Social Engineer

by Ian Sutherland

  Brody clapped his hands, sardonically. “Well done, you’re getting the hang of this.” He didn’t bother to play the audio file.

  The video cut to Brody in front of the mirror. This time he had replaced his Cisco cap with a plain grey one and had donned overalls. He’d located a trolley, carrying a mop and bucket, trays of cleaning materials and a large yellow sack.

  He returned to the corridor, pushing the trolley. Slowly, he walked back in the direction of the double doors Colin Renshaw’s security pass had failed to open. The nearer he got, the slower he walked. Every couple of yards, the video panned around to check if anyone was coming the other way. But the corridor remained empty.

  From the speakers, Brody’s voice clearly said, “Bugger,” and on the screen, he began to turn the trolley around. At the half-turn mark, the camera moved quickly to show one of the double doors opening. Someone was coming through from the other side. Quickly, he turned the trolley back and rushed the last few yards towards the opening door.

  A man in a dark suit was walking through. The camera was pointed downwards, taking in the man’s shiny tan brogues as Brody avoided eye contact. In an Eastern European sounding accent, Brody’s voice said, “Would you mind?”

  A second later the shiny shoes stepped back and the camera nodded thanks, briefly revealing the face of the helpful employee.

  In the meeting room, Jacobsen leapt to his feet. “You’ve got to be fucking joking!” Brody flinched as Jacobsen violently flung his expensive pen down on the table but in Brody’s general direction. It instantly shattered, three pieces bouncing upwards — one heading straight for Brody’s face. Brody reacted quickly and snatched it out of the air. The other two pieces flew either side of him, one just missing Dr Moorcroft.

  Onscreen, Jacobsen himself could clearly be seen, obligingly holding the door open. Brody pushed the trolley through. He mumbled an accented “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jacobsen’s voice said from the speakers.

  In the meeting room, Jacobsen slumped back in his chair.

  CHAPTER 4

  Three Weeks Ago

  Brody held the door open, allowing Mel to pass into the small lobby of the residential block of flats. She pressed the button to call the lift, which opened immediately.

  As they rose to the top floor, Brody asked, “Do we really have to do this?”

  “Brody, they are my friends. And Neil will be there. You got on well with ’im last time.”

  Was his acting that good? Neil, Joyce’s fiancé, had bored him almost to death the last time they had met. He only had two subjects, both uninteresting: football or animal rights. And worse, tonight Joyce and Neil were hosting a dinner party, with two other activist couples Brody hadn’t previously met. He felt like he was walking into a recruitment fair for fresh new protestors. Brody had never given animal cruelty a second thought before meeting Mel, and still couldn’t find any reason why he should. Surely, their relationship didn’t have to mean they shared each other’s hobbies?

  The lift door opened and Joyce was there to welcome them with kisses on both cheeks. She ushered them into her minimalist apartment, all in white except for swashes of colour from large abstract paintings. They were last to arrive. Joyce thrust glasses of Prosecco at them and returned to the kitchen. After shaking hands with Neil, Mel cheerfully introduced him to the other two couples. Brody resolved to stay cheerful and amiably made small talk right up until they made their way over to the large, round glass dining table, where he discovered that the seating arrangement forced each couple to separate. He had been strategically placed between Joyce, whom he knew, and Mary, an American stewardess regularly flying long haul over ‘the pond’ for US Airways.

  He made it through the starter by asking Mary inane questions about her life in the air. He made it through the main course answering questions about his life as a location scout. He used up nearly every anecdote in his carefully researched repertoire, all rehearsed and reused many times, many of which were repurposed from stories he’d originally read in film industry magazines or on Internet gossip sites. At one point, the name-dropping of celebrities made him the focus of the whole table, which he began to find uncomfortable.

  As Joyce served dessert and the others compared notes about West End shows they’d seen, Mary unsubtly steered the conversation towards the common interest of the seven companions. She turned to him and asked, completely rhetorically, “Brody, did you know that primates experience pain just as humans do?”

