Perfect Cover (15 page)

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” the guard said.

“Cohoon,” Chloe hissed. I had no idea what she was talking about, but luckily, Tiffany spoke fluent Chloe.

“Mr. Cohoon told me to meet him here,” she said. “I’m Jill. I temp downstairs, and Mr. Cohoon wanted to…” Tiffany gave the guard a look. “Go over some briefs.”

The guard apologized, and Tiff managed to sneak out without Bud or Jimmy noticing, because Brittany was showing them how she could “totally do a back bend.”

“Britt, Tiff is clear. Move out.”

With no warning, Brittany popped up from the back bend, blew kisses to the security guys, and breezed out the door.

I didn’t need Chloe to tell me that this stage of the operation was officially complete. The twins, who had spent a good twenty minutes impressing upon me the Ten Commandments of Cuticle Management the day before, had just managed to infiltrate a secured site and plant a high-tech device on an executive’s computer with no one the wiser. Maybe there was more to Zee’s statistical tests and profiles than even I’d thought possible.

“Who’s Cohoon?” I asked, not even bothering to sound unimpressed.

“One of their executives,” Chloe said. “He often conducts ‘special meetings’ with interns. It seemed like a plausible excuse.” She rolled her eyes at the way my jaw dropped open. “And, hello! Shouldn’t you be doing the hacker spaz thing right about now? Because there’s no telling what they’ll do when they discover the lock on the office was blown. Wasting time? Not a luxury we have right now, To-bee.”

I opened my Squad-issued laptop (which was, by the way, somewhat glittery—complete technology sacrilege), booted up, accessed the now-magnified wireless signal, and set about showing nose-in-the-air, pain-in-the-ass Chloe that when it came to hacking, I was anything but a spaz.

CHAPTER 24

Code Word: Evil

You know when you were five or six, and you went to a new playground for the first time, and it turned out that they had a twisty slide, a tire swing,
and
a merry-go-round? That’s sort of what I’m like the first time I access a new system. The adrenaline starts pumping, my heart jumps with joy at the technological twisty slides: firewalls, encryption, passwords, security blockers, antihacker detection programs…just thinking about it made me giddy, and there I was, fingers flying across the laptop keys, working my way around this barrier and that with the grace and artistic precision of an Olympic figure skater.

Of all the things I’ve ever done, hacking is seriously the only one that could even possibly make me think in skating metaphors.

“What’s that do?” Bubbles asked, leaning toward me and scrunching her nose up at the screen.

“That” was my refiguring the security settings on the wireless network. They’d set it up with double-sided protection—you weren’t supposed to be able to file share, and you definitely weren’t supposed to be able to poke around someone else’s hard drive, but after I’d convinced the system that I, and not someone whose username was GSeymor5, was the network administrator, those settings were easily changed. I turned on some quality one-way file sharing, meaning that all of the computers could share information with me, but I couldn’t share with any of the others, and none of them could share with each other.

I could tell you how I did this, but then I’d have to kill you.

Honestly, though, I lie—I probably couldn’t tell you how I did this. I just did. I was in the zone. I was unstoppable. I ran a scan on each of the four hard drives belonging to Infotech executives, searching for encrypted files and the type of program they would have needed to hack a secure government database. Not that I was intimately familiar with that kind of program or anything. I certainly hadn’t written several of my own.

I concentrated on what I had to do. I’d had it banged into my head over and over again—first by the Big Guys, then by Brooke, and at least five times by Chloe on the way here: find the program Infotech had used to implement the hacks, confirming the Big Guys’ hypothesis that they were the guilty party; get copies of any and all files they’d managed to steal; and then do everything I could to completely and utterly cripple their system. It was a three-pronged attack, and in my own special Toby way, I was multitasking and laying the groundwork for all three prongs at once. I could have done it faster with my own computer, but despite the fact that it had a glittery finish, the Squad-issued laptop came equipped with a variety of hacking programs almost as good as ones I’d written myself.

Apparently, the previous hacker, whoever she was, hadn’t been a complete imbecile.

The computer made a happy beeping sound as it located a program that fit the parameters I’d been searching for. It was impossible to tell anything about it at first glance, but based on file size and the basic configuration, all of my hacker instincts were telling me that this was the evidence I’d been looking for. I convinced the computer to scan for encrypted files tagged with the program-specific document tag, and a few minutes later, the results came absolutely pouring in.

