The Back Door Man

by Dave Buschi

  He turned down another aisle. He glanced back. The man wasn’t following.

  He went past a series of cubicles and kept going. The door to the stairwell was just ahead. He went faster now, almost running. The door got closer.

  Closer.

  “Stop!”

  Oh shit.

  The man had seen him. For a split-second, James considered stopping, but it was as if his legs wouldn’t obey and kept moving. He reached the door and yanked it open. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d darted inside the emergency stairwell and was going down the stairs.

  3

  SHIT, shit, shit.

  He ran down the steps. He went past the third level… the second…

  That man had a gun!

  He reached the ground floor landing. He almost stumbled as his hand missed the rail on a cutback. A long fire escape corridor lay ahead of him.

  What was Security doing carrying guns?

  The man was behind him. He heard footfalls and the sound of voices. There was more than one of them. The voices were coming from down the corridor, as well as from the stairwell above. Oh my gosh, this was not good.

  Not good…

  He went under the lee of the stairs and opened a door that said ‘not an exit’ and ran down an internal corridor, which took him deeper into the complex. As he turned a corner, he heard a yell behind him.

  There was a tee in the corridor. He took a left. Ahead would be an exit, but it would take him by a Security station. Making a split-decision, he yanked open a door on his right and entered a mantrap. The door that shut behind him would trigger an alarm if he tried to open it again. James fumbled for his passkey.

  This section of the complex was off-limits to most employees. James’s job gave him special access. He inserted his passkey into the slot and pressed his palm against the biometric scanner. He knew that a digital record would be made of him entering this space. He couldn’t worry about that now.

  A green LED blinked and the door clicked open. James quickly went inside. He was in a room that spilled into a larger space. An insistent hum was coming from row after row of server racks, all of which were interconnected with wires and conduit. This was Central IQ. ComTek’s brain.

  James moved away from the door. Security would not have access to this area. In moments the man chasing him would look into the vestibule and see that James was not in it. The list of individuals granted access to this area was less than thirty in number. James was almost as good as caught, if the man had seen him go through the door.

  James looked on the wall next to the door. There was a flat screen monitor with a split screen. One image was of the mantrap and the other was a view inside the corridor. James watched as Security ran past the door and disappeared from view.

  Phew. He hadn’t been seen. This area linked up to two other exits. He could get out of here now.

  Or maybe not.

  He paused as his head began to string together the loose pieces. It wasn’t quite that simple. Not by a long shot.

  With painful clarity he saw the pickle he’d put himself into. His lack of judgment in coming to the office, which was becoming more stupid with each passing moment, was about to be compounded twice. First, he’d run from Security. A decision, which now seemed absolutely absurd. He should have tried to explain himself. But now, if he just left, he’d be leaving behind a digital record that would leave no doubt how this would end.

  He’d be fired.

  Eleven years of working for the same company was about to end badly and abruptly. Gone would go his references. He might even get blackballed from working in information security again.

  If he turned himself in now the consequences weren’t much better. His running had set off a cascading implication of wrongdoing. Not only had he secretly entered the building, but by entering this space he’d entered a red zone and compromised security.

  Even if he fabricated some legitimate-sounding story for being here—his integrity and judgment would be under a cloud. He’d never be entrusted with sensitive assignments again.

  His options were growing more limited by the second. If he had any hope of getting himself out of this lose-lose situation he’d have to plow ahead into more awful territory. He took a deep breath, hardly believing he was even considering it.

  There were maybe three individuals in the company who might be able to attempt it. He’d theorized about it countless times. A major part of his job was to assess the holes; the weaknesses in the multi-layered security net that protected ComTek’s most vital assets. Those exercises were usually hypothetical role-playing scenarios, which his seven-person tiger team analyzed. Each hypothetical breach had resulted in a new series of protocols being implemented.

  ComTek had some of the most sophisticated information security features of any company in the country; its Security IQ was on par with systems that protected interests of national defense. Never though, not once, even in a bad nightmare, did he think he’d ever be put in this position. The thought of it was enough to make him want to throw up, but he grimly realized it was the only option available to him where the end result was him keeping his job.

  The solution was daunting but doable. He hoped.

  He had to erase his digital footsteps. He had to alter the memory matrix, including what the cameras would have captured. 99.9 percent of the time that was something easier said than done. But if there was any silver lining to this numskull predicament, it was in its timing. Several days ago he’d discovered an anomaly; a glitch in the system that could give him an opening to exploit.

  He opened a panel on the nearest wall. He typed in a six digit access number and switched the toggles that would take the latent systems off-line. This was standard procedure for doing diagnostics on the remote systems and would temporarily interfere with any security inquiries.

  All log-ins and passkey user data would be unavailable. It was an anomaly that James had discovered last week, and rather than delegating to someone on his team, had handled himself by creating a security patch. The static code analysis he’d been running on his computer last night, in fact, had been an exercise to assess the patch’s effectiveness.

  Fortunately, he hadn’t put the patch in place, yet.

