Crash Into Pieces (The Haylie Black Series Book 2)

by Christopher Kerns

“So that means you’re at a lower pay grade?” Haylie said.

  “Like I said.” Hernandez looked back at her without expression. “Budget cuts.”

  Haylie turned to her laptop with a loud exhale, tabbing back to the first hacking forum and trying a few new searches that might bring up something, anything, from someone who could be the Endling.

  It’s only a matter of time, but I get the feeling my time is running out.

  That morning, the more Haylie had learned about the Xasis exploit, the more confused she had grown about what the Endling was doing. He had downloaded the personal information for all casino visitors from the past few years including contact information, credit cards, and fingerprints that were required for with high-value loans.

  “Any new information you’d like to share with me?” Haylie asked. “Anything that might help?”

  Shaking his head and continuing to stare down at his phone, Hernandez muttered, “You’re smart, right? You’ll figure it out. Just keep looking.”

  Haylie turned back, narrowing her eyes, the frustration growing. This is driving me nuts. I know I can find something with just a little bit of code here—watching the public feeds isn’t going to help. He’d never notice if I ran a quick script. What’s the worst they’ll do, just yank this agreement? They’d be doing me a favor.

  There was a loud, shrill, ear-piercing ring from behind her, causing her to jump out of her chair. She turned to see Hernandez scrambling to check his phone. He looked down at the screen and then back up to Haylie with a hint of panic in his eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said, rising from his chair, “I know it’s loud. My wife gets pissed when I miss a call.” Hernandez looked back and forth between his phone and Haylie’s laptop, frozen in indecision. “It’s her … I have to take this.”

  “Just answer it,” she said in her best dismissive tone. “You can check my browser history when you get back if you really want to.”

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he said, making his way towards the door. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  She pointed down to the ankle bracelet with a raised eyebrow, but Hernandez had already run out into the hallway, his phone to his ear. The door slid shut behind him, and all Haylie could hear were the muffled remnants of a conversation through the wall.

  She brought up a new browser tab, quickly changing the settings over to “private mode,” which would keep her browser history nice and clean. Tabbing through the forums, she checked the footer of each website. Eight of the ten hacking message boards were built on the same software platform—a message board product named XZTalk—which happened to power the majority of all forums across the globe.

  Turning back to a new tab, she began a search on a new forum, one that she hadn’t brought up in front of Hernandez. NetSecAgenda was the private hacking board where she always found her best leads on fresh exploits, and as far as she knew, it was still unknown to the authorities. Keying in her old credentials, she searched and found a recent bug that gave full access to the XZTalk message system through the company’s new mobile interface, which was still in beta and full of bugs. News of the hack was still only known by a few people, and hadn’t been widely reported as of yet.

  She took a breath, looking over to the door with nervous eyes. Hernandez must have found refuge in his room down the hall, sitting on his bunk, huddled over the phone. She closed her eyes, feeling her heart pound.

  Think, Haylie.

  The messages that people are posting are only one part of the equation here. I need to find the data behind the data.

  She opened a mobile emulator website and quickly gained administrator access to the eight forums that were running the XZTalk software, paging through analytics dashboards and activity logs. She sorted by each user’s last recorded activity—logins, posts, replies, searches. Filtering down to just the search terms, she scrolled until she found the one term that really mattered.

  Endling

  Two IP addresses came up, both with searches across eight different forums. She quickly cut and pasted the—

  “Hey, Haylie,” she heard from behind her. She swiveled to see Hernandez’s head poking through the door, his ear still to the phone. Her heart raced, and she fought the urge to slam the laptop lid shut in panic.

  “What’s the name of that—hold on, honey—what’s the name of that thing they put in the breakfast tacos down here? The thing I like?”

  She took a deep swallow, breathing slowly and blocking her screen with her shoulders.

  “Migas?”

  “Migas! Thank you, yes.” He turned back into the hallway as the door slowly closed behind him, his voice becoming muffled once more. “So, they’re called migas, you have to try them out. It’s like eggs with …”

  She turned back to her laptop, wiping the sweat from her forehead. She pasted the first value into a lookup tool, and leaned back to take in the results.

  Okay—here’s everyone across all eight hacker forums searching for ‘The Endling’ or ‘Xasis’ right now.

  One of these is in Austin, here at UT—that’s obviously me.

  She shook her head—if her IP was showing up in her current location, it turns out they weren’t actually rerouting her network traffic after all. Budget cuts.

  She cut the second IP address and pasted it into the tool.

  The page refreshed with results. She pushed back from her desk and winced as she read the location.

  San Antonio, TX

  Clicking on the coordinates, she zoomed in, her eyes darting around the map. She could feel the anger rising through her as she stared at the pin, sitting at the center of the familiar-looking outline of a building.

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  Suddenly, four new log entries jumped into Haylie’s search results. Then five. Then six. Searches for “Xasis” and “Endling” across multiple message boards. She watched the logs, following the user as he drifted to another thread on the same forum, one listing corporate network backdoors for sale.

  Researching backdoors? Is that you, Endling? Where are you heading next?

  Out of nowhere, she heard a voice directly over her right shoulder.

