Invasion of Privacy: A Deep Web Thriller #1 (Deep Web Thriller Series)

by Ian Sutherland

  Even from this height, Jenny could see the solid marble floor of the building far below. People in the atrium seating area were looking up and pointing at her to each other, their mouths open in shock. Jenny felt gravity take hold and began to plummet.

  * * *

  You are filled with righteous fury. How dare anyone interrupt you in the middle of it? Especially another woman!

  You shoved her out of the room with all the force you could muster.

  You surprised her as she opened the door. But that was because you were ready. You’d heard the bang of the door in the next room. You guessed you were about to be interrupted by someone. But you were surprised when it was female.

  You watch in silent fascination as she cartwheels over the side, her legs flying overhead. Her body begins to fall.

  Going . . . Going . . .

  — but at the last moment, her hand reaches out and grabs the railing on top of the glass wall. Her body pivots and you see her hips smash into the concrete floor, jutting out beneath the glass wall. She screams in pain but grips even tighter, despite the momentum her legs have developed in the open space of the corridor beneath threatening to pull her hand away.

  She hangs by one hand, taking deep breaths. You can hear screams from insects down below.

  You peer over, ready to prise her hand from the railing and finish it. Insects are pointing up at you both, screaming. You focus on her.

  “You fucking whore,” you snarl, unable to stop yourself. You want her to pay for interrupting. You stare at her stricken face.

  Unexpectedly, you recognise her. You immediately suppress the implications of that. You can deal with all that later. But there is one implication you can’t get past. You will miss out on this one. What a shame.

  You whisper gently. “Why did it have to be you? Such a waste.”

  Her face shows confusion as she hangs on.

  Reluctantly, you grab her hand and begin to lift a finger.

  “No, please don’t,” she begs.

  Yes, she begs, just like they all do. Eventually.

  And then her expression changes. A calmness falls over her. She stares at him intently, almost as if she can see through his dark sunglasses.

  “What do you mean, such a waste?” she asks you, almost inquisitively, as if the situation were just a normal conversation over tea.

  You stop lifting her fingers. Just for a moment.

  “You would have been good. That’s the shame of it. Far better than that whore in there.” You nod your head backwards at the meeting room behind you.

  “Then let me go,” she says, steadily.

  And for just a second you think about letting her go. Maybe you could line her up another time.

  “The building is surrounded by police. Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

  And you realise that the whore is just tricking you. Playing for time. Playing for her life.

  You resume prising her fingers from the railing. As her grip begins to slide you say to her, “Goodbye, Detective Inspector Jenny Price.”

  And despite the imminent fall to her death, her face contorts in shock at the sound of her name. Her fingers lose their grip completely. You stand back and watch her body drop from view through the glass wall.

  Such a shame.

  She really would have been perfect.

  You hear screams from below. They bring you to your senses.

  You run for it.

  * * *

  After fifteen minutes, Brody gave up pacing the room, waiting for Jenny to let him know what had happened. He decided to head over the road to Bruno’s. He grabbed his tablet PC and wallet and slammed the front door shut behind him, only then recalling with a wince that Leroy had disappeared back to bed. For once he deserved his morning lie-in. If it hadn’t been for Leroy’s earlier counsel advising Brody to apply his skills to helping real people, he wouldn’t have discovered the killer’s latest meeting room booking. He just hoped Jenny had made it in time to save whoever had been lured to their death.

  When Jenny had finally returned his call Brody had hurriedly explained what he’d found, neatly avoiding the how of it. Shocked but then suddenly very hopeful, she quickly pointed out that there might still be time to save the victim. In the two previous instances, the killer had reserved the meeting room an hour before the victim’s scheduled meeting time. She asked which Flexbase building it was so that she could contact the local force to storm the place. When he told her it was in Windsor, she swore loudly. They were only a few miles away but had just joined the M4 heading back towards London. Brody jumped on Google maps and instructed her to exit at the very next junction. There was a back way through the village of Datchet, skirting alongside both banks of the Thames straight into Windsor from the east. While on the phone, Jenny frantically relayed directions to her colleague, who was driving. When they finally screeched to a halt outside the building, she curtly thanked him and hung up.