  James sat down at the closest terminal and quickly went to work. His running had left him caked in sweat. He felt a chill from the air conditioning. It was much cooler in this space than it was in other areas of the complex. Temperature and humidity in here were regulated at a consistent 69/50. That took some doing as the servers put off a tremendous amount of heat. Over three hundred tons of cooling was needed to condition this space.

  The place was supplied with continuous, uninterruptible power. Strict environmental management systems were in place, which in addition to the air conditioning and humidity control, were able to detect moisture intrusions. No drinks were allowed in this area, not even water bottles with spill-proof caps. A warning light on the wall was detecting James’s own body moisture right now. If excessive moisture was detected an audible alarm would go off.

  James knew he wouldn’t trigger the alarm just with his sweat. Nevertheless, that light wasn’t doing much to help his concentration.

  James sometimes spent a greater part of his day in this controlled, managed environment. Like the floor where his cubicle was, there weren’t any windows in this space. A person was cut off from the world in here. The hum, which became background noise after a while, stayed with you, even when you left.

  James looked up and took in the distributed cluster architecture around him. The majority of this space wasn’t even used for ComTek’s essential operations, but was leased by outside companies.

  ComTek’s most profitable division was secure data storage. In this gargantuan space, and in another larger off-site facility called a “hot site”, were enough servers and storage clusters to archive 200 exabytes of data. A daunting mind-blowing capacity that could only be truly appreciated by looking at the roster of clients tha
t utilized ComTek’s services.

  Google, Microsoft and Facebook all leased “space” from ComTek. Next to banking institutions and the credit-card industry, they were three of ComTek’s most profitable clients.

  James knew he needed to do this quickly. While he felt confident that Security hadn’t seen him, or at least hadn’t gotten a visual of his face, there would be a digital record of him in the system due to him using his passkey. There was also his biometric signature. Cameras would have captured some of his movements. There were cameras situated throughout the complex. That camera footage, which he knew firsthand was never looked at, would now be scrutinized. They would just need to pull up the last ten minutes and he’d be captured on four of those cameras.

  ComTek’s overarching security breadth was also its Achilles’ heel. It would take forty-two employees, each watching six screens, in order to monitor in real time all the camera footage. An impossible task obviously, considering each Security detail was comprised of a dozen individuals. To say nothing of the fact that none of those individuals were savvy with technology.

  That was being kind. Just last week:

  “Damn thing don’t work.”

  Not surprising, considering it wasn’t plugged in.

  Regardless of Security’s shortcomings, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to operate Phalanx’s interface features. It was a simple procedure to pull up the screens and play back footage. James gauged he had only minutes to get done what he needed to get done before they pulled up footage of him and made a positive ID. Once that hurdle was accomplished there were only fourteen more security features to access and address.

  Piece of cake. James felt positively ill.

  Twenty-two minutes later, he still didn’t feel any better. But he was out. And he’d scrubbed his tracks clean.

  He picked the most remote egress point to exit Building C. The camera that captured this location would still be playing an endless loop for another three minutes so his exit should go unnoticed. James was sweating again; he’d never really stopped, not even with the chill of the air conditioning. He couldn’t believe what he’d just done.

  James had never run a red light. He was a rule follower. Even when he drove home on some nights when it was 1 AM and there was a red light at that ridiculous intersection near his house that took forever, he always waited. He waited for that darn light to turn green, even though he was tired, wanted to get home, and knew beyond a doubt that there were no police around and no way for him to get caught.

  He followed rules. Always.

  What had happened to him?

  James’s head was swimming. He felt like he was having an out of body experience where he was dead and looking down at a body he no longer recognized.

  He had to remind himself to pay attention. This wasn’t over, and wouldn’t be until he was safely in his car, which would soon have gas to take him home.

  He moved quickly. Security was concentrated in another part of the complex looking for the intruder. They hadn’t called the authorities. James knew the protocol. Calling the authorities was the last on a long list of options, only to be done in the direst of emergencies. It would take the building burning and a verbal mandate from the CEO or Portino for that call to be made.

  ComTek prided itself on its fail-safe security measures. Almost all of which were overrated. Portino was partially to thank for that—the man’s vigilant cost-cutting in the last two years had left the company a shell of its former self.

  If word got out that an intruder had attempted to break into the complex and hadn’t been apprehended, then ComTek’s depressed stock would take an even deeper nosedive. It would be catastrophic. Companies used ComTek for storing their most vital data and paid handsomely for that service.

  James had gone through all the scenarios of what consequences would ensue for his actions. He knew what tomorrow would bring. Tomorrow would be business as usual. No one would know this had ever happened. At least no one in the public sector. The information would be confined to a handful of individuals, just like the last few times.

  Like the time that the cleaning service had accidentally thrown in the trash data tapes that contained personal information on over one million Citibank customers. Or the time that it was discovered that the backup systems on the Siemens’ account hadn’t been working for six months. The list had others. James had seen it, owing to the wide scope of his job. He saw more things than the top brass would ever like him to know.

