by L. A. Larkin
‘And he tried to keep the news of Tony’s death from the media, to protect the family. He was furious when it leaked out. His PR company got a real serve.’
That would be Gloria, thought Serena. As expected, the Gene-Asis share price had plummeted when news of the suicide leaked.
‘Why did he do it? You know, kill himself here? Did he hate his job?’
‘God, no! He loved it.’ Liz changed the subject. ‘Let me introduce you to some people. This is Sue,’ she said looking at a woman to her right. ‘She works for Chris Mann, Vice-President of Research and Development.’
Sue was watching Al, her fingers hovering above the keyboard.
‘Sue, wakey, wakey.’ Startled, Sue looked at Liz. ‘Sue, this is Amber.’ Petite and dark, with large, almond-shaped eyes, and possibly Turkish heritage, she beamed a friendly smile. Liz continued. ‘Sal is in with Darko Petrinec, the VP of Strategy and Corporate Development. Amanda Jacobs is VP of Sales and Marketing, but she’s out of the office this morning and I can’t see Ron—he’s her PA—anywhere. He might be getting coffee. And the CFO’s interstate seeing banks.’
Serena glanced at Bukowski, who was still on the phone. He was looking straight at her, undressing her with his eyes.
Chapter 24
After the introductions, Liz took Serena to Security, nine floors below, to be retina-scanned and fingerprinted.
In the Sydney office, forty people worked in InfoSec, monitoring and fixing any potential security vulnerabilities. In New York, they were rumoured to employ over 200 people, including some of the world’s brightest systems penetration experts. Gene-Asis was one of the most probed companies in the world. Some hackers did it for fun. Some to be able to boast. Some wanted to bring the company down: mainly environmentalists who wanted to stop Gene-Asis’ work. Most wanted to steal the company’s secrets for money. This meant all new staff were vetted as a security precaution and continually monitored during their employment. Serena presumed this was through the spy-eyes.
As the lift opened on the forty-sixth floor, the atmosphere was very different from the one she had come from: gone were the sunlight and bright glass-partitioned offices. In fact, Serena couldn’t spot a window. Liz faced a retina-scanner, which looked like a pair of binoculars protruding from the wall. She placed her face against the retina scanner and the doors slid open. Inside was a corridor of glass. One side was dimly lit but Serena could see row upon row of desks arranged in a semicircle, like NASA mission control; two people to a pod, each of which had six computer screens. The screens were alive with data, wriggling like a giant tapeworm of encrypted code.
‘That’s system penetration,’ Liz said nodding to the left. ‘You’re not allowed in there. This is IT, which you’ll have access to. I’ll leave you with Colin Chang. He’s a database administrator and he’ll set you up.’
Serena followed Liz into the IT department, which was alive with people talking on phones or rushing around clutching various computer parts. It was a wasps’ nest of frenetic activity.
‘Over there are the server racks. That’s bullet-proof glass, by the way. Only a handful of people are allowed in.’
‘Like who?’
Liz gave her a quizzical look. ‘You don’t need to know that.’
‘Sorry. I was just interested, that’s all. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Serena spotted a spy-eye camera watching the door to the server room and several more spy-eyes inside watching a technician working.
‘This is the service desk. God knows why it’s called that, ’cause they’re not too hot on service,’ whispered Liz behind her hand. She then continued aloud, ‘And here we have the second line support team, and there are the system administrators.’
Liz walked up to a man hunched over a keyboard.
‘Colin. This is Amber Crosby. She needs her bio-stats set up.’
They were standing behind him and he didn’t respond. His fingers flew across the keyboard.
‘Colin?’ said Liz, touching him on the shoulder.
He jumped and knocked his coffee over his desk.
‘Shit! Oh, sorry.’ He raced off to get a cloth to wipe up the frothy mess. On his screen, Serena saw a number of fingerprint images. Next to each one was a name and a six-digit code.
‘So sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude. I was listening to music,’ he said wiping his desk clean.
Liz introduced her again, explained what he needed to do and left.
