Hacker (5 page)

‘Yeah, why not?’ I said to myself.

For the first time in what seemed like ages I actually felt better. Dad was always telling me that there was no way to do anything on the computer at Universal Bank without leaving some trace of it somewhere in the system. All I had to do was find that trace and back-track. I would go through all the necessary files to see what I could find. And I wasn’t going to leave it until the morning either.

‘There’s no time like the present,’ I told myself.

I switched on my bedside lamp, then immediately switched it off again. Mum was such a light sleeper that she could wake up at the sound of a feather being dropped on the landing carpet. I had to make sure I made no noise. I felt around in the darkness for my slippers and shook them out – to get rid of any stray spiders – before putting them on my feet. And as it was Saturday, Mum and Gib might sleep in a bit later too.

I stood up slowly and crept across the room. My eyes were accustomed to the darkness now but I didn’t want to take any chances. Every step was cautious. It took me a good two minutes to turn the door handle because I had to be so careful to make sure it wouldn’t make a noise. Then I crept along the landing. Mum’s door was shut, as was Gib’s. I stared at Gib’s door for a few seconds before moving on. No doubt he was really pleased with himself for making me cry.

Well, you’ll never make me cry again, I promised myself. Never. I crept down the stairs, making sure I didn’t step in the middle of any of them where they might creak. That took me ages, too. But it didn’t matter.

I was going to prove that Dad was innocent.

IT WASN’T UNTIL
I had closed the living-room door carefully behind me that I dared to relax slightly. I switched on the light. The sudden brightness dazzled me and for a split second I panicked, sure the light would wake up everyone in the house even though the door was shut.

As I booted up the PC and checked the Broadband connection, I wondered anxiously how Mum was coping. So much for not getting upset. I’d have to do all I could to make sure she was all right, and if Gib chose to call that crawling then that was his problem, not mine.

It took longer to make sure I had the settings right than anything else. If I didn’t have the right settings, then I’d never get connected to the computer at Universal Bank. I checked to make sure that the speaker volume was turned right down. Chewing nervously on my bottom lip, I clicked on the
GIBSON LOGON
icon which automatically went via the Internet to attach to the bank’s computer network. Dad had created the connect program to save typing in the same instructions over and over again every time he wanted to log on. The program meant that all he had to do was enter the bank’s network code and his password and the program did the rest.

I’d watched Dad go through the whole thing often enough to memorize the bank’s network code and password so that was no problem, but as I entered it, I still anxiously watched the screen. I didn’t dare breathe. Something was bound to go wrong. I was doing it, so it just had to!

Another worry I had was that a computer operator on night shift at the bank might discover I was logged on to the bank’s system. Still, I couldn’t let that stop me. As far as the bank was concerned, the million pounds was found in Dad’s account and that was all there was to it. I knew Dad didn’t do it because he would never do such a thing. I remembered that once he’d found a twenty-pound note in the street and he’d headed straight for the police station.

‘That could be some poor pensioner’s money,’ Dad told me.

Half of me admired him for being so honest, the other half thought Dad was a right mug!

‘Most people who found money in the street would keep it,’ I said.

‘But I’m not most people.’ Dad smiled.

And now he was locked up in a police cell somewhere. I tried to force that thought out of my head before the stinging in my eyes got any worse.

At last the PC was connected to the network at Universal Bank. On the screen it said:

U
NIVERSAL
B
ANK
N
ETWORK
S
YSTEMS

Enter username:
GIBSON

Enter password:

then appeared. I’d seen Dad type in the passwords to both of his accounts so that was easy, but I hesitated before typing it in. My stomach was dipping and diving. I couldn’t help feeling that I was doing something, if not wrong, then not quite right either. Dad didn’t know that I knew his passwords, and he’d hit the roof if he found out. And more than that, I’d never logged on to the bank’s computer by myself before. Dad usually did all this, only letting me do the basic, trivial stuff like typing and printing out files.

But now I was alone. And Dad needed my help. Swallowing down my nervousness, I typed in Dad’s password –
VICRIC
2.

ACCESS DENIED. PLEASE CONTACT SYSTEM MANAGER

I frowned at the screen. I’d seen Dad use this account plenty of times and I’d never seen that message before. Thinking that I must have typed in the password incorrectly, I tried it again, carefully pressing each key.
V-I-C-R-I-C-2
.

The same message appeared. I sat back in my chair, wondering what the matter was. I’d spelt the password right – I was sure I had. I leaned forward to try for a third time, just in case. The living-room door suddenly opened. I almost jumped out of my skin with fright. I turned my head, my finger ready on the PC’s
ON/OFF
button.

It was Gib.

We watched each other. Neither of us said a word. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t want to speak to him – not after what had happened earlier. Gib’s hair was sticking up in tufts. He’d obviously just got out of bed.

‘I couldn’t sleep. I came down for a glass of water,’ Gib said at last. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘None of your business,’ I replied. Not for the first time I wished I could think of something devastatingly cutting and witty to say. Turning back to the PC screen, I typed in the user name and password for the third time, aware that Gib had walked over to stand behind me.

Go away, I thought sullenly.

I hated people standing behind me and watching what I was doing at the best of times. And this certainly wasn’t the best of times.

ACCESS DENIED. PLEASE CONTACT SYSTEM MANAGER

I wasn’t really surprised to see that message a third time.

‘What’re you doing?’ Gib asked again.

Breathing deeply, I said, ‘I’m trying to find out what’s going on at Dad’s bank.’

That was all the encouragement Gib needed. He almost ran to get a chair from around the dinner table before bringing it over and placing it right next to mine. He sat down. I scowled at him, but he didn’t get the unsubtle hint. He didn’t move. He fidgeted on his chair and looked away from me to the PC, but he didn’t go away.

