“So, what do you think?” Lucy asked Roger after the others had left. It was just him and her now.
Roger was quiet for a long time.
“I’m pretty worried.”
“Me too,” she agreed.
They both looked at the email again.
WE CAN HURT YOUR COMPANY.
WE CAN HURT YOU.
WE CAN HURT YOUR FAMILY.
Lucy scowled. “This can’t be from some upset, run-of-the-mill player.”
“You don’t say, Miss Obvious,” said Roger. “I think if someone had earned all that money through legitimate means, they’d have invested it in the stock market.”
“You think it’s all illegal?”
“Yes. And I wonder if this player might be experienced at delivering on threats he makes.”
There was a long silence.
“Why us?” asked Lucy, feeling very uncomfortable. “I mean, what’s the attraction of Safari?”
“I don’t know. But it can’t be good.”
Lucy sat down on the edge of the table and rubbed her eyes. She suddenly felt very tired. She had hardly slept last night, and there was probably only so much adrenaline left to carry her through.
A tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered to her. You’ve failed. You’re in charge of security here. You should have been more prepared.
Roger put his hand on Lucy’s shoulder. As if reading her thoughts, he said, “You know, this probably would have happened regardless. It was just a matter of time. It isn’t a matter of if. It’s when.”
“Maybe.”
“Some types of people are just attracted to bad situations.”
Lucy smiled cynically. “To whom are you referring?”
Roger put his other hand on her opposite shoulder until he was looking directly in her eyes. “The author of that email is the one at fault here, Lucy. Not you, not me, not Derek, not anyone else. We didn’t do anything wrong. We’re the victims here, not the problem. You need to believe that.”
Lucy stared at the ground. The voice in her head repeated itself a little louder. You weren’t good enough. This is your fault.
Taking his hands off her, Roger reached to his belt and pulled his cell phone out of its belt holster. He began typing onto the touch screen.
“What are you doing?”
Roger continued typing. “Lucy, I need you to do something. I know you have a... relationship... with the authorities when it comes to cyber security, hacking, online crime, that sort of thing. Right?”
Lucy shifted uncomfortably on the desk. “Yes.”
“We need to bring them into this.”
“Roger.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know about that. My history with the Feds is complicated. You know it didn’t start off the right way.”
That was a gross understatement. Almost going to jail for helping a friend hack into a bank while attending community college. There she had been again, hanging out with the wrong crowd, about to fall back into a track that ultimately led nowhere. So she turned informant. Shades of Billy, and where the journey with him had ultimately ended, had always stayed with her. She didn’t want to commit to a path of self-destruction a second time.
“I’m not saying that you need to run with it all yourself,” said Roger doggedly. He typed some more on his phone and then looked up. “But it has to happen. That email could be a death threat. The Feds need to be involved. We’re also going to have to tell Jim.”
Lucy shuddered involuntarily.
“I—I’m really uncomfortable with that, Roger.”
“Tell me why.”
“I... look. I want to help. I am more vested in this company than a lot of people, you know that, right?”
“Yes.”
“So I also know what Jim’s reaction will be. You thought he chewed out Derek? He’ll fire me for bringing in the FBI while he’s doing an IPO road show.”
And then he’ll kill me, just for good measure.
Lucy’s phone pinged. She fished it off the desk and read the email.
Lucy,
Per our discussion, due to the nature of the email threat we’ve received, I am directing you to contact the FBI and get them involved immediately.
Roger
The color drained from Lucy’s face.
“My God. What are you doing to me?”
“I’m taking the responsibility off your shoulders,” replied Roger. “Now it’s on me—the choice, and the consequences.”
Lucy’s stomach turned in knots. While she had been legit for a long time, the idea of inviting the authorities to inspect the insides of your underwear was far from pleasant.
But she understood. The email was to protect her from Jim.
She had the contacts and the background—it made sense for her to reach out to the right department at the FBI, inform them of the situation, and get the right people involved. Roger would shield her—or take the fall—for bringing in someone to investigate and help.
“What am I going to say?” Lucy closed her eyes, trying to steel herself.
“Tell them that a user is violating our End User License Agreement.”
“Very funny.”
Each of them looked at the projector screen one last time.
“You know… the deadline for paying them off is tomorrow. That makes me nervous.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Lucy knew that desperate people did desperate things. And it made her shudder.
29
It was Tuesday morning and Derek immersed himself in work to keep his mind from spinning out of control. He had just hit send on an email when there was a rap on the door. Roger, Lucy, and two men in suits had stepped into his office.
“Hi, Derek,” said Roger. “Got a minute?”
Derek leaned back into his chair and stretched. “Sure, if you don’t mind your paycheck being late. What’s up?”
“We have some guests we’ve invited in. These gentlemen are from the FBI.”
“Uh... o-kay....”
Derek straightened up. One of men was in his mid-forties and had reddish blond hair and blue eyes. The other was younger, Hispanic, and looked like he hit the weight room a couple times an hour. The one with red hair extended his hand.