  And that was the last he’d heard.

  “Ah, good timing Mr Brody, you’re usual seat has just become free. Please sit down.”

  Stefan’s toothy grin barely broke through Brody’s daze. Numbly he sat down. The waiting was killing him. He looked at his watch. It was now twenty minutes. Why hadn’t she phoned him back?

  “Okay, let me see. Late morning. Too late for cappuccino. Too early for espresso. Maybe a macchiato?” Eliciting no response, not even a subtle shake of the head, Stefan looked confused.

  Brody hadn’t heard a word. On autopilot, he sat in his chair and opened his computer, just for something to do. At least Jenny hadn’t asked him the obvious question about how he’d come by the information about the killer’s meeting room reservation. But he knew it would come. He’d need to come up with a good story.

  “Maybe Mr Brody would like . . .” Stefan couldn’t hold back a chuckle, “ . . . a large white chocolate mocha with a double caramel shot?”

  Brody nodded absently, causing the barista to be taken aback. He stomped off, muttering to himself.

  Brody connected to his private Wi-Fi network.

  He had loads of open windows from his hacking session into Flexbase. He began closing them down, one by one. After a few minutes, he was presented with his web browser displaying the kitchen webcam feed from the Saxton household via SWY. Brody stopped what he was doing and studied Hilary Saxton, who sat at the kitchen table alone, staring into space. Scrunched tissues lay strewn about the table, evidence of her grief. Surely she couldn’t have forgotten that nearly every room in her house was still being broadcast over the Internet, including the kitchen? She really must be in a state.

  Maybe he could help.

  And as the thought flew through his mind, he realised that his earlier conversation with Leroy was still working its way through his subconscious. Here he was, for the second time in one day, choosing to apply his skills to help a real person.

  Brody still had remote access to the network video PC in the Saxton house. It sat there; permanently capturing the Wi-Fi webcam feeds from all over the house, sending them through the Internet to HomeWebCam. And somehow, from there, they were making their way over to SWY. But, if Brody remotely shut down the network video PC, the webcams would no longer broadcast over the Internet at all.

  And Hilary Saxton would at least have some privacy.

  Brody remotely logged into the Saxton PC. He quickly hit the ‘shutdown’ command. Brody waited for his remote control session to drop. Without power, the PC could no longer be connected. After a minute, the session dropped.

  Brody switched back to his SecretlyWatchingYou view of Hilary Saxton still sat at her kitchen table. She grabbed a fresh tissue and blew her nose. Brody recalled that there was a time lag of a couple of minutes as the video streams made their way over the Internet, via the SWY servers and back to viewers like him. The feed would soon go black.

  He waited.

  Stefan returned, placing a massive mug down on the table next to Brody. It was full of frothy milk wit
h sprinkles of chocolate on the top in the shape of a lightning bolt.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Brody, incredulously.

  “Is what you ordered, Mr Brody,” laughed Stefan, good-naturedly. “Is large white chocolate mocha with a double caramel shot. Lovely, no?”

  “I ordered that?” Brody looked around at the other patrons to see if anyone else wanted to claim it.

  Stefan shrugged.

  “Ah, what the hell. Thanks Stefan. You read me right again.”

  Stefan tittered like a child and left him to it.

  Brody sat back holding the coffee in both hands. He took a sip. Despite being far too sweet, it wasn’t that bad. He turned to the front window and began to watch life go by on Upper Street outside.

  After a good ten minutes, Brody placed the empty mug on the table.

  His PC had gone into power-saving mode, the screen darkening. He moved the mouse pointer and the windows returned.

