“What’d I do?” His roommate, friend, and co-worker, Rhys Gilyard, stared at him from the other side of the breakfast bar. Despite Rhys looking innocent with his big brown eyes, curly mop of black hair, glasses, and his British accent, Korbin didn’t buy it.
Korbin held up the jug of milk, which contained a little less than two swallows’ worth. He shook it at Rhys. “This. Either finish the damn thing and put it on the shopping list that we need more, or leave enough for me.”
“I did put it on the shopping list, mate.” He pointed at the front of the fridge, where a magnetic shopping list pad hung.
Korbin squinted at the paper. “Oh,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”
“Why are you so riled up?”
Why, indeed? He didn’t know how to explain how he felt. How over the past several weeks, as their work heated up and as time to reveal the beta version of their latest project to their boss drew closer, his edginess had grown to astronomical proportions. Especially when combined with an unsettling series of “incidents” that had cropped up over the past several weeks.
“Shut up,” he grumbled.
“Yes, that’s brilliant,” Rhys replied. “Are you ever going to talk about what’s bothering you, or just get more surly with me for no bloody good reason?”
“No reason?” He stared at Rhys in disbelief. “Are you frakking clueless? Where have you been the past few weeks?”
Rhys crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve been here to see you rattled by an unfortunate series of coincidences, if that’s what you mean.”
“The brakes go in your car yesterday. Someone broke into our house. Someone’s been trying to hack into—”
“We don’t know for sure that’s all related.”
“Like hell we don’t.”
“So they stole our laptops. They were fast, easy targets, in and out, right there in the living room on the coffee table. We have insurance. And Ormond had the place scanned for bugs. Which I feel was quite unnecessary, if you ask me, not that anyone did. Besides, we have an alarm now. It won’t happen again.”
Korbin shook his head. “I have a really bad feeling about all of this.”
“Look, Kor, just relax. I’ll be ready to leave in a few minutes. We still need to stop by the garage and check on my car.”
“Fine.” He stormed upstairs to get his stuff.
* * * *
Rhys kept his mouth shut during the drive to the mechanic where he’d had his car towed late yesterday. He could tell Korbin’s temper still flowed strong and fierce. When his best friend got like this, the only thing he could do was keep his mouth shut and ride out the storm until it passed.
He’d been doing it since college, so he was an expert in Korbin Temple meteorological readings.
They pulled into the parking lot. Rhys wasn’t sure Korbin would follow him into the office, but he did. The woman behind the counter asked them to wait while she told the mechanic they were there.
She returned a minute later with the mechanic, who carried a clipboard. “Let me show you what we found,” he said as he motioned for them to follow him.
He led them through to the shop to the third repair bay, where his car sat with the hood open.
“Your brakes went bad because of water in the system.”
Rhys frowned. “How the bloody hell did that happen?”
The man pulled the cap off a reservoir on the driver’s side of the engine compartment, up near the firewall, and dipped his finger in. Milky tan fluid coated his finger.
“That’s supposed to be clear,” the mechanic explained. “The entire system needs to be flushed out. Also, I highly recommend replacing the calipers, pads, and discs on all four wheels, as well as the master cylinder. If we don’t, I can’t guarantee the work. The seals could be shot. And I won’t know until I get into it, but we might have to replace brake hoses as well on all four wheels.”
Heat immediately filled Rhys’ face. “Eh, what is that?”
“What?”
Rhys pointed to the thing the mechanic had just opened.
“This is the master cylinder. Your brake fluid is full of water. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He laughed as he screwed the top back on. “Well, there was a woman once who thought it was her washer fluid reservoir. Man, did her husband chew her a new—”
“Right. How much to fix it?”
“Well, without brake hoses, you’re already looking at over eight hundred.”
“Fine. Do it. Whatever it needs.” He wanted out of there.
Immediately.
“Okay.” The mechanic handed the clipboard and a pen to Rhys. “Sign there for me for the estimate, that you’re okaying it.”
He hurriedly scribbled his name and practically shoved the clipboard back at him. “How long?”
“Oh, we might have it done before lunch. Definitely by the end of the day.”
“Brilliant. We’ll be back for it then, if not tomorrow morning.”
He practically bolted through the large bay door leading outside instead of walking back through the office, and was waiting for Korbin at his car when he caught up.
“What’s wrong?” Korbin asked.
“Nothing! Just open the blasted car and let’s get to work.”
Korbin’s gaze narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“We’re going to be late for work.”
“I can stand here all day and do this.” A slow grin creased his face. “Wait a minute.” A long, loud laugh escaped him, a relief because it meant his friend’s emotional storm had finally passed.
And it upset him because he knew Korbin had figured it out.
“You thought that was the washer fluid reservoir?”
Rhys tugged at the door handle, which Korbin still hadn’t unlocked. “You’re not exactly a master mechanic, my good friend. If I recall, a female Highway Patrol officer helped change your flat last week.”
Korbin scowled. “I’d never changed a tire before.” Rhys heard the click as Korbin hit the button on his key fob to unlock the doors. “But I’m smart enough to read the labels on the caps under the hood before I do something stupid like that.”
