“Up to you,” Nichols said.
“Excellent. See you here tomorrow about ten?”
“Sure, sounds great.”
I thought maybe Nichols would get the hint that I didn’t need him to walk me to my room. Didn’t work. After a couple miles of walking in SPACE, I stood at my room door and said, “Good-night, Jimbo.”
“Good-night.”
WHEN I SHUT the water off in the shower, I heard my phone ringing. I walked naked and dripping to the workdesk in the suite's living room and glanced at the screen as the phone rang and vibrated against the hard surface. The caller ID said PRIVATE CALLER. Who in hell would call me at three o’clock in the morning? I picked it up and touched to answer. "Hello?"
"Is this Mr. Flatt?"
"It is."
"Mr. Flatt, my name is Courtney Meyer. I'm a special agent with the FBI, calling from New York."
"Okay," I said. The feebs are never just agents. Always special. "What can I do for you?"
"First, I need to tell you that this call is being recorded. Second, I need your assurance of confidentiality before proceeding with the conversation. Do I have that assurance?"
"It's what, almost six a.m. in New York?"
"I wanted to call when I thought it most likely you'd be alone. Is that the case?"
What the hell? "Yes, Agent, I'm alone. What's this about?" I had worked on a few cases over the years that had FBI involvement, always on the other side. Nothing recent, though, and certainly nothing active.
"I need your agreement to keep this confidential," Meyer said.
"You have it. It's late, so please get to the point."
"We need your assistance on a case."
This was getting stranger by the moment. One thing the Bureau boys and girls never ask for, no matter how badly they might need it, is outside forensic assistance. They'd let a serial killer go before admitting they couldn't get evidence off his computer. "Sorry, I'm tied up on a major case right now."
"We know. You're working for the SPACE casino in Nevada. That's what we need your help with."
I thought about that for a moment, and when it still didn't make the first lick of sense, I touched the phone into speaker mode, laid it on the desk, and said, "Hold on a sec." I continued to mull as I walked to the bathroom and grabbed a towel from the rack. I toweled my hair, face, and neck as I walked back to the living room. When I got there, I said, "Not sure how or why you'd know what case I'm working, but I can't imagine how I can help you."
"I'll remind you that this is extremely confidential, and—"
I cut her off: "You said that already, and I agreed already. Get to the point, please."
"I—we—need you to keep us apprised of progress on the forensic investigation you're conducting."
Like hell. I drew a breath to respond, then did a slow count to ten, willing calm into my soul in the face of this idiocy.
"Mr. Flatt?" she said.
"Agent," I said, "that—"
"It's Special Agent Meyer. M-E-Y-E-R."
"Whatever. Look, you harp to me about the need for confidentiality, then ask me to break confidentiality with my client, with whom I've signed a very strong and very clear confidentiality agreement? Gotta tell you, not gonna happen, not without my client authorizing it. In fact, I don't want to hear any more, don't want to be in a position where you tell me information my client has a contractual expectation for me to tell them."
"You cannot mention this to your client in any way."
"And why exactly do you want these updates from me?"
"I'm not at liberty to discuss that."
"Then we're done."
"No, Mr. Flatt. We're not done."
I laughed out loud. "Good-night, Special Agent Meyer, M-E-Y-E-R." I reached toward the phone, aiming for the END CALL icon.
"Hang up on me and you will regret it, Mr. Flatt."
This bitch was starting to piss me off. I pulled my finger back from the phone. "Are you threatening me, ma'am?"
"I'm warning you, sir."
"You know one of the things I hate most on this earth?" I said.
"I know virtually all there is to know about you."
That was worth another laugh, but I held back. "Arrogance. You call me in the middle of the night with something this ridiculous and think I'm just gonna fall in line? In addition to the legality and ethics, you know how many cases I'd get once it got out that I divulged client information to law enforcement? Do you have any idea how freaking crazy you sound?"
