by S J Grey
She caught it before he disconnected. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Please tell me you weren’t doing anything online last night.”
“How about being more specific?”
He sighed. “I heard a whisper that the Immigration network went down last night. Someone was muttering about DDOS attacks. That was nothing to do with your exercise, right?”
Shit. She was right. Did her SQL searches make her vulnerable to identification? No. She should be fine. “Nope. Not me, not the team.”
“Okay. That’s good. I know you’re careful and all, but I wanted to check, in case you weren’t aware.”
“Nah, but it’s all good.” She couldn’t help yawning. “Sorry. Late night.”
“Want to come over later, and I’ll cook dinner?”
Griff made a mean curry. She was instantly hungry, thinking about it. “Maybe. I don’t know if we’re working again tonight. Can I get back to you later?”
“Yeah. No worries. See ya.”
She said bye and disconnected, then fired up her laptop and tried to access the Immigration server she used the night before. It didn’t respond. Damn. A good thing she got in when she did. It meant she had some data to analyse, and that was a start.
Her SQL query had been running slowly. Did she configure it correctly? Was she the reason for the outage, after all?
Friday 5 April
Chapter Nineteen
Andi was starving and made time to grab a toasted bagel with her morning coffee on her way to the office. She was the last to arrive, but only by a couple of minutes. The rest of the team were getting set up for the day, and she wolfed down her breakfast while she waited for Caleb to confirm the plan for the evacuation.
Devin handed out the mocked-up photo IDs and lanyards, and then Nat and Will set off. They wore hi-vis vests over their clothes and were going to present themselves as the building engineering service team.
Caleb received a text from Will, shortly after. “Okay,” he said. “You’re good to go. The alarm will sound at eight twenty-five.”
The DTI office was a short walk from Caleb’s setup, and Andi headed off with Jonathan. He looked more like an investment banker or a lawyer than a government agent.
A spy.
She had to remember what he was. She was walking a dangerous line at the moment, using Caleb’s exercise as a cover for her covert activities. Being tired was no reason to stop paying attention to the details.
People were leaving the DTI office in an orderly fashion, streaming out from several exits and clustering along the street.
“Looks about right,” said Jonathan. “Good luck.”
“Cheers.”
Jonathan strolled to a bunch of similarly suited guys, while Andi walked slowly through the crowd. The IT techs wore jeans and T-shirts, rather than business clothes. They’d be visible.
It was cold again, and threatening rain, and most people wore coats, but she found her techs. They huddled together under an overhang and talked about last night’s rugby match.
Andi lurked nearby and pretended to be engrossed in her phone. She moved out of the chill, and listened to the conversations. The guy to her left looked familiar. She recognised his face from her social-media profiling. Darren Somebody? When one of his colleagues nudged him and called him Daz, she knew she was right.
She hopped onto her Facebook account and looked him up. Darren White. His profile picture showed him in cycling gear, a camera strapped to his head. She flicked to her notes. He worked as a desktop support engineer and was engaged to Cindy, a florist at SuperBlooms, in the city centre.
Time to engage him in conversation. She moved closer to the guys and pretend-accidentally walked backwards into Darren.
“Hey. Careful.” He caught her by the shoulders.
“Sorry. My bad.” She favoured him with a smile. “Trying to avoid the crush. Hey, aren’t you Darren?”
“Yeah. Do I know you?”
“I’m Liz.” The lie fell easily from her tongue. “I know Cindy.”
“Sweet. You work here at the DTI?”
“I’m an intern, only here for a few weeks. My first day today.” She rolled her eyes. “Great start, aye?”
He laughed. “It happens.”
“I arrived a bit early. Won’t do that again.” She grinned up at him. “Was it your bike race this weekend? I remember Cindy talking about it.”
“No, the Rotorua race is a couple of weeks away. I did a training run though, up and down the Paekakariki Hill.”
“Sounds like hard work.”
“You’re telling me. It’ll be worth it when I get in the top ten competitors.” He blew out a breath and grinned. “Who are you reporting to?”
“Phil somebody? Benson?”
“Bentin?”
“Could be.” She shrugged.
“He doesn’t normally get in until well after nine. When we get the all clear, I can take you to his PA’s desk. It’s all good.”
It was that easy. Andi lurked with him and was introduced to his colleagues, and then drifted back inside with them. As promised, he led her to where Phil Bentin’s secretary sat, and then bade her goodbye.
Now she had to disappear. She held her phone to her ear. “Sorry,” she said to the secretary. “I have to take this call. I’ll be right back.”
She was such a good liar. Even though her security pass didn’t work, she tailgated others with ease for the next fifteen minutes. The GPS on her phone would map where she’d been, and she took covert pictures too. This was fun. Maybe she should look for more red team work when this was finished.
She was too amped up to feel tired. She got as far as she could in the building, and then left to head back to Caleb’s office. On the way, she dropped into her favourite café. She shot Devin a text, asking for everyone’s caffeine preferences, and placed an order. All things considered, she was having a good day. There was data to analyse from the Immigration servers and a good result from the unscheduled fire evacuation. Both her jobs moving forward. She was buzzing.
