by Matt Lynn
Jack checked first that the phreaked phone line he had set up yesterday was still open. Once that was done, he set up the communications software, instructing the machine to dial Arbex via the link to Holland. On his modem, he could see the short row of red lights flashing as the call was put through. After a minute or so the lines were all in place. The computer fed in the details of the Internet address he had created last night, and the message flashed up on the screen: 'Connection established. OK.'
'So far, so good,' whispered Jack.
At the command prompt he entered 'telnet', an Internet code for logging on to a computer system via a remote connection. Like many large companies, Kizog now allowed Internet access to its system, to enable employees in the field, or executives travelling on business or working from home, to plug into the network without having to find a dedicated line. It was a loophole Jack knew they could exploit.
He tapped in the numerical address for the Kizog network, a string of twelve numbers punctuated by full stops. A prompt for his User ID flashed up on the screen. Jack did not want to use his own login; it would be far too suspicious. Instead he used a general login for new employees, and for people who had forgotten their code. It was a very restricted password, which gave access only to limited and generally useless parts of the network. But he would worry about that next. For now the main task was just to get inside the system.
'Connection established,' flashed the computer.
'OK, we're in,' said Jack, a tone of triumph creeping into his voice.
'How far?' asked Tara anxiously.
'Just the outer ring,' replied Jack. 'The fringes of the network.' Fortunately, thought Jack, she knew far more about computing than he did; a consequence, he guessed, of so many years spent cloistered in academia. He had explained to her that information within the Kizog network was protected by firewalls; a fact that he well knew from the many areas of the system curtained off from employees such as himself. It was Tara who had suggested that they could tunnel their way through to the information they needed.
All traffic through a computer network, she had explained, is controlled by the TCP/IP protocol, a set of communications standards originally developed by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency in the US but now standard throughout commercial systems. The basic building block of the protocol is the lP packet; a bundle of data that carries a thirty-two-bit source and destination address, as well as the payload of data that is being transferred, generally a few hundred bytes long. The lP address is broken down into network and host parts, each delivered in binary code. A firewall, she told him, is a piece of software that looks at both parts of the code, checks that the payload of data has come from the correct place and is travelling to a destination for which that user has authorisation. If either part is wrong, it stops the signal, dumping it into a harmless file before it can go any further. There are two ways, she continued, through a firewall. One is to establish what is known in computing as transitive trust; cracking the codes for authorised users, so that the packet can pass through untouched.
Tara and Jack did not have the time to construct the complex mathematical programs needed to crack the security codes. But there was another way through: tunnelling. Essentially, Tara explained, a tunnel is a way of digging underneath a firewall, bypassing its defences, and making sure that messages pass through undetected. The trick is to bury a line of code into a longer and harmless signal. The firewall checks the message, allows it to pass, and only then is the harmless code stripped away, leaving the crucial message on the other side of the firewall.
Tara figured the Kizog system would allow information to be fed into the more secure parts of the system; the firewalls would probably be checking for attempts to login, which would allow an intruder to retrieve information. Their task, she explained, was to construct a line of code that would appear to the firewall to be a harmless delivery of information. Once on the other side, the code would be instructed to start unbundling itself, leaving just the login instruction. Once that was done, they would be through.
Jack had taken their telnet connection as far as accounts; a simple entry point where the salesmen could log in their orders from their laptops; the network would then take the order, tell distribution to dispatch the order, instruct billing to issue an invoice, and notify accounts to build the order into the accounting system. It was logical, Jack had pointed out, to assume this part of the network would link into the deeper accounting system, since the sales figures would form the core of the accounts that finally ended up in the annual report each year. 'But there is bound to be a firewall between the sales ledger and the accounts system,' he added.
Tara went to work on the system, keying in new rows of digital code in an attempt to escape the attention of the firewall. It was long and wearisome work. Hours went by. By midday, Jack ventured outside briefly, partly to catch some fresh air and to clear his mind, partly to collect some sandwiches and drinks to keep them going. The streets were crowded and he passed through them unnoticed as he walked to the nearest cafe. He was grateful for a few moments away from the computers, yet nervous already that breaking through was taking too long.
When he returned, Tara was still sitting at the computer, her eyes squinting at the screen, her fingers running along the numbers on the keyboard, tapping new lines of code into the machine. Five times now she had tried and failed; each time she buried the second protocol into the first, the message came back on the screen 'lP protocol unresolved'. She had no choice but to try again. There were only a limited number of different gateways that could be used in a system such as this, Tara knew, and she was sure she would break through eventually.
Wearily she began tapping some new lines of code into the keyboard, trying to keep her frustration under control, and searching the recesses of her mind to find the set of binary code that would take them through to the other side. She knew they did not have much time. If they were to succeed they would have to be lucky as well as smart. Another row of digits, she told herself. Be strong.
