by I C Cosmos
“Have a minute?”
“Shoot.” Collin barely lifted his eyes from the messages he was scanning.
“It looks like we have a breach,” Omar said quietly.
Collin straightened up and looked around their makeshift op-center. “Where?” he asked after making sure that no one else was in the room.
“It’s Bobby. And I am not sure I really have something. But I thought you should know about it right away.”
Bobby. Collin knew the guy was trouble. He had been hesitant to take on the job when Frank asked him to add Bobby to their surveillance program. Collin’s people had their hands full with Santini and Helen already. The last thing they needed was to babysit a philandering playboy. But Frank insisted. And now they were not only surveilling Bobby 24/7 but also his car and hotel room. Collin sighed.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Omar said, his face becoming animated.
“Start at the beginning.” Collin leaned back in his chair. Omar was the youngest member of the team. And one of the brightest. Knowing his stuff and talking only when he had something to say. His barely hidden excitement was telling Collin that Omar was on to something big.
“To start with, Bobby changed his work pattern. He mostly works with his laptop on the table. Or sometimes in his lap with his feet on the coffee table. But now he took to sitting on the floor and blocking the screen with his body.”
“Did you see any new activities?” Collin asked.
“No. That’s the thing. He does the same old stuff as before. But I noticed a new pattern in our recording of his screen. Normally we have a fluid stream of data, but the images are mostly static when he is working down on the floor.”
“Maybe he sits down on the floor and thinks.”
“That’s what I thought at first. I checked the vids we have of his room to verify it. It’s not entirely clear, but it seems that he is typing, but our screen recording remains static.” Omar paused.
“You think he figured out that we are surveilling him and blocked us out?”
“Not sure. But he is up to something. See for yourself.” Omar opened his laptop. “I reviewed the room vids all the way back to the first time he worked on the floor. And then I went a few minutes back. He was sitting at the desk, and we have a decent view of his laptop screen from the room camera.” Omar showed Collin the image.
“And this is the screen recording we have from the very same time.”
“Holy shit.” Collin swallowed hard. The images should be the same, but they weren’t. The view from the room camera showed an extra paragraph at the top of the text.
“Yeah. It looks like he’s got a communication wormhole in his brainstorming file. And that’s not all.” Omar was on a roll. “Do you see the formatting of the mysterious paragraph? It’s like a message. I can’t enlarge it any more to read it, but the signature probably starts with P.”
“Could be.” Collin studied the signature, not convinced.
“I searched Bobby’s texts and mails from the last few days.” Omar tapped a few keys, and a new image appeared on his laptop. “He received two messages from Pal.”
“A disgruntled customer?” Collin asked after reading the messages.
“Maybe. Bobby has his share of trolls. But most of them are on social media and have traceable accounts. These two messages are untraceable.”
Collin whistled. “Great job, Omar,” he said, thinking about whom to put on the “Bobby breach” to assist Omar. They were all spread too thin already. Maybe he’d have Omar monitor the situation on his own for a few days.
“I didn’t get to the strangest part yet.” Omar looked at Collin sheepishly. “Are you on TP?”
“No.” Collin shook his head.
“I am. But only for the games. Their protection stuff sucks. Anyhow, I think you should see this.”
Omar replayed the video of Bobby working furiously on his laptop, pushing it away and jumping to his feet, then slumping on the floor, crying.
“OK. So Bobby isn’t as cool as he looks on TV.” Collin wasn’t sure where this was going.
“Let me show you what he worked on when this drama unfolded.”
Collin watched Bobby creating a TP account in the name of Curious Tester, taking a few quizzes, jumping from screen to screen in a rapid tempo, and finally landing on a log of sent messages. Catchy memes designed to discredit the president’s political opponents scrolled across the screen. It didn’t make sense at first, but then Collin grasped the gist of it.
“Oh man.”
“Yeah. Pal has a point.” Omar nodded. “This is what TP is really about. Spreading political propaganda. The more games you play, the more propaganda is sent out.”
“You are kidding.”
“No. I re-created it on my account. Have it all on video,” Omar said. “I feel like an idiot that I didn’t catch it. But I just played a few games after work to chill. I didn’t pay attention. Most people don’t, I guess.” Omar looked crushed.
“OK. Where do I sign up? I want to re-create it again.”
“It doesn’t work anymore.”
Collin sighed, frustration getting the better of him. “How come?”
“TP issued a software update. I ignored it at first—that’s why I could re-create what they were doing. But as of now you have to update before they let you on the platform. And once you update, the propaganda is no longer sent.”
Collin sat back, putting it all together.
“So Bobby gets a message from Pal telling him that spam crap took over his gaming platform, goes into a funk, but puts himself together and fixes it. That’s pretty much what we have here, right?”
“Yes. Except that the sptfr3 program no longer sends the propaganda but still generates stats as if the messages were sent.”
“Are you saying that Bobby cut the shit, but let his bosses think that it’s still going on?” Collin said, realizing that the kid couldn’t know this unless he hacked TP’s system. Jesus…
“Omar, tell me that I have no reason to think what I am thinking.”
Not a muscle moved in Omar’s face.