“Bingo.” As the names of the encrypted files started popping up on my computer, I couldn’t help but gloat audibly.

Find the program used to initiate the hack? Check.

Locate any and all files related to the information acquired in the hacks? Check.

Download those files? It would take some time, but I was willing to give myself a preemptive check on that one, too.

“Bingo!” Lucy echoed my victory cry. Then she turned around and cocked her head to one side. “What bingo?”

“Encrypted files,” I said. “Tons of them, actually.”

I paused. I hadn’t counted on there being this many. As the file names piled up, I bit the inside of my lip. Depending on whether or not they used a different encryption on each file, this could take some serious time to go through. What if I was wrong? What if the program I’d identified had nothing to do with the hack? What if…

“Problem?” Chloe asked.

Normally, I might have taken offense at the tone, but I was still in hacker mode. My mind was racing to find solutions, not paying any mind to Chloe’s bitquo.

“There could be a problem,” I said. “But I’ve got it covered. I’m widening my download to include all of the encrypted files, on the assumption that if these guys have been stealing classified information, they’re not going to leave it in their system unprotected.”

Unfortunately, from what I was reading on the screen, it looked like nearly all of the system’s files were encrypted. Not surprising given that these guys secured websites for a living, but still a pain in my butt. “There are hundreds of files here,” I said.

Faster now, more and more names appeared on the list.

“Maybe thousands.”

“Can you tell if any of them are the files we’re looking for?”

“I could start decoding,” I said. “Maybe screen for files that include imported data or encrypted applications, but…”

“But with that many files, decryption would still take forever and a day.”

Unfortunately, yes. My mind buzzed, working the problem over and over again. I typed in some parameters and narrowed down the possible files of interest, and looking at them made me salivate to start decoding, but…

ACCESS DENIED.

I stared at the words.

USERNAME/PASSWORD INVALID.

“Problem?” Chloe asked.

My mouth responded while the rest of me went into hyperdrive. “They’ve switched the security settings. They might use a roaming administrator or…” I hit five keys in quick succession. “Or,” I continued, “they might know I’m here.”

“Do you have the files?” Chloe asked.

“Some of them. The downloading process wasn’t complete.”

Besides, even assuming that the information we needed was in the files I’d managed to download, Infotech’s system was still up and running, and that meant that my job here wasn’t done. I’d been given three very specific instructions, and so far, all I’d done was locate the program and begin downloading the files.

I still had to crash their system.

ACCESS GRANTED.

“Was that a happy beep?” Bubbles asked cautiously.

“Back door,” I said. “A second way in. I created it when I was controlling the system. If they’re looking for me, they’ll find it sooner or later, but it should give me enough time to boggle their files, insert a couple of viruses, and convince their programs they want to stealthily self-destruct if anyone tries to access them.”

The twins said something in response to my words, but I barely heard them. I searched my laptop for programs that would wreak a suitable amount of havoc on the Infotech system. Given more time, I could have come up with something a little more elegant, but the program I’d located would eat their system from the inside out, and if they tried to transfer any data at all, they’d just end up transferring the virus, which would devour any hard drive it came in contact with.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.

If the Squad’s technology hadn’t been remarkably fast, I might not have finished in time.

If the programs I was working with hadn’t been written by someone almost as good as I was, I might not have finished in time.

If I hadn’t been totally and completely, one-hundred percent brilliant, I might not have finished in time.

NO WIRELESS NETWORK AVAILABLE.

This was it—no more back doors, no Plan C. They’d turned off the wireless network. All of the hacking in the world wouldn’t get me back into those files.

Luckily, that didn’t matter.

“Done,” I said, as out of breath as a marathon runner after the last leg of a race. “We’ve got everything they’ve got, including a copy of what I’m about ninety-nine percent sure is the application they were using to assist with their hacks, and in about another hour or so, their system will be technological dog meat.”

Chloe’s facial expression never changed, but her body shed just enough tension that I considered the possibility that the stick typically wedged in her butt might have been dislodged.

“Well,” Chloe said, putting the car into drive and tearing back onto the road, causing my head to come dangerously close to rethunking itself on the window to my left. “Maybe you’re not a complete imbecile after all.” She shifted lanes, and I held on for dear life. “Now that we’ve shut down the leak, we should be in the clear to send these files on to the Big Guys. They’ll put a team on it and find what we’re looking for ASAP.”