Stile stood to attention when the Chairman and the finance director entered his office. He was not sure he could recall ever seeing the Chairman in this department before, certainly not in his own office. The importance of the task began to bear down on him once again, and in the pit of his stomach he could tell that he was nervous; there would be retribution, no doubt, if this project was not a success.
The Chairman and Finer nodded to Shane and Fuller and said hello to Stile. 'The system we asked for is in place, I hope?' he demanded.
The tone of his voice, Stile noted, was neither warm nor friendly. 'It went live about half an hour ago,' he replied. 'The team in America have been working through the night to get it up and running. According to the Sidewinder consultants, thirty hours is the fastest turnaround they have ever achieved for a system of our size and complexity.'
'Good, good,' said the Chairman. 'And have we found anything yet?'·
Stile shook his head. 'The detection programme is really a vast screening device. It roots through all the work being done on the network and checks for any unusual features. If it finds anything that even closely resembles any of the techniques used by hackers, it automatically starts to investigate, and then starts tracking down the source.'
'How long will it take?' asked Finer.
'Depends on the size of the network it is checking,' Stile replied. 'We have 5,000 people connected into our network, of whom about half are logged on at any one time. Since there are roughly twenty mainstream ways of hacking into a network, it has to screen about 50,000 operations just to make a start. Then it has to start sifting through everything which appears suspicious. Even throwing massive amounts of computing power at it, it isn't that quick.'
Shane turned to Finer. 'Which part of the system do you think they will want to get into?' he asked.
Finer hesitated before answering, glancing across at the Chairman, who seemed interested in the question. 'I'd say they would be co
ncentrating on the financial records,' he replied.
The Chairman looked directly at Stile. 'Would it make it quicker if we concentrated the search on the financial part of the network?' he asked.
Stile nodded. 'The more you define the search, the less time it takes,' he replied.
'Do it then,' he snapped.
Stile turned to his keyboard, tapping an e-mail message to his colleagues in the US, telling them to concentrate the search on the accounting systems. 'May I make a suggestion, sir?' he asked carefully.
'Of course,' replied the Chairman.
'If we are primarily worried about Ocher people stealing our financial data, then we could just shut down that section of the network for a few days. That would cause a terrible backlog of work to be sorted out next week, but nothing we couldn't cope with, and it would prevent the opposition finding anything before the bid closes. I mean, you can't hack into a system when the plug has been pulled.'
The Chairman waved a hand dismissively. 'Don't you understand?' he said caustically. 'I don't really care if we stop them or not. I want them caught.'
TWENTY-TWO
Jack sat by himself on the floor of the hotel room, a stack of papers resting on his knees, each dense with numbers and notations. He grabbed at the cup of coffee lying by his side, hoping to restore some energy to his sore and aching mind. He rubbed his eyes, fighting the urge to sleep, and trying to drag his concentration back to the material in front of him. He knew he had to go on, but it had already been a long and wearying night.
Tara was asleep on the bed. They had completed the tunnel at just after six the previous evening, suddenly finding themselves through the firewall and into the main accounting databases. They now had free access to roam through the accounts, delving at will inside the financial records of the company. Only one computer could be connected at a time, and Tara had suggested they work through the night, one of them on the computer whilst the other slept, downloading as much data as they could handle, storing it away on the hard discs. Tara had worked until three in the morning while Jack slept fitfully. At three they had changed shifts, Tara taking some rest, while Jack worked his way through the mass of files on the database.
It was now six in the morning, and Jack figured he had as much material as he could cope with. Raw financial data, he suspected, would not be enough for Ocher. They needed to know how it all fitted together, what it all meant. And that demanded analysis.
There was no point in waking Tara, he realised. She knew little about accounting or finance, and most of this material would be meaningless to her, just as the scientific data had meant nothing to him without her interpretations and explanations. If they were to make anything of this material, he decided, it was up to him.
The numbers were swimming before his eyes, blurring together in a mass of lasered ink on the page. Reminding himself of how little time they had left, Jack lifted himself from the floor, and sat down in front of the second computer. He called up the spreadsheet program, and cast his eyes down the endless series of grey cells running down the screen. Keep going, he thought. You'll get there.
Jack had been working for nearly five hours by the time Tara rose from her slumber. Still half asleep, she cast her eye at the clock by the bed, and silently cursed herself for sleeping for so long. It was almost eight already. Quietly, she rose, walking to the desk, and resting her arms on the back of the chair, massaging the back of Jack's neck with her thumbs. He said nothing, certain that if he did so she would stop. 'Good-morning,' she said at last.
Jack turned to face her. Her hair was messy, her eyes drowsy, and her clothes rumpled. He smiled. In that moment, he was sure that he had never seen anyone so gentle or so appealing.
'How's it going?' she asked softly.
Jack turned back to the computer. 'I think I am almost there.'
Tara's eyes were alight with excitement. 'Tell me.'
'Over breakfast,' Jack replied. 'I'm starving.'