‘So how’s it going?’ he asked, reading the screen.

‘Not very well at the moment,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I’ve got as far as logging on to the bank’s network but I haven’t managed to log on to Dad’s account to do anything yet. And I’ve tried three times.’

‘So why can’t you log on?’ Gib asked.

‘I … I think they must’ve disabled Dad’s account. I couldn’t have got the password wrong three times in a row.’

‘Can’t you double-check what password you
did
type in, then?’ asked Gib.

I shook my head. ‘When you type in a password, it doesn’t show on the screen. Passwords are supposed to be secret. They wouldn’t be very secret if anyone walking past your screen could see your password every time you logged on.’

‘So what’re you going to do now?’

‘Why the sudden interest?’ I couldn’t help asking.

There was a pause before Gib answered.

‘I want to find out what’s going on just as much as you do. I want to help too,’ Gib said, looking down at the carpet.

Yeah, but when I try to help, you call it crawling, I thought.

All of a sudden my eyes were stinging again. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes wide, and the stinging faded. When I was sure I wouldn’t embarrass myself, I said, ‘I’ll log on to the computer using Dad’s second account – his TEST account. He uses it for checking and testing programs. Let’s hope this works.’

This time I clicked on the
TEST LOGON
icon.

Enter username:
TEST

Enter password:

‘Cross your fingers,’ I said to Gib. My hands hovered over the keyboard. Please let this work, I thought desperately. If this didn’t work then I’d be stuck.

I typed in the password –
JABBERWOCKY44.
The screen cleared. Then:

UNIVERSAL BANK DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM

THIS SYSTEM IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF UNIVERSAL BANK PERSONNEL. ANY UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO THIS ACCOUNT MAY LEAD TO PROSECUTION.

You have 3 new mail messages

test>

appeared on the screen.

‘Yeah! I’m in!’ I yelled, before I remembered that Mum was upstairs.

‘Shush!’ Gib said urgently.

We both looked up at the ceiling. Mum and Dad’s bedroom was directly above us. Anxious seconds passed as we waited. Nothing. From the sound of it, I’d got away with my outburst. There was only one explanation.

‘Mum must’ve taken a sleeping pill.’ I frowned.

‘I was just about to say that,’ said Gib.

I looked at Gib. He smiled at me with relief. I smiled back. Then we both remembered the evening and our smiles faded. An uncomfortable silence settled around us. I looked up at the ceiling again. Mum must have been feeling really bad to resort to taking a sleeping pill.

‘Tell me what you’re going to do now? Do you want me to do anything?’ Gib asked.

‘Er … I don’t think so,’ I replied. I turned on the printer and made sure there was plenty of paper in its paper feeder. ‘Gib, you’d better make sure the door is shut properly,’ I said. ‘I want to print off all the information I can, so this might get noisy.’

‘Noisy enough to wake Mum up?’ Gib asked.

I nodded. ‘You’ve got to make sure that she doesn’t hear.’

‘And just how do I do that?’

‘I don’t know. Think of something.’

Gib went to check the door, then came back to stand before the printer.

‘How about if I put the printer on the floor?’ Gib suggested. ‘The carpet might muffle the sound.’

‘It’s worth a try.’ I shrugged.

As he fiddled about with the printer, I tried to figure out what I should do next.

‘I want to print out some of the staff files first. That will show us who was capable of putting the money in Dad’s account,’ I said. ‘Then I suppose we should look at the transaction log file for yesterday …’

‘What’s in the staff file?’ Gib asked, crawling under the table with the printer.

‘Dad said it contains a complete description of everyone who works at the bank – their names, addresses, telephone numbers, employee numbers, departments, job descriptions and such like,’ I replied. ‘But I don’t need all that blurb. I know what sort of person I’m looking for.’

‘And what sort of person is that?’ Gib asked.

‘Someone who’s a cashier. A cashier is the only person who could … No … that can’t be right …’ I frowned.

‘What’s wrong now?’ asked Gib.

‘Dad told me that it takes two cashiers to put money into and take money out of a bank employee’s account.’

‘Why two people?’

‘One cashier enters all the details of a transaction, but then one of the cashier supervisors has to make sure all the details are correct before it can go any further.’

‘So the same cashier can’t enter the details and then double-check them?’ Gib said.

‘That’s right.’ I nodded. ‘So if all that money was put into Dad’s account by a cashier, then a cashier supervisor must have been in on it too.’

‘Couldn’t one cashier have done it on his or her own when no one else was looking?’ Gib said.

I shook my head. ‘Nope. The data entry account and the validation account are totally separate with two different user names and two different passwords. And Dad told me the bank has a strict policy – no one’s allowed to tell anyone else their password.’

‘And what exactly is this transaction log file you were talking about before?’

‘Just a record of all the money coming into and going out of the bank, like Aunt Beth said. There’s a new log created each night,’ I replied.

‘OK. Print out the staff file first and we’ll do the other one after,’ Gib suggested. ‘

Are you ready?’ I asked. ‘I’m going to display it on the screen first to make sure I can access it.’

Gib got out from under the table.

‘Go ahead,’ he said.

Thinking hard first, I then typed:

SHOW STAFFFILE: STAFFNAME,ADDRESS,PHONE,JOBDESCRIPTION,USERNAME/SORT BY STAFFNAME

‘What does that mean?’ Gib asked, peering over my shoulder.

‘It’s a database query that will display each employee’s name, address, telephone number, job description and user name. If I didn’t ask it for just the information I want, it would show me everything in the file and we’d be here until Christmas,’ I said. The information I wanted started to appear on the screen.