Monte Carlo
The kid’s got chutzpah, Collin thought, observing Omar’s poker face.
“Did you tell anyone about this?” Collin asked.
“No.”
“Keep it that way.”
Omar nodded. “I have a request, sir.”
Collin’s eyebrows shot up. No one on his team ever called him sir after their first day on the job.
“That sounds serious.”
“It is. I’d like to buy you lunch.” Omar looked at his watch. “Or whatever they serve now.”
“OK. The little café down the road. Get us a table. I’ll be there in ten.”
Omar left, and Collin went back to scanning his messages. Nothing that couldn’t wait. He locked up and headed toward the café. Omar sat at a table surrounded by oleanders blooming in large pots, thumbing his phone. A large bottle of mineral water sparkled in the sun. I could get used to living in southern France, Collin thought, and sat down.
“Thank you for coming,” Omar said.
“Sure.” Collin poured water for both of them, curious as to what Omar had to say. At least he dropped the sir.
“I don’t think we have to worry about the legal stuff, if that’s what you were thinking about.” Omar looked into Collin’s eyes.
“You sure you want to talk about this here?” Collin leaned forward.
“It’s safer here. The place is clean and everyone’s enjoying life. No one’s interested in us.”
“Maybe. No one was in the other place.”
“Too many computers. You never know.”
Collin sighed, bracing himself for Omar’s revelations.
“I read and reread our order several times,” Omar said. “It’s clear. We are authorized to surveil all of his devices and follow any activities and their derivatives we deem necessary.”
“So the program we looked
at is a derivative.”
“Most definitely.”
Collin thought about it. “I guess we get away with this for now. What’s next?”
“Following the data.” Omar took a sip of water.
“And?”
“The data from all TP members, including the sptfr3 stats, are collected and aggregated in TP’s database, subject to intense 24/7 crunching. The results of the analyses are updated per hour. Once per day a summary is generated and delivered to a recipient we both know.” Omar ran his fingers over his jaw. “Then a copy of the summary is made and deposited in a dead drop. That’s all I was able to discover.”
“That’s a lot for one day.”
“And night.”
“Right,” Collin said absentmindedly, processing what Omar had told him. A recipient we both know? “Tell me about the dead drop.”
“It’s quite interesting, actually. It’s a dead drop within a dod-box owned by the recipient of the data. A copy of the data summary goes to the dod-box and then is moved to the dead drop.”
Clever, Collin concluded. Everything looked kosher from the outside. Copying a document and putting it in a dod-box, the government’s version of Dropbox, was an innocent operation that wouldn’t trigger any flags. And what happened in the dod-box remained hidden.
Collin steepled his fingers and raised them to his chin. “Hm… and now the million-dollar question. Who—”
“Gentlemen, do you want to order something?” The waiter approached their table.
Nice, France
Hotel Negresco
Frank Crawford. Frank bloody Crawford was the recipient of TP’s sptfr3 stats! The analyzed and summarized data were delivered to him every day at 9:00 p.m. EST sharp. Helen stood up and paced back and forth across her suite. Too hyper from the hours of intense detective work, she needed a break.
But her discovery was too overwhelming. The super-correct Frank Crawford involved in criminal activities? The data pointed in that direction. Shocking! No wonder Nic had quit the operation. Helen wished Nic had told her what was going on. She would have jumped ship too.
Quitting won’t stop this. Now you can expose it.
But how? Exposing was easy in itself. Exposing so that the perpetrators got caught was not. One wrong step and the perps would cover up their tracks and leave Helen behind with the mess. Exposed. Looking guilty.
Helen grabbed a bottle of mineral water and sipped it slowly, as if taking a mouthful would explode her already bursting mind.
She took a deep breath, counted to four, and let the air slowly leave her lungs. She had to repeat the exercise several times until she calmed down sufficiently to get back to the data. One step at a time…
The fact that Frank received the data summaries looked bad but wasn’t a sufficient proof of his wrongdoing. What did he do with the summaries? Helen went back to work.
A copy of the summaries went to Frank’s dod-box and disappeared in a protected folder. A dead drop? That would be clever… Helen inspected the dod-box. Besides the dead drop, it was filled with Collin Frey’s team’s surveillance reports, filed daily. Helen’s curiosity almost got the better of her, but she resisted opening the reports. Never hack into a file unless you absolutely have to.
She’d decide what to do about Collin’s stuff later; the dead drop folder was Helen’s first priority. She was tempted to send her bots to crack it, but caution was more important than speed. Smuggling her bot in with the next data delivery was less risky and gave her plenty of time to prepare.
Helen meticulously documented her findings and stored them in her “data fortress,” hoping she’d never have to use this information. She stretched and let her eyes rest on the Mediterranean for a few blissful moments. Then she stood up and put on her walking shoes, a wide grin forming on her lips. It was time to drag Collin’s boys to the Castle Hill and show them some beautiful views of Nice.
She left the hotel and followed the Promenade des Anglais to the Quai des États-Unis, observing people and trying not to think of Frank Crawford. With the same effect as if someone asked her not to think about a pink elephant. Finally she stopped fighting and let her thoughts come and go freely.
