DATA JACK

by Christopher Greyson

  “I do, but the imagery in my head is grossing me out.”

  “I have layers of protection. One went off when you plugged the case in. The case was trying to transmit.”

  “Trying? Did it?”

  “I don’t think so. Unless I let it, my computer doesn’t send jack.” She grinned.

  “What was it trying to transmit? To who?”

  Replacement shrugged. “I don’t know.” She turned back around in her chair. “But I’m going to find out.”

  Jack put his hands on her shoulders. “You go, geek girl.”

  She typed while he rubbed. After a minute, she purred.

  “Why would someone break in and try to steal it?” Jack wondered.

  “Do you think that whoever broke in went for an e-cigarette case?”

  “Look.” Jack pointed to the kitchen counter. “I was stupid but I left the checkbook on the counter. Your laptop is right over there. He didn’t touch the computer. The only thing we know the guy tried to take is the case.”

  “What do you think it all means?”

  “I don’t know but whatever you find on that thing could help.” Jack walked over to the window. “I need to think. I’m going to take a shower. Are you going to work on the case?”

  “You know it.” She gave him a big wink.

  While Jack pulled the curtain on the window closed, a green sedan drove slowly down the street.

  *********

  Jack squinted as the morning light peeked from behind the shade.

  Lady climbed up on the bed, and Jack’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Get off,” he mumbled.

  She put her head behind his back and pushed.

  “Stop.”

  She placed her nose close to his ear and huffed.

  “Gross!” Jack rolled out of bed as he shook his head. “Fine. Okay. I’m up.” He headed for the bathroom.

  After a minute, Lady scratched at the door.

  He patted her head as he came out. “I have to go too.” He grabbed her leash off the bureau. He rubbed his eyes and trudged out to the living room.

  Replacement was still at the computer.

  “Hold up.” Jack stopped. “Have you been up all night?”

  “I got a couple hours of sleep, but then I had another idea.” Replacement stood up and stretched. “Crud. Is it morning already? Double crud.”

  “I have to take Lady out.”

  “I’ll come.” Replacement bounded after them.

  “Did you find anything? Do you know who it was transmitting to?”

  “It sent an email message. The message was just a number one and a space and then fourteen-slash-nine-slash-fifteen. Maybe that’s a code.”

  “Or a date,” Jack said as they made it outside and Lady hurried over to behind the fence.

  Replacement made a face. “There’s no month fourteen.”

  “Sometimes people write the month first. It drove me crazy when I was stationed in Germany. September 14th was two days ago.”

  “It’s a date then. Maybe the number one is binary. Like one on and zero off.” Replacement kicked a pebble. “It sends two ones when it finishes. The date threw me but that’s not the weirdest part. It has files on it.”

  “Files? It’s a hard drive.” Jack grinned. “I was right.”

  “Whatever.”

  “No, whatever. Give credit where credit’s due.” Jack leaned close to her with a big smile on his face.

  She kissed him. “You’re brilliant. But someone modified that e-cigarette case. They turned it into a hard drive to copy files.”

  “Copy them?”

  Replacement nodded. “I need to talk to Pierce.”

  “Why?”

  “The files on the case are his.”

  “How would you know by looking at a listing of files?”

  “The directory structure. He showed me some of the code for VE-Life. The directory structure’s identical. I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m the last guy to argue with you about computers. Why did Gerald have it?”

  She shrugged. “Pierce said he gave Gerald one. Do you want me to call him?”

  Jack hesitated. “Yes, but...is there any way that case could transmit its location? Like a phone?”

  “No. The memory stick takes up almost all the space in it.”

  “What time did you say you were going out to the mega-mansion?”

  “In an hour.” Replacement groaned. “Great. I hardly got any sleep.”

  “Let’s put you to bed for an hour, and then we’ll go there. I’ll drive. You can sleep on the way.”

  “What do you think all this means?” Replacement hugged him.

  “I don’t know but I think we need to have a chat with the boy billionaire.”

  Chapter 30

  ~

  The Boy Billionaire

  “Wait a minute.” Pierce paced the floor of the upstairs study. “You’re saying that you think whoever broke into your apartment was trying to steal this?” He held up the e-cigarette case.

  Replacement nodded. “If you’re going to plug it in, you’ll need to disconnect everything. I brought my laptop if you want to use that.” Replacement set her laptop down on the desk and turned it on.

  Pierce nodded but he didn’t move. He turned the case over in his hands. He looked up at Jack. “I need your help to find out who’s behind this.”

  “Mine?” Jack leaned against the doorframe. “Why not go to your security?”

  “I don’t know who to trust anymore.” Pierce walked over to the window. “We’ve had security issues at the home office. Corporate spying.” He studied Jack for a moment. “I’ve been reading up on you, Jack Stratton—I’d value your opinion.”

  Jack walked over, picked up a notebook off the desk and fanned the empty pages. “Do you mind if I use this?”

  Pierce nodded. “Sure.”

  “When did you get that case?” Jack asked.

  “A couple of months ago.”

  “You bought two?”

  “Yes. They’re identical.”