As much as I hated handing over the files, I was drained, and decided that a little manpower never hurt anyone.

Of course, the entire question of whether or not my pride should have been insulted by the idea of getting help from the Big Guys was going to be moot if Chloe’s driving managed to kill us all before we got back to school.

As Chloe “merged” onto the highway, there was a moment of silence in the car. I, for one, was praying for my survival, as some people who shall remain nameless seemed to think
merge
meant “cause other cars to start swerving.” The twins were probably thinking synchronized thoughts about lip gloss. Lucy was in all likelihood in perky perfectionist overdrive—either doing mental herkies or thinking up new flavors of explosive chewing gum. Chloe was concentrating on her need for speed, and Bubbles…

Bubbles was doing the freaky pretzel thing again.

After having seen Brittany, Tiffany, and even Lucy in action, I didn’t view Bubbles’ freakish stretching the same way. Was it twisted that all I could think was that if we ever needed someone to hide in a kitchen cabinet or ride in the overhead baggage compartment on an airplane, she’d be our girl?

“Toby.”

Brittany’s voice was murderous, and I turned a wary glance her way.

“I know you have to do the hacking stuff and everything, but do you have to hit the keys so hard?” she asked, her eyes narrowed into slits. “You totally chipped your nails.”

Tiffany, ever the kinder of the two, reached over to pat me consolingly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll fix them for you when we get back.”

Like hell, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud. Evil or not, cheerleaders or not, I thought that just this once, I’d give the fashionista two a break.

CHAPTER 25

Code Word: Stud

By the time Chloe pulled a sharp right into a parking spot in front of the school, I had only two thoughts on my mind.

The first was that miraculously, we’d all survived.

The second was that if I could get twenty minutes alone with the laptop, I might be able to figure something out before we handed the data off.

Unfortunately, Chloe had other plans. Without my realizing it, she had managed to lift the laptop from the backseat. All that lovely encryption was now in her possession, not mine.

Double unfortunately, however, what with the sizeable drive to and from Infotech, the amount of time it had taken the twins to pull off the Doublemint, the time I’d spent hacking, and the half hour that I had been informed it would take to redo my nails, it didn’t look like I was going to be getting much rest in before lunch.

I half expected the others to go their separate ways when we got back, but instead, Bubbles and Lucy followed me to the twins’ salon, chattering happily away about some topic of conversation that I couldn’t quite follow. Chloe didn’t join us—she was too busy orchestrating a drop-off of the information on the laptop and coordinating our afternoon mission, which Lucy randomly decided to name “Operation Playboy.”

“Why is it that evil guys are always so hot?” Tiffany wondered out loud as she focused on the index finger on my right hand.

“Tell me about it,” Brittany said, buffing one of the nails on my left hand. “Heath Shannon? Hot. That guy we had to take out who’d stolen that nuclear laser thing? So hot.”

“And Jack Peyton?” Tiffany continued.

“Hot.” I surprised myself by finishing Tiffany’s train of thought. Had I really just said that out loud? More importantly, since when had I become the type of girl who gossiped about the hotness of boys?

And was Jack Peyton, he of the ironically detached smirk, really
evil
?

“Jack isn’t evil per se,” Tara said, coming into the room just in time to answer my unasked question, and save me from the mortification of the others commenting on my slip of tongue. “He can hardly help who his father is.”

“Okay,” Brittany agreed affably. “So maybe he isn’t evil, but he could be evil someday. And he
is
hot. Even Toby thinks so.”

And that was my cue to leave. Except, unfortunately, each twin had me by one hand, and neither of them was done with the buff, polish, repair routine they had their hearts set on.

I had no choice but to change the subject—and fast. “How goes the party planning?” I asked April and Tara. It wasn’t exactly a deep question, but it worked.

“We managed to get Rocksha to DJ, and April found a great caterer,” Tara said.

“Caterer? DJ?”

April shrugged. “Major party.”

“So no cheap beer in sketchy kegs?” I asked.

Tara leaned over and tweaked my ponytail. “Toby, it’s a high school party. There’s always beer in sketchy kegs. It will probably just be very expensive beer.”

Lucy wrinkled her nose.

“Not a fan of beer?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t ignite as well as vodka.”

It didn’t surprise me that when Lucy thought about alcohol, her main concern was flammability. For some reason, I couldn’t see her as much of a drinker of anything stronger than orange soda.

“Done!”

“Done!”

The twins finished one after another, and finally, my hands were my own again.

