear. Chad had stayed on the line to let Charlie know when he and Steve reached Kate, and Charlie was using Ian’s phone to relay Kate’s location to the dispatch officer.

  “He just turned around,” Charlie shouted into the phone. “He’s heading east on I-68. Tell the officers he’s going in the opposite direction.”

  “What?” Ian said without taking his eyes off the computer screen or his fingers off the keyboard. “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. The officers haven’t reached Kate yet.”

  “What’s his speed?”

  Charlie ignored his question, which told Ian it was fast enough that it would only bother him to know. “Are you in?”

  “Almost.”

  He heard Charlie tell Chad and Steve they were now behind Kate instead of heading toward her. “Let me know when you catch up to her. You’ll have to drive faster.”

  A few more clicks of his mouse, and the RAT was history. Ian accessed the Porsche’s network, and this time the door might as well have been wide open as easily as he was able to get in. He was so focused on the task at hand that he didn’t hear Charlie saying his name until he yelled it.

  “Ian!”

  “What,” Ian said without looking at him.

  The most profound feeling of relief washed over him when Charlie said, “The police can see her.”

  Kate’s head rested on the glass of her window, which meant she was looking right into the passenger-side mirror when a row of flashing red lights appeared in the inky darkness of its reflection. She lifted her head as a feeling of sheer joy washed over her. Her celebration was short-lived when Zach shoved her head against the window where it connected with a dull thud.

  “You bitch!”

  She brought her arms up to shield herself from another blow, but he’d turned his attention back to the road and punched the gas pedal. She stole another look in the mirror. T
he police cars were closing in, and there seemed to be an awful lot of them. Zach’s driving became more erratic as he attempted to elude them, and he clipped the guard rail and sent a shower of sparks into the night as the speedometer inched up past 150 miles per hour. At 180 miles per hour, the steering wheel started to vibrate.

  Kate watched with near-hysterical fear as the needle continued to rise until the speedometer maxed out at 210.

  The first thing Ian did now that he had control of the network was cut the engine, and the second was apply the brakes. The car was traveling at an incredibly high rate of speed, and it wasn’t going to stop on a dime. Operating the brakes remotely wouldn’t give him quite the immediate control he’d have if he were pushing the actual brake pedal with his foot, but the speedometer reading began to fall.

  With the police closing in, whoever was driving the car would be feeling the pressure, possibly starting to panic, and the likelihood of them losing control was high. He tightened Kate’s seat belt. Then he disconnected the driver’s side air bag and seat belt.

  “What are you doing?” Charlie asked.

  “Ending this.”

  There were too many sirens for her to notice the sound of the engine cutting out, but the car jolted violently and Kate knew immediately that the brakes had been engaged and who had done it. Her seat belt tightened and it felt like a hug. Hold on, sweetness. I’ve got you now.

  The speedometer reading had fallen to seventy-nine miles per hour by then, and the police car directly behind them was almost touching the Porsche’s bumper. Zach had nowhere else to go. But it appeared he had some sort of last-ditch, Hail Mary pass up his sleeve because there was a bridge up ahead, and though his speed continued to fall, Zach aimed the car at one of the concrete pillars that supported it.

  In Charlie’s office, he and Ian waited.

  “What’s happening?” Ian asked, pointing at the phones Charlie still held in each hand.

  “I don’t know. Dispatch hung up on me as soon as the police had her in their sights.” Charlie paused, then asked Chad and Steve, who were still on the line, “Can you see her?” He looked at Ian and shook his head.

  It was a blessing, really, because it meant none of them would know about the bridge.

  Seventy-eight, seventy-seven, seventy-six.

  Zach veered suddenly to the left, bumping the patrol car that had figured out what he was about to do and was trying to box him in.

  Seventy, sixty-nine, sixty-eight.

  Kate felt the bump when the tires left the pavement and bounced along the grassy area toward the pillar.

  She screamed and covered her head with her arms. Still too fast, she thought.

  Too fast, too fast, too fast.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  She felt like she was floating. I must be dreaming, Kate thought. Ian was with her, but when she tried to speak to him, no words would come out. Zach was there too, his expression full of fury, and Kate squeezed her eyes shut and plunged into the safety of the darkness until there was only black. The dreams kept coming. Sometimes she heard voices and people softly saying her name. Sometimes there were shadowy images near her face that seemed familiar.

  The next day, when the fog of sedation finally dissipated and she awakened fully, Ian was there beside the bed, holding her hand. There were tears in his eyes.

  “Did I lose the baby?” she asked. That had to be the reason he looked so sad.

  He stroked her forehead lightly “The baby’s just fine. Heartbeat’s strong.” His hand was resting lightly on her stomach, and it was only then that she felt the strap of the heart rate monitor under his palm and noticed the machine next to the bed recording every beat of their child’s heart. “Are you in pain? Your ankle was badly broken.”

  Kate shook her head. They must have her on some pretty powerful medication because she couldn’t feel anything at all, at least not right now. “It was my fault. It was the picture I sent to Helena. That’s how Zach found us.”

  “None of this is your fault,” he said.

