I was in the middle; always in the middle. I was stuck right there where everyone could see me. Waiting for someone to offer a hand. Just one conversation would have changed my whole life.
But he had been told one too many times that he wasn’t good enough. Go code for a few more years, maybe you’ll be ready. You need to start a business before you can run a business. Maybe get an MBA, make some contacts. And at every tech meetup he had dragged himself to, he only found himself huddled in the corner, petrified to speak. Not knowing what to say, or who to talk to, sipping at his ice water just watching the crowd. The crowd always seemed so confident, so successful. So distant, like they lived behind a long wall of glass with no edge to walk around, no door to sneak through or over or under.
It’s a walled garden—you need to have an Ivy League pedigree or an in with the right crowd. It’s not about the best ideas or the best people, it’s about who you know. That’s all it is. The deck is stacked against me. But I know I deserve this. I know what I know.
Anthony watched the three men at the table laugh at a punchline and pass the laptop around, each taking a turn at the keyboard. He thought back to his app, the one that never actually made it as far as the App Store. Maybe they were right. Maybe he just hadn’t been ready.
But I’m ready now.
Pulling his laptop from his bag, Anthony logged into his machine, took a sip of coffee, and began preparing for the biggest hack of his life.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Corner of Randolph and LaSalle
Chicago, IL
October 30th, 8:54AM
Haylie blew on her hands, pulling the lapels of her field jacket closer, and bobbed up and down for warmth. She, along with Agent Wilcox, Agent Hernandez, and two other federal agents, had been huddled inside the mobile surveillance van since 6:00 a.m. that morning, waiting. Her breath pushed back from her fingers and sent a fog across her glasses. As the moisture drifted away, she squinted at one of the monitors bolted to the side of the van’s interior.
“Wait,” Haylie said, walking towards the screen. “He’s online.”
“What’s it showing?” Agent Hernandez asked, checking the monitor. “Is there a location?”
“No, he’s masking his IP,” Haylie said. “No location data. Not yet.”
“Driver, first location,” Agent Wilcox yelled up to the front of the cabin.
The van careened to the side as Haylie held on for dear life. As soon as she felt steady, she stood up halfway, her knees flexed, to get a live view of the Endling’s screen.
“Where are we going?” Haylie yelled.
“With no location, our best bet is to tick down his list of coffee shops,” Wilcox yelled back. “They’re just a few minutes away from each other.”
“What else do you have, Haylie?” Agent Hernandez yelled as the van took a sharp right, sending a few pens and notebooks flying in the other direction.
“I’ve got audio coming through his microphone,” Haylie said. “Based on the levels, there must be a loud music source near him. Mary, it’s loud as hell in this van, can you confirm that?”
The radio crackled as Mary’s voice came through. “That’s correct. Hearing salsa music.” Mary was set up back in San Antonio with access to everything she needed—the Endling’s machine, Roar-4 utilities, and a laptop, plus a team of NSA agents surrounding her, watching her like a hawk.
The cursor moved across the screen, opening the main application folder and working its way down. It highlighted an item labeled Cryzip and double-clicked.
“He’s opening a crypter application,” Haylie said. “There’s a no-IP account being set up. He’s opening up port 1604…”
He’s doing it. This is it.
“What does that mean?” Agent Hernandez asked.
“He’s getting ready,” Haylie said, turning to face the others, holding on to the railing. “He’s setting up a remote access tool. He’s got all the tools he needs to mask his identity once he gets in.”
“A remote access tool,” Agent Wilcox said. “What’s that going to give him?”
“He’d have full control over whatever system he’s going after,” Haylie said. “Anything he wants.”
“What’s the target?” Agent Hernandez asked.
“I’m waiting for him to give that away,” Haylie said, her eyes glued to the screen. “Right now, I don’t know. Not yet.”
>>>>>
Just think what it’s like. Just think what it will be like when everybody knows your name. It’s going to be a brand new world. You’ll be a new man—the man you’ve always known you are.
Finally.
Anthony fished two notes out of his pockets, each written in different handwriting—one with his left hand, one with his right. He had to think for a moment before remembering which was the username and which was the password. He typed them into his Notepad application, just in case he needed them a second time. Bringing up the remote access window, he cut and pasted them into the login prompt along with the target IP address that he had memorized earlier that morning.
Once you break through this wall—this wall that they’ve put up around you, the one you’re not supposed to get through—then they’ll all see how wrong they were. They’ll beg you to join them. They’ll line up around the block.
But first, you have work to do.
>>>>>
“I’ve got a target for the attack,” Haylie shouted. She pointed with a few jabs of her finger over to the agent with an active laptop, yelling the digits of each number as she read them from the screen.
“173… 205… 126… 123…”
The agent hit a hard thump on the return key, everyone in the van gathered around to see the result, hanging on to the sides of the van as they bounced and swayed through the streets of Chicago.
“It’s a government system,” the agent said. “Give me a minute … looks like it might be the Office of Personnel Management.”
