Hack (15 page)

I’ve got scars everywhere—on my chest (it is actually a burn mark), my left knee (accident), my right eyebrow (had my head pushed into a wall), a little one on my left elbow (that one’s a mystery)—all from when I was a too-curious kid, and also on my abdomen from surgery. I wondered if it would be okay to make a joke about it—you know, comparing scars—but it didn’t seem appropriate. I couldn’t tell how she would take it.

62

Just then, Grace suddenly turned her head to look at me. I quickly moved my eyes away from her scars, feeling flustered. Grace pulled down her shirt and sat up, looking at me, seriously freaked, and not saying anything.

“Can I have some water?” I said, just to be saying something. Grace got off the bed without a word, and went out. Great, I had blown my free hideaway. I hadn’t meant to stare. I sat for ten minutes, waiting for Grace to return, and watching the drama on TV.

Anna the maid was being accused of stealing by the rich and beautiful Rowena. Lee, Rowena’s husband came to Anna’s defense, but Rowena wasn’t buying it. The aliens were just about to land, and I was just about to fall into a coma, when Grace returned with a glass of water. She gave me the glass without speaking, and I was surprised that she didn’t look annoyed. I got the strange feeling that I had just passed some kind of test.

“Did you get your work done?” Grace asked.

“I made a start,” I said, sipping the water. “I really owe you.” I meant it. I hadn’t got far, but I’d have got nowhere at all if not for Grace.

“How about that trip to the mall?”

“Isn’t it a bit late?”

“I owe you a coffee.”

We took a taxi to the mall, and ambled around the stores. I looked at computer equipment and guitars, and Grace looked at books and swimsuits. Then we drank coffee and talked about random stuff, like which countries we wanted to visit, and what our favorite food was, and the times we had got into trouble as kids. Apparently, the year before, the cops had taken Grace home in a cop car, because she had been hanging around with some neighborhood kids who liked to steal things. I didn’t tell her that I routinely drove around in FBI cars.

We got back at just before eleven.

“See you tomorrow,” I said, hoping that I would be able to put in another four or five hours on Knight. Grace didn’t complain.

63

On Wednesday, I went through the same motions as the day before, only I was concentrating on J. B. Enterprises. I get quite intense when I’m hacking away at something. I hit the keys hard, I thump the desk, and I tap my feet. But I didn’t want to do that around Grace, because I didn’t want her to call the authorities and report an escaped madman. On the other hand, I was seriously annoyed about getting nowhere.

As I remembered him, Knight just wasn’t that good a hacker to have a flawless setup for his clients. Somewhere, I knew, there would be a large hole in his network defenses. But I guess he had been practicing for six months while I had been getting three hots and a cot.

Every so often, I became aware of Grace, moving in and out of the room. I looked up, and saw her frowning. I asked her what was wrong.

“I can’t download any songs by Cadence,” she said.

I set up a username and password on one of the legal download sites, so that she could use it. Grace didn’t want to spend my (the FBI’s) money, but I told her it was worth it, for letting me use her room. I went back to hacking.

An hour later, I heard her talking, and noticed her sitting on the bed, speaking to a sleepy-looking cat that she was holding by the belly.

Later still, when it had got dark outside, I saw her leaning on her hand, looking at her computer screen, and saying, “How should I know?” at some homework. I supposed that she was hitting a wall, too. Hacking J. B. Enterprise was as difficult as hacking Knight. At ten o’clock, I switched my computer off.

“Do you want to go out tomorrow?”

“Where to?”

“Just to get something to eat.”

“Okay.” I suddenly noticed that Grace was wearing a black dress that had polka dots on it. When she had changed, I had no idea.

“I’m trying it on, because I’m going to a wedding on Saturday,” she explained.

It reminded me that tomorrow, I would have to get a suit and tie, ready for the possibility of having to make a journey. If J. B. Enterprises wouldn’t come to me, I might have to go to them. My phone rang, and I answered it.

“David, it's Abdul.”

“Hi.”

“I hope you don’t mind me calling you at home.”

“No problem.”

“It’s on for Thursday night, at the Java Hut. Are you up for it?” He was referring to the hacker crew initiation test that I was to undergo. Thursday was tomorrow. My whole evening was wrecked. I told him that I was more than ready.