  The browser window displaying the Saxton’s household in SWY was still there. Hilary Saxton had laid her head down on the table and was frozen in position. Odd. Maybe when the network video PC had shut down, the last image had remained static in SWY’s feed.

  He moved the mouse to shut down the window.

  Just as he was about to close it, Hilary Saxton stood up and walked out of the kitchen.

  Brody’s jaw dropped. That was impossible. The network video PC in their house was powered off. Yet SWY was still broadcasting the Saxton household.

  The shock soon receded as his logical brain took over; attempting to rewire everything it had thought about how the webcam feeds made their way through to SecretlyWatchingYou.

  Brody thumped his palm against his forehead. What an idiot he’d been.

  He knew how it was done. Maybe, he would crack SecretlyWatchingYou after all.

  * * *

  Further back in the coffee shop, Crooner42 watched Fingal fold up his computer, leave some money on the table and rush out. He crossed the road, jumping back briefly to avoid a cyclist speeding up between the stationary cars. On the opposite pavement, Fingal fished out some keys and let himself through his front door.

  When Crooner42 had approached the coffee shop a few minutes earlier, he’d spotted Fingal through the front window, sitting in the same seat as the previous evening. He almost walked past to ensure he wasn’t spotted, but Fingal was staring into the middle distance, completely lost in thought, clutching a massive mug. He took a calculated risk and entered, walking right past the hacker, relying on his peripheral vision to see if Fingal noticed him. Not a flicker.

  Most of the tables had been occupied, but he’d found one near the back.

  After a few minutes, his order taken by the waiter and Fingal having left, Crooner42 powered up his laptop.

  He connected to the ‘F!NG@L’ Wi-Fi network and waited for the prompt to enter the WPA2 password.

  When he’d woken this morning, an email from CloudCracker had been waiting in his inbox containing the clear-text password for Fingal’s private Wi-Fi network. It was ‘St@ffa1772’. At first Crooner42 had no idea if ‘staffa’ was even a real word. Intrigued, he ran a quick Internet search and discovered that Staffa was the name of an uninhabited island in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides discovered in 1772. But more importantly, it was the location of a massive sea cavern, known as Fingal’s Cave.

  Crooner42 pondered Fingal’s behaviour, linking the Wi-Fi password to the actual name of the network. In cyberspace, Fingal was impossible to trace, with multiple layers of security masking his true identity and real-world location. But here in meatspace, his defences were fairly simplistic. He supposed, like most hackers, that Fingal never expected to be tracked down in the real world and didn’t give the same level of focus to his physical security. Crooner42 thought about himself and realised the same was true for him. He resolved to increase his security measures. Just in case.

  Crooner42 entered the password. He was connected immediately.

  He fired up Nmap and began mapping the network.

  The waiter brought over his order, an Americano and a blueberry muffin.

  From the inside of Fingal’s private network, his defences were minimal. It didn’t take long for Crooner42 to gain access to the two Linux servers Fingal had running. After a few minutes, Crooner42 determined that ‘Brody’, the name he’d heard him being called yesterday, was Fingal’s forename. He knew that because he now also had his surname.

  “Gotcha, Brody Taylor.” he sneered.

  After ten more minutes, Crooner42 had Brody Taylor’s complete identity. Name, date and place of birth, passport number, national insurance number, bank account numbers, credit card details, mother’s maiden name. Everything.

  Crooner42 sat back and savoured the moment.

  He now had the personal details of one of the world’s elite hackers. It was what he would do with this information that was important.

  An idea started to form in his mind.

  Oh, revenge was sweet indeed.

  * * *

  “Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to talk, Sarah?” concern was etched all over the face of the policewoman who had just introduced herself as DC Fiona Jones.

  “What, now?” Sarah McNeil sat forward in the hospital bed. “Can’t we talk later?” She swung her legs out from underneath the bed cover. She had to get back to the office. “I really can’t stay here all day . . .”

  Pain shot through her head. She placed a hand on it, feeling a massive bandage. Suddenly she felt faint.

