Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (5 page)

“Donna, I’ve got
Bill on line one.” Julie never used the intercom. Shouting the short distance
to Donna’s office was much more effective.

“Thanks, Jules.”
Donna looked up from her computer, took off her reading glasses and picked up
the phone. “Hi, honey. How’s it going?”

“It’s been a good
day.” Bill’s voice had a note of caution. “I think I’ve solved the Active
Directory problem. I worked on it until the kids got home. This should make our
little surprise even more lethal.”

“That’s great.
When do you think we’ll have our bomb ready?” How was she going to break this
to him? She knew how much Billy was counting on her being there.

“I’ve still got a
lot of testing to do. I’d say it’ll be a couple of weeks at least.”

“I’m afraid I have
some bad news. I have to work tonight.” She held her breath and waited for the
explosion.

“D, you can’t.”
Bill’s voice was calm, but disappointed. “You know you have to be there for
Billy.”

“I’m really sorry.
There’s nothing I can do.” She had to make him understand how much this meant
to the business. He always understood business. “Paula called me and I can’t
turn her down. Besides, it’ll give me a chance to get into Schmidt’s office. I
can tap his surveillance camera tonight.”

“Isn’t there
someone else who can do this spook work for you?” His tone shouted
condemnation.

There was a long
silence. This was a sore subject between them. They had had this conversation
before.

“You know I hate when
you put yourself on the line.” She could hear the bitterness in Bill’s voice.
“You’re the boss. You could assign anybody to the job.”

“Bill you know
that no one else can do the job as well as I can. Besides, all of our employees
are young and well educated. How would it look for Minnie to apply for a
janitorial job with her Angela Jolie figure and Stanford MBA?”

Donna was middle-aged
and frumpy with thick hips and a spare tire around her middle. When she dressed
down and didn’t wear makeup, she looked the part.

“Honey, this is
the single most important client we’ve ever worked for.” She took a deep breath
and explained it again. “Doing a good job for Alison Clarke could lead to a
contract with Millennium Systems. We could do security reviews, penetration tests;
we could sell them our anti-virus software for their network. We might even be
able to convince Alison to put DigiGuard AntiVirus on every computer they sell.
This one client could be worth millions.” She appealed to his sense of greed. “You
know that boat you want? This could be it.”

The thing that she
didn’t tell Bill, but that he knew anyway, was that she was addicted to the
thrill. She craved the adrenaline rush she got from sneaking in the wire taps,
the listening devices, tapping into the video surveillance systems, hacking
networks. This was more fun than sex, which was probably why Bill resented it
so much. Not only was she outsmarting her opponents, she was physically
invading their premises. And making a nice penny in the process, thank you.

“What about Julie?
No one would suspect her.”

“That’s because Jules
couldn’t tap a video surveillance system to save her life. I’m sorry, Bill, it
has to be me. They would question it now if I sent someone else. Can you make
it okay with Billy for me?”

“What do you want
me to tell him, double-oh-seven? That his mom’s letting him down again?”

“Tell him I’ll
take him shopping for that X-box this weekend. Tell him that I’ll make it up to
him. We can eat lunch at Red Robin.”

“Don’t you think
that buying your kids off is getting a little old? D, they need their mom to be
there for them.”

“Bill, make it
right for me. I’ve gotta go. Bye.”

She let out a deep
breath and hung up the phone. Bill could be so temperamental sometimes.
He
could be harder to deal with than a woman.

Her eyes fell on
the plaque on the wall, awarded at the 2002 Computer World Expo. DigiGuard was
the first anti-virus software to meet the Armageddon Virus threat. A grateful
technical community honored her for sharing the inoculation with her
competitors so that their customers would be safe.

She smiled. The
Armageddon Virus brought Internet commerce to a halt. The first truly global multi-attack
virus, it invaded corporate systems world-wide. Hard drives filled up, servers
crashed. Zombies went wild. Traffic on the Internet was so great that e-commerce
sites went off-line. When Kay-Bee Toys crashed on the eve of the Christmas
rush, the technical community knew they had a full-fledged crisis on their
hands.

Electronic commerce
virtually stopped for forty-eight hours while the world’s anti-virus vendors
struggled to solve the riddle. Most corporations shut off their Internet access
to protect their networks. Business ground to a halt. It had cost billions of
dollars.

It was her finest
hour. She was first to offer a solution.