  “Do they?” For Mel’s sake, he tried to sound interested.

  “And did you know how many rhesus monkeys are bread in captivity each year, just to serve the needs of the drug research companies?”

  He admitted he didn’t know. She told him. It was a high figure. She went on to explain that rhesus monkeys were a particular favourite because the animal is genetically the closest to humans, even having menstrual cycles and similar hormonal patterns.

  “And did you know that very few of these animals ever get to see the sun? It’s disgusting.”

  He agreed it was indeed disgusting.

  He controlled the urge to ask how else the drug companies might safely test their medicines before human trials began. He knew from skirting around the subject with Mel that it was a pointless question, with the alternatives ranging from testing on human tissue cultures to statistics and computer models. All far inferior approaches.

  Instead, he asked her, “Do you think that protesting outside the gates of the pharma Pharma companies does much to help?”

  “We have to! We can’t let them know for a second that we’ve given up.”

  “But surely the only thing that would change their practices would be public opinion?”

  “Exactly, that’s why we do it.”

  “But, if you don’t mind me saying, surely the media needs to cover your protests in order for you to have a chance of influencing the public? Don’t you need to be front page material?”

  “You’re right,” Mary admitted. “We’re forever trying to find ways to make what we do newsworthy.”

  “And that’s hard?”

  “Yes, of course. The cause we’re fighting will never be fixed with a single punch. It’s a long-term strategy. And the problem with that is that the media always need their interesting sound bite. Something new and tangible.”

  “Surely there must be an uppercut that would floor the big pharmas?”

  “I doubt it. The Holy Grail would be footage from inside one of their research laboratories showing just how badly treated the animals are.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “But that’s impossible to get. Believe me, we’ve tried. The resources these companies have at their disposal means that this kind of stuff never leaks. They vet every employee thoroughly. We’ve tried getting activists on the inside, but never succeeded. Well, once or twice we’ve got them in but never out with any evidence. Just a verbal account of the cruel things they saw.”

  “But then it’s just your word against theirs.”

  “Yup.” Mary took a large swig of wine and declared loudly: “They’re bastards! Rich, inhumane, fucking bastards.”

  The others halted their conversations at Mary’s emotional outburst. And then they all nodded in agreement and began chiming in with similar viewpoints. Brody sat back in his chair, sipping at his wine, and watched them get it all out. Mel threw occasional sympathetic smiles in his direction, understanding that he was enduring the moment on her behalf. Occasionally, he was asked a question and he nodded or shook his head as required. The debate went on for a good twenty minutes, right through coffee, Brody not saying another word, his strategy to avoid upsetting Mel in front of her friends.

  It wasn’t that Brody’s opinion was contrary to theirs. It was just that he didn’t really care one way or the other. Huge global corporations got away with murder, literally and metaphorically, all the time. A handful of protestors were hardly going to make a difference. Didn’t they re
alise how the world worked? To him, however noble their efforts, it was a complete waste of time and energy.

  Later, as Mel and Brody descended in the lift, she turned towards him and, tiptoeing to reach, planted a big kiss on his lips and then hugged him close.

  “Merci beaucoup,” she whispered.

  Relieved to have survived the encounter, Brody hugged her back.

  But he vowed never to get himself caught like that again. Nothing was worth suffering that much pointless passion.

  “Let’s go back to yours,” Mel suggested, a seductive twinkle in her eyes.

  On the other hand . . .

  Today, 9:40am

  Brody looked at the contents in his hand. It was the barrel of the pen. He rolled it back across the table towards Jacobsen and goaded the Security Director: “I guess they don’t make Montblancs like they used to, eh Paul?”

  “Fuck you, Taylor!” the HTL Head of Security snarled in response, but despite the bluster, there was a tone of resignation in his voice.

  It was Moorcroft’s turn to slam his hand down on the table. “Paul, control yourself. Calm down or leave. Now. Your behaviour is completely unacceptable.”