Colin was short, slightly rotund and badly in need of a haircut. Covering his eyes was a thick fringe, which he nervously moved aside and then stood, blinking at her. After a few seconds, he timidly put out his hand, which she shook. It was sweaty.
‘Your first day?’
‘Yes, I’m very nervous,’ she confided.
‘You’ll be all right. Don’t you worry. You’ve got a good boss.’
‘So everyone tells me.’
His fringe had fallen over his eyes again. He pushed it back as he shuffled from foot to foot.
‘How long have you worked here, Colin?’
‘Six years. Long time.’
‘And you manage this database! You must be very clever.’
‘You think so? Oh, thank you.’
He shuffled from foot to foot a bit faster, smiling to reveal a crooked row of teeth.
‘Colin, you’ll look after me, won’t you? I’m a bit scared about the retina scan. Does it hurt?’
She did ‘female in distress’ very convincingly and, in response, Colin puffed out his chest.
‘Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt. So, you please come with me?’
Colin’s English was a little stilted.
‘Where are you from originally?’ she asked. ‘Hong Kong?’
‘Very good,’ he grinned like the Cheshire Cat. ‘You been to Hong Kong?’
‘A while back. Great city.’
‘Too much noise. Always noisy. I like Sydney better.’
Two workstations down, he introduced her to Sarah, who controlled the retina scanners’ database and their maintenance. Protectively watching over her, Colin waited as she was asked to sit. Serena noticed his eyes lingering on her cleavage.
‘Okay. All you have to do is keep very still and try not to blink. You won’t feel a thing,’ said Sarah.
On Serena’s face she put a pair of glasses with a cable attached to the computer. And, keeping her eyes open wide, Serena felt a light move across them.
‘Good. You see—it didn’t hurt,’ chimed in Colin.
‘All done,’ said Sarah, and Colin led her back to his workstation.
‘Now your fingerprint. You right- or left-handed?’
‘Right.’
‘Place the first finger of your right hand on here,’ said Colin.
She placed her finger as directed on a minute scanner.
‘This is called biometric security,’ he said, enjoying the opportunity to show off. ‘I’ll scan your fingerprint. I will then tell your specific computer mouse to accept your fingerprint as the sole user. No one else can use your computer and mouse, and you won’t be able to use anyone else’s. You’ll have access to three of the four security levels.’
‘What are the security levels?’
‘Level 1 is Highly Protected information and you won’t have access to this. Only top execs and the board see it. Level 2 is Confidential. Level 3 is Internal Use Only and Level 4 is Public information. You’ll answer Mr Bukowski’s day-to-day emails: the ones he’s happy for you see. Some of his emails will be Highly Protected and you won’t be able to open them. They’re encrypted.’
‘And the retina scanner will only let me into certain departments?’
‘Yes, exactly. You have access to reception, the executive suite, marketing, accounts, IT, the restaurant, the boardroom, and that’s all. And now, I’ll show you to a waiting room while I finish your biometric enrolment.’
‘Let me watch, please. I find what you do so fascinating.’
Seren
a looked up at him flirtatiously. Colin shuffled.
‘No. I am sorry. This way, please.’
He showed her to a small room with a fridge, tea and coffee-making facilities, and a big screen showing cable-news coverage. As he shut the door, she waved and smiled, and he waved back with a big grin. She knew she had made a very useful friend. She also knew she needed to see how the fingerprint database worked. If she could only use her own computer and had restricted security access, she would never find the professor’s report. She would need to bypass the biometric mouse somehow.
Serena quietly opened the door and, walking casually toward Colin’s desk, stood behind him. He had his music playing and didn’t hear her. She watched over his shoulder as he placed an image of her fingerprint into the database, with her name and a code number. On the screen, she could see eight other fingerprints and names she didn’t know. If she could move her fingerprint under Bukowski’s entry in the database, then she could access all the Highly Protected files through his computer. Serena watched carefully as Colin worked. Then, backing away, she returned to the little waiting room. In the hubbub of the IT department, no one had thought to challenge her.
