Hack

by Peter Wrenshall

  “I won’t,” I said, matching his serious voice.

  We walked over to the Mercedes, and Philips opened a rear door for me.

  “It’s all in your hands now.”

  It suddenly hit me how true that was. It wasn’t just a saying. This whole project was my responsibility. Philips, Garman, Richard, Hannah—they were there just to watch over me. The job of drawing out an international terrorist, and getting him to stick his head in the noose, was mine. Nobody could do it for me. But I knew I could do it. I had to do it. Richard, Hannah, and I left the motel and made our way to what would be my home for the next month or two.

  18

  Chapter 5

  The car turned off the highway, and shortly afterwards we pulled into a leafy suburb, where the elm-lined roads were wide enough to land a small plane, and the lawns were big enough to park one.

  Richard and Hannah got out of the car, and started up toward the house. I walked the opposite way, to the end of the driveway, to stretch my legs after the long journey, and to take a look at my new neighborhood: moderately affluent meets middlebrow-blandsville. Trim lawns and manicured bushes. Browning leaves, and graying executives. I couldn’t wait for Christmas, to see the place all lit up in the snow. But how come such an up-market place? I wondered. What did the FBI have in mind? But I didn’t, or couldn’t, ask.

  A squirrel darted out from behind a tree, saw me, and then darted back. I heard it scurry up the back of the tree. It was Tuesday afternoon, and apart from the squirrel, the place was deserted. I turned around, and found Richard watching me expectantly.

  I followed him inside. The interior of the house was as tastefully understated as the outside. Hannah led the way into the living room. It was so clean and neat that I didn’t want to sit down without checking my clothes first, to see if perhaps a stray leaf had attached itself to me, ready to dirty the new furniture. My new mother asked me to follow her upstairs.

  “This is your room,” she said, opening the door to a football-field-sized apartment. Compared to my jail cell, the room was enormous. It might have been bigger than my mother’s apartment. I gave the bed the bounce test, and it passed. Not too hard, not too soft. Everything was just perfect.

  “While you were at Uncle Mike’s, I got you some new trousers and shirts. I hope you like them.”

  From my bed, I watched Hannah open the closet, to show a bunch of trendy shirts and cargo pants, stuff I had never worn in my life. I looked them over. The trousers weren’t the functional sort you get in the military, but the ornamental variety, with extra pockets, in case you were out on recon at the mall.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I took out my belongings: an architect’s pencil and eraser, and a small note pad, still with details of a ‘bash’ script I was going to write. Somehow, the FBI hadn’t confiscated it as evidence. I put these on the nightstand, along with my wallet.

  “If you need anything, I’ll be downstairs,” Hannah said, as she left.

  I sat on the bed, getting used to my palatial bedroom. When I was young, I had lived in a big house like this one, and since then my life had been spent in a series of rooms of decreasing size, culminating in the prison cell, a guest of the Washington State Department of Correction.

  I walked around the room, looking for dust or fluff, but there was none to be found. I walked over to a door, and opened it, to find my own bathroom, sparkling clean and lemony fresh. Behind another door was a linen closet, with shelves of neatly folded, color-coordinated bed sheets, and a basket for laundry.

  I looked out window onto a large garden, where Mr. and Mrs. Ripley had once played with their child, pushing him on the swing. No, that was another house, another life, another time. I had only been back to that house once since my parents split up. I stared out of the window, looking and listening to the library-like silence.

  The house was so silent that it was eerie. I crept onto the landing, just to check that my feds were still there. Sure enough, I could hear Hannah or Richard in the kitchen. I went back into the bedroom and closed the door. As I did, I noticed that someone had 19

  made a stab at suburban camouflage. On the back of the bedroom door was a poster of a hairspray-rock group that I hadn’t heard of before.

  It made me think, Are my new parents expecting me to bring my school friends home for after-hours hacking sessions? Homework help? Sleepovers? Oh, god, I’m back at high school.

  I made a mental note to get some proper décor, then went to the bed, and for an hour lay there looking at somebody else’s musical heroes, holding expensive guitars with exotic finishes, and letting my thoughts whirl around. Knight, college, FBI, hacking, Malik, the Washington State prison, North, coffee, and back to Knight.

  Always back to Knight.

  20

  Chapter 6

  Unlike other schools I had attended, Elmwood High was modern and neat. It had no graffiti, no litter, and no broken windows. Its smart tree-lined paths and clean buildings showed no signs of urban decay.

  But it did have the familiar school cliques. Grouped around the courtyard were the sports freaks, the chatroom junkies, the goths, the skaters, the slackers, the head-bangers, the no-hopers, and of course the queen bee and her wanna-bees.

  Somewhere around would be the latest addition to that list of subcultures: the computer hobbyists and hackers—my people. But they hung out only in cyberspace.