  “Where?”

  “You can buy them anywhere. Mrs. Maier picked them up for me.”

  “Who knows you have it?”

  Pierce ran his hand through his hair. “About a million people.”

  Replacement’s mouth fell open.

  “I mentioned it during an interview in Tech Talk Magazine.”

  “Well, someone went to great lengths to get at your laptop. Alice said the program on there’s designed to copy all the data off your laptop. What’s so valuable?”

  “It’s my development machine. The raw code for VE-Life and the new version are on it. Another corporation could leak the features or copy it for their own program.”

  “Hackers would love to get it so they can exploit the code,” Replacement added.

  “I’d assume whoever switched the e-cigarette cases did it since you came to Darrington or close to it.”

  “Why would you assume that?”

  “Because they’re here now. You come to your summer palace, and there’s less security. So they switch the case. You plug it in. It phones home and lets someone know it’s ready for pickup. None of the cameras in the house work?”

  “Nope,” Replacement said. “That’s the next thing we were going to hook up.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Pierce admitted.

  Replacement’s neck lengthened.

  “There’re perimeter cameras for security. They feed into the guardhouse.”

  “They’re on, working and monitored?”

  Pierce nodded.

  Jack handed Replacement the notepad and pen and stood up. “You said you had two cases. Where’s the second one now?”

  Pierce shrugged. “I have no idea. I’d love to smoke one right now, as a matter of fact. I gave my backup case to Gerald but this case is mine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Pierce nodded. “The corner’s dinged where I dropped it. I gave Gerald a new one.” />
  Replacement jumped up. “Wait a minute. Maybe the cases got mixed up. Remember? Gerald was showing us that blueprint in the server room. It kept curling up, so you put the case down on it. Gerald must’ve picked up your case.”

  Jack turned to Replacement. “The hospital only gave you one case, right?”

  She nodded.

  Jack crossed his arms. “Someone at dinner last night planted that case.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” Pierce said.

  “I am.”

  “How?”

  “Alice told them where it was.”

  “What?” Replacement dropped the pen. “I didn’t… Oh, crud. I did.”

  “Whoever broke into my apartment wanted that case. They knew it was there. Last night at dinner, Alice said she had it. They heard. How else could they have known where it was?”

  She pointed at Pierce. “You said you wanted to smoke. I said I had the case.”

  “Leon, Roger, Nancy, and Mrs. Maier,” Pierce muttered. “And Manuel. They were all there.”

  “Eight people heard,” Jack said.

  Replacement shook her head. “There were a bunch of servers there too.”

  “Not when you said you had the case,” Jack said. “All the servers went inside the house to get instructions for the dinner service.”

  “Bruce and Phillip were there, too,” Replacement added.

  “So was the maid.” Jack stared at Pierce. “We might be able to narrow the list down. Have you noticed if anyone has a wound? Most likely on their arm. My dog bit whoever broke into the apartment.”

  Pierce shook his head. “I’ve seen Mrs. Maier and Nancy this morning. They looked fine. So did Sophia. She brought me a coffee.”

  “We’ll need to keep an eye out. There was a getaway driver, which means even if they don’t have a chunk taken out of them, they could still be involved.”

  Pierce looked at Replacement. “Is your dog okay?”

  Replacement’s eyes rounded. “She’s fine now. Our landlady is watching her.”

  “What’s happening in your company?” Jack asked.

  Pierce looked up at the ceiling. “Why would you ask?”

  “First: you’re coming to me and not your security team, so you don’t trust them. Second: you only mentioned your staff just now, so you already suspect it’s an inside job.”

  Pierce rubbed both hands down his face. “We’ve had a number of security leaks. Two have been very big security leaks. We’ve been investigating. We attributed them to corporate spying. It happens all the time, but lately they’ve been...painful.”

  “Has that investigation turned up anything?”

  Pierce shook his head. “No.”

  “Is that why you brought these particular employees out? They seem to be a mixed group.”

  Pierce nodded. “Only a handful of people could’ve known the information that was leaked. I came up with the meeting idea. Basically, I wanted to plant a false story and see if someone took the bait.”

  “That’s brilliant.” Replacement grinned.

  “You don’t trust your security team?” Jack asked.

  Pierce’s shoulders slumped. He suddenly looked tired. “I don’t think Leon has anything to do with it, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. Someone in the company’s responsible and so far security hasn’t been able to determine who it is. I don’t know if I’m being paranoid, but it started to give me pause regarding them.”

  Jack walked to the window and looked out at the lake.

  Pierce put the case down. “Do you have any idea how you can try to find out who it is?”

  Jack turned back around. “Yeah. When Alice gives you the case back, they’ll come and get it.”

  “What?” Now Replacement looked confused. Her phone buzzed. “It’s Bruce.”

  “Get it. Act normal.”

  “Hey, Bruce.” She nodded a few times. “Okay, I’ll be down.” She hung up. “Bruce and Phillip are here. What do you mean I’m giving the case back to Pierce?”