  “I wasn’t fearless. I was scared.”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetness.”

  She started to cry in earnest then, and he leaned over the bed and put his arms around her until she calmed down, her sobs tapering off and her eyelids growing heavy again.

  “Hey, sis,” Chad said appearing at the other side of the bed. He smiled at her and laid his hand on her shoulder. “Dad left to get Mom. She’s freaking out a little. They should be back soon.”

  “Chad.” She was so happy to see him, but she struggled to get the word out.

  “You go to sleep, okay? We’ll be right here when you wake up.”

  She tried to answer him, but the darkness swallowed her again.

  Ian watched as the nurses shuffled in and out, checking Kate’s vital signs and assuring him that rest was the best thing for her. The doctor had come in earlier to explain the possible risks to the baby if Kate were to have surgery to set her ankle, but after hearing them, she wouldn’t even consider it. Instead, they put her in a splint while they waited for the swelling to go down and would switch her to a cast in a couple of weeks. In addition to her broken ankle, she had numerous cuts and bruises, including a rather vicious one on her hip. She’d lost consciousness for a brief period of time right after the crash, but the doctors said she’d escaped any measurable head trauma and in time, all her injuries would heal.

  She had still been strapped into the passenger seat awaiting the paramedics who would safely extricate her from the vehicle and load her into the ambulance when Steve and Chad reached the scene. They crossed the median and screeched to a halt, parking their car haphazardly in the sea of flashing lights and police cars amid the bits of rubber and pieces of metal scattered in a wide swath under the bridge. Steve rode with Kate in the back of the ambulance to a hospital ten miles down the road, just across the border between West Virginia and Ohio. When the second ambulance arrived at the hospital thirty minutes later, it arrived without lights or sirens and with considerably less urgency. Zach Nielsen had gone through the windshield at the moment of impact, and Chad had watched as they zipped his battered remains into the bag that lay open on the grass.

  Unless Kate could shed some light on it, they would never know if he’d hit the bridge pillar because he’d lost control or if his actions had been intentional.

  In the days that followed, the cities affected by the blackout gradually came back online. It took almost seventy-two hours to restore power to all the residents, but the repercussions were much less severe than they could have been, and miraculously, there were no lives lost. Spring was only a few weeks away, so they did not have to battle extreme heat or cold, and there were numerous reports of communities coming together to help those in need.

  Diane and Steve returned to their hotel at night to sleep, but Ian wouldn’t leave Kate’s side during the three days she spent in the hospital. He slept only when she slept, in a chair pulled up next to the bed. Sometimes he would dream he’d gotten it all wrong and Kate had been behind the wheel of the Spyder, not Zach, and that it had been her seat belt and air bag he’d disabled.

  On the second night, when her pain medication didn’t seem to be working as well as it had been and the guilt threatened to swallow him if he didn’t let it out, he said, “I should have let you go. I should have let you have a normal life.”

  “That’s not what I wanted. I can handle whatever life throws at us, but I can’t handle hearing you say something like that.”

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  “That’s not how we measure love,” she said, reaching for his hand.

  He squeezed it gently, and when the hospital discharged her, he chartered a plane and flew home with her to Indiana.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CODA

  One month after the cyberattack on the Eastern Interconnection, in a medium-security federal prison in Oklahoma, a cell door opened on its own, as if an invisible man held a remote control. This shoul
d have sounded an alarm, but no noise rang out in the quiet hallway. The video surveillance feed should have picked up on it, but the image on the screen in front of the security guard responsible for monitoring this particular area showed an exterior shot. Then—although there was no fire—the sprinkler system went off and everyone’s focus shifted to stopping the water before they had a mess on their hands.

  And Joshua Morrison, the man Ian Bradshaw had once sent to prison, a black hat hacker in every sense of the word, waltzed right out the door and into a waiting car.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  The sound of a young child singing, her voice pure and clear, floated on the breeze. Ian drew closer so he could listen to his daughter’s song and stopped just short of the hammock stretched between the two pillars that supported the deck’s overhang. It was Shelby’s favorite spot, and he could often find her here because she liked to pretend the monkeys that lived in the trees were her audience. Not that she lacked admirers, because at four years old she already possessed the kind of voice that made strangers in the village stop what they were doing to seek out its source.

  “Hey, sweet girl. Want to go fishin’?”

  “Is Grandpa coming?”

  “Yep. And Uncle Chad.”

  “Okay.” She reached for him and he swung her up in his arms.

  “I like the song you were singing. Is that a new one?”

  She beamed. “Yes. I made it up for Grandma Ellen.”

  That hit him right in his heart, but it was a good feeling. “Something tells me she’s going to love it.”

  Once they’d boarded the twenty-four-foot Panga fishing boat, Ian slathered Shelby’s exposed skin liberally with sunscreen and pulled the straps tight on her life jacket. He fired up the Yamaha outboard motor and pointed the boat in the direction of the fishing grounds of Cabo Blanco. Steve liked to troll along the surface using live bait, but Chad and Ian preferred casting their lures close to the rock formations where the tuna and snapper were most plentiful.