"You would be better served to think about how 'crazy' it is to antagonize the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Enough. "And you'd be better served to put the crackpipe down and back slowly away. Stuff'll kill you in the end, you know."
This time I touched END CALL.
CHAPTER 6
KIEV, UKRAINE
THE MAN WAS OLD, his face a leathery map of a hundred creases, but his step was lively and his eyes bright as he strolled generally south along the tree-lined street, keeping to the shade amid the dazzling sunny day. Though he had been but a child, he remembered when Khreshchatyk Street looked very different, more in keeping with traditional Ukrainian architecture, even though it had been heavily influenced by the Russian bastards, first the czarists and later the Bolsheviks. He remembered it becoming a cratered strip of rubble at the hands of the Soviet bastards who planted mines all along it and detonated them by radio control once the Nazi bastards arrived in 1941. He remembered the rebuilding after the Great Patriotic War that eventually transformed it into the beautiful kilometer it almost still was. Almost, because once the Soviet Union fell apart and Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, the influence of the West had been a slow but steady rot. Where proud old businesses once stood, today's storefronts on the grand street showed names like Gucci and DKNY and Chanel. And TGIF. What the fuck was that? Italian. American. French. Bastards all.
At the end of the street, he made his way inside the sprawl of Bessarabska Market, where he took his time and eventually filled a small basket with fruits and vegetables from the various stalls. He paid for some of the goods. He offered to pay for all, but many merchants recognized him and refused his grivna. To these he nodded his appreciation instead.
Basket in hand, he left the market and headed back the way he had come. Halfway up Khreshchatyk, he came to his apartment building on the left side of the street. Many of his colleagues and competitors, especially the young snots, had made their way to the suburbs of Kiev where they built ridiculous houses. He had no need to prove himself. No need to scream to the world, "Look at me!" No, he had grown up in the Center, and it was there that he would live until he breathed his last. He turned into a small alley, punched his code into the gate, then walked around the back of the building. There he keyed in another code to enter the building, and stepped inside.
Outside, the building was an old, beautifully maintained example of architecture that inspired the soul. Once through the door, the building had enjoyed the most basic of maintenance and no renovation since its construction in 1949. This was Kiev. This was Ukraine. Who wanted to spend money on things few would ever see and nobody gave a shit about? He had installed an elevator in the 1990s so he wouldn't have to listen to the whining from the paying tenants, but he had never been inside it. Stairs were good for a man, body and soul. When the staircase reached its last landing, he inserted his massive key into a state-of-the-art security lock, rotated it to the click, then twisted the handle and stepped inside.
The interior of the apartment yielded another transition. Unlike the building's stately outer appearance, and even more unlike the dreary old common areas outside his door, the apartment was meticulously maintained and filled with lavish Ukrainian antiques. He put away the fruits and vegetables, then crossed the big open room from the kitchen area to the living area. After easing down onto a pillowy leather sofa, he picked up a remote control and switched on the electronics which enabled him to monitor his business interests
around the world. Some of this monitoring took the form of stock quotes and such, but more interesting were the cameras that allowed him to literally see and hear inside his businesses. He was particularly concerned about the state of affairs at his Las Vegas operation. Stupid bastards. Navigating menus with the remote, he pulled up one of the cameras of that branch and turned up the volume a bit. He then pushed a button to extend his footrest and recline his end of the sofa, and settled in to observe. He first watched the room of computer workers. They looked busy. Good. He pushed a button on the remote and switched to the view from a very different camera, one whose feed stirred something primal in his aged loins.
CHAPTER 7
SPACE
THE BIZARRE FBI call was the first thing on my mind when I woke. Maybe I should have played it a little cooler and tried a little harder to coax some info out of her, something that would let me make sense of something so weird. I Googled Meyer and found nothing particularly useful, just a barebones bio and a few cases in which she was mentioned, all organized crime, typically RICO. Crap. I hadn't done anything wrong, but that didn't mean this woman wouldn't come after me just because I pissed her off. The feds can ruin an innocent man through sheer attrition.