  “You said you were giving it back to Pierce, and that’s exactly what you’re going to do. We need to go back to business as usual and not with guns blazing. We’re going to draw them back out, but first we have to get them to relax,” Jack said.

  “But what do I tell people?” Replacement asked.

  “The truth.” He looked back and forth between Replacement and Pierce. “We’re all going to tell everyone everything except about the case. Don’t mention it. You can talk about the cops, the mess at the apartment, Lady going to the vet’s—everything but the case. We want them to think everything’s fine.”

  “Data was copied off my laptop. I need to report the data breach to someone,” Pierce said.

  Replacement made a face. “Well, was it a data breach? They copied data off your hard drive but never saw it. The data was never transmitted.”

  Pierce sighed.

  “It’s technically true.” Jack turned his hands out.

  Pierce nodded.

  Jack turned to Replacement. “You need to get Bruce and Phillip going. Then I need you to start looking at everyone who was here when you told Pierce you found the case.”

  “Can I get access to Weston’s databases?” she asked Pierce.

  “That won’t take long. But I can’t take a chance on something happening to this e-cigarette case.” Pierce held it up.

  “You’re not going to. Replacement can clear your data off it but don’t disable it—just in case we need it. You and I’ll take a ride and get another one. There’s a shopping plaza just over the line in Fairfield. We’re going to use that one as bait.”

  “I want in on that,” she said.

  “We need to act normal. You’ll get Bruce and Phillip started and go to the server room. You can do the research there. Don’t let anyone in.”

  “The server room?” Replacement’s hands went to her hips. “You’re trying to lock me away.”

  Jack smiled. “Exactly.” She opened her mouth and he held up his hand. “Look, we need background on everyone who was there.”

  “But I stay locked in the server room?”

  “You’re the best at doing the background checks. Call me overprotective but can you work in the server room until I’m back?”

  “Fine.” Replacement crossed her arms.

  Chapter 31

  ~

  Stable

  Jack and Pierce walked into the garage. Pierce grabbed the keys off the rack while Jack stood back and admired the cars.

  “We’ll take the Porsche,” Pierce announced.

  Jack whistled. “You do have good taste in cars. She’s beautiful.”

  Pierce tossed him the keys.

  Jack’s eyebrow rose along with his hand as he caught the keys. “You’re going to let me drive?”

  “I think some things need to be experienced to be appreciated.”

  Jack hopped in, started up the Porsche and a boyish smile spread across his face. He drove the Porsche out onto the road and got the car going thirty.

  Pierce studied him for a second and then clicked his tongue.

  “What?” Jack scanned the dashboard.

  “I forgot. You used to be a policeman. I bet you’re a stickler for traffic laws.”

  Jack nodded. “I am. For everyone else.” He pushed his foot down.

  Pierce was pressed back into the seat as the Porsche took off. The road along the lake was windy but it was wide. For years it had been used by tourists for foliage season. When the city put in the new road twenty years ago, they made it a little extra wide in anticipation of people pulling along the side to appreciate the view.

  The Onopiquite Reservoir was a large lake. The reservoir sat at the bottom of a natural basin, shaped like a long serving dish. Reservoir Road circled the lake on the lower side of the basin, closest to the water, and Pine Ridge ran along the eastern ridge on the lip of the bowl.

  Jack turned right onto Reservoir. The car hummed as it hugged the curves. Jack looked at the
dials on the dashboard, and his mouth ticked up. “She’s not even breaking a sweat.”

  “I’ve been very impressed with the car. But did you bring me out here to talk about her or the plan?”

  Jack pressed his foot down and the Porsche shot down the long straightaway. “First we get the case.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Pierce asked.

  Jack gave Pierce a sideways glance as the Porsche slipped into the turn. He kept speeding up until the tires just started to slip and then slowed down.

  “She’s got great grip,” Jack said. “Usually when someone asks to ask a question, it’s not one I want to answer.”

  “Why’d you leave the police force? With everything I found out about you, I’d assume that you’d be promoted to detective, but you quit?”

  Jack’s hand choked the steering wheel. “I didn’t quit.”

  Pierce waited, but Jack kept driving. Reservoir Road ended, and Jack slowed down when they hit the main road.

  “I apologize for pushing the subject, but I’m putting a lot of faith in you,” Pierce continued. “I read the piece about you in the Hope Falls newspaper. That reporter did some digging into your past.”

  “And?”

  “The article raised some questions. I hired you. I need to know: why did you leave the police force?”

  “Why I left the force doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.” Pierce’s voice was clipped. “I need to know why you left because I need to make sure that you’re...stable.”

  “Stable?”

  “Yes. It’s the only explanation I can come up with. You’re a vet. You’ve been through a lot in your life. I don’t believe you just walked away from being a policeman to be a bounty hunter. That means you were asked to leave. I need to know if it was for mental health reasons.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “They also took your license to carry away.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Alice told me.”

  The Porsche’s engine revved louder.

  Pierce held up a hand. “We were talking about security, and I said I wanted to get a gun. She mentioned it then. I didn’t think anything about it until after I decided to hire you.”

  Jack didn’t say anything.