The dod-box isn’t approved for classified stuff. Collin Frey’s reports should never be there.
Frank was a stickler for the rules. He didn’t look like someone who would put classified materials in unauthorized places. Helen made a mental note to trace how Collin’s reports made it to the box.
The more she thought about it, the more it looked like someone was framing Frank. How long could she keep this to herself before having to report it? But to whom could she report it? And how would she explain that she knew what was in Frank’s dod-box? She would look like a common hacker unless she disclosed what she was doing, which would be a breach of her contract.
Helen sighed, stopped in front of a restaurant, and quickly scanned the people behind her. Shivers ran up her spine.
Santini was in town.
Giardini Botanici Hanbury, Ventimiglia, Italy
The next day
Juicy green lushness. Everything was so fresh and fragrant. It would be lovely, if she weren’t on this assignment. No. It was lovely, in spite of the job she had to do. Helen parked the Mercedes and walked to the entrance of the famous Hanbury Gardens, trying to crank up a positive attitude.
Without much success. Any which way she looked at it, this assignment sucked. She didn’t have any real tasks to speak of. Walking around and scanning her devices for nonexistent terrorist activities didn’t cut it. Anger shot through her. They were using her as bait. Such a waste of time. Did they really think Nic would fall for this nonsense?
Helen sighed and then almost laughed out loud when she noticed three cars competing for one tight parking spot. Should she wait for them until they square it away? No, they are big guys, Helen thought. Paid for following her. The thug got the spot. Go figure… This wasn’t her day.
Helen entered the garden and followed a path down the steep hill, passing palm trees, aloes, agaves, and blossoming wisteria running up tall cypresses. No other visitors were around. Helen’s devices were deadly silent, but her heart was thumping in her chest, anticipating the paradise garden turning into hell within seconds.
What if Nic showed up here after all? What would she do? Talk with him? Run as he did in Paris? Helen’s chest tightened. Being with Nic would be as good as having a target painted on her back, and he knew it. If he wanted to connect, he’d find a digital way.
The path brought Helen to a small, open-air café. She was relieved to see an elderly couple sitting at one of the tables. The man leaned over to show his partner something on his phone and bumped the table. Two large cups rattled in their saucers, splashing coffee over the place mats.
“Oh… I am so sorry.” The man’s hand holding the phone stopped midair.
Americans. The dismay that momentarily clouded their happy faces played on Helen’s heart strings. The guy fetched a few napkins and dried the spillage.
“Don’t worry, honey.” The woman touched the man’s hand and smiled at him. Love sparkled in their eyes. They look so much like Mom and Dad. Helen’s heart let out a tear.
She ordered a cappuccino and automatically selected the farthest table from the couple, in case Santini’s goons lost their cool and tried to attack her here. A hot wave of anger nearly choked her. I was supposed to prevent terrorism, not expose people to it.
Because that’s what the Consortium and DEI crooks were. Terrorists. Using taxpayers’ money and customers’ money to terrorize them online.
And offline. Helen’s nails cut into her palms. She inhaled, counted to four, and let the air slowly leave her lungs. Fury will not solve this. A few random rogue signals popped up on her signal processor but disappeared just as quickly.
She sipped her cappuccino, waiting for new instructions. The only order she got this morning was to drive to the Hanbury Gardens and record any terrorist activities until further notic
e. Whatever that meant. She decided to stay in the café and get some real work done.
At 9:00 p.m. EST, in the middle of the night in Nice, the bot she had planted in the new summary of the sptfr3 stats landed safely in Frank’s dod-box. Two hours later, the summary, including her bot, had been deposited into a dead drop, which actually resided on TP’s server, as Helen found out. Helen had seen this happening before she departed on the forty-five-minute drive from Nice to the Hanbury Gardens, and it had puzzled her since.
Why would anyone fetch the summaries from the TP server, deposit them into Frank’s dod-box, and then send them back to the TP server?
Either Frank was involved in some mysterious procedure or someone was framing him. Would he listen to her if she could prove that someone had hacked him? Or would he kill the messenger? Helen didn’t want to find out. Her phone vibrated on the table.
>> Ventimiglia food market. Leave immediately.
She stood and walked up the hill to the entry of the garden, feeling vulnerable. If they wanted to take her out now, no one was here to stop them. The food market would be the opposite. Too many people. But no one could stop them there either.
An old guy was sitting on a low stone wall halfway up the hill, resting his hands on a cane. He looked frail but made Helen feel better nonetheless.
She checked the car for bombs and drove toward the center of Ventimiglia. As she predicted, the market was crowded with noisy shoppers stocking up on freshly caught fish, fruits, chunks of cheese, freshly made pasta, a variety of wild mushrooms looking like someone had just picked them in the forest, and an abundance of glossy veggies that gave the Mediterranean diet its fame. Although much bigger, the market reminded Helen of the Noordermarkt in Amsterdam. And of Collin Frey.
Her senses feasted on the vibrant colors and the ripe aromas while she listened to the sounds and observed the action around her. She scanned her apps. No action.
A message popped up.
>> Walk to the old town.