“Derek. I’m Special Agent LaRue, and this is Special Agent Jimenez,” he said, pointing at his stocky companion. “We’re from the FBI Cyber Crimes Unit. We’ve worked with Miss Sonheim in the past on other security investigations. Given the online nature of the business you’re in, we’d like to sit down and talk with you about the email you received making threats against you and Netertainment.”
What the hell just happened? Lucy sent my email to the Feds?
Derek stared at her. Lucy stared back from where she stood against the far wall. Here she went again, protecting her company from harm. Why hadn’t she talked to him before bringing in the FBI? Derek wasn’t sure he even disagreed with the call, but the disempowerment was sickening. A flare of anger rose up and he felt himself turning red.
“So here you are,” said Derek, speaking to Agent LaRue, although that was not whom he was looking at. “Glad to see you took matters into your own hands, Miss Sonheim.”
“She didn’t,” responded Roger. “She did what she was supposed to do. Lucy briefed me on the situation while she pulled key resources—Manmeet, Streib, Marty—off their day jobs to get a handle on things. I made her reach out to the Feds, Derek.”
Derek turned to Roger. “Would have been nice to know beforehand, wouldn’t it?”
“You need someone slightly removed from the situation’s immediacy to make the call. The worst thing you could do would be to sit on this, Derek.”
He relaxed a little. Roger was sincere, and Derek knew in his heart that he was right. Derek probably would have said not to do anything.
An extra set of chairs were brought in and Special Agent LaRue sat down. Special Agent Jimenez remained standing, but took out a little notebook and pen and began writing in it.
“Now, Mr. Callahan,” LaRue began, “I know a lot of this may be intimidating at first. Let me assure you that we are here to help you. Receiving threats or having money stolen electronically may be something new to you, but we deal with it all the time. We have expertise in how to investigate cybercrime and bring criminals to justice. So, just relax if you can. Okay?”
“Sure,” said Derek, not convincingly. “What do I call you? Just...”
“Special Agent LaRue is fine.”
“Right.”
“We have two goals here. First, we’re here to protect you. Second, we want to catch these guys. We’re going to need your help on both counts. To start, I’d like you to take me through all the pertinent events leading up to this email.”
Derek took a deep breath. “Do you know what Netertainment does, or anything about the business we are in?”
Agent LaRue nodded. “We’re familiar with both.”
Derek felt suddenly overwhelmed, as if a giant wave had crashed into him and pinned him underwater. “I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Where should I start? I’m unclear on what to cover.”
“I understand,” said Agent LaRue calmly. “Let’s try this. From your perspective, tell me how you discovered that your company was missing any money.”
Agent Jimenez turned a page in his notebook and waited, still standing, with pen ready.
Derek closed his eyes. He started to talk about the day he was reviewing their new operational reporting. Netertainment’s revenues had been growing, he recalled, so the drop in their cash balance had stuck out like a ringing bell. Derek ran the report a second time. Same result. He then pulled in Roger, Lucy, and Manmeet for help. When they couldn’t find a transaction record in the game database, they had all become very worried.
“And who is Manmeet?” asked Agent LaRue.
“Manmeet is our lead infrastructure engineer,” replied Roger.
“What’s his last name?” said Agent Jimenez, his head down in his little notebook.
“Attariwala.”
Agent Jimenez’s writing slowed noticeably.
“Then what happened, Mr. Callahan?” asked Agent LaRue.
Derek went through the rest of it—at least, the stuff he thought mattered. The fact that there wasn’t an audit trail like they would have expected when the two million dollars had disappeared, nor when a million dollars came back. The ominous email from an alleged player that accused him, or Netertainment, of taking money away. The menacing implications of harm that would be carried out if it wasn’t returned. How Derek called Lucy and asked for help.
“And that’s pretty much it, at a high level,” Derek finished. He glanced over at Lucy and Roger. “Next thing I know, you guys are here.”
Roger cleared his throat. “Agent LaRue, there are just a few more things that it probably makes sense to share.”
“Go ahead.”
“First, I think we’re all in agreement here at Netertainment that this is illicit money we’re dealing with. Our players just don’t put millions of dollars in an online adventure game. That’s the primary reason for asking for your help.”
“Okay.”
“Second,” Roger continued, “Derek received this email the night before last. Yesterday morning, Lucy had our core development and QA team in a meeting to analyze how we could have so much cash disappear off the books, but not have a normal audit trail showing where it was being held. The conclusion they came to was that another player may have taken the money through the course of adventuring.”
Derek blinked. There was another player involved?
Roger kept rolling before Derek could even say a word. “Derek, I haven’t had a chance to brief you on this—it’s all brand new. But given that there’s already been one threatening email sent, I think it’s justified to point out that other people may be in danger here as well. All of our employees and ourselves included.”
“Okay. So there we are,” Derek said finally.
A long pause.
“Tell me, Agent LaRue,” Derek continued. “How much danger do you really suppose I’m in? Or my family? I’m easy enough to find on the company website. Easy enough for empty threats.”