Fifteen minutes later, she emerged from the lift and swiped her card to get into the Red Team office. “Coffee,” she announced, and placed the cardboard stacked trays onto the nearest desk. “The cups are all labelled. Is Jonathan back yet?”
“Andi,” said Caleb. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come in here and shut the door behind you.”
Jonathan sat next to Caleb’s desk. This must be the debriefing.
“Here’s your flat white.” She handed Caleb the paper cup. “And yours.” She passed the other to Jonathan. “It was great. I got so much further than I expected. How about you?”
Jonathan glanced at Caleb. It was only now she noticed Caleb looked pissed. Alarm tingled down her spine.
“Never mind that,” said Caleb. “How far did you get into the Immigration network last night?”
He couldn’t know, and she wasn’t going to tell him. “Immigration?”
“I reviewed the logs from my mining programme. You connected to a test environment in Immigration.”
He stared at her, his grey-blue eyes stormy.
Shit. It never occurred to her that Caleb’s programme might pick up her movements. Although, if that was as far as he tracked, she was okay. She widened her eyes. “Yes, and I filed the screenshots along with all the other interfaces I accessed. Is there a problem?”
Jonathan spoke next. “There was a DDOS attack on their network last night. It’s not the first one they’ve had, but it happened shortly after our unauthorised login. Most likely nothing to do with our activities, but we need to be sure.”
“How far did you get?” Caleb repeated his question.
She thought back to the screens she saw. Which did she see at home, and which at the office? “Can I check my screenshots? I looked at so many things last night.” She shrugged and dug up a rueful smile. “Sorry. I’m kinda tired.”
“I’ve got them here.” Caleb handed her a bundle of printouts.
“Three-forty-five this morning,” said Jonathan.
That’s why her SQL query was performing so badly. It was trying to operate while someone was busy overloading the servers. “I was fast asleep by then,” she lied. “You can see where I got to. Didn’t any of the others get access?”
“Nope,” said Caleb. “You were the only one.”
“Not sure what else I can tell you. It wasn’t anything to do with me.” She was careful not to sound cocky.
Did they believe her? Her throat was tight, anxiety swelling in her chest. She sailed close to the wind, maybe, but these screenshots were okay. She kept an innocent look on her face and looked from Caleb to Jonathan. “All good, then?”
Caleb scowled. “Try again. You’ve got one chance at telling me the truth. If you can’t, you’re out.”
“And we’ll confiscate your laptop,” added Jonathan.
Shit. How far could she bluff this? “I’m not sure what to say.”
Caleb sighed. “Look, Andi. In your shoes, I’d be asking myself how much we know. What we saw. I’ll make this real easy for you. My mining programme showed me all the connections that were made. That includes what looks suspiciously like a login, created by you. I have to ask myself why you’d possibly want a login for the Immigration network.” He leaned forwards, his gaze locked onto her. “A network that was hacked and brought down a few hours later. You’re going to tell me that’s a coincidence?”
“That wasn’t me,” she said. “I didn’t attack it.”
“So what did you do?” He paused, as though measuring his words. “I hired you in good faith. Don’t fuck with me.”
She was tempted to tell him. He might be able to help. And Jonathan, with all the weight of SIA behind him, would surely be able to open doors Andi could never achieve by herself. On the other hand, the Auckland Lawyer stressed to Andi that this corruption ran deep. The fewer people knew, the better—at least until she had some concrete information.
“I created a login, yes, to access later. I was searching for information, for another job I’m working on,” she said.
Caleb twisted his mouth and sat back, still gazing at Andi. “I want to believe you, but that’s not enough. Is that why you joined the Red Team? To exploit the connections we’d make? I can’t trust you if you pull shit like this.”
“I won’t do it again.”
“You’re right, because you’re out of here. I want your security pass back, and I need the login you created, so that I can disable it before anyone else finds it. Don’t you realise the position you’ve put me in?”
She did, and that was why this was so frustrating. “That’s why I didn’t say anything.”
“I’ll tell Devin to sort out the exit paperwork.” Jonathan left the office and closed the door behind him.
“Last chance,” said Caleb. “Tell me why.”
“Nope.” Andi shook her head. “I don’t want to get you tangled up in the mess I’m in the middle of. Believe it or not, I’m protecting you.”
His eyes were grave. “If you don’t trust me, I can’t help you.”
“Trust works both ways.”
“Yeah, and you just shat all over that.”
They were both silent for a moment. “Show me the login you created. Then either you disable it,” said Caleb, “or I do.”
Chapter Twenty
The next hour was an introduction to humiliation, and Andi didn’t like how that felt. She gave Caleb and Jonathan the credentials she created on the Immigration server, so they could delete them as soon as it came back online. Then she uploaded her photos from the incursion onto the target site, along with her hastily typed notes, while the team mostly ignored her.
Nat gave her a flinty-eyed gaze. “You put all our reputations at risk with stunts like that,” he told her. “We’re a team. Did you forget?”
“I wasn’t responsible for the DDOS attack.” She gritted the words out.
“Doesn’t matter. You were playing on that field, and you shouldn’t have been. I hope their techs don’t trace it back to us, otherwise Caleb’s in the shit. Again.”