I called a top-shelf private investigator I used from time to time, and asked him to dig up everything he could on her. Then it was time to put Special Agent Meyer out of my mind and get to work.
THE IT DEPARTMENT at SPACE was the nicest I'd seen. Ever. At the center of a large room of desks and cubicles was an elevated server room they called “the tower.” At a glance my guess was that it housed no fewer than fifty racks of servers; it was a glass-walled wonderland of monster computers and blinking lights, the nerve center of the empire. I walked past the cubicles and approached a desk on a raised dais just outside the tower. A balding guy in his thirties, wearing glasses that were a little too hip for his face and a SPACE lab coat, looked down at me from the desk as if I were a peasant drawing near his royal throne.
He said nothing, just arched his eyebrows at me.
I said, "I'm looking for Jerry Rose."
"I'm Dr. Rose."
Dr. Rose? A PhD running IT? Interesting. "Sam Flatt," I said.
He sighed and peered at his screen. "What can I do for you, Mr. Flatt?"
"Jacob Allen told me you were the man to see for access to a few servers."
More peering. "I have your name here as someone I'm to 'aid in data retrieval,' but I assure you no one is going to 'access' my servers."
His servers. I turned and looked at the always-at-the-ready James Nichols, who said, "Tell me what you'd like me to do, Mr. Flatt."
Leaning in so I could whisper in his ear, I said, "Sam. Sam. Sam. No more 'Mr. Flatt,' remember?"
He cracked a small grin and nodded.
I climbed the steps to Rose's desk and extended my hand. "Let's start over. I'm Sam Flatt. I'm here because I've been hired to examine some data that is very important to your employer, my client. We're working for the same boss, and I'd be most grateful for your cooperation."
Rose exhaled through his nose and took my hand in a limp little excuse of a handshake. "I'm very busy, Mr. Flatt, so if you can tell me what data you need—specifically—I'll see what I can do."
In less than a minute, I'd had my fill of this little prick. I walked back down the steps, found an empty chair, carried it up the dais, and plopped it down right beside Rose, who had never even bothered to stand. With forced calm I pulled my laptop from its sheath, found an electrical outlet and got my laptop plugged up. I then plugged it into an empty network jack on the back of his desk and with a flourish hit my power button. When I was up and running, I said, "I'm here to harvest data related to employee two-one-six-eight. I need admin access to the Exchange server that houses that account. I need admin or root to the primary print server for that account, admin or root to the servers containing her network shares, and admin or root to any servers and routers that handle outside traffic for that account."
Rose's face was somewhere between confused and indignant. He looked at me, then at Nichols, and said to Nichols, "This is completely unacceptable!"
Nichols shrugged.
What I wanted to do: Grab the lapels of the weenie's lab coat and shake him till he rattled. Instead, I said, "Dr. Rose. I've told you what I need. Will you arrange that, or not?"
"I most certainly will not."
Looking to Nichols, I said, "Jim, will you please see if Mr. Allen is available?"
He touched an icon on his phone and put it to his ear. A couple seconds later, he said, "Yes, this is Nichols. Can you please tell Mr. Allen we have a situation in IT that requires his attention….Yes, thank you….Hello, Mr. Allen, I'm in IT with Mr. Flatt and he's hit some resistance in getting the access he needs….Yes, sir…thank you." He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
Five seconds later, Rose's phone rang. He glanced at its screen, picked up the handset. "This is Dr. Rose."
I don't know what Allen was saying, but Rose's nerdy little face reddened and his nostrils quivered as all defiance drained away. I noticed that the clickety-click of keyboards around the room had gone quiet. We had an audience, and I guessed more than a few of them were enjoying the show. I've spent years dealing with self-important jerks like Rose and their brand of douchebaggery really tries my patience these days. Was I being an asshole myself? Yep. But with guys like this, you have to establish the rules up front. I was here to get to the bottom of a big issue for my client, and I had no intention of wasting time on games every time I needed something.