  James kept to the median that tracked next to the woods. He skirted the parking lot, not taking any chances. This area was designated as overflow parking for service vehicles and was rarely used. Surprisingly, there were six vehicles scattered in the lot.

  As he took a path that led into the woods, James glanced at one of the cars parked by a generator. It was a white Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows. He knew the car’s owner: Nick Paulson.

  What was that jerk doing here?

  He didn’t dwell on that thought for long. There was still the bank he needed to deal with. He took out his Blackberry. A few minutes ago he’d inputted the bank’s number into his address book. He’d gotten the number from the back of his debit card, where he should have looked in the first place.

  He pulled up the number on his screen and placed the call. He had to stop those payments from being deducted before the bank drained all his and Sue’s savings! Once that was done he’d cancel their cards and put a hold on their account.

  His adrenaline had been going forever and he felt nauseous. This day was way too exhausting.

  4

  NICK Paulson, thirty-three, tall and handsome in a movie star sort of way, was cursing James Kolinsky’s name.

  That fuckin’ dickhead. I thought he fixed this.

  For the last half-hour he’d been trying to determine who had accessed Building C. Portino had made it very clear they needed to identify and locate the intruder.

  Paulson thought it a waste of time, but like a good soldier he was humoring the boss. This was an unneeded distraction. The person had been spotted in Cubeville, of all places. What was the big concern? They’d steal a few pencils from someone’s desk?

  Paulson had gone over all the digital capture. Half the footage was worthless. The resolution was ridiculous; two boxes were completely out of focus, a third was a granulated static mess, and a fourth was offline. All of these problems were supposed to have been fixed months ago.

  Paulson was tired of reviewing sloppy work. In the two years he’d been here—it felt longer than that—he’d identified more problems in more divisions than any of his worthless cohorts.

  He was surprised, however, at Kolinsky dropping the ball on updating the Phalanx system. That was Kolinsky’s team responsibility. It wasn’t like that man to be careless; he prided himself on his attention to detail and professionalism.

  Professionalism, Paulson almost laughed. Kolinsky had used that exact word, Paulson knew, when asked to critique himself during his last performance review. As if that was what got you ahead. The guy was clueless.

  Paulson snickered, recalling the conversation that he’d seen on video.

  “How does three percent sound?”

  James had nodded and said meekly “whatever is fair”.

  “Like a lemming,” Portino had said, who was watching the video along with him. “He deserves this for being such a putz. We selected well.”

  Kolinsky. The man had absolutely no idea how to play the game.

  Not the case for Paulson. When that had been his gig he’d had it wired. He knew exactly how to advance quickly. First off, never dicker around at a place with no growth potential. In nine years he’d had seven jobs. Each job hop he’d upped his salary north of fifteen percent. Kolinsky, compared to his younger colleagues, was a fossil around here; he’d been at ComTek longer than most higher ups, taking the spoon-fed two or three percent annual raises each time.

  Paulson knew all the details. He’d done his homework. The man had nev
er once asked for a bigger slice, even with all his contributions. And not once had he come close to campaigning for a promotion.

  The guy was a certified idiot. One of those lifers who was going to be a lowly manager till the day he died. Idiot didn’t even know that some of the people that reported to him were making more than he was.

  You want to get promoted? Fuckin’ get some balls. Paulson had always been willing to walk away.

  You want to keep me? Make it worth my while. And walk the talk. Paulson projected supreme confidence, even when he was in over his head. His image was polished. Forget the nerd or slob look most his cohorts adopted; Paulson was all about designer clothes, tailored shoes, and acerbic wit. His was the whole package. Kolinsky had never polished his shoes in his life—he looked like a bum, complete down to the perma-stubble on his face. And he wondered why he lost out when it came time for promotions?

  Third on that list, but most importantly: it was all about relationships. Paulson was an ace in that department. He didn’t waste his time with the lowlifes (which in his view was anyone under Director level), like Kolinsky did, that just sent a subtle message to upper management that you belonged with the riff-raff. Paulson long ago had adopted the right attitude. Made it known that he belonged with the big players. Could speak their language.

  With the foodies he talked about the best restaurants in town. With the risk nuts he talked about skydiving and racing his Viper at the track. With the cigar and wine aficionados he could rattle off the best years for Opal or the finest smokes he’d ever had.

  That’s what got you ahead. Relationships forged by common connections. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was brilliant, and that wasn’t just him saying that. Paulson knew he was the perfect prototype. Companies salivated for guys like him and paid top dollar to get them—as they had time and time again. Just look at how he read on paper.

  Stanford undergrad. Grad school at Harvard. He’d cut his chops as an analyst at Goldman Sachs before his stint at Silicon Valley. He’d worked abroad for several high-tech firms, which broadened his impressive repertoire, and also gave him his chummy British accent. An affectation he adopted on those choice occasions when he was putting on the charm. If he only knew what he knew now when he was back in school.