Invasion of Privacy (33 page)

The Patek-Philippe wristwatch sat on a baize-lined tray atop a display housing necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and other wristwatches.

“It’s not often we get a timepiece of this quality. Production is limited to five to six pieces a year. These are really quite rare.”

His name was Al, and by his own admission he was the store’s resident watch expert. Al was short and running to fat, with meaty forearms and an ungroomed black beard like that of the wacky pitcher of the San Francisco Giants. Cars, maybe. Motorcycles, for sure. Watches, no way.

“I’m glad you like it,” said Mary.

“I know quality,” said Al as he jotted down a number on a notepad and offered it for her inspection.

“I think you can do better.”

“Thirty cents on the dollar is generous. However, given your item’s pedigree, I can go a little higher. If you’re interested in selling it, I can offer a more attractive sum.”

“A loan will be fine.”

Al picked up the watch and held it up for inspection, as an oenophile might study a glass of vintage Bordeaux. “Exceptional.”

“It belonged to a friend.”

“I’m sorry,” said Al.

“Don’t be. He was a prick.”

Al returned the watch to the tray, crossed out his original figure, and wrote a new one. “My best offer.”

Mary tore the paper from the pad. “Done.”

“If you’ll just fill out the paperwork, I’ll be back with a cashier’s check.”

“I’d prefer cash.”

Al gave a double-take, stroking his beard for good measure. “For the entire amount?”

Mary nodded. “You can’t trust banks these days.”

Al invited her into a private office. It took several minutes to fill out
the paperwork and several more for it to be processed. The terms were straightforward enough. The watch was to act as collateral against the loan. She had sixty days to repay the full amount at 22.5 percent interest per annum. It wasn’t loan sharking, but close.

A woman entered and placed a manila envelope on the desk. Al spilled the contents on the top. Crisp packets of $100 bills, still bundled from the bank. He counted the money with care, laying it in fans of $10,000 across his desk.

“Ten…twenty…thirty…thirty-six thousand dollars.”

Mary signaled her approval and Al gathered the bills like a blackjack dealer gathering playing cards, then placed the entire stack in a smaller, more discreet envelope.

Slipping the envelope into her purse, Mary enjoyed a moment of relief. The money wasn’t hers. The watch belonged to Hal Stark’s family, and she’d return it as soon she’d gotten Jessie home and Tank had published his article.

Somehow, she prayed, she’d have gotten her savings back by then, too.

“Will there be anything else?” asked Al once they’d returned to the showroom.

Mary ambled toward a nearby display case. It did not contain necklaces, earrings, bracelets, or other wristwatches.

“Yes,” she said, pointing at the item that had caught her fancy. “I’d like that one there. It is for sale, isn’t it?”

Tank pulled the sheet of foolscap from his old Underwood typewriter and read the final paragraph of his article.

“The Titan supercomputer developed by John Merriweather and perfected by Ian Prince is said to be the cornerstone of the NSA’s next-generation surveillance system, designed to decrypt even the most strenuously guarded messages of allies and enemies alike. Schematic data provided by ONE engineers show that ‘backdoors’ built into Titan (and nearly all machines designed and manufactured by ONE Technologies) allow unfettered access to these messages and to all information passing through it to anyone possessing the proper pass codes. Calls to the FBI and ONE Technologies have not been returned at this time.”

He grabbed a pen and wrote
30
at the bottom: old-school newspaper shorthand for “The end. Take this to the typesetter.”

With a groan, he stood and walked to the sink. He hadn’t figured that a bullet passing through his side could cause so much pain. His torso ached as if he really had been in that car accident he’d lied about to Al Soletano. He drank a glass of water but, despite some momentary refreshment, felt no better.

Leaning against the counter, he looked across the cabin at the ancient Underwood typewriter. The machine was heavy, cumbersome, arthritic, and altogether a relic. It reminded him of someone he knew.

He returned to the desk and gathered up his papers. Running to some two thousand words, the article stated that Ian Prince had overseen a campaign of extortion and intimidation against Merriweather Systems’ shareholders to convince them to vote in favor of a sale to ONE Technologies, that he had overseen the hacking of the FBI’s mainframe in Washington, D.C., resulting in the theft of over one thousand confidential files, and that he had paid Edward Mason $10 million to end the FBI’s investigation into ONE, all of it in a quest to take de facto control of the National Security Agency’s Utah Data Center.

There was no need to speculate to what end Ian Prince would abuse
his access. His track record spoke eloquently of his past deeds. Intimidation, theft, sabotage, and murder were only the beginning.

Finally there was the matter of the malware that Hal Stark had posited Ian Prince had introduced into the avionics system of John Merriweather’s plane, which had led to Merriweather flying his aircraft into a mountainside. Short of getting into Prince’s computers, there was no way of corroborating the speculation. He would give the evidence to the FBI and let them handle it.