“Lunch?” Tara asked, looking at her watch.

I nodded. “Lunch.”

“Lunch!” the others chorused in unison. I rolled my eyes, but somehow, a smile found its way onto my face. It was amazing what a high-stakes hacking adventure with other people could do for team bonding. On principle, I refused to give any of the credit to our girl talk in the salon.

The moment we walked into the cafeteria, I was treated to three sights. The first was almost an exact replica of what had happened when we’d walked into the caf that morning. All eyes swung our way, and the sea of people parted for the seven of us. The second thing I noticed was that Jack Peyton was already sitting at the central table, his eyes locked on mine.

The third thing I noticed was that my younger brother had just sat down with a bunch of senior girls, all of whom were staring at him like he was some kind of alien species.

Maybe they were right.

Even from this distance, I could tell that Noah’s mouth was moving, and my sisterly instinct (and my unfortunate familiarity with his favorite pickup lines) cued me in to the fact that he was, in all likelihood, saying something along the lines of “Hey, baby, you’re looking a little lonely, but don’t worry, there’s enough Noah to go around.”

And then, right on cue, an enormous football player walked up to the table, slammed his tray down, and reached for Noah’s shoulder.

Here we go again, I thought. I took a step forward, but before I could so much as take a flying leap at the buffoon who was about to decapitate my brother with a fist roughly the size and shape of a cinder block, the rest of the girls beat me to it. Granted, there wasn’t actually any pummeling involved.

“Hi, Marcy! Hi, Jeff!” Lucy bounded over to the table, the rest of the girls on her heels. “Hi, Noah.” Lucy smiled at him. Noah, ever the one to take the least bit of encouragement in any shape or form as a come-on, turned his “charm” on Lucy.

“Well, hello there,” he said, his voice pitched lower than usual in an attempt to seem more manly.

While Lucy distracted Noah and pulled his attention away from the girl he’d been trying to hit on, the others worked on defusing the threat that was Cinder-Blocks-for-Fists Jeff. And somehow, they did it without a single menacing look, punch to the gut, or kick to the groin. In fact, as far as I could tell, they didn’t do anything but flutter their eyelashes.

The girls lured Noah away from the senior table and deposited him back among the other freshman boys, who then stared at my brother with reverent awe. Noah looked at the cheerleaders, looked at the boys, and then arched one eyebrow freakishly high, a devilish look on his face, and took a bow.

“I’ll see
you
later,” he told Lucy.

Lucy actually giggled, and then, in one coordinated motion, all of the girls headed for our table, leaving my brother to milk the experience for all it was worth among his freshman cohorts.

Note to self, I thought. Tell Lucy not to encourage him.

I joined the other girls with every intention of telling them just that—and asking them why in the world they’d felt compelled to move my little brother out of harm’s way—but when I got there, the twins had matching wicked smiles on their faces.

“You know, Toby,” Brittany said, “your brother is awfully cute.”

I think it’s safe to say that hearing the words leave her mouth had a catastrophic physical effect on my being. I shuddered and almost lost my lunch—even though I hadn’t eaten it yet.

Tiffany poked me in the side. “Yeah,” she said. “He’s adorable.”

I frowned at them.

“They’re just teasing you,” Tara whispered.

“What? You don’t like it when we talk about your brother?” Tiffany asked innocently. “But what if we wanted to ask him out? He’s such a
stud.
”

Okay, that was taking it way, way too far. If Noah heard any part of this conversation, he would become unbearable. He already thought he was a ladies’ man. He didn’t need the twins giving him ideas.

“Stay away from my brother,” I growled.

The twins just laughed, and as we sat down at our table—a safe distance away from Noah’s—everyone else joined in.

“What’s so funny?” Jack asked, never taking his eyes off my face.

“Nothing,” I said, giving the twins a look that promised serious repercussions if they said anything else about my brother, the “stud.”

“We still on for tonight, Ev?” Jack asked me, an amused smile playing around the corners of his lips at the look I was shooting the twins.

Before I had a chance to formulate a properly sarcastic response, the others answered on my behalf.

“Yes,” Tara said.

“You are,” Lucy finished.

I opened my mouth to object, but one of the twins grinned at me, and I got the distinct feeling that if I said so much as another word, they’d launch into a long, traumatizing, and detailed account of how much they’d just love fooling around with my younger brother.

Needless to say, I kept my mouth closed.