  “Oh, that’s not good. Perhaps I will stay here for a little bit longer.”

  DC Jones helped her lie back down and pulled the covers over her. Sarah waited for the wooziness to pass.

  “The doctor says you’ve got serious concussion. You’ll need to take it easy for a bit. Definitely a few days off work.”

  Involuntarily, Sarah’s eyes welled up. “But I can’t . . . I mean I can’t afford not to work.”

  She had to pay the Sunnyside Care Home bills.

  “Surely your work will cover any time off?”

  Sarah shook her head and then screwed her eyes shut at the stabbing pain. When it receded to a dull ache, she opened them again, wiping away the tears that had formed from a combination of hurt and frustration.

  “What do you do?” asked the policewoman.

  “I sell advertising space for a magazine.”

  “Which magazine?”

  “It’s called Commercial Aviation News. It’s owned by Maiden Media.”

  “Are you based in Windsor?”

  “No, Maidenhead.”

  “Is that why you went Windsor earlier? To sell advertising space?”

  “Yes, I had an important meeting. But before I got to meet my client, that creep attacked me.”

  Sarah felt nauseous at the memory. She hadn’t meant to think about that. She wanted to blot it out. Move forward, quickly.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to talk about this, Sarah?”

  But despite her misgivings, she knew she needed to understand what had happened earlier. “Who was that man?” she implored. “What was he doing there?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Sarah had the feeling that the detective knew more. “Who were you supposed to be meeting?”

  “Francis Delacroix from a company called FCS Software.”

  “Had you met him before? Do you know what he looks like?”

  “No. And I probably never will now.” It wasn’t fair. The most important meeting of her short sales career ruined by that creep. “If he takes his business to one of the other magazines because of what happened, I’ll . . .”

  “Sarah, what if I told you that Francis Delacroix doesn’t exist?”

  “What do you mean?” She might be concussed but she certainly wasn’t stupid. “Of course he exists, I talked to him on the phone only yesterday.”

  “Okay, let’s back up. Why were you meeting Delacroix?”

  “To discuss his m
arketing plans for FCS Software. They’re launching a new flight control system to the UK airport market and need lots of advertising space. He was flying in from the States this morning and we agreed to meet at their office in Windsor.”

  “How did you first get in touch with Mr Delacroix?”

  She thought back to the day before. “He phoned me at work.”

  “And who suggested meeting at Windsor?”

  “Well,” she hesitated, starting to feel uncomfortable. “He did.”

  “And who set the time?”

  Sarah spoke more quietly. “He did.”

  “And let’s say you’d been late for the meeting, how would you have contacted him?”

  “I’d have phoned him . . .” Realisation dawned on her. She gasped, “He was number withheld.”

  “We checked FCS Software. They do exist in that building in Windsor. But they’re nothing to do with the aviation industry. They’re a four-man company that develops games for mobile phones.”

  Sarah felt as if an abyss were swallowing her up. “Oh God. Oh God.”

  Tears streamed freely down her face. That meant there never was a deal. It had been some kind of trick. Deep down, she’d known it had been too good to be true. When was she ever that lucky? But if it wasn’t true, then she had absolutely no hope of making her target. She’d gambled everything on that deal. At the end of the month, Ashley would fire her, just like all the others.

  She buried her face in her hands and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Dad.”

  “At least you survived,” said DC Jones. Sarah looked up at the unexpected sharpness in her tone.

  “Well, yes. He was interrupted before he . . .” She shuddered. She’d told herself she wasn’t going to think about what had happened. Or what very nearly happened. But she couldn’t help herself. “God, it was so awful. He was just about to rape me, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, he was.” Jones nodded. “Perhaps worse.”

  Worse? Her job was as good as lost. Sunnyside would kick her Dad out at the end of the month. And all because of that creep.

  “What the hell could be worse?” The question popped out of her mouth without realising.