The irony, he thought.

Even without accusations of murder, the article was enough to bag him a big prize. A Pulitzer at the least. Once it ran, all hell would break loose. Tank could count on being busy for months on end, years possibly, covering all the stories sure to fall out. He felt like a hero in a World War II movie, the intrepid soldier who finds a detonation cord hidden in the sand and, with no care for his welfare, laboriously pulls it clear and follows wherever it might lead.

He could already hear Al Soletano apologizing: “You know, Tank, I was out of line when I called you a has-been. You weren’t ever just a decent reporter. You were a great one. Let’s forget all this nonsense about downsizing. The paper wants you back.”

Tank enjoyed the thought. Frankly, he wasn’t so sure he wanted his job back. He might just freelance, pull down a hefty book contract, and hang out his shingle as a roving investigative journalist.

He limped to the closet and dug around for some clean clothes, settling for a pair of Wranglers with mud on the cuffs and a flannel shirt that smelled of mothballs. He splashed some water on his face and combed his hair. It had been a long couple of days. Even so, he was shocked at his appearance. He looked as if he’d been pulled through a cotton gin one inch at a time.

Averting his gaze, he finished buttoning up his shirt and picked up the article and his notes and laid them on the tablet. With care, he yanked the flash drive clear, popped it back into the key. Without the key, it was all hearsay. Without the key, Tank Potter was a dead man.

Still thirsty, he opened a cabinet hoping to find a Coke or a root beer. Something to pep him up. There were no soft drinks, but there on the top shelf, pushed almost out of his sight, rested two small wooden crates. He stood on his tiptoes, his heart racing. Tequila. And not the Cuervo Gold he kept in the Jeep as his backstop, but Jose Cuervo Reserva de la Familia, a royal elixir that went for over $100 a bottle.

Tank sank down to his feet. Suddenly the pain in his side was unbearable. The past days’ travails weighed down on him. He thought of confronting Edward Mason at the airport, of discovering Carlos Cantu’s disfigured body, and of firing two shells into McNair’s chest. Any man would need a drink after going through all that.

Just one shot to steady his nerves and kill the pain in his gut.

And yet…He hesitated. As much as he desired a sip—just one—he knew he should walk out the door this second, climb into the Ferrari, and drive like hell into Austin. It was his job to get proof to the authorities. His life depended on it, and so did Mary’s.

Go. Now.

Strangely, his feet had turned into lead weights.

He reminded himself that he was a journalist. He had an obligation to the truth.

Even so, his hand reached high and took hold of one of the wooden boxes. He lowered it carefully…
$100 a bottle
…and carried it to the sink. He was on autopilot now. He didn’t think about getting proof to the authorities or about Mary. The fact that he was a journalist—
and a damned good one
—meant nothing to him.

He needed a few minutes to pry open the crate, free the bottle, and pop the cork. The smell nearly drove him to his knees. He found a glass and poured a sip, and then more than a sip, licking his lips greedily as the amber fluid filled the glass.

Reverently he raised the glass to his mouth. “Salud,” he said, to Mary and Al Soletano and even Pedro. “We got ’em.”

Only then did he hear a car driving across the scattered gravel. The engine quit. A car door slammed. Footsteps on the porch. A knock on the door.

“Mr. Potter. FBI. Please come out.”

Tank looked around the cabin. There was nowhere to run. He hid the key in the only place he knew.

“Open up, Mr. Potter.”

Tank opened the door. He recognized the agent at once. He’d seen him just the night before. Only then he hadn’t been holding a pistol. “You?” he said.

Special Agent Fergus Keefe shot him in the right knee. Tank toppled to the floor, grasping his leg.

Keefe stepped over him into the cabin. “I believe that the automobile parked out front belongs to us.”

Rudeboy 17, Ninjaneers 16
.

With ten minutes remaining, it was down to two teams. First to capture twenty flags won. It had been back-and-forth the entire game. Every time Jess and her teammates captured a flag, Rudeboy would steal it back.

“Tell Defense to sharpen his game,” said Jess. “There aren’t enough vulns left to win if we keep losing our flags.”

She cracked her knuckles and took a swig of Mountain Dew. She was beating Rudeboy on the attack, capturing two flags to his one. But her team was having little luck preventing him from stealing them back. She saw her dad in front of the TV watching a Celtics game. “It’s defense that wins games,” he always said.

A cheer went up from the crowd. Another flag for Rudeboy.

She caught Max looking expectantly at her.
We’re counting on you
. A cameraman shined a light in her face. “Get lost,” she shouted.

The last problem flashed onto her screen. Immediately she knew she was in trouble. It was like nothing she’d seen before. She needed a full minute just to read the entire code. Nothing clicked. She scanned it again, feeling more lost than before. None of it made sense.