  “Okay,” Agent Hernandez said, bent over and inspecting her screen, “so what is this browser history thing you were talking about?”

  Haylie stood, turning to face Hernandez, stepping aside to give him a full view of her screen. She pointed down with one extended finger at the location data.

  “Wait a minute,” Hernandez said as he read the coordinates. “You’re not supposed to be—”

  “Don’t,” she shot back, grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair. “We need to talk to Agent Wilcox. Now.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  NSA Texas Cryptologic Center

  San Antonio, TX

  October 26th, 10:34PM

  “You set me up,” Haylie said, pointing a finger across the table at Agent Wilcox. “And I don’t like getting set up. I never had a chance.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re getting on about,” Agent Wilcox said, slightly winded, as the door shut behind her. Haylie had noticed that Wilcox leaned in on the southern drawl in her voice when she was looking to dodge a question, and the drawl was plenty heavy tonight. Wilcox zipped her running jacket over her fitted gym clothes, the traces of sweat still visible on her forehead. “And I’m not happy that you pulled me in here this late.”

  “I found someone watching every hacker message board that I was assigned to,” Haylie said. “All accounts for that user were created within the last week. None of them has posted a single message, zero. This person was just watching. Lurking.”

  “Well, then,” Wilcox said, leaning in. “Sounds like you may have found our guy.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. But as it turns out, the IP address was from right here in San Antonio.”

  Agent Wilcox’s face fell. Her eyes darted around the room for a few seconds but then quickly fixed back on Haylie.

  �
��Convenient,” Wilcox said. “Quite a coincidence.”

  “The IP address isn’t just from San Antonio,” Haylie continued. “It’s coming from inside the NSA. From inside this building.”

  “This doesn’t change anything,” Wilcox said, turning back to her phone, digging in her heels. “I’ve got a whole team working this case, overtime and everything. And besides, what you’re describing is impossible. We re-route all of our traffic. It’s untraceable. There’s no way you would even know—”

  “Exactly,” Haylie responded. “That’s why this is so strange. This person wasn’t blocked. Somebody at the NSA is working around your systems and running the exact same searches as I am.”

  “I still don’t know what this has to do with—”

  “The whole point of this is for me to find something. Something big that helps the investigation. But if your team finds that thing first, I get nothing. Isn’t that right?”

  Agent Wilcox looked over at Agent Hernandez with a cocked eyebrow.

  Haylie heard Caesar’s voice in her head as she fumed. You never should have trusted them, little sister. You and I—we’re better than this.

  “So if you have someone tailing me, this plan doesn’t really work out for me, does it?” Haylie yelled. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to? You’re going to take credit for all my work and leave me right back where I started. You never planned to help me; you just wanted to use me. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

  “Ms. Black.” Agent Wilcox leaned back, forcing a smile. “Right now, I’m focused on finding our guy. I’m going to need to ask you to focus as well. We don’t do conspiracies around here—”

  “I’m out,” Haylie said, sliding her chair back from the table. “I didn’t want to do this in the first place, and I should have trusted my gut. Screw you.”

  “Let’s not be so dramatic. If you happened to find…” Agent Wilcox paused, snapping her head back up with an angry snarl across her face. “Now, wait a minute. How did you get that type of data from the forums? That’s not something users can see—IP address information, location data.”

  “I don’t know,” Haylie said, staring back at her. “I just figured it out.”

  “You figured it out?” Wilcox replied with a laugh. “Well, my goodness, aren’t you the little scientist, now? There’s a problem with that, Ms. Black. I asked you to read a few online forums and somehow—magically, by some sort of technical miracle—you gained access to admin logs and IP lookup information. That’s a violation of your agreement.”

  Haylie kept her eyes pointed right at Wilcox. “So?”

  “Did you write code?” Agent Wilcox asked. “Did you—Hernandez, did you let her actually write code?”

  “It’s not his fault,” Haylie said with a smirk. “He had to leave the room to take a call.” She silently mouthed the remaining words over to Agent Wilcox. “His wife.”

  “You left the room?” Wilcox yelled at Hernandez, the anger cresting over. “While she was at the keyboard?”

  “I may have,” Hernandez said. “I may have left the room. We can’t be one hundred per cent sure exactly what I was doing at the time without—”

  Agent Wilcox shook her head at Haylie. “You’re done,” Agent Wilcox said, bringing her phone up to eye level and tapping at the screen. “No more access. I can’t believe I even went for this in the first place.”

  “Go ahead,” Haylie said. “But that doesn’t get you any closer to solving this case. You need to catch this guy, and I’m your best shot.”

  “And I’m supposed to trust you, Ms. Black? You’ve been on the case for less than twenty-four hours, and you’ve already broken the rules.”

  “Give me more access,” Haylie said. “You’ve seen what I can do with just a few minutes online. Take the leash off me, let me run. I’ll find your guy.”

  “More access? I’ve already got a big mess to clean up here,” Agent Wilcox scoffed. “You’re dreaming.”

  “Who knows?” Haylie said. “Maybe I found something already.”

  Agent Wilcox stared back, looking over to Hernandez. “Did she find something?”