Rhys yanked the door open and got in. “I don’t wish to discuss it.”
He let out a snort. “Yeah, I guess you don’t.”
“Well can you blame me? It’s right there by the blasted wipers. It’s logical to assume that’s where it goes!”
“Dude, don’t pick on me for a flat tire. I’ve never done something like what you did.”
“It’s my first car. You know that. I didn’t grow up with cars like you did. We didn’t need them in London. If we went on holiday, my parents hired one. You taught me how to drive in college, if you’ll recall. Perhaps I should blame you for the lack of education.”
Korbin still wore a smile as he pulled out onto the highway. “Your car came with an instruction manual. Did you ever think about reading it?”
“It’s a car. You get in it, you turn the key, and you try not to hit anyone or anything while making it go. How difficult can it be?”
“Apparently more difficult than I thought.” Korbin shook his head and laughed. “I think we can rule out someone sabotaging your car, at least.”
Chapter Three
Manny rode with Rob as he drove them over to Pierogi Grill on Gulf to Bay Boulevard.
She suspected Rob had suggested the venue, knowing it was Manny’s favorite restaurant. “Trying to soften the blow?” she muttered.
He rolled his eyes but didn’t reply. Instead, he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out. She followed him inside, where they got a booth toward the back of the restaurant.
Manny wasn’t sure what to expect when she met Charles Ormond. Her training told her never to make judgments before meeting someone, but human nature made that impossible to a certain degree. She understood he had a bit of a maverick reputation, although she wasn’t quite sure why. None of the news stories she’d read really explained that part. He apparently a
llowed his employees a lot of leeway to get their jobs done, and had topped local lists of best employers every year. He was also known for promoting original, outside-the-box thinking amongst his people.
Manny didn’t need to study the menu. She knew it by heart and always got the same thing every time she came, an assortment of pierogies. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Rob perused it.
“I’m not the enemy, here,” he said.
She didn’t take her focus off the street outside, where traffic hurried back and forth on Gulf to Bay. At the park across the street, an older couple walked their black Lab. “I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re good at your job.” He put his menu down. “Do me a favor and just hear him out during lunch, okay?”
“Fine.”
“Thank you.”
A few minutes later, he raised his hand in greeting when a man entered. Older and balding where his greying hair wasn’t close-cropped, he looked like he’d been in great physical shape until time and a sedentary lifestyle broadened his waistline. Which was encased in a pair of brown, polyester pants.
Not exactly the forward-thinking maverick she’d been expecting.
When Rob got out of the booth to shake with him, Manny followed. “Chuck, this is Amanda Croyle, the investigator I told you about.”
She shook with him, glad to see he still had a decent grip. “Nice to meet you, sir. Manny’s fine.”
“Please, you can call me Chuck.”
They all sat. When the waitress had taken Ormond’s drink order, he clasped his hands in front of him on the table and lowered his voice. “How much did you tell her, Rob.”
“Just the basics. I’ll leave the details to you.”
He nodded before turning his intense hazel gaze on her. “Rob tells me you’re the best undercover investigator he’s got. And I’ve known him long enough to know that if he thinks you’re the best, you probably are. I need someone who can go in and protect Temple and Gilyard and keep them safe, along with hopefully figuring out who’s behind it.”
“What, exactly, are we talking about? And why can’t you report this to the cops? And what do your internal LP guys say about this?”
He sat back. “I haven’t talked to loss prevention.”
“No offense, but why not? Shouldn’t they be the first ones you talk to?”
“Because I don’t know if I can trust them. I’m not sure if one of them is in on it, or if there is anything to be in on.” He shrugged. “I need someone from the outside to do this.”
“And the police?”
“Because they need proof. Bringing in the cops this early will only warn whoever it is that I’m on to them.”
“If you’re on to them.”
“There is that. And honestly, I don’t have any concrete proof there’s anything sinister going on. It could be my paranoia and a random string of coincidences. Still, I’d feel better having someone close to my guys and working with them until we know for certain one way or another.”
She managed the herculean task of not glaring at Rob. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, then. Tell me the story.”
Ormond Technologies had been at the forefront of network software and hardware for a while. Their current top project, dubbed Artemis by the programmers, was to help hunt down and defend vulnerable machinery accessible via the Internet. There were already programs out there able to detect and take over these devices, but what Temple and Gilyard had discovered was a way to not only find them, but make them “invisible,” at least temporarily, buying time while tracking down the equipment’s owner and alerting them to the vulnerability.
Included in these devices and machinery were things like traffic controls, water and electric plants, and all sorts of networked devices protected by little more than a factory-default password, in some cases.
Their hope was to sell their new system to the Department of Homeland Security, secure a contract with them, and probably jump their firm to the top of international notice in cyber-security networking systems.
“Hackers are starting to focus on what might look like little targets, but they can cause a whole hell of a lot of problems,” Ormond said. “Banks and other large corporations have dedicated squads of programmers shoring up defenses every time the hackers find a new crack to squirm through. Those are the Holy Grail kinds of targets. Breaking into high-profile websites and hacking them. Stealing personal information from Social Security.