  Hannah had told me to find Mr. Stony, who had been prepped and had agreed to cooperate (the word she used) by slotting me into high school life as quickly as possible. After five minutes of wandering around the administrative complex, I finally found a door marked “Mr. E. Stony” and knocked on it. I got no reply, and looked at my watch. It was 9:04 a.m.; Stony was late. I sat on a chair outside the door, and for the next few minutes, I watched a member of the staff walk to each office, delivering mail. Across from me, a door with “Mr. N. Harmon” on it opened, and a good-looking, fashionable girl came out. She said good-bye to the office’s occupant, and then strode past me with purposeful steps, and then out into the corridor. I’d had talks with teachers, too, but I was guessing that they were a different sort of discussion.

  Teachers were always on me for wasting my potential. My mother had signed ten years of grade cards with must try harder on them.

  My grades got even worse when I started hacking seriously, and ditching anything not necessary. The way I figured it, I didn’t need to study subjects like Spanish. I already knew half a dozen languages. Yes, they were all computer languages, but you get my point. Geography? I chatted over the Internet with hackers in Russia, Sweden, and a dozen other countries. I picked up more information about their lives and countries by talking to them online than I ever could have in a classroom. Home Ec? I didn’t consider that necessary, because I had spent my formative years cooking for myself.

  I heard the computer screen in Harmon’s office ping as he hit the power button, and then the keyboard’s quiet clickety clack as he typed away. From the other direction, I heard a door slam shut, followed by a rustle, and then Stony came around the corner holding a bunch of papers and a briefcase. He was tall and thin, and was dressed in a light brown suit, with a vest. He looked harassed.

  “You must be David Johnson,” he said without smiling.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “I’m Ed Stony. I spoke to your . . . father, Richard.”

  “Yes.”

  He put a key in the door, unlocked it, pushed it open, and said, “Come in.”

  I followed him in and closed the door behind me. Thankfully, he didn’t bother with small talk, and instead opened his drawer and took out a stack of cards and passes. He sighed.

  “These are the items you need.”

  He handed over the documents, and a locker key.

  “Thank

  you.”

  He took out some more papers, looked through them, and then handed them to me.

  “Here is your class schedule, and your user account for the
computer network.

  This hall pass will allow you to go where you need to go.”

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  I stuffed all the documents into my jacket pocket.

  Frustration suddenly appeared in Stony’s voice. “I had some difficulty in preparing these. I wish I had been told a little earlier about your arrival,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, just to be saying something.

  He eyed me dubiously, and I got the idea that Philips had railroaded him into complying, and he resented it. That made two of us.

  “I’m told you’re bright,” Stony said.

  I

  shrugged.

  “Well, then, you’ll be able to understand my position. I expect you to act responsibly and sensibly. I will not have anything going on in this school that threatens the safety of the students or the staff.”

  I nodded thoughtfully.

  “You already do,” I said, referring to Malik and his operation, with just enough drama to cut the conversation short. Stony cleared his throat. Philips would have told him not to discuss such things. Stony stood and walked to the door.

  “Follow me,” he said bluntly.

  We passed another girl outside Harmon’s door. Despite the chilly autumn air, she was wearing a T-shirt that didn’t quite fit, showing her midriff. I smiled at her. At school, I used to get pinged by girls to tell me about social events that I never had time for, and never went to. But when Philips had put his plan to me, I decided to become much more sociable. I knew that I’d have to make time for a girlfriend. Using girls wasn’t something I wanted to do, but I knew that they would be good cover. I’d have an excuse whenever I needed to get away from the constant surveillance.

  I gave the girl an admiring glance that was genuine and she saw me looking and didn’t look away—but already Stony was ushering me down the corridor.

  “You were supposed to have English first period, but you’re already late.

  Rather than burst in, I’ll show you around, and you can sit in the library until your next class, which is computer studies—something I believe you know a bit about.”

  He said it a bit sarcastically, but I let it go. I could imagine Philips and Garman sitting in his office, both glaring at him.

  We wandered a series of corridors, and eventually stopped at a classroom, which looked like it had been built the week before. “Our new IT suite,” Stony said.

  This was more my scene. I looked through the window at rows of shiny new computers that would have impressed every parent in the country. I wondered briefly why high schoolers would need such powerful machines. Even in those days, I could have done a PhD in computer science using a refurbished computer that cost less than twenty-five dollars, combined with free software downloaded from the Internet.

  I followed Stony to the library, where he left me. After that, I never saw him again during the whole time I attended the school—not even in the corridor. I did think about sneaking into the staff room, but I never got around to it.

  The library was surprisingly small and unsurprisingly badly stocked. The entire computer section consisted of just a dozen books titled “Computers for Beginners” and cheery can-do stuff like that, full of pictures and cartoons. So I spent my spare time gazing out of the window, watching the breeze playing with the leaves.

  When the school bell rang, I walked back along the hallway, to the computer room.

  I figured Zaqarwi might already be sitting somewhere in the classroom, and I didn’t want to make eye contact just yet. So when I went in, I didn’t look around, but walked straight up to Mr. Logan, and introduced myself. He said that he would come to talk to me later, and told me to find an empty seat, which I did. He put a spreadsheet up on the big electronic whiteboard, and started to talk about 22

  spreadsheets. I listened for a few minutes, which is the time it takes for my brain to switch off when bored, and then took a quick look at the coursework. Then I turned to my machine.