  “I really don’t know,” Hernandez said. “I’ll be honest, I’m not as much in the loop here as I should—”

  “I saw him,” Haylie said. “The Endling. He logged on just as Hernandez came back in the room. I had to shut my script down, but I could find him again, I know I could.”

  “Here’s the deal,” Agent Wilcox said with a shake of her head. “You screwed up. The rules were simple. You knew them, and you broke them. I can’t trust you anymore, and I don’t work with people I can’t trust. And yes, I had someone tailing you from inside the NSA. It’s standard procedure to double-up on a lead when you don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “I knew it,” Haylie whispered.

  “You’re going to meet with your double, tell how you found the Endling—if that’s really what happened. After that, I never want to see you again.”

  “And what if I don’t want to tell them anything?”

  “Then I’ll wake up a judge and tack twelve more months onto your probation,” Wilcox said, tapping the folder. “Just like our agreement allows.”

  Haylie looked over to Agent Hernandez who was nodding back in her direction.

  “You really should have read the agreement, Haylie,” he said.

  Haylie slumped back in her chair, arms folded. She was furious—not just at Wilcox, but at herself. For agreeing to anything with the NSA in the first place. For not trusting her gut. And for not taking ten minutes to read that damn paperwork.

  “I can’t believe I’m not just kicking you out of the building,” Agent Wilcox muttered, dialing a number. “Wilcox here. I’m going to need Mary in the interrogation room first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Mary?” Haylie looked over to Agent Hernandez. “Who the hell is Mary?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  N Wells St.

  Chicago, IL

  October 27th, 9:06AM

  Today’s the day. After today, they’ll have no choice.

  People can ignore a raindrop here and there.

  But nobody can ignore a flood. And that’s what I’m about to become.

  A flood that will sweep them away.

  The echo of wheels on winding tracks—clack clack clack clack—shook the sidewalk as Anthony crunched through a bed of leaves. The L train didn’t always make so much of a racket, but when it hit a curved piece of track, the tension between the metal struts buckled under the strain. He gazed up at the steel bridge overhead, seeing ripples of rust washing over each beam like an autumn fog.

  He walked towards the storefront, recognizing the logo etched on the glass: a golden coffee cup with an old-fashioned pair of spectacles in the middle, the letters underneath reading ‘Burby Brothers Roasting Company.’ Anthony flexed his hand in and out, feeling the gauze pull his wound slightly apart with each move. The motion felt comforting—each flash and spark of pain filling him with life.

  Pulling at the door, Anthony felt a wave of warmth bathe his face as a pair of bells signaled his arrival. The deep, chocolate scents of coffee filled his nostrils. None of the patrons inside bothered to look up to greet him; they all sat, sucked into their various screens, numbed by their headphones.

  This place will be perfect.

  Years ago, one of the first tips he had read on a hacking message board, on the topic of “how a n00b can get started without getting caught,” was to never hack from home. As he had tried his best to piece together his skill set, Anthony had built up a long list of coffee shops throughout the Chicago area, never trying his exploits in the same place twice. Today’s visit had him across town—taking the Red Line train from Wrigleyville to Fullerton, and then jumping on the Brown Line to the Merchandise Mart stop.

  He drifted gingerly over to the counter, looking up at the menu hanging above. A gilded, old-time cash register stood below a fishing net full of tweed and wooden speakers hanging
down from the ceiling, each facing a different direction and blaring out some band he had never heard of. Bunch of hipsters. He looked down past the tip jar and saw a bowl full of matches adorned with the shop’s logo. He pocketed one with a single, sweeping motion.

  Craning his neck around the counter, he saw the barista, tied up in a bath of steam, both hands furiously shuffling to craft the last remaining order. The barista caught sight of Anthony with the corner of his eye and threw an ‘I’ll be right over’ head nod his way.

  Anthony felt the all eyes falling on the back of his head as he stood, waiting. They’re all looking at you. They’re all whispering about you—what you look like, your clothes. Laughing because you’re alone. The tension crept up the back of his neck as he shuffled his weight. They think you don’t belong here.

  Anthony shouted out, “I’ll just have a large coffee,” and slapped a five-dollar bill down on the counter with a shaking hand.

  The barista glared, his hands still full. “Just a minute, sir,” the final word echoing through the shop as he took his time with the orders.

  He’s doing that on purpose. He’s one of them.

  Anthony stomped off to the corner window seat he had been eying since he had walked in. A full view of the street, but enough of an angle to keep his screen far, far away from roaming eyes.

  He did a quick check of his different social media platforms, taking note of his follower count on each. He had a system of sending out hacking and technology news on a three-posts-per-day basis, making sure to use the appropriate hashtags. His blog was a collection of diatribes on technology and the philosophy of hacking—long ramblings that flowed from his stream of consciousness like a gift to the world—tying the root of what it really meant to be a hacker to core principles of Buddhism, framing it as a type of modern meditation. All under a pseudonym, of course, and certainly not “the Endling.” But when the public tied the two together, oh what a day that would be. He would not just be a hacker for the ages: he would be a leader of men. He could create a movement.