The fact that she
and Bill had
written
the Armageddon Virus helped. They had an
inoculation ready and waiting when the virus was unleashed. They waited a
decent period of time, then announced that DigiGuard AntiVirus would combat the
invader. Fortune 500 companies lined up to buy her software.

When the other
vendors didn’t come up with a solution in the next couple of days, Donna
magnanimously announced that DigiGuard would share their secret in the interest
of protecting the whole community. She was perceived as a selfless hero, a
champion of open source code.

Now, with the new
malware she and Bill were preparing, she would be thrust back into the
spotlight. If only her family could see her as a hero. If only they could see
how important her work was.

****

Sarah had just
left for class. Chris hobbled to the kitchen and grabbed a Henry’s out of the
fridge.
Damn, it hurt.
Just moving around was painful. He picked up the
bottle of Percocet off the counter, re-read the label, then put it down. It
wasn’t time to take another pill yet.

He looked at the
bottle of beer in his hand.
What the hell.
He twisted open the top.

The trip to the
kitchen, the DVD player and back to his chair winded him.
Fuck.
He had
no stamina.

Picking up the
remote control, he turned on the TV. Today would be a
Lonesome Dove
marathon. He intended to watch the whole mini-series from start to finish in
one sitting.

The doorbell rang.

“Now what?” He
pulled himself to his feet and shuffled to the door. “Yes?”

An attractive
woman in sweats stood before him with a black case in one hand and a mat tucked
under the other. In a glance he took in her long, light brown hair, brown eyes
and slender figure. His heartbeat increased.

“Mr. Hardwick? I’m
Amy Beecher.”

“Yeah?” He didn’t
mean to be rude, but his tongue automatically locked up whenever he met a beautiful
woman.

“Your physical
therapist? Didn’t Doctor Schultz’ office tell you? I have a 12:30 appointment.”

“Oh . . . yeah. I
guess I forgot.” So much for the
Lonesome Dove
marathon. “Come in.” Chris
pulled his bathrobe tighter and stepped aside.

“You must be
pretty important. We usually don’t do PT outside of the clinic. Who do you
know?” Amy set her case and mat down and surveyed the living room.

“Don’t you watch
TV? Read the newspapers?”

“I really don’t
pay much attention to the news. Why?”

“That’s okay. I
like it better this way anyway.” If she didn’t recognize him from the news, he
could just be Chris. He was fed up with all of that hero bullshit.

Chris’ flea market
furniture embarrassed him a little. A hand-tied rug covered much of the
hardwood floor. An old couch and miss-matched overstuffed chair sat in front
of built-in book cases on either side of the window on the side wall. A life-sized
cardboard cutout of Spiderman, left over from Ted, stood in the corner and
Sarah’s pink lawn flamingos framed the stone fireplace.

“Can we move this
coffee table so we have room to work?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, sure.”
Chris started to bend down to move the table, then straightened up again in
pain.

“Here, let me do
it.” Amy unzipped her jacket, dropped it on the couch and moved the table out
of the way. “You might want to put on some shorts and a T-shirt.

Chris admired
Amy’s svelte body through her tank top. She wasn’t what he would call curvaceous,
she didn’t have an ounce of fat on her.

Something clicked
on inside of him. Since the terrorist attack, he had felt numb, dead inside.
Watching Amy’s butt as she moved the table ignited a spark.

“My…clothes are
upstairs. I usually don’t go up unless my sister’s here to help me.”

“That sounds like
the first thing we should work on then.” Amy opened her case and took out a
sling of some sort. “Here, let’s show you how to use the banister to help
yourself up the stairs.”

Amy’s smile lit up
the room. She turned and walked towards the staircase.

Chris shuffled
after her. She might be a couple of years older than him, but what the hell.

He grabbed the
banister and started up. “Ahh.” Pain flooded through his chest.

“Okay, mister. Let
me put the safety strap around you, then I’ll help.”

How’s she gonna
help?
She had to be nine inches shorter than Chris and at least a hundred
pounds lighter.

Amy looped the
strap around Chris’ waist and pulled it tight in her right hand. They were
standing face to face. His heart stopped. He couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t been
this close to a woman since Meagan . . .

The world
collapsed in around him. He felt dizzy, engulfed in darkness.

“Mr. Hardwick?”

He heard a soft
voice from way far away. A lifeline in the night.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I don’t
know what just happened.”