*
The Styrofoam coffee cups were piled high in the information technology department of the Kizog headquarters. One was filled with mouldy, curdled coffee, and brimming with drowned cigarette butts. As the day turned first into night, and then into morning, Shane had long since ignored the no-smoking policy enforced throughout the building and, unable to locate an ashtray, had started tipping his ash into the first thing that came to hand.
The others had all drifted away at different points of the night, catching a few hours' sleep on the sofas in some of the executive offices. Unprofessional, thought Shane to himself. Business was business, and if you had to stay up all night, so be it. When they got the trace, there would be no time to shower, have a nice breakfast, perhaps read the papers for a while. No. When they tracked their prey, they would move and move fast.
He stretched, fished another Camel from his pocket, and lit up, taking a long drag on the cigarette, enjoying the sense of the nicotine filtering through into his bloodstream. Five days now those two fuckheads had been on the run, he thought to himself. Five days. Longer than he would have imagined. The police searches had turned up nothing. Electronic surveillance systems had been notified to pick up any traces of them, but so far they had drawn only blanks. Street patrols had been alerted to keep their eyes open for them, but could report no sightings. They had been smart. Using cash, avoiding the phones, probably staying indoors most of the time. All the basics of evading capture, they had figured them all out. But they couldn't hide for ever. Sooner or later they would have to make a break for it. Then they would be out in the open. And he would have them.
Shane tossed the end of the cigarette into the coffee cup. Patience, he told himself. They would come to him.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the 'message pending' icon flashing on the computer screen. Shane stood up, walked round the desk to the keyboard, and tapped two words into the machine: 'Read message.'
'Hacking attempt identified,' flashed up on to the screen.
'Gotcha,' Shane whispered under his breath.
He strode out into the lobby, where he found David Stile stretched out on one of the long black leather sofas, his tie loosened, and his shirt crumpled. Shaking the man vigorously, he brought him out of his slumbers. 'Wake up!' he barked. 'Your machine has found them. About bloody time too.'
Stile stood up with a jolt. He disappeared into the gents, washed his face, and, coming out, grabbed a cup of coffee from the machine in the corridor. He walked through the office, still empty at this hour of the morning apart from the cleaners doing their early rounds, and sat down behind his computer. His fingers running quickly over the keyboard, he tapped away at the machine, Shane leaning over his back, his breath reeking of nicotine and coffee.
Stile peered closely at the screen, double-checking the data, before turning to face Shane. 'It's found them all right,' he said.
The breakfast tray lay between them on the floor. Jack had taken two aspirin with his coffee and orange juice, and could feel the headache that had been throbbing for the past two hours starting to ebb. He was beginning to feel stronger, and the anticipation of a breakthrough was firing the adrenalin back through his veins.
Looking directly at Tara, Jack began to explain what his investigations over the course of the night had revealed. The financial records were complex, he said, even for someone with experience of peering into corporate accounts. He had decided that the best approach was to start with a theory, and then work backwards, searching through the database to see if he could find the evidence to back it up.
His starting point had been the Ocher defence document. It had claimed that the revenue lines in Kizog's accounts did not correspond with the sales of its drugs in the marketplace. Everyone, himself included, had dismissed it at the time as nothing more than the usual mud thrown between corporations locked into a hostile take-over battle. And yet, he pointed out, what if they were right?
Ocher would have some evidence for their claim. Market research figures woul
d tell them roughly how much product Kizog were shifting, and their salesmen would be able to supply any other market share figures they needed. The list prices were publicly available information, and, again, the Ocher salesmen would know what sort of discounts they were offering. Multiply sales volume by price and they would have a sales figure. Ocher's people probably assumed that Kizog was inflating its figures to cover up its relative lack of success in the market. They were fiddling the books. But given what they now knew about the company there were other possibilities as well. Kizog had other sources of income, this much they knew. Sources that could not be reported in the accounts. But which would still have to find their way down to the bottom line.
Jack had started by looking at the internal revenue figures going back over twenty years. Sorting through the databases, he had been able to track two sets of revenue data, showing sales revenue and extraordinary items; data that was not published in the annual report. On the spreadsheet, he had tracked the two numbers on a graph and printed it out.
Tara took the sheet of paper, and looked closely at the three lines. The top line showed reported revenues as shown in the official accounts. Underneath were two other lines. One showed marketplace sales, growing steadily but unspectacularly through the seventies and mid-eighties, but turning down gradually from 1987 onwards. The second line, showing extraordinary items, grew rapidly through the seventies and early eighties, then started tapering off dramatically from 1990 onwards. After 1990 the sum of the two lines no longer matched the top line. 'What might the extraordinary items be?' asked Tara. 'Could they be legitimate?'
'Might be,' Jack told her. 'They could reflect disposals of assets during the year. Except that Kizog never disposed of any assets. It could be interest income. Except Kizog had no significant cash pile.'