  It was unclear whether Moorcroft was referring to what had been shown on the video or his petulant behaviour moments before within the conference room.

  At the time, careful not to make too much eye contact, Brody hadn’t realised it was the Head of Security himself who had allowed him to tailgate that last set of doors. But when Jacobsen had strode into the meeting room almost an hour earlier, wearing those distinctive tan shoes, Brody had made the connection and realised this presentation was likely to be more fiery than most.

  “Is the receptionist still at the top of your firing list?” Wilson piped up. “Eh, Paul?” It occurred to Brody that Wilson didn’t like Jacobsen and was taking advantage of this opportunity to twist the knife.

  Jacobsen folded his arms in defiance.

  Brody looked to Moorcroft for direction. He nodded and so Brody resumed playback. The video footage continued with Brody pushing the trolley. The new corridor had a run of windows on the left-hand side, with views into different laboratories. In the first, white-coated lab technicians worked with different coloured chemical solutions in test tubes and flasks. In another, their colleagues analysed readouts from oscilloscopes, spectrum analysers and other complex electronic equipment. A third showed a bank of cages full of small rhesus monkeys. Brody recalled his conversation with Mary a few weeks before. Seeing the caged animals up close certainly brought to life the monotonous statistics that she had spouted throughout their dessert course.

  Brody had edited out the next part of his journey down the corridor. At the time, the ghastly images had made Brody feel faint, forcing him to stop and lean on a pillar to catch his breath. Two gowned lab-workers with masks over their mouths were hunched over a table, their bodies obscuring what they were working on. Next to them, strapped to an operating table, another monkey watched them helplessly, its feverish chattering clearly illustrating its panicked state of mind. When Brody began walking again, his new viewpoint revealed what the monkey on the operating table could see all too well — another monkey lying prostrate on the table, its chest cavity opened up; dead. That time he had turned away quickly, but not before bile rose into his mouth.

  The video resumed at a point much further on, through additional security doors that Brody, being on the inside of a secure zone within the HTL campus, only need to press their red exit buttons to pass through. Here, the right-hand side of the corridor was a blank grey wall interspersed with doors. Each door had a window and behind could be seen standard office layouts, with pods containing business attired office workers behind desks and, most importantly, desktop computers.

  The screen then showed another pair of men’s and women’s toilets. The video cut to an image of Brody reflected in the mirror behind the washbasins. He was back in the Cisco engineer’s uniform and cap. The aluminium case was open in front of him. His hand retrieved a handful of USB memory sticks and closed the case.

  He left a USB stick on top of each toilet roll holder in the three cubicles. Another by the sinks. He braved the ladies’ toilet next door and, seeing that one of the cubicles was occupied, just dropped a USB stick by the sink and quietly exited.

  Next Brody entered one of the offices. HTL staff sat in cubicles in front of computers or on the phone. Two women stood talking by a water cooler. No one took any notice of him whatsoever. He made his way towards an empty pod near the window, furthest away from the door, and sat down. No one challenged him.

  An older man in a shirt and tie sat in the neighbouring pod. He looked up as Brody placed his case on the desk. Brody stole a glance at the Cisco phone handset, rapidly read the digital display and asked the man, “Is this extension two-double-four-nine?”

  “Uh, yes it is.”

  “Excellent. Had a report of some issues with the handset.”

  Satisfied, the man resumed working. The screen showed Brody opening the aluminium case again. He pulled out a pack of biscuits and an iPhone. The camera then showed him kneel down and climb under the desk. Out of sight, Brody checked for new email messages on his phone. Nothing.