“We should take the threats seriously. We don’t know enough to say whether it’s likely to be just simple intimidation, or if there’s more behind it. Does your family know any of what’s going on?”
“No. They’re not even in Texas.”
“We’ll need to collect information about them. We can arrange local contact and protection for them.”
The look of concern that must have crossed Derek’s face caused Agent LaRue to elaborate. “Mr. Callahan, in this age, information is pretty easy to find. Being the CFO of the organization in this discussion, you’ve obviously been marked as a person who could trigger a payout. That makes you a target. This pattern isn’t unique to your situation. Many times, a cyber-criminal’s entire goal is simply to threaten enough pain that a company is willing to pay them to go away. This individual might be simply fishing for a bribe.”
“Even a million dollar bribe? Come on.”
“Yes,” replied LaRue, “even a million dollar bribe. How much more than that would you stand to lose if this person were able to take down your system for a week?”
Derek nodded sourly. “Okay. I get it. Do you think it’s all posturing, then? Would they really go after my family?”
“Anything—or anyone—that can be used as leverage to influence your behavior is a possible target.”
“My son. My... wife,” said Derek, forcing out the last word. “They don’t know anything about this. I can’t let them get hurt.”
Agent LaRue maintained a neutral expression. “As I said, we’ll arrange observation and contact for them as necessary. Before we jump to conclusions about security, though, Mr. Callahan, I’d like to run through a couple actions that I need done in order to help the investigation.”
“What do you want?”
“First. It would be prudent to assume, given the amount of money involved, that the people making threats against you and your company may be also trying other means to recover it. If I understand how your operations work, we should consider freezing the bank accounts in question to protect your assets from a hacking attempt or some other intrusion.”
One glance at Roger was all it took to arrive at his answer. “Absolutely not.”
“Mr. Callahan...”
Roger stepped in. “That would be extremely difficult, Agent LaRue. It’s all one account now. The account exists between Netertainment and BBC. To shut that down would basically be turning off all of our operations.”
Agent LaRue and Agent Jimenez exchanged looks. “Mr. Callahan, I’d really encourage you to consider that—”
“No,” Derek said. “Next.”
After a pause that indicated annoyance not shown by his facial expression, Agent LaRue continued. “Second. We have some analysts we’d like to bring in to look through your network. We’ll need you to provide them access to whatever they need.”
“What are they going to do?” asked Lucy. “I already have SecureNet performing that work.”
“Then we’ll work with their personnel. The main thing is that we want to locate any signs or activity that might help us trace back who these people are. It could be a piece of malware, it could be something out of place in the server logs, anything. We keep track of many bad guys. If we can find anything that matches something on record, we’ll have a better idea of how to neutralize the threat and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
“Okay,” replied Derek. “What else?”
Agent LaRue looked gravely at Derek. “Lastly, we need to be prepared for the blackmailer’s next move. There’s a clear threat that’s been made. We should expect them to follow-through.”
Derek frowned. “What kind of follow-through?”
“It could be a cyber-attack of some kind. Maybe they’ve infiltrated your network and have a Trojan wait
ing to fire. It could be something physical, which like I said, we will help with. This situation is a little unusual in the fact that a threat’s been made before any disruptive action has been taken. It’s more typical to start, say, a denial-of-service attack first and then ask for a payout to make it stop. Or for a hacker to steal sensitive data and have it in his possession before threatening to release it. That said, this person clearly thinks they can bring enough leverage against you to pressure you into making a big payoff. So, expect it.”
He was going to have a hell of a time sharing all this with Jim Palmisano. “Okay.”
“While we’re working on this, I do need all of you to limit communication on what’s happening. Do not talk to the media. Do not respond if the blackmailer tries to contact you again. If you should be put on the spot—say, this person calls you on the phone—let them know that anything they say will be recorded and that law enforcement is involved. Otherwise, mum’s the word. Okay?”
“We understand,” Derek said.
Special Agent LaRue nodded. “Good. Now—Lucy, there are some people on your staff that we’d like to interview. Can you take us to them? I want to reiterate that this all needs to stay low-key, so if we could find a private room for conversations, that would be helpful.”
“You can use the Hermes conference room over by Ahmad’s office,” Roger said. “That’s located away from most of the office areas.”
Lucy looked relieved at having something mundane to do. “If you gentlemen would follow me?”
Special Agent Jimenez stepped out of Derek’s office. Special Agent LaRue stood, so Derek did as well, expecting to shake hands with a guest about to leave—even if that guest was an FBI agent. But as he offered his hand, LaRue jerked his head toward the picture frame on Derek’s desk. “You a Marine?”
Derek looked at his photo. “Yeah.”
“Semper Fi,” replied LaRue, losing a little of his frosty demeanor. “I was First Recon. Spent a lot of time in Iraq and Afghanistan before getting out and joining the FBI. The locale in that photo looks just like some of the places I’ve been. When were you in?”
Armchair Safari (A Cybercrime Technothriller) Page 28