  The computers had been arranged in the classroom so the teacher could see what most of the pupils were doing. But with Logan turned toward the board, I would be able to work in unseen spurts. As quietly as possible, I logged onto the machine with the username and password that Stony had handed me. The machine was running Microsoft Windows, an operating system that I had become familiar with over the years.

  I did a quick check and found that it had been locked down, to prevent students from tampering with it, either accidentally or deliberately. That meant that with my standard user account, I wouldn’t be able to make any major changes, such as altering the Internet proxy server, so I could surf the Internet without being watched.

  I changed my password then logged off. My goal was to upgrade my new user account from a standard user, which wouldn’t allow me to look at anything interesting, to a domain administrator, and I knew a simple way to do it. On Windows machines, passwords are stored locally, in case the network fails. All I needed to do was to get someone to log onto my machine, and then I could use that person’s user ID. That person would be Logan, but would his user account be a domain administrator account? If so, then he would have access to every computer on the network.

  I reasoned it through. Would a teacher need that access? An English or chemistry teacher wouldn’t, but Logan was an IT teacher, meaning that he might have to set up computers and perform administrative tasks. High schools are known by hackers for being understaffed, and regular teachers sometimes have to do the work themselves. In the end, I decided that it was worth a shot.

  It had also occurred to me that I could have simply asked Philips for a domain administrator account on the school computer, and he would have probably arranged it for me. But where would the fun be in that? My stay in state prison had kept me out of hacking and cracking for the best part of a year, and I wanted to get my kung-fu working once again of its own accord, like it had once been: an instinct.

  I raised my hand, and asked, “Mr. Logan?”

  “Yes,

  David?”

  “I can’t log on.”

  “When did you get your username and password?”

  “Mr. Stony just gave it to me, but it doesn’t work.”

  Logan frowned a little.

  “Did you forget the password?”

  “No.”

  I held up the slip of paper.

  “This is the one they gave me. It’s just ‘password.’ But when I typed it in, it wouldn’t let me log on.”

  Logan tried logging on with my username. He sighed nasally. He moved to the next machine, and tried again. That didn’t work either.

  “Are you sure these details are correct?”

  “Mr. Stony just handed them to me. Can you change my password?”

  Logan logged on to my machine, using his system administrator account, and reset my password. He then logged in using my account, to verify that the new password worked.

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  “That should take care of it. Let me know if you have any more problems.”

  “Thanks.”

  I then logged in using my student account, and started working on the assignment, which took me almost no time to complete.

  For the next thirty minutes, I listened to Logan drone on at the front of the class, using electronic slides on a large computer whiteboard, to explain the use of spreadsheet formulas.

  Logan’s nonexistent enthusiasm was infectious, and eventually my mind switched off. Logan was what some of my old crew used to refer to as a COBOL

  Charlie, the generic programmer who had worked in commercial computing, doing tedious bean-counting projects on mainframes and other soul-destroying mundane stuff.

  That was one of the things that made me so keen to start working as a paid hacker, a white hat, someone who broke into banks for money, to help them test their security. At least it was fun. When you worked in the real world, sooner or later, the boredom and office politics slowly corroded your idealism and your enthusiasm for computing, and you eventually became like Loga
n. You spent thirty years eking out your living teaching high schoolers BASIC and looking forward to the day when the final bell rang and it was the long summer vacation.

  I leaned back in my chair, and looked around at the rest of the class. There was the usual mix of students. Did any of them look like recruits for a dangerous terrorist who might want to gain access to all of the Pentagon’s computer systems? I spotted a dark-skinned guy, in the far corner, sitting alone, and reading through his textbook. I guessed he was Abdul Zaqarwi. I later learned that my instincts were right.

  My gaze slowly drifted around the room. I saw a boy at the front of the class frowning in exasperation at the sheer difficulty of what was an easy assignment. I saw two trendy girls, trying hard to stay awake. I saw another boy sat with his arms folded in ostentatious boredom. I saw a hopelessly attentive girl stick her hand up, only to be ignored.

  After finishing his discussion on the sum function, Logan handed out a sheet, and told us to type in the ten numbers on it, and work out the sum and the average. I completed that task as fast as I could type, which is pretty darn fast, after years of intense keyboarding. For the other five minutes, while the others caught up, I let my eyes drift around the room some more.

  They finally stopped at the front of the classroom, resting on Logan’s electronic whiteboard. The interesting thing about it was that it might somehow be incorporated into my plan. Philips had told me to get Zaqarwi’s attention. One possible way to do that would be to connect to Logan’s whiteboard, and remotely control it somehow. I imagined Logan’s mouse pointer flying uncontrollably over the screen, or drawing a picture of Elmwood High being nuked to bits, getting a laugh from the class.