‘Okay, Amber. It’s all set up. Two more things: you must sign our Acceptable Mail Use Policy here,’ he said pointing at a one-page document, which she signed as Amber Crosby. ‘You also need a password, which I’ll set up now. It should be letters and numbers, as many as you like.’
‘Peter59.’
‘Peter your boyfriend?’ he asked.
‘No, I don’t have one, Colin. Peter was my dad.’
And he was fifty-nine when he died, she thought. She needed to remind herself every day why she might be, at best, landing herself in jail; at worst, putting her life in danger.
Chapter 25
Liz very efficiently took Serena through all the processes and files she would need to use. Being Al’s PA was going to be a piece of cake. Accessing his Highly Protected files, however, was not. Serena had also noticed that none of the PAs’ computers had DVD drives or USB ports. She asked Liz why that was.
‘Gene-Asis has a policy of avoiding disc copies. We can’t make disc or memory key copies from our computers. A few top execs can from theirs. There’s no problem printing copies, but if its Highly Protected stuff, you’ll need authorisation. So, if Al needs you to make a copy of, say, the latest TV commercial, he will give you authorisation via email and the guys in IT will make the copy for you. There are five of them down there. The fastest is Gary.’
‘But what about sending files as attachments to emails? Can I do that?’
‘Oh yeah, of course. But only Confidential, Internal Use and Public documents. Even if Al wants to attach a Highly Protected file to an email, it will be held in quarantine for ten minutes before it’s released.’
‘Wow. This must make simple everyday business communication very slow.’
‘You’ll get used to it,’ Liz shrugged.
So, not only did she not have direct access to the kind of security files she needed, she couldn’t make a copy, or send an emailed copy, without raising suspicion. As the day went on, Serena grew more and more despondent.
That afternoon, Bukowski called Amber into his office.
‘I need you to organise a company dinner for Friday night. Five hundred and seventy-six people work here and I want them all invited to the 360 Hotel. I know it’s short notice but I expect people to attend. Everyone is understandably upset by Tony’s death, but I need my people to rally and get their eyes back on the ball. I’ll be thanking them for all their hard work and handing out some awards for people who’ve excelled recently. So, can you book the venue, get me menu options and organise presentation equipment?’
‘No problem. And if the 360 isn’t available on Friday, do you have a second preference?’
‘Tell them it’s for Al R. Bukowski, and there’ll be no problem. I’m a guest there. They’ll do it for me.’
He emphasised the ‘R’ as if it stood for Rex; as in ‘king’.
He really does think he’s king of the world! ‘Would you like me to write your speech? I used to do it for my old boss.’
‘No. I always write my own. But thank you.’ He gave her a single nod. ‘I get the feeling you’re a very talented woman.’
She heard a distant ringing sound. Bukowski tapped his earpiece; clearly his phone had rung, and he took the call, indicating Serena should wait.
‘Yeah, that sounds good. Just a moment; let me log back in and I’ll check.’
From the other side of his desk, Serena watched as he turned to his keyboard, which was partly obscured by his screen. He tapped in his user name: ARBukowski. It was the first part of his email address and she already knew this. After the slightest pause, he tapped in what she guessed was his password, which she counted as eight keystrokes. Then another slight pause. He looked down at his wristwatch for a moment. His hand obscured her view but he appeared to move something very briefly. What was he doing? Then she heard him tap ten keys. He scanned his screen.
‘Yeah. That’s correct. It’s okay to go.’
He swivelled round in his chair as he ended the call.
‘So, Amber, can you get back to me on this by two? I want invitations emailed by three.’
‘Yes, Al.’
When Serena left Bukowski’s office, she checked out the email system. She noticed that occasionally emails would arrive encrypted, which only Bukowski could read. She saw the name of the person who sent them, the time they were sent, and the content of the subject box, but the actual substance of the email was complete gobbledygook.