  He stood up to find one of the women from the water cooler standing there. In a puzzled voice, she asked what he was doing under her desk. Brody explained that he was the Cisco engineer here to mend her phone. When she pointed out she hadn’t realised it was broken, Brody explained the fault was intermittent and reached down, grabbed the biscuits and offered her one. Hesitating at first, she eventually smiled and accepted one. Brody then offered a biscuit to the man in the neighbouring pod, who joked loudly that he’d prefer the phone fault not to be fixed at all, as they could do without any more calls that day. Brody could be heard laughing and promising he’d take his time. The pod’s owner offered to go for a coffee to allow Brody more time to work on her phone. Brody offered more biscuits out to other neighbouring pods.

  “What’s with the biscuits?” asked Wilson.

  “Human nature,” replied Brody. “When someone is given something, they feel the need to reciprocate. In this case, the owner of the pod gave me time to fix her phone. And the neighbours all bought into it as well.”

  Onscreen, Brody showed his smartphone to the camera. On the display was a new email. He clicked and it showed a set of usernames and passwords.

  “The USB sticks!” exclaimed Hall, as if trying to please a teacher. “You dispersed them in public areas so that it looked like another employee may have dropped it. Someone finds it, inserts it into their PC to see if they can find out who it belongs to.”

  “You got it. I just put fake files on them, photos mostly. The USB sticks actually have auto running rootkits on them, which start a program called Hacksaw the minute they’re inserted. It scans the machine and starts dumping all usernames and passwords to a file and then emails it to me.”

  The remainder of the video showed Brody logging into the PC on the desk with the credentials supplied in the email. “As you can see, I’m now logged into the network that’s physically ring-fenced from the main network. It takes me a while to find my way into the new product development system but, thanks to the biscuits, everyone leaves me to my own devices.”

  “Brody, I think we’ve all seen enough,” said Moorcroft.

  Brody halted the video playback.

  Seven days Ago

  Brody felt the need to reciprocate, but couldn’t bring himself to say the words, not while he was still trapped within the deception of his own making. He supposed that it wouldn’t actually be lying for him to respond with a simple, “I love you too.” He really did love Mel and desperately wanted to tell her.

  They were lying in her bed; her body spooned into his, both naked and sweaty from their sexual exertions. She had just uttered the words he most wanted to hear. But Mel had declared her love to Brody Taylor, location scout and adopted child of loving foster parents in Jersey, his ‘real’
parents having died in a car crash with his sister when he was eight years old. But the truth was radically different. His parents were alive and well in nearby Hertford. He had a sister and nephew in Australia. And his profession was ‘white hat’ computer hacker, hired by large companies to carry out penetration tests.

  The silence from his lack of response was as loud as a gong. He hugged her closer and kissed her on the back of her neck. It was the only answer he could give right now.

  He felt her tense in his arms. She had expected him to reply with the same endearment. Mel had dared to declare her love first and he had failed to reciprocate.

  He resolved to come clean. But the lies of the last seven weeks had slowly piled on top of each other, like twigs carefully laid on top of other twigs to make kindling, each supporting the other, but all precariously balanced, ready to light up in flames at any moment.

  How could he tell her the truth without hurting her? And risk losing her completely? It was an impossible situation. He should have come clean the morning after they had first made love. But he hadn’t. Spinelessly, he had said nothing, allowing the sham to continue.

  To fester.

  He needed to demonstrate how passionately he loved her. So that, when he finally told her the truth about his life, she would understand and accept, overcoming the treachery of their first six weeks. He knew he couldn’t avoid hurting her, but perhaps, if she saw real evidence of the depth of his affection, then maybe their relationship could survive this hurdle.

  As she lay in his arms, an idea began to form.

  He willed it to gain shape. And, as it crystallised, he realised it might work on more than one level. Not only would it provide the evidence of his devotion and proof of the lengths he would go to in her name, it might also help her see how his craft was ethical. Brody couldn’t allow Mel to ever hear the words ‘computer hacker’ and automatically deduce that he was some kind of cyber-criminal, like the common perception of hackers in the media. He knew her well enough to sense that if she ever formed an impression that what he did for a living was in any way illegal, she would have nothing more to do with him.