She took his wrist
and felt his pulse, then a gentle finger lifted his eye lid. Her cool touch
felt so good.

“You seem all
right, Mr. Hardwick. Do you need to sit down?”

“Chris. Call me
Chris. And no, I’m okay. Let’s just do this.”

Amy stared at
Chris for a moment, then made up her mind. “Okay,
Chris
. Grab the
banister with your right hand and put your left foot on the next riser.” She
lifted his leg with her left hand.

Chris hated being
treated like a child, he hated feeling helpless. But Amy got him to the landing
halfway up the stairs.

“Slack off.” Chris
held onto the banister and gasped. “I need to catch my breath.”

“Let’s keep going,
mister. No pain, no gain.”

“Who are you, the
PT Nazi?”

“Get moving.” She
flashed her perfect teeth at him. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Ted thought back
to his orientation.
Justin said he didn’t believe in making people work in
cloth covered boxes
. Was this any better?

The brick-walled
bullpen contained eight large tables. At each table, four workstations, most
with at least two monitors, a tower computer under the table and one or more
laptops at each station, consumed every inch of the table top. Old coffee cups,
pizza boxes and cardboard takeout containers littered the space between the
hardware.

The towers were
all identical, but Ted knew that the laptops displayed their owner’s personal
preferences. The developers were divided almost evenly between Macs and PCs.
There was an ongoing friendly argument (Maybe sometimes not so friendly.) over
which was best. No one ever convinced a Mac owner that a PC was superior and
vice versa. Ted snickered to himself.
Kid stuff, the argument over Windows
vs. Linux is all out warfare.

He yawned,
stretched and glanced up towards the special “natural” light neon tubes in the ceiling
fixtures. A huge, glass-doored refrigerator stocked with bottled water, pop,
energy drinks, fruit and healthy snacks dominated one end of the room. A pool
table sat at the other end.

The wall with
arched windows, looking out over Pioneer Square, was natural brick. The other
three walls were floor to ceiling whiteboards. As in the conference room, the
whiteboards were covered in computer code, diagrams and occasionally Bear drew
a caricature of one of his co-workers. These typically were photographed and
displayed on the company’s wiki.

The room was
deserted, except for Ted and Bear, hunched over a monitor on table three. A
wooden sculpture of a bear rose between the jumble of monitors, cables and
equipment on the table. Ted didn’t know how long they’d been working, but it
was well into Wednesday morning.

The team leader at
Ted’s table, Bear’s real name was Dave Jones. Ted could see why everyone called
him “Bear.” His stocky build, wild hair and beard fit the nickname. His grumpy temperament
matched a bear just coming out of hibernation.

“Hold your
breath.” Bear waved a hand at Ted, who was sitting in his swivel chair just off
of Bear’s shoulder, watching his every keystroke. “We’re almost there.”

Bear typed in a
command at the C: prompt on his screen. A popup window with a progress bar and
a label flashed onto the screen.

Please wait.

Attempting to
Crack Password.

“Easy . . . easy .
. .” Bear’s voice was barely above a whisper.

This was the
tricky part. They had to break the password without tripping their target
system’s security features.

“Okay, we’re in!”
Bear shot both fists into the air over his head. “Good work, Higurea.”

Ted beamed. He had
spent almost two weeks modifying Cracker, YTS’ password breaking software. This
was the final test. If they could break into Justin’s account, they could bust
any system.

“You did it. You
get the coup.” Bear pushed back from the keyboard, double-fist bumped Ted and
allowed him to drive.

“What should I
do?” Ted knew that he was supposed to leave some kind of signal to the big boss
that he had hacked his system. He just wasn’t sure what was appropriate.

“When Irena broke
in, she sent an e-mail to the entire staff inviting them to lunch at the Met in
Justin’s name. He paid up too. He said that anyone who could break into his account
deserved to name their own reward.”

Ted looked up at
the big wall clock. “
Dios mío.
Look at the time. I had no idea it was
getting so late.”

“What, did you
have a date with J-Lo?”

Suddenly, Ted was
overwhelmed with hunger. When was the last time he had eaten? And he was tired
too. He could use a few hours in the sack.

“Has anybody else
done it? Has anyone besides Irena ever cracked Justin’s account?”

“Nope.” Bear
covered a yawn with a big paw. “This is only the second time. So, what’re you
going to do?”

“Let’s take a look
at the payroll data. I’m thinking that I deserve a big raise for this.”