“Good lord, the OPM,” Agent Wilcox said, dialing her phone and placing it to her ear.
“What’s the OPM?” Haylie asked.
“He’s going after a government personnel database,” Agent Hernandez said, the worry growing across his face. “The government database. The data for every single government employee. Agents, leadership, undercover operatives—everyone.”
“That son of a bitch,” Wilcox muttered. “Any new information? You seeing anything on the webcam, something that would tell us where he is?”
“Not seeing any markers here,” Hernandez said, his eyes inches away from the live feed of the Endling huddled over his machine. “Just a few pieces of generic artwork. No signs, nothing like that.”
Haylie looked back to the live stream of the Endling’s screen, watching the tools go to work. He’s got the username and password again, but this time he’s covering his tracks. He’s getting better.
“He’s in the system,” she yelled. “He’s making his way through the file directory right now.”
“We need a location!” Agent Wilcox yelled, phone still pressed to her ear.
“I can’t see where he is,” Haylie said. “But it’s a good bet that he’s at one of the coffee shops on the list.”
“How long do we have before he starts pulling data?” Wilcox asked.
“Not long—as soon as he finds what he came for, he’ll have full access to download anything he wants.”
“Faster!” Wilcox yelled towards the front of the van. “I need that location. We can’t be guessing at this point—we’re running out of time.” She pushed her phone back to her ear, screaming commands to the agents back in San Antonio over the chatter throughout the van. “And everyone quiet down, I can’t hear myself think in here, I swear.”
Agent Wilcox’s words echoed through Haylie’s head, why, she wasn’t sure. She crouched into the corner, pulling her sleeves down over her hands. She closed her eyes.
Hear myself think. Hear myself think.
Hear.
Hear.
Hear.
Her eyes flew open.
We’ve got his video and microphone.
“Wait,” Haylie said. “You said the Roar-4 virus was widespread—this isn’t the first time the NSA has deployed it, right? How many installs are there?”
Agent Wilcox put her phone to her side, shifting in her crouched position as the van took a sharp left. “You know I can’t talk about that,” she said. “It’s classified.”
“Fine, we’ll keep it just between us friends,” Haylie shot back. “The virus installs on any computer that visits the site the NSA has infected. How many sites did you put it on?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at here,” Wilcox said. “And I’m not about to tell you the details of a government—”
“The top twenty sites across the internet,” Agent Hernandez yelled from across the van. “From what I’ve read, based on a collection of different operations over the past year, it wouldn’t be crazy to say that ten, maybe fifteen per cent of computers in the U.S. have the Roar-4 virus installed.”
Wilcox stared him down from the other side of the van, shaking her head in disbelief.
“With those numbers,” Haylie said, “there’s a good chance there’s another laptop in the coffee shop with the Roar-4 virus installed, right?”
“So?” Agent Wilcox said.
Haylie grabbed yelled over to the radio. “Mary! If you can hear me, I need you to access every machine infected with Roar-4 in the Chicago area. Every single one.”
“What are you doing?” Wilcox yelled back to Haylie over the screech of tires.
“We’re going to stop looking for the Endling. We need to start listening.” A smile grew across Haylie’s face as she mentally pieced together her plan.
“Sure beats sitting in a dorm room, right?” Hernandez yelled.
“Hell, yes,” Haylie yelled back.
>>>>>
Anthony checked his setup one last time, making sure everything was like the forums had detailed. I’m invisible. They’ll never see me coming. I’m a ghost. He brought up the remote access tool and began to type in the stolen credentials.
This will be my legacy.
>>>>>
“Mary, are you there?” Agent Wilcox yelled over the speakerphone. “What have you found?”
“I’m getting some results back, but I’m not sure this is the full list,” Mary’s voice chimed over the speakerphone. “How many are there?”
“Not important,” Wilcox said. “Why does everyone keep asking that? It doesn’t matter. Just turn them all on.”
“We need audio patterns,” Haylie said. “The salsa music in the coffee shop. You’re looking for any matches for the background sound patterns. If you find a match—”
“Then we can get the location from the other laptops showing that signal,” Mary’s voice sounded over the speaker, along with furious keystrokes in the background. “They won’t be masking their IPs. Not bad, Crash.”
Wilcox didn’t show the same sense of excitement. “How long’s this going to take?”
“I’m activating the Roar-4 network,” Mary said. “Pinging machines. I’m seeing a count of about twelve hundred across the Chicago metropolitan area.”
“Good lord,” Haylie whispered.
“Grabbing audio feeds now,” Mary said. “This will take a minute. But I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with it once I get all them all. I’ve never done something like this. Everybody buckle up.”
>>>>>
As the personnel files began to download, Anthony focused on the pixels of the progress bar, creeping slowly, methodically, left to right.
File download in progress
Estimated completion: 7min 36secs
He grabbed his mug of coffee by the handle and raised it to his lips, taking a deep sip.