She glanced up to find Garrett staring right at her, fists clenched, urging her on. She returned her attention to the screen and then she saw it…something familiar…She didn’t know what it meant, but she felt as if she’d taken a step closer. And then she had it.

Jessie picked up her phone and pulled up the snippet of code left behind by the person who’d deleted her father’s message. She compared it to the problem and saw that she was correct. The two codes matched exactly except for a sequence on the final line. There it was—the vuln.

“Got one,” she called out, highlighting the error and sending it to Research.

“It’s a variant on Linux,” he said. “Did one like it at Caltech last year. Telecommunications protocol. We were hacking into the phone company.”

Jessie jumped from her chair and took a seat with Defense. “Move it,” she said, squeezing closer so she had a clear view of his screen. “Look,” she said. “He’s breaking in through the black matrix.”

It was Rudeboy, infiltrating their system. She blocked him with a cross-dominant strix. Easy enough. While he was figuring out what had happened, she accessed his board and found a chink. A minute later she’d stolen one of his flags. “Got one back.”

Ninjaneers 18, Rudeboy 18.

“Solved it,” said Research.

For the first time their team took the lead.

Ninjaneers 19, Rudeboy 18.

But a second later another cheer erupted as Rudeboy picked up another flag.

“Hit me with some Skittles,” said Jess.

Max dumped a mound in her palm and she threw them all into her mouth. Chewing ferociously, she went back to her original seat. “Steal one of his flags,” she called over her shoulder.

“Working on it!”

There was one flag remaining to be won. It all came down to who would spot the last vuln first and solve it.

Jessie ran her fingernails across the desk as she studied the next batch of code. Telecommunications protocol wasn’t her area of expertise. She didn’t care about hacking into phones. She liked hacking into networks, mainframes.

“One minute,” announced the referee over the loudspeaker.

If the game ended now, it would be a tie. A tie wasn’t good enough. Not when she was so close to giving the Ninjaneers their first victory. Not when she was so close to beating Rudeboy.

“Did you get it?”

“He’s blocking me. Did you?”

Jessie couldn’t answer. She needed time to work it out. Stay calm. Concentrate. It’ll come.

A cheer from the audience. She glanced up. Rudeboy had captured his twentieth flag. She ran back to Defense and shoved him out of his chair. Their only hope was to steal one of Rudeboy’s flags back.

The crowd began to count down the last twenty seconds. “Twenty…nineteen…”

Jessie was aware of Max and the others huddled behind her. Time
and again she attempted to penetrate Rudeboy’s board, only to be blocked.

Ten…nine…

And there it was—wide open, a hole she could drive a truck through. She typed in the solution. Just a few more seconds…

Six…five…

She finished the last word and hit Return. She’d done it. She’d nailed Rudeboy. She’d stolen his flag. It would be a tie.

Two…one…

The air horn sounded, signifying the end of competition. Jessie stood from her chair. The scoreboard remained unchanged. Rudeboy 20, Ninjaneers 19.

“But I got it,” she said. “I broke through his defense. I captured his flag.”

“No,” said Max. “Typo in the last word.”

“What?” Jessie sat down and looked at her work. Max was right. She’d typed a
c
in place of an
x
. It was her fault all over again. “Crap!”

The Ninjaneers collapsed in their chairs, despondent. No one said a word to her. She’d made them believe they could win, and she’d let them down.

The crowd poured out of the stands. She glimpsed Rudeboy moving past the judges, disregarding the referee’s outstretched hand, ignoring all attempts to congratulate him as he skirted the podium toward the exit.

Now or never.

Jess slid over the table and made her way through the crowd. She had to speak with him. She’d come so close. One flag. It was all because of a typo.

In the hall she saw the black hoodie again. She hurried toward him, breaking into a jog, carving a path through the spectators leaving the ballroom. She turned a corner and saw him by the elevator, hands in his pockets, back to her.

She stopped and steeled herself, squaring her shoulders. She had practiced what she was going to say a hundred times and now she couldn’t remember a word. “Whatever, Jess, just talk to him,” she muttered.

A hand landed on her shoulder.

“Jessie!”

She spun. Her stomach dropped. Not now. Not here. “Mom? You came?”

“I’ve been at the police station for hours. I keep calling Garrett, but he isn’t answering. Didn’t you get my messages? Are you okay?”

Jessie nodded. She wanted to say that she was fine and that she’d almost won Capture the Flag—
one stupid typo!
—but there wasn’t time.

“We need to leave,” said Mary. “I’m just so glad you’re here and I found you.” She put out her arms, and Jessie saw that she had tears in her eyes. Backpedaling, Jessie avoided the hug. She glanced over her shoulder to see the elevator opening and Rudeboy stepping inside.

“Not now. Sorry, but I have to—”

“Jess, stay—no!”

Jessie pushed her mother away and ran.

She made it into the packed elevator as the doors closed.