“See you tomorrow,” I said.

“Okay.” The line went dead.

Wait a minute. Tomorrow? I turned around, to look at Grace. Tomorrow I had to go to the coffee shop. And Friday I was at J. B. Enterprises.

“Sorry, but can I cancel tomorrow? I’ve got to go somewhere. I can't get out of it.”

“Okay,” Grace said, indifferently. “Friday?”

I was going to invent some lie, and then I realized that Grace might come in handy. I’d have to make my visit incognito, and Grace would be good camouflage.

“Friday?” I asked.

“Yeah, you know, comes after Thursday, rhymes with shy-day.”

64

I took out a pencil and a piece of paper, and wrote:

“Shh! Don’t say anything out loud.”

Grace gave me a puzzled look, with a half smile.

Me: I am going to Silverdale on Friday. Wanna go?

Grace: Y r we writing in whispers?

Me:

Top secret. Tell u later.

Grace: U r being mysterious again!

Me: I’ll pay for yr train ticket + brkfast + beverg of yr choice.

Grace: Why Silverdale?

Me: ?

Grace: OK

Me:

Do u have a suit?

Grace: U joking?

Me:

No. Need disguise.

Grace drew a little picture of a false moustache, beard, and glasses, which I thought was amusing.

Me: Office

camo.

Grace: ?

If we were going to wander around J. B. Enterprises' office, we would both have to blend into a crowd of anonymous office clerks. I switched the PC back on, and quickly surfed over to a women’s fashion site, and pointed out a picture of a blonde office drone in a snappy grey business suit. Grace looked at me with a quizzical expression.

Me: Y/N?

Grace thought about it for a few more seconds, then put a line through the N, leaving the Y. Yes, she would go.

Me:

Don’t bring yr phone.

Grace frowned.

Me:

I’ll send a taxi here at 7:00 am. Will bring u to train station. Train 2

Silverdale at 7:45. C U there. PS. Don’t forget to wear office suit. PPS. Don’t forget -

no phone. PPPS. Don’t tell anyone. Top secret.

Grace: !?@*!

I let her have the last word, or rather punctuation mark, and then left.

The next day, I ditched school at lunch time. Some hall monitor thought that she would stop me, and I showed her the pass that Stony had handed me days ago, and moved quickly on.

I got out of the taxi at the mall, and wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes, to check if anyone was following me. The only thing I can ever remember Knight saying that struck me as intelligent was “If you think you’re under surveillance, you are.” He probably stole that line from a movie, but I had come to appreciate its paranoid logic. I ducked in and out of a few shops, and tried to catch out anyone was still following me. But nobody was.

From a store, I bought a pair of dark sunglasses, a baseball cap, a plaid overshirt, and a travel case. There was a small tie shop nearby, and I picked out a cheerful red silk neck tie, and put it in the bag. I made my way to the tailors that I had spotted on my first visit, went in, and asked to rent a business suit for the weekend.

They gave me a black suit that looked smart and professional when I tried it on, despite being off-the-rack.

65

I left the shop, went into a restroom, and carefully folded the suit, and put it into the case. Wearing my new plaid shirt, dark glasses, and baseball cap, I took a taxi to the bus station. I got out of the taxi and ran into the bus station, as fast as I could, nearly colliding with a pair of ancient travelers with about a hundred cases stacked on top of a cart. I got a locker, stuck my bag in it, along with the dark glasses. I was pretty sure that nobody could have watched what I was doing without giving themselves away.

I was back to my taxi in a few minutes. I returned to school, and breezed through the rest of the school day. It’s amazing how quickly school goes when you don’t take it seriously.

After dinner, Hannah drove me to Java Hut, to meet Zaqarwi. Before I got out of the car, I made a big deal out of checking over the FBI notebook. I knew that I would probably be using it for hacking soon, and it made me happy to think that the feds would be checking the key log later. As far as I was concerned, they could see exactly what I had done. That would give them plenty of evidence that I was doing the job properly. The more they thought that, the more they would leave me to do things my way, without interfering.

I got out of the car, and walked past the video rental store at the entrance, and into the coffee shop.