****

Donna wheeled her
cart through the corridors at the Millennium Towers. It was getting to be old
news. The thrill, the adrenaline rush wasn’t there, just a mundane part of a
mundane job.

Then her heart
rate sped up. She stopped in front of a new door. She had never been in Jackson
Schmidt’s office before. What secrets did it hold? What incriminating evidence
of malfeasance would she find?

She wished Bill
was here. It would be the ultimate coup to swipe everything off of Schmidt’s
desk and fuck right there. Security cameras and all.

She brought her
breathing back under control as she unlocked the door. Schmidt’s office was
vastly different from the office of Jack Metcalf, her other major assignment.

Where Metcalf’s
office was the definition of boring, with plain walls and no shrubbery, Schmidt’s
office had a homey feel. There was the requisite “bragging wall,” with pictures
of Schmidt with all sorts of important business and political figures.

How much did he
pay for the picture with the president?
She wondered. On the credenza were
the usual pictures of his family.
Hmm, a gorgeous young blonde wife, for a
homely scarecrow like Schmidt. I guess money matters.

She dusted and
cleaned. She organized and tidied. Then the good stuff. She couldn’t break into
his computer and files that would come later. But she could install the
mini-DVR she had in her uniform pocket.

She moved her cart
under the security camera and took down her step stool. Climbing up on the
stool, she dusted the camera and lifted the ceiling tile above it.

Being careful to
keep her hands out of the camera’s line of sight, she lifted the mini-DVR over
her head and secured it to a cross beam with Velcro strips. Then she took two
wires out of her pocket and threaded one end of each wire to the device. The
other ends had alligator clips on them.

With a small
penknife she scraped away a portion of the insulation on the cables leading
from the security camera.

“Oooh!” Donna
dropped the knife. She scurried down the step stool to retrieve her tool. She
quickly jumped back up and very carefully fastened the alligator clips to the
bared portions of the wire.

How long was
she off-line?
Had the security guards been watching the monitor during her
lapse? She froze on her stool.

After a few
minutes, with no one banging down the door, she continued.

All that was left
to do was insert a fresh flash drive in the mini-DVR and hit the record button.

Not a bad night’s
work.

Now she just had
to make it right with Billy.

****

Ted heard the
alarm and rolled over. He got the top berth in the metal bunk bed because Bear
hated heights. Developers at YTS often worked through the night. Justin
provided a room with bunk beds and lockers for those who were truly motivated.
The showers in the locker room went mostly unused.

Bear dragged
himself out of bed and hit the alarm. Both men had slept in yesterday’s
clothes.

“Did you call your
wife to tell her you weren’t comin’ home?” Ted asked.

“Nah. She knows
where I am. We have a deal. I don’t wake her up in the middle of the night
unless someone is dead.”

“Doesn’t she ever
get worried or jealous that you might be stepping out on her?”

“Are you kidding?
Who’d want to go out with me? Besides, programming is more fun than sex
anyway.”

I’m not so sure
about that, hombre,
Ted thought.

It didn’t matter
that Ted and Bear worked until three in the morning. They were still expected
at the eight a.m. stand up meeting. Every morning the entire staff gathered
around the coffee station and reported, in as few sentences as possible, what
they did yesterday and what they were working on today and any impediments in
their way.

Ted dropped to the
floor and shuffled to the bathroom. When he returned to the bull pen, the staff
had already gathered around Justin.

As usual, Justin
wore shorts, a tank top and leather sandals.

“Ok, who’s up?”
His baritone voice had a timbre that demanded obedience.

‘Higuera’s up
first.” Bear was Justin’s second in command.

‘Ted, what do you
have for us?”

“Let’s see.” Ted
acted like he was trying to remember the trivial work he did yesterday. The
strong coffee didn’t cut the sour taste in his mouth. “I started on the Caglione
project. That guy is a real sleaze. Anything else? Oh yeah, I gave myself a big
raise.” His face broke into a huge grin.

“You what?”
Justin’s gaze locked on Ted’s eyes.

“I figured that as
long as I had your ID and password . . .” Ted paused to let it sink in. He
wanted to savor the moment. “I might as well poke around in the payroll
system.”

“Woohoo!” The
gathered crowd roared. People fist bumped and high fived.

“Higuera did it.”

“He pulled the
sword from the stone.”

“The king is dead.
Long live the king.”