There was nothing she could say, so she kept her mouth shut and continued typing her notes. She had good reason for saying nothing. This was the position she took, and she was sticking to it.
Who was she trying to convince?
Andi held her head high, and though her hands were clammy and her chest felt tight, she finished wrapping up the work she’d done. This wasn’t the worst thing to happen, and she had some data from the server to work with. Not as much as she hoped for, but some. There’d be another way to gain access to the Immigration network. There always was.
Devin was flustered and wouldn’t meet her gaze, as he assembled more paperwork for her to sign.
She’d hurt his feelings. He probably felt used, and that sucked. “Thanks for all your help,” she said softly.
“Just doing my job.” His voice was clipped.
Yeah. She’d screwed up.
Everything was done. She handed over her access card, grabbed her bag and jacket, and left. Nobody said goodbye.
From a great start, the day now felt like crud, and it wasn’t even noon. Should she go see if Griff wanted to take an early lunch break? She craved a hug, for someone to tell her this didn’t matter, although she knew it did.
Griff would be relieved she was no longer working for Caleb, and there was a good chance he’d be smug about it. She couldn’t cope with that.
She could go see Kaali and remind herself why she was hell bent on this quest.
Sometimes life resembled a video game. Her character had been rebuffed but would find another way to the end goal. She flicked a text to Dane, to ask if he was home, and he replied to say he was. He didn’t have any lectures until this afternoon.
It had started raining while she was in the office. Great. She ducked her head, but the rain splashed onto her face in icy droplets. It would keep her from feeling tired.
She pushed on, heading up The Terrace toward the Vic campus. Her jeans clung to her legs and grew heavy, but that made her speed up. She sent Dane another text, to tell him she’d bring coffee. The bookshop in the university campus was good, so she made her way there, aiming for the warmth and a chance to dry out.
She was saturated, rain oozing into her boots from the wet denim on her legs. Today would have been a good day to take the bus, but she hadn’t been thinking straight. She queued for drinks and picked out some cookies too, then headed out into the rain again. It wasn’t far to Dane’s apartment, and the drinks and cookies were safe inside a plastic bag.
Outside again, head down, Andi darted from one overhang to the next, in order to stay dry, and then hurried down the slope that led to the accommodation halls. The blue flash of a strobe caught her attention. An ambulance, back doors open, and a cluster of people around it.
This was where most of the new students lived away from home for the first time. It wouldn’t be anything to do with Dane or Kaali.
She dodged around a huddle of students talking in muted, shocked voices, and then peeked inside the ambulance. Dane lay on a stretcher. A white dressing covered his forehead, and beneath it, his face was pale as milk, freckles standing out in stark relief.
What the fuck?
One paramedic was hooking Dane to a series of monitors, while the other tucked a blanket around him. Dane’s eyes were closed.
Fear sliced through her. She pushed her way to the front. “What happened? He’s my friend.”
A cop, a young guy in uniform, put a hand on her arm. “One moment, miss.”
“What happened to Dane?” She stood on tiptoe and raised her voice. “Dane.”
His eyes stayed shut. God. No. Was Kaali okay? “Dane,” she called again.
> “Miss,” said the cop, his voice sharp, “please let the paramedics work without interrupting them.”
Her lungs tight, she forced herself to take a breath and speak in a normal tone. “I was on my way to see him. I brought coffee.” She held up the bag. “What happened?”
“I found him,” said a girl at her side. She looked no more than sixteen, with her braided hair and silver bobble-topped hat, but was probably one of the students. “I was on my way to the library, when I heard a shout downstairs. When I went past his door, I saw him lying there.” Her lower lip wobbled. “I thought he was dead. He was bleeding so bad.”
Wait. What? “He was lying in the doorway?”
The girl nodded, and then swiped at her eyes. “I called triple-one. Then I waited for the ambo to arrive.”
What about Kaali? An icy hand crept around Andi’s heart. “Was anyone else there?”
“I didn’t see anyone. Dane lives on his own.”
Andi had to see for herself. She sprinted for the accommodation block and shoved her way through the bystanders. Another cop was stretching Police – Do Not Cross tape in lurid zig-zags across the entrance to Dane’s apartment.
“I’m looking for a girl. She was staying here with Dane,” Andi said to the cop.
He turned to face her. “There’s nobody else here. You mean the girl who called the emergency services?”
“No. A friend of mine. Her name’s Kaali. She’d be a witness to whatever happened. Where is she?”
The cop looked interested. “Nobody here by that name. You sure she’s not outside, in the crowd?”
“Quite sure.” And if Kaali wasn’t here, it was a fair bet who was behind this. “Who attacked Dane?”
“I’m sorry, miss, but I can’t tell you that.”
Her heart was in her mouth, as she ran back outside. Where was the girl who found Dane? She was the closest thing to a witness. Andi searched the group, darting her gaze left and right, searching for the silver bobble-hat.
There she was.
Andi snuck past a knot of guys muttering together, and caught the girl’s arm. “Please, tell me. Was anyone else in Dane’s apartment with him? My friend was there, but she’s gone.”