>>>>>
The van wove through the streets of Chicago, edging its way closer to the first coffee shop on the list, block by block.
“Mary—give me a status,” Agent Wilcox said, raising her voice over the sounds of the road. “I’m blind over here.”
“I’m looking for a good audio comparison package,” Mary said between long pauses. “I’m finding a lot of tools that compare two tracks, but nothing at this scale. Nothing for over a thousand live audio feeds—I’m not even sure anyone has tried this before.”
Wilcox muted the phone. “I thought you two were supposed to be good at this,” she said in Haylie’s direction.
“I thought you guys weren’t supposed to spy on innocent citizens,” Haylie shot back without flinching. “Looks like we’re both having an off day.”
“Let’s just start checking individual feeds,” Hernandez said. “I mean, it’s better than not looking at all, right? At least that gives us a chance—it’s a start.”
“What do you think, Haylie?” Mary’s voice rang out over the speakerphone. “What would you do?”
I don’t know. I don’t know.
Haylie’s heart pounded louder, car horns sounding around her, her mind racing.
“I don’t know that much about audio,” Haylie said, her head in her hands, thinking. “I’m not sure what’s out there.”
“Forget about the audio,” Mary’s voice rose to a shout. “Think bigger. Focus on what we need.”
We need rapid pattern matching. Across thousands of backgrounds.
Focus on what we need.
Focus on what we need.
Of course.
“Wait,” Haylie said, raising her head. “I think I’ve got it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Caffeine Palace
Chicago
October 30th, 8:59AM
Anthony froze, realizing he had been tapping his fingers to the beat of the godforsaken salsa music still piercing his eardrums. He looked over at the line of people beginning to form in front of the register. Some comfortably paired up, chatting with friends. Others looking down to their screens, losing themselves in social media.
They’re all sheep. They haven’t found their path.
File download in progress
Estimated completion: 5min 12secs
Tabbing over to his favorite hacking forum, Anthony typed in “The Endling” and scanned the most recent result.
>>>>>
“What’s going on?” Agent Wilcox asked, muting the phone and pointing down to its screen. “What did you just tell her to do?
“It’s a shortcut,” Haylie said. “Our problem isn’t really about audio processing, it’s about pattern recognition. We need to find similar audio patterns from the machines we have across Chicago.”
“That’s what Mary was already looking for, right?” Agent Hernandez yelled over the rush of traffic. “She said there aren’t any tools that can do it.”
“No audio tools,” Haylie said. “If we can take a sample of every Roar-4 background across Chicago in the same two- or three-second chunks and analyze their wavelengths, we can use image recognition to find similar patterns.”
“Image recognition?” Hernandez said. “Really? That will work?”
“Why not?” Haylie said. “There are tons of coding packages that can do high-volume image pattern recognition.”
“I’ve got it set up over here,” Mary said across the line. “I’m grabbing samples now and loading up—”
“Use the Pitchfark package,” Haylie added. “It’s the best one for high-speed batch image processing.”
Haylie heard chuckling over the line, mixed with rapid keystrokes. “You’ve got it, boss. Grabbing it now,” Mary said.
Hernandez cracked his laptop open, propping it up on the van’s steel shelf next to the view of the Endling’s screen. He brought up a livestream of Mary’s view, with multiple command line windows open, installing the Pitchfark package on one, and grabbing audio samples on the other. Haylie watched as the Python package worked away, mapping constellations of peaks in each audio signal against others, trying to find a match.
“I
’ve got the samples,” Mary’s voice rang over the line. “Running the matching script now.”
Everyone in the van stood silent, leaning in towards the radio as the clicks of typing keys came across the line.
“No matches,” Mary said with an exhale. “I’m going to try again, adjust the match tolerance to check for different levels of background noise. I need more time.”
>>>>>
Anthony watched the progress bar continue to build as plaintext of each government workers name, social security number, and personal information made its way down to his hard drive.
File download in progress
Estimated completion: 4min 22secs
He glanced back to the door, watching every person skip across the threshold to a chime of bells, unwrapping scarves and hats and coats. Relieved to be in from the cold. Every one of them amounted to nothing more than something that could go wrong for him, a potential risk to his plan.
Stupid Wi-Fi. C’mon c’mon c’mon.
A man waiting on his drink craned his neck around the corner, looking into Anthony’s area for a seat. Receiving a nasty look, the man cowered back behind the wall.
He’s nobody. He doesn’t know. He can’t know.
Rubbing the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath, Anthony felt his pulse slipping back into panic mode. He was getting dragged into a place he didn’t want to go—like back at summer camp during the tug of war, when he could feel the burning of the rope across his palms as he twisted to move the flag, knees locked and throbbing. Falling face-down into the mud pit, his fingers burning, the laughter from the crowd echoing off the hills, not stopping until the moment his father opened the door of his stale-smelling station wagon to let him in and finally take him home.
Crash Into Pieces (The Haylie Black Series Book 2) Page 13