“David,” said a voice. I looked around, and saw Zaqarwi and three other guys at the side of the room. Zaqarwi was still dressed in his school clothes, but it wasn’t unheard of for hackers to go days without changing their clothes.

“Nice to see you,” he added. “What’s your poison?”

I looked at the board where there was a list that had pretty much every coffee ever thought up by marketing executives.

“Unleaded, thanks.”

“Sure. I’ll introduce you to everybody first. This is Bennell.” I said hello to a guy who was two years younger than me, but taller, and with a trace of acne on his jaw. “He’s our wireless expert.” Bennell nodded.

“This is Bates. He knows a lot about hardware, routers, firewalls, and stuff.

His dad works for MicroWorld, but we don’t hold it against him.” That was an in-joke, judging by the grin that went around the group.

“Wright knows everything about VMS,” said Zaqarwi, indicating a big guy with long hair and a shy smile.

“We’re beginning to suspect that he likes it.” That got a smile, too. VMS was an operating system used on minicomputers. It was known for being verbose, and you had to like typing to use it. I said hello to Wright.

It was all easy-going and pleasant, and I wouldn’t have suspected any one of the group of being mixed up with terrorists.

While Zaqarwi went to the counter for supplies, I took my notebook out and got a wireless signal to the Internet. I opened a browser, surfed to my favorite search engine, and had a casual look at what was new in the world of hacker software.

Bennell, Bates, and Wright went back to their computers, and began typing rapidly.

After a minute, Zaqarwi came back to the table, holding an oversized cup, and handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said. I took a sip. The coffee was strong and tasted very good.

“It’s decaf?”

“Yeah, man.”

“It’s strong.”

“It’s good coffee here.”

66

“So what are you guys up to tonight?”

Zaqarwi smiled.

“We’ve got a bit of a challenge. We thought that you might be able to help us.”

“Uh-huh?”

“We’d really like to get into the school’s system.”

“Elmwood High?”

Zaqarwi nodded.

“I already had a look around,” I said. “Logan’s assignment took me about two minutes to complete, so I had plenty of time.”

“So, you think you might be able to help us?”

“Maybe. What do you need a school account for?”

“You never know,” said Zaqarwi, shrugging.

I smiled. “Do you have any leads?”

“Here’s something you might find interesting.” Zaqarwi indicated a list on his notebook’s screen. The one he was pointing to was the dial-in number and Internet address of the server that I had previously discovered was called “RAS” (Remote Access Service/Server).

“That’s a start,” said Zaqarwi.

“I’ll give it a shot,” I said. Of course, I had the list of encrypted user accounts I had previously taken off Logan’s machine, and his account might have domain administrator access. If it did, I would have full access to the entire school network.

All I had to do was to decrypt it. That would only take a minute. But I didn’t say anything. If Zaqarwi and his friends knew that I had already got most of the way, I wouldn’t have scored many hacking points with them. I knew that I’d have to sit there, and appear to go through the motions.

“I’ll start running a scan on my machine,” I said to Zaqarwi, “but I’ll need to borrow another machine, if possible. Can I use yours for an hour?”

“Be my guest.”

I left my notebook quietly cracking the password file, and then turned to Zaqarwi’s machine. For the next hour or so, I gave a good show of the standard hacker MO: I began scanning and brute-forcing my way past the school’s security.

Every so often, I switched from using Zaqarwi’s notebook, to using the FBI’s. I was leaving two good audit trails, for my watchers to view at their leisure. I knew that, like the feds, Zaqarwi would have a key logger installed, to store every key press that I made. That was fine by me, too. The object of tonight’s episode was to provide evidence to Malik, the FBI, and anyone else who wanted to know it that I was a hacker for hire.

The way I usually work is that I will open a few consoles, and start running utilities. While that’s going, I open a browser, to surf the Net. Contrary to logic, I find that this way of working allows my concentration to stay sharp, maybe because it gets to rest every so often. Sometimes, I even have music on in the background, but not tonight. The coffee shop had decided to go for soft rock, and it wasn’t too offensive.

I passed an hour like that, flipping back and forth between machines, muddying the water whenever I could, to make sure that Zaqarwi and the FBI had no end of logs to browse, but no fun trying to back trace the path I had taken. I checked the password crack, and found that it had finished. Logan’s password was