After maybe a minute, Rose laid the handset back in its cradle. He looked at me with pure hatred, but that was okay because after his best attempt at a Stare of Death, he turned to his screen and started setting up the access I had asked for. I watched his screen and when he finished, I smiled and said, "Thank you, Dr. Rose." Then I moved my chair and turned my laptop so he couldn't watch what I was doing.
A COUPLE HOURS LATER, I was back in my ersatz lab. While searches ran against Gamboa's email stores I'd gotten from IT, I dug deeper into the binder, looking for policies and procedures for managing the payout rates on SPACE's machines. I found those things, along with a fifty-something-page report on the company's own investigation of the issue. That investigation, conducted by SPACE's security department, had been thorough and meticulous. They had walked through and documented every step of the process, then turned every employee who had access to the process upside down and inside out. That included Gamboa, although she didn't appear to have received any more scrutiny than anyone else. Then again, she was more interesting now because she had bolted from the company without notice. At the time of the investigation, several months prior, she was just one of several key people with that kind of access. The weenie from IT, Jerry Rose, was mentioned several times in the report as the person who conducted the computer-related aspects of the investigation. Logins, credentials, system access levels, things like that. The investigation found exactly nothing amiss and wrapped up with a line that said, FINDINGS: INCONCLUSIVE. It was signed by the head of security, Hank Dobo.
I closed the binder, leaned back in my chair, and stretched. With my eyes closed, I mentally walked through the process of a SPACE employee making a legitimate adjustment to one of the machines: First, someone in management decides to make the change. A written order is issued via email to the head of the Gaming Technology department. The head does two things: he assigns it to a senior technician and files an electronic request for a witness visit from the gaming commission. The commission responds with a scheduled time, although in practice these commission guys run regular routes to the major casinos and adjustments get handled then. The commission regulator arrives, approves the proposed change. The assigned technician loads the configuration console for the machine, remotely, on the technician's normal workstation. At a casino as modern as SPACE, no one need touch the physical machine. It all happens over the network. After the regulator ve
rifies that no changes have been made to the machine since the last commission inspection, he (or she) watches while the technician implements the change. The regulator records the hash value of the machine's source code—this electronic fingerprint is the equivalent of a tamper-proof seal that will be used next time to verify no alterations have taken place. Finally, the machine is placed back into service with its new RTP setting in place.
So where were the holes in this process? One jumped out immediately. The perpetrator could make the change to the source code, let the bogus code work its black magic, then change the source code back to the approved version, thereby resetting the electronic fingerprint to its proper value before it was inspected again. This seemed way too easy, so I dug into the binder again. After a few minutes of reading, I found the safeguard against this. The Nevada Gaming Act for the 21st Century, passed a year earlier and known as NG21, mandated daily electronic polling of slots by the commission to check for things like this, along with additional random polling. Meaning the gaming commission had computers that did nothing except reach out and electronically quiz slot machines 24/7: "Hi there, can I have your digital fingerprint, please?" Inability to connect to a machine, or a response from a machine with other than the expected hash value, auto-triggered an alarm. It would be easy enough to work around a daily e-check, so the real question was how often did the random checks occur?
Nichols had made a couple calls and got me set up with a live test machine, so I decided to answer the question. I connected to the machine with my laptop and set up a trigger to record each time the machine was contacted by something outside the SPACE network. Common sense told me I shouldn't have to wait long. The best way for the gaming commission to keep tabs on any changes made to these machines would be to contact them often. Given the number of machines in Nevada to query, that may sound like a major task, but reality is, a single computer could ping every machine in the state a thousand times a day as long as a proper connection was in place. I expected a ping within five minutes.
Unallocated Space: A Thriller (Sam Flatt Book 1) Page 3