“I’ll take a look
at your work.” Justin raised an eye brow and puffed out his cheeks, then
settled in to his normal, calm demeanor. “Meanwhile get back to work on the Caglione
project. We promised to report back to Rico by the end of the week.”

****

Chris sat on the
edge of his bed catching his breath and stared at the walls. The house just
felt different. It was Ted. Or rather, the lack of Ted.

Living with his
sister was much quieter. There was no loud Mexican music, no soft girlie love
songs. Sarah moved through the house like a wraith, Ted was more like a
bulldozer. He always knew where Ted was, what he was doing.

He’d spent
virtually every day of the last four years with that crazy ‘
mano
. Now he
was gone.

Where was he
anyway?
Chris hadn’t seen Ted since his homecoming dinner.

“Hurry up, slow
poke.” Sarah shouted from the other room.

Chris sighed and
struggled to bend over to tie his shoes. He sat on a double bed with a purple
and gold Husky’s comforter. The large bedroom had a dresser and an old table
that served as Chris’ desk. Under the table, were plastic totes that took the
place of filing cabinets. He wasn’t sure why he was holding onto all of his
college school work. A concrete block and board bookshelf lined the wall, filled
with college texts and murder mysteries.

“Dad’s going to be
here any minute.” Sarah shouted. “Get a move on.”

“I don’t see what
you’re so excited about.”
Ok, right shoe tied
. Chris sat back on his bed
and took a deep breath. “What does he want anyway, and why do I have to get
dressed?” He bent back down to tie the other sneaker.

“I can’t tell you.
It’s a big surprise. But we’re going for a ride with him.”

By the time Chris
eased himself down the stairs, he was out of breath. Candace stood waiting in
the living room.

“Good morning,
sunshine. Ready to go?”

He caught a faint
whiff of lavender. Her designer jeans and fuchsia cashmere sweater, set off
with a gold necklace and earrings, showed off her figure.

“Yeah. Where’s
Dad?” Chris stopped at the bottom of the stairs to catch his breath. He was too
weary to resent Candace today.

“He’s parking the
car. I’ve got your wheelchair ready.”

“I’m not using it
anymore, Candace. I’ll walk.”

Candace rolled the
wheelchair towards Chris. “Oh, I think you’ll need it. Where we’re going today,
there’s going to be a lot of walking involved. We don’t want to wear you out
before we get there.” She stopped the chair in front of Chris, set the brakes
and flipped up the foot rests so that he could get close.

Chris reluctantly
sat down. How would Amy feel about him allowing himself to be wheeled around?
She was adamant that he do everything for himself.
I guess that’s what PT
Nazis are like.

“Here, Chris-O.”
Sarah slapped a bottle of water in Chris’ hand. “We have to keep you hydrated.
Doctor’s orders.”

Candace pushed
Chris through the front door onto the porch. The morning sun was well into the
sky.

“What a lovely
day, especially for so late in the year. I’m hoping we get a mild winter.”
Candace carefully eased the wheelchair down the ramp.

Harry popped open
Candace’s Porsche Cayenne SUV’s cargo hatch. Chris settled himself into the passenger’s
seat while Harry folded and put away the wheelchair.

“You’re going to
like this, Chris.” Harry slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“We’ve got a big surprise for you.”

“You know I hate
surprises.” Chris buckled his seatbelt. Just a week ago, it would have been a
painful process. Maybe Amy was helping after all.

As Harry drove west
on Fiftieth Street, Chris grew anxious. When Fiftieth merged with Forty-fifth
at Greenlake, his breath came faster. As they crossed Market Street, Chris knew
where they were headed.

“Dad, turn around.
I can’t go back there.” His head began to spin.

“Hold on, son. You
have to do this.”

The golden SUV cruised
through Ballard. The Scandinavian restaurants and shops slipped past. Chris
hardly recognized the triangular shaped park dedicated to the King of Norway.

Chris didn’t see that
the carefully manicured grounds of Ship Canal Locks on their left were showing
signs of fall. The leaves had turned red and brown, the flowers gone to sleep
for the winter.

He felt
overwhelmed by panic. His palms were sweating, his vision blurry.

When the Shileshole
Bay Marina came into sight, he lost track of reality.

He was back on the
Defiant.
The terrorists were shooting at them. He saw the front end of
the cabin disintegrate in a hail of gunfire. He re-lived watching the bullets
stitch their way across Jack’s chest. He saw Ted’s head pop up from the cabin.