“But what if every traffic light in downtown Tampa suddenly went green? In the middle of rush hour. Or what if they get into the control systems at Tampa International and reconfigure the runway landing light systems and crash two planes into each other? Or they shut down a major water treatment plant that services tens of thousands of customers? Or shut down a hospital’s emergency generator system and then cause a power outage?”
Manny studied her hands rather than look Ormond in the eyes. “That’s not just science fiction bullshit?”
“Nope. A few things have already happened, very small-scale. But if a dedicated and extremely focused hacker wanted to suddenly cause mass hysteria, they could. Then add onto it hacking into a Twitter account for, oh, say CNN. Put out notices that the stock market computers have crashed, or that there was an explosion. Look what happened when one fake tweet about an explosion at the White House was posted. The markets tanked.”
“So what’s happening to your guys?”
“Well, it turns out one thing I thought happened was just Gilyard’s stupid fault. He put windshield washer fluid in his brake reservoir.”
She couldn’t hold back her laughter. “And you expect him to help you save the free world?”
“He’s a geek, okay? I said he was smart. I didn’t say he had common sense. I’m the one with common sense, and I hire people for their brains and abilities. Anyway, their house was broken into and their laptops stolen.”
“And you didn’t report that to the police?”
“No, they did report that. And they got an alarm installed. Plus I had a security sweep done just to be sure. But if the thieves were trying to find out information about the project, it was a waste of their time. Those were strictly their personal laptops. They never accessed anything at work with them. Employees aren’t even allowed to bring personal laptops or tablets onto campus. And in this case, those two don’t bring work laptops home. We use a redundant, constantly changing password system. The employees working on those systems carry a key fob with them with an entry key that allows them to access a new password. So it’s not easily hackable, even by someone skilled. It changes every thirty minutes.”
“How do you know they don’t bring laptops in?”
He frowned. “Well, it’s our policy.”
“What about in their cars?”
“We can’t police everyone’s car. They aren’t allowed in the buildings.”
“Then I’ll ask again, how do you know they aren’t bringing laptops in? Someone could be sneaking them in.”
Rob laughed. “I did warn you, Chuck. You might be getting more than you bargained for with her.”
She continued, undeterred. “We’ll drop that one for a moment. We can go back to it. A break-in doesn’t mean anything. People are victims of home burglaries all the time. It doesn’t mean people are after what they do for a living. Laptops are one of the most popular targets because they’re so easy to flip.”
“They haven’t shown up in any pawn shops,” Ormond said. “Plus, we’ve had over thirty serious hacking attempts from outside our firewall during the past week. That’s what finally put me over the edge and I decided to do something. We usually have one serious attempt a month. And there’s evidence they’re trying to find and figure out how to access Artemis. I’m not talking the hundreds of basic, bullshit hack and phish attempts that we get all the time. I’m talking a noticeable difference in the traffic pattern. Like we’re a direct target instead of someone just randomly looking for a vulnerability.”
“Again, I’m not a tech person.”
“You don’t need to be.” His expression grew grim. “I went ahead and purchased one of those identity protection plans for Gilyard, Temple, and a few other of my key employees, for identity theft prevention. With their knowledge, of course. In the past month and a half, there’s been over thirty unauthorized attempts to access Gilyard’s and Temple’s information.”
“And the other employees?”
“One. Total.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly.”
“Did you tell the men this?”
“Not yet. Not all of it. They know about the hacking attempts because it’s part of their job to know. And the identity theft attempts, but I didn’t tell them how high the hits were on their names versus everyone else. I wanted to talk to Rob first before I sat down with them. They’re both pretty high-strung in their own ways. I don’t want to worry them if it turns out this is just a series of coincidences. I need their brains focused on their job, not this bullshit. I still think having you there, working with them undercover, is the best thing right now.”
“I’ll be honest with you both, I’m still not sure there’s a solid enough pattern here to go on, other than coincidence.”
“There’s one more thing,” Ormond said. “There was a third team member working with them up until two months ago.”
Manny hoped she concealed her irritation. “That would have been helpful information to start with,” she said. “What happened to him?”
“I fired him.”
“Why?”
“Well, he suddenly started coming in late a lot. Apparently having a lot of personal problems. Acting strange.”
“How?”
“Nothing I could put my finger on. Just…wrong. When I tried to talk with him about it, he didn’t want to talk, said he was having personal problems.”
“Drugs?”
He shook his head. “I thought so, at first. We do periodic drug testing and he was clean. Soon after he left, that’s when I noticed increased outside traffic attempting to gain access to the server containing the project we’re talking about. Which can’t happen because we have it isolated. You have to be on a wired connection with our in-house VPN to access it. And no one can take over one of those machines remotely, because they’re isolated from the Internet. And the only two machines that are hard-wired into that particular server are the ones locked down in Temple and Gilyard’s office. It’s secure.”
Two Geeks and Their Girl (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 2