When Bukowski left his office, her eyes dropped to his watch, protruding below his cuff. It appeared to be a normal digital watch, which displayed the time in several countries. Something on that watch had prompted him with the final entry-code of his computer login. And Serena thought she knew what it might be.
‘Do I need a key-fob code?’ she asked Liz, whose workstation was next to hers.
‘No. Al and a few others do. We don’t ever see anything confidential enough to warrant one,’ Liz replied as she typed.
‘My old boss used to have one, except it looked like a key ring. Is that what Al uses?’
‘No, it’s in his watch, which he never takes off. Apparently, if he removes it from his skin, the code becomes invisible. It only reappears if the watch touches his skin again. Clever, huh?’
So Bukowski had a coded fob on his watch. Without its code, she would never get to see his Highly Protected files. She was in serious shit.
‘Must go to the Ladies. It’s the baby pressing on my bladder,’ said Liz.
A new email arrived in Bukowski’s inbox. It was encrypted. Then the sender’s name caught her eye: Dr R. L. Singh. He was one of the four Gene-Asis scientists behind Supercrop Ultra. The email was cc’d to Chris Mann, the Vice President of R&D. The subject box read: ‘Delete file ~^1~^G/569/:P`12/6/2011 post PND launch?’
Serena guessed that ‘PND’ referred to Project New Dawn. But what file would they be destroying after its launch in New York? Could it be the professor’s research? The name of the file was meaningless to her. Or was it? The last few numbers appeared to be a date, and 6 December 2011 was when Dr McPherson claimed he had submitted his report.
Elated, she searched her desk for some paper and found none. Desperate to note down the file name, she pulled a tissue out of her handbag and, using her eyeliner pencil, copied the file name carefully, checking no one was looking her way. As she placed it back in her bag, Liz appeared.
A man resembling a plump cocktail sausage on a stick shuffled past them, wiping his forehead with a large white handkerchief.
‘Come and meet Chris, VP of R&D. He’s lovely,’ said Liz, swaying her way into his office.
‘Knock, knock. Chris, can I introduce you to Al’s new PA, Amber?’
He was slumped in his swivel chair, still dabbing his forehead. Upon seeing them, he grabbed the chair’s arms, gyrating his
body from side to side in an attempt to stand up. So large was his stomach and bottom that he appeared permanently wedged between the arm rests. Then, like a champagne cork freed from its bottle, he was up and springing towards her.
‘Amber? Lovely to meet you … please sit down … hmmm … so, I hear you worked in London?’
He wedged himself back in his chair and glugged down a glass of water.
‘Yes.’
‘Love London … ah, the Royal Albert Hall …The London Symphony Orchestra … couldn’t get enough when I was there … and you can’t beat a London curry house. Yes … used to go to the Tandoori Palace in Soho and have a royal feast. The lamb vindaloo was the best I’ve ever tasted.’
‘I’ve been there—it’s the best. I’ve been trying to find a curry house in Sydney to match it.’
‘Then you must try the Taj Mahal at Darlinghurst.’
‘Well, if you ever fancy going there one lunchtime, or after work, I’d love to. It’s great to meet a fellow curry lover.’
Chris’ cheeks wobbled as he nodded eagerly.
‘You’re on. And, you know, I think you’re going to fit in here very well.’
‘I hope so,’ she said. He did seem quite friendly for a senior executive, but what she was really hoping was that a night out with the local head of research and development might reveal some of the company’s secrets. ‘Bukowski’s not what I expected,’ Serena said, eating dinner with John and Baz that night.
‘What did you expect?’ asked Baz, tucking into a medium-rare steak.
‘I don’t know. Someone more hard-nosed, less well-liked.’
‘Mancini was like that. I met him once or twice. A genuinely nice guy, a real family man,’ said Baz.
‘He’s doing the right thing by the widow, for sure,’ said John. ‘But be careful, Seri. Don’t let your guard down.’
‘No, I wouldn’t dare. There’s something about the way he looks at people. It’s like he’s reading their minds. You feel like he knows all about you and